[FRIAM] Motives - Was Abduction

[Nick Thompson]

Marcus,

 

Are we playing or fighting?  I can’t tell any more.  If we’re fighting, let’s stop.  Let me know.  

 

I apologize:  I was grabbing the word “realist” for a particular meaning; you were quite right.  I thought I was doing so humorously, hence the emoji.  But one man’s humor is another’s provocation, so let me just say, by way of clarification, that there is a discourse, quite a narrow one, in which “realist” means somebody who believes that only “generals” – i.e., abstractions – are real.  This is opposed to “nominalist” who believes that only individuals are real, and that abstractions are mere conveniences of the mind.  

 

You wrote: .   “That requires having the cognitive flexibility to recognize that some terms are dynamic or at least a matter of debate”

 

I actually agree and then some.  I think that all terms are dynamic and subject to debate.  Yes, even “dog”.  My wife got mad at me last night because I put my dogs on the coffee table.  There is nothing particularly sacred about biological species.  

 

Can a realist, sensu supra, say the things I just said?  Probably not.  Am I confused?  Clearly. Why would I be writing, if I were not confused? 

Writing … taking positions and pushing them until they break … is for me just about the best part of being alive.  It’s my “Go”, except I ultimately play the game to lose, not to win.  Having to change one’s mind is a terrible thing.  I hate it. But worse still is having to wear the same mind, year after year after year.  

 

If you want to go on talking, let me know.  If you don’t want to go on talking, but want to wrap the conversation up, wrap it up AND let me know that that is what you are doing, and I will leave it there.  

 

Thanks for your help, in any case.

 

Nick 

 

 

 

 

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

 <http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On Behalf Of Marcus Daniels
Sent: Wednesday, January 09, 2019 8:50 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Motives - Was Abduction

 

Nick writes:

 

< Ok, Marcus, I am standing my ground as a realist here: ():-[) >

 

There you go trying to claim semantics for terms in a public dictionary again.   (That’s an example of taking ground, like in my Go example.)    Doing so constrains what can even be said.   It puts the skeptic in the position of having to deconstruct every single term, and thus be a called terms like smartass <https://www.foxnews.com/politics/kellyanne-conway-embarrasses-cnns-jim-acosta-during-heated-exchange>  when they force the terms to be used in other contexts where the definition doesn’t work.   A culture itself is laden with thousands of de-facto definitions that steer meaning back to conventional (e.g. racist and sexist) expectations.   To even to begin to question these expectations requires having some power base, or safe space, to work from.  

 

In this case, you assert that some discussants are software engineers and that distinguishes them from your category.  A discussant of that (accused / implied) type says he is not a member of that set and that it is not even a credible set.  Another discussant says the activity of such a group is a skill and if someone lacks it, they could just as well gain it while having other co-equal skills too.   So there is already reason to doubt the categorization you are suggesting.    

 

< You cannot be against categories because you cannot TALK without categories.  “person” and “dog” are categories. Yes, the thought they call up in me is inevitably wrong in some respect.  I see you with Korgies, but they are actually Irish Wolf Hounds.  You cannot bake a sentence without breaking some categories, yet the categories endure.  Something about the category is real.  >

 

Are you claiming that the concept of membership in particular biological species is a subjective concept?   That I am hijacking the meaning of a person or a dog?  Really?

 

< So, if you are not against categorization, per se, and since all categories do violence of one sort or another, you must be against categories that do more violence than they do good.  So, when I called you a gazelle, what violence did I do?  Would I have done better to call you a Wildebeest?  Would I be more or less disappointed in my expectations had I called you a Springbok?  >

 

For example, it would be better to call the young person in this story a girl.   That requires having the cognitive flexibility to recognize that some terms are dynamic or at least a matter of debate.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/08/opinion/trans-teen-transition.html

 

Marcus

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20190109/968022b8/attachment.html>