[FRIAM] chicken-egg::gumflap-talk

Tue Jun 9 15:31:02 EDT 2020

Hi, glen, 

I hear your plea to address those articles, but life got a bit complex this week and I have been able to follow the discussion closely.  I did take a quick look at the two articles.  I certainly am not in a position to Steelman them.  The more I take to heart your notion of Steelmanning, the less I have to say, because I cannot oppose an argument until I put it its very best form.  

Now, my method has always been to pick what seems to be the best “system” and try to extend as far as I can into the territory where it is most absurd. Thus I have drifted over the years from a quasi-Skinnerian behaviorism, through a kind of hierarchical materialism, to Peirce’s experience monism.  But, I think that your steelman approach requires me to come in from the other side.  This, you have heard me do, from time to time, as when I talk about writing as listening to dictation.  So let’s try to go with that a bit.  

Under that notion, consciousness is at least dual: ie, there is a speaker and a listener and the former has influence over the latter and vv.  The writer talks back to the dictator, refusing sometimes to write what is dictated.  And once one admits of two agents of the mind, it becomes really easy to imagine others, so mental life becomes rather like reading last week’s FRIAM posts.    So, under that theory, when I say “I think”, I am like the public relations representative for large complex organization, the Kelley Conway of the mind.  Or like the writer of a Preface for a collection of Friam papers.  

So, your papers give credence in that view because, while there may be many voices “inside” “the head”, there can only be one that gets control of the focal apparatus, and that must require a lot of inhibition to keep us from blithering, even more than we do. And the battle for who gets the microphone must be constant and vicious.  

That, FWLIW,  is all I got today. 

Nick 
Nicholas Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
Clark University
ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of Steve Smith
Sent: Tuesday, June 9, 2020 11:14 AM
To: friam at redfish.com
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] chicken-egg::gumflap-talk

Glen -
It seems to me that when CHON molecules chain up and become lipids, proteins, sugars etc.   and those in turn self-organize into macromolecules of various kinds including membranes, vesicles, microtubules, then organelles, cells, organs, organisms...    
I am not sure if by your logic/language that none of those "patterns" upon which we impose "language" or "stories" to describe their (seemingly?) pervasive patterning, are real?   Or going down from the atomic elements of C, H, O, N that even those exist because apparently/assuredly they are somehow composed of protons, neutrons, electrons... then below that quarks or quantum-gravity loops or 9D strings or ... 
Again, I'm not trying to corner you or argue for a particular perspective, just trying to observe, and learn from your Cook Ding technique.  
If I were to try to *argue* against what I think you are saying, I would try to say that these higher level patterns (e.g. songlines) are emergent and therefore as "real" as atomic elements, organic molecules, macromolecules... on up?   Seeking a monomolecular occams razor.
- Steve

Glen,

It seems to me that you are arguing for a kind of strict materialism.
To what ends is defining *the real* important to you?

Jon

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Nicholas Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
Clark University
ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of u?l? ?
Sent: Tuesday, June 9, 2020 12:00 PM
To: FriAM <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] chicken-egg::gumflap-talk

Well, to an extent, we can assert that molecular interactions and sub-visible processes are real as long as we *admit* that our assertions are, at least in part, unverifiable, since we cannot experience them directly. Any experience we might have of molecules would be mediated by our reified thoughts, our models. But as long as you have things like hands, skin, and touch receptors, you can directly experience a rock you pick up. So, sure, you can have the same *thick* modeling structure surrounding pebbles on the beach as you have surrounding molecules. But with pebbles on the beach you have something *more*, direct experience.

In that sense, I'd counter your argument and say emergent phenomena are very indirect as compared to pebbles on the beach. Whether they (emergent phenomena) are more indirect than molecules or not is irrelevant. Again, I want to talk about jaws flapping and lips moving. Not hoity-toity things like molecules or quantum superposition. I know you will resist that. But at least I can keep repeating it and hope that you might one day talk about:

Motor Imagery of Speech: The Involvement of Primary Motor Cortex in Manual and Articulatory Motor Imagery https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6579859/

Observation-execution matching and action inhibition in human primary motor cortex during viewing of speech-related lip movements or listening to speech https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0028393211001801?via%3Dihub

On 6/9/20 10:13 AM, Steve Smith wrote:
> It seems to me that when CHON molecules chain up and become lipids, 
> proteins, sugars etc.   and those in turn self-organize into macromolecules of various kinds including membranes, vesicles, microtubules, then organelles, cells, organs, organisms...
> 
> I am not sure if by your logic/language that none of those "patterns" upon which we impose "language" or "stories" to describe their (seemingly?) pervasive patterning, are real?   Or going down from the atomic elements of C, H, O, N that even those exist because apparently/assuredly they are somehow composed of protons, neutrons, electrons... then below that quarks or quantum-gravity loops or 9D strings or ...
> 
> Again, I'm not trying to corner you or argue for a particular 
> perspective, just trying to observe, and learn from your Cook Ding <https://navigatingthezhuangzi.weebly.com/cook-ding-cuts-up-an-ox.html> technique.
> 
> If I were to try to *argue* against what I think you are saying, I would try to say that these higher level patterns (e.g. songlines) are emergent and therefore as "real" as atomic elements, organic molecules, macromolecules... on up?   Seeking a monomolecular occams razor.
--
☣ uǝlƃ

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