[FRIAM] Does Dusty Love Dave, and VV.
Nicholas Thompson
thompnickson2 at gmail.com
Thu Jul 18 12:33:41 EDT 2024
Thanks, Dave. Sorry if I don]t hold up my end. I am falling behind in
everything except my capacity to be stirred up by ideas. Bad
combination. Maybe it's time for Caleb to come and take away my
keyboard.
So, I now see a new problem in our anecdotal method here: How to continue
without spinning off into vague agreement. Along with a desire to achieve
agreement comes a desire to delimit it. We agree that all the characters
in the story are conscious; I am trying to see how we could explore the
degree of our agreement on the proposition that we are all self-conscious.
That's what I am thinking about now, but I am late to THUAM so I am going
there now.
N
On Wed, Jul 17, 2024 at 4:41 PM Prof David West <profwest at fastmail.fm>
wrote:
> Dusty is conscious of Dusty. One reason: I give Jackson (my other dog) a
>> treat and observe body language and facial expressions exhibited by Dusty
>> that I interpret as, "where's mine?" This indicates to me some kind of
>> Dusty self-awareness/consciousness of self.
>>
>
> *Could you say more about the body language and facial expressions.
> Imagine that I am going to take care of your two dogs for a weekend; what
> would you tell me to look for?*
>
> the above is the quote from me email to the list the bold-italic is your
> request. around the 15th of July.
>
>
>
>
> Dusty and Jackson have their own idiosyncratic (notice the attribution of
> a self-aware consciousness in that word) way of asking for / obtaining what
> they want.
>
> Dusty's way is silent, Jackson's almost always involves a gentle-bark/yip.
> E.g., Dusty wants a head rub so she comes over and places her chin on my
> knee and looks soulful. Jackson sits close to my knee, establishes eye
> contact and vocalizes his request.
>
> Both come to my bed at the earliest sign of sunrise (around 5:30 these
> days) and stare at me. Jackson will eventually vocalize and I get up. Dusty
> has observed this, daily, for the past N-months but has never been tempted
> to vocalize herself.
>
> if she ever does vocalize, even by accident, I will immediately rise and
> see if she learns the stimulus-response pattern.
>
> I may be seeing nothing more than early training. Dusty's previous owners
> demanded that she be seen and not heard, and to wait, indefinitely, for
> explicit invitations. I have no idea about Jackson's early training.
>
> davew
>
>
>
>
> On Wed, Jul 17, 2024, at 10:18 AM, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
>
> David, and all.
>
> I am trying to keep this thread as clean of the meta as I can. So I will
> answer your general critique on the other thread. Suffice it to say here
> that behaviorism is way in the rear view mirror at this point and I
> certainly am not trying to teach it. Suffice it to say, also, I am sure I
> have done all the bad things you point to; I am blundering about here
> trying to find a way toward shared understandings of experiences.
>
> *Dusty will look up, at Jackson, as he is receiving a treat, then stand,
> in a position I interpret as 'being on alert' and look at Jackson, then at
> me, then Jackson, then me (sometimes as many as 4-5 times), then 'staring'
> at me. Jackson does something similar, but he will also utter a small
> bark/yip while staring.*
>
> My command of gmail bring what it is, I cannot find the email where I
> prompted this elaboration from you. I am sure there is one. i just cant
> find it. Ok, so lets say we are groping toward a method here, call it
> critical anecdotalism. Person A tells a story which, intuitively he feels
> is an example of some experience-type. Person B agrees or disagrees with
> that attribution. Together we work out what other experiences would follow
> if this attribution was correct. Here, we might discover that we disagree
> about the boundaries of the experience-type. But it if we find that we
> agree on those boundaries, then we search through our experiences for other
> anecdotes that fall within -- or out of --the type. So, as I read your
> description, I think, this is an example of "trying to figure out what the
> heck I have to do to get a treat, around here?" You might then do an
> experiment, which I understand in this context to be a procedure that
> provokes an experience that we both would take as decisive. Let's say you
> start to feed Jackson ONLY when he yips. If, after a few days of that,
> Dusty doesn't begin to yip, I would be less inclined to my original
> attribution.
>
> It's kind of you to help me with this, Dave.
>
> It's quite possible I am just sliding into dementia. Always a risk.
>
> Nick
>
>
> davew
>
>
>
>
>
> On Wed, Jul 17, 2024 at 10:27 AM Prof David West <profwest at fastmail.fm>
> wrote:
>
> From the beginning, I believed this thread was, in substantial part,
> Nick's attempt to 'teach' us to think as behavioralists and see how far we
> could go in achieving some kind of consensus. I tried very hard to couch
> all of my responses in such terms. I did express, early on, that I had
> serious doubts about how far we could go without deviating into other
> questions—and the answer appears to be not far.
>
> First I copped to blatant anthropomorphism with seem to be accepted with
> no concern.
> Then Nick introduced metaphysics followed by a quick mea culpa.
> Then a flood of additional metaphsysics (inside/outside), inter-species
> (human-whale, human-machine) illustrations, definitional nuances
> (consciousness, awareness, intelligence), and my challenge to the
> 'approach' because it excluded 'evidence' from meditation or drugs.
>
> Although Nick keeps saying he is 'pleased' with responses, I am curious as
> to whether or not we are really making progress towards consensus of any
> kind.
>
> But, just in case, responding to Nick's last question to me:
> Dusty will look up, at Jackson, as he is receiving a treat, then stand, in
> a position I interpret as 'being on alert' and look at Jackson, then at me,
> then Jackson, then me (sometimes as many as 4-5 times), then 'staring' at
> me. Jackson does something similar, but he will also utter a small
> bark/yip while staring.
>
> davew
>
>
>
> On Tue, Jul 16, 2024, at 11:59 AM, steve smith wrote:
> > Nick -
> >> I must say, I am grateful and pleased by all these testimonials and I
> >> am beginning to sense method in my madness.
> > I'm glad you were willing able to wade through my gallop of
> > observations/reflections/experiences with these two highly central
> > creatures in my household.
> >> I notice you are much vaguer about Cyd than you are about Hank.
> > Very much so, as I experience with many cats, she does not reach as far
> > into human psyche/nature to meet me as most dogs (Hank in particular)
> does.
> >> So, in your assertion that Cyd is both conscious and self
> >> conscious, I am inclined to ask for more details. So the method goes
> >> something like this
> >>
> >> We statt with the intouition that because Cyd does X, Cyd is conscious.
> >
> > I think you know from my pan-consciousness self-diagnosis that all of
> > the things I am inclined to report about Cyd also applies to the
> > hummingbirds, the lizards she stalks, and the fish Hank barks at.
> >
> > Cyd has a very highly adaptive sensorimotor system which not only allows
> > her to be good at stalking and catching lizards but also at begging her
> > people to let her out to do so, or to give her a helping of "second
> > dinners" like the hobbit she channels. She observes, considers, acts,
> > observes the consequences of her acts (the book falling from the top of
> > the bookcase when she traverses it too rambunctioiusly, the way Mary
> > jumps up and lets her out when she hits the right note of plaintive
> > meow, the way the lizard freezes when it senses her). This is an
> > overwhelming indication of consciousness in my apprehension of the world.
> >
> > We were implying that an animal's "Love" or "loving relationship with" a
> > human familiar had something to do with consciousness. I think that is
> > a red-herring, I don't think the lizards love Mary when she frees them
> > from Cyd's jaws, but I do think they are acutely conscious.
> >
> >> From our prior usage of the term, we know that if Cyd is conscious,
> >> he will do things A, B, C, D, ....N with greater frequency than
> >> otherwise. We check t o see if this is true. Does Sbe? Ifso, we now
> >> add Cyd to the list of conscious beings. Now we check to see if
> >> other conscious beings do X with greater frequency than non conscious
> >> ones. If so, we have added to the list of things that conscious
> >> beings do.
> >
> > See above... A==sense, B==process, C==respond. I don't know that A,
> > B, C singularly without both of the others even makes sense.
> >
> > The fish in the pond are almost continuously in some level of motion,
> > they appear to be sensing with their photon and olfactory and
> > vibration/pressure-wave sensors. They respond to signals (shadow of
> > human or dog looming over pond, insect landing on the surface of the
> > pond, bit of high-nutrient food sinking in the pond) by bolting or
> > gulping or seeking more input (curiosity). While a lot of their
> > processing may be prewired/instinctive, I do believe that part of their
> > processing is in support of "learning". The dragonflies who like the
> > high-ground of the tips of everything they can alight on seem yet more
> > automatic/instinctual yet they appear (because I project?) to learn...
> > they appear to become more and more tolerant of my approaching them the
> > more I do it? They likely recognize that despite the appeal of the tip
> > of my car antennae, the tips of the cat-tails in the pond seem to be
> > more appealing given the likely food-flux they can spy and grab from
> > that vantage (but this is a just-so projection since I'm not a very
> > disciplined naturalist, I really have nothing but anecdotal
> observations).
> >
> > So perhaps D might be "learn"...
> >
> > Which takes me to the trees and bushes I feel a strong
> > affinity/familiarity with. Do they A, B, C (and even D?). I say yes.
> > They don't have lenses over their photo-receptors, but since their
> > primary/singular energy gathering activity is photonic/light, they
> > clearly sense light. They also seem to be able to extend root growth
> > toward water and nutrients, or along same said nutrients... this
> > represents A and C as does growth "reaching" growth out from under the
> > shade to gather more light? What about B? B would seem to be entirely
> > pre-wired processing, not adaptive at the scale of the individual
> > single-lifetime organism? Which spills over to "learning" (D) which
> > maybe isn't happening at the scale of the individual... does a branch or
> > root keep "reaching" even if it gets stymied over and over? I'm not
> > sure. So if B and even D are required for "consciousness" then perhaps
> > it is only a population of such organisms and the germline phenotypic
> > expression which we must acknowledge some level of "proto-consciousness"
> > to?
> >
> > To go on down the line of lower-and lower complexity entities or systems
> > i'd have to grasp further and seek the existing guidance of others in
> > the pan-consciousness world who have worked through this in their own
> ways.
> >
> > Bottom line, is that the "bottom line" of consciousness feels very hard
> > for me to even begin to want to draw between Hank and Cyd or where it
> > excludes Lizzy or Fishy or DraggyFly or any and all of the
> > yet-less-familiar creatures they stalk and eat. Interesting that all of
> > these are predators, no?
> >
> > Yet another free-associateve gallop?
> >
> >
> >
> >
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> --
> Nicholas S. Thompson
> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology
> Clark University
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--
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology
Clark University
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