[FRIAM] nice quote

Sun Oct 6 00:00:46 EDT 2024

Steve

Sure.  I will wait.   As I think about the matter, it all seems to relate
perhaps to Cosmides and Tooby's notion of emotions as mental modules that
exist somewhere in the brain and can be passed down unaltered from
generation to generation.  But this always seemed to me  a dishonest or
ignorant reinvention of the concept of instinct which had been largely
discredited in the thirties.

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On Sat, Oct 5, 2024 at 6:40 PM steve smith <sasmyth at swcp.com> wrote:

> Nick -
>
> I don't mind offering my sense of what the aphorism is all about, I just
> want to give others a chance to chime in before I start defending myself in
> my overly-voluminous manner.
>
> Can you meet me half-way with *any* sense of signal in what you are
> suggesting might be pure noise (or misdirection or a just-so type story)?
> A rusty pot-metal man argument perhaps? (duck here comes another SG/DALL-E
> rendering!)
>
> - Steve
>
> I am trying not to be a jerk here, but maybe jerkiness  Is so centralto my
> being that I cannot avoid it.
>
> I promise you, the question was not meant to be (entirely)rhetorical. Glen
> has long since taught me that nobody uses words for absolutely nothing and
> if you folks see some meaning in that aphorism, there must be something to
> it. what is that something?
>
> Nicholas S. Thompson
> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology
> Clark University
> nthompson at clarku.edu
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson
>
>
> On Sat, Oct 5, 2024 at 5:49 PM steve smith <sasmyth at swcp.com> wrote:
>
>> Nick -
>>
>>     And here I thought *I* was being "pithy", then you call me out on my
>> lithp?!  ;^)
>>
>>     The strawman arguments have started coming out, I wonder if anyone
>> will gen up a steelman?
>>
>> - tinman Steve
>>
>>
>>
>> On 10/5/24 11:26 AM, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
>>
>> So in what sense and for what purposes is this pithy aphorism useful?
>> What exactly is the pith?
>>
>> If a metaphor, what is truth in the metaphor, the positive analog.
>> Nobody ever said that all metaphors are *entirely* wrong.
>>
>> and yes, I am being pissy.
>>
>> n
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sat, Oct 5, 2024 at 11:04 AM steve smith <sasmyth at swcp.com> wrote:
>>
>>> All *Pithy Aphorisms* are wrong, some are useful?
>>>
>>> On 10/5/24 9:06 AM, Prof David West wrote:
>>>
>>> my affection for the quote derives from a metaphorical reading, not a
>>> literal one. Something akin to Steve's differential rates of evolution. I
>>> also would have eschewed 'god like' in favor of 'magical' ala Clarke's
>>> dictum about any sufficiently advanced technology.
>>>
>>> davew
>>>
>>>
>>> On Fri, Oct 4, 2024, at 8:46 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
>>>
>>> I think that this way of talking about emotions precludes careful
>>> thought.   First of all, neurologizing emotions is just to hide the pea
>>> under the wrong thimble. I don't think paleolithologizig helps much more.
>>> Glen is correct that, whatever an emotion is, its inputs  and outputs are
>>> ontogenetically and culturally determined.  So, fear, for instance, is a
>>> relation between something that we take to be threatening and something
>>> that we hope will be avoidance. Inputs and outputs are everything. The rest
>>> is  just arousal.
>>>
>>> N
>>>
>>> On Fri, Oct 4, 2024 at 7:01 PM steve smith <sasmyth at swcp.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Emotions/Limbic systems evolve at genetic rates, institutions evolve at
>>> social/cultural rates (maybe the fastest significant change can
>>> happen/resolve is in multiple lifetimes?) but technology is advancing at
>>> must faster rates?
>>>
>>> Or is this wrong(headed) also?
>>>
>>> On 10/4/24 3:43 PM, glen wrote:
>>> > None of that is true, however romantic it might sound. Depending on
>>> > how one defines "emotion", that smells the most true. But the
>>> > mechanisms of emotion are as coupled to current reality as is every
>>> > part of our bodies. To suggest that, say, the Space Force or methods
>>> > like quantitative easing are medieval is just nonsense. Technology is
>>> > more democratized than it has ever been. Granted, it takes (a lot) of
>>> > work to familiarize oneself with something like how GPS works or how
>>> > to NOT click on that phishing email. But to suggest that it's
>>> > "godlike" says more about the person than it does about the state of
>>> > technology.
>>> >
>>> > On 10/4/24 11:16, Prof David West wrote:
>>> >> /"The real problem of humanity is the following: we have Paleolithic
>>> >> emotions, medieval institutions, and godlike technology. And it is
>>> >> terrifically dangerous."/ Edward O. Wilson.
>>> >>
>>> >
>>> >
>>>
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>>>
>>> --
>>> Nicholas S. Thompson
>>> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology
>>> Clark University
>>> nthompson at clarku.edu
>>> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson
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>>
>>
>> --
>> Nicholas S. Thompson
>> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology
>> Clark University
>> nthompson at clarku.edu
>> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson
>>
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>
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-- 
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology
Clark University
nthompson at clarku.edu
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson
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