[FRIAM] Movement vs. Behavior, and what's in the Black Box

Wed Jun 18 08:46:12 EDT 2025

Nick,

A partial reclamation is possible.

In software I deal with a closed-deterministic system and I define a specific protocol for an object: the set of messages to which it can and is willing to respond, along with the defined response. In the world of software I forbid one object managing/controlling another despite the fact that the default assumption behind every program is some kind of hierarchical control (even in parallel programming). I can provide all kinds of arguments as to why this is bad and non-control is good, in programming, but you are not really interested in that realm.

As to a person. We have a wide ranging 'protocol' of messages we will, often without consideration or consent, respond to. Most of those we picked up non-consciously from parents  and culture. This wide range protocol does make humans subject to manipulation. 

It is possible to expand the protocol and thereby increase the potential for manipulation and control. The "you're going to Hell if you don't stop X" message would be an example. We do this with domesticated animals such that a dog, for example, will respond to 'beg', 'shake', and 'roll over'. (If Pavlov rang his bell in front of a wolf, the "here's lunch" message would likely manipulate the wolf to more than salivation.)

But it also possible to self-alter your protocol. I simply will not respond to the "go to hell" message, for example.

If we substitute "messages" for "cues" we are pretty much in agreement.

We can even get to Zen together:* "cues to an environment that isn't" *is just Maya, the world of illusion. A little meditation and you too can become "immune" to all those cues/messages and achieve Satori (enlightenment).

davew

On Tue, Jun 17, 2025, at 11:32 AM, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
> Dave,  Thanks for responding.  I hoped that my ".... objects and environments [ahem]..." might catch your attention.  This post was my attempt to respond to the intense pressure I feel from EricS and Glen to be more forthright and self-conscious about my metaphysics — by which I mean the things I think before I start thinking.. 
> 
>> **Two big differences: I do not distinguish between objects and "environments" and no object is allowed to "manage," "control," "manipulate," or "violate the encapsulation" of any other object**. 
> Every time I have heard you talk about "object-oriented programming" I have felt that there has probably been some illicit traffic between behaviorism and programming languages that would reward  examination.  But first I want to try and rescue "management" from the zone of things about which we disagree and put it firmly in the zone of things about which we agree.  When I manage you, I don't violate your encapsulation.  I don't change the set of if I then O rules that constitute your "insides".  On the contrary, I provide you with inputs that, given your design, will produce outputs designed by MY needs, rather than yours.  This is the sense in which much management proceeds by deception.  We all respond to our environment on the basis of cues.  If I can provide you with the cues to an environment that isn't, then I can get you to respond in ways you wouldn't otherwise.   That principle is deeply embedded in ethology and also in control system theory.  Before we carry this discussion further, I wonder if we do in fact agree on that.
> 
> Thanks for your charity and close reading.
> 
> Nick 
> 
> 
> 
> *From:* Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> on behalf of Prof David West <profwest at fastmail.fm>
> *Sent:* Tuesday, June 17, 2025 9:53 AM
> *To:* friam at redfish.com <friam at redfish.com>
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Movement vs. Behavior, and what's in the Black Box
>  
> Nick,
> 
> I have never heard you state your behaviorism in quite this way:* "I think that behaviorism is a way carving the world into objects and environments (ahem) and that rocks behave.  Then the distinction beween rocks and organisms would emerge as a distinction between objeccts that manage their environments and objects that dont." *
> 
> It has some seeming parallels to definitions/descriptions I frequently borrow from Ludwig von Bertalannfy.
> 
> **A system (any/every) is a set of elements and the relations among them.**
> ****
> **An element is differentiated and defined based on its behavior—its "contribution" to the system.**
> 
> I use 'Object' as a synonym for 'Element', and establish a single way to describe objects, be they abstract (an account), an inanimate (copier machine), human (in a role), or a software/hardware Artifact. The apparent dualism (element — relation) in the definition is, in software, is eliminated by embodying 'relations' in behavioral objects. 
> 
> Two big differences: I do not distinguish between objects and "environments" and no object is allowed to "manage," "control," "manipulate," or "violate the encapsulation" of any other object.
> 
> There must be some essential differences in our concepts of "Behavior," else we have been talking past each other all these many years.
> 
> davew
> 
> 
> On Mon, Jun 16, 2025, at 10:05 AM, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
>> Eric,   
>> 
>> It's a dead pigeon that we throw out the window.  I wouldnt waste a  perfectly good dead duck on such an experiment.  
>> 
>> I cant decide if the dead pigeon is the limit of behavior or if is behavior.  I think it is behavior.  I think that behaviorism is a way carving the world into objects and environments (ahem) and that rocks behave.  Then the distinction beween rocks and organisms would emerge as a distinction between objeccts that manage their environments and objects that dont. 
>> 
>> n
>> 
>> On Tue, May 12, 2020 at 7:07 PM Eric Charles <eric.phillip.charles at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Jon,
>>> This is a great expansion of the issue, and it might take me a bit to build up to an adequate response. 
>>> 
>>> You are definitely right that "scale" is one of many dimensions we might look at when evaluating whether or not something is a behavior. The evaluation of whether or not something is behaving involves comparisons, and those comparisons have to be "fair" in some sense that suggests a "domain". For example, if we drop a dead duck out a window, and then agree that falling in that fashion does not evidence behavior, we wouldn't want to then move to a coin-drop in water (where the coin spins and slides erratically, moving down at various speeds) and assert the coin was alive because it's movement didn't look like the dead-duck's movement. 
>>> 
>>> Does that get us anywhere? 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> -----------
>>> Eric P. Charles, Ph.D.
>>> Department of Justice - Personnel Psychologist
>>> American University - Adjunct Instructor
>>> 
 <mailto:echarles at american.edu>
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On Tue, May 12, 2020 at 12:58 PM Jon Zingale <jonzingale at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> Glen, Eric,
>>>> 
>>>> I am enjoying how the conversation is developing. The celery
>>>> example strikes me as being important, but where Glen refers
>>>> to *scale* I would speak of *domain of definition*. That a shift in
>>>> domain happens to be size, rather than some other contextual
>>>> specification, may not be what we want. If this isn't the case
>>>> Glen, please let me know. With respect to Eric's points it seems
>>>> fair to me to say that a paddle wheel is behaving, but perhaps not
>>>> in the *larger* context of the river. The celery is behaving, but not
>>>> not in the *smaller* context of capillary action. Here I am using
>>>> the language of *large* and *small*, but perhaps other modalities
>>>> have a place as well. One can say Nick's behavior appears
>>>> spontaneously, but in fact was necessitated by something *prior*.
>>>> Here an *earlier* Nick could play the role of the river.
>>>> 
>>>> Frank,
>>>> Would you say that the mind is as public as RSA encryption?
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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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