Frank,
I can’t get in to see that paper! Did you? 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-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Frank Wimberly Sent: Monday, January 07, 2019 8:02 AM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam@redfish.com> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Motives - Was Abduction For a classic example of layers or levels and their interactions see https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/The-Hearsay-I-Speech-Understanding-System%3A-An-of-Reddy-Erman/04ffb20cbfa502d3d2611dcfe027cfa94b45a629 ----------------------------------- Frank Wimberly My memoir: https://www.amazon.com/author/frankwimberly My scientific publications: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Frank_Wimberly2 Phone (505) 670-9918 On Mon, Jan 7, 2019, 7:02 AM ∄ uǝʃƃ <geprope...@gmail.com <mailto:geprope...@gmail.com> wrote: OK. I'm sorry if I've pushed too hard. But if what you say, here, can imply that motives are NOT just behaviors at a higher level of organization, then perhaps that's progress. Because it seems to have traction, I'll stick with the tissue, cell, molecule set. The reason I suggested you replace your "higher level" hierarchy with words describing a heterarchy, is because we (none of us) can pinpoint the tissue organizing logic [†]. While it's a useful fiction to suggest that tissue is cells organized at a higher level, we can *just as well* say tissue is organized by cellular behavior collectively. So, in one hierarchy, we have {tissue <- cell <- molecules}. But in another hierarchy, we have {cell <- tissue, cell <- molecules}. If you set your email client to monospace: tissue | cells | molecules versus: cells | | tissue molecules One of the definitions of "heterarchy" is that the components can be organized in multiple ways. So, again, I apologize if my attempts are irritating. But it *really* would help dorks like me parse what you're saying if you used words that allowed for more complete statements. I've tried to suggest "layer" and "order" as a replacement for "level". Some suggestions for replacing your statement about motives might be: Motives ARE behaviors, just dynamically mixed by the organism. Motives ARE behaviors, just organized to cohere. Motives ARE behaviors, just a heterarchy re-organizable to approach a goal. I'd claim that each of those is more accurate and complete than "organized at a higher level". To boot, they give your audience a much *better* hint at your "if you stand next to me, you will see what I see." That's because each one of my rewordings directly implies an organizing agency. Your "organized at a higher level" can be taken to be an ontological assertion ... that this hierarchy is ensconced in the universe and would be a feature of, say, silicon based life on Alpha Centauri. All it takes is to stop relying on this higher- and lower-level fiction. [†] Is it in the cells? Is it in the genes? Is it an attractor that might obtain even if the cells were zero-intelligence agents? I would argue that "it" is distributed across the whole set of components and relations ... further arguing that it's a heterarchy. But all we need to do for this discussion is admit that we don't really know and use words that give a more complete indication *that* we don't really know and need to study it further. On 1/6/19 4:26 PM, Nick Thompson wrote: > In the first instance, to a pragmatist, any statement that X is Thus, is > incomplete. So that statement, X is hierarchically organized, is just an > incomplete statement. So an argument about whether anything IS JUST > hierarchically organized is a silly argument. What is not a silly argument > is that X is hierarchically organized for some purpose of from point of > view, P. So all attributions are three0valued, sign, object, interpretant. > Is this relativism? No, not in the ordinary sense. Because the pragmatist > asserts that if you stand next to me, you will see what I see. Or, to put > it less metaphorically, if you do the experiment you will get the result. > So, if you take Eric or I to be saying that anything is one hundred present > hierarchically organized all the time and in all respects, you take us > wrong. -- ∄ uǝʃƃ ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ <http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/FRIAM-COMIC> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
