Thank you Robert. The cartoon is fun, but the text that accompanies it is ☻MARVELOUS☻. Just a gorgeous piece of writing. I think it’s a tad too strong in places. Obviously the words “Nurse, scalpel” play SOME role in the making of an accurate incision; otherwise, “Nurse, bone saw” might do as well. The words have particular relevance to me, since I spent most of my career trying to understand animal communication. In the that context, W.’s hypothetical becomes bemusing because I am here to tell you that lions do speak, and that we do, to some extent, understand them. Much better, perhaps, than I understand software engineers. (};-)]
In case some might miss the text that went with the cartoon, I add it below: In Philosophical Investigations Wittgenstein famously said that "if a lion could speak, we could not understand him". This seems contradictory, because of course if he is speaking, it seems like we would understand him. But for Wittgenstein, the words themselves don't so much convey meaning, but express intent that is confined within a particular situation that takes place within our shared culture and experience. So, for example, if a surgeon is performing surgery and said "nurse, scalpel", it isn't simply the two words together that convey the meaning of the surgeon wanting the nurse to hand him a scalpel, it is their shared knowledge of what a surgery is, and what is expected under those circumstances. If, for example, the nurse and surgeon are later at a company dinner, and the surgeon says "nurse, salt", in the same cadence, this will be understood to be a joke, parodying the former circumstance. Nothing about the words themselves really conveys this, but only the shared world that both the nurse and surgeon occupy. This shared world is necessary for any language to function, and learning a language is not only learning the words, but the world in which we are expected to use the worlds. On the hand, if a lion could suddenly speak English, it wouldn't matter much, because the world that the lion exists in is so divorced from ours, that his expressions, desires, and intents could still never be communicated. The lion doesn't know what a surgery is, or a dinner party, or a joke for that matter. Likewise, we don't know what sort world the lion occupies, so words would be useless. This phenomenon isn't as outlandish as it might sound at first, and even occurs frequently among humans. For example, I had two coworkers who played World of Warcraft constantly, and would talk about it at lunch. They could speak to each other for ten minutes, in English, and I wouldn't be able to decipher a single sentence. It isn't because I didn't understand the meaning of the worlds, but because I had no ability to relate the words to a situation or world that I knew, so the meaning was lost on me. If I can't understand a conversation about a video game I haven't played, even when I've played similar games, how can I be expected to understand a conversation between lions? 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 Robert Holmes Sent: Tuesday, January 08, 2019 11:08 AM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam@redfish.com> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Motives - Was Abduction Nick, This seems to be an issue of Wittgenstein's Lion <http://existentialcomics.com/comic/245> —R On Tue, Jan 8, 2019 at 11:04 AM Nick Thompson <nickthomp...@earthlink.net <mailto:nickthomp...@earthlink.net> > wrote: Once again, I am lost in my own thread. I will say this: often it seems, with both Marcus, and Glen, and even Owen and Steve, and to a lesser extent Dave West, that their (your) thinking is rooted in models from coding and because I have never been a coder those models are utterly unavailable to me. I have always ... since childhood ...believed that if I worked hard enough at something I could understand it. And so, almost 14 years ago, when I was cast loose in Santa Fe, and Steve and Owen and Carl and Frank took me into that jammed freezing cold office on Agua Fria. They fed me when I was intellectually hungry and comforted me when I was intellectually lonely, and in gratitude, I was determined to understand their mindset. But despite all that I have learned since that time, I have come to admit that there are probably chasms of thought too deep for people to reach across … or, at least, people like me, at this age. I simply lack the models, the commonplace toys of thought, with which you guys so effortlessly play. I will keep trying, of course, But I thought, perhaps, being the New Year and all, now was a moment to stop and thank FRIAM members for your patience, your indulgence, and your profound commitment to teaching that has kept me alert and engaged and alive these last 14 years. Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology Clark University http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ -----Original Message----- From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com <mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com> ] On Behalf Of ? u??? Sent: Tuesday, January 08, 2019 8:48 AM To: FriAM <friam@redfish.com <mailto:friam@redfish.com> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Motives - Was Abduction Excellent! I like everything you've said below. In fact, were we able to clearly talk about heterarchies as explicitly externalizing controls, where hierarchies leave the source(s) of control ambiguous, then we'd map nicely back to Marcus' example of "serializing" a recursive function into a tree walkable by a single control pointer. And we'd also be able to discuss Rosen's conception of separating a closure of agency from (an openness to) the other types of cause (material, formal, and final). The concept of a heterarchy facilitates the discussion of systemic behaviors like motive as separable into sets of distinct causes and structures in a way the concept of hierarchy does not. On 1/7/19 6:12 PM, Eric Charles wrote: > Thanks for the clarification. I intentionally said Nick was invoking > *something like "levels of analysis" talk, *because I thought I > recalled Nick telling me at some point that he didn't like that way of > thinking, and I'm surprised he hasn't disavowed me more completely on > it. All metaphors are imperfect, and, acknowledging that, I still like > that way of talking a lot. > While you are quite right that tissue isn't literally JUST an > arrangement of cells, it *is *pretty fair to say tissue is an bunch of > cells arranged-in-a-structured-fashion and interconnected by various > inter-cellular structures.... organs are a bunch of tissues > arranged-in-a-structured-fashion and interconnected by various > inter-tissue structures, etc. > > At any rate... trying to follow your lead, and translate your > preferred sentence structure to be more like what (I assert) Nick is thinking: > > Motives ARE a particular type of pattern in a behavior-by-environment > matrix. > > As a "point of view" based Realism, which Nick has been trying to > emphasize, it is true that there are many ways the > behavior-by-environment matrix can be constructed and arranged. Some > of those ways will reveal the relevant pattern in some instances, > others will not. The particular pattern is one in which the behavior > vary across circumstances so as to stay directed towards the > production of a particular outcome. This sounds very similar to "One > of the definitions of "heterarchy" is that the components can be > organized in multiple ways" but if I understood the prior discussion > of "heterarchy", I take it that concept is about a flexibility in > control/leadership, whereas no control is implied here (control being > a different pattern in a different matrix). The cause of the pattern > is a different matter entirely from the existence of the pattern - > which is expressly part of the point of Nick's way of approaching it, > i.e.,that a "motive" must be identifiable independent of a particular cause. -- ∄ 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> 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 <http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/> 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
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