Spanish has two words, "haber" and "tener" that are usually translated into English as "to have". The former is the auxiliary verb and the latter denotes possession.
--- Frank C. Wimberly 140 Calle Ojo Feliz, Santa Fe, NM 87505 505 670-9918 Santa Fe, NM On Tue, Aug 24, 2021, 5:48 AM David Eric Smith <desm...@santafe.edu> wrote: > It’s the right kind of answer, Nick, and I don’t find it compelling. > > Put aside for a moment the use of “have” as an auxiliary verb. I can come > up with wonderful reasons why that is both informative and primordial, but > I also believe they are complete nonsense and only illustrate that there > are no good rules for reliable argument in this domain. > > Also, I don’t adopt the frame of using the past tense as a device to skew > the argument toward the conclusion you started with. (Now _there_ is a > category error: to start with a conclusion. Lawyer!) > > I think probably throughout Indo-European derived languages, “have” is > used to refer to inherent attributes. I have brown eyes. I have eyes at > all. It takes a surprisingly convoluted construction to assert that > someone looking at my face will find two brown eyes there, that doesn’t use > “have” as the verb of attribution. So that’s old, and it is something the > language has really committed to. I think you have to commit unnatural > acts to argue that that is a verb of action. > > Possession isn’t even a lot more action-y. I have two turntables and a > microphone. If nobody is trying to take them from me, it is not clear that > I am “doing” anything to “have” them. > > (btw, I am not a metaphor monist. I practice polysemy, like the Mormons. > So it seems completely natural that there can be multiple meanings, if > there are any meanings at all, and that distinct ones can use the same word > because they are somehow similar despite not being the self-same.) > > It seems to me as if the truest action usage of “have” is one that is not > nearly as baked into the language. If I have lunch, I eat lunch. If I > have a fit, I throw a tantrum. Many circumlocutions available to me. That > also could be quite idiosyncratic to small language branches. I think you > would never, in normal speech, say you “had” lunch in German. You would > just say you ate lunch. (Or in Italian or French either, for that matter.) > These kinds of usages do not seem to me to carry strong cognitive weight. > > So it seems to me that the semantic core of “have” is probably > attribution. The legal sense of ownership is probably metaphorical. It > would not _at all_ surprise me if the use both in the auxiliary (widespread > in IE) and in the deictic (French il y a, there is) are deep metaphors > describing either the ambient, or the ineluctable structure of time, with > attributes. > > But, back to whether attribution is natural for emotions (or, as good as > anything else, and better than most): > > If I “have” a sunny disposition, that seems not far from having brown > eyes. Italian: Il ha un buon aspetto. > > If I am having a bad day, that is a little different from having brown > eyes, and perhaps closer to having a black eye. Not an essence that > defines my nature, but a condition I can be in, or “take on". To say, > indeed, that I parse that as a pattern I carry around (as an aspect of > constitution or condition) does not seem category-erroneous to me. > > Sure, there are patterns in my behavior: if I take a hot shower and the > water lands on my black eye, I will wince. If you say good morning and I > am having a bad day, I will growl at you. A Skinnerian can say that my > wincing is all there is to my black eye. But a physician would tell me to > put ice on it, and would use the color of the bruise to indicate which eye > I should put the ice on. > > These uses of having seem tied up, more closely than with anything else, > with uses of being, as SteveS mentioned. So the be/do dichotomy seems to > determine largely where the verb usages split. > > Of course, living is a process, played out on organized structures. > Brains probably look different in eeg and electrode arrays in one emotional > condition than in another, and they probably also have different > neurotransmitter profiles, and maybe other things. Even You probably don’t > want to refer to a neurotransmitter concentration as a “doing”; It is a > variable of state, like a black eye is a state of an eye. You might want > to refer to the brain action pattern as “doing”, but maybe only in the > sense that you refer to the existence of non-dead metabolism as “doing” — > they are both processes. To me, the common language seems to split the be > and the do on brevity, transience, isolation, or suddenness of an > activity. I _am_ surly, and I _do_ growl at you. > > If non-black English still preserved the habitual tense, as John McWhorter > claims black American English still does, we might be able to make a > different kind of a distinction, between the pattern or habit as a state, > and the event within it as an act. That might give an even better account > of the split in the common language. > > I also want to acknowledge Glen’s points about working through many frames > in a dynamical way. I can’t add anything, but I do agree. > > Eric > > > On Aug 24, 2021, at 12:30 PM, <thompnicks...@gmail.com> < > thompnicks...@gmail.com> wrote: > > Now wait a minute! This is the sort of question I am supposed to ask of > you? A question to which the answer is so obvious to the recipient that he > is in danger of not being able to locate it. > > Ok, so, their meanings obviously overlap. If you tell me you “had” a > steak last night, I wont assume that it’s available for us to eat tonight: > “had” is serving as a verb of action. The situation is further confused > by the fact that both words are used as helper words, i.e, words that > indicate the tense of another verb. To say that I “have” gone and that I > “done” gone mean the same thing in different dialects > > In general the grammar of the two words is different. If you say I had > something, I am sent looking for a property, possession or attribute. If > you say I did something, I am sent looking for an action I performed. So, > there is a vast inclination to make emotion words as a reference to > something we carry inside, rather than a pattern in what we do. This seems > to me like misdirection, a category error in Ryle’s terms. > > Does that help? > > Mumble, mumble, as steve would say. > > Nick > Nick Thompson > thompnicks...@gmail.com > https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/ > <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fwordpress.clarku.edu%2fnthompson%2f&c=E,1,JZI_rTsnO4PMxifIK-1Pc4gAtSO08UfA4WqKjx73T4Ek3tY5Xl71BUdt3A807uKgEplYNDHINHuRjmL2qnv7SkO_J10fWv5jebCjhCravg,,&typo=1> > > *From:* Friam <friam-boun...@redfish.com> *On Behalf Of *David Eric Smith > *Sent:* Monday, August 23, 2021 4:23 PM > *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group < > friam@redfish.com> > *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Eternal questions > > Nick, what’s the difference between having and doing? > > I once heard Ray Jackendoff give quite a nice talk on word categories. Of > all of it, the one part I remember the most about is what he said about > prepositions. Even after you are getting right most of the rest of word > usage in a new language (or handling it well with a dumb, rule-based > translator), you are still at sea in the prepositions. Their scopes are > not completely arbitrary, but arbitrary in such large part that speakers > essentially learn them nearly as a list of ad hoc applications. > > But when we are in a specialist domain, such as reference to the unpacking > of the convention-term “emotion”, which we all know is a different > specialist domain from car ownership or the consumption of lunch, we know > that verbs are not on any a priori firmer ground than prepositions. Or it > seems to me, we should expect that to be so. > > I am struck by how widespread it is in languages to use the same particle > or other construction for possession and attribution. Both in concretes > and in the abstractions that seemingly derive from them. SteveG will like > this one from Chinese if I haven’t messed it up or misunderstood it: youde > you, youde meiyou. Some have it, some don’t. > > Performance of an act, being configured in a state or condition, if we use > passphrases rather than passwords, we can discriminate many categories. > > So when we use metaphors to expand the scope of reference and discourse > (to eventually shed their metaphor status and become true polysemes once > our familiarity in the new domain is such that, as novelists say, it > “stands up and casts a shadow”), are some of the metaphors more obligatory > than others? Are the psychologists sure they are right about which ones? > Are they right? > > Eric > > > > > > On Aug 24, 2021, at 3:06 AM, <thompnicks...@gmail.com> < > thompnicks...@gmail.com> wrote: > > AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAArgh! > > How we seal ourselves in caves of nonsense! > > And emotion is not something we “have”; it’s something we do. Or, if you > prefer a dualist sensory metaphor, it’s a particular mode of feeling the > world. > > n > > Nick Thompson > thompnicks...@gmail.com > https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/ > <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fwordpress.clarku.edu%2fnthompson%2f&c=E,1,7HSjAiYZs0TskSYM3z8t3I3vm7JNBV7OyZgHYp-6EjYczSSRW9xIT6typjL4CJpU_atJnKNr9galrl_vRQGGlXHYIX3WqoquVu8Bpe1ntqUc&typo=1> > > *From:* Friam <friam-boun...@redfish.com> *On Behalf Of *Pieter Steenekamp > *Sent:* Monday, August 23, 2021 6:04 AM > *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group < > friam@redfish.com> > *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Eternal questions > > The creators of the Aibo robot dog say it has ‘real emotions and > instinct’. This is obviously not true, it's just an illusion. > > But then, according to Daniel Dennett, human consciousness is just an > illusion. > https://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/dennett/papers/illusionism.pdf > <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fase.tufts.edu%2fcogstud%2fdennett%2fpapers%2fillusionism.pdf&c=E,1,wZyzI4xcowqEH1XfK9Q39EPbwHxfV11-EVaCCROdnuFD-hDpoJBA6vqVkaGgbd-yOuYwvTupjP_Soz_obIbOZjgWkLMocfZEa2BpUqNsBKBy&typo=1> > > On Mon, 23 Aug 2021 at 09:18, Jochen Fromm <j...@cas-group.net> wrote: > > "In today’s AI universe, all the eternal questions (about intentionality, > consciousness, free will, mind-body problem...) have become engineering > problems", argues this Guardian article. > > https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/aug/10/dogs-inner-life-what-robot-pet-taught-me-about-consciousness-artificial-intelligence > <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fwww.theguardian.com%2fscience%2f2021%2faug%2f10%2fdogs-inner-life-what-robot-pet-taught-me-about-consciousness-artificial-intelligence&c=E,1,0zM4mCzKmbes0weZLeJCmVy6dAfDvfYxSyHKpvl-aa8-hwd84lMymcY9HHVsp4jXbWOCjmb3kQDLfcwUGjHCouKd8sNTTfFuQtv62vY-RfAsXg,,&typo=1> > > -J. > > - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. . > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam > <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2fbit.ly%2fvirtualfriam&c=E,1,USKWJzhBjgjJh7B-0LkOfSd3nemyd1czMDhazLKVBZtafmJNbogUKdBckMq8YDhHys57cq3edfUxouOPaNKkqPHN7BSB2_jSqY2nj0PnsWO4&typo=1> > un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fmailman%2flistinfo%2ffriam_redfish.com&c=E,1,kQIZirvod42goqmNxnJBxEDkNQZgDx4-Cpp9h61g27SR8pmXJ_MMfIylqQDG-apIDYJ41YBK5dlfDvP0mcsA7tgQfSN_fX8GOBstoJ7bRsPqllS8Hti8YhbPnto,&typo=1> > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ > <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2ffriam-comic.blogspot.com%2f&c=E,1,W-ArAxIKQNrM-7j3cHCB7DvRKs598JN3aWrygvNoMFhZMfHBdCpRnINnr__3jjhPqyWLiXzRL9KRjVJqtjeAAqtCaNq5qf7Ix3B4AjcEzvp4LWtuE0_bNYs00g,,&typo=1> > archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ > > - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. . > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam > <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2fbit.ly%2fvirtualfriam&c=E,1,-pDsdi2AM5J35lPLI_g3-LtyM-BJTNkO0LNOJk2N-zEMrFYJAuMsizuSyrQ7ah2EPXAXyuv9FarhQ-3FZOuytwgV2gtKas1n43TbWDgKajH-&typo=1> > un/subscribe > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fmailman%2flistinfo%2ffriam_redfish.com&c=E,1,MzWtukTHxTmO0o4T4K75ZC6zy8h-gQojlN_6BSajavsHHOIC9hTMR8rjRvM4bWXKVt05qr4hoH2_sIH0XXVCaG4M61FBfWSeFBC6EOnQSCYDf-SZ&typo=1 > FRIAM-COMIC > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2ffriam-comic.blogspot.com%2f&c=E,1,t5Vd_UMHRAMj63ikH0-cOAr7pxIW_XRAEXTZXCbAclW2tPEeUJHS7SstrpQmDgjUyzeW0mVLy-LmuIF58gw1_1tcSuaylib5tGj2zgHAqJE7&typo=1 > archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ > > > - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. . > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam > un/subscribe > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fmailman%2flistinfo%2ffriam_redfish.com&c=E,1,BFllSC-pZ0weFNqjV1iB-w3DR43rvvcmxiYfCh3Inlzi3UOaC9v0gh67rb1SPyCmQIqhrg8ev1C7TSKyRr6rbt_1hS-Cky5ClbwSki3p&typo=1 > FRIAM-COMIC > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2ffriam-comic.blogspot.com%2f&c=E,1,lWRd3h5zEi_Sd3v9P1_NsGjaV_yXFovGQ-t8djjh-BNY8-KmDoPieLQWC8sugjPgglUTHnntK67jLtccS-k24YihXM8lbfVJ0LhKe0F-QUg-&typo=1 > archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ > > > - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. . > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam > un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ > archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ >
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