Great. That is indeed the weakest point in my argument. It is the central argument of Sober and Wilson’s UNTO OTHERS <https://www.amazon.com/Unto-Others-Evolution-Psychology-Unselfish/dp/0674930479/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=wilson+and+sober+unto+others&qid=1631822440&sr=8-1https://www.bing.com/search?q=amazon+com&form=IENTNB&mkt=en-us&httpsmsn=1&msnews=1&refig=01d8e6a6f68f4e79c1b939b52a4e26a6&sp=1&ghc=1&filters=ufn%3A%22amazon+com%22+sid%3A%22ce00286a-e903-ff2c-7dac-b49bd707399c%22&qs=MB&pq=ama&sc=8-3&cvid=01d8e6a6f68f4e79c1b939b52a4e26a6> . I hate (and have done so repeatedly in print) confusing tautologies with statements of fact. So this is indeed my petard your are threatening to hoist me on.
First, let me stipulate that there are pain motives, and that pain is not the cessation of pleasure, nor pleasure the cessation of pain. I assume that that stipulation will not change your question, right? Hearing me try to wiggle out of the tautology problem will require a lot of patience of you. It will lead us into the dreadful confusion of “the hard problem” and “effing the ineffable”. Only for the strong of heart. I predict that you will say, at some point, “Nick, you are confusing what a feeling does with what a feeling is, and only I can know what my feelings are.” And I will say, “No. No. That is nonsense, Marcus, and even you know it. Anybody who has ever been married or even owned a dog knows that others can often gauge feelings better than the feeling-owner.” And you will reply, “No, no, Nicholas, you idiot. Yours will be a INFERENCE of my feelings; I know my own feelings directly, without inference.” And I will say, “No. No, Marcus. A thousand experiments in psychology will demonstrate that the feeling owner is often wrong about his own feelings.” And notice that I am at that point edging you up to the tautology line because one way to define feelings that ends the argument is to say that my feelings just are those experiences that I and I alone can know uniquely. Frank and Bruce Simon and I have been over this ground a gazillion times. It’s possible we can avoid it, but I don’t think so. To test the proposition, ask yourself: if we stripped the notion of pleasure of all association with how a pleasure feels uniquely and momentarily to you, would you still raise the question you do. Would you still ask, “Does all conscious (even synthetic) life need to be driven by a pleasure motive? This seems to be Nick’s claim. I expect the way this argument plays out is that, e.g., altruism is defined to “feel good”. It is tautological. " If that question disappears for you under those circumstances, then I can simply admit that a pleasure is just the behavioral transition that occurs upon the achievement of set of circumstances, and escape the tautology by defining a goal as the organization of behavior that points to a set of circumstances. So. Where are we an the socalled Hard Problem. I know you have probably said, but, to be honest, I don’t remember. Nick Nick Thompson <mailto:thompnicks...@gmail.com> thompnicks...@gmail.com <https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/ From: Friam <friam-boun...@redfish.com> On Behalf Of Marcus Daniels Sent: Thursday, September 16, 2021 3:48 PM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam@redfish.com> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Could this possibly be true? Does all conscious (even synthetic) life need to be driven by a pleasure motive? This seems to be Nick’s claim. I expect the way this argument plays out is that, e.g., altruism is defined to “feel good”. It is tautological. On Sep 16, 2021, at 12:22 PM, thompnicks...@gmail.com <mailto:thompnicks...@gmail.com> wrote: some of us might be writing only to hear ourselves gumflap? Pfffft! All of us are and all of us aren’t. For my own case, I am writing here to develop my thinking, so that it may someday coalesce into something that I publish, with, or without, others. That that enterprise is not entirely nugatory is evident in my writing which is both stable and evolving and usually does involve others. I stipulate that you all may be being forced to serve in a cause you may not have signed up for. I guess this is the point where a glen would say, “Live with it!” n Nick Thompson <mailto:thompnicks...@gmail.com> thompnicks...@gmail.com <https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/ From: Friam <friam-boun...@redfish.com <mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com> > On Behalf Of Steve Smith Sent: Thursday, September 16, 2021 3:06 PM To: friam@redfish.com <mailto:friam@redfish.com> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Could this possibly be true? On 9/16/21 10:35 AM, thompnicks...@gmail.com <mailto:thompnicks...@gmail.com> wrote: Just so’s you know, I took it from this email thread, where it pretty much stood alone. And remember. Y ou (we) aren’t just writing to one another. You (we) are writing to 300 other people. And according to Glen a few threads in the weft-weave back, some of us might be writing only to hear ourselves gumflap? I think that (his characterization or my characterization of his characterization or both) might be hyperbolic. .-- .- -. - / .- -.-. - .. --- -. ..--.. / -.-. --- -. .--- ..- --. .- - . FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn UTC-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ archives: 5/2017 thru present https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/ 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/
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