Great question, and one that may not be answerable directly. There is
definitely a sense of essentialism in some contexts, Shinto for example, and
other forms of animism. In Vedic philosophy I am less sure. The origin myth
states that Mind (purusa) and Matter (prakrti) were once separate and apart but
a cosmic accident caused them to become infused. Mind-Matter, like space-time,
is 'one thing' not a combination of two: neither is an attribute of the other.
Mind-Matter and Karma, Mind-Matter acting in accordance with "propriety"
anteceded human beings by eons. "Propriety" in this instance are actions that
lead to the eventual separation of purusa and prakrti; something that will
happen when everything, including those things that are now inanimate, as well
as all animate creatures goes through the rebirth cycle until attaining a state
from which they can attain enlightenment and enter Nirvana.
Modern philosophers, like Whitehead, take positions closer to Vedic (sans
Nirvana and Karma), than animism—at least to the extent I understand them.
davew
On Mon, Feb 20, 2023, at 5:10 AM, Santafe wrote:
> So there are things in DaveW’s very helpful post below about which I am
> genuinely curious. My tendency is to analyze them, though I have a
> certain habitual fear that asking a question in an analytic mode will
> come across as somehow disrespectful, and that is not my intent.
>
> The description below sounds to me very much like “essentialism”. If
> we have long human experience that water is wet, and if after many
> hundreds of millenia being human (and longer bring primates etc.) we
> take on some good reasons to describe water as being made of H2O
> molecules, the essentialist habit is to suppose (to take as a
> philosophical premise?) that there must be some attribute of wetness
> about each molecule, which is then amplified when many such molecules
> make the bulk that even ordinary people experience as water. (One
> could go on a branch and argue that special people also experience each
> individual molecule as itself and can attest to its wetness, and one
> could try to push the analogy that far, but I want to focus above on
> the essentialist premise as a kind of “mind-set background”.)
>
> One could be essentialist about really anything. The wetness of water,
> the hardness of rock, the warmness of air, the loyalty of friends, or
> pretty much anything that has syntax making such a construction
> possible.
>
> In the Mind community, is the central orientation a commitment to
> essentialism as a posture, or is essentialism only to be applied to
> whatever specifically comes under the scope of “mind”?
>
> If only mind is to be framed in this kind of essentialist ontology, why
> does it become the only attribute thus deserving to be framed as an
> essence? Of course, for me to ask that already expresses the point of
> view that the Mind community are arguing against: that people are a
> tiny and late corner in a large universe, and that all this
> conversation about Mind didn’t come into existence until they were
> there to generate it, which seems almost as tiny and niche as any
> particular one of Shakespeare’s plays. But to put the question that
> way is the only way I know to use language.
>
> Eric
>
>> On Feb 18, 2023, at 9:22 AM, Prof David West <profw...@fastmail.fm> wrote:
>>
>> Panpsychism is fundamentally dualist. There is 'Mind" and there is 'Matter'.
>> However, neither is found in isolation, Mind is always embedded in Matter
>> and all Matter possesses Mind. This is a proportionate relation: very tiny
>> bits of Matter (string, particle) embed very minute "auras" of matter. As
>> Matter aggregates and organizes (atoms, molecules, organisms); Mind
>> expresses a parallel aggregation and organization.
>>
>> Organization is a key factor. Matter must be organized in a
>> complicated/complex way before the embedded Mind will have a
>> corresponding/complementary organization. Mere accumulation, soil to
>> mountain, is insufficient. (Although, there are places, geographic
>> locations, that seem to exhibit "Mindness." This is a subject that Jenny
>> Quillien is investigating, and which was mentioned previously in the context
>> of Christopher Alexander's QWAN and Liveness.)
>>
>> Dynamism is a key factor. If the organization includes change (growth) and
>> motility (flexible fingers) the corresponding/complementary Mind
>> organization will be more interesting.
>>
>> Paradoxically (a bit), the Matter / Mind dualism is a kind of monism, in the
>> same way that space-time is one thing not two.
>>
>> So glen is correct in saying there is only 'body stuff' but someone else
>> could say, with equal validity, that there is only mind stuff. All depends
>> on which side of Janus you are facing. the lie/truth in in the eye of the
>> observer.
>>
>> Thus Spake Zar.... er, dave west
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sat, Feb 18, 2023, at 6:29 AM, Eric Charles wrote:
>>> I don't know what you mean by "mental stuff", of course.
>>>
>>> Well... In this context, I mean whatever the "psyche" part of panpsychism
>>> entails.
>>>
>>> Given that I don't believe in disembodied minds, I'm with you 100% on
>>> everything you do being "body stuff". Which, presumably, leads to the
>>> empirical question of what types of bodies do "psyche", and where those
>>> types of bodies can be found.
>>>
>>> You say further that: No. Neither the dirt nor I do "mental stuff".
>>> Well, now we have something to actually talk about then! Dave West,
>>> unsurprisingly, stepped in strongly on the side of dirt having psyche in at
>>> least a rudimentary form, I presume he would assert that you (Glen) do
>>> mental stuff too. Dave also asserts that his belief in panpsychism does
>>> affect how he lives in the world. Exactly to the extent that his way of
>>> living in the world is made different by the belief, panpsychism is more
>>> than just something he says.
>>>
>>> Steve's discussion about what it would feel like to be the bit of dirt
>>> trampled beneath a particular foot is a bit of a tangent - potentially
>>> interesting in its own right. His discussion of when he, personally, starts
>>> to attribute identity - and potentially psyche - to clumps of inanimate
>>> stuff seems directly on topic, especially as he too has listed some ways
>>> his behaviors change when he becomes engaged in those habits.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Fri, Feb 17, 2023 at 2:36 AM ⛧ glen <geprope...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Doubling down on the incredulity fallacy? OK. Yes. There is something it is
>>> like to be trampled dirt. I don't know what you mean by "mental stuff", of
>>> course. I don't do any mental stuff as far as I know. Everything I do is
>>> inherently "body stuff". Maybe that's because I've experienced chronic pain
>>> my whole life. Maybe some of you consistently live in a body free
>>> experience? I've only experienced that a few times, e.g. running in a
>>> fasted state. And I later suffered for that indulgent delusion.
>>>
>>> No. Neither the dirt nor I do "mental stuff". So you need a more concrete
>>> question.
>>>
>>> On February 16, 2023 6:04:17 PM PST, Eric Charles
>>> <eric.phillip.char...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> "an account of the seemingly analogous position of panpsychism"
>>>>
>>>> What is that more than something people say?
>>>>
>>>> Do *you* experience the dirt at your feet as having a mental life? If so,
>>>> tell me about it: What is the dirt like when it seems to be doing mental
>>>> stuff? What kind of mental stuff is it doing?
>>>>
>>>> If not: Have you seen anyone who earnestly thinks the dirt is doing mental
>>>> stuff? If so, what were *they* like? How was that belief pervasive in their
>>>> adjustments to the world? Based on your experiences with that person, how
>>>> do you think your ways of acting in the world would change if you adopted
>>>> such a position?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> <echar...@american.edu>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Thu, Feb 16, 2023 at 1:27 PM glen <geprope...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> I don't grok the context well enough to equivocate on concepts like "have"
>>>>> and "category of being". But in response to Nick's question: "What is
>>>>> there
>>>>> that animals do that demands us to invent categories to explain their
>>>>> behavior?", my answer is "animals discretize the ambient muck". So if
>>>>> categorization is somehow fundamentally related to discretization, then
>>>>> animals clearly categorize in that sense.
>>>>>
>>>>> I mean, all you have to do is consider the frequencies of light the
>>>>> animals' eyeballs do or don't see. That's two categories right there, the
>>>>> light they do see and the light they don't. Unless there's some sophistry
>>>>> hidden behind the question, the answer seems clear. Reflection on what one
>>>>> does and does not categorize isn't necessary. I could even claim my truck
>>>>> discretizes fluids ... those that make it seize up versus lubricate it,
>>>>> those that it burns vs those that stop it cold. Etc. Maybe the question is
>>>>> better formulated as "What makes one impute categories on another?"
>>>>> Clearly
>>>>> my truck doesn't impute categories on squirrels.
>>>>>
>>>>> But Nick does follow that question with this "experience" nonsense. So my
>>>>> guess is there *is* some sophistry behind the question, similar to EricC's
>>>>> incredulous response to DaveW's question about phenomenological
>>>>> composition
>>>>> of experience(s). What I find missing in Nick's (and EricC's) distillation
>>>>> of experience monism is an account of the seemingly analogous position of
>>>>> panpsychism. Were I a scholar, I might take such work on myself. But I'm
>>>>> not and, hence, very much appreciate these distillations of dead white
>>>>> men's metaphysics and will take what I can get. 8^D
>>>>>
>>>>> On 2/16/23 09:22, Steve Smith wrote:
>>>>>> Might I offer some terminology reframing, or at least ask for some
>>>>> additional explication?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> 1. I think "behaviours" would be all Nick's Martians *could* observe?
>>>>> They would be inferring "experiences" from observed behaviours?
>>>>>> 2. When we talk about "categories" here, are we talking about
>>>>> "categories of being"? Ontologies, as it were?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Regarding ErisS' reflections... I *do* think that animals behave *as
>>>>> if* they "have categories", though I don't know what it even means to say
>>>>> that they "have categories" in the way Aristotle and his legacy-followers
>>>>> (e.g. us) do... I would suggest/suspect that dogs and squirrels are in
>>>>> no
>>>>> way aware of these "categories" and that to say that they do is a
>>>>> projection by (us) humans who have fabricated the (useful in myriad
>>>>> contexts) of a category/Category/ontology. So in that sense they do NOT
>>>>> *have* categories... I think in this conception/thought-experiment we
>>>>> assume that Martians *would* and would be looking to map their own
>>>>> ontologies onto the behaviour (and inferred experiences and judgements?)
>>>>> of Terran animals?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> If I were to invert the subject/object relation, I would suggest that it
>>>>> is "affordances" not "experiences" (or animals' behaviours) we want to
>>>>> categorize into ontologies? It is what things are "good for" that make
>>>>> them interesting/similar/different to living beings. And "good for" is
>>>>> conditionally contextualized. My dog and cat both find squirrels "good
>>>>> for" chasing, but so too for baby rabbits and skunks (once).
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Or am I barking up the wrong set of reserved lexicons?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> To segue (as I am wont to do), it feels like this discussion parallels
>>>>> the one about LLMs where we train the hell out of variations on learning
>>>>> classifier systems until they are as good as (or better than) we (humans)
>>>>> are at predicting the next token in a string of human-generated tokens (or
>>>>> synthesizing a string of tokens which humans cannot distinguish from a
>>>>> string generated by another human, in particular one with the proverbial
>>>>> 10,000 hours of specialized training). The fact that or "ologies" tend
>>>>> to
>>>>> be recorded and organized as knowledge structures and in fact usually
>>>>> *propogated* (taught/learnt) by the same makes us want to believe (some of
>>>>> us) that hidden inside these LLMs are precisely the same "ologies" we
>>>>> encode in our myriad textbooks and professional journal articles?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I think one of the questions that remains present within this group's
>>>>> continued 'gurgitations is whether the organizations we have conjured are
>>>>> particularly special, or just one of an infinitude of superposed
>>>>> alternative formulations? And whether some of those formulations are
>>>>> acutely occult and/or abstract and whether the existing (accepted)
>>>>> formulations (e.g. Western Philosophy and Science, etc) are uniquely (and
>>>>> exclusively or at least optimally) capable of capturing/describing what is
>>>>> "really real" (nod to George Berkeley).
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Some here (self included) may often suggest that such formulation is at
>>>>> best a coincidence of history and as well as it "covers" a description of
>>>>> "reality", it is by circumstance and probably by abstract conception ("all
>>>>> models are wrong...") incomplete and in error. But nevertheless still
>>>>> useful...
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Maybe another way of reframing Nick's question (on a tangent) is to ask
>>>>> whether the Barsoomians had their own Aristotle to conceive of
>>>>> Categories? Or did they train their telescopes on ancient Greece and
>>>>> learn Latin Lip Reading and adopt one or more the Greek's philosophical
>>>>> traditions? And then, did the gas-balloon creatures floating in the
>>>>> atmosphere-substance of Jupiter observe the Martians' who had observed the
>>>>> Greeks and thereby come up with their own Categories. Maybe it was those
>>>>> creatures who beamed these abstractions straight into the neural tissue of
>>>>> the Aristotelians and Platonists? Do gas-balloon creatures even have
>>>>> solids to be conceived of as Platonic? And are they missing out if they
>>>>> don't? Do they have their own Edwin Abbot Abbot? And what would the
>>>>> Cheela <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon%27s_Egg> say?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> My dog and the rock squirrels he chases want to know... so do the cholla
>>>>> cactus fruits/segments they hoard in their nests!
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Mumble,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> - Steve
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On 2/16/23 5:37 AM, Santafe wrote:
>>>>>>> It’s the tiniest and most idiosyncratic take on this question, but
>>>>> FWIW, here:
>>>>>>> https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1520752113
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I actually think that all of what Nick says below is a perfectly good
>>>>> draft of a POV.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> As to whether animals “have” categories: Spend time with a dog.
>>>>> Doesn’t take very much time. Their interest in conspecifics is (ahem)
>>>>> categorically different from their interest in people, different than to
>>>>> squirrels, different than to cats, different than to snakes.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> For me to even say that seems like cueing a narcissism of small
>>>>> differences, when overwhelmingly, their behavior is structured around
>>>>> categories, as is everyone else’s. Squirrels don’t mistake acorns for
>>>>> birds of prey. Or for the tree limbs and house roofs one can jump onto.
>>>>> Or for other squirrels. It’s all categories. Behavior is an operation on
>>>>> categories.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I found it interesting that you invoked “nouns” as a framework that is
>>>>> helpful but sometimes obstructive. One might just have said “words”.
>>>>> This
>>>>> is interesting to me already, because my syntactician friends will tell
>>>>> you
>>>>> that a noun is not, as we were taught as children, a “word for a person,
>>>>> place, or thing”, but rather a “word in a language that transforms as
>>>>> nouns
>>>>> transform in that language”, which is a bit of an obfuscation, since they
>>>>> do have in common that they are in some way “object-words”. But from the
>>>>> polysemy and synonymy perspective, we see that “meanings” cross the
>>>>> noun-verb syntactic distinction quite frequently for some categories.
>>>>> Eye/see, ear/hear, moon/shine, and stuff like that. My typologist friends
>>>>> tell me that is common but particular to some meanings much more than
>>>>> others.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Another fun thing I was told by Ted Chiang a few months ago, which I
>>>>> was amazed I had not heard from linguists, and still want to hold in
>>>>> reserve until I can check it further. He says that languages without
>>>>> written forms do not have a word for “word”. If true, that seems very
>>>>> interesting and important. If Chiang believes it to be true, it is
>>>>> probably already a strong enough regularity to be more-or-less true, and
>>>>> thus still interesting and important.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Eric
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> On Feb 15, 2023, at 1:19 PM,<thompnicks...@gmail.com> <
>>>>> thompnicks...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> FWiW, I willmake every effort to arrive fed to Thuam by 10.30
>>>>> Mountain. I want to hear the experts among you hold forth on WTF a
>>>>> cateogory actually IS. I am thinking (duh) that a category is a more or
>>>>> less diffuse node in a network of associations (signs, if you must).
>>>>> Hence
>>>>> they constitute a vast table of what goes with what, what is predictable
>>>>> from what, etc. This accommodates “family resemblance” quite nicely. Do
>>>>> I think animals have categories, in this sense, ABSOLUTELY EFFING YES.
>>>>> Does
>>>>> this make me a (shudder) nominalist? I hope not.
>>>>>>>> Words…nouns in particular… confuse this category business. Words
>>>>> place constraints on how vague these nodes can be. They impose on the
>>>>> network constraints to which it is ill suited. True, the more my
>>>>> associations with “horse” line up with your associations with “horse”, the
>>>>> more true the horse seems. Following Peirce, I would say that where our
>>>>> nodes increasingly correspond with increasing shared experience, we have
>>>>> evidence ot the (ultimate) truth of the nodes, their “reality” in Peirce’s
>>>>> terms. Here is where I am striving to hang on to Peirce’s realism.
>>>>>>>> The reason I want the geeks to participate tomorrow is that I keep
>>>>> thinking of a semantic webby thing that Steve devised for the Institute
>>>>> about a decade ago. Now a semantic web would be a kind of metaphor for
>>>>> an
>>>>> associative web; don’t associate with other words in exactly the same
>>>>> manner in which experiences associate with other experiences. Still, I
>>>>> think the metaphor is interesting. Also, I am kind of re-interested in my
>>>>> “authorial voice”, how much it operates like cbt.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>> --
>>> glen ⛧
>>>
>>> -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .
>>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>>> Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom
>>> https://bit.ly/virtualfriam
>>> to (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/
>>> -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .
>>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>>> Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom
>>> https://bit.ly/virtualfriam
>>> to (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/
>>>
>>
>> -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .
>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>> Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom
>> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fbit.ly%2fvirtualfriam&c=E,1,jjuVZ0a08inm2R3KS-KSEPBB4StkYY_DrUPgflW1rx4JFOU9x8z-Xym4ul6sfsIBhj0k_OX1tnw-3abCMyeAfvrSqHm34SS-ai6dDapIsbri5DO2iQ,,&typo=1
>> to (un)subscribe
>> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fmailman%2flistinfo%2ffriam_redfish.com&c=E,1,b1UzoUmELl7OIbz_YDXMo_3sTaqDRXg1CwB6zmpsXIvJl9gpkJSQ28EO73M95uidLHUEOfnNXVobrlmchrXWmOHegVMREzP_zo6yggnU8w_8GRqToPyt&typo=1
>> FRIAM-COMIC
>> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2ffriam-comic.blogspot.com%2f&c=E,1,D_PJ-7RuBbalEQcfudlzlz25xYO0RGJ0MbVpilPx4Mqu6GRS30VLp8IsoHHg_KSdq9c8JoeU53H1r6VOjNExGReXKbigSbP_tjDszaMGHA,,&typo=1
>> archives: 5/2017 thru present
>> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fpipermail%2ffriam_redfish.com%2f&c=E,1,-unt7UfztbfU0hIjKD1-JS_LI_IKZfj1h158Vy-_EPxvVTM46swxoWktXGV3LQ6Hn1XzCHr-052cA4xctuqN6ag_2LGglAHGKi1_w1yPfMaWqN0DEk1YAw,,&typo=1
>> 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/
>
>
> -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom
> https://bit.ly/virtualfriam
> to (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/
-. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom
https://bit.ly/virtualfriam
to (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/
