Re: MR as ontological, intelligence

["Tim Gwinn" <***>]

Hi John,

I love that response you got regarding anthropomorphism & apes ("That
criticism would be entirely valid, coming from an ape.") !!!! That is a
great line!

You first discuss attempting to study and describe the apparent behavior of
chimps, apes, etc. I find no problem using many anthropomorphic terms as
"best-approximations" in attempts to describe the subjective experience of
most, if not all mammals. And probably some invertebrates and so on, to
various degrees. Because these are cases where there is some reasonable
evidence that the central nervous systems of all these organisms share at
least some gross similarities, and likely many finer points of similarity.
This to me suggests similarities in causal structures,and thus similarities
in subjective characteristics such that human terminology might reasonably
seems applicable.

I think it is an enterprise fraught with difficulties. Since we cannot (at
least at this point in science) know for certain the subjective experience
of another person, much less know the subjective experience of an ape or a
cat, then we can only tentatively ascribe human attributes of feelings,
emotions, ratiocination, etc. to these other species. I agree that this does
not mean that we ought to completely avoid anthropomorphic language in these
cases. I think it only means that we have to proceed cautiously so as to try
to distinguish between when we are imputing anthropomorphic attributes as
best-approximations versus when we are imputing anthropomorphic attributes
where they are poor approximations. To me, use/non-use of anthropomorphic
terminology in these cases need not be binary: for describing one of the
above organism's apparent behavior, some combination of anthropomorphic and
non-anthropomorphic terminology - based on best-approximations - seems an
appropriate course.

In the examples Dan gave (vines, trees, maple seeds) to which I responded
that I found anthropomorphic language unnecessary to use, I do so based upon
the physical evidence that such organisms lack any apparent brain or CNS
which has any gross similarities to a human (or ape or cat). Therefore, I
find no apparent causal basis on which to impute anthropomorphic attributes
to these kinds of organisms. In my view, anthropomorphic terms would be poor
approximations in these cases, and would thereby not be useful. particularly
insofar as these organisms appear to have to causal basis for a mind and the
accompanying subjectivity. It is, however, to my mind possible (albeit
difficult) to develop specific terminology that applies to the behavior of
this class of organisms. But I would not envision this terminology to be
anything human-like; indeed, such terminology would be quite alien to us, I
think.

In regards to the latter part of your post, I personally do not find
panpsychism compelling. To me, it is an extension of what I described above,
where we are imputing anthropomorphic attributes in situations where such
imputations are poor approximations. I consider it is far more parsimonious
to consider mind (along with all its subjective qualities) as an emergent
complex property of brains. It simply strikes me as unnecessary to posit
that the attributes of mind and life are everywhere "embedded with physical
matter" which become "amplified" through specific system organizations.
Probably from your perspective, though, it is the latter case which seems
more parsimonious.

I'm not quite sure where this leaves us. Certainly, we have different ideas
on this matter. :)

Regards,
Tim

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ROSEN Forum [mailto:*** Behalf Of John
> Kineman
> Sent: Tuesday, August 19, 2003 7:26 PM
> To: ***
> Subject: Re: MR as ontological, intelligence
>
>
> Hi Tim and Dan,
>
> Some comments (please excuse the length, I intended to be brief, but
> alas..) on this interesting question of anthropomorphism.
>
> I recently mentioned this issue on another list, making an analogy with
> Jane Goodall's work - i.e., changing the paradigm of animal behavior
> research by participating rather than blind observing, which was the
> scientific ethic before Leaky put her up to the chimp research at Gombe.
> The result was indeed a revolution in thinking both about chimps and non
> humans in general and about scientific methodology. I believe we do need
> to legitimize experiential analogies in order to make any sense at all
> out of non human minds. But it does get strong criticism from the old
> guard. Intuiting what one cannot see, by analogy to one's own mental
> processes had been considered poor science before these field studies
> proved so successful, but still there are those who say they are
> meaningless. To me, it is a question of one's basic assumption about
> life - if live is something general that we share and are an instance of
> (in which case, one should expect reasonable analogies, with due
> caution), or if human life is different from everything else, in which
> case none of our intuitions should be trusted in interpretation non
> human behavior with regard to mental states driving that behavior. If
> the former, than Occam's razor cuts to the first option - it is clearly
> the more parsimonious assumption that we share similar faculties. If the
> latter, then it cuts the other way, and reduces explanations to
> mechanisms first and all else only as proved, with the "gottcha" that
> non human minds can never be proved (neither can human minds, for that
> matter).
>
> Perhaps the best response I got on the question of whether or not
> Goodall-style interpretations are overly anthropomorphic was the comment:
> "That criticism would be entirely valid, coming from an ape." (Georg
> Ivanovas). This is exactly the case. From the ape's point of view, our
> interpretation would be overly laden with humanness. But from our point
> of view, we are attempting to get into the mind of the ape by the only
> tool we have, our own minds, and thus, if the attempt is honest and
> careful, to eliminate whatever unnecessary human interpretations we can
> to imagine what the ape mind might be like. Science is about getting an
> answer through the most reasonable means, and if this is the only tool
> available, it is about using that tool as well as one can.
>
> The language question is always present: i.e., "Don't sound vitalistic
> or pan psychic while discussing vital qualities of life and while trying
> to develop the most general theory possible (a goal of science) for
> understanding psyche" -- it is like trying to bite your teeth or pick
> yourself up by your shoes. Its a no-win scenario invented by
> positivistic physical scientists, who considered everything but physics
> to be "stamp collecting.". The taboo of "vitalism" is a red herring in
> this case. If life isn't vital than it isn't life. We are thinking about
> it rationally and scientifically now, so it is not the same thing as
> pre-scientific vitalism, which explained every movement in terms of
> invented vital forces with no particular reason to do so. A book falld
> off a shelf because it wanted to be on the floor. That is a tautology.
> One takes the apparent result and proposes it as a cause, with the means
> being vital force. So every wave of a leaf or trickle of water is
> interpreted as having intention to achieve just what it achieves. That's
> Dr. Panglos' "best of all possible worlds" scenario. That's pre
> scientific vitalism, and it has nothing at all to do with proposing that
> life is a natural phenomena embedded with physical matter (but not
> reducible to it) and amplified though specific kinds of system
> organizations.
>
> So I think the issue is political, not scientific. Yet I sympathize with
> the problem - some will use this immediately to discredit anyone asking
> the deep questions. I think the only solution is (a) thick skin, and (b)
> job security. But you probably can't hide the language sufficiently to
> solve the problem. There's anotherl reason why adopting palliative
> language won't work. It is that in the very act of even trying to do
> this, you imply that there is some evil to avoid; that your theory
> teeters on the edge of a horrible precipice where it may slip into
> nonsense. Setting up that possibility will encourage dismissal and
> pan-egotism. On the other hand, how can anyone claim to be talking about
> life while avoiding vital language? The two words have the same root!!!
> So the only alternative is to admit defeat at the outset and talk only
> about non life, as if it might somehow add up to life if we talk about
> it enough. But that won't happen. Similarly pan-psychism should not be
> categorized as automatically wrong. It depends on how it is formulated.
> After all, we allow physicists to speculate about an infinite number of
> parallel universes created as complete copies of our universe on the
> occurrence of every quantum event (Everett Worlds), or any number of
> unseeable hidden dimensions rolled infinitely small in our universe but
> there nevertheless to explain all that mechanism misses in a
> pseudo-mechanistic way, or a zero-point-energy pervading the universe,
> and non-local influences violating Bell's theorem regarding
> speed-of-light communication, and theories of anti-universes, white
> holes, etc. All this speculating is based on nothing more than the need
> to assume that reality is computable, and we do that only because we
> know how to compute (without any evidence that the rest of nature
> "computes" much, if anything). But if a LIFE scientists uses VITalistic
> language, that scientist is branded a charlatan. Or if a psychologist or
> cognitive scientist talks about a general psyche, that is banned as
> pan-psychism, which like vitalism is an inappropriate historical
> reference. Since when are we obligated on penalty of professional death
> to cede reality to the physical sciences??? This is nothing more than
> pseudo-epistemology and professional arrogance, if I may be blunt (not
> to anyone here, I hope). I make a strong point because it took me most
> of my life to get enough courage to discuss these things as rational
> topics, and looking back I belielve I was sold a bag of false fears
> without the additional knowledge (which I had to acquire) to navigate
> around them.
>
> -jjk
>