Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id MAA21841 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Mon, 27 Nov 2000 12:25:45 GMT From: "Chris Lofting" <ddiamond@ozemail.com.au> To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Subject: RE: Fwd: Thinking Like a Chimp Date: Mon, 27 Nov 2000 23:30:00 +1100 Message-ID: <LPBBICPHCJJBPJGHGMCIEEDACLAA.ddiamond@ozemail.com.au> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.2416 (9.0.2910.0) X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2314.1300 Importance: Normal In-Reply-To: <200011270616.BAA20941@mail0.lig.bellsouth.net> Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> -----Original Message-----
> From: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk [mailto:fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk]On Behalf
> Of Joe E. Dees
> Sent: Monday, 27 November 2000 5:21
> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> Subject: RE: Fwd: Thinking Like a Chimp
>
>
> From: "Chris Lofting" <ddiamond@ozemail.com.au>
> To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
> Subject: RE: Fwd: Thinking Like a Chimp
> Date sent: Thu, 23 Nov 2000 21:18:28 +1100
> Send reply to: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>
> >
> >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk
> [mailto:fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk]On Behalf
> > > Of Joe E. Dees
> > > Sent: Thursday, 23 November 2000 2:14
> > > To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> > > Subject: Re: Fwd: Thinking Like a Chimp
> > >
> > >
> > > Date sent: Thu, 16 Nov 2000 09:42:10 -0600
> > > To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> > > From: Mark Mills <mmills@htcomp.net>
> > > Subject: Re: Fwd: Thinking Like a Chimp
> > > Send reply to: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> > >
> > > > Wade,
> > > >
> > > > Interesting stuff.
> > > >
> > > > At 09:26 AM 11/16/00 -0500, you wrote:
> > > >
> > > > >After
> > > > >all, he concludes, "In every critical juncture, after the chimp has
> > > > >learned something and we gave him the option to tell us, 'are
> > > you really
> > > > >reasoning about seeing or are you using some surface
> behavior cue?', at
> > > > >every case, they have consistently said, 'What are you talking
> > > about? We
> > > > >are using what is there. We're using what is in the world.'"
> > > >
> > > > I wonder what would happen if you asked a 3 year old human the same
> > > > question. Considering conversations with my 3 year old
> > > grandson, I think
> > > > he would tell me the same thing. I doubt I could distinguish
> > > 'reasoning
> > > > about seeing' for him.
> > > >
> > > > Perhaps human and chimp neurology is the same, but the longer human
> > > > development period extends abilities. Cast in memetic terms,
> > > perhaps the
> > > > genetic difference (between chimp and human neural systems)
> is only a
> > > > change in the length of development. The additional cognitive
> > > abilities
> > > > are additional neural memes stuffed into the brain.
> > > >
> > > An increase in quantity of nodes and interconnections, and thus
> > > complexity, leads to the emergence of new qualities and
> > > capacities, such as explicit self- and other-reference and
> > > spatiotemporal self- and other-situation (past(then)-present(now)-
> > > future, here-there) and self- and other-consciousness, when
> > > recursion happens (breaching the Godelian threshhold), as I've
> > > maintained all along.
> >
> > yes Joe ... but then *you* also maintain the concepts of fundamental
> > trichotomies refusing to look at anything that threatens your
> concepts and
> > so you are 'stuck' :-)
> >
> Yes, Chris,...but then "you" also maintain the concepts of
> fundamental dichotomies, either refusing to look at anything that
> threatens your concepts, or erroneously attempting to reduce
> systems which are not fundamentally dichotomous into such
> dichotomies in a square-peg-round-hole fashion, and so you are
> 'stuck'. I, OTOH, recognize that for some systems, dichotomies
> are fundametal, for some, trichotomies are fundamental, and for
> some, other intergral, and perhaps even nonintegral (or fractal)
> bases are fundamental. It is "you" who are the dogmatic
> and simplistic overreductionist.
not at all.
> >
> > BTW since you have not responded to previous emails (both off
> memetics and
> > on) I suppose I will have to point you in the 'right' direction: the
> > *fourth* concept that enables the encapsulation of the idea of a wave is
> > SPEED, something you leave out so as to retain your
> trichotomy... As usual
> > all those who favour trichotomies fail to differentiate relational
> > processes, they lump them all together, Freud did, Popper did,
> and Peirce
> > did. An education based on these sorts of works prior to analysis of the
> > neurology clouds your thinking...
> >
> How many speeds does light have, exactly?
depends on context. in water is different to vaccuum is different to air.
You can also interpret the limits of light as being limits on form, namely
that a matter wave cannot have an infinite frequency...
> >
> > >From out of the MANY come MANY modes of interpretation and
> this includes
> > 'false' ones where you span a boundary and so confuse levels of
> analysis.
> > The core processing is in the form of bifurcations...self/other
> as well as
> > self/others... there are subtle distinctions here that you seem
> to miss..
> >
> And from the one comes the two, and only the two, and from the
> two, not the three, five or seven, comes the many, and thus spake
> the 'lofty" one, but not very verily (grin).
:-) you obviously havnt read my sites in detail -- to dense for you I
suppose. The patterns is in bifurcations and so 1-2-4-8 etc and you can give
it a feedback kick to go 1-2-4-8-64-4096-... thus at a level of 3 there are
2^3 possible expressions etc.
> >
> > As to thinking like chimps note carefully that the thinking processes of
> > autistics seem to reflect the thinking processes of chicks
> >
> Is this sexist, or merely fowl (heehee)?
:-) see Stephen Rose's work on the memory of chicks -- and the fact that you
made the association points to your own sexist biases.
> >
> .., IOW there is
> > only one object and MANY things happen to it. There is a STRONG sense of
> > SELF but NOT of other minds. To develop a theory of mind
> requires the one to
> > become at least two... this seems to be what splits us from all other
> > lifeforms where many relationships of ONE are extended to many
> relationships
> > of MANY...
> >
> It does mean realizing that oneself inhabits one of many possible
> perspectives, and that differential object and relationship info. is
> available to each - otherwise things like hiding and lying would not
> work. This is an important threshhold in the ontogeny of individual
> conscious self-awareness; the genesis of self-other distinction
> simultaneously creates the epistemological poles of self and other
> (Piaget studies such in genetic epistemology) (yes, Chris, this IS a
> dichotomous relation, but the ALL aren't).
You still dont get it do you -- I think it is because of the rigidity -- you
seem to have a problem with dynamics :-)
Two informative studies
> in this field are serial no. 214, vol. 51, no. 1 and serial no. 214, vol.
> 51, no. 3 in MONOGRAPHS OF THE SOCIETY FOR RESEARCH
> IN CHILD DEVELOPMENT.
>
> The first, DEVELOPMENT OF KNOWLEDGE ABOUT THE
> APPEARANCE-REALITY DISTINCTION by Flavell, Green & Flavell,
> is abstracted as follows:
> Seven studies of the acquisition of knowledge about the
> appearance=reality distinction suggest the following course of
> development. Many 3-year olds seem to possess little or no
> understanding of the distinction. They fail the simplest Appearance-
> Reality (AR) tasks and are unresponsive to efforts to teach them
> the distinction. Skill in solving simple AR tasks is highly correlated
> with skill in solving simple Perspective-taking (PT) tasks; this
> suggests the hypothesis that the ability to represent the selfsame
> stimulus in two different, seemingly incompatible ways may
> underlie both skills. Children of 6-7 years have acquired both skills
> but nevertheless find it very difficult to reflect on and talk about
> such appearance-reality concepts as "looks like," "really and
> truly<' and "looks different from the way it really and truly is." In
> contrast, children of 11-12 years, and to an even greater degree
> college students, possess a substantial body of rich, readily
> accessible, and explicit knowledge in this area. [Joe comment -
> this parallels the Piagetian distinction between concrete and formal
> operations - down to the chronological onset]
>
Reflects the bifurcation processes where development leads to a shift from
face value to looking 'behind' things. The face value is also literal
minded, concrete thinking where A/~A becomes apparent, the emergence of
negation and difference analysis rather than the earlier sameness and so
inability to differentiate 'properly' ... as the child develops so they
become more aspects biased, harmonics oriented...will vary based on
developing persona types etc ...your gonna have to move on from Piaget...
> The second, INFANT SEARCH AND OBJECT-PERMANENCE: A
> META-ANALYSIS OF THE A-NOT-B ERROR by Wellman, Cross
> & Bartsch, is a chronologically precursive study. Before the age of
> 8-10 months, children do not search for hidden objects; after this
> age, they do search for them, but once an object is found in a
> specific location (A), they will continue to search for it in that
> location even if it is hidden in another location (B) in front of them.
yup -- single context thinking, limited recognition of 'more than one' --
the chicks work on memory (as well as autistics).
> This is known as the A-not-B, or perseverative, error. They will
> generally not consistently search for a hidden object in differing
> observed hiding places until the age of 15-24 months, the same
> time they pass the mirror test of self-recognition, indicating that
> object permanence and self-permanence correlatively manifest.
MULTIPLE object recognition -- the 'one' object concept bifurcates into
'many' objects... from there develops theories of mind etc...
> Only when both self and world are accorded permanence may the
> child progress to considering the perceptual accessibility of a given
> object from perspectives other than their own (AR distinction).
IOW the dichotomy of SELF/OTHER is applied to itself and so a growing
awareness of kin as well (other IN self, self IN other)...
Depending on context sensitivity this moves from fibonacci patterns to
binary patterns and beyond that to transformations (complexity/chaos and
emergence).
> >
> > If information is deemed as being a decrease in uncertainty and
> uncertainty
> > is where all possible symbols have an equal chance of expression then
> > uncertainty reflects what could be and so falls into the realm of the
> > general; a particular expression acts to 'collapse' the uncertainty into
> > certainty -- collapsing the wave function is part of our thinking. This
> > process reflects a 1:many methodology where uncertainty is the
> in realm of
> > the MANY.
> >
> There are differing levels of uncertainty, plottable statistically on a
> fitness landscape.
See, you are doing it yourself, harmonics analysis, moving from the 'one' to
the 'many'. For US these seem 'real' but WE create the patterns of what
could be.. methodology....
> Differing alternatives are not equally likely, and
> cannot be verisimilitudinously viewed as such; the 'many' are not of
> equal possibility-value, and cannot be considered
> monochromatically,
At the start they are and that is the point re dichotomous analysis. VALUE
emerges from feedback considerations, context and so the 'many'. The set of
all possible harmonics exists and which harmonic or sum of is expressed is
based on context and then feedback such that you can move from information
processing to MEANING processing in that the feedback acts to establish
quality.
any more than all native americans are of one
> tribe, or one height, and there are differing "many"s for differing
> circumstances, some easily quantifiable (such as possible tic-tac-
> toe moves), some more difficult (but possible) to quantify (such as
> possible chess moves in a position) and some unquantifiable (such
> as what does one do next). It is reductionistic in the extreme to
> refuse to acknowledge these distinctions by cramming them all
> into a single 1:many cubbyhole.
you dont get it. go back and read past emails, websites VERY SLOWLY. THINK!
dont assume that you know better...
> >
> > For primitive lifeforms the ONE is 'me' and the MANY are
> aspects of 'me' and
> > that includes 'out there' (territory behaviours reflect this
> 'ownership' and
> > also include the development of the concept of NOT me).
> >
> > Development causes 'me' to bifurcate into MANY and these can be
> > externalised, projected onto others as well as 'me' adopting
> characteristics
> > of others...
> >
> There are differing values to not-me, such as inanimate, animate
> but unresponsive (running water, wind), animate and responsive,
> but not Others, as in other selves (at least the lower animals), and
> true Others, with whom one may converse and engage in true
> symbolic communication.
you dont get it. Go back to the first instance, the first distinctions and
the raw emotions that develop from that. You are trying to be too quick and
in doing so missing very simple material that IMHO is important to
understand... you are stuck in differences (but then being an academic that
does not surprise me, you are encouraged to find 'new' aspects of things but
IMHO in doing so are missing basics) go back to root material which lies in
SAMENESS...
> >
> > All of this points to the 'ONE' being 'true', being 'certain',
> so the 'MANY'
> > is biased to uncertainty and so includes negation.
> >
> If I own three chickens, that is many, but when I see them all in
> their pens, I know with certainty that I still possess them all.
Wow! You really have failed to see your error in categorisation here ...
your para is all ONE bias -- the use of precise term (3), in *their* pens
favours a 'one' bias as does your use of terms as 'certain' and 'possess
them all' ..., LISTEN, READ what you write and see how your mind is working
in realtime. Oscillations, scale changes, one:many interactions... you are
not thinking deep enough, simpler enough... you can do it ... or perhaps you
are chick-en! :-)
best,
Chris.
------------------
Chris Lofting
websites:
http://www.eisa.net.au/~lofting
http://www.ozemail.com.au/~ddiamond
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