Discussion:
What is empathy (was: Why are you crying?)
Rami Rustom
2012-08-23 15:58:46 UTC
Permalink
In these situations, the child might be very quiet about what the
problem is. So an approach that works is to guess why he might be sad
and form it into a question: "Are you sad about your mom not being
here?" If the guess was wrong, he'll tell you "no". If it was right,
he'll tell you "yes". And he may open up a lot more and tell you more
details. If he does, then use those details to form more accurate
"Are you sad because you won't be able to play with her anymore?" And
continue the cycle. And some point he'll give you a detail that is a
mistaken idea and you could help him by showing him that its a
mistaken idea. He might say, "I don't want to lose you." So at this
point you realize that the child is worried that he'll lose his only
remaining parent because he has already lost one parent. So here the
parent can say, "Oh.. well I'm very healthy, I'm probably not going to
die until I'm very old, like older than grandpa.. and by then you'll
be old like me. Did you know that most people die when they are very
old like older than grandpa?"
I'd agree this last part would be the right kind of response, but what
are you really doing...correcting a mistaken idea, or recognizing an
emotional need (with your emotions) and providing reassurance? If the
second, then does it make what is happening between you and the child
more or less clear by using this other vocabularly?
So about this empathy idea, I looked it up and there are many many
definitions of it. Here's my definition:

Empathy: The ability to understand that someone else is (mentally) hurting.

I noticed that TCS is big on empathy, even though the word empathy is
not used at all anywhere in TCS literature. TCS says that people
should not hurt each other. By hurt I mean mental/psychological hurt.
Mental hurt is an emotion.

TCS explains that hurt is caused by doing something to someone that
they don't want done to them. Also someone can hurt themselves by
acting on a want while having a conflicting want, so part of him wants
to do X and part of him wants to do Y but X and Y are conflicting, so
acting on X means doing something when part of you didn't want to do
it.

So if a parent makes his daughter do something she didn't want to do,
then he is hurting her. She has a negative emotion because she does
something she didn't want to do. This emotion is called coercion. The
child felt coerced. And the parent caused it.

In these situations, sometimes the parent feels a negative emotion
*because* the child felt a negative emotion. The parent doesn't want
the child to hurt, but the child is hurting. So part of the him
doesn't want to hurt his daughter, but part of him wants his daughter
do this thing. So the parent is coerced too, i.e. he feels coercion.
In these situations, the parent is empathetic. So empathy alone didn't
solve the problem.

Sometimes (or some parents?) doesn't feel a negative emotion about
coercing his child. In which case the parent isn't coerced, i.e. he
doesn't feel coercion. This is not empathetic.


So whats the solution? TCS explains that we should not coerce our
children (nor ourselves or anyone else either). But how do we get
things done? One alternative to coercion is persuasion, which works
well for children that can speak. Although the technique for
younger-than-speaking-age children is the same for older children and
even for adults, which is to be creative in providing alternate ideas
for things to do until one is found to be something that everyone
wants, so no one is coerced.

So here's an example. Your 4 year old is bored at home cause there
aren't any kids to play with so he decides that he wants to go to
school with the other kids. Before school starts, we have to have a
dental checkup. The night before the dental appointment, parent says
to child, "oh btw, tomorrow morning we have a dental appointment." Kid
says (with a frown), "no I don't want to go to the dentist." Parent
says, "oh if we don't do the dentist appointment then they won't let
you in school." Kid says (with a smile), "oh" and then goes about his
business ending the discussion. The next day he wakes up mentally
ready to go to the dentist.

Now many people believe that kids aren't rational enough to be
persuaded. This is false. What is true is that sometimes parents are
not rational enough to create persuasive enough arguments. Sometimes
rational discussion is prevented when either of the two people are
using knowledge that they don't share. So the parent should hone the
skill of refining his explanations using only the knowledge that they
both share. Another preventer of rational discussion is that parents
have bad habits of using facial expressions (e.g. frowns) that explain
to the child that the parent is angry or annoyed, which antagonizes
the child. And sometimes parents are doing everything right but
because there is a history of doing it wrong, the child has a distrust
for that parent, again preventing rational discussion. All of these
things are the parent's fault.


Many people think that empathy involves things like kissing and
hugging and saying "I love you." But these same people coerce their
children a lot. So they coerce their children (and feel coerced
themselves) and then they kiss and hug and say "I love you" to help
the child and themselves feel better after causing them to feel bad.
This is immoral. Kissing and hugging and saying "I love you" is good,
but not when its used as a solution for coercion.

On a similar note, often parents will use kissing and hugging and
saying "I love you" as positive reinforcement for when the child does
something the parent approves of. And then also using frowns and
saying "I'm upset with you" as negative reinforcement for when the
child does something the parent disapproves of. Both of these methods
are immoral. In the case of parent approval, the parent doesn't need
to do anything. In the case of parental disapproval, have a rational
discussion about why parent thinks child's action is wrong. If you
fail to persuade him, improve your explanation. If you continue to
fail, then maybe your idea is wrong and child is right.


So what do you think of my definition of empathy?

Which parts of my explanation do you disagree with?

-- Rami
Alan Forrester
2012-08-23 20:04:38 UTC
Permalink
Post by Rami Rustom
In these situations, the child might be very quiet about what the
problem is. So an approach that works is to guess why he might be sad
and form it into a question: "Are you sad about your mom not being
here?" If the guess was wrong, he'll tell you "no". If it was right,
he'll tell you "yes". And he may open up a lot more and tell you more
details. If he does, then use those details to form more accurate
"Are you sad because you won't be able to play with her anymore?" And
continue the cycle. And some point he'll give you a detail that is a
mistaken idea and you could help him by showing him that its a
mistaken idea. He might say, "I don't want to lose you." So at this
point you realize that the child is worried that he'll lose his only
remaining parent because he has already lost one parent. So here the
parent can say, "Oh.. well I'm very healthy, I'm probably not going to
die until I'm very old, like older than grandpa.. and by then you'll
be old like me. Did you know that most people die when they are very
old like older than grandpa?"
I'd agree this last part would be the right kind of response, but what
are you really doing...correcting a mistaken idea, or recognizing an
emotional need (with your emotions) and providing reassurance? If the
second, then does it make what is happening between you and the child
more or less clear by using this other vocabularly?
So about this empathy idea, I looked it up and there are many many
Empathy: The ability to understand that someone else is (mentally) hurting.
I noticed that TCS is big on empathy, even though the word empathy is
not used at all anywhere in TCS literature. TCS says that people
should not hurt each other. By hurt I mean mental/psychological hurt.
Mental hurt is an emotion.
I think there are good reasons not to say much about empathy: empathy is often tied up with bad ideas about emotion.

There is a lot of stuff associated with empathy like you should explore your emotions and pet your inner panda and so on. But the emotions are just symptoms of other problems. So if a child is unhappy then he has to work out why and solve the problem otherwise it will keep coming up.
Post by Rami Rustom
TCS explains that hurt is caused by doing something to someone that
they don't want done to them. Also someone can hurt themselves by
acting on a want while having a conflicting want, so part of him wants
to do X and part of him wants to do Y but X and Y are conflicting, so
acting on X means doing something when part of you didn't want to do
it.
Yes.
Post by Rami Rustom
So if a parent makes his daughter do something she didn't want to do,
then he is hurting her. She has a negative emotion because she does
something she didn't want to do. This emotion is called coercion. The
child felt coerced. And the parent caused it.
TCS Coercion isn't an emotion. TCS Coercion is the situation in which a person has two ideas about what he wants to do and thinks that it is impossible for him to do both of them.
Post by Rami Rustom
In these situations, sometimes the parent feels a negative emotion
*because* the child felt a negative emotion. The parent doesn't want
the child to hurt, but the child is hurting. So part of the him
doesn't want to hurt his daughter, but part of him wants his daughter
do this thing. So the parent is coerced too, i.e. he feels coercion.
In these situations, the parent is empathetic. So empathy alone didn't
solve the problem.
It would be better if the parent didn't feel the negative emotion but just wanted to help the child.
Post by Rami Rustom
Sometimes (or some parents?) doesn't feel a negative emotion about
coercing his child. In which case the parent isn't coerced, i.e. he
doesn't feel coercion. This is not empathetic.
A parent feeling bad doesn't solve the problem and doesn't help anybody.
Post by Rami Rustom
So whats the solution? TCS explains that we should not coerce our
children (nor ourselves or anyone else either). But how do we get
things done? One alternative to coercion is persuasion, which works
well for children that can speak. Although the technique for
younger-than-speaking-age children is the same for older children and
even for adults, which is to be creative in providing alternate ideas
for things to do until one is found to be something that everyone
wants, so no one is coerced.
Yes.
Post by Rami Rustom
So here's an example. Your 4 year old is bored at home cause there
aren't any kids to play with so he decides that he wants to go to
school with the other kids. Before school starts, we have to have a
dental checkup. The night before the dental appointment, parent says
to child, "oh btw, tomorrow morning we have a dental appointment." Kid
says (with a frown), "no I don't want to go to the dentist." Parent
says, "oh if we don't do the dentist appointment then they won't let
you in school." Kid says (with a smile), "oh" and then goes about his
business ending the discussion. The next day he wakes up mentally
ready to go to the dentist.
The parent should have asked the school to waive that requirement since children don't learn with their teeth.

If this failed the parent should have explained the problem to the child if the child was interested. The child might not want to go to the dentist and might want to know how bad the teachers are before they go to the school.

Also , if the child has already been to a dentist, the parent should explain this to the school.
Post by Rami Rustom
Now many people believe that kids aren't rational enough to be
persuaded. This is false. What is true is that sometimes parents are
not rational enough to create persuasive enough arguments. Sometimes
rational discussion is prevented when either of the two people are
using knowledge that they don't share. So the parent should hone the
skill of refining his explanations using only the knowledge that they
both share. Another preventer of rational discussion is that parents
have bad habits of using facial expressions (e.g. frowns) that explain
to the child that the parent is angry or annoyed, which antagonizes
the child. And sometimes parents are doing everything right but
because there is a history of doing it wrong, the child has a distrust
for that parent, again preventing rational discussion. All of these
things are the parent's fault.
Yes.
Post by Rami Rustom
Many people think that empathy involves things like kissing and
hugging and saying "I love you." But these same people coerce their
children a lot. So they coerce their children (and feel coerced
themselves) and then they kiss and hug and say "I love you" to help
the child and themselves feel better after causing them to feel bad.
This is immoral. Kissing and hugging and saying "I love you" is good,
but not when its used as a solution for coercion.
I'm skeptical of how good it is: lots of people seem to have very bad ideas about that stuff. For example, if Jim loves Barbara this is supposed to give Barbara some obligation toward Jim. This is piffle because Barbara doesn't control Jim's mind and so can't be responsible for what he feels. Barbara might be responsible for acting toward Jim in a way that she thought would indicate that she wanted Jim to love her, and that could be a bad thing for her to do, but she shouldn't do that if Jim didn't have bad ideas to start with.

Also, love stuff is often used as a means of coercion, not to make up for it.
Post by Rami Rustom
On a similar note, often parents will use kissing and hugging and
saying "I love you" as positive reinforcement for when the child does
something the parent approves of. And then also using frowns and
saying "I'm upset with you" as negative reinforcement for when the
child does something the parent disapproves of. Both of these methods
are immoral. In the case of parent approval, the parent doesn't need
to do anything.
The parent may need to do things when he approves of X, like help his child to do more X. The parent may also need to explain why he approves because there are a lot of bad ideas about when to approve of somebody and he should be wary of enacting them.
Post by Rami Rustom
In the case of parental disapproval, have a rational
discussion about why parent thinks child's action is wrong. If you
fail to persuade him, improve your explanation. If you continue to
fail, then maybe your idea is wrong and child is right.
And the parent should discuss the issue only when the child is interested.

Alan
Rami Rustom
2012-08-23 22:56:05 UTC
Permalink
On Aug 23, 2012 3:05 PM, "Alan Forrester"
Post by Alan Forrester
Post by Rami Rustom
In these situations, the child might be very quiet about what the
problem is. So an approach that works is to guess why he might be sad
and form it into a question: "Are you sad about your mom not being
here?" If the guess was wrong, he'll tell you "no". If it was right,
he'll tell you "yes". And he may open up a lot more and tell you more
details. If he does, then use those details to form more accurate
"Are you sad because you won't be able to play with her anymore?" And
continue the cycle. And some point he'll give you a detail that is a
mistaken idea and you could help him by showing him that its a
mistaken idea. He might say, "I don't want to lose you." So at this
point you realize that the child is worried that he'll lose his only
remaining parent because he has already lost one parent. So here the
parent can say, "Oh.. well I'm very healthy, I'm probably not going to
die until I'm very old, like older than grandpa.. and by then you'll
be old like me. Did you know that most people die when they are very
old like older than grandpa?"
I'd agree this last part would be the right kind of response, but what
are you really doing...correcting a mistaken idea, or recognizing an
emotional need (with your emotions) and providing reassurance? If the
second, then does it make what is happening between you and the child
more or less clear by using this other vocabularly?
So about this empathy idea, I looked it up and there are many many
Empathy: The ability to understand that someone else is (mentally) hurting.
I noticed that TCS is big on empathy, even though the word empathy is
not used at all anywhere in TCS literature. TCS says that people
should not hurt each other. By hurt I mean mental/psychological hurt.
Mental hurt is an emotion.
I think there are good reasons not to say much about empathy: empathy is often tied up with bad ideas about emotion.
Yes. I think the bad ideas are mostly related to mistakes about who is
responsible for one's emotions.

Each persons is responsible for his own emotions. A parent should
never say (nor think), "Your actions made me upset." Analogously, a
girlfriend should never say (nor think) that her boyfriend's actions
caused her emotions.
Post by Alan Forrester
There is a lot of stuff associated with empathy like you should explore your emotions and pet your inner panda and so on. But the emotions are just symptoms of other problems.
Right. Like how crying, lying, and other actions are symptoms of problems.
Post by Alan Forrester
So if a child is unhappy then he has to work out why and solve the problem otherwise it will keep coming up.
Right. And parents should help their children with these problems.
Help them think better.
Post by Alan Forrester
Post by Rami Rustom
TCS explains that hurt is caused by doing something to someone that
they don't want done to them. Also someone can hurt themselves by
acting on a want while having a conflicting want, so part of him wants
to do X and part of him wants to do Y but X and Y are conflicting, so
acting on X means doing something when part of you didn't want to do
it.
Yes.
Post by Rami Rustom
So if a parent makes his daughter do something she didn't want to do,
then he is hurting her. She has a negative emotion because she does
something she didn't want to do. This emotion is called coercion. The
child felt coerced. And the parent caused it.
TCS Coercion isn't an emotion. TCS Coercion is the situation in which a person has two ideas about what he wants to do and thinks that it is impossible for him to do both of them.
What does it mean to *feel coerced*? Isn't it a bad feeling?
Post by Alan Forrester
Post by Rami Rustom
In these situations, sometimes the parent feels a negative emotion
*because* the child felt a negative emotion. The parent doesn't want
the child to hurt, but the child is hurting. So part of the him
doesn't want to hurt his daughter, but part of him wants his daughter
do this thing. So the parent is coerced too, i.e. he feels coercion.
In these situations, the parent is empathetic. So empathy alone didn't
solve the problem.
It would be better if the parent didn't feel the negative emotion but just wanted to help the child.
Right. Its bad for parent to coerce child, regardless if he feels
coerced or not.
Post by Alan Forrester
Post by Rami Rustom
Sometimes (or some parents?) doesn't feel a negative emotion about
coercing his child. In which case the parent isn't coerced, i.e. he
doesn't feel coercion. This is not empathetic.
A parent feeling bad doesn't solve the problem and doesn't help anybody.
Right. And conventional knowledge says that people aren't motivated to
help child solve the problem unless parent first has an emotion, which
is false. He can choose to help child solve the problem because its
the only moral thing to do.
Post by Alan Forrester
Post by Rami Rustom
So whats the solution? TCS explains that we should not coerce our
children (nor ourselves or anyone else either). But how do we get
things done? One alternative to coercion is persuasion, which works
well for children that can speak. Although the technique for
younger-than-speaking-age children is the same for older children and
even for adults, which is to be creative in providing alternate ideas
for things to do until one is found to be something that everyone
wants, so no one is coerced.
Yes.
Post by Rami Rustom
So here's an example. Your 4 year old is bored at home cause there
aren't any kids to play with so he decides that he wants to go to
school with the other kids. Before school starts, we have to have a
dental checkup. The night before the dental appointment, parent says
to child, "oh btw, tomorrow morning we have a dental appointment." Kid
says (with a frown), "no I don't want to go to the dentist." Parent
says, "oh if we don't do the dentist appointment then they won't let
you in school." Kid says (with a smile), "oh" and then goes about his
business ending the discussion. The next day he wakes up mentally
ready to go to the dentist.
The parent should have asked the school to waive that requirement since children don't learn with their teeth.
Ok. But school will say, "thats the rules." But its good for child to
know that you tried. For one he'll know that parent is on his side.
And two he'll see that its not good to keep your mouth shut about
following dumb rules.
Post by Alan Forrester
If this failed the parent should have explained the problem to the child if the child was interested. The child might not want to go to the dentist and might want to know how bad the teachers are before they go to the school.
Right.
Post by Alan Forrester
Also , if the child has already been to a dentist, the parent should explain this to the school.
Post by Rami Rustom
Now many people believe that kids aren't rational enough to be
persuaded. This is false. What is true is that sometimes parents are
not rational enough to create persuasive enough arguments. Sometimes
rational discussion is prevented when either of the two people are
using knowledge that they don't share. So the parent should hone the
skill of refining his explanations using only the knowledge that they
both share. Another preventer of rational discussion is that parents
have bad habits of using facial expressions (e.g. frowns) that explain
to the child that the parent is angry or annoyed, which antagonizes
the child. And sometimes parents are doing everything right but
because there is a history of doing it wrong, the child has a distrust
for that parent, again preventing rational discussion. All of these
things are the parent's fault.
Yes.
Post by Rami Rustom
Many people think that empathy involves things like kissing and
hugging and saying "I love you." But these same people coerce their
children a lot. So they coerce their children (and feel coerced
themselves) and then they kiss and hug and say "I love you" to help
the child and themselves feel better after causing them to feel bad.
This is immoral. Kissing and hugging and saying "I love you" is good,
but not when its used as a solution for coercion.
I'm skeptical of how good it is: lots of people seem to have very bad ideas about that stuff. For example, if Jim loves Barbara this is supposed to give Barbara some obligation toward Jim.
Its wrong. Partly because Jim's love for her can change, i.e. he can
change his mind.
Post by Alan Forrester
This is piffle because Barbara doesn't control Jim's mind and so can't be responsible for what he feels. Barbara might be responsible for acting toward Jim in a way that she thought would indicate that she wanted Jim to love her, and that could be a bad thing for her to do, but she shouldn't do that if Jim didn't have bad ideas to start with.
Also, love stuff is often used as a means of coercion, not to make up for it.
How?
Post by Alan Forrester
Post by Rami Rustom
On a similar note, often parents will use kissing and hugging and
saying "I love you" as positive reinforcement for when the child does
something the parent approves of. And then also using frowns and
saying "I'm upset with you" as negative reinforcement for when the
child does something the parent disapproves of. Both of these methods
are immoral. In the case of parent approval, the parent doesn't need
to do anything.
The parent may need to do things when he approves of X, like help his child to do more X. The parent may also need to explain why he approves because there are a lot of bad ideas about when to approve of somebody and he should be wary of enacting them.
And if X was something that child just learned, parent could discuss
with child why X was fun to learn.
Post by Alan Forrester
Post by Rami Rustom
In the case of parental disapproval, have a rational
discussion about why parent thinks child's action is wrong. If you
fail to persuade him, improve your explanation. If you continue to
fail, then maybe your idea is wrong and child is right.
And the parent should discuss the issue only when the child is interested.
Although there are times when a child is acts badly towards another
child. And one child cries. And parent comes to help. Sometimes the
child that acted badly (e.g. hit other child), he might not want to
discuss this with parent (lets say because he knows he did wrong and
doesn't want to hear a lecture about it). In these situations parent
should not address the symptom (the hitting) and only address the
problem by saying: "Johnny I'd like to help.. what problem were you
trying to solve?" Then after solving the problem with solution X, if
Johnny is willing to discuss, address the hitting, "Johnny, hitting
doesn't work as a solution to your problem.. all it did was cause more
problems and you didn't even get what you wanted. So the only option
that works X".

-- Rami
Rami Rustom
2012-08-25 03:31:20 UTC
Permalink
On Aug 24, 2012 7:13 PM, "Alan Forrester"
Post by Rami Rustom
On Aug 23, 2012 3:05 PM, "Alan Forrester"
Post by Alan Forrester
Post by Rami Rustom
In these situations, the child might be very quiet about what the
problem is. So an approach that works is to guess why he might be sad
and form it into a question: "Are you sad about your mom not being
here?" If the guess was wrong, he'll tell you "no". If it was right,
he'll tell you "yes". And he may open up a lot more and tell you more
details. If he does, then use those details to form more accurate
"Are you sad because you won't be able to play with her anymore?" And
continue the cycle. And some point he'll give you a detail that is a
mistaken idea and you could help him by showing him that its a
mistaken idea. He might say, "I don't want to lose you." So at this
point you realize that the child is worried that he'll lose his only
remaining parent because he has already lost one parent. So here the
parent can say, "Oh.. well I'm very healthy, I'm probably not going to
die until I'm very old, like older than grandpa.. and by then you'll
be old like me. Did you know that most people die when they are very
old like older than grandpa?"
I'd agree this last part would be the right kind of response, but what
are you really doing...correcting a mistaken idea, or recognizing an
emotional need (with your emotions) and providing reassurance? If the
second, then does it make what is happening between you and the child
more or less clear by using this other vocabularly?
So about this empathy idea, I looked it up and there are many many
Empathy: The ability to understand that someone else is (mentally) hurting.
I noticed that TCS is big on empathy, even though the word empathy is
not used at all anywhere in TCS literature. TCS says that people
should not hurt each other. By hurt I mean mental/psychological hurt.
Mental hurt is an emotion.
I think there are good reasons not to say much about empathy: empathy is often tied up with bad ideas about emotion.
Yes. I think the bad ideas are mostly related to mistakes about who is
responsible for one's emotions.
Are they?
Maybe.
Why?
I have some more question below.
Post by Rami Rustom
Each persons is responsible for his own emotions. A parent should
never say (nor think), "Your actions made me upset." Analogously, a
girlfriend should never say (nor think) that her boyfriend's actions
caused her emotions.
If a person thinks that way he should want to change his mind.
Post by Rami Rustom
Post by Alan Forrester
There is a lot of stuff associated with empathy like you should explore your emotions
*Explore your emotions* sounds to me like questioning why you have the
emotions. That would reveal the underlying ideas causing the emotions.
Instead, if you bury the emotions, then you won't reveal the
underlying problems.
and pet your inner panda
Does that mean to try to make yourself feel better with superficial
self-talk, e.g. "I'm a good person"?
and so on.
What are others?
But the emotions are just symptoms of other problems.
Post by Rami Rustom
Right. Like how crying, lying, and other actions are symptoms of problems.
Post by Alan Forrester
So if a child is unhappy then he has to work out why and solve the problem otherwise it will keep coming up.
Right. And parents should help their children with these problems.
Help them think better.
Post by Alan Forrester
Post by Rami Rustom
TCS explains that hurt is caused by doing something to someone that
they don't want done to them. Also someone can hurt themselves by
acting on a want while having a conflicting want, so part of him wants
to do X and part of him wants to do Y but X and Y are conflicting, so
acting on X means doing something when part of you didn't want to do
it.
Yes.
Post by Rami Rustom
So if a parent makes his daughter do something she didn't want to do,
then he is hurting her. She has a negative emotion because she does
something she didn't want to do. This emotion is called coercion. The
child felt coerced. And the parent caused it.
TCS Coercion isn't an emotion. TCS Coercion is the situation in which a person has two ideas about what he wants to do and thinks that it is impossible for him to do both of them.
What does it mean to *feel coerced*? Isn't it a bad feeling?
The thing that people describe as feeling coerced is an instance of TCS coercion, but it can give rise to other bad feelings that are more subtle.
What do you mean by "other bad feelings that are more subtle"?

Isn't the feeling coerced thing also subtle?
Post by Rami Rustom
Post by Alan Forrester
Post by Rami Rustom
Many people think that empathy involves things like kissing and
hugging and saying "I love you." But these same people coerce their
children a lot. So they coerce their children (and feel coerced
themselves) and then they kiss and hug and say "I love you" to help
the child and themselves feel better after causing them to feel bad.
This is immoral. Kissing and hugging and saying "I love you" is good,
but not when its used as a solution for coercion.
I'm skeptical of how good it is: lots of people seem to have very bad ideas about that stuff. For example, if Jim loves Barbara this is supposed to give Barbara some obligation toward Jim.
Its wrong. Partly because Jim's love for her can change, i.e. he can
change his mind.
Post by Alan Forrester
This is piffle because Barbara doesn't control Jim's mind and so can't be responsible for what he feels. Barbara might be responsible for acting toward Jim in a way that she thought would indicate that she wanted Jim to love her, and that could be a bad thing for her to do, but she shouldn't do that if Jim didn't have bad ideas to start with.
Also, love stuff is often used as a means of coercion, not to make up for it.
How?
"Oh Jimmy, darling, I love you so much, can't you just do this one little thing for me?" Where one little thing = climb the north face of the Eiger, assassinate the US president or whatever.
So they are using "I love you" as a reason that the other person should do X.

In the context of a parent and child, X could be eating another bite
of vegetables. Child's love for parent has absolutely nothing to do
with X.

In the context of a romantic relationship, X could be exercising at
the gym. A person's romantic love for his partner has absolutely
nothing to do with X.
Post by Rami Rustom
Post by Alan Forrester
Post by Rami Rustom
On a similar note, often parents will use kissing and hugging and
saying "I love you" as positive reinforcement for when the child does
something the parent approves of. And then also using frowns and
saying "I'm upset with you" as negative reinforcement for when the
child does something the parent disapproves of. Both of these methods
are immoral. In the case of parent approval, the parent doesn't need
to do anything.
The parent may need to do things when he approves of X, like help his child to do more X. The parent may also need to explain why he approves because there are a lot of bad ideas about when to approve of somebody and he should be wary of enacting them.
And if X was something that child just learned, parent could discuss
with child why X was fun to learn.
Yes.
Post by Rami Rustom
Post by Alan Forrester
Post by Rami Rustom
In the case of parental disapproval, have a rational
discussion about why parent thinks child's action is wrong. If you
fail to persuade him, improve your explanation. If you continue to
fail, then maybe your idea is wrong and child is right.
And the parent should discuss the issue only when the child is interested.
Although there are times when a child is acts badly towards another
child. And one child cries. And parent comes to help. Sometimes the
child that acted badly (e.g. hit other child), he might not want to
discuss this with parent (lets say because he knows he did wrong and
doesn't want to hear a lecture about it). In these situations parent
should not address the symptom (the hitting) and only address the
problem by saying: "Johnny I'd like to help.. what problem were you
trying to solve?" Then after solving the problem with solution X, if
Johnny is willing to discuss, address the hitting, "Johnny, hitting
doesn't work as a solution to your problem.. all it did was cause more
problems and you didn't even get what you wanted. So the only option
that works X".
One option that works is X, it may not be the only one, so the parent shouldn't say it is.
Right. I meant to qualify that with *between the two options of X and hitting*.

-- Rami
Elliot Temple
2012-12-13 07:59:08 UTC
Permalink
Post by Rami Rustom
In these situations, the child might be very quiet about what the
problem is. So an approach that works is to guess why he might be sad
and form it into a question: "Are you sad about your mom not being
here?" If the guess was wrong, he'll tell you "no". If it was right,
he'll tell you "yes". And he may open up a lot more and tell you more
details. If he does, then use those details to form more accurate
"Are you sad because you won't be able to play with her anymore?" And
continue the cycle. And some point he'll give you a detail that is a
mistaken idea and you could help him by showing him that its a
mistaken idea. He might say, "I don't want to lose you." So at this
point you realize that the child is worried that he'll lose his only
remaining parent because he has already lost one parent. So here the
parent can say, "Oh.. well I'm very healthy, I'm probably not going to
die until I'm very old, like older than grandpa.. and by then you'll
be old like me. Did you know that most people die when they are very
old like older than grandpa?"
I'd agree this last part would be the right kind of response, but what
are you really doing...correcting a mistaken idea, or recognizing an
emotional need (with your emotions) and providing reassurance? If the
second, then does it make what is happening between you and the child
more or less clear by using this other vocabularly?
So about this empathy idea, I looked it up and there are many many
Empathy: The ability to understand that someone else is (mentally) hurting.
Empathy is actually a concept in the service of conformity. It has to do with respecting all emotions considered legitimate by social authority, but not others.

If you go find 20 examples of people actually using the concept, you may see what I mean. If not, post your counter examples.
Post by Rami Rustom
I noticed that TCS is big on empathy, even though the word empathy is
not used at all anywhere in TCS literature. TCS says that people
should not hurt each other. By hurt I mean mental/psychological hurt.
Mental hurt is an emotion.
TCS explains that hurt is caused by doing something to someone that
they don't want done to them. Also someone can hurt themselves by
acting on a want while having a conflicting want, so part of him wants
to do X and part of him wants to do Y but X and Y are conflicting, so
acting on X means doing something when part of you didn't want to do
it.
So if a parent makes his daughter do something she didn't want to do,
then he is hurting her. She has a negative emotion because she does
something she didn't want to do.
To my knowledge, TCS does not assert that is a matter of emotions. I think that is your idea, not TCS.

I don't see the need for you to attribute your statements to TCS. I think it'd work better if you just tried to say what you think is true and don't attribute it to TCS (or other sources) without using quotes from those sources.
Post by Rami Rustom
This emotion is called coercion.
TCS does not say coercion is an emotion. I think it isn't.
Post by Rami Rustom
The child felt coerced. And the parent caused it.
In these situations, sometimes the parent feels a negative emotion
*because* the child felt a negative emotion. The parent doesn't want
the child to hurt, but the child is hurting. So part of the him
doesn't want to hurt his daughter, but part of him wants his daughter
do this thing. So the parent is coerced too, i.e. he feels coercion.
In these situations, the parent is empathetic. So empathy alone didn't
solve the problem.
Sometimes (or some parents?) doesn't feel a negative emotion about
coercing his child. In which case the parent isn't coerced, i.e. he
doesn't feel coercion. This is not empathetic.
So whats the solution? TCS explains that we should not coerce our
children (nor ourselves or anyone else either). But how do we get
things done? One alternative to coercion is persuasion, which works
well for children that can speak. Although the technique for
younger-than-speaking-age children is the same for older children and
even for adults, which is to be creative in providing alternate ideas
for things to do until one is found to be something that everyone
wants, so no one is coerced.
So here's an example. Your 4 year old is bored at home cause there
aren't any kids to play with
That is a bad explanation. No one is bored for that reason alone. There are things to do in life other than play with kids.
Post by Rami Rustom
so he decides that he wants to go to
school with the other kids. Before school starts, we have to have a
dental checkup.
You don't have to. Part of being a good parent is questioning what one has to do to one's children.
Post by Rami Rustom
The night before the dental appointment, parent says
to child, "oh btw, tomorrow morning we have a dental appointment." Kid
says (with a frown), "no I don't want to go to the dentist." Parent
says, "oh if we don't do the dentist appointment then they won't let
you in school."
I am skeptical of this claim.
Post by Rami Rustom
Kid says (with a smile), "oh" and then goes about his
business ending the discussion. The next day he wakes up mentally
ready to go to the dentist.
Why did kid accept doing something he didn't want to without any good arguments or explanations?

It sounds like he trusts his parent even to the point of sacrifice. That's not good. Parent should be emphasizing more that he's wrong a lot. Parent shouldn't have let the topic go at this. If child wasn't interested parent could research it on his own.

Why isn't parent saying something like this? "Because you don't want to go, i will try to find out if there's any other options. you can help if you want, or i can show you how i do it, but either way i'll try to get you out of it". Why is child satisfied even though parent didn't say anything like that?
Post by Rami Rustom
Now many people believe that kids aren't rational enough to be
persuaded. This is false.
I take it you intend the above as an example of rational persuasion of a child. But that's not a good argument because the parent just asserted something and the child never questioned it or learned about if/why it's true. And it's a poor argument because the above is just a hypothetical example (right?), so that doesn't prove it would happen in real life.
Post by Rami Rustom
What is true is that sometimes parents are
not rational enough to create persuasive enough arguments. Sometimes
rational discussion is prevented when either of the two people are
using knowledge that they don't share.
No.

That claim implies rational discussion is always impossible, because no two people ever share exactly identical relevant knowledge. But rational discussion is possible, so the claim must be false.
Post by Rami Rustom
So the parent should hone the
skill of refining his explanations using only the knowledge that they
both share. Another preventer of rational discussion is that parents
have bad habits of using facial expressions (e.g. frowns) that explain
to the child that the parent is angry or annoyed,
A frown is not an explanation.

It communicates, it does not explain.

Do you not know what an explanation is, even vaguely? Or did you not think about what one is before writing about them? I don't understand but I suspect there's an important misconception revealed here.
Post by Rami Rustom
So what do you think of my definition of empathy?
Which parts of my explanation do you disagree with?
It's an ivory tower philosopher-intellectual type of definition, rather than something connected to reality. It's important to pay some attention to the world we live in if one wishes to comment well on it.

-- Elliot Temple
http://beginningofinfinity.com/
Jean Dutertre
2012-12-13 10:17:50 UTC
Permalink
Post by Rami Rustom
In these situations, the child might be very quiet about what the
problem is. So an approach that works is to guess why he might be sad
and form it into a question: "Are you sad about your mom not being
here?" If the guess was wrong, he'll tell you "no". If it was right,
he'll tell you "yes". And he may open up a lot more and tell you more
details. If he does, then use those details to form more accurate
guesses. Even if he doesn't say any more details, you can guess
"Are you sad because you won't be able to play with her anymore?" And
continue the cycle. And some point he'll give you a detail that is a
mistaken idea and you could help him by showing him that its a
mistaken idea. He might say, "I don't want to lose you." So at this
point you realize that the child is worried that he'll lose his only
remaining parent because he has already lost one parent. So here the
parent can say, "Oh.. well I'm very healthy, I'm probably not
going to
Post by Rami Rustom
die until I'm very old, like older than grandpa.. and by then you'll
be old like me. Did you know that most people die when they are very
old like older than grandpa?"
I'd agree this last part would be the right kind of response, but what
are you really doing...correcting a mistaken idea, or recognizing an
emotional need (with your emotions) and providing reassurance? If the
second, then does it make what is happening between you and the child
more or less clear by using this other vocabularly?
So about this empathy idea, I looked it up and there are many many
Empathy: The ability to understand that someone else is (mentally)
hurting.
Empathy is actually a concept in the service of conformity. It has to
do with respecting all emotions considered legitimate by social
authority, but not others.
If you go find 20 examples of people actually using the concept, you
may see what I mean. If not, post your counter examples.
Post by Rami Rustom
I noticed that TCS is big on empathy, even though the word empathy is
not used at all anywhere in TCS literature. TCS says that people
should not hurt each other. By hurt I mean mental/psychological hurt.
Mental hurt is an emotion.
TCS explains that hurt is caused by doing something to someone that
they don't want done to them. Also someone can hurt themselves by
acting on a want while having a conflicting want, so part of him wants
to do X and part of him wants to do Y but X and Y are conflicting, so
acting on X means doing something when part of you didn't want to do
it.
So if a parent makes his daughter do something she didn't want to do,
then he is hurting her. She has a negative emotion because she does
something she didn't want to do.
To my knowledge, TCS does not assert that is a matter of emotions. I
think that is your idea, not TCS.
I don't see the need for you to attribute your statements to TCS. I
think it'd work better if you just tried to say what you think is true
and don't attribute it to TCS (or other sources) without using quotes
from those sources.
Post by Rami Rustom
This emotion is called coercion.
TCS does not say coercion is an emotion. I think it isn't.
Post by Rami Rustom
The child felt coerced. And the parent caused it.
In these situations, sometimes the parent feels a negative emotion
*because* the child felt a negative emotion. The parent doesn't want
the child to hurt, but the child is hurting. So part of the him
doesn't want to hurt his daughter, but part of him wants his daughter
do this thing. So the parent is coerced too, i.e. he feels coercion.
In these situations, the parent is empathetic. So empathy alone didn't
solve the problem.
Sometimes (or some parents?) doesn't feel a negative emotion about
coercing his child. In which case the parent isn't coerced, i.e. he
doesn't feel coercion. This is not empathetic.
So whats the solution? TCS explains that we should not coerce our
children (nor ourselves or anyone else either). But how do we get
things done? One alternative to coercion is persuasion, which works
well for children that can speak. Although the technique for
younger-than-speaking-age children is the same for older children and
even for adults, which is to be creative in providing alternate ideas
for things to do until one is found to be something that everyone
wants, so no one is coerced.
So here's an example. Your 4 year old is bored at home cause there
aren't any kids to play with
That is a bad explanation. No one is bored for that reason alone.
There are things to do in life other than play with kids.
Post by Rami Rustom
so he decides that he wants to go to
school with the other kids. Before school starts, we have to have a
dental checkup.
You don't have to. Part of being a good parent is questioning what one
has to do to one's children.
Post by Rami Rustom
The night before the dental appointment, parent says
to child, "oh btw, tomorrow morning we have a dental appointment." Kid
says (with a frown), "no I don't want to go to the dentist." Parent
says, "oh if we don't do the dentist appointment then they won't let
you in school."
I am skeptical of this claim.
Post by Rami Rustom
Kid says (with a smile), "oh" and then goes about his
business ending the discussion. The next day he wakes up mentally
ready to go to the dentist.
Why did kid accept doing something he didn't want to without any good
arguments or explanations?
It sounds like he trusts his parent even to the point of sacrifice.
That's not good. Parent should be emphasizing more that he's wrong a
lot. Parent shouldn't have let the topic go at this. If child wasn't
interested parent could research it on his own.
Why isn't parent saying something like this? "Because you don't want
to go, i will try to find out if there's any other options. you can
help if you want, or i can show you how i do it, but either way i'll
try to get you out of it". Why is child satisfied even though parent
didn't say anything like that?
Post by Rami Rustom
Now many people believe that kids aren't rational enough to be
persuaded. This is false.
I take it you intend the above as an example of rational persuasion of
a child. But that's not a good argument because the parent just
asserted something and the child never questioned it or learned about
if/why it's true. And it's a poor argument because the above is just a
hypothetical example (right?), so that doesn't prove it would happen
in real life.
Post by Rami Rustom
What is true is that sometimes parents are
not rational enough to create persuasive enough arguments. Sometimes
rational discussion is prevented when either of the two people are
using knowledge that they don't share.
No.
That claim implies rational discussion is always impossible, because
no two people ever share exactly identical relevant knowledge. But
rational discussion is possible, so the claim must be false.
Post by Rami Rustom
So the parent should hone the
skill of refining his explanations using only the knowledge that they
both share. Another preventer of rational discussion is that parents
have bad habits of using facial expressions (e.g. frowns) that explain
to the child that the parent is angry or annoyed,
A frown is not an explanation.
It communicates, it does not explain.
Do you not know what an explanation is, even vaguely? Or did you not
think about what one is before writing about them? I don't understand
but I suspect there's an important misconception revealed here.
Post by Rami Rustom
So what do you think of my definition of empathy?
Which parts of my explanation do you disagree with?
It's an ivory tower philosopher-intellectual type of definition,
rather than something connected to reality. It's important to pay some
attention to the world we live in if one wishes to comment well on it.
-- Elliot Temple
http://beginningofinfinity.com/
empathy is a matter of mirror neurons (see Giacomo Rizzolatti and/or
Vilayanur Ramachandran)
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
David Deutsch
2012-12-13 22:46:26 UTC
Permalink
Post by Jean Dutertre
empathy is a matter of mirror neurons (see Giacomo Rizzolatti and/or
Vilayanur Ramachandran)
But not just mirror neurons, right? (I mean, presumably mirror neurons in vitro would neither experience nor cause any empathy.)

So, empathy is a matter of mirror neurons plus -- what?

-- David Deutsch
Jean Dutertre
2012-12-14 15:57:12 UTC
Permalink
Post by David Deutsch
Post by Jean Dutertre
empathy is a matter of mirror neurons (see Giacomo Rizzolatti and/or
Vilayanur Ramachandran)
But not just mirror neurons, right? (I mean, presumably mirror neurons
in vitro would neither experience nor cause any empathy.)
So, empathy is a matter of mirror neurons plus -- what?
-- David Deutsch
Of course mirror neurons (as any other neuron) « experience » nothing
out of a living brain. BTW, "red" "green" or "blue" cones in the retina
experience no qualia out of the visual areas of the brain (around thirty
different areas).

Now a critic in a museum would be allowed to discourse upon painted
colours without any competence in brain visual areas (as far as he's own
above said areas are not destroyed after a vascular cerebral accident)
but (and this was my point) should a psychologist discuss empathy
without considering its neurologic starting point? Psychology has been
discussed during centuries (especially XIXth and XXth century) without
even knowing what exactly was within the skull.

Ref : Sir Charles Scott Sherrington (1857-1952) quoted about mindedness
"for all the difference it seems to make, our skulls could be stuffed
with cotton batten."
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
David Deutsch
2012-12-16 12:55:15 UTC
Permalink
Post by Jean Dutertre
Post by David Deutsch
Post by Jean Dutertre
empathy is a matter of mirror neurons (see Giacomo Rizzolatti and/or
Vilayanur Ramachandran)
But not just mirror neurons, right? (I mean, presumably mirror neurons
in vitro would neither experience nor cause any empathy.)
So, empathy is a matter of mirror neurons plus -- what?
Of course mirror neurons (as any other neuron) « experience » nothing
out of a living brain. BTW, "red" "green" or "blue" cones in the retina
experience no qualia out of the visual areas of the brain (around thirty
different areas).
So, are colour qualia a matter of cones in the retina?

-- David Deutsch
Elliot Temple
2012-12-13 23:11:13 UTC
Permalink
Post by David Deutsch
Post by Jean Dutertre
empathy is a matter of mirror neurons (see Giacomo Rizzolatti and/or
Vilayanur Ramachandran)
But not just mirror neurons, right? (I mean, presumably mirror neurons in vitro would neither experience nor cause any empathy.)
So, empathy is a matter of mirror neurons plus -- what?
Are there mirror neurons in vitro? Or at autopsy?


-- Elliot Temple
http://beginningofinfinity.com/
Alan Forrester
2012-12-16 13:58:24 UTC
Permalink
Post by Jean Dutertre
Post by Elliot Temple
Post by Rami Rustom
In these situations, the child might be very quiet about what the
problem is. So an approach that works is to guess why he might be sad
and form it into a question: "Are you sad about your mom not being
here?" If the guess was wrong, he'll tell you "no". If it was right,
he'll tell you "yes". And he may open up a lot more and tell you more
details. If he does, then use those details to form more accurate
"Are you sad because you won't be able to play with her anymore?" And
continue the cycle. And some point he'll give you a detail that is a
mistaken idea and you could help him by showing him that its a
mistaken idea. He might say, "I don't want to lose you." So at this
point you realize that the child is worried that he'll lose his only
remaining parent because he has already lost one parent. So here the
parent can say, "Oh.. well I'm very healthy, I'm probably not going to
die until I'm very old, like older than grandpa.. and by then you'll
be old like me. Did you know that most people die when they are very
old like older than grandpa?"
I'd agree this last part would be the right kind of response, but what
are you really doing...correcting a mistaken idea, or recognizing an
emotional need (with your emotions) and providing reassurance? If the
second, then does it make what is happening between you and the child
more or less clear by using this other vocabularly?
So about this empathy idea, I looked it up and there are many many
Empathy: The ability to understand that someone else is (mentally) hurting.
Empathy is actually a concept in the service of conformity. It has to
do with respecting all emotions considered legitimate by social
authority, but not others.
If you go find 20 examples of people actually using the concept, you
may see what I mean. If not, post your counter examples.
Post by Rami Rustom
So what do you think of my definition of empathy?
Which parts of my explanation do you disagree with?
It's an ivory tower philosopher-intellectual type of definition,
rather than something connected to reality. It's important to pay some
attention to the world we live in if one wishes to comment well on it.
empathy is a matter of mirror neurons (see Giacomo Rizzolatti and/or
Vilayanur Ramachandran)
Empathy is behaviour not a bunch of neurons.

Mirror neurons are, at best, an explanation of how the knowledge required to act empathetically is instantiated in the brain, and the idea is no good even at doing that.

When I look at a behaviour like knitting, say, some neurons go off in my brain. If actually knitted myself, then a set of neurons would also go off in my head. The set of neurons that go off when I knit and the set that go off when I watch somebody knit overlap and the neurons that both sets have in common are called mirror neurons. I have not seen any indication in anything I have read that there is anything more to mirror neurons than that.

Specifically, there is no explanation of any respect in which mirror neurons differ from other neurons that explains why they go off in both cases. They don't have different kinds of axons or whatever.

Nor is there any explanation of what computation goes on in the brain to recognise knitting by me and knitting by somebody else as being the same. And even if there was such an explanation, without some anatomical difference between mirror and other neurons the explanation would be the mirror program not the neurons.

The problem is even worse than this: mirror neurons also contradict good explanations that we have. Two actions are only recognised as the same in the light of an interpretation: that is, in the light of knowledge that ties the two actions together. Human beings create new knowledge and a lot of our knowledge is not instantiated in genes. So there is no reason at all to expect that there will be any anatomically different category of cells that would instantiate that knowledge. There is no gene for knitting and so there is no reason to expect cells dedicated to knitting or recognising when other people are knitting.

Mirror neurons are explanationless science.

Alan
Elliot Temple
2012-12-16 21:50:47 UTC
Permalink
Post by Alan Forrester
Post by Jean Dutertre
Post by Elliot Temple
Post by Rami Rustom
In these situations, the child might be very quiet about what the
problem is. So an approach that works is to guess why he might be sad
and form it into a question: "Are you sad about your mom not being
here?" If the guess was wrong, he'll tell you "no". If it was right,
he'll tell you "yes". And he may open up a lot more and tell you more
details. If he does, then use those details to form more accurate
"Are you sad because you won't be able to play with her anymore?" And
continue the cycle. And some point he'll give you a detail that is a
mistaken idea and you could help him by showing him that its a
mistaken idea. He might say, "I don't want to lose you." So at this
point you realize that the child is worried that he'll lose his only
remaining parent because he has already lost one parent. So here the
parent can say, "Oh.. well I'm very healthy, I'm probably not going to
die until I'm very old, like older than grandpa.. and by then you'll
be old like me. Did you know that most people die when they are very
old like older than grandpa?"
I'd agree this last part would be the right kind of response, but what
are you really doing...correcting a mistaken idea, or recognizing an
emotional need (with your emotions) and providing reassurance? If the
second, then does it make what is happening between you and the child
more or less clear by using this other vocabularly?
So about this empathy idea, I looked it up and there are many many
Empathy: The ability to understand that someone else is (mentally) hurting.
Empathy is actually a concept in the service of conformity. It has to
do with respecting all emotions considered legitimate by social
authority, but not others.
If you go find 20 examples of people actually using the concept, you
may see what I mean. If not, post your counter examples.
Post by Rami Rustom
So what do you think of my definition of empathy?
Which parts of my explanation do you disagree with?
It's an ivory tower philosopher-intellectual type of definition,
rather than something connected to reality. It's important to pay some
attention to the world we live in if one wishes to comment well on it.
empathy is a matter of mirror neurons (see Giacomo Rizzolatti and/or
Vilayanur Ramachandran)
Empathy is behaviour not a bunch of neurons.
Mirror neurons are, at best, an explanation of how the knowledge required to act empathetically is instantiated in the brain, and the idea is no good even at doing that.
When I look at a behaviour like knitting, say, some neurons go off in my brain. If actually knitted myself, then a set of neurons would also go off in my head. The set of neurons that go off when I knit and the set that go off when I watch somebody knit overlap and the neurons that both sets have in common are called mirror neurons. I have not seen any indication in anything I have read that there is anything more to mirror neurons than that.
Specifically, there is no explanation of any respect in which mirror neurons differ from other neurons that explains why they go off in both cases. They don't have different kinds of axons or whatever.
Right. This is why I have asked about mirror neurons at autopsy. And DD has not answered, nor has any other mirror neuron believer been able to answer the issue.
Post by Alan Forrester
Nor is there any explanation of what computation goes on in the brain to recognise knitting by me and knitting by somebody else as being the same. And even if there was such an explanation, without some anatomical difference between mirror and other neurons the explanation would be the mirror program not the neurons.
The problem is even worse than this: mirror neurons also contradict good explanations that we have. Two actions are only recognised as the same in the light of an interpretation: that is, in the light of knowledge that ties the two actions together. Human beings create new knowledge and a lot of our knowledge is not instantiated in genes. So there is no reason at all to expect that there will be any anatomically different category of cells that would instantiate that knowledge. There is no gene for knitting and so there is no reason to expect cells dedicated to knitting or recognising when other people are knitting.
Mirror neurons are explanationless science.
agreed.

so, DD advocates explanation in science. how has he been fooled?

-- Elliot Temple
http://fallibleideas.com/
David Deutsch
2012-12-16 22:14:01 UTC
Permalink
Post by Elliot Temple
Post by Alan Forrester
Specifically, there is no explanation of any respect in which mirror neurons differ from other neurons that explains why they go off in both cases. They don't have different kinds of axons or whatever.
Right. This is why I have asked about mirror neurons at autopsy. And DD has not answered, nor has any other mirror neuron believer been able to answer the issue.
I have no idea whether mirror neurons are physiologically different from other neurons. I see no reason why they should be, and if they are, that can't possibly make them have empathy or anything else. It's programs that have empathy, not hardware, and all universal hardware is equally capable of it (barring marginal issues of speed and memory capacity, which can't be relevant to the issue of what empathy is).

What does a "mirror neuron believer" believe?

-- David Deutsch
Elliot Temple
2012-12-16 22:59:20 UTC
Permalink
Post by David Deutsch
Post by Elliot Temple
Post by Alan Forrester
Specifically, there is no explanation of any respect in which mirror neurons differ from other neurons that explains why they go off in both cases. They don't have different kinds of axons or whatever.
Right. This is why I have asked about mirror neurons at autopsy. And DD has not answered, nor has any other mirror neuron believer been able to answer the issue.
I have no idea whether mirror neurons are physiologically different from other neurons. I see no reason why they should be, and if they are, that can't possibly make them have empathy or anything else. It's programs that have empathy, not hardware, and all universal hardware is equally capable of it (barring marginal issues of speed and memory capacity, which can't be relevant to the issue of what empathy is).
if it's not physiologically different, why call it a type of neuron?
Post by David Deutsch
What does a "mirror neuron believer" believe?
A mirror neuron believer disagrees with what Alan explained in his last post in the empathy thread. e.g. by believing they are a reasonable, useful idea instead of bad philosophy and explanationless science.

-- Elliot Temple
http://elliottemple.com/
David Deutsch
2012-12-17 01:05:57 UTC
Permalink
[...]
Post by Elliot Temple
Post by David Deutsch
I have no idea whether mirror neurons are physiologically different from other neurons. I see no reason why they should be, and if they are, that can't possibly make them have empathy or anything else. It's programs that have empathy, not hardware, and all universal hardware is equally capable of it (barring marginal issues of speed and memory capacity, which can't be relevant to the issue of what empathy is).
if it's not physiologically different, why call it a type of neuron?
I don't know the history but I guess it happened is this. Unlike every previous experiment that located particular computations happening in the brain, the experiments that discovered mirror neurons were done with individual neurons (in monkeys, I think). Initially, they were defined as neurons that fire both when an animal does a particular type of behaviour and when it observes (sees or hears) it.

The prevailing explanation for the presence of neurons that behave like this is that they are part of a system that computes, from observing a behaviour of a particular type, how to perform it. For example, how to emit a particular sound, having heard it, or make a particular sequence of arm gestures, having seen it. The function that it computes in a particular species is coded for genetically: apes can imitate one class of behaviours, parrots another, and most species can imitate none. So this explanation predicts that such species have no mirror neurons.

The system that computes the above-mentioned function was then called the mirror *neuron* system. Ideally it should not have had 'neuron' in the name, because one could add that qualifier to every computational system in the brain, so it adds no content. It should have been called something like the 'mirror system' or the 'imitation system' or the 'sensorimotor translation system'. And I guess it would have been, if its existence had been seriously thought about before the discovery of mirror neurons. As it should have been, on philosophical grounds -- but apparently wasn't.

If the face-recognition system had been discovered in this way, it might now be called the 'face-recognition-neuron system' and some people might then be confused and marvel at what amazing functionality there must be inside a face-recognition neuron to give it the ability to recognise faces. And other people, realising that such functionality would be impossible, and thinking that the whole 'face-recognition-neuron' theory *consists* of claiming that there are such neurons, would deny that the whole 'face-recognition-neuron theory' is true. Both those kinds of people would be mistaken.

[...]
Post by Elliot Temple
Post by David Deutsch
What does a "mirror neuron believer" believe?
A mirror neuron believer disagrees with what Alan explained in his last post in the empathy thread. e.g. by believing they are a reasonable, useful idea instead of bad philosophy and explanationless science.
What does 'they' refer to in that sentence? Is it neurons with a different internal functionality from other neurons, or neurons involved in computing the particular function described above?

-- David Deutsch
Elliot Temple
2012-12-17 09:12:13 UTC
Permalink
Post by David Deutsch
[...]
Post by Elliot Temple
Post by David Deutsch
I have no idea whether mirror neurons are physiologically different from other neurons. I see no reason why they should be, and if they are, that can't possibly make them have empathy or anything else. It's programs that have empathy, not hardware, and all universal hardware is equally capable of it (barring marginal issues of speed and memory capacity, which can't be relevant to the issue of what empathy is).
if it's not physiologically different, why call it a type of neuron?
I don't know the history but I guess it happened is this.
In BoI you write:

"But there may also have been hardware abilities such as mirror neurons for imitating a wider range of elementary actions than apes could ape – for instance, the elementary sounds of a language."

so did you change your mind about it being a hardware thing?
Post by David Deutsch
Unlike every previous experiment that located particular computations happening in the brain, the experiments that discovered mirror neurons were done with individual neurons (in monkeys, I think). Initially, they were defined as neurons that fire both when an animal does a particular type of behaviour and when it observes (sees or hears) it.
The prevailing explanation for the presence of neurons that behave like this is that they are part of a system that computes, from observing a behaviour of a particular type, how to perform it. For example, how to emit a particular sound, having heard it, or make a particular sequence of arm gestures, having seen it. The function that it computes in a particular species is coded for genetically: apes can imitate one class of behaviours, parrots another, and most species can imitate none. So this explanation predicts that such species have no mirror neurons.
The system that computes the above-mentioned function was then called the mirror *neuron* system. Ideally it should not have had 'neuron' in the name, because one could add that qualifier to every computational system in the brain, so it adds no content. It should have been called something like the 'mirror system' or the 'imitation system' or the 'sensorimotor translation system'. And I guess it would have been, if its existence had been seriously thought about before the discovery of mirror neurons. As it should have been, on philosophical grounds -- but apparently wasn't.
If the face-recognition system had been discovered in this way, it might now be called the 'face-recognition-neuron system' and some people might then be confused and marvel at what amazing functionality there must be inside a face-recognition neuron to give it the ability to recognise faces. And other people, realising that such functionality would be impossible, and thinking that the whole 'face-recognition-neuron' theory *consists* of claiming that there are such neurons, would deny that the whole 'face-recognition-neuron theory' is true. Both those kinds of people would be mistaken.
a problem with all this is the evidence is unremarkable and there's no reason to make all this stuff up.

of course some knowledge has reach and therefore is used for more than one thing. this is utterly unremarkable. to call it a discovery and make up a long story is a bad response.
Post by David Deutsch
[...]
Post by Elliot Temple
Post by David Deutsch
What does a "mirror neuron believer" believe?
A mirror neuron believer disagrees with what Alan explained in his last post in the empathy thread. e.g. by believing they are a reasonable, useful idea instead of bad philosophy and explanationless science.
What does 'they' refer to in that sentence?
mirror neurons.
Post by David Deutsch
Is it neurons with a different internal functionality from other neurons, or neurons involved in computing the particular function described above?
why don't you say what they are, what problem they solve, how alan was wrong, etc... you should be the one defining what you want to advocate, not me.

well, you did say in BoI that they are hardware but now you say otherwise. so you should clarify.

if you could provide any paper on the matter that isn't riddled with errors, that might be good. or do you accept all the people in the field are incompetent, but think the idea is good anyways?

-- Elliot Temple
http://fallibleideas.com/





------------------------------------

Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Fabric-of-Reality/

<*> Your email settings:
Individual Email | Traditional

<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Fabric-of-Reality/join
(Yahoo! ID required)

<*> To change settings via email:
Fabric-of-Reality-digest-***@public.gmane.org
Fabric-of-Reality-fullfeatured-***@public.gmane.org

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
Fabric-of-Reality-unsubscribe-***@public.gmane.org

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
David Deutsch
2012-12-17 11:59:13 UTC
Permalink
Post by Alan Forrester
Post by David Deutsch
Post by Elliot Temple
Post by David Deutsch
What does a "mirror neuron believer" believe?
A mirror neuron believer disagrees with what Alan explained in his last post in the empathy thread. e.g. by believing they are a reasonable, useful idea instead of bad philosophy and explanationless science.
What does 'they' refer to in that sentence?
mirror neurons.
Do you mean by that: neurons with a different internal functionality from other neurons; or neurons involved in computing the function that translates the nerve impulses coming sense organs when the animal observes certain behaviours into those required to enact the behaviours; or something else?

-- David Deutsch





------------------------------------

Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Fabric-of-Reality/

<*> Your email settings:
Individual Email | Traditional

<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Fabric-of-Reality/join
(Yahoo! ID required)

<*> To change settings via email:
Fabric-of-Reality-digest-***@public.gmane.org
Fabric-of-Reality-fullfeatured-***@public.gmane.org

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
Fabric-of-Reality-unsubscribe-***@public.gmane.org

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
Elliot Temple
2012-12-17 19:25:27 UTC
Permalink
Post by David Deutsch
Post by Alan Forrester
Post by David Deutsch
Post by Elliot Temple
Post by David Deutsch
What does a "mirror neuron believer" believe?
A mirror neuron believer disagrees with what Alan explained in his last post in the empathy thread. e.g. by believing they are a reasonable, useful idea instead of bad philosophy and explanationless science.
What does 'they' refer to in that sentence?
mirror neurons.
Do you mean by that: neurons with a different internal functionality from other neurons; or neurons involved in computing the function that translates the nerve impulses coming sense organs when the animal observes certain behaviours into those required to enact the behaviours; or something else?
All the versions of the mirror neuron idea are mistaken, not just one particular one.

-- Elliot Temple
http://fallibleideas.com/





------------------------------------

Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Fabric-of-Reality/

<*> Your email settings:
Individual Email | Traditional

<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Fabric-of-Reality/join
(Yahoo! ID required)

<*> To change settings via email:
Fabric-of-Reality-digest-***@public.gmane.org
Fabric-of-Reality-fullfeatured-***@public.gmane.org

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
Fabric-of-Reality-unsubscribe-***@public.gmane.org

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
David Deutsch
2012-12-17 22:34:29 UTC
Permalink
Post by Elliot Temple
Post by David Deutsch
Post by Alan Forrester
Post by David Deutsch
Post by Elliot Temple
Post by David Deutsch
What does a "mirror neuron believer" believe?
A mirror neuron believer disagrees with what Alan explained in his last post in the empathy thread. e.g. by believing they are a reasonable, useful idea instead of bad philosophy and explanationless science.
What does 'they' refer to in that sentence?
mirror neurons.
Do you mean by that: neurons with a different internal functionality from other neurons; or neurons involved in computing the function that translates the nerve impulses coming sense organs when the animal observes certain behaviours into those required to enact the behaviours; or something else?
All the versions of the mirror neuron idea are mistaken, not just one particular one.
Is this idea a "version of the mirror neuron idea"?: The brains of some animals contain neurons which fire both when the animal observes certain behaviours and when it enacts those behaviours.

And if not, is this?: Such neurons are part of a system for computing the translation function described above.

-- David Deutsch






------------------------------------

Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Fabric-of-Reality/

<*> Your email settings:
Individual Email | Traditional

<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Fabric-of-Reality/join
(Yahoo! ID required)

<*> To change settings via email:
Fabric-of-Reality-digest-***@public.gmane.org
Fabric-of-Reality-fullfeatured-***@public.gmane.org

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
Fabric-of-Reality-unsubscribe-***@public.gmane.org

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
Elliot Temple
2012-12-17 22:56:51 UTC
Permalink
Post by David Deutsch
Post by Elliot Temple
Post by David Deutsch
Post by Alan Forrester
Post by David Deutsch
Post by Elliot Temple
Post by David Deutsch
What does a "mirror neuron believer" believe?
A mirror neuron believer disagrees with what Alan explained in his last post in the empathy thread. e.g. by believing they are a reasonable, useful idea instead of bad philosophy and explanationless science.
What does 'they' refer to in that sentence?
mirror neurons.
Do you mean by that: neurons with a different internal functionality from other neurons; or neurons involved in computing the function that translates the nerve impulses coming sense organs when the animal observes certain behaviours into those required to enact the behaviours; or something else?
All the versions of the mirror neuron idea are mistaken, not just one particular one.
Is this idea a "version of the mirror neuron idea"?: The brains of some animals contain neurons which fire both when the animal observes certain behaviours and when it enacts those behaviours.
And if not, is this?: Such neurons are part of a system for computing the translation function described above.
Both are too vague and incomplete. Actual thinking and claims about mirror neurons goes beyond a sentence or two.

-- Elliot Temple
http://curi.us/





------------------------------------

Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Fabric-of-Reality/

<*> Your email settings:
Individual Email | Traditional

<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Fabric-of-Reality/join
(Yahoo! ID required)

<*> To change settings via email:
Fabric-of-Reality-digest-***@public.gmane.org
Fabric-of-Reality-fullfeatured-***@public.gmane.org

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
Fabric-of-Reality-unsubscribe-***@public.gmane.org

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
Alan Forrester
2012-12-18 22:01:54 UTC
Permalink
Post by David Deutsch
Post by Elliot Temple
All the versions of the mirror neuron idea are mistaken, not just one particular one.
Is this idea a "version of the mirror neuron idea"?: The brains of some animals contain neurons which fire both when the animal observes certain behaviours and when it enacts those behaviours.
And if not, is this?: Such neurons are part of a system for computing the translation function described above.
Do you think mirror neurons are a good explanation and if so why?

Alan


------------------------------------

Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Fabric-of-Reality/

<*> Your email settings:
Individual Email | Traditional

<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Fabric-of-Reality/join
(Yahoo! ID required)

<*> To change settings via email:
Fabric-of-Reality-digest-***@public.gmane.org
Fabric-of-Reality-fullfeatured-***@public.gmane.org

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
Fabric-of-Reality-unsubscribe-***@public.gmane.org

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
David Deutsch
2012-12-18 22:53:14 UTC
Permalink
Post by Alan Forrester
Post by David Deutsch
Post by Elliot Temple
All the versions of the mirror neuron idea are mistaken, not just one particular one.
Is this idea a "version of the mirror neuron idea"?: The brains of some animals contain neurons which fire both when the animal observes certain behaviours and when it enacts those behaviours.
And if not, is this?: Such neurons are part of a system for computing the translation function described above.
Do you think mirror neurons are a good explanation and if so why?
If you mean mirror neurons defined as having the above two attributes, then yes. There must be a system of neurons performing such translations in any non-human animals that are capable of imitation, or having memes, or certain other abilities. That it because (1) imitating another animal's behaviour with one's own behaviour requires sophisticated knowledge over and above that required to interpret sense data or control limbs; and (2) in non-humans, this knowledge cannot come from creativity and hence (3) it must be encoded in their genes. Moreover it is knowledge that must (4) be embodied in some information-processing system in the brain that translates from sensory to motor signals. Information processing with that degree of sophistication can only (5) be performed by neurons (and not,
e.g. chemicals).

Hence there must be neurons performing the requisite translations and, moreover, the patterns of connections that constitute the program to do this must be genetically determined.

Denying any one of the above five steps leading to that conclusion would require a major overturning of other explanations that I currently consider exceedingly good (hard to vary) and hence they are themselves hard to vary and hence so is the conclusion that such neurons exist.

None of that needed new experiments. It should have been predicted from philosophy plus common sense only. But it wasn't. (Perhaps because not all of those five ingredients are generally deemed to be true, let alone hard to vary.) However, there are other details that could not have been predicted in that way. The main feature that only the experiments make hard to vary is that this system actually uses information from the motor-control system itself. In other words, a priori, there could have been a translation algorithm instantiated in neurons that only fire when a translation is actually being performed. But now we know that that is not how evolution did it. (Well, I say we know this -- but that explanation is not nearly as solid as the ones above. It could be that mirror neurons do so
mething unrelated that no one has guessed yet, and that the actual translation system has yet to be discovered. But as far as I know, mirror neurons have so far been detected only in animals that do have imitation abilities. If they were ever discovered in an animal that doesn't, that would be a major problem for the theory that their function is to do this translation; also, it would make their actual function a mystery.

-- David Deutsch


------------------------------------

Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Fabric-of-Reality/

<*> Your email settings:
Individual Email | Traditional

<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Fabric-of-Reality/join
(Yahoo! ID required)

<*> To change settings via email:
Fabric-of-Reality-digest-***@public.gmane.org
Fabric-of-Reality-fullfeatured-***@public.gmane.org

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
Fabric-of-Reality-unsubscribe-***@public.gmane.org

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
Elliot Temple
2012-12-18 23:42:55 UTC
Permalink
Post by David Deutsch
Post by Alan Forrester
Post by David Deutsch
Post by Elliot Temple
All the versions of the mirror neuron idea are mistaken, not just one particular one.
Is this idea a "version of the mirror neuron idea"?: The brains of some animals contain neurons which fire both when the animal observes certain behaviours and when it enacts those behaviours.
And if not, is this?: Such neurons are part of a system for computing the translation function described above.
Do you mean by that: neurons with a different internal functionality from other neurons; or neurons involved in computing the function that translates the nerve impulses coming sense organs when the animal observes certain behaviours into those required to enact the behaviours; or something else?
end insertion of context
Post by David Deutsch
Post by Alan Forrester
Do you think mirror neurons are a good explanation and if so why?
If you mean mirror neurons defined as having the above two attributes, then yes. There must be a system of neurons performing such translations in any non-human animals that are capable of imitation, or having memes, or certain other abilities. That it because (1) imitating another animal's behaviour with one's own behaviour requires sophisticated knowledge over and above that required to interpret sense data or control limbs; and (2) in non-humans, this knowledge cannot come from creativity and hence (3) it must be encoded in their genes. Moreover it is knowledge that must (4) be embodied in some information-processing system in the brain that translates from sensory to motor signals. Information processing with that degree of sophistication can only (5) be performed by neurons (and not
, e.g. chemicals).

Your arguments differ from any of the "scientists" involved with mirror neurons. (You're a scientist in general, but the wrong type. I don't count you as one for this matter, because you are approaching it as a philosopher.) Do you agree their arguments and understanding are incorrect?



You do not say "There must be 'mirror neurons' having the two attributes above because of 1-5". Did you intend to make that claim? If not, what is the relevance of 1-5?
Post by David Deutsch
Hence there must be neurons performing the requisite translations and, moreover, the patterns of connections that constitute the program to do this must be genetically determined.
Denying any one of the above five steps leading to that conclusion would require a major overturning of other explanations that I currently consider exceedingly good (hard to vary) and hence they are themselves hard to vary and hence so is the conclusion that such neurons exist.
None of that needed new experiments. It should have been predicted from philosophy plus common sense only. But it wasn't. (Perhaps because not all of those five ingredients are generally deemed to be true, let alone hard to vary.) However, there are other details that could not have been predicted in that way. The main feature that only the experiments make hard to vary is that this system actually uses information from the motor-control system itself. In other words, a priori, there could have been a translation algorithm instantiated in neurons that only fire when a translation is actually being performed. But now we know that that is not how evolution did it. (Well, I say we know this -- but that explanation is not nearly as solid as the ones above. It could be that mirror neurons do
something unrelated that no one has guessed yet, and that the actual translation system has yet to be discovered. But as far as I know, mirror neurons have so far been detected only in animals that do have imitation abilities. If they were ever discovered in an animal that doesn't, that would be a major problem for the theory that their function is to do this translation; also, it would make their actual function a mystery.


This is hard to argue with because you basically said mirror neuron claims *might* all be wrong. That Alan and I might be right... You haven't stuck your neck out making risky, substantive claims.

Yet you keep basically saying mirror neurons are a good, valuable idea. Well, what's the argument for that? Explaining how they might be wrong is not making your positive case.


Further, when you refer to degrees of solidity, how is that anything other than justificationism?

-- Elliot Temple
http://curi.us/


------------------------------------

Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Fabric-of-Reality/

<*> Your email settings:
Individual Email | Traditional

<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Fabric-of-Reality/join
(Yahoo! ID required)

<*> To change settings via email:
Fabric-of-Reality-digest-***@public.gmane.org
Fabric-of-Reality-fullfeatured-***@public.gmane.org

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
Fabric-of-Reality-unsubscribe-***@public.gmane.org

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
Tony Balazs
2012-12-19 07:19:46 UTC
Permalink
Post by David Deutsch
Post by Alan Forrester
Post by David Deutsch
Post by Elliot Temple
All the versions of the mirror neuron idea are mistaken, not just one particular one.
Is this idea a "version of the mirror neuron idea"?: The brains of some animals contain neurons which fire both when the animal observes certain behaviours and when it enacts those behaviours.
And if not, is this?: Such neurons are part of a system for computing the translation function described above.
Do you think mirror neurons are a good explanation and if so why?
If you mean mirror neurons defined as having the above two attributes, then yes. There must be a system of neurons performing such translations in any non-human animals that are capable of imitation, or having memes, or certain other abilities. That it because (1) imitating another animal's behaviour with one's own behaviour requires sophisticated knowledge over and above that required to interpret sense data or control limbs; and (2) in non-humans, this knowledge cannot come from creativity and hence (3) it must be encoded in their genes. Moreover it is knowledge that must (4) be embodied in some information-processing system in the brain that translates from sensory to motor signals. Information processing with that degree of sophistication can only (5) be performed by neurons (and not
, e.g. chemicals).
Post by David Deutsch
Hence there must be neurons performing the requisite translations and, moreover, the patterns of connections that constitute the program to do this must be genetically determined.
Denying any one of the above five steps leading to that conclusion would require a major overturning of other explanations that I currently consider exceedingly good (hard to vary) and hence they are themselves hard to vary and hence so is the conclusion that such neurons exist.
None of that needed new experiments. It should have been predicted from philosophy plus common sense only. But it wasn't. (Perhaps because not all of those five ingredients are generally deemed to be true, let alone hard to vary.) However, there are other details that could not have been predicted in that way. The main feature that only the experiments make hard to vary is that this system actually uses information from the motor-control system itself. In other words, a priori, there could have been a translation algorithm instantiated in neurons that only fire when a translation is actually being performed. But now we know that that is not how evolution did it. (Well, I say we know this -- but that explanation is not nearly as solid as the ones above. It could be that mirror neurons do
something unrelated that no one has guessed yet, and that the actual translation system has yet to be discovered. But as far as I know, mirror neurons have so far been detected only in animals that do have imitation abilities. If they were ever discovered in an animal that doesn't, that would be a major problem for the theory that their function is to do this translation; also, it would make their actual function a mystery.
Post by David Deutsch
-- David Deutsch
Babies can imitate once they're a few months old. So can the young, very profoundly affected autistic children I work with. In what sense do these individuals have "sophisticated knowledge over and above that required to interpret sense data or control limbs"?



------------------------------------

Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Fabric-of-Reality/

<*> Your email settings:
Individual Email | Traditional

<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Fabric-of-Reality/join
(Yahoo! ID required)

<*> To change settings via email:
Fabric-of-Reality-digest-***@public.gmane.org
Fabric-of-Reality-fullfeatured-***@public.gmane.org

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
Fabric-of-Reality-unsubscribe-***@public.gmane.org

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
David Deutsch
2012-12-19 12:25:34 UTC
Permalink
[...]
Post by Tony Balazs
Post by David Deutsch
Post by Alan Forrester
Do you think mirror neurons are a good explanation and if so why?
If you mean mirror neurons defined as having the above two attributes, then yes. There must be a system of neurons performing such translations in any non-human animals that are capable of imitation, or having memes, or certain other abilities. That it because (1) imitating another animal's behaviour with one's own behaviour requires sophisticated knowledge over and above that required to interpret sense data or control limbs; and (2) in non-humans, this knowledge cannot come from creativity and hence (3) it must be encoded in their genes. Moreover it is knowledge that must (4) be embodied in some information-processing system in the brain that translates from sensory to motor signals. Information processing with that degree of sophistication can only (5) be performed by neurons (and no
t, e.g. chemicals).
Post by Tony Balazs
Post by David Deutsch
Hence there must be neurons performing the requisite translations and, moreover, the patterns of connections that constitute the program to do this must be genetically determined.
Denying any one of the above five steps leading to that conclusion would require a major overturning of other explanations that I currently consider exceedingly good (hard to vary) and hence they are themselves hard to vary and hence so is the conclusion that such neurons exist.
None of that needed new experiments. It should have been predicted from philosophy plus common sense only. But it wasn't. (Perhaps because not all of those five ingredients are generally deemed to be true, let alone hard to vary.) However, there are other details that could not have been predicted in that way. The main feature that only the experiments make hard to vary is that this system actually uses information from the motor-control system itself. In other words, a priori, there could have been a translation algorithm instantiated in neurons that only fire when a translation is actually being performed. But now we know that that is not how evolution did it. (Well, I say we know this -- but that explanation is not nearly as solid as the ones above. It could be that mirror neurons do
something unrelated that no one has guessed yet, and that the actual translation system has yet to be discovered. But as far as I know, mirror neurons have so far been detected only in animals that do have imitation abilities. If they were ever discovered in an animal that doesn't, that would be a major problem for the theory that their function is to do this translation; also, it would make their actual function a mystery.
Post by Tony Balazs
Post by David Deutsch
-- David Deutsch
Babies can imitate once they're a few months old. So can the young, very profoundly affected autistic children I work with. In what sense do these individuals have "sophisticated knowledge over and above that required to interpret sense data or control limbs"?
In Popper's philosophy (which I follow), the term 'knowledge' is used both differently and more broadly than in other philosophies and everyday usage. That is because of Popper's devastating critique of the traditional conception of knowledge as 'justified, true belief'. In particular, Popper's theory does not require knowledge to have a knowing subject (since it is not a species of 'belief'), and hence it makes sense to speak, as I did, of knowledge in genes.

-- David Deutsch










------------------------------------

Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Fabric-of-Reality/

<*> Your email settings:
Individual Email | Traditional

<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Fabric-of-Reality/join
(Yahoo! ID required)

<*> To change settings via email:
Fabric-of-Reality-digest-***@public.gmane.org
Fabric-of-Reality-fullfeatured-***@public.gmane.org

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
Fabric-of-Reality-unsubscribe-***@public.gmane.org

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
Elliot Temple
2012-12-19 09:26:46 UTC
Permalink
Post by Tony Balazs
Post by David Deutsch
Post by Alan Forrester
Post by David Deutsch
Post by Elliot Temple
All the versions of the mirror neuron idea are mistaken, not just one particular one.
Is this idea a "version of the mirror neuron idea"?: The brains of some animals contain neurons which fire both when the animal observes certain behaviours and when it enacts those behaviours.
And if not, is this?: Such neurons are part of a system for computing the translation function described above.
Do you think mirror neurons are a good explanation and if so why?
If you mean mirror neurons defined as having the above two attributes, then yes. There must be a system of neurons performing such translations in any non-human animals that are capable of imitation, or having memes, or certain other abilities. That it because (1) imitating another animal's behaviour with one's own behaviour requires sophisticated knowledge over and above that required to interpret sense data or control limbs; and (2) in non-humans, this knowledge cannot come from creativity and hence (3) it must be encoded in their genes. Moreover it is knowledge that must (4) be embodied in some information-processing system in the brain that translates from sensory to motor signals. Information processing with that degree of sophistication can only (5) be performed by neurons (and no
t, e.g. chemicals).
Post by Tony Balazs
Post by David Deutsch
Hence there must be neurons performing the requisite translations and, moreover, the patterns of connections that constitute the program to do this must be genetically determined.
Denying any one of the above five steps leading to that conclusion would require a major overturning of other explanations that I currently consider exceedingly good (hard to vary) and hence they are themselves hard to vary and hence so is the conclusion that such neurons exist.
None of that needed new experiments. It should have been predicted from philosophy plus common sense only. But it wasn't. (Perhaps because not all of those five ingredients are generally deemed to be true, let alone hard to vary.) However, there are other details that could not have been predicted in that way. The main feature that only the experiments make hard to vary is that this system actually uses information from the motor-control system itself. In other words, a priori, there could have been a translation algorithm instantiated in neurons that only fire when a translation is actually being performed. But now we know that that is not how evolution did it. (Well, I say we know this -- but that explanation is not nearly as solid as the ones above. It could be that mirror neurons do
something unrelated that no one has guessed yet, and that the actual translation system has yet to be discovered. But as far as I know, mirror neurons have so far been detected only in animals that do have imitation abilities. If they were ever discovered in an animal that doesn't, that would be a major problem for the theory that their function is to do this translation; also, it would make their actual function a mystery.
Post by Tony Balazs
Post by David Deutsch
-- David Deutsch
Babies can imitate once they're a few months old. So can the young, very profoundly affected autistic children I work with. In what sense do these individuals have "sophisticated knowledge over and above that required to interpret sense data or control limbs"?
Autism is label used for social control, not a physical illness. The stuff about mirror neurons and autism is absolutely the worst part.

Your profession is immoral. You should read Thomas Szasz immediately to learn the details and change your life. If you don't consider this, you are an immoral person who has intentionally chosen to continue a profession of hurting children when he could have known better. The knowledge to stop hurting children is available to you in the book of Thomas Szasz. If you do not give them a chance, you are fully knowingly intentionally responsible for all the harm you do.

-- Elliot Temple
http://curi.us/





------------------------------------

Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Fabric-of-Reality/

<*> Your email settings:
Individual Email | Traditional

<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Fabric-of-Reality/join
(Yahoo! ID required)

<*> To change settings via email:
Fabric-of-Reality-digest-***@public.gmane.org
Fabric-of-Reality-fullfeatured-***@public.gmane.org

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
Fabric-of-Reality-unsubscribe-***@public.gmane.org

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
Tony Balazs
2012-12-29 16:03:05 UTC
Permalink
Post by Elliot Temple
Post by Tony Balazs
Post by David Deutsch
Post by Alan Forrester
Post by David Deutsch
Post by Elliot Temple
All the versions of the mirror neuron idea are mistaken, not just one particular one.
Is this idea a "version of the mirror neuron idea"?: The brains of some animals contain neurons which fire both when the animal observes certain behaviours and when it enacts those behaviours.
And if not, is this?: Such neurons are part of a system for computing the translation function described above.
Do you think mirror neurons are a good explanation and if so why?
If you mean mirror neurons defined as having the above two attributes, then yes. There must be a system of neurons performing such translations in any non-human animals that are capable of imitation, or having memes, or certain other abilities. That it because (1) imitating another animal's behaviour with one's own behaviour requires sophisticated knowledge over and above that required to interpret sense data or control limbs; and (2) in non-humans, this knowledge cannot come from creativity and hence (3) it must be encoded in their genes. Moreover it is knowledge that must (4) be embodied in some information-processing system in the brain that translates from sensory to motor signals. Information processing with that degree of sophistication can only (5) be performed by neurons (and n
ot, e.g. chemicals).
Post by Elliot Temple
Post by Tony Balazs
Post by David Deutsch
Hence there must be neurons performing the requisite translations and, moreover, the patterns of connections that constitute the program to do this must be genetically determined.
Denying any one of the above five steps leading to that conclusion would require a major overturning of other explanations that I currently consider exceedingly good (hard to vary) and hence they are themselves hard to vary and hence so is the conclusion that such neurons exist.
None of that needed new experiments. It should have been predicted from philosophy plus common sense only. But it wasn't. (Perhaps because not all of those five ingredients are generally deemed to be true, let alone hard to vary.) However, there are other details that could not have been predicted in that way. The main feature that only the experiments make hard to vary is that this system actually uses information from the motor-control system itself. In other words, a priori, there could have been a translation algorithm instantiated in neurons that only fire when a translation is actually being performed. But now we know that that is not how evolution did it. (Well, I say we know this -- but that explanation is not nearly as solid as the ones above. It could be that mirror neurons d
o something unrelated that no one has guessed yet, and that the actual translation system has yet to be discovered. But as far as I know, mirror neurons have so far been detected only in animals that do have imitation abilities. If they were ever discovered in an animal that doesn't, that would be a major problem for the theory that their function is to do this translation; also, it would make their actual function a mystery.
Post by Elliot Temple
Post by Tony Balazs
Post by David Deutsch
-- David Deutsch
Babies can imitate once they're a few months old. So can the young, very profoundly affected autistic children I work with. In what sense do these individuals have "sophisticated knowledge over and above that required to interpret sense data or control limbs"?
Autism is label used for social control, not a physical illness. The stuff about mirror neurons and autism is absolutely the worst part.
Your profession is immoral. You should read Thomas Szasz immediately to learn the details and change your life. If you don't consider this, you are an immoral person who has intentionally chosen to continue a profession of hurting children when he could have known better. The knowledge to stop hurting children is available to you in the book of Thomas Szasz. If you do not give them a chance, you are fully knowingly intentionally responsible for all the harm you do.
-- Elliot Temple
http://curi.us/
Huh? What do you know about my profession? There are many different professions involved with autism, some good some not. I have read Thomas Szasz. (Thanks for assuming I hadn't). Also I have a son who has autism. I have no interest in controlling him or anyone else in the pejorative sense you mean. What you have written is utter garbage and I wonder if you may be a little unhinged.

Tony.


------------------------------------

Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Fabric-of-Reality/

<*> Your email settings:
Individual Email | Traditional

<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Fabric-of-Reality/join
(Yahoo! ID required)

<*> To change settings via email:
Fabric-of-Reality-digest-***@public.gmane.org
Fabric-of-Reality-fullfeatured-***@public.gmane.org

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
Fabric-of-Reality-unsubscribe-***@public.gmane.org

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
Tony Balazs
2012-12-19 07:32:12 UTC
Permalink
Post by David Deutsch
Post by Alan Forrester
Post by David Deutsch
Post by Elliot Temple
All the versions of the mirror neuron idea are mistaken, not just one particular one.
Is this idea a "version of the mirror neuron idea"?: The brains of some animals contain neurons which fire both when the animal observes certain behaviours and when it enacts those behaviours.
And if not, is this?: Such neurons are part of a system for computing the translation function described above.
Do you think mirror neurons are a good explanation and if so why?
If you mean mirror neurons defined as having the above two attributes, then yes. There must be a system of neurons performing such translations in any non-human animals that are capable of imitation, or having memes, or certain other abilities. That it because (1) imitating another animal's behaviour with one's own behaviour requires sophisticated knowledge over and above that required to interpret sense data or control limbs; and (2) in non-humans, this knowledge cannot come from creativity and hence (3) it must be encoded in their genes. Moreover it is knowledge that must (4) be embodied in some information-processing system in the brain that translates from sensory to motor signals. Information processing with that degree of sophistication can only (5) be performed by neurons (and not
, e.g. chemicals).
Post by David Deutsch
-- David Deutsch
Babies can imitate once they're a few months old. So can the young, very profoundly affected autistic children I work with. In what sense do these individuals have "sophisticated knowledge over and above that required to interpret sense data or control limbs"?


------------------------------------

Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Fabric-of-Reality/

<*> Your email settings:
Individual Email | Traditional

<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Fabric-of-Reality/join
(Yahoo! ID required)

<*> To change settings via email:
Fabric-of-Reality-digest-***@public.gmane.org
Fabric-of-Reality-fullfeatured-***@public.gmane.org

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
Fabric-of-Reality-unsubscribe-***@public.gmane.org

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
Elliot Temple
2012-12-22 19:44:40 UTC
Permalink
Post by David Deutsch
(Well, I say we know this -- but that explanation is not nearly as solid as the ones above.
This is justificationism.

-- Elliot Temple
http://fallibleideas.com/





------------------------------------

Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Fabric-of-Reality/

<*> Your email settings:
Individual Email | Traditional

<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Fabric-of-Reality/join
(Yahoo! ID required)

<*> To change settings via email:
Fabric-of-Reality-digest-***@public.gmane.org
Fabric-of-Reality-fullfeatured-***@public.gmane.org

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
Fabric-of-Reality-unsubscribe-***@public.gmane.org

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
hibbsa
2012-12-23 18:11:38 UTC
Permalink
Post by Elliot Temple
Post by David Deutsch
(Well, I say we know this -- but that explanation is not nearly as solid as the ones above.
This is justificationism.
-- Elliot Temple
http://fallibleideas.com/
I may be wrong, but I thought I'd noticed a shift in DD's vocabularly of late. For example in his Edge talk on Constructor Theory. I was quite intrigued why that would be. It isn't due to major
philosophical shifs because he has continued to reiterate and reinforce much of that over the same period.

At first I thought the most obvious explanation was something along the lines of "talk their lingo", as in "when in Rome..." etc.

But...my intuition tells me that doesn't fit with the way things happened. If that was the reason there would probably be less of it, and it would probably involve restatement, where the same point was made using the more familiar popper/deutsch vocabularly. Also other things...as I say intuitive.

So the other possibility, which I'm still working through, was that the shift in vocabularly was related to the shift in his life back toward actively aspiring, and trying, to produce hard theoretical science. Maybe there are needs that show up when you do that, that the scientific lingo - talk of solidities and justifications and relative strengths and whatever else - are just good short hand for what needs to get done.

Certainly, the contexts in which he used those words (as I remember)seemed always to exclude the possibility of any underpinning of [bad] philosophy

Just thinking...
David Deutsch
2012-12-23 19:13:19 UTC
Permalink
Post by Elliot Temple
Post by David Deutsch
(Well, I say we know this -- but that explanation is not nearly as solid as the ones above.
This is justificationism.
I don't think it's a good idea to extend the meaning of the term 'justificationism' in this way, to include claims that more is known about one subject than another. (A.k.a. that we have better explanations of one issue than another, a.k.a. that the best theories about one issue are harder to vary than those in another, a.k.a. more solid than those in another -- the metaphor being that the shape of a solid is harder to vary than that of a liquid.)

The reason it isn't a good idea is that it would classify a whole class of true statements under the same heading as an important (and unrelated) philosophical error, the one that is currently called 'justificationism', namely that knowledge is that which can be justified as true, or likely to be true, etc.

In the quoted post, the two issues about which I made that comparison were (1) whether there must be an inborn translation system in animals capable of copying but not of creativity; and (2) whether the 'mirror neurons' that have been discovered are part of that system. I was saying that I think the best explanations currently known of the respective issues imply that both answers are yes, but that the explanations of the former issue are better than those of the latter.

-- David Deutsch
David Deutsch
2012-12-23 20:28:44 UTC
Permalink
Post by David Deutsch
Post by Elliot Temple
Post by David Deutsch
(Well, I say we know this -- but that explanation is not nearly as solid as the ones above.
This is justificationism.
I don't think it's a good idea to extend the meaning of the term 'justificationism' in this way, to include claims that more is known about one subject than another. (A.k.a. that we have better explanations of one issue than another, a.k.a. that the best theories about one issue are harder to vary than those in another, a.k.a. more solid than those in another -- the metaphor being that the shape of a solid is harder to vary than that of a liquid.)
The reason it isn't a good idea is that it would classify a whole class of true statements under the same heading as an important (and unrelated) philosophical error, the one that is currently called 'justificationism', namely that knowledge is that which can be justified as true, or likely to be true, etc.
In the quoted post, the two issues about which I made that comparison were (1) whether there must be an inborn translation system in animals capable of copying but not of creativity; and (2) whether the 'mirror neurons' that have been discovered are part of that system. I was saying that I think the best explanations currently known of the respective issues imply that both answers are yes, but that the explanations of the former issue are better than those of the latter.
-- David Deutsch
Bruno Marchal
2012-12-24 09:07:51 UTC
Permalink
Post by David Deutsch
Post by Elliot Temple
Post by David Deutsch
(Well, I say we know this -- but that explanation is not nearly
as solid as the ones above.
Post by Elliot Temple
This is justificationism.
I don't think it's a good idea to extend the meaning of the term
'justificationism' in this way, to include claims that more is known
about one subject than another. (A.k.a. that we have better
explanations of one issue than another, a.k.a. that the best
theories about one issue are harder to vary than those in another,
a.k.a. more solid than those in another -- the metaphor being that
the shape of a solid is harder to vary than that of a liquid.)
The reason it isn't a good idea is that it would classify a whole
class of true statements under the same heading as an important (and
unrelated) philosophical error, the one that is currently called
'justificationism', namely that knowledge is that which can be
justified as true, or likely to be true, etc.
The Theaetetus theory of knowledge is "justified *and* true", not
"justified as true", as this is impossible.
The nature of the "and" is let unknown, and with comp can be shown
unknowable.

It gives an instance of the "classical theory" of knowledge, which is
the theory that knowledge is well described by the modal logic S4,
that is, with Kp = I know p,: Kp -> p, Kp -> KKp, K(p->q) -> (Kp ->
Kq); with the modus ponens, the classical tautologies, and the
necessitation rule: p => Kp.

Bruno
Post by David Deutsch
In the quoted post, the two issues about which I made that
comparison were (1) whether there must be an inborn translation
system in animals capable of copying but not of creativity; and (2)
whether the 'mirror neurons' that have been discovered are part of
that system. I was saying that I think the best explanations
currently known of the respective issues imply that both answers are
yes, but that the explanations of the former issue are better than
those of the latter.
-- David Deutsch
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
David Deutsch
2012-12-26 12:56:14 UTC
Permalink
Post by Bruno Marchal
Post by David Deutsch
an important (and
unrelated) philosophical error, the one that is currently called
'justificationism', namely that knowledge is that which can be
justified as true, or likely to be true, etc.
The Theaetetus theory of knowledge is "justified *and* true", not
"justified as true", as this is impossible.
I stand corrected.
Post by Bruno Marchal
The nature of the "and" is let unknown, and with comp can be shown
unknowable.
It gives an instance of the "classical theory" of knowledge, which is
the theory that knowledge is well described by the modal logic S4,
that is, with Kp = I know p,: Kp -> p, Kp -> KKp, K(p->q) -> (Kp ->
Kq); with the modus ponens, the classical tautologies, and the
necessitation rule: p => Kp.
I (and, I think, Popper) would say that the attribute expressed by that predicate K cannot be possessed (or usefully approximated) by a physical object with respect to scientific theories p, even though it can be defined formally. Hence he uses the term 'knowledge' to refer to a different attribute, one which does not require a knowing subject but which, apart from that, corresponds at least as closely to the commonsense meaning of the term as K does.

In my view, formalising *that* conception of knowledge is a task for the future, equivalent to achieving Artificial Intelligence.

-- David Deutsch
Bruno Marchal
2012-12-26 17:37:50 UTC
Permalink
Post by David Deutsch
Post by Bruno Marchal
Post by David Deutsch
an important (and
unrelated) philosophical error, the one that is currently called
'justificationism', namely that knowledge is that which can be
justified as true, or likely to be true, etc.
The Theaetetus theory of knowledge is "justified *and* true", not
"justified as true", as this is impossible.
I stand corrected.
Post by Bruno Marchal
The nature of the "and" is let unknown, and with comp can be shown
unknowable.
It gives an instance of the "classical theory" of knowledge, which
is
Post by Bruno Marchal
the theory that knowledge is well described by the modal logic S4,
that is, with Kp = I know p,: Kp -> p, Kp -> KKp, K(p->q) -> (Kp ->
Kq); with the modus ponens, the classical tautologies, and the
necessitation rule: p => Kp.
I (and, I think, Popper) would say that the attribute expressed by
that predicate K cannot be possessed (or usefully approximated) by a
physical object with respect to scientific theories p, even though
it can be defined formally.
I think this too.
Post by David Deutsch
Hence he uses the term 'knowledge' to refer to a different
attribute, one which does not require a knowing subject but which,
apart from that, corresponds at least as closely to the commonsense
meaning of the term as K does.
Yes. In fact, he takes a sort of provability predicate. Except that it
can be a very simple one in case we want attribute that "K" to things
like genes and thermostats. But I have no (big) problem with that.
Post by David Deutsch
In my view, formalising *that* conception of knowledge is a task for
the future, equivalent to achieving Artificial Intelligence.
In my view the riddle has been solved in the past, by Theaetetus (and
by the old Wittgenstein and probably many others).
It consists to add true, to the common sense definition.

If we do that mathematically with a notion of belief "Bp" defines as
such that elementary arithmetic is believed, and by working on machine
extending consistently those beliefs, we can define, or more exactly
meta define knowledge, by defining knowledge explicitly on each
(arithmetical) proposition p, by Bp & p. In that case it can be proved
that it will obey to the classical theory of knowledge described in
the quote (actually it will even be axiomatized completely with one
more formula, the one by Grzegorczyk B(B(p->Bp)->p)->p, which
introduce somehow an antisymmetry in the possible evolution of the
knowledge).

(Bp & p) is not definable in the language of the machine. We might try
with Bp and true(p), but "true about the machine" cannot be defined
*in* the language of the (ideally correct) machine, by a result of
Tarski. Knowledge cannot either by a result of Scott and Montague, but
we can still work out "meta definition", and understand why the
machine cannot defined its own knowledge predicate, and still have one
as seen "from outside" and "assuming it correct", which is impossible
in any practical situation.

I think that "artificial intelligence" is achieved, and that a theory
like Peano Arithmetic is already conscious, despite being a bit dumb
and rather disconnected from our reality. Today, to have a talk with
her, we still need to do hard work and learn technic, but this is an
interface problem. Universal machine, especially those "sufficiently
rich" to prove their own incompleteness theorem are already conscious.
it is us who are still a bit limited, by billions years of "nature
prejudices" and who take the time to notice. But women can vote since
recently, so there is hope that *we* can still develop our mind and
lessen our prejudices.

Bruno
Post by David Deutsch
-- David Deutsch
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
hibbsa
2012-12-25 00:32:10 UTC
Permalink
Post by David Deutsch
Post by Elliot Temple
Post by David Deutsch
(Well, I say we know this -- but that explanation is not nearly as solid as the ones above.
This is justificationism.
I don't think it's a good idea to extend the meaning of the term 'justificationism' in this way, to include claims that more is known about one subject than another. (A.k.a. that we have better explanations of one issue than another, a.k.a. that the best theories about one issue are harder to vary than those in another, a.k.a. more solid than those in another -- the metaphor being that the shape of a solid is harder to vary than that of a liquid.)
The reason it isn't a good idea is that it would classify a whole class of true statements under the same heading as an important (and unrelated) philosophical error, the one that is currently called 'justificationism', namely that knowledge is that which can be justified as true, or likely to be true, etc.
In the quoted post, the two issues about which I made that comparison were (1) whether there must be an inborn translation system in animals capable of copying but not of creativity; and (2) whether the 'mirror neurons' that have been discovered are part of that system. I was saying that I think the best explanations currently known of the respective issues imply that both answers are yes, but that the explanations of the former issue are better than those of the latter.
-- David Deutsch
I agree you aren't being justificationalist. But.....the issue I am seeing is that by the same coin you use 'solidity' you can use 'weight'....'valid'....'more likely'....'more probable'. All of which can be tied directly to the explanation of the 'former' being harder to vary.

So....what's the score? I mean, rigourous dudes in Science have used this popper-banned vocabularly all along also to the end of pointing to the hardest to vary theory.

So....I'm wondering...is the real explanation of what is going on, that during a few years 'time out' from the hard Scientific coal-face, you used popper and your own philosophical principles to construct a set of rules-of-play with accompanying vocabularly. But having now returned to the coal face, what you are discovering is that the vocabularly and rules are not fit for purpose. Do not support the process of doing hard science on the shop floor.

If so....that's actually a pretty fabulous situation to be in. You probably didn't even expect to get it right first shot. The vocabularly/rules need to support and communicate the research process with all its complexities and fine judgements, as it unfolds on the shop floor.
Elliot Temple
2012-12-25 23:34:54 UTC
Permalink
Post by David Deutsch
Post by Elliot Temple
Post by David Deutsch
(Well, I say we know this -- but that explanation is not nearly as solid as the ones above.
This is justificationism.
I don't think it's a good idea to extend the meaning of the term 'justificationism' in this way, to include claims that more is known about one subject than another. (A.k.a. that we have better explanations of one issue than another, a.k.a. that the best theories about one issue are harder to vary than those in another, a.k.a. more solid than those in another -- the metaphor being that the shape of a solid is harder to vary than that of a liquid.)
The reason it isn't a good idea is that it would classify a whole class of true statements under the same heading as an important (and unrelated) philosophical error, the one that is currently called 'justificationism', namely that knowledge is that which can be justified as true, or likely to be true, etc.
In the quoted post, the two issues about which I made that comparison were (1) whether there must be an inborn translation system in animals capable of copying but not of creativity; and (2) whether the 'mirror neurons' that have been discovered are part of that system. I was saying that I think the best explanations currently known of the respective issues imply that both answers are yes, but that the explanations of the former issue are better than those of the latter.
How do you determine which explanations are better than which?

My answer would be criticism and nothing else. (Non-refuted ideas are
better than refuted ideas.) But criticism does not give ideas
weightings of how good they are.
--
Elliot Temple
http://curi.us/
Elliot Temple
2012-12-25 23:58:41 UTC
Permalink
Post by David Deutsch
currently called 'justificationism', namely that knowledge is that which can be justified as true, or likely to be true, etc.
That is not what justificationism means. Justificationism is the
concept that ideas have an amount/degree/weight of justification
(epistemic status, aka confirmation, support, authority, probability,
etc), by which we should judge them. Ideas with more
justification/weight/evidence/etc are deemed better than ideas with
less.

In this view, there are positive and negative arguments. Arguments for
an idea, and against it. The positive arguments add points and the
negative arguments subtract points. (The points are often
metaphorical, non-numeric and inexact.) If an idea has many positive
arguments, e.g. "a lot of evidence", then there could be several
negative arguments and it could have a high score anyway.

One way this view is different from critical thinking is that it often
allows ignoring, rather than addressing, criticism.

Another problem is the weights given to everything are arbitrary.
--
Elliot Temple
http://curi.us/
David Deutsch
2012-12-27 12:04:43 UTC
Permalink
Post by Elliot Temple
Post by David Deutsch
currently called 'justificationism', namely that knowledge is that which can be justified as true, or likely to be true, etc.
That is not what justificationism means. Justificationism is the
concept that ideas have an amount/degree/weight of justification
(epistemic status, aka confirmation, support, authority, probability,
etc), by which we should judge them.
for truth
Post by Elliot Temple
Ideas with more
justification/weight/evidence/etc are deemed better than ideas with less.
Deemed to be truer, more likely to be true, more likely to contain more truth, etc. That is the mistake.

But that does not mean that ideas cannot have any non-binary attributes. For example they can be longer or shorter to express, depend more or less on mathematics, be more or less relevant to a given problem, be more or less original, more or less useful -- and (as I have said) easier or harder to vary as explanations (relative to a given state of background knowledge).

-- David Deutsch
You Know Me
2012-12-27 17:47:33 UTC
Permalink
Post by David Deutsch
Post by Elliot Temple
Post by David Deutsch
currently called 'justificationism', namely that knowledge is that which can be justified as true, or likely to be true, etc.
That is not what justificationism means. Justificationism is the
concept that ideas have an amount/degree/weight of justification
(epistemic status, aka confirmation, support, authority, probability,
etc), by which we should judge them.
for truth
Post by Elliot Temple
Ideas with more
justification/weight/evidence/etc are deemed better than ideas with less.
Deemed to be truer, more likely to be true, more likely to contain more truth, etc. That is the mistake.
But that does not mean that ideas cannot have any non-binary attributes. For example they can be longer or shorter to express, depend more or less on mathematics, be more or less relevant to a given problem, be more or less original, more or less useful -- and (as I have said) easier or harder to vary as explanations (relative to a given state of background knowledge).
Now That's "True".

- SM
Elliot Temple
2012-12-27 19:19:01 UTC
Permalink
Post by You Know Me
Post by David Deutsch
Post by Elliot Temple
Post by David Deutsch
currently called 'justificationism', namely that knowledge is that which can be justified as true, or likely to be true, etc.
That is not what justificationism means. Justificationism is the
concept that ideas have an amount/degree/weight of justification
(epistemic status, aka confirmation, support, authority, probability,
etc), by which we should judge them.
for truth
Post by Elliot Temple
Ideas with more
justification/weight/evidence/etc are deemed better than ideas with less.
Deemed to be truer, more likely to be true, more likely to contain more truth, etc. That is the mistake.
But that does not mean that ideas cannot have any non-binary attributes. For example they can be longer or shorter to express, depend more or less on mathematics, be more or less relevant to a given problem, be more or less original, more or less useful -- and (as I have said) easier or harder to vary as explanations (relative to a given state of background knowledge).
Now That's "True".
Now that's unproductive.
--
Elliot Temple
http://curi.us/
You Know Me
2012-12-27 22:25:22 UTC
Permalink
Post by Elliot Temple
Post by You Know Me
Post by David Deutsch
Post by Elliot Temple
Post by David Deutsch
currently called 'justificationism', namely that knowledge is that which can be justified as true, or likely to be true, etc.
That is not what justificationism means. Justificationism is the
concept that ideas have an amount/degree/weight of justification
(epistemic status, aka confirmation, support, authority, probability,
etc), by which we should judge them.
for truth
Post by Elliot Temple
Ideas with more
justification/weight/evidence/etc are deemed better than ideas with less.
Deemed to be truer, more likely to be true, more likely to contain more truth, etc. That is the mistake.
But that does not mean that ideas cannot have any non-binary attributes. For example they can be longer or shorter to express, depend more or less on mathematics, be more or less relevant to a given problem, be more or less original, more or less useful -- and (as I have said) easier or harder to vary as explanations (relative to a given state of background knowledge).
Now That's "True".
Now that's unproductive.
--
Elliot Temple
http://curi.us/
So you respond with another unproductive statement ? Nice one Elliot! A reflection of your genius, to say the least but I digress or maybe you need to. lol!

All in good jest, Elliot and I'm glad your paying attention !

- SM


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Elliot Temple
2012-12-28 03:25:14 UTC
Permalink
Post by You Know Me
Post by Elliot Temple
Post by You Know Me
Post by David Deutsch
Post by Elliot Temple
Post by David Deutsch
currently called 'justificationism', namely that knowledge is that which can be justified as true, or likely to be true, etc.
That is not what justificationism means. Justificationism is the
concept that ideas have an amount/degree/weight of justification
(epistemic status, aka confirmation, support, authority, probability,
etc), by which we should judge them.
for truth
Post by Elliot Temple
Ideas with more
justification/weight/evidence/etc are deemed better than ideas with less.
Deemed to be truer, more likely to be true, more likely to contain more truth, etc. That is the mistake.
But that does not mean that ideas cannot have any non-binary attributes. For example they can be longer or shorter to express, depend more or less on mathematics, be more or less relevant to a given problem, be more or less original, more or less useful -- and (as I have said) easier or harder to vary as explanations (relative to a given state of background knowledge).
Now That's "True".
Now that's unproductive.
--
Elliot Temple
http://curi.us/
So you respond with another unproductive statement ? Nice one Elliot! A reflection of your genius, to say the least but I digress or maybe you need to. lol!
All in good jest, Elliot and I'm glad your paying attention !
Criticizing a bad post is productive. (So is correcting a false claim, as this post itself has just done.)

That's two unproductive posts and no contribution. Is everyone off moderation or something? I suggest he be banned if he won't repent. Or the new list policy explained that allows sarcastic insults like this.
Elliot Temple
2012-12-27 18:34:56 UTC
Permalink
Post by David Deutsch
Post by Elliot Temple
Post by David Deutsch
currently called 'justificationism', namely that knowledge is that which can be justified as true, or likely to be true, etc.
That is not what justificationism means. Justificationism is the
concept that ideas have an amount/degree/weight of justification
(epistemic status, aka confirmation, support, authority, probability,
etc), by which we should judge them.
for truth
For epistemology.
Post by David Deutsch
Post by Elliot Temple
Ideas with more
justification/weight/evidence/etc are deemed better than ideas with less.
Deemed to be truer, more likely to be true, more likely to contain more truth, etc. That is the mistake.
But that does not mean that ideas cannot have any non-binary attributes. For example they can be longer or shorter to express, depend more or less on mathematics, be more or less relevant to a given problem, be more or less original, more or less useful -- and (as I have said) easier or harder to vary as explanations (relative to a given state of background knowledge).
All those other non-epistemological attributes matter when there is an
explanation of why they matter. This resolves the issue of *how* they
matter: they matter in the way that explanation says (not by the
generic method of increasing or decreasing any sort of epistemic
status). Sometimes uncontroversial background knowledge covers such
explaining for us, but sometimes it does not.
Post by David Deutsch
easier or harder to vary as explanations (relative to a given state of background knowledge)
This is ambiguous. Varying things is easy without constraints, e.g.
anything can be varied to the word "cow". The constraints intended are
unstated. Varied under what constraints?
--
Elliot Temple
http://curi.us/
Brett Hall
2012-12-28 00:44:37 UTC
Permalink
Post by Elliot Temple
Post by David Deutsch
Post by Elliot Temple
Post by David Deutsch
currently called 'justificationism', namely that knowledge is that which can be justified as true, or likely to be true, etc.
That is not what justificationism means. Justificationism is the
concept that ideas have an amount/degree/weight of justification
(epistemic status, aka confirmation, support, authority, probability,
etc), by which we should judge them.
for truth
For epistemology.
Post by David Deutsch
Post by Elliot Temple
Ideas with more
justification/weight/evidence/etc are deemed better than ideas with less.
Deemed to be truer, more likely to be true, more likely to contain more truth, etc. That is the mistake.
But that does not mean that ideas cannot have any non-binary attributes. For example they can be longer or shorter to express, depend more or less on mathematics, be more or less relevant to a given problem, be more or less original, more or less useful -- and (as I have said) easier or harder to vary as explanations (relative to a given state of background knowledge).
All those other non-epistemological attributes matter when there is an
explanation of why they matter. This resolves the issue of *how* they
matter: they matter in the way that explanation says (not by the
generic method of increasing or decreasing any sort of epistemic
status). Sometimes uncontroversial background knowledge covers such
explaining for us, but sometimes it does not.
Post by David Deutsch
easier or harder to vary as explanations (relative to a given state of background knowledge)
This is ambiguous. Varying things is easy without constraints, e.g.
anything can be varied to the word "cow". The constraints intended are
unstated. Varied under what constraints?
The "as explanations" is the constraint, isn't it? If you varied an explanation to the word "cow", it can no longer perform its task as an explanation. So, the constraint is that the explanation must still do its job of explaining the thing in question.
Post by Elliot Temple
... they can be longer or shorter to express, depend more or less on mathematics, be more or less relevant to a given problem, be more or less original, more or less useful...
When judging which of rival explanations is preferable, the harder to vary criterion can only work if the explanations are able to do the same task of explaining whatever it is and the only difference is that one is easier to vary. But does this situation crop up often in science? Usually we have just one explanation, not many rivals that are all roughly equal in their ability to explain whatever it is.

There might be many reasons why we would prefer the axis-tilt theory of seasons to the Greek Persephone myth of seasons. There is not just one. But one important difference between the two theories and one important reason to prefer the former is that the Greek Persephone season theory is so easy to vary. You can change the gods, you can change the reasons for periodic visits...one is tempted to say that everything about the story (almost) is arbitrary because gods can be assigned any old magical powers you like and which would do the job for you. The axis tilt theory is not like this. It's hard to vary in comparison. For example you cannot swap the sun for the moon in the theory because the moon can't do the job of the sun. Right?

Brett.




[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Elliot Temple
2012-12-28 03:38:02 UTC
Permalink
Post by Brett Hall
Post by Elliot Temple
Post by David Deutsch
Post by Elliot Temple
Post by David Deutsch
currently called 'justificationism', namely that knowledge is that which can be justified as true, or likely to be true, etc.
That is not what justificationism means. Justificationism is the
concept that ideas have an amount/degree/weight of justification
(epistemic status, aka confirmation, support, authority, probability,
etc), by which we should judge them.
for truth
For epistemology.
Post by David Deutsch
Post by Elliot Temple
Ideas with more
justification/weight/evidence/etc are deemed better than ideas with less.
Deemed to be truer, more likely to be true, more likely to contain more truth, etc. That is the mistake.
But that does not mean that ideas cannot have any non-binary attributes. For example they can be longer or shorter to express, depend more or less on mathematics, be more or less relevant to a given problem, be more or less original, more or less useful -- and (as I have said) easier or harder to vary as explanations (relative to a given state of background knowledge).
All those other non-epistemological attributes matter when there is an
explanation of why they matter. This resolves the issue of *how* they
matter: they matter in the way that explanation says (not by the
generic method of increasing or decreasing any sort of epistemic
status). Sometimes uncontroversial background knowledge covers such
explaining for us, but sometimes it does not.
Post by David Deutsch
easier or harder to vary as explanations (relative to a given state of background knowledge)
This is ambiguous. Varying things is easy without constraints, e.g.
anything can be varied to the word "cow". The constraints intended are
unstated. Varied under what constraints?
The "as explanations" is the constraint, isn't it?
No. You can vary to "cows eat grass because it has calories". That's an explanation. More constraints are needed.
Post by Brett Hall
If you varied an explanation to the word "cow", it can no longer perform its task as an explanation. So, the constraint is that the explanation must still do its job of explaining the thing in question.
If the constraint is the explanation must be good and relevant this begs the question because "hard to vary" is dd's criterion of good explanations.
Post by Brett Hall
Post by Elliot Temple
... they can be longer or shorter to express, depend more or less on mathematics, be more or less relevant to a given problem, be more or less original, more or less useful...
When judging which of rival explanations is preferable, the harder to vary criterion can only work if the explanations are able to do the same task of explaining whatever it is and the only difference is that one is easier to vary. But does this situation crop up often in science? Usually we have just one explanation, not many rivals that are all roughly equal in their ability to explain whatever it is.
There might be many reasons why we would prefer the axis-tilt theory of seasons to the Greek Persephone myth of seasons. There is not just one. But one important difference between the two theories and one important reason to prefer the former is that the Greek Persephone season theory is so easy to vary. You can change the gods, you can change the reasons for periodic visits...one is tempted to say that everything about the story (almost) is arbitrary because gods can be assigned any old magical powers you like and which would do the job for you. The axis tilt theory is not like this. It's hard to vary in comparison. For example you cannot swap the sun for the moon in the theory because the moon can't do the job of the sun. Right?
None of this stuff works well. I can't really answer questions about how a false and ambiguous idea is supposed to work in detail. Maybe dd will try to answer. The right approach to epistemology is focussed more on criticism. Judge ideas not by some favored criterion but by open-ended imaginative criticism.

I think you can't swap the sun and moon because I have a criticism of that swap.

The way hard to vary gets its plausibility, I think, is the unstated constraint is not to vary ideas in any way you have criticism of. It sneaks criticism into the equation. This is good in that it works better than a less critical approach, but bad as a theory of epistemology because it hides away the most important thing -- criticism -- instead of explaining and emphasizing the central role of criticism.
Sarah Fitz-Claridge
2012-12-29 22:01:04 UTC
Permalink
It appears that things have got a bit out of hand on the List. From now on,
please adhere to the posting guidelines below. NO further meta discussion
or cross-posting, please, and if you feel the urge to post more than a
paragraph or two of quoting, try to restrain yourself. Excessive quoting
makes it difficult for those new to the List to follow the discussion.
Discussions should be short and sweet. Let's avoid personal attacks please,
and ensure that your posts are on-topic. Thanks everyone.

Welcome to The Fabric of Reality List!

PLEASE READ THIS MESSAGE BEFORE YOU POST TO THE LIST.

The purpose of this list is to consider the issues raised in the
work of David Deutsch, and related matters -- *from the point of
view of reason and existing scientific knowledge*.

How much can our deepest theories of the world -- including
quantum physics and the theories of evolution, computation and
knowledge -- explain? Do they point the way to "a unified theory
of everything that is known", as David Deutsch argues? Is quantum
theory literally true, as the many worlds view (and most thinking
in the field of quantum cosmology and of quantum computation)
assumes? Is the human race "...just a chemical scum on a
moderate-sized planet, orbiting round a very average star in the
outer suburb of one among a hundred billion galaxies", as Stephen
Hawking asserts? What are the implications of quantum theory for
the understanding of the significance of knowledge? Is certainty
possible in mathematics? Where does free will and consciousness
fit in the picture painted by science? What is the scope of
virtual reality and of computation in general, including quantum
computation? What are the implications of the nature of the
fabric of reality for everyday life?

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Posting to The Fabric of Reality List

What sort of posts are welcome on this List?

Discussions of speculative science are acceptable on this list,
but pseudoscience, fringe science and anti-science are not. Posts
of this nature will be rejected. If you try to breach this rule
often, you may be unsubscribed. Posts promoting any religion, or
the paranormal, telepathy, dowsing, ESP, fortune-telling, crystal
balls, psychic phenomena, UFOs, alien abduction, faith healing,
weeping statues, mysticism, spiritualism, witches, witch-doctors,
magic, out-of-body experiences, near-death experiences, auras,
crop circles, and the like, are inappropriate and will not be
tolerated on this List.

How to send messages to the whole List

If you wish to ask a question or otherwise contribute to the list,
send your message to Fabric-of-Reality-hHKSG33TihhUou4Mz/***@public.gmane.org

----------------------------------------------------------------------

The Fabric of Reality List Posting Guidelines

The List is moderated. However, not all messages are treated by
hand, so the appearance of a message on the List does not imply the
approval of the moderator(s).

Do not assume that the moderators will pick up your mistakes in
posting! There are times when there is effectively no moderation at
all, so please ensure that your posts meet the following criteria,
in addition to the main criterion given above:

Content

o We are trying to retain a friendly atmosphere on this
List, and it is intended to be accessible to lay people,
so please bear that in mind when posting. Take the trouble
to put your points in non-technical form please.

o Please do not send off-topic messages to the List.

o No meta discussion:
- NOTE: "No meta discussion" is NOT a ban on any
discussion of metaphysical ideas. If you read about the sorts
of questions this List addresses in the introduction above,
you will see that many of them *are* philosophical questions.
"META DISCUSSION" means discussion *about the discussions* --
o about posting styles
o about what should be considered on-topic for this List
o about the attributes of a particular poster
o about the attributes of a particular discussion on the
List
... and the like...
-- instead of about *on-topic* matters.

o If a post makes you angry, please address the arguments and
issues rather than resorting to irrelevant personal attacks.

o No crossposting.

o Please do not send spams, chain letters, virus warnings,
etc., to the List. If someone sends you a "warning" or a
"special offer" you are not sure about, check the urban
legends newsgroups/FAQs rather than posting to this List.

o Please do not send "fluff" posts to the List.

o Please do not send one-line, "content-less" posts such as "I
agree" to the List.

o Please do not send administrative messages such as
"Unsubscribe me" to the List.

Privacy

o Please do not invade other people's privacy, either by
referring to private email, or otherwise.

o Please understand that the List is currently set to be
readable to everyone. To avoid embarrassment, assume that
anything you post will end up on the front page of the New
York Times (or elsewhere).

Replies

o Sending personal messages to the List can be very
embarrassing, so check the To: line before sending any
reply. Is it a personal message or do you intend it to go to
the whole List? Might it be more appropriate to send your
message to the poster whose message you are answering?

o Please send re-post requests to the individual poster, not
the whole List.

o In general, threads (including discussions on the same
subject with a different Subject: line) should be short.
They should not be repetitive and they should not go round
in circles. Insistently repetitive threads drown out other
more subtle threads so please try to ensure that your reply
is making a point which others would recognise as new to the
thread rather than merely repeating a point which has just
been made. If a thread is getting nowhere, instead of
replying line-by-line to another post, write a
self-contained post which does not refer to previous posts
in the thread, and give it an appropriate Subject: line.

o Ensure that the subject of your messages is reflected in the
Subject: line of your posts. Change the Subject: line if
necessary.

o Please do not quote more than is necessary for context.
(Insufficient quoting can be a problem too!)

o If possible, include the full reference to the post to which
you are replying (for example: "On [date] at [time], [name
and email address] wrote:").

Format

o Please check that the width of your posts does not exceed
that of this message. (If you think in characters, it is
about 70 characters wide.) Some people do not have wide
screens.

o Large signatures annoy people unless they are interesting,
germane and changed regularly (the sigs, that is).

o To make posts easier to read, add white space. If you write
more than about four lines without a gap, consider breaking
the text into two or more paragraphs. It'll encourage
subscribers to read what you have written.
--
Sarah Fitz-Claridge
Founder, Taking Children Seriously:
http://www.takingchildrenseriously.com/
David Deutsch
2012-12-29 23:35:09 UTC
Permalink
Post by Elliot Temple
Post by David Deutsch
Post by Elliot Temple
Post by David Deutsch
currently called 'justificationism', namely that knowledge is that which can be justified as true, or likely to be true, etc.
That is not what justificationism means. Justificationism is the
concept that ideas have an amount/degree/weight of justification
(epistemic status, aka confirmation, support, authority, probability,
etc), by which we should judge them.
for truth
For epistemology.
So "Justificationism is the concept that ideas have [weights] by which we should judge them for epistemology".

Could you give a reference that defines the term 'justificationism' in this way? At the moment I can't imagine what "judging something for epistemology" might mean.

-- David Deutsch
Anonymous Person
2012-12-31 20:56:37 UTC
Permalink
Post by David Deutsch
Post by Elliot Temple
Post by David Deutsch
Post by Elliot Temple
Post by David Deutsch
currently called 'justificationism', namely that knowledge is that which can be justified as true, or likely to be true, etc.
That is not what justificationism means. Justificationism is the
concept that ideas have an amount/degree/weight of justification
(epistemic status, aka confirmation, support, authority, probability,
etc), by which we should judge them.
for truth
For epistemology.
So "Justificationism is the concept that ideas have [weights] by which we should judge them for epistemology".
Could you give a reference that defines the term 'justificationism' in this way? At the moment I can't imagine what "judging something for epistemology" might mean.
Furthermore, even mere predictions can never be justified by observational evidence, as Bertrand Russell, illustrated in his story of the chicken. (To avoid any possible misunderstanding, let me stress that this was a metaphorical, anthropomorphic chicken, representing a human being trying to understand the regularities of the universe.) The chicken noticed that the farmer came every day to feed it. It predicted that the farmer would continue to bring food every day. Inductivists think that the chicken had ‘extrapolated’ its observations into a theory, and that each feeding time added justification to that theory.
This passage is talking about degrees of justification increasing. It
states that inductivists in general think this way.


------------------------------------

Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Fabric-of-Reality/

<*> Your email settings:
Individual Email | Traditional

<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Fabric-of-Reality/join
(Yahoo! ID required)

<*> To change settings via email:
Fabric-of-Reality-digest-***@public.gmane.org
Fabric-of-Reality-fullfeatured-***@public.gmane.org

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
Fabric-of-Reality-unsubscribe-***@public.gmane.org

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
David Deutsch
2013-01-01 00:42:18 UTC
Permalink
Post by Anonymous Person
Post by David Deutsch
Post by Elliot Temple
Post by David Deutsch
Post by Elliot Temple
Post by David Deutsch
currently called 'justificationism', namely that knowledge is that which can be justified as true, or likely to be true, etc.
That is not what justificationism means. Justificationism is the
concept that ideas have an amount/degree/weight of justification
(epistemic status, aka confirmation, support, authority, probability,
etc), by which we should judge them.
for truth
For epistemology.
So "Justificationism is the concept that ideas have [weights] by which we should judge them for epistemology".
Could you give a reference that defines the term 'justificationism' in this way? At the moment I can't imagine what "judging something for epistemology" might mean.
Furthermore, even mere predictions can never be justified by observational evidence, as Bertrand Russell, illustrated in his story of the chicken. (To avoid any possible misunderstanding, let me stress that this was a metaphorical, anthropomorphic chicken, representing a human being trying to understand the regularities of the universe.) The chicken noticed that the farmer came every day to feed it. It predicted that the farmer would continue to bring food every day. Inductivists think that the chicken had ‘extrapolated’ its observations into a theory, and that each feeding time added justification to that theory.
This passage is talking about degrees of justification increasing. It
states that inductivists in general think this way.
Inductivism is a form of justificationism, yes. Justificationism, however, is not defined as inductivism.

-- David Deutsch



------------------------------------

Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Fabric-of-Reality/

<*> Your email settings:
Individual Email | Traditional

<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Fabric-of-Reality/join
(Yahoo! ID required)

<*> To change settings via email:
Fabric-of-Reality-digest-***@public.gmane.org
Fabric-of-Reality-fullfeatured-***@public.gmane.org

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
Fabric-of-Reality-unsubscribe-***@public.gmane.org

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
Anonymous Person
2013-01-01 01:03:47 UTC
Permalink
[Excess quoting trimmed; please follow the List posting rules.]
Post by David Deutsch
Inductivism is a form of justificationism, yes. Justificationism, however, is not defined as inductivism.
I think your reply is irrelevant, so I have a question: What do you
think my point was?


------------------------------------

Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Fabric-of-Reality/

<*> Your email settings:
Individual Email | Traditional

<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Fabric-of-Reality/join
(Yahoo! ID required)

<*> To change settings via email:
Fabric-of-Reality-digest-***@public.gmane.org
Fabric-of-Reality-fullfeatured-***@public.gmane.org

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
Fabric-of-Reality-unsubscribe-***@public.gmane.org

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
therealjoshjordan
2012-12-26 04:08:56 UTC
Permalink
Post by David Deutsch
Post by Elliot Temple
Post by David Deutsch
(Well, I say we know this -- but that explanation is not nearly as solid as the ones above.
This is justificationism.
I don't think it's a good idea to extend the meaning of the term 'justificationism' in this way, to include claims that more is known about one subject than another.
In chapter 15 of Boi (p 352), David wrote:

"[...] rational thinking does not consist of weighing the justifications of rival theories, but of using conjecture and criticism to seek the best explanation [...]"

Leaving aside for now the proper definition of the term "justificationism", how is judging theories by degrees of solidity any different from "weighing the justifications of rival theories"?
David Deutsch
2012-12-26 13:42:45 UTC
Permalink
Post by therealjoshjordan
Post by David Deutsch
Post by Elliot Temple
Post by David Deutsch
(Well, I say we know this -- but that explanation is not nearly as solid as the ones above.
This is justificationism.
I don't think it's a good idea to extend the meaning of the term 'justificationism' in this way, to include claims that more is known about one subject than another.
"[...] rational thinking does not consist of weighing the justifications of rival theories, but of using conjecture and criticism to seek the best explanation [...]"
Leaving aside for now the proper definition of the term "justificationism", how is judging theories by degrees of solidity any different from "weighing the justifications of rival theories"?
For instance, in the case where this 'judging' is about whether our best explanation about one issue is better than our best explanation about another issue, those two explanations are not rival theories, and hence the claim has nothing to do with weighing the justifications of rival theories.

-- David Deutsch
Alan Forrester
2012-12-26 19:23:05 UTC
Permalink
Post by David Deutsch
Post by therealjoshjordan
Post by David Deutsch
Post by Elliot Temple
Post by David Deutsch
(Well, I say we know this -- but that explanation is not nearly as solid as the ones above.
This is justificationism.
I don't think it's a good idea to extend the meaning of the term 'justificationism' in this way, to include claims that more is known about one subject than another.
"[...] rational thinking does not consist of weighing the justifications of rival theories, but of using conjecture and criticism to seek the best explanation [...]"
Leaving aside for now the proper definition of the term "justificationism", how is judging theories by degrees of solidity any different from "weighing the justifications of rival theories"?
For instance, in the case where this 'judging' is about whether our best explanation about one issue is better than our best explanation about another issue, those two explanations are not rival theories, and hence the claim has nothing to do with weighing the justifications of rival theories.
No judgements of this kind are necessary. If two theories have no problems for which they both have implications then no comparison between them is necessary. If they do both have implications for the same problem then the comparison is done with respect to the issue for which they both have implications. This view of solidity still seems to be justificationist.

Alan
David Deutsch
2012-12-26 19:30:13 UTC
Permalink
Post by Alan Forrester
Post by David Deutsch
Post by therealjoshjordan
Post by David Deutsch
Post by Elliot Temple
Post by David Deutsch
(Well, I say we know this -- but that explanation is not nearly as solid as the ones above.
This is justificationism.
I don't think it's a good idea to extend the meaning of the term 'justificationism' in this way, to include claims that more is known about one subject than another.
"[...] rational thinking does not consist of weighing the justifications of rival theories, but of using conjecture and criticism to seek the best explanation [...]"
Leaving aside for now the proper definition of the term "justificationism", how is judging theories by degrees of solidity any different from "weighing the justifications of rival theories"?
For instance, in the case where this 'judging' is about whether our best explanation about one issue is better than our best explanation about another issue, those two explanations are not rival theories, and hence the claim has nothing to do with weighing the justifications of rival theories.
No judgements of this kind are necessary.
Can they be true or false? That is to say, do they have meanings?

-- David Deutsch
Alan Forrester
2012-12-26 19:55:02 UTC
Permalink
Post by David Deutsch
Post by David Deutsch
Post by therealjoshjordan
Post by David Deutsch
Post by Elliot Temple
Post by David Deutsch
(Well, I say we know this -- but that explanation is not nearly as solid as the ones above.
This is justificationism.
I don't think it's a good idea to extend the meaning of the term 'justificationism' in this way, to include claims that more is known about one subject than another.
"[...] rational thinking does not consist of weighing the justifications of rival theories, but of using conjecture and criticism to seek the best explanation [...]"
Leaving aside for now the proper definition of the term "justificationism", how is judging theories by degrees of solidity any different from "weighing the justifications of rival theories"?
For instance, in the case where this 'judging' is about whether our best explanation about one issue is better than our best explanation about another issue, those two explanations are not rival theories, and hence the claim has nothing to do with weighing the justifications of rival theories.
No judgements of this kind are necessary.If two theories have no problems for which they both have implications then no comparison between them is necessary. If they do both have implications for the same problem then the comparison is done with respect to the issue for which they both have implications. This view of solidity still seems to be justificationist.
Can they be true or false? That is to say, do they have meanings?
The following situation could happen:

(1) Theory 1 could be compatible with explanation 1 of problem 1 and theory 2 could be compatible with explanation 2 of problem 2.
(2) Theories 1 and 2 both have implications for problem 3 that makes comparison between theories 1 and 2 possible.
(3) If theory 1 was refuted and theory 2 was not, then that would be a refutation of explanation 1 as well.
(4) That refutation would be a result of refuting theory 1 with problem 3.

Do you have this in mind or something else?

Alan
David Deutsch
2012-12-26 22:07:22 UTC
Permalink
Post by Alan Forrester
Post by David Deutsch
Post by David Deutsch
Post by therealjoshjordan
Post by David Deutsch
Post by Elliot Temple
Post by David Deutsch
(Well, I say we know this -- but that explanation is not nearly as solid as the ones above.
This is justificationism.
I don't think it's a good idea to extend the meaning of the term 'justificationism' in this way, to include claims that more is known about one subject than another.
"[...] rational thinking does not consist of weighing the justifications of rival theories, but of using conjecture and criticism to seek the best explanation [...]"
Leaving aside for now the proper definition of the term "justificationism", how is judging theories by degrees of solidity any different from "weighing the justifications of rival theories"?
For instance, in the case where this 'judging' is about whether our best explanation about one issue is better than our best explanation about another issue, those two explanations are not rival theories, and hence the claim has nothing to do with weighing the justifications of rival theories.
No judgements of this kind are necessary.If two theories have no problems for which they both have implications then no comparison between them is necessary. If they do both have implications for the same problem then the comparison is done with respect to the issue for which they both have implications. This view of solidity still seems to be justificationist.
Can they be true or false? That is to say, do they have meanings?
(1) Theory 1 could be compatible with explanation 1 of problem 1 and theory 2 could be compatible with explanation 2 of problem 2.
(2) Theories 1 and 2 both have implications for problem 3 that makes comparison between theories 1 and 2 possible.
(3) If theory 1 was refuted and theory 2 was not, then that would be a refutation of explanation 1 as well.
(4) That refutation would be a result of refuting theory 1 with problem 3.
I don't know. I'm trying to think of examples of 1, 2, 3 and 4 with the above properties, with things like "1"= "General relativity", "2" = "quantum theory", and so on. No doubt they exist but I don't get what situation you're referring to. For a start, theories *are* explanations, so I don't know why your scheme has an extra level of indirection "Theory 1 ... compatible with explanation 1 ... of problem 1". Is that something like: general relativity is compatible with the geocentric explanation of the problem of why the planets have retrograde motions"?
Post by Alan Forrester
Do you have this in mind or something else?
I think so. I have in mind something like: our best explanation (namely general relativity) of why objects with different attributes fall at the same acceleration under gravity is better than our best explanation (namely sheer chance) about why the sun and the moon seem to be very nearly the same size in the sky.

As always, "better explanations" mean "harder to vary".

"Harder" has to do with what other explanations would be spoiled by denying the explanation in question. So if you had a theory of planetary formation that required Newtonian mechanics rather than relativity, you'd have a lot more explaining to do before your theory could become a good explanation. But if you had a theory of planetary formation (consistent with relativity) that predicted that every solar system had bodies with those geometrical properties, thus contradicting the existing 'chance' explanation, that would be fine.

I chose these examples because they also illustrate that calling an explanation 'better', qua explanation, is not the same as calling it more likely to be true. (The latter would be an example of justificationism.) It isn't even the same as 'expecting it not to be overturned any time soon' (which isn't justificationism). In this case, I happen to expect that the exceedingly good explanation general relativity *will* be overturned, but that the moderately good 'chance' theory of the Earth-moon-sun geometry will not be.

-- David Deutsch
Alan Forrester
2012-12-30 15:28:19 UTC
Permalink
Post by David Deutsch
Post by Alan Forrester
Post by David Deutsch
Post by David Deutsch
Post by therealjoshjordan
Post by David Deutsch
Post by Elliot Temple
Post by David Deutsch
(Well, I say we know this -- but that explanation is not nearly as solid as the ones above.
This is justificationism.
I don't think it's a good idea to extend the meaning of the term 'justificationism' in this way, to include claims that more is known about one subject than another.
"[...] rational thinking does not consist of weighing the justifications of rival theories, but of using conjecture and criticism to seek the best explanation [...]"
Leaving aside for now the proper definition of the term "justificationism", how is judging theories by degrees of solidity any different from "weighing the justifications of rival theories"?
For instance, in the case where this 'judging' is about whether our best explanation about one issue is better than our best explanation about another issue, those two explanations are not rival theories, and hence the claim has nothing to do with weighing the justifications of rival theories.
No judgements of this kind are necessary.If two theories have no problems for which they both have implications then no comparison between them is necessary. If they do both have implications for the same problem then the comparison is done with respect to the issue for which they both have implications. This view of solidity still seems to be justificationist.
Can they be true or false? That is to say, do they have meanings?
(1) Theory 1 could be compatible with explanation 1 of problem 1 and theory 2 could be compatible with explanation 2 of problem 2.
(2) Theories 1 and 2 both have implications for problem 3 that makes comparison between theories 1 and 2 possible.
(3) If theory 1 was refuted and theory 2 was not, then that would be a refutation of explanation 1 as well.
(4) That refutation would be a result of refuting theory 1 with problem 3.
I don't know. I'm trying to think of examples of 1, 2, 3 and 4 with the above properties, with things like "1"= "General relativity", "2" = "quantum theory", and so on. No doubt they exist but I don't get what situation you're referring to. For a start, theories *are* explanations, so I don't know why your scheme has an extra level of indirection "Theory 1 ... compatible with explanation 1 ... of problem 1". Is that something like: general relativity is compatible with the geocentric explanation of the problem of why the planets have retrograde motions"?
Yes. The reason for the extra level of indirection is that if two theories don't apply to the same problem then there has to be some indirect link between them if any problem is going to be relevant to both of them.
Post by David Deutsch
Post by Alan Forrester
Do you have this in mind or something else?
I think so. I have in mind something like: our best explanation (namely general relativity) of why objects with different attributes fall at the same acceleration under gravity is better than our best explanation (namely sheer chance) about why the sun and the moon seem to be very nearly the same size in the sky.
As always, "better explanations" mean "harder to vary".
"Harder" has to do with what other explanations would be spoiled by denying the explanation in question. So if you had a theory of planetary formation that required Newtonian mechanics rather than relativity, you'd have a lot more explaining to do before your theory could become a good explanation. But if you had a theory of planetary formation (consistent with relativity) that predicted that every solar system had bodies with those geometrical properties, thus contradicting the existing 'chance' explanation, that would be fine.
I chose these examples because they also illustrate that calling an explanation 'better', qua explanation, is not the same as calling it more likely to be true. (The latter would be an example of justificationism.) It isn't even the same as 'expecting it not to be overturned any time soon' (which isn't justificationism). In this case, I happen to expect that the exceedingly good explanation general relativity *will* be overturned, but that the moderately good 'chance' theory of the Earth-moon-sun geometry will not be.
What problem does this solve?

Alan
a b
2012-12-17 03:01:52 UTC
Permalink
On Dec 16, 2012, at 5:58 AM, Alan Forrester
Post by Alan Forrester
Post by Jean Dutertre
Post by Elliot Temple
Post by Rami Rustom
In these situations, the child might be very quiet about what the
problem is. So an approach that works is to guess why he might be sad
and form it into a question: "Are you sad about your mom not being
here?" If the guess was wrong, he'll tell you "no". If it was right,
he'll tell you "yes". And he may open up a lot more and tell you more
details. If he does, then use those details to form more accurate
"Are you sad because you won't be able to play with her anymore?" And
continue the cycle. And some point he'll give you a detail that is a
mistaken idea and you could help him by showing him that its a
mistaken idea. He might say, "I don't want to lose you." So at this
point you realize that the child is worried that he'll lose his only
remaining parent because he has already lost one parent. So here the
parent can say, "Oh.. well I'm very healthy, I'm probably not going to
die until I'm very old, like older than grandpa.. and by then you'll
be old like me. Did you know that most people die when they are very
old like older than grandpa?"
I'd agree this last part would be the right kind of response, but what
are you really doing...correcting a mistaken idea, or recognizing an
emotional need (with your emotions) and providing reassurance? If the
second, then does it make what is happening between you and the child
more or less clear by using this other vocabularly?
So about this empathy idea, I looked it up and there are many many
Empathy: The ability to understand that someone else is (mentally) hurting.
Empathy is actually a concept in the service of conformity. It has to
do with respecting all emotions considered legitimate by social
authority, but not others.
If you go find 20 examples of people actually using the concept, you
may see what I mean. If not, post your counter examples.
Post by Rami Rustom
So what do you think of my definition of empathy?
Which parts of my explanation do you disagree with?
It's an ivory tower philosopher-intellectual type of definition,
rather than something connected to reality. It's important to pay some
attention to the world we live in if one wishes to comment well on it.
empathy is a matter of mirror neurons (see Giacomo Rizzolatti and/or
Vilayanur Ramachandran)
Empathy is behaviour not a bunch of neurons.
Mirror neurons are, at best, an explanation of how the knowledge
required to act empathetically is instantiated in the brain, and the idea is
no good even at doing that.
When I look at a behaviour like knitting, say, some neurons go off in my
brain. If actually knitted myself, then a set of neurons would also go off
in my head. The set of neurons that go off when I knit and the set that go
off when I watch somebody knit overlap and the neurons that both sets have
in common are called mirror neurons. I have not seen any indication in
anything I have read that there is anything more to mirror neurons than
that.
Specifically, there is no explanation of any respect in which mirror
neurons differ from other neurons that explains why they go off in both
cases. They don't have different kinds of axons or whatever.
Right. This is why I have asked about mirror neurons at autopsy. And DD
has not answered, nor has any other mirror neuron believer been able to
answer the issue.
Does a good explanation have to relate to a currently observable
resoluton? If not...what would be added by the answer to your
question?
a b
2012-12-17 03:26:31 UTC
Permalink
On Sun, Dec 16, 2012 at 1:58 PM, Alan Forrester
Post by Alan Forrester
Post by Jean Dutertre
Post by Elliot Temple
Post by Rami Rustom
In these situations, the child might be very quiet about what the
problem is. So an approach that works is to guess why he might be sad
and form it into a question: "Are you sad about your mom not being
here?" If the guess was wrong, he'll tell you "no". If it was right,
he'll tell you "yes". And he may open up a lot more and tell you more
details. If he does, then use those details to form more accurate
"Are you sad because you won't be able to play with her anymore?" And
continue the cycle. And some point he'll give you a detail that is a
mistaken idea and you could help him by showing him that its a
mistaken idea. He might say, "I don't want to lose you." So at this
point you realize that the child is worried that he'll lose his only
remaining parent because he has already lost one parent. So here the
parent can say, "Oh.. well I'm very healthy, I'm probably not going to
die until I'm very old, like older than grandpa.. and by then you'll
be old like me. Did you know that most people die when they are very
old like older than grandpa?"
I'd agree this last part would be the right kind of response, but what
are you really doing...correcting a mistaken idea, or recognizing an
emotional need (with your emotions) and providing reassurance? If the
second, then does it make what is happening between you and the child
more or less clear by using this other vocabularly?
So about this empathy idea, I looked it up and there are many many
Empathy: The ability to understand that someone else is (mentally) hurting.
Empathy is actually a concept in the service of conformity. It has to
do with respecting all emotions considered legitimate by social
authority, but not others.
If you go find 20 examples of people actually using the concept, you
may see what I mean. If not, post your counter examples.
Post by Rami Rustom
So what do you think of my definition of empathy?
Which parts of my explanation do you disagree with?
It's an ivory tower philosopher-intellectual type of definition,
rather than something connected to reality. It's important to pay some
attention to the world we live in if one wishes to comment well on it.
empathy is a matter of mirror neurons (see Giacomo Rizzolatti and/or
Vilayanur Ramachandran)
Empathy is behaviour not a bunch of neurons.
Mirror neurons are, at best, an explanation of how the knowledge required
to act empathetically is instantiated in the brain, and the idea is no good
even at doing that.
When I look at a behaviour like knitting, say, some neurons go off in my
brain. If actually knitted myself, then a set of neurons would also go off
in my head. The set of neurons that go off when I knit and the set that go
off when I watch somebody knit overlap and the neurons that both sets have
in common are called mirror neurons. I have not seen any indication in
anything I have read that there is anything more to mirror neurons than
that.
Specifically, there is no explanation of any respect in which mirror
neurons differ from other neurons that explains why they go off in both
cases. They don't have different kinds of axons or whatever.
Nor is there any explanation of what computation goes on in the brain to
recognise knitting by me and knitting by somebody else as being the same.
And even if there was such an explanation, without some anatomical
difference between mirror and other neurons the explanation would be the
mirror program not the neurons.
The problem is even worse than this: mirror neurons also contradict good
explanations that we have. Two actions are only recognised as the same in
the light of an interpretation: that is, in the light of knowledge that ties
the two actions together. Human beings create new knowledge and a lot of our
knowledge is not instantiated in genes. So there is no reason at all to
expect that there will be any anatomically different category of cells that
would instantiate that knowledge. There is no gene for knitting and so there
is no reason to expect cells dedicated to knitting or recognising when other
people are knitting.
Mirror neurons are explanationless science.
You say there is a contradiction with good explanations....can you
explain why this is necessarily the case? For example, the good
explanations you refer to refer to something that occurs in brains,
which means the underlying genetics of brains facilitate the effect.
The only constraint that I can see relates to the interface between
the physically expressed genetics and the resulting UKC effect in that
there has to be some sort of separation/independence. But beyond that,
there doesn't seem to be any constraints on how the physical brain
accomplishes the effect.
Going with your opinion for a moment....is there a special reason why
the brain must not include neurons with this specific mirroring
function whereas deployment of specialized neurons is generally
acceptable? Or is it that you think any kind of specialization at the
neuronal level contradicts your good explanation? If so...why?
Also...in BoI DD mentions whole regions of neurons becoming
specialized for language in the run-up to the jump to UKC
universality. Do you disagree with him about that, or is it the case
regions of standard neurons can become specialized to a special
function without contradicting the good explanation, but individual
neurons cannot become internally specialized to some role? In which
case why is specialization at the scale of the role of a neuron not
allowed, where specialization of networks of neurons are. What happens
between these two scales that makes the advent of one a contradiction
of your good explanation while the advent of the other not?
Rami Rustom
2013-02-09 14:06:22 UTC
Permalink
Post by Elliot Temple
Post by Rami Rustom
In these situations, the child might be very quiet about what the
problem is. So an approach that works is to guess why he might be sad
and form it into a question: "Are you sad about your mom not being
here?" If the guess was wrong, he'll tell you "no". If it was right,
he'll tell you "yes". And he may open up a lot more and tell you more
details. If he does, then use those details to form more accurate
"Are you sad because you won't be able to play with her anymore?" And
continue the cycle. And some point he'll give you a detail that is a
mistaken idea and you could help him by showing him that its a
mistaken idea. He might say, "I don't want to lose you." So at this
point you realize that the child is worried that he'll lose his only
remaining parent because he has already lost one parent. So here the
parent can say, "Oh.. well I'm very healthy, I'm probably not going to
die until I'm very old, like older than grandpa.. and by then you'll
be old like me. Did you know that most people die when they are very
old like older than grandpa?"
I'd agree this last part would be the right kind of response, but what
are you really doing...correcting a mistaken idea, or recognizing an
emotional need (with your emotions) and providing reassurance? If the
second, then does it make what is happening between you and the child
more or less clear by using this other vocabularly?
So about this empathy idea, I looked it up and there are many many
Empathy: The ability to understand that someone else is (mentally) hurting.
Empathy is actually a concept in the service of conformity. It has to do with respecting all emotions considered legitimate by social authority, but not others.
If you go find 20 examples of people actually using the concept, you may see what I mean. If not, post your counter examples.
You're right.
Post by Elliot Temple
Post by Rami Rustom
I noticed that TCS is big on empathy, even though the word empathy is
not used at all anywhere in TCS literature. TCS says that people
should not hurt each other. By hurt I mean mental/psychological hurt.
Mental hurt is an emotion.
TCS explains that hurt is caused by doing something to someone that
they don't want done to them. Also someone can hurt themselves by
acting on a want while having a conflicting want, so part of him wants
to do X and part of him wants to do Y but X and Y are conflicting, so
acting on X means doing something when part of you didn't want to do
it.
So if a parent makes his daughter do something she didn't want to do,
then he is hurting her. She has a negative emotion because she does
something she didn't want to do.
To my knowledge, TCS does not assert that is a matter of emotions. I think that is your idea, not TCS.
I don't see the need for you to attribute your statements to TCS. I think it'd work better if you just tried to say what you think is true and don't attribute it to TCS (or other sources) without using quotes from those sources.
Yes, I've made this mistake many times (attributing my ideas to others).
Post by Elliot Temple
Post by Rami Rustom
This emotion is called coercion.
TCS does not say coercion is an emotion. I think it isn't.
Right. Coercion is an epistemic state, not an emotion.
Post by Elliot Temple
Post by Rami Rustom
The child felt coerced. And the parent caused it.
In these situations, sometimes the parent feels a negative emotion
*because* the child felt a negative emotion. The parent doesn't want
the child to hurt, but the child is hurting. So part of the him
doesn't want to hurt his daughter, but part of him wants his daughter
do this thing. So the parent is coerced too, i.e. he feels coercion.
In these situations, the parent is empathetic. So empathy alone didn't
solve the problem.
Sometimes (or some parents?) doesn't feel a negative emotion about
coercing his child. In which case the parent isn't coerced, i.e. he
doesn't feel coercion. This is not empathetic.
So whats the solution? TCS explains that we should not coerce our
children (nor ourselves or anyone else either). But how do we get
things done? One alternative to coercion is persuasion, which works
well for children that can speak. Although the technique for
younger-than-speaking-age children is the same for older children and
even for adults, which is to be creative in providing alternate ideas
for things to do until one is found to be something that everyone
wants, so no one is coerced.
So here's an example. Your 4 year old is bored at home cause there
aren't any kids to play with
That is a bad explanation. No one is bored for that reason alone. There are things to do in life other than play with kids.
Right.
Post by Elliot Temple
Post by Rami Rustom
so he decides that he wants to go to
school with the other kids. Before school starts, we have to have a
dental checkup.
You don't have to. Part of being a good parent is questioning what one has to do to one's children.
Yes. People should have more of an infallibalist approach -- one of
doubting one's ideas more.
Post by Elliot Temple
Post by Rami Rustom
The night before the dental appointment, parent says
to child, "oh btw, tomorrow morning we have a dental appointment." Kid
says (with a frown), "no I don't want to go to the dentist." Parent
says, "oh if we don't do the dentist appointment then they won't let
you in school."
I am skeptical of this claim.
Post by Rami Rustom
Kid says (with a smile), "oh" and then goes about his
business ending the discussion. The next day he wakes up mentally
ready to go to the dentist.
Why did kid accept doing something he didn't want to without any good arguments or explanations?
It sounds like he trusts his parent even to the point of sacrifice. That's not good. Parent should be emphasizing more that he's wrong a lot. Parent shouldn't have let the topic go at this. If child wasn't interested parent could research it on his own.
Right. Parent should doubt his ideas more (instead of irrationally
trusting his ideas), and he should help child doubt more too (instead
of irrationally trusting parent's ideas).
Post by Elliot Temple
Why isn't parent saying something like this? "Because you don't want to go, i will try to find out if there's any other options. you can help if you want, or i can show you how i do it, but either way i'll try to get you out of it". Why is child satisfied even though parent didn't say anything like that?
Like you said, he's trusting the parent, i.e. the child is not
doubting the parent's ideas.
Post by Elliot Temple
Post by Rami Rustom
Now many people believe that kids aren't rational enough to be
persuaded. This is false.
I take it you intend the above as an example of rational persuasion of a child. But that's not a good argument because the parent just asserted something and the child never questioned it or learned about if/why it's true. And it's a poor argument because the above is just a hypothetical example (right?), so that doesn't prove it would happen in real life.
Right. They were explanationless assertions.
Post by Elliot Temple
Post by Rami Rustom
What is true is that sometimes parents are
not rational enough to create persuasive enough arguments. Sometimes
rational discussion is prevented when either of the two people are
using knowledge that they don't share.
No.
That claim implies rational discussion is always impossible, because no two people ever share exactly identical relevant knowledge. But rational discussion is possible, so the claim must be false.
Post by Rami Rustom
So the parent should hone the
skill of refining his explanations using only the knowledge that they
both share. Another preventer of rational discussion is that parents
have bad habits of using facial expressions (e.g. frowns) that explain
to the child that the parent is angry or annoyed,
A frown is not an explanation.
It communicates, it does not explain.
Do you not know what an explanation is, even vaguely? Or did you not think about what one is before writing about them? I don't understand but I suspect there's an important misconception revealed here.
I've seen the word criticism used in this way: "Idea Y is a criticism
of idea X." But idea Y was not an explanation -- it was only an
assertion. Or X and Y are rival theories of each other, but they
aren't explanations of each other. So I thought that meant that the
word criticism is used loosely in this way. And since a criticism is
an explanation of a flaw in an idea, I thought that the word
explanation could be used loosely too, e.g. your frown explains that
my mistake is shameful.
Post by Elliot Temple
Post by Rami Rustom
So what do you think of my definition of empathy?
Which parts of my explanation do you disagree with?
It's an ivory tower philosopher-intellectual type of definition, rather than something connected to reality. It's important to pay some attention to the world we live in if one wishes to comment well on it.
Yes, my idea was disconnected from reality. And this is what
"ivory-tower-philosophy" means.

-- Rami

Loading...