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Lester Zick
Posted: Mon Nov 17, 2003 5:23 pm
Guest
On Mon, 17 Nov 2003 10:02:31 +0000, David Longley
<David@longley.demon.co.uk> in comp.ai.philosophy wrote:

Quote:
In article <3fb819cc.45652419@netnews.att.net>, Lester Zick
lesterDELzick@worldnet.att.net> writes
On 16 Nov 2003 14:36:16 -0800, dan@oricomtech.com (dan michaels) in
comp.ai.philosophy wrote:

lesterDELzick@worldnet.att.net (Lester Zick) wrote in message
news:<3f9fe39e.56473838@netnews.att.net>...


Cool, Lester. You should cross-post ALL of discussions on cognition
from the other forums to c.a.p. There is clearly too much time devoted
to the same old issues on c.a.p. The world is larger than that.

Thanks Dan - As you can see I have a limited coterie of followers on
sci.cognitive already who would like nothing more than to see the last
of me. That's why they're followers. There are certainly exceptions
like Ian and one or two others.

Seriously though most discussions I've had in the last couple of years
concern cognition one way or another. And I like most of the people
here. You're right that they seem to have run out of new ideas. I plan
to run most posts involving cognition through cap in the future. It
looks like a good group and I just wish I'd found it sooner. A lot of
what you see with behaviorism is pretty typical of what goes on on
sci.cognitive and it gets pretty boring. Thanks again.


Regards - Lester


Lester, you can write clearly - that's a good start.

If you are going to argue the case for a cognitive theory without
checking the history of these, and without noting the appeals for
parsimony from the behaviourists who are also making their living from
the research & practice that's universally applied to real world
problems quite apart from their teaching duties, you're going to have to
show why they (and I'll even include the Cognitive "Scientists" here)
should give what you say air time. To do that you are going to have to
show that you have at least some grasp of what they are talking about
and what they are doing, and why all that doesn't suffice. It may seem
just academic theory to you but I assure you it isn't, there are
professionals out there who do work with it.

Despite what you may hear from some, Glen and I do know what the
problems of AI are, and our critical remarks about Cognitive Science are
not based on ignorance. Perhaps your views aren't either, but from what
you've told us so far one could be forgiven for thinking otherwise.

Some folk here just want nice "ideas" they can banter about. It isn't
science or philosophy or even technology that they're interested in -
they're just interested in what's new for it's own sake or they would
like to discuss something useful but don't know how to. They're like
magpies - or perhaps mall shoppers, where the latter couldn't face being
seen wearing the same clothes as someone else for all sorts of 'human'
reasons. What's really absurd is that they often have little insight
into the extent to which what they think and what they say is under the
control of very similar social contingencies.

Sadly, newsgroups are getting more and more like this as the net is
democratised. if you want people who know even less than you to talk
about what you are doing with "Differential Cognition", you'll learn
little from the experience in my view. Maybe that's what you want?

If it isn't, try answering the questions I've asked. What use is your
work on "Differential Cognition"? How does it relate to other work? Why
should we listen?
--
David I'll address the questions you raise in civil terms but in no

particular order. I write the way I do - and if I may say so as well
as I do - because knowing the key to explaining the kinds of ideas I
talk about lets me think and rationalize things as I write and allows
me to concentrate more on what I write and how to convey it.

If you're complaining about the level of my scholarship, I have to
plead guilty. To be blunt about it I have none to speak of apart from
a BS in mechanical engineering from a well known university. Basically
I stopped there because I was extremely disappointed not with the
education so much as the explanations. I have very little scholarship
in many of the disciplines I comment on apart from physics and some
math.

But in the so called soft sciences I have practically none. I had to
make a choice early on whether to examine academic histories in detail
or to just move ahead based on what I could discover on my own. And
this is the course I chose. Of course this leaves me open to criticism
when I make egregious blunders and misattributions. But it's the price
I've had to pay for concentrating on the important analytical threads
throughout the history of science.

I get similar objections every time I get into one of these subjects.
I find many want to talk about metaphysics for example but in
historical and scholastic terms - what this school or that philosopher
thought about this or that kind of philosophical approach or problem -
whereas I want to address metaphysics as a definable science and not
as some kind of undisciplined daydreaming and wish fulfillment. The
fact is that apart from Aristotle's syllogistic inference the only
thing that stands out in the history of metaphysics is the signal
failure of philosophers to actually solve any problem in definitive
terms. And I mean to see that change.

A few months back I had the temerity to challenge the standard account
in epistemology and to do so in my own estimation in correct terms.
Now the abruptness of this surprized and gave affront to some students
of philosophy. But the fact is that I had not previously been aware of
the standard account or what it amounted to. Yet being made aware of
it through casual conversations on the web, the flaw in its
formulation as the saying goes became intuitively obvious to the
casual observer - in this case me.

The fact that I was unaware of the standard account does me no credit.
However there are certainly thousands who are aware and don't seem to
appreciate what's wrong with it. Maybe there's a price to pay for
scholarship as well and that price may be too great a degree of
uncritical acceptance of established ideas and scholastic authority.
Basically professors and teachers insist that students accept academic
authority unless they can successfully challenge and discredit the
authority to the satisfaction of the academic community in general.

But that kind of standard, while fostering scholarship, goes far
beyond what original thinkers themselves experience in their own
cases. They either understand the problem or they don't. They worry
about documentation after the fact. If you know a correct answer the
correct explanation will follow. However ever since the age of
scholaticism documented citations are demanded every which way to
establish academic credibility before claims are entertained. Frankly
I just don't have that kind of interest. And I don't mean this in
pejorative terms.

Air time is what you make of it. I've made as much of it as I could on
the web rather than peer reviewed literature because I don't have any
academic standing. What I've experienced is some degree of hostility
based on collateral factors. So I tend to talk to whoever will listen
out of conviction that even naive interest is preferable to the
typical nonchalance I encounter from experienced professionals.

And what I've found is that quite often general conversation prompts
me to consider aspects of what I address considerably more critically
than otherwise. I believe it was Scientific American some years ago
that published an article examining the extent to which orthodox ideas
changed in the light of revisionist theories like relativity etc. And
what they found was that old ideas don't really change at all. They
just fade away as new practioners of revisionist theories replace the
old generation.

Of course the usenet has changed things in general intellectual and
academic terms and not at all for the better. And a lot of users want
to ballyhoo nonsense for their own egos. But I've also noticed that
the moderated groups tend to be stodgy and reactionary and unwilling
to entertain new ideas. So it's kind of a mystery choice. I think the
thing that impresses me most favorably is the quality of thought
combined with the traffic flow and the originality of thinking. Like
they used to say in advertizing, let's just run it up a flag pole and
see who salutes.

I am well aware that you and Glen and others are practicing
professionals with more or less orthodox credentials. I've never
knowingly suggested otherwise. But the real problem I find is that it
is difficult and sometimes impossible to discuss things with either of
you without resorting to technical terminological jargon.

You see when professionals talk to each other and discuss technical
subjects I expect them to use technical terminology and to do so in
arcane ways that they comprehend but that they wouldn't expect others
to understand. When I discuss computers with other professionals I
refer to them as machines rather than computers and expect other
professionals to understand.

But when addressing non professionals in a particular field I don't.
And what I've found particularly with you and to an extent with Glen
is that you seem unwilling to entertain a problem cast in other than
technical behaviorist terms because you assure me that the problem can
be successfully analyzed in those terms but not in terms of folk
psychology. I find with you I need at least a simultaneous translator
and even then I have no assurance that the translation will say
anything I need to understand.

I don't think that is a reasonable approach to informative
conversation in practical terms. Partly because it prejudices the
discussion along behaviorist lines but mainly because the result is
indecipherable in general terms. The same would be true for cogsci or
any other specialized discipline. The general principles underlying
any science or discipline have to be explicable in general terms. At
least this has always been the descriptive thrust of the kinds of
ideas I analyze and deal in. And if they are not then I seriously
question the merit of ideas which cannot be explained in plain
language even if somewhat more cumbersomely.

I get this from physics and math devotees all the time. Many suggest
one can't possibly be expected to explain such ideas without formulas
and arcane concepts. But it just doesn't wash. One can use such
language with technophiles as much as one wishes. But general
explanations quite well explained in plain language are possible and
in most cases quite easily devised.

As to Differential Cognition it simply represents a doctrinal basis
for explaining cognition in general mechanical terms of cause and
effect. Now I basically ignored your request the other day because you
had already indicated in no uncertain terms that you recognize no
significant relevant concepts of analysis and meaning to work with so
I really had no idea how to proceed to answer your question.

It is really a simple doctrine. The only basis for what I call
differential mechanics is the existence of material differences in
general and the taking of differences among material differences and
the compounding of differences among those differences - in non
mystical ontological contexts - that is in the context of beings as
organisms. That's really all there is to the doctrine and further
explanations really only concern the extrapolation and implications of
that principle to various perhaps non obvious contexts.

Now there are a host of such contexts possible. In fact I would be
remiss were I not to suggest that every aspect of mechanical reality
in general could be addressed and successfully analyzed in such terms.
However such an observation would not be very helpful so I have
limited it in the current instance to the treatment of certain
cognitive concepts like a sight, visual images, or representations and
mental effects as I proposed to Glen the other day with respect to his
battery array analysis of a representation.

But the idea in general terms applies to all kinds of cognitive
contexts. Basically I can show one mechanism that applies and has to
apply to every ontological organism - animal, vegetable, or conscious
- at least in conceptual terms. What I cannot do at present is explain
the neurological mechanics involved. But I can say how and why the
idea can be used to explain so called mental effects as opposed to
conventional materialist assumptions with respect to operation of the
brain.

I just don't know where to go from here. Yesterday when I replied to
Dan I really had to ask myself what else is there to say on the
subject of cognition? If my general explanation as to the nature of
the differential mechanics involved in ontological contexts is correct
what else is there to say? That really has to depend on what others
find of interest to address in such terms.

I don't personally find psychological and neurological issues very
appealing - which is another reason I've never delved extensively into
their histories as sciences. But I do find an issue like free will
interesting and important to understand because it is so often used to
justify all kinds of special pleading. So I analyze it in terms of
differential mechanics and come to certain necessary implications as
to what it means and why and what it does not and cannot mean and why.

Basically anything one can do with differences compounded in terms of
one another one can do with differential cognition. This isn't to
suggest that every aspect of the brain is differential in operation.
There may well be ordinary electrical and material conduits in the
brain that play important roles in cognition. But there have to be key
differences taken in specific cognitive contexts to explain a whole
array of effects from mental to perceptual to thinking to thinking in
abstract terms.

In any event I would like to thank you for your observations. It may
or may not ever be that we can discuss these kinds of issues in
cordial terms. But I think that frank discussions are certainly
preferable to hostile avoidance.


Regards - Lester
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