The Happiness of the Chimpanzee - A Gabon Fable

[William Frank <williamf.frank@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 'anthropomorphism", a doubtful concept.  

Claiming that we have no way of 'knowing' what other species experience assumes we have a special relationship with all human beings, and that we CAN know what THEY all feel and think, but only them.   I think we can, too, know what other people must be feeling, except that we can know in the very SAME way what dogs feel, just not to the same degree of accuracy.  Believing that 'anthropomorphism' is a mistake is a better idea than familyism, tribalism, nationalism, sexism or racism, but I can see no more reason for speciesism to be the place to draw a hard line than any of the others.   I am pretty sure I can know what my brother feels and my friends feel, better than I can know what some other people feel.

The Happiness of the Chimpanzee - A Gabon Fable

The two hunters Ntino and Iko were strolling one day through the forest.  They came across some chimpanzees who were playing in the branches of a mulemba tree. “Look at the chimpanzees,” Nitino said.  “Look how easily they swing through the branches.  This is the happiness of the chimpanzee.”

“How can you know?” Iko said.  “You are not a chimpanzee. How can you know if it is happy?” “But you are not me,” Ntino said.  How can you know if I can know the happiness of the chimpanzee?”

 

My conclusions: 1. people have opinions about these matters without having thought very deeply about them,  2. saying that it 'anthropomorphic' and so wrong to identify 'emotion' centers in the tiny brains of fruitflies, if we can identify them in the brains of people, (or chimpanzees, or dogs)

On Wed, May 20, 2015 at 11:23 AM, Thomas Johnston <tmj44p@xxxxxxx> wrote:

Hi Rich,

Your questions and comments are very much to the point. My response, in brief, is this:

1. How would the Cal Tech scientists know what the basic "emotional neurochemicals" are? That would depend on knowing what fruit fly behavior resulted from what emotions. And, as you said:

<<<<< 

That depends on the observer's interpretation.  Why would flying indicate anything emotional?  You are anthropomorphizing flying with human-interpreting events. 

>>>>>

Indeed. Why would any fruit fly behavior indicate the presence of "emotional neurochemicals"? That's my point. It isn't me, but the Cal Tech scientists, who appear to be "anthropomorphizing flying with human-interpreting events".

Also, my word-play on Venus fly traps was intended to make a serious point. On what grounds would the Cal Tech scientists interpret fruit fly behavior, but not interpret Venus fly trap behavior, as mediated by "emotional chemicals"? 

If it's the assumption that neurons are required for emotions, then what about the famous neurons in the snail Aplysia, the study of which led to Eric Kandel's receiving the Nobel prize? When Aplysia withdraws from a stimulus, are the neurochemicals involved "emotional neurochemicals"? If the Cal Tech scientists said they are, wouldn't they be guilty of your charge of anthropomorphizing? And if that is true, aren't they already guilty of that charge by doing research on the "emotional neurochemicals" of Drosophilia?

For a very good short introduction to these neurological issues, I highly recommend:

Michael O'Shea. The Brain: a Very Short Introduction (2005). 

2. "Draining the concept of concept of meaning" simply means being willing to attribute concept possession on the basis of very little evidence. What meaning the concept of concept has, that could be drained away, is evidenced in the immense body of literature in philosophy of mind. One might best begin looking up topics like "concepts", "theories of meaning" and "mental representation", not to mention "externalism" and "internalism", and the connectionist vs. representationalist debate between, among others, Paul Churchland and Jerry Fodor.

The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy and the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy are open sources, and both are peer-reviewed. But in getting started, the IEP is usually best, with the SEP for a deeper dive.

Regards,

Tom

On Wednesday, May 20, 2015 10:44 AM, Rich Cooper <metasemantics@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Hello Thomas,

 

Thanks for your comments:

 

TJ: I don't know how we could derive ontological categories from observations of fruit files, even from observations correlated with identifiable patterns of stimuli in identifiable regions of the fly's brain (something, anyway, which I doubt can be reliably done). 

 

If a fruit fly flies off in one direction, is it flying towards a desired object (a mate, food) or away from a feared object (a bird, any other large moving object)? If it is flying towards a mate, that's how we would describe what it's doing. But in what sense does the fly itself have the concept of a mate?

 

That depends on the observer's interpretation.  Why would flying indicate anything emotional?  You are anthropomorphizing flying with human-interpreting events.  The real value of the Cal Tech work is in having access to the fly's central emotional neurons, which are hypothesized to be in a tiny area of the brain.  So the "meaning" of a stimulus is only organized in the fly brain, not in the observer brain.  The "meaning" of any stimulus depends on the fly, not on the observer.  The observer's attribution of meaning is simply wrong.  Get the basic emotional neurochemicals first, then hypothesize an emotional reason that fits with the fly's actions after the stimulus is presented.   

 

TJ: If we drain the concept of concept of enough meaning, than any pattern of behavior could be said to manifest the use of a concept in making a judgment (the judgment to carry out that behavior). And the concept we attribute, in those attenuated cases, will be very much a product of our own interpretative prejudices. The fruit fly ontology we come up with will be more or less an Alice in Wonderland ontology.

 

And if we drain the concept of concept of enough meaning to attribute concepts (ontological categories) to fruit flies, then I think it's not a very big step beyond that to attribute desire and hunger to Venus fly traps!

 

How does one "drain the concept of meaning"?  I don't understand your statement.  Could you please elaborate on how that is possible given that the "meaning" is in the fruit fly, not in the observer.  The observer's attributed "meaning" would be completely unrecognizable to the fruit fly. 

 

Sincerely,

Rich Cooper,

Rich Cooper,

 

Chief Technology Officer,

MetaSemantics Corporation

MetaSemantics AT EnglishLogicKernel DOT com

( 9 4 9 ) 5 2 5-5 7 1 2

http://www.EnglishLogicKernel.com

 

From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Thomas Johnston
Sent: Wednesday, May 20, 2015 7:06 AM
To: [ontolog-forum]
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Fruit fly emotions mimic human emotions - ontology discovery possible?

 

I don't know how we could derive ontological categories from observations of fruit files, even from observations correlated with identifiable patterns of stimuli in identifiable regions of the fly's brain (something, anyway, which I doubt can be reliably done). 

 

If a fruit fly flies off in one direction, is it flying towards a desired object (a mate, food) or away from a feared object (a bird, any other large moving object)? If it is flying towards a mate, that's how we would describe what it's doing. But in what sense does the fly itself have the concept of a mate?

 

If we drain the concept of concept of enough meaning, than any pattern of behavior could be said to manifest the use of a concept in making a judgement (the judgement to carry out that behavior). And the concept we attribute, in those attenuated cases, will be very much a product of our own interpretative prejudices. The fruit fly ontology we come up with will be more or less an Alice in Wonderland ontology.

 

And if we drain the concept of concept of enough meaning to attribute concepts (ontological categories) to fruit flies, then I think it's not a very big step beyond that to attribute desire and hunger to Venus fly traps!

 

 

 

 

On Tuesday, May 19, 2015 12:02 PM, John F Sowa <sowa@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

 

On 5/18/2015 7:44 PM, Rich Cooper wrote:
> I am interested in the emotions, their interrelationships,
> and math models of how they work in a library of situations.

There have been many, many such models over the centuries.
For a model developed by the psychologist David Matsumoto and
applied to "human intelligence", see
http://www.humintell.com/macroexpressions-microexpressions-and-subtle-expressions/

That page has 7 sample faces that express his "universal facial
expressions of emotion":  Happy, Surprise, Contempt, Sadness, Anger,
Disgust, and Fear.  It also cites some publications that describe
applications of that classification.

> I am looking for an algorithm that could, with sizeable numbers
> of fruit flies, and sizeable numbers of situations experimentally
> simulated to the flies, elicit the ontology of the fruit fly's
> response CLASS TYPEs through observing the behavior of the fruit flies.

I got that message from your previous note.

JFS
> Don't expect a "unified theory" based on a simple combination
> of features or components.

RC
> But do use a simple framework of combinations of the common
> components to explore the emotion space.

Philosophers, psychologists, psychiatrists, and neuroscientists
have devoted many person-millennia to exploring the "emotion space"
with a huge number of simple and complex frameworks.

If anybody comes up with a really good combination, I would express
something between Happy and Surprise.  But I'm not holding my breath.

John

_________________________________________________________________
Message Archives: http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/
Config Subscr: http://ontolog.cim3.net/mailman/listinfo/ontolog-forum/
Unsubscribe: mailto:ontolog-forum-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Shared Files: http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/
Community Wiki: http://ontolog.cim3.net/wiki/
To join: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?WikiHomePage#nid1J

 

_________________________________________________________________
Message Archives: http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/
Config Subscr: http://ontolog.cim3.net/mailman/listinfo/ontolog-forum/
Unsubscribe: mailto:ontolog-forum-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Shared Files: http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/
Community Wiki: http://ontolog.cim3.net/wiki/
To join: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?WikiHomePage#nid1J
 

_________________________________________________________________
Message Archives: http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/  
Config Subscr: http://ontolog.cim3.net/mailman/listinfo/ontolog-forum/  
Unsubscribe: mailto:ontolog-forum-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Shared Files: http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/
Community Wiki: http://ontolog.cim3.net/wiki/ 
To join: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?WikiHomePage#nid1J    (01)