Wm,
I agree with the conclusions you stated below. Analogy is the
weakest, sloppiest form of logic, but when it's the only thing you have to work
with, you make do as best you can (or should I say "we", Tonto?).
WF: 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.
Hunters with strange names who stroll together through the forest
have some kind of relationship. So it is reasonable to assume they speak the
same language. Especially after you relate the story:
“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?”
The two are talking to each other, acknowledging each other's
utterances, and pursuing an inquiry about knowledge of the emotion and
knowledge of others. So whether they speak Fang or Fong doesn't matter - they
interact linguistically.
Thanks for your post; please keep them coming.
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: William Frank
[mailto:williamf.frank@xxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Thursday, May 21, 2015 3:42 PM
To: Thomas Johnston
Cc: Rich Cooper; [ontolog-forum]
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Fruit fly emotions mimic human emotions -
ontology discovery possible?
I assume everyone in the forum
is well aware of what 'anthropomorphism' means: a human is attributing to some
other species some of the same characteristics that this human attributes to
all or most other humans.
My point is a **deep** point
that takes much care to consider, though it is a deep point that the Fang
people of Gabon seem to have been very clear about:
they suggest that 'anthropomorphism' is a kind of faulty reasoning is
*itself* very sloppy thinking, as it seems to assume that humans are **right**
in attributing these attributes to each other.
As soon as one human attributes to *any other entity* feelings of the kind he
himself experiences, he is doing so **by analogy** with his own behaviors and
the feelings or other internal states he associates with them.
This 'analogizing' starts the very second we empathize with
another. Over different periods of history and differenent
cutures, people may spread their empathy further afield, or more
narrowly. Because of greater biological similarlites, within species,
analogies are likely to be more reasonable, but there may be considerable
intra-species differences between individuals, and indeed there will be very
strong fundamental valid analogies among related species. If
one thinks as the 'anti-anthropomorphists' do, that any analogies *across*
species are ipso facto invalid, then they better explain why **within** a
species, they are ok.
Biologically, the cross species comparisions between say dogs and people will
be very similar to intra species among people. will find similar
biological mechanisms at work when both people and dogs are afraid (or, if you
like 'afraid', since only YOU know what 'afraid' means to YOU.). In terms
of how people effectively communicate say sadness to each other, it is not by
human languages, so much as it is by gestrures and sounds that are similar even
in Grelag geese. (When they loose there mates, they and isolate themselves and
cover their heads with their wings sometimes for several days). Either within
*or* across species, reasoning by analogy is likely to be full of mistakes,
fraught with logical problems, (see Stanford Encyclopdia of Philosophy, for
example) for all kinds of reasons, but being only partly right, and full of
mistakes, is true of most human reasoning, so is no reason to throw it out,
only to be cautious and careful. Or, again, if we DO throw it out,
we have to throw it ALL the way out, and become behaiviorists.
Also, to say, as you did, that
the protagonists can communicate because they are both human is false, in that
not knowing Fang, I could not speak with them. Of course, some people who
don't know Fang might be able to learn it, but not all people will. It is
also fallacious when you seem to imply (else, why would you have bothered to
make the statement, that even if it WERE True, then the contrary, that if they
were NOT both human, they could not communicate, would also be true. This
is the fallacy of the converse, or mistaking sufficient conditions for
necessary ones.
So, for you to tell me what 'we' all know and do,
leads me to think of Tonto, and 'who's we, white man?'
Wm
From:
William Frank [mailto:williamf.frank@xxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Wednesday, May 20, 2015 2:23 PM
To: Thomas Johnston; [ontolog-forum]
Cc: Rich Cooper
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Fruit fly emotions mimic human emotions -
ontology discovery possible?
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?”
Wisdom and Initiation in
Gabon - A Philosophical Analysis of Fang Tales and Legends -
Bonaventure Mve Ondo
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