Re: Folk Psychology and Social Convention

In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, dan 
michaels <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes
> David Longley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message 
> news:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...
> > In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, dan
> > michaels <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes
> > >David Longley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> > >news:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...
> > >> http://www.behavior.org/journals_BP/2000/Place.pdf
> > >>
> > >> There is quite a large literature on social conformity which could be
> > >> referred to, but whilst of some heuristic value (in the helpful,
> > >> illustrative sense) I really find that social psychological literature
> > >> relatively trivial compared to the rather detailed and powerful work
> > >> which has been done for decades in what I rather loosely refer to in
> > >> this newsgroup as "behaviour analysis" and "learning theory".
> > >
> > >
> > >Thanks, you've only reminded us of this 1000 times so far. I really
> > >find that very conforming to hear again.
> > >
> > >Longley Citation Statistics [8 long years and counting]
> > >-------------------------------------------------------
> > >folk psychology [derogatorily] in over 1000 posts
> > >Quine [glowingly] in over 1800 posts
> > >silly [regarding others' ideas] over 400 times
> > >Skinner [in awe] in over 800 posts
> > >behaviorism [as accepted dogma] in over 500 posts
> > >[pernicious] mentalism over 100 times
> > >[pernicious] cognitivism over 250 times
> > >intensional [as wrongish] over 1600 times
> > >extensional [as correctish] over 1850 times
> > >frag.html [self-promotion] over 300 times
> >
> > Yet despite this, I bet we see yet more of your asinine
> > misrepresentations of popular neuroscience in posts to
> > comp.ai.philosophy. If you actually read some of the material you
> > irreverently *count* and disparage above, you might learn why your posts
> > amount to little more than science fiction and why they have next to
> > nothing to do with the philosophy of AI.
> >
> > The above terms are exactly those which should occur in a forum which is
> > specifically for the discussion of the philosophy of AI, something you'd
> > discover for yourself if you actually read and understood any of the
> > relevant literature.
>
>
> It's very clear you are stuck in a loop. Why not learn something new
> and interesting:
>
> http://webvision.med.utah.edu/VisualCortex.html#pathways
>
> http://white.stanford.edu/~heeger/psych202/lecture-notes/
> visual-cortex/visual-cortex.html
And the reason you think I need to learn about visual neuroscience is? 
(I thought I'd learned a fair bit of that back at NIMR years ago but 
hey, what do I know about neuroscience eh?)

And the relevance of visual functional-neuroanatomy/neuroscience to the 
*philosophy* of AI is?

Can you please tell us why these frequent references to empirical work 
in the neuroscience of vision are appropriate posts to a newsgroup which 
is dedicated to the philosophy of AI - and why you aren't posting it to 
comp.ai or comp.ai.vision instead?

Would the functional-neuroanatomy/neuroscience of the monoamine systems, 
or neuropeptides or the cerebellum, the hypothalamus, amygdala or basal 
ganglia be as relevant - if so how? if not why not? Hell, why not make 
it bionet.neuroscience.gee.whizz.ai.somehow  and be damned?

I've tried to explain what philosophy *is* these days and what might 
well be worth discussing as the philosophy of AI - it even fits in with 
the books that I have on the philosophy of AI oddly enough - but .. what 
do I know eh?

The last time *I* looked, "folk psychology" was all about the 
attribution of properties (intensional) such as "intelligence".... but, 
it seems, that, like "intensions" more generally -(something one sees 
for example in the contemporary work of McCarthy) this is not something 
which *you* and Larry etc are interested in except to count how the 
words have been used by me - especially if I say "folk psychology" is 
not the stuff one would want in AI anyway! - but hey - you have the 1st 
Amendment over there in the USA don't you....? Bill of Rights and all 
that, and it would seem that some of you believe that means you can 
decide for yourselves that philosophy of AI is about making 
cottage-cheese if you want -  As Eray says - who am *I* to tell you 
otherwise???

Over the past week, some of these threads have been cross posted to 
talk.bizarre and other inappropriate groups. I tried to claw some of the 
original purpose back by referring to the logical structure of the posts 
themselves given the "heat" - what I was referring to is something which 
is central to the management of lots of human behaviour, but the point 
has probably gone unnoticed because several people in this newsgroup 
seem to think that psychology is irrelevant to AI. I find this 
absolutely bizarre.

Beginning with "said that" as canonical, I have used other examples of 
intensional contexts to point out the way that intensions actually get 
in the way of what we call intelligent behaviour, yet this seems to have 
been lost on just about everyone who has responded. The reason? Lack of 
"insight"? Intelligence? Failure of connection (failure of Leibniz's Law 
in intensional contexts) - who cares eh?

Hey, guess what I saw in http://www.newandexcitingideas.com/today.htm
thsimorning!



(follow-ups to comp.ai.philosophy)

--
David Longley