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From: pindor@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca (Andrzej Pindor)
Subject: Re: Is Common Sense Explicit or Implicit?
Message-ID: <CwrB04.9JI@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca>
Organization: UTCC Public Access
References: <1994Sep26.114409.4876@oracorp.com>
Date: Mon, 26 Sep 1994 21:43:15 GMT
Lines: 169

In article <1994Sep26.114409.4876@oracorp.com>,
Daryl McCullough <daryl@oracorp.com> wrote:
>pindor@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca (Andrzej Pindor) writes:
.................
>>You have created a strawman here: since we are unable (at least at present)
>>to provide such a 'more full explanation' - so the other one is 'better'.
>
>My point is that any "first-principles" account of human behavior,
>starting with chemistry, or even quantum electrodynamics, is going to
>be such a strawman. We already know what the first-principles account
>goes: there is no reason (as far as I know) to think that there is
>anything beyond ordinary electrical forces at work inside a human
>brain. The only thing lacking is a way to cut through the
>mind-boggling complexity of the interactions of billions and billions
>of atoms to get anything like a predictive theory. Well, in my
>opinion, we already have such a theory, which is folk psychology.
>
I am puzzled that you seem to see only these two possibilities - "mind-
boggling complexity of the interactions of billions and billions of atoms" 
and folk psychology. Can't we get something in between? Take an example of
weather. People whose fate depends strongly on weather (say sailors)
have developed "folk" weather prediction system, which has certain merit to
it. Those who were better at it were more successful, just as those people
who are better at interpreting and predicting other people's behavior are
more successful in the society. Greeks might have involved their gods into it,
to explain a realtionship of the apearence of sunset to the next day's
weather. Now we know physical reasons for this relationship and it does not
require acoounting for "billions and billions of atoms". Introducing new
concepts, unknown to folk weather forcasters, like weather fronts, regions
of high and low preassure, isobars, etc. and developing physical probes to
measure relevant physical quantities and coupling these with a vast 
computational power of Crays and other hardware, we are starting to beat
the folk methods. We can cause rain by seeding clouds (like we can lower
someone's desire for sexual encounters by giving him drugs to lower
testerone levels). I really do not see any reason why it might be impossible
in principle to do better than folk psychology by developing models of brain
based on its physical structure , without a necessity to consider "billions
and billions of atoms".
........
>>Depending what you mean by 'supplant'. Knowing what are physico-chemical
>>reasons of certain behaviors is already being utilized, for instance by
>>certain medication, prozac being one example, or pharmacological treatments
>>of sexual offenders - another. In these cases a particular behavior is
>>explained not by beliefs or desires, but by a chemical state of the brain.
>
>That's exactly what I do *not* mean by supplant. What you are talking
>about is using physico-chemical explanations as *complementary* to
>folk-psychology. There is no conflict between an description in terms
>of beliefs and desires and a description in terms of chemistry. There
>are low-level and high-level descriptions of phenomena, and they are
>not in conflict. You are missing a key part of the picture if you only
>see the low-level.
>
I have never implied that there is such a confilct. I was simply indicating
that we can already explain or predict human behavior in certain 
circumstances on the basis of physico-chemical knowledge of the brain, since
my impression was that you were claiming that folk psychology is all we
have got and that we will never be able to do better. It seems that I have
interpreted you incorrectly.

>For example, if you are observing a computer chess program in action,
>then (assuming the program is working well) one would describe the
>resulting game using something like "The computer took the pawn so as
>to open up a path for his rook". A description in terms of programming
>language constructs "It took the pawn because it encountered an
>if-then-else statement, and the condition turned out to be true" is
>pretty worthless in normal cases. In unusual cases, for example, when
>the computer does something bizarre, one might turn to a lower-level
>explanation, because the high-level explanation breaks down. The same
>thing is true of human beings. In normal circumstances, the high-level
>explanation of behavior in terms of folk-psychology is the right level.
>
I do not think it is such a good example, because what you call "the lower 
level" description in this case does not have any more information than
the top level one - it just uses a different language. In principle, 
the code should just contain what we know at the top level, barring 
unintentional programming errors. Everything what is happening at the level
of the program can be described at the top level. Coming back to the 
weather example, the description at the level of weather fronts, isobars etc.
has more information than the one in terms of apearence of coulds, sunset and
sunrise, rough measure of wind and temperature, and more predictive power
since we can apply the machinery of physical laws to the former ones.
 
>>Physical theories get any respect only if they cross
>>bounds of a particular field in which they were postulated as an
>>explanation.
>
>I'm not claiming that folk psychology is respectable. I only claim
>that it is useful, and that everyone uses it, even if they are too
>embarrassed to admit it.
Sure it is useful and I do not see reasons to be embarassed by using it, like
I am not embarass to predict the next day's weather on basis of "folk"
methods and plan accordingly if I have no access to a better forcast from
a weather station.

>>If a theory is unable to cross such bounds or runs
>>into contradictions when extended outside these bounds, it is
>>abandoned (e.g. theory of ether). In case of behavior, beliefs,
>>desires etc. present such flexible combination that nearly any
>>behavior can be explained, perhaps by postulating yet another
>>belief. And if in spite of this flexibility you cannot come up with
>>an explanation in terms of beliefs etc., you can always say "he/she
>>is out of his/her mind :-) (or drunk, etc). So the theory is
>>unfalsifiable.
>
>It isn't supposed to be a physical theory. We already *have* the
>physical theory which describes human behavior---quantum
>electrodynamics.  Folk psychology is a metatheory, a framework for
>describing behavior, and it is an enormously useful
>framework. *Particular* psychological explanations are falsifiable. I
>gave the example of the explanation of DrewDalpa's behavior of going
>to a store because he is infatuated with the check-out lady.
>
However, some people raise it to a status of a "scientific" theory (see 
citation from Searle provided by Mark Rosenfelder). Again, by analogy with
the weather example, I would like to claim that there is no reason in
principle why we could not eventually do better using for instance terms like
'phase coherence', 'basins of attraction', 'limit cycles', etc.

>
>I think my analogy stands pretty well. Folk psychology is not
>to be compared with a particular physical law (such as the law
>of universal gravitation) but with the metaphysical assumption
>that the universe is described by physical laws. This metaphysical
>assumption is not falsifiable, although particular theories within
>the frame work are.
>
It seems to me that folk psychology does not deserve any better status
than folk weather forcasting. If you disagree I'll be glad to hear (read)
your arguments. Certainly comparing it to metaphysical assumption that
the universe is described by physical laws is far too strong. The latter is
a starting assumption of all science, the former is convenient phenomenology
which arises from our (until very recently) total lack of access to 
details of brain functioning. 
As I have pointed out, in some case we already say "he has very high testerone
levels" instead of "he is a very amorous guy, Don Juan type, loves all women".
The letter was the only explanation available when there was no notion of 
body chemistry.

>Right, and it was useful to that extent. I don't have any disagreement
>with you about objectivity. A belief is a theoretical construct, not
>a physical object.
>
I would like to add: a purely phenomenological construct, and as such
may or may not have any justification in the brain's functional and/or 
physico-chemical structure.
..........
>Oh, I agree completely that folk psychology is not science. It is
>metaphysics. However, to me it is folk psychology that makes the
>scientific study of the mind a distinct field. To me the applicability
>of folk psychology is what distinguishes things with minds from things
>without minds.
>
Again it seems to me that you according too much importance to the role
of folk psychology. In particular, since I dooubt that we will ever be able
to draw a strict line between things which have minds and those which do not
(do apes have mind, do dolphins have minds, dogs, birds, fish ?).

>Daryl McCullough
>ORA Corp.
>Ithaca, NY
>

Andrzej
-- 
Andrzej Pindor                        The foolish reject what they see and 
University of Toronto                 not what they think; the wise reject
Instructional and Research Computing  what they think and not what they see.
pindor@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca                           Huang Po
