[Inquiry] Re: Examples Of Inquiry -- Discussion

[Jon Awbrey]

o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o

EOI.  Discussion Note 19

o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o

JA = Jon Awbrey
KM = Kirsti Maattanen

Re: EOI-DIS 16.  http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2004-November/001841.html
In: EOI-DIS.     http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2004-November/thread.html#1707

Kirsti,

Continuing from where I left off ...

KM: As I see it, what Freud in his early work (The Project)
    wrote extensively, as well as what little Peirce did say
    on the relation between psychological phenomena and neural
    processes, need to be critically examined and, if they seem
    to serve some reasonable purpose, updated and reformulated.
    (The extremely rare occasions I have made a note "outdated"
    or something like that in the margins of CP have been with
    paragraphs dealing with the nervous system.  Once or twice,
    if I remember correctly.)  Updating, however, I do not see
    anything like an easy task, main-stream neuroscience having
    not much to offer, especially in terms of a Peircean frame.

KM: You mentioned behaviorism when describing your studies in psychology.
    I'll take it as an example:  Behaviorism is based on the work of I.P. Pavlov.
    The founding fathers of behaviorism, however, took the notion of conditional
    reflex, isolated it from its context, the general theoretical framework of
    I.P. Pavlov.  They ignored the concept of dynamical stereotypes, which for
    Pavlov was the neural correlate (this may not be an adequate term to use
    here) of a habit.  On this basis the behaviorists then developed their
    notion of habit, which became both predominant and popular, to the
    degree of being ingrained in ordinary every-day western ways of
    thinking.  Compared to the notion of habit in Pavlov's works,
    the behaviorist variant is one-sided, skewed and simplistic. 

KM: Here I want to add:  Why I want to bring all this up in the list is not
    so just to give a response to Jon, but because -- to my mind -- the ways
    Peirce's conception of habit has been understood and interpreted seems to
    be continuously muddled with the behaviorist heritage. -- This, of course,
    applies to what I'm familiar with.  (Recommendations for further reading
    are welcome).

Yes, James and Dewey had their infatuations with the young behaviorism,
and the fact is that focusing on behavior is healthy and interesting,
but again the criterion is anti-procrustean:  Do we fit our models
to the actual phenomena of action, behavior, conduct -- or do we
lop off nature's givens to to fit the models we can handle?

KM: Then, back to behaviorism and Pavlov: 

KM: What behaviorism left out as well from I.P.Pavlov's theory was
    the basic approach of viewing the nervous system as a whole.
    Exemplified in Pavlov's principle:  Any pattern of activation
    induces a correlated pattern of inhibition in the system (as
    a whole).  One of the consequences -- if this is accepted as
    a starting point -- for philosophical considerations on the
    mind-body problem (or its now popular reductionist variant:
    mind-brain problem) is that any attempt based on activation
    of single neurons or bundles of neurons and linking them
    with -say- a mental image are futile.

I think we are mainly on the same plane here.

KM: We all know that the activity of the nervous system is electro-magnetic
    activity. (c.f. Pavlov's principle above).  Approaches based on the idea
    of single neurons (then to be added up to bundles) take into consideration
    electrical impulse passing (or rather hopping) through the neuron and its
    synaptical transmission to other neurons. -- What is left out of consideration,
    then, is the magnetic "side" of electro-magnetic phenomena.  Quite unlegitimate
    use of Ockham's razor, I'd say, no matter how common. 

KM: I'm not sure I understood the following: 

JA: It may be that Ockham's razor will always
    shave as close to the spinal cord as possible.

KM: but if I did, I do hope it does not hold.
    (Pardon me for saying, but did you notice
    that your metaphor limps -- "shaving" sounds
    an inadequate here, isn't it a euphemism?)

It connotes the microtome, and anatomical "preparations".

KM: Anyway, it seems to me that the most common and long-standing misuse
    of Ockham's razor is that instead of carefully and meticulously shaving
    the beard criss-crossing all over the essential features, it is used in
    a much simpler and quicker way:  to cut the throat.  Not taking notice
    that if you cut the throat, you cut out life.  By this I mean ways of
    philosophizing as if the head with the brain inside were all that is
    essential in human beings, for epistemological purposes, for instance.
    E.g. all epistemologies based on vision, that is:  almost all through
    the modern era. It does not take very much caricaturing to say that
    all that quite often seems to be taken as essential in human body
    is one eye (more specifically the dominant eye) and the brain.
    Or, in modern neuroscience it is not uncommon to meet with
    explicit considerations of how "the brain interacts with
    the world".  Which is simply nonsense and in dire need
    of philosophical criticism. 

KM: Well, well, well.  It has been quite a while since I read
    Pavlov's 'Selected Works' (in German translation).  I was
    an undergraduate student then, planning my master's thesis.
    By then I had read my share of behaviorism, as part of the
    psychology curriculum, and I.P. Pavlov was familiar from
    those sources.  I still vividly remember my astonishment
    when I started to read his own writings, none of which
    was included in the curriculum. -- And now that I came
    to think about it, I don't remember having ever actually
    met anyone else who had read Pavlov's own writings, not
    even amongs the neuropsychologists I've discussed with
    over the years. 

KM: Now that I have dwelled this much on Pavlov's work,
    my anticipation is that some listers draw the hasty
    conclusion that I am an adherent to his theory.  That
    is not the case.  I appreciate and even admire him as
    a devoted and original researcher and theorist in his
    field, still unequalled in many respects.  I took him
    up here as an example of a theorist in neuroscience,
    whose treasures have been left behind, and a caricature
    passed on to future generations.

So you understand how that can happen.

KM: To restate my main point here:  There is no way out in philosophy
    of the trouble of taking into account in general outlines all that
    is essential in life.  Peirce was exceptional in his capability to
    do this, as well as minute work in logic, formal and informal. 

KM: To end with a more casual key, I want to tell an story from the writings
    of Pavlov.  He came to the conclusion that the period of optimal activity
    in the brain occurs for some 20-30 minutes after waking up in the morning.
    He then bemoans how people usually waste this precious time by getting
    dressed and brushing their teeth, whereas he always stays in bed
    contemplating the most difficult and pressing scientific problems. 

Freud, "Project for a Scientific Psychology" --

I am re-locating and extending these excerpts here:

PSY.  http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2004-November/thread.html#1869

Jon Awbrey

o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o
inquiry e-lab: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/
o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o