Proximate and ultimate factors in evolutionary thinking on art

Art is often described as an evolutionary adaptation, but not enough thought has been given to arguments in support of this claim. This can lead to a variety of explanatory issues, such as unjustly describing artmaking as an adaptation, not recognizing its complex nature, and its potentially even more complex evolutionary trajectory. This paper addresses one subject in particular, which is the conceptual distinction between ultimate and proximate levels of explanation. More specifically, this brief analysis investigates to what extent functional, adaptive explanations and proximate mechanisms might be confused, leading to strong adaptationist claims that may not be in accordance with the available evidence. In this paper, two hypotheses are discussed from this perspective, and it is argued that both of them, upon closer and more extensive analysis, might not stand the adaptationist test

Outline of a new approach to the nature of mind

I propose a new approach to the constitutive problem of psychology ‘what is mind?’ The first section introduces modifications of the received scope, methodology, and evaluation criteria of unified theories of cognition in accordance with the requirements of evolutionary compatibility and of a mature science. The second section outlines the proposed theory. Its first part provides empirically verifiable conditions delineating the class of meaningful neural formations and modifies accordingly the traditional conceptions of meaning, concept and thinking. This analysis is part of a theory of communication in terms of inter-level systems of primitives that proposes the communication-understanding principle as a psychological invariance. It unifies a substantial amount of research by systematizing the notions of meaning, thinking, concept, belief, communication, and understanding and leads to a minimum vocabulary for this core system of mental phenomena. Its second part argues that written human language is the key characteristic of the artificially natural human mind. Overall, the theory both supports Darwin’s continuity hypothesis and proposes that the mental gap is within our own species

Review of Making the Social World by John Searle (2010) (review revised 2019)

Before commenting in detail on making the Social World (MSW) I will first offer some comments on philosophy (descriptive psychology) and its relationship to contemporary psychological research as exemplified in the works of Searle (S) and Wittgenstein (W), since I feel that this is the best way to place Searle or any commentator on behavior, in proper perspective. It will help greatly to see my reviews of PNC, TLP, PI, OC, TARW and other books by these two geniuses of descriptive psychology. S makes no reference to W’s prescient statement of mind as mechanism in TLP, and his destruction of it in his later work. Since W, S has become the principal deconstructor of these mechanical views of behavior, and the most important descriptive psychologist (philosopher), but does not realize how completely W anticipated him nor, by and large, do others (but see the many papers and books of Proudfoot and Copeland on W, Turing and AI). S’s work is vastly easier to follow than W’s, and though there is some jargon, it is mostly spectacularly clear if you approach it from the right direction. See my reviews of W S and other books for more details. Overall, MSW is a good summary of the many substantial advances over Wittgenstein resulting from S’s half century of work, but in my view, W still is unequaled for basic psychology once you grasp what he is saying (see my reviews). Ideally, they should be read together: Searle for the clear coherent prose and generalizations on the operation of S2/S3, illustrated with W’s perspicacious examples of the operation of S1/S2, and his brilliant aphorisms. If I were much younger I would write a book doing exactly that. Those wishing a comprehensive up to date framework for human behavior from the modern two systems view may consult my book ‘The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle’ 2nd ed (2019). Those interested in more of my writings may see ‘Talking Monkeys--Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Religion and Politics on a Doomed Planet--Articles and Reviews 2006-2019 3rd ed (2019), The Logical Structure of Human Behavior (2019), and Suicidal Utopian Delusions in the 21st Century 4th ed (2019

Energy Flows in Low-Entropy Complex Systems

Nature's many complex systems--physical, biological, and cultural--are islands of low-entropy order within increasingly disordered seas of surrounding, high-entropy chaos. Energy is a principal facilitator of the rising complexity of all such systems in the expanding Universe, including galaxies, stars, planets, life, society, and machines. A large amount of empirical evidence--relating neither entropy nor information, rather energy--suggests that an underlying simplicity guides the emergence and growth of complexity among many known, highly varied systems in the 14-billion-year-old Universe, from big bang to humankind. Energy flows are as centrally important to life and society as they are to stars and galaxies. In particular, the quantity energy rate density--the rate of energy flow per unit mass--can be used to explicate in a consistent, uniform, and unifying way a huge collection of diverse complex systems observed throughout Nature. Operationally, those systems able to utilize optimal amounts of energy tend to survive and those that cannot are non-randomly eliminated.Comment: 12 pages, 2 figures, review paper for special issue on Recent Advances in Non-Equilibrium Statistical Mechanics and its Application. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1406.273

The complementarity of mindshaping and mindreading

Why do we engage in folk psychology, that is, why do we think about and ascribe propositional attitudes such as beliefs, desires, intentions etc. to people? On the standard view, folk psychology is primarily for mindreading, for detecting mental states and explaining and/or predicting people’s behaviour in terms of them. In contrast, McGeer (1996, 2007, 2015), and Zawidzki (2008, 2013) maintain that folk psychology is not primarily for mindreading but for mindshaping, that is, for moulding people’s behavior and minds (e.g., via the imposition of social norms) so that coordination becomes easier. Mindreading is derived from and only as effective as it is because of mindshaping, not vice versa. I critically assess McGeer’s, and Zawidzki’s proposal and contend that three common motivations for the mindshaping view do not provide sufficient support for their particular version of it. I argue furthermore that their proposal underestimates the role that epistemic processing plays for mindshaping. And I provide reasons for favouring an alternative according to which, in social cognition involving ascriptions of propositional attitudes, neither mindshaping nor mindreading is primary but both are complementary in that effective mindshaping depends as much on mindreading as effective mindreading depends on mindshaping

Man-machines and embodiment: From cartesian physiology to Claude Bernard’s “living machine”

A common and enduring early modern intuition is that materialists reduce organisms in general and human beings in particular to automata. Wasn’t a famous book of the time (1748) entitled L’Homme-Machine? In fact, the machine is employed as an analogy, and there was a specifically materialist form of embodiment, in which the body is not reduced to an inanimate machine, but is conceived as an affective, flesh-and-blood entity. This paper discusses how mechanist and vitalist models of organism exist in a more complementary relation than hitherto imagined, with conceptions of embodiment resulting from experimental physiology. From La Mettrie to Bernard, mechanism, body and embodiment are constantly overlapping, modifying and overdetermining one another; embodiment came to be scientifically addressed under the successive figures of vie organique and then milieu intérieur, thereby overcoming the often lamented divide between scientific image and living experience

Integrating Machine Learning in Law: A Precis of Best Practices for Initial Law Firm Adoption

Much of the mystery surrounding machine learning lays not just in how it functions, but in how it is applied. This is especially true in the field of law, where the implementation of artificial intelligence has lagged other fields. This précis distills best practices of machine learning implementation and applies them succinctly to the unique environment of law. Guiding principles and considerations are provided for the technology team, the nature of law firm data, and the commitment level of the adopting law firm

Investing in People

Foundations have long created programs to provide grants to individuals—most often in the form of fellowships, scholarships, and prizes. Several of these programs have become so prominent that they are now institutions in and of themselves. Consider just a few examples: the Pulitzer Prize, Fulbright Program, and MacArthur "genius" awards. Governments, as well as foundations large and small, fund individual support programs.The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has generously allowed the authors of this report to examine its portfolio of individual support programs to explore what the authors believe are some of the strategic fundamentals underlying this type of programming that could be applied to future individual support grantmaking. The purpose of this study is to inform those interested in individual support programs about not only some of the strategy considerations underlying this type of grantmaking but what these programs can be expected to achieve—and under what circumstances.