Ambigamy

Reading these last two posts reminded me that the Four I's has a lot in common with the movie Inception. Inception's plot involves dreams, which are similar to introspection. Just as there are dreams within dreams and so on, there are also the deeper levels of introspection. Both have their increasing levels of complexity as you go deeper. People also have natural limits in how deep you can go, even though there are infinite levels. Now, I know Inception was just a movie with a fictional story, but when I noticed the connection, this is what came to mind.

In the movie, they were only able to do a dream within a dream without any special assistance. It took alot more work to create a dream within a dream within a dream, which they pointed out was supposed to be extremely difficult and unstable. And they even took that one step furthur to a fourth level when they had to to finish the job. I wonder how many levels down could a human being take introspection with and without special assistance?

I haven't seen the movie yet but based on this connection, I'll go see it soon. Maybe even tonight.

I've seen your question address as the limits of "orders of inference." Basically, how many "he said that she said the he said that they said that he thinks that..." you can go. The basic answer is three, but I suspect it's context dependent.

Take a first date and some crass analysis of how we'd rate a potential partner on some scale (looks, humor, confidence, whatever). It's not hard for us to handle.

What do I think of my date?
What does my date think of me?
What does my date think I think about my partner?
What does my date think I think about what I think of what my partner thinks of me?

We're not bad at those questions and more.

Jeremy

Hi Dr. Sherman

In regards to the importance of being aware of the
stories we tell ourselves, I think that that probably
is a big part of the reason that creative play and
art therapy are so effective. They both give one the
opportunity to play around with different roles and
viewpoints, and thus different stories. To try on
different stories, so to speak.

In regards to Martin Luther King, I'm in the mist of
reading his autobiography, very fascinating. I would
say that he spent a lot of time at an i2 stage.
He got his PHD in theology and was very much interested
in philosophy. He spent years of study to understand
social change, humanity, and Christianity and to come
to an effective synthesis. Once he graduated, he
joined the civil rights movement, and was able to
hit the ground running because he had already thought
through the philosophical and religious arguments
and viewpoints in support of his goal: equal rights.

Very interesting article. I always wonder when I read statements of "fact" like this one from the article, though: "Flies fly without every wondering why, without ever looking inside for the true source of their flight. Introspection, the ability to picture a true self, seems pretty much new with humans."

What is it about us as humans that makes it important to assert that we are unique in this particular way? The truth is that we have no way of knowing for sure that flies and other creatures do not contemplate life or wonder about meaning (unless someone has found a way to read their thoughts and I missed the announcement).

Great question. Here's my response. Whether we or I are motivated by hubris to claim our uniqueness has no bearing on what is the best scientific interperetation of whether we are unique. That is there's as much risk of wishful thinking (I think we're different because I want to) as of dreadful thinking (Because I dread the thought that we aren't different, we aren't)

We don't know absolutely whether flies fly without ever wondering why. It's a guess as is every possible interpretation. But here's the warrant for the guess.

Evolution seems to run by a use it or lose it rule. We don't find costly mechanisms that languish for millenia with non advantage.

Language is costrly. It also seems to be the root of our ability to think and introspect. We see calls in organisms but its very different from symbolic language. We use ours everywhere. Flies don't use it at all.

On the one hand we're a midsized mammal; on the other looking at our behavior we'ra whole different kind of critter. The difference is the kind of thing scientists have to explain somehow.

We are not terminally unique. Chimps and Bonobos have a capacity for language, but a limited one. I have little doubt that somewhere and at some time there are or will be other symbolic species like us.

Happy holidays to you, a statement I make betting that Flies don't wish each other the same, or have the capacity to think in terms of holidays in celebration of imagined miracles that happened supposedly millenia ago. ;-)

Best,
Jeremy