labeling and magic

[HANS_BLOM2]

[Hans Blom, 951020b]

(Bill Powers (951020.0545))

I think that by labeling this phenomenon "imprinting," Lorenz gave
up on science and turned to magic. I maintain that there is an
explanation for imprinting ...

On the contrary: by _labeling_ a phenomenon Lorenz started another
branch of scientific inquiry. Labeling a new phenomenon is little but
drawing attention to that something, in an attempt to communicate it
to -- and to communicate about it with -- others. "Hey, did you see
what happened? Let's call it X so that we can talk about it in the
future". It is the introduction of a new piece of "jargon" (the
language of experts in a certain domain that they use to communicate
amongst each other). The specific word that is picked is hardly
important, although it may confuse non-experts. Similarly, non-PCT
experts may find terminology like "reference level" or "control of
perception" utterly confusing or without meaning. But upon explana-
tion of what these terms stand for, they will probably become accept-
able.

The "meaning" of a word is the perception that it causes in the
listener. If the word is new, or is used in a different context, the
"meaning" that arises in the listener is either nil or incorrect; the
listener's perception will be little more than confusion. Until that
perception has been anchored in pre-existing knowledge. Only then
does it start to "make sense".

If you raise objections against a word, it doesn't (yet) make sense
for you; you cannot accomodate it in your internal world-model, it is
not properly connected to other "words". That is what distinguishes
novices and experts in a certain domain.

Labeling is not explanation, even if you seem to think so. Labeling
is primarily creating a new category. Subsequently, that new category
needs to be defined, explained in terms of and distinguished from
other pre-existing categories.

Why do you call it magic? Maybe discovering something new IS like
magic. If Lorentz or whoever had not seen this new phenomenon AS a
new phenomenon and given it a name, we might have seen it all the
time, as chicken-keeping farmers undoubtedly have from times
immemorial, yet not recognized it as something worthy of attention /
further (scientific) investigation.

Labeling is the start of all new science, however magical new terms
may appear to those who are not familiar with the phenomenon. Those
who know it will say "sure, I know what you're talking about", not
from the label so much as from what it stands for, what they are
familiar with. Even if they don't think it's important...

Greetings,

Hans

[Marc_L_Kurtzer1]

i.kurtzer (951023.1600)

[Hans Blom, 951020b]

(Bill Powers (951020.0545))

>I think that by labeling this phenomenon "imprinting," Lorenz gave
>up on science and turned to magic. I maintain that there is an
>explanation for imprinting ...

On the contrary: by _labeling_ a phenomenon Lorenz started another
branch of scientific inquiry. Labeling a new phenomenon is little but
drawing attention to that something, in an attempt to communicate it
to -- and to communicate about it with -- others.

but this word "imprinting" implicitly refers to a partial explanation.
this is not a observation pure but also an implicit conjecture that
is little removed from platonic wax hence falling into the class of
explanations that posit unilateral causality and hence is wrong, period.
i don't think that he chose this word arbitarily but because it somehow
"captured" what he thought was important about the situation not
because it was a short-hand observation.

If you raise objections against a word, it doesn't (yet) make sense
for you;

or it could be simply objectionable like "imprinting", or
"reinforcement", or "sign stimulus", or the seeemily boundless melee of
words scientists have in their lexicon like "lexicon". these "labels"
are much more insiduous than innocent labels they are hidden conjectures.

you cannot accomodate it in your internal world-model,

another implicit conjecture.

Why do you call it magic? Maybe discovering something new IS like
magic. If Lorentz or whoever had not seen this new phenomenon AS a
new phenomenon and given it a name, we might have seen it all the
time, as chicken-keeping farmers undoubtedly have from times
immemorial, yet not recognized it as something worthy of attention /
further (scientific) investigation.

the occurance of something is not equivilant to that something being a
phenomena in the scientific sense. nor does the labeling imbue that
occurance with scientific status or as something to be explained--because
the explantion has half-way been taken care of. these labels are not
arbitrary but bear a clear relation to previous conjectures and to
the extent that these prior conjectures are left hidden it is
dangerous naivity.

i.

···

Hans Blom (J.A.Blom@ELE.TUE.NL) wrote:

[Bruce_Abbott]

[From Bruce Abbott (951024.1000 EST)]

Bill Powers (951022.1100 MDT) --

A term like "imprinting" also links to the larger body of language, but
in a misleading way that is not meant to be taken literally. It does not
mean "leaving a mark" on something, except perhaps in a metaphorical
sense. So the disadvantage of a term like imprinting is that it points
to perceptions in the listener which are not appropriate to the actual
phenomenon.

Well, metaphorical or no, it does mean "leaving a mark on something." The
"something" is the newly hatched bird and the "imprint" is a complex pattern
of inputs that allow the bird to recognize its mother. Imprinting is the
process by which this unique pattern comes to be stored in the chick's
brain, as evidenced by the chick's ability thereafter to respond uniquely to
its own mother as opposed to other female hens.

The image this word instantly conveys is thus appropriate to the phenomenon
it serves to label, and because of this image the label is easy to remember.
The label is thus an effective communication device. We have no words to
describe what changes take place in the brain that allow the chick to
recognize its mother, once it has identified her. So we use the word we
have that describes the analogous process by which an image is stored on
paper. No one is misled by this into thinking that the brain is literally
being printed upon.

"Reference level" and "control of perception" are not jargon terms. They
are defineable so as to link with the larger body of language.
"Reference" is used in the sense of a reference mark, something with
respect to which something else is measured. "Level" is used in the
sense of "amount," as in "water level" or "sound level". A reference
level of a variable is that measure of the variable with respect to
which we measure the actual value -- a reference point on a scale of
values.

Almost all nouns are metaphores. Take the term "signal," as in "reference
signal." According to my dictionary, it comes from the latin for "sign"; by
claiming that a control system contains a reference signal, you are
literally saying that it contains a sign -- a conventional symbol
representing an idea. "Reference" comes from the latin meaning "to bear."
Your phrase "reference signal" therefore literally means "that which bears a
sign." I don't know why you choose such metaphores to convey your ideas;
PCT researchers will be looking all over the brain for structures bearing
signs. (;->

At this point I hope you are saying to yourself, "why, that's absurd!" I
hope so, because there is really no difference between words like "control"
and "imprinting," so what applies to one applies to them all. "Control"
comes from the latin "contre" + "role," meaning role or catalogue, and
originally applied to the checking or regulating of payments. Only by
analogy does it come to mean "to keep within limits" such variables as speed
or intensity. "Control" is a metaphore.

It is magic because the effect follows from the cause with no plausible
mechanism linking them. I am aware that all scientific discoveries begin
as observations of magical connections, but in my understanding of
science the task is to substitute proposals about mechanisms to replace
the magic.

The term "imprinting" simply calls attention to a specific kind of change
observed to occur under a specific circumstance. The observable change in
behavior leads inescapably to the inference that some rather permanent
change has been laid down somehow, somewhere, in the imprinted bird's brain.
There is no appeal to magic. Proposing mechanisms and doing the research to
test those proposals is what comes next, after the phenomenon has been
identified and labeled.

Regards,

Bruce

[bnhpct]

Bruce Nevin (951024.1200 EST)

(Bruce Abbott (951024.1000 EST))--

Almost all nouns are metaphores. Take the term "signal," as in "reference
signal." According to my dictionary, it comes from the latin for "sign"; by
claiming that a control system contains a reference signal, you are
literally saying that it contains a sign -- a conventional symbol
representing an idea. "Reference" comes from the latin meaning "to bear."
Your phrase "reference signal" therefore literally means "that which bears a
sign." I don't know why you choose such metaphores to convey your ideas;
PCT researchers will be looking all over the brain for structures bearing
signs. (;->

At this point I hope you are saying to yourself, "why, that's absurd!" I
hope so, because there is really no difference between words like "control"
and "imprinting," so what applies to one applies to them all. "Control"
comes from the latin "contre" + "role," meaning role or catalogue, and
originally applied to the checking or regulating of payments. Only by
analogy does it come to mean "to keep within limits" such variables as speed
or intensity. "Control" is a metaphore.

Bruce, you overstep your considerable competence here. The metaphors you
identify in "reference" and "signal" and "control" are etymological. Only
classicists and etymology buffs have any perception of fer- meaning "bear"
in reference, and so on, and then only when they are paying attention to
the perceptions they are interested in as classicists or etymology buffs,
not when they are using these words in the ordinary course of speaking and
understanding English.

These are not lively metaphors: there is no contrast between a metaporical
meaning and a more basic literal meaning. The etymological meaning is by no
stretch of imagination a more basic literal meaning today. They were once
living metaphors in Latin, or more likely pre-Latin, but they are no more
metaphors now than "park the car" is. (Once, people turned out their horses
into a park while stopping in a place. Later, a holding area for carriages
was called a park, and the servants parked your carriage there. There is no
park now, but the verb remains, fossilized. Words like "reference" and
"control" contain still older fossils.)

"Imprint" referring to animal young on the other hand is a metaphor of
recent coinage, and as such is still lively. There is a clear distinction
between the metaphorical meaning and the literal meaning, in which
contours of one object make an impression on another object or leave an
image on it with some medium such as ink. The treachery of such metaphors
is that they invite us to make a analogy that may be specious -- in this
case, the imprinting metaphor invites ut to imagine the brain to be a
plastic medium taking an impression from the contours of some other object,
rather like film in a camera.

Another way to distinguish terms like "imprint" from terms like "control"
and "reference signal" is in the precision and specificity of their
definitions. So far as I know, no way of modelling imprinting has ever been
proposed, and no plausible neural mechanisms for it have been advanced,
beyond some vaguenesses about holonomic brain wave structures. Perhaps I am
wrong. If so, that is the proper way to defend "imprinting" as on a par
with the terms of control theory. The argument that both are metaphors is
all fog.

        Bruce Nevin

[Bruce_Abbott]

[From Bruce Abbott (951109.2330 EST)]

i.kurtzer (951109.1600) --

i don't want to end up talking about red, moving regions of
space when i see a bouncing ball. there can be a degree of rigour
between "imprinting" and sensationalist protocal statements; the line
between conception and sensation is already murky enough, the use of a
word for both only exacerbates the problem.

I understand--and agree with--your basic point, but isaac, there is NO
theory-free observation.

Even if Lorenz had called it
"following-a-moving-object-and-peeping-loudly-when-
separated-from-it-that-requires-exposure-to-the-moving-object-when-less-than
- a-certain-age" (a not improbable construction, minus the hyphens, in
German), that label would still presuppose that the gosling was following
the object, which is an explanation for its motions. And calling the
phenomenon "X" neither descriptive nor "catchy." Metaphor or no, the word
"imprinting" gives you some idea of the process the label is intended to convey.

Time to go home.

Regards,

Bruce