talking red light blues

[From Rick Marken (930325.1245)]

Bruce Nevin (Wed 930324 08:44:38) said

It is possible to know what someone is doing by watching what
they are doing, when they are doing something that is socially
standardized.

I gave the "stop at red light" examle of a socially standardized
case where you could not tell what someone was doing by watching
what they are doing.

Bruce Nevin (Thu 930325 15:06:56) roundly rejected this example
and said:

The behavioral outputs involved in stopping at a red light are
not controlled for conformity to social norms in the way that the
utterance of a word, a phrase, or a sentence is.

So let me see if I get this right: you CAN tell what someone is
doing by watching what they are doing if what they are doing is
uttering a word, phrase or sentence?

Best

Rick

[Martin Taylor 930326 11:15]
(Rick Marken 930325.1245)

So let me see if I get this right: you CAN tell what someone is
doing by watching what they are doing if what they are doing is
uttering a word, phrase or sentence?

Consider what one is likely to be doing (PCT sense) when one utters
a word, phrase, or sentence. Colloquially, it is called "communicating,"
which might be translated as "attempting to let another know what one
is doing (PCT sense)." (Avoiding for the moment lies and other deceptions).
So, if one is controlling well, your communicative partner CAN tell what
you are doing in the specific case of language (construed to include
body language, etc.). The conventionalization of language has evolved
just so that this can happen.

When one is interacting with non-linguistic entities, there is no
evolutionary benefit in an outsider's possibly being able to see what
one is doing. It is enough that one does it. When one is interacting
with a linguistic entity (person or now computer) it is very important
that one controls for the partner to know what one is doing, whether
to enhance that knowledge (cooperative communication) or to defeat it
(deception).

Language IS special that way.

Martin