Cybernetic Grice

--- by J. L. Speranza
------ for the Grice Club

(dedicated to T. W.)

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When Grice was invited by Bonobo-study author, N. V. Smith, to deliver a contribution to a symposium in Sussex, he did.

If you re-read what Grice wrote you see it's all cybernetic, if not about homo sapiens sapiens. Now that we have revised, elsewhere, how he minimised Peirce, we see a return to some dichotomies Grice thought he had superseded by 1948 -- e.g. natural-artificial, and a few others. Vide Hart, review of Holloway, Language and intelligence. PQ

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Just a lexicon then. Items Grice uses in his 'myth':

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I have identified the following

DESCENT -- as per Darwin's descent of man. Grice speaks of 'descendant' --- of some pirots being descendants of others. WoW:292

ancestor. Used by Grice WoW: 292. As in the ancestor of a pirot.

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SYMPTOM
'symptoms ... like groans and screeches". Note the technicism.

creature. Grice keeps referring to pirots as creatures. I prefer 'organism'.

state -- internal state. Grice just have 'state' of a creature or pirot.

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reflex, instinct. Grice speaks of some emissions as being nonvoluntary.

evidence, v. Used by Grice. A groan evidences pain, say.

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"other creatures around" -- the environment. A pirot would not need to communicate in a desert island. Robinson Crusoe and the private-language argument. "Other creatures around" provide the right stimulus. Cfr. Chomsky on lingo as expression, rather.

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"the signaled state", or 'signalled state', in Brit spelling. Used by Grice, 293.

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"simulat"-ing behaviour. "Simulated pain-behaviour". Grice wants to say that not all simulations are 'straightforward'. Some perverse forms of simulation are just what language originates from. He calls them 'queer'.

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"undermine" -- or cancel, block. The receiving organism has to block some inference (wrong conclusion). That x is in pain, say.

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"Ouch!" versus "OUCH!". The decibels mean something different. Grice considers it 'unmanly' to say "Ouch" when you are in pain ('or otherwise uncreature-like', he adds, perversely).

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"simulating pain".

"make-believe". Grice's make believe. He is using 'make believe' non-technically: not as in Creature C1 wants Creature C2 to believe (he thus makes C2 believe) but as 'game'.

--- Used by Grice, 293.

"exhibit" -- not used by Grice in that essay or section, but that is all he is concerned about: creature C2 accepting or believing that C1 is in pain.

"accept" and 'believe' are all that Grice uses there. Never the stage of protrepsis, as it were.

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'sufficient' -- versus 'necessary'. Grice is concerned, cybernetically, with stating the minimal sufficient and necessary conditions "being a sufficient reason for Y to believe that X is in pain", e.g.

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trustworthiness and the Category of Qualitas. Explored by Grice in terms of 'communication'. The "Woolf!" of the shepherd boy. Info transfer.

"Info-transfer"

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FIRST USE of 'rational' by Grice in that segment, p. 295:

"one would regard it as rational not only for Y to ..."

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further on "communicate"

"communicating creature"

"non-deceptive simulation"

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INDEX. It had been used by Peirce and Grice had criticised him for being 'techno-cryptical'. Grice uses 'indices'.

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"Communicating agent"

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"Why not just let out a natural bellow?"

-- or burp, etc.

"unmanly" or "otherwise uncreaturely".

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'natural emission' of a loud bellow, 'the degree of pain' correponds with "the decibels" of the particular emission.

'suggest' -- used technically. "would be suggestive, in some ... way".

'response' of creature C1 -- to utter "Ouch" when in pain.

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'communication vehicle'.

"receiving creature"

More on 'information' byte of information
iconic
cybernetic

HIGHER STAGES

"communication device"

"represent"

'artificial' versus 'natural' -- but cfr. Grice on why he chose 'non-natural' instead, as better in scope.

"semantic info" used by Grice "semantic information" -- "been built into them" (???)

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recursive "finite" number of basic procedure (syntactics).

recursive finite number of resultant procedures.

infinite resultant procedures

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phylogenesis
ontogenesis.

Grice ends his section with a joke on quasi-contractualism!

Why, he WAS a genius!