Oversimplifications in HtN

[John Cowan]

Ian Lance Taylor scripsit:

> Yes, but my reading of your paper is that you are claiming that my
> primary motivation is the ``reputation-game.''

I think that this is comparable to saying, in biology, that a
tree "wants" to grow tall in order to reach the sun.  This does not
say that an introspective tree would not assign a quite different
motive.   It is what Dennett calls the third-person viewpoint, or
hetero-phenomenology.

I think you can safely read Eric as claiming that hackers behave
*as if* they were motivated by the reputation game.

> In general, I think that evolutionary psychology and sociobiology
> suffer from ``just-so syndrome,'' by which I mean a tendency to
> explain behaviour by constructing ``just-so stories,'' a la Kipling.

I quite agree with you here.  Again, the *as if* rule saves as much as
is needed for Eric's purposes.

-- 
John Cowan                                   cowan at ccil.org
       I am a member of a civilization. --David Brin