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"Anxious behavior" still implies insight into the mind. Rather than downmod, why not show how it doesn't?

• Tiksi 10y ago
  Because it's describing a type of behavior we can observe that we classify as anxious. Observing a behavior doesn't require insight into the mind.
  • jsprogrammer 10y ago
    Observing may not require insight into the mind, but classifying it as anxious does. "Anxious" makes a claim about the state of mind of whatever is being described. One would need to rename the classification, perhaps to something actually descriptive of the observations.
    • Tiksi 10y ago
      I see what you're getting at, but in this case it's not really describing the state of mind. My behavior could be anxious without actually being anxious. For example shaking your leg is an anxious behavior, being jumpy or twitchy as well, but they don't necessarily mean that the person behaving that way is anxious. Anxious is describing the behavior itself, not the cause of it. You would be correct if it had said the behavior was due to being anxious, because that's describing the mind state of who's performing the behavior and the cause of it.
      • jsprogrammer 10y ago
        There must be a relationship between those behaviors described as anxious and those caused by being anxious, otherwise a different label would have been used to classify the behaviors. Why is twitching labeled anxious? Perhaps it is part of a workout routine, in which case it would be more accurate to label the same observed behavior as exercise.