On Sunday, September 03, 2000 11:51 AM Jason Joel Thompson
jasonjthompson@home.com wrote:
> I snipped some stuff here where Techno talks about the philosophy of
> representationalism.
Selective quoting.:)
> I'm not familiar with this 'philosophy,' but I can tell already that it
> isn't what I'm talking about, although at first glance it appear
remarkably
> similar.
> In fact, the position I hold is one I believe is relatively uncontested--
> when I look at an object, I receive signals bounced off of it's surface
that
> reveal it's properties. This is not a philosophy, it is a verifiable
> observation.
How does one verify this operation? Since one cannot, say, step outside
one's awareness and "see" the object and the sense systems working and all
of the things you talk about are things learn from sense perception and
inferences from them. People discovered, originally, the light reflecting
properties of surfaces and about light by observation -- i.e., by sense
perception -- and by trying to make sense of sense perception. (No pun
intended.:)
> The philosophy arises from the conclusions that we may choose to make
about
> this state of affairs.
I disagree. A valid and true philosophy is neither a taste nor an
intellectual bauble. The conclusions should match reality. If not, I
submit, it's not a valid and true philosophy. That said, I do not mean that
one must always and ever be correct everywhere, but the general tone of it
should be true and valid and one should, in order to keep it going in the
direction of being ever more true and valid correct errors.
> > Another flaw with representationalism is that once things are pushed
back
> to
> > the representations, there is no need of the external object. In fact,
it
> > one cannot be aware of the external world and can only be aware of
images
> in
> > the mental theater, how can one be sure there is an external world at
all?
> > One can't if representationalism is granted as true.
>
> Why is this a flaw?
It's a flaw for two reasons. One is that it holds a model of consciousness
that is wrong, that is that in order for awareness to be truthful --
faithful to its objects -- it must not in any way be relative or contextual.
This is nothing less than a claim that consciousness be a perfect mirror.
Some -- George Berkeley is an example of this; see his _Three Dialogues
Between Hylas and Philonous_ -- go so far as to claim that since an object
which is far away looks smaller than when it's near, this casts the senses
into doubt. After all, the object does not change size, just our perception
of it. This particular example is nothing less than a claim that
consciousness should not obey the laws of perspective and optics. (Or as
Rand would put it, you can't see because you have eyes.:)
> > > I could go on. Alien beings may perceive 'reality' in a totally
> different
> > > fashion from us. What you call an orange pen, they may describe in
> > > radically different terms.
> >
> > I agree, but this does not invalidate perception -- ours or theirs.
>
> I don't think it 'invalidates' perception either. It simply is an
> illustration of its inherent limitations.
I agree that it's an example of limitations, but all things and activities
are limited. You can, e.g., only think so many thoughts, have some many
imaginings, etc. in a given time. To be is to be limited.
> A
> > colorblind person still perceives the same reality as me.
>
> Except the reality of color.
That was the point of my example. I don't hear really high pitched and
really low picthed sounds. They still exist. I can be aware of them
indirectly -- by inference from what I am directly aware of. This is no
different from being aware of the wind by seeing it shake the branches of a
tree outside my window.
> She is missing an
> > aspect of it that I can experience. Yet given enough information, she
can
> > come to see color exists though for her it will never be directly
> perceived.
>
> I don't quite understand this. What sort of information are you talking
> about?
Well, if she's industrious enough, she could get equipment that detects,
e.g., different wavelengths of light. (This is not exactly how human
perceive color, but it's a start.) She could then see that two things that
look equally gray to her, in fact, have other properties that distinguish
them in terms of light. (Doing this, she might also discover polarization,
which humans can not perceive directly, BUT bees can. How do we know?
Researchers polarize light, then train bees to find food only where the
light reflected is polarized a certain way.)
(I perhaps shouldn't use the feminine pronoun here, since from what I've
read colorblind people are all males. This is also true of my experience.
I've never met a colorblind female human.)
> > It will be akin to me using an infrared camera.
>
> Yes, and when you use and infrared camera, you're -not- seeing infrared.
> The camera is taking infrared signals and interpreting them into visible
> light.
I was not arguing otherwise here. Reread my comments. I would, however,
disagree with "interpreting," but that's a minor quibble of style.
> > What you are doing here is setting up the notion that perceptions are
> false
> > and models that abstract from them are true. But the models are built
up
> on
> > perceptions. So, if the former are wrong, so are the latter.
>
> I'm not exactly saying that perceptions are false... simply that
perceptions
> are limited.
See above. Again, all things are limited. Superintelleginces and
posthumans will suffer the same thing: limitation. The limitations will be
different, but there will always be a set of limits, most of which are not
known beforehand.
> > Awareness is always limited, but this does not mean it is not aware of
> > reality. A young child might be aware that it's a sunny day without
being
> > aware of how the sun produces energy, how far away it is, what drives
the
> > weather, and how her sensory systems work. You appear to be setting up
a
> > false dichotomy from either knowing everything or knowing nothing. If
so,
> > how can you know your senses are limited? Or that we are barely aware?
>
> Actually, I am trying to topple a false dichotomy- one absolute reality
vs.
> nothing is real. To be clear, I don't think we know nothing!
I'm happy to hear this. However, I think the false choice is "perfect
knowledge vs. no knowledge." Skeptics generally attack sense perception
because it is not perfect and because it is limited. However, this is set
expectations too high -- holding real beings to divine (impossible)
standards.
> I think we're
> at an interesting point in the journey. Our monkey brains are starting to
> run into some problems, that much is certain-- our classical understanding
> of reality is being challenged by the increasingly abstract interactions
of
> sub-atomic particles and quantum mechanics. We've been equipped with the
> tools to understand reality on a particular level, and we've really done a
> great job with what we have. But our sensory mode of existence can be a
> handicap, insofar as we persist in intepreting events in the context of a
> physical universe.
A lot of the stuff you hint at hear has been debating since the Ancient
Greeks. Not much of this is new. Perhaps the new part is that a lot more
people are involved in the discussion. The ideas, however, are mostly
rehashes.
> A child on a sunny day is receiving information about her environment.
That
> information is not the environment.
I agree, but the environment and the child interacting with it cause the
information -- and not in some spooky, New Age fashion. Instead, her
sensory systems react to changing signals from her surroundings.
> Let us suppose that there -is- an external reality out there. That
reality
> is sending the child a signal. The child's mind interprets that data and
> forms a lattice of sensations-- a group of mental constructs that allow
the
> child to navigate the information. It is her interface with reality.
>
> To repeat: her mind/computer is interpreting data and creating a mental
> world that acts as her interface to reality. That mental world is not the
> reality itself, but rather a very useful representation of a particular
> slice of it.
I disagree with some of this. At the level of sense perception, there is no
real interpretation. The process is automatic. I see a tree outside my
window. No interpretation. I just see it. It's when I make further
assumptions that interpretation comes in. For example, the bark on the
right side is a lot darker than the left. That's because it's in shadow. I
could be fooled into believing this is so if someone paints the tree.
Cheers!
Daniel Ust
http://uweb.superlink.net/neptune/
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