From: Technotranscendence (neptune@mars.superlink.net)
Date: Sun Sep 03 2000 - 11:39:55 MDT
On Friday, September 01, 2000 12:20 PM Jason Joel Thompson
jasonjthompson@home.com wrote:
> > > I'm suggesting a different way of looking at things entirely. I
accept
> the
> > > concept of reality as a working model, but I do not have absolute
belief
> in
> > > an external reality. Not yet anyway. We do not currently have the
> ability
> > > to perceive reality directly.
> >
> > What do you mean "we"?
> > Do you have a mouse in your pocket?
>
> Ah... I see the nature of our disagreement. You believe that you are able
> to perceive reality directly?
I meant to answer this yesterday. I've been basically ignoring this thread
for the past several days.
Before going on, I'd like to point out that I discuss some of these issues
in "A Dialogue on Happiness" at
http://uweb.superlink.net/neptune/Dialogue.html and also in "Perception and
Realism" at http://uweb.superlink.net/neptune/Percept.html (The latter is a
review of the below mentioned book by Kelley.)
> So, when you look at a pen, you believe that you are directly seeing the
pen
> as opposed to photons that have been reflected from its surface? You
> understand, I hope, that as sensory beings, we must be content with the
> reception of signals (for now.) We evolved five ways of sensing our
> environment-- this is not a complete set and it suffices only to give us a
> particular picture of reality.
>
> I do not place absolute belief in my senses. I am aware of the fact that
> they represent information regarding properties of the object and not the
> object itself.
This is what is known in philosophy circles as _representationalism_ -- the
view that we do not perceive reality directly, but only perceive
representations of real objects from which we infer the latter's existence
and nature. There are some flaws in representationalism which David Kelley
examines rigorously in his _The Evidence of the Senses: A Realist Theory of
Perception_. I highly recommend that work.
What are these flaws? Well, the grounding assumption behind both
representationalism and naive realism (the view that we perceive things
without mediation at all, that our senses merely copy what's out there) is
that perception to be truthful must be unmediated. Naive realism assumes
the senses are faithful and do not distort external reality. Along comes
illusions (e.g., bent stick in water), relativity of the senses (e.g., walk
into an air conditioned room on warm day and it feels even colder than if
you do so on a cool day), dreams, and hallucinations and the naive realist
is generally converted into the representationalist. The latter still holds
the view that awareness must be invariable and unmediated. So, she or he
retreats. Now, the senses distort or lie by only representing things in
reality to the mind, but the representations themselves are directly
perceived. This only pushes the question further back. How can one
directly be aware of representations? Couldn't the mind distort them too?
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.
> Let me try a brief example to illustrate why our perception of reality is
> necessarily indirect.
>
> I'm going to abstract the model by one level to see if it becomes more
> clear:
>
> Let us suppose that I have a bunch of multi-colored tennis balls, that I
am
> bouncing up against some object. And let us further suppose that due to
the
> nature of this object, only the orange balls are 'springy' enough to
> ricochet over a wall and land in your lap. Do you think that only
receiving
> orange balls from the object is an indication that the object itself is
> orange? Or instead an indication of a particular property of the object?
I disagree with Molloy here. This is a great example. I would assume
something about the object and the orange balls makes only the latter
return. I.e., I would learn something about the external world from this
example. I might make the wrong judgment -- and, believe me, I've been
there, done that, and got many a tee shirt -- but given enough data, I could
form the right conclusion.
This would be the same if we used a more realistic example. Say, e.g.,
there was a single object in an otherwise black room. There is also a bank
of lights, each of a different color in the room, but between them and the
object is a filter glass which I'm unaware of. It filters out all but
orange light. Now you try all the lights and discover you don't see
anything except when the orange light is on. You might assume the object
is, therefore, orange. However, a better test could be to place another
object which you knew not to be orange, perhaps an object that is white, at
the same location and see what happens when you run the same test.
(Astronomers run into this all the time because the atmosphere, dust clouds,
etc. filter and distort light from extraterrestrial sources.)
> 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. A
colorblind person still perceives the same reality as me. 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.
It will be akin to me using an infrared camera.
> "We" (my mouse and I) are simply brains in a
> box, sending and receiving signals to and from existence. When we are
able
> to disassociate ourselves from our physical models of the universe, we
> enable our brains to penetrate deeper into the substrate. We cling to a
> tactile conceptualization of reality-- objects 'moving' around, etc. Hey,
> it's a very good working model for our current condition, but it is a
mental
> construct that is ultimately limiting. We might dismiss the theoretical
> physicists who want to describe reality as vacuum fluctuations, or
> collapsing wave forms, but these people are pointing at deeper
> constructions.
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. Instead, I
would offer, perceptions are true. Models we build from them -- and you
must be able to perceive the results of, say, a particle accelerator
experiment; you have to be able to read the charts or hear you colleagues
explanations, etc. -- are true insofar as both the grounding (the
perceptions!) and the conceptual level (abstraction, logic, and
generalization) are valid and true.
> And I do not. I am of the understanding that on this planet we are barely
> of the intelligence to walk around upright and dress ourselves. I'm not
> quite prepared to make definitive statements about the nature of
everything
> just yet.
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?
> > The fact that a person can be fooled into thinking that an illusion is
> real does
> > *not* mean that a separate reality exists. It simply means that people
can
> be
> > fooled.
>
> Exactly. And it is in the realization that we can be fooled that allows
the
> mind to open to the possibility that all this ain't real either (or the
next
> level, or the next level...)
But what is wrong here? Are the perceptions wrong or the judgments made
from them? I argue the latter is the case. For example, when I see the
surface of the road reflecting and distorting light on a hot day, I might
conclude there's water ahead. In fact, what is going on is not that my
perceptions are playing me false. Both bodies of water under certain
conditions and dry land under certain conditions appear similar. My eyes
are lying to me. I would just be making a false generalization -- viz.,
assuming that only bodies of water have that sort of affect.
> > > I do hold however, that there are very practical ways in which we can
> > > leverage the plasticity of our perception of reality into control over
> that
> > > reality. If I could sit you down in a room and have a conversation
with
> you
> > > about it, I would, because a written explanation would be tiresome--
I'd
> > > have to spend too much time convincing you I was talking about
something
> > > rational. Indeed, extremely rational.
> >
> > Ah, but how do you know it's *really* rational, rather than merely a
> reasonable
> > illusion?
>
> Ah, you see, now you've started this conversation down what I consider to
be
> the interesting road. I -do- believe in a type of reality-- the realm of
> mind.
Why?
Cheers!
Daniel Ust
http://uweb.superlink.net/neptune/
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