From: Lee Daniel Crocker (lee@piclab.com)
Date: Thu Nov 08 2001 - 11:39:27 MST
> > While I certainly agree that the vast majority of these events are
> > sensory, there is no more reason to believe they _all_ are without
> > exception than there is to believe that every memory location in a
> > computer has a value that came from some input port.
>
> But without an actual example of an experience which exists independent
> of any sensory event, there is no reason to believe in such.
It's naturally difficult to describe such examples; I did my best in
the earlier article, and while some of the examples I gave may not
apply, at least some of them surely hint at the kind of thing I am
talking about.
Besides, I think your assumption is an inappropriate use of Occam's
razor: we should disbelieve the existance of something if we have
_no reason_ to think it exists; but the mere fact that we can't
come up with a handy example (which may just be a personal failing
on my part to communicate) shouldn't be taken that seriously when
we _do_ have reasons (specifically, our knowledge of how the brain
works) to believe they exist. We don't really have a good example
of a black hole either; but we have good reason to think they
exist, and we even think we've spotted the side-effects of them.
-- Lee Daniel Crocker <lee@piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lee/> "All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past, are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC
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