Craig: Please explain a little further what you mean by *accomplished through presentation* and in particular, what you mean by presentation.
Your point number 5 fits clearly within the purview of semiotics. wrb On Mon, Apr 2, 2012 at 9:14 AM, Craig Weinberg <[email protected]>wrote: > 1. We cannot doubt that we are aware. > > 2. Our awareness may represent realities which are independent from > our own existence. > > 3. Our awareness may represent ideas and fantasies which have no > existence independent from our experience of it (and whatever > neurological processes are behind it) > > 4. Representation can only be accomplished through presentation. > > 5. A word or a picture has to look like something to us in order to > remind of us of something else. > > 6. Saying that awareness or qualia only represents another process > does not explain why there should be any presentation of that process > in the first place, let alone posit a mechanism by which a physical > process can be represented by something that does not physically > exist. > > 7. The problem with the mechanistic view is that it relies on the real > existence of awareness and choice to make a case for distrusting > awareness and choice. > > A consequence of this logical contradiction is that when we begin from > the assumption of mechanism and work backwards it almost invariably > blinds us to the presentation of the work that we ourselves are doing > in determining this deterministic opinion. We fool ourselves into > thinking that there is no man even behind our own curtain, and mistake > all authentic, concrete presentations for abstract, symbolic > representations. That does not work for awareness because awareness > itself can only be represented to something which is already aware. > > Thus the symbol grounding problem arises when we make the mistake of > assuming first that awareness must follow the rules of the world which > is represented within awareness. Since the experience does not show up > on the radar of materialism, we are forced to accept the absurdities > of ungrounded feeling which emerges somehow without mechanism or > explanation from generic physical changes or computations. We have to > conflate symbol and reality - either by making reality not primitively > real (comp) or by making symbols not really real (physics). > > To me, the clear solution to this is not to begin from either the > assumption of idealism or materialism but to examine the relationship > between them. Once we notice that there is really nothing about these > two positions which is not symmetrical, we can move on to the next > step of examining symmetry itself. What I find is that symmetry is a > bootstrap metaphor for metaphor. > > Symmetry is what makes sense - literally. How it does this is > understandable. It presents and then re-presents itself. It > demonstrates how significance and order can be expressed through > reflection. It is both mathematical and aesthetic but serves no > purpose in either a comp or physical universe. It is so fundamental > that we miss it entirely - which makes sense since we are part of the > universe rather than objective observers of it. > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected]. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
