Thanks Nick, > Life, here, is very complicated, right at the moment, but I wanted to answer > one of your comments, strait-away. > > Not only can this happen in *sequence* as you assume. But it can also happen > in parallel. My hand can feel the elephant's trunk at the exact same time my > eyes can see the elephant. It's not clear to me what you gain through such > (over-)simplification
This was actually Glen’s comment, which gave me the courage to pick up the topic in the paragraph I added. But all good to pick up this thread wherever is productive. All best, Eric > What I gain from the over simplification is humbleness, the same humbleness > that is so eloquently expressed in you extended passage. At the risk of > irritating Glen (which I truly strive not to do; I have supped too often at > his table), the Real can only consist of the validation of some expectation > of experience arising from an earlier experience. I once tried to rescue a > litter of wild kittens. I kept stepping on them because they never learned > to watch my EYES. They were too focused on my feet to figure out what was > going to happen next. I might respond to your critique by conceding that the > sequence of experiences is more like a braid than a thread, but I think it is > a sequence. But past, present, and future are of course themselves > experiences, and it is an accomplishment, not God given, to distinguish > between or our present experiences, our memories and our expectations for the > future. > > I hope to get another crack at your email before I go to bed tonight. > > > Nick > Nicholas S. Thompson > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology > Clark University > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > <http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/> > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Friam [mailto:[email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]>] On Behalf Of Eric Smith > Sent: Thursday, July 19, 2018 5:39 PM > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]>> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] What is an object? > > > > On Jul 19, 2018, at 5:26 PM, uǝlƃ ☣ <[email protected] > > <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: > > > > "the validator of our senses can only be our senses" waaay oversimplifies > > the set of experiences. If there were only 1 type of experience, then > > you'd be right. But there are (at least) many types of experience. And 1 > > experience of one type can "validate" a different experience of an entirely > > different type. > > > > Not only can this happen in *sequence* as you assume. But it can also > > happen in parallel. My hand can feel the elephant's trunk at the exact > > same time my eyes can see the elephant. It's not clear to me what you gain > > through such (over-)simplification. > > Yes, I was going to say something similar, and couldn’t figure out how to say > it so that it would be constructive rather than sounding like I was trying to > pick a fight (which I assure you, I never am; enough fights pick me already > which I wish to get out of). > > So many of these statements read, to me, as if they are asserting that the > structures of sense-data are some kind of self-evident bottleneck, or > conversely, that they are privileged in some correspondingly self-evident > way. I get this impression from reading Russell’s emphasis on the role of > sense data, in either Problems of Philosophy or History of Western Philosophy > (I forget which now). > > My sense data deliver essentially nothing direct about colliding black holes, > or colliding neutron stars, or rotating black hole accretion disks' emitting > gamma rays and ultra-high-energy neutrinos. (More specifically, they deliver > essentially nothing direct about whatever makes these phenomena their > particular selves, different from all the other phenomena that they are not.) > Anything I or anyone else knows about those subjects and phenomena is > distilled from unbelievably elaborate prosthetic systems, which appeal, not > so much to any particular sensory event, as to the ability to coreograph such > events in ways that are selective of certain kinds of patterns. And then > there is the whole edifice of logic, math, and language to organize it all > and make it navigable. What comes out of all that, however, is a formal > model of an external universe that is as worthy of trust as anything my mind > is capable of holding. > > That to say, I guess, that from a few bricks, the number of different kinds > of houses that can be built combinatorially is far greater than the count of > the types of bricks. So the limits on what patterns can be apprehended seems > to be very obscurely related to the limits of senses. > > At least to me. > > Eric > > > > > > > > > On 07/19/2018 02:17 PM, Nick Thompson wrote: > >> I was just making the banal philosophical point that the validator of our > >> senses can only be our senses. So a hunch “about the world” is nothing > >> more than a hunch about future experiences of the world. As Harmon would > >> say, we can never touch the noumenal. > > > > -- > > ☣ uǝlƃ > > > > ============================================================ > > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe > > at St. John's College to unsubscribe > > http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > > <http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com> > > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ > > <http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/> by Dr. Strangelove > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe > http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > <http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com> > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ > <http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/> by Dr. Strangelove > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > <http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com> > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ > <http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/> by Dr. Strangelove
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
