A solution to the Qualia riddle and a coherent explanation of my 'Theory Of Everything
--- Qualia and Matter --- The riddle of the relationship between Qualia (which I define as raw experience) and the Physical World (which I'll call 'Matter' and define as geometrical relations) seems to be one that ties people in mental knots. The solution is amazingly simple and dazzling in its beauty. I do think I have the solution. And yes, I think it's the answer to FAI, life, the universe and everything as well ;) I shall try one last time to carefully explain why I think I really do understand everything (in the sense of basic conceptual principles at least). I don't hold out much hope that people will grok , but you never know. So what is the relation between Matter and Qualia? Before explaining my solution, I shall begin with an analogy. People really seem to tie themselves in horrible mental knots over this and my explanations just don't seem to be getting through, so I'll try starting with an analogy first. Take a look at the picture at the URL given below. My question: What scene is it? You have two choices: (1) The scene is that of a Young Woman (2) The scene is that of an Old Lady Here's the picture: http://www.killsometime.com/illusions/Optical-Illusion.asp?Illusion-ID=33 The entertaining feature about this picture of course, is that the scene you see depends on the way your brain interprets the picture. The key point is that the scene you see depends not just on the actual nature of the picture, but also on the cognitive interpretation your mind gives to it. So the scene is an *interaction* between (1) The nature of the picture and (2) The Mental interpretation in your mind. Call this mental interpretation a 'Cognitive Lens'. If you interpret the picture through one Cognitive Lens you'll see an Old Lady. If you interpret the picture through another Cognitive Lens, you'll see a Young Woman. Let the multiplication sign (x) simply mean 'an interaction between'. So: Young Woman = Picture x Cognitive Lens 1 Old Lady = Picture x Cognitive Lens 2 Two points to bear in mind. There is only *one* actual picture, but there are *two* equally valid but different ways to interpret it as a coherent scene. Neither 'Old Lady' nor 'Young Woman' is separate from each other. They are both referring to the same picture. The key point is the idea that the scene you see is an interaction between the picture and a 'Cognitive Lens', which I defined to be a mental interpretation, or the way your brain goes about coding the *meaning* of the raw visual data its receiving. Make sure you understand this before proceeding. Are you all with me so far? Now my actual solution to the Qualia/Matter puzzle. Here it is: Qualia = Reality x Cognitive Lens a Matter = Reality x Cognitive Lens b I'm suggesting that Reality itself is neither Matter NOR Qualia. In order for Matter or Qualia to appear, Reality has to be *interpreted* through a *mental process*. It's analogous to the picture example I just gave. Think of Reality as like the picture, Qualia as like the 'Young Woman' and Matter as like 'The Old Lady'. There's only *one* reality, but whether you see it as Matter or whether you see it as Qualia depends on the way your brain interprets the raw data it's receiving. Both 'Matter' and 'Qualia' are equally valid interpretations of some part of reality. Neither is more fundamental than the other. See how elegant this solution is? Qualia and Matter are both real and Qualia is not Matter. But there is nothing mystical going on. Qualia are not separate from matter either. There is only one reality, but whether you see it as 'Qualia' or 'Matter' depends on the cognitive lens through which your brain chooses to interpret reality. Qualia and Matter are simply different 'modes of cognition'. At first it seems dangerously like solipsism, but I'll show you how to avoid solipsism in a moment, by adding a big twist. I'm going to elaborate on this idea and add two huge twists which are the secret to my 'Theory Of Everything'. But make sure you fully understand the above suggestions first. So far I haven't actually said anything really original, just given an elegant way of looking at the Qualia/Matter puzzle. But an existential warning though: what I'm going to say next, if you understand it, may just change your entire world-view! ;) --- The Theory of Everything - Basic ideas --- O.K. Let me just explain the idea of a 'Cognitive Lens' a bit more fully. I said above that a cognitive lens was a particular 'mental interpretation' that the brain can give to 'raw data'. What is 'raw data'? In computational terms it's all just a string of binary - that's '0's and 1's'. So for instance, for the picture example, the brain is taking in visual data in the form of long strings of 0's and 1's, and assigning meanings to those 0's and 1's. The meaning assigned to those 0's and 1's of raw data is a 'Coding System'. And it's the 'Coding System' that the brain selected that
Re: Reality vs. Perception of Reality
Le 27-juil.-05, à 03:22, [EMAIL PROTECTED] a écrit : Now look at science. We do correlations of perceptual artefacts = _contents_ of phenomenal consiousness to the point of handing out _Nobel prizes_ for depictions of correlated artefacts of our phenomenal fields. AND THEN we deny phenomenal consciousness? Declare it unassailable by science? Delude ourselves that these descriptions actually contain causal necessity? Who does that? I don't think that, in this list, you will find someone denying phenomenal consciousness. Some have never stopped to insist on its fundamental importance, notably through the distinction from first and third person point of view. But I don't understand what you mean by causal necessity, especially when you say that: We have phenomenal consciousness, the most obvious, egregious screaming evidence of the operation of that causal necessity - the same causal necessity that results in the desciption F = MA being found by Newton... I tend to believe in some causal necessity related to consciousness, but I have no evidence that F=MA has anything to do with that. I guess you are postulating the existence of some primitive physical universe, aren't you? See my url for links toward a proof that such a postulate is epistemologically (or ontologically with OCCAM + some other more technical results) contradictory with the computationalist hypothesis (which is my working hypothesis). I don't pretend that this is obvious, but the missing 50% of science is not phenomenological consciousness (in this list). Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
Re: what relation do mathematical models have with reality?
Hi Lee, Thanks for answering all my mails, but I see you send on the list only the one where you disagree. Have you done this purposefully? Can I quote some piece of the mail you did not send on the list? I will answer asap. Also, for this one, I did not intend to insult you. Sorry if it looks like that, Bruno Le 26-juil.-05, à 23:31, Lee Corbin a écrit : Bruno writes Look, it's VERY simple: take as a first baby-step the notion that the 19th century idea of a cosmos is basically true, and then add just the Big Bang. What we then have is a universe that operates under physical laws. So far---you'll readily agree---this is *very* simple conceptually. Next, look at this picture after 14.7 billion years. Guess what has evolved? Finally, there is intelligence and there are entities who can *perceive* all this grandeur. So, don't forget which came first. Not people. Not perceptions. Not ideas. Not dich an sich. Not 1st person. Not 3rd person. NOT ANY OF THIS NONSENSE. Keep to the basics and we *perhaps* will have a chance to understand what is going on. But both the quantum facts, and then just the comp hyp are incompatible with that type of naive realism. At this level of discourse, dear Bruno, I don't give a ___ for your *hypothesis*. Moreover, please google for naive realism. You'll find that this is the world view of children who have *no* idea of the processes by which their brains are embedded in physical reality. Since no one claims to be a naive realist, this rises to the level of insult. But then, I'm not too surprised that the most *basic* understanding of our world has been forgotten by some who deal everyday with only the most high level abstractions. Lee http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
Re: what relation do mathematical models have with reality?
Le 27-juil.-05, à 00:12, Aditya Varun Chadha a écrit : I think a reconciliation between Bruno and Lee's arguments can be the following: Thanks for trying to reconciliate us :) Our perception of reality is limited by the structure and composition of brains. (we can 'enhance' these to be able to perceive and understand 'more', but at ANY point of time the above limitation holds). I think this is closer to what Lee wants to say, and I totally agree with it. This is what I have tried to elaborate on in my earlier (my first here) email. But the very fact that this limitation is absolutely inescapable (observation and understanding is ALWAYS limited to the observer's capabilities) gives us the following insight: That which cannot be modelled (understood) cannot figure in ANY of our models of reality. Why ? (I have explicit counterexamples, like the notion of knowledge for machine). Logic has evolved up to the point we are able to build formal theory bearing on non formalizable notions (like truth or knowledge). Amazing and counterintuitive I agree. Therefore although our models of reality keep changing, at any given time instance there is no way for us to perceive anything beyond the model, because as soon as something outside our current model is perceived, we have moved to a future instance, and can create a model that includes it. Thus it is kind of senseless to talk of a reality beyond our perception. Why? We can bet on some theories and derive consequences bearing indirectly on some non perceivable structure. In other words, we can call something reality only once we perceive it. In this sense models may be more real than reality to us. This is an argument of the Shroedinger's Cat kind. In fact if I am correct about what both Bruno and Lee want to say, then Lee's arguments are a prerequisite to understanding to what Bruno is hinting at. Actually I agree with it. I do think Lee is close to what I want to say, at the level of our assumptions. But Lee is quite honest and cannot not be sure that my conclusion must be non sense (which means that he grasped them at least). Quantum Physics says that an observer and his observation are impossible to untangle. OK. But I don't use this. Actually I don't use physics at all. Physics is emergent, not fundamental (once we assume seriously enough digital mechanism (or computationalism). From the above fact, A Realist (Lee) would conclude that absolute reality is unknowable. (follows from heisenburg's uncertainty also btw:-) ). But for this the realist assumes that this absolute reality exists. A Nihilist (Bruno) would conclude that since this tanglement of observer and observation is inescapable, it is meaningless to talk about any absolute reality outside the perceived and understood reality (models). Actually I am a platonist, that is, a mathematical realist. I do also believe in physical reality. My point is just that if you make some hypothesis in the cognitive science (mechanism, computationalism) then physics is 100% derivable from mathematics. The physical laws are mathematical (even statistical) laws emerging from what any machine can correctly bet concerning invariant feature of their most probable computational history. Nihilism is what happens when you believe in both computationalism and materialism. This has been illustrated by La Mettrie and mainly Sade (but also Heidegger and Nietsche in a less direct way, and then perhaps Hitler or Bin Laden in in very more indirect way). I am not at all a nihilist. I just show that the computationalist hypothesis makes the physical world emerge from the truth on numbers. I take those truth as being independent of me. I am not a physical realist perhaps, although I do believe in an independent physical world. I just don't physical reality is primitive. Like Plato I take what we see and measure as some shadows of something quite bigger, and non material ... None of the views is naive. In fact neither view can ever disprove the other, because both belong to different belief (axiomatic) systems. apples and oranges, both tasty. P.S.: If what I have said above sounds ok and does help put things in perspective, then I would like to think that in this WHOLE discussion there is NO NEED of invoking terms like comp hyp, ASSA, RSSA, OMs, etc. I, being clearly a lesser being in this new domain of intellectual giants at eskimo.com, would highly appreciate if atleast the full forms are given so that I can google them and put them in context. OK, but I think those you mention are used in so many posts that I suggest you to remember them: ASSA = A SSA = Absolute Self-Sampling Assumption, RSSA = R SSA = Relative Self-Sampling Assumption, comp hyp = Computationalist Hypothesis (or digital mechanism, ...) OM = Observer-moment Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
RE: What We Can Know About the World
Samuel Johnson did refute Berkeley. The main thrust of Berkley's argument is to show that sensory perception is indirect, and therefore the existance of a material cause for those perceptions is an unjustified inference in contravention of Occam's razor. The argument that the look, texture, smell, taste and sound of an object are apprehended indirectly is successful in my opinion, and I dont feel any need to defend it unless someone really thinks a defence is required. Aterall, on any view there is a translation of 'signals' of many different forms (light waves, sound waves) , into various 'signals' of the same form (neurons firing) which become synaesthetically unified into a whole, such that we associate the smell, taste, colour and texture of say an orange, as being qualities of the same object. That kicking a rock hurts, for example, does not establish that the 'material world' is apprehended directly, or that the concept of a material world is anything more than an inference. I dont think this is really what Johnson meant, but the only challenge his 'refutation' genuinely offers is with regards to extension. How is the size of an object, or its ability to exist and move (by being kicked) in a 3 dimensional realm, derived from perception alone? Our grasp of a 3 dimensional world is dependent on our stereoscopic perception. Its only when there are two seperate perceptions of the world of the same type (eg. left and right eye) that we apprehend a properly 3 dimensionally world, each of these perceptions is however intrinsically 2 dimensional. It is the mental combination of these slightly different images from which we derive an extended world. This is probably more controversial, but Berkley's move here is to insist that it we have enough information now to create the appearance of a 3 dimensional world out of elements that are not intrinsically extended. By Occam then, we should not infer something for which there is no requirement - however firmly that inference has been imbedded in us. We should stick to using what we can know directly. Perception. In otherwords, dualists and materialists contravene Occam, not idealists. i dont see how Johnson refuted that. regards. From: Lee Corbin [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@eskimo.com Subject: What We Can Know About the World Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2005 02:19:49 -0700 Stathis writes When 99% of the human race use the word reality, they mean the world outside their skins. If you sacrifice our common understanding of reality, then you'll find yourself in a hole out of which you'll never climb. Yes, but what *is* this 3D world we can all stub our toe on? Korzybski would warn: beware the is of identity :-) If we go back to the start of last century, Rutherford's quaintly pre-QM atom, amazingly, turned out to be mostly empty space. Did this mean that, suddenly, it doesn't hurt when you walk into a brick wall, because it isn't nearly as solid as you initially thought it was? Of course not; our experience of the world is one thing, and the reality behind the experience is a completely different thing. That's *exactly* right. We *could* have been designed by evolution not to hurt when we walked into a wall. For certain reasons, we were not designed that way. If it is discovered tomorrow beyond any doubt that the entire universe is just a game running in the down time on God's pocket calculator, how is this fundamentally different to discovering that, contrary to appearances, atoms are mostly empty space, or subatomic particles have no definite position, or any other weird theory of modern physics? Good analogy! The world surprises us all the time, especially the more we learn about it. It would be bizarre if it did not, (we'd probably have to abandon most of our theories). And how could, say, the fact that brick walls feel solid enough possibly count as evidence against such an anti-realist theory? Occam's razor. We go with the simplest theory. Imagine that you and I believe we are standing next to a wall. Our conjecture is that it has certain properties. We may need it to protect us. If we're wrong, nature will make short work of us. That we have survived this long is a strong indication that the wall really is there. In fact, on some level of practicality, it is foolish to debate the existence of the wall. Samuel Johnson did refute Berkeley. Lee _ Be the first to hear what's new at MSN - sign up to our free newsletters! http://www.msn.co.uk/newsletters
Re: A solution to the Qualia riddle and a coherent explanation of my 'Theory Of Everything
Nice try, imo. I would say I agree with you except I don't follow your precise math at all. Your old/young lady analogy is rather weak and could be misleading, also. Then you should avoid saying Scientists believe that the universe is one giant computer. Not only many scientist disagree, but actually this is in contradiction with the comp. hyp. (the computationalist hypothesis which asserts that I am simulable by a computer). I know it is often confuse but I have propose an argument according to which if I am a computer then whatever the physical universe can be it cannot be a computer (perhaps even it cannot be, at all). (But of course the comp hyp could be false.) But I like very much the fact that you see that different thing like matter and qualia can be the same things viewed differently. Modal logic is very well suited for making statements like that utterly precise (but then not so many people can play modal logic alas ...). Don't hesitate to develop (perhaps on some web page). Bruno Le 27-juil.-05, à 07:57, Marc Geddes a écrit : --- Qualia and Matter --- The riddle of the relationship between Qualia (which I define as raw experience) and the Physical World (which I'll call 'Matter' and define as geometrical relations) seems to be one that ties people in mental knots. The solution is amazingly simple and dazzling in its beauty. I do think I have the solution. And yes, I think it's the answer to FAI, life, the universe and everything as well ;) I shall try one last time to carefully explain why I think I really do understand everything (in the sense of basic conceptual principles at least). I don't hold out much hope that people will grok , but you never know. So what is the relation between Matter and Qualia? Before explaining my solution, I shall begin with an analogy. People really seem to tie themselves in horrible mental knots over this and my explanations just don't seem to be getting through, so I'll try starting with an analogy first. Take a look at the picture at the URL given below. My question: What scene is it? You have two choices: (1) The scene is that of a Young Woman (2) The scene is that of an Old Lady Here's the picture: http://www.killsometime.com/illusions/Optical-Illusion.asp?Illusion- ID=33 The entertaining feature about this picture of course, is that the scene you see depends on the way your brain interprets the picture. The key point is that the scene you see depends not just on the actual nature of the picture, but also on the cognitive interpretation your mind gives to it. So the scene is an *interaction* between (1) The nature of the picture and (2) The Mental interpretation in your mind. Call this mental interpretation a 'Cognitive Lens'. If you interpret the picture through one Cognitive Lens you'll see an Old Lady. If you interpret the picture through another Cognitive Lens, you'll see a Young Woman. Let the multiplication sign (x) simply mean 'an interaction between'. So: Young Woman = Picture x Cognitive Lens 1 Old Lady = Picture x Cognitive Lens 2 Two points to bear in mind. There is only *one* actual picture, but there are *two* equally valid but different ways to interpret it as a coherent scene. Neither 'Old Lady' nor 'Young Woman' is separate from each other. They are both referring to the same picture. The key point is the idea that the scene you see is an interaction between the picture and a 'Cognitive Lens', which I defined to be a mental interpretation, or the way your brain goes about coding the *meaning* of the raw visual data its receiving. Make sure you understand this before proceeding. Are you all with me so far? Now my actual solution to the Qualia/Matter puzzle. Here it is: Qualia = Reality x Cognitive Lens a Matter = Reality x Cognitive Lens b I'm suggesting that Reality itself is neither Matter NOR Qualia. In order for Matter or Qualia to appear, Reality has to be *interpreted* through a *mental process*. It's analogous to the picture example I just gave. Think of Reality as like the picture, Qualia as like the 'Young Woman' and Matter as like 'The Old Lady'. There's only *one* reality, but whether you see it as Matter or whether you see it as Qualia depends on the way your brain interprets the raw data it's receiving. Both 'Matter' and 'Qualia' are equally valid interpretations of some part of reality. Neither is more fundamental than the other. See how elegant this solution is? Qualia and Matter are both real and Qualia is not Matter. But there is nothing mystical going on. Qualia are not separate from matter either. There is only one reality, but whether you see it as 'Qualia' or 'Matter' depends on the cognitive lens through which your brain chooses to interpret reality. Qualia and Matter are simply different 'modes of cognition'. At first it seems dangerously like solipsism, but I'll show you how to avoid solipsism in a moment, by adding a big
Re: What We Can Know About the World
Le 27-juil.-05, à 15:55, chris peck a écrit :
Samuel Johnson did refute Berkeley.
The main thrust of Berkley's argument is to show that sensory
perception is indirect, and therefore the existance of a material
cause for those perceptions is an unjustified inference in
contravention of Occam's razor. The argument that the look, texture,
smell, taste and sound of an object are apprehended indirectly is
successful in my opinion, and I dont feel any need to defend it unless
someone really thinks a defence is required. Aterall, on any view
there is a translation of 'signals' of many different forms (light
waves, sound waves) , into various 'signals' of the same form (neurons
firing) which become synaesthetically unified into a whole, such that
we associate the smell, taste, colour and texture of say an orange, as
being qualities of the same object. That kicking a rock hurts, for
example, does not establish that the 'material world' is apprehended
directly, or that the concept of a material world is anything more
than an inference.
I dont think this is really what Johnson meant, but the only challenge
his 'refutation' genuinely offers is with regards to extension. How is
the size of an object, or its ability to exist and move (by being
kicked) in a 3 dimensional realm, derived from perception alone? Our
grasp of a 3 dimensional world is dependent on our stereoscopic
perception. Its only when there are two seperate perceptions of the
world of the same type (eg. left and right eye) that we apprehend a
properly 3 dimensionally world, each of these perceptions is however
intrinsically 2 dimensional. It is the mental combination of these
slightly different images from which we derive an extended world. This
is probably more controversial, but Berkley's move here is to insist
that it we have enough information now to create the appearance of a 3
dimensional world out of elements that are not intrinsically extended.
By Occam then, we should not infer something for which there is no
requirement - however firmly that inference has been imbedded in us.
We should stick to using what we can know directly.
I agree ontologically. But I disagree epistemologically. It is like
with Mendeleev classification of the elements (atoms). It was wise to
infer the existence of unknown atoms from the holes provided by the
classification. So a view-point should always to be completed as much
as possible. This makes it possible to get in a quicker way some
possible contradiction (internal or with facts). Remember that Occam
was proposing the razor for the number of hypotheses. In this list most
people tend to agree that we should have as few postulates as possible.
This makes the set of possibilities bigger and we take it as face value
(most are inspired or encouraged by Everett quantum mechanics (the
many world).
Perception.
Oops! Mhhh... Tricky word which has a foot in knowing (first person)
and a foot in some infered third person describable reality.
In otherwords, dualists and materialists contravene Occam, not
idealists. i dont see how Johnson refuted that.
Very well said. But idealist are not necessarily solispsist, and once
you can acknowledge the existence of one other, or even just this set
{1, 2, 3, 4, ...} (in the company of addition and multiplication),
then there is a vast realm full of ... surprises (counter-intuitive
truth which we can know but only indirectly. (A little like you need
two eyes to imagine 3D, you need two brains to make a genuine proof or
a genuine bet).
Bruno
regards.
From: Lee Corbin [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: everything-list@eskimo.com
Subject: What We Can Know About the World
Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2005 02:19:49 -0700
Stathis writes
When 99% of the human race use the word reality, they mean
the world outside their skins.
If you sacrifice our common understanding of reality, then
you'll find yourself in a hole out of which you'll never climb.
Yes, but what *is* this 3D world we can all stub our toe on?
Korzybski would warn: beware the is of identity :-)
If we go back to the start of last century, Rutherford's
quaintly pre-QM atom, amazingly, turned out to be mostly
empty space. Did this mean that, suddenly, it doesn't hurt
when you walk into a brick wall, because it isn't nearly as
solid as you initially thought it was? Of course not; our
experience of the world is one thing, and the reality
behind the experience is a completely different thing.
That's *exactly* right. We *could* have been designed by
evolution not to hurt when we walked into a wall. For certain
reasons, we were not designed that way.
If it is discovered tomorrow beyond any doubt that the
entire universe is just a game running in the down time
on God's pocket calculator, how is this fundamentally
different to discovering that, contrary to appearances,
atoms are mostly empty space, or subatomic particles have
Re: What We Can Know About the World
Hi Bruno;
There are problems with Berkley to be sure, but I dont think Johnson had
much of a grasp of them. Are there good objections to Berkley? Certainly.
Did SJ propose any? Not really.
I agree ontologically. But I disagree epistemologically. It is like with
Mendeleev classification of the elements (atoms). It was wise to infer the
existence of unknown atoms from the holes provided by the classification.
I have a similar approach to Berkley which revolves around Occam's principle
of sufficiency. With regards to perception being the essence of existance,
what happens when things are not percieved? A perception or idea must exist
in a mind, right? Furthermore, in some sense a mind must be concieved of (by
Berkley) in terms of ideas too, So what are minds percieved by? Gaps like
these in my opinion, break Occam's principle of sufficiency. It leads to
Berkley positing a God which percieves all ideas (unpercieved things and
percieving minds). This enables 'the dark side of the moon' to exist
unpercieved and for percieving minds themselves to exist. However, I think
in satisfying the sufficiency principle, Berkley now breaks Occam's appeal
for simplicity.
In a way he has been forced to make a non empirical deduction which should
really be abhorrent to him. Perhaps an ad hoc invention might be more
accurate, in so far as God is invoked for theoretical difficulties
primarily.
So a view-point should always to be completed as much as possible.
As shown, Berkley arguably does complete his theory. However, not in a way
that 'makes it possible to get in a quicker way some possible contradiction
(internal or with facts).'.
At this point then, Berkley is on unsteady ground, because we want some
means of falsification, I feel cheated that there isnt one, especially from
an empiricist. Internally though, I think he is largely consistant.
Perception.
Oops! Mhhh... Tricky word which has a foot in knowing (first person)
Firstly, I use the word in the sense that this is what Berkley would have
used. I think there is a problem with how Berkley uses it. I think he plays
on a similarity between 'idea', 'mind' and 'perception'. I think you can
trap Berkley into a position where he has to admit that ideas are percieved,
which suggests again a two part process, an indirection. A translation.
However, with regards to :
and a foot in some infered third person describable reality.
Berkley has a third person describable reality. It is just not a material
one. Berkley is no solipsist. He does not deny objective reality. He basis
reality on a different substance and preserves it in the mind of God. Like
Leibniz. This is why Johnson is wrong, he thinks that Berkley is denying the
existance of things. Its a consequence of thinking dualistically. Dualists
naturally regard 'mentality' as less substantial than matter, Idealists
dont. It is their substance of choice in a sense. Materialism and Idealism
are very similar. Its monism really, as opposed to dualism. Think of the way
Marx (materialism) flips Hegel (idealism).
In otherwords, dualists and materialists contravene Occam, not idealists.
i dont see how Johnson refuted that.
Very well said. But idealist are not necessarily solispsist, and once you
can acknowledge the existence of one other, or even just this set {1, 2,
3, 4, ...} (in the company of addition and multiplication), then there is
a vast realm full of ... surprises (counter-intuitive truth which we can
know but only indirectly. (A little like you need two eyes to imagine 3D,
you need two brains to make a genuine proof or a genuine bet).
Not quite sure what you are getting at here The truth is always
incomplete from a single perspective?
Many Regards
Chris.
Bruno
regards.
From: Lee Corbin [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: everything-list@eskimo.com
Subject: What We Can Know About the World
Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2005 02:19:49 -0700
Stathis writes
When 99% of the human race use the word reality, they mean
the world outside their skins.
If you sacrifice our common understanding of reality, then
you'll find yourself in a hole out of which you'll never climb.
Yes, but what *is* this 3D world we can all stub our toe on?
Korzybski would warn: beware the is of identity :-)
If we go back to the start of last century, Rutherford's
quaintly pre-QM atom, amazingly, turned out to be mostly
empty space. Did this mean that, suddenly, it doesn't hurt
when you walk into a brick wall, because it isn't nearly as
solid as you initially thought it was? Of course not; our
experience of the world is one thing, and the reality
behind the experience is a completely different thing.
That's *exactly* right. We *could* have been designed by
evolution not to hurt when we walked into a wall. For certain
reasons, we were not designed that way.
If it is discovered tomorrow beyond any doubt that the
entire universe is just
RE: What We Can Know About the World
Chris writes Samuel Johnson did refute Berkeley. The main thrust of Berkley's argument is to show that sensory perception is indirect, and therefore the existence of a material cause for those perceptions is an unjustified inference in contravention of Occam's razor. The argument that the look, texture, smell, taste and sound of an object are apprehended indirectly is successful in my opinion, and I don't feel any need to defend it unless someone really thinks a defence is required. Do *you* contend that the existence of material causes for your perceptions is unjustified? Good grief. As for your other statement, these senses are indeed, just as you say, apprehended indirectly. (That's the difference between realists and naive realists, e.g., children.) Of course there is no need for you to defend that, because no one here would disagree. Afterall, on any view there is a translation of 'signals' of many different forms (light waves, sound waves) , into various 'signals' of the same form (neurons firing) which become synaesthetically unified into a whole, such that we associate the smell, taste, colour and texture of say an orange, as being qualities of the same object. Of course. ...Berkley's move here is to insist that it we have enough information now to create the appearance of a 3 dimensional world out of elements that are not intrinsically extended. I'm not sure what you mean. By elements already in the brain? Yes, that's true. But they got into the brain by the aforementioned processes, as you know. Don't lose sight of the fact that almost all the information came from outside. By Occam then, we should not infer something for which there is no requirement - however firmly that inference has been imbedded in us. We should stick to using what we can know directly. Perception. You don't know all this complicated crap (neurons, perception, inference, the whole nine yards) nearly as well as you know the monitor in front of you. The problem is the word know. The first things you knew consciously, and knew well, were things outside your skin: your mother and father, and tables and chairs. Let's resist the temptation to begin using words in other ways. Much, much later you ceased being a naive realist and became a realist. You understood that there can be things like optical illusions, and altered states of consciousness. You even understood that your own exalted consciousness is not anything to be utterly depended upon, because one can be sick or crazy. (If it hasn't happened to you yet, then just stay around a few more decades.) Build carefully upon what is simple and knowable, and keep the wild theories to a minimum. Even then, the world is hardly simple, but at least we've got a chance. In other words, dualists and materialists contravene Occam, not idealists. I don't see how Johnson refuted that. Materialists do not contravene Occam. The simplest explanation is that there is a world out there and that our brains are survival machines designed by evolution to thrive in it. The phantasms that occasionally infest our awareness and consciousness causally arise as side-effects of how our brains work, that's all. The simplest explanation does *not* start with perceptions and all the rest of that stuff, for a number of reasons. The primary reason is that you can't truly communicate them to others---after all, your brain may not work the same as theirs. As Wittgenstein said, Of what we cannot speak thereof we must be silent. Lee
RE: What We Can Know About the World
Hi Lee; You see Samuel Johnson as a realist? I think I started off a naive realist, became a realist and quickly became confounded by the absurdity of the position. If I 'understood that there can be things like optical illusions', I did so honestly, they told me something very clear about the nature of perception which makes realism look as naive as naive realism. We have strong perceptions when we dream, we dont always know we are dreaming. Sense data is what we are directly aware of, mental representations. When we are not dreaming, we are still only directly aware of sense data. However justifiable, the external world is an inference from these representations whatever they are instantiated in. How can I on the one hand be told that light falls upon my retina creating an image that is upside down, then be told that I see things directly and as they are? It makes no sense. Its blind hope and is obviously wrong. The world does not look upside down. The very fact the image gets flipped the right way up is enough to demonstrate I am in the grip of a cognitive representation. No. Berkley is right on that score. with regards to the question of whether Johnson refuted Berkley. I cant see how he did. many regards Chris. From: Lee Corbin [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: EverythingList everything-list@eskimo.com Subject: RE: What We Can Know About the World Date: Wed, 27 Jul 2005 11:11:33 -0700 Chris writes Samuel Johnson did refute Berkeley. The main thrust of Berkley's argument is to show that sensory perception is indirect, and therefore the existence of a material cause for those perceptions is an unjustified inference in contravention of Occam's razor. The argument that the look, texture, smell, taste and sound of an object are apprehended indirectly is successful in my opinion, and I don't feel any need to defend it unless someone really thinks a defence is required. Do *you* contend that the existence of material causes for your perceptions is unjustified? Good grief. As for your other statement, these senses are indeed, just as you say, apprehended indirectly. (That's the difference between realists and naive realists, e.g., children.) Of course there is no need for you to defend that, because no one here would disagree. Afterall, on any view there is a translation of 'signals' of many different forms (light waves, sound waves) , into various 'signals' of the same form (neurons firing) which become synaesthetically unified into a whole, such that we associate the smell, taste, colour and texture of say an orange, as being qualities of the same object. Of course. ...Berkley's move here is to insist that it we have enough information now to create the appearance of a 3 dimensional world out of elements that are not intrinsically extended. I'm not sure what you mean. By elements already in the brain? Yes, that's true. But they got into the brain by the aforementioned processes, as you know. Don't lose sight of the fact that almost all the information came from outside. By Occam then, we should not infer something for which there is no requirement - however firmly that inference has been imbedded in us. We should stick to using what we can know directly. Perception. You don't know all this complicated crap (neurons, perception, inference, the whole nine yards) nearly as well as you know the monitor in front of you. The problem is the word know. The first things you knew consciously, and knew well, were things outside your skin: your mother and father, and tables and chairs. Let's resist the temptation to begin using words in other ways. Much, much later you ceased being a naive realist and became a realist. You understood that there can be things like optical illusions, and altered states of consciousness. You even understood that your own exalted consciousness is not anything to be utterly depended upon, because one can be sick or crazy. (If it hasn't happened to you yet, then just stay around a few more decades.) Build carefully upon what is simple and knowable, and keep the wild theories to a minimum. Even then, the world is hardly simple, but at least we've got a chance. In other words, dualists and materialists contravene Occam, not idealists. I don't see how Johnson refuted that. Materialists do not contravene Occam. The simplest explanation is that there is a world out there and that our brains are survival machines designed by evolution to thrive in it. The phantasms that occasionally infest our awareness and consciousness causally arise as side-effects of how our brains work, that's all. The simplest explanation does *not* start with perceptions and all the rest of that stuff, for a number of reasons. The primary reason is that you can't truly communicate them to others---after all, your brain may not work the same as theirs. As Wittgenstein said, Of what we cannot speak thereof we must be silent. Lee
RE: A solution to the Qualia riddle and a coherent explanation of my 'Theory Of Everything
Hi Imo, I'd concur with Bruno in 'nice try'. I have lost count of the number of times I have seen someone dive in with a proclaimation like yours. I include myself in this :P My reacent outburst is an example! I can only encourage you to follow your ideaS and poke every eye you see. A bit of Feyerabendian anarchy and chaos is a wonderful part of the discourse on the way to the real answer. FIRSTLY I can give you a hint as to how to evaluate your ideas. Put it to the following test: If I _built_ a machine that followed my metaphor, a) would it necessarily have a knowledge model based on it's own determination due to experience of the world, or what I bestow on it? b) would it have a phenomenal consciousness? If not, why not? If so why so? Is it important or not to have a pheneomenal consciousness? As wondeful example is to apply the same logic to Gerald Edelman's model in Edelman, G. 2003. 'Naturalizing consciousness: A theoretical framework', Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A, 100 Wonderful metaphor. Build onewould it necessarily be conscious (have a phenomenal consciousness)? SECONDLY Don't be too fussed about Bruno's 'contradiction to COMP HYP'. It's only a hypothesis! For the same reasons given above. No matter what level of mathematical cogency exists, the maths _does not exist_ and a machine acting like it exists is no substitute unless something that does exist is there to acknowledge it and understand it. The mathematics appears to have 1st person handled but it doesn't because nothing is actually reified. Puting a bunch of symbols in a computer substrate does not reify anything. This is a wonderful fire we all dance around. It looks so different to each observer. It's what makes it such a stimulating topic. enjoy! Colin Hales
Re: Reality vs. Perception of Reality
Hi Bruno, Now look at science. We do correlations of perceptual artefacts = _contents_ of phenomenal consiousness to the point of handing out _Nobel prizes_ for depictions of correlated artefacts of our phenomenal fields. AND THEN we deny phenomenal consciousness? Declare it unassailable by science? Delude ourselves that these descriptions actually contain causal necessity? [Bruno] Who does that? [Col] What? The entire suite of practical empirical science does that. Walk the halls. Find _any_ scientist at the coal face and ask. What planet are you from? Before your breath has finished the asking sentence you will be told you are not being scientific. [Bruno] I don't think that, in this list, you will find someone denying phenomenal consciousness. [Col] Since when has the data found on this list been _any_ scientific source of confirmation of anythng? This list is specifically more likely to include people admitting to a reality of phenomenal consciousness! They are not the ones that need their brains adjusted: It's mainstream science that needs the therapy we are the therapists. [Bruno] But I don't understand what you mean by causal necessity, especially when you say that: We have phenomenal consciousness, the most obvious, egregious screaming evidence of the operation of that causal necessity - the same causal necessity that results in the desciption F = MA being found by Newton... [Col] I think you need to (aghast) do some physics or something with a real empirical edge to it. ALL our scientific 'laws' are tautologies in relation to statisical generalisations that don;t actually exist - like 'Ms Average'. F = MA is exactly that. NONE of these laws say WHY. They only say WHAT. WHY = necessity/causality. There is causal necessity behind EVERYTHING, not just consiousness. Again- are you even in the same universe as me? Whatever generates 'everything' generates phenomenal consciousness as well. You think there is one bucnh of happenstance for phenomenal consciousness and another for eveything else? = dualist delusion. If you think the universe is run by emprical laws = rationalist delusion. If you think the universe is run by a symbolic crunching machine = computationalist delusion. These are all unfounded ascrptions and have no evidenntiary basis other than the reconfigured brain matter that results from a belief. I am talking about real, supportable verifyable science of the natural world. [Bruno] I tend to believe in some causal necessity related to consciousness, but I have no evidence that F=MA has anything to do with that. I guess you are postulating the existence of some primitive physical universe, aren't you? [Col] I am talking about the natural world, in which we are embedded, of which we are made as the situation inwhich we must understand the natural world. If you think that you are 'outside' looking in: another delusion = you think you are GOD. :-) [Bruno] I don't pretend that this is obvious, but the missing 50% of science is not phenomenological consciousness (in this list). Bruno [col] You are making another rationalist ascription. You assume that mathematical abstractions are the object of scientific endeavours. WRONG. You assume that fiddling with computation about will somehow bestow access to the ultimate explanation. You are not talking about science of the natural world - you are talking about the science of some other world. You assume the link between them without justification and without any proof. Proof: Just watch it come. With empirical evidence from neuroscience. I'm happy to wait until then (it may take a decade or so) and then say 'I told you so'. BTW I used to think the same way as you. I have been on a huge journey. I spent 25 years puting computers in control of the real world. All I can say is: deal with human embeddedness , HERE in our natural world, fully, comprehensively and you will get answers. Staring at maths and running symbols will not do it. The computer chips neede to make a conscious machine have not been invented yet and they will be VERY different to all von-neumann, parallel and quantum computing architectures. My morning bombast session is over... time for coffee! cheers :-) Colin Hales
Recipe for becoming a Non-Realist
Recipe for becoming a non-realist. 1. Study your perceptions *introspectively*. This has several advantages. First, you are an authority (in fact, the ultimate authority) on your own perceptions, and so little in the way of humility will ever be needed. You can start out, as it were, from the top. Second, and best of all, none of your results can be refuted by anyone else: they're not at all falsifiable. 2. Use your *intuition* to arrive at various conjectures. The great advantage of this is that it sidesteps all the slow and painful work required learning real science, or making vulnerable conjectures about the real world. Your opinion on qualia, for example, is just as good as anyone's. 3. Publish your results (or at least tell anyone who'll listen). In this step you get to compare your results with those of fellow researchers to see if your words approximately match theirs. You all can come up with interesting and highly artistic descriptions of your subjective impressions, and you can admire and learn from each other's results. 4. Define your school. You can create various interesting labels for each of the differing opinions that obtain; since the number of opinions will equal the number of researchers, everyone can democratically found his or her own school of thought. As a bonus, your creativity can be exercised. (This applies to steps 3 and 4 equally.) Lee
Re: A solution to the Qualia riddle and a coherent explanation of my 'Theory Of Everything
--- Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Then you should avoid saying Scientists believe that the universe is one giant computer. Not only many scientist disagree, but actually this is in contradiction with the comp. hyp. (the computationalist hypothesis which asserts that I am simulable by a computer). I know it is often confuse but I have propose an argument according to which if I am a computer then whatever the physical universe can be it cannot be a computer (perhaps even it cannot be, at all). (But of course the comp hyp could be false.) O.K, perhaps I should clarify that and state that I think 'binary numbers' (0's and 1's) are the ultimate 'stuff' of reality. Pure binary maths by itself is not quite 'computation' is it? I think 'computation' requires that some minimal *meaning* be assigned to the 0's and 1's. So I could agree that the universe is not a computer. It's just pure binary math. So what do you think of the idea that the ultimate fabric of reality is pure binary math? --- THE BRAIN is wider than the sky, For, put them side by side, The one the other will include With ease, and you beside. -Emily Dickinson 'The brain is wider than the sky' http://www.bartleby.com/113/1126.html Send instant messages to your online friends http://au.messenger.yahoo.com
RE: what relation do mathematical models have with reality?
Hal wrote Brent Meeker wrote: In practice we use coherence with other theories to guide out choice. With that kind of constraint we may have trouble finding even one candidate theory. Well, in principle there still should be an infinite number of theories, starting with the data is completely random and just happens to look lawful by sheer coincidence. I think the difficulty we have in finding new ones is that we are implicitly looking for small ones, which means that we implicitly believe in Occam's Razor, which means that we implicitly adopt something like the Universal Distribution, a priori. An intriguing way of putting it; yes, the amount of data compression possible is necessarily related to both Occam's Razor and the UDist. We begin with an intuitive physics that is hardwired into us by evolution. And that includes mathematics and logic. There's an excellent little book on this, The Evolution of Reason by Cooper. No doubt this is true. But there are still two somewhat-related problems. One is, you can go back in time to the first replicator on earth, and think of its evolution over the ages as a learning process. During this time it learned this intuitive physics, i.e. mathematics and logic. But how did it learn it? Was it a Bayesian-style process? And if so, what were the priors? Can a string of RNA have priors? I would say that the current state of the RNA string at any given time can be regarded as its prior. After all, it survived up to now, eh? The idea that evolution has to be pretty conservative, ---that is, the mechanisms must not allow too many new guesses--- also follows at once. And more abstractly, if you wanted to design a perfect learning machine, one that makes observations and optimally produces theories based on them, do you have to give it prior beliefs and expectations, including math and logic? Or could you somehow expect it to learn those? But to learn them, what would be the minimum you would have to give it? I'm trying to ask the same question in both of these formulations. On the one hand, we know that life did it, it created a very good (if perhaps not optimal) learning machine. On the other hand, it seems like it ought to be impossible to do that, because there is no foundation. I strongly urge you to read the new book What is Thought, by Eric Baum. He very insightfully and carefully attends to these questions. Lee
RE: Reality vs. Perception of Reality
Charles writes
[col]
I aologise in advance for my crap spelling. My fingers
don;t type what I think. That's the relaity of it! :-)
Do you have a spell-checker?
Warning... I am also adopting Lee-style bombast because
I feel like venting. Don't be too precious about it! :-)
Blast away! :-) The default rule is that anything goes
up to---but definitely not including---personal attacks,
but as an old hand on the Extropy list, you already know.
I'm not sure it's a cult, but I am sure that its goals
('asking questions only') is kind of a cosy refuge for never
actually solving anything. The result is always an argument.
They think that a useful outcome has ensured.
That *is* another aspect of the problem, all right. But
my beef with them actually runs much deeper. The ones
who just ask questions may not be doing much good, but
the dominate teachers in academia actually inflict great
harm, especially on undergraduates. But good philosophy
*is* possible, and is necessary. Daniel Dennett is one
shining example.
I recently attended a local seminar. Here, deep in the bowels of wet
neuroscience, a philosopher trotted out all the usual stuff re
philosophy of science. No answers, only questions to a profession
(scientists) in dire need of self analysisunlikely to inspire
them on to greater things. I love it, but the reality of its
impotence is frustrating.
In front of scientists, he should be listening not talking.
A part of the philosopher's job is to listen to all the sciences
and attempt to articulate a contemporary world-view. Were I in
charge, all Heideggerians, for example, would be instantly
dismissed, and no one allowed a position who could not pass
a test on Pan-Critical Rationalism.
Lee
P.S. Was there more to your 30KB post? I scanned down
and down and down, looking for something not having been
posted earlier, but gave up at about the 19KB level.
A little editing goes a long way.
