Seasons
This is a forum or general chit-chat, small talk, a "hey, how ya doing?" and such. Or hell, get crazy deep on something. Whatever you like.
Posts 5,680 - 5,691 of 6,170
"one, two, many" (see previous post for url to article) may say a starfish has many legs and be right.
Again, (1) this is something I would agree with, and (2) it's evidence for my view.
(1) I agree with it because, yes, a starfish does have many legs. Five, to be precise.
(2) So, yes, a person is right who says that a (normal) starfish has many legs, because it corresponds to the objective reality. If there were a tribe who all believed that all starfish were 1-legged, they'd be wrong. But if there is no objective reality, then 'right" and "wrong" are trivialized. If someone believes that a starfis has 77 and 1/2 legs, that is 'true for him', and if that is all that can be said, everyone is always right and never wrong.
Similar remarks can be made about the other examples you present. Human cognition can be wrong (distorted, prejudiced, filtered, biased, etc.) only if there is something to be wrong about.
Posts 5,680 - 5,691 of 6,170
Bev writes (message 5677):
Back to my main evience that human perceive the outer world only thought limited, filtered, and subjectively reorganized ways.
But why do you present evidence for that? That is something we agree on. I never claimed that human beings were infallible or omniscient. I claimed that there is a reality is an objective reality that we are trying, not always successfully, to grasp, at least approximately and in some measure.
In fact, evidence of human fallibility is much more favorable, it seems to me, to my view; because you can't be fallible unless there is a truth that transcends your belief.
For example, to say that the human cognitive apparatus filters something is to say that there is something to be filtered. What would that be, if there is no objective reality?
If someone fails to see color in a rose, because of filtering, this can only mean that something in the rose, namely color, has been filtered out. If the rose had no color, what would have been filtered out?
More generally, if there is only truth 'for X', and X sees no color in the rose, then the rose has no color 'for X', so nothing has been filtered out.
X can never be wrong about what is true 'for X', nor can he miss anything about it.
But why do you present evidence for that? That is something we agree on. I never claimed that human beings were infallible or omniscient. I claimed that there is a reality is an objective reality that we are trying, not always successfully, to grasp, at least approximately and in some measure.
In fact, evidence of human fallibility is much more favorable, it seems to me, to my view; because you can't be fallible unless there is a truth that transcends your belief.
For example, to say that the human cognitive apparatus filters something is to say that there is something to be filtered. What would that be, if there is no objective reality?
If someone fails to see color in a rose, because of filtering, this can only mean that something in the rose, namely color, has been filtered out. If the rose had no color, what would have been filtered out?
More generally, if there is only truth 'for X', and X sees no color in the rose, then the rose has no color 'for X', so nothing has been filtered out.
X can never be wrong about what is true 'for X', nor can he miss anything about it.
Likewise for peer-pressure experiments such as you mention. Suppose I am very timid and only believe what agrees with my peers; why would there be a problem? What makes the experiment interesting is that people were willing to go along with their peers even in situations in which the conforming opinion was false in a way that one would think would be obvious. But if there is only truth 'for X', it makes no difference whether X arrives at his opinions through peer agreement, consulting a ouija board, or scientific method. What he concludes is 'true for him', and if there is nothing more to be said, well, there is nothing more to be said.
What makes all these experiments interesting is the fact that they lead to false opinions of the part of the subject.
What makes all these experiments interesting is the fact that they lead to false opinions of the part of the subject.
Again, (1) this is something I would agree with, and (2) it's evidence for my view.
(1) I agree with it because, yes, a starfish does have many legs. Five, to be precise.
(2) So, yes, a person is right who says that a (normal) starfish has many legs, because it corresponds to the objective reality. If there were a tribe who all believed that all starfish were 1-legged, they'd be wrong. But if there is no objective reality, then 'right" and "wrong" are trivialized. If someone believes that a starfis has 77 and 1/2 legs, that is 'true for him', and if that is all that can be said, everyone is always right and never wrong.
Similar remarks can be made about the other examples you present. Human cognition can be wrong (distorted, prejudiced, filtered, biased, etc.) only if there is something to be wrong about.
I now proceed to message 5675. You wrote:
Irina, I think we have two major differences before I go back to my evidence of human limitations and subjectivity.
1) I see a difference between abstract concepts and the physical world and I do not think the two should be treated the same.
2) I see a difference between saying human limitations prevent us from ever really knowing the absolute truth and therefore we can only go by the best evidence we have at the time, accepting what we have as true until further notice but recognizing limits to that certainty and saying there is no external reality and all things are equally true. Qualified acceptance and recognition of cognitive processes does not mean there is no scientific method or logic.
1) I agree, there is a difference here. I consider that all of our concepts, regardless of how abstract, are part of the physical world. Since you say we disagree, I take it that you are a dualist in this matter; concepts and other things according to you must belong to a non-physical world.
I'd be interested to know how that world interacts with the physical world. Let's say that light strikes my eyes, giving rise to conceptual activity "Ooooh, what a handsome bloke!"). I take it that the light striking the retina and setting off rods & cones & whatnot is a physical process; at what point does the physical process effect the non-physical concepts? Likewise, my conceptual activity appears to affect my actions (I'm going to stroke him"). How do these non-physical things affect the physical motions of my hands?
I'd say that light bounces off the shapely fellow, hits my retinas, and causes a complicated chain reaction of brain cells, neuromodulators, etc., which ultimately results in my hand reaching out and stroking. It's all a physical process.
1) I see a difference between abstract concepts and the physical world and I do not think the two should be treated the same.
2) I see a difference between saying human limitations prevent us from ever really knowing the absolute truth and therefore we can only go by the best evidence we have at the time, accepting what we have as true until further notice but recognizing limits to that certainty and saying there is no external reality and all things are equally true. Qualified acceptance and recognition of cognitive processes does not mean there is no scientific method or logic.
1) I agree, there is a difference here. I consider that all of our concepts, regardless of how abstract, are part of the physical world. Since you say we disagree, I take it that you are a dualist in this matter; concepts and other things according to you must belong to a non-physical world.
I'd be interested to know how that world interacts with the physical world. Let's say that light strikes my eyes, giving rise to conceptual activity "Ooooh, what a handsome bloke!"). I take it that the light striking the retina and setting off rods & cones & whatnot is a physical process; at what point does the physical process effect the non-physical concepts? Likewise, my conceptual activity appears to affect my actions (I'm going to stroke him"). How do these non-physical things affect the physical motions of my hands?
I'd say that light bounces off the shapely fellow, hits my retinas, and causes a complicated chain reaction of brain cells, neuromodulators, etc., which ultimately results in my hand reaching out and stroking. It's all a physical process.
2) CRIKEY!I believe we agree on this one (oh, no!)! That is, I agree that the two things you said are different, are different. But I don't agree with either of them, though the differeneces are subtle.
I wouldn't say that "human limitations prevent us from ever really knowing the absolute truth".
Yes, we are fallible, but we are not totally incompetent. It's like bear hunting: sometimes you get the bear, and sometimes the bear gets you. We are often mistaken, but we are not always mistaken. Sometimes a person thinks he sees a bear in front of him, and, by Jove, there is a bear in front of him, and he does see it, and there is no malfunction and no good reason for him to suppose that he doesn't see it. In such a case he knows that there is a bear in front of him.
It is important to avoid the epistemological fallacy that knowledge is entirely a matter of what goes on in conscious experience. [I'm not saying that you have committed this fallacy, I mention it because it is so common.] If there's no bear in front of him, it doesn't matter what his inner experiences are, he doesn't know that there's a bear in front of him.
People often argue like this: "You don't know X because I can tell a story (often involving dreaming or hallucination) according to which you have exactly the inner experience you've actually had (which convinced you of X), but according to which X is false."
I wouldn't say that "human limitations prevent us from ever really knowing the absolute truth".
Yes, we are fallible, but we are not totally incompetent. It's like bear hunting: sometimes you get the bear, and sometimes the bear gets you. We are often mistaken, but we are not always mistaken. Sometimes a person thinks he sees a bear in front of him, and, by Jove, there is a bear in front of him, and he does see it, and there is no malfunction and no good reason for him to suppose that he doesn't see it. In such a case he knows that there is a bear in front of him.
It is important to avoid the epistemological fallacy that knowledge is entirely a matter of what goes on in conscious experience. [I'm not saying that you have committed this fallacy, I mention it because it is so common.] If there's no bear in front of him, it doesn't matter what his inner experiences are, he doesn't know that there's a bear in front of him.
People often argue like this: "You don't know X because I can tell a story (often involving dreaming or hallucination) according to which you have exactly the inner experience you've actually had (which convinced you of X), but according to which X is false."
Since the above X could be anything, we conclude that we can't know anything at all. But the argument is fallacious because it assumes that the inner life is everything. Suppose I meet a beautiful lady at the Opera and kiss her. Suppose someone says, "No, you didn't kiss her, because she could have exploded just as you were pursing your lips." This is obviously a fallacious argument. Just the fact that she might have exploded before I could kiss her doesn't mean I didn't kiss her. Yes, she might have, but she didn't! In the same way, if a person thinks he sees a bear in front of him, and, by Jove, there is a bear in front of him, and he does see it, and there is no malfunction and no good reason for him to suppose that he doesn't see it, then he knows that there is a bear in front of him; it is irrelevant (though correct) to point out that if things had gone differently, he might have been hallucinating.
You continue:
and therefore we can only go by the best evidence we have at the time, accepting what we have as true until further notice but recognizing limits to that certainty...
I agree with all that!
I agree with all that!
But then you continue:
and saying there is no external reality and all things are equally true.
I just don't see why this follows. After all, if we are epistemically fallible, then how do we know that "there is no external reality and all things are equally true"? If you knew that all things were equally true, you'd know everything; surely any being aware of its epistemic fallibility would shy away from making such a completely general, universal claim.
The fact that bears are hard to hunt doesn't mean that there aren't any bears. The fact that truths are hard to find doesn't mean that there aren't any truths.
The fact that bears are hard to hunt doesn't mean that everything is a bear. the fact that truths are hard to find doesn't mean that everything is a truth.
I just don't see why this follows. After all, if we are epistemically fallible, then how do we know that "there is no external reality and all things are equally true"? If you knew that all things were equally true, you'd know everything; surely any being aware of its epistemic fallibility would shy away from making such a completely general, universal claim.
The fact that bears are hard to hunt doesn't mean that there aren't any bears. The fact that truths are hard to find doesn't mean that there aren't any truths.
The fact that bears are hard to hunt doesn't mean that everything is a bear. the fact that truths are hard to find doesn't mean that everything is a truth.
Interzone:
Sorry, I will now continue the discussion from messages 569 and 5670.
I was saying that the clever and knowledgeable aliens could figure out, by looking in detail at a well-preserved mouse, that it was a foraging animal adapted to a certain class of environments, even though they had no previous experience with terrestrial fauna. I hope you find this intuitively plausible.
Suppose one of them said, "No, it's now a forager, it's a paperweight!" How would the others argue with him? I presume, something like this:
"Well, Grzx, its being a paperweight would explain its size, shape, and weight. But look how much more would be explained if we take it to be a forager in environment X! It explains tens of thousands of chemical pathways! It explains tens of thousands of minute details about its physical structure! See, this thing here is a pump! [and so on].
So we could say that X is appropriate for doing Y in context C if and only if
(a) There is some significant probability that X would indeed do Y in context C, and
(b) Almost any change we make in X, larger than a certain very small size, will reduce the probability that X would indeed do Y in context C.
If the aliens examined a human being, they would be able to discover what it would be appropriate for.
Now, very roughly, I say that it is better when things are in contexts where it is very likely that they will do what it is appropriate for them to do. We may of course have to balance out the requirements of one thing against another's.
At any rate, this is a purely physical notion of goodness. Are you with me so far?
Sorry, I will now continue the discussion from messages 569 and 5670.
I was saying that the clever and knowledgeable aliens could figure out, by looking in detail at a well-preserved mouse, that it was a foraging animal adapted to a certain class of environments, even though they had no previous experience with terrestrial fauna. I hope you find this intuitively plausible.
Suppose one of them said, "No, it's now a forager, it's a paperweight!" How would the others argue with him? I presume, something like this:
"Well, Grzx, its being a paperweight would explain its size, shape, and weight. But look how much more would be explained if we take it to be a forager in environment X! It explains tens of thousands of chemical pathways! It explains tens of thousands of minute details about its physical structure! See, this thing here is a pump! [and so on].
So we could say that X is appropriate for doing Y in context C if and only if
(a) There is some significant probability that X would indeed do Y in context C, and
(b) Almost any change we make in X, larger than a certain very small size, will reduce the probability that X would indeed do Y in context C.
If the aliens examined a human being, they would be able to discover what it would be appropriate for.
Now, very roughly, I say that it is better when things are in contexts where it is very likely that they will do what it is appropriate for them to do. We may of course have to balance out the requirements of one thing against another's.
At any rate, this is a purely physical notion of goodness. Are you with me so far?
to all:
Actually: I got the Seasons forum going again, but now it seems I've chased everyone but Bev away by being so intense, so I'm bowing out for a few days.
Actually: I got the Seasons forum going again, but now it seems I've chased everyone but Bev away by being so intense, so I'm bowing out for a few days.
Irina, aww, you and I will just take a break from the topic, unless someone else wants to argue with you about it. 
Think about Psi's Robot or have a drink at Dogh'ds.
Psi, Thanks for the video links. What are the search words am I looking for to google this type of bot? Do the makers release any info or have their own web page? If you have some mutilated accident victim inside, is it a cyborg like my mouse-brained Roomba? You've already told me the ethics boards for human research are easier to avoid in the UK, how far can that be pushed?
Think about Psi's Robot or have a drink at Dogh'ds.Psi, Thanks for the video links. What are the search words am I looking for to google this type of bot? Do the makers release any info or have their own web page? If you have some mutilated accident victim inside, is it a cyborg like my mouse-brained Roomba? You've already told me the ethics boards for human research are easier to avoid in the UK, how far can that be pushed?
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