normal
The Fundamentals of Reality
Item 22 (Tue, Sep 27, 1988 (18:34)) Joe Durnavich (jjd)
Ben, I'm still having trouble getting a complete picture of your view of objective reality. I find your viewpoint interesting because of your confidence when answering certain questions. In the tree item, it seemed most people felt the answer was unknowable, irrelevant, or uncertain. But you answered with a definite, YES, it does make a sound! I'm still not sure why you are so sure, but it seems to involve objective reality. So I wouldn't cause the causality item to drift, I started a new item.
To get started, I'm just going to blurt out some statements and let you comment on them:
- There is an objective reality.
- It is external to the mind.
- The senses are your only way of getting knowledge about reality.
123 responses total.
22.1 Tue Sep 27 22:31:27 1988 Ben Kovitz (kiwi)
I know the title of this item, jjd, means that you want to talk about metaphysics (the fundamentals of reality), but in your message you said you wanted to know why I am so sure. So, I'm goint to talk about epistemology (how we get knowledge). And, I'm going to write my reply off-line. Be back in a while...
22.2 Tue Sep 27 22:41:40 1988 Joe Durnavich (jjd)
You're right. I already put the title in before I realized it wasn't really appropriate. But at least I spelled everything right this time.
22.3 Wed Sep 28 00:04:41 1988 Ben Kovitz (kiwi)
Well, I think the title was right, though. My previous response didn't say exactly what I wanted to say. Aarghs, I'll just finish my big response...
22.4 Mon Oct 3 08:08:44 1988 H¡en Kovitz (kiwi)
A friend of mine used to teach classes in word processors, spreadsheets, and other productivity software. Often he would be hired to teach a class in a program he had never seen or used before. He would spend one night or so reading the manual and playing with the program, and then he would be all ready to teach--and the companies hiring him had no complaint with this. They were fully aware that he had never touched the software before, and yet were quite willing to pay him $500 an afternoon to teach their employees how to use it.
Now, doesn't this strike you as a bit bizarre? This guy spends one night learning a program and suddenly is able to teach it to others. Why not just let those other people spend a night learning on their own, forget the whole teaching setup, and save $500? What do they need him for?
You might be tempted to answer that the reason he is able to learn the programs so much faster than his students is because he is familiar with certain general concepts which are common to all software of that type. That is true, but there is an even more fundamental aspect to this.
He is only able to learn those programs much faster than his students because he already knows the important concepts which are necessary for gaining a detailed knowledge of that kind of software. His students, in order to reach that same level of knowledge of just one word processor, must first learn those fundamental concepts. For example, in the case of a word processor, some basic concepts which newcomers to computers always have a hard time grasping are: the difference between the copy of the document that is being edited and the copy that is stored on disk; the difference between the text of a document and its format (i.e., information about paragraphing, pagination, indents, margins, etc.); the difference between a keystroke which enters a character into a document and a keystroke which gives a command to the word processor. A great deal of a naive user's early time at a word processor is spent grasping these basic concepts, because until he knows them there is no way he can get a detailed understanding of how to use the program.
That last point is the one I'm trying to stress. Until a user knows about the fact that the word processor allows him to edit an edit buffer, which is in volatile RAM, and not a disk file, which is stored in a medium which retains its data even after the computer is shut off, he's not going to be able to understand the SAVE command, no matter how it's implemented on the particular word processor he's using. I've done my share of trai7{ing users on word processors (never made $500 an afternoon, though), and I've lost track of the number of times I've had users shut off the computer before they've saved their document, only to call me up the next day wondering what happened.
Another concept which one must grasp before one can understand the SAVE command, besides the concepts of volatile and permanent storage, is the concept of a document. If you don't know what a document is, you can't understand the SAVE command, because what is it saving? This never presents a problem for people learning to use a word processor, though, because everyone who has a need of using a word processor already knows about books, letters, articles, and has a very solid grasp of the concept document. I am only bringing this up to (a) further amplify my point some knowledge cannot be acquired until one has first acquired more basic knowledge, and (b) to begin linking back to the original question.
In general, one cannot grasp any concept of action, until one has grasped the concept of that which acts. In the word processor example, SAVEing is an action, impossible to grasp until one understands the concept of a document, or that which is SAVEd. And here are three fundamental concepts: entity, nature, and action--and here is a fundamental principle of reality: an entity's actions are caused by its nature. When you PRINT (another action) document A, what shows up on the printer is different than when you print document B, because the two documents are different. If you put a different print-wheel in the printer, the form of the letters on the page is different, beCAUSE the nature of the printwheel (the shape of the letters) is different.
But suppose someone were to say that there are no entities, only actions; that there are no documents, there are only the actions of saving, printing, etc. That is obvious nonsense: if there are no documents, then documents cannot be saved, printed, or anything else. If the concept of entity is bogus, then so is the concept of action. To affirm the latter while denying the former is to deny one's own premises.
Now, is there anything which must be grasped before one can grasp the concept knowledge? Yes: that which is known--i.e., reality. Speaking on the most fundamental level possible, before one can identify that one is conscious, one must have been conscious of something. This basic fact, existence, must be identified before ANYTHING else, and it is implicit and self-evident in every perception. If the concept of existence is bogus, then so is any concept pertaining to consciousness--or anything else. Unless and until you have identified that what you perceive exists, and that you do perceive it, you aren't going to get anywhere, you aren't going to learn anything, and you aren't even going to be able to ask stupid questions like If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? What are trees? What are forests? What is hearing? How did you find out about those? You could not have formed any of these concepts without using the fundamental concepts of existence and consciousness. For example, you could not have formed the concept hearing until you had first identified WHAT you are hearing. Some time you might want to observe children being taught about the five senses, and observe that the only way to do it is to have them identify some quality they can directly perceive, and then have them close their eyes, cover their ears, etc., until they finally grasp that not only are there sounds, but that they hear them. And then think to yourself how horrible it would be to try telling them that all they can really know is their sensations, that consciousness creates reality, how you can't know that the tree makes a sound, and how they can't know that reality will behave consistently, since that is only an assumption, etc., etc., etc. All those phony pseudo-intellectual games would do is cripple the child's mind before it had a chance to develop, no less than if you had smashed his skull with a hammer.
Now, perhaps, you see not only why I am so sure about the existence of an objective reality, but why I feel so strongly about attempts to deny it.
22.5 Mon Oct 3 19:03:47 1988 Joe Durnavich (jjd)
Your response came at a good time since I am in the middle of reading some of Descarte's Meditations on the First Philosophy. He comes to some of the same conclusions you do: he knows he has a mind mind and at least some of the ideas in it had to come from an external, formal reality (through cause and effect if I understand him right). He uses the term objective reality to mean ideas in the mind which represent real objects. Your definition implies objective reality is the real objects themselves, which are outside the mind. Did the definition change over time?
So far, I understand and agree that:
- I have a mind.
- There is an objective (external to my mind) reality.
- To know I had a mind I had to be conscious of something first. In other words, one of the main functions of my mind is to perceive a reality. If there is no reality to perceive, then my mind is useless and I'm stuck. To see I had a mind, my mind must have first perceived something that exists in reality. I know I have a mind. Therefore, I know reality exists.
Now, I am going to ask some more stupid and pseudo-intellectual questions because that is the only way I know how to approach this subject. Can I know what reality is made out of, or can I only know its nature (how it behaves)? In other words, I could be nothing more than a brain in a jar connected to a computer. My brain would still contain my mind, and the computer would provide the external reality. The computer stimulates all my senses so that it looks to me like I am a
human living on the
planet Earth, typing in this message on this bbs. Can I figure out that I am really a brain in a jar connected to a computer, or can I only understand the reality the computer program is showing me. (That is the silliest question I have ever asked anybody, so feel free to say whatever you feel like, however mean and nasty.)
22.6 Mon Oct 3 21:16:57 1988 Bronis Vidugiris (bhv)
I would say that there is no way for you, me, or anyone else to KNOW they are not a computer simulation.
22.7 Mon Oct 3 21:22:16 1988 Leslie Mikesell (les)
Even very young children know that they participate in the act of seeing. Cover your eyes and you don't see any more.
22.8 Tue Oct 4 23:56:51 1988 tom chapin (tjc)
OK. Now you've read DesCartes. Remember that if he was right, then God has been shown to exist... Now read Hume's response. Then read Kant to get thoroughly confused...
22.9 Wed Oct 5 01:54:50 1988 Ben Kovitz (kiwi)
jjd: A question is not stupid, silly, or pseudo-intellectual if it is asked honestly. I do think a lot of people who ask the question about the tree falling in the forest (and, yes, the brain in the jar) do it, not because they want to know the answer, but because they delight in subverting other people's ability to think. A lot, but certainly not all of them.
First, about Descartes: it is my understanding that his central argument goes that you can't be sure of anything, because you can doubt everything, with one exception: since the act of doubting is itself an act of consciousness, you CAN be sure that you are conscious. Hence, I think therefore I am. He wanted to defend the existence of the reality outside the mind, and so he cooked up a rather convoluted argument to get from his famous axiom to the existence of reality. However, it is impossible to prove existence on the basis of anything which is derived from it; any such argument is totally circular. Consequently, philosophers after Descartes were quick to point out the flaws, and ever since, subjectivism has been gaining dominance in the Western world. (Notice that only two people said that the tree makes a sound; if you asked that question at a university philosophy department, the results would be even more disappointing.)
The primary problem with Descartes' argument is that you can't identify the fact that you are conscious until you are conscious of something. First you identify some fact of reality, e.g., the table is there, and only then can you reflect and identify that I know the table is there. His attempt to prove existence on the basis of consciousness breeds subjectivism, because it says, in effect, that if you believe something, that is proof that it's so. It denies that the role of your mind is to perceive reality, and that the proper use of your mind consists in rigorously keeping it it accord with reality, and says instead that reality is whatever happens to be in your mind. It's not a long leap from there to I wish it, therefore it is so.
A few other problems that occur to me off the top of my head are: why is doubt the basis for a philosophy? A philosophy starts by identifying fundamental truths; a fundamental doubt is a contradiction in terms. The arguments consists of taking a random, arbitrary conjecture, i.e., how do I know there is not an evil demon controlling all of my perceptions?, and then saying that it is not the arbitrary conjecture which must be proven, but its contrary. This is a basic logical fallacy, known as appealing to ignorance.
Notice that the argument contains a train of reasoning: because of X, Y logically follows. (I.e., because doubting is an act of the mind, I have a mind.) That means the argument presupposes the laws of logic (despite the fallacy), which depend on the fact that everything that exists, possesses a certain, definite, specific nature. Descartes' argument is a classic example of that denying of one's own premises I was trying to illustrate in that example of saying that there are actions but not entities. However, none of the problems in this paragraph are as bad or important as the basic idea of subjectivism I was describing in the previous paragraph.
Now, about the brain in the jar. How did you find out about brains? How did you find out about jars? How did you find out about computers? How are computers created? Do these things exist? Do you know about them? If not, if you say that there is no objective reality or that you can't know about objective reality, then there is no way you could discover all of these things. Do you see what I am getting at here? To doubt that what you see is real, because you have seen brains, jars, and computers, is craziness!
(I should add, though, that computer simulations, while they are not the same thing as what they simulate, nevertheless do possess definite properties of their own, and are real.)
But, getting more serious here, when I read, think, and talk about philosophy, I am trying to find answers: real, useable answers which I can apply in real life, here in the real world. Debating about whether we can ever know that we are not a computer simulation just doesn't have anything to do with real life. What is the proper relationship between one's intellect and one's emotions? What is the right kind of life for a human being? What are correct guidelines for generalizing from observation? How does one prove a causal relationship? What obligations (if any) do I have toward other people? These are important questions, and questions only philosophy can answer. And they cannot be answered by concocting arbitrary conjectures about brains in jars hooked up to computers. Ever since I was very young, I have hated schools, but loved learning; much of my interest in epistemology has grown out of this: in order to develop a correct theory of learning and teaching, it is necessary to have a correct theory of knowledge and proof. Again, random speculations about brains in jars don't help much to accomplish anything constructive, in the field of education or anywhere else.
(However, I have spent plenty of time grappling with the computer-simulation question, and doing so was very valuable. It taught me quite a lot, both about fundamental principles of reality, and about epistemology. I wish someone had said something like the above two paragraphs to me back then, but I doubt it would have sped me up that much, because no matter how much truth you hear, you still have to understand it for yourself, and that takes time. So, if you are really having troubles with this problem of how do you validate that there is an objective reality and even if there is, how can you ever know anything about it, don't take the previous paragraph to mean that you should just suddenly quit thinking about it even if you aren't confident that your answer is right.)
Lastly, about Can I know what reality is made of, or can I only know its nature (how it behaves)?, this doesn't seem to be the same question as the one about the brain in the jar. I'm not sure what you mean by what reality is made of; it's made of reality, of course! Nothing exists except reality; there is no more fundamental, substrate of reality which is the real reality, compared to the mere surface, fake reality. (I've been thinking about starting a real reality vs. what only looks that way item, since that seems to be at the center of all my disputes with Bronis, but I haven't thought of a good way to explain my view on this, though.) Even in the brain-in-the-jar conjecture, the things the computer is showing you are no less real than the computer. Then again, I'm not sure I'm answering the question you had in mind.
22.10 Wed Oct 5 05:41:52 1988 Duffy Toler (duffy)
I took a similar stance on a discussion of accepted reality with Dave Sueme some months ago. I didn't realise how stupid it sounds untill i noticed my own thoughts on the matter echoed in the above response. After considering that the Pythagorean's killed the fellow who discovered irrational numbers, and considering the numerous misconceptions about the nature of how everything from the universe to the human body works, it seems that my current view of what's real is colored by current scientific understanding. That view is not only subject to change, it is probable that it really will change according to historic precedent. While it seems incomprehensible that we will someday discover that we are disembodied brains in jars, i suspect that a person from ancient times would find it equally incomprehensible that his heart was just a pump. A computer simulation would have an even more difficult time discovering the nature of reality because it could have been programmed not to discover it. The way to prevent it from discovering the real world would be to programm it so that it thinks it knows The Truth.
22.11 Wed Oct 5 12:40:46 1988 Leslie Mikesell (les)
Ben: I don't think that the concept of consciousness creating reality leads directly to I wish it, therefore it is so. First, there is the difference between thinking about something and the thought that creates an action. For example you can think about running or wish you were running while sitting perfectly still. But, running is certainly a conscious activity. There is a thought that makes your foot move, although it is not the same as thinking about moving. Second, there is no reason to suppose that there would be no limits on the possibilities that could exist. Obviously any reasonable explanation of reality must be able to produce exactly the results that we experience. Beyond that, there is no basis for any kind of judgement.
22.12 Wed Oct 5 17:27:35 1988 Bronis Vidugiris (bhv)
My position on this, and similar topics, is that the possibility of me being a computer simulation is a futile question to think about BECAUSE there is no way to disprove it experimentally.
22.13 Wed Oct 5 18:40:55 1988 Joe Durnavich (jjd)
tjc: I read some Hume once, but all I remember is something about billiard balls. I will read him again to see what he has to say about Descartes' ideas. I don't want to dwell too much on this subject though, because I can only spend so much time wondering if reality exists before I have to get up and leave for work.
As for your response Ben, I see my mistake now of trying to create a meta-reality with objects from the real reality (i.e., brains, jars, and computers). I was trying to find the extent of your definition of reality by trying to go beyond or above it. I can't seem to do that unless I bring in a God of some sort (supernatural, infinite, etc.). But comparing the finite with the infinite doesn't tell me anything either. I guess I am stuck with the reality I am immersed in then.
Which brings me too your But, getting more serious paragraph. I agree with you that philosophy is supposed to find real usable answers for real questions asked by real human people living real human lives. But I did not intend for this item to be a reflection of what philosophy was all about. I am not a philosopher. I know little about philosophy. I was hoping all you guys would show me what it was all about. Most of the debates here reduced themselves to an objective versus subjective reality debate. I wanted to get to the bottom of things here. Maybe getting this out of the way will allow this conference to move on to more useful things.
22.14 Wed Oct 5 18:55:27 1988 Joe Durnavich (jjd)
(Oh by the way, I am begging everybody to please keep this discussion on at least a semi-intelligent level. Please, no more fighting and hurling of insults at each other. Specifically, please don't ignore anybody Ben, not even Duffy. Say what you will about his responses, but don't just ignore him. Otherwise I have no choice but to believe everything he says. And everybody else, you can tell Ben he is an obnoxious snob in the Why I Hate Kiwi item in the ccc conference. Let's just try to attack his responses here.)
22.15 Wed Oct 5 23:45:02 1988 tom chapin (tjc)
As Ben was ably pointing out, the difference between DesCartes and Hume IS one of trying to find objective reality versus subjective one. DesCartes tried to use doubt, hoping that whatever could not be doubted had to be true, and that consciousness could not be doubted. This led him to believe in thobjective reality of existence. But Hume replied that our consciousness was not of objective reality, but only of our sense-impressions, and our senses filter reality, and cannot be depended on to give on objective reality, but only a subjective one.
And as Ben pointed out, since then, philosophers have tended to move from objectivism to subjectivism. While there seems to be an objective reality out there somewhere, our senses are so limited, so likely to filter and alter reality as it comes to us, and since our very brains are limited and may be unable to organize our sense-impressions into a true picture of objective reality, all we have left is our subjective view.
22.16 Thu Oct 6 10:33:47 1988 Leslie Mikesell (les)
A necessary problem, though. Our senses function by organizing reality into patterns, so that repeating patterns can be recognized. This is reenforced by assigning words to the patterns so that we can talk and think about them. As my example of the TV image showed, it doesn't really matter that the underlying reality is only slightly related to the pattern that it projects. The real process of learning is to perceive the same patterns as everyone else. Perhaps unfortunately, it is a creative process, but without it we would have nothing to talk about.
22.17 Thu Oct 6 17:44:53 1988 Joe Durnavich (jjd)
It seems the only way everyone can get more accurate patterns into their brains though, is to pay closer attention to that underlying reality. Eventually, you will figure out that the TV image is just a dot moving rapidly on the screen...
22.18 Thu Oct 6 21:32:38 1988 Leslie Mikesell (les)
I don't think so. When you stop seeing the agreed upon patterns, things are no longer interesting. How may people would keep a TV around if they just saw the electron beam instead of the image? Even if someone does perceive something underneath the patterns, there are no words to describe it. How often do you notice the pressure of air on your body? It is one of the main forces that affects you, but since it is uniform it does not present a pattern that you generally recognize.
22.19 Thu Oct 6 22:01:52 1988 Ben Kovitz (kiwi)
Here is my refutation of the we can't be objective, because our senses 'filter' reality argument, at least in brief outline.
The argument (and it was Kant who really developed it into its most fully developed form, not Hume) rests on the premise that there is a way things really look, which is different from the way they look to us. However, what something looks like is not an attribute intrinsic to that object, it depends on both the nature of the object and the nature of person looking at it.
Stating this principle in more abstract terms, every perception has both a CONTENT and a FORM. (Please note that I am not using form as a synonym for shape.) The content is the thing which is perceived. The form is what it looks like to the perceiver. What the subjectivist argument fails to recognize is that there can be no such thing as a formless perception; it says that our perceptions, because they have a form which is partly dictated by the nature of the mind, are not true, because they are not a formless perception, dictated by nothing but the content.
Several months ago, I got into a length argument about this on another BBS, and I came up with the following analogy to help clarify these two concepts content and form. Suppose you have two different books on the care and feeding of cats. Book A uses all kinds of fancy, polysyllabic words, most of which haven't been used since the nineteenth century. Book B is written is simple, straighforward prose. But they both describe the same things: they both describe the care and feeding of cats. That is, their CONTENT is the same, but the FORM in which it is expressed is different.
Now, try to imagine a book on the care and feeding of cats which doesn't express its content in any form at all. You can't; the whole idea is total nonsense. (Which is what makes talking about this so difficult: the subjectivist argument premises something which literally can't be described, contemplated, proven, or understood, and which can't exist.) Now, which of the two books is the true book? The answer, of course, is that since they have the same content, they are both equally true.
The same goes with perception: there can be no formless state of awareness, where the nature of the perceiver plays no part. And, the mere fact that you perceive by some means, rather than by some magical means, does not mean that you aren't perceiving at all.
It might be objected that all of the above is totally irrelevant, since no one who has argued that perception is unable to be objective has said anything about a formless state of awareness. However, that is a premise of the argument, despite the fact that most subjectivists haven't identified it. Notice that tjc said that because our brains are limited, i.e., because they possess a definite, specific nature, they can't give us a true picture of reality. Well, what would be a true picture of reality? What, exactly, are our limited perceptions being compared against?
Finally, I should mention that there is a lot more to the issue than what I've stated here. For example, it is wrong to say that we perceive sensations, not reality; that's like saying that we perceive our nervous systems, not reality. Sensations are part of the means by which we perceive; they are not what we perceive. But the basic idea (or rather non-idea) of a perception without any means or form as the standard by which to judge the truth of a perception is the primary error in the subjectivist viewpoint.
22.20 Thu Oct 6 22:30:21 1988 tom chapin (tjc)
I may be missing a bit here, but you seem to be saying the subjectivists wrongly demand that objective reality be perfectly (without limitations or filtering) perceived to be believed. I would, rather, say that most subjectivists would be epistemological agnostics rather than atheists. In other words, a subjectivists would allow that an objective reality most likely exists, but the nature of objective reality is too far removed from us by our own physical limitations for us to have faith in our interpretations of it.
The question is where does that leave us subjectivists? We can't live in a world of mere random chaos, we need to find some order. If we don't have faith in our ability to determine the nature of teh world beyond our distorted perceptions of it, we may have to look for such things as consensus of outlook.
22.21 Fri Oct 7 09:59:08 1988 Leslie Mikesell (les)
The problem is not well addressed because philosophers tend to not have a good understanding of information storage and processing or the underlying mechanisms e.g. body chemistry. Perhaps a starting point would be to compare actual reality to a network with layered protocols. Wasn't there a philosophy that there were seven levels of Logos? This might mesh nicely with the OSI seven-layer network model. We can examine the lower levels closely, but all we can do about the upper levels is speculate about whether the lower levels reflect them by design. Now - about those lower levels. I'm convinced that ideas have a physical substance not unlike viruses, that knowing a word requires the creation of a specific complex molecule, and that we cannot make sense of anything that cannot be stored at this level. Is this getting too bizarre?
22.22 Fri Oct 7 11:37:57 1988 Joe Durnavich (jjd)
tjc: I think Ben was trying to point out that it is in the nature of perception to use the senses to perceive reality. You are saying that because we use our senses, we can never see the true reality. That implies that the only observer who can see a true picture of reality is one who doesn't use senses. But such an observer doesn't exist (and doesn't make sense). It is unfair to compare our power of perception to something that doesn't exist. (Nonetheless, I still feel Ben is trying to pull one over on us. I need to think about this some more.)
Compared to one another though, we obviously have different views on reality in our mind. Certainly, everything I perceive is not necessarily true. And others have either more or less true perceptions than me. How do we know which knowledge is correct? To quote Dav Holle:
How do we know what we know? Simply because we can get a lot of agreement on it? Does that mean that the world really WAS flat in Copernicus' time? (People lived as though it were true...)
(I take that to be the same concept as tjc's consensus of opinion and Leslie's we must try to perceive the same patterns as everybody else.)
22.23 Fri Oct 7 17:20:00 1988 Bronis Vidugiris (bhv)
I think doubt, and the possibility of error, are part of the human condition. I also think that any philosophy that attempts to make absolutely and uncoditionaly true statements about anything is most likely in error. (I obviously can't say it must definitely be in error, of course :-)).
It may be comforting to believe that one 'knows' reality, but it is probably not true.
22.24 Fri Oct 7 21:57:27 1988 Leslie Mikesell (les)
Has anyone read Flatland? It is a little book that attempts to address this issue by analogy. The scene is a two-dimensional land peopled by one dimentional creatures as pompous and self-assured of their understanding of reality as you might find anywhere. Then one of them discovers the up direction and tries to explain to the others.
22.25 Fri Oct 7 22:40:53 1988 tom chapin (tjc)
Joe--yes, I was saying because we use senses we cannot achieve a true picture of reality (or be sure if we have). All we have is senses and reasoning, and both are limited, and we do not even know how limited (yeah, Flatland...). So the most important parts of reality could be totally beyond us, knowable only by a God, whom we do not know to exist.
Consensus would give us at least a way to deal with a common reality even if not an ultimately true one, but we don't seem to be able to achieve consensus...
22.26 Fri Oct 7 23:42:04 1988 Ben Kovitz (kiwi)
tjc: WHY? (re: what you said about consensus.)
jjd: Yes, the whole issue of subjectivism vs. objectivism is EXTREMELY abstract, and takes a long time to properly understand. One thing that I've seen confuse a lot of people is that they have absolutely no idea what philosophy is: they try to incorporate or justify philosophic abstractions on the basis of less fundamental things. An excellent example of this is what Les said about philosophers not being qualified to say much about these things, due to a lack of knowledge of information processing and body chemistry. If you think carefully about what this means, though, you'll see what a wild self-contradiction it is: it means that such things as whether or not there is an objective reality, whether or not man can ever have knowledge, is to be proven on the basis of observations of and generalizations from the brain. But if the brain doesn't exist, or if your senses don't give you a true picture of reality, then how do observations of the brain prove anything? The error here is the failure to understand that there are NO wider abstractionn{ than those of philosophy, and NO more fundamental principles. Philosophy provides the foundation of human knowledge, and without it, the totality of human knowledge crumbles. (Also, philosophic abstractions cannot be proven on the basis of things which are derived from them.)
Now, regarding what you said about some perceptions not being true, and there being more and less true perceptions. Could you give an example of this? What is a less true perception?
I don't think you understood that concept of form I was trying to explain, because it totally contradicts the idea that perceptions are either true or false. Propositions are true or false, but not perceptions; perceptions just are. Perceptions provide the form in which you are aware of reality; there is no lower or more fundamental kind of awareness into which you can analyze your perceptions. All higher-level knowledge, including all abstractions, has its roots in perception; all of it consists in seeing differences and similarities between perceptions and extrapolating from perceptions. It is possible to make an error when connecting different perceptions to form a generalization, and it is possible to make an error when applying a generalization to a new perception, but the perceptions in and of themselves cannot be in error.
A typical example of a false perception is an optical illusion: for example, some illusion where two lines which are really the same length appear to have different lengths. But in calling that perception false, you can only do it by reference to some standard of truth--and what is the true perception in this case? How would the lines look if your brain was constituted in some completely different way, where the optical doesn't happen? You;'ll never know! The lines look to you the way they look to you, because of both the nature of your brain and the nature of the lines. The perception is the automatic effect of the way reality really is; to say that the perception would only be true if the lines looked another way, is to say that REALITY would only be true if the lines looked another way.
It might be objected that the perception is still wrong, because the perception is telling you that the lines are different lengths, whereas in reality they are the same length. The error here is in equating the perception of the lines with the concept of length. Your concept of length was formed by identifying a quantitative relationship between a certain attribute of objects you've perceived in the past (specifically, their lengths). Your perception isn't telling you that the lines are different lengths; it is simply giving you an awareness of the lines. What make the perception an optical illusion is that it is so similar to other percepotions of lines differing in length, that it is easy to misapply your concept of length and form a false judgment on the basis of the perception. (And, the concept of length is so basic and close to the perceptual level, that it is easy to equate it with perception itself.) So, to summarize: the perception in and of itself doesn't tell you that the lines are different; that is a judgment you may or may not make ON THE BASIS of the perception.
Also, the mere fact that we have identified that the lines are in fact different lengths is proof that it is not the perceptions which are mistaken, but the conclusion we may or may not draw from them. Otherwise, how could we ever have found out that the lines are the same length? Perception, ultimately, is our only means of knowledge; we could only have found out by using our perceptions of the lines.
Wow. I've cranked out a lot of text these past few days.
22.27 Sat Oct 8 00:05:21 1988 Ben Kovitz (kiwi)
...and I'm still not done.
One other comment, about your summary of my summary of the subjectivist argument. The idea that the senses filter or distort reality, and that a true perception would be one perceived without any senses, were not the crux of my argument. Essentially, the subjectist argument goes like this: because consciousness perceives by some definite MEANS, and not by magic, is proof that there is no such thing as consciousness (i.e., no true awareness of reality). Ayn Rand had a very good way of putting this:
...man is blind, because he has eyes--deaf, because he has ears--deluded, because he has a mind--and the things he perceives do not exist, because he perceives them.
A word about the Flatland example: the fact that you don't know everything, is not proof that you don't know anything. The residents of Flatland knew what they knew: they knew about Flatland. When A. Square (the hero of the story) found out about 'up', he had simply learned something new, IN ADDITION to what he already had known. To say that A. Square's discovery proved the other Flatlander's beliefs about reality wrong, is to say that new discoveries DESTROY knowledge, rather than augment it.
22.28 Sat Oct 8 00:50:05 1988 Leslie Mikesell (les)
But the fact that you don't know everything means that you don't know how much you don't know. Are we heading towards a mind-body duality now, Ben? If you want to assert that philosophers are not constrained by physics, please explain the nature of the consciousness that is not limited to the mechanisms that you don't want to bother understanding.
22.29 Sat Oct 8 09:19:01 1988 tom chapin (tjc)
Ben, I'm not sure what you are asking about my statement on consensus. If you are asking why I feel consensus would be valuable, it's because we would have less need for confidence in attaining true reality if we could at least have a workable reality. If you are asking why we cannot attain it, I am not saying we can't, just that we obviously haven't and I see no likelihood we will any time soon. I would think lack of consensus would support subjectivism--if we could attain the consciousness of true reality, then why do we disagree on it?
About philosophy as the the foundation of human knowledge, it is quite possible that our philosophy is dependent on our physiology. The physiology of our senses could prevent us from perceiving any but the most limited area of reality, and the physiology of our brain could determine the interpretation of our perceptions, for example, imposing a dualism which may not be present in true reality. Our philosophy could be, not only incomplete, but a falsification of reality.
22.30 Sat Oct 8 12:58:50 1988 Ben Kovitz (kiwi)
tjc: What is the physiology of the brain? Is it real? Are you aware of it? How did you find out about it? If it's not real, then none of what you concluded from it makes any difference. If it is real, and you are aware of it, then you are operating on the premise that reality is real and that you can know about it.
You said that it is quite possible that our philosophy is dependent on our physiology. I have two points to make about that: (1) do you have any evidence to support this claim? If you don't, then there's no reason to take it seriously. If you do, then you are saying that the evidence is real and that you know it. (2) OF COURSE the nature of knowledge and how we acquire it are dependent on the nature of the brain! What do you think I've been talking about all this time? I've been saying that any perception is the effect of both the nature of the perceiver and the nature of what he perceives. (I think that's now the third time I've said almost that exact same sentence.) If we had no physiology, no means of consciousness, then we certainly could not discover anything, even the law of causality.
I wasn't asking why you feel consensus is valuable, but why you think it's so important. But, regarding what you said about the fact that people disagree is proof that we can't know the true reality, there are plenty of reasons why people disagree that involve no such premise: (1) man is not infallible; he can make errors in judgment. (2) Different people have different amounts of knowledge, and they know about different things. (This isn't so much a reason why people disagree, but a reason why the content of their minds is not exactly identical, despite their having access to the same reality.) (3) Reasoning is a volitional act; nature does not force you to properly integrate the knowledge you have. For example, I know of some people who talk about their knowledge of the physiology of the brain, in order to support the contention that they can't know anything. And of course there are all the things I was talking about in the free HW... (4) Man is not omniscient; he has only a limited amount of knowledge. For example, suppose that someone is playing a practical joke on Mr. A: say, they've balanced a bucket of water above a door so when Mr. A. comes through it, it empties on his head. Mr. A, not being omniscient, doesn't know about this, and walks through the door not expecting to get wet. But big deal! This certainly doesn't prove that man is unable to know the true reality; Mr. A knows what he knows, and when he gets wet, he knows that, too.
Les: I don't see any connection at all between the three sentences of your previous response. Could you explain what you are trying to say in more detail?
22.31 Sat Oct 8 14:38:02 1988 Leslie Mikesell (les)
Ben: I am trying to get a better idea of what you consider knowledge and more specifically what the entity is that has or creates this knowledge. I don't object at all to a mind-body duality but I place the knowledge derived from the senses firmly in the body and can't say much at all about the mind part (i.e. I do not limit the activity of consciousness to the brain). You seem to be saying something more concrete - that thought is proof of itself, but I can't quite follow it.
Suppose we put a microphone, speaker and amplifier in the same room and turn up the power. Your argument that thought exists because of the existence of a thinker seems like the fact that sound exists because of the feedback effect. I'm looking for what was there before the amplifier was turned on.
22.32 Sat Oct 8 18:01:41 1988 tom chapin (tjc)
We seem to be arguing about how we can or cannot feel confident that we are conscious of true reality. As I understand your argument about physiology, if we accept that perception is what gives us information about physiology, then we have already accepted perception as giving true reality. I would say that we only accepted it provisionally to see where it would take us. When we did, we found that our perceptions show that our consciousness is limited and fallible. We are left with a paradox. The more information we get, the more we can see the limitations of our perceptions. For me, a paradox is as good as a contradiction at casting doubt on our grasp of reality.
And, for me, lack of consensus casts further doubt on our grasp of reality. Your reasons for lack of consensus are good, but they don't help. Fallibility, differing amounts of knowledge, lack of integration of knowledge, not being omniscient...how can I claim that I am the one among all the competing views of reality who is correct? Only through arrogance can I claim that it has to be the others who are more fallible, have less knowledge, haven't integrated their knowledge. There is no unyielding criterion by which to judge.
22.33 Sat Oct 8 19:37:07 1988 Joe Durnavich (jjd)
Let's see if I'm understanding any of this so far:
tjc: When you say we only accepted it provisionally to see where it would take us aren't you saying you did acquire some knowledge? And then after you acquired some knowledge you say you can't? If I'm understanding Ben correctly, then what you learned was that we are prone to make erroneous judgements once in a while. But how can we know we made incorrect judgements unless we made some correct ones also? From that argument is seems like we are learning some truthful things about reality.
And if I am understanding the subjective viewpoint correctly, they appear concerned over all the incorrect judgements we make (e.g., the world is flat). How can we be certain a judgement of ours is correct? To know reality correctly, must we know all of reality correctly (omniscience)? Is not the restriction of having to take time to learn reality a limit on our grasp of reality?
les: Are you saying you don't like the idea of thinking about thinking?
kiwi: Regarding my response that contained the phrase more or less true perceptions: the more or less referred to a quantity of true perceptions. With your correction that should read, more or less number of true propositions.
If you asked me about a false perception I would have said someone who is color blind looking at a light which changes from red to green and can't see the difference (assuming the color blindness is a defect in the eye and not a mental problem).
Also, did you mean to say we have identified the lines are in fact the same length in the first sentence of the last paragraph of one of your responses? You said different lengths which then, I don't understand.
Finally, Ben, so I know what you are talking about, what is your definition of knowledge. Is there true knowledge and false knowledge?
22.34 Sat Oct 8 21:34:34 1988 tom chapin (tjc)
Joe, we just go up a metalevel on the road to infinite regress. What we learn is that we are fallible and make mistakes. We do not learn how to prove which of our knowledge is true and which is merely the product of our falliblilty. If we can't prove which of our beliefs are true and which are false, it does us no good to say that some are true.
22.35 Sat Oct 8 23:44:16 1988 Leslie Mikesell (les) Joe: I didn't realize I was saying that, but yes, thinking about thinking is about as useful as thinking about swimming. Tom: Perfect consensus would probably not be desirable - we would no longer have anything to talk about. Besides, the evolution of ideas is hopelessly intertwined with the evolution of living things and the diversity serves its purpose.
22.36 Sun Oct 9 00:19:42 1988 Ben Kovitz (kiwi)
Les (and jjd): My definition of knowledge is: a mental grasp of reality, arrived at by a process of observation and reasoning from observation. The next question, of course, is to ask what is my definition of mental grasp of reality. But here we come right up to the self-evident, perceptual level; this (i.e., being conscious of something) cannot be broken down into more fundamental, closer-to-perception terms. Asking for a definition of consciousness is like asking for an explanation of what it's like to have the sensation of red. You can define other, less fundamental concepts in terms of these things, but you can't define these things in terms of concepts which are derived from them.
Regarding whether or not there is such a thing as false knowledge: false knowledge is a contradiction in terms; true knowledge is a redundancy.
Les: I don't understand your analogy of the amplifier: it sounds like you are asking what thoughts one had before one had any thoughts. Maybe the following is what you were trying to get out of me: every thought is a thought ABOUT SOMETHING. There is no such thing as a thought totally devoid of any existential content. You can think about bus schedules, the cost of hamburger, the structure of the atom, the number of lines on a page, but you've got to be thinking about SOMETHING in order to be thinking. And the only way to think about thinking is to reflect, ultimately, on thoughts you've had which were not thoughts about thinking.
Speaking of which, it's time for this conversation to return to reality. I have the impression that when most of you read, write, and think about these things, they're just a bunch of big words to you, rather than something you can see, touch, or feel. It is very important, in understanding anything (not just philosophic abstractions) to have a good, solid, concrete idea of what you're talking about. It is crucial that you be able to have some concrete examples of what you're talking about spring to mind very easily, if you don't want to wander off into some never-never land of ivory-tower pseudo-intellectualism. For example, does anyone here have any definite idea of the meaning of the statement, your senses 'filter' reality and thus fail to give you a true picture of reality? That means that the thing you call a toaster is not really a toaster, the keyboard you type on is not really a keyboard, the thing you drive to work is not really a car--or, at least, that you can't be sure of those things. Your blue jeans aren't really blue, they're really some non-color which you can't perceive, because your senses are limited. What would you say if a person actually came up to you and asserted those things in perfect seriousness? You'd say (I hope), this guy is totally irrational and wouldn't take any of his absurd claims seriously. But, state those same exact things using highly abstract language, and suddenly they're no less arbitrary than the belief that there is a reality outside of your ... and the job of your mind is to perceive it.
Most people wouldn't dream of approaching any other subject in so anti- intellectual and anti-rational a fashion; in any other subject, most people would try to grasp the facts to the best of their ability. If you were learning to play piano, you wouldn't whine that you aren't sure if the keys are real, or say that because you can't hear sounds over 20,000 Hz, you don't know what the piano really sounds like. I've noticed that Les' messages about Unix in other conferences are very detailed, precise, and factual: he tries to apply the entirety of his knowledge of Unix to real-world problems.
But how would you actually live your life, tjc and Les, if you actually lived by the ideas you've espoused in this conference? Oh, somebody at work today disagreed with me about whether the gets() function leaves the newline at the end of a string--now there's no consensus, and I can't be sure! After all, it would be 'arrogant' to suppose that my picture of reality is the one, true one, what with all these competing views running around!
In closing, I recommend that you read the quotation that is displayed when you enter this conference before you write your reply.
22.37 Sun Oct 9 13:19:02 1988 Bronis Vidugiris (bhv)
I believe there is such a thing as false knowledge. The previously mentioned 'the world is flat' is a good example. It is knowledge, based on a limited experience, that seems to be true. However, when more experience is obtained, it turns out to be false.
Color (are my purple jeans purple) is a very good example of the way that our senses filter the world. Purple and violet are two different colors that appear to be the same to unaided human vision. The difference between purple and violet is that one consists of a single frequency of light (violet), where the other conisists of a mixture of red and blue light. This can be confirmed by closer observation with color filters.
Ben does have one good point, though. Most of the people who really have no conception of what reality is are locked away somewhere, in padded cells so they can't hurt themselves.
22.38 Sun Oct 9 14:37:27 1988 Leslie Mikesell (les)
Ben: I understand unix because I have read the manual. More specifically, because it is a deterministic system with known inputs. When a computer acts in a way that I perceive to be non-deterministic, I call the repairman. I have no problem dealing with reality on a level where I act as though everything were deterministic or at least predictable on a statistical model. However, I do not believe that is the case when dealing with consciousness since that would deny the existance of free will, nor do I believe that our universe is a closed system. Since you also seem unable to define consciousness, our views may not be that far apart - I am just trying to avoid having to accept anything as self-evident. That is, things that are evident to me are evident for a reason and I am willing to admit that not everything is evident to me. The microphone/speaker example alluded to the power of words to become their own meaning. Once we learn to speak and think in words, it becomes impossible to think otherwise. I was not asking for thoughts before thought, but rather (zen-like) thought before words. It is, of course, impossible to answer such a question but not because there is no answer.
22.39 Sun Oct 9 19:16:54 1988 tom chapin (tjc)
Senses filter reality: The spectrum which we can see is a tiny part of the whole. The spectrum which we can hear is a tiny part of the whole. We don't have any idea how many other spectra may exist which we, due to our human limitations, may have no access to. But the smallness of the percentage we can see and hear suggests (no, not entails) the immensity of that we have no access to. Because we are so limited, our knowledge is provisional and thus cannot be called knowledge of reality as it exists in itself.
22.40 Mon Oct 10 00:40:27 1988 Ben Kovitz (kiwi)
All right, you guys, I've been answering questions and trying to explain my views and give my definitions--now it's your turn:
WHAT are you referring to when you speak of knowledge of reality as it exists in itself? If you can come up with a definition for this, that would be best of all. And, in trying to explain why we can't have knowledge of reality as it exists in itself, please be sure to illustrate this with some concrete examples (this was the message of my previous message). Do you guys really believe that you have absolutely no knowledge of your toaster?
22.41 Mon Oct 10 11:30:07 1988 tom chapin (tjc)
I love this demand: Tell me exactly what it is that you don't know. Right....
If we knew what reality really was, we would have no difficulty in defining
Time Left - 09:06:07
Discussions from Chicago's CHINET
