h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Thank you Chai. Recumbentman's law is on the line above the one you quoted from post 605, but since we're starting a new page, here it is again, such as it is:

In stating any great truth, the one thing guaranteed is that you get it wrong.

You wonder "might not Lud Witt have said that what we can know is defined by our language?" and he might, but I don't think he did. This is exactly where a whisker out in a quotation runs you straight on the rocks, to use the marine metaphor, not the kind.

Well, alongside that, I have to quote my favourite scientific quote, by some high-powered contemporary physicist/cosmologist:

"We can never know reality, only our perception of it..."

Physicists are forever running smack into the problems so succinctly encompassed in Recumbentman's Law.

Oi, Chai, you've been away a while, haven't you? That's where our current exchange started, three pages back in post 561, where Sneaky, The First Sprocket offered "Reality is based upon perception."

I demurred, as there seems to be something hidden in that mostly-harmless little word "reality" when so used.

Shall we grind the wheel round another time?

Yo, Chai. <"We can never know reality, only our perception of it...">. I think that leads to an infinite regress. The next step is: "but we can only know our conception of our perception of it. But then, only our idea of that. Ah but ....."

This appears to be an unstoppable vicious regress; hence the beginning stage is false and we really can know reality or we can know nothing, presumably not even that we can know nothing! Take your pick!

toxx

Recumbentman, you're right. There was something hidden. I've tried explaining my thoughts, but was soon out of my depth. I've studied only erratically, and at my own direction, so I seem to be lacking in the basics to defend my thoughts. I still stand by my statement, but I appearantly don't have the tools neccisary to fully explain myself. (or to spell correctly)

"I've studied only erratically, and at my own direction"

Way to go! You (we) 're in good company!

I think most of us here are self taught, Sneaky, and this place is a good school.

toxx - I think your point brings us back to starting off with the presumption that our perceptions are (in general) veridical (and species specific?). Also, that the basic items of our terminology (perception, reality, veridical) are all defined in terms of each other.

Noggin

OK, Noggin. I didn't mention 'unreality', although it isn't particularly germane to the original question, and doesn't affect the force or my response! I don't know (guess it's unknowable) whether these things are species specific - although I continue to insist that ethics are. Dunno about those definitions either. It might be possible to define those things in terms of each other, but maybe judicious use of semantic primitives might also work.

I think philosophers have, ultimately, to be self-taught. I was fortunate enough to be give a fair old kick start though. Still, I've continued to learn in the subsequent twenty years.

toxx

Here's a Christmas toast to all of us self-taught philosophers. My own particular stance, as must be obvious by now, is to weigh abstract philosophical notions against personal experience of the mind in its cavortings, and to relate both to "scientific" notions regarding consciousness, language etc.

A propos which, two very interesting items may have crossed your paths recently.

One was a documentary on Channel 4 ( UK TV) regarding feral children, which showed that the developing infant brain has a narrow window of opportunity in the first six years of life, to acquire language. After that, words may well be acquired, but grammar and syntax will not. Brain scans show that the brains of feral children have large atrophied areas where language processing has not occurred during the critical period.

The other is a discussion in the current New Scientist regarding consciousness, language and the "hard" question of consciousness, which is:"Why does inert organic material give rise to consciousness at all?" And so far, apparently, no-one has successfully tied brain-scanned neuronal activity to specific subjective thought. The "neuro-theologists" claim success in this area, and continue to suggest that when the brain's mechanisms are finally and fully understood, there will be no "spare room" for consciousness. But others still say that that fails to answer the original "hard" question.

I apologise that I haven't got the article in front of me, so I may have garbled the last bit.

So here's the question to be going on with ( even if it has been discussed before)

What IS reality?

Ain't nothing inert about organic material. or as the Rock Man said

"Ain't nothing pointless about this gig"

Chai Well, how about: 'that which is'? And don't you dare object to the word 'is', because it's in your question. Hehehe.

toxx

toxx - I think those *are* semantic primitives - but they come in a cluster. Try defining perception or reality without using *any* synonyms. Or consciousness, for that matter. Maybe that's *why* it's the hard problem?

Noggin

Noggin. To get back to being serious, I'll have a go at 'perception': the process of becoming aware of the apparent current state of something.

Go on, knock me down.

toxx

As I said, toxx, the definitions come in a cluster. "Aware" was part of your definition.

Noggin

Noggin. I can define 'aware' as 'currently believing'. We are now close to what I think are some *real* semantic primitives: 'now' and 'believe'. I don't think those can be defined in much more basic terms. OK, we can go to 'time' but hard to avoid 'present' etc which are virtually 'now'.

Note that I don't want to presuppose in the definition that perception requires organs. That would be to beg the question of the existence of God in the negative.

toxx

Noggin. I could define 'belief' in terms of 'truth' but we are then getting into a very small circle. Probably have to do a behaviourist move also. Not very philosophically satisfactory, although better for the psychologist, as experimentally demonstrable.

toxx

<>

Dear Toxxin. What a gloriously convoluted thought. What on earth does the second of these two sentences mean ( and how did God get into it?)

As to the first sentence, let's get down and dirty. How can one not pre-suppose that perception requires organs? To keep the words and concepts simple, we can, without fear of contradiction ( I hope ) agree that we generally experience three basic states of which we are aware: Deep sleep, dreaming and waking states. Deep sleep we generally experience only by reference to the absence of awareness therein ( leaving aside the experience of awareness persisting through deep sleep for now...) Dreaming we experience by reference to its hallucinatory quality as compared with waking state. And then the waking state.

All OK so far?

The question is how do we "know" anything? Commonsense tells us that without sense organs perception is not possible. Remove someone's eyes, and he ceases to see, but will presumably not cease to dream. But does a person blind from birth dream? Maybe only in sound and touch? What about someone born with neither sight nor hearing? What kind of world do they inhabit? And so on.

Ultimately, of course, all sense organs feed impulses to the brain wherein our world picture is constructed. Which is where reality also resides, in the comparisons of perception with memory. ( What the precise relationship of brain mechanics and consciousness might be, is, as we have already discussed, a subject of fierce controversy.)

It was reported by Spanish conquistador missionaries ( apparently ), after chatting to the South Americans whom they had conquered, that when the Spanish ships first came over the horizon, the natives could not "see" them, because the ships were too far outside their normal reference frame of "reality." It was only the shaman who had the visionary experience to "see" the unseeable, and so warn their tribes that trouble was coming. ( Then of course they met the white-skinned aliens and worshipped them as gods. Ironic?)

PS, Toxx,what has "being aware" got to do with "currently believing."
Surely one can be "aware" without "believing"? In my experience of different states of "awareness," ( let me cite thirty and more years of meditation ) "awareness" can be experienced as devoid of any content whatsoever, utterly empty of mental activity of the slightest degree, vast, silent, still, literally unbounded ( without the boundaries of perceived thought forms.)

For me, the word "believing" carries connotations of considerable mental activity with reference to many complex layers of memories and habitual choices. In a word, "belief" is far from basic, far from the bedrock of awareness.

Yo, Chai. I can give you a helluva run for your money on this one, so let me know if I miss any key points.

I guess I was using the transitive sense of 'aware' as in being aware of X. In your example, do you not believe that you are aware of nothing? Mayhe not accurate but you get the idea. I'm talking definition, not experience.

If 'belief' is so complex, do have a shot at defining it. I can do it behaviouristically, as I said. Bit of a cheat. Any real offer?

toxx

Reply to your main message Chai. If God has no body but perceives then He can't exist - no perceptual organs, so a contradiction.

I think your tale about the Spaniards fudges the difference between 'seeing' and 'seeing as'.

Telepathy has not been disproved. You might want to say that the brain is a perceptual organ, but then we get back to the impossibility of an all-seeing God.