KellyJay has inadvertantly brought up an issue that I was thinking about this morning. In a nutshell, it boils down to this "what is the difference between reality and an internally consistant halucination?"
Two points.
(1) You are standing on a road. You look behind you, and see a bus. A few seconds later you look back again. The bus is closer. Every few seconds you look round and you see the bus closer than before. Do you "join the dots" as Kelly puts it, and move out of the way? It may have crashed, or driven over a cliff. It may have stopped at a bus stop when you weren't looking. You don't know. Do you join the dots, to make a potentially useful prediction for the future?
(2) Do you trust your senses? Is the bus real? It may be a halucination. If we allow the bus to hit us then it is possible that nothing actually happens. If our world is an internally consistant halucination, then it is possible that death is simply something that happens to everyone else, but not you, because it's your halucination.
This is a pointless question. You have to trust your senses because you have nothing else to trust. A better question would be whether or not we should trust what we assume about sensory information. Often enough input can be ambiguous, yet we often automatically accept the first thing that we think about the input as truth. Look at any optical illusion or magic trick. Mirages. The examples are endless. Should we accept what our senses tell us? Of course. However, when we have the time to do so, we should treat all imput as it if were a magic trick. We should think, what else is going on here?
Originally posted by thesonofsaul This is a pointless question. You have to trust your senses because you have nothing else to trust. A better question would be whether or not we should trust what we assume about sensory information. Often enough input can be ambiguous, yet we often automatically accept the first thing that we think about the input as truth. Look at any optical illu ...[text shortened]... should treat all imput as it if were a magic trick. We should think, what else is going on here?
I agree. However, I think this is a question that needs to be resolved in all our minds. Kelly is always banging on about our knowledge being imperfect, we can never really know the world. The universe will be what it is irrespective of us. I can see his point, and I've tried to illustrate it here.
Originally posted by scottishinnz I agree. However, I think this is a question that needs to be resolved in all our minds. Kelly is always banging on about our knowledge being imperfect, we can never really know the world. The universe will be what it is irrespective of us. I can see his point, and I've tried to illiterate it here.
illiterate or illuminate? (edit: ah illistrate, sorry din't realise you had spotted it, ho hum, walks off embarrased) This is essentially what my 'cartesian devils' posts, were essentially about, didn't seem to have any impact though, might just have been how I put them.
Originally posted by thesonofsaul This is a pointless question. You have to trust your senses because you have nothing else to trust. A better question would be whether or not we should trust what we assume about sensory information. Often enough input can be ambiguous, yet we often automatically accept the first thing that we think about the input as truth. Look at any optical illu ...[text shortened]... should treat all imput as it if were a magic trick. We should think, what else is going on here?
Epicurus thought that our sensory perception is basic, but that we can make erroneous judgments about what our senses indicate to us. And I think this is what you’re saying too. I tend to agree. It is our sensory apparatus, as well as our reason (and the primary emotions), that allows us to survive (and thrive) in this world. We set them aside at our peril.
Hume, if I recall, said something about our perceptions working quite well when we are not philosophising...
Originally posted by vistesd Epicurus thought that our sensory perception is basic, but that we can make erroneous judgments about what our senses indicate to us. And I think this is what you’re saying too. I tend to agree. It is our sensory apparatus, as well as our reason (and the primary emotions), that allows us to survive (and thrive) in this world. We set them aside at our per ...[text shortened]... ecall, said something about our perceptions working quite well when we are not philosophising...
Originally posted by scottishinnz I like Hume's view. Sounds oh so true!
Hume thought that all we had are perceptons and ideas, and that we cannot “prove” from them either an external objective world or a continuing subject-self. But then he said something to the effect that that didn’t matter when he went to the pub to play billards—something like that; I’ll have to find the quote...
Originally posted by vistesd Epicurus thought that our sensory perception is basic, but that we can make erroneous judgments about what our senses indicate to us. And I think this is what you’re saying too. I tend to agree. It is our sensory apparatus, as well as our reason (and the primary emotions), that allows us to survive (and thrive) in this world. We set them aside at our per ...[text shortened]... ecall, said something about our perceptions working quite well when we are not philosophising...
I really should read the classic philosophers one of these days. That way I could just quote them and could do away with all this wearisome thinking. It all seems to be thought up already, anyhow.
Have any of you ever had the experience of driving while daydreaming? Somehow you managed to drive 20 miles or so (maybe not if you're not reading this thread) and have no recall of consciously driving or paying attention to turns or other cars. This is scary.
Originally posted by scottishinnz KellyJay has inadvertantly brought up an issue that I was thinking about this morning. In a nutshell, it boils down to this "what is the difference between reality and an internally consistant halucination?"
Two points.
(1) You are standing on a road. You look behind you, and see a bus. A few seconds later you look back again. The bus is clos ...[text shortened]... that happens to everyone else, but not you, because it's your halucination.
Reality is the interpretation of what our senses can feel. And even deeper, reality is the interpretation from our brain of what our senses have trasnmited as electromagnetic pulses.
This measn that our brain has no other choice but to trust our senses, cause he has no other means to relate with the world.
Trusting our senses
29 Aug '06 20:04
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