The Most Critical Question!

[Doctordick]

The thesis is:

Perceptions clearly cannot be defined prior to the existence of a world view and the world view has to be based on something.

 

My hypothesis is:

We start our lives with an inherited "world wiew apparatus",given to us by nature,structured by evolution,enabling us to hyphotesize about perceptions.

Do you not comprehend that you have simply refused to even think about the question? Your answer is totally and absolutely equivalent to: "We start our lives with a world view given to us by God, enabling us to hypothesize about perceptions." Nature, God, etc. are all just aspects of your world view.

 

Please, if you can't think any better than that, just go away! I have enough problems dealing with supposedly smart people.

[sigurdV]

Do you not comprehend that you have simply refused to even think about the question? Your answer is totally and absolutely equivalent to: "We start our lives with a world view given to us by God, enabling us to hypothesize about perceptions." Nature, God, etc. are all just aspects of your world view.

 

Please, if you can't think any better than that, just go away! I have enough problems dealing with supposedly smart people.

There is no god. There is evolution. We have brains. Brains are programmed. We dont,for instance,invent our language: we are programmed to use a language. In the same way we are programmed to perceive a reality... You use the word "clearly" in an unfair way...

I hoped you would face facts but... Ok, ill leave.

[Doctordick]

Ok, ill leave.

I sincerely thank you and I am not being sarcastic.

 

Have fun -- Dick

[Rade]

Statement of DD: Perceptions clearly cannot be defined prior to the existence of a world view and the world view has to be based on something

DD, where the logic of your argument fails is that it is based on a false premise. There is nothing clear that perceptions cannot be defined prior to a "worldview". There is absolutely no "problem" at all with the proposition you raise.

 

Let us think about the sequence (since you use the word prior).

 

DD Model:

 

1. First is "something".

2. Next is a "worldview" of the something.

3. Next is a definition of "perception" of ?????

 

 

Good Doctor, where your model fails is that you have steps 2 and 3 reversed plus you make no statement about exactly what it is that is perceived. Logically, before you can form a mental "worldview" of something, first the something must be perceived. So, the appropriate model is:

 

1. First is "something"

2. Next is perception of the something

3. Next is concept of the something (e.g. worldview) based on merge of something & perception

4. Next is definition of perception.

 

Using the above model, there is no problem at all with your proposition, your "Most Critical Question" has a trivial answer as summarized above in four steps.

[Doctordick]

DD, where the logic of your argument fails is that it is based on a false premise.

And what false premise would that be? That I have no idea as to what is being perceived? Who told you what it was. Oh, I know, it was God wasn't it. You do know there is another forum here dedicated to religion. Why don't you go post there.

 

Please don't impose your inadequate ability to think on me; I beg of you!

[Rade]

And what false premise would that be? That I have no idea as to what is being perceived? ....

Well, no, what in the world would cause you to reach that conclusion ? The problem with the logic of your presentation has nothing at all to do about any "idea" you have or do not have about perception. So, as you wish, no more help from me. Best of luck to you as you move to attempt to publish your philosophy in a peer reviewed journal.

[AnssiH]

DD, where the logic of your argument fails is that it is based on a false premise. There is nothing clear that perceptions cannot be defined prior to a "worldview". There is absolutely no "problem" at all with the proposition you raise.

 

Rade, for what it's worth, you clearly have not understood what DD is trying to say. You have not internalized what he actually means with the words he is using, and it is somewhat like you are responding to him in a different language. In DD's terminology "perceptions can be defined prior to a world view" would be exactly the same as saying "I can understand things before I understand them".

 

You often respond that way, coming off as saying something trivially oxymoronic, or trying to argue why some word means something different than how he uses it. It all just makes it clear that you have not picked up what is being said, and that's why DD always complains that you don't seem to make an effort to think of these things.

 

I think what is blocking us from communicating is that you have not seriously thought about the fundamental problem he is referring to, because you have not realized that there is such a problem there. That is what you seem to be explicitly stating yourself (that there is no problem), which is basically the behaviour DD is complaining about in the OP.

 

I don't think you understand what I am referring to, but think of this;

 

Let us think about the sequence (since you use the word prior).

 

DD Model:

 

1. First is "something".

2. Next is a "worldview" of the something.

3. Next is a definition of "perception" of ?????

 

What you are bringing up here is your attempt to categorize DD's posts into an explanation about what exists or how worldviews come to be in some real sense, but he is not trying to make an argument about that at all.

 

Essentially he is trying to point out that explanations are possible even without any explicit knowledge about what it is that is being explained. Understanding that problem should also make you understand that our explanations of reality are constructs that are for generating expectations, and that is how DD carefully defines "explanation".

 

Being able to generate expectations about something whose meaning is entirely unknown, and having the absolute freedom to use any self-coherent terminology to express those expectations, has got some interesting implications that are worth understanding.

 

Anyone who understands the above should understand why and how "because evolution programmed us that way" is completely different level of discussion. It's just a moot statement about one's personal terminology, not an actual attempt to analyze the issue itself.

 

-Anssi

[Rade]

What you are bringing up here is your attempt to categorize DD's posts into an explanation about what exists or how worldviews come to be in some real sense, but he is not trying to make an argument about that at all.

Thank you, but the problem, if you read again what he said, is that he did in fact make an argument to imply a sequence to the relationship between what exists and how worldviews come to be and how both connect to perception. I only responded to his use of words (incorrect in my view) to explain his thoughts.

 

Essentially he is trying to point out that explanations are possible even without any explicit knowledge about what it is that is being explained. Understanding that problem should also make you understand that our explanations of reality are constructs that are for generating expectations

Well' date=' OK, but this is nothing more than black-box theory, generating expectations for the unknown dynamics of the box without explicit knowledge of what it inside the box. Sorry to burst his bubble, but he presents nothing new.

 

In DD's terminology "perceptions can be defined prior to a world view" would be exactly the same as saying "I can understand things before I understand them".

But, that is not what DD said. What he said was that "Perceptions clearly cannot be defined prior to the existence of a world view and the world view has to be based on something". Clearly from your response you do not understand that I was responding to the "and" in his statement. Of course perceptions can be "defined" prior to the "existence of a worldview", for a worldview is nothing more than an integration of many, many perceptions of "something" translated into concepts first defined.

 

Being able to generate expectations about something whose meaning is entirely unknown' date=' and having the absolute freedom to use [i']any self-coherent terminology[/i] to express those expectations, has got some interesting implications that are worth understanding.

Well, but the problem with your argument is that there is not a single example of something that has a meaning that is entirely unknown, that is, that no one can make a knowledge claim about the something. If I error, please provide one example of such a something.

[AnssiH]

Most of your post was implying you had misconceptions about what me and/or DD had said, but...

 

Being able to generate expectations about something whose meaning is entirely unknown, and having the absolute freedom to use any self-coherent terminology to express those expectations, has got some interesting implications that are worth understanding.

Well, but the problem with your argument is that there is not a single example of something that has a meaning that is entirely unknown, that is, that no one can make a knowledge claim about the something.

 

...what you are saying there is exactly a fact; no one can claim to hold true knowledge about something whose meaning is entirely unknown. It is not really possible to generate knowledge about the meaning of something like that. Yet, we all think we know a lot of things about the world.

 

That is a re-statement of the very problem DD is referring to, and its implications are very much central to what he is trying to communicate.

 

Most people are prone to jump to conclude that we "just somehow are" equipped to interpret reality "correctly", which is commonly called "naive realism", but doesn't really begin to analyze the actual issue. It is just a statement of one's own belief.

 

What you should understand is that DD is not here to suggest an alternative philosophy per se. He is suggesting that you take a careful look at a case where there is an absolute freedom to translate the "information with unkown meaning" to any sort of terminology that yields self-coherent and valid expression of inductively gathered expectations. Especially notice that in such case, the chosen terminology is not at all what the information itself is, but it is still the form in which the information is going to be "seen" and "understood". (This, I'm sure, you can relate to the concept of noumena and map vs. territory and many other things we have talked about)

 

Think about how it is not really possible to know or see any actual meaning of such information, but how instead we can only perceive things in our own terminology (since our perception is our terminology by definition), and think about the fact that, ever time we claim to know that something is so in reality, what we are really referring to is the demonstratable validity of our expectations about some well defined circumstance. What DD is trying to point your attention to is that, the validity of our expectations does not entail that the terminology we used is the same as what the information itself actually is.

 

Or, since you always want to view perceptions as the exact form of the underlying information, I'm puzzled how do you view this issue in the case that you also believe your perceptions are caused by electro-chemical impulses in your brain. You don't actually perceive those impulses themselves do you? Don't you think that in your philosophy also, you must allow yourself to think of all of your perceptions as a case of having translated something unknown into your personal terminology. And again, this has got nothing to do with whether or not that translation process is conscious or sub-conscious process, or if there is a brain or what reality is like. It's really all supposed to be just an analytical considerations about the given premise; the logical possibilities regarding the choice of terminology, when generating and expressing expectations about information whose meaning is unknown.

 

-Anssi

[Rade]

...since you always want to view perceptions as the exact form of the underlying information, I'm puzzled how do you view this issue in the case that you also believe your perceptions are caused by electro-chemical impulses in your brain.

AnssiH, I have never suggested that perceptions represent the exact form of the underlying information, which is by definition naive realism. The realism I study rejects such nonsense. If you think I suggest naive realism then it is your misunderstanding of what I am trying to say.

 

What I am saying is that we cannot demand that perception provide irreducible primaries of the underlying information; we cannot demand that consciousness will reproduce within itself what is received from perception untainted; we cannot demand that the human mind creates reality then study some eigenvalue state that duplicates existence.

 

...you must allow yourself to think of all of your perceptions as a case of having translated something unknown into your personal terminology. And again' date=' this has got nothing to do with whether or not that translation process is conscious or sub-conscious process, or if there is a brain or what reality is like.[/quote'].Yes, of course we must allow perception to be translated, the translation process is called forming a concept...but the translation has everything to do with whether or not a brain is involved. Consider your use of words above, that..we "must...think"---but this process has got nothing to do with whether or not "there is a brain". How do you suggest such is possible ?

 

I do think we are closing many misconceptions that we each have of what the other is trying to say. I must say, it really is time for DD to do you know what or get off the pot...time to move to formation of a manuscript for peer review and publication. If he has no interest, perhaps you could take the lead. The forum has a place for people to post possible manuscripts and receive feedback before sent to the journal. I suggest a philosophy journal because what DD discusses is not physics nor is it mathematics. There are many philosophers that study the concept of "scientific explanation" and/or explanation in more general.

[AnssiH]

What I am saying is that we cannot demand that perception provide irreducible primaries of the underlying information; we cannot demand that consciousness will reproduce within itself what is received from perception untainted; we cannot demand that the human mind creates reality then study some eigenvalue state that duplicates existence.

 

I'm not sure I understand what you are referring to there exactly, but do you think me or DD have said something that implies we are assuming something like "consciousness reproduces what is received from perception untainted" or that "human mind creates reality" in some sense or another?

 

Yes, of course we must allow perception to be translated, the translation process is called forming a concept...but the translation has everything to do with whether or not a brain is involved. Consider your use of words above, that..we "must...think"---but this process has got nothing to do with whether or not "there is a brain". How do you suggest such is possible ?

 

Now here's the important bit, this is where you consistently go off the topic. The whole point of DD's excercise is to analyze the case of having the absolute freedom to choose any kind of terminology within an explanation.

 

The concept of "brain", and how you understand it exactly, is of course part of the terminology of your explanation of the world. Just think about "a world view" as any sort of self-coherent set of concepts and definitions, created in order to express expectations, and I'm sure you understand perfectly well that your conceptualization of "brain" is not actually a necessary concept for all valid explanations. That is, it is possible to understand the same underlying information in terms of some different kinds of definitions.

 

What's especially important to realize here is that "brain" is not something that we just automatically understand independently from other things in our world view; when you think about what "brain" is, you are thinking about that whole thing in this 3 dimensional spatial and temporal thing. I.e, when you break down what "brain" means to you, you understand the behaviour of neurons and other things in terms of some very fundamental concepts of your world view (space and time). I.e. the concept of "brain" is a function of other concepts inside your world view (in self-coherent manner).

 

Now put your attention to how you understand those fundamental concepts exactly; they are after all, also an interpretation of some information which does not explicitly state there are such things as space and time (and what they mean exactly). A change to those most fundamental concepts could keep the world view just as valid as before, while having a dramatic effect onto what sorts of other concepts would be built on top of them (including what you call "brain"). This is just another way to approach that whole "whatever you say something is, it isn't" realization, or that everything is semantically understood (i.e. everything could be validly understood in terms of some dramatically different concepts).

 

I believe you completely agree with the following; Whether or not one believes their exact definitions of space and time are also ontologically correct, is entirely inconsequential to the fact that space and time are not perceived in naive realistic sense, but they must also be well defined ideas inside the world view, i.e. they are a very specific interpretation of some information, and whether or not that interpretation is "correct", that interpretation is part of your defined terminology.

 

What I'm trying to put your attention to is that, it is an error to start an analysis of an explanation from some idea to the effect of "there must be a "brain" or "self", otherwise there could not be an explanation", for the reason that how you understand "self" is a function of the chosen terminology of an explanation. Establishing such a concept (and carefully defining its exact meaning) at the get-go means you'd have already established that sort of terminology as if it's universally necessary for generating expectations.

 

And when you don't start from these ideas, not even from the idea that there is "time" and "space", it turns out that those concepts arise as useful/necessary concepts of an explanation for some quite different reasons, than the reason that they'd be "lucky correct guesses" or "evolution programmed us to understand them correctly".

 

I hope if you think about all this, you can understand exactly why it doesn't really make sense to challenge this analysis by asking me to provide an alternative to the existence of "brain". It really is a bit frustrating to try to talk about some logical issues fundamental to the process of generating expectations from noumenaic information, and just have everybody responding by arguments about what concepts inside a world view "must have also real existence" according to them.

 

Most of all I hope you can understand that, mine and DD's refusal to accept "brain" or "space" or "time" or "causality" as established ontologies within the the analysis, does not mean we insist on the correctedness of some alternative ontologies. It just means we treat the meaning of those concepts as an open parameter, and that that meaning is established by how very many things are understood within a world view.

 

-Anssi

[Rade]

...What I'm trying to put your attention to is that, it is an error to start an analysis of an explanation from some idea to the effect of "there must be a "brain" or "self", otherwise there could not be an explanation", for the reason that how you understand "self" is a function of the chosen terminology of an explanation.

To follow-up on this comment. I agree. One starts an analysis of explanation, that some question is to be answered, with the idea that there is something (a thing, event, etc.) that exists a priori that requires an explanation. The brain is secondary, it is needed for the explanation process to proceed.

[AnssiH]

To follow-up on this comment. I agree. One starts an analysis of explanation, that some question is to be answered, with the idea that there is something (a thing, event, etc.) that exists a priori that requires an explanation. The brain is secondary, it is needed for the explanation process to proceed.

 

Well it's pretty important to first be clear about what are we supposedly analyzing here, because clearly you are referring to issues that arise from an established terminology (of an explanation). So do you understand first of all why he defined "explanation" as a method of generating expectations from undefined information, as oppose to defining it as a method of establishing the correct meaning of undefined information?

 

The latter is essentially the definition you often use (implicitly or explicitly), which begs the question, why do you think it is that DD explicitly wants to define "explanation" this way; why does he explicitly treat the internal terminology of an explanation as an open parameter?

 

In your own words, please answer why do you think he uses that kind of definition?

 

-Anssi

[sigurdV]

Hi!

 

Dr Dick and Opponents:

 

After a long and thorny thread I remember but three words.(First impression items.:)

 

1 abstraction (I hardly cant see the letters because of the word.)

2 explanation (Some explanations are impressions)

3 view (A level concept: x has a view of y)

 

Looking them over...(Second impression items)

 

1 deduction (Perhaps abs of abs?)

2 impression (The world makes an impression on/in a mind.)

3 we (... try to impress/communicate our view on/to each other?)

 

Third (Summing up)

 

"A theory of acts facts and events." = World view. (Time?)

 

(to be continued)

[Ken]

Hi Anssi,

 

I have been thinking about your message concerning the publication of my work. To that extent, I started reviewing the first post of my proof (that would be the “Laying out the representation to be solved” thread). I determined a significant number of paragraphs which I would seriously consider deleting and was about to create a copy of that OP which would reflect the alteration I had in mind for your perusal. It was at that point that the critical issue actually occurred to me. My proof is actually quite straight forward and requires no deep thought outside common mathematical procedures. It is not the proof itself which is causing the difficulties here; it is rather, comprehending the problem being attacked.

 

The problem is that I have discovered a way of answering a specific question and that critical question seems never to occur to anyone else. It certainly occurred to me and it seems also to have occurred to you and that is the real reason you have taken the trouble to follow my arguments in spite of the difficulties. All these other people have utterly no grasp of the question you and I are concerned with. That fact pretty well even includes Bombadil; his interest seems to be more of trying understand my solution under the impression that the problem will become clear when he understands to solution.

 

So the real issue here is communicating the actual problem you and I have in mind. I think you find my work worth reading for the simple reason that it answers a question you had already asked yourself long before we had any interchanges. I sit and think about it and I cannot come up with a way of presenting that question which makes it appear to be worth thinking about to others. I think it is worth thinking about and you clearly think it is worth thinking about but how do we make others comprehend it is worth thinking about? That is the critical issue standing behind all this worthless verbal exchange.

 

The best I can do is to point out that the idea that our world view is created to explain our perceptions is an absolutely ridiculous hypothesis. I have mentioned that before but have achieved nothing but absolute refusal to think about the question. Perceptions clearly cannot be defined prior to the existence of a world view and the world view has to be based on something. Why people cannot comprehend this as a significant difficulty is simply beyond me.

 

This appears to me as a rather contrived argument. It beggars the question of what a perception is and what constitutes a world view?

 

For most, if not all, Sensory Psychologists or Sensory Physiologists Perception is the Selection and Interpretation of sensory inputs. Organisms are constantly bombarded with sensory stimuli, both internal and external. Perception is essentially a set of neurological phenomena that select coherent (or apparently coherent) stimulus elements and interpret them, or organize them, into some scheme that appears to be meaningful.

 

Watch a baby as it develops an ability to locate objects in the environment. Lacking experience in such a task its grasping movements are random. Through a process of trial and error certain stimulus cues are found to be useful, others are irrelevant to the task at hand (pun intended).

 

We certainly have a good understanding of the functional aspects of learning, but still lack a physiological understanding of how the nervous system changes with new data. In any event, the organism learns which cues to accept and which to reject. Optical illusions are a class of examples where the selection process is flawed for one reason or another. If the wrong cues are selected, or are not rejected then the interpretation suffers.

 

As far as your use of the term "world view" I have no certainty as to what definition you are using. Personally I would substitute something along the lines of idiosyncratic interpretation, though it is rather an unwieldy term.

 

Finally, it appears to me that you are using Perception as a description of a result, not as a description of a process. That's a fairly common way of viewing it, but not necessarily a complete one.

 

I originally composed this as a private message between you and me but have decided to post it on the forum in the hopes that someone other than you and I can also comprehended the existence of this problem. Anyone out there who has any rational comments on the difficulty I bring forth please give me your reactions.

 

Have fun -- Dick

[AnssiH]

Hi Ken,

 

By "perception" DD was referring to some kind of interpretation of some sort of input. The end result, not the process.

 

By "world view" (or "explanation") he was referring to any method of generating expectations about that input (i.e. predicting it). He is not concerned how the input is to be interpreted for generating and expressing those expectations; any interpretation that yields valid expectations is as valid as any other.

 

So when he said "...the idea that our world view is created to explain our perceptions is an absolutely ridiculous hypothesis.", he was pointing out that, since a world view cannot be formed without knowing what is being perceived, and since it cannot be known what is being perceived without having formed a world view, it is ridiculous to assume that "world view" is created to explain what actually is being perceived ("the true ontological structure of reality" in some sense).

 

It is more accurate to take it as something created in order to generate (and express) valid expectations about some input; quite a different thing, but still encapsulates everything that a world view is to us.

 

After all, many different kinds of 1:1 translations for any set of information can always exist, and whatever appears intuitively true to us, is also - at the end of the day - just one possible interpretation for some input.

 

The reason he is putting that forward is that this very issue (that world views are just logical prediction methods) can be shown to contribute to some very deep and fundamental characteristics of our particular world views.

 

-Anssi

[Ken]

Hi Ken,

 

By "perception" DD was referring to some kind of interpretation of some sort of input. The end result, not the process.

 

By "world view" (or "explanation") he was referring to any method of generating expectations about that input (i.e. predicting it). He is not concerned how the input is to be interpreted for generating and expressing those expectations; any interpretation that yields valid expectations is as valid as any other.

 

So when he said "...the idea that our world view is created to explain our perceptions is an absolutely ridiculous hypothesis.", he was pointing out that, since a world view cannot be formed without knowing what is being perceived, and since it cannot be known what is being perceived without having formed a world view, it is ridiculous to assume that "world view" is created to explain what actually is being perceived ("the true ontological structure of reality" in some sense).

 

It is more accurate to take it as something created in order to generate (and express) valid expectations about some input; quite a different thing, but still encapsulates everything that a world view is to us.

 

After all, many different kinds of 1:1 translations for any set of information can always exist, and whatever appears intuitively true to us, is also - at the end of the day - just one possible interpretation for some input.

 

The reason he is putting that forward is that this very issue (that world views are just logical prediction methods) can be shown to contribute to some very deep and fundamental characteristics of our particular world views.

 

-Anssi

 

Thanks for your reply.

 

It appears that you missed my final statement:

 

Finally, it appears to me that you are using Perception as a description of a result, not as a description of a process. That's a fairly common way of viewing it, but not necessarily a complete one.

 

My point is that the term Perception has a clear and specific definition when used by those who study the process. Its always tempting to give our own definitions to things but, in the interest of broad understanding, its much better to accept the accepted definitions.

 

In this case by only looking at the resulting Percept (not Perception) leads to asking what I consider to be the wrong question. To my understanding of the process it is precisely the part of the definition that is left out that renders the question much less useful.

 

The "expectations" come about by trial and error confirmation and disconfirmation of tentative solutions in the selection and interpretation process. As a result the final Percept is formed into what you describe as a "world view". The short hand for all of this is to simply say that we develop a Percept of the world through a process of learning which cues to accept and which to ignore.

 

A slight modification of DD's and your definitions would make a far stronger argument if the purpose is to emphasize the plasticity of Percepts or world views.