[From Jason Gosnell (2005.03.29.1930CST)]
Rick Marken (2005.03.29.1700)]
So you really can't doubt or be wrong about your perceptions but you
certainly can have doubts (and be wrong about) the basis of your
perceptions.
This shows the power of reasoning "based on" previous experience. Or is it
even reasoning? It may just be "based on my previous experience" or what we
call learning. For example, when I see a ball roll behind a couch, my bare
visual perception is that the ball has disappeared...but I know from
previous experience which I remember that the ball is simply behind the
couch whether I can see it or not. In fact, infants who are primarily
sensing-perceiving without the aid of reason or memory or previous
experience--I don't know which, maybe it is symbolic thinking-memory that is
the issue--just sense that the ball has disappeared. They don't know that it
has rolled behind the couch. There is an age when this phenomenon changes to
knowing the ball is back there even though they can't see it. So, this may
be similar to questioning the basis of my perceptions, but all I am doing is
drawing on previous experience. This may be what allows the schizophrenic or
extremely neurotic person to grow out of his delusions--just experimentation
and learning.
Does this approximate the issue here?
Jason Gosnell
···
-----Original Message-----
From: Richard Marken [mailto:marken@MINDREADINGS.COM]
Sent: Tuesday, March 29, 2005 7:03 PM
To: CSGNET@listserv.uiuc.edu
Subject: Re: Quantum Theory and Control Theory
[From Rick Marken (2005.03.29.1700)]
Bruce Gregory (2005.0329.1917)
Martin Taylor (2005.03.29.17.26
Well, that's a lot longer than I had intended.
I agree with almost everything you say, but I do not see how your
analysis justifies the claim that I really see Nicole Kidman when, in
fact, I don't.
But you do see her. You just know, on other grounds, that it's not really
Nicole herself who is the basis of the perception. Just because you find out
that the basis of a perception is different than what you thought doesn't
mean that the perception itself wasn't real. My perception of a beautiful
rose doesn't become less real because the rose turns out to be silk and
fabric, that is, no rose at all.
Your analysis justifies the claim that I think I see
Nicole Kidman, and in fact I can assert with certainty that I think I
see Nicole Kidman, but that is all I can say with certainty, even if it
really was Nicole Kidman.
I think this is just hard to describe using informal terms. I think Martin's
analysis justifies the claim that you see (perceive) Nicole Kidman even
while you recognize that Nicole Kidman herself (as an external reality) may
not be the basis of that perception. I could say "I think I see a phone and
a computer" but the fact is that I see a phone and a computer; there is no
doubt about what I perceive. But I can question whether the basis of these
perceptions is actually a phone and a computer. I'm certain that it is, here
in my office, but I have been in stores where I have perceived phones and
computers that were not phones or computers; they were just very convincing
cardboard models.
So you really can't doubt or be wrong about your perceptions but you
certainly can have doubts (and be wrong about) the basis of your
perceptions.
Regards
Rick
--
Richard S. Marken
MindReadings.com
Home: 310 474 0313
Cell: 310 729 1400
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