[From Dag Forssell (920513-1)]
I composed this yesterday morning, but was unable to steal the time to
put it down. So here goes:
Wayne Hershberger (920511)
I've been thinking some more, and would like to propose the following:
You have consumed a few of those breakfasts, perhaps 20,000, and each
time you grasped a cup you tested your understanding/perception of the
BOSS REALITY. Each time you made contact with something (the cup) as
expected, you confirmed your perception to be accurate.
Each reach, step, and movement becomes a test of the validity of your
perception of BOSS REALITY. If you make a move every second in each
50,000 second day, you may have made one billion tests of your perceptual
understanding of BOSS REALITY, all successful - except for a lot of
fumbles when you were a baby (before your perception machinery was fully
developed) and an occasional stumble, when you failed to pay attention.
It is not surprising that you and philosophers before you have concluded
that you have direct knowledge of BOSS REALITY, presented in living color
and stereophonic sound.
When you stand up and push on one eye while covering the other, all of
a sudden, BOSS REALITY does not cooperate. You fall because your
perceptual construct of your boss realty is not good enough.
Popper suggests that you can NEVER prove a theory true. But you can prove
it false. We just tested it and proved it false.
When - after a billion successes - you prove that all you have is a
perception of that BOSS REALTY, you have a choice to make. You can
dismiss the experiment that proves you wrong, fall back (intuitively) on
statistics and say: One to a billion against does not count. I KNOW my
BOSS REALITY and nobody is going to take it away from me.
Or you can say: It's all perception.
Your knowledge of the BOSS REALITY is limited by your perceptual
capability. Our "hard" scientists tell us, based on their theories and
measurements/perceptions, that their percepts of the BOSS REALITY
includes infrared radiation, X-rays, photons, magnetism and a host of
other "phenomena." All these are perceptions, too, which most of us
incorporate without even studying the constructs in any detail.
Halfway up the HPCT perception ladder, a person may agree with Ed Ford
that a husband and wife will have DIFFERENT concepts of "wife," but human
nature being what it is, there will be an intuitive tendency to say: One
to one against does not count. I KNOW my BOSS REALITY. I know what a wife
is (sort of) and I will continue to use that information. After all, mine
is the only percept I have access to.
When we come to a miracle, the natural tendency, given a LONG history of
perceiving in a certain way, is to say: It may look like a billion to one
against to you, but I KNOW my BOSS (REALITY) and nobody is going to take
it away from me.
It goes against all intuition and apparent dependability of our basic
senses to say: It's all perception, but it is the only conclusion I can
defend, given my perceptual constructs.
I think that when a person recognizes and acknowledges this, the person
is more free to reorganize (without internal conflict), respect his
fellow man (complete with individual perceptual constructs) and promote
a better social order with more degrees of freedom for all.
There IS a BOSS REALITY. Our challenge is to perceive it as effectively
and accurately as we can, while recognizing that this is ALL we CAN do.
The BOSS REALITY does place constraints on our degrees of freedom.
I perceive that HPCT provides an effective (and as accurate as can be had
at present) perception of the BOSS REALITY of our minds.
The question of how to control well with maximum degrees of freedom for
all will quickly demand attention to issues of influence, "social
control" if you will, the principles or "standards" we live by, and the
quality of information in all corners of our Hierarchical Perceptual
Control System.
It's all perception! AND Warm Regards!
Dag