Paul Stokes' list

CSGnet Archive CSG1999
1

[From Bill Powers (991007.1446 MDT)]

Hi, Paul --

Mary is doing her own replying, but I have a few comments for the other
list which you may feel like relaying (I think it's probably a good idea to
maintain a little space between the lists -- our starting points are pretty
far apart).

I notice that at least one member of the complexity list seems to find it
boring to consider how the "bits and pieces" of the brain relate to
perception, yawn yawn. However, it may be that not everything that could
possibly be said on that subject has been said.

I have a problem with the Gibsonian approach. It's such a simple problem
that the answer to it must be obvious; however, I haven't seen it. It's
just this: how can we demonstrate or prove that perceptions tell us about
the real world?
It seems to me that no matter how we try to show that we experience Reality
Itself, the demonstration always relies on something else which we must
also perceive. We can show that one perception is related to another or
depends on another, but we can't show that _any_ perception is related to
something besides perception, because all we experience is perception.
There just doesn't seem to be any way to look at the world that is
_independent_ of human perception, so that we could verify the existence of
an external correlate of our experiences of the world.

If someone could come up with a way of doing this, I would be most
grateful. I'm basically an engineer or physical scientist; everything I do
rests on models of a real physical world. Yet my studies of how brains work
always have led me to the same problem: the lack of any way to show that my
perceptions of the world, whether mediated by physical instruments or just
bare eyeballing, are somehow like the world that actually exists outside
me. I'm quite comfortable with the idea that there really is a
self-consistent physical universe; I assume one all the time. What I can't
seem to prove is that our experiences of it are in 1-to-1 correspondence
with any of its components.

Just to save a little time, I should warn readers that any proposed
evidence about the reality behind perception is likely to lead me to ask,
"But isn't that a perception, too?" Perception I am well-acquainted with,
although I'm no expert concerning its peculiarities. It's the Other Thing
that I can't seem to pin down -- That About Which perception presumably,
but not provably, is.

Best,

Bill P.

2

At 15:14 Bill wrote about Paul Stokes' list on 7 Oct 99,

If someone could come up with a way of doing this, I would be most
grateful. I'm basically an engineer or physical scientist; everything I do
rests on models of a real physical world. Yet my studies of how brains work
always have led me to the same problem: the lack of any way to show that my
perceptions of the world, whether mediated by physical instruments or just
bare eyeballing, are somehow like the world that actually exists outside
me. I'm quite comfortable with the idea that there really is a
self-consistent physical universe; I assume one all the time. What I can't
seem to prove is that our experiences of it are in 1-to-1 correspondence
with any of its components.

           A CAT'S EYE MARVEL (TECH. 3:00 am)
http://www.wired.com/news/news/email/explode-
infobeat/technology/story/22116.html

           Researchers from Harvard and Berkeley have tapped into a
           cat's neural circuits and recorded a video of what the cat
           saw. By Leander Kahney.
           . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

3

[From Bill Powers (991007.1756 MDT)]

Norman Hovda (991007) --

At 15:14 Bill wrote about Paul Stokes' list on 7 Oct 99,

What I can't
seem to prove is that our experiences of it are in 1-to-1 correspondence
with any of its components.

          A CAT'S EYE MARVEL (TECH. 3:00 am)
http://www.wired.com/news/news/email/explode-
infobeat/technology/story/22116.html

          Researchers from Harvard and Berkeley have tapped into a
          cat's neural circuits and recorded a video of what the cat
          saw. By Leander Kahney.
          . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I warned you!

How was it determined what corresponded, in the real world, to what the
observers saw when they looked at the video screen? I presume they saw what
a human being would see when looking either at the original scene where the
cat's eye was pointed, or at the video screen. That is, the same input
transformations would be used that human beings always use when looking at
visual scenes. But what is on the other side of this transformation?

Best,

Bill P.

Best,

Bill P.