[Martin Taylor 2018.06.29.15.22]
In the following, I use "belief that X is true" as equivalent to "Perceiving X as having value 'true'". I use "belief" to help distinguish who or what has a particular perception.
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Last week I was having dinner at a sidewalk cafe at an intersection in Gastown, in Vancouver, BC. It was in an area passed frequently by taxis. As I had been wandering around town, it had occurred to me that a lot of these taxis were Toyota Prius, so while waiting to be served I started counting them. I counted 50 taxis claiming to be from a variety of taxi companies before I gave up counting. Of these 50 taxis, 40 were Prius's, 8 were a van-like Toyota of a model unknown to me (all from the same taxi company), and two were sedan Toyotas, perhaps Camry. All 50 taxis were some model of Toyota.
What was being controlled by the various purchasing agents that so reliably resulted in my perceiving that ALL the taxis I observed in that small sample were Toyotas? Clearly, the error in that controlled perception was minimized by their having purchased Toyota rather than any other manufacturer, so I ask myself what property of Toyota might a purchasing agent control? The agent might be a single person who purchased for all the taxi companies or a "Giant Virtual Controller" composed of all the different purchasing agents for the different companies. Or even might be an algorithm implementing control by some boss of some perceived property of the taxis in the fleet.
Three (of many) Possibilities:
1. A Toyota salesperson had offered a bribe that would allow the agent(s) to reduce error in their control of their perception of their own wealth. In this case, the fact that all the taxis were Toyota would be irrelevant, and no belief about their perception of properties of Toyota would be involved in the control of their perceptions relevant to their choice of model to purchase for their fleet.
2. Assuming that (1) is false, with high probability, and the purchasing agent controls for some property of Toyota that is nearer their reference value for that property in other makes of cars that could be used as taxis, then we ask what perception the agent might be controlling. One reasonable suspect is lifetime costs to the taxi company of using one car as opposed to another. In this case, we assume that the reference value for that perception would be zero, implying that the purchasing agent believes (perceives that) of all suitably shaped and sized vehicles, different models of Toyota have the lowest lifetime cost of operation.
3. Again assuming (1) to be false, the agent might believe that a person wanting to go somewhere would be more likely to use a taxi if that taxi was a Toyota model than if it was of some other make, which would mean the taxi company would have more clients by using Toyotas exclusively than by using a mix of makes. This seems unlikely.
Conclusion: One can never be sure, but it seems highly probable that the collective purchasing agent has a belief that Toyota models, and Prius in particular, have lower lifetime operating costs than do similar vehicles from other companies. We do not know whether this agent is one person, many people, or even silicon, but I think we can perceive the existence of the belief, without assigning it to a particular perceiver.
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I offer this example because it seems to me that it suggests (to me, strongly) that it is sometimes possible to perceive that a belief exists in one's environment, even when you don't know who or what might hold that belief. As with any other perception, the reality might be different -- that oasis one sees in the desert might be a mirage with no water -- but the perception is quite possibly of reality, in which case, somewhere in real reality there exists i some mind or minds (organic or silicon) a belief that the lifetime cost of operating a Toyota, and particularly a Prius, is on average lower than that of competing makes.
Martin