To know and to believe

CSGnet Archive CSG2009
21

8om Bjorn Simonsen (2009.05.08,08:20 AM EU ST)]

From Kenny Kitzke (2009.05.06.1915 EDT)

But, when it comes to your behavior according to PCT, it is

the reference perception and not its origin that matters.

I read your sentence this way: “But, when it comes to your behavior according to PCT, it is the reference perception and not if it is something you believe or something you know as regards the reference that matters”.

If that is the meaning of “its origin”, I think it matters. E.g.,if you wish to overtake the car in front of you you either believe or you know it is possible. If you believe it weak, you may wait before you overtake it. If you know you can overtake it because your car is much more powerful, you may overtake it at once. Than the origin matters.

I certainly believe that and think I know it.

I don’t know what to say about that. If you believe “But, when it comes to your behavior according to PCT, it is the reference perception and not its origin that matters”, I think you know that you believe it, but you can’t know it and believe it at the same time.

I

I also believe that PCT makes no distinction between what reference

perceptions are right or wrong, true or false, knowledge or belief.

PCT explains behavior but does not judge it in any absolute sense for

every human. What human behavior is judged ethical or evil is a uniquely

human matter, or so it seems. That may be in a different league and
<theory than PCT is. PCT surely has not explained where the moon came
from much less the universe or what should be on the pizza’s.

I agree

Who is qualified to give those answers or test them?

I will not try to answer, because the questions are to diffuse.

bjorn

22

[From Bjorn Simonsen (2009.05.08,09:50 AM EU ST)]

From Rick Marken (2009.05.06.2030)

All in your mail so far is OK for me.

bjorn: We have not any idea of what is out there. And we will never get any.

Rick:

Well, I think science has given us a pretty darn good idea what is out
there. It’s not perfect but it’s an awfully good approximation, I
think.

I am insecure if I shall comment your last sentence, because I think we agree. But I will do it.

You say that different theories are imaginations about what we think is on the other side of our senses; it’s a theory of the real “real world” that is presumably the basis of our perceptions.

With the words “it’s a theory” and “presumably” I absolutely agree.

But when you say: “I think science has given us a pretty darn good idea what is out there. It’s not perfect but it’s an awfully good approximation, I think”, I am a little astonished.

All our observations are perceived in our head, all our experiments are perceived in our head. When I do an experiment, I have a hypothesis in my head and I perceive what happens doing the experiment in my head and I observe the results from the experiment in my head.

I get a better idea not of what is outr there, but of what is in my head initiated by something outside my sensingcells.

If I should know what is out there, I will say as Bill says in one of hiss books, my “information” about the the things out there must pass beside my retina and give me direct contact with the things.

When I write this I think upon Bill’s example with the taste of limonade. The taste is a perception that is created in my head. There is no taste out there. It is a perception composed of different vectors from “salt”, “sweet”, “acid”, “bitters” and “umami”.

bjorn:
Again I agree, exept for your last part. Again I will say: “then I think we
have a reasonable basis for taking those theories as pretty darn good
approximation to what we perceive as a representation for what is actually
happening on the “other side” of those perceptions”.

Rick:
This doesn’t make sense to me. You seem to be saying that a theory is
an “approximation to what we perceive” as a representation of the real
world on the “other side” of our perceptions. I agree that the atomic
theory, say, is a perception and that it purports to represent what is
happening when we perceive certain chemical reactions. But I don’t see
how the atomic theory is an approximation to a perception. I don’t
even know what an approximation to a perception might be.

The atomic theory talks about mass. Still we really don’t know what mass is. They are doing an experiment near Zurich these days. They hope that these experiments will explain what mass is (among other questions). If they get an answer (which I doubt), the atomic theory will be a better aproximation to what we perceive.

Before Einstein’s theory of relativity, Newton’s theories were good aproximations to what we perceived.

bjorn:
When I read different technical books I meet a lot of statements I am not
able to test. I have decided to trust Susan Greenfield and other authors.

Rick:
I think that’s a good idea. I think you only would test something
yourself if it’s a claim that is 1) very important to you 2) very
surprising and 3) that you are in a position to test. Otherwise, I’m
afraid we just have to trust scientists to be honest and fair.

From Rick Marken (2009.05.06.0950)]

Science is a process of testing
imaginations (theories) against perceptions (data). I think it’s
worked pretty well so far. Certainly a lot better than deciding that
some author is “trustworthy” and to then believing that, because you
trust that person, what the person says is “true”.

My point is that many people, also you and I, trust scientists to be honest and fair.

If we shall trust e.g. Martin Luther to be honest and fair, we get the problem that our believings in scientists are not of better quality than other peoples believings in religion.

I think we stop talking about “to know” and “to believe”. Thank you for your comments.

bjorn

23

(Gavin Ritz 2009.08.05.22.15)

Bjorn you point is well taken.

It’s even worse we have taken a
concept like mass and multiplied the velocity squired and call it energy and we
haven’t the foggiest what is energy.

Of-course science is in our head its pure
a representation, the very idea of energy and entropy is a total human
construct. Our science and theories of course corroborate our senses that we
have constructed mathematically as theories but to say that it’s the truth
I agree with you is just believing.

A simple experiment try measuring entropy
and energy directly (it can’t be done) because it’s all a
construct.

Does one really think there is such a
things as Hydrogen or oxygen (that is also just a mental abstraction) of course
one that is very clever?

Is science the truth, I don’t know.

Regards

Gavin

[From Bjorn Simonsen
(2009.05.08,09:50 AM EU ST)]

From Rick Marken
(2009.05.06.2030)

All in your mail so far is OK for me.

bjorn: We have not any idea of what is out there. And we
will never get any.

Rick:

Well, I think science has
given us a pretty darn good idea what is out

there. It’s not perfect but it’s an awfully good approximation, I

think.

I am insecure if I shall comment
your last sentence, because I think we agree. But I will do it.

You say that different theories are
imaginations about what we think is on the other side of our senses; it’s
a theory of the real “real world” that is presumably the basis of our
perceptions.

With the words “it’s
a theory” and “presumably” I absolutely agree.

But when you say: “I
think science has given us a pretty darn good idea what is out there. It’s not
perfect but it’s an awfully good approximation, I think”, I am a little
astonished.

All our observations are
perceived in our head, all our experiments are perceived in our head. When I do
an experiment, I have a hypothesis in my head and I perceive what happens doing
the experiment in my head and I observe the results from the experiment in my
head.

I get a better idea not
of what is outr there, but of what is in my head initiated by something outside
my sensingcells.

If I should know what is
out there, I will say as Bill says in one of hiss books,
my “information” about the the things out there must pass
beside my retina and give me direct contact with the things.

When I write this I think
upon Bill’s example with the taste of limonade. The taste is a perception that
is created in my head. There is no taste out there. It is a perception composed
of different vectors from “salt”, “sweet”, “acid”,
“bitters” and “umami”.

bjorn:
Again I agree, exept for your last part. Again I will say: “then I think
we
have a reasonable basis for taking those theories as pretty darn good
approximation to what we perceive as a representation for what is
actually
happening on the “other side” of those perceptions”.

Rick:

This doesn’t make sense to me. You seem to be saying that a theory is

an “approximation to what we perceive” as a representation of the
real

world on the “other side” of our perceptions. I agree that the atomic

theory, say, is a perception and that it purports to represent what is

happening when we perceive certain chemical reactions. But I don’t see

how the atomic theory is an approximation to a perception. I don’t

even know what an approximation to a perception might be.

The atomic theory talks about mass.
Still we really don’t know what mass is. They are doing an experiment near
Zurich these days. They hope that these experiments will explain what mass is
(among other questions). If they get an answer (which I doubt), the atomic
theory will be a better aproximation to what we perceive.

Before Einstein’s theory of
relativity, Newton’s theories were good aproximations to what we perceived.

bjorn:
When I read different technical books I meet a lot of statements I am not
able to test. I have decided to trust Susan Greenfield and other authors.

Rick:

I think that’s a good idea. I think you only would test something

yourself if it’s a claim that is 1) very important to you 2) very

surprising and 3) that you are in a position to test. Otherwise, I’m

afraid we just have to trust scientists to be honest and fair.

From Rick Marken
(2009.05.06.0950)]

Science is a process of
testing

imaginations (theories) against perceptions (data). I think it’s

worked pretty well so far. Certainly a lot better than deciding that

some author is “trustworthy” and to then believing that, because you

trust that person, what the person says is “true”.

My point is that many people, also
you and I, trust scientists to be honest and fair.

If we shall trust e.g. Martin Luther
to be honest and fair, we get the problem that our believings in scientists are
not of better quality than other peoples believings in religion.

I think we stop talking about
“to know” and “to believe”. Thank you for your comments.

bjorn

24

[From Rick Marken (2009.05.08.1305)]

Bill Powers (2009.05.08.1259 MDT)--

Rick, you say a theory is an approximation. How do you know that?

I don't. You're right. I withdraw my "approximation" comment. Bad
term. I guess I'm not that interested in what external reality really
is. The theory, if it works, is good enough for me.

As far as I can see there is absolutely no way we can know what the external
reality is, or whether our models of it are even close in any regard.

I agree. I really never thought of myself as being in the reality
approximating business. I like the models, especially when they work
and are very attractive;-)

Best

Rick

···

--
Richard S. Marken PhD
rsmarken@gmail.com

25

(Gavin Ritz 2009.05.09.14.17NZT)

[From Fred Nickols (2009.05.08.0704 PDT)]

Fred, maths is also a mental construct and a very clever one at that, math
doesn�t go out to prove a correlation of what's inside and outside.

G�del has shown that even maths cannot prove its own axioms- the
incompleteness theorem. The marriage of math and science has been very
fruitful for us humans but it's still a mental construct and actually may
not at all be representative of what's out there.

Your coffee cup argument is really not a great one because science is a
mental abstraction and sometimes with very strange logic so it's not the
coffee cup that's important but rather its molecular makeup. Or the heated
coffee in it that exhibits entropy the very example that Benkenstein used to
prove his entropy of black holes concept.

Regards
Gavin

FWIW, I think the fields of mathematics and engineering have demonstrated
fairly convincingly that there is a pretty darn good correlation between
what we perceive, believe and theorize to be "out there" and what is
actually "out there." Does that alter the fact that all we know of the
world "out there" we know by way of our senses and perceptions? I don't
think so but it also doesn't alter for me the fact that there is a coffee
cup sitting next to my laptop as I write this and I can reach out, pick it
up (with two fingers through the handle) and take a sip of coffee. If
someone were observing me do that, I hazard the guess that there would be
pretty good agreement between us as to what I had done. That coffee cup and
that coffee aren't "in here" - they're "out there." Well, gee, I guess the
coffee is "in here" now that I've taken a sip. Oh drat!

···

--
Regards,

Fred Nickols
Managing Partner
Distance Consulting, LLC
nickols@att.net
www.nickols.us

"Assistance at A Distance"
  
-------------- Original message ----------------------
From: Gavin Ritz <garritz@XTRA.CO.NZ>

(Gavin Ritz 2009.08.05.22.15)

Bjorn you point is well taken.

It's even worse we have taken a concept like mass and multiplied the
velocity squired and call it energy and we haven't the foggiest what is
energy.

Of-course science is in our head its pure a representation, the very idea

of

energy and entropy is a total human construct. Our science and theories of
course corroborate our senses that we have constructed mathematically as
theories but to say that it's the truth I agree with you is just

believing.

A simple experiment try measuring entropy and energy directly (it can't be
done) because it's all a construct.

Does one really think there is such a things as Hydrogen or oxygen (that

is

also just a mental abstraction) of course one that is very clever?

Is science the truth, I don't know.

Regards

Gavin

[From Bjorn Simonsen (2009.05.08,09:50 AM EU ST)]

From Rick Marken (2009.05.06.2030)

All in your mail so far is OK for me.

bjorn: We have not any idea of what is out there. And we will never get
any.

Rick:

Well, I think science has given us a pretty darn good idea what is out
there. It's not perfect but it's an awfully good approximation, I
think.

I am insecure if I shall comment your last sentence, because I think we
agree. But I will do it.

You say that different theories are imaginations about what we think is on
the other side of our senses; it's a theory of the real "real world" that

is

presumably the basis of our perceptions.

With the words "it's a theory" and "presumably" I absolutely agree.

But when you say: "I think science has given us a pretty darn good idea

what

is out there. It's not perfect but it's an awfully good approximation, I
think", I am a little astonished.

All our observations are perceived in our head, all our experiments are
perceived in our head. When I do an experiment, I have a hypothesis in my
head and I perceive what happens doing the experiment in my head and I
observe the results from the experiment in my head.

I get a better idea not of what is outr there, but of what is in my head
initiated by something outside my sensingcells.

If I should know what is out there, I will say as Bill says in one of hiss
books, my "information" about the the things out there must pass beside my
retina and give me direct contact with the things.

When I write this I think upon Bill's example with the taste of limonade.
The taste is a perception that is created in my head. There is no taste

out

there. It is a perception composed of different vectors from "salt",
"sweet", "acid", "bitters" and "umami".

bjorn:
Again I agree, exept for your last part. Again I will say: "then I think

we

have a reasonable basis for taking those theories as pretty darn good
approximation to what we perceive as a representation for what is

actually

happening on the "other side" of those perceptions".

Rick:
This doesn't make sense to me. You seem to be saying that a theory is
an "approximation to what we perceive" as a representation of the real
world on the "other side" of our perceptions. I agree that the atomic
theory, say, is a perception and that it purports to represent what is
happening when we perceive certain chemical reactions. But I don't see
how the atomic theory is an approximation to a perception. I don't
even know what an approximation to a perception might be.

The atomic theory talks about mass. Still we really don't know what mass

is.

They are doing an experiment near Zurich these days. They hope that these
experiments will explain what mass is (among other questions). If they get
an answer (which I doubt), the atomic theory will be a better aproximation
to what we perceive.

Before Einstein's theory of relativity, Newton's theories were good
aproximations to what we perceived.

bjorn:
When I read different technical books I meet a lot of statements I am not
able to test. I have decided to trust Susan Greenfield and other authors.

Rick:
I think that's a good idea. I think you only would test something
yourself if it's a claim that is 1) very important to you 2) very
surprising and 3) that you are in a position to test. Otherwise, I'm
afraid we just have to trust scientists to be honest and fair.

From Rick Marken (2009.05.06.0950)]

Science is a process of testing
imaginations (theories) against perceptions (data). I think it's
worked pretty well so far. Certainly a lot better than deciding that
some author is "trustworthy" and to then believing that, because you
trust that person, what the person says is "true".

My point is that many people, also you and I, trust scientists to be

honest

and fair.

If we shall trust e.g. Martin Luther to be honest and fair, we get the
problem that our believings in scientists are not of better quality than
other peoples believings in religion.

I think we stop talking about "to know" and "to believe". Thank you for

your

comments.

bjorn

26

(gavin Ritz 2009.09.05.14.26NZT)
[From Bill Powers (2009.05.08.1041 MDT)]

Fred Nickols (2009.05.08.0704 PDT) --

Good question Bill.

What if B is an abstraction?

FN: FWIW, I think the fields of mathematics and engineering have
demonstrated fairly convincingly that there is a pretty darn good
correlation between what we perceive, believe and theorize to be
"out there" and what is actually "out there."

As I understand it, to compute a correlation between A and B is it
necessary to have measures of both A and B for comparison. If A is
"what we perceive, believe and theorize to be 'out there'" and B is
"what is actually out there", I can understand where we get the
measure of A, but where does the measure of B come from?

Best,

Bill P.

27

[From Bjorn Simonsen (2009. 05. 09. 10:45 AM EU ST)]

From Kenny Kitzke (2009.05.08)]

Bjorn, let’s discuss your example at bit. I can easily accept that I am
controlling the position of my car while driving. And, my reference
position is to be in front of the car I perceive to be currently in front
of me producing an error. My understanding of PCT is that lower
level control systems will act using various means to eliminate the error
and achieve my goal.

I think we agree here, but I wil focus on your word “act”. Here you wish to be in front of the car you perceive to be currently in front of you. I think you are controlling your perceptions on a relationships level. As regards the word act, I understand that if I control my perceptions on one level (relationships), I don’t control perceptions on the lower levels. The meaning of this is that I “choose” a “reference-value” at the level I control my perceptions. And controlling means that the difference between the reference value and the value of the perceptual signal at this level is approaching zero. This is done by sending reference values to lower levels. The lower levels are just acting, because the reference values are received, not choosed.

Many factors will come into my awareness of how to act to achieve that

goal without producing error in other goals I wish to control.

I would like to express this sentence some different, because I don’t think I choose how to act. My acting is a result of the difference between my reference value and the perceptual signal at the level I control. I would like to say: " Many factors will come into my awareness, as perceptions, when I wish to achieve my goal. These perceptual signals make differences with their reference values. And these differences influence my behavior, my acting.

For example,
perceived relative horsepower may be one such factor. But, when coming

to a curve, or to an area where road crews are working, I may not want to

attempt to overtake the car until conditions are more suitable to use what

I know to be my greater power.

I think in a different way here. If I was in the car behind, I think I still wish to be in front of the car I perceive currently in front of me. But disturbances change, I come to a curve where road crews are working. This contribute to different perceptual signals at all levels upt to the relationships level. And on the event level (where perceptions combine transitions (the level below) into patterns with a clear beginning and ending), the difference between the reference value and the value of the perceptual signal has a value that not lead to the overtaking behavior.

Further, I have difficulty with an argument you might make about knowing
any future event. The future is never known with certainty. I would say that
all future perceptions are beliefs. That is something I would claim to know.

I tried to find my statement where I expressed my knowing of future events. But I did not find it. Now in this writing moment, I will say I don’t know which future events my behavior will exercise. But in the same way as you know something about future (you know that future perceptions are beliefs), I know some perceptions i will control in the future. But I don’t know what behavior I will exercise in the future. I know I wish to get out of bed to morrow morning. But I don’t know if I will experience that the difference between my reference value and the value of my perceptual signal will approach zero before 9 o’clock local time

I can accept the idea that my beliefs can have a degree of confidence.

That is my opinion.

I suppose you could describe a belief with a very high degree of confidence
as something you “know.” But, this is not an objective deterimination. It is subjective.

I still will reserve my “to know” knowledge as labels or thoughts that have inputs in my brain and which describe and explain perceptions that have input outside my sencing cells.

And, regardless of the degree of confidence, if you establish overtaking
the car in front of you to achieve the reference position, the PCT explanation
is that you will continue to act to accomplish that.

Yes, here you express yourself as I described above. Here we absolutely agree.

If it turns out you cannot
achieve that goal despite repeated attempts, error would persist and my
guess is that you would reorganize and accept the current position (perhaps
realizing that at some time the car in front of you will turn off the road, and
your reference position will be satisfied.

Here I will express myself as I did above. I don’t think reorganizing is the explanation in this instance. I think I will control my perceptions relative to the same reference, but the overtaking event will be delayed.

Depending upon your definitions, I suppose you could say that every
reference perception is either known or believed. Again, I don’t find
the distinction very useful.

I agree that every perceptions are either known or believed. And I will repeat why I think the distinction is useful.

When I explain PCT to other people, they all have their comments. I have a theory (thoughts that Bill and others have teached me) that describe and explain the way people and animals behave. The theory descibe and explain some perceptions initiated outside my sencing cells.

Very often the comments other people serve, are fragments, labels and thoughts they accidantally remember, labels and thoughts that are not tested, labels and thoughts that they cannot express in a way that describe and explain human and animal behavior. When I experience their comments as beliefs, I more or less close my ears.

If I experience their comments in the way I define “to know” knowledge, I try to continue the discussion.

When asked for your date of birth, do you know it beyond any doubt or
merely believe it with a high degree of certainty? If someone says,
“Kenny, I have your birth date as October 27, 1934, is that correct?”
I would correct the error. For my reference is 1943. And whether you
say I know it to be 1943 or believe it to be 1943, does it matter? I will
still correct the date the person cited. Right?

Yes. (Just for information. My birth daate is February 27. 1937). You did not perceive your own birth. But you know that you can read your birt certificate, and you thrust the person who wrote it. This is an example where “to know” knowledge looks like “to believe” knowledge, which with my words are knowledge you are teached by a person you thrust, but at the samer time knowledge you can’t test.

As far as what is right or wrong, ethical or evil; that was a diffuse question.

Yes. That’s why I have spent time trying to tell myself what is “to know” knowledge and what is “to believe” knowledge.

I guess you would ask someone in authority, like your Mom, a judge,
or some God you know or believe in.

The answer I will get will be beliefs until I have tested them positive.

Or, you can just decide for
yourself, a very human possibility, until someone in authority over you rules otherwise.

What I decide will be beliefs until I have tested them positive.

bjorn

28

Depending upon your definitions,
I suppose you could say that every reference perception is either known
or believed. Again, I don’t find the distinction very useful.
When asked for your date of birth, do you know it beyond any doubt or
merely believe it with a high degree of certainty? If someone says,
“Kenny, I have your birth date as October 27, 1934, is that
correct?” I would correct the error. For my
reference is 1943. And whether you say I know it to be 1943 or
believe it to be 1943, does it matter? I will still correct the
date the person cited. Right?
[From Bill Powers (2009.05.09.0710 MDT)]

Kenny Kitzke (2009.05.08)]

···

–

I think it influences how hard you would insist if someone doubted what
you say.

In 1944, on graduating from high school at the age of 17, I had to get my
birth certificate to join the Navy. When a certified copy arrived from
Oregon, my family was flabbergasted: it said, August 29, 1926. All of my
previous birthdays had been celebrated on August 28th.

Best,

Bill P.