humanities.philosophy.objectivism

Fred Weiss wrote:
> On Mar 10, 5:31 pm, David Schwartz wrote:
> > On Mar 10, 1:12 pm, Mark N wrote:
> >
> > > Can "a bunch of particles bouncing around" exist without consciousness?
> >
> > I'm not sure the question is meaningful. There can certainly be,
> > without consciousness, what I understand as a "bunch of particles
> > bouncing around". But I don't think it's completely clear how much of
> > what I understand is coming from me and how much is not.

> You don't see the (Kantian) stolen concept in that? The question is of
> course perfectly meaningful. It is your questioning of it which isn't
> because you are presupposing the very thing which you are questioning.
> If you couldn't understand what is coming from you and what is not,
> you would have no way to ever answer the question about that or
> anything else.

Do you deny that any of how we view the universe comes from us?

> You might as well just assume you are a brain-in-a-vat - and even that
> makes no sense on your assumption.

Actually, I think my point would be that assuming you are a brain-in-a-
vat doesn't change anything. You are what you are, and everything else
is what it is. Whatever perceptions you get, it is undeniable that
those are the actual perceptions that result from reality (including
you) as it is.

> > For example, imagine if you and I were talking 5,000 years ago, and
> > you asked me if two things could be the same color without human
> > beings. We have a much better understanding today of how much of color
> > is intrinsic (the frequencies of light) and how much comes from us (we
> > sometimes see very different mixes of frequencies as the same color).

> How do you know that the frequencies of light are intrinsic? That
> presupposes a myriad of relationships independent of our
> consciousness.

I don't. I presently think they are, but may in the future determine
that they're not. That's the progress of science, and this has always
been a way in which science has advanced. I don't know how we'll know
when we've gotten to rock bottom.

A good example would be the discovery that human vision includes some
frequencies and not others -- others that aren't really all that
different as far as the rest of the world is considered. So much of
"how things look to us" we now know comes from us (and also from the
things of course). This doesn't make those appearances any less real
or any less objective, it just means that they are not just about
things "out there".

> It's also a non-sequitur to argue as you are doing here that since we
> once didn't know that relationship to our perception of color that
> therefore we can't be sure about any of our other perceptions. Why
> don't you say that you can't be sure of our perception of frequencies
> of light either? Maybe there's something else effecting the
> frequencies of light and then so on ad infinitum.

I am not saying we can't be sure about any of our other perceptions.
Nor am I arguing that because we made a mistake before, we could make
mistakes again. I am saying that there are specific things we actually
do not know.

> It's then "turtles all the way down" and you have fallen into total
> skepticism out of which there is no escape. (I'm sure you are aware
> that the "probabilities" and "possibilities" of skeptics doesn't in
> fact rescue them, since they have no more basis for that than you do
> for your "frequencies of light").

You are coloring my view through your lens. You could only argue that
this is total skepticism if you think that consciousness is somehow
less real than the things it perceives.

> > The principle is that the way we organize our understanding of the
> > world is a factor both of how the rest of the world is and how we
> > work. We are as much a part of the world as anything else and our
> > understanding comes about by our interaction with the rest of the
> > world.

> Which, according to you, we have no way of distinguishing. Which is
> "us" and which is "the world"?

I am not saying we have no way of distinguishing. I presented examples
where we were able to distinguish and examples where we weren't. We
most certainly do have ways of distinguishing. For example, we now
know to what extent apparent color comes from us and what it comes
from the world. We could be wrong about this, of course, but it seems
like we at least have this. So this is a specific case where I think
we know which is "us" and which is "the world". This is the very thing
you claim I say we have no way of distinguishing.

> > It can be a very tricky exercise to figure out where that line is.
>
> Isn't that the point of science which in effect you are rejecting
> here?

It's one of the points of science. The point is, it's very hard to
know when you've reached the bottom. Are atoms the bottom? Are
particles? Quarks? Is something even lower what's really "out there"?
You are asking how we can know when we've reached the bottom, and I
don't know. We may reach the bottom and not know it.

What is the world "really" made of? We don't know. All we have are
models which we validate based on predictive validity. This means the
world is "really like" the models in many ways.

> >We
> > may actually need to do that should we ever encounter a consciousness
> > fundamentally different from our own that we need to communicate with.
> > (That doesn't seem particularly likely, so no worries.)

> There are no worries in any case because *the way* that a
> consciousness perceives the world doesn't effect the way the world is
> and it would just then be a question of understanding their difference
> with us and developing the instrumentation to enable us to
> communicate.

Maybe, but also maybe not. It may also be that communication is not
just a matter of translation because the things they are "saying" may
not be translatable because they involve concepts we don't have.

> We do it now in varying degrees with people who have no or diminished
> sensory capacity, e.g. the blind or deaf. Is the sun not bigger than
> the earth to a blind person who cannot see it?

Sure, so long as you are able to steal the concepts "sun" and "earth"
and import them into a world where they could not be formed. It's only
when you chip out every possible way for the concept to form that you
have a problem.

It is like asking if two objects of the same color "still look the
same" even if nobody is around to see them. The thing is, "looking the
same" is as much a statement about how human vision works as how
frequencies of light are emitted. Remove the human visual hardware,
and "looking the same" is no longer meaningful. This doesn't mean the
things "don't look the same", it means "looking the same" loses its
meaning.

Absent a consciousness, comparing the sizes of the sun and earth may
also lose its meaning.

DS