Finding the 'Child Perspective'

Mike

"
@Froclown said
"Just because I don't know if the light is on or off in a closed fridge, and I can only make a guess that it is 50/50 on or off, until I open the door and look, and opening the door to look changes the state of the light. That does not mean the light is neither on nor off, until I look at it."

well, for you in that moment and position practically it means just that - the light is neither on nor off.

esse est percipi"

I would like to tentatively put forth the hypothesis that "on" and "off" are just distinctions we make psychologically, and don't necessarily reflect the nature of the universe outside of our heads, whatever that phrase means; What I mean by this is that the light can't be said to be on or off until someone observes it to determine whether it is on or off, and thus we can declare that it is on or off according to someone. The reason I put this forward is that, again, going back to the finite speed of light, two observers moving relative to each other will not agree on time or distance - if a light goes off on a train and we are moving relative to it, we will not agree on when that light when off or what else was happening simultaneously, and we are both correct, mathematically.

Froclown, what do you think about this? I'm curious.

Froclown

Relativity math has nothing to do with it either.

Reality exists in a particular way outside of ALL frames of reference, the fact that speed and frame of reference effects measurements, does not mean that they effect the REAL actual event as it is in it sell outside of all measurements.

The light is EITHER on OR it is off.

It exists as it does irregardless of if anyone is looking at it or not.

All we can say before we look is "I don't know, it is MAYBE on or off, maybe it is blinking, but I know it's not a koala.

Just because I don't know and have no means to know, does not mean the actuality of the thing I don't know exists in the up in the air state of maybe. IT is only in my brain that it's a maybe, in the box it has a single definite state, and always has had that state, before, during and after the fact of by looking at it.

Unless the switch that turns the light off or on is tripped by the act of my opening the door in order to see it.

Poet

I never said "What if there is no reality?" I said: "What if there is no truth?"

Or, to put it another way:

@Froclown said

"

Reality exists in a particular way outside of ALL frames of reference
"

Not such an absurd notion then, seeing as we both agree.

Although it could also be added that seen logically one way if reality exists outside of ALL frames of reference, as you say, then no-one can lay claim to its actuality as no-one has the ultimate frame of reference to be able to verify completely its existence.

How are you able to prove for instance that we are not just code within a virtual reality software simulation, programmed with false memories to make the experience appear real?

Statistically, if we assume such virtual realities could exist, with seemingly self-aware programs, indistinguishable from "reality" (both not too far beyond current technologies) it can easily be shown that the odds of you actually inhabiting the "real" world instead of a simulation are ridiculously small.

Danica

@Froclown said

"Just because I don't know and have no means to know, does not mean the actuality of the thing I don't know exists in the up in the air state of maybe. "

ok, let's assume things exist in some deffinite state, and not in as you said ''in the up in the air state of maybe''. but what does it mean ''to exist''? exist for whom? our consciousness (whatever that is) is the only refference we have in percieving, thinking etc. (experiencing altogether)
give up the dualism of subjective vs. objective and think about Hadit - a single point, a center of experience. it's the Qabalistic One. how can there be any-thing without the One?

"IT is only in my brain that it's a maybe, in the box it has a single definite state, and always has had that state, before, during and after the fact of by looking at it."

how, the hell, can you be so sure the thing existed before you were looking at it?
the only honest thing to do, and for that matter scientifically correct thing, is to say ''I don't know if it existed or not'.

Froclown

if we are programs in a computer, then that computer is the reality that is objective, that is, it is that which is not contingent on perception. In a sense the mind is a virtual software model run an the hardware of the brain. The brain exists even when you are not looking at it or imagining it, in fact you could not be experiencing or imagining anything without the brain. Because software is nothing more or less than patters of change in the hardware. Thus mind is changes in the brain. If the brain's existence was contingent on the mind, then the mind could not exist in the fist place, so that it could think up the brain, so that the brain could act in a way as to produce software "Thoughts". Thus we know that the brain exist in and of itself, it is more fundamental than mind. Since the brain is not a closed system, it is not isolated from the whole continuous physical universe, for example the brain is made of matter, it is made of the food stuff that is digested in the stomach and circulates in the blood. Thus the blood and organs must exist outside of and more fundamental to thoughts. Now, since the body is also made of the food eaten, that means that food must exist outside of thought as a physical stuff that creates body that sustains brain, that produces thought by it's action. The animals and plants we eat are made of soil and sunlight and water, which only exist as they do because of the location and influence of other stars and planets, etc.
Thus the universe is not created by the mind, thought does not create reality, Truth = reality as it is.

Language creates a model or representation of events in the brain, the mind which is already a model. It so much as the semantic content of a statement are structurally analogous to the actual events that happen in space-time as they might be reproduced in the mind of others who repeat the experience, those statements are said to be true. If you scrutinize them all statement have degrees of truth, and a degree of uncertainty.

"What does it mean to exist, Exist to whom" See one, things exist not TO some one the exist fundamentally, they ARE simply, because if they did not exist they would not be. There are no things that don't exist, to be is to exist. They don't exist to some one, not for some one etc. In fact a some one is merely a collection of things which pre-existed and combined into a new structure of things, (A body-brain which produces thoughts and reacts to other things that exist, which happen to bump into the body and send signals to the brain.)

Poet

@Froclown said

"1) if we are programs in a computer, then that computer is the reality that is objective, that is, it is that which is not contingent on perception.
.....

Thus the universe is not created by the mind, thought does not create reality, Truth = reality as it is.

"

That computer however exists in a higher level of reality to which we have no access to at all.
So we cannot say that our reality is objective, each creates his own subjective reality and at best we can say there is the possibility of some collectively subjective reality. But as all constituent parts are constrained by the same limitations, none can lay claim to being able to perceive it objectively.

Or another way.
Say I've taken an hallucinogen. And I hallucinate some object. To all my sense organs it appears as real as any other phenomena, I can see, hear, touch, smell, taste it and have no available other way of distinguishing its non-reality.
Its even possible for others to hallucinate exactly the same thing at exactly the same time in a shared experience.
However at no time does our experience of that reality actually create the object in yours.
Which would appear to support the idea that thought does not create reality, unfortunately however we have no way to prove that everything we experience in this universe is anything more than a shared hallucination presenting itself as real to the 5 senses - a creation of mind.

Or a dream, or virtual reality, or shadows on the cave. Take your pick.
Unless you have a way to exist outside of this universe so you can look at it objectively, you have no way to force me to accept its objective existence.
And to argue that the mind lives within the brain which lives in a physical universe (which is merely an illusion of condensed energy anyway...) is an argument for its reality makes no sense unless you can prove that that universe is other than a dream or hallucination etc. You're just moving the mythical "objective" reality back one step, which we can do to infinity.

Froclown

that computer is not an a "higher level" it is the medium in which all things are composed, like wise the brain is not a higher or lower level of reality, all images in the mind are nothing other than the brain. Just like all the different images on a painting are made of paint and paper, and all different pottery are made of clay.
hallucinogenic drugs do not work that way. The mess up the brains ability to fill in the gaps, to guess correctly at what sort of thing they data it receives might be. A man on LSD might see a hose and react to it as if it were a snake and he may think he saw a snake and even project his fear to actually see it move and stir intense fear the same as a snake. However no matter how much drugs that person is no, the hose can never bite him and he will never be effected by snake venom from the hose. He will not see some coherent object that is not there, but only mis-interprets what he is seeing. Just like how wearing kaleidescope glasses that makes one sandwich look like 30 sandwiches will not make that one sandwich feed 30 hungry kids.

Perception is not reality, it is the effect of reality. A painting is not the thing painted, other wise by altering the painting the actual fruit would change. If I change the apples to blue in the painting, they do not change blue on the table. because the actual apple is the cause of the impression formed in the paint, also you can't eat the paint even if it looks like an apple. Apples are made of apple stuff, cellulose, sucrose, that kind of organic stuff we can eat. Paint is made of latex and polymers, things that are toxic to eat.

If you smear paint so that it's structurally analogous to the bowl of fruit, that is the relative location of colors and shapes are similar to the way the colors and shapes are arranged in the fruit, it is still paint and not fruit.

The body has sense organs that take impressions, ie are effected by light colors, smells, textures, tastes, sounds etc. and the brain models them in relative space-time locations. (They are not actually stored that way, but are encoded in brain matter. just like a Jpeg Image is stored as pixel (1,1, blue) (1,0,red) etc This long string of coordinates is only structurally analogous to the 2D image when it is decoded by the proper formula. The point is there are no colors or space locations in the computer itself, only strings of ones and zeros, which are only written for humans as 1 and 0, it's actually chemical states in the Computer chips. (Actually the pixels are stored in binary, and the color in binary-hex codes. 00 = black FF=white and that's your 256 colors, for basic VGA.)

So painting is not the fruit it is chemical paste, and the Jpeg is not the fruit nor the image, it is states of chemical semiconductor waffers.

Likewise the Brain is bio-chemical matter than organizes itself in a structurally analogous way to the events that interact with it. The image does not change the thing that it represents. The brain is the image of the event in the world. The only way the brain can change the image is to use the muscles to physically re-arrange the object which is casting the impression to the brain.

Avshalom Binyamin

You're not getting it froclown.

You're arguing that there is an objective universe independent of (universally indirect/flawed) subjective perception.

But you're also arguing that subjective perception (i.e. empiricism) is the only way to perceive the objective universe.

Do you not see that you can't have both simultaneously without a taking a leap in logic?

If you're a real empiricist, than you must stick to inductive reasoning, and not make a presupposition about the nature of the universe. You must deal in probabilities (I have perceived 50% heads in this sample of coin toss, therefor I think it likely that this trend will continue).

What's funny is that it makes you human, just like the rest of us. We all have to jump between inductive and deductive reasoning when it suits us. We get more done that way. That's why robots have a harder time learning simple tasks like walking. The downside is, that whichever way you cut it, we always end up at least a little bit illogical.

You just don't know yourself yet.

Froclown

That the physical would produce the mental is a mystery.
But that the mental would produce the physical is a Mystery or mysteries.

To paraphrase Jesus.

The physical objective reality model is solid and without leaks. We can by observing the brain discern how it works as a mechanical/physical device to produce mental phenomena.

While on the other hand, we can not under any circumstance discern a non-physical subjective substance, let alone can we discern the method or mechanism by which this subjective or spiritual whatever that no one has ever observed, might produce physical matter.

Avshalom Binyamin

"The physical objective reality model is solid and without leaks. We can by observing"

wait... you lost me... observation requires a mind, right?

"While on the other hand, we can not under any circumstance discern a non-physical subjective substance"

physical objective substance being, by definition, that which we can discern, right?

You're lost in your tautologies...

Froclown

Observation requires a physical system which interacts with another physical system, is a way that records the events of one system within the elements of the second system.

Since a Brain is one type of such observation system, then the mind counts as one type of observation, but not the only.

Avshalom Binyamin

As a functional model, yes that's how we conceive observation... with our minds...

You might find the link below interesting...

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartesian_materialism

If you want to be a real empiricist, like the scientists, then you have to accept that you empiricism requires never making an absolute statement. It's about probabilities and the simplest solution, for the time being.

From an empirical point of view, you wouldn't say that there is, for an absolute certainty, a physical world. If you said that, from an empirical point of view, an objective physical world that we subjectively observe is the simplest explanation, and the most likely - given what we know, then anyone arguing with you would be silly.