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yanqui
climber
Balcarce, Argentina
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Jun 16, 2018 - 08:36am PT
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Serves him right for resorting to Wikipedia.
Yeah. Maybe he should have at least checked out second-order logic.
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Contractor
Boulder climber
CA
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Jun 16, 2018 - 08:46am PT
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More drift here. I don't watch much TV but this show has been enjoyable.
'Westworld' science adviser shares his vision of robots and the future of AI
http://flip.it/RaP8tj
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Jun 16, 2018 - 09:28am PT
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"I am Nature."
(Jackson Pollock, attributed by Lee Krasner (1964) in "Oral history interview with Lee Krasner, 1964 Nov. 2-1968 Apr. 11)
Abstract Expressionism borrows directly from Andre Breton's notion of pure psychic automatism, the Freudian foundation of Surrealism fostering an intuitive exposure of the sub- conscious mind as a source of individual truth or pure feeling into sensation. Declaring oneself as "nature" might sound a bit overwrought and also seems a little disingenuous considering the intensely idiosyncratic nature of what Pollock was up to. But hey, it worked for him. As I recall, sometime ago, his at auction price was around 55 million. Don't know recent prices.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 16, 2018 - 10:05am PT
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the physical properties of human sight are governed by genetic traits
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Can we say that those physical properties include causes that determine we "see" light in the wavelength of 450–495 nm at 606–668 THz as blue and only blue?
If we answer the affirmative, are we not walking the plank of Identity theory (brain states = mental states)?
To review:
In "The Nature of Mental States," Hilary Putnam rang what is widely considered the death knell to theories of Mind-Brain Type Identity—indeed, the objection which effectively retired such theories from their viable position in modern debates concerning the relationship between mind and body.
Putnam's argument can be paraphrased as follows:
(1) according to the Mind-Brain Type Identity theorist (at least post-Armstrong), for every mental state there is a unique physical-chemical state of the brain such that a life-form can be in that mental state IF AND ONLY IF IT IS IN THAT PHYSICAL STATE. That is, the brain state "A" is the determined "cause" of the mind state "M1."
(2) It seems quite plausible to hold, as an empirical hypothesis, that physically possible life-forms can be in the same mental state without having brains in the same unique physical-chemical state.
(3) Therefore, it is logically incoherent that the Mind-Brain Type Identity theorist is correct.
In support of the second premise above—the so-called "multiple realizability" hypothesis—Putnam raised the following point: we have good reason to suppose that somewhere in the universe—perhaps on earth, perhaps only in scientific theory (or fiction)—there is a physically possible life-form capable of being in mental state X (e.g., capable of feeling pain) without being in physical-chemical brain state Y (that is, without being in the same physical-chemical brain state correlated with pain in mammals).
To follow just one line of thought (advanced by Ned Block and Jerry Fodor), assuming that the Darwinian doctrine of evolutionary convergence applies to psychology as well as behavior, "psychological similarities across species may often reflect convergent environmental selection rather than underlying physiological similarities."
Other empirically verifiable phenomena, such as the plasticity of the brain, also lend support to Putnam's argument against Type Identity.
Astute readers of the above will realize that Putnam, Block and Fodor are likely still accepting as their first assumption that while the brain might not cause specific mental states in any determined way, it IS determined that the brain can and does cause brain states.
This would mean that something about the brain's wiring, complexity, electrochemical stirrings - something inherent in Ed's "physical properties" contain determined physical causes that can and do "create" mind and ONLY mind, which in a given state "causes" the sensation of "blue" and only blue.
In the realm of natural phenomenon, what do we suppose those determined causes might be, in the light of Putnam's thesis?
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Jun 16, 2018 - 10:19am PT
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Maybe he should have at least checked out second-order logic.
I did not think my answer made any sense. In the desolation of discovering that truth in the system cannot be defined within the system.
Serves us right for creating such a powerful system.
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jogill
climber
Colorado
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Jun 16, 2018 - 10:57am PT
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This statement is not true.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Jun 16, 2018 - 11:05am PT
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There is thus more to the method than the mere logic involved in deduction. There is also less to the objects than their intuitive or instinctive origins suggest.
It is in fact a distinctive feature of mathematics that it can operate effectively and efficiently without defining its objects.
Points, straight lines, and planes are not defined. In fact, a mathematician of today rejects the attempts of his predecessors to define a point as something that has "neither length nor width"
and to provide equally meaningless pseudo-definitions of straight lines or planes.
But while one may operate reliably with undefined (and perhaps even undefinable) objects and concepts, these objects and concepts are rooted in apparent physical (or at least sensory) reality.
Mathematics and Logic
Mark Kac and Stanislaw M. Ulam
edit:
for an opinion
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nafod
Boulder climber
State college
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Jun 16, 2018 - 01:45pm PT
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I just got back mountain biking, and while riding I wore my yellow glasses. It was a blue sky day, so in theory I was riding under a green sky, but my mind “saw” blue. It adjusted.
Utility depends on accuracy.
I used a computer to post this, clicking on an “icon” on the “desktop” and “sliding the screen up and down”. I dragged stuff to the trash can too.
Of course none of that actually happened. A bunch of 1s and 0s in a memory that runs from 0 to 16GB in addressing is where all of the action occurred. The idea that there is a desktop and real icons that I can drag to the trash is totally inaccurate but also totally useful (has utility).
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Jun 16, 2018 - 04:43pm PT
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Of course none of that actually happened. A bunch of 1s and 0s in a memory that runs from 0 to 16GB in addressing is where all of the action occurred. The idea that there is a desktop and real icons that I can drag to the trash is totally inaccurate but also totally useful (has utility).
Of course those ones and zeros better be accurate or your icons will lack all utility. The above is a confusing argument, of course accuracy is necessary to utility. If it doesn't work how is it utilized? As far as the sunglasses are concerned greens can go to the blue or to the yellow in a near infinite number of degrees, nevertheless you don't see blue if you compare what you are seeing to the real hue blue. Simply because you think it's blue doesn't make it so when an easy comparison can reveal the truth. Color always reveals itself in terms of comparison and colors affect each other drastically. If you place green and red next to each other the saturation of each appears to increase and the same is true for any two complementary colors. The same is true for contrasts of saturation as well. I think it's a mistake to imagine that color is some kind of social construct as there is just too much of the objective in our understanding of how color works.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Jun 16, 2018 - 06:22pm PT
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I don't see how you can reasonably argue that our experience of color is primarily a subjective experience except insofar as all experience might be considered subjective. Our perception of wavelengths of light in the form of color is tied directly to the perception of the world around us. There is a reason we test pilots for red green color blindness and that we can recognize slight variations in color sensitivity and those tests aren't based on a subjective bias that makes the reality of color and its sensory apprehension somehow unmeasurable, those tests are based on our objective understanding of the perception of color and are based on an accepted standard of that perception.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 16, 2018 - 06:27pm PT
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In one common form of synesthesia, known as grapheme-color synesthesia or color-graphemic synesthesia, letters or numbers are perceived as inherently colored.
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Per the above, is there something in our physical perceptual apparatus that causes, in a determined way, that someone with grapheme-color synesthesia will experience specific letters and numbers in a specific color and only that color?
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Jun 16, 2018 - 07:11pm PT
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is there something in our physical perceptual apparatus that causes, in a determined way, that someone with grapheme-color synesthesia will experience specific letters and numbers in a specific color and only that color?
Good question. Now that whole genome sequencing is not too expensive we may get the beginning of an answer.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 16, 2018 - 08:00pm PT
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Now that whole genome sequencing is not too expensive we may get the beginning of an answer.
Remember, the question concerns an "explanation" by way of a fully determined physical cause that, in this instance, can "create" a phenomenal experience of a given person seeing certain numbers in a particular color - say, blue.
Two questions.
First, what possible model would you conceivably use by which a static gene could be the determined cause of the person in question seeing, for example, the number 4 as blue?
Second, while people with specific genes are hosts to various mental conditions, what evidence is there, anywhere on the face of the earth, that suggests any gene causes, in a determined way, specific content (colors of numbers, say) in any human?
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jun 16, 2018 - 09:47pm PT
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I don't see how you can reasonably argue that our experience of color is primarily a subjective experience except insofar as all experience might be considered subjective.
Interesting comment, as "our experience" is subjective, as Largo has argued, experience is something we have that is unique to us.
That is not to say that we have common experiences with other people, and that that comparison of our subjective experiences might lead to something we could term "objective," at least by consensus.
So while we have many common experiences regarding color, there are many people who experience something quite different. That is not to say they do not understand what the consensus is, but rather, they experience things that most others do not.
We can propose a model of how the physiology of color perception works in humans, but it would be a mistake to assume that that exact model is replicated in all of us. The variations in the build are there, some people experience four colors.
Can you imagine what that is like?
Certainly one might question theories of color that are based on only three colors.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Jun 16, 2018 - 10:27pm PT
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So while we have many common experiences regarding color, there are many people who experience something quite different. That is not to say they do not understand what the consensus is, but rather, they experience things that most others do not.
Define many.
There are, of course, those exceptions that prove the rule. Complementary color is just that and is not subjective. Contrast of hue is just that and not subjective. Warm/cool contrast is just that and not subjective. And there are many more.
Exceptions prove the rule.
Those experiencing something quite different are exceptions, exceptions to what? The broad consensus. This has nothing to do with the notion that all experience is ultimately subjective. But within that subjectivity is an objectivity of human experience based on consensus.
The uniform construction of the eye, the retina, the brain yield a similar experience of color, validated by a consensus of experience and the proof of this is in the historical use of that color in art across cultural and historical lines.
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nafod
Boulder climber
State college
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Jun 17, 2018 - 06:32am PT
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nevertheless you don't see blue if you compare what you are seeing to the real hue blue.
It’s a known fact that once you learn to read, that when you see a string of characters that represent a word that you see the word as a whole. You can’t unlearn that and go back to seeing just characters, or strokes of a pen. The word is what you see in the mind.
So on my MTBike ride yesterday, I wasn’t riding beneath the color ‘blue’. I was riding beneath the ‘blueSky’. That is what I saw. Not some abstract blue serrated image (created by the leaf canopy). I saw the BlueSky object, even through my yellow riding glasses.
I agree that there are receptors in the eyeballs that are tuned to particular frequencies and send impulses when excited by them, but they are at the far end of seeing. We are likely not in touch with them directly, except for the very first moments after being born. After that, we’ve learned to see abstract ‘things’ and not raw colors and shapes.
There are reams of optical illusions involving shapes and colors both, that show it is extremely hard to unwind that ‘seeing of objects’ process.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Jun 17, 2018 - 06:49am PT
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First, what possible model would you conceivably use by which a static gene could be the determined cause of the person in question seeing, for example, the number 4 as blue?
The gene could promote connections between auditory and visual parts of the brain that most people don't have.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Jun 17, 2018 - 06:50am PT
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Second, while people with specific genes are hosts to various mental conditions, what evidence is there, anywhere on the face of the earth, that suggests any gene causes, in a determined way, specific content (colors of numbers, say) in any human?
This is what whole genome sequencing could begin to shed light on.
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