[ExI] Sensory Reality

[Aware]

On Wed, Dec 23, 2009 at 8:22 AM, JOSHUA JOB <nanite1018 at gmail.com> wrote:
> What importance does it have that you cannot magically "experience"
> "things-in-themselves"? Outside of sort-of solving that symbol grounding
> problem, it doesn't effect anything at all. We create a model of the world
> based on our sense-perceptions of reality.

That view exemplifies the "scientific enlightenment" of one who has
learned enough to get one's head above the superstitions and folk
ontologies of the masses, and while pausing to enjoy the improved view
and look down upon those others, fails to notice an epistemological
layer yet to be surmounted.

An unfortunate side-effect of that approximate level of
sophistication, common to the scientifically literate denizens of this
discussion list, is the tendency to conflate "that which does not yet
make sense" with "that which doesn't make sense."  The difference is
one of context, and the test to distinguish which is which is whether
one can coherently explain the basis for the other's belief.  A child
in a dispute with an adult may honestly believe the adult doesn't
understand (and the child might be right) but it's more often the
adult who can explain the child's point of view, not vice versa.

"We" don't create a model of the world based on our sense-perceptions
of reality. For the most part, "we" are not in that functional loop.
The organism models *its world* (its umwelt) to some limited extent,
in terms of particular features relevant to its nature within its
environment of interaction.  And the organism (in the case of humans
and some others) expresses additional functionality providing limited
awareness of its self within its environment, providing benefits of
more abstract prediction, planning and control, with the property that
when it refers to itself, it indicates the organism (not merely the
layer expressing self-awareness.)

This is directly applicable to the "symbol-grounding problem" because
it illustrates how at no point in the process is Truth or Reality ever
modeled the organism, adapted to its environment of interaction,
including its functionality for limited self-awareness, gets by all
the same.  And if you were to interrogate the organism, it would
necessarily express the meaningfulness and intentionality (semantics)
of its actions.  No matter how many levels you want to take it, the
semantics are a function of an observer/reporter.

Most of us are not familiar or comfortable with recursion (the topic
is near the top of my list for _A Child's Garden of Conceptual
Archetypes), so even though we may have a schematically complete
description of the above, we nevertheless feel that (based on our
undeniable experience) somewhere in the system there must be such
essentials as "qualia", "meaning", "free will" and "personal
identity."  Never had it, don't need it.  Derivative, yes; essential,
no.


> That model is based, necessarily
> on those sense-perceptions. We revise our model continually based on all of
> our sense-perceptions, and over time it gets better and better, closer and
> closer to reality as it is "in-itself."

While this is the popular position among the scientifically literate
(including most of my friends), similar to the presumption that
evolution continues to "perfect" its designs, with humans being "the
most evolved" at present, it's easy enough to show that our scientific
progress may be leading us in a present direction quite different from
the direction we may be heading later.  If 50 years from now we
commonly agree that we're living within a digital simulation, would
you then say Newton or Einstein was closer to the absolute Truth of
gravity?  The best we can aim for is not increasing "Truth", but
increasing coherence over increasing context of observation.

- Jef