AI and cognitive psychology rant (getting more and more OT - tell me if I should shut up)

[Robin Becker]

In article <rdeipvk8ac9in4csnlbcmts9v9snr8trob at 4ax.com>, Stephen Horne
<steve at ninereeds.fsnet.co.uk> writes
>On Fri, 24 Oct 2003 16:00:12 +0200, anton at vredegoor.doge.nl (Anton
>Vredegoor) wrote:
>
......
>Perception is not reality. It is only a (potentially flawed)
>representation of reality. But reality is still real. And perception
>*is* tied to reality as well as it can be by the simple pragmatic
>principle of evolution - if our ancestors had arbitrary perceptions
>which were detached from reality, they could not have survived and had
>children.
>
.....
It is a commonplace of developmental psychology that the persistence of
objects is learned by children at some relatively young age (normally 3
months as I recall). I assume that children learn the persistence of
hidden objects by some statistical mechanism ie if it happens often
enough it must be true (setting up enough neural connections etc).

Would the reality of children subjected to a world where hidden objects
were somehow randomly 'disappeared' be more or less objective then that
of normal children.

Unlucky experimental cats brought up in vertical stripe worlds were
completely unable to perceive horizontals so their later reality was
apparently filled with invisible and mysterious objects. I can't
remember if they could do better by rotating their heads, but even that
would be quite weird.

I think it unwise to make strong statements about reality when we know
so little about it. Apparently now the universe is 90-95% stuff we don't
know anything about and we only found that out in the last 10 years. 
-- 
Robin Becker