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

[John J. Lee]

Stephen Horne <steve at ninereeds.fsnet.co.uk> writes:

> On 26 Oct 2003 17:54:58 +0000, jjl at pobox.com (John J. Lee) wrote:
> 
> >Stephen Horne <steve at ninereeds.fsnet.co.uk> writes:
[...]
> >> Just because physicists don't have a perfect model yet, it doesn't
> >> change basic facts that anyone can observe by opening their eyes.
> >
> >'Basic facts that anyone can observe by opening their eyes' are
> >elusive things!  The earth is not flat.  All observations are made in
> >the context of a model of reality.
> 
> Well, I still think that the *local* 'flatness' of the Earths surface
> is highly significant (at least the fact that the general
[...]

I think all this is irrelevant to the question at hand (realism).


> >> and our minds are
> >> no more special than any other arrangement of matter.
> >
> >Unqualified, that's clearly nonsense.
> 
> It is qualified by the context of the discussion - the claims that
> there is no reality separate from perception (and therefore that the
> arrangement of matter called a brain has a special ability to write
> the rules that all matter in the universe follows).
[...]

Oh, OK.

[...]
> Yes, but why can we see the affects of superposition at the
> microscopic scale but not at the macroscopic. That is what strikes me
> as odd - if parallel universes work as an explanation, then why do
> they work differently at the two scales. In particular, why can we not

They don't.


> see evidence of it at the scales we are good at percieving when we can
> see the evidence so clearly at the scales we are not naturally
> equipped to percieve at all.

We see exactly the effects that the theory predicts.  They're just
very small.


[...]
> One last thought, at least for today...
> 
> If there is no reality separate from perception, and if 'reality' is
> therefore just another perception, how come it is so bloody complex
> and impossible for most of the organisms capable of perception to
> understand?
[...]

Yeah -- hence the solipsism joke.


John