Michael: I wrote: "I agree that our perceptions are constructed." You wrote:
"Every conscious thought is a construction or representation from some
source, either immediate sensory perceptions or memories of some kind."
Difference being: conscious thoughts versus perceptions. Perhaps we're
getting close here.
I can have a conscious thought of a "floobus". I claim that you haven't much
association to a "floobus" but it's a conscious thought of some kind in your
mind, now that I've introduced it. I don't know what it is but you claim
that this too is based on/derives from my perceptual experience while I
claim that I've never heard of or considered a "floobus" before. Small
point.
You wrote: "Truth is the aspect of a thing's representation that supports
the reliability of the representation." Again, I think that we're getting
somewhere. Particularly if you would allow that truthfulness is not an
either-or phenomenon - that there are degrees of truthfulness (in our
constructions/construals). Cheerskep is well able to speak/write for himself
... but I do think that he was endeavouring to establish that "fictions" are
not unitary or univalent. At any rate, some of my point is that claims made
here have overlooked the truth, efficacy, efficiency differences among
fictions held. Presumably the process of learning involves acquiring
valuable "fictions" and discarding ones which complicate life. I would claim
that the valuable 'fictions" are the ones which further ones goals. All
memories are beliefs and all beliefs are fictional
is as true as all presidents are good.
Geoff C
----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael Brady" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, January 01, 2009 4:35 PM
Subject: Re: Malcolm Gladwell and beliefs)
On Jan 1, 2009, at 3:57 PM, Geoff wrote:
Michael: I agree that our perceptions are constructed. I don't agree
that fictitious is understood by most persons to equate to truthful.
I didn't say that. The way we hold thoughts in our mind (the "fiction"
that William talks about) is different from its truthfulness. Indeed, the
notion of truth is involved in how we evaluate the thought and act on it,
not on the original thought itself. (This reminds me of the Catholic
teaching about not entertaining a temptation or sinful thought: to think
of the sin is to entertain the sinful thought behind the words. Man, all
those dirty thoughts when I was a young 'un and I tried not to think of
them! Sinning by not being able to cast out the thought of the sin I was
resisting. PS: if you weren't raised Catholic, this will surely be
unfamiliar!)
We may equally construe fictional/imagined persons or verifiably
existent persons. Let us not confuse the process (construction/
construal) with the object (fictional/made-believed) with the valid.
c
Thus, all of these are fictitious, that is, they are formed or contrived
to represent some exterior experience. It is at the next step that the
notion of verifiability--noumenal, phenomenal, or epiphenomenal--enters.
Do I "believe" the interior representation? Truth is the aspect of a
thing's representation that supports the reliability of the
representation.
If it's a question of believing what I'm seeing, it comes down to tacitly
accepting the premise that my perception coincides with the object or
event causing the perception. (Something's out there and I'm perceiving
it without any distortion or deficiency.)
If it's a question of something I am thinking about, it comes down to
evaluating how reliable is my awareness to hold thoughts in my mind and
perform cognitive transformations on those thoughts. (Do I have the
information I need? Have I compiled it and analyzed it properly? Etc.)
If it's a question of perceiving an external representation, say, a book
or television program, it come down to evaluating the composition of the
representation, as well as my perceptions of the source and my thinking
about it. (Did Snow White really exist? Did Paul Newman? How does their
independent existence affect what and how I think about what I know of
them?)
One of the definitive characteristics of how schizophrenia affects a
person is that the person cannot distinguish between hallucinations and
delusional thoughts, on one hand, and external reality. The mental
mechanisms that you and I use to distinguish between a fantasy (for
example, my being able to fly like I remember from a very vivid dream)
and reality itself (nope, can't do that) is impaired or absent in a
person who experiences schizophrenic delusions. The person just cannot
distinguish between the delusion and reality. Thus, entirely and wholly
invented memories or experiences are received with the same sense of
believability as ordinary, day to day experiences. A person with
schizophrenia does in fact confuse the process of constructing the
thought with the verifiable validity of it.
Delusions and hallucinations show us that the "truthfulness" of an
internal representation itself is independent of the person's
experiencing the delusion. The person thinks the delusion is real and
acts accordingly.
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Michael Brady
[email protected]
