On 2/23/2013 5:33 AM, Craig Weinberg wrote:
On Friday, February 22, 2013 10:44:59 PM UTC-5, Brent wrote:
On 2/22/2013 6:08 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote:
On Friday, February 22, 2013 7:45:58 PM UTC-5, Brent wrote:
On 2/22/2013 3:06 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote:
On Friday, February 22, 2013 4:54:05 PM UTC-5, John Clark wrote:
On Fri, Feb 22, 2013 at 8:25 AM, Craig Weinberg
<whats...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> What to you think with, your elbow?
> my point was that you have a double standard about which
brain
activities represent nothing but evolutionary driven illusions
Illusions? Evolutionary drive is what made you the man you are
today. And
interpreting a 1D signal from the eye as 3D space is as valid a
interpretation as any other, and apparently Evolution has
determined that
particular interpretation gets the most genes into the next
generation.
Thus you are good at 3D visualization because your ancestors were
good at
it too. You come from a long line of winners, most animals never
manage to
reproduce but every single one of your ancestors did.
A successful evolutionary outcome doesn't have anything to do with the
veracity of the content of a signal. If someone has a delusion that
their
ancestors are sacred turnip people and it causes them to plant turnips
and
survive a famine, that doesn't mean that their belief is not a
delusion. There
seems to be this theme with your positions which fanatically
exaggerates the
importance of winning, and how winning justifies whatever distortions
of the
truth are required
On the contrary, John is saying that evolution must align perception at
least
roughly with reality because misalignment is likely to go badly - like
when the
turnip people keep planting turnips because their ancestor said so even
though
the turnip beetle keeps decimating their crops.
It doesn't matter. As long as the turnip people survive to reproduce while
everyone
else in their niche die of hunger, then they are the heirs of that niche
forever.
If the next selection event is a turnip beetle, it will be some members of
the
turnip clan who liked to supplement their turnips with barley who survive -
not
someone from outside the clan (because they are all dead). Again it makes no
difference at all whether the barley people know about crop rotation or soil
aeration, nutrition, biology, etc. All that matters is that they had the
barley
when the turnips went south. If they have it because they believe that Odin
commands it, then that will be the adaptation which is passed on to the next
selection event.
Yes, it makes no difference why you believe a useful thing, but if you
believe
things for reasons unrelated to reality then it is unlikely they will be
useful. I
is astounding that you would argue against such an obvious proposition. I
can only
conclude you are either a troll or brain damaged.
The more upset you become, the more I know that the flaws in your argument have been
exposed. What you are arguing is that a computer has to know whether an mp3 file is
sound or graphics before it can analyze the pattern of the data.
Bobbing and weaving, you change the subject to computers. Where did I mention computers?
If you can't answer my point you just go off on a tangent and repeat your mantra: "If it's
a computer it can't be aware."
It isn't true. Everything that can be done with data and translated into a physical
action is independent of any experiential format. We know this for a fact - its the
whole basis of computation: the universality of data processing. Every sense is reduced
to an a-signifying binary code which allows us to add on whatever significance and
format it in whatever sense modality we prefer to get it in. The computer has no sensory
awareness of the significance we apply to its programs at all. If they did, we would
simply be able to hook up a microscope and look at the area of the DRAM chips which
correspond to video instructions and use that as our screen. But that doesn't work,
because there is no place in a computer or in a brain where such a homuncular screen exists.
The suggestion that "evolution must align perception at least roughly with
reality"
is interesting because it directly contradicts the model of qualia as a
solipsistic
simulation.
You just made that up - it doesn't follow from anything, either logical or
empirical
- it's just blather.
That's an interesting reaction. I imagine something like an exorcism is taking place for
you. It follows the classic pattern:
"You just made that up" = It can't be true!
"it doesn't follow from anything, either logical or empirical" = the only possibility is
that you are insane!
"it's just blather." = ad hominem ego defenses kick in, neutralizing the threat to your
mental status quo.
What I said is rather simple and direct, both logical and empirical. I didn't make
anything up, it's a simple observation that you are arguing both sides of the debate if
you say on one hand that conscious content is evolutionarily driven to map closely with
reality, and on the other to say that love is just pheromones and oxytocin playing with
you. They are mutually exclusive positions.
You seem to think that because an event has a description in evolutionary terms as well as
physical terms that it is contradictory. You don't even know what "mutually exclusive means".
Wouldn't evolution push us toward feeling love as neurotransmitters being secreted if
that's what the reality is? Wouldn't we avoid oxytocin producing situations because it
could distract us from the more evolutionarily important agenda of seeking the fittest
mates? Where is this blather you speak of?
This is supposed to be the reason why we don't perceive 'reality' as it is -
probabilistic quantum computations.
Who says computations are reality (besides Bruno)?
What do you say reality is?
I don't know. I only know that some models of the world seem to work better than others.
Your "sensory/motor" seems to be one of those "God did it" theories that explains
everything and predicts nothing.
Brent
The relation between "reality", "computation", and "perception" here are
misconceived because only two of the three make sense together any way you
slice
it. If you have computation and reality, there is no point of perception.
Before you can make that into an interesing argument you would have to show
that
everything must "have a point", whatever that means...something like
aligning with
reality?
In order to have that argument, you would have to define having 'an interesting
argument' without smuggling in the denied premise of 'having a point'.
I didn't deny, it just wonder what it means? what's "a point"?
If you can say that there's a point to having an interesting argument, then I can say
that there is no point to having perception if you already have computation of data
which perception supposedly corresponds to.
And I can say what's the point of having momentum if you already have mass and
velocity?
Brent
Craig
Brent
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