----- Stathis: > The fact is, you are already living in a virtual
environment. Your
brain creates a picture of the world based on sensory data. You can't
*really* know what a table is, or even that there is a table there in
front of you at all. All you can know is that you have particular
table-like experiences, which seem to be consistently generated by
what you come to think of as the external object "table". There is no
way to be certain that the picture in your head - including the
picture you have of your own body - is generated by a real external
environment rather than by a computer sending appropriately high
resolution signals to fool your brain:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_in_a_vat
Stathis,
So when you see and touch your penis, you have no idea whether it's really
there? And you cannot be certain that it's your penis and not someone
else's? Despite having touched it...how many times?
The philosophical conceit that we do not really know that there is a table
(or a penis) in front of us, is just that - a fanciful conceit. It shows
what happens when you rely on words and symbols as your sole medium of
intellectual thought - as philosophers mainly do.
In reality, you have no problem knowing and being sure of those objects and
the world around you - except in exceptional circumstances. Why? Two
reasons.
First, all sensations/perceptions are continually being unconsciously tested
for their reality - a process which I would have thought every AI/robotics
person would take for granted. Hence your brain occasionally thinks: "was
that really so-and-so I saw?"...or: "where exactly in my foot *is* that
pain?" Your unconscious brain has had problems checking some perception.
Secondly, your brain works by *common sense* perception and testing. We are
continually testing our perceptions with all our senses and our whole body.
You don't just look at things, you reach out and touch them, smell them,
taste them, and confirm over and over that your perceptions are valid. (Also
it's worth pointing out that since you are continually moving in relation to
objects, your many different-angle "shots" of them are continually tested
against each other for consistency). Like a good journalist, you check more
than one source. Your perceptions are continually tested in a deeply
embodied way - and in general v. much "in touch" with reality.
But when you and philosophers come to think intellectually about perception,
because.you then rely solely on words and symbols - and cease to test your
ideas about, as distinct from actual, perceptions in an embodied way - you
come up with literally non-sense. (Hence it is that philosophers are the
common butt of "how do you know you're really here?" jokes at parties). And
disembodied AGI seems to me a loosely similar disembodied conceit..
-----
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