Re: OT: reality (wasRe: Atlantean)

> In a message dated 2004:01:10 05:43:33 PM, axiem@FASTMAIL.FM writes:
>
> >Multiple people percieve the same object. In fact, one person will often
>
> >percieve the same object as other people.
>
>     Would you perceive a black phallic object the same way a Hindu would?
No. But I will draw a distinction. We both percieve the same object (that
is, the object itself does not change between perceptions), but we may each
have a different perception. There are two aspects I know of that affect the
perception. Firstly is how it is relative to other things. That is,
something seems hotter when you eat it after something cold. It is still the
same temperature, but it seems hotter. As well, relativity with past
experiences. Secondly is semantic. What I semantically classify as the color
"green" someone in Japanese might classify as the color "aoi", which usually
translates to "blue". We are both percieving the same wavelength of light,
we merely assign a different semantic meaning thing to it.

>
>     Dangerously loaded generalization _there_ that we all perceive things
> alike - one that Christophe might have something(s) to say about - being
that he
> is quite scientific and has on a number of times pointed out how language
> itself creates a cultural bias becuz it creates a "cultural mindset" _and_
many
> types of "individual mindsets"  Would you perceive a black phallic object
the
> same way a Hindu would?
Again, no. We percieve the same object, but our perceptions are different. I
am making a distinction between the two.

>
> In a message dated 2004:01:10 06:50:15 PM, fiziwig@YAHOO.COM writes:
>
> >Assuming that there is such a thing as "50 other
> >people."  Since your perception of the existence of 50
> >other people exists in your mind it could well be an
> >illusion.
>
>     ... and even within an individual, there is no clear-cut logical
> consistency in neural responses to stimuli as both the individual
perception and the
> brain is continually changing, adapting, learning, effected by diet,
stresses,
> health - mental and otherwise, etc.. We are just not the same people we
were
> just yesterday...
Yes, but just because my perception of my computer might change does not
mean that my computer intrinsicly changed. Again, I make a distinction
between the object percieved, and the perception.

>
> In a message dated 2004:01:10 06:50:15 PM, fiziwig@YAHOO.COM writes:
>
> >What if you awoke for this dream you call reality and
> >discovered that it was inded a dream and that the 50
> >other people you were dreaming of have no objective
> >reality?
>
>     Paraphrasing heavily, ChuangTzu once said: I had a dream that I was a
> butterfly or I am a butterfly dreaming I am human dreaming I am a
butterfly?

See my Axiom 2. Let us assume that we are not dreaming.

> >I believe firmly in the idea of empiricism.
>
>     How quaint! I thought empiricism - on its own without any necessary
> tempering of its supposedly infallible universal "logic"- died a verrrry
horrid
> messy death in World War One...and was dug up in WW2 by necrofiles to be
only
> reburied again in the '60's...
Let me rephrase: I believe firmly in the idea of empericism that I put
forward in my Axiom 1. If you believe that that has been "buried", then you
deny the computer you're reading this on, which would not have been
developed were it not for the belief that there was some "universal logic"
behind it.

As for the philosophical empiricism that Locke, among others, put forward,
perhaps philosophers from World War I onward have considered it "buried".
But I will note that some philosophers still stand by Communism. That is
more to say, the current "trend" in philosophy is hardly definitive of
anything.

And based on what I know of what various philosophers said, I'm inclined to
think that Kant was the most sensible of them all. Everyone afterwards
decided to bring back out the crack pipe.

Then again, I have a very dismal view on most of academia. Which is odd
considering how that's where I want to end up.

-Keith