RE: subjective reality

From: Lee Corbin <lcorbin.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2005 21:25:31 -0700

Colin writes

> > > So, for subjective experience: Yes it can be an illusion,
> > > but a systematically erroneous, relentlessly repeatable
> > > illusion driven by measurement of the natural world where
> > > its errors are not important - .ie. not mission fatal to the
> > > observer. Experiential qualities, in their solipsistic
> > > presentation, need only be repeatable (my red/attached to
> > > the linguistic token RED), not 'accurate' (internationally
> > > standardized RED #12398765).
> > >
> > > This is equivalent to saying that the experience of HOT
> > > and the actual hotness of reality (wobbly atoms) _do not
> > > have to be intimately/directly related_!!! They can be
> > > completely different and as long as the experience is
> > > consistently used the behaviour of the experiencer will
> > > be the same "OUCH".
> >
> > Well, wait a minute. The experience of HOT *does* have to
> > be intimately related: otherwise, the machines we are would
> > not have been built by evolution in this way. It serves an
> > extremely important function for our survival as animals.
>
> Here I’m afraid we have to disagree. What you are
> saying is that the experiential quality of HOT,
> which is _entirely_ generated in the brain (the
> meter output) from a sensory neuron or two (the
> measurement probe), is that our brain literally
> becomes hot?

You think that I am saying that when one has an
experience of something being hot, the brain is
hot? What kind of a fool do you take me for,
anyway? How early do they teach 98.6 degrees F
where you went to elementary school?

So *I* will take the time to reread the discussion
above and put my finger on the trouble. It turns
out to be in your use of the word "intimately",
which I failed to infer correctly what you meant
by it.

I took you to mean "intimately related" in the sense
that there is a tight *causal* connection in the nervous
systems of animals between outside objects and "inside"
readings, and of course, it is *generally* true that
there is such a tight causal connection. But you meant
something a bit different, and I should have picked up
on it, sorry.

> I don't know about you, but to me very cold things feel
> like a burn. The same experiencing system is attached to
> different thermal behaviour in the world.

Yes, I've heard of that before. Doesn't happen to me,
though. In any case, we easily see what is happening
here (we know all the facts). Evolution programmed
you to remove your hand post haste from anything
extreme in temperature either way, and I guess it didn't
affect the survival rates of our ancestors, as the idea
was just to bring the dangerous phenomenon to the
attention of your higher centers.

> There is clear experimental evidence that the experiences
> do not match the physics of the real world. Take phantom limb!
> An amputee can have a feel a whole arm where there is none!
> That phantom experience of the arm is generated by brain
> material receiving pathological feeds from broken nerves.

You are quite correct, but the statement "the experiences
do not match the physics of the real world" is really
misleading. Of course they have to match---to a certain
fidelity---the physics of the real world, or our ancestors
would have been unable to propagate as well. I needn't give
you countless examples of how, for example, your hand
reaches out rather unerringly for door handles when you
approach them. My reading of "experiences matching the
physics of the real world" include those numerous examples.
But I hope that you don't think that I'm ignorant of how
phantom limbs work (the very best book is Ramachandran's
"Phantoms of the Brain", which I highly recommend). But
after assuming that I thought that brains get hot, I just
don't know.

> We simply don't have to have the argument: it's over.

If you say so! (I did agree with the remaining parts of
your email.)

Lee
Received on Thu Aug 18 2005 - 00:29:34 PDT