Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!olivea!uunet!mcsun!ukc!edcastle!helium!bhw
From: bhw@aifh.ed.ac.uk (Barbara H. Webb (Phd 89))
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Direct awareness
Message-ID: <1991Jun19.110837.26883@aifh.ed.ac.uk>
Date: 19 Jun 91 11:08:37 GMT
References: <1991Jun17.144356.21450@aifh.ed.ac.uk> <25348@samsung.samsung.com> <8455@awdprime.UUCP> <1991Jun16.083632.1383@tygra.Michigan.COM> <8570@awdprime.UUCP>
Reply-To: bhw@aifh.ed.ac.uk (Barbara H. Webb (Phd 89))
Organization: Dept AI, Edinburgh University, Scotland
Lines: 48

In article <8570@awdprime.UUCP> sjb@piobe.austin.ibm.com writes:
>
>In article <1991Jun17.144356.21450@aifh.ed.ac.uk>, bhw@aifh.ed.ac.uk
>> What is 'knowing' or 'being aware of' if it is not the process of
>> sensing or percieving something? If you _have_ the sensation of seeing
>> your keyboard, then you are aware of your keyboard (directly) rather
>> than aware of your sensation...
>> Barbara Webb
>> bhw@aifh.ed.edu.uk
>
>But Barbara, what happens in your system for border-line cases?  Say
>optical illusion... we've all seen the one where a diagram something like this:
>
>    >--<    <-->
>
>is drawn, and we are asked, which line is longer?  While a ruler shows
>that they are really identical, the eye disagrees... by your system, the
>mind knows what the eye sees directly... therefore right up until you
>put down the ruler, one line IS longer than the other.  But using the
>method of "moving the entire problem back one step", the "little man"
>doesn't think that the length of the line changes (or perhaps it's the
>length of the ruler that changes?) when he puts down the ruler to
>measure... he just thinks that the information provided by the senses
>(on the "video screen inside our heads") was somehow faulty.  I think
>that this fits better with the way we really DO think... don't you?
>
>Scott

But Scott, I didn't say that what we can be directly aware of was not
limited by the inaccuracies and idiosyncracies of the mechanisms that
underly our awareness. If two (ordinary) lines differ in length by a 
fraction of a millimeter, then we need to use different behaviour
(taking careful measurements) to distinguish which is longer than in
the case where they differ by a centimeter, because we know our unaided
eye isn't up to making the distinction. Optical illusions are more
surprising cases of the same thing - the mechanism of sensing that
allows us to be aware of what's out there has lots of short-cuts built
in which manifest themselves this way.
I don't think the 'video screen' version fits at all well with the way
we really do think. How does the little man know that the mechanism
(whatever it is) that allows him to be aware of what's on the screen 
is completely trustworthy and not subject to illusions? As I said 
before, it's not a first step in explaining how we manage to be aware 
of the world, it just pushes the whole problem deeper inside the
head (so we can conveniently assume that we don't have to worry about 
it yet).

Barbara.