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From: acha@centro.soar.cs.cmu.edu.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: this is philosophy ??!!?
Message-ID: <1666@pt.cs.cmu.edu>
Date: 12 May 88 19:18:17 GMT
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Posted: Thu May 12 15:18:17 1988

In article <86@edai.ed.ac.uk> rjc@edai.ed.ac.uk (Richard Caley) writes:
>> Imagine Mr. Cockton, you are standing on the 36th floor of a building and 
>> you and your mates decide that you are Superman and can jump out without 
>> getting hurt.
>Then there is something going wrong in the negotiations within the group!!

Oh, yes! There definitely is! But it is still is a "negotiation" and it is 
"social"!. Since 'reality' and 'truth' are being
defined as "negotiated outcomes of social processes", there are no 
constraints on what these outcomes may be. I can see no reason why a group couldn't
conclude that ( esp. since physical world constraints are not necessarilly
a part of these "negotiations").

>Saying that Y is the result of process X does not imply that any result
>from X is a valid Y. In particular 'reality is the outcome
>of social negotiation' does not imply that "real world" (whatever that is)
>constraints do not have an effect. 

Do we have "valid" and "invalid" realities around ? 

>If we decided that I was Superman then presumably there is good evidence
>for that assumption, since it is pretty hard to swallow. _In_such_a_case_
>I might jump. Being a careful soul I would probably try some smaller drops
>first!

Why would it be pretty hard to swallow ? And why do you need "good" evidence ?
For that matter, what IS good evidence - that ten guys ( possibly deranged or
malicious ) say so ? Have you thought why would you consider getting some real
hard data by trying out smaller drops ? It is because Physical World just won't
go away and the only real evidence that even you would accept are actual outcomes
of physical events. Physical world is the final arbiter of
"reality" and "truth" no matter what process you use to decide on your course
of action.


>To say you would not jump would be to say that you would not accept that
>you were Superman no matter _how_ good the evidence.

If you accept consensus of a group of people as "evidence", does the degree of
goodness depend on the number of people, or what ?

> Unless you say that the
>concept of you being Superman is impossible ( say logically inconsistent with
>your basic assumptions about the world ), which is ruled out by the 
>presuppositions of the example ( since if this was so you would never come
>to the consensus that you were him ), then you _must_ accept that sufficient
>evidence would cause you to believe and hence be prepared to jump.

Ah, well.. if you reject logical consistency as a valid
basis for argument then you could come to any conclusion/consensus in the
world you please - you could conclude that you (simultaneously) were and 
were not Superman! Then, do you jump out or not ? ( or maybe teeter at the edge :-)) 
On the other hand, if you accept logical consistency as a valid basis for
argument - you have no need for a crowd to back you up. 

Come on, does anyone really believe that if he and his pals reach a consensus on
some aspect of the world - the world would change to suit them ? That is the
conclusion I keep getting out of all these nebulous and hazy stuff about 
'reality' being a function of 'social processes'.
-- 
Anurag Acharya		      Arpanet: acharya@centro.soar.cs.cmu.edu  	
			     
"There's no sense in being precise when you don't even know what you're
 talking about"   -- John von Neumann