Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!CCH.BBN.COM!bnevin From: bnevin@CCH.BBN.COM (Bruce E. Nevin) Newsgroups: comp.ai.digest Subject: Re: Consensus and Reality, Consensus and Reality] Message-ID: <19880610203447.7.NICK@INTERLAKEN.LCS.MIT.EDU> Date: 10 Jun 88 20:34:00 GMT Sender: daemon@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU Organization: The Internet Lines: 95 Approved: ailist@ai.ai.mit.edu Date: Fri, 10 Jun 88 08:16 EDT From: Bruce E. Nevin Subject: Re: Consensus and Reality, Consensus and Reality In-Reply-To: Your message of 9 Jun 88 16:14 PDT To: hayes.pa@xerox.com cc: bnevin@cch.bbn.com, ailist@ai.ai.mit.edu, jmc@sail.stanford.edu, bn@cch.bbn.com From: hayes.pa@Xerox.COM Subject: Re: Consensus and Reality PH> First, what we believe ( know ) about the world - or, indeed, about PH> anything else - can only be believed by virtue of it being expressed in PH> some sort of descriptive framework, what is often called a `language of PH> thought': hence, we must apprehend the world in some categorical PH> framework: we think of our desks as being DESKS. I would add that we must distinguish this 'language of thought' from our various languages of communication. They are surely related: our cognitive categories surely influence natural language use, and the influence may even go the other way, though the Whorf-Sapir hypothesis is certainly controversial. But there is no reason to suppose that they are identical, and many reasons to suppose that they differ. (Quests for a Universal Grammar Grail notwithstanding, languages and cultures do differ in sometimes quite profound ways. Different paradigms do exist in science, different predilections in philosophy, though the same natural language be spoken.) Note also that what we know about a 'language of thought' is inferred from natural language (problematic), from nonlinguistic human behavior, and sometimes introspection (arguably a special case of the first two). If we have some direct evidence on it I would like to know. I agree with your second statement that learning occurs in a social matrix. It is not clear that all the "terms which comprise our conceptual framework" are learned, however. Some may be innate, either as evolutionary adaptations or as artefacts of the electrochemical means our bodies seem to use (such as characteristics of neuropeptides and their receptors in the lower brain, at the entry points of sensory nerves to the spinal cord, in the kidney, and elsewhere throughout the body, for instance, apparently mediating emotion--cf recent work of Candace Pert & others at NIH). I also agree that the nature/nurture controversy (which probably has the free will controversy at its root) is unproductive here. PH> I suspect that the difference is that you think that when we talk of PH> reality we mean something more: some `absolute Reality', whatever the PH> hell that is. All I mean is the physical world in which we live, the PH> one whose existence no-one, it seems, doubts. No, I only want to establish agreement that we are NOT talking about some 'absolute Reality' (Ding an Sich), whatever the hell that is. That we are constrained to talking about something much less absolute. That is the point. The business about what you are looking at now being an ensemble of molecules >>instead of<< a CRT screen is an unfortunate red herring. I did not express myself clearly enough. Of course it is both or either, depending on your perspective and present purposes. If you are a computer scientist reading mail, one is appropriate and useful and therefore "correct". If you are a chemist or physicist contemplating it as a possible participant in an experiment, the other "take" is appropriate and useful and therefore "correct". And the Ultimate Reality of it (whatever the hell that is) is neither, but it lets us get away with pretending it "really is" one or the other (or that it "really is" some other "take" from some other perspective with some other purposes). We are remarkably adept at ignoring what doesn't fit so long as it doesn't interfere, and that is an admirably adaptive, pro-survival way to behave. Not a thing wrong with it. But I hope to reach agreement that that is what we are doing. Maybe we already have: PH> . . . neither of these frameworks PH> IS the reality. Of course not: no description of something IS that PH> thing. We dont mix up beliefs about a world with the world itself: what PH> makes you think we do? But to say that a belief about ( say ) my CRT is PH> true is not to say that the belief IS the CRT. But we do mix up our language of communication with our 'language of thought' (first two paragraphs above), perhaps unavoidably since we have only the latter as means for reaching agreement about the former, and only the former (adapted to conduct in an environment) for cognizing itself. And although you and I agree that we do not and cannot know what is "really Real" (certainly if we could we could not communicate about it or prove it to anyone), my experience is that many folks do indeed mix up beliefs about a world with the world itself. They want a WYSIWYG reality, and react with violent allergy to suggestions that what they see is only a particular "take" on what is going on. They never get past that to hear the further message that this is OK; that it has survival value; that it is even fun. Ad hominem comments ("wierdos") are demeaning to you. I will be glad to reach an agreement to disagree about what Prigogine, Pask, Winograd & Flores, Maturana & Varela, McCulloch, Bateson, or anyone else has said, but I have to know >what< it is that you are disagreeing with--not just who. Bruce