Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!XEROX.COM!hayes.pa From: hayes.pa@XEROX.COM Newsgroups: comp.ai.digest Subject: Re: Consensus and Reality, Consensus and Reality Message-ID: <19880613194929.5.NICK@INTERLAKEN.LCS.MIT.EDU> Date: 13 Jun 88 19:49:00 GMT Sender: daemon@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU Organization: The Internet Lines: 71 Approved: ailist@ai.ai.mit.edu Date: Fri, 10 Jun 88 21:22 EDT From: hayes.pa@Xerox.COM Subject: Re: Consensus and Reality, Consensus and Reality In-reply-to: "Bruce E. Nevin" 's message of Fri, 10 Jun 88 08:16:19 EDT To: bnevin@cch.bbn.com In-Reply-To: your message of 10 June 88 08:16 EDT cc: hayes.pa@Xerox.COM, ailist@ai.ai.mit.edu, jmc@sail.stanford.edu, bn@cch.bbn.com OK, my last communication on this topic, I swear. I absolutely agree that the internal representation ( LofT ) is different from the languages of communication ( I suspect profoundly different, in fact ). I had a remark to that effect in the first draft of my last note, but removed it as it seemed to be aside from the point. Oddly enough, I am more impressed by the way in which speakers of different languages can communiate so easily, ie by the apparent unity of LofT in the face of an external babel; whereas you seem to be more impressed with the opposite: BN> Different paradigms do exist in science, different BN> predilections in philosophy, though the same BN> natural language be spoken so perhaps we are still disagreeing: but let that pass. Of course its not obvious that all the terms we use are learned: I tend to think that many cant be ( eg enough about spatial relationships to recognise a visual cliff, and see T. Bowers work ). I was trying to lean over as far as I could in the `social' direction, and pass you an olive branch. But let me pass again to the central point of difficulty: BN> No, I only want to establish agreement that we are BN> NOT talking about some 'absolute Reality' (Ding an BN> Sich), whatever the hell that is. That we are constrained BN> to talking about something much less absolute. That BN> is the point. My point was that there is no NEED to establish agreement: that in saying that the world is real, and that ( for example ) the CRT in front of ( the same one, by the way ) really is a CRT, I am not claiming that the DinganSich is CRT-shaped: I dont find the concept of an ultimate Reality ( your term ) useful or perhaps even coherent: Im just talking about the ordinary world we all inhabit. This `absolute', `ultimate' talk is yours, not mine. I feel a little as though you had come up with an accusing air and told me forcefully that we CANT refer to Froodle; and when I assured you that I had no intention of talking about Froodle, you replied rather sternly that that was all right then, just so long as we agreed that Froodle was unmentionable. I am in a double bind: if I disagree you will keep on arguing with me; but if I agree, then it seems that I agree with your strange 19th-century views about the Ultimate: BN> ...you and I agree that we do not and cannot know BN> what is "really Real" No: I dont think this talk is useful. In agreeing that all our beliefs are expressed in a framework and that it doesnt make sense to imagine that we could somehow avoid this, I am not agreeing that we can never get to what is really real: Im saying that this idea of a reality which is somehow more absolute than ordinary reality is just smoke. I DO think that we can know what is really real, that some of our beliefs can be true: REALLY true, that is, true so that no reality could make them truer, as absolutely and ultimately true as it is possible to be. They are true when the world is in fact the way they claim it to be, thats all. AS for ad hominem, well, Im afraid Im getting tired. As far as I can discover, there isnt anything in Winograd and Flores ( I refer to the book ), McCulloch ( on this sort of topic, not his technical work ) or Bateson which is sharp enough to be worth arguing about. I confess to not having read recent Pask, or any Prigogine or Manturana & Varela: but there are only so many hours in a day, and so many days in a life, and the odds that I will find anything interesting there seem to me to be low. OK, no more from Pat on this topic.