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Explaining Ourselves

Started by Al Qədic, February 26, 2019, 10:52:01 PM

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The Johnny


I find it hilarious that the OPs title to that thread has changed to "An Error Has Occurred!", a testament to why im never ever saying that phrase

:lulz: :lulz: :lulz: :lulz: :lulz: :lulz: :lulz: :lulz: :lulz: :lulz: :lulz:
<<My image in some places, is of a monster of some kind who wants to pull a string and manipulate people. Nothing could be further from the truth. People are manipulated; I just want them to be manipulated more effectively.>>

-B.F. Skinner

Cramulus

A little more about the layer of reality behind our perceptions

No, Chairs do not exist

chaotic neutral observer

Quote from: Cramulus on March 19, 2019, 11:42:12 AM
A little more about the layer of reality behind our perceptions

No, Chairs do not exist

That's an interesting article, and although I find it hard to find fault with his premises, I don't think I agree with his conclusion.

There are two domains in play here, a human "conceptual space", in which we can find the idea of a chair, and a "particle space", which is an arrangement of particles and fields.  The article demonstrates (repeatedly) that there is not a well-defined one-to-one mapping between concept space and particle space.  If you cut a quarter inch off of a chair leg to level it, particle space has clearly been altered.  However, the fact that our "chair-to-particle collection" mapping persists, even when the particles have been rearranged somewhat, does not invalidate this mapping.

Human conceptual mappings are fuzzy, mutable, often inconsistent, and resist rigorous definition.  But I'm sitting on something, which obviously exists.  My brain has labelled it "chair".  Saying that the chair does not exist simply because my concept of it is not strongly coupled to the physical reality of its constituent particles doesn't make sense to me.  "Nonexistence" is for when we have a one-to-zero mapping, that is, when the concept in my head doesn't have a corresponding entity in particle space.  Once you've taken an axe to my chair, then it ceases to exist.  The particles are still there, but that particular rearrangement of them means that there's nothing for my chair-idea to map to.
Desine fata deum flecti sperare precando.

Faust

Quote from: Cramulus on March 19, 2019, 11:42:12 AM
A little more about the layer of reality behind our perceptions

No, Chairs do not exist
This is just goading people to crack him over the head with a barstool.
Sleepless nights at the chateau

hooplala

Quote from: chaotic neutral observer on March 19, 2019, 01:11:12 PM
Quote from: Cramulus on March 19, 2019, 11:42:12 AM
A little more about the layer of reality behind our perceptions

No, Chairs do not exist

That's an interesting article, and although I find it hard to find fault with his premises, I don't think I agree with his conclusion.

There are two domains in play here, a human "conceptual space", in which we can find the idea of a chair, and a "particle space", which is an arrangement of particles and fields.  The article demonstrates (repeatedly) that there is not a well-defined one-to-one mapping between concept space and particle space.  If you cut a quarter inch off of a chair leg to level it, particle space has clearly been altered.  However, the fact that our "chair-to-particle collection" mapping persists, even when the particles have been rearranged somewhat, does not invalidate this mapping.

Human conceptual mappings are fuzzy, mutable, often inconsistent, and resist rigorous definition.  But I'm sitting on something, which obviously exists.  My brain has labelled it "chair".  Saying that the chair does not exist simply because my concept of it is not strongly coupled to the physical reality of its constituent particles doesn't make sense to me.  "Nonexistence" is for when we have a one-to-zero mapping, that is, when the concept in my head doesn't have a corresponding entity in particle space.  Once you've taken an axe to my chair, then it ceases to exist.  The particles are still there, but that particular rearrangement of them means that there's nothing for my chair-idea to map to.

The article doesn't claim physical reality doesn't exist. You're still sitting on something, but it's your mind that created the category of "chair", and placed that collection of molecules into that category.

Cram once told a story about a zen master who held something up to his student. "What is this?" he asked.

The student looked it over thoughfully. "It is a pen." the student finally answered.

The zen master looked at the student. "I scratch my balls with it." the master said.
"Soon all of us will have special names" — Professor Brian O'Blivion

"Now's not the time to get silly, so wear your big boots and jump on the garbage clowns." — Bob Dylan?

"Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)"
— Walt Whitman

chaotic neutral observer

Quote from: Hoopla! on March 19, 2019, 01:50:33 PM
Quote from: chaotic neutral observer on March 19, 2019, 01:11:12 PM
Quote from: Cramulus on March 19, 2019, 11:42:12 AM
A little more about the layer of reality behind our perceptions

No, Chairs do not exist

That's an interesting article, and although I find it hard to find fault with his premises, I don't think I agree with his conclusion.

There are two domains in play here, a human "conceptual space", in which we can find the idea of a chair, and a "particle space", which is an arrangement of particles and fields.  The article demonstrates (repeatedly) that there is not a well-defined one-to-one mapping between concept space and particle space.  If you cut a quarter inch off of a chair leg to level it, particle space has clearly been altered.  However, the fact that our "chair-to-particle collection" mapping persists, even when the particles have been rearranged somewhat, does not invalidate this mapping.

Human conceptual mappings are fuzzy, mutable, often inconsistent, and resist rigorous definition.  But I'm sitting on something, which obviously exists.  My brain has labelled it "chair". Saying that the chair does not exist simply because my concept of it is not strongly coupled to the physical reality of its constituent particles doesn't make sense to me.  "Nonexistence" is for when we have a one-to-zero mapping, that is, when the concept in my head doesn't have a corresponding entity in particle space.  Once you've taken an axe to my chair, then it ceases to exist.  The particles are still there, but that particular rearrangement of them means that there's nothing for my chair-idea to map to.

The article doesn't claim physical reality doesn't exist. You're still sitting on something, but it's your mind that created the category of "chair", and placed that collection of molecules into that category.
Err...well, yes.  I thought I said as much.  I've bolded the relevant sentences above.

Quote
Cram once told a story about a zen master who held something up to his student. "What is this?" he asked.

The student looked it over thoughfully. "It is a pen." the student finally answered.

The zen master looked at the student. "I scratch my balls with it." the master said.
My claim is that both the pen and the ball-scratcher can be said to exist, since there is a real-world collection of atoms corresponding to both the master and the student's concepts.
Desine fata deum flecti sperare precando.

Cramulus

right now, I'm sitting on this thing I call a snootborg. Snootborgs are just as real as chairs.

If snootborgs are real, are gizzypumps also real? food for thought!

Quote from: chaotic neutral observer on March 19, 2019, 02:07:57 PM
My claim is that both the pen and the ball-scratcher can be said to exist, since there is a real-world collection of atoms corresponding to both the master and the student's concepts.

and the collection of atoms
and the label we put on it
exist in very different senses

our minds miss this, constantly.



In the Flintstones, cameras have this little bird inside of them. When someone opens the camera shutter, the bird looks at what's outside and pecks a slate until an image appears, which looks to him like what's outside. The bird also cracks jokes, and comments on everything.

And we're like this -- inside of our heads, five birds are constantly pecking---and that's all we've ever known of reality.

We think we are seeing reality, but it's a rough collage made by five wisecrackin' birds.



LMNO

Hold on, I got something for this...














....












:barstool:

altered

Not quite the point Cram is making.

The point Cram is making is that our ideas about what a thing /is/ are fake, human ideas. Those things don't exist, but the things they are about do.

To use the barstool experiment framework it would be using a piece of it to beat a man who insists it is a barstool and so can only be used for sitting.
"I am that worst of all type of criminal...I cannot bring myself to do what you tell me, because you told me."

There's over 100 of us in this meat-suit. You'd think it runs like a ship, but it's more like a hundred and ten angry ghosts having an old-school QuakeWorld tournament, three people desperately trying to make sure the gamers don't go hungry or soil themselves, and the Facilities manager weeping in the corner as the garbage piles high.

LMNO

I'm ok with a chair beatdown in that scenario.

Telarus

Quote from: Hoopla! on March 19, 2019, 01:50:33 PM
The article doesn't claim physical reality doesn't exist. You're still sitting on something, but it's your mind that created the category of "chair", and placed that collection of molecules into that category.

Cram once told a story about a zen master who held something up to his student. "What is this?" he asked.

The student looked it over thoughfully. "It is a pen." the student finally answered.

The zen master looked at the student. "I scratch my balls with it." the master said.

I have used the "ideal Chair"/chair paradox in my own practice. My final mantra is

IS IT STILL A CHAIR WHEN IT IS ON FIRE?!?!
Telarus, KSC,
.__.  Keeper of the Contradictory Cephalopod, Zenarchist Swordsman,
(0o)  Tender to the Edible Zen Garden, Ratcheting Metallic Sex Doll of The End Times,
/||\   Episkopos of the Amorphous Dreams Cabal

Join the Doll Underground! Experience the Phantasmagorical Safari!

The Wizard Joseph

Quote from: Telarus on March 20, 2019, 08:41:30 PM
Quote from: Hoopla! on March 19, 2019, 01:50:33 PM
The article doesn't claim physical reality doesn't exist. You're still sitting on something, but it's your mind that created the category of "chair", and placed that collection of molecules into that category.

Cram once told a story about a zen master who held something up to his student. "What is this?" he asked.

The student looked it over thoughfully. "It is a pen." the student finally answered.

The zen master looked at the student. "I scratch my balls with it." the master said.

I have used the "ideal Chair"/chair paradox in my own practice. My final mantra is

IS IT STILL A CHAIR WHEN IT IS ON FIRE?!?!

:lulz: metaphysics for pyromaniacs!
You can't get out backward.  You have to go forward to go back.. better press on! - Willie Wonka, PBUH

Life can be seen as a game with no reset button, no extra lives, and if the power goes out there is no restarting.  If that's all you see life as you are not long for this world, and never will get it.

"Ayn Rand never swung a hammer in her life and had serious dominance issues" - The Fountainhead

"World domination is such an ugly phrase. I prefer to call it world optimisation."
- Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality :lulz:

"You program the controller to do the thing, only it doesn't do the thing.  It does something else entirely, or nothing at all.  It's like voting."
- Billy, Aug 21st, 2019

"It's not even chaos anymore. It's BANAL."
- Doktor Hamish Howl

Telarus

#57
What we are talking about is the mind's ability to "abstract" (in the Korzybskian sense), that is to create a symbol and collect meaning for it based on experienced context.

The symbol exists, in the mind(s). The things we use it to refer to exist in physical reality (mostly). Here's the rub...

WE CAN ENCODE OUR SYMBOLS ONTO REALITY AND COME BACK FOR THEM LATER

Well, no. We didn't leave the actual 'symbol' there, just a bunch of scratches on the rock which trigger the symbol to re-manifest into the mind of any viewer that has had previous contextual experiences with that symbol.

A physical chair is both something we have crafted for a specific purpose, and an inherent trigger of the symbol we used as the model to craft it. My silat guru likes to theorize that the original "stone handaxe" might have been an attempt to copy the Pattern of a mega-white shark tooth found on the beach (we have been semi aquatic apes through most of our existence). But once the symbol has been passed down a few generations and people start crafting things like this "archetype hand axe" (i.e. a perfect tool-form that has NO SIGNS OF WEAR), then the symbol has evolved from "my stone shark tooth" to something else entirely. It has gained life beyond a single individual's mind.

Symbols have "historical momentum" in this way, and we have to navigate our own personal jungle of direct-experiental-context and passed-to-us-from-the-historical-momentum-context for every symbol we use.

Your ego is a symbol for the "story" you tell yourself about yourself.

The "you" sitting there now is not the "you" that was there when you opened the browser tab. It just calls itself "me" also.

(Good being back around people who actually talk about this stuff.)
*Edit: found a good link: https://mcopesblog.wordpress.com/2013/03/29/on-the-master-hand-axe-from-kathu-pan/
Telarus, KSC,
.__.  Keeper of the Contradictory Cephalopod, Zenarchist Swordsman,
(0o)  Tender to the Edible Zen Garden, Ratcheting Metallic Sex Doll of The End Times,
/||\   Episkopos of the Amorphous Dreams Cabal

Join the Doll Underground! Experience the Phantasmagorical Safari!

altered

I'll just say again that you have REALLY been missed, Telarus, and I wasn't joking about releasing the death-jackals if ever you leave again.

Amazing post.
"I am that worst of all type of criminal...I cannot bring myself to do what you tell me, because you told me."

There's over 100 of us in this meat-suit. You'd think it runs like a ship, but it's more like a hundred and ten angry ghosts having an old-school QuakeWorld tournament, three people desperately trying to make sure the gamers don't go hungry or soil themselves, and the Facilities manager weeping in the corner as the garbage piles high.

hooplala

"Soon all of us will have special names" — Professor Brian O'Blivion

"Now's not the time to get silly, so wear your big boots and jump on the garbage clowns." — Bob Dylan?

"Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)"
— Walt Whitman