>>Glen: If perception requires copies, then how is it that we
>>perceive the copies? Putting the world inside the
>>head is no explanation of perception.
>>IAN: Well, we do perceive data inside our brain and
>I suspect we can agree that that's what happens
>when you are dreaming during sleep. Exactly how
>that happens is a deeper issue than that which I've
>addressed in my essay:
>http://users.erols.com/igoddard/paranorm.htm>>Glen: No, we don't perceive "data inside our brain."
>We "must do something else with it" since
>perceiving requires copies.
IAN: If no data in the brain is perceived,
then where do you perceive your dreams?
Glen: I should have added above: "An related
question is whether or not it makes sense to say that
activity of the nervous system is 'data.'" It is data if
you are a neuroscientist measuring aspects of the
nervous system, but not if you are the person in
whom the neural activity is occurring. Just like
copies - it is whole humans that "use data." To talk
about a part of the brain "doing" what a whole
person is said to do (like "see" or "use data" or "use
information") doesn't get us any closer to a solution
than we were since it is the nature of "seeing" etc.
after which we inquire. We must answer the
question "What is seeing?" before it makes sense to
ask "Where is seeing?" or, indeed, if it makes any
sense to even ask "Where is seeing?"
IAN: I guess you're saying that during dreaming
your brain has not modeled a simulated
world you inhabit in a simulated body.
Glen: Right. I would say that during dreams one is
behaving, and that to some extent we observe our
own behavior. There is a lot more that I could say
here concerning how it is we come to observe our
own behavior, and the relation of this to behavioral
neurobiology, but I will not pursue that at present.
>IAN: The claim that we see anything outside of our
>brain is automatically refuted by the physical fact
>that you can't perceive a thing before data radiating
>from it has reached and entered your brain.
>>Glen: This is nonsense. But I don't expect you to
>understand, and I do not expect you to even attempt
>to understand.
IAN: So why don't you explain how an observer can
see, for example, a super nova before photons from
that super nova have reached the observer's brain?
Maybe by dialing the Psychic Friends Network? :)
Glen: The photons don't reach the brain (except in
the sense that they impinge on the retina), nor does a
copy of them. For the ancient Greeks, perception
was a kind of reaching out to an object and
embracing it, because they couldn't understand the
propagation of light and sound. I don't have that
problem.
>IAN: Given that all perceived data is inside the brain,
>it follows that all you perceive is in your brain,
>and is a representation of the unseen external world.
>>Glen: Who has "given" this? The notion that the
>world somehow penetrates the person is the worse
>thing that ever happened to psychology, philosophy,
>and neurobiology.
IAN: It sounds like the representational model
of perception challenges your world paradigm.
Glen: It "challenges" it only in the sense that it is
"opposed" to it. The "representational model" is the
easiest thing in the world to understand, and it is the
view held by most professionals and lay people alike.
Most people who reject representationalism almost
always once held a representationalist view. Any
psychologist, philosopher, or neurobiologist has
been extensively indoctrinated. Thus, almost always,
and as in my case, it is some other view that
successfully challenges representationalism, not the
other way around.
IAN: It also challenged mine, but because I was not
able to explain how you can perceive data before
it enters your brain, I modified my world paradigm.
The result was a model that explains many
anomalies.
Glen: As I have pointed out, the problem with
representationalism is not the locus of what is seen
but, rather, "What is 'seeing?'" When we talk about
the brain, or parts of the brain, using the same
terminology that we use to describe the behavior of
the whole person, we create a homunculism and an
infinite regress:
P1: Seeing requires copies (in the brain or mind).
P2: We don't see the "real world," we see copies (in
the brain or mind).
If seeing requires copies, then we cannot "see" the
copy, for that (by P1) would require a copy. Seeing
this copy would, obviously, require another copy.
Your only recourse is to say that "seeing a copy in
the brain" is different than the kind of seeing said to
require a copy. The strategy, then, is to say that
"Well, we just don't know the nature of the kind of
seeing that takes place that doesn't require a copy."
But if there is a kind of "seeing" that doesn't require
copies, then why can't the whole-organism seeing
that we are trying to explain be of that sort?!?!?
Surely the problem can't be the issue of how energy
from the stimulus reaches us.....even if some of us
are Greek, we can leave this problem to antiquity for
it is a problem of physics, not psychology.
Cordially,
Glen
"Ian Goddard" <igoddard at erols.mom> wrote in message
news:39c78083.28396309 at news.erols.com...
> On Tue, 19 Sep 2000 09:08:36 GMT, "Glen M. Sizemore"
> <gmsizemore at triad.rr.com> wrote:
>> >>If perception requires copies, then how is it that we
> >>perceive the copies? Putting the world inside the
> >>head is no explanation of perception.
> >
> >IAN: Well, we do perceive data inside our brain and
> >I suspect we can agree that that's what happens
> >when you are dreaming during sleep. Exactly how
> >that happens is a deeper issue than that which I've
> >addressed in my essay:
> >http://users.erols.com/igoddard/paranorm.htm> >
> >Glen: No, we don't perceive "data inside our brain."
> >We "must do something else with it" since
> >perceiving requires copies.
>>> IAN: If no data in the brain is perceived,
> then where do you perceive your dreams? I
> guess you're saying that during dreaming
> your brain has not modeled a simulated
> world you inhabit in a simulated body.
>>> >IAN: The claim that we see anything outside of our
> >brain is automatically refuted by the physical fact
> >that you can't perceive a thing before data radiating
> >from it has reached and entered your brain.
> >
> >Glen: This is nonsense. But I don't expect you to
> >understand, and I do not expect you to even attempt
> >to understand.
>>> IAN: So why don't you explain how an observer can
> see, for example, a super nova before photons from
> that super nova have reached the observer's brain?
> Maybe by dialing the Psychic Friends Network? :)
>>> >IAN: Given that all perceived data is inside the brain,
> >it follows that all you perceive is in your brain,
> >and is a representation of the unseen external world.
> >
> >Glen: Who has "given" this? The notion that the
> >world somehow penetrates the person is the worse
> >thing that ever happened to psychology, philosophy,
> >and neurobiology.
>>> IAN: It sounds like the representational model
> of perception challenges your world paradigm.
> It also challenged mine, but because I was not
> able to explain how you can perceive data before
> it enters your brain, I modified my world paradigm.
> The result was a model that explains many anomalies.
>> ************************************************************
> Visit Ian Williams Goddard --> http://www.erols.com/igoddard> ------------------------------------------------------------
> (+) Something can come from nothing, if, and only if, (-)
> (-) that something is equal to nothing ((-)+(+) = 0). (+)
> ____________________________________________________________
> "[I]n any closed universe the negative gravitational energy
> cancels the energy of matter exactly. The total energy, or
> equivalently the total mass, is precisely equal to zero."
>> - + - + Dr. Alan Guth (The Inflationary Universe) + - + -
>