On Sep 1, 5:12Â pm, Sir Frederick
fuzzysys.com> wrote:> On Mon, 1 Sep 2008 13:27:41 -0700 (PDT), Ed
earthlink.net> wrote:>>On Sep 1, 1:37Â pm, Sir Frederick
fuzzysys.com> wrote:>>> On Mon, 1 Sep 2008 10:12:42 -0700 (PDT), Ed
earthlink.net> wrote:>>>>On Sep 1, 11:45Â am, Sir Frederick
fuzzysys.com> wrote:>>>>> On Mon, 1 Sep 2008 07:58:50 -0700 (PDT), socratus
bezeqint.net>
>>>>> wrote:>
>>>>>>If  brain work like bio-computer…….
>
>>>>>>So we have three possibilities;
>
>>>>>>a) the bio- computer works by “self - organization program “
>
>>>>>>b) something manages  this bio- computer.
>
>>>>>>c) the bio- computer works : 50%% and 50%% Â (consciousness and
>>>>>>subconsciousness )
>>>>>>===============..
>>>>>>“ a “ , “ b “ or “ c “ and “ why ? “
>
>>>>> The brain is a machine that uses indirection to cast such illusions
>>>>> as "red" or "conscious" or "I". This, in the process of taking care of
>>>>> the situation.
>>>>> Human hubris and folklore have then, out of ignorance, Â
>>>>> made up and practiced in the cultures, false magical stories.
>
>>>>While I'm sympathetic to your ideas, sometimes I don't understand what
>>>>you mean.
>>>>If "the situation" involves discerning red from green, say at a
>>>>traffic light, in what sense is "red" an illusion? Â We know that the
>>>>illusion is "real" enough that people rarely are fooled into believing
>>>>the "green" light is actually "red". Â If it's an illusion it's a very
>>>>consistent and reliable illusion.
>
>>> That consistency and reliability is in the common production
>>> of human brain structure.
>>> There are various electromagnetic energies "out there",
>>> there are no "reds" or "greens" "out there".
>>> As an anecdotal experience, if I don't take enough of the right
>>> eye nutrition, I start seeing "reds" as "purples".
>>> More extreme, when my cataracts were in full bloom, everything
>>> looked yellow.
>>> There is a famous book "The Isle of the Color Blind". Through
>>> common genetic defect about twenty percent of the people on
>>> this island can not see color. During war time they were in great
>>> demand for spotting camouflages that they easily saw in shades of
>>> gray! Their eyes are just as ours, but not their brain.- Hide quoted text -
>
>>> - Show quoted text -
>
>>Okay.
>
>>Here's a wierd idea; if you give a blind man an electronic device that
>>emits different tones when pointed an different electromagnetic
>>energies it's reasonable enough for him to call one particular tone
>>"red" if you prompt him. Â You tell him that that's what most people
>>are looking at when they say "red". Â He points the device at a pinted
>>wall and, hearing the tone, says "it's red". Is this the same illusion
>>as a sighted man looking at the same wall and saying "it's red" or a
>>different illusion?
>
>>I tend not to want to call it "illusion". Â In some sense they are both
>>making a measurement, in both cases, the measuring instrumentation,
>>eye/brain in one case and device/ear/brain in the other case, can be
>>imperfect, damaged or biased. Â Like any measurement. Â I don't tend to
>>think of the results of all these observations as "illusions" even
>>though the result is never "perfect" but always has more or less
>>obsevation error. An observation or measurement can always go wrong,
>>they often do to one degree or another, but that has a different
>>conotation to me than "illusion",
>
> Then give me another word or phrase other than "illusion" or "qualia" that
> will be understood in the engineering causal sense, and
> not in any folklore magic sense. I have tended to "insane delusion", but that
> might be a bit strong or judgmental. Besides I do not trust psychology, it has
> no engineering basis.
>
> BTW your blind man will still experience the quale of "tone". There is no
> "tone" out there, only vibrating air. His culturally based verbal representation
> of that tone is not at all the same as an evolutionary based brain
> representation of retina stimulation.- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
Well, I may be missing your point, but I like "approximation".
This is all about modeling; the brain constructs a model of "what's
out there" as best it can with the data (and algorithms) available.
What you call folklore magic seems to me to come up as much when we
try to talk about aspects of the model as when we try to talk about
"what's out there". You're right that insofar as we believe that the
model is identical to "what's out there" we are deluded. On the other
hand knowing your model is imperfect does not help very much. The
Standard Model is clearly imperfect, it excludes gravity entirely, but
it's the most accurate model ever produced in its own domain; knowing
that's it's incomplete has not helped theorists improve it. Models
are useful because they simplify the incredible complexity of what's
out there, that necessarily means that the picture derived from them
is "an illusion". Presumably only a brain that could process the full
complexity of the entire Universe in real time would ever be free of
"illusion".
