bhw@aifh.ed.ac.uk (Barbara H. Webb (Phd 89)) (06/17/91)
In article <1991Jun16.083632.1383@tygra.Michigan.COM> dave@tygra.Michigan.COM (David Conrad) writes: >Bertrand Russell has a fascinating discussion of all this in his book >_The_Problems_of_Philosophy_. He concludes that we cannot know anything >about objects in the world directly, but only indirectly. The only things >we can have direct knowledge of are our sensations. Our knowledge of >objects must always be indirect. Actually, in addition to our perceptions >we are also directly aware of abstract concepts, which Russell terms >'Universals'. E.g. I am aware of my sensation of seeing this keyboard >in front of me, and touching it, and hearing the keys click, but I cannot >be *aware* of the existance of the keyboard; I can only infer its existance. What is 'knowing' or 'being aware of' if it is not the process of sensing or percieving something? If you _have_ the sensation of seeing your keyboard, then you are aware of your keyboard (directly) rather than aware of your sensation. What you describe solves the problem of _how_ awareness occurs, not by finding the processes underlying it, but by moving the entire problem back one step - the senses project the outside world onto a video screen inside our heads and the little man inside our head 'knows directly' what he sees there, and infers that it reflects some real scene going on outside the head. This is not much help to a science of cognition, because we don't how the little man manages his 'direct awareness' any more than we knew how we were aware of the world in the first place. >Additionally, we are aware of universals, such as '1+1=2'. There is no >greater knowledge of it attainable than that which the mind apprehends >immediately. To use an example which was brought up before, we may doubt >that Bogota is actually the capital of Columbia, or that there is even a >city named Bogota, and we might seek to go to Columbia to see the city for >ourselves. (We would still have no direct knowledge of Bogota, but our own >sensory perceptions are presumably more trustworthy than our perceptions of >the writing which is supposed to record the sensory observations of persons >not personally known to us.) But what on earth could it mean to "go and >see the *real* '1+1=2'"? Easy. It means picking up one apple and then picking up another apple and then counting how many apples you have and finding you have two of them. Numbers exist in reality, so we can 'go and see' them (and hence, as above, know them) without their having the special status of being abstract concepts that the little man inside 'knows directly'. >David R. Conrad >dave@michigan.com Barbara Webb bhw@aifh.ed.edu.uk
sjb@piobe.austin.ibm.com (Scott J Brickner) (06/19/91)
In article <1991Jun17.144356.21450@aifh.ed.ac.uk>, bhw@aifh.ed.ac.uk (Barbara H. Webb (Phd 89)) writes: > What is 'knowing' or 'being aware of' if it is not the process of > sensing or percieving something? If you _have_ the sensation of seeing > your keyboard, then you are aware of your keyboard (directly) rather > than aware of your sensation. What you describe solves the problem of > _how_ awareness occurs, not by finding the processes underlying it, but by > moving the entire problem back one step - the senses project the outside > world onto a video screen inside our heads and the little man inside our > head 'knows directly' what he sees there, and infers that it reflects > some real scene going on outside the head. This is not much help to a > science of cognition, because we don't how the little man manages his > 'direct awareness' any more than we knew how we were aware of the world in > the first place. > [...] > Barbara Webb > bhw@aifh.ed.edu.uk But Barbara, what happens in your system for border-line cases? Say optical illusion... we've all seen the one where a diagram something like this: >--< <--> is drawn, and we are asked, which line is longer? While a ruler shows that they are really identical, the eye disagrees... by your system, the mind knows what the eye sees directly... therefore right up until you put down the ruler, one line IS longer than the other. But using the method of "moving the entire problem back one step", the "little man" doesn't think that the length of the line changes (or perhaps it's the length of the ruler that changes?) when he puts down the ruler to measure... he just thinks that the information provided by the senses (on the "video screen inside our heads") was somehow faulty. I think that this fits better with the way we really DO think... don't you? Scott
dave@tygra.Michigan.COM (David Conrad) (06/19/91)
In article <1991Jun17.144356.21450@aifh.ed.ac.uk> bhw@aifh.ed.ac.uk (Barbara H. Webb (Phd 89)) writes: >In article <1991Jun16.083632.1383@tygra.Michigan.COM> dave@tygra.Michigan.COM (David Conrad) writes: > >>Bertrand Russell has a fascinating discussion of all this in his book >>_The_Problems_of_Philosophy_. He concludes that we cannot know anything >>about objects in the world directly, but only indirectly. The only things >>we can have direct knowledge of are our sensations. Our knowledge of >>objects must always be indirect. Actually, in addition to our perceptions >>we are also directly aware of abstract concepts, which Russell terms >>'Universals'. E.g. I am aware of my sensation of seeing this keyboard >>in front of me, and touching it, and hearing the keys click, but I cannot >>be *aware* of the existance of the keyboard; I can only infer its existance. > >What is 'knowing' or 'being aware of' if it is not the process of >sensing or percieving something? If you _have_ the sensation of seeing >your keyboard, then you are aware of your keyboard (directly) rather >than aware of your sensation. What you describe solves the problem of >_how_ awareness occurs, not by finding the processes underlying it, but by >moving the entire problem back one step - the senses project the outside >world onto a video screen inside our heads and the little man inside our >head 'knows directly' what he sees there, and infers that it reflects >some real scene going on outside the head. This is not much help to a >science of cognition, because we don't how the little man manages his >'direct awareness' any more than we knew how we were aware of the world in >the first place. > This is all true, but not what I was talking about. By 'aware' I was not referring to consciousness, but to knowledge of the existence of an object. My seeing the keyboard does not necessarily mean that any keyboard exists. An example from my own experience: a friend of mine who was working in an optics lab at the University of Michigan showed me a small not-quite-round ceramic ball which had a penny sitting on top of it. I saw the penny. I reached for the penny. My fingers passed right through the penny. There was no penny there. (The inside of the 'ball' was mirrored, and the real penny which was 'causing' the image was sitting at the bottom.) I was not aware of the penny. No penny had influenced my nervous system. Indeed, no penny ever could. Some photons had hit my retina in a way which all my previous experience led me to believe meant "there's a penny," but there wasn't, at least, not where I thought there was. In a world where our own knowledge of objects is so problematic, the question "how can any two people know that they are referring to the same object," (remember, that was the original question) seems to be somewhat naive. How can *one* person be sure what object in the real world his or her thoughts refer to? My thoughts referred to "the penny on top of the ball," but there was no such referrant. So we cannot even hope to ask how *two* people can be sure they're referring to the same object. It seems obvious that there are only degrees of "thinking that the other person may be referring to the same object as me." Bertrand Russell, as I mentioned before, has a very readable and interesting discussion of perceptions, objects, Solipsism, and much more in his book _The_Problems_of_Philosophy_. David R. Conrad dave@michigan.com -- = CAT-TALK Conferencing Network, Computer Conferencing and File Archive = - 1-313-343-0800, 300/1200/2400/9600 baud, 8/N/1. New users use 'new' - = as a login id. AVAILABLE VIA PC-PURSUIT!!! (City code "MIDET") = E-MAIL Address: dave@Michigan.COM
bhw@aifh.ed.ac.uk (Barbara H. Webb (Phd 89)) (06/19/91)
In article <8570@awdprime.UUCP> sjb@piobe.austin.ibm.com writes: > >In article <1991Jun17.144356.21450@aifh.ed.ac.uk>, bhw@aifh.ed.ac.uk >> What is 'knowing' or 'being aware of' if it is not the process of >> sensing or percieving something? If you _have_ the sensation of seeing >> your keyboard, then you are aware of your keyboard (directly) rather >> than aware of your sensation... >> Barbara Webb >> bhw@aifh.ed.edu.uk > >But Barbara, what happens in your system for border-line cases? Say >optical illusion... we've all seen the one where a diagram something like this: > > >--< <--> > >is drawn, and we are asked, which line is longer? While a ruler shows >that they are really identical, the eye disagrees... by your system, the >mind knows what the eye sees directly... therefore right up until you >put down the ruler, one line IS longer than the other. But using the >method of "moving the entire problem back one step", the "little man" >doesn't think that the length of the line changes (or perhaps it's the >length of the ruler that changes?) when he puts down the ruler to >measure... he just thinks that the information provided by the senses >(on the "video screen inside our heads") was somehow faulty. I think >that this fits better with the way we really DO think... don't you? > >Scott But Scott, I didn't say that what we can be directly aware of was not limited by the inaccuracies and idiosyncracies of the mechanisms that underly our awareness. If two (ordinary) lines differ in length by a fraction of a millimeter, then we need to use different behaviour (taking careful measurements) to distinguish which is longer than in the case where they differ by a centimeter, because we know our unaided eye isn't up to making the distinction. Optical illusions are more surprising cases of the same thing - the mechanism of sensing that allows us to be aware of what's out there has lots of short-cuts built in which manifest themselves this way. I don't think the 'video screen' version fits at all well with the way we really do think. How does the little man know that the mechanism (whatever it is) that allows him to be aware of what's on the screen is completely trustworthy and not subject to illusions? As I said before, it's not a first step in explaining how we manage to be aware of the world, it just pushes the whole problem deeper inside the head (so we can conveniently assume that we don't have to worry about it yet). Barbara.
thomas@ckgp.UUCP (Michael Thomas) (06/20/91)
In article <1991Jun17.144356.21450@aifh.ed.ac.uk>, bhw@aifh.ed.ac.uk (Barbara H. Webb (Phd 89)) writes: > What is 'knowing' or 'being aware of' if it is not the process of > sensing or percieving something? If you _have_ the sensation of seeing > your keyboard, then you are aware of your keyboard (directly) rather > than aware of your sensation. What you describe solves the problem of > _how_ awareness occurs, not by finding the processes underlying it, but by > moving the entire problem back one step - the senses project the outside > world onto a video screen inside our heads and the little man inside our > head 'knows directly' what he sees there, and infers that it reflects > some real scene going on outside the head. This is not much help to a > science of cognition, because we don't how the little man manages his > 'direct awareness' any more than we knew how we were aware of the world in > the first place. > [...] > Barbara Webb > bhw@aifh.ed.edu.uk I don't feel that you are using the right when when you say awareness. If all you mean by saying that you are aware, is that you are receiving the stimulus then you are "directly" aware of all stimulus which goes to your brain. I see that you are trying to make a point as to if you are aware of the object because of the OBJECT or because of the STIMULUS then that isn't even a question! You can't SEE a chair or a keyboard! The only thing that you can SEE is the light reflected (or refracted) off of an object! Your eyes can not detect wood or platic or metal JUST light! So what is my point? Well, that brings me to another comment...You then go on to say that our senses project the outside world into a video screen inside our heads and a little man inside sees the images. PLEASE, your just repeating the first problem... The brain can NOT see. the brain can only work with stimulus. Are you directly aware of being burned? No. Are you directly aware of sound? No. If you are blind you never will understand the sensation of sight. I say this losesly because if you have every work with someone blind you know that they usually can see some component: Depth of processing, as the stimulus works its way to the back of the brain to the visual cortex information is extracted, like light and dark, lines, size, location and the such (not in that order.) Now the point: If the question is are you receiving stimulus or not, well yes you are. If the question is do you see the object? the answer is no you see the light (a left is green because that is the only color that it doesn't obsorb...) If the question is you being metally aware that the object exists, well yes because if it didn't you wouldn't get stimulus in the first place. NOW, what I truely think the question is: Do you experience the object directly or indirectly? NOPE! 8^) The brain can't see,hear, touch taste or smell or anything else. and if my greatest defense is that the brain doesn't contain any sensory neurons, then fine. SO EVERYTHING IS EXPERIENCED INDIRECTLY. MY POINT: the only thing the mind is aware of directly is ITSELF! 8^) Note: everything was said with a smile! Thanks for listening... -- Thank you, Michael Thomas (..uunet!ckgp!thomas)
rick@xing (Richard Ottolini) (06/21/91)
Awareness is hard to define. Look at the thrashing in this newsgroup. I suggest considering the more measurable quality of "attention". At the sensation and perception level, the parameters of attention have been measured for time & space resolution, persistence, multipleness, etc. Each sense and level of mental activity has a little different range of attention. For example, hearing has the highest time resolution on the order of milliseconds between stimuli. The persistence or "nowness" of a sound sensation is a good fraction of a second. We can focus on that single conversation at a cocktail party or listen to several, but not a large number of, canversations at a time. Vision, touch, smell, muscular coordination, etc. have different parameters. Of interest is "meta-attention", that of non-perceptual mental acitivities. Like for example, memory studies have determined that we can keep about seven abstractions in short term memory at time. There is the sense of "I-ness" when we direct attention to one main stream of tasks. Then there is dissociation where one part of the brain stands back and watches what is happening elsewhere. Then you can see the cacophony of Marvin's mental agents at work. Meditation practices and sometimes mind-altering drugs seek to junp between sharp attentive focus and disassociation to strengthen control over the mind. As to whether human-mental models of attention is a good model for computer attention or awareness, or vice-versa, is another question. The "blackboard" types of expert systems have some focus of attention, that is neither single threaded nor massively diverse. Marvin's society of agents is a relevant model too. Have there been any interesting recent computer experiments along this line? -Rick Ottolini (Hiding in industry after 18 years of lurking around Stanford and MIT.)