The impenetrability of the consciousness of others

[Xamonas Chegwé]

No. We know that crisps would taste the same, or similarly to, anyone with a healthy functioning taste... err... system... (oh shut up) because it would operate similarly at a biological level. The only way it would taste different, all conditions being the same, is if somehow magic determined the taste of food.

Not magic. Psychology and brain physiology. Stroke victims often find that foods that they loved are disgusting to them following their involuntary brain realignment. Similarly, people under hypnosis can be made to eat brussels sprouts, thinking they are chocolates.

While the objective chemical makeup of the foods is not changed, our subjective perception of 'flavour' certainly can be. If we discard solipsism (which I tend to do) then we are left with the fact that the outside universe exists BUT we cannot deny that it we are only perceiving the parts of it that our evolved senses are capable of perceiving, interpreted by the evolved synapses of our brains in order to provide us with an impression of its reality - never the totality of it.

[Trolldor]

No. We know that crisps would taste the same, or similarly to, anyone with a healthy functioning taste... err... system... (oh shut up) because it would operate similarly at a biological level. The only way it would taste different, all conditions being the same, is if somehow magic determined the taste of food.

Not magic. Psychology and brain physiology. Stroke victims often find that foods that they loved are disgusting to them following their involuntary brain realignment. Similarly, people under hypnosis can be made to eat brussels sprouts, thinking they are chocolates.

While the objective chemical makeup of the foods is not changed, our subjective perception of 'flavour' certainly can be. If we discard solipsism (which I tend to do) then we are left with the fact that the outside universe exists BUT we cannot deny that it we are only perceiving the parts of it that our evolved senses are capable of perceiving, interpreted by the evolved synapses of our brains in order to provide us with an impression of its reality - never the totality of it.

So what you're saying is... our biology affects what we take in?

But we don't create anything, nor do we project it.
We do see 'reality' though. That we can't see in four dimensions doesn't make our three dimensions any less substantial. They are objectively real, they objectively exist, with all the depths and widths and heights that we've come to know and love. If they didn't objectively exist, we wouldn't have evolved to see them.

Similarly, people under hypnosis can be made to eat brussels sprouts, thinking they are chocolates.

As for this, not likely EDIT: under real hypnosis. Some people can, under show pony hypnosis, if they are susceptible to suggestion and easily manipulated, can be made to eat brussel sprouts thinking they are chocolate. All conditions being the same, someone else would eat brussel sprouts thinking they are chocolates. You change a variable we would expect a different result, but you keep the variables the same we would expect the same result.

The 'subjective universe' ideology argues that, all conditions being the same, we should STILL expect a different result or that, all conditions being the same, the result is still indeterminate.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

My point was that the 'taste' of anything is as much a product of our minds as it is of the chemistry of that thing. Sugar is NOT sweet. Our tastebuds and brains have evolved in unison so that we perceive sugar as sweet (because it is useful to us evolutionarily to have a reward for seeking out highly calorific foods) but the very concept of sweetness is nothing but an human conceit. Sweetness does not exist outside of our brains and, by extension, our collectively agreed definitions.

As far as the world being as we perceive it because we have evolved to perceive it that way goes, that is rather human-centered, don't you think? The parts of the world that we can perceive are those that are useful to us in terms of survival and reproduction - nothing more. We cannot perceive ultra-violet radiation directly. We perceive the Earth as flat and the sky as 'up' despite the fact that we know that we live on the surface of a sphere. We can distinguish a large amount of different chemicals by 'smell' but others are odourless to us for no other reason than that we have not had any evolutionary pressure to be able to recognise that particular chemical.

What we see, hear, taste, smell and feel as 'the world' is really just a human-centric slice through a far richer reality.

[Trolldor]

As far as the world being as we perceive it because we have evolved to perceive it that way goes, that is rather human-centered, don't you think?

That's not my position. We evolved to see what was already there. We don't see three dimensions because we evolved to see three dimensions. We evolved to see three dimensions because there are three dimensions, because somewhere in our evolutionary history a creature's perspective stumbled in to those pre-existing three dimensions and it stuck. We could (maybe) have seen more or less, but we don't. We just happen to see in three dimensions. All conditions being the same, two people would see the same three dimensions. The same width, height and depth.

but the very concept of sweetness is nothing but an human conceit.

Considering that our ancestors are likely to have had similar behaving tastebuds, unlikely to be a human concept. "Sweetness" is an objective, not a subjective, phenomena because it is dependant upon a set of conditions that, if altered, change the outcome. Sweetness would be 'subjective' if it were personal deliberation, in other words "From what I can see, I have decided that I will find this sweet" as opposed to "It is sweet, therefore I percieve it to be." The latter we find to be the predominant case, and where it differs we can attribute that differentiation to a change in the variables. Sugar IS sweet, objectively. There has to be something in the sugar which reacts with us. We didn't "invent" sweetness, we evolved to detect that particular quality already present.

What we see, hear, taste, smell and feel as 'the world' is really just a human-centric slice through a far richer reality.

Again, not human-centric at all. We evolved from some primordial ooze (or mineral[Or both]) exposed to these elements. Well over a billion years to reach where we are, conditioned by our surrounding environment. The birth of the colour blue didn't begin because modern man decided to "project" or "create" blue. Objectively, blue has always existed. That particular place on the spectrum had always been there. We evolved to detect what was already present in our environment. We didn't fabricate our environment, it shaped us.

The parts of the world that we can perceive are those that are useful to us in terms of survival and reproduction - nothing more.

I never said otherwise, but even so that's not necessarily true, there may be 'incidental' awareness of some aspects as a result of the importance of others. Not much survival value in 3D illusion pictures is there? Nevertheless the way our eyes evolved allow us to see them.

[JimC]

My point was that the 'taste' of anything is as much a product of our minds as it is of the chemistry of that thing. Sugar is NOT sweet. Our tastebuds and brains have evolved in unison so that we perceive sugar as sweet (because it is useful to us evolutionarily to have a reward for seeking out highly calorific foods) but the very concept of sweetness is nothing but an human conceit. Sweetness does not exist outside of our brains and, by extension, our collectively agreed definitions.

As far as the world being as we perceive it because we have evolved to perceive it that way goes, that is rather human-centered, don't you think? The parts of the world that we can perceive are those that are useful to us in terms of survival and reproduction - nothing more. We cannot perceive ultra-violet radiation directly. We perceive the Earth as flat and the sky as 'up' despite the fact that we know that we live on the surface of a sphere. We can distinguish a large amount of different chemicals by 'smell' but others are odourless to us for no other reason than that we have not had any evolutionary pressure to be able to recognise that particular chemical.

What we see, hear, taste, smell and feel as 'the world' is really just a human-centric slice through a far richer reality.

Now, I can agree with you to a certain point. When a human tastes sugar (certain brain-damaged individuals aside), it produces a certain internal state, which we label as the experience of sweet. This is not a direct, mechanical picture of a sucrose molecule, for example, but a qualia.

However, it is a fairly consistent mechanism amongst virtually all humans, involving the correct identification of a range of high calorie small-molecule carbohydrates. We can also asses the relative concentrations effectively. All humans (damaged individuals aside) are participating in a common process of identifying an important feature of the environment, and we can give the experience consistent symbols. If qualia can be consistently correlated with a given environmental variable, and consistently labelled by those who experience it, then we have a lot of commonality; only to be expected within a single species with a common genetic heritage...

Now, if we ever get talking to an alien, intelligence race, then the search for commonality in qualia would be a lot harder...

As to your last point about a reality far richer than immediate sensation can perceive, it is the triumph of scvience to have fleshed out our basic, personal model of the Universe in a way that is internally consistent and self-correcting.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

As far as the world being as we perceive it because we have evolved to perceive it that way goes, that is rather human-centered, don't you think?

That's not my position. We evolved to see what was already there.

Wrong! We evolved to see what was evolutionarily useful to us - nothing more. Evolution had no interest in showing us 'reality'. Sweet is sweet to us because sucrose is an excellent source of quick, easily utilisable energy. Mulberry leaves probably taste sweet to sikworms and shit probably tastes sweet to dung beetles.

Sweetness is NOT an objective property of the sugar anymore than it is a property of shit, it is a purely subjective, wholly internal response to foodstuffs that our brains (via the nerves attached to our tastebuds) identify as high in saccharides. It is a reward mechanism for seeking out things that help us to survive and have the energy to fuck. And our brains can be fooled in this respect - saccharine and aspartame have no calorific or nutritional value but they trigger the same receptors to a far greater extent than any sugar compound - brain damage can cause the signals to get mixed up and make sugar taste disgusting to us - it can even result in ageusia, a complete loss of taste (as experienced by Country & Western fans.)

[Trolldor]

1 - "What was evolutionarily useful to us" has to, objectively, exist in order to be evolutionarily useful. Therefore, we evolved to see what was already there.

You don't seem to understand my argument, or the argument I am refuting. The claim is that the Universe is a subjective projection or creation of the human mind. My argument is that is a load of pretentious cadswallop, that our perception is a result of the Environment impacting on our evolutionary development. You are saying what I have already said.

2 - How we detect sweetness doesn't change the fact that the particular trait of sugar which causes us to find it sweet has to objectively exist. We didn't invent sweetness, we merely detect it in a particular fashion. That we detect it only comes about because there is an objective trait of sugar to detect as sweetness, hence why sweetness objectively exists.

brain damage can cause the signals to get mixed up and make sugar taste disgusting to us - it can even result in ageusia, a complete loss of taste (as experienced by Country & Western fans.)

...and as I have repeatedly stated that a change in variables would produce a different conclusion. The loss of taste is a result of a change in the variables. That trait of 'sweetness' in sugar still exists, you are simply unable to detect it.

[JimC]

TMH wrote:

...Therefore, we evolved to see what was already there....

I'll just concentrate on this bit...

Firstly, I (and I don't think XC either) dont dispute the existence of an objective, material Universe. The point is that we did not evolve to see it in any complete way, simply we evolved to perceive as much of it as would be pragmatically useful, and that would fit into the budget of energy and processing power we have to spare.

Now I happen to think that this perception provides enough material for an internal model of the universe which is a reasonable approximation in most circumstances, and also a model which is broadly similar in most adults without specific cognitive defects.

However, there are circumstances where the model we derive is a poor match for the reality, in ways which tell us useful things about the quick and dirty approximations our cognitive processes often make. The whole scientific method, in many ways, is designed to broaden our collective human model of the universe and how it works by systematically removing some of the ways our unaided senses and intuition can be fooled. Importantly, it is a shared, communal activity, so the model is not the property of priests or rulers, but the property of all humans with an appreciation of rational thought.

[Trolldor]

The point is that we did not evolve to see it in any complete way

I never argued that. I simply argued that it was a pre-existing Environment that shaped our perception, not our perception which shaped the environment.

[mistermack]

For most situations, I celebrate the fact that I don't know the minds of others. The little things that make life worth living come from the different way that others see the world. Children come out with real gems, and so do my friends. Predictable is boring.
If I knew what kind of things they were going to say, why would I talk to my friends? Why would I read stuff on Rationalia?
It's different views on the world that make human interaction a pleasure.

Where would be the excitement in trying it on with a member of the opposite sex, if you already knew they were interested? Or definitely not interested?
Life would be incredibly dull.
.

[Trolldor]

Things are predictable, you've centred your entire life around the predictable. You make evalutations and act accordingly, everybody does. Anyone who says they live with the unpredictable is... well, predictable.

[Coito ergo sum]

I utterly loathe that whole philosophy. It reeks of woo and metaphysics, with remnants of that human-centric perspective, as if somehow the Univere's shape is contingent upon Man's recognition of it.

The universe existed long before our primoridal ooze stumbled in to self-replication. We evolved to see what was already there.

I'll go you one further.... we didn't evolve "to" see anything at all.

We evolved.

We see.

But, our eyesight, and other senses, were not evolved "to" see what was already there. We evolved sight, "and" we see what was already there. Using the word "to" implies some sort of purpose or reason for why we evolved. There is no why. We just did evolve. If an asteroid hit us 400 million years ago and knocked Earth 30 million miles closer to the sun, we'd never have evolved, and the universe would still be here.

[JimC]

I utterly loathe that whole philosophy. It reeks of woo and metaphysics, with remnants of that human-centric perspective, as if somehow the Univere's shape is contingent upon Man's recognition of it.

The universe existed long before our primoridal ooze stumbled in to self-replication. We evolved to see what was already there.

I'll go you one further.... we didn't evolve "to" see anything at all.

We evolved.

We see.

But, our eyesight, and other senses, were not evolved "to" see what was already there. We evolved sight, "and" we see what was already there. Using the word "to" implies some sort of purpose or reason for why we evolved. There is no why. We just did evolve. If an asteroid hit us 400 million years ago and knocked Earth 30 million miles closer to the sun, we'd never have evolved, and the universe would still be here.

I think you are misinterpreting the use of "evolve to" As used by TMH, I didn't take it as "purposeful change towards", which would indeed be an incorrect picture of the stochastic nature of evolutionary process. However, we can interpret our collection of senses, and the cognitive processes which collate sensory information into a model of the external world, as a suite of adaptations to respond effectively to a dangerous and tricky external reality.

[Clinton Huxley]

I think Arthur C. Clarke opined that even if you could somehow wire yourself up to the brain of a puma or a penguin or a pangolin you would not be able to make any sense of the input. I wonder.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

I think Arthur C. Clarke opined that even if you could somehow wire yourself up to the brain of a puma or a penguin or a 19th century aristocrat you would not be able to make any sense of the input. I wonder.