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Article 5792 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: ryan@eas.gatech.edu (Ryan Mulderig)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Grounding: Real vs. Virtual (formerly "on meaning")
Message-ID: <RYAN.92May20195459@eas.gatech.edu>
Date: 20 May 92 23:54:59 GMT
Article-I.D.: eas.RYAN.92May20195459
References: <1992May20.030811.13711@mp.cs.niu.edu>
	<1992May20.150243.25894@psych.toronto.edu>
	<1992May20.191738.18644@mp.cs.niu.edu>
	<1992May20.221931.20652@news.media.mit.edu>
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Organization: Georgia Institute of Technology
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In-reply-to: minsky@media.mit.edu's message of 20 May 92 22:19:31 GMT

>>> On 20 May 92 22:19:31 GMT, minsky@media.mit.edu (Marvin Minsky) said:

MM> (Neil Rickert) writes:
>In article <1992May20.150243.25894@psych.toronto.edu> christo@psych.toronto.edu (Christopher Green) writes:


>>That is, it would never see a cat, but only the image of a cat. Thus, its
>>tokening of "cat" owuld not refer to cats.  It would never feel a scratch 
>>on its arm, but only the "image" of a scratch on its arm. 
>
>  It can be argued that you never see a cat now, either, but only the image
>of a cat.  In other words, what you perceive of vision is perhaps already
>better thought of as a virtual reality, created by the brain as a way of
>integrating input from the two eyes, perhaps from other sensory organs, and
>information from memory.

MM> Right on.  And we can go a step further; the idea of the "brain" as a
MM> unit is equally defective.  Each part of your brain is immersed in a
MM> virtual reality, whose attribute are computer by another computer
MM> called "the rest of the brain and the rest of the world".  Really
MM> guys.  Are you ever going to question the fatal assumption that foulds
MM> the history of philosophy: that idea of a Singel Central Self, which
MM> "means" and "understands" and looks out through its eyes and "sees"
MM> the world?  Gosh, I'm tired of complaining about this.

I think considering the conception of the "Single Central Self" to be
a fatal assumption fouling the history of philosphy to be unwarrented.
The conception of a self is part of what seperates higher order
animals from lower order animals. I do not belive that an amoeba has a
concecption of itself as seperate from its enviroment. I think my dog
does, and I am sure I do. Without this conception of a central self we
would have no basis underwhich to face the universe as a person. I do
not subscribe to the mind/body duality that has caused some problems
in western philosphy (but also allowed many advances), but I do hold
that my body/mind system are independant in some respects from the
surrounding universe, if only by virtue of my conception that there is a
seperation. While that may sound if I am begging the question, if I
can consider myself (whatever consider and myself may actually be
taken to mean) and act on this consideration, then that can be argued
to necessary and sufficent for me to be considered seperate from my
enironment.	

--
--
"Come away to the winds and the wild, with a fairy child hand in hand /
 For the world is more full of weeping than you can understand" - WB Yeats
----
Ryan Mulderig - College of Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology
internet: ryan@eas.gatech.edu


