From: Scott Roberts (jse885@cox.net)
Date: Sun Jul 10 2005 - 21:58:46 BST
Ian,
Ian said:
I stand by the physics criticisms (which was my only criticism) ...
the involvement of our "seeing" (direct or interpreted) is no
different whether we are looking at a tree or a rainbow - my only
point ...
Scott:
But that is just what he says: [p.16-17]
"But if the 'particles' [of the tree] (as I will here call them for
convenience) *are* there, and are all that are there, then, since the
'particles' are no more like the thing I call a tree than the raindrops are
like the thing I call a rainbow, it follows, I think, that -- just as a
rainbow is the outcome of the raindrops and my vision -- so, a tree is the
outcome of the particles and my vision and my other sense-perceptions.
Whatever the particles themselves may be thought to be, the tree, as such,
is a representation. And the difference, for me, between a tree and a
complete hallucination of a tree is the same as the difference between a
rainbow and a hallucination of a rainbow. In other words, a tree which is
'really there' is a collective representation. The fact that a dream tree
differs in kind from a real tree, and that it is just silly to try and mix
them up, is indeed rather literally a matter of 'common sense'".
Ian said:
But one of us must indeed have misunderstood what he says about seeing
and hearing ...
He quite clearly says (to me) we literally only hear (sense with our
ears) sounds. We interpret "thrushes singing" in our minds. (Ditto for
sight) And I agree with him, or I've misunderstood him.
Scott:
He distinguishes two phases in perception: sensation (the "raw sounds",
color patches, etc.) and figuration (construction of "objects" like rainbows
or trees). But this is a psychological/philosophical issue, not physics.
Ian said:
We are just talking about the bleedin obvious ... there is an
immediate sense and an interpreted sense involved in any "sensing".
((ie Our aural sense organ responds to 440Hz pressure variations
directly, we interpret middle-C in relation to some scale of tonality
in our brains.)
Scott:
Right. So where is his physics error? And of course his point is that we
*forget* this "bleedin obvious" when we base other supposedly "objective"
accounts (e.g., of the origin of language and intellect) in supposing that
sensation and figuration have not changed over the centuries.
- Scott
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