Please Delete, Or Lock And Move To The Rabbit Hole

[kakapo]

In the demonstration above, a grape still exists, but the surgeon looks at television display representing the grape.

 

At no point does the surgeon believe his hands touch the grape, or that he is not looking at a television display representing the grape.

 

The situation I describe would be one where the surgeon has never seen anything but the television display, and the remote controls, and mistakes the display and remote controls for an actual grape.

 

 

[Cobie]

14 hours ago, Daniel said:

... This is why I have re-engaged in this thread.

I thought the whole request to go to pm or another forum was creepy, abusers like to stay out of the public eye.

The reason given (past complaints) daft, as future complaints easy to avoid by starting to listen instead of endlessly repeating the same point.

 

 

Edited September 17, 2023 by Cobie

[kakapo]

2 minutes ago, Cobie said:

I thought the whole request to go to pm or another forum was creepy, abusers like to stay out of the public eye.

The reason given (past complaints) daft, as future complaints easy to avoid by starting to listen instead of endlessly repeating the same point.

 

 

 

If discussions become circular and argumentative, then the moderators suspend the individuals involved, and lock the thread.

 

I would love to continue the discussion with him in public, but it seems like it's going to take months to reach a conclusion with him.

 

The moderators here will simply not allow for such a thing, and I am trying to avoid any trouble here.

 

 

[Cobie]

 

56 minutes ago, kakapo said:

… I am trying to avoid any trouble here.

as I said 

1 hour ago, Cobie said:

… future complaints easy to avoid by starting to listen instead of endlessly repeating the same point.

 

 

 

Edited September 17, 2023 by Cobie

[Daniel]

1 hour ago, kakapo said:

In the demonstration above, a grape still exists, but the surgeon looks at television display representing the grape.

 

At no point does the surgeon believe his hands touch the grape, or that he is not looking at a television display representing the grape.

 

The situation I describe would be one where the surgeon has never seen anything but the television display, and the remote controls, and mistakes the display and remote controls for an actual grape.

 

What you're missing is the feedback.  This was in the Ted-Talk video you posted.

 

While, it may be true in the thought experiment described above "the surgeon has never seen anything but..." you seem to be neglecting that if this were a proper model of reality, the surgeon would be recieving constant feedback reinforcing whether or not the television display and remote controls are accurate.

 

This feedback is what actually produces perception.  The feedback becomes so reliable that the mind predicts what it thinks it is going to perceive before it fully processes the sensory data.  The predictions combined with the sensory data produces "perception". 

 

The ted--talk demonstrated that the predictive nature of perception can be used to impair perception and fool it.  But the reason this works is a direct consequence of the accuracy of the constant feedback.  And this feedback is coming from multiple different sensory apparatus.

 

So, this thought experiement needs to be adapted.  Otherwise it is describing a person that is unlike almost any other human being.

 

This is from the ted-talk you posted.  Look at the label at the bottom of the screen.  

 

 

 

Edited September 17, 2023 by Daniel

[Daniel]

56 minutes ago, kakapo said:

 

If discussions become circular and argumentative, then the moderators suspend the individuals involved, and lock the thread.

 

I would love to continue the discussion with him in public, but it seems like it's going to take months to reach a conclusion with him.

 

The moderators here will simply not allow for such a thing, and I am trying to avoid any trouble here.

 

Your threats about moderation have been and will continue to be ignored.

 

The conclusion is here.  It was in my first reply to the thread.  In our private conversation, it seems you agree with this.  But then when it is stated clearly, you roll back that agreement.  It's not me being circular.

 

On 9/9/2023 at 12:08 PM, Daniel said:

the paint is not in the mind.

 

the observation is the observer.  the observer is not the observed.

 

the color is 'red' is just a label, a symbol in the mind which is bound to the neurochemical reaction when a specific range of wavelengths of elecrto-magnetic radition interacts with the retina.  Those wavelengths are not the mind, nor are the they the observer.

 

while it's an interesting thought experiment to consider objective compared to subjective phenomena, it seems foolish to me to apply this idea globally to the point of "everything is subjective, everything is in the mind" 

 

your own links have confirmed that color is a semantic label, for the reaction of wavelenghts of light on the cone-receptors of the retina.  These wavelengths of light have an inherent reality.

 

One of the objections to Hoffman's theory which is presented by scientists is that he is claiming there is an evolutionary advantage to avoiding the inherent objective reality of color.  But.  There is an evolutionary advantage to "mimicy" in nature.  the example given is a non-poisonous snake mimicing the coloration of a poisonous snake.  This has an objective evolutionary survival advantage.  The random mutation producing the mimicry is "selected for" in evolution.  There are many examples.

 

This is why a psychologist is not ideal for making claims about physical sciences.  They are operating outside their field of expertise.  It's not necessarily a problem.  It could be the person working outside their field makes a brilliant discovery.  But, it's a problem when the person who is outside their field starts casting insults at their critics who are in the field.

 

That's why I brought the quotes about space-time.  Hoffman is insullting the critics, calling them stupid.  This is a major cause for concern regarding Hoffman's integrity.  It's what caused me to seek out critical assessments instead of just reading about it on wikipedia.

 

It seems there's other reasons to question Hoffman''s integrity.  Like I mentioned in the private convo, the game-theory experiments appear to have been coordinated forcing a specific pre-desired outcome.  I need to read and learn more to be sure.  But that's what it looks like has happened.

 

I think it would be really good for you, Kakapo, to read the critical review of Hoffmans work. At the very least it explains how Hoffman is making the claims you seem to feel so strongly about.

 

My friend, reading the criticism will make your arguments stronger.  Opposition research is a very useful tool.  

 

Edited September 17, 2023 by Daniel

[kakapo]

On 9/17/2023 at 1:10 PM, Cobie said:

 

as I said 

 

 

 

 

Cobie,

 

I feel like interesting conversations can happen in private that would otherwise annoy the community in the open.

 

It's a strange phenomenon, where people selectively forget things that have been explained repeatedly and ask the exact same question that was already answered, and get upset when you refuse to answer it again.

 

Dealing with a situation like this takes a lot of patience, and seems to annoy the community in general and especially the moderation team.

 

Hopefully Daniel and I can come to some state of equilibrium in private without annoying everyone else. 

Edited September 24, 2023 by kakapo

[Daniel]

5 minutes ago, kakapo said:

Hopefully Daniel and I can come to some state of equilibrium in private without annoying everyone else. 

 

As I said in the private conversation.  And I said it kindly.  I meant it kindly.  The first task is:  we need to agree on language and meaning.  This was ignored.  Then I asked again, and I asked "please".  I gave a single statement from the wikipedia article on Donald David Hoffman and asked if we both agree on the meaning of what it said.

 

Since you began the conversation with me, I would have expected that there would be some desire to speak the same language and to agree on what words actually mean.

 

Edited September 17, 2023 by Daniel

[Daniel]

Status update:  Kakapo and I have been exchanging messages this afternoon.  Eventually we made a bit of a break thru where it was acknowledged that the picture of the pipe, and the 2-d television monitor were poor analogies due to depth perception.  Then we started talking about haptic feedback.  Then I presented the idea of a fully immersive body-suit.  Steadily increasing the acccuracy of the analogy so that we could have a proper discussion.

 

But no, Kakapo cycled right back to imagining the 2-d television monitor.

 

There's also a major contradiction:

 

"What you see, what you hear, what you smell, what you taste, and what you feel, do not exist external to your mind."

 

"I believe it is a remarkable, and amazing simulation, which I hope is accurate."

 

This is described in the critical analysis of Hoffman's theory under the subheading "Self-refuting".

 

If it is unknown what is outside the mind, then it cannot be claimed not to exist.  I have tried multiple times to clear up the sloppy language.  Define this "what", the perception doesn't exist?  Of course it doesn't exist outside the mind, but there's multiple reasons to have very strong confidence in the accuracy of the perception.

 

There's been so much cycling and repeating, claiming I just don't get it even though I do.  Now I have resorted to asking just a simple question on each reply:

 

"Who are you talking to?"

 

Hopefully that will be the end of the private convo.  

 

Edited September 18, 2023 by Daniel

[Daniel]

Status Update:  The Private Conversation appears to have stalled out.  9 pages. 224 messages.  Started Friday Sept. 14 5:20 PM.  The highest activity is on the weekends.  Other than that it's early morning, or late evening.  

 

Basically the conversation was highly repetitive on one end inspite of a wide variety of valid challenges to the analogies presented in this thread, corrections to misinterpretations of the sources brought, and logical contradictions of the conclusions.  At one point there was a comment about planting these ideas in my subconcsious where they would eventually hit me like a ton of bricks.

 

What I noticed about the conversation was a sort of "reboot" behavior that would be produced when I disproved the analogies or conclusions or statements in this thread.   After the reboot, a statement would be posted inviting me to proceed with the conversation.  The conversation ended, or at least stalled out for now, when I reminded them that they had started the conversation with me, and the conversation could end when they stopped conversing.  

 

If I were to point to 1 thing which I think prevented actual discussion of the topic in a meaningful way it is this:

 

On 9/12/2023 at 5:50 PM, kakapo said:

The key problem here almost all humans on earth believe they look outwards into the world and universe, but they do not.

 

We do not look out.

 

We look in.

 

What we see is the contents of our own mind and nothing more.

 

We do not see an external world, we see only an internal one.

 

Once a person has convinced themself they are not seeing outside their own mind, what ever does not match their own mind is immediately rejected. This is facinating to me on multiple levels and has far reaching implications.

 

"[ I ] only see an internal world" indicates there is no opportunity for discussion of an opposing point of view.

 

Edited September 20, 2023 by Daniel

[Cobie]

7 minutes ago, Daniel said:

… Once a person has convinced themself … what ever does not match … is immediately rejected. …

Yep, confirmation bias.
That’s why imo longwinded discussions are pointless. Imo best to state your opinion once or twice and then leave it at that.

 

 

Edited September 20, 2023 by Cobie

[Daniel]

8 minutes ago, Cobie said:

Yep, confirmation bias.
That’s why imo longwinded discussions are pointless. Imo best to state your opinion once or twice and then leave it at that.

 

 

 

Well, I am learning a lot about this philosophical position.  And I never heard of Hoffman before.  It's all good learning.  I wonder if the Hoffman video would have been posted if I hadn't pursued it in the manner I did.

[Daniel]

Now it has a name, "conscious realism", I can understand precisely how it works, and its foundation.  I can also research the opposing point of view, it has a name,  and I can understand precisely how it works, and its foundation.  Because I pursued the discourse, that produced the Hoffman video, and now I know it's name.  I am now capable of researching both sides and coming to a proper conclusion for myself.

 

Edited September 20, 2023 by Daniel

[kakapo]

Hi Daniel,

 

I've had a medical emergency with a family member, and it appears they may die.

 

I will continue our discussion in private as I am able to do so.

 

One thing I would like to comment on is how you keep repeating how you understand what I am saying perfectly, then in the next breath, you restate my position in your own words and it is 100% clear we are not on the same page at all, even a little bit. 

 

There definitely are some major communication challenges here between us.

 

Communication is not happening.

 

I am saying X, and you are understanding me to say Y.

 

It is clear to me so long as this challenge exists we are in for a very long discussion. 

 

Thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of replies may be necessary if things continue as they are.

 

Edited September 21, 2023 by kakapo

[Daniel]

1 hour ago, kakapo said:

Hi Daniel,

 

I've had a medical emergency with a family member, and it appears they may die.

 

I'm so sorry to hear that.

 

 

1 hour ago, kakapo said:

I am saying X, and you are understanding me to say Y.

 

You are saying multiple things which conflict, and then the analogies also conflict.  And none of it matches reality unless it is moderated, but moderating it consistently produces a reboot of the conversation.

 

[kakapo]

7 hours ago, Daniel said:

Now it has a name, "conscious realism", I can understand precisely how it works, and its foundation.  I can also research the opposing point of view, it has a name,  and I can understand precisely how it works, and its foundation.  Because I pursued the discourse, that produced the Hoffman video, and now I know it's name.  I am now capable of researching both sides and coming to a proper conclusion for myself.

 

 

"conscious realism",

 

Think of it like a computer desktop. When you want to delete a file, you just drag it to the trash can. In reality, what's happening inside the computer is a complex action involving changing magnetic fields in a hard drive or flipping transistors in a solid state drive. But you don't need to know all those details to interact with the computer. The desktop is a kind of "interface" that hides this complexity and allows you to get the job done.

 

Hoffman suggests that our perception of the world around us is similar. We don't see the world as it is, but as a simplified interface that helps us interact effectively with it. The objects we see around us, like trees and cars, are just symbols on this interface.

 

Just like the file on your desktop isn't the actual complex arrangements of magnetic fields on your hard drive, the car you see isn't the actual reality. It's just your interface's way of representing a certain object that you can interact with in a specific way.

 

Hence the term "Conscious Realism". It's the idea that our conscious experience is not an accurate reflection of an objective reality, but a user-friendly interface that allows us to navigate the world.

Edited September 21, 2023 by kakapo

[Daniel]

13 minutes ago, kakapo said:

Spoiler

"conscious realism",

 

Think of it like a computer desktop. When you want to delete a file, you just drag it to the trash can. In reality, what's happening inside the computer is a complex action involving changing magnetic fields in a hard drive or flipping transistors in a solid state drive. But you don't need to know all those details to interact with the computer. The desktop is a kind of "interface" that hides this complexity and allows you to get the job done.

 

Hoffman suggests that our perception of the world around us is similar. We don't see the world as it is, but as a simplified interface that helps us interact effectively with it. The objects we see around us, like trees and cars, are just symbols on this interface.

 

Just like the file on your desktop isn't the actual complex arrangements of magnetic fields on your hard drive, the car you see isn't the actual reality. It's just your interface's way of representing a certain object that you can interact with in a specific way.

 

Hence the term "Conscious Realism". It's the idea that our conscious experience is not an accurate reflection of an objective reality, but a user-friendly interface that allows us to navigate the world.

 

 

And, Hoffman's idea doesn't match reality.    The perception that exists in the brain is much-much more related to the physical object than an icon on the desktop computer. 

 

This is from the critical analysis of Hoffman's work by Leslie Allen.  The critical analysis you seem to be refusing to read.

 

... The implication here is that according to Hoffman, when I sit on a chair, I’m sitting on a conscious experience. And when I look at the moon through my telescope, I’m really looking at a conscious experience. As Hoffman explains: ‘We only see the chair icons we each construct each time we look’ [2008: 98].

 

... How does our ability to manipulate ‘icons’ with such precision to enable scientists to land a spacecraft on a body millions of kilometres from anyone aid reproductive fitness? Through advances in technology, scientists also now have the capacity to see molecules and atoms and to see distant galaxies.

 

Edited September 21, 2023 by Daniel

[Daniel]

And this is from FK Jansen a French scientist and Medical Doctor:

 

Hoffman’s Interface Theory from a Bio-Psychological Perspective

NeuroQuantology | October 2018 | Volume 16 | Issue 10 | Page 92-101 | doi: 10.14704/nq.2018.16.10.1872

 

Conclusion:

 

... The interface theory is essentially based on mathematical formalism and might correspond well to lower-level animals. However,  Homo sapiens as a species has proven its fitness over more than 100,000 years, and this survival has been ensured by the great complexity of perception considering the past, the present and the future that cannot be modeled with basic evolutionary games or genetic algorithms.

 

In other words, Hoffman's models are extremely over simplified.  The "science" doesn't match reality.

 

Edited September 21, 2023 by Daniel

[kakapo]

Daniel,

 

Seeing as we are probably going to be at this for possibly years, and maybe tens of thousands of replies, we'll have to keep this private, or on the other public forum I created outside of thedaobums site. 

 

Historically the mod team here suspends and or bans people when arguments go on for months and have thousands of replies, then they lock the thread.

 

Maybe that is the best thing to do in such a situation, I don't know.

 

I do know they aren't going to allow for the number of replies that are going to be required for you and I to achieve some basic level of understanding. 

[Daniel]

And here is the full rebuttal of the "icon on the desktop analogy"  Note:  veridical = verifiable

 

Let me start with Hoffman et al’s desktop icon analogy. He draws a distinction between realist strategies that mimic the world and ‘strict interface’ strategies in which perception does not preserve any structures of the world. As he and his team write, the 
latter winning perceptual strategy is analogous to using the icon on our desktop: ‘No features of the icon are identifiable with any features of the file in the computer’ [Hoffman et al 2015a: 1484].

 

However, in dismissing veridicality of the icon on our desktop, Hoffman and his collaborators may be pressing their analogy too far. Clearly, the icon on our desktop is representing a file in some respects. It’s a mistake to think that to represent the file with some level of veridicality, the icon needs to be identical with the file. The icon is, after all, a representation. A map can faithfully represent the terrain it maps without being identical to the terrain. Cohen [2015: 1515f] drives home exactly this point in more detail.

 

Consider my perception of the tree in my back yard. When I see the tree, I experience a tree percept with brown and green features in my visual field. For my tree ‘icon’ to represent the actual tree in my yard, it need not reveal all (or even most) of the features of the actual tree in my yard. We don’t require my tree percept to reveal the cells, molecules and atoms that make up the actual tree for it to be veridical. We don’t require my percept to represent the complex process of photosynthesis that is going on in the actual 
tree.

For my percept to be veridical, we require it to stand in the appropriate causal relation to the tree planted in my back yard. So, we require the actual tree to be an essential part of the causal chain of happenings that start from light from the sun reflecting off its  surface particular wavelengths in the brown and green parts of the electromagnetic spectrum. The causal chain continues with those waves hitting the photoreceptors in my eyes, then with electrical impulses being transmitted along my optic nerves and then being  processed in the visual cortex part of my brain. This final part of the causal chain leads me to have the private phenomenological experience of the tree. When these causal relations between the actual tree and my tree percept (the tree ‘icon’) are realized, we say that my perception of the tree is veridical.

In the same way, we say that the file icon on my desktop is veridical when it stands in the appropriate causal relation to the actual file in the computer. And by design, I create that causal connection when I configure the properties of a desktop icon to point to an actual file within the folder structure of the computer’s storage. Now, when I drag the icon to the trash or move it to a different folder, the actual file is deleted or is moved. It is precisely when I drag the icon to the trash and it is not deleted, or when I move the icon to a  different folder and the wrong file is moved, that we say that the icon does not represent  that file; that the icon is not veridical.

[kakapo]

We'll continue to work together in private Daniel,  I suspect this is going to be a multiyear endeavor with you.

 

 

[Daniel]

30 minutes ago, kakapo said:

Hoffman suggests that our perception of the world around us is similar. We don't see the world as it is, but as a simplified interface that helps us interact effectively with it. The objects we see around us, like trees and cars, are just symbols on this interface.

 

This is what Hoffman actually wrote.  A literal quote.

 

"No features of the icon are identifiable with any features of the file in the computer’ [Hoffman et al 2015a: 1484]."

 

The claim is:  No features of the icon are identifiable with any deatures of the object.  There is no correspondence.  Nothing is in common between the perception in the mind and the object which is outside the mind. 

 

This does not match reality.  Not even a little.  Hoffman's book is titled "The Case AGAINST REALITY".  

 

 

[Daniel]

9 minutes ago, kakapo said:

Spoiler

Daniel,

 

Seeing as we are probably going to be at this for possibly years, and maybe tens of thousands of replies, we'll have to keep this private, or on the other public forum I created outside of thedaobums site. 

 

Historically the mod team here suspends and or bans people when arguments go on for months and have thousands of replies, then they lock the thread.

 

Maybe that is the best thing to do in such a situation, I don't know.

 

I do know they aren't going to allow for the number of replies that are going to be required for you and I to achieve some basic level of understanding. 

 

 

The threats of moderation are ignored, as stated previously.

[kakapo]

 We'll continue to work together in private Daniel,  I suspect this is going to be a multiyear endeavor with you.

[Daniel]

5 minutes ago, kakapo said:

We'll continue to work together in private Daniel,  I suspect this is going to be a multiyear endeavor with you.

 

As I said in the private convo, the longer it goes on, the stronger my arguments will become, and the longer the list of challenges will become.  While your arguments will remain the same.  What does that tell you?

 

Bringing real world examples which are intended to deny the accuracy of real world perception is a fail.  It will always be a fail.  Self-defeating.

 

Edited September 21, 2023 by Daniel