----- Original Message -----
From: "Struan Hellier" <struan@clara.co.uk>
To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Sent: 06 April 2000 17:36
Subject: RE: MD Re: Independent reality again
.....................
Sorry, I've to quickly chip in here :
I'm either quoted out of context, or I phrased something clumsily, and It's
come back to haunt me! The phrase ". the patterns we perceive are subjective
impressions of some other, objective reality" - I wasn't wishing to
reinforce the old subject / object thing to that extent; I was actually
arguing for ONLY "subjectivity", and that anything 'objective' HAS to be
'theoretical', in that it can't be proved. In this, I suppose I'm nearer to
Hegel in the sense (doesn't that word crop up?) that the conceptual
subdivisions of the world we employ, such as 'objects', 'matter', 'events'
,'processes' and so on, are the products of our own limitations. In other
words, because we can't holistically understand 'everything', we have to
chop it up into manageable bites, and as soon as we do that, some
'informational damage' is likely. I also feel that the most basic of these
'subdivisions of reality' we employ is the 'me / not me' one, which is very
primitive, and from which we can develop the notion of 'objects' and so on.
This thinking of ourselves allows us to consider that we can in some way be
independant of our environment -which is somewhat illusory because we need
gravity, oxygen, etc (in the long term). As soon as we do that, we can have
a notion of 'objective reality' which is independant of our presence or
observation.
But I repeat: the only "objective reality" one could postulate would be
everything-and-everywhen-from-every-perspective, taken as a whole. As such,
that's always (well at least in my lifetime!) going to be theoretical to me.
just a quick note on the illuminating discussion 'tween Struan and Bo, with
respect to "sense data". The concept of sense data is flawed, and comes
straight out of Newtonian physics, via Helmholz and the Behaviourists
(Skinner etc). The more recent conceptual models of the human perceptual
system emphasise that it is wholly about 'information' (what you might call
'meaning'?) ; no doubt 'sense data' are used in this, but 'perception'
doesn't derive from them, it utilises them, when available. Of course one
can make a very good argument that withoiut any sense-data, ever, no
'perception' could take place, but this another theoretical argument that
can't really be tested. Certainly, moment-by-moment, sense-data can be said
to make a contribution, but by no means the major contribution. So sensation
isn't at all the same thing as perception.
cheers
ppl
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