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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 21, 2019 - 11:01am PT
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I know that my own beliefs on this subject are essentially beyond my control as are yours and healyje's and Largo's and everybody else's on this thread.
I would put this differently. The beliefs that drive us are, IME, vastly unconscious and pre-verbal. It's a process dragging these to the light of day and nobody does it all, but any work in this regards can really free us up.
Another point worth mentioning is that there are things you can come to know about mind that have nothing to do with beliefs or what and how we might think about it all.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Mar 21, 2019 - 12:00pm PT
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Interesting how easily recognizable the effects of the human mind can be even in a relatively primitive state. There almost seems to be a kind of disconnect between the organization found in mind and that found in the aggregate chaos of nature. I suppose it's this disconnect that leads us to an expectation of the divine. Imagine if any of the above objects were discovered by the Mars Rover, what we would know immediately.
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eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
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Mar 21, 2019 - 04:18pm PT
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Nice post, Paul! Of the two pictures, I would have to say that the second one is much more indicative of our mental distinctiveness compared to other species alive today. Animals manipulating inanimate objects and having a (at least somewhat) lasting effect on the environment include:
* Beaver dams
* Termite mounds
* Underground burrow structures
* Beehives
* Nests of all kinds
Arrowheads seem along that continuum to me. Abstract art seems different (although it is not inconceivable that a natural process created the second picture). Creation of abstract art is a sign of another level of mental hierarchy, IMO. It seems clearly self-reflective. On the other hand, seems like I've seen some decent chimpanzee and elephant art.
Edit: On further reflection, it seems that the elaborate "nests" of Bowerbirds are not that different from the second image.
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Trump
climber
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Mar 21, 2019 - 04:33pm PT
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Mission control, we’ve discovered a human mind created inner ear here on Mars.
No wait. Mission control, we’ve discovered a human mind created snail here on Mars.
No that’s not it!
Mission control, chaos reigns here on Mars?
1.01^10000 = 1.63e+43
0.99^10000 = 2.24e-44
Chaos theory might have more to do with what goes on in our minds than we care to admit. If we raise our self-confirmation bias and survival bias to the 10000th power, I’ll bet we could see signs of human mind in most anything. Retrospectively at least.
But if we did find those on Mars, what would we know, prospectively? That there are humans on Mars? That there is intelligent life on Mars? That Russia beat us to the punch? That it’s fake news? That maybe there’s stuff that we don’t understand but we can’t help ourselves from filling in the blanks anyway?
We can imagine that we in our human minds would hypothetically know that we know stuff, but I don’t think that we would.
I’ll bet we’d make up a good story though. And then imagine that the story that we made up was evidence in support of our story. And then find out how our attachment to our imagined story, and our process for creating our imagined stories, played out in our environment. Seems to be doing pretty well so far.
Some folks prefer Bayes theorem and some folks don’t. For me, whether we make up our prior probabilities or our current probabilities doesn’t seem like that big a difference. Me? I prefer Bayes theorem.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 21, 2019 - 05:00pm PT
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We can imagine that we in our human minds would hypothetically know that we know stuff, but I don’t think that we would.
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If you bite into a cheeseburger, do you "hypothetically" know what it tastes like, or do you truly know what it tastes like?
And who is the "we" in our human minds? Not a trick question.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Mar 21, 2019 - 10:33pm PT
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Largo wrote: The beliefs that drive us are, IME, vastly unconscious and pre-verbal...
God only knows where beliefs are stored and how they are accessed so we can subjectively experience them on demand. I personally keep mine in the Amazon locker in the Plaid Pantry down the street...
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zBrown
Ice climber
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Mar 21, 2019 - 11:01pm PT
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^Last I checked they were stored in the collective unconscious
I do not know about fee arrangements though
Kinda like they can always be checked out but they can never leave
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Mar 22, 2019 - 06:58am PT
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If you bite into a cheeseburger, do you "hypothetically" know what it tastes like, or do you truly know what it tastes like?
And if you do truly know what it tastes like, do you know truly, finally, and completely?
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 22, 2019 - 09:35am PT
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And if you do truly know what it tastes like, do you know truly, finally, and completely?
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Not sure what you are driving at here. When you ate your cereal this morning, did you falsely know the taste. Did you partially taste the cereal?
What criteria would have to be met to qualify as "knowing" your own direct experience. Not a cognitive evaluation of same, but of the experience itself.
There are two distinct epistemic ways of knowing, though consciousness is the constant in both.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Mar 22, 2019 - 10:05am PT
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^^^^so you are saying there is a distinct "experience" associated with the taste of a cheeseburger?
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d-know
Trad climber
electric lady land
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Mar 22, 2019 - 01:13pm PT
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I once had a cheese burger at Andreas in Joshua Tree
on Christmas eve.
Tasted like shiit and took forever to get, but it was
the best cheese burger I ever had.
That was when I understood perception, interpretation,
and expectation.
One day, one cheese burger and tax on the mind.
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Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
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Mar 22, 2019 - 01:21pm PT
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 22, 2019 - 03:10pm PT
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^^^^so you are saying there is a distinct "experience" associated with the taste of a cheeseburger?
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You're conflating the two modes of "knowing," attempting to use one mode, which works per quantifying seemingly external objects and phenomenon, on the second mode, which is direct experience.
To review: Nagel was the first to my knowledge to mention the two distinct epistemic (knowing) modes: quantifying, and direct experience. He also made an equally import second point, which we could just as well call Nagel's Law, because it is both incontrovertible and has no exceptions: That the knowing we get from measuring can never disclose the knowing derived from experiential.
The easiest example being the case of the Fuji Apple. We might study a document containing 100,000 words and chemical breakdowns about every last objective fact per the apple, and it will never disclose what we directly experience when we bite into one. That is, actually eating the apple describes a data stream which quantifying can never achieve. Ham-fisted efforts that attempt to physical/causal "reasons" why we experience taste of course no distance in capturing experiential taste.
Going further, quantified knowing usually seeks causal determination, so the outcome of a measurement or equation is always selfsame and is seemingly determined by the linear/causal/physical events and factors that preceded the outcome/effect or the "product." One plus one is always two. Or take chemical reactions, in this case, synthesis / direct combustion. Such a chemical reaction occurs when two or more specific substances react together to form just one, and only one specific product. That product, given that selfsame substances are employed, will result in a uniform or identical product/effect.
This is the criteria for that mode.
Using that criteria for experiential knowing is of no value, as is insisting that everyone must have the same experience while eating a cheeseburger. That is, knowing is knowing ONLY if the experience is selfsame or identical for everyone. We might as well say that Ed and I don't truly "know" Chingando because we didn't have the same experience on the route, though both of us have climbed it. Again, this logic seeks not experiential facts about the climb, but selfsame physical facts about the route that we can all "know" and agree upon. Otherwise, we can't be sure what we actually know - which again, is an attempt to measure experience objectively. Wrong mode.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Mar 22, 2019 - 09:12pm PT
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Not sure what you are driving at here.
I was letting MikeL take the wheel.
Is there anything at all that has been really understood fully, accurately, and completely?
http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.php?topic_id=1593650&tn=9513
If you search MikeL's posts for 'finally accurately completely' you get quite a few hits.
I admit that I am not sure whether he would agree that knowing the taste of cheeseburger is elusive in the same sense he intends when he expresses his doubts on the reliability of other kinds of knowledge, but it seemed funny to me.
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jstan
climber
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Mar 22, 2019 - 09:40pm PT
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I think if you would do mass spectrometry on the tongue fluids for several people sampling the same cheeseburger there would be some level of variation, even if you first put the cheeseburger through a blender. You would also have to look for variation in fluids prior to sampling the cheeseburger. Depending upon the observed variations you might attempt to decide whether there was or was not, a common objective experience.
It is with the brain's processing of the experience that things get tough. Speaking without benefit of knowledge one might suggest doing magnetic resonance imaging on the brain responses of two populations. The first population one not being hungry, and the second a population of people who have not eaten for several days. Care would have to be taken not to include any meditators or A. Honnold. Volitional prior brain conditioning and any drug use has to be ruled out, for obvious reasons.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Mar 23, 2019 - 07:57am PT
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It is with the brain's processing of the experience that things get tough.
Amen to that. The brain changes with time, over milliseconds and decades.
As someone once said, "You can't do MRI on the same brain twice."
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capseeboy
Social climber
portland, oregon
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Mar 23, 2019 - 09:21am PT
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Another point worth mentioning is that there are things you can come to know about mind that have nothing to do with beliefs or what and how we might think about it all.
There is no successful vocabulary that doesn't include believing aka wanting (citation needed)
Everything we use to pass information on is an abstract ie it is not the
thing itself.
Wiki:In quantum mechanics, counterfactual definiteness (CFD) is the ability to speak "meaningfully" of the definiteness of the results of measurements that have not been performed (i.e., the ability to assume the existence of objects, and properties of objects, even when they have not been measured).
Is this Wu?
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WBraun
climber
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Mar 23, 2019 - 09:50am PT
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There is no successful vocabulary that doesn't include believing aka wanting
Not true at all ever.
Everything we use to pass information on is an abstract ie it is not the thing itself.
Not true either.
Do some actual research (actual work) not just run yer mouth all the time.
You won't do it since it's so much easier to run your mouth and go to Wikipedia.
Lazy modern gross materialists .....
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