Re: Intuitions, Illusions and Common Sense

Neil W Rickert <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message news:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...
> David Longley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> 
> >Given the interest in paradox, illusions and rationality, I thought some 
> >folk might like to have a look at this:
>  
> >http://www.nobel.se/economics/laureates/2002/kahnemann-lecture.pdf
> 
> Given that it consists mostly of cognitivist interpretations of data,
> I wonder why somebody as apparently anti-cognitivist as Longley would
> suggest this.

It's on topic. Perhaps he thinks there's a behaviorist explanation to
all that.  Note most of the lecture contains questions which have also
been studied extensively by common sense researchers.

Anyway, I have something else to say which was inspired by the use of
"paradox" and "illusion" in the same sentence. Thank you David for
that!

I think paradoxes are illusions much in the same way a visual illusion
occurs. The logical reasoning faculty expects a certain kind of input
and it tries to make a computation, in particular an inference which
will satisfy the question of whether a useful logical conclusion
exists given these premises. Liar's paradox is perhaps useful in this
regard, although it can be mathematically or philosophically
eliminated with conscious effort it evokes the same kind of "now, this
is inconsistent with reality" effect as a carefully designed visual
illusion. Indeed, this should be remarkable as to showing the content
of inference mechanisms available to common sense processing. It may
also shed light on the extent of language processing employed.

The liar's paradox, when perceived, does not seem to be understood
solely in terms of language syntax. Rather, we try to imagine a model,
much like those in predicate calculus, in which the situation may
occur. I suppose most of us will not think too abstract and actually
imagine a person. Only to our amazement, we find that consistency can
never be reached! Then, we go back and having exhausted our
possibilities either hopelessly re-evaluate the models or terminate in
mixed feelings.

Cheers,

--
Eray Ozkural