Re: Creativity

[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Lester Zick) writes:
>On 1 Dec 2003 01:46:23 GMT, Neil W Rickert <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> in
>comp.ai.philosophy wrote:
>>[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Lester Zick) writes:
>>>On 30 Nov 2003 17:37:30 GMT, Neil W Rickert <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> in
>>>comp.ai.philosophy wrote:
>>>>[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Lester Zick) writes:

>>>>>What I will point out for general edification is that everything that
>>>>>is a property whether seen, thought about, or considered in any way
>>>>>whatsoever is seen, thought about, and considered within the envelope
>>>>>of the brain. In other words there is no specifically objective
>>>>>reality outside the brain/mind complex. And everything we know and can
>>>>>know of reality inside or outside the brain/mind complex takes place
>>>>>right in the brain/mind complex.

>>>>This sounds like the solipsist's manifesto.

>>>Why do I get the distinct impression you feel more comfortable
>>>discussing things in personally abusive terms?

>>I'm sorry that you see it as "personally abusive".  It was not
>>intended that way.

>>If you don't believe that you are implying solipsism, then you need
>>to clarify your assertion.

>>>                                               Where do you think
>>>perception, cognition, and the results of those processes occur? In
>>>outer space just because you're looking at the moon?

>>The reflecting of sunlight off the moon is an important part of the
>>processes, and it surely does not occur solely within the brain.

>> ----------

>Let me see if I can clarify what I was describing in mechanical terms.

>Let's say we see the moon and each of us sees it in almost exactly the
>same way in practical terms.

>Now the moon itself is what I would call a material body. But that
>materiality is not the same as what we see or what we know in
>objective terms.

If it is not the same, how could we possibly know that?

>                 The actual lunar materiality as it exists in space
>represents a continuum amalgm of undifferentiated material properties
>which I would call aggregated sensation.

Who or what is having these sensations?  Or is that just a poor
choice of terminology?

>                                         And that amalgm reacts to
>other material amalgms in continuum terms according to the differences
>between and/or among them, things like sunlight, gravitation, etc.

>In looking at the moon what we see however is not its materiality as a
>whole but certain objective properties selected by our optical,
>perceptual, and cognitive faculties for a variety of evolutionary and
>volitional reasons. I say objective in this context but only because
>those properties have properties to begin with and not because the
>properties we see are material or because they are external or
>anything like that. These kinds of considerations we can only know
>after the fact.

>But the actual perception lies wholly within the brain/mind complex.

Just to be clear, I disagree with that.

>And the same is true for everything we know of or can know of. This
>doesn't mean that material aggregates like the moon as it exists in
>outer space lie in the brain/mind complex.

It seems contradictory.  If everything we know lies wholly within the
brain/mind complex, then whatever of the moon is outside that complex
would be something that we could not know.

>                                           But it does mean that every
>property known of the moon and everything else lies in the brain/mind
>complex because that is where perception and cognition occur in terms
>of differences and differences are the reason perception and cognition
>occur inside the brain/mind complex and not anywhere outside.

You wrote of a materiality of the moon.  That's a property.  If
every property has to lie in the brain/mind complex, then the
materiality of the moon would have to lie in the brain/mind
complex.  Now where does that leave the moon itself?

We do send up unmanned rockets to measure properties of the moon
and of other things.  How could that possibly work if properties
lie in the brain/mind complex?

>The typical solipsist views material aggregates as lying within the
>brain/mind complex and when he uses the terms objective or subjective
>what he is referring to are whether those things subject to his will
>or not. And most opponents of solipsism contend that subjective things
>lie inside the brain/mind complex and objective things lie outside.
>However this is an entirely fallacious distinction and badly misjudges
>the whole meanings of the terms subjective and objective.

When you say it is a fallacious distinction, are you implying that no
distinction exists between solipsism and its alternatives?  Or are
you saying that the distinction exists but is different from the
above?

>The only reason I wrote the previously cited thread on solipsism to
>begin with was that I was immensely frustrated by the conventional
>approaches to the problem. It's an old and very stupid philosophical
>doctrine that should have been dealt with centuries ago in definitive
>terms.

>The term objective simply refers to things having definable, known, or
>knowable properties. In point of fact there are no definable "things"
>in the brain/mind complex except properties and properties of other
>properties and those properties are the result of differences between
>material circumstances whether originating inside or outside the
>brain/mind complex.

If properties are the results of differences, then how exactly do we
determine these differences?  Are you saying that there is some sort
of "difference operation" that can be performed on material
circumstances?  And if the material circumstances exist outside the
brain, and the differences (otherwise known as properties) exist only
inside the brain, then is there some magic going on that creates
these differences only inside?

>This is why the doctrine of differential cognition is crucial to the
>comprehension of what goes on in the brain/mind complex and why there
>is a mind in literal mechanical terms and why the brain is not just an
>especially complex piece of neural machinery. But it turns out that
>solipsism is also a critical limiting link in analyzing the problem.
>Not so much because it represents a credible possibility but because
>it highlights the issues involved, issues the importance of which I
>didn't begin to appreciate until I started considering the problem in
>critical terms.

For the present, I remain skeptical of your "differential cognition",
because there seem to be far too many loose ends.

>I realize that I have drawn several very fine and idiosyncratic
>terminological distinctions in the course of elaborating differential
>cognition. The terminology however isn't so important as the
>properties and mechanics of the brain/mind complex they describe.
>(By the way, Omega, this is the reason I didn't seem very enthusiastic
>about your suggestion regarding receptors, etc. These things may exist
>but the real issue is whether they are part of perception or cognition
>or just what.)

>So where do we get notions like inside or outside the brain/mind
>complex in definitive terms? It's all in the logical relations between
>and among the things we see in perception and in the mind. These are
>all objective so the fact that we see them has no bearing on the issue
>of inside or outside We judge whether something is inside or outside
>the brain/mind complex according to the relations between things.

That paragraph could be a description of George Berkeley's idealism.

>If what we see as the moon is occluded by other things, we know or
>infer that the moon lies beyond those things and those other things
>are intervening.

But how could that inference work if what we see is entirely
within the brain/mind complex?  There seem to be huge gaps
in your account.

>                 And if those things lie beyond our arms or noses we
>know that those things also lie outside whatever is defined as lying
>within arms, noses, the skin, etc. This is exactly what babies do in
>the course of their cognitive development and why it takes so long.
>They have to formulate and automate all their cognitive relations in
>spatial, temporal, and logical terms. In other words they have to
>learn to judge things in terms of perspective.

But if perception occurs only within the brain/mind complex,
how can babies learn as you describe?

>This is why we all tend to see things like the moon in very similar
>ways - because we all see it through exactly the same processes of
>logical inference applied to perspective.  And this is also why
>Renaissance painters became famous for their renderings of spatial
>perspective, because it had unstated and previously unrecognized
>cognitive implications applicable to every individual.

Your paragraph starts with "This".  I cannot work out what
that "this" refers to.  On the face of it, everything you see
about the moon occurs in your brain/mind complex, and everything
I see about the moon occurs in my brain/mind complex.  It would
seem that there is no possibility of communication or comparison.

Again, there appear to be enourmous gaps in your account.

I will stop my comments at this point.  The remainder of
what you wrote is highly dependent on the things above that
are quite unclear.