I’d also like to point out the Cartesian barrier is actually probably a useful feature.
It’s not objectively true in any sense but the relation between external input, output and effect is very very different than that between internal input (changes to your memories say), output and effect. Indeed, I would suggest there was a very good reason that we took so long to understand the brain. It would be just too difficult (and perhaps impossible) to do so at a direct level the way we understand receptors being activated in our eyes (yes all that visual crap we do is part of our understanding).
Take your example of a sensor aimed at the computer’s memory circuit. Unlike almost every other situation there are cases that it can’t check it’s hypothesis against because such a check would be logically incoherent. In other words certain theories (or at least representations of them) will be diagonalized against because the very experiments you wish to do can’t be effected because that ‘intention’ itself modifies the memory cells in such a way as to make the experiment impossible.
In short the one thing we do know is that assuming that we are free to choose from a wide range of actions independently of the theory we are trying to test and that how we came to choose that action is irrelevant is an effective strategy for understanding the world. It worked for us.
Once the logic of decision making is tightly coupled with the observations themselves the problem gets much harder and may be insoluble from the inside, i.e., we may need to experiment on others and assume we are similar.
I’d also like to point out the Cartesian barrier is actually probably a useful feature.
It’s not objectively true in any sense but the relation between external input, output and effect is very very different than that between internal input (changes to your memories say), output and effect. Indeed, I would suggest there was a very good reason that we took so long to understand the brain. It would be just too difficult (and perhaps impossible) to do so at a direct level the way we understand receptors being activated in our eyes (yes all that visual crap we do is part of our understanding).
Take your example of a sensor aimed at the computer’s memory circuit. Unlike almost every other situation there are cases that it can’t check it’s hypothesis against because such a check would be logically incoherent. In other words certain theories (or at least representations of them) will be diagonalized against because the very experiments you wish to do can’t be effected because that ‘intention’ itself modifies the memory cells in such a way as to make the experiment impossible.
In short the one thing we do know is that assuming that we are free to choose from a wide range of actions independently of the theory we are trying to test and that how we came to choose that action is irrelevant is an effective strategy for understanding the world. It worked for us.
Once the logic of decision making is tightly coupled with the observations themselves the problem gets much harder and may be insoluble from the inside, i.e., we may need to experiment on others and assume we are similar.