the map-territory metaphor creates this kind of confusing situation where it looks and awful lot like there’s something like a reality where it could independent of any observer have some meaning where snow is white
I think reality exists independently.
However, ‘senses’ may:
Be based on visual processing with a set of cones. (A smaller set of cones will, predictably, make different predictions than a larger set, that is the same, plus one.)
Be based on visual processing which can in some way be ‘wrong’ (first it looks one way. Without it changing, more processing occurs and it resolves properly)
Be somewhat subjective. (We look at a rock and see a face. Maybe ‘aliens’ don’t do that. Or maybe they do.)
Since everything we know is parsed through the lens of experience
My point was less about making a claim about an inability to see beyond that. More—we parse things. Actively. That is a part of how we give them meaning, and after giving them meaning, decide they are true. (The process is a bit more circular than that.)
For example: This sentence is false. (It’s nonsense.) This sentence is not non-sense. (It’s nonsense. It’s true! Yeah, but it doesn’t mean anything, there’s no correspondence to anything.)
we cannot preclude the possibility that we only think snow is quite because of how our visual system works.
Yes. Also maybe not.
Yes: it may seem like colors could be a construct to help with stuff like seeing predators, and if there are optical illusions that can fool us, what of it? If the predator in the tree isn’t able to catch and kill us, our visual system is doing spectacular, even if it’s showing us something that ‘isn’t real’.
Maybe not: Perhaps we can design cameras and measure light. Even if a spectrum of light isn’t captured well by our eyes, we can define a system based around measurements even if our eyes can’t perceive them.
We can sometimes bootstrap an ‘objective’ solution.
But that doesn’t mean we can always pull it off. If a philosopher asks us to define furniture, we may stumble at ‘chair’. You can sit on it. So couches are chairs?
And so philosophical solutions might be devised, by coming up with new categories defined by more straightforward properties: sitting-things (including couches chairs, and comfortable rocks that are good for sitting). But ‘what is a chair’ may prove elusive. ‘What is a game’ may have multiple answers, and people with different tastes may find some fun and others not, perhaps messing with the idea of the ‘objective game’. And yet, if certain kind of people do tend to enjoy it, perhaps there is still something there...
(Meant as a metaphor)
When someone asks for a chair, they may have expectations. If they are from far away, perhaps they will be surprised when they see your chairs. Perhaps there are different styles where they come from, or it’s the same styles, just used for different things.
You probably do well enough that, an implicit ‘this is a chair’ is never not true. But also, maybe you don’t have a chair, but still find a place they can sit that does just as well.
Maybe people care about purpose more than truth. And both may be context dependent. A sentence can have a different meaning in different contexts.
Status: overly long.
I think reality exists independently.
However, ‘senses’ may:
Be based on visual processing with a set of cones. (A smaller set of cones will, predictably, make different predictions than a larger set, that is the same, plus one.)
Be based on visual processing which can in some way be ‘wrong’ (first it looks one way. Without it changing, more processing occurs and it resolves properly)
Be somewhat subjective. (We look at a rock and see a face. Maybe ‘aliens’ don’t do that. Or maybe they do.)
My point was less about making a claim about an inability to see beyond that. More—we parse things. Actively. That is a part of how we give them meaning, and after giving them meaning, decide they are true. (The process is a bit more circular than that.)
For example: This sentence is false. (It’s nonsense.) This sentence is not non-sense. (It’s nonsense. It’s true! Yeah, but it doesn’t mean anything, there’s no correspondence to anything.)
Yes. Also maybe not.
Yes: it may seem like colors could be a construct to help with stuff like seeing predators, and if there are optical illusions that can fool us, what of it? If the predator in the tree isn’t able to catch and kill us, our visual system is doing spectacular, even if it’s showing us something that ‘isn’t real’.
Maybe not: Perhaps we can design cameras and measure light. Even if a spectrum of light isn’t captured well by our eyes, we can define a system based around measurements even if our eyes can’t perceive them.
We can sometimes bootstrap an ‘objective’ solution.
But that doesn’t mean we can always pull it off. If a philosopher asks us to define furniture, we may stumble at ‘chair’. You can sit on it. So couches are chairs?
And so philosophical solutions might be devised, by coming up with new categories defined by more straightforward properties: sitting-things (including couches chairs, and comfortable rocks that are good for sitting). But ‘what is a chair’ may prove elusive. ‘What is a game’ may have multiple answers, and people with different tastes may find some fun and others not, perhaps messing with the idea of the ‘objective game’. And yet, if certain kind of people do tend to enjoy it, perhaps there is still something there...
(Meant as a metaphor)
When someone asks for a chair, they may have expectations. If they are from far away, perhaps they will be surprised when they see your chairs. Perhaps there are different styles where they come from, or it’s the same styles, just used for different things.
You probably do well enough that, an implicit ‘this is a chair’ is never not true. But also, maybe you don’t have a chair, but still find a place they can sit that does just as well.
Maybe people care about purpose more than truth. And both may be context dependent. A sentence can have a different meaning in different contexts.