I’m using the word “understand” in a broad sense. Talking about the experience of seeing red is a far cry from actually experiencing red, which is more the relevant cluster. And for most of human history it’s been easy to show people red things even though almost nobody understood the mechanics of human color vision.
I agree that talking about experiencing red is very different from experiencing red. That doesn’t answer Vanessa’s question though.
If someone was considering investing in curing their own blindness, it would be easy to explain to them what seeing is—even if you don’t know how vision or light works, you can talk about the experience of seeing and how those experiences seem to relate to facts about an external world. If someone is considering learning to look up from their phone, it is easy to say lots of concrete things about what “looking” entails and how it works and why it might be useful.
One can tell similar stories for some of the claimed benefits of meditation. For example: there is a bunch of cognitive machinery that gives rise to our perception of reality but which humans don’t usually perceive. We can learn to perceive the action of this machinery, rather than merely experiencing its effects. That’s a simple, concrete, story about what is going on. (Though it omits the important details, e.g. what can you actually learn to perceive about this machinery and how?)
It’s interesting to ask whether there are benefits of meditation beyond those that can be explicated in this way. My default guess is no.
If someone is considering learning to look up from their phone, it is easy to say lots of concrete things about what “looking” entails and how it works and why it might be useful.
I don’t agree. In the cell phone world as I picture it, it’s actually very difficult to say anything to a cell-phone-worlder about what looking entails, because all of the referents that a cell-phone-worlder has for the relevant words refer to images on their cell phone, which are the wrong types of things entirely. I have in mind a conversation at least as frustrating as the one about getting out of the car in the SSC post on cactus people.
It’s interesting to ask whether there are benefits of meditation beyond those that can be explicated in this way. My default guess is no.
it’s actually very difficult to say anything to a cell-phone-worlder about what looking entails, because all of the referents that a cell-phone-worlder has for the relevant words refer to images on their cell phone
The cell-phone-worlder has seen images on their phone, which comprise a model for the things outside of their phone. That model includes themselves, and all their actions and perceptions. You can tell them facts about that model, including facts about the consequences of actions they could take (though they may not have words for those actions). Yes, the cell-phone-worlder has not perceived reality (and neither have we). That’s not how models work, they aren’t supposed to be identical with the thing they are modeling, they are supposed to be used to draw inferences about the thing that they are modeling.
From my perspective your statement seems about as convincing as saying: “it’s actually very difficult to say anything to a human about what a banana is like, because all of the referents the human has for the relevant words refer to photons impinging on their retina.” That does not mean that our beliefs about the world are restricted to beliefs about photons.
If you want to talk to the cell-phone-worlder you can say:
There are parts of reality which you don’t currently perceive. Here is a picture of the world <personholdingphone.jpg>. Your perceptions are restricted to the part of the picture marked “Phone,” which is why the rest of that picture looks so alien to you. With practice, it is possible for you to exert control over what part of the world you perceive. By using that skill you will be able to have new kinds of experiences, and those experiences will be related to what is happening in the parts of the world not labeled “Phone.”
You say:
I have in mind a conversation at least as frustrating as the one about getting out of the car in the SSC post on cactus people.
If you are talking to someone in a car, you can explain to them what it means to be a car, and how their perception of reality is related to cars and how their actions result in driving the car, and about how a different set of actions could result in a very different set of experiences. I don’t see how getting out of the car is necessary to understanding that you are in a car. I don’t think that Scott is sympathetic to the big green bat (I could be wrong), though he’s probably more sympathetic than I am. I’m even less sympathetic to the teacher in the big green bat’s story, who appears to be being intentionally dense.
I’m using the word “understand” in a broad sense. Talking about the experience of seeing red is a far cry from actually experiencing red, which is more the relevant cluster. And for most of human history it’s been easy to show people red things even though almost nobody understood the mechanics of human color vision.
I agree that talking about experiencing red is very different from experiencing red. That doesn’t answer Vanessa’s question though.
If someone was considering investing in curing their own blindness, it would be easy to explain to them what seeing is—even if you don’t know how vision or light works, you can talk about the experience of seeing and how those experiences seem to relate to facts about an external world. If someone is considering learning to look up from their phone, it is easy to say lots of concrete things about what “looking” entails and how it works and why it might be useful.
One can tell similar stories for some of the claimed benefits of meditation. For example: there is a bunch of cognitive machinery that gives rise to our perception of reality but which humans don’t usually perceive. We can learn to perceive the action of this machinery, rather than merely experiencing its effects. That’s a simple, concrete, story about what is going on. (Though it omits the important details, e.g. what can you actually learn to perceive about this machinery and how?)
It’s interesting to ask whether there are benefits of meditation beyond those that can be explicated in this way. My default guess is no.
I don’t agree. In the cell phone world as I picture it, it’s actually very difficult to say anything to a cell-phone-worlder about what looking entails, because all of the referents that a cell-phone-worlder has for the relevant words refer to images on their cell phone, which are the wrong types of things entirely. I have in mind a conversation at least as frustrating as the one about getting out of the car in the SSC post on cactus people.
Why?
The cell-phone-worlder has seen images on their phone, which comprise a model for the things outside of their phone. That model includes themselves, and all their actions and perceptions. You can tell them facts about that model, including facts about the consequences of actions they could take (though they may not have words for those actions). Yes, the cell-phone-worlder has not perceived reality (and neither have we). That’s not how models work, they aren’t supposed to be identical with the thing they are modeling, they are supposed to be used to draw inferences about the thing that they are modeling.
From my perspective your statement seems about as convincing as saying: “it’s actually very difficult to say anything to a human about what a banana is like, because all of the referents the human has for the relevant words refer to photons impinging on their retina.” That does not mean that our beliefs about the world are restricted to beliefs about photons.
If you want to talk to the cell-phone-worlder you can say:
You say:
If you are talking to someone in a car, you can explain to them what it means to be a car, and how their perception of reality is related to cars and how their actions result in driving the car, and about how a different set of actions could result in a very different set of experiences. I don’t see how getting out of the car is necessary to understanding that you are in a car. I don’t think that Scott is sympathetic to the big green bat (I could be wrong), though he’s probably more sympathetic than I am. I’m even less sympathetic to the teacher in the big green bat’s story, who appears to be being intentionally dense.