X-Message-Number: 10242 From: "Timur Rozenfeld" <> Subject: Reason Date: Sat, 15 Aug 1998 10:43:20 -0600 This is a multi-part message in MIME format. ------=_NextPart_000_000C_01BDC839.85449F80 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable >To Timur Rosenfeld: No. Logic is NOT the means by which we integrate new >knowledge. While there is room for argument about the exact means by which our brains >work, they very clear do not work by using logic, symbolic or other. It is >true that we may use logic to explain how they work, but that is a >different issue. Basically, our brains (when their structure and operation >is examined) seem to consist of a set of neural nets connected together, >with one single sequential computer (our awareness) having a kind of >overall guiding role. I do not believe anyone has even shown that the >different neural nets work by the same principles, though for at least >our cerebral cortex that seems plausible. Lower brain centers may operate >differently. The fact that we have several different kinds of memories, >if anything, suggests different operation of the neural nets involved. You are talking about how the brain works which as you say may or may not be true, but I am talking at the epistemological level, not the = scientific which comes after. How do you know something is true or not? You test it against reality and see if there are contradictions, etc. If = it passes within the current context of your knowledge, you add it to your existing knowledge. This is what I mean by using logic. You can = describe it any way you like, as you did below, at the lower level, but that comes after the fact that you have gained knowledge of how the = brain works, which was through your faculty to integrate information provided by the senses (reason). How do you tell if something should be = true or not, should become knowledge or not, through logic. >As for symbols as constructions, I note the proliferation of >languages and now the similar proliferation of computer languages. Different languages use different audio-visual concretes for the concepts they denote within the appropriate context >As to just why we come up with such similar constructions of reality, >there is both our common history and our common brain anatomy. It >remains an interesting question as to whether or not simply a different >history might lead a hypothetical human society to come up with an >equally technological but wildly different view of the world. If we >suppose different brain anatomies, then that possibility becomes even >more likely... but still not certain. The only answer to that question >may come from finding some other civilization among the stars --- but >then the Fermi paradox suggests that such civilizations will be >few and far between. We might have to look as far as the next Local >Group of galaxies to get any good chance of finding one... and perhaps >not even THAT close. The phrase constructions of reality presumes that we create reality as we go, but I am not sure that is what you meant. I certainly agree that = a different species would perceive reality differently: would perceive different aspects of reality. For example, we hear sounds, see visible = light, but another species might perceive infrared as we see light, and feel vibrations like we hear sound. Their different sense organs would = make for a radically different society, etc., but they would still be perceiving the same reality. Timur Rozenfeld ------=_NextPart_000_000C_01BDC839.85449F80 Content-Type: text/html; [ AUTOMATICALLY SKIPPING HTML ENCODING! ] Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=10242