From: Anne Marie Tobias (mariet@got.net)
Date: Fri Oct 15 2004 - 02:00:10 MDT
Hi Mitchell,
Part of the problem here is that people confuse the internal
conversation people have about reality, with reality itself. In fact, as
human beings develop, their internal conversations actually filter and
shape their perceptions (and even their brain development), so they
literally see and hear what their internal conversations allow them to
see and hear, and little else.
> Look, do you agree that blue patches, loud noises, etc., exist, or not?
> If yes, explain what's blue about a bunch of cortical neurons. If not,
> explain how I can interpret my experience without blueness, loudness,
> etc. In my world, these things are *epistemically* basic, whether or
> not they're ontologically basic.
There is no intrinsic "Blueness" in the universe. There is a wavelength
of optically visible radiation, that our society agreed is blue, vs the
longer wavelength that the chlorphyll in the grass reflects, that we all
agreed was green. Even if a person perceived one as the other, the
context of their perception, associated with the conversations that
person has had all there life would have them describing the sky as blue
and the grass as green. In that context, the personal perceptions
becomes moot, because inside language, it all becomes the same by
agreement. Language causes concensus. Causes reality by concessus.
You want to take this one step further, without the languaging to convey
a reality, there is only raw experience and instinct. All meaning comes
from the conversations we have with ourselves and other. Helen Keller
spoke about the moment her universe was born, when she got that very
first word, she literally got an entire universe, because she got the
distinction that is literally born from language, the ability to speak
of, including the ability to speak of one self.
Marie
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