Quote:
Originally Posted by
LouaiB
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One thing though...perception. This path is what it is, a path, a perception. After thinking about everything being a perception, you start to also see that logic is indeed a perception too. But, is our logical perception our overall perception? Assuming so, three possibilities lie now:
1) Existence is a concept inside our perception, and so our logic can reach it. Even though it would just be a figment of our perception (as in an 'illusion' that only our perception sees (isn't everything a perception sees but an illusion since only it sees it that way, if not the only who sees it at all?)), we would solve it's mystery.
2) Existence is a concept inside our perception, and so our logic can reach it, but that still isn't enough ; it's not that simple.
3) Concept of existence is false, only created by the marriage of our logical rules and self awareness(might, probably not, since I'm assuming here that everything we perceive passes through logic first, and not relating to other elements that might disrupt that (is that even possible for an all logic perception? I can't figure it out. Augh, I feel so limited). To try to figure it out, my first thought is that we can assume that logic is our only tool to understand, but is it really the only element for perception?? If it is, then everything we percieve, even the concept of existence, would be possible and rational and solvable logically, but is logic truly the only element of perception? If not, then new concepts would come in, a lot of them not by, or merged with logic, and since logic is our only tool for understanding, creating false concepts ( yes I can assume that it's false even though it's in our perception because everything our logic can't understand would be false, because everything is perception (illusion) and the only true things are things we can understand)
We have a perception now. We expanded to artificially study elements of nature, in a sense, expanded our senses, and thus our perception. Anything new we discover, we will search for the relation, connect there dots, discover the new elements (artificial senses) to explain it. We are able to expand our perception a lot, covering new things. So in a sense, nothing is illogical, because our logic can perceive anything in our perception, and we are constantly expanding our perception. So the problem is not our logic, it's our perception, our senses and mental limitation (like creativity). So in a sense it doesn't matter that our logic is limited because we are managing to 'translate' new elements to elements we can understand.
I agree with you, and I also agree that seemingly we can expand drastically, even to cover all the elements of the physical world.
A machine can use logic, but it can't perceive. Perception and logic are two completely separate things, most definitively I wouldn't equate them.
But I agree on that our perception is not a direct contact with the world, with the data - it's what gets cooked together from the actual external physical signals entering over our senses and from our internal state of affairs. This is following rules, but not resulting in a perception entirely determined by the actual outside physical property measured, like a sound. Our brain has quite a lot of cookie cutters at the ready, when the signals come in, and constructs for us a picture of the world, an illusion, which differs in slight respects from a strictly analogous representation. Especially it differs in respects that have turned out useful to be a bit open to interpretation, lets say. My view - off topic, sort of - because I don't equate the two.
I also can't see, how there's "logic" to pass through - perceptions pass through all sorts of filters, which are set so and so, since that proved to be useful in evolution, logic, as a tool, comes much later, as I said above, I see it as something, which we rather found, chanced upon by observing the workings of the world (and ourselves, and with ourselves, sure - and there might lie the hook of it). We don't have a mechanism to decide if something is logical - we need to consciously do rational thinking, following certain rules for that - they are not exactly innate, even if a bit of it is maybe.
View it as an activity, a technique if you will - you sit down and take care to think logically, to avoid heuristic traps, like jumping to conclusions - that's not what some centre does, let alone automatically - that's conscious controlled thinking.
I've been asking it of Box - and maybe I should have rather have asked it of you - do you equate cognitive, rational capabilities and practice with logic, or do you see logic as a system outside of mammalian brains, existing irrelevant of there being brains making use of it? I tend to think so.
Also - evolution has given us heuristics, see above, the possibility to come to quick decisions, even unconsciously - so there should be indeed heuristics-centres or something for our thoughts to pass through, and for logical thinking, we will also have special dedicated subsystems, maybe. We are quite logical animals by nature, but not in the sense of that it comes easy to us, or even that once we use it, we do it flawlessly. It's rather quite a fuss and an exertion to try and stick with pure logic instead of using all the other nice tools in our heads.
