Reply #70: Can we be so trained? [View All]

[The Traveler]

I don't think so. I have been on polar ice, but only for a couple of weeks. More experienced folk definitely did better moving around, indicating that us Western types are to a degree at least trainable. There were no Eskimos with us ... but it was on that trip I first became acquainted with this particular example. Here's another.

Take an 8x8 grid ... a chess board. Arrange randomly shaped rocks on it. Photograph the arrangement. Austalian aborigines will be able to reproduce that arrangement with impressive accuracy, and you and I will not. Now, repeat the experiment with regular shapes like pyramids, spheres, triangles, octagaons, etc. Suddenly, you and I are the impressive ones.

While training can improve our performance, we will never equal the aborigne in the first experiment, nor will training improve the aborigne's performance in the second. The "setting" of the perceptual function by around age 5 is well established in the literature of cognitive science, and the literature is replete in examples.

Certain indigenous people (I believe Navajo are among them, but at my age memory is not the only thing that fails) apparently perceive time differently. Don't ask me to explain that. I haven't the foggiest what that means, but it does apparently have some impact on language.

Here's a disturbing train of thought ... The Simulation Argument. Weird stuff, but philosophically and scientifically difficult to dismiss.

The lesson I take from that argument is that the fundamental nature of reality is still damn hard to nail down. Well, perception influences everything we do and think because perception is basic to thought itself. If we have been perceptually trained to filter out the pertinent clues ... I think you can see my point.

Is there a God? Why would there only be one? How the fuck should I know? I have had certain experiences that lead me to think there is at least one, but that cannot be considered evidence. My brain chemistry might have been screwed up or something. It is possible. On the other hand, I obtained that experience by following certain instructions ... to a degree, these experiences are somewhat reproducible for those who are willing to retreat from conclusion while they perform the test.

Glad I had those experiences, but they are valueless to you. I can testify to them, suggest how you might reproduce something like them and all that. But I have no idea what they mean, after a couple of decades of trying to discern what significance these experiences might bear.

My response to the OP was motivated by a "wait a minute" kind of impulse. The philosophically (and scientifically) unsound premise that "material senses" are in any way reliable when ascertaining the fundamental structure of reality required challenge. In the realm of pure science, there are ample grounds to dispute that argument, and so it is a completely unreliable point of departure for arguing about the existence or non-existence of a creative intelligence.

Trav