Re: Philosophy specifies: organisms process information

On 3 May, 19:52, r norman <r_s_norman@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 3 May 2007 08:38:57 -0700, Nic <harrisonda...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

<major snippage>

Every indication, even when taking our perceptions on trust,
is that we shouldn't take them on trust - I know the images on my
retinas would appear upside down if I were to look at them. I suppose
this is just a scepticism about what the outside is like, as opposed
whether there is an outside.

Is this canard still around?

I know I canardly keep up.

When I learned that the image on the film in my camera was upside
down, I tried holding the camera upside down also to correct it but
then when I got the developed pictures back from the store I found
that every single one was upside down in the package. I had to stand
on my head to view them!

What really irritates me is that when I use what is called the
standard lens on my camera, there is no advice when the prints come
back as to what is the standard distance to view them from.

And then I tried turning my monitor upside down and scanning a
document. Sure enough, the scanned image looked upside down. But
when I ran my text recognition program it read the information just
fine!! How did it ever figure out that the display was really
inverted?

I guess if you think way-upness is no problem, you aren't troubled by
colour scepticism either. Is there anything left in the mind that
even requires explaining as emergent? Maybe all the things we see
from the inside have no actual qualities and can quite happily be
identified with any chain of events involving neurons that doesn't
eventually peter out.

On a less cheerful note, there's a big petering out at the very end.
Does that or does that not make me never having been conscious in the
first place?

.

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