Hi Frank. I carefully read your long email where you discuss your take on Kantian philosophy with Chris. I was obsessed with Kant when I was a senior in high school and did not really understand him but was fascinated enough to write a research paper on I do not recall what. I had to look up the definition of noumena when I read it. Anyway, your intellect is above mine but I admit it was fun to read. And getting instant analysis from ChtGPT is so amazing.
I think it’s a mistake to think of human intelligence hierarchically. It seems to me that one of the reasons we are such a successful life-form is that our intrinsic individual uniqueness maximizes our chances of long-term survival and fuels our long-term thriving.
I can’t say I really understand where my views of reality differ from Kant’s. Chris Bateman at Stranger Worlds has replied, but I haven’t yet had a chance to look at it. I’ll have a reply anon.
The various public AIs that all of us can, at least for the moment, freely access, are indeed amazing. In the beginning we had only our own muscle power. Then we harnessed the wind and running water, then steam, then fossil fuels, then the energy that holds atoms together, and soon we’ll create our own suns. To expand our intelligence we created speech, language, writing, printing, photography, sound recording, radio, movies, television, computers and the internet/web. That we would eventually figure out a way to partially mimic and expand our ability to reason was baked in the cake. We’ve actually been working on this for eighty years! The effect on human society will probably be greater than anything we’ve developed before; if we can survive what we’ve unleashed!
Many thanks for continuing our discussions! Even before you posted this I had already started work on a series of pieces for July that wades in on these issues surrounding 'shared reality', and those reflections should extend our dialogue in productive new directions (or at least, such is my hope!).
For now, I will just respond to this one point:
"Although all the models I am cognizant of exist in my own subjective reality, many are apparently nearly identical to those in other minds. Thus, there is no 'explosion of solipsism'. Humans have various methods for bringing their own subjective models of objective reality into alignment. In general, we experience personal and societal difficulties when we are not able to do this."
Here you expressly acknowledge what I am calling 'shared reality'. But you still want to stick to 'one subjective reality per being' because you want to acknowledge that at the level of specifics, every one of those experiences of consciousnesses can be different (even if the sense of what is 'real' is largely common across large swathes of cases). What I hope to tease out in July's pieces is how if what we mean by 'reality' is going to be meaningful, we should not be distracted by the individual sense data, because that's not how we construct reality but merely how we justify the existence of 'other minds', and the brute fact that other minds exist does not justify the supposition of infinite realities.
Relatedly, however, the idea of a single objective reality is the other side of the 'infinite subjective realities' coin, and I think this is the truly misleading part (although it may be necessary to understand 'shared reality' to get there - these remarks of yours make it clear that you already have an inkling of what I am driving at). As your robot warns, you risk using 'reality' in two radically unconnected senses, although, to be fair, humans now have over a century of habituation to this confusion about reality.
Ultimately, although I am a good child of the Enlightenment and happy to let everyone interpret existence in their own terms, I cannot help but find the idea of 'infinite subjective realities plus one objective reality' an incoherent model, one which uses reality in two completely different and incompatible senses. If you must choose between Plato's eternal forms or the Hindu 'maya' (reality as illusion), whichever one you pick closes down the other path. Continuing to juggle two different senses of 'reality' is just not realistic! 😂 (Although actually, you can also reject *both* of these takes on what is real, but that's another story!).
Much, much more on the topic of 'shared reality' on Stranger Worlds next month!
Thank you, as ever, for our thoughtful exchanges. Always welcome.
Thanks for the reply. I’m still not clear about how to resolve our different views (assuming this is actually the case), but I think the most productive next step is to wrestle with your coming July posts.
An excellent plan! I'm making slow but steady progress through it all... I usually hope to have the next month 'in the bag' by the first day of the month, but I still have one more draft to write and only a few days left to manage it (I finished my research for it just before writing this comment in fact!).
These July pieces will hopefully open up new paths for us to explore together, and I sincerely thank you for the provocation to do so! This is everything I hoped Stranger Worlds would be: a shared journey in the beautiful wilderness of philosophy.
Bless you, Frank, and wishing you and yours a festive semiquincentennial!
Comment by JudyW:
Hi Frank. I carefully read your long email where you discuss your take on Kantian philosophy with Chris. I was obsessed with Kant when I was a senior in high school and did not really understand him but was fascinated enough to write a research paper on I do not recall what. I had to look up the definition of noumena when I read it. Anyway, your intellect is above mine but I admit it was fun to read. And getting instant analysis from ChtGPT is so amazing.
J
Hi Judy,
Very much appreciate your comment!
I think it’s a mistake to think of human intelligence hierarchically. It seems to me that one of the reasons we are such a successful life-form is that our intrinsic individual uniqueness maximizes our chances of long-term survival and fuels our long-term thriving.
I can’t say I really understand where my views of reality differ from Kant’s. Chris Bateman at Stranger Worlds has replied, but I haven’t yet had a chance to look at it. I’ll have a reply anon.
The various public AIs that all of us can, at least for the moment, freely access, are indeed amazing. In the beginning we had only our own muscle power. Then we harnessed the wind and running water, then steam, then fossil fuels, then the energy that holds atoms together, and soon we’ll create our own suns. To expand our intelligence we created speech, language, writing, printing, photography, sound recording, radio, movies, television, computers and the internet/web. That we would eventually figure out a way to partially mimic and expand our ability to reason was baked in the cake. We’ve actually been working on this for eighty years! The effect on human society will probably be greater than anything we’ve developed before; if we can survive what we’ve unleashed!
Fond regards, Frank
Dear Frank,
Many thanks for continuing our discussions! Even before you posted this I had already started work on a series of pieces for July that wades in on these issues surrounding 'shared reality', and those reflections should extend our dialogue in productive new directions (or at least, such is my hope!).
For now, I will just respond to this one point:
"Although all the models I am cognizant of exist in my own subjective reality, many are apparently nearly identical to those in other minds. Thus, there is no 'explosion of solipsism'. Humans have various methods for bringing their own subjective models of objective reality into alignment. In general, we experience personal and societal difficulties when we are not able to do this."
Here you expressly acknowledge what I am calling 'shared reality'. But you still want to stick to 'one subjective reality per being' because you want to acknowledge that at the level of specifics, every one of those experiences of consciousnesses can be different (even if the sense of what is 'real' is largely common across large swathes of cases). What I hope to tease out in July's pieces is how if what we mean by 'reality' is going to be meaningful, we should not be distracted by the individual sense data, because that's not how we construct reality but merely how we justify the existence of 'other minds', and the brute fact that other minds exist does not justify the supposition of infinite realities.
Relatedly, however, the idea of a single objective reality is the other side of the 'infinite subjective realities' coin, and I think this is the truly misleading part (although it may be necessary to understand 'shared reality' to get there - these remarks of yours make it clear that you already have an inkling of what I am driving at). As your robot warns, you risk using 'reality' in two radically unconnected senses, although, to be fair, humans now have over a century of habituation to this confusion about reality.
Ultimately, although I am a good child of the Enlightenment and happy to let everyone interpret existence in their own terms, I cannot help but find the idea of 'infinite subjective realities plus one objective reality' an incoherent model, one which uses reality in two completely different and incompatible senses. If you must choose between Plato's eternal forms or the Hindu 'maya' (reality as illusion), whichever one you pick closes down the other path. Continuing to juggle two different senses of 'reality' is just not realistic! 😂 (Although actually, you can also reject *both* of these takes on what is real, but that's another story!).
Much, much more on the topic of 'shared reality' on Stranger Worlds next month!
Thank you, as ever, for our thoughtful exchanges. Always welcome.
With unlimited love,
Chris.
Hi Chris,
Thanks for the reply. I’m still not clear about how to resolve our different views (assuming this is actually the case), but I think the most productive next step is to wrestle with your coming July posts.
Dear Frank,
An excellent plan! I'm making slow but steady progress through it all... I usually hope to have the next month 'in the bag' by the first day of the month, but I still have one more draft to write and only a few days left to manage it (I finished my research for it just before writing this comment in fact!).
These July pieces will hopefully open up new paths for us to explore together, and I sincerely thank you for the provocation to do so! This is everything I hoped Stranger Worlds would be: a shared journey in the beautiful wilderness of philosophy.
Bless you, Frank, and wishing you and yours a festive semiquincentennial!
Chris.