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I See What You're Saying, But Fail To See The Point

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Posted by Mario Dovalina on July 27, 2001 19:44:33 UTC

As far as I can tell, all you're saying is that all we see and interpret is modified by our brains. I agree. If you're saying anything else then please elaborate. But I'll debate your points anyway just because I'm an argumentative type of guy.

"Not really, most of what think is your sense of movement is just a particular interpretation of your sense of vision."

Would you say that a blind person would consider space three dimensional? Yes? How about a deaf person? Yes? How about someone who can't feel? Yes? Now, how about someone with none of the five senses? I suppose not, so your argument is valid (as long as you admit that it's hardly just sight)

You have to understand that I agree with most everything you say, but occasionally you seem to go off the deep end. I don't know if that's a miscommunication on your part or a misreading on my part, but for example:

"Space is neither real nor an illusion, it's just a model for sensory data. It's as real as it appears real, but it vanishes into nothing as soon as you close your eyes. When you open your eyes again space appears to be exactly the way it was when you closed them, and you assume that it was out there all the time, which is a fine assumption but does not correspond to reality."

Forgive me for being in a constant wince while reading that paragraph. The first time I read it I got the impression that you don't think the universe exists, it's all a mental construct. I realized that couldn't possibly be the case so I read it again and got exactly the same impression. Please tell me I'm mistaken.

Space is neither real nor an illusion? I disagree. Our perception of space is certainly neither real or an illusion, but our perceptions are based on reality, however loosely. Space is certainly "out there" and it is certainly real. Saying "Well, it's all internal because the images and sounds are entirely in your head" strikes me strongly as creative bull. It is true, but saying "Everything you see and hear is in your head" has absolutely no meaning because what caused that sound and light emission was not in your head. Just because our interpretation of external reality is modified (and personally I view subjective modification as corruption) does not eliminate the quest for objectivity. I get the distinct impression that that's what you're trying to do.

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