Whose truth?

[samclem]

You can't convince my nephew that the piece of toast with a natural hole in it is "the same" as the next piece. The milk in the red cup is not "the same" as the milk in the blue cup. His food "tastes different" if someone is sitting next to him or not. His perceptions are frustrating, unpredictable, incomprehensible. Imagine a day in which EVERY SINGLE object or person you interact with has to undergo this kind of (apparently arbitrary) scrutiny and verification in fifteen or twenty dimensions rather than just the two or three we normally employ.. and is therefore constantly found lacking/unacceptable to the point where you can't handle it. Much less interpreting people, he even has a hard time interpreting the "static" known world. We take all this for granted!

While we may note that "hairballs" and processing new info based on old beliefs can lead to some faulty conclusions, it is important to recognize that the assimilation of info our brain performs is tremendously complex and works amazingly well virtually all the time. We notice the exceptions to the rule, but if we were all reduced to re-investigating everything without benefit of the prior framework we've constructed, we'd be unable to function. I'll keep my hairballs, thank you very much. Just like any tool, it's good to know a little about it works, what it does well, and when it might let you down.

 

[maddythebeagle]

great thread....how about putting a group together to study it further...

 

[Martha]

LGFNB.. thanks, interesting link! The "numbers are my friends" is definitely somewhat along the lines of my nephew's thinking, except he'll say to his little sister, "You be Triton and I'll be Callisto". When she "fails" at this role-playing she gets stabbed, kicked, bitten and punched for her trouble.

I know with time he'll be able to work out some strategies to compensate for not seeing things the way everyone else does, but it will be a long and painful road.. (probably more for his family than for him, actually).

--
I just brought the whole thing up because it's forced the whole family to reconsider what is real/unreal.. true/untrue.

You can't convince my nephew that the piece of toast with a natural hole in it is "the same" as the next piece. The milk in the red cup is not "the same" as the milk in the blue cup. His food "tastes different" if someone is sitting next to him or not. His perceptions are frustrating, unpredictable, incomprehensible. Imagine a day in which EVERY SINGLE object or person you interact with has to undergo this kind of (apparently arbitrary) scrutiny and verification in fifteen or twenty dimensions rather than just the two or three we normally employ.. and is therefore constantly found lacking/unacceptable to the point where you can't handle it. Much less interpreting people, he even has a hard time interpreting the "static" known world. We take all this for granted!

My family has members with autism spectrum disorders, including asperger's, so I know what you are talking about. The literalism can be hard to deal with.

One of my sisters has a nephew that is autistic. My sister and I look much alike. He calls my sister Auntie Ruth. He calls me Aunti Same. But if you give him mashed potatoes (which he loves) on the wrong plate, it is not the same and they taste terrible.

Depending on the degree of Asperger's he may have a very hard time or may adapt to one degree or another. I am not in the camp that either can be cured.

 

[bssc]

Psst.. bssc.. The sun is neither rising nor setting. WE are spinning around the globe such that it looks that way.
See what I mean? It's easy when you know how!! (to be a pedantic PITA).

Hah, everyone knows that the world is flat and that it moves through space on the back of four elephants that stand on the back of a giant space turtle. Anyone who says otherwise is not telling the truth.

 

[sgeeeee]

Hah, everyone knows that the world is flat and that it moves through space on the back of four elephants that stand on the back of a giant space turtle. Anyone who says otherwise is not telling the truth.

I would like to take up the hobby of breeding space turtles. Does anyone have any information on this?

 

[ladelfina]

bssc:

the assimilation of info our brain performs is tremendously complex and works amazingly well virtually all the time.

samclem: Absolutely! I'm always amazed at how FEW people are "insane" or mentally handicapped, given the amount of physical bumps, scrapes, and outright handicaps most people face to some degree at one point or another. Our brains are really the most resilient of body parts, yet in some ways the most fragile.

The aspect of religions and other ideologies that supply people with notions about the universe (like the world being supported by a giant turtle) is interesting, because it shows up 2 basic needs: one, to think like others around us, not just to "go along" (which is comfortable) but to be able to function within that world view (which is practical). Two, the need to find creative meaning in ALL our thoughts, ideas, and opinions, which "meaning" doesn't exist in an aseptic world devoid of myth, religion, or politics.

Sgeee.. first you buy a very, very, very large terrarium... say 100k or 200k miles in diameter.. then put in a bunch of lettuce.

 

[bssc]

I would like to take up the hobby of breeding space turtles. Does anyone have any information on this?

I am sure that there is someone at the Unseen University who could help you. They are much better than alcapas. Maybe you could start with a fifth elephant.

 

[Robert the Red]

Human beings build mental models of the world so that they can predict what will happen, then act. We can't help it. What models are available to us are (mostly) socially constructed.

when asked what color is the house, a fair witness will only reply that the house is white on this side, making no presumption about sides not witnessed.

Even "white" is a perceptual construct -- so the Fair Witness in Heinlein's book is actually wrong about what she sees, even though she is trained never to be wrong. Except in very low light, our "white" receptors are off -- our retinas have 3 types color receptors and our brain visual system learns (at a very early age) to manufacture color perception from their combined signal.

"White" itself seems to be a universal human construction. But other color perceptions are not -- societies differ in what distinct input objective spectral combinations are considered perceptibly different colors. Hard to believe, but true.

In the OP's "convenience store stickup" example, the subjects each constructed a model of what happened, based on their different actual inputs and their different pre-conceptions of what was likely to have happened. Then in discussing it and thinking it over, these models were refined. When asked about the events, people queried their models, not their non-existent "brain videotapes". Since they probably only saw fragments of what happened, and weren't paying close attention, their models were mostly built from social and personal experiences, not evidence.

Autistic people seem to perceive things differently. At least partly due to different "wiring" in the brain. It is hard to believe that other people don't actually see the same thing you see when you look at the same object. But this can be true, and is probably more common than we think.

 

[laurence]

I always wondered as a kid whether others saw colors the same way I do. My blue could be your green and we would never know, because every time you saw something reflecting that portion of the spectrum, we'd both say, " that's blue!" "yep!". We see things exactly as we see them, then society, language, culture etc. gives them labels to make it possible to communicate, perhaps this causes a narrowing in concious, who knows? Our ability to communicate and cooperate is a huge asset, but we are like signal lamps in the fog. No one really knows another's mind, do they?

 

[wabmester]

My blue could be your green and we would never know

Oh, that explains why your tie always clashes and why you picked that green carpet.

 

[maddythebeagle]

I wonder how space turtle cheese compares to the beaver varieties...

 

[yakers]

Hah, everyone knows that the world is flat and that it moves through space on the back of four elephants that stand on the back of a giant space turtle. Anyone who says otherwise is not telling the truth.

Yes, but remember, no one knows what the turtle stands on.

 

[donheff]

I always wondered as a kid whether others saw colors the same way I do. My blue could be your green and we would never know, because every time you saw something reflecting that portion of the spectrum, we'd both say, " that's blue!" "yep!".

Color perception is frequently used as an example by philosophers and cognitive scientists to explain why subjective experience is impossible to share.

 

[Khan]

Yes, but remember, no one knows what the turtle stands on.

It's turtles all the way down.

 

[sgeeeee]

It's turtles all the way down.

That's silly. Everyone knows that space turtles can fly.

 

[lazygood4nothinbum]

Even "white" is a perceptual construct -- so the Fair Witness in Heinlein's book is actually wrong about what she sees, even though she is trained never to be wrong. Except in very low light, our "white" receptors are off -- our retinas have 3 types color receptors and our brain visual system learns (at a very early age) to manufacture color perception from their combined signal.

did i say white? i meant blue, no green, no red. i'm pretty sure you know this & only used the house to make your point but the point of the house was not color rather to show how a fair witness wouldn't assume said alleged color extended to unseen sides of the house. now that's a house of a different color.

good explanation of constructs though, brought up all sorts of college memories from my old communication classes.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

There are a number of factors at play:

- Seeing things you really didn't see
- Not seeing things you did see
- Filling in parts of what you "saw" based on what other people tell you that they saw
- "Coloring" what you saw on the basis of presumptions and prejudices
- "Coloring" the story over time

No space turtles.

 

[bssc]

I always wondered as a kid whether others saw colors the same way I do. My blue could be your green and we would never know,

One of my friends in high school was red green color blind. She was carrying a lime green poster board that she thought was red.

 

[bssc]

Yes, but remember, no one knows what the turtle stands on.

In the DVD, you can see it swim through space.

 

[Caroline]

It's turtles all the way down.

I thought you were a math major, Khan? What'd you do, wander into a philosophy course by mistake?