From: ken@iat.holonet.net (Ken Easlon)
Subject: Re: The Easlon Test
Organization: HoloNet National Internet Access BBS: 510-704-1058/modem
Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1992 21:12:42 GMT


In article <Byy1y5.H7J@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu>,
lcarr@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (lincoln carr)writes:

>In article <Byrz54.Hxp@iat.holonet.net> ken@iat.holonet.net (Ken Easlon)
>writes:

>>
>>He realizes they all have a place in their mind for the concept of
>>ultimate reality, but the contents of that mental compartment are
>>strictly up to the individual.  So, in his practical way, he says to
>>himself, he sez, ultimate reality is a subjective phenomenon, it
>>doesn't exist outside the mind of the beholder.
>>

>Okay, okay, since everyone is having so much trouble with the word
>"ultimate" let us agree to replace it with the word "objective" in the
>sense that it is used by modern scientists, etc.  I would give the
>example of mathematics as something that is objectively real, but this
>may be a bad example because I am not at all sure that, and really
>doubt that, numbers exist in the same way that I exist.  

Close, but no cigar.  I maintain that objective reality is also a mental
phenomenon.  However, I concede that objective reality is an invention
which makes it possible for us to communicate with words, so let's
communicate.

My persistent (some might say pathological) argument against the existence
of non mental reality is based on the following premise.  If we ever hope
to understand the workings of the human mind with the kind of precision it
would take to emulate same on a computer, we need to look at the it both
from the outside (behaviorist) and the inside (philosophical).

I say we can't do this by addressing one set of problems from the outside,
and another set of problems from the inside.  We need to devise an
experimental setting that allows us to look at a range of problems from
both points of view simultaneously.  Eventually we should be able to design
such an experimental setting in the real world, but for now we must content
ourselves with thought experiments.

Think of our human subject in a very good virtual reality suit.  He's been
in the suit for quite a while, to the point where he is just as caught up
in the virtual reality as most of us would be in mundane reality.  There
may be a whole panel of researchers that have access to the experimental
data, but there's only one person who can say for sure what going on in the
mind of the subject.  That person of course is the subject himself, let's
call him Harry.

The Harry scenario is more limited than my previously presented Clyde
scenario, because Harry has a real biological body.  But I hope Harry can
at least show us my objection to the idea of non-mental reality.

In this experiment, only one aspect of Harry's consciousness is being
studied, his experience in the experiment itself.  The virtual reality is
simulated, but Harry's experience of it seems just as real as our
experience of mundane reality.  To Harry, the world of the simulation seems
real.  

In fact, if we add a twist, and say Harry was an amnesia victim when he was
put into the suit, Harry might swear that the virtual reality is the real   
thing.
  

Suppose the virtual setting has Harry in the role of couch potatoe (sic)
where he never ventures out of his room and spends most of his time
watching television.  We ask Harry to explain reality to us.

Would harry tell us that the "really real" reality is his room, or the
reality presented on TV.  We can't discuss Harry's body in this experiment
because the panel of researchers and Harry have different data streams to
work with.

The room reality is real in one way because it represents Harry's
interactive experience.  The TV reality is real in another way, because
Harry knows there must be something out there beyond the confines of his
four walls, and TV gives him some clues about what it is.

Take it, Lincoln (or anyone else caring to comment).


--
Ken Easlon
ken@holonet.net