Why do I have a perspective at all?

Post Reply New Topic

There's something that has been bothering me for a long time, and it's the sort of thing that also bothers philosophers, although I do not necessarily speak the same language as the philosophers. Philosophers talk about "qualia", or the "explanatory gap", or the "hard problem".

Here is the problem. I believe that my body, including my brain, is a collection of physics-stuff that simply obeys the laws of physics. It is made of physics-stuff, just like my laptop that I am typing on. I believe that is a good materialistic explanation of what I am and why I do the things I do, where my brain is a mechanical control centre for my body. I believe that there is a good materialistic explanation for why I am what I am: the blind forces of evolution have selected for things that have brains.

So, it really could just be that I do not have a "perspective" at all. As far as I can tell, the universe would be just fine if I was just a bunch of atoms. And I am a bunch of atoms. But, I have a "perspective". There is really some subjective viewpoint that I possess, that is looking out into the objective world. You're just going to have to believe me, because I realised a long time ago that I cannot convince anyone of this.

You know what is terrible? I believe that there is a good materialistic explanation for why I typed the last paragraph. In other words, there is a good materialistic explanation for why I claim to have a point of view. But, I really DO have a point of view! Why? It could have just been that I claim to but actually don't!

It seems to me that this problem is a fundamental problem, and cannot be solved. Because as soon as I try to tell anyone about it, I am talking in third-person language, and as soon as the problem is cast in third-person language, it all boils down to materialistic explanations that don't actually capture my first-person perspective at all. Apparently this position (that the problem is unsolvable) makes me something called a "New Mysterian".

Does anyone know what I'm talking about? If so, what are your thoughts on the matter?

If I understand the problem correctly, you think that a materialistic explanation for why you have arrived at your point of view would render your POV quantifiable and objective rather than subjective, right?

Our view is subjective because our model of reality is only an abstraction. Our senses are not entirely accurate, and sensory perception is additionally distorted by preconceptions and biases about our environment that may not be accurate either. We also make a lot of assumptions and deductions about the people around us and their motives, which may or may not be true. We usually also rationalize our own behavior in a way that allows us to maintain a positive self-image (the Rashomon effect).

In addition, we all act in our own (genetic) self-interest. Our self-centered view further distorts reality. For example, if I have planted an apple tree in my garden ten years ago, I will regard the apples as my property and food source. They exist because I planted the tree. But in fact, I haven't done anything to create the tree or the apples. The tree has assembled itself using water, oxygen, soil nutrients and solar energy. It is a living organism that produces seed-bearing fruit in order to propagate its genes.

That's why your POV can never be objective, even though it might be quantifiable and explicable. Perhaps I'm underthinking this, but that seems to solve the problem for me.

Last edited by CrazyCatLord on 16 Feb 2012, 5:11 am, edited 1 time in total.

yes i know exactly what you're talking about and for me its reason to believe that free will does exist.

Having just read up on qualia, it seems to me that the only problem is the tendency of philosophers to thoroughly overthink everything

It's quite simple: Empirical facts and subjective experiences are two different things. While it is theoretically possible to empirically analyze the causes and mechanisms behind the subjective experience of another person, I can never experience the exact same sensations for myself, simply because I can't be that person. I can't use their mental facilities since I'm trapped in my own individual brain. Problem solved

You have perspective because you have two eyes that process a left and right image in one place.

ruveyn

actually that's not the case at all. he has perspective because things exist at different distances from one another. perspective can be seen by one eyed people as well. only blind people don't perceive perspective.

what you are talking about is stereopsis.

Correct. Perspective can be teased out of parallax.

ruven

no, not even this. perspective is nothing more than objects of similar size appearing to the observer to be different in scale due to being at different distances. as the distance between the observer and observed increases, the observed appears proportionally smaller. this is perspective. the concept is explained in detail at 0:30 in the following clip:



[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25N-4zrk390[/youtube]



parallax is related to stereopsis, not perspective.

Last edited by peebo on 16 Feb 2012, 1:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.

to the original poster, to whom i do apologise for dragging your post on a pedantic tangent, i would recommend reading sartre's nausea, and if you find it insightful, move onto the roads to freedom trilogy. and don't fret, they are not philosophy books, but rather novels that captivatingly put forward sartre's philosophical points of view at the respective times of writing.

sartre talked of qualia in being and nothingness, but i won't quote him here for putting you off the books mentioned above, since being and nothingness isn't a novel and might perhaps not speak your language. it doesn't necessarily speak my language either...

Not so. With Parallax we can tell which objects are closer and which are farther away.

All other things being equal the farther object subtends the smaller angle so we can tease out vanishing points that way.

ruveyn

we can indeed, but parallax is still not the same thing as perspective, by which we can also gauge distance (and in a much less complex way, as movement is not required), and which is still not the same as stereopsis, which you implied in your first post in this thread. as mentioned previously, perspective is apparent even to one-eyed people, and does not relate to stereopsis (the three dimensional effect produced by merging to views of an object from similar but not identical vantage points).

this can easily be proven by considering the use of perspective in drawings, which are two-dimensional by nature.

Oh yes. It's the main reason this nonsense about free will won't die out.
If it helps, think of it this way - is there any good reason why a materialistic system CANNOT have a point of view?

can you expand on this, before i present a counter argument that may be founded upon a misunderstanding?

He is talking about philosophical perspective (aka a point of view) and we are talking about geometrical/optical perspective.

ruveyn

I guess not. But why me?

If I'm not going to be egotistical, I guess I have to assume that all materialistic systems with certain properties have points of view. But it seems like such a strange thing. I mean, if you were God, and you built a person from scratch out of atoms, you wouldn't expect him to have a point of view, would you? After all, you know exactly how the person works, and you never put a point of view in him. When he tells you, "I have a point of view!" you would just say, "Yes, I understand why you are saying that." But you wouldn't actually believe him.

Does anyone have any ideas about what properties a system has to have before it gains a point of view? Is it a blurry thing, or black-and-white? For example, I have a point of view. Now look at my father, and his father, and his father..... eventually you are talking about apes. Do my ape ancestors have just as much of a point of view as I do? Do extremely simple objects like computers have points of view?

My cat has a point of view. She has her own thoughts and feelings, though often I struggle to interpret them. I doubt she's contemplating the nature of the universe or asking if there is a god, but she's damned good at getting what she wants.

You don't really need a lot to give a system a point of view. First, it needs to be able to process information - take in input, identify relevant information from it, act accordingly. Second, you give it a need - that is, the input is something it actively looks for (I was going to say "wants", but that is needlessly anthropomorphising). That's about it. End result - something that takes in some aspect of the world around it, and categorises things as "good" or "bad" or however else it is programmed to operate.

It's a big step up from there to human beings, because we process a LOT of information, from various sources, and one of the biggest ones of these is our own selves. We can set up feedback loops, so we're not just thinking about (say) lemons, but thinking about ourselves thinking about lemons. We divide the universe into two, being "us" and "everything else", and we process those parts differently. And we can change our programming - we "learn". In short, we have a perspective that recognises and analyses itself - and adapts accordingly. We are computer programs that can revise and rewrite themselves. Von Neumann would be proud.

There is only one reason why we have been unable to replicate this artificially - the sheer scale of our brains is beyond our ability to replicate or understand, and certainly to build. Our computers have the processing power to replicate insect thoughts. Certainly human senses are difficult for computers to process - we have no problem with sight and sound, but computers struggle to interpret both. (Rather fittingly, computers have no problem with abstract calculation, while many human brains would struggle to even spell "abstract calculation"...)