Constraints on PERCEPTION ...

[Ray Lester]

Indeed there ARE constraints on each of our individual 'perceptions' of
'reality'; and I personally would go further than Stephan allowed himself
to do - as I did recently in a piece I wrote about 'Metadata' where I
quoted from Brian Magee's 'Confessions of a Philosopher':

"In devising systems for the handling of information - other than at a very
simple level - I suspect that perfection is inherently unattainable. One of
the parts of Bryan Magee's Confessions of a Philosopher which I did think
that I understood and certainly empathized with summarized Kant's insight
that 'what we human beings can think, perceive, know, experience, or be
aware of in any way at all depends not only on what the reality is with
which we have to deal but also on the apparatus we have for doing those
things - our human bodies  with their senses, nervous systems and brains 

What is just is 
 independently of us and the apparatus with which we
happen to find ourselves equipped; and we have no grounds whatsoever for
believing that reality, the totality of what exists, coincides with what we
are able to apprehend 
'.

"And then, later, Magee goes on to write: 'The limit of human knowledge
consists not only of a boundary beyond which we cannot apprehend anything.
What we can and do apprehend within that boundary is also of a limited
nature, though in a different way. If I look smack at the Empire State
Building, head-on, I may feel that I am in the most immediate and direct
possible contact with it - there it is, right there, straight in front of
me, the Empire State Building, and I am looking at it right now - but the
fact remains that it does not pop into my head. What is inside my head is
not the Empire State Building but a set of visual data which I interpret as
being the Empire State Building 
 All our sensory perception of the
external world is of this character 
 And it is only of things as they
appear to us that we can have any knowledge or awareness: whatever it is
that they are in themselves must for ever remain inaccessible to us human
beings.'

"If Kant did indeed capture the essence of an individual's 'perception' of
'reality' - that it is, indeed, 'individual' - the quest for agreement on
how specific pieces of (digital) stuff should be unambigously and uniquely
identified and characterised can be unending ..."


>Priority: normal
>X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Windows (v2.52)
>Date:         Wed, 18 Aug 1999 10:04:33 BST
>Reply-To:     Stephan Helfer <S.Helfer at RBGE.ORG.UK>
>Sender:       Taxacom Discussion List <TAXACOM at USOBI.ORG>
>From:         Stephan Helfer <S.Helfer at RBGE.ORG.UK>
>Organization: Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh
>Subject:      Constraints
>To:           TAXACOM at USOBI.ORG
>
>Dear all
>
>Bill Shear wrote:
>
>> Evolutionary biologists, on the other hand, have the advantage of no
>> constraints save observable physical law.
>
>It would be wonderful if this was true. Instead, I believe,
>evolutionary biologists, like everybody else, are constrained by a
>tradition, albeit a younger one. This is no problem, as long as it is
>recognised that there are PERCEPTIONS of reality on both sides of the
>creationist / evolutionist divide. The trouble is that these
>perceptions are used as substitutes of the reality (whatever it is)
>itself. I believe (and have empirical corroboration of this every
>day) that the reality in the natural world is more complex by orders
>of magnitude than my perception of that reality. There is no reason
>to believe that anyone else is different in this respect. In other
>words: it is good to recognise ones own limitations and that of ones
>perceptions (I suppose, I better stop here).
>
>
>Best wishes
>
>Stephan Helfer
>Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh
>
>http://www.rbge.org.uk
>============================
>"With the destruction of each component of wild life one
>more piece of evidence for human ignorance is removed."
>
>

Ray

*** PLEASE NOTE NEW TELEPHONE NUMBERS BELOW ***

Dr Ray Lester
Head of Library & Information Services
The Natural History Museum
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020 7942 5261; fax 020 7942 5559

e-mail: r.lester at nhm.ac.uk

'Organising, preserving, and communicating knowledge of the natural world'