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- Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
- Path: sparky!uunet!gatech!concert!sas!mozart.unx.sas.com!sasghm
- From: sasghm@theseus.unx.sas.com (Gary Merrill)
- Subject: Re: Scientist skeptical about their own discovery.
- Originator: sasghm@theseus.unx.sas.com
- Sender: news@unx.sas.com (Noter of Newsworthy Events)
- Message-ID: <C17I8G.D9B@unx.sas.com>
- Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1993 13:45:52 GMT
- References: <C13uxG.F8G@unx.sas.com> <1993Jan19.154945.25457@samba.oit.unc.edu> <C140qp.Mz7@unx.sas.com> <1993Jan20.151253.26586@samba.oit.unc.edu> <C15vK7.B0p@unx.sas.com> <C165r8.Kt1@unixhub.SLAC.Stanford.EDU>
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- Organization: SAS Institute Inc.
- Lines: 35
-
-
- In article <C165r8.Kt1@unixhub.SLAC.Stanford.EDU>, sschaff@roc.SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Stephen F. Schaffner) writes:
- |> In article <C15vK7.B0p@unx.sas.com>, sasghm@theseus.unx.sas.com (Gary Merrill)
- |> writes:
- |>
- |> [...]
- |> |> If I show you the photo and say "do you see *that*", *then* if you say "No"
- |> |> it is proper to say it isn't there for you. If you say "Yes", it certainly
- |> |> *is* there for you! I can *then* ask you, "What do you see this *as*?" or
- |> |> "What do you think this *is*?" or "Don't you think this is significant?".
- |> |> There is still a difference among all of "reporting as significant",
- |> |> "not reporting as significant", "not reporting at all", and "not seeing".
- |> |> The last is something for which one might seek medical treatment. If
- |> |> I see the duck instead of the rabbit, or the rabbit instead of the duck,
- |> |> my "perception" might be said to be skewed or deficient in some manner,
- |> |> but if I don't see *anything* (no lines, no shades of light and dark)
- |> |> I have another kind of problem altogether.
- |>
- |> The question is, what is his state before the line on the photo is pointed out
- |> to him? Sure, he is capable of seeing the line, but if he wasn't looking for
- |> it and therefore didn't notice it, did he see it?
-
- But a hypothesis concerning how perception is theory-laden seems rather
- empty here. There are *many* things that we don't see in this sense
- every day -- or that we see and forget we have seen. In addition, we
- all have had the experience of explicitly looking for something, the
- thing is where we are looking, and we *still* don't see it. (This
- happens all the time with my tools. I have the hypothesis that they
- actually *aren't* there until someone else looks for them, but my
- wife dismisses this as absurd.) I don't think these phenomena are
- addressed by appeal to theories that we may or may not hold.
- --
- Gary H. Merrill [Principal Systems Developer, C Compiler Development]
- SAS Institute Inc. / SAS Campus Dr. / Cary, NC 27513 / (919) 677-8000
- sasghm@theseus.unx.sas.com ... !mcnc!sas!sasghm
-