a worm, a termite, a pig, and a human all have a perspective. No perspective would seem privileged as to evaluating truth. Yet a worm can’t discern electromagnetism, nor scientific insights, mechanical theory etc., but humans can. But there is not supposed to be a Great Chain of Being. Yet humans at least act as though we have a privileged perspective to being close to what is “really going on”, more than other animals at least — schopenhauer1
How can information processing simpliciter be the same as a full-blown observer? I think there are too many jumps and "just so" things going on here to link the two so brashly. — schopenhauer1
The cognitive system, shown in the left-hand side of Figure 1, is comprised of low-level automatic processing and on-line (strategic) processing that includes the limited capacity “thinking space.” The output illustrated is labeled “psychological disorder” and is considered the consequence of the cognitive attentional syndrome (CAS) dominating on-line processing as depicted. Under different on-line processing configurations, where, for example, inhibition of worry under control of the MCS is specified, internal psychological events will be transitory and therefore not constitute “disorder.”
The model highlights clear differences between metacognitive therapy and other treatment approaches in the intended target of change. In MCT, the therapist retrieves and modifies the validity of declarative metacognitions and also retrieves and re-writes the commands (procedures) for regulating processing with the purpose of modifying those involved in the CAS. In contrast, other treatments either do not aim to work on metacognitions or they do so without maintaining a clear structural and functional distinction between systems. But such a distinction could be facilitative in the design of more advanced theory-grounded treatment techniques. For example, if we consider the treatment of low self-esteem, a cognitive therapist will aim to identify and challenge negative beliefs about the self by asking questions such as: “What is the evidence you are a failure, is there another way to view the situation?” but the metacognitive therapist would ask: “What’s the point in analyzing your failures?” and follows with techniques that allow the individual to directly step-back and abandon the perseverative thought processes that extend the idea. Of particular importance, in MCT, the client discovers that processing remains malleable and subject to control in spite of the dominant cognition (belief) “I’m a failure,” thus creating an alternative model of processing rather than an alternative model of the social self (the latter considered a secondary topographic event).
We get a view from nowhere. — schopenhauer1
That is to say, where ever information is being coded and decoded, that local interaction between information components is where a perspective is taking place. — schopenhauer1
Or rather … no view anywhere. Case solved. — apokrisis
None of this is mysterious - a drama for metaphysics. Just standard biology. — apokrisis
So yeahSo I immediately see apokrisis and others point to "information" being the source of perspective. That is to say, where ever information is being coded and decoded, that local interaction between information components is where a perspective is taking place. But is it? How is information akin to perspective? Perspective, a point of view, seems to be attached to an observer, not an information processor. How can information processing simpliciter be the same as a full-blown observer? I think there are too many jumps and "just so" things going on here to link the two so brashly. — schopenhauer1
For those who say that the direction of scientific knowing is an asymptotic progress toward
truth, what grounds perspective isn’t some ‘really real’ view from nowhere. Rather, dialectical relation is irreducible. There is no perspective-free reality to be uncovered prior to dialectical perspective. Instead, the structural form of the movement of the dialectic itself is the ground. — Joshs
But what is a perspective free universe. One without sentience? Planets planeting? Particles particling? What is being without perspective? I get there is no neutral perspective but I’m asking what is a universe without a perspective at all, neutral, relative, or otherwise? — schopenhauer1
Yet humans at least act as though we have a privileged perspective to being close to what is “really going on”, more than other animals at least. Now take away humans, take away animals. We get a view from nowhere. Here is true metaphysics. What then exists in the view from nowhere? — schopenhauer1
The problem of including the observer in our description of physical reality arises most insistently when it comes to the subject of quantum cosmology - the application of quantum mechanics to the universe as a whole - because, by definition, 'the universe' must include any observers. Andrei Linde has given a deep reason for why observers enter into quantum cosmology in a fundamental way. It has to do with the nature of time. The passage of time is not absolute; it always involves a change of one physical system relative to another, for example, how many times the hands of the clock go around relative to the rotation of the Earth. When it comes to the Universe as a whole, time looses its meaning, for there is nothing else relative to which the universe may be said to change. This 'vanishing' of time for the entire universe becomes very explicit in quantum cosmology, where the time variable simply drops out of the quantum description. It may readily be restored by considering the Universe to be separated into two subsystems: an observer with a clock, and the rest of the Universe. So the observer plays an absolutely crucial role in this respect. Linde expresses it graphically: 'thus we see that without introducing an observer, we have a dead universe, which does not evolve in time', and, 'we are together, the Universe and us. The moment you say the Universe exists without any observers, I cannot make any sense out of that. I cannot imagine a consistent theory of everything that ignores consciousness...in the absence of observers, our universe is dead'. — Paul Davies, The Goldilocks Enigma: Why is the Universe Just Right for Life, p 271
Yet humans at least act as though we have a privileged perspective to being close to what is “really going on”, more than other animals at least. — schopenhauer1
Now take away humans, take away animals. We get a view from nowhere. Here is true metaphysics. What then exists in the view from nowhere? — schopenhauer1
...no view anywhere. Case solved. — apokrisis
I dont think there is being without perspective. — Joshs
Every facet of the universe produces its own changing reality via its relations with its environment. So you have a universe continually developing , but not in some perspective free sense, because a perspective isn’t simply an observation for a point of view, it’s a contribution to the production of a universe. If every facet of being produces what only exists from its vantage, the it makes no sense to speak of the absence of perspective. — Joshs
If you take away perspective you also take away the very facts that make up a universe. — Joshs
Matter and energy interacting out there in the universe, is a human perspective. It's how we describe things. — Metaphysician Undercover
You cannot escape the human perspective. — Metaphysician Undercover
Yet humans at least act as though we have a privileged perspective to being close to what is “really going on”, more than other animals at least. Now take away humans, take away animals. We get a view from nowhere. Here is true metaphysics. — schopenhauer1
And that's the blind spot. — Wayfarer
Even if we can't do that, we can imagine what it would be like to escape the human perspective. — T Clark
But what is a perspective free universe. One without sentience? Planets planeting? Particles particling? What is being without perspective? — schopenhauer1
In the Blind Spot sits experience: the sheer presence and immediacy of lived perception.
This statement is LOADED with problematic talk about something that is "blind". — Constance
The conceit of a lot of modern thinking is to believe that science really does exclude the subject. In fact that is impossible. What scientists endeavour to do, is to arrive at an understanding which is as general as possible, devoid of personal, subjective or cultural influences. That's what 'the view from nowhere' is trying to achieve, and it can do that. But it's not a metaphysic. To mistake it for a metaphysic is to lapse into scientism. — Wayfarer
The conceit of a lot of modern thinking is to believe that science really does exclude the subject. In fact that is impossible. What scientists endeavour to do, is to arrive at an understanding which is as general as possible, devoid of personal, subjective or cultural influences. That's what 'the view from nowhere' is trying to achieve, and it can do that. But it's not a metaphysic. To mistake it for a metaphysic is to lapse into scientism. — Wayfarer
I can't speak for Wayfarer but surely any metaphysics is always based on a human point of view. If we have described it, we co-created it. As an idealist, I imagine Wayfarer would hold to a view that there is a reality beyond human perception. — Tom Storm
What then could constitute a metaphysic? — Janus
That is the basis of the various ancient formulations of dualism: the faculty of reason as the ability to discern the real. — Wayfarer
and all our metaphysics are merely human creations or at best "co-creations" (whatever that could be thought to mean), — Janus
It's much easier to dismiss the whole subject than to even begin to understand it. — Wayfarer
others don't understand the issues, — Janus
Parmenides is, I fear, probably beyond my capability — Wayfarer
That said, my understanding is that our metaphysics amounts to a collaboration between ourselves and what it is we describe as reality. We create the measuring systems, the tools, the very language of description. And as we learn or grasp more, our metaphysics shifts and evolves. — Tom Storm
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