An Expedient Mind: REALITY

AN EXPEDIENT MIND

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REALITY

The Need for an Explanation
A discussion of philosophical issues cannot be avoided if we insist that the mechanism must be able to use language in a way that is similar to the humans use language. As soon as that becomes part of the specification, we need to address the problem of exactly how we can explain the meanings of certain words to the system. What, for example, do we mean when we say that something "really exists". We all use these words. We all assume that the meaning of a phrase like that is common knowledge. And there is a tendency to become irritated by anyone who insists on precise explanations of meaning.
So I will take a deep breath, say I'm sorry to be a nuisance, but we do, in fact, need a precise explanation of what these words mean. The mechanism will ask that question. How can it avoid doing so? And it will not help much if we become irritated or wave our arms in the air. The mechanism, the robot is you prefer, needs to be told.
And when we become pedantic like that, and insist on an answer being given, it becomes obvious, from the way people react, that a lot of those people are using words, which they do not understand. In other words, they do not know what they are talking about.
Let us try to avoid that kind of silliness. Even a bad explanation is better than none. We can work on a bad explanation to make it better. We may eventually reject it, but then we will at least know what the word does not mean. A total absence of explanation, however, is just no help at all.

Existence
So I offer this simplistic explanation of the word "existence". A thing "exists" if it has "dimensionality". By "dimensionality" I mean that it has a location, a size, or a place in space and/or time which it occupies. That place will be relative to other existiing objects. And when we say something exists we also imply that its location can be discovered by observation.
The standard objection to that is to claim that it implies that a thing does not actually exist unless it is observed. I have never seen Japan. So does Japan not exist (for me) unless I actually go there and see it for myself?
No. That is a little too simple. It is too literal an interpretation of the word "observe". An observation can take many forms, in addition to actually seeing visual images of something. Lots of people have told me that Japan exists. They have shown me films. I have seen objects with "made in Japan" written on them. I have seen maps of the world. All of these things count as "observations". I am forced, in consequence, to believe in the existence of Japan and that, if I chose, I could go there and see it for myself.
Only two other explanations make any sense at all. (1) I am dreaming, or (2) everyone else in the world is engaged in a massive conspiracy to mislead me. And these explanations do not make very much sense to me. In any case, even if I am dreaming, or there is that massive conspiracy, so long as the deception is maintained consistently, it comes to the same thing. In the world, which I inhabit and lead my life, whether it is a dream-world or a make-believe world, there is a place called Japan and I will get on in a more satisfactory way if I just believe that to be the case.

Force Fields
My simple definition covers physical objects of all kinds, and it covers things like magnetism and gravity. These also have dimensionality. Each has a field of influence. Within that space, these fields of force exert influence on physical objects, and we can observe those effects. We suspect the existence of dark matter, because there does appear to be an otherwise unexplained gravitation effect on the physical matter of each galaxy. The existence of dark energy is also suspected because of the unexplained behaviour of visible matter.

The Existence of Abstract Ideas
What then of abstract things. Does an idea have dimensionality? Does a concept like "justice" exist or not?
There is a tendency to think that mental things, have no physical form. But in my thesis, every idea, is a mental structure inside the mechanism which we call "a brain". So it is a physical object, in exactly the same way that a "file" or a "program" in a computer, is a physical object. It is a disposition of magnetic fields, or of electrical fields in the junctions of transistors, or, in the human brain, it is a disposition of chemicals and nerve structures. But the compliance with my definition goes further. Like a force field, these abstract ideas, can exert influence on physical objects and we can observe those effects. Each idea has a field of influence, it has a location (in the brain mechanism) and it has a location in time.

The "Existence" of God?
There is, however, one use of the word "exists" which my simple explanation of the word, does not cover. If someone says "God, the creator of the Universe, exists." then I do not understand what they mean. The trouble is, that God, in order to be the creator of the Universe, must have existed before he did the creation thing. But my understanding of the word "exists" is tied securely to existence within the Universe. The Universe defines my understanding of "existence". It also defines space and time. So I cannot understand how something could exist before existence came into being. Nor can I understand how something could exist at a time before time began. While the meanings of words can be stretched, they do have an elestic limit. That elastic limit is reached when we start to talk about the beginning of time and space. The statement "God the creator of the Universe exists" is, in logic, similar to the statement "There exists a circular triangle." I think I know what the words mean, but they seem to define an impossible object, which has properties which define its own impossibility. It cannot exist within the terms of my use of these words.
I invite those, who object to that conclusion, to offer their own definitons of the words "exist" and "create", which will avoid the logical contradiction created by the meaings which I attribute to those words.
I am confident that I know what the response which would come from some quarters. (Tick as applicable) - bluster and disdain, accusations of arrogance, naivity, being unworthy of a response, also the claim that it is unreasonable to think that every word can be strictly defined. Note however that I have not asked for a definition, strict or unstrict, only for an explanation. But nowhere, in all of these remonstrations, will there be an explanation of what the word "existence" actually means. And that leaves me to conclude, that when these people use that word "existence", in this context, all we are listening to, is "theo-babble". Note too, that I fully accept the existence of God, as an idea in the minds of some people. I just do not accept that this God-idea can have all the properties which they assign to it.

"Reality" and {REALITY}
Time then, to move on to the words "real" and "reality". It is time also to introduce a small item of notation. When a put a term inside curly brackets like {THIS}, with the term in uppercase font, it means that I am talking about an information structure within the brain mechanism. So when I write "reality" I am talking about the real expernal world and when I write {REALITY} I am talking about an internal structure which exists only within the brain mechanism, but which is also a representation of the external "reality".
It has often been remarked upon, that everything we know about the external world, comes to us via our sensory perceptions. That being the case, there is no way that we can ever step out from behind those senses to see what is "really" going on. If that sensory apparatus is deceiving us, our knowledge of that external world will be faulty. In many ways the situation is exactly like my belief in the existence of Japan. I based that belief upon what others tell me, and on what I observe in atlases etc. It is (just) conceivable, that those others (including the map-makers) are engaged in a curiously involved and entirely pointless conspiracy.
Our senses do deceive us from time to time. That is something we learn to acknowledge and to accommodate. I believe in the existence of the external world in exactly the same way that I might believe in dark matter. I believe that something is causing my senses to react as they do. That is a practical belief. Belief in the external world seems to be the simplest and most productive way to explain all the various experiences which implinge on me. But like all scientific theories that is all it is, a theory which might just might be wrong.

Robotic {REALITY}
When we consider a robotic system, however, like the one I have described, the way in which the system is trapped behind its sensory apparatus is driven home with some force. If he (the robot) refers to "that tree" (with a pointing hand) it is tempting to say that he refers to a particular tree in the external world which we share. But when we try to implement that interpretation by building it into the mechanism, we quickly discover that that interpretation is impossible. We cannot introduce a reference pointer which leads from some location in the robot's brain, to some physical object in the external world. The only thing which is possible is a reference pointer leading from one point in the robot's brain to some other point in the same brain. All reference must be to internal structures.
The only thing which links the internal representation of a physical object with its external counterpart is the sensory apparatus which created the internal representation in the first place. That is an inward pointing link. It is also a link which depends upon structures and mechanisms which evolved and over which we have no control. In much the same way, the robotic mechanism has no control over the mechanisms we might program into his brain. We are all bound to accept the interpretation those mechanisms place upon the sensory data of experience.

Internal Reference
This view of reference and meaning has been much discussed in linguistics and philosophy, but it strikes us with brutal force in the case of the robotic mechanism. All reference is to internal structures, and when the robot talks about "reality", what he is actually referring to is {REALITY} and structure in his brain which represents that external reality.
{REALITY} is not a neat and tidy structure. It is a compendium of things currently being experienced (and interpreted). Things experienced in the past and stored in various forms of memory. The compressed versions of these past experiences, which I call "concepts" and which are available to be constructed into new interpretations. These concepts are stored in a hierarchical arrangement with generalisations at the top and particular exemplars at the bottom.

Truth and {REALITY}
{REALITY} is "true" by definition. We have to believe that it is true. If we did not, {REALITY} would cease to be a representation of "reality". Any other structure we may form, can be compared with {REALITY}. If the comparison yields a result which says that the two structures match, then the new structure is declared to be "true" also, and can then be incorporated into {REALITY}. In that respect, this view of {REALITY} and TRUTH is very like the structure of a formal logic system, with its set of axioms (ie {REALITY}) and its statements (new structures) which must be proven by deduction from the axioms. Once proven each statement becomes a theorem of the system and can then be used as a startiing point for further proofs. I have expamded further on this idea in the section called TRUTH. But that is the essence of the idea. Truth is the result obtained by making a conparison between two structures, a test structure and a reference structure. The reference structure os usually {REALITY} but it need not always be so.
That idea of truth and {REALITY} is easy to express. But difficulties arise when we try to implement it. The chief difficulty is concerned with the procedure which carries out the comparison. This is by no means a trivial operation. I have devoted a section called THE MATCH PROCEDURE to the problem.

Fictional Truth
The possibility that some structure other than {REALITY} might be used as a reference, means that truth (in this view) is a context dependent. Some may find that a difficult idea to accept, but it can also be convenient. It allows us to talk about the "truth" of a statement in the context of a fictional narrative. Is it true that Hamlet stabbed his uncle with a poinsoned sword? Yes it is true, but only in the context of a reference structure called {HAMLET}. That is the play written by Shakespeare. Is {HAMLET} true? Not in its entirety (when {REALITY} is used as a reference structure). But bits of it are true. It is certainly the case that there was a Prince of Denmark, but I doubt that he really went walk-about on the battlements of the castle, while he discussed affairs of state with his father's ghost. Or spoke long eloquent soliloques in Elizabethan English.
We all know that. We all know that when someone says that the stabbing of the uncle is "true" that that is a constrained truth, relevant only to the fictitious world created by the play. It is good, however, to have a formal mechanism by which the constraints on that truth can be made explicit.
It is also good to have an explicit explanation of the way in which the creation of {REALITY} can be compromised by experience. Experiments by psychologists have shown that many people (I suspect all of us) have some difficulty distinguishing between those experiences which have beeb obtained at first hand, and those which have been acquired vicariously. Ask a witness to a car crash about that crash and you are likely to get different accounts if you phrase the question differently -
(1) "What did you see when one car crashed into the other?"
(2) "What did you see when one car bumped into the other?"
It is a phenomenon well known to (and exploited by) lawyers when questioning witnesses in a trial and by opinion pollsters.
These psychological effects are explained by the notion of the {REALITY} structure which can contain information from many sources, including received wisdom inculcated in childhood, which becomes built in to {REALITY} and is not subject to doubt later in life, long after the way in which the information was acquired has been forgotten. "Give me a girl at an impressionable age," said Miss Jean Brodie, "and she's mine for ever." Something similar has been the basis of religious education throughout the ages.

Expedient Reality
Back to the meaning of words. I am now in a position to give a definition of "existence" in terms of {REALITY}. A thing exists if it is found to be expedient to include a representation of that thing, within the {REALITY} structure. By "expedient" I mean that the inclusion of the structure in {REALITY} it enables more accurate predictions to be made. That does not imply that {REALITY} is beyond doubt. It just means that, for the present at least, it represents the best that can be achieved for accurate predictions of future experience. Gravity, dark matter, or, for that matter, my own right hand which I see on the keyboard before me now, represents the best guess I can make about the external world which I suppose that I inhabit. But all of these concepts can, and should be abandoned, if new evidence emerges which casts doubt on these ideas, while an alternative explanation allows more accurate predictions. Hence "Expedient Reality".

The All Embracng Expedient {REALITY}
Most people accept that the brain may well hold and maintain an internal representation of reality. What often gets overlooked, however, is the all embracing nature of that internal {REALITY}. I can explain that best by diagrams. The first diagram below represents the position accpted by most people (which i think is wrong).

The second diagram illustrates the position which I think is the correct one. In this view of thiings, even the external world is part of the internal world. We just can't escape from the internal version.

Some may suspect that I am making a fuss about nothing, and that the arrangement illustrated in the diagram above (version 2), is no more than a philosophical debating point. Perhaps it is, in the context of daily life. But in the context of trying to design a mechanism of consciousness, it is fundamental, and we will not get anywhere unless that is recognised.
The issue is this. If everything (and I mean everything) is a mental construct, then the primitive elements of those mental constructs (the building bricks) must be grounded in personal experience. There can be no certainty about anything. Everything is only as it appears to be. We have no certain knowledge of anything (as we might suppose it "really" is). There may be an external world, and our confidence in that is probably not be misplaced, but there are no absolutes on which the mental construct of it, can be based.
The crunch issue is causality. If we accept version 2 as an accurate representation of the situation, then we have to accept that our concept of causality is nothing more than a confident expectation. We cannot escape from the version 2 arrangement, to find out what is "really" going on in that (supposedly) "real external world". We must, therefore, to abandon any concept of "existence" or of "reality", which refers to that external world as if we could make direct access to it, and know what is there and what it is like, without our observations being filtered through the dubious prism of our sensory apparatus.
I has long been accepted that the colours we see, are not supplied to us by the environment. It appears to be the case that what the environment does supply, are electromagnetic radiation (of this frequency or that). We supply the colours. Colour is the notation which the mind uses, to record the fact that we have experienced the sensing that radiation. A so it is with causality. Causality is the palette with which we paint the landscape of our expectations.
Letting go of absolute reality, is hard. It requires constant vigilance. Many will accept version 2, or think they have done so, only to re-import version 1 in a subtle way, in the form of implied basic assumptions. Bear that in mind, please, when you read the sections on representation. The logo shown below, will reappear, here and there, within this text, as a small reminder that what we are dealing with here, is not "reality" but that internal representation which I call "expedient {REALITY}".

{REALITY}

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