ESR's New Take on Qualia

billswift

ESR's New Take on Qualia — LessWrong

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I once read an anecdote about a person who was determined to prove that "purely theoretical" knowledge was just as good as actual experience, and to prove it, he was going to teach himself how to swim by reading about it. After acquiring what he felt was a sufficient "theoretical" knowledge of swimming, he jumped into a pool and was immediately able to swim, much to the amazement of onlookers.

It's probably false, though.

SilasBarta17y10

It's impossible to jump into a pool without learning something about swimming. At the very least, you start learning about how the water responds to your body. And this will remain true even if you don't consciously try. (There are experiments, for example, where people "learn" to twitch a muscle they can't consciously control because twitching it becomes correlated with turning off an annoying sound.)

Furthermore, it's been my experience that people who think they "can't explain something" really aren't trying. If you really try (an... (read more)

4Psychohistorian17y

Swimming is a lot easier to figure out prior to doing than bike riding is. Falling, for example, is rather more difficult. It is highly unlikely that someone could do this for any sport or activity that involves significant interactive feedback (e.g. balance or aim).

5Douglas_Knight17y

I don't believe it. If I were one of the onlookers, I wouldn't be amazed; I just wouldn't believe his claim never to have swum before. I was quite surprised to learn one day, after riding bicycles for years, that you steer by leaning to the side. This is information that is quite important for riding a bicycle that had never passed through the verbal part of my mind. And when I wanted to test this, I couldn't ask my body about it. Instead I had to pay attention while riding to see what I did; also, I was able to lean or turn the handlebars and see what happens. The communication channel between the verbal part of the mind and the mechanical memory is quite narrow. That's not to say that it's impossible to send information in either direction, but that is a skill that is quite rare, not a matter of deciding to acquire "theoretical knowledge." Also, there's the problem that since people don't normally learn this way, they don't record instructions.

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