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Slider comments on Why I Reject the Correspondence Theory of Truth - Less Wrong
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Comments (27)
If this were true we ought to be blind to what is not of potential use to us. We are also sometimes unclear on what we want but our understanding doesn't collapse under it's own weight in this situation.
Pure sense data could argued to be model free. Sense data is also the model that is simultanoeusly in territority. Therefore anything that is coherent with sense data has atleast something to do with the actual world. Now given we don't usually process it as such but make goal-oriented low-level representations. But also if we did not any level to fall back on when our needs change we would be held prisoner by our early needs as it would be impossible to see the world as anything else.
This reads like the more correct title would be "Why I Reject Correspondence Theory Of Utility". You could argue that we don't test beliefs for truth but for utility but all that could achieve is to say that the seeking a theory of truth is useless.
The key distinction between sense-data and models is our inability to will or predict changes in sense data with complete certainty. Anything which cannot be perfectly and completely changed by force of will must be treated as external to the agent. In that sense whether the yellow disc in the visual field truly represents a ball of hydrogen undergoing nuclear fusion, or is placed in the visual field by a daemon is of no consequence. The fact is that you cannot make it dissapear by force of will, and it is therefore external to your mind, whatever the most accurate model of how that disc came to occupy your visual field may be. That is what sense data being "primitve" seems to mean.
Doesn't the advanced techonology of closing your eyes make it go away?
A demon would not be required to be consistent, but it appears we can detect patterns in sensedata. I could even argue or assume that we can detect these patterns before any pattern recognition rule is invented (ie that a theory need not be that sohisticated to use big wordy concepts such as time or space to get the patterns recognised). Sure we have deterministic function from sensedata to higher level abstractions but that doesn't mean the "being the case that (highlevel object)" would be somehow free to mean anything. Once you fix the meaning of your words you are not free to use them as you wish.
Closing your eyes isn't an act of "pure" will, it's always attended by other sensations. If you could will away the yellow disc without seeing black there instead and feeling your eyelids compress, then you could will it away by pure force of will.
It's possible that reality is just an infinite flux of random events, with rare islands where coincidence gives rise to the illusion of consistency, and we'd still be able to detect patterns if we were in fact dwelling on such an island.