🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <GILHAM.90Jan9100839@cassius.csl.sri.com> gilham@csl.sri.com (Fred Gilham) writes:
>The alternatives seem to be that either a pattern has some independent
>existence of its own (concrete reality) or a mind is necessary to
>perceive it.  On the one hand, I say we have dualism; on the other
>hand, I say we have the ``hermeneutical hall of mirrors'', where we
>project our own thought processes onto something in the outside world.
	I think that it may be that these positions are not really
as you claim.  I would submit that the word "independent" is extremely
vague.  Aristotle's view of form/pattern is about the same as mine,
both try to avoid postulating a SEPARATE existence for patternyet
claim that there is some kind of non-subjective nature to it.  I
don't really think its the case that my epistemology projects thought
processes onto reality, in that it is ultimately the case that the
though the pattern is embedded in particular minds its a universal
quantity, which ALL minds (or potential minds) can experience.
	But there is certainly nothing like a definitively correct
epistemology out there, and its a problem that has occupied philosophy
from its dawn until this century.  And the interesting thing is that
computer scientists are forced to demonstrate these claims a bit more
explicitly than other philosophers were.  
			Ron