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I've read this article twice now, and both times the same thought struck me. How much, really, are his "insights" much different from Plato's Allegory of Cave p

by cubano 10y ago

I've read this article twice now, and both times the same thought struck me. How much, really, are his "insights" much different from Plato's Allegory of Cave philosophy? Plato has Socrates describe a gathering of people who have lived chained to the wall of a cave all of their lives, facing a blank wall. The people watch shadows projected on the wall from things passing in front of a fire behind them, and they begin to give names to these shadows[1] Yes of course the details differ and the physics have drastically changed (invoking QM's probability wave functions as the the basis of the "shadows on the cave wall."), but the idea that all we observe isn't a true representation of reality is one of the oldest ideas in all of western philosophy. It reminds of that old quote from Alfred North Whitehead, a preeminent 20th century figure..."All philosophy is a series of footnotes to Plato" [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_Cave https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_Cave

noahlt 10y ago
Plato had additional metaphysical beliefs, such as that "reality" consists of ideas, and is not spatiotemporal.
jcoffland 10y ago
I also had the sense that it was a bunch of old ideas dressed up in new ones. I like the comparison with Plato's forms. I also felt that his model of reality influenced by Turing machines was way too close to an actual Turing machine. Really he just added a few more variable spaces to make it a abstract enough to fit.
esoteric_nonces 10y ago
Thank you for the link! I found 'Return to the Cave' particularly interesting. The prisoners, according to Socrates, would infer from the returning man's blindness that the journey out of the cave had harmed him and that they should not undertake a similar journey. Socrates concludes that the prisoners, if they were able, would therefore reach out and kill anyone who attempted to drag them out of the cave. That's the sort of quote that inspires one to study philosophy. It illustrates perfectly the difficulty we have as humans in informing each other.

by cubano 10y ago

noahlt 10y ago

Plato had additional metaphysical beliefs, such as that "reality" consists of ideas, and is not spatiotemporal.

jcoffland 10y ago

I also had the sense that it was a bunch of old ideas dressed up in new ones. I like the comparison with Plato's forms. I also felt that his model of reality influenced by Turing machines was way too close to an actual Turing machine. Really he just added a few more variable spaces to make it a abstract enough to fit.

esoteric_nonces 10y ago

Thank you for the link! I found 'Return to the Cave' particularly interesting. The prisoners, according to Socrates, would infer from the returning man's blindness that the journey out of the cave had harmed him and that they should not undertake a similar journey. Socrates concludes that the prisoners, if they were able, would therefore reach out and kill anyone who attempted to drag them out of the cave. That's the sort of quote that inspires one to study philosophy. It illustrates perfectly the difficulty we have as humans in informing each other.