10 ms·

It's a question. How can it be false? And also Locke (who was being asked the question) was right in his answer.

by jere 9y ago

zaroth 9y ago
That is to say, experimentally the answer to the question is no.
ajross 9y ago
Locke was "right" in his answer by dumb luck. Fundamental this question isn't about philosophy at all, it's an empirical matter of science. Without a good understanding of vision and neurology, and the ability to run good experiments based on informed hypotheses, there's no way to answer this. So, sure, Locke guess right based on a flawed (seriously: the basic science was 200 years in the future!) premise. That doesn't say much interesting about the subject.
- Sharlin 9y ago
  It was philosophy back then; it's science now. A large part of philosophy is about asking questions that don't yet have scientific answers.
  - ajross 9y ago
    Sure. But saying "Locke was right" in a context where we're discussing an experiment run two centuries later certainly seems to be implying some kind of comparable discourse, no? I mean: "Einstein was right" in the context of the Michelson-Morley experiment means that he came up with a predictive theory that was later confirmed by practical scientists. Locke didn't. By scientific standards, he just guessed without any grounding. That distinction is really important! Edit to expand my point: the bottom line is that our current understanding of neurology has no bearing on who was "right" in a 200-year-old discussion, even though they are "technically" about the same subject. It just doesn't matter. If you want philosophy to be a separate domain from science (and we do, for obvious reasons), you need to keep it separate and not use science to argue about who was the better philosopher.
    - apalmer 9y ago
      The thing is, philosophy in this case was using the knowledge available and applying reasoning to drawn conclusions. While it was entirely possible that Locke's prediction would prove to be incorrect. It was not 'dumb luck' it was an 'educated guess'. 'dumb luck' literally is pretty much exactly the opposite of what occurred here.
      - astrobe_ 9y ago
        Actually Locke here just agrees without providing more justifications. It would have been more interesting if he had provided a counter-argument instead. For instance, "while it's true that this man hasn't learned how what he felt looks, he can to some extend apply logic; he knows that the sphere feels the same from every direction of touch and he can observe that one of the objects looks the same from every direction; so he can conclude that this object is the sphere". But I guess someone actually gaining sight just wants to be done ASAP with those silly experiments and go to the theater ;-)
        apalmer 9y ago
        Good point and this 'logical' way of determining an object is a cube is something i wondered about as well. It should be possible, if the subject is given enough time and approaches the task from a rigorous angle, to deduce that the object must be a cube. through a path like... eyes -> visual processing of the brain -> logical facts about -> mental model of the object in question -> categorizing the mental model -> determining what the object is. However, I think, the fundamental issue is that in sight, touch etc, typically the concious/logical part of the brain is not involved in determining objects. probably because this is much to slow. There is dedicated hardware/software that does this as far as i am aware. There are people with the condition where they cannot name, or identify objects from touch but can from sight, even more interesting some people can identify things from touch with their right hand, but not with their left. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astereognosis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astereognosis
        9y ago
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- mcguire 9y ago
  "To which the acute and judicious proposer answers, "Not. For, though he has obtained the experience of how a globe, how a cube affects his touch, yet he has not yet obtained the experience, that what affects his touch so or so, must affect his sight so or so; or that a protuberant angle in the cube, that pressed his hand unequally, shall appear to his eye as it does in the cube."—I agree with this thinking gentleman, whom I am proud to call my friend, in his answer to this problem; and am of opinion that the blind man, at first sight, would not be able with certainty to say which was the globe, which the cube, whilst he only saw them; though he could unerringly name them by his touch, and certainly distinguish them by the difference of their figures felt. This I have set down, and leave with my reader, as an occasion for him to consider how much he may be beholden to experience, improvement, and acquired notions, where he thinks he had not the least use of, or help from them. And the rather, because this observing gentleman further adds, that "having, upon the occasion of my book, proposed this to divers very ingenious men, he hardly ever met with one that at first gave the answer to it which he thinks true, till by hearing his reasons they were convinced." Dumb luck doesn't seem to be the right phrase. Their reasoning seems solid, given their assumptions about the basics of how the human being works.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 9y ago
  > Fundamental this question isn't about philosophy at all, it's an empirical matter of science Empiricism is a philosophy.
- Buldak 9y ago
  One way to read the underlying question is, "Are there necessary connections between sensory perceptions?" (Could a tactile sensation, in and of itself, somehow "imply" a visual one?) That doesn't strike me as an empirical or scientific question.
  - FeepingCreature 9y ago
    Sure it does. Perceptions are actual things that physically happen in the brain and can be measured, by MRIs or surveys.
- kbutler 9y ago
  Locke and Molyneux had a hypothesis: "Not. For, though he has obtained the experience of how a globe, how a cube affects his touch, yet he has not yet obtained the experience, that what affects his touch so or so, must affect his sight so or so; or that a protuberant angle in the cube, that pressed his hand unequally, shall appear to his eye as it does in the cube." They didn't have an experiment that could test this hypothesis. When we were able to perform an experiment, their hypothesis turned out to be correct. This isn't "dumb luck" any more than Einstein's theory of general relativity being confirmed by the precession of mercury. And it doesn't have anything to do with neurology - it's about the structure of the mind and perception, rather than the anatomy of the brain, eye, and hands (software, rather than hardware).
  - ajross 9y ago
    That hypothesis was wrong though. It's just word salad, they didn't have a theory for how one "obtains" "experience", or for how that "what affects" can be transfered or not between senses. And it's fine as philosophy, because you're allowed to do that. But it's not science, shouldn't be called science, and you shouldn't be using a scientific result based on proper hypothesis testing and two centuries of theory work to argue about who was the "better philosopher". Not. Science. That's my only point.
    - kbutler 9y ago
      The hypothesis was that the correspondence of visual perception with tactile perception is learned, not innate. That's a perfectly valid scientific hypothesis, and turns out to be testable and correct. Science, from Google: the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment. They hardly need a theory for how you gain those experiences - you gain those experiences by seeing objects and by handling them, obviously. Granted, they didn't understand Maxwell's equations and photoelectric effects and some complete model of the light-retina-nerves-brain-mind system, but they didn't need that in order to make scientific hypotheses about whether we learn to correlate sensory stimuli with the world around us or if it just automatic. We know more now (but hopefully not as much as people 200 years from now will know), but that doesn't mean they weren't doing science: the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment

It's a question. How can it be false? And also Locke (who was being asked the question) was right in his answer.

by jere 9y ago

It's a question. How can it be false? And also Locke (who was being asked the question) was right in his answer.

zaroth 9y ago

That is to say, experimentally the answer to the question is no.

ajross 9y ago

Locke was "right" in his answer by dumb luck. Fundamental this question isn't about philosophy at all, it's an empirical matter of science. Without a good understanding of vision and neurology, and the ability to run good experiments based on informed hypotheses, there's no way to answer this. So, sure, Locke guess right based on a flawed (seriously: the basic science was 200 years in the future!) premise. That doesn't say much interesting about the subject.

Sharlin 9y ago
It was philosophy back then; it's science now. A large part of philosophy is about asking questions that don't yet have scientific answers.
- ajross 9y ago
  Sure. But saying "Locke was right" in a context where we're discussing an experiment run two centuries later certainly seems to be implying some kind of comparable discourse, no? I mean: "Einstein was right" in the context of the Michelson-Morley experiment means that he came up with a predictive theory that was later confirmed by practical scientists. Locke didn't. By scientific standards, he just guessed without any grounding. That distinction is really important! Edit to expand my point: the bottom line is that our current understanding of neurology has no bearing on who was "right" in a 200-year-old discussion, even though they are "technically" about the same subject. It just doesn't matter. If you want philosophy to be a separate domain from science (and we do, for obvious reasons), you need to keep it separate and not use science to argue about who was the better philosopher.
  - apalmer 9y ago
    The thing is, philosophy in this case was using the knowledge available and applying reasoning to drawn conclusions. While it was entirely possible that Locke's prediction would prove to be incorrect. It was not 'dumb luck' it was an 'educated guess'. 'dumb luck' literally is pretty much exactly the opposite of what occurred here.
    - astrobe_ 9y ago
      Actually Locke here just agrees without providing more justifications. It would have been more interesting if he had provided a counter-argument instead. For instance, "while it's true that this man hasn't learned how what he felt looks, he can to some extend apply logic; he knows that the sphere feels the same from every direction of touch and he can observe that one of the objects looks the same from every direction; so he can conclude that this object is the sphere". But I guess someone actually gaining sight just wants to be done ASAP with those silly experiments and go to the theater ;-)
      - apalmer 9y ago
        Good point and this 'logical' way of determining an object is a cube is something i wondered about as well. It should be possible, if the subject is given enough time and approaches the task from a rigorous angle, to deduce that the object must be a cube. through a path like... eyes -> visual processing of the brain -> logical facts about -> mental model of the object in question -> categorizing the mental model -> determining what the object is. However, I think, the fundamental issue is that in sight, touch etc, typically the concious/logical part of the brain is not involved in determining objects. probably because this is much to slow. There is dedicated hardware/software that does this as far as i am aware. There are people with the condition where they cannot name, or identify objects from touch but can from sight, even more interesting some people can identify things from touch with their right hand, but not with their left. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astereognosis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astereognosis
        9y ago
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
mcguire 9y ago
"To which the acute and judicious proposer answers, "Not. For, though he has obtained the experience of how a globe, how a cube affects his touch, yet he has not yet obtained the experience, that what affects his touch so or so, must affect his sight so or so; or that a protuberant angle in the cube, that pressed his hand unequally, shall appear to his eye as it does in the cube."—I agree with this thinking gentleman, whom I am proud to call my friend, in his answer to this problem; and am of opinion that the blind man, at first sight, would not be able with certainty to say which was the globe, which the cube, whilst he only saw them; though he could unerringly name them by his touch, and certainly distinguish them by the difference of their figures felt. This I have set down, and leave with my reader, as an occasion for him to consider how much he may be beholden to experience, improvement, and acquired notions, where he thinks he had not the least use of, or help from them. And the rather, because this observing gentleman further adds, that "having, upon the occasion of my book, proposed this to divers very ingenious men, he hardly ever met with one that at first gave the answer to it which he thinks true, till by hearing his reasons they were convinced." Dumb luck doesn't seem to be the right phrase. Their reasoning seems solid, given their assumptions about the basics of how the human being works.
AnIdiotOnTheNet 9y ago
> Fundamental this question isn't about philosophy at all, it's an empirical matter of science Empiricism is a philosophy.
Buldak 9y ago
One way to read the underlying question is, "Are there necessary connections between sensory perceptions?" (Could a tactile sensation, in and of itself, somehow "imply" a visual one?) That doesn't strike me as an empirical or scientific question.
- FeepingCreature 9y ago
  Sure it does. Perceptions are actual things that physically happen in the brain and can be measured, by MRIs or surveys.
kbutler 9y ago
Locke and Molyneux had a hypothesis: "Not. For, though he has obtained the experience of how a globe, how a cube affects his touch, yet he has not yet obtained the experience, that what affects his touch so or so, must affect his sight so or so; or that a protuberant angle in the cube, that pressed his hand unequally, shall appear to his eye as it does in the cube." They didn't have an experiment that could test this hypothesis. When we were able to perform an experiment, their hypothesis turned out to be correct. This isn't "dumb luck" any more than Einstein's theory of general relativity being confirmed by the precession of mercury. And it doesn't have anything to do with neurology - it's about the structure of the mind and perception, rather than the anatomy of the brain, eye, and hands (software, rather than hardware).
- ajross 9y ago
  That hypothesis was wrong though. It's just word salad, they didn't have a theory for how one "obtains" "experience", or for how that "what affects" can be transfered or not between senses. And it's fine as philosophy, because you're allowed to do that. But it's not science, shouldn't be called science, and you shouldn't be using a scientific result based on proper hypothesis testing and two centuries of theory work to argue about who was the "better philosopher". Not. Science. That's my only point.
  - kbutler 9y ago
    The hypothesis was that the correspondence of visual perception with tactile perception is learned, not innate. That's a perfectly valid scientific hypothesis, and turns out to be testable and correct. Science, from Google: the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment. They hardly need a theory for how you gain those experiences - you gain those experiences by seeing objects and by handling them, obviously. Granted, they didn't understand Maxwell's equations and photoelectric effects and some complete model of the light-retina-nerves-brain-mind system, but they didn't need that in order to make scientific hypotheses about whether we learn to correlate sensory stimuli with the world around us or if it just automatic. We know more now (but hopefully not as much as people 200 years from now will know), but that doesn't mean they weren't doing science: the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment