An observation is hope.

From: AllYou! (idaman_at_conversent.net)
Date: 01/28/05 

Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2005 15:10:43 -0500

<reany@asu.edu> wrote in message
news:1106942104.777647.247700@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
>
> Daniel Weston wrote:
> > Patrick, why do we need a theory to observe heat? Snakes with forked
> > tongues observe heat without knowing that they must have a theory
> before
> > they have lunch. For krists sakes, pray for deliverance from your
> silly
> > affliction.
>
>
> I suppose that both you and what's his name cannot get me is because
> both of you equate the meanings of the terms 'sensation' and
> 'observation.' I do NOT equate them.

Neither do I. I've been trough this with you many times. To me, the sensation is simply
the sensory stimulus whereas the observation is the process of combining the stimulus with
its catagorization with preveiouly experienced stimuli.

> Snakes can have a 'sensation' but never have an 'observation' (I
> suppose).

Is that sensation a free invention?

I'll suppose that you suppose wrong. I'll suppose that even the lowly snake can not only
sense heat, but can differentiate it from wet.

> An observation is a "rationalized" sensation geared to produce a
> statement.

What? Just when I thought I got used to your verbal tortures, you come up with this?
Geared to produce? LOL! What the hell does that mean? And what, pray tell, do you mean
by a statement in this context?

> Even better,

It cetainly can't get much worse.

> one might say that the observation is the
> statement made from the "rationalized" sensation.

Too bad, I thought it was gonna get better.

> Therefore it has the
> hope of being an intersubjective representation of the sensation.

LOL! Intersubjective? What the hell does that mean? I used to think you were just good
at stringing fancy words together to mean nothing, now I see that you're also good at
stringing segments of words together to mean even less. And an observation is the hope of
something? This is almost too good to be true.

> When
> we let machines stand as proxies for human observations, we should
> understand that we are doing so.
> Is that clear enough for you, Pope Weston?

LOL!

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