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How much of this conversation is just hallucination? (lemmy.dbzer0.com)

submitted 11 hours ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

26 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Language works when we think the same, connecting the words to the same meanings and such. But that never actually happens 100%. It might be closer to 80%. (or if it's a strange subject, 15%)

So this "conversation" that we're having here is, to some degree, not actually happening.

But we pretend that it is.

So how much are we pretending? How much of the conversation is hallucinatory conversation?

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

A rule referred to as Zipf's Law is the foundation of all communication. Anything that corresponds to anything follows it. Knowing it can allow someone to mark something's significance. It's how archaeologists can determine lost truths with absolutely nothing to go by. Once the basics are understood, then each thing that imperfectly corresponds to something else is compared with other things with the same meaning. You could compare this to triangulation. From there, the rest can be achieved.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago) (1 children)

How does it overcome the threat of achieving merely a logically consistent fantasy? (A chinese room situation)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 hour ago

Would that not depend on how many layers there are to the fantasy? Many have wondered if we're all living something they may call a matrix or dream. But what, then, is on the outside of it? The "top" layer or most "external" layer of a rabbit hole is going to be what we can call reality in its purest, rawest form, no matter how dream-like or matrix-like we might think of it as. Everything is defined by this layer if nothing is beyond it.