Quote:Original post by HemoGloben
Which is why I'd say we have so much trouble emulating, ourselves. We've somehow evolved with such a here, now mentality, but are somehow capable of there, then thought. Which is quite a large contradiction, but I've come to think of it as quite accurate. All of our senses are good at relative sensing rather than absolute sensing. Hotter, colder, softer, louder, harder, faster, slower. The only sense mildly absolute is sight, and even that is quite shoddy with absolutes.
Hm... seems like two separate ideas here (correct me if I'm wrong), both interesting. As for the first one, I'd argue that "here, now" versus "there, then" is not necessarily a contradiction. It may well be that we humans are permanently stuck in the hypothetical and the subjunctive, and that those hypotheticals which happen to be generated directly by our experience simply get a VIP pass of sorts to our frontal lobe. Recent research on mirror neurons, while preliminary and limited, lends support to the idea that we comprehend a real apple in the same way as we comprehend an imaginary apple that we want to obtain.
The second thing is interesting because it seems to apply on a number of levels. Humans are no good at perceiving absolute sound volume, light intensity, temperature, etc... we are informed only by recent changes in sensation. But at higher levels the same thing seems to hold. It's something that marketers have known for a long time: If you advertise something as $29 marked down to $19, it'll be more attractive than simply selling it for $19 to begin with. It may be a reflection of our role as social animals that we are so keenly influenced by norms and perceived deviations from them. The question then, of course, is whether that's an innate element of sentience, or merely an oddity of our particular situation.
