Sound and Nihilism

[Angrboda]

Re: Ants.  I'm saying if something's not tangible, it doesn't exist.  So my question for you would be where does this 'byproduct' of meaning exist?  

It exists as a pattern of interactions that individuals can perceive, but they don't create it.  More than that, it was just an example to illustrate that venturing forth with not only no model, but the wrong model, may lead to erroneous speculations.  It was just a way of pointing out that there's more than one way to skin a cat.

An analogy based on the sound metaphor is if the bottom layer of neural networks for sound chunks multiple notes into a time based meme.  The actual note is discarded for the representation of the sound-complex.  Sound-complexes are heard, but not individual sounds.

An interesting side-light:

In between 430 and 650 nanometers, human beings can discriminate more than 150 different wavelengths, or different subjective shades, of color. But if asked to reidentify single colors with a high degree of accuracy, they can do so for fewer than 15. The same is true for other sensory experiences. Normal listeners can discriminate about 1,400 steps of pitch difference across the audible frequency range, but they can recognize these steps as examples of only about 80 different pitches. The University of Toronto philosopher Diana Raffman has stated the point clearly: “We are much better at discriminating perceptual values (i.e. making same/different judgments) than we are at identifying or recognizing them.”

Technically, this means we do not possess introspective identity criteria for many of the simplest states of consciousness. Our perceptual memory is extremely limited. You can see and experience the difference between Green No. 24 and Green No. 25 if you see both at the same time, but you are unable consciously to represent the sameness of Green No. 25 over time. Of course, it may appear to you to be the same shade of Green No. 25, but the subjective experience of certainty going along with this introspective belief is itself appearance only, not knowledge. Thus, in a simple, well-defined way, there is an element of ineffability in sensory consciousness: You can experience a myriad of things in all their glory and subtlety without having the means of reliably identifying them.


Metzinger, Thomas (2009-03-17). The Ego Tunnel: The Science of the Mind and the Myth of the Self (pp. 49-50). Basic Books. Kindle Edition.