It's probably, although I don't possess the means to find out whether it
is really true, that the world is experienced in a fairly similar way by
nearly all cats. The reality of cats could not meaningfully be described
as a consensus reality, however, as cats do not typically have or
resolve disputes about the nature of reality (they have other things to
fight about). Shared perceptions need not be the outcome of political
processes, be they of democratic negotiation or of totalitarian
imposition. Orwell's O'Brien would have no luck at all with a cat,
unless he were a "life scientist" prising open its cranium and digging
right into the meat of perception. That is near enough what he has to do
with Winston: even human beings aren't as pliable as all that.
A CCTV camera is located in one bit of the world and pointed at another
bit. Light entering the lens is translated into patterns of impulses
stored on magnetic tape. Replaying the tape, I can see what the CCTV
camera "saw": my perspective is modified by an alterior perspective. If
a tree falls in the forest and it's recorded on a Sony Walkman, but
no-one ever plays the tape, does it make a sound? What if they play the
tape a hundred years later? Does it only make a sound then? Does the
tree make a sound, or just the Sony Walkman? In what sense is the sound
made by the Sony Walkman on playback the sound "of" the tree? What if
it's an Aiwa?
Dominic
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