From: smoliar@iss.nus.sg (stephen smoliar)
Subject: Re: Virtuality as a system of actions
Date: Sun, 22 Sep 91 08:28:23 SST



Pete Brooks decided to take issue with Gary Van Den Heuvel on the issue of
signing apes.  This was sort of peripheral to the primary argument;  but I
would like to pursue it long enough to raise a minor methodological issue.
Pete's response was to summon forth the usual round of anecdotes which have
been interpreted as evidence that apes can at least appreciate, if not command,
not only the signs but also some of the abstract concepts behind those signs.
What is often overlooked is that all these anecdotes come from the scientists
working with the apes who, because of their intimate attachment to the
subjects, tend to be the poorest possible observers for what are basically
subjective judgments.  As far as I am concerned, the last word (for now) on
this issue has been best expressed by Stephen Jay Gould in "The Quack
Detector," the last article in his collection AN URCHIN IN THE STORM.
Here is the relevant paragraph from Gould's article:

	Since we scientists are forever demanding deference to our
	professional skills, we could at least respect other equally
	exacting crafts, and not look down upon them because they
	thrive on the stage, but not in the academy.  If every
	parapsychologist followed the simple rule of always including
	a professional magician in any test of people claiming
	extrasensory powers, millions of dollars, thousands of
	hours, and hundreds of reputations would be saved.  Similarly,
	if the psychologists who tried to teach sign language to
	chimpanzees had bothered to consult the real professionals
	in this area--the great animal trainers of our major
	circuses--they might have avoided some spectacular (and
	now spectacularly embarrassing) claims for conceptualization
	and consciousness that now seem to arise from unconscious
	human cueing and simple coincidence.

Why did I raise this digression on methodological grounds?  My reason is that I
sometimes worry that the technicians of virtual worlds, so to speak, share this
same arrogance of self-importance which Gould associates with the scientific
academy.  As one who believes that "reality" is the product of individual
construction, I cannot help but be suspicious of those who would claim they
can build one for me, let alone one which I can share with others.
Nevertheless, I can go into a theater and become part of a shared
reality merely by virtue of a few "tricks of the trade" of set design.
I am not claiming that close study of these "technicians of entertainment"
would eliminate a need for some of the sophisticated hardware of virtual
reality;  but getting to know those "tricks of the trade" may ultimately
constitute as much of a saving of effort of us as it would for those
psychologists Gould has taken to task.

Stephen W. Smoliar; Institute of Systems Science
National University of Singapore; Heng Mui Keng Terrace
Kent Ridge, SINGAPORE 0511
Internet:  smoliar@iss.nus.sg	(USE THIS ADDRESS;  SOURCE LINE MAY BE WRONG!)