...context of statistics; it is the degree of relationship between two variables. A high correlation strongly indicates a likely functional relationship. But, that is not the same thing as the function, itself, which relates the two variables.
I suspect that you believe it is the function I am driving at. But, I'm not. I'm very deliberately only looking for the correlation, not for the actual function.
For me to state that your experience is a function of your physiological changes, I would have to be able to describe your experience in fairly exact terms--which, I've already admitted, is beyond my ability. I believe it to be beyond anyone's ability, except for you, yourself. Thus is the nature of all subjective experiences, and all experiences are, perforce, utterly subjective.
So I must content myself with that fact. You report to me your experience, and I will measure your physiological changes, and then look for a correlation between what is reported and what is measured.
That doesn't let me say "this change in you results in your changed experience." It does let me say, however, "this change in you corresponds to your change in experience; if I see this change, then I can reasonably expect your experience has similarly changed in such-and-such manner." (A->B U A->C, A being an as-yet-unspecified root cause, B being the physiological changes, and C being your percieved change in the experience)
Effectively, I'm looking for related effects instead of their root cause. One of those related effects, though--the physiological changes I measure--is directly related to changes within your corpus, and that allows me to further say, "if I see this change, then you have changed, for these physiological changes can only result from changes in you." (B<->D, D being a change in you) And that then lets me say, "the manner in which you have changed results in your percieved change of the experience." (D->C, QED)
It rather nicely allows me to dance around the entire issue of your subjective experience without ever having to delve into the precise nature of that experience that I can never know. |
