Deontology is not "the traditional perspective" but one traditional perspective. There are others.— Fooloso4

First, I agree. Second, deontology was not mentioned.

I was talking about imperative oughts being the traditional perspective. By imperative ought I mean “what everyone ought to do regardless of their needs and preferences”. It has been my reading of traditional moral philosophy that imperative oughts, not conditional ones, are what are being assumed in most proposed moral systems, not just Kant's categorical imperatives. Is that incorrect? — Mark S

There are imperatives. Imperatives are of two kinds, hypothetical and categorical. A hypothetical imperative carries the weight of an “ought” and is conditioned by desire, a categorical carries the weight of a “shall” and is conditioned by moral law, desire be what it may.

There is no Kantian categorically imperative “ought”, and traditional moral philosophy other than deontology treats conditional oughts as hypothetical imperatives, while deontologically grounded moral philosophy merely grants conditional oughts, but assigns no proper moral quality to them.

Your wording is confusing I think.

Rhetorically speaking, as a simple matter of interest, Pierce may have laid it out….

“…. The only end of science, as such, is to learn the lesson that the universe has to teach it….”

….or, he may have merely polished someone else’s coin:

“…. Reason must approach nature with the view, indeed, of receiving information from it, not, however, in the character of a pupil, who listens to all that his master chooses to tell him, but in that of a judge, who compels the witnesses to reply to those questions which he himself thinks fit to propose. To this single idea must the revolution be ascribed, by which, after groping in the dark for so many centuries, natural science was at length conducted into the path of certain progress.…”

If we replace matter (….) can something change? — Eugen

Yep. Our sensory apparatus wouldn’t work.

If we replace matter with another fundamental substance (….) can something change? — Eugen

Yep. Every experience ever by anybody. Then our heads will surely explode.

Guy looks at a picture, sees what used to be a dump truck, back before matter was replaced.

But wait….when matter is replaced, pictures and dump trucks disappear, along with eyes and humans and….

“…..To know what questions we may reasonably propose is in itself a strong evidence of sagacity and intelligence. For if a question be in itself absurd and unsusceptible of a rational answer, it is attended with the danger—not to mention the shame that falls upon the person who proposes it—of seducing the unguarded listener into making absurd answers, and we are presented with the ridiculous spectacle of one (as the ancients said) “milking the he-goat, and the other holding a sieve.”….”
(CPR A58/B83)

Just sayin’…..

if you imagine a green bird, nobody will find that image in your brain. But that's a refutation of materialism, not a refutation of fundamental-emergent. — Eugen

Not sure what to do with that. Things I imagine are not real things, but my imaginings don’t cause real things to not exist. In humans at least, imaginings are incorporated in brains, brains are material, therefore materialism is affirmed by imaginings, not denied or refuted.

I hope you’re not extending the notion that because all imaginings are immaterial in themselves, that there are no material things. If so, I must refer you to the immortal missive of dear Dr. Samuel Johnson via James Boswell, circa 1791. As second-hand as it may be, not to mention dangerously painful.

On the refutation of the fundamental/emergent dichotomy: can’t be done. In the human cognitive system legislated by the Principle of Complementarity, which says that for every conception the negation is given immediately (up/down; left/right; wrong/right, yes/no, true/false, ad infinitum), and for every application translates to, if it isn’t this, then it is necessarily that. It follows that any human cognitive activity in general, as well as every component thereof, is either one or the other of the fundamental/emergent complementary pair.

Nature of the beast, donchaknow……

….truth on the matter remains a subject ripe for (….) just plain old metaphysics. — invicta

Pretty much, yep. Same as it ever was….

Is there a real fundamental difference between the interaction between atoms in a chair versus the interaction between atoms in our lungs? I don't think so. — Eugen

Nothing wrong with that; I wouldn’t think so either. But what are you trying to say with it? What’s the point?

It's a silly idea that playing with words (….) will somehow change the reality. — Eugen

Agreed. Nothing has changed regarding the circumstances of sitting in a chair, since the discovery of elementary particles. Even though I now know socks are comprised of molecules of this or that, I put them on exactly the same way my great granpappy did back a coupla centuries ago. More to the point, perhaps, even though I now know of neurons and activation potentials and whatnot, anyone looking in my brain is never going to find my consciousness, nor will he find the words I use to express my distaste of Lima beans.

Chairs is concept, it is language. It can also be a process — Eugen

Ohfercrissakes. Must I preface every comment using a word, with the admonition I’m representing an object with it? The use of a word is supposed to indicate the speaker and the listener congruently understand the object common to them.

A porocess IS totally reducible (i.e. weakly emergent) to interaction among particles — Eugen

Ever reduced a process to its particles? Known anyone that has? Ever heard anyone talking about a method by which reducing the process of human cognition to its particles, is accomplished? Not to say it can’t be done, but if it hasn’t in the totality of human existence, perhaps there’s a reason for it. And what do we do in the meantime?

Concepts might or might not be reducible to matter. If they are, materialism is true. If they aren't, materialism is false. You can't have it both ways. — Eugen

If conceptions can’t be reduced to matter, then objects known as basketballs, aren’t?
If the objects known as basketballs is the case, which implies concepts are reducible to matter, we’re right back to where we started: the impossibility of finding where and what are they.

But that kind of thinking invites infinite regress (where does the thing conceptions emerge from, emerge from)
— Mww
- that is the case if you consider noting being fundamental — Eugen

There’s the reason for stipulating consciousness as fundamental, to eliminate infinite regress. If it’s fundamental, its emergence is moot, no need to ask where it comes from. Only what it does because of the conception it is, what it stands as the representative of.
————-

It can exist in a fundamental way, like being the foundation of reality, or it can exist like chairs, processes, concepts, i.e. emergent from a material foundation. — Eugen

If reality is a fundamental conception itself, it won’t have a foundation because it already is one.

Chairs have properties, they don’t have processes or concepts. They can and do emerge from a material foundation, just as any real object must.

Chairs exist, processes do not exist in the same way as chairs, re: processes do not have extension in space, hardness, or weight.

If concepts have a material foundation, it can only be the human brain. Where in the human brain can the conception representing a ‘57 De Soto be found, such that upon perception of some object, it is determinable whether or not that object is one? Positing that conceptions emerge from the brain, while almost certainly the case, gets you nowhere.

Consciousness is a purely metaphysical derivative, so the only certainty allowed to it, is logical validity, never any empirical existence.

how can it exist if it doesn't have properties? — Eugen

In what sense can it….consciousness….be said to exist? If we don’t require that consciousness exists as do other things, then we don’t need to consider properties.

Which gets us to…..what do you think properties do?

conceptions definitely emerge, I agree. — Eugen

Fine. Where does that from which conceptions emerge, emerge from?

I deny consciousness as an entity because it is not identifiable by a set of properties.

Still, consciousness, even if only a conception, could be said to emerge from that by which any conception emerges, if one wants to insist conceptions come from somewhere. But that kind of thinking invites infinite regress (where does the thing conceptions emerge from, emerge from) and by that the cancelation of any productive metaphysics. It’s much the more parsimonious to just let consciousness be fundamental, so to eliminate the need for determining stuff about it, which we couldn’t know apodeitically anyway.

….would you agree with me then that these activities are (1) not "entities”….. — 180 Proof

Half and half: I don’t hold with minding (aka consciousness), such minding activity I would stipulate as reason, but agree that none of those is an entity.

Conscious-NESS…..a quality, a condition of the state of being conscious.

….and therefore (2) that they are neither "fundamental" nor "emergent" (objects / properties)? — 180 Proof

Again, half and half: none of them are objects/properties, but consciousness and reason are both fundamental, as mandated by what is represented by them.

….point out where you think my thinking goes wrong. — 180 Proof

When push comes to shove, it must be admitted all your {as x is to y}’s are correct, the problem arises in the fact I can know the empirical cause/effect relation between the first two, but I cannot know the empirical cause/effect relation between minding/thinking/reason-CNS/brain. If I accept it on equal footing with the other two, there’s nothing left to discuss regarding it, because I just don’t know what to say because I don’t know how it works.

And you understand as well as I, that absent empirical knowledge, all that’s left to work with in the pursuit of that for which there is no possible empirical knowledge, is pure logic, which invites us to begin with something we do know, or, something the negation of which is contradictory, and theorize towards something that at least makes sense.

As well, you understand as well as I the rampant fallacy of reification of metaphysical conceptions, and the dreaded cum hoc ergo propter hoc rabbit hole pervading modern “vulgar”, re: common, philosophical thought.

Before, you asked for one or the other. Here you’re asking if something other than one or the other.
— Mww

No, I didn't. — Eugen

quote="Eugen;d14278"]I. ''absolutely anything you could think of":
A. is fundamental
B. is not fundamental[/quote]

Sorry. That was a supposition, not a query. Nevertheless, anyone perceiving that supposition is going to ask himself which he thinks is the case. Anyone holding with 1A will consider 1B moot, and anyone holding with 1B will deny 1A and then consider the merits of the logical argument which follows.

I was a 1A kinda guy, regarding consciousness anyway, even if not anything I can think, so….there ya go.

Time exists regardless of rational agents, otherwise you’d claim nothing exists without rational conscious agents. — invicta

I would not affirm either of those things.

How could it possibly be comprehensible, that time exists without the intellect that uses it? Actually, how is it comprehensible that time exists, at least in the same manner, under the same conditions, as real things exist? If it doesn’t exist as real objects exist, how can it be said to exist at all?

My point is….it’s all too easy for the human intellect to contradict itself.

If space is everything that exists…. — invicta

Reality is everything that exists; space is that in which everything that exists, is found.

Time is not a quality that belongs to rational agents only, it’s on objective concept…. — invicta

And what other than rational agents, conceive?

That’s a lot simpler question than the original, isn’t it? Before, you asked for one or the other. Here you’re asking if something other than one or the other.

Metaphysically, consciousness can’t be other than fundamental or not fundamental.
Scientifically, consciousness can’t be other than strongly or weakly emergent.
Logically, consciousness could be nothing at all, which is other than fundamental or emergent.

Objects in space must also exist in time correct? — invicta

Yes, as far as we’re concerned anyway.

Take away time then WHEN does space exist ? — invicta

You’ve conflated the time of objects with the time of space. That notwithstanding, while it is the case objects are necessarily conditioned by both space and time, that necessity, which is the method by which we as humans relate to real objects, does not carry any implication that space is conditioned by time, which could have no relation to us whatsoever. Objects related by both to something else, does not imply they relate to each other.

The question, then, is unintelligible.

Without a when there is no material world….. — invicta

All when’s belong to rational agents. Without a when belonging to rational agents, there would be no material world for them, but that is not authority to deny the material world altogether.

if something like time cannot be measured can it be said to exist at all? — invicta

Ehhh….I’d give that a big fat no. Can’t buy it by the pound, can’t store it in the freezer. Usually when we say something exists we can lay a hand on it, or could lay a hand on it if we knew where to find it. Or if not that, then just sit around and wait for it to show us an effect impossible for anything else to cause. Far as I know, none of those have happened.

Our senses (…) are not anchored by a sense of time. We simply lack it hence us building clocks to tell its passage in a consistent way. — invicta

Our senses are not anchored by a sense of time, true, but we can’t say we lack a sense of it, in that we must somehow have a sense of that which eventually will be conceived as “time”, otherwise there’s no legitimate reason for us to build clocks at all.
————-

if space is removed from time then the notion of space loses meaning I’d say. — invicta

If the notion of space loses its meaning, how could you say one object is adjacent to, far from, or contained in, another?

I do have some sympathy toward a part of what you're saying there. — Eugen

Couldn’t wish for anything more.

So I can’t know anything unless some facts are transmitted to me by language? — Mww

No. — Andrew4Handel

No, I can’t know anything unless….?

I think personal experience is a rich source of knowledge. — Andrew4Handel

So I can know, even without facts transmitted to me by language. All clear to me now. (grin)

Reality doesn’t have fundamental properties;
— Mww

So there are no fundamental properties, only properties. There is no fundamental reality in your opinion, right? — Eugen

There are properties; there are fundamental properties. These all belong to objects alone.

There is the conception of reality, a metaphysical placeholder for all that is possible to experience, all that is real. There is no qualifier for reality; fundamental reality just is reality.
———-

'Fluidity" is not a property over and above the properties of H and O. — Eugen

Depends on what you want a property to represent. If a property is the determinant factor in the identity of a thing, fluidity is a better service, insofar as H and O, in and of themselves, cannot identify anything except themselves. I mean…..H and O are gases, but water, as such, is not, so I think it difficult to maintain gases are properties of fluids.

The term ''fluidity" is just a shorthand for something that could be fully described by other properties. — Eugen

True, but the description is of water, not fluidity. Minor categorical error, so to speak. Besides, the descriptions of fluidity do not necessarily apply to water alone, but could also apply to oil. And I did say amphoteric fluidity, which is more specific in regard to which fluid substance the property relates.

”Water" and "fluidity" are just language…. — Eugen

True, but language is nothing but representation of conceptions. The conception that “water” represents is very far from the conceptions by which the constituent matter of water are represented.
————

let's assume for the sake of the argument that consciousness's existence is dependent on matter (created by matter), but its properties are not reducible to matter.
— Eugen

That is strong emergence. Are you embracing it? — Eugen

Again, strong/weak emergence is just language tripping all over itself. I’m not of a mind to embrace that which is impossible to know, which leaves me with nothing but the LNC. Even if I don’t know how, I can still hold that the brain is responsible for my intelligence, from which follows my thinking consciousness as a valid representation, all without contradicting science or reason contradicting itself. That’s as far as I’m inclined to go.

because the thing conceived (as shown in brackets) in 4) is "greater" than in 3)….. — Michael

“…. By whatever and by whatever number of predicates—even to the complete determination of it—I may cogitate a thing, I do not in the least augment the object of my conception by the addition of the statement: This thing exists.…”
(CPR A600/B628)

…..then 2) must be true, which again is a fallacious reinterpretation. — Michael

2) positing “and this entity exists”, is precisely the fallacy in the original argument expounded in the Kantian objection to it.

The OP is full of holes, but your breakdown is agreeable.

I think once we accept that language transmits facts we have a basis for knowledge….. — Andrew4Handel

So I can’t know anything unless some facts are transmitted to me by language?

By temporality I mean the passage of time and its experience….. — invicta

Would you entertain the notion finite beings don’t experience the passage of time, but rather, only experience change? And even if change makes explicit successions in time relative to each other, it remains it is not time itself that is the object experienced.

Question: would such a progression of linear time to a conscious being allow them to understand its infinite nature…. — invicta

If the above notion is granted, it follows time doesn’t have the infinite nature, but the infinite resides in the changes that are possible to imagine. If space and time are merely necessary conditions for human experience, then each would be only as infinite as that experience which is conditioned by them.

But the apparent infinite nature of space and time, properly understood, is merely the infinite possibility for change. The argument goes….even given the infinite divisibility of space and time, each division is still just space or time.

Where is the ''nonsense"? — Eugen

Maybe not so much nonsense, as violation of principles.

Reality doesn’t have fundamental properties; the objects which constitute reality, do.

A property of water is amphoteric fluidity. The constituency of water, H and O, do not have fluidity as a property.

The properties of the constituent matter to which water is reducible, are weight, number, charge, spin, and so one, but these are not properties of water.

Water, if reduced to its fundamental constituency, is no longer water. It follows that water cannot be reduced beyond the very properties by which its identity is determinable.

let's assume for the sake of the argument that consciousness's existence is dependent on matter (created by matter), but its properties are not reducible to matter. — Eugen

Just like that…..

Thanks.

The link brings up a rather large list of links. Which one contains “ One of [ Kant's ] cardinal innovations…”?

Cool.

The meaning of "the apple tastes disgusting" has nothing to do with whether or not Suzy throws the apple out of the car. — Michael

Fundamental in principle, deduced and proved, in 1787.

Your description is one of the interpretations of Aristotle's view of phantasia. — Paine

You mean as in De Anima, or something else?

Some have theorized that writing may have preceded speech, but I doubt it. — frank

Yeah….what would a written grunt or bellow look like?

Yep. Just like that.

Ironic, innit? The human thinks in images, but cannot express himself by them. So he invents language to represent his thoughts, but finds words sometimes inadequate, or, he doesn’t know how to use them properly. So what does he do? By his imagination he reproduces similes of the very representations he started with, but this time, he thinks himself communicating by means of them.

Ha!! Oh, what a tangled web we weave….

Thoughts? — frank

A few.

The brain. Amazing piece of machinery. In humans, the irreducible source of knowledge, except the knowledge of how it is that the brain is the irreducible source of knowledge.

The brain. Amazing piece of machinery. In the absence of knowledge of itself, it is still sufficient as the irreducible source of speculation regarding itself, in which case, the brain is really no more than the perfect source for mystifying its own operation, by disguising itself as that which contains a speculator, and from which arises that the brain is mystifying itself by containing a spectator which says so.

What is actually 3.5lbs or so of specialized meat, has the innate capacity to manifest itself as having the capacity to suggest specialized meat has the capacity to mystify itself.

WTF is a self/spectator supposed to do with that?!?!

Be thankful, insofar as he only validates himself….endures….as long as does the brain containing him.

Be pissed, insofar as the brain makes all this knowledge, like natural law and whatnot, possible, but then mocks him by making it impossible to use his knowledge on the scale where the brain operates.

Be suspicious, insofar as should he somehow find out how the brain makes it possible for him to find out how the brain works…..will he find out he was, at best, a mere accident, or, at worst, he never was?

Be audacious, insofar as if he can’t explain himself as conditioned by the brain, then he’ll just go ahead and explain himself as conditioned by that about which he knows even less.

Be sardonic, and instead direct his explanatory power to language and social constructs and such stuff as needs other selves by which to justify his superficial sagacity.

That’s how the myth of the self endures. Cuz the brain won’t let it not. Which is something I couldn’t possibly know, so….

(Sigh)

Why would it be that one of the purportedly major 20th c philosophers wants to 'avoid any appeal to rational insight?' — Wayfarer

Dunno, but Quinne at least, wishes to avoid such appeal by substituting “ontic necessity”, in that if a scientific theory is grounded by abstract mathematical objects, and the theory is believed to hold, then those objects are necessary, re: indispensable.

Apparently, the escape from rational insight reflects the disregard for the origin of those abstract objects, and those a priori conditions by which they are even possible. In other words, such objects are merely given, hence the rational insight for their origin is not required, insofar as the accepted theory is concerned, it doesn’t matter.

As for the avoidance of rational insight altogether, Quine 1981, “…abandonment of the goal of a first philosophy…”, re: naturalism writ large, relegates all rational insight to the back burner, when the goal of a first philosophy is the deduction to principles by which natural science itself is possible, which seems a perfect way to shoot yourself in the foot.
————-

Still feel as though the point I was labouring has somewhat slipped the net here. — Wayfarer

I would like to think I helped put it back.

It is the case that if Kant’s Prolegomena claims that we cannot know anything of God (or other supernatural things for that matter) through rational thought, then, if it is right we should not be doing any rational theology at all. — ClayG

It is not the case. Kant does not tell us what we should or should not think, but only gives the conditions under which whatever we do think, is held within its proper limits, and, how to distinguish when it isn’t.

This is because if we cannot know anything of theology through rational thinking alone then rational theology is not a study worth pursuing since there is nothing that can be known about it or come from it. — ClayG

Self-contradictory, in that how did it come about that we can know nothing of theology through rational thought alone, if not be rational thought alone? Knowledge of theology is one thing; knowledge of the objects that belong to theology, is quite another.

However, this is not to say that we should not be employing experiential a posteriori) knowledge to give us clues to how God or other supernatural things function. — ClayG

The employment of a posteriori principles only tell us about empirical things, which could only give us clues as to how supernatural things do NOT function. If a posteriori knowledge told us how supernatural things function, they wouldn’t be supernatural.

For what it’s worth……

Because the decision-making process is not empirically observable, in any situation where it exists, it will not be apprehended by an observer, unless the observer proceeds from the appropriate premises, required to determine its existence. — Metaphysician Undercover

Then there is no sufficient reason to think…..

The "human sensory apparatus" is structured in such a way that decisions would be required for its creation. — Metaphysician Undercover

….this has any approximation to being the case. If a process is not empirically observable there’s no reason to look for the initial premises sufficient to find it. It isn’t observable, so how would it be known what to look for?

Furthermore, empirical observation of the results of decision-making, the consequences or effects of decisions, indicates that one person's decision-making process is not the same as another's. — Metaphysician Undercover

Nonsense. I add 12 to 30, get 42. You add 18 to 6, get 24. We got different results, but used exactly the same process. While it may be an unauthorized stretch to apodeitically claim what the decision-making process in fact is, it is not so much of a stretch to say that for any member of a given kind, whatever it is will be the same across the spectrum of its members.
————-

However, as I tried to explain earlier…… — Metaphysician Undercover

You mean this?

From what I've been explaining, judgement is necessarily prior to conscious thought, therefore conscious thought must be understood as conditioned by judgement, not vise versa. This is why our conscious judgements are often overwhelmed by biases and prejudices. Prejudice is base in prior judgement which may not have involved conscious thought. — Metaphysician Undercover

All you say here is uncontested, but says nothing with respect to origins. It is fine for the mediocre understanding, but hardly of metaphysical value. Even the judgement which serves as current bias, was at its inception, the result of conscious thought. All you’ve done is kicked the can backwards, but haven’t given it a place to rest.

However, as I tried to explain earlier, it's not necessarily the logic which is flawed here. It's more likely that the premises are what are flawed. The premises, generally, are derived from our empirical observations, and the flaw is in how we generalize from observation. This — Metaphysician Undercover

Right, which is shown by the arithmetic examples above. For empirical conditions, for a logical conclusion regarding real things, the premises are generally derived from observations. And how we generalize from observation, is in fact, how the observation, and by association, the real thing, is understood. From which follows that the premises used for logical conclusions, arise in understanding, therefore whatever flaws there may be in the construction of our premises, also arise in understanding.

For me to misjudge is merely for me to think conceptions relate to each other when some other judgement or some empirical observation, shows my error. For two people to disagree is nothing but one thinking his conceptions relate, the other thinks his relate, but in fact the two sets of conceptions themselves do not relate to each other.
————-

The way that you present things is exactly the reason why Socrates and Plato argued so fervently that the senses deceive us. Sense observations do not give us reality, they give us possibilities. This is very evident from the fact that a multitude of different people observing the very same event will always provide differing descriptions. — Metaphysician Undercover

They may well have argued fervently, but they both took insufficient account of the depth of human cognition. Sense observations give reality; understanding gives the possibility for determining a relation to that reality, and its relation is described by how it is thought, and how it is thought is the conjunction, the synthesis if you will, of conceptions to intuitions, which is a judgement.

These description, sense observations, are taken by the thinking mind as possibilities for reality. Then we must employ logic to determine which we want to accept as certainties, necessities. — Metaphysician Undercover

Given a representational human cognitive system, these descriptions taken by the thinking mind….properly understanding itself….are not the observation, which gives nothing but phenomena, but are conceptions, as possibilities for how the phenomena are to be thought. Logic is employed with respect to judgements made on the relation of conceptions understanding thinks as belonging to each other (plates over holes should be steel and round, re: manhole covers), or, the relations of judgements understood as belonging to each other, in the case of multiple judgements regarding the same cognition (plates over ditches should be steel but must not be round, re: ferry ramps).
————

The problem is that understanding the conscious decision-making process reveals that it is flawed. It is flawed for the reasons exposed above, much of it is carried out by the non-conscious, as exposed above, with the "hidden premises", and all sorts of premises which are simply taken for granted without being consciously thought about to validate them. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, there are flaws possible in the conscious decision-making process, but that does not say the process is flawed, but only the use of it, is. And whatever “hidden premises” there are in conscious decision-making cannot be the responsibility of the conscious agent making the decisions, insofar as it is contradictory to arrive at a conscious decision grounded by premises of which I am not conscious. To simply take for granted bias and prejudice as premises for conscious judgement, is a flaw in the subject’s character, not in the process the agent employs in his decision-making. One can be tutored in correcting erroneous judgements, but if he is so tutored, yet decides to disregard the corrections, he is called pathologically stupid. If tutored, and receives the corrections and thereby judges in accordance with them, that is called experience, and serves as ground of all empirical judgements.

Observations prove/disprove logical constructs.
— Mww

You've got this backward. Logic is what provides certainty, not empirical observation. That's the point of my example about the earth orbiting the sun. Empirical observation provides us with possibilities concerning the reality of things, and we use logic to produce certainties, which we call necessities. — Metaphysician Undercover

No, I don’t. Logical certainty may not require empirical proof, and indeed, may not have any at all afforded to it, this being a limit of forms, re: A = A. But for any logical certainty, using constructed objects of its own manufacture and representing empirical conditions, only observation can serve as proof of those constructs, re: the sun doesn’t rise or fall as the appearance from certain restricted observation warrants.

Empirical observation presupposes the thing, and merely provides the occasion for thinking about the possibilities concerning what a thing is or does, its reality already given by the occasion itself. Logic, on the other hand where observation is not presupposing anything because there’s nothing to observe, dictates the possible reality of things. Subsequent observation then proving the possibility, but having nothing to do with the reality of that thing, insofar as it was always an existent thing, just unobserved. At last, an empirical construct directly proceeding from the merely logical, re: things created by an intelligence because the logical possibility for it antecedes from the same intelligence, that never was possible to observe in order to validate the possibility, but rather, the construction is the observation, re: any gas station anywhere in the world.
———-

When I get a cramp in my leg I stand up and walk to relieve it. I do not rub it, there is no external stimulus required, nothing which fulfils your description of "real physical incident". — Metaphysician Undercover

Yeeaahhhno. As if standing up and walking isn’t a real physical incident.

that there may be a decision-making process out there somewhere, is not impossible.
— Mww

To say it's not impossible, is to miss the reality that it is logically necessary. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yeah, my fault, sort of. You began by claiming a necessary decision-making process for construction of human sensory apparatus, and I took that to decision-making for all reality. I should have left it at human sensory apparatus, in which, being a father, I’ve witnessed the construction of my children’s sensory apparatus from absolutely none at all, to fully functional, under purely empirical, decision-less, conditions.

I suppose you’re left to say that because I made the decision to be a father, my children’s sensory apparatus to come into existence necessarily from that decision alone, which is quite absurd, seeing as how my decision extended only so far as getting laid. My kids shouldn’t have had any sensory apparatus constructed, if your argument is the case, but they did. Your argument is flawed.

For a thing to be not impossible is sufficient for its possibility, but to be merely sufficient is very far from being necessary. The necessary does not logically follow from the not impossible, but from that which is not contingent. Your logic is flawed.

It's not impossible that the earth orbits the sun, but to say that this is not impossible misses the reality that it's logically necessary. — Metaphysician Undercover

(Gaspsputterchoke) Wha???? A pitiful sophism. Observations prove/disprove logical constructs. If a guy can observe some condition, he has no need for logical constructions regarding the reality of the observation, but he may construct logical explanations for them, iff he actually wants to know.
————-

Understanding that conscious decision-making is just the tip of a much bigger process helps one to understand what it means to be a human being. — Metaphysician Undercover

Unless conscious decision-making just is what it means to be a human being, in which case that process is all he needs, and if there happens to be a bigger process takes nothing away from his being one. Long been understood, a human being can think anything he wants. If he wants to think there’s a bigger process, fine. He still has to ask about that bigger process by means of that by which he asks anything, hence is subject to the very same rules as contained in the conscious decision-making process he used for those answers with which he’s satisfied.

This reminds me of something you said about a coherent philosophy. A philosophy for which the understanding of the human conscious decision-making process is complete and unabridged, for which there remains no questions that process could ask even of itself, would necessarily be the most coherent philosophy possible.
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We are what we are, and everything is as it is, whether there was or was not a decision-making process.
— Mww

This is a fatalist, determinist saying. In reality, the power of choice allows us to change, and become something new at each passing moment — Metaphysician Undercover

Fine. You say fatalist, determinist; I say logically incontestable. Even to be something new is to be what we are. We can be forced to change just as much as we can choose to change, therefore the means for of change has no necessary implication; we’re just as new whether the means is one or the other. Evolutionary change is neither forced nor chosen, but recognition of evolutionary change is not immediate, so carries no more necessary implication regarding newness than either of the other means that are.

There is no such thing as "what we are", or "as it is" — Metaphysician Undercover

So…you’re not what you are? If you constantly change into something new, then you are constantly not any thing but only some thing not what you were. But even what you were was only that which was not something before it. You have not much other choice than to say what you are not. To complete the circle, what remains from all of what you can say you are not, is what you can say you are. Which is where you started.

The decision-making process is what allows us to be moving on rather than what we are. — Metaphysician Undercover

It also limits the illusory appearance that we have.

Like I said…a human can think anything he wants. But he really does himself no favors by making a complete mess of it.
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Your experience appears to be self-contradicting. You told me the object is not the phenomenon. What you experience is the phenomenon. You do not experience objects so your experience produces no necessity of objects. You ought to realize that objects are merely possibilities. — Metaphysician Undercover

True, the object is not the phenomenon; the phenomenon represents the sensation an object provides. The objects are therefore the necessary material condition for sensation, subsequently the necessary spatial condition for the possibility of phenomena in general. No objects, no sensation, no phenomena.

True, my experience is of my phenomena. I do not experience objects, but only the representations of them.

True, my experience produces no necessity of objects. Necessity is produced in understanding.

If I perceive an object, and if that perception forwards a sensation in conjunction with the mode of its perception, and if the sensation is the means by which a phenomenon is given, then the object is necessary for all that. An object satisfying this criteria cannot be a mere possibility. It is utterly irrelevant that I as yet may not know what this object is from which these internal events follow, but because they do follow it is immediately contradictory to suppose it is only a possible object affecting me, and while the as yet indeterminable object grants the possibility of how it will eventually be known, such undeterminability does not take away from it being a necessary physical presence.
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The reality of perceived objects, is necessary; the reality of a priori objects, is contingent.
— Mww

If the object is not the phenomenon, as you told me, yet the mind is known to create objects, which are contingent objects, show me how your mind derives a necessary object please. — Metaphysician Undercover

The mind….properly theoretical pure reason a priori…..derives its necessary objects in conjunction with the conceptions under which they are to be subsumed. A necessary object is that object for which the negation is impossible, which makes any necessary object, a logical construct.

That being established, necessary objects the mind derives are not contingent; the reality of them, is, and such reality depends exclusively on the possibility of the phenomena that represent them. Your so-called bigger process is a good example, in that it is possible to logically construct a bigger process of whatever form, and understand it as such, but quite another to experience it, which would only be possible if that process, or the objects contained in it, were susceptible to phenomenal representation.

A bigger process is itself only a conception, as yet with no object that describes what such bigger process entails, what makes it a bigger process, how it is not merely a familiar lesser process with simply larger scope. Whatever that object is, or plurality of objects, however reason constructs, is necessarily related to the conception, subsumed under it, such that the conception takes a form without self-contradiction.

You’re welcome.
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Take any A-HA!! moment of your life….. compare it to stubbing your toe.
— Mww

Here's a better comparison. Let's compare when I stub my toe, with when I suddenly get a cramp in my leg. — Metaphysician Undercover

It is not a better comparison when only to like kinds when properly it should be unlike kinds.

But in the case of the cramp in my leg, there's nothing for me to point at and blame. — Metaphysician Undercover

So you don’t immediately and automatically rub the muscle in the exact location of a charlie horse? You rub the muscle far removed from it? Even if you do neither, your brain locates it, which represents as an image of that very location in fact being rubbed, because muscle extension as relaxation is already understood as the most feasible relief. It follows, with respect to empirical judgements, you’ve made the first regarding that a rub is feasible, and second, where the rub must occur in order for its feasibility to properly manifest. A-HA!!! moments, it should be clear, are judged not like that in a completed series of them, although the initial judgement may be with respect to an empirical condition, but the concluding judgement will have nothing whatsoever to do with it. It is nonsense to judge the cause of an event in the same way as the effect the event has, when ‘the cause of this’ and ‘this caused effect on’, are related to very different things.

Likewise, pointing out external things, and saying that these things are the cause of any sort of sensations, is a mistake. — Metaphysician Undercover

Could be, but only under the auspices of a method which suffices to prove it is, at the expense of whatever method which suffices to prove it isn’t.

The question is, is it not a necessary requirement for some judgements or decisions to have been made in order for a body which senses to be created, or to simply come into existence, to become? — Metaphysician Undercover

The only method for judgement I can use is right between my ears, and since that cannot be the creator of me, whatever that creator is, if it is, is something for which I have no interest.

This (evolutionary theory) ought to incline us to look at "intuition" more closely, to see if perhaps there is judgement inherent within it. — Metaphysician Undercover

Been done already. Came up empty. If there is, it’s going to require a whole new way of looking for it, in order to find it.

Sure, that there may be a decision-making process out there somewhere, is not impossible. But even if there is, what difference would it make to that which is, now. We are what we are, and everything is as it is, whether there was or was not a decision-making process. We and things could have been different but nothing is different than it is, so….who cares. Better to contemplate decision-making in which a change is given because I am the cause of it.
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I hear a loud boom, so it cannot be denied I heard something, from which arises a mere phenomenon.
— Mww

Your premise presumes what you claim, that is known as begging the question. When you state "I hear a loud boom", that premise dictates that you actually heard something. But we cannot start with that assumption unless we are certain that it is correct. — Metaphysician Undercover

We? Who the hell is we? I’m as certain as I need to be, and you can assume anything you like. I wonder, though, what you do first, when I state that I heard a boom. Do you immediately imagine what it’s like to hear a boom with your own ears, or do you immediately doubt I heard one with mine? Dunno about you, but when someone tells me about some perception of his, I start by assuming his certainty.
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Once we see that a coherent philosophy can be produced which denies the reality of "the object", then the "possibility" of an object must replace the "necessity" of an object — Metaphysician Undercover

I’m not ever going to experience a merely possible object, from which follows a coherent philosophy which denies the necessity of objects, with respect to my experience, is a contradiction.

And the object cannot be taken as a given, it may be created by the cognitive act, as a sort of judgement imposed on the possibility of an object — Metaphysician Undercover

An object can be created by cognition, but such object is, at the time of its being cognized, not a sensible object, hence not a phenomenon. These are objects generated by purely a priori conditions and are merely conceptions that are thought, but by which sensible objects can possibly be constructed that represent them. First and foremost, the most ubiquitous of these, are numbers.

The reality of perceived objects, is necessary; the reality of a priori objects, is contingent. The validity of objects a priori, is necessary; the validity of perceived objects, is contingent.

The judgement imposed on the possibility of an object is the same kind as imposed on real objects, only from a different set of categorical schema.
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Isn't "how a subject feels" just a matter of sensation? — Metaphysician Undercover

You tell me. Is the sensation you get from pictures you see of objects in the universe, the same kind of feeling you get when you imagine being there?

feelings are just another way, (other than through conscious thought), that sensations affect us. — Metaphysician Undercover

Take any A-HA!! moment of your life…..assuming you’ve had at least one…..compare it to stubbing your toe. The latter requires a real physical incident, the former does not, insofar as you can have your epiphany over a merely possible incident and of course there’s no sensation in a possible incident. So you could get away with saying feelings are concerned with possible sensations, but the problem then becomes the certainty of that feeling, however it manifests, but without the certainty of the thing that caused it. Then the best you can do is tell yourself you don’t know why you feel the way you do, the very epitome of confusion and doubt.

You can mix objective physiological sensation with subjective pain/pleasure if you like, but that won’t do in speculative metaphysics. This goes here, that goes there, and by mixing them up a contradiction can be forced, which does nothing but wreck the whole deal.

“…. Thus the criterion of the possibility of a conception (not of its object) is the definition of it, in which the unity of the conception, the truth of all that may be immediately deduced from it, and finally, the completeness of what has been thus deduced, constitute the requisites for the reproduction of the whole conception.…”
(CPR B115)

Note the lower textual location in B only, this in reference to understanding, whereas the other quotes with higher textual locations, refer to pure reason’s dogmatic use, and is found in both editions.

Of course definitions have a place, if only in justifications for a method.