iff the sensation of the thing being piped sufficiently replicates the sensation by which coffee became known.
— Mww

Sufficiently? — Isaac

Yes, the quality used when necessity doesn’t have the authority. Metaphysically speaking, the cognition of this sip cannot be understood as coffee unless there is enough in this sensation relatable to that sensation by which the conception “coffee” first became a valid conception. It became a valid conception when it could be said of it….I know what this is.
———-

Coffee with sugar will always be experienced as coffee with sugar
— Mww

I don't think even this is the case. On a nice day it will taste better than on a bad day. — Isaac

What sense does it make to suggest the type of day the coffee is consumed, determines what my sensation of it will be?
———

But surely how a thing does something is the result of an investigation, it's not just given to us. We don't get to see howbthd engine works unless we look under the bonnet. — Isaac

Investigation…yes, agreed. Still, what’s being investigated determines the kind of investigation it will be. Popping the skull to figure out how thinking works is very far from popping the hood on a car to see how an engine works. We think, thinking is a given. As a general rule, there are no humans that don’t think, even if there are vanishingly small exceptions to the rule. Thinking is given to us as just something else to investigate.

You were saying that "the smell of coffee" is experienced as a "thing" — Metaphysician Undercover

Is precisely what I’m NOT doing. The smell of coffee is that by which an experience OF a thing is concluded, in the case of first instance of it, or, the smell of coffee is that by which knowledge of a thing is given, in all cases subsequent to, and under the same conditions as, the first. The first is a learning by synthesis, all others are then merely sufficient correspondences to it.

Smell is not a thing, therefore cannot in itself be an experience at all. But the smell of, henceforth subsumed under a conception, is of a particular thing, in this case coffee, therefore not a generalization. Now, coffee itself may be a generalization, but it is still the case that each particular coffee subsumed under the general conception, will exhibit its own sensation. Otherwise, how else to ground the distinction one from the other?

I shouldn’t have to tell you that the more conceptions subsumed under a general, and relating to it without contradiction, the better understood the thing will be. And if it is irrational to assign conceptions arbitrarily, then it must be that the assignment of conceptions must follow a rule, such that irrationality is circumvented. Because coffee is an empirical object, the rule must follow from that which is the case for any empirical object, and that which is the case for any empirical object which makes the rule and thereby the circumvention of irrational reasoning possible, is the sensation by which objects are presented to us in order for there to be anything to even assign non-contradictory conceptions to in the first place.
———-

You ought to separate the means from the end. That the error in judgement occurs, as the end, is evidence that the deception has been successful. — Metaphysician Undercover

Judgement is not an end, it is an intermediary result. It still must be allowed how the error in a judgement manifests, by its comparison to that which follows from it. That an error in judgement occurs must be proven.

Error in judgement can have many causes. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, which presupposes that from which judgements occur.

That the error in judgement occurs, as the end, is evidence that the deception has been successful. But the act of deceiving is not necessarily successful — Metaphysician Undercover

Am I to understand by this, that the act of deceiving is the presupposition for the cause of errors in judgement? All we need to justify that, is posit what the act of deceiving is. If judgement is part of the cognitive process, the act of deceiving as cause must be antecedent to the error contained in the judgement as effect, thus also contained in the cognitive process. So what part of the cognitive process deceives? What’s worse, apparently, is whatever part that is, it may not deceive, thus may not be the cause of errors in judgement, which is to say there isn’t one. So some part of the cognitive process both deceives and doesn’t deceive, and the only way to tell which, is by whether or not there are errors in judgement. But determining whether or not there are errors in judgement can only arise from a judgement made on whether or not there has been a deception.

What a incredibly foolish….errr, irrational…..way to do things, wouldn’t you say? Let’s just remain with the idea there isn’t a deception, there is only a subsumption of conceptions in a synthesis of them that doesn’t relate to that which the conceptions represent. That this doesn’t belong to that isn’t a deception, it’s merely a misunderstanding, which manifests as a error in judgment, proven by a different understanding that does relate different conceptions properly. Simple, sufficient, logically non-contradictory. What more do we need?

You cannot make blanket generalizations like this. A small coffee with triple sugar is much different from a large with single sugar. — Metaphysician Undercover

Oh, but I can, and I’m justified in doing so, if the point to make was the valid notion of differences in experiences relative to differences in the objects senses.
————-

That is why it is commonly said by philosophers that the senses deceive us. — Metaphysician Undercover

….and said by the critical philosophers that they don’t. Deception is merely error in judgement, and judgement is not what the senses do, so…..
———-

The sports car is a different tone in the shade, under a street light and in the full sun, yet red in all three cases. — Banno

Of course. And what do you suppose it is that tells you that? Perhaps the same as what tells you…so what? The car is this color, even if it appears not to be this color at this time under these conditions. Coffee is still coffee with sugar or without, hot, cold, burnt or otherwise. Sorta like ol’ Bertie, back in 1912….threw a tablecloth over the table, then asked if the table was still there despite being unseen as such. (Sigh)
————

There need be nothing in common between various cases for which we use the same word. — Banno

Need is irrelevant, in the face of universal necessity. I mean….the commonality is cloaked in the very assertion claiming there isn’t one.
———-

I don't like transcendental arguments — Banno

Good onya; and those who actually know what one is, wouldn’t be caught using one.

And I made a mistake, for which I should have known better. Paralogisms are arguments of illegitimate form, content be what it may, whereas transcendental arguments are false with respect to their content, hence immediately invalid. In short, transcendental arguments are those in which the categories are contained in the predicates of pure a priori cognitions, where they don’t belong.

Still…as in all philosophical doctrines, just depends on how one defines the term, which in turn depends on the doctrine in play. You say you don’t like them, but leave it to the reader to figure out for himself what it is you don’t like. You imagine one should be able to figure out what you mean by the term by associating it to its antecedents, but if one doesn’t understand the antecedents, or disagrees with them, he’s no better off then he ever was.

And you really should relinquish your love affair with David Stove. To say any propositional content with a hyphen is a bad argument is itself a bad argument.

We use the word "red" for sunsets and sports cars and blood, but these things are not the same colour. — Banno

I can perceive a sports car that appears blood-red in color. What’s the point again?

the transcendental argument is false. — Banno

A transcendental argument is merely an illegitimate logical construction, insofar as the premises are derived from conditions the conclusion cannot meet, or vice versa, the truth or falsity of it thus being irrelevant.

Impeccable timing?

To claim there's such an entity as 'the smell of coffee' requires that coffee produce a consistent experience, but it doesn't seem to. — Isaac

The smell of coffee is nothing but a sensation that belongs to a certain thing, experienced as the thing it is conceived to be. This thing being sipped will always be the same coffee experience iff the sensation of the thing being piped sufficiently replicates the sensation by which coffee became known.

Coffee with sugar will always be experienced as coffee with sugar, coffee with just milk will be experienced as coffee with just milk. Same for old coffee, burnt coffee, cat-shit coffee, Folger’s freeze dried coffee, and on and on an on. It’s how we are informed of differences in fundamental conceptions, by adding to or taking from, those basics. And the coffee we sip, is of course, merely water of different qualities, which are determined by the sensations given from them.
————

These are aesthetic judgements on an object already perceived, not the sensation itself given from objects themselves as they are perceived.
— Mww

Where is that sensation? What are we using as evidence (rational or empirical) that such a thing exists? — Isaac

The evidence is quite apparent. It manifests in how a thing elicits a feeling. It manifests as “this just doesn’t feel right”; “I don’t feel good about doing this”. “Je-SUS, that’s the ugliest freakin’ thing I’ve ever seen”. This kind of sensation addresses the quality of our subjective condition, and is most often understood as mere opinion.

As to where it is….ehhhh, consciousness is as good a location as any. It isn’t an existence per se. Doesn’t matter much, in that every otherwise acceptably rational human makes aesthetic judgements. Or, to be fair, does something in the form that could be called aesthetic judgements.

it seems like there must be some method by which a sip of this liquid gives the experience with this name, and no other,
— Mww

Why do think that? Have the same drinks not given you different experiences at different times? — Isaac

How could it, if I call it the same drink? And conversely, if I have different experiences, how could I say such experiences are of the same drink?
————

Did wine taste the same to you at five as it does at 50? Does water give you the same experience when thirsty as it does when added in excess to your whisky? — Isaac

No, but there is a significant categorical distinction herein. These are aesthetic judgements on an object already perceived, not the sensation itself given from objects themselves as they are perceived. They belong to me as a perceiving subject, not to the perceived object. How the taste of wine manifests in me as a sensation is not the same as the sensation that wine manifests from its being a thing. It’s the difference between the kinds of taste there may be, which I decide, rather than the taste there is, which the kind of wine decides.

Of course, the kind of taste I decide I can talk about; the taste the kind of wine decides, I cannot. By the same token, then, the sensation of the satisfaction water gives belongs to me, but that sensation by which water satisfies, belongs to it. Pretty easy to see why coffee lacks the sensation of curing my thirst, but satisfies the same basic criteria as the experience of water.

I think maybe my poor writing is creating some confusion — Isaac

Yeah, maybe me too. I didn’t mean, and I didn’t take you to mean either, by one-to-one correspondence that for each sensation there is only one network by which the brain tells us about it. Makes sense, though, that sommeliers may have the ability to reduce or localize correspondences closer to one-to-one, if it is true they can distinguish all those minor sensations contained in the major. I dunno….I can’t do it myself.

On the other hand, it seems like there must be some method by which a sip of this liquid gives the experience with this name, and no other, which is a form of one-to-one correspondence. And while it may indeed be a language condition that says this sensation is of coffee and not gasoline, it is hard for me to understand why the brain needs coffee or gasoline to inform that one sensation is not like the other.
————-

We've no apparent biological reason to group the various neural goings on in the way we do. — Isaac

Agreed. No biological reason, yet we do it anyway. So we have physics that doesn’t answer, we have metaphysics that does answer but doesn’t satisfy.

What an odd bunch of creatures we are, huh?

If there were a direct one-to-one correspondence between some neural goings on and us wanting to say "I smell coffee", then I think the 'ineffable' crowd might have a better argument (though still flawed) — Isaac

To deny the correspondence is to deny the brain as the singular source of all mental activities. Flawed insofar as to merely affirm the correspondence is not to prove it, and the correspondence itself does not lend itself to being proven. We are left with the impossibility of it being otherwise, given the undeniable validity of mental events themselves, but cannot isolate and thereby verify the relation we insist must be the case.

But there is no such correspondence…. — Isaac

So epiphenomenalism then? Just because a correspondence has yet to be empirically demonstrated does not mean there isn’t one. The “ineffable crowd” merely grants the necessity of the correspondence as a function of natural law accorded to all physical substances, and simultaneously the impossibility of proving the form it must have, as a cause/effect relation, so ending up with the very epitome of the conception the crowd endorses. From which is derivable the principle, for that which is granted as necessary but at the same time impossible to describe in the same terms as the necessity requires, nothing for that can be said.
———-

We 'assign' narratives to the various neural happenings according to some rules-of-assignment….. — Isaac

Exactly right. But does this not leave us with a bigger problem than being unable to demonstrate how physical conditions permit non-physical activities, iff such is in fact the case? You should have already determined what all you just said means, before you can proceed with actually doing it. And for the particular you…in this case because you said it….so it is for all you’s in general, which is precisely the same as any “me” in general. Wherein lay the problem.

You say "but we can't put the smell of coffee into words!". Of course not, it's a smell….. — Banno

Thanks….made my day.

The rest of it…..ehhh, anti-climatic.

We do talk about the aroma of coffee.
— Banno

Yes, we do. We also talk about swimming like fish, flying like birds, going to the ends of the Earth. — Mww

I don't agree that your counter-instance works. — Banno

We talk about this, we talk about that. We talk about all sorts of stuff, some of it eccentrically. Which is just another word for irrationally. What about that doesn’t work?
————

the aroma of coffee not being reducible to chemistry, it is caused by chemistry. — Banno

What’s the difference? That which is caused by only this, is reducible to this for its cause. A tautology. True insofar as its negation is a contradiction.
————

two different ways of talking about the same thing. Not unlike the piece of paper being a dollar bill. — Banno

Talk of these types of judgements are not talking about the same thing, just as talk of, e.g., “right” as direction, is not the same as talk of “right” as correct. And irrelevant with respect to your analogy, insofar as there is nothing whatsoever contained in talk of a piece of paper by which talk of a dollar bill must necessarily follow from it. While it may be true the conception of a dollar bill is contingent on the conception of a piece of paper, it is not the case the conception of a piece of paper is contingent on the conception of a dollar bill.

Language. An affront to the dignity of philosophy itself, and justified by being the single human condition completely unnecessary for having an opinion.

……says the guy who must use language in order to voice an opinion on how evil it is.

(Sigh)

We do talk about the aroma of coffee. — Banno

Yes, we do. We also talk about swimming like fish, flying like birds, going to the ends of the Earth.

And we do talk about that aroma, which might rather eccentrically be worded as "it is the aroma to which language construction and use is directed". — Banno

Eccentrically indeed.
————

it is the chemical composition of coffee that gives it that aroma. — Banno

Yep, sure is. All those chemicals you took the pains to research? Nary a one of ‘em ever registers on the brain as a sensation.

the aroma of coffee is not reducible to chemistry. — Banno

Than what was the point conveyed by listing the chemicals as the source of the aroma of coffee?

involves ritual, pleasure, anticipation, awakening, and so on. — Banno

Yes, these are aesthetic judgements concerning human feelings, rather than the discursive judgements concerning human experience. More dualism.
————

there are two distinct ways of speaking about the same thing, for what of a better differentiation, one chemical, the other intentional. — Banno

I can think of a better one: mine is one of the abstract, yours is the reification of the abstract. Mine is trees, yours is…..ehhhh, you know.

the aroma of coffee. — Banno

Yes, obviously you and I treat sensations differently, and no, it is not possible to reconcile the contradiction intrinsic to those differences. You ask how is it that we can talk about sensations, but I ask what is it about sensations that enable them to be talked about. Your question treats language use as subject, presupposing sensation as that which satisfies the criteria by which we can talk about anything. My question treats sensation as subject, presupposing only that we can talk about anything iff it meets certain criteria. Your question has always an affirmative response, but mine has always negative, hence the impossibility of reconciling the differences.

Reason hides in obscurity, but perhaps the science does not. Do you not see that it is not aroma as sensation that arrives in the brain? If aroma is a chemical form of energy affecting a certain sensory device in one way, but the energy changes form to electrical energy affecting the nerves in a different way, which merely represents the chemical energy, and it is then the case the chemical energy is never transferred to the brain…..how can it be the sensation that is received in the brain, to be talked about?

Furthermore, do you see there is no physiological sensory apparatus in a human being that inputs electrical or electrostatic energy alone, such that a 100% efficiency is possible to obtain in the transition between the energy in sensory devices and the information energy carried by nerves? From which follows necessarily that all outputs of physiological sensory devices are representational, and therefore not of the same form, and cannot carry the exact same informational content, as the originating perceptions.

If all language construction and use originates in the brain, and no chemical information given from the sensation of aroma is ever received in the brain, it cannot be aroma to which language construction and use is directed.
————

You want obscure? I’ll give you obscure:
(Figure of speech; I know you don’t actually want it. Just sayin’)

…..Science has advanced by leaps and bounds. The nerves transferring nose energy has been isolated. Some device is invented….or, hell, falls out of the sky…who cares….and it is figured out how it can be attached to those nerves. What are the chances the amazing device would output an odor? For shits and giggles, let’s say it does. What kind of device would that have to be, then? Why….wouldn’t it have to be a nose? Well, it couldn’t be a nose, for if it was it wouldn’t be some amazing device that just fell out of the sky. Which leaves the theory of irreversibility in self-contained thermodynamic processes in macrostates, which translates into the impossibility of any device attached to nerves outputting the exact same information inputted to them. So it is clear…..of course it is…..noses cannot deliver to the brain what the brain is actually using. And if all language use arises in the brain….yaddayaddayadda.

Odd, innit? The proper metaphysician and the scientist both use the same term for that which is untranslatable…..phenomenon. Between what the nose puts out as sensation and what the brain receives as mere information, the untranslatable gap between is a phenomenon. Physics and metaphysics doctrines alike both maintain the immediate presupposition that no human is ever consciously aware of either peripheral nerve activity on the one hand, and sensory output on the other, which grounds both empirically and logically, that sensation itself is never what is talked about.

See how simple it is, really? The opposite of obscure, which leaves you alone with your disappointment. But maybe now you can at least be entertained at the same time.

Hiding in obscurity — Banno

‘S ok; I like it here.

Frankly I don't understand what you are saying here. — Banno

Without a thorough study of Enlightenment speculative metaphysics, there’s no reason you should, and for the oversight, you are hereby forgiven. (Grin)

….a charitable way of interpreting this discussion in which these statements are not contradictory. — Banno

Best I can do is caution against mistaking the operation of a system in situ, for discussions about it after the fact. In the former sensation is ineffable, insofar as that part of the system responsible for language use is very far from that part to which sensation proper belongs, but in the latter it is not, insofar as all parts of the system are treated equally by the language used to describe them.

And yet we do talk about them. — Banno

Dualism. Human nature.

The system, in its proper modus operandi, is knowledge. That’s what reason is for. With respect to objects, then, sensation has no cognitive power, is not of that part of the system which cognizes what object shall be known as. Here, sensation is nothing but the alarm, the trigger for the knowledge system to initiate its operation.

“… For, otherwise, we should be required to affirm the existence of an appearance without that which appears, which would be absurd…”

Hence it is not given the attribute of conceptual schemata, the very root of its ineffability, which is to say the system doesn’t consider what sensation in general is, nor what sensations in general are, but only that by means of them alone, a representation of the object as it is perceived is possible, and that by means of the mode, re: the sensory apparatus, by which the sensation is delivered.

Talk of the form sensation is given, such that the effability of it is supposed, the sting of a bee, the taste of Lima beans, is still nothing but a post hoc recollection, in which reason has already judged the relation between the perception and the phenomenon which follows from it, because of the affect the sensation provided. In fact, albeit theoretically, what’s accomplished here is the assignment of a property or attribute to an object that relates that object in a non-contradictory fashion, to the sensation, but is mistaken as a condition by which the sensation itself can be named. See the conversation between myself and , pg 23, for a taste of the scientific/metaphysical cognitive dichotomy.

This systemic methodology goes back to Plato, reiterated with various names through Locke, Hume, Kant, Russell, et. al.. Knowledge of/knowledge that. Knowledge a posteriori/knowledge a priori. Knowledge by description/knowledge by acquaintance.

“….intuition cannot think, and understanding cannot intuit. It is only by them in conjunction with each other, is our (empirical) knowledge at all possible….”

Dualists one and all. As humans are by their very nature. Or, perhaps, the very nature of their intelligence. And the later-modern advent of phenomenology becomes self-justified, in that no one likes the idea that we cannot immediately describe our own sensations, as early-modern metaphysics demands. Rather than wait for the system to complete its task as a whole, it is claimed as possible to circumvent half of it, yet still lay claim to knowledge. Abysmally short-sighted, I must say.

Ok, thanks. While I agree sensation is ineffable, I cannot isolate ineffability from sensation with your description here. If one of the meanings of sensory terms derives from sensation, hasn’t some language been used on it? And if I read you correctly, it begs the question as to how conceptions, by which all objects are described, arrive at purely physical structures such as sensory devices.

I think it more the case sensation merely informs our representational faculty, sometimes called intuition, as to which physiology has been affected by some real object, but provides nothing descriptive per se with respect to it. This is given from the fact we are often affected by some object’s sensation, but have no immediate idea what it is. Knowing we are affected says nothing descriptive of that affect.

But this is grounded in a dualistic philosophical paradigm, so…..maybe you’re right in some other way.

At the most elemental level, we can describe the physical world in terms of the sensations that it elicits. — hypericin

I agree sensations are entirely ineffable. As are feelings, and for much the same reasons.

But if you’re right, what is it about objects that can elicit descriptive terms from sensation?

Ok then.

I wish to cross-reference. If I can’t do that, because I can’t get what I need for it, I’ll stick with what I know. Destructive because, as far as I know, that was not what he said.

dualism and conservation of energy thread — Metaphysician Undercover

I perused the thread, read some of your links. I wasn’t aware of the refutation of conservation laws, as the links stated.

As far as I’m concerned, energy loss in one exchange is a simple concept, but energy conservation in system-wide exchanges is complicated.

it is a misrepresentation to say that there is a "transfer of knowledge" between people. — Metaphysician Undercover

Conventionally speaking, it does seem that way. Technically, however, abstract systems internally complete and independent from each other, cannot exchange their individual means or ends.

Is there an issue? — Constance

Yes. Your translator’s reading doesn’t match any of the four of mine. It’s a technicality for sure, but in a system built on them, such ambiguity is either confusing or destructive.

Kant's "concepts without intuitions are empty; intuitions without concepts are blind." — Constance

Whose translation is this?

You're saying here that the entity, or prompt, you end up with isn't a 'construct' because it's been constructed by sub-conscious (sub-cognitive?) processes? Is that right? — Isaac

I usually take “construct” to imply intentionality, and no sub-conscious faculty can be imbued with it. Perhaps it is that construct isn’t so much the wrong concept, but just not the better one.

There’s a hidden benefit in a subconscious facility. Because the representation by definition cannot be exactly the same as the given object, otherwise it wouldn’t be a representation, we can say even though we absolutely cannot prove anything about how matter is arranged into a useable form, at the same time we can say it is absurd to suppose it isn’t.

Science eventually solved this speculative impossibility by proving any change in the form of energy means some will be lost, justifying the notion that representations are never the same as…..dare I say….the thing-in-itself. Just the empirical proof that, metaphysically alleviates the necessity for the proving how. Which is good, because it’s already been understood it couldn’t be done from a metaphysical domain anyway, seeing as it’s all sub-conscious. It is logically sufficient to say the phenomenon contains all the sensation gives it, the sensation contains all the perception gives it, but the perception does not contain all that the real object has to give.
(Sidebar: hence the birth of phenomenology. Some people just could not abide with the idea there is a very important aspect, veritably the very ground, of empirical cognitive metaphysics that is nonetheless inaccessible to the conscious investigations.)
————-

I doubt there's room for probability in this metaphysical process? — Isaac

Not really. Metaphysics proper is the ways and means for knowledge acquisition. For the proverbial Man on the Street, Joe Cool, Mr. and Mrs. Rural America, they don’t want to probably know. Probably knowing gets folks killed, or at the very least, makes them look like an idiots. I imagine even the theoretical physicist, in the development of his thesis, won’t come up with experiments which would probably support it.

No……apodeictic certainty rules the day, caveats and all. Euclid understood it, re: geometric necessity; Aristotle understood it, re: three laws of rational thought; Descartes understood it, re: negation of irreducible doubt; Kant understood it, re: synthetic a priori truths.
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Your system seems to have understanding as almost binomial (is there a link or isn't there) — Isaac

Neither of us can describe these distinct systems as far as they go; we’d become stuck in the minutia which only works if the major premises are accepted across the board. The brain works physically due to the subtleties of its parts, we think metaphysically due to the subtleties of the faculties that make thinking possible. Neurology works with transmitters, gaps and receptors; understanding works with synthesis, judgement and reason. In short, understanding links, judgment says the link works this time, reason says whether it works in all times. Or, in other words, understanding conjoins according to rules, judgement follows those rules, reason says some principle has been violated by that judgement therefore those rules weren’t the proper ones to use in this instance. Think…mirage. Think….clouds that look like some object. Think…the duck/rabbit picture. That stupid dress or the shadow on the checkerboard.

Regarding the unfamiliar word, then, and in the interest of brevity, I said understanding couldn’t construct an image, but technically, it is that for every image it does construct, judgement will admit, but reason will overrule as being inadmissible. I did that in order to simplify, to circumvent the obvious question which would have followed if I’d said understanding does construct an image of an unfamiliar word.

And here is the system in all its speculative metaphysical glory. I did say “nothing is cognized”, implying no image made it out of that faculty to become knowledge. If understanding had so constructed, judgement did admit, and reason did say all’s well….the word would then be cognized as something, the word would be known, hence would not be unfamiliar….blatantly contradicting the given perception.

To say of a thing that it is unfamiliar, just is to say the cognitive system has already done its job. If this were not the case, every single perception ever, would be either always and only become knowledge or always and only never become knowledge, but not ever changing from one to the other. Either we’d know everything or know absolutely nothing, and, we’d never actually learn.
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It's all about a constant stream of best guesses — Isaac

I can see that. Assuming 1 x 10^11 neurons, each with 1 x 10^4 connections between them, (Nguyen, Thai, 2010), it would seem to be quite busy up there, yes. Given that exact measurement is rather impossible, with numbers that great it doesn’t make much difference.

This is a good example of the disregard for ontological predicates with respect to the physical world. All the mind….reason, properly speaking…..needs is that which is given to it, and although there very well may be infinite possibilities for things, a very finite quantity of them will be given. It follows the metaphysical mind doesn’t need to be as stochastically busy as the scientific brain, thus can escape the notion of probabilities in general. Or, perhaps, more accurately, reserve probability for particular things perceived by the senses. In other words, the mind doesn’t ask, what are the chances the thing I’m perceiving is this thing or that thing, but rather, asks, how shall this perceived thing be known as.

….you conclude what must take place…. — Isaac

No, not must. That’s a empirical knowledge claim to which I’m not entitled.

….or what you sense takes place — Isaac

If to sense is to form an opinion, then I admit to that.

investigation or the data — Isaac

Investigation. Of the data in topically restricted books, texts, papers. Conversations.

I’m just philosophizing, from a well-versed platform perhaps, but philosophizing nonetheless.

But you must have been able to construct it to some extent, otherwise you wouldn't have two images to compare? — Isaac

Construct to some extent, yes. Two images to compare, no.

The construct to some extend you’re referring to, in the case of perceiving an unfamiliar, is for me a metaphysical phenomenon, which you have posited as scientific “blurry letters”. The senses tell me there is something but is not the place for the telling of what the something is. Phenomena just inform the mind there is about to be something for it to work on. The blurry letters say there is a word for the brain to work on.

In the strictest sense of the word, therein is a construct in the physical system, in that one form of energy in the sensory apparatus is transformed into another kind of energy for transfer along the nerves. So too is there a kind of construct in metaphysical apparatus, in that the matter of the perceived object is arranged in accordance with its given external space. The tail of a dog is placed on the butt end and not the nose end, legs point down….and all that. In the case at hand, that it is a word being perceived is familiar because a succession of letters which are the necessary composition of any word, is part and parcel of the perception as a whole, but the unfamiliarity of the word is not given from this arrangement of these letters, for the simple reason there is as yet no conscious awareness of it as such.

Ever onward. Just as there is no conscious awareness of the information in sensory stimuli traversing the nerves on its way to the brain, there no conscious awareness of phenomena in intuition on its way to understanding. So for the sake of logical consistency it can be said there is a pre-cog construct, but is useless as such to conscious awareness, being necessary, only for the brain, in determining which neural pathway leading to which area of the brain, or similarly, only for metaphysical comprehension, in how the perceived object is to be understood.

So…because I am not consciously aware of the phenomena in my metaphysical system, I do not consider it a construct insofar as I have no knowledge or thought of it at all. In fact, I can say “I” haven’t yet constructed anything. That there is an unconscious part of my metaphysical system that does stuff for which the conscious part is entirely oblivious, is exactly the same as the physical system doing things for the brain with which neural networking has no part.

As the physical system uses electrical energy for its means, the metaphysical system uses phenomena for its means; just as the physical system uses chemical energy for its ends, the metaphysical system uses understanding for its ends. Both in their respective domains are necessary for the other, but neither in their domains can substitute for the other. It follows that the information in nerves is necessary but not sufficient for mental events in the brain, and phenomena are necessary but not sufficient for understanding in conscious awareness.

Now, after progressing from the unconscious nerves/phenomena to the conscious mental event/understanding, the question arises…do I have two images to compare. I had, up to this point, only a indeterminate something, a representation of whatever has affected my senses. As far as the brain is concerned, all there is, is some data, some electrical information that has not been subjected to the area of the brain that is capable of doing something productive with it.

And the separation in domains now becomes apparent. In the scientific system, we don’t know specifically where conscious awareness is born, but in a metaphysical system, conscious awareness is born in understanding, which we call thinking. The phrase we both used, “recalled to mind”, means just to think, to be consciously aware of something I’m supposed to do, in the case at hand, do something with an unfamiliar phenomenon. And what I’m supposed to do, is understand the unfamiliar word. I do that by comparing to what I already understand. In the physical system, the brain must direct the information along certain pathways determinable by the conditions of the information itself. In a metaphysical system, the understanding must conjoin the phenomenon with a conception, determinable by the conditions of the phenomenon itself. In each case a relation is formed: in the brain a mental event occurs; in a metaphysical system, a cognition occurs.

Now comes the time of unfamiliarity, manifesting as the understanding that the letter arrangement does not permit a conception to be conjoined to it. In the brain, the information does not enable a suitable pathway. No sense can be made of the letters, hence the word is uncognizable; no pathway is enabled, no chemical reaction occurs. I have constructed no image relating to the phenomenon just presented, that matches any image already constructed as an image of familiar letter arrangements I can “recall to mind”, which is experience of words I know. No area of the brain is activated, or some area of the brain is activated but it is not suitable to the information. There are extant images to compare by (there do exist energized pathways) but no immediate image to compare with (the information does not meet the criteria of the pathway it’s on), from which follows an empty experience of a word I don’t know (the brain returns its unused energy to whatever its depository for such energy is).

If it is true that two separate and distinct methodologies having such manifest similarities must have a common ground, is sufficient reason to ask what it would be. Here, I must say I don’t know.

try to bring to mind the image of the (unknown) word as it was written. (….) You don't actually 'recall to mind' the image you just saw of it written down, but you'll think that's exactly what you're doing — Isaac

…..agreed, I don’t recall to mind the exact image I just saw written, because I’m not familiar with it, so no I don’t think that’s what I’m doing. I have immediately understood the image from perception will not correspond to any image whatsoever I already have, insofar as otherwise, it wouldn’t have been unfamiliar in the first place. I don’t understand the word I’ve seen written, therefore, in the first instance of conscious reproduction of that writing, I can do nothing with it.
(Sidebar: buried in her mini-treatise, has make explicit why this is metaphysically so)

….you'll 'see' the page, the book colour, perhaps the desk it was on… — Isaac

No, I wouldn’t admit doing any of that. Those are not the things with which I am unfamiliar. I know them so I need not think about them. Peripherals make no impression on me when I’m presented with something I don’t know. While it is the case that things I know help me with things I don’t, there remains a categorical separation between empirical knowledge of things supplementing pure a priori knowledge in the construction of cognitions. Which is actually what I’m doing….trying to cognize something for which I have no experience.

But I understand what you mean here. There are times when recalling the where’s and what’s of the forgotten can jog the memory, but the forgotten presupposes that which is not contained in the altogether unfamiliar.

….but the word will remain stubbornly un-spelt, because you're actually constructing the 'image' as you go, not recalling it as a complete image. — Isaac

…actually, I am recalling the complete image as a perception. This represents as just this thing, one of the same matter as many other things but of a completely different form. The perception of the word, even being unfamiliar, is a complete image, which is rather known as a sensation. That which I recall in mind is itself complete, so I don’t construct it as I go, except I must necessarily fail to relate the complete image recalled, to any of the recallable images of that which I know.

The recollected image will remain unspelt, yes. Or, which is the same thing, the initially perceived image in sensation and the recalled image in mind will not correspond to each other. But again, not because I’m constructing it as I go, but because I cannot construct it at all. I may try to construct, but on that I’d most likely give up. So I open the stupid book, rest on that stupid word until I become familiar with it. Or not.

Then….I’ll have to work on what the now familiar word actually means, in conjunction with another mind that already knows.
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Don't try too hard to recall the spelling deliberately — Isaac

Right, I initially wouldn’t do that. First, I’m trying to recall a duplicate whole image, not the particulars of it. Second, subsequently having granted I can’t properly recall to mind the word, its spelling is therefore quite irrelevant. I mean….if I knew the spelling I’d be familiar with the word, but I’m not, so….
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Blurry letters? Probably so, in the strictest sense of the experiment. In attempting the recall of a whole, there’s little focus on the components.

Thing is, in the strictest sense of the attainment of the experiment…..as you say, the confounding factors…. I wouldn’t cease recalling the word at that point, although I might if I have no further interest, but rather, assuming there is an interest, I would continue by then focusing on its components. If the object of the operation is attaining the word, I have no choice but to recall the letters which comprise it, and furthermore, to recall the proper arrangement of them. The fewer components comprising the word, then, by their consequently becoming the focus, wouldn’t be blurry, but still does not address their relative arrangement with each other.

Generally speaking, I’d agree with your position, in that it is very difficult to exactly recall anything for which there is minimal familiarity. But I hear there are minds capable of it. Metaphysically, there just isn’t anything significant enough in the perception to relate it to a cognition that properly represents it. Perception gives me the word itself without equivocation, but does not give a relation belonging to it.

Thanks for the interesting experiment.

Ok, thanks.

It is absolutely fascinating, that it seems as though I myself….the entire sum of entitlement…. think in images, when in fact, there couldn’t really be any. I’m prepared to swear to a figurative High Heaven my brain presents both from and to itself a relative diorama of this or that, but in seeking for the substance or the means for all those images, it shall be found the substance of the brain contains not a single image much less a compendium of them, and the means by which the material brain functions, contradicts their very possibility.

Yet….there they are. I swear.

(Sigh)

Thanks for the interest, and please note my mere opinion on the matter.

I can agree that without language we would likely hold no awareness (…) which redness can imply. — javra

it seems to me that all lesser-animal predators will be aware of red…. — javra

lesser animals do not make use of language (…) to have experiences of red. — javra

I dunno….just seemed to smack of anthropomorphism. First to say lesser animals do not make use of language, then say they have red experiences, seems to attribute to them that which is reserved for us.

Lesser predators are not aware of red or blood, for those are conceptions that belong to language using intellects. Lesser predators are aware of that which triggers their instincts, I think is as far as we should use our language in describing beings that don’t.

I deleted because I understand what you mean; overly analytical because I think it misrepresented to say it that way. But alas…..we’re freakin’ married to our own words, and don’t employ a sufficient work-around when trying to show them impossible to use.

Not to worry….

Never mind; too overly-analytical of me.

What is your opinion on the validity, and/or manifestation, of mental imagery?

It's not that there is something left unsaid, but that there is always more that can be said... — Banno

All good enough.

What’s the significant difference in the two parts of that compound statement?

where is there word usage in the constitutional activities of brain systems? — javra

There isn’t any. Believe it or not, it’s what I’ve been saying all along. Your bit on CNS cells just is the brain narrating itself, or to itself, in the form of mental states, wordlessly. I didn’t mention any particular methodology for it, seeing as how it can only arise in one way. Yours, in fact.

My clarification wasn’t clear, apparently. Dunno, maybe it can’t be.
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My bad — javra

Glad I noticed that. Gave me the chance to erase a two-paragraph clarification of the previous clarification, which would have been quite superfluous.

Afterthought regarding your musings and Cantor.

Brain mechanism narratives: both inconsistent and incomplete. Inconsistent because it operates under the auspices of natural law but natural law cannot explain the conscious subject, and, incomplete because if natural law is sufficient causality for the conscious subject, the conscious subject should have empirical predicates, which conscious subject as such, does not as yet appear to possess.

Inconsistent and incomplete: the brain narrates everything except narrate how it does everything.

Ta-DAAAA!!!!

It is indeed the system doing the narration, but not of experiences so much as of mental events. Does that make sense? — Isaac

Perfect sense. Brain system does its narratives of mental events, none of which is the mental event of “experience”, yet one of its mental events is the “conscious subject”, and that mental event is that which makes sense of mental event “experience”. Roundabout way of doing things, I must say.

Which gets us right back to the damnable but inescapable notion of ineffable. Anything so farging weird as mental events that apparently don’t do certain things, creating for itself events that apparently can do the things the system apparently doesn’t do, just has to be entirely ineffable, right?

….both having nothing to do with word usage. — javra

Crap. Guess I wasn’t clear enough. I intended in ’s comment that the speaker is the narrator recounting some experience, but for ’s rebuttal, I intended that the system is the narrator accounting for any experience. Thus, the first mandates the use of words, the second not only does not, but cannot, use words at all.

Sorry about that….

so the (wordless) experience comes first and the post hoc narrative follows — Janus

No, that's not how it seems to me. — Isaac

You’re both right, but approaching “narrative” from differing perspectives. In the first, the narrative is from the perspective of recounting, which necessarily presupposes a system has done its job, in the second the narrative is from the perspective of accounting, which necessarily presupposes a system by which that same job is possible to do.

, in narrating for the object, presupposes but cannot immediately narrate for the system; , in narrating for the system, immediately accounts for the object but cannot narrate a recount of it.

For the irreducible proof, you ask? Simple: humans think necessarily, but not sufficiently, in terms of brain states, hence realism is false.

Ahhhh….but if that which is considered as mere thought is necessarily given from brain states alone, then idealism is false.

Oh dear. Whattodowhattodowhattodo…..

The original topic has for its subject external objects perfectly narrated (described/explained/viewed/comprehended). Responses to you, now, must address the topic having the narrative as its subject, which is a different topic.

This sentence is not part of the ultimate narrative — Banno

……is true but irrelevant because the object represented as a sentence is not part of whatever object is being narrated perfectly as an external object, and second it is redundant because it’s already established that no ultimate narrative is possible whether there is an object such as that sentence or not. On the other hand, the sentence is false insofar as it is possible to narrate it perfectly, as an object in itself, merely by repeating it, as it the case anything constructed exclusively by reason can be perfectly reconstructed by reason.

There’s your contradiction. A manufactured causality, and thus sufficient reason, for the validity of the notion humans are very good at intentionally confusing themselves.

If I make the attempt to tell you all there is to know about a ‘57 DeSoto…..what the hell difference does “this sentence is not part of the ultimate narrative (of ‘57 DeSoto’s)” make? What is the sentence even doing there in the first place? I sure as hell didn’t include it in my narrative. This is what I mean by instigating an informal fallacy….you know, goalposts and moving them from the end zone clean out to the parking lot.
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The phrase stuck with me, this is the first time I've linked it to model-dependant realism. Perennially interesting thing about philosophy is where these crossovers are that one had never thought of. — Isaac

Yeah, true. I mean…even realism is a model, which reduces all models ever, to a purely subjective origin. It’s always amazed me how little the pure subject has escaped proper consideration. I know why, but I’m amazed nonetheless for it.
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….the association of a word (or any noise at all) with an expectation is mediated primarily by the hippocampus and just works by associating previous responses with a kind of 'mock up' of that response repeated (but not carried out). — Isaac

In cognitive metaphysics, hippocampus is experience, associating previous responses is reproductive imagination, and kind of ‘mock up’ is intuition. In effect, science has merely physically located that which speculative philosophy already understood as necessary. Metaphysics subjectively modeled; science objectively verified the model.

All’s well.

an "ultimate" narrative can be either consistent or complete, but not both. — Banno

If an ultimate narrative, wouldn’t it be complete? If so, an ultimate narrative cannot be consistent. But there’s nothing in a complete narrative that makes necessary it is therefore inconsistent. Paraphrasing ’s words, capturing external states in perfection makes explicit a consistent narrative, insofar as the negation of it would be a contradiction, re: an inconsistent narrative cannot be a perfect capture.

it seems pretty unlikely that there could be such an "ultimate" narrative, sicne to avoid contradiction the narrative must remain incomplete. — Banno

The contradiction here, though, regards true or false in competing narratives. For a single true narrative, to avoid contradictions, the narrative only needs to be internally consistent.

we deny realism, in such a way that the narratives have some third truth value. — Banno

Dunno so much about third truth value, but I’d deny strict and stand-alone realism in favor of an underlying predication.

What is it you say, something about being able to think what you like so long as it's not contradictory? Something like that, I think is true of social constructs. — Isaac

….so long as I don’t contradict myself. Cool as hell of you to remember that. As for its relation to social constructs, asking you to explain that would take you away from your engagement here, so I won’t.

I depart from many realists in in there being a single 'true' narrative that somehow captures external states in perfection. — Isaac

Agreed; the realist proper likes to think he can tell the external states what they are. There remains the certain kind of idealist, on the other hand, who asks those states what they might be.

I just don't see external states as being so closely tied to our modeling methods. — Isaac

Nor do I, in general. So closely tied meaning captured perfectly. And that which is closely tied, narrated near-perfectly, has nothing to do with external states, but they nevertheless serve as verifications for our modeling methods.