I argue that conscious states and our CSEs are the results of brain states entering consciousness, that is, our CSEs (e.g. pain) are the result of brain states (e.g. C-fiber firings) entering consciousness. — Hello Human

If consciousness is the set of things, and if brain states enter consciousness, then it follows brain states are already things or become things upon entering consciousness. A brain is a thing, but is a state of a thing also a thing?

For states to enter something is an effect on it. What is the cause?

Crying isn’t a noun but can it not be considered a perceived regularity?

If consciousness is the set of all things, and the set of all things changes, wouldn’t consciousness change? If consciousness changes, what’s the difference between it and our conscious state? If there is no real difference, one or the other is superfluous or mis-defined.

What I think is......all in all, not too bad.

Good luck.

I’d nod in appreciation if that was all from someone else’s summary.

I’d bow all the way to the ground if all that came out of your own head.

One cannot sensibly talk about those things of which nothing can be said. — Banno

what cannot be said is of the highest import. (...) it is expressed in art.... (....). — Banno

Hmmmm......so if what cannot be sensibly talked about is of such high import, go ahead and write a song about it? Paint a picture of it?

In such an event, we are given an expression representing that which cannot be sensibly talked about. Instead of talking about that which cannot be sensibly talked about, it remains that we are talking about the representation of that which cannot be sensibly talked about. How familiar is THAT!!!!

Ahhhh.....so it must be the case that it is the artist himself that realizes he cannot sensibly talk about that of the highest import, so rather expresses it in his art. Then, of course, it is impossible for an observer of the expression, to correlate his interpretation of the of it correctly to the artist’s understanding of that which cannot be sensibly talked about, for which he has rendered a representation. The observer cannot say with any certainty the artist has addressed that of the highest import in any way at all.

And it is said there is no logical entailment in subjectivity. (Sigh)
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what cannot be said is of the highest import. Instead of being said it is (....) .....found in what folk actually do (...). — Banno

Ok, so now, that which cannot be sensibly talked about is to be expressed by what folk actually do, which is the same as general objective activity. One aspect of general objective activity is creating art, but that’s been covered, so some other things folk actually do is required, which reduces to.....what is it that a folk can do that expresses that of the highest import which cannot be sensibly talked about, that isn’t art, or artful?

Easier, perhaps, to ask what he cannot do, which is, of course....speak. Talk about. Without doing art (logically declared too subjective), and without doing language (theoretically declared impermissible), all that’s left is physical action. Stands to reason...... “found in what people actually do”.
(Any philosophy so easily dismissed, in this case, language, had no solid foundation to begin with.)

For the sake of simplicity (???) it shall be the limit that people do things by accident, reflex or reason. All things done by accident, reflex or reason are things people actually do. Accident or reflex cannot justify intentional acts, so either those must be eliminated as causality for acts of expression of that which is of highest import, or, intentional acts cannot justify expression of that which is of the highest import. The latter seems logical inconsistent, so tacitly grants authority to assert that acts expressing that which is of the highest import, to be necessarily intentional acts. Whatever it is a person does, in the expression of that which is of the highest import, he must do intentionally.

The expression of that which is of the highest import cannot be talked about, nor can it be successfully expressed in art, but can be found in peoples’ intentional acts. Intentional acts cannot be accidental not reflexive. Therefore, any intentional act is conditioned by reason as necessary causality.

That which cannot be talked about, that which is of the highest import, iff found in what folks do, must first be thought, insofar as reason is the only source of intentional acts**. It follows that thought cannot hold the same impermission as talk, with respect to that which is of the highest import, for it is the ground of whatever the intentional act is, which expresses it.

Ohhhhhh yeah hic sunt dracones. Not only to challenge one’s bravery, re: Da Vinci with his globe, but also to challenge one’s intellectual boundaries, re: That Other Guy, with his critique.

(**the connection of thought to reason would be necessary in a complete theoretical dissertation, which all this isn’t, so trust me....it’s been done)

Don’t mind me none. Sunday morning forum editorializing; been doing it here and there for years, however rhetorically.

is reason (beyond the most basic concrete animal kinds) possible without language? — Janus

I think it must be so. If not, what’s the point in the old adage “think before you speak”. Besides, while thinking is a necessary human condition, language is merely a contingent human invention.

As to good cognac I can offer you only the representation of it — Janus

HA!!! Exactly what I tell the missus when the sauce didn’t turn out quite right.

So yes, no change in the "object itself", so to speak, — Manuel

Cool. That was my only contention.

the object as you describe to me changes from what you actually experience. — Manuel

Quite so. And necessarily. What I describe is a representation of the thing of my experience. You do not perceive my experience but only a description of the representation of the object of my experience. For you, then, you have nothing other than your representation of my representation. In effect, the object of description changes, but the object of description is not the thing of experience.

There's no way to directly share X experience with another person. — Manuel

True, but that doesn’t explain any changes in the thing.

The words I use is the way I can publicly express X, but X is much more complex and nuanced than the word I use. — Manuel

Just because you’ve described a thing with certain words, and the thing is more than the description, doesn’t signify a change in the thing. It is merely an incomplete description of it.

Take your experience of a Jack Russell terrier. Use the words four, legged, furry, floppy, ears, bright, eyes.....and all I might know from that is “dog”. Add in “greater than 50% white, black lips and nose, ears never below the eyes, less than 15lbs, less than 13” high”......you’ve changed what I understand of your experience, but the thing of your experience remains as it ever was.

Right? Did I miss something?

There is a sense in which things do not exist until they are named. — T Clark

I understand that. A pressure wave is not a sound until after it has passed the auditory apparatus, true enough. Still, the thing, as pressure wave, must exist and affect the sense mode perceiving it in a certain manner, in order to be determinable as a sound.
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How can an apple be a thing if it has not been separated from the rest of everything else. — T Clark

An apple is an apple because it has been separated from everything else. The thing, before it became named as an apple, is only separated from everything else because it is of a separate space and time than everything else, but no less a thing for that. The thing only became an apple because we said it did. Could have been given any name not already used to represent another thing.

The thing just is; the name is merely stands for how that thing is be known.
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Tao, which is the name we use for that which can not be named. — T Clark

So...a name for the unnameable. I see no benefit in that kind of logic. But I have no familiarity with Tao and such, so there is that.........
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What we do by naming, using words, is telling stories. — T Clark

Perhaps, but far and away too close to empirical anthropology, and very far from epistemological metaphysics. I have very little interest in the former, and great interest in the latter. I want to know how the method by which naming occurs, not so much the post hoc employment of it. The former makes necessary I understand myself, which I control, but the latter only makes possible another understands me, which I cannot.

Anyway.....good talk.

Kant seems to think that apples are separate from the rest of everything before they become things. Before they are named. — T Clark

Not before. After. Objects are already things, therefore not by becoming things, but by becoming phenomena. Phenomena precede naming. Apples are separate from the rest of everything else after they are named. “Apple” represents the separation.

Apple is merely a word that represents some real physical object with certain empirical properties; that object, that thing, before it is given to human perception, just is in the world, just whatever it is, just whatever that happens to be. And no more than that can be said about it.

The distinction resides in the point-of-use (...) and the talking about the point-of-use (...).
— Mww

I don't understand. Can you give me an example. — T Clark

Hard to give an example of a distinction. One must accept the premise that there is no language in pure thought, that pure thought is predicated on mental imagery alone. But the human system cannot express itself in mental imagery, hence the invention of empirical symbolic representations of pure cognitive representations, that is to say, words for conceptions/intuitions, symbols for quantities, other symbols for spatial extensions, and so on.

You must have read a book, being sufficiently engrossed by the words contained in it, that you no longer see the words, but translate them automatically into imagery. You see what the words say. How would that even be possible, if it wasn’t the way the cognitive system works in the first place?

The representation always presupposes that which is represented; words always presuppose that to which they relate.
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naming something is a very brief and concise way of expressing something which is much richer in experience than a single word could convey. — Manuel

Exactly. “Tree” presupposes the plethora of ancillary conceptions that represent that object as a particular thing. And just because we understand the particular thing “sun” without any need of supplemental conceptions such as hydrogen, heat, EMR, doesn’t mean we haven’t already conjoined these all together. This is quite apparent from the fact we know a priori we cannot look directly at the thing called “sun”, which makes explicit there is something about that object not contained in the mere word that represents it. Sometimes, “much richer in experience” is dangerous.

And yes, naming changes things in a sense, absolutely. — Manuel

How so?

I don't understand the distinction you are making between the representation and the naming. — T Clark

The distinction resides in the point-of-use of a speculative human cognitive system on the one hand, and the talking about the conditions under which that point-of-use system operates, on the other.
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No. That's not what I "really meant to ask." — T Clark

Ok, fine. I’ve been wrong before.
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what did you have in mind when you wrote "some kind of expression." — T Clark

Intentional communication.

Outstanding dialogue, you guys. Well done.

Perhaps our resident Kant specialist Mww might weigh in on this question. — Janus

First......thanks for the vote of confidence. Second.....what’s the question? Perusing the posted comments, I come up with this:

Surely if you can think it, I can know it?
— Aidan buk

This is the heart of the question that Lao Tzu, and I think Kant, are getting at. How can you know something that can't be put into words? — T Clark

But then, this is two different questions. The first makes no sense, in that it is impossible for anyone to know of that which I merely think, which makes explicit I have made no objective expression of it. The answer to that question, then, is, no, you cannot.

From that, the second question elaborates by installing the common method of an objective expression, re: “put into words”, but at the same time, while reconciling the impossibility, fails to imply a communication, which is the sole raison d’etre for any objective expression. The answer to the second question then becomes....to know a thing it is necessary to conceive it, and to conceive a thing it is necessary to represent it, but the mere representation of a thing makes the naming of it only possible and not necessary.

Even taking into consideration what was really meant by the first question was, if you can tell me about what you think, I can know it, this is still not true, for I must first understand what you say before I can know what you mean by the words you use to express your thoughts.

By the same token, taking into consideration the second question really meant to ask.....how can I know you know something that can’t be put into words (or some kind of expression)....then it is the case I cannot. It remains however, I can learn things, on my own account, without ever using a word.

It behooves the modern philosopher to remember the human community requires language, but the human individual does not.

So.....let’s straighten out this switch-back laden mess, shall we?

They purport to represent things outside of human cognition. — Aidan buk

From the get-go.....this is wrong, from dedicated, strictly Kantian epistemological metaphysics, insofar as if a thing is represented, it is already cognized. Cognition is varied and distinctly sourced, but basically, if a conception is possible, a cognition follows. From this, the conceptions listed in the OP as “unknowable” are still cognitions, otherwise there is no means for the explanation of their representation in objective expression. The assertion would be truthful if stated as, “they purport to represent things outside of human knowledge”. And of course, “truthful” herein must be taken only as the logical conclusion derived from the speculative methodology employed to prove it.

But, surely, all there is is human cognition? — Aidan buk

This is also wrong, insofar as human cognition is absolutely necessary, but is in itself, insufficient. There is always an object of cognition, which makes explicit a vast manifold of possibilities that are not themselves cognitions. Cognition is pervasive, constant, all-encompassing, but is still not “all there is”. Cognition is always the rational means, but never only the ends. That being experience, or ignorance.

But, surely, all there is is human cognition? In such an instance, there is no unknowable, in the way it is commonly assumed, instead, the unknowable is always knowable. — Aidan buk

Having determined cognition is not all there is, if follows that the unknowable is still possible, as an end for which there is no object to cognize, or, the object that is cognized is in contradiction to some other cognition.

Which leads inevitably to the idea of knowledge itself. Knowledge as “it is commonly assumed”, is a posteriori and is called experience, in which the object cognized is a real thing in the world, and that thing has an apodeitically determinable relation to the subject that thinks about it. The other knowledge, just as common but unassuming and altogether a priori, having nothing whatsoever to do with experience, insofar as the object cognized is an impossible real object in the world hence can never be an experience. These are the objects of thought, conceptions the validity of which we know of but the reality of which we know not that.

In a very limited sense, therefore, it is true the unknowable is always knowable, but it is a different knowledge, under very different conditions, with altogether different ends, which makes explicit these must always be mutually independent. Simpler to say knowledge of is private only, knowledge that is both private and subsequently possibly public. And these are themselves merely the words substituted to placate those who find value in nitpicking in the subjective/objective dualism, which is, of course, exactly what they represent.

Simply put, I suppose, one can say he knows, e.g., transcendental objects are thinkable, but he knows he can never experience such a thing. In this way, one might be permitted to say he knows the unknowable. He doesn’t; he’s only misplaced subject/predicate in two propositions, arriving at differences he doesn’t recognize.
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I wouldn't go as far as to say that our naming of things brings our world of things into existence, and I don't think Kant would either. — Janus

“....If the question regarded an object of sense merely, it would be impossible for me to confound the conception with the existence of a thing. For the conception merely enables me to cogitate an object as according with the general conditions of experience; while the existence of the object permits me to cogitate it as contained in the sphere of actual experience....”

....and that should be sufficient to validate for your thinking.
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I think our world of things is already precognitively implicit — Janus

Couldn’t be otherwise, could it, really? Yours goes to show the temporality of the human cognitive system, often ignored.

“....For, otherwise, we should require to affirm the existence of an appearance, without something that appears—which would be absurd....”
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I think language makes things determinate for us in highly abstract ways. — Janus

I might offer that reason makes things determinate; language makes determined things mutually understood.

Again.....thanks for the invite. I’ll show myself out. I mean....really. Where’s the good cognac, anyway?

Can you present one or two or three principles for our knives? — tim wood

To do so would detract from the theme you’ve intended here. Let’s just let RGC speak for himself, through you, without undue influence.

note the complete absence of talk about qualia in normal life. It's an artefact of philosophers. The all too frequent framing of the debate about such things as being 'common sense' vs. 'science' is nonsense, common sense wouldn't touch qualia with a bargepole either. — Isaac

Artifact....absolutely. Nonsense....absolutely. Barge pole....ditto.

I don't think there's anything it's 'like' to be me. — Isaac

Agreed. What it’s like to be me, and “me”, are indistinguishable, which makes “what it’s like”, represented by qualia, utterly superfluous.
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The main advantage science has is that it uses a lot of empirical data which is the sort of data we build our most treasured models about — Isaac

Agreed. Empirical data-based models relates directly to experience, and experience is the ground of all our empirical knowledge.
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I'm comfortable with saying there's a mental state that could be called 'Thinking of ...', but it would have to be loose affiliation of states. I bet if you were 'thinking of' a daemon, you couldn't necessarily tell me how many toes it had, yet you'd surely say it had toes. — Isaac

Thinking of planets doesn’t imply any particular planet, so, no, the thought of a demon doesn’t say anything about its toes. It could therefore be said thoughts of things is a loose affiliation of states, in that the assemblage of properties belonging to the thing are each of them, a separate thought, hence a separate, additional, state of thinking. I could tell you how many toes, but I’d have to think of that number before I could assign just that quantity to the demon, and then tell you. Of course, I could just as well think “hoofed”, or “web-footed”.

Wherein I take my first exception to your comments:

One might be of the impression that when we 'think of' something we bring a picture of it to mind. That would be wrong, I think. — Isaac

I hold with the notion that human thinking is fundamentally predicated on images. Even while granting human mental images are not pictures in the truest sense, “I can see it in my mind” is precisely the general state of my mental machinations.

Rather, we ready other parts of our mind in anticipation, we know the word for it, should we be called upon to speak it, we know the action for it (run, fight) should it actually appear, we know the things it's associated with... etc. — Isaac

“....But suppose that in every sensation, as sensation in general, without any particular sensation being thought of, there existed something which could be cognized a priori, this would deserve to be called anticipation in a special sense—special, because it may seem surprising to forestall experience, in that which concerns the matter of experience, and which we can only derive from itself. Yet such really is the case here....”
(CPR A167/B209)

I submit for your esteemed consideration, that that which could be cognized a priori, in constructing your “ready other parts of the mind in anticipation”.....is none other than an image we insert into the process, that serves as a rule to which the anticipated, must conform.

The stereotypical physicalist will adamantly decry the notion of images, maintaining instead the factual reality of enabled neural pathways, which translates to memory recall. Which is fine, might actually be the case, but I still “see” my memories, and science can do nothing whatsoever to convince me I don’t.

Lots of good stuff in your post, so thanks for all that.

That's what I understand to be 'folk psychology'. — Isaac

Cool. Sorta liked that new-wave disco/pop (shudderchokegag) song in ‘85..... “Everybody wants to rule the world”
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Also want to clarify that where I think the problem lies is not with science (...) but in taking science as being authoritative with respect to human identity or the human condition.
— Wayfarer

Science is far too under-informed to be authoritative about something as vast as human identity (...) The point is...so is any other approach. — Isaac

Wouldn’t that depend on what one deems authoritative? If science cannot tell me I’m “deeply wrong**” about some mental state, because it is “far too under-informed”, merely from some “ordinary common sense understanding**” of my mind, why can I not then say I am authorized, if my understanding of my mind is substantially more than ordinary?

I think I should go so far as to insist there is an approach by which my mind is granted its own authority, simply from the fact that it is completely self-informed. Even if the authority is limited to a singular domain, it is nonetheless authoritative in and for it.

Which leads me to wonder.....what are some but not all of the specific mental states the existence of which are said to be denied by modern E.M. advocates? Just because, following Quine, it is a fact demons don’t exist, insofar as physicalism successfully refutes some mental objects, how does that refutation make the mental state of thinking demons, non-existent? It seems the only reconciliation is to say thinking demons is not a mental state, which appears altogether quite contradictory, insofar as to refute a thing presupposes the thought of it.

While I agree some mental states can have “no role to play in a mature science of the mind**”, it seems pretty hard to deny that all mental states have a definitive role to play in human activities generally. I mean....if they didn’t, how would we ever be able to distinguish the advent of our own errors?
(**SEP article on eliminative materialism)

The idea being that the principles or absolute presuppositions (.....), are in truth short-lived ideas subject to change. — tim wood

So.....no irreducible, apodeictic, time-independent criteria for human rationality itself, merely as a condition of being human. No metaphorical “one ring to rule them all” kinda thing, then. That’s fine.....nobody dives that deep into his own cognitive methodology anyway, simultaneously with the use of it.

Not to take anything away from AP’s, mind you, insofar as the common understanding is more apt to consider them as short-lived ideas subject to change, than the principles under which they are subsumed, which are neither.

Thanks for the info.

I'm a research psychologist — Isaac

When “folk psychology” is spoken to you, what best describes what you hear, in a narrower sense of the term?

They are instead representations of the ground the thinking in itself arises from. — tim wood

Yep. AKA....principles. Does RGC say anything about those, in relation to AP’s?

What does being awake feel like? Hell....what does being asleep feel like? Even if being asleep is different than being awake, is the difference qualifiable as a feeling?

If I’m awake, the being of awake is merely a particular condition in which my state of consciousness is found. Why do I need to think of a condition as a feeling, when I already understand that condition as a relative state of being?

The conditions of a thing are different; feelings of the condition of the thing is a needless abstraction.

I think his meditations were absolute tosh even at the time, though. — Kenosha Kid

“....But, as in the " Discourse on Method," I had requested all who might find aught meriting censure in my writings, to do me the favor of pointing it out to me, I may state that no objections worthy of remark have been alleged against what I then said on these questions....”
(M.F.P., Preface to the Reader, 1647, in Veitch 1901)

Hobbes, Gassendi, Arnauld, et al aside.....asked and answered in exchanges of letters through Mersenne, even before publication of Meditations
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Thought maybe....you know, in your spare time.....you might find something interesting here, essay by Williams specifically:

http://assets.cambridge.org/97811070/59207/frontmatter/9781107059207_frontmatter.pdf

I don’t do postmodernism, so beg pardon for being off-topic.

denial of the difference between reason and sensation. I am somewhat flabbergasted that this is something that has to be argued for. — Wayfarer

Yeah.....sad commentary, highlighted from the essay, “...high-powered narrowing of the human mind...”

Although I might concede that this argument is part of a pattern. — Wayfarer

(Chuckles to self)

pattern recognition — Wayfarer

For an object the properties of which are perceived as arranged in a certain way, reason describes, e.g., the conception of a sphere. For the exact same object the properties of which are arranged in the exact same way, but perceived from a different perspective, reason constructs the conception of a circle.

Just as the pattern of the Fibonacci sequence, or of primes, can never be inferred from the conceptions of numbers alone, the conception of a circle can never be inferred from the perception of a sphere alone.

The patterns perceived are termed assertorial conceptions, in that we name the pattern determined by the object given to us, a logical inference. The patterns reason constructs of its own accord, are termed mathematical conceptions, in that we name the pattern as it is determined by us, a logical deduction.

I don’t think it nonsense to describe reason in terms of pattern recognition, but I might be inclined to claim it is metaphysically lazy not to consider the mode from which patterns arise. If, in the metaphysical estimation of human cognition, the notion of synthesis is granted, then either patterns fall out of such operation logically, or, patterns are necessary for the operation to logically manifest in the first place.

My two rhetorical thalers-worth.......

If nothing can be known.....how is the question possible?

I’ve been fortunate enough that my understanding has served me well. I do use commentaries sometimes, to check up on it, though. Sorta like....see if my understanding still works like it used to.

I dismiss Hegel just because I disagree with him, and I guess, in all honesty, I disagree with him because somebody else beat him to being the ground by which everything else of like kind is judged. Guy’s gotta acknowledge his own prejudices, right? Otherwise he’s simply fooling himself.

It's good enough for me. — 180 Proof

Wouldn’t do much good to update me, at this stage of the game. I mean....what would be the point? Wouldn’t matter to water under the bridge, and there won’t be that much water or that many bridges left anyway, so.....

Nahhhhh.......updates are for those inexperienced enough to actually benefit from them.

But neither are by Hegel — Gregory

Are you saying Pinkard’s translation of Phenomenology of Spirit isn’t Hegel because it should have been translated as Phenomenology of Mind?

Which book did you read? — Gregory

Pinkard’s Phenomenology of Spirit. No commentary needed, thanks.

At least read one of his books before you criticize — Gregory

Which presupposes I never have.

I didn’t criticize; Schopenhauer did.

All good.

Misery of Nominalism — Olivier5

......explains the dearth of commemorations of Roscellinus.

Yep. And with a healthy dollop of metaphysical reductionism applied to info processing, one decent enough answer to the thread title distills out quite nicely.

CJ is an even tougher read than CPR. I’m ok with the aesthetic part, probably from its ground in CPR, but don’t find much favor with the teleological.

I beg to disagree. — charles ferraro

As you wish. It’s your thread.

"The mind as concept realizes it too is the universal, is one totality returned into itself, whose distinctions are equally this totality and the object" writes Hegel — Gregory

That, is probably what Schopenhauer was talking about, when he said this:

“....still grosser nonsense of the clumsy and stupid Hegel...”
(WWR, v2, App, pg8, 1818, in Haldane/Kemp, 1884)

I mean....really? A concept that realizes??? If mind as concept, what makes it so?

Schop was pretty harsh, but still......

These are both correct and incorrect! Paradox? — Gregory

Kant says the “sure sign of sagacity and wisdom”, is to refrain from asking questions for which there is no rational answer. In other words, frame inquiries in such a manner as to prevent the inception of paradoxes.

And did Kant read Plato? — Gregory

There is a section in CPR where Plato’s specific terminology is advocated as being taken as Plato intended. And holding the logic chair at Konisberg for years, one would suppose he was well-read in classical Greek generally.

Matter=phenomena and Ideas=noumena? — Gregory

This is Platonic, in that phenomena are matter and form. Matter is from sensation, but form resides a priori in the mind, in contradistinction to Plato, who held that form as well as matter are both external. Kant did this in order to refute Hume, who denied a priori pure reason, and the only way to prove the possibility of it, is to move form from the external to the internal, thereby making it the sole discretion of the mind, more properly, pure reason, thus having nothing whatsoever to do with matter. That which has nothing to do with matter can have nothing to do with experience, and that which has nothing to do with experience, is a priori. But moving it was not enough; he still had to justify the move, which he did by proving that the logical ground of the science mathematics, given certain conditions, is necessarily a priori.

An idea, in Kant-speak, is “a concept formed from notions a priori and transcending the possibility of experience, that is, for which no corresponding objects can be given by sensibility" (A327/B384). From that it could be said that noumena are ideas, because noumena can be concepts formed from notions a priori. But noumena come from the concepts of understanding, whereas ideas come from the concepts of reason. There’s much more to it, but....you know....nutshell.....so to speak.

Kant truly started philosophy imo — Gregory

The Platonists will certainly jump all over you up for that. Any of the pre-Socratics, too, maybe. But even they must grant that he single-handedly caused a paradigm shift in how metaphysical philosophy is done.

can we say that objects in themselves could be perceived by us through our space/time intuitions had it not been for transcendental additions we necessarily make to them — Gregory

Yes, and no. Perceived, but not by us, because our space-time intuitions prevent it. Only a non-representational, non-intuitive system might perceive things-in-themselves as such, but......how would we ever be able to tell? Dolphins might, whales, any given alien system....who knows? We wouldn’t understand them no matter what.

Agreed. The OP, however, specifies Kantian fundamentals. People been elaborating on them ever since, to be sure.

Phenomenal objects, by their very definition, i.e., as phenomenal, must first be experienced in a spatio-temporal context — charles ferraro

Stage 1. Close enough. Closer examination reveals inconsistencies, but.....close enough.

Stage 2. Again, close enough. The synthesis is not done by the categories; it is done by the intellectual imagination which relates the categories to phenomena, as a reproductive judgement.

The principles of strict universality and absolute necessity refer to the general human condition, whereby every human cognitive system operates in exactly the same way. These principles do not represent characteristics of phenomena, but are only the inherent characteristics of the system by which phenomena are possible entirely a priori, given an intuitive/discursive system of knowledge.

One more incidental: universality is not a category, as is necessity, which serves as further support for the rejection of strict universality as a condition of sensed objects and thereby a transcendental characteristic, or criterion, of phenomena. Necessity, yes; universality.....ehhhhhh, not so much.

Or, better yet, I suppose, I don’t see the need for it. I mean, absolute necessity refers to the spatial-temporal context, as you call it, but what would universality refer to, that necessity hasn’t already?