HA!!! You said all we needed was a topic, I tossed around stuff like space and time, mind/body. I never thought of the subjective/objective dichotomy. Would have been a good topic.

You and I agree Trump is venial. Don’t we have the same belief? — Banno

I’d rather say we have the same agreement.

The ice in your toddie is just like the ice in my cocktail, but the ices are not the same ices. You manufacture your beliefs in the same way I manufacture mine, but your brain is not my brain.
——————

Subjective, whatever it is, is not private. — Banno

Under what domain? Philosophically, the subjective is private, private taken to mean inaccessible to an observer.

The issue you want to develop is how we attribute beliefs to others, including those of the feline persuasion. — Banno

I’d be interested in how someone else might develop that issue, but I’m of the mind beliefs are far too subjective to attribute to any intelligence other than the singular intelligence arriving at them.
—————-

Beliefs set out a relation of a particular sort between an agent and a proposition. — Banno

Perhaps, but that’s what beliefs do. If we want to know what a belief is, in order to then know what a belief can do, we need to delve a lot deeper than language.

You look? — creativesoul

Not at what you mentioned, no. Just regarding our conversations.

Nowadays folks tend to think what we perceive is just the way things really are.
— Mww

Anyone who does that is truly naive...... — Marchesk

Yep, for even without all the -isms and -ists so prevalent these days, that kind of naive rationality cannot explain how it is we don’t have immediate knowledge of everything upon its being presented to us.

For as long as we can say, “WHAT WAS THAT!?!?!?”.....is as long as naive realism will be a less than sufficiently explanatory paradigm.

Understanding that conscious experience consists of correlations drawn between different things is just the start of a very disciplined practice. — creativesoul

Absolutely. And you’re the only current participant that even attempts an exposition of some form of the discipline, even if it’s your own personal creation. I’m down with the attempting the discipline, but promise nothing regarding the practice of it.

all we need is a topic. — Banno

Of course cats have beliefs. — Banno

We know beliefs to mean a certain something, and we come by them is some certain way. If cats don’t come by their beliefs in the same way, what right do we have to claim they have them?

Oh, ok. Yes, that’s the Kantian representational system. Nowadays folks tend to think what we perceive is just the way things really are.

if we could only find the right topic. — Banno

I’m game. You’re inclined to more modern thought than I, so....there is that.

conflating perception with reality stigma — creativesoul

You lost me. Nobody’s a Kantian because that’s what they do, or that’s what he did?

Hardly anyone is.

I didn't understand much of what Mww had to say. — Banno

‘S ok. Take refuge in my having quined qualia years ago. In principle anyway, insofar as nothing with which qualia is supposed to be concerned, hasn’t already been accounted for.

knowing that I have doubted is a detection. — Kenosha Kid

What can it really mean to detect, when knowledge of having doubted is given immediately from it. It is impossible to doubt without doubt being known as that which has occurrence. There is no need for the one to test for the other.

No different than saying a spinning wheel detects its own roundness. It spins because it is round, it couldn’t spin if it wasn’t. Being round is a necessary condition for wheel spinning, hence, if there is spinning, roundness is necessarily given. There is no requirement or admission of detection.

In the same way, I know I doubted because I doubted; I couldn’t know I doubted without having doubted. That which is known about is a necessary condition for knowing; upon doubting, knowledge of doubt follows necessarily, without requirement or admission of detection.

Besides, if there is that which knows, and there is that which doubts....what is it that detects? Knowledge doesn’t need to detect that which it already knows, and doubt doesn’t need to detect itself. If, on the other hand, it is I that knows and it is I that doubts, but it is only possibly I that detects, then there is no real knowledge of detection because it may not have been I that detects. And if it is I that detects, all that has happened is I’ve detected what I already know I did, which is the same as admitting I haven’t done anything by detecting.

Waiting for my bread to rise, saw this, so........rhetorically speaking......

Surety is not the sort of thing that has a spatiotemporal location, so the question doesn't make sense — creativesoul

Correct, but surety, the quality, has a definite relation to its object. I’m suggesting the quality of non-personal experiences in general, because they can only be second-hand, have none.

The only way out of the dilemma is to assert that cat’s experiences have only empirical content, which is certainly determinable by mere observation, but if such is the case, the “conscious” part of the content....because it is being called “conscious experience” of the cat....would seem to be completely absent. This, in turn, reflects on the quality....the surety.....of the cat’s experience.
————-

Are you asking me to justify my asserting what the content of the cat's conscious experience is? — creativesoul

Apparently, the content is that which exists in its entirety, and so far, that’s the extent of the assertion. Maybe not asking so much the justification for asserting content, but asking instead, what the something’s content actually is. And even if the something’s content is some ubiquitous or pervasive correlation, I still have no more understanding of that, than I had with understanding merely the ambiguous something.

Yes. E-lusive, not IL-usive. Good catch.

The something else must already exist in it's entirety.
— creativesoul

..... “elemental constituents”, yes?
— Mww

What they can actually be is determined, in part, by virtue of their own existential dependency. — creativesoul

Determination by virtue of existential dependency doesn’t say what the dependency is. If I knew what the something depends on, I might be able to figure out what the something is.

The breakdown intrigues me, honest.

Never mind. Your post was blank for 3 hours, now it isn’t. My response no longer applies.

Welcome back my friends, to the show that never ends.
We’re so glad you could attend, step inside, step inside.

I’m guessing “going inner” wasn’t a typo.......was it?

Point:

I was merely drawing distinctions between our report of a language less creature's conscious experience and the language less creature's conscious experience. — creativesoul

.......Counterpoint: I’m not sure we have the warrant for that.

Point sustained:

It's all about the content. That would be the distinction between rudimentary, basic, language less thought and belief(pre-theoretical conscious experience), and our accounts thereof. — creativesoul

.......Counterpoint sustained: where is the surety of what the content is.

....that meaningfulness always comes by virtue of being part of a correlation being drawn between it and something else. (...) It's the something else that matters most here when it comes to the actual content of (...) experience. The something else must already exist in it's entirety — creativesoul

BOO-YAAH!!!!

Those elusive, enigmatic, nay, even damnable, “elemental constituents”, yes?

You:

The introduction of the neologism ‘qualia’ into the discourse about the nature of mind was simply a gigantic red herring — Wayfarer

Me, page 1:
Qualia....a metaphysical invention by those to whom “representation” doesn’t say enough, by means of that which is itself a representation, but attempts to say too much.

Bonnie Raitt:
“...A little mystery to figure out
Let's give 'em somethin' to talk about...”

Cats can even have a conscious experience of drinking Maxwell House coffee from a red cup without ever experiencing it as such. — creativesoul

Hypothetically, so pre-theoretical.

Does it matter what is the cat is drinking? Is it the same to say, cats can have a conscious experience of drinking without ever experiencing it as such, which reduces to, can cats have a conscious experience of drinking without ever experiencing it as drinking? If so, what the cat can have a conscious experiencing of, in this case, is undefined. Given it is a conscious experience the cat can have, yet the experience is undefined, it follows that whatever permits the cat to be conscious of its experiences, is at the same time insufficient for it, from which it is perfectly permissible to surmise either the cat isn’t experiencing, or, it isn’t conscious enough.

Cat’s been drinking since it was birthed. Of the manifold of things it has imbibed, because it is assumed to be in good health, none of those things have been detrimental to its health. From the fact it is in good health because nothing imbibed has the properties to cause otherwise, that which is henceforth imbibed can be recognized as detrimental, merely from the fact it is nothing like that which has never hurt it. If such be the case, the cat isn’t drawing any conscious correlations at all, for all such recognizant operations are sufficiently attributable to instinctive reaction to pure biological physiology, no part of which can be called necessarily conscious. And of course, cats being language-less creatures is utterly irrelevant, for even in language-imbued humans, instinct is quite sufficient for involuntary reaction.

With respect to higher as opposed to lower intelligences, it is the preemptive capacity to consciously create the correlations to draw, rather than the consequential drawing of them. The latter we do, but only because the former is the condition that makes the doing, possible. Even of there is a valid argument that lesser intelligences have the capacity to create that which is not already extant, in which ever form but for us it is conceptions, it remains hypothetical that such creations, and thereby any employment of them, are inaccessible to any intelligence that didn’t create them, and by which the logical right to talk about them is immediately sacrificed, unless indulging in rampant. anthropomorphism.

Me....enjoi-ing. For a change.

That’s looks like I felt, after analyzing entries on page 72.

The picture is: meaning, thought, any inner processes (how some use Forms of Life), corresponds to the world. We know one (world) through the other (word/meaning)--correlation. — Antony Nickles

Agreed, in principle. The picture....the mental image as I use “picture”......corresponds to the world, such image I would call intuition, but the remainder of the inner process must ensue before there is knowledge. Different metaphysics, similar principles.
————-

it's just we have a relationship to the Other that is more than knowledge ("know" in a different sense--aaaand I just lost Mmw because this is Witt as Ordinary Language Philosopher.) — Antony Nickles

Kindasorta lost me, I guess, insofar as I attribute no philosophical authority to ordinary language. But I’m still interested in this “know” in a different sense, from its point of view.
——————-

reasoning using concepts is adaptable to circumstance.
— Mww

......Concepts have different "uses" as in different ways in which they make sense.....

Doesn’t that say the same thing?

........the sense a concept has, is part of the context at the time (as it were, to be determined, if necessary).......

Doesn’t that just say more of the same thing?

..........just that what counts as reasonable for each concept, in context, may be different. — Antony Nickles

And that too?

A concept is, after all, nothing but a representation of something. A representation, in and of itself, has no meaning. It only attains to a meaning upon being conjoined with something else, and the only way to conjoin, is to reason. To think. It is here that it becomes more rational to insist concepts are fixed, concepts do ensure something, otherwise we couldn’t ever claim any knowledge whatsoever. If we are not certain of a specific representation of a specific quantity, conceived, say, as the number 1, we wouldn’t have any ground at all for what stands as the absolute truth of mathematical expressions. But the number 1 is completely meaningless by itself, and actually wouldn’t even have been conceived at all, if it weren’t for a need only it could satisfy.

And as an added bonus, we see what counts as reasonable for each concept may indeed be different, insofar as “green” will never be a reasonable substitute for the number 1.

Also continued......

We've discussed that at length — creativesoul

Yeah....I was wondering which of us would break the dialectical ice.

I will begin by saying for the record, you are soooo close in your reasoning, to my own. As before, the only thing missing, and the potential source of complete affirmation or possibly negation.....gotta allow that, after all....., is method. As far as I’m concerned, existential dependency and elemental constituency are given, but I want to know what they are and HOW they are given. I can tell you, from a very particular speculative methodology, but you haven’t told me. I grant you may find mine untenable, if not inadequate, but at least you have something to judge.

I submit for your esteemed consideration, we cannot use reason to acquire knowledge of consciousness, because reason invented it. The very best we can do, is use the notion of consciousness in such a way that it does not contradict its own invention. And the best way to use it, is, not as a thing to know about, but as a necessary condition for something we do know about.

Perhaps you recognize that last sentence.

Robotic voiceover: “...Shall..we..play..a......game?”

You invoke consciousness, I invoke reason. The same intrinsic circularity is patently inevitable.

Nature of the beast.

making them fail the claim that they are both universal laws. — god must be atheist

The GR should never be claimed, logically, as a universal law; a rule is never a law nor universal. It isn’t, for good reason, called the golden law.

The c.i. Is never claimed to be a universal law, at least by its author. It is, in fact because it’s in print, proved impossible that it could ever be a universal law. We are only to act as if our will could create such law for EVERY one.

Doesn’t the fact need to be interpreted in order to determine its correspondence?
— Mww

As I said in my first post: he is using it as a fact in comparison to the choice (the conviction) — Antony Nickles

The more times I read all this stuff, the closer I get to what you’re trying to say. So, yeah, the juxtaposition isn’t of the concepts in each sentence, it is the juxtaposition of the sentences to each other. My fault, for getting stuck in the minutia, in that I reject the arguments of both sentences outright, which makes it very hard to reconcile them into any sort of comparative relatedness.

You say the lion sentence is to be taken as a fact demonstrating an impossibility. It is only to be taken as a fact because its author so stipulates, but the sentence does not demonstrate an impossibility. It can’t, because the whole thing is predicated on contingencies. Thus, in order to understand the author’s overall intent, I am forced to disregard that the entire thesis begins with a logical error.

Fine, he wants me to accept the sentence as fact, ok, I do that. Then comes the other half of the dichotomy, concerning a moral circumstance. The conviction that the feelings some dude in pain are inaccessible to us when in truth “we CAN know”, but choose to be convinced we can’t, which casts us in a moral dilemma. Here is where requiring the lion sentence to be taken as fact is related, for we relieved of moral responsibility insofar as it doesn’t matter if lions could talk, we wouldn’t understand them anyway, so whatever their feelings, however they arrive at them, we couldn’t tell what they were anyway, so can’t be held liable for denying the accessibility of them. But on the other hand, because some dude and I are of similar enough “forms of life”, we should be non-transparent to each other (only he knows what he will do (is) wrong”), which in turn suggests stuff about him, including his feelings, shouldn’t be hidden from me (“only he knows what he intends is nonsense”).

And all that needs doing, in order for those two parenthetical assertions, and indeed how the two antecedent propositions, the one on fact and the other on conviction, can actually be the case......is to grant that concepts have different meanings. Or, the grammar of concepts are not etched in stone, so the reasoning using concepts is adaptable to circumstance.

I talk with you only to understand Witt, but even if or when I do, I’m not going to accept that OLP philosophy
—————-

Importantly, these are two senses of knowledge within its Grammar (possibilities): to know (to guess with evidence, experience of the person, etc.) as opposed to knowledge as certain, prediction, infallibility, etc. — Antony Nickles

This is yet another manifestation of the classical Platonic rendering of knowledge of, as opposed to knowledge that. Saying to know is to guess, is a flagrant disregard of logic, and has been since forever.

It is not that we CAN NOT know/understand the other.....we decide that without knowledge......we have no obligation to respond to their pain. — Antony Nickles

I might grant this is what Witt is telling us, then immediately reject it as not the case at all. It is never our knowledge of others that predicates our moral obligations. Even if I know everything there is to know about about you, I am not obligated to respond to your feelings because of it. I am obligated by HOW I feel about myself, not WHAT I feel about you, and certainly not either how or what you yourself feel. My knowledge, for all intents and purposes, doesn’t even enter into it, except it avails my immoral actions.
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The idea of a sentence or a word in isolation is only a thing in philosophy--stemming from the desire to tether it to something determinate, certain, universal. — Antony Nickles

Yes. Tethering to the irreducible, the apodeitically certain, is the whole modus operandi of human reason, and consequently, for possible mutual understanding because of it. Witt credits language use for understanding, or lack of it, but proper philosophy reduces language to its components, and those are the actual ground for understanding, and by association, the prevention of misunderstanding. Rather than worry about what a word means in a language, it is a better effort to realize how words originate of themselves, for then we find the meaning of a word is given BY its origin, and understanding henceforth becomes a matter of its relation, and its meaning becomes merely a matter of convention.

This relates directly to why I asked you about what Witt intends us to understand by the “picture”.

Anyway....5 minutes to football, so.....I’m outta here.

"If a lion could talk, we could not understand him."

I will argue that it is essential to put the above sentence in the textual context in which it was written to see its USE here by Witt--(...) that it is used in its sense as an uncontested FACT (not to be refuted or interpreted, nor an open question, nor a thesis, etc.) — Antony Nickles

I can grant the sentence is being used as an uncontested fact, but if it is not be contested, refuted or interpreted asks the question....why did he say it? Apparently Witt is allowing himself to do something with it, even if only to demonstrate something else, which seems to require some sort of correspondence with an uncontested fact. Doesn’t the fact need to be interpreted in order to determine its correspondence?

Is it the various grammars of the concept “talk” that is under examination? Is this the juxtaposition that is the whole point? Lion-talk/human-talk? Perhaps it is the grammar of the concept “talk” vs the grammar of the concept “understand”. If so, the sentence is either true or false. But it is already very well established that every sentence is either true or false. Which reduces to the grammar of the concepts that makes them one or the other, or, enables us to see they can be one or the other. If grammar of concepts is Witt’s sense of reasoning with concepts, and it is also already well established that reasoning is the condition that makes sentences true or false, what is the sentence, and by association Witt himself, really saying? He isn’t telling us anything we didn’t already know.

Ok....so a different viewpoint. Sorta like, if I’m in the habit of putting on my left shoe before my right, and I for whatever reason decide to put on my right shoe first, I certainly would have a different viewpoint of shoe priority, but in the end, I got shoes on both feet. Gross oversimplification, of course, but isn’t it the same principle?

Would you accept the sentence, “asking forgiveness is easier than asking permission” to be a suitable substitute for the lion sentence?
—————

"I cannot know what is going on in him" is above all a picture. — Antony Nickles

Can you help me out with picture? Picture of what, picture of what kind, how do I know it as such, what am I enabled to do with it, what am I enabled to do because of it......and whatever else may apply as far as this topic is concerned.

Thanks.

This has two things going on. Acting and intending, and the knowledge of those. To intend (to do) something, and, to mean (something) have two different ways they work (or don't)--different grammars. — Antony Nickles

This makes W’s grammar/reasoning synonymy more apparent, in that my philosophical perspective attributes to acting pure practical reasoning, and attributes to meaning pure theoretical reason. And now I see why, in the second paragraph of your first response to me, ethics/morals were its concern, which has to do with acting. I certainly agree that the acting I do and the meaning I impart have different ways they work, for they are each derived from their own ground of reasoning. If I already grant acting and meaning are different in a certain way, I don’t profit significantly in seeing that they are different in some other way as well. That is to say, why acting and meaning are said to have different grammars, when I acknowledge them cum hoc as having different reasoning, still escapes me, but that’s ok.
————-

Yes, I can know what you are going to do; "look he is going to ask her out!" — Antony Nickles

I disagree. “Going to ask” is not asking, so stands as merely a possibility, and any possibility has its immediate negation just as possible. You may know he intends to ask, or that he means to ask, but you can’t know he asks until he actually does. He could be hit by a wayward cyclist (beer bottle, panic attack, ad infinitum) a split second before he gets the words out. Asking is acting, intending to ask is meaning, and because they are different grammars, given the above, the reasoning is different, again, from the above. Therefore, what it is permissible for you to know must be different, if such knowledge comes from the reasoning. Which of course, it must, because it couldn’t come from anywhere else.

Something unexpected happened or outside the grammar of our expectations. — Antony Nickles

Yes, just like that. Outside the grammar, being the same as other than the reasoning, of our expectations. Obviously the second contradicts the first, so what should I make of that?
——————-

Meaning' is like the imagined 'hidden' inner process. A concept's grammar is its possibilities of sense--not a fixed 'meaning' like a definition either. "It's a blue day." — Antony Nickles

Yes, I see that. As a matter of philosophical fact, it is because concepts do have specific meanings, that it is possible to tacitly understand days are not blue, and nonetheless allowance is granted to mischaracterize the meanings of concepts within certain limits given sufficient experience. I suppose the “imagined ‘hidden’ inner process” to indicate the rational arrangement of all the myriad associations contained in the concepts, that is, their schemata, into an order which obtains a meaningful statement coincidental to speaker and listener. As such, your “it’s a blue day” transfers to my “he is exhibiting pathological despondence” if I’m a clinical psychologist, or “sucks to be you” if I’m just a rabid Nietzsche-an cynical nihilist. “Here...have another hit on this” if I’m an old hippie. (Grin)
—————

But trust me I can tell when you've reasoning is wrong. — Antony Nickles

Sure, under certain conditions. That which is tautologically true cannot be reasoned wrong, and if I do, you can certainly tell. Logical fallacies and categorical errors are entirely sufficient for distinguishing wrong reasoning. Other than instances of analytically certain statements, you can only tell what I mean for you to know on the one hand, and I can present any reasoning I want but if you have no experience whatsoever with what I’m talking about, you can tell nothing at all about my reasoning. You may have your conclusions with respect to it, in that you might say I’m so full of crap my eyes are brown, but that is grounded in your reasoning, not mine.

But if we understood each other by coincidence or accident, would it matter? — Antony Nickles

No, but that’s taken out of context. I said....coincidence from accident, you say coincidence or accident. My philosophy denies anything is ever understood by accident, because understanding is a logical procedure in which the objects must align with the subject necessarily in order for there to be understanding in the first place. This is the only way misunderstanding is possible. The difference between yours and mine, is mine has the accident in coincidence, yours has the accident in the understanding.
—————

trickery, pretending, lying, charade, etc. look exactly like the real thing (maybe), so: how do we KNOW! — Antony Nickles

Depends on the degree of “(maybe)”, doesn’t it? An obvious lie is easy to know qua falsehood, a well-disguised lie is not. On the other hand, if reasoning to a lie, or the grammar of the conceptions if you insist, looks EXACTLY like the real thing, which I suppose to be reasoning to a truth.....you can’t know. The real thing can only be as you know that thing, so if what he is saying looks exactly like what you know, nothing new is given to you by which you can make a distinction between them, leaving you with no more than what you already knew.
——————-

Witt does say its amazing that we can communicate at all. — Antony Nickles

Doesn’t that depend on the domain of discourse? In the overall history of mankind in general, isn’t misunderstanding the exception to the rule? It follows that if the misunderstanding is the exception, then the ability to communicate, which is the facilitator of mutual understanding, is not so amazing. I can see, however, that Witt’s detractors might say exactly that, considering they might think Witt made common language use FUBAR because of his very own philosophical investigations. By the way.....did Witt have any peers playing the role of serious detractor?

I’m open to being convinced Witt’s proclamation, “He alone can know what he intends" is nonsense: to say "He alone can know what he will do", wrong....” is possible. Gonna take a powerful argument in its favor, I must say, and while I admire your attempts, illuminating by glimmer as they do, I’m requiring a epiphanic spotlight. An Archimedes lever to move my Enlightenment predispositions, doncha know.

how you correlate reasoning to grammar....
— Mww

....briefly (...), the OLP....idea of grammar is that each concept, say, knowing, or, an apology, has its own (or multiple)....ways it can make sense, how it works (or fails): e.g., understanding--when can you say someone else understands something? how do you explain it? what is proof for understanding, say, math, a poem, a person? etc., each concept having its own (subject to change and adaptation as we change our judgments, standards, lives, etc: what is justice, these days?). — Antony Nickles

So grammar is the science of application of concepts? Can we say that? If concepts have a plurality of meanings, grammar is the method for picking the better of them? Ok....to what end?

When I pick use a word representing a concept, and indicate some meaning by it, is that word intended to demonstrate my reasoning, or is it chosen to align with your understanding of my reasoning?

“...To say "He alone can know what he intends" is nonsense: to say "He alone can know what he will do", wrong....”
(From your Witt, P.I., p. 223)

Am I suppose to gather from all that, that I can know what he intends, if only I choose the right word for the concepts? So I say...did you intend ____?; he says, nope, not that. So I say, well, did you mean ____?; nope, not that either. I see a serious problem here, don’t you?

On the other hand, I say, did you mean ____, and he says, no, I meant _____, to which I say, oh, cool, I get it now, or I could just as well say, ohfercrissakes, that just doesn’t make any sense at all.

In the immortal words of Strother Martin, what we have heah.....is a failyah......to cuh-MUNicate.

And here’s the kicker. All I wrote just now? All I’ve ever written, actually? I submit, My Good Sir, that it is impossible for you to tell, if I got it right, whether I used my grammar (reasoning) correctly with respect to your understanding, or merely from my own, and they happen to coincide from sheer accident. And, if I got it wrong, it is impossible for you to tell whether I chose my meanings with the intent to make you think I got it wrong, when I understood you perfectly from the get-go. Both of which catastrophically falsify Witt’s prophecy given above.

BOOM!!!!! Mic drop, exit, stage right......
(Kidding. I’m just thinking out loud. No offense. You may rebut as you see fit)

That's different - an Hegelian critique of Wittgenstein... Curious. — Banno

Technically, Hegelian would be triadic, but my dyadic thesis/antithesis is just me philosophizing in Kantianese.

He's trying to get the reader to see from a different viewpoint. — Antony Nickles

Understood. I suppose that might work for one who hasn’t an entrenched viewpoint already. It may also work, even for him, if OLP made enough sense to displace it. Personally, I’m happy with what I got.....I better be, considering the time and effort I’ve invested in it.

No, I most certainly wouldn’t label W as a German idealist either; yes, Hegel unpacks juxtapositions....in his own profoundly roundabout way...., and I’d be interested in what you have to say about Kantian “grammar” with his categories. I’d be pleased to see how you correlate reasoning to grammar, from your “...one of the main points of Ordinary Language Philosophy would be there are different kinds of reasoning ("grammar")....”

I don’t wish to detract from your thread, so if your attention is warranted elsewhere, I can wait.

labeling Witt’s sentences as “Thesis” is not exactly accurate. — Antony Nickles

I meant it as indicating the opening statement as affirmation, in accordance with continental dialectical reasoning, re: German idealists in general. The antithesis, then, follows as subjecting the opening to negation, or just some sort of modification. I didn’t label W’s statements themselves in any way at all; I just copied them verbatim. Still, I could have used point/counterpoint, so......
—————

The “unperceived physical proceedings” are the writing and the jig-saw puzzles, etc.—which are hidden in the sense of, away from view. — Antony Nickles

Hidden from the guy, yes. I just went off on a rant over the gross dissimilarities between empirical invisibility and rational invisibility, and how silly it is to juxtaposition one against the other.

Anyway.....good talk, and, carry on.

Point/counterpoint, and rhetorically speaking........

If laws constrain the universe, it should be possible the laws constrained the universe in such a manner that anything preventing consciousness from arising, was itself prevented.

Conscious beings create laws, laws constrain the behavior of the universe, therefore conscious beings are responsible for the behavior of the universe. If conscious beings created different laws, the universe would behave differently. But if the universe behaved differently, it becomes possible the conscious beings act differently, in which case, the different laws they created would constrain them from creating the laws that cause them to act differently.

To reconcile the paradox, either the conscious beings are not contained in the universe the behavior of which they are held responsible, that premise already asserted, or, laws do not as much constrain the behavior of the universe, as to serve merely as sufficient explanations of, or predictions for, the behavior of the universe pursuant to its own natural conditions.

Granting that the proof of a logical proposition is not given by its form but only by its substance, proof of the former is altogether impossible, insofar as the conscious beings which suffice as substances to insert into the form are entirely unobservable therefore determinantly inconclusive to reason. The proof of the latter, on the other hand, is possible, for the substances to be inserted into the form are sufficiently observable, hence determinantly present to reason.

All taken from the quoted passage:

Thesis:

All this would be guessing at thoughts; and the fact that it does not actually happen does not make thought any more hidden than the unperceived physical proceedings. — Antony Nickles

Antithesis:
What does not actually happen? I ask a guy to assign meaning to a language he doesn’t understand mandates a mutually perceived physical proceeding.....I’m talking to him, after all, and I know he hears me. So this cannot be the thing that does not actually happen. The only thing left that does not actually happen, and is therefore the unperceived physical proceeding, is the objective exemplification by which meaning is assigned by the dude to whom I’m asking. All that reduces to a categorical error of modality, the schema of which is existence, to posit that which doesn’t happen is equal to being hidden. There is nothing to hide so it being hidden is superfluous.

Still, it must be the case that he thinks something, even if it’s only to think it impossible to give any meaning because he lacks the judgements necessary to connect what he perceives to what he understands. The unperceived physical proceeding, in this case speech reflecting the assignment of meaning, according to W, is hidden from both of us because it never happened, but the thought demonstrating that the meaning is impossible to present as a physical proceeding, must have happened, and is only hidden from me, to whom it did not happen, but cannot be hidden from the guy from whom I’m asking a meaning be given. This is the categorical error of relation, the schema of which is community, in that it is supposed one thought is denied to, or hidden from, both parties when it is only hidden from one.
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Thesis:

If I see someone writhing in pain with evident cause I do not think: all the same, his feelings are hidden from me. — Antony Nickles

Antithesis:
No, I do not, but I do not, because I think nothing immediately with respect to his feelings, as a predicate of my observation of him writhing. Given the evident cause, I immediately grant him the objective reality of being hurt, the writhing I see immediately grants merely one of a plethora of immediate corresponding physical representations of being physically hurt, both of which are a posteriori judgements.

I can and I do think, mediately, all the same, his feelings are necessarily hidden from me, in that the causality of his representations are not contained in the physical representations of them. And I am justified in that thinking, for the simple reason I am not the one writhing with evident cause. If I already understand feelings as pure a priori representations, and I know no a priori cognition is transferable, it follows as a matter of course, his pain is inaccessible to me, hence I am permitted to say they are hidden. This, incidentally, relieves the categorical error of modality.
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Thesis:

"I cannot know what is going on in him" is above all a picture. It is the convincing expression of a conviction. It does not give the reasons for the conviction. They are not readily accessible. — Antony Nickles

Antithesis:
If I know, or if I do not know, something, I must have reasons. And they must be accessible to me, otherwise the knowledge is quite empty.

Knowledge can be defined as a judgement valid because its ground is objectively necessary. That which goes on in him is subjective in him, hence inaccessible objectively in me, therefore I am justified in claiming I cannot know of it. These are my readily accessible reasons derivable from a definition.

A conviction can be defined as a judgement valid because its ground is objectively sufficient. I am certainly authorized to say what goes on in him is objectively sufficient, under the condition that he and I are both the same kind of rational intelligence, in that I allow him the same ground for his as I require for mine.

It follows that what I know is not the same as that of which I am merely convinced. I am always authorized to claim my convictions are given from the same reasons as my knowledge, but I am not authorized to claim my knowledge is given from the same reasons as my convictions.

A picture, considered as some mental image, can be a convincing expression of a conviction, but not in the case where I have certain knowledge antecedent to the image. While it is true images are not the source of reasons in any case, where some proposition is predicated on a knowledge, those reasons are not needed, so their inaccessibility is moot. I need reasons for my convictions iff I cannot arrive at knowledge from conviction alone.

The lion will have to wait for Page 2, assuming there is one.

Thanks for the interesting thread, and the chance to ramble on over it. Hope I followed your wishes, but if I didn’t.....ehhhh.....no page 2.

It means that both Janus' seeing red cups, and my seeing red cups always always always includes red cups. — creativesoul

Absolutely, but this proposition is, for all intents and purposes, tautological, for it presupposes a certain knowledge given from a particular experience of a given object, but in a plurality of occurrences. Otherwise, there is no warrant for either red or cup for any of us, but only the presence of some object imbued with some existential conditions.
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How do we arrive at the need for "qualia" from here? Is the notion just being used in a sort of closeted subjectivism stance? — creativesoul

Saying to perceive a particular object is the same as what it feels like to perceive a red cup iff that particular object contains that which corresponds to the quales of red and cup, still doesn’t inform us of the origin of red or cup, or the synthesis of “object” to the quales “red” and “cup”. It is clear how the altogether distorted notion of qualia were arrived at, but the need for them has never been properly justified, in that they are neither sufficient nor necessary for what they’re supposed to do. And anything neither sufficient nor necessary can be summarily dismissed, insofar as doing so offers no jeopardy to that which is already established as the necessary means for human cognition and experience in general. Theoretically established, of course.

Drive-by thread posting. Gotta love ‘em, huh?

Fine....I’ll say it: moral law never was, nor could ever be, fait accompli. The notion of moral law stands as a valid object of pure practical reason, but any proof of its universality and absolute necessity.....which in principle are the conditions of any law.....is impossible. Calling it a law doesn’t make it one.

So.....where do we start, in trying to discern what such law is?

Commands of reason inform as to what an act ought to be, but has no power to force the act to be done.
— Mww

So what determines the action? — Brett

Circumstance, usually. And judgement with respect to whatever the circumstance happens to be. Action itself is a posteriori, that is, empirically given as manifest in the world. Morality, taken as a fundamental condition of human nature, does not concern itself with the action, but only with the pure a priori principles to which an action must accord necessarily, in order to claim moral worth for itself.

Only a philosopher examines morality from a metaphysical point of view. Everydayman has no use for such understandings, he being capable of navigating the world without ever questioning exactly how he does it. He may well feel good or bad over something he’s done, but without having the reasons for the source and thereby the construction of those feelings. But under the same circumstance next time, should he do something differently such that the feeling from that action is different, he will recognize that there must actually be reasons, and from differences may then interrogate himself as to their source and construction.
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We can even abdicate any responsibility if we choose to. — Brett

No, we cannot. Reason belongs to us necessarily, so whether we admit it or not, we are intrinsically responsible for ourselves in toto, for the excruciatingly simple principle that says reason is itself responsible for every single thing we do. We may very well abdicate that which reason demands, but we cannot deny the responsibility for failing to satisfy such demand. It is impossible, after all, to will that which is beyond the ability to obtain, that being nothing but a mere wish.

Spoken like a scientist overly concerned with hair! — Kenosha Kid

Oh yeah!?!? Well....(sputterchokegasp).....your definitions of consciousness are all wrong!!!

Consciousness: the quality of all my various and sundry representations united under one representation.

Consciousness is not a thing, so it has no properties. It is nothing more than the condition of the intellect, so necessarily accounts for experience with respect to objects, and at the same time, pure thought, which has no object. It is the compendium of all that I think about.

Don’t you dare tell me you can get all that from a display on a machine strapped to my head. As my ol’ buddy Gilda Radnor would say, “it is to laugh....”

Part of our reason is the ability to choose between two possible outcomes. — Brett

Part of, yes. Choosing between two outcomes reduces to cognizing a relation between means and ends. Fishing, say, with worms gives one possible outcome, fishing with lures gives another possible outcome. This part of our reason is purely theoretical, indicating the outcomes are not actually within our control. And yes, we are not restricted in our choice of bait, but we also have no promise of success in fishing.

The other part of our reason is the purely practical, in which the ends are given necessarily from the means, which is the ground of the c.i. itself, re: “act only....”. Here, we have no choice in our actions, but we have splendid success in our morality.
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That’s what makes us free, as opposed to animals. — Brett

We are not free, nothing makes us free, and this has nothing whatsoever to do with animals. I find no profit in comparing my inner workings to a cow’s, and question those that do. I’ve found them to be terrible philosophers.
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Being free we can make a moral choice. We can make the wrong one as well. If C.I. is at the command of reason then why the wrong choice? — Brett

We make moral choices because our very nature imbues us with moral agency, plain and simple.

We make wrong moral choices because we, as humans, are susceptible to a plethora of opposing interests, desires, wants and needs.

Commands of reason inform as to what an act ought to be, but has no power to force the act to be done.
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How can the idea of moral actions based on C.I. work in this age? — Brett

Cultures have changed, individual human members of cultures have not. There has been no significant human evolutionary changes in the mere 250 years or so, since the Enlightenment and with it, Kantian moral philosophy. No moral disparity between ripping off a farmer’s wife over a couple potatoes then, or ripping off a kid over an x-box now, nor between paying yourself for the wife’s potatoes and helping the proverbial lil’ ol’ lady cross Broadway in midtown.

One shouldn’t conflate the moral with the ethical.