all of which reduces to Descartes’ cogito
— Mww

Not quite. Instead of “I think, therefore I am”, you have “I experience something, therefore I and that something exist”. — Pfhorrest

Because one can think a thing....and it is never the case where a thought isn’t of something....but never experience it, thinking and experiencing must be different. Even if it were insisted that experiencing of thought follows necessarily from the rational activity of thinking, we should see cognizance from perception, which is experience, and cognizance from thought, which is reason, accord with separate and distinct rational faculties, having no logical warrant for being considered congruent consequences.

This is from where my query arises: why did Descartes use the mental activity to prove a abstract reality over and above the standing proof of material objects by means of indubitable experience? There was no need to think in terms of experience because the validity of it was never in question. He had to stay within a system of non-material processing in order to justify the reality of a mind/body dualism, which of course, ended up being both a philosophical paradigm shift and a intellectual clusterfork forever and a day thereafter.

For what it’s worth.....

Maybe "thought to pertain to" instead of "belong"? — dussias

Compromise: subsumed under, rather than pertain to?

Nonetheless shall I insist on “necessarily”. (Stomps foot...exits stage right)

Where would we be without elegance.

This is a great framework for efficiency, but maybe not the best for discerning knowledge. — dussias

A pox...POX, I say....on language philosophers. Now, if you please, excuse me while I indulge in it.

Knowledge is not discerned, it is a consequence of a logical process, in effect, an acquisition.
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If you were going to ask, but decided not to ask, it doesn’t matter what the response would be, for a judgement has already been made as to its relevance. In this case, it is, much to my chagrin, against me, for it seems your point would be missed by whatever my definition might be. Some would say that’s rather presumptuous....but not me. I readily admit to missing the point, insofar as I find the grounds for whatever it might be, as given so far, suspect.

Real: that to which an object can be thought to belong necessarily.
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”Do with it as you wish.”

An easily underestimated statement. — dussias

Could be. But actually, it’s pretty hard to underestimate something so ill-defined as “as you wish”.

we must get to the place — JerseyFlight

Absolutely. You have historical precedent for cheering folks for expressing their thoughts, so allow me to forward the sentiment.

the only thing that matters to philosophy is the nature and quality of criticism. — JerseyFlight

In the response to it, yes; in the construction of it.....not so much. Unless you want to say, the only thing that matters to philosophy is the criticism by which it is, or is not, validated.

Anyway....good O.P., even if only because I always defend reason.

Exactly, and that is the rule. Just makes me wonder why we need to even consider questions for which the answers are altogether quite worthless. Pretty simple, actually; if everything is questionable, just don’t question everything. Only question stuff for which an answer is both possible and rational.

Oh....and you thought wrong: “the previous statement” is, not so much a lie, but catastrophically false. What we think about and name can be real; it’s just that the means for doing it, are not the same kind of real. In other words, things named and thought about are physically real, the representations of them are not, yet still real in another sense.

Just sayin’. Do with it as you wish.

Yeah, I suppose there are cases where IT is the only valid answer, while at the same time not answering anything. But these are the exceptions rather than the rule, whereas it’s much more efficient just to say I don’t know.

to make a law of ignorance. — Kenosha Kid

Gives new meaning to the 1965 AM radio hit song, “I fought the law, and the law won...”

the only solution — dussias

What does only IT can or can’t be actually solve?

.....muttering to self from the back of the room....

Damned if I can figure out how the pain I never knew I was in, stopped being one.

This would be quite laughable.....if it weren’t, for most intents and purposes, the sad truth.

I read it, and I have some familiarity with a few of your references. However, being steeped in Enlightenment cognitive metaphysics, I’m in no position to critique the technicalities. Still, the schematic of the state/control systems fit nicely with Kantian transcendental philosophy, which is stipulated as a logical process. Names are different, functionality is generally the same.

Bottom line.....too modern for me, but nonetheless a worthy treatise.

....all of which reduces to Descartes’ cogito. So where does that other guy’s “more right on certainty” lay? In “thinking occurs”, which is just about the emptiest expression imaginable. You know...like....grass is. Balls bounce. Up is that way.

What do you think the cogito expression was actually meant to represent?

With all that, beginning with that double-damned double slit, it’s easy to see where human consciousness could be deemed responsible for the actions outside itself. Leave it to a human, to attribute that of which he has precious little understanding, as being responsible for that of which he has, arguably, only slightly more.

Thanks.

I wonder though, did Wigner actually come right and declare explicitly that consciousness causes collapse, or did somebody take his “....consciousness is necessary for the completion of any quantum experiment...” and translate it thus. Because in order for any experimental result to mean anything, which would indicate a completion of it, it must be presented to some conscious agency for understanding. That much would seem to be the case, but doesn’t say consciousness was the reason the experimental result manifested as the measuring device prescribes.

Even von Neumann stated the wavefunction collapse can happen anywhere on the chain from measuring device to “subjective perception”, but subjective perception is not necessarily consciousness, but only a partial constituency of it. And happening at, is not the same as causality for.

Anyway....the beat goes on. All the way to the fridge for a beer. Or better yet....ice for a cocktail.

Oh. Sorry....guess I wasn’t understanding what you were saying....about why the special point regarding QM. Are you, sorta rhetorically, just saying the mind of the experimenter is just as involved in QM theories as it is in everything else, without exercising any causality of its own? If so, I agree.

Who has represented himself as a purely mentalist interpreter?

I think the special point with respect to QM is direct experience, and the habitual proclivity of human intelligence to mandate empirical knowledge on it alone. Because direct experience is impossible on some small scale, the experimenter inserts himself, by the construction of his experiments, into situations he cannot actually witness, and he experiments in compliance to the mathematics he has himself invented. In effect, he justifies his inventions, but doesn’t witness Nature as it actually is, the classic example being the collapsing wavefunction, which of course, does not exist.

Another one is “spooky action at a distance”, which, last I knew, was up to a whopping 11 miles!!! So we end up with the altogether classical connundrum of knowledge that (spooky action is a fact), but not the knowledge of (wtf IS it?). So, the mind is certainly involved, but at the same time is completely left out.

Carrying the involvement of the mind to extremes, we arrive at stuff like....e.g., electrons, don’t even exist as real objects....as opposed to non-contradictory objects of reason....until they are determined by measurement of the effect of their intrinsic causality. This only makes sense if it is true human empirical knowledge is absolutely predicated on direct experience and experience has intuitive structure, which QM has shown to be suspect.

Thanks. I had a feeling it would be Feynman, from your statement on fields being real, which Feynman declared by “...By a field, you remember, we mean a quantity which depends upon position in space....” (CalTech lectures, Vol2, Ch2), which would seem to make explicit fields are indeed real, at least in some particular sense.

That, and this wonderful piece of intellectual incredulity: “....They split in half and …” But no!...”, the exclamatory part which you repeated herein. Pretty easy to see where your sympathies lay, I must say.

Those lectures are here: https://feynmanlectures.caltech.edu, In which Vol3 has a nice easy dissertation on varieties of double slits , but nothing about......er......boobies. Or colored lights.

Anyway.....I just want to satisfy myself that bell curves aren’t merely a different manifestation of the standard interference pattern.

Can you supply an accessible reference for that colored light/boogie double slit experiment? Accessible meaning free.....I’m a YankeeVirgoBabyboomer, and paying for stuff for which I have no real use is anathema to me. But it is new and therefore interesting, so.....I’d appreciate it.

I grant the notion that consciousness in and of itself doesn’t necessarily collapse a wavefunction, but at the same time, I find it entirely irrelevant what happens in Nature, if no consciousness is aware of it, and is capable of relating such natural events to itself.

Why would you need a theory of consciousness to examine an experimental setup where consciousness is absent? — Kenosha Kid

True enough, but what experiment can be set up, and by association, what experimental setup can there be, that doesn’t have a conscious agency for its causality?

it might have been him that also pointed out that conscious observers are high-temperature bodies and cannot mediate coherent superpositions. — Kenosha Kid

Tegmark, 2000, “Importance of Quantum Decoherence......” in refutation of Orch-OR, Penrose/Hameroff, 1994.

Unless you’re talking about something else, in which case.......never mind.

Why presuppose that which has been proven?

Reality (...) Everything that can be grasped by reason — Eremit

reality beyond, is the ground of all existence — Eremit

How does one reason to the ground of all existence, when such ground is excluded from that which is within the “grasp” of reason?

It appears to be nothing more than “...a lame appeal to a logical condition, which is no doubt a necessary condition of the existence of the conception, but is far from being sufficient for the real objective possibility (of it)...”, insofar as reality, as stated, in conjunction with the validity of the complementary nature of human reason itself, permits the notion of “beyond reality”, even at the expense of knowing anything about it, which of course, leaves the second assertion without proper warrant.

Where are all the forum's Kantians — Srap Tasmaner

If the notion of human experience is justifiable, then empiricism must be valid, in order to serve as the ground for knowledge of real, physical things, which is exactly what experience is. But knowledge of physical things is not the only human knowledge there is, so while empiricism remains valid, it is nonetheless limited by itself.

Lots of good stuff in there, but I’ll limit myself in return.

I would say cognition requires one to understand.....
— Mww

OK, so I would place observation in the same category as cognition. — Metaphysician Undercover

I won't fuss over the proposed division between sense and observation. — Metaphysician Undercover

The second is fine; whatever reason there may be to fuss over the division between sense and observation is semantic, and doesn’t interfere too seriously with the technicalities. But if observation is suggested as having similar characteristics....being in the same category.....as cognition, we are met with an insurmountable technical inconsistency, for cognition makes explicit an understanding, but observation holds no such requirement, insofar as it is common enough to sense that for which there is no immediate recognition. In other words, cognition implies knowledge, mere observation does not.

But I think I understand your groundwork: if there is an “unconscious” form of judgement at the one end of the cognitive sequence, which has been mentioned as imagination, and a “conscious” form of judgement at the other, which has been mentioned as judgement proper, then it follows that the outputs of these forms of judgement will have something in common between them. This may very well work, except for the realization that nothing in the unconscious mode can be anything but purely theoretical, from which follows necessarily that our observation, if categorized as proceeding from “unconscious” judgements, can also be nothing more than theoretical. But they are not, nor can they be, and still keep with the hope of empirical knowledge, as humans indulge themselves in it. One doesn’t theorize hearing a siren; he actually, truly, and with apodeictic certainty, hears a siren.
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I believe that this way of dividing the different mental activities is not representative of reality. — Metaphysician Undercover

It’s not supposed to represent reality; it only represents the compendium of faculties contained in a possible methodology used by humans in particular, to understand the reality in which they find themselves.
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between conscious reasoned thought (cognition), and unconscious brain activity. I'd say that this is derived from our habit of separating human beings from other animals — Metaphysician Undercover

No need for such derivation. It is quite obvious there is an unconscious aspect of human mental activity, right? I mean.....we are never aware of the output of sensation and the input to the brain, yet when we stub our left toe we never jerk our right foot. Might this be your “unconscious” judgement?
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The problem here, is that we cannot proceed through the conscious mind, to determine the effect which sensation has on the unconscious part of our being. — Metaphysician Undercover

Correct, which is why we theorize scientifically, and speculate metaphysically, on what is going on unconsciously. Everything between sensation and understanding is speculative, re:, unconscious, including appearance, intuition, space, time, imagination, phenomena, ending with conception. While one guy’s guess is as good as another’s, it helps to have as few explanatory gaps as possible.
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To limit "the affect the objects have" to the consciously apprehended affect, is a mistake. . — Metaphysician Undercover

Perhaps. But we both accept that we know things. If nothing else, the best we could say is we both sometimes make exactly the same mistake. And if everybody makes exactly the same mistake, we might as well call such mistakes, knowledge.

Observation requires that the person understands and remembers what has been seen. — Metaphysician Undercover

So you say, which is fine. I would say cognition requires one to understand, and experience is that which he remembers as having been observed in particular, perceived in general.
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My argument is that some form of judgement (unconscious judgement) must be passed on sensation prior to observation. — Metaphysician Undercover

I suppose imagination, the unconscious faculty that transforms sensations into phenomena, could be thought as a form of judgement. But such transformation is still a consequence of perception rather than prior to it.
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Whether you list off these items, or those items, is a big difference, because it indicates that what you have noticed, or "observed", is different from what you have "sensed". — Metaphysician Undercover

Whichever items are mentioned in a list merely indicates a relative impression those objects made, whether from familiarity, some arbitrary characteristic...shiny, odd-shaped, whatever. The list of cognized items will always be fewer than the list of sensed items, because the mind doesn’t bother registering those in the periphery, or those with relatively minor impression. In effect, there is always a possible list just as you’ve hypothesized, in everyday life.....when I look at the tv, the walls of the room are right there, but I don’t sense or observe them.

On the other hand, the lists of related items could very well be different for different people, and there are people who can relate many more items on the list than others. In addition, the more time spend on sensing or observing, the more likely the list of items increases proportionally. Because of these variables, it must be the case that something other than sense or observation is responsible for relating the items on the list.

I grant there will be a difference between the totality of the items and the items that make the list, but I don’t grant it as relating to a difference in sense vs. observation.
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But if it is true that there is a difference between sensation and observation, as I describe, then we have to account for that type of "judgement" or whatever it is, which induces us to observe only specific aspects of what we sense. — Metaphysician Undercover

You 1: what you have noticed, or "observed", is different from what you have "sensed"
You 2: there is a difference between sensation and observation, as I describe

There is a difference between sensation and observation, but this is not as you described, that being the difference between what is sensed and observation. Sensation is the affect the objects we have sensed have on us...a tickle, a sound, a taste, etc. These are all sensations which merely represent objects that physiologically affect our sense organs.

I don’t know what to do with this, now, because I’m not sure what it is you’re arguing.

Oh. Ok.

Why am I the addressee?

I suppose we may be using "observation" in different ways. — Metaphysician Undercover

Perhaps. For me, everything in its place: sound sensation is hearing, tactile sensation is feeling, olfactory sensation is smelling.....sight sensation is seeing, and that which is seen is observed. We do not observe the smell of frying bacon, we do not taste B-flat, and we do not hear the sight of fast-moving clouds.

To me, observation implies judgement having been past on the acts of sensation, such that a decision as to what will be remembered out of all that has been sensed, has been made — Metaphysician Undercover

From the above, it is clear any sensation has its possible judgement, but their respective sources, hence the conceptions under which they are subsumed, will be completely different. Observation directly requires extension of matter in space, for instance, but the sensation of sound only directly requires changes in air pressure, which is not required by extension.

Judgement passed on sensation, rather than being mere observation, is empirical knowledge. Sensation upon which a judgement is not forthcoming, insofar as we must admit to an “I don’t know” about it, still manifests as an experience. Aesthetic judgements, on the other hand, those having to do with non-cognitive feelings, or the sublime, are just the opposite, insofar as, while possibly motivated by experience, are not themselves judgements of experience, thus knowledge with respect to them is given immediately.

Obviously, empirical judgements are susceptible to change with sufficient subsequent experience, but aesthetic judgements are not so susceptible, being grounded in the subject’s innate sense of quality, re: Hume’s “missing shade of blue” gedankenexperiment.
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Reason, being conditioned only by itself, would have the capacity to produce any sort of fantasy, any imaginary thing. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yep. Self-control is not intrinsic to reason. We can certainly imagine anything we like, except the logically impossible. Which is ironic, because only reason gives the laws of logic, which reason then uses to control itself. So perhaps we trust reason over sensation because reason belongs to us, is present constantly, and if we didn’t trust it, we couldn’t claim to know anything whatsoever, including the very same laws of logic, the principles of mathematics, and even our own selves, which is absurd.

Nevertheless, if one chooses to trust sensation over reason, he will be at a complete loss as to explaining what the sensation actually represents, unless he reasons about it, which puts him right back to trusting reason over sensation.

Can you say positively and concretely where and what the noumenon, -a, is/are? — tim wood

No, but from the text, I gather noumena would be representations of things in the world, arrived at by rationalities with means other than the intuitive system used by humans. I might be able to say how they are a logical possibility, or even a sheer happenstance of the understanding, but I can’t say anything about the reality of them. If I could, they’d be phenomena, hence not noumena after all.
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being prior to perception, remains inaccessible to perception. — tim wood

That which is prior to perception remains inaccessible to empirical knowledge, yes.

Perception doesn’t access anything, it is just us being affected by something physical, external to our senses. Perception isn’t part of the cognitive process, it is merely the occasion for the use of it.

If you mean by inaccessible to perception that something can’t be perceived at all, that’s fine, but being inaccessible doesn’t have anything to do with being prior to, because prior to perception presupposes the possibility of the very perception being claimed as inaccessible. A thing can’t be totally inaccessible, which would be the same logical deduction as being impossible, and be presupposed at the same time.

Real physical objects in space and time are the cause of sensations in us, as effects, perception being the means by which one becomes the other. That’s why it is said perception is passive.....it doesn’t do anything except pass forward the data.

Not to say any of that is gospel, mind you.

Don't you think that there is judgement inherent within observation? — Metaphysician Undercover

Inherent in? No. Consequential to, certainly, with respect to time. Judgement presupposes that which is to be judged, either a posteriori perception on the one hand, or a priori thought on the other. We can think and arrive at a judgement without perceiving, but we cannot perceive and arrive at a judgement without thinking.
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What do you mean with "conditioned by itself"? — Metaphysician Undercover

Reason is a prime human asset, along with the moral constitution. Reason conditioned by itself just means there is nothing else required for reason to function as that asset, other than the compendium of cognitive faculties incorporated within it. Things are required to reason about, of course, but not to function.

Reason doesn’t create itself, but it does create its own objects. Consciousness, the ego, the self....a myriad of representations that are nothing but objects of reason.

But it’s all speculative metaphysics, so......grain of salt here, dump truck full there.

Why ought we trust natural reason as superior to observation whenever observation gives us incoherency? — Metaphysician Undercover

We trust reason over observation because reason is conditioned by itself, whereas observation is conditioned by Nature.

Observation, being a strictly passive, unconscious mental activity, is not responsible for incoherency, such being the domain of judgement.

It follows that even if judgement, a product of reason, occasionally leads the thinking subject astray, it is rarely the case, and even if there is a case, it is reason alone that has the ability to rectify its own mistakes.
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It makes complete sense to talk about "understanding" in a general sense, and determine characteristics which are proper to it — Metaphysician Undercover

Absolutely. Although, treating understanding as a fundamental human cognitive faculty, doesn’t really warrant scare quotes, Nietzsche’s “inverted goat’s feet”. No reason to be scared of it, or doubt its reality.

Worthy subject matter, anyway.

“...Categories are conceptions which prescribe laws a priori to phenomena, consequently to nature as the complex of all phenomena (natura materialiter spectata). And now the question arises—inasmuch as these categories are not derived from nature, and do not regulate themselves according to her as their model, for in that case they would be empirical, how it is conceivable that nature must regulate herself according to them, in other words, how the categories can determine a priori the synthesis of the manifold of nature, and yet not derive their origin from her?....”
(CPR B163)

I might suggest starting with “Of the Schematism of the Pure Conceptions of the Understanding“, A137/B176, not so much to know how the categories arise, but rather, what is contained in them. Some of them, anyway. He says you’re supposed to be able to “easily” fill in the rest, if only you had “the proper ontological texts”, and because I have no idea what those texts would be, I never did fill them in.

The category of substance, for instance, has conceptions contained in it, such that the schema, the group of all relevant conceptions, of substance, is the permanence of the real in time. For some of the others, the schema of possibility is the accordance of the synthesis of different representations with the conditions of time in general, the schema of reality is existence in a determined time, the schema of necessity is the existence of an object in all time.

Anyway.....have fun with it.

Yeah......but I don’t mind. As my ol’ buddy Horace laments, Quodcunque ostentis mihi sic, incredulus odi.

That which has an effect/affect. — creativesoul

Seconded.

X makes the observation.....
....A single observation just doesn't suffice.... — TheMadFool

we need to elicit the aid of Y and Z....
......."did you see that?" or "did you hear that?", etc. — TheMadFool

Hmmmm.....what are Y and Z going to do, tell X he didn’t make an observation? Better not, lest the gedankenexperiment immediately contract itself.

A single observation does suffice, at least for the determination that perception has been met with something. Doesn’t matter that the observation doesn’t relate to extant knowledge, it’s still an observation of something real, otherwise it couldn’t have been an observation. It’s just an O, but it must be a real O.

assigning a probability value for O being real. — TheMadFool

How could it not be real? There are no observations of the not-real. Even a mirage is real, albeit mistakenly judged as a false reality. Besides, even Y and Z, all else being equal, would observe a mirage just as mistakenly as X.

if I'm correct, there seems to be serious flaw with the repeatability principle — TheMadFool

For a mere observation, I would agree; the repeatability principle is irrelevant. For assigning a name to the observed, given lack of extant knowledge of it by X, Y, and Z, that would require some kind of three-way agreement. Or, they could all just call it what they want, and since there’s only three of them, probably wouldn’t hurt much. But let any one of the three, in turn, tell a forth, and the forth guy is gonna have some trouble.

Interesting, even without all the probability stuff.

they really can't because then no real novel discoveries would take place at all — 3017amen

That’s the way I see it. Humans have this propensity for “what if...”, for no apparent reason, other than some arbitrary question simply presents itself. At the immediacy of “what if...”, all is a priori. Thereafter of course, pure reason becomes practical.
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it seems a priori knowledge has inner necessity and also true universality. — 3017amen

Agreed; the conditions under which contradiction is impossible. And if contradiction is impossible, that for which necessity and universality are the grounding principles, absolutely must be true, re: the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, all bodies are extended....and a host of others.
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In other words, why do I care whether all events are causational, and what causes me to wonder about cause?) — 3017amen

Ya know.....we as plain folks probably don’t. But reason does, because in order to answer a question with absolute certainty, it must not be met with merely another question. In other words, the answer must be unconditioned, have no contingent predicates. But it’s not the finding of the unconditioned by which we think as humans, it is the search for it by which we think, and when we’re all happy, insofar as this any one question is answered sufficiently, we stop looking for the unconditioned by simply neglecting its relevance.

No one else tossed in a nickel here, so allow me......for whatever my nickel’s worth:

Kant might not have believed in a thing in itself. — Gregory

It isn’t a question of believing. There are things, our knowledge of those things only extends as far as the representation of them, therefore there very well could be something left over in the thing that isn’t represented. That’s not a fact, it’s merely possible, because otherwise, we are justified in claiming complete knowledge of things, yet time and again we have been shown to be wrong. So either the fault in knowledge is from the system we use to acquire it, or, the thing wasn’t as well known as we thought. If we can prove the apodeictic certainty of our knowledge system, then it remains that the fault lays in the thing itself. Or, the thing as it is in itself.
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If you throw out the noumena all we have is appearance that contradicts itself. — Gregory

Noumena are already great big nothings anyway, so throwing them out isn’t really doing anything.

In Kant, appearance is how physical sensation....the output from sense organs to the cognitive system....is represented in the system. As such, appearance cannot contradict itself because mere appearance isn’t yet anything contradictory. It just is something, the nature of which system has not yet determined. From sensing a tickle, we do not yet know what caused it. Could be a hair, a bug, the wind...whatever.

In Kant, the only part of the system that contradicts itself is understanding, and the part that contradicts the system as a whole, is judgement.

And if this dichotomy were so "traditional", it could not play any serious role in the Copernican turn, which is hardly admissible. — Sentience

It is traditional, it doesn’t play a part in the Copernican turn, as you call it, admissibility aside.

The real dichotomy on Kantian metaphysics, is between sensibility and understanding, the former historically the only condition for knowledge, derived from experience alone, the latter forthwith being shown to be just as valid as a knowledge source, but derived from pure thought alone, and actually is the ground for knowledge a posteriori. It’s always been that way, Kant just made the reality of it accessible.
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How can they be completely un-Kantian if they adhere to the analytic/synthetic dichotomy? — Sentience

I never said they were. I said to be un-Kantian is to reject a priori synthetic propositions, the domain of principles and what is derivable from them.

It occurs to me that you may be attempting to understand Kant with some post-modern analytic system. If you can do that, fine. I haven’t seen it yet, but that only means either you haven’t done it, or you have done it and it flew right over my head. Either way....my interest is waning.

How can they adhere to the Copernican turn then? — Sentience

The pure empiricists don’t, holding with the assertions that the physical world is primary, as opposed to the rationalists who hold with subjectivity being the primary. The transcendental idealist, on the other hand, recognizes the equality of both, in conjunction with each other.

Don’t we need to distinguish between rejecting synthetic propositions, and a priori synthetic propositions? I agree the rejection of the a priori would seem to halt the thinking that is always antecedent to hypotheticals, but wouldn’t necessarily halt the thinking, if not antecedent to then at least in conjunction with, observation.

And the scientific method, hence the physicalists, always start from observation, so I agree, synthetic qua contingent propositions cannot be rejected. Actually, I don’t think a priori synthetic propositions are rejected either; it’s just that they are not recognized as such.