Well if you allow the images you see in your dreams as type of perception (which we must, I would imagine), then you would find yourself deep in the well of contradiction. Can you actively control what you see in your dreams during your sleep?

But even if you are not dreaming, there must be things that you see, which you didn't expect or want see, when you are living in the real world, as a real person. — Corvus

We are the efficient causes of many organic functions over which we do not exercise voluntary control. However they are still in essence controlled by us, since that control is a key feature of organic incarnation (evolution). Just so with perception. We are pre-wired to perceive certain things in preference to others. Of course, there could be "radically new" stimuli, at least theoretically. In practical terms, such stimuli are probably only encountered under conditions of "culture shock," where the core values of an adopted culture are radically different.

Just how far we are willing to go to maintain our presuppositions about reality is illustrated by cognitive biases. The most well-known of these - confirmation bias - is exemplary. But there are loads of others that accomplish basically the same thing - prejudice enforcement.

Really I just wanted to emphasize that perception is not "purely" passive. There is always an active element; which is embedded in the mechanics of the perceptual (cogitive) mechanism itself. Even our most passive perceptions are pre-structured in some sense, in order to facilitate the information-processing tasks that our brains have to accomplish.

It is of course possible to "be philosophical" while not actually doing philosophy. For example, when discussing current events.

viz.

This is something I’ve been saying many times. I get that threads on politics generate a lot of animosity, but this is a philosophy forum. That should mean that discussions about politics, society and conflicts at least follow an ability to formulate criticism and arguments by a certain standard of internal logic while maintaining a tone fit for proper philosophical discussion — Christoffer

Not just an internal logic, but especially a tone and demeanor.

Could we agree experience as same meaning as "perception", which supervened into knowledge or skills? — Corvus

I think the only problem is if there is implicit assumption that perception is passive. Perception is an activity.

Presumably, experience designates in the broadest possible sense that "contact with reality" which is universally...experienced. So if we can't all agree what experience means, we have to at least all agree that we share the experience of experience.

Prima facie it seems to imply an exclusive conception of the subject and object. In fact, this is an evolved inter-relationship, whose form reflects the performative-functional history of the experiencer and the experienced, both phylogenetically and ontogenetically. This is why facts are conceptually laden.

You have been using the word experience in your posts a lot, so I thought you would provide the definition, which I could investigate on. — Corvus

I reviewed my posts, and, in fact, I only mentioned it one time prior to your initial question. So the conceptual burden on the term (concept) of experience didn't come from me, it came from you. For example.

I would say that "thinking an object under a concept" correlates with the description of experience I provided. That's Kant. The synthetic unity of perceptions also fits. That's also Kant.

What exactly is your take on experience?

Edit. It seems I got it all confused with this:
"One critique of the dictum, first suggested by Pierre Gassendi, is that it presupposes that there is an "I" which must be doing the thinking. According to this line of criticism, the most that Descartes was entitled to say was that "thinking is occurring", not that "I am thinking"!" — mentos987

Yes, "thought is occurring now" is the valid inference. I agree with this interpretation.

Well, since our conceptual framework (which is composed of ideas) acts as a kind of filter that strongly influences the nature of the things of which we are aware, I see experience and ideas (which are a kind of basic knowledge insofar as it is in their nature to align with reality) as evolving together.

I do, and remember asking you a question to clarify what part of experience troubles you specifically? I thought it was a pretty traditional perspective, that ideas are the products of experiences.

Experience can be a vague concept too. What is your definition of experience? Can you experience experience? — Corvus

Are you talking about things like whether it rises to the level of conscious awareness, and whether it includes things reflection, etc.?

But imagine a novelist entering the simulation, to finally have time to finish that novel. Oops. — hypericin

But isn't the fleeting preciousness of the time what confers the value on such a work? If you make conditions ideal for writing, will that produce the best writing?

If I pinched you, and you screamed "ouch", then your utterance of "ouch" is not the idea of "ouch". It is a motor-system response, which is the biological nature. — Corvus

Ideas are both rooted in and grow from the soil of experience, as does language. The idea of equality is both the experiences of inequality that suggest it to the moral mind, and the expressions of tolerance, respect, etc., which it engenders.

In British empiricists like Locke, Berkeley and Hume, ideas were equivalent to perception itself. So perceiving an idea of apple meant, having an idea of apple. And also having an idea of the apple meant to be able to describe the apple linguistically. — Corvus

Hence my characterization of an idea as part of an overarching performative context, versus some kind of abstract noumenal entity. The Platonic conception of form ignores the dialectic reality that universals and particulars are mutual grounds for one another (gestalt).

There are different types of ideas.

1. Subjective
2. Objective
3. Platonic — Corvus

Ok. And how are you able to distinguish those? The only way you can discriminate a subjective from an objective idea is through the instrumentality of the words subjective and objective. The whole notion of an idea presupposes and entails its symbolization. Without that, it's just a "mental state".

You are in deep confusion on the utterance of Ouch as a motor reaction of the verbal expression as a representation of the mental state. — Corvus

We have wandered far astray the original point and this statement of yours isn't a rebuttal. If anything, it makes my point but tacks on an critical ad hominem for some reason. I'd suggest dropping it.

The word "ouch" reflects the idea of "ouch" sounds illogical. Words are uttered by the speaker, and it has no ability to perform reflection or consideration. They are passive entity. How does a word reflect an idea? — Corvus

Sounds illogical? The essence of language is the yoking together of sign and idea. The onomatopoeiac function highlights this connection where the word becomes a symbolic projection or extension of the sound. Chirp. If the word "chirp" could be uttered by a bird, it would be exactly what it is. And, presumably, it would also represent the mental state that evoked it. By your reasoning, nothing represents an idea.

Ouch.

edit. This from the RL Stevenson short story I'm reading, perfectly expresses the sense of the synthesis or synergy of the idea and the form of expression of the idea. The description of the parson's daughter as seen by an admiring mind:

It was not possible to separate her thoughts from her appearance. The turn of her wrist, the still sound of her voice, the light in her eyes, the lines of her body, fell in tune with her grave and gentle words, like the accompaniment that sustains and harmonises the voice of the singer.

But I didn't say it was the idea, I said it accurately reflected it, in the same way that (saying) the word "ouch" accurately reflects the idea of "ouch" because it is a manifestation the content of the idea (ouch).

Why did you write the "idea" twice? "the idea idea"? Why did you do that? — Corvus

Wouldn't that be syntactically correct? The word ouch accurately reflects the meaning of the idea ouch. The word idea...etc.

The vote distribution makes me suspect people did not understand the question. They would be more willing to go into the machine IF they kept their past memories and knew they were living a lie? Odd. — Lionino

Yes, I thought that too. But maybe the point is that people much prefer to keep their memories than to abandon them? So even though you said "could" forget perhaps it was interpreted as being a necessary condition, if you "had" to forget?

Agreed. The word idea accurately reflects the meaning of the idea idea.

but a die-hard materialist would consider this circular reasoning.
— Pneumenon

The circular reasoning is also an idea. — Corvus

It is. And rational-idealism is an idea that can be virtuously circular. Materialism isn't. Metaphysical materialism is "autologically unsound."

Stop accepting new input from the universe in favour of my own fantasies? That's a pretty unimaginative and unchallenging way to spend the rest of my life. The only scenario in which something like this makes sense for me is in the context of a prosthesis, where the simulation is an attempt to reproduce the full spectrum of events in the actual environment and includes the capability of interacting with them via external effectors.

I'll argue that the two categories of real existents in the poll present a false dichotomy. I didn't vote for either option since I deem them both mistaken. — javra

Exactly, because, as pointed out we are

trying to pull an immaterial rabbit out of a material hat — Pneumenon

We don't need to prove that ideas exist. Everything we do and think is testament not only to their existence but also their efficacy. I just finished Deacon's Incomplete Nature, which is an excellent framework for re-integrating the fundamental aspects of intentionality across the entire physical spectrum through morphodynamics and teleodynamics.

The Merry Men and Other Tales and Fables
by Robert Louis Stevenson

Collingwood and the reform of metaphysics;: A study in the philosophy of mind
by Lionel Rubinoff

The latter was a bookstore find. It's an impressive tome, with such provocative chapters as "The Essay as a response to logical positivism" and "Metaphysics as a dialectical history of errors."

Since I won't be finishing those this year, here's my 2023 reading summary, grouped by fiction/non-fiction and author

Non-Fiction

Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and its Challenge to Western Thought by George Lakoff
The Birth of Tragedy: from the Spirit of Music by Friedrich Nietzsche
Feuerbach: The Roots of Socialist Philosophy by Friedrich Engels
Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century by Howard Bloom
1848: Year of Revolution by Mike Rapport
The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere by Jurgen Habermas
Spinoza: Practical Philosophy by Gilles Deleuze
Kant's Critical Philosophy: The Doctrine of the Faculties by Gilles Deleuze
The Adventures of Transcendental Philosophy: Karl-Otto Apel by Eduardo Mendieta
Theory of Society, Volume 1 (Cultural Memory in the Present) by Niklas Luhmann
Theory of Society, Volume 2 (Cultural Memory in the Present) by Niklas Luhmann
The Golden Bough by James George Frazer
Oration on the Dignity of Man by Giovanni Pico della Mirandola
The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, Volume 1: Language by Ernst Cassirer
The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, Volume 2: Mythical Thought by Ernst Cassirer
The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, Volume 3: Phenomenology of Cognition by Ernst Cassirer
The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms: Volume 4: The Metaphysics of Symbolic Forms by Ernst Cassirer
Ontology: Laying the Foundations by Nicolai Hartmann
The poverty of historicism by Karl Popper
Suicide: A Study in Sociology by Emile Durkheim
Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies by Noam Chomsky
Mind and Cosmos by Thomas Nagel
Essays in Experimental Logic by John Dewey
Pragmatism by William James
A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy by Wing-Tsit Chan
Incomplete Nature: How Mind Emerged from Matter by Terrence W. Deacon

Fiction

Swann's Way (In Search of Lost Time, #1) by Marcel Proust
Within a Budding Grove (In Search of Lost Time, #2) by Marcel Proust
The Guermantes Way (In Search of Lost Time, #3) by Marcel Proust
Sodom and Gomorrah (In Search of Lost Time, #4) by Marcel Proust
The Captive & The Fugitive (In Search of Lost Time, #5) by Marcel Proust
Time Regained (In Search of Lost Time, #6) by Marcel Proust
A Princess of Mars (Barsoom, #1) by Edgar Rice Burroughs
The Gods of Mars (Barsoom #2) by Edgar Rice Burroughs
The Warlord of Mars (Barsoom, #3) by Edgar Rice Burroughs
Triplanetary (Lensman, #1) by E.E. "Doc" Smith
First Lensman (Lensman, #2) by E.E. "Doc" Smith
Galactic Patrol (Lensman, #3) by E.E. "Doc" Smith
Sentimental Education by Gustave Flaubert
Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens
The Trumpet-Major by Thomas Hardy
The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio
Nova by Samuel R. Delany
Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson
Catriona by Robert Louis Stevenson
Island nights entertainments by Robert Louis Stevenson
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket by Edgar Allan Poe
H.P. Lovecraft: The Complete Fiction by H.P. Lovecraft
Intentions by Oscar Wilde

I think that there is accuracy in mechanistic realms, and there is honesty in the realm of the conscious. Perhaps the word truth carries more weight than it can actually bear.

Can't why I say something still be true or false, I'm just determined to say what I say? I realize this was a month ago so I understand if you don't recall what you were thinking about this topic. — NotAristotle

Like your making a false statement is deterministically produced? But do you mean this in the sense that you are mistaken, so your statement is a reflection of inaccurate or incomplete knowledge? Because in that sense, probably every factual statement is materially incomplete in some way. So falsity is just a degree of truth. Or if you meant that your intention to deceive is deterministically produced? That would be a straight up self-contradiction, as soon as you introduce the concept of intention you introduce a break in the claim of universal determinism. Otherwise you're just begging the question when you assume (prove) there is no intentionality. In which case, the universe (determinism) doesn't deceive, it just produces incomplete truths. Free conscious intentionality is the only conceptually consistent basis for "falsity" in any meaningfully strong sense. Seems to me.

Dictionaries are one kind of effort at providing a framework of and standard for understanding. Surely that is necessary? Even if the definitions are incomplete, they can serve to mediate disagreements of meaning. And if some definitions are misleading or circular, this may often be due to tendencies of thought (biases) that will simply utilize the same faulty reasoning generating its own meanings. Whatever flaws are attributed to the assembly of a public lexicon can affect the assembly of a personal lexicon.

I'll say that, if by no other means, then via acquaintance with there so being different ontologies out there — javra

There are different ontological theories; there is one ontological subject and object of study, which is existence. Having different ontological hypotheses doesn't alter the nature of the real.

What is possibility? It is "possible" that string theory is true, e.g. that it aligns with reality. It is possible that a rolled dice will come up six. Which only means that, in the actual unfolding of actual events someone rolls the dice and it comes up six. It doesn't mean that there actually are alternate realities in which every case of every event is realized. Ex hypothesi, if these alternate realities exist, they are mutually exclusive, in which case, they represent metaphysically exclusive cases. So there is still only one overriding metaphysics, that which governs each exclusive modal set. That spirals off into an infinite set of infinite universes, which is absurd. The whole nature of the universe, as quantum physics explores, is to consume these possibilities. Information decoheres from a state of superpositions to realized specific configurations which are "preferred" and which, qua pointer states, correlate with specific physical properties.

That’s a slightly different question. — Michael

It seems like it is directly entailed by the fact the OP attempts to bridge multiple domains. By the parameters of the OP, the nature of the metaphysical, the physical, and the logical are being cross-connected. It is essentially an inter-theoretic question.

It is metaphysically possible for intelligent life to not exist. — Michael

It is a metaphysical fact that intelligent life does exist. What you are calling a "metaphysical possibility" is in fact just a "possibility," and the exact metaphysical status of possibility is surely exactly what is in question.

Your point sound confused in the methodology. Hypothesises are the methods for the scientific enquiries. Metaphysics and Logic do not adopt hypothesis as their methodology. — Corvus

I don't understand what this rebuttal says? If nothing exists, then nothing exists. This would include logic. A fortiori....

From the perspective of what is known to exist, however, logic can be characterized as order, versus disorder. And while order does exist, so does disorder, and the tendency to disorder. Disorder is not "logical" (by its very nature) but it does exist. The metaphysically really subsumes the logical.

But logically speaking, if there was nothing existing at all, then Metaphysics wouldn't exist either. Logically it is possible, but from Metaphysical point of view, it is impossible. — Corvus

It is possible to make the hypothetical claim that nothing exists. But you are doing this from the standpoint of existence. i.e. your hypothetical-logical claim of non-existence exists. You cannot hypothesize away existence just by averring the hegemony of logic. The claim is existentially-bound.

if I were to draw up a diagram, metaphysics would be the circle encompassing the physical and the logical. — Joshs

Me too. Logic must be metaphysically possible.

Intentions
by Oscar Wilde

You are my example. — 180 Proof

I'm flattered.

Asking universal human questions, which is philosophy (in my view), is mostly irrelevant unless you DO something with it. Otherwise it’s more hobbyism. — Mikie

Couldn't agree more. Stoicism, Pragmatism, Experimentalism. To me, these are essential. It's all about application.

Can you provide examples?

Are you parodying yourself now? It is the definition of scientific experimentation to control variables.

Good one. :up:

Good experimental design requires clearly defined objectives andcontrol of the major sources of variation.

The design of experiments is an example of decision analysis where the decision is to select the optimal experimental settings, d, under the control of the investigator in some design space of options

Experimental design is a scientific approach to data collection and measurement. The concept focuses on creating an intervention in a controlled environment

For what it's worth, In my opinion, as a Computer scientist and educator, when it comes to individual scientific projects, I think this is correct. But in the broadest sense of the scientific approach, science is the study of 'everything.' I suppose that is also almost a given, that needs little comment. — universeness

Sure, there is "observational science." But that is essentially just observation. Experimental science is far more typical, far more paradigmatic of what is meant by science, historically and now. And for experimental science, my observations are valid.

The fact that some of the greatest minds in history can have been completely mistaken about basic scientific concepts doesn't in any way detract from the cogency of their thought. Odds are no one on this forum has got everything "quite right." In fact, the more complex your argument, the more likely there are to be errors in the details, statistically speaking. "It's raining and Julie's hair is wet" is statistically less likely to be true than "It's raining" because those two events may not be correlated. But human nature is to interpret the more complex apparent truth as more reliable.

Bottom line, it's not just about what is said but also about how it is presented. Thoughtfulness has value.