You've never been called a bellicose bumpkin?

First, that sounds exhausting. — Antony Nickles

It's only exhausting in principle. I think the point still stands, if my existence is dependent on my being able to assert it, then I don't exist at some times and not others simply because I only assert my existence at certain times. The very idea seems absurd to me.

My view is that it is by virtue of having a sense of self (which I believe some animals also have) that I can be said to exist, and I don't believe that sense is operative only at the times that I am reflectively aware of articulating it as an assertion of self-existence.

However, it seems possible to me that there might be distant processes that are far enough away from any minds that the goings on within them are quite irrelevant to any experiences. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Sounds like you are probably talking about almost all of the universe, at least with reference to human experience.

"The world" as abstract theoretical construct exists, and it is mind created. — Metaphysician Undercover

I'd say there are as many conceptions of "the world" as there are people. The basic idea "the world" is culturally learned, it is now a convention, and who knows who it was that first articulated it?

I can also see how an enhanced awareness of epistemology might lead one away from, let's say, Islamic fundamentalism and into a more nuanced, allegorical read of the Koran. This could make you a better person - more aware of and accepting of other ways of living and the benefits of diversity and non-dogmatic, less judgmental modes of living. Or something like this. — Tom Storm

Yes, that makes sense to me.

I think it means, "Until you drop dead while adding 320 to 180 and only manage to say '5' before you keel over."

We will all stand around saying, "See, he was using quaddition!" — wonderer1

:lol: Yeah, that's about how seriously I take this nonsense.

You've just repeated a synonym for "forever" so how does that help? What does "no limit" mean and does any of this really help without specifying what exactly has "no limit"? — Apustimelogist

Any term can only be defined in other terms, so how does any term help? :roll: You know as well as I do what 'forever' in the context of 'addition can go on in principle forever'. You also know what 'no limit' means in the context of 'there is no reason to think there is, in principle, any limit to addition'.

We follow a convention and accept a taken-for-granted everyday world. But that world is not created by anyone since it doesn't actually exist.

But what do you mean when you say "adding" or "forever". How am I sure you don't actually mean "qu-orever" instead of "forever"? — Apustimelogist

Forever means there is no limit in prinicple. What does "qu-orever" mean? Tell me that and I'll tell you whether I meant that.

I wouldn't be still saying anything if you would just give me what I want, but you can't. — Apustimelogist

I don't even know what you want me to give, since you apparently are unable to articulate it clearly.

and because you can't even demonstrate you're actually adding, you cannot even demonstrate that what you feel is actually truly addition and not quaddition. — Apustimelogist

C'mon man, this is total bullshit. I know what adding consists in, and if you could tell me precisely what quadding consists in then I could point to how it is different than adding. Inosfar as it is not different it is a moot point.

This is my last response unless you can explain exactly what you mean and want.

I always thought the maxim 'know thyself' was simply about seeing through your own delusions and false hopes. It doesn't necessarily pre-suppose a 'real self' that needs to be known, except maybe as a figure of speech. Self knowledge as an important aspect of wisdom and maturity. — Wayfarer

That notion of self-knowledge is unproblematic—it is a matter of developing awareness of what is being felt, thought and done and how those feelings, thoughts and doings are affecting personal happiness and health, one's own and others'.

(Because, as Wittgenstein says, even if a lion could speak, we would not understanding him.) — Wayfarer

I think cultural differences are overblown and that Wittgenstein's comment about not being able to understand the lion is ridiculous. What language is the lion speaking? If the lion speaks our language of course we can understand it. If the lion speaks an unfamiliar language of course we cannot understand it.

But this is also why my approach is not solipsistic. When I say the world is 'mind-made' I don't mean made only by my mind, but is constituted by the shared reality of humankind, which is an irreducibly mental foundation. — Wayfarer

As far as we know humankind does not have a collective mind. So, it depends on what you mean by "mind". It also depends on what you mean by "world". The everyday world is, as I often say, a collective, in the sense of conventional, representation; it is not something any of us actually experience. It's like the world of fashion or the world of business.

So, the everyday world is convention-created, I would say, rather than mind-created; there are collective conventions, but there does not seem to be any collective mind.

The actual world, that within which we exist pre-cognitively speaking and by which we are pre-cognitively affected does not depend on the human for its existence, or at least all the evidence suggests that it does not. It's perhaps not impossible that it is mind-created, but how could we ever know? And if we cannot ever know, then how could it ever matter?

That said, even though the question is unanswerable, I think the fact that we can ask it matters, even though the question itself, per se, is useless to us.

If it were true that my existence depends on my asserting it, then it seems to follow that, since I can assert it any time or even, in principle, constantly, that the dependence is really on the possibility of assertion and not on actual instances of assertion, that is that it follows that I always exist—until the possibility of my asserting my existence is gone, when I am dead and no longer exist.

You say you unddrstand the logic of addition; lay out for me that logic then and give me the facts that rule out that you will give a quus-type answer in future uses of addition. — Apustimelogist

I have already said that the logic of addition is unlimited iteration; in principle we can keep adding forever. The logic of quaddition like rules diverges from this when it stipulates some hiatus or terminus at whatever arbitrary point.

As long as such a quaddition-like rule does not diverge from the normal logic of addition, then there is no discernible difference and hence no need to use a different name to signify that procedure.

This whole thing deep down is about the relationship between words and the world. The question is something like: do words have a fixed one-to-one relationship with the things that exist in the world in a way that they are intrinsically related? Does our behavior and thoughts prescribed in a rigidly defined, top-down manner by words and definitions, as if meaning has some kind of essence to it? — Apustimelogist

Of course, words don't have a fixed one to one relationship with the world. However, numbers do correspond to actual number as instantiated in the diverse and multitudinous world. Two is always two regardless of what word you use to signify the concept. In contrast the concepts /tree/ or /animal/ are not so determinate. So, introducing questions about ordinary language into a discussion of counting and addition is only going to confuse the issue.

but there is no single way to characterize it or label it or put boundaries around it. — Apustimelogist

I don't need to do that; I don't need to define some essence in order to know that I am counting or adding. I don't even need to define the rule because the logic of counting and adding accords with the logic inherent in the cognition of mutlitudinous things.

Nothing new regarding this is emerging from you, so I think we are done.

You are defending the use of addition over other rules without demonstrating it. Your main justification so far seems to be that anything other than addition is arbitrary, but that in itself seems dogmatic. What do you mean by arbitrary other than that is just what you are used to, what seems natural... just what feels right? That seems to be dogmatism in the sense of the above wikipedia article. — Apustimelogist

I'm not defending the use of anything, all I've been saying is that addition seems to me to be a natural development of cognition-based counting, and there is no reason to say that counting is any different in principle regardless of how many things are counted, or addition any different no matter how many things are added.

I understand the logic of counting and addition, and I also understand how the logic of addition is consistent with the logic of multiplication, subtraction and multiplication. Do you think the logic of quaddition is consistent with those or some equivalents?

The other thing is that the logic of quaddition is the exactly same as the logic of addition up until its arbitrarily stipulated divergence regarding numbers over 57. There is no cognition-based logic to justify such an arbitrary stipulation, so I deem the whole thing a lame non-issue; I see no significance in it. And since no one seems to be able to tell me what the significance is, I will waste no more time on this unless someone does.

Thanks for trying, but none of that means anything to me I'm afraid.

OK, I'm afraid I don't get it, but I might if you were to explain the connection clearly in your own words. If you cannot, or are not willing to, do that, then I think we are at an impasse.

I would have hoped that a Philosophy Forum might be a place to discuss such endeavours, although there are always quite a few tourist members. — Wayfarer

Right, well isn't that what we've been doing? I don't deny that the kinds of philosophical practices such as the stoics, the epicureans, and the neo-Platonists pursued could be possible and even transformative today, but that is not what we are doing here. Here we are speculating and critiquing, the very activities which apparently had no place in such spiritual practices.

Your comment might be useful if it was augmented by some explanation as to how this discussion relates to the private language argument.

Not necessarily because there are other rules other than plus which are consistent with that sum also. There are no specific instances which where alternative rules cannot be applied. — Apustimelogist

Sure, we can make up any ad hoc set of rules to give the same answer as any result of addition, but insofar as it does give the same answer, then it is not saliently different than addition, and insofar as it doesn't yield the same answers (and there must be cases where it wouldn't, otherwise it would be no different than addition) it would be of no use.

Well thats dogmatism like I said because wherever they are the same you can easily use quus. — Apustimelogist

Demonstrate it, give a definition that tells me you will always give the correct answers for plus and not quus. — Apustimelogist

It's not dogmatism: I'll change my mind if you can demonstrate that some rule could always yield the same result as addition and yet differs from it in the very part of it that does so. So, for example quaddition is exactly the same as addition up to any sum that does not exceed 57.

I think my view about dogmatism is valid. — Apustimelogist

I think it is you, not I, being dogmatic because I have been providing arguments whereas you have
not addressed them and have provided no counter-arguments, but simply keep asserting the same thing over and over.

Anyway, I have gone well beyond exhausting my store of interest in this.

And I often wonder how having an insight into the nature of reality matters? What happens then... chop wood, carry water?

Sometimes it seems to me that the quest to gain glimpses of transcendence is more about self-aggrandizement or a kind of metaphysical tourism. — Tom Storm

I don't think it really does matter in any practical sense, since such insight cannot be definitive. However, the insight might be conceptually creative and rich, inspiring creative ideas and activities, heightened affect and altered consciousness. I value such things in themselves, because I see them as enriching experiences.

I agree with you about chasing enlightenment being very often a cult of the self and a kind of "tourism". I've seen quite a bit of that in my travels.

I agree with that, and I don't recall your having put it that way. That is what I think was the distinction between 'theoria' and 'praxis' in ancient philosophy, was it not? And the kind of 'unitive vision' that it was thought to culminate in was a blend of 'knowing how' and 'knowing that'. It's often said that philosophy lost its way by becoming totally absorbed in intellectual abstractions, whereas traditional philosophy (and Buddhist praxis) is very much grounded in bodily awareness (which is a basic feature of enactivism and embodied philosophy). — Wayfarer

It does surprise me that you don't recall me framing it that way before, because I am sure I have more than a few times. But anyway, no matter; and I have to say I still don't see the possibility of a definitive "unitive vision" that could be shown to be based on anything other than faith.

I mean, I don't reject the possibility that intuition might give us insight into the nature of reality, I just reject the possibility that it can be demonstrated to be able to do so or demonstrated to be doing so in any particular case, and that is why I say it remains a matter of faith.

That said, I lean towards the idea that intuition might sometimes give us insight into the nature of reality, and I acknowledge that to the extent that I believe that I am believing something which cannot be tested. Even scientific theories can never be proven to be true.

So, if I add two numbers and the sum is more than 57, I am not doing quaddition, but ordinary addition. And as I said before if I am working out how many guests will be at my daughter's wedding and there are 35 from one side and 75 from the other, quaddition will be of no use, because it will tell me that I only need five places at the dinner table and five meals.

The point is that wherever quaddition or any other arbitrary set of rules differs from addition then it is obvious which one I'm doing, and wherever they are the same then there is no point using another name for what amounts to being just ordinary addition.

This whole subject is a non-subject as far as I can tell, and no one has been able to come up with anything to convince me otherwise, so I think the time has come to drop it unless you have something new and substantive to say about it.

Imagination and observation can’t be disentangled in the way you think they can. It is not as though what we imagine is locked in some secret inner sphere we call subjective consciousness. That’s an old fashioned way of thinking about subjectivity which just perpetuates a dualistic thinking (imagination is non-observational subjectivity, scientific observation is oriented toward contact with a real, objective world). This way of thinking is utterly unable to explain how leading edge philosophical ideas thoughout history have anticipated , by decades or more, the results of the sciences. Observation indeed. — Joshs

I haven't said or suggested that imagination and observation can be disentangled. That said imagining abstruse metaphysical possibilities and observing everyday phenomena are very different activities.

I also have not denied that speculative ideas can sometimes anticipate what is later observed to be the case.

This intersubjective construction of objectivity is what phenomenology is about , not ‘introspection ’, which is a common misunderstanding of its method. — Joshs

This I don't agree with, since I think the construction of objectivity is a pre-cognitive and hence inscrutable process. For me phenomenology consists in reflection on experience in order to clarify how things seem to us. And the only possibility of anything definitive in that comes with intersubjective assent in the form of "yes, that is how it seems to me also". What other kind of demonstration do you think could be possible in that context?

:up:

I understand that is your belief, but not that it is definitive. — Wayfarer

Of course, I am happy to admit that, since I don't think anything is definitive except observation, and that only within the context of observation.

You know - Pierre Hadot and philosophy as a way of life, how ancient philosophy used to be practiced rather than just being an academic pursuit. — Wayfarer

I agree that philosophy can be a practice in the sense that Hadot outlines in Philosophy as a Way of Life, but the methodology of such philosophy is not speculation and critique, but acceptance of a body of cardinal ideas, or systems, which are to serve as guidelines for practice, for "spiritual exercises". I don't believe such exercises yield any definitive knowledge in the propositional sense, but of course, like any practice, they develop certain "know-hows".

But I have said this to you many times, and you are probably tired of hearing it, since it doesn't accord with your own beliefs apparently.

The rules are obviously different; you just need to give me something that distinguishes whether you are using one rule or the other. — Apustimelogist

How are they different?

If you cannot give me an intelligible explanation then how are you going to differentiate whether you are using plus and quus? — Apustimelogist

If you cannot give me an intelligible explanation of how they differ then the question has no sense.

I see this somewhat differently than you do, as follows. The idea of the mind is a part of the taken-for-granted reality. We don't really know what constitutes the world as experienced because we emerge out of the precognitive process of its constitution.

So this:

By ‘creating reality’, I’m referring to the way the brain receives, organises and integrates cognitive data, along with memory and expectation, so as to generate the unified world–picture within which we situate and orient ourselves.' — Wayfarer

seems to be you relying on the objective relaity of the empirical scientific understanding of the brain to support a claim that empirical investigations cannot show us what is real because they

imbue the phenomenal world — the world as it appears to us — with a kind of inherent reality that it doesn’t possess. — Wayfarer

which seem to be a performative contradiction.

That is where insight, self-knowledge, becomes a factor. — Wayfarer

For the very reasons which you have adduced, I am not as confident as you are that what might be called self-knowledge is anything more than an appearance- it just tells us how things seem to us with no guarantee that it reflects any reality beyond human experience.

You frequently put this up as a kind of maxim, but one of the over-arching themes of philosophy since ancient times has been the possibility of self-knowledge. The fact that this seems such a remote or perplexing idea might be as much a consequence of the shortcomings of our way of looking at the question, as of the question itself. — Wayfarer

Well, I see those "shortcomings" as inherent limitations of human knowledge and understanding. Obviously, I am more of a skeptic than you are.

I am in agreement. Seems this kind of leaves us with the phenomenal world as our only domain for fruitful exploration. Which for me, as someone who probably qualifies as scientist in orientation, leaves us with science as the primary (but not sole) source of reliable information about the world we inhabit. I remain however, somewhat fascinated with phenomenology and process of human interaction with the world and co-creation (if that is the right word) of our reality. — Tom Storm

:up: I think the human imagination is a domain for fruitful exploration, but not for definitive knowledge of anything other than just what is imaginable. I, like you, am science oriented in that I think the only really definitive knowledge comes from observation. Phenomenology, including introspection, I would say gives us knowledge of how things appear to us to be, but I don't have any confidence that it can tell us how things really are. Here I have principally the nature of consciousness in mind, and maybe we can never know what its nature is as it cannot be directly observed.

I tend to think our world is pre-cognitively co-constructed by the bodymind/ environment and that we are constitutionally blind to that process. We and the world, the whole shebang, emerge out of the other side of that process, so to speak,

Sure, I can get on board with that. But it doesn't give us knowledge of reality (other than knowledge of human conceivability). — Bob Ross

:up:

I’m careful to explain that I’m not claiming that things go into and out of existence depending on whether they’re being perceived, but that, absent an observer, whatever exists is unintelligible and meaningless as a matter of fact and principle. Again, that even if you imagine an empty universe, you still introduce an implicit perspective. I said, of course there are unseen objects and empty rooms with nobody in them, but that is something one observer (myself) is saying to another (you). — Wayfarer

As you should know I agree that whatever is real beyond human experience and understanding cannot be imagined. Nonetheless, we cannot but imagine that things must somehow be real independently of the human; I think that is an existential fact about human existence, and its importance lies in it making us recognize that, at bottom, life is really an ineluctable mystery, and how that opens up the field for all the riches of the human speculative imagination. As rich as the imagination is, though, I think it should be borne in mind that whatever we imagine should not be taken too seriously as it can never be definitive.

The comment that Logic doesn't add any content sounds like the bowl is empty, it is not very useful. — Corvus

Not very useful to who? The fact that logic is not about content, but about form stands whether you think it is useful or not.

Philosophy rarely uses imagination. It mainly uses intuition, reasoning and logic, even for discovering new ideas. — Corvus

The main operation of Philosophy is not about creating new ideas, but evaluating the existing ideas and claims with the critical analysis and reasoning, and judge them as valid or nonsense. — Corvus

How about you present an example of a philosophical claim, from anywhere you like, and tell me what you think it is based on.

Otherwise, I have no further interest in wasting my time responding to your unargued assertions.

Reality has an inextricably mental aspect, which itself is never revealed in empirical analysis. — Wayfarer

This can easily be misconstrued to be claiming that mind is in some absolute sense ontologically fundamental, rather than it being taken to be simply pointing out that what we mean by "the world" is 'the world as it appears to, and is understood by, us".

Or to put it another way the only reality we can imagine and talk about is a relational reality. but it doesn't follow that without humans nothing would exist. That is merely an imaginable possibility, as is the possibility that things have an utterly mind-independent existence, even if we obviously cannot imagine how that existence is.

Cool. But at times you seem to look for an answer to those questions. It puzzles me, rendering some of my replies snooty. A bad habit of mine. — Banno

No worries, mate. I think Kant said that human beings, due to the nature of reason, will inevitably try to answer these "ultimate" questions that form the basis of metaphysics as traditionally conceived, and I acknowledge that I do find the impulse in myself, but I am utterly convinced that no answer is possible...go figure.

Going off now on a psychological tangent, the other thing is that I think that underlying these 'materialism vs idealism' debates is very often a concern that things should be a certain way, in accordance with what various people want to be the case. So, there are affective concerns at work behind the scenes, otherwise these questions would not be so compelling, having, as they do little to no practical significance for our everyday lives. It seems that some folk on both sides of the debate see these questions as representing a battle between the forces of good and evil, or at least enlightenment and endarkenment, that will determine the fate of humankind. Personally, I don't hold to that idea, I think it is too simplistic.

It seems obvious that metaphysics is not a legitimate source of empirical knowledge. On the other hand, would you not agree that it gives us knowledge of what it is possible to imagine as well as what it is not possible to imagine?

So what is the point of the comment? Logic has been used extensively in real life, science and technology and metaphysics. You add the contents to the logic and process, and get the result you want. Logic has no content, because you hadn't added any? — Corvus

Logics determine the forms that contents must take. The point of the comment was to remind you that logic, as such, tells us nothing about the world.

I am sure your comment was with Kant's metaphysics, and it sounded unfounded, hence I asked for the original quotes supporting your points. It is a norm for asking the original quotes if the points you are making are unclear. Never not appropriate. — Corvus

Yes, but I quickly added that it applies to all synthetic or speculative philosophy just as it does to the arts. It might be possible to make the case that it applies to any philosophy which is not simply repeating what others have already said, but I am not concerned with making that stronger claim. To put the point simply, if we are creating new ideas, imagination must be involved. How could it be otherwise?

Its about the fact that everything you have done so far is consistent with multiple different rules. The rules can then be different but your behavior so far has been indistinguishable. — Apustimelogist

I don't see human behavior as being relevant to the logic of counting or addition except insofar as it follows it. It's true that for finite addition (which all addition actually is) the logical possibility of endless iteration does not have to be kept in mind.

You can keep adding forever but you then need to give me a definition of that which then naturally entails the results of addition and not quaddition, otherwise how would I know that you go on using your rule and then you just end up quadditing or any other rule? — Apustimelogist

Can you tell me how quaddition differs from addition? If not, then there would seem to be no meaningful difference between them. If that is so, then why bother using the neologism?

No. However, I don't see what that has to do with the sense in which mathematics can be said to be in the world. — wonderer1

I agree. It seems obvious to me that number is in the world, as least in the world as it appears to humans. It is hard to imagine any world without more than one thing in it, and our world obviously is replete with a vast multitude of things.

Thanks that's an interesting passage, and I find nothing to disagree with in it. I was thinking more of actual objects than of points and lines or spaces constructed form them. When I throw the ball for my dog, I know he sees it. I don't know whether it appears exactly the same to him, and given the differences between dog and human physiology, there are probably differences.

Would physics be just one aspect of how things appear to or are understood by us?

I guess the only place to look for reality independent of human experience might be in the putative claims of mysticism or higher awareness? I guess inevitably this is the elephant in the room for threads like this and most discussions of idealism. — Tom Storm

That's a good question. I think there is a sense in which physics is just one way that things appear to us, and also a sense in which it is taken to be the most fundamental way; the way from which all others ways are made possible, or to which all other ways can be reduced, ontologically at least, if not explanatorily.

I think the faith in mystical revelation relies on the idea that, as real beings, we are capable of intuitive insight into the nature of things. However, this insight cannot be explained or explicated, but only alluded to. I don't see how there could be any way to demonstrate such a claim, although I must admit I lean somewhat towards believing it myself.

You mean, physics?

I'm guessing not. I don't think there is a way to understand your question, Janus. — Banno

Yes, there is no coherent answer to the question about how things are independently of human experience, although it is possible to imagine that things could be some way impossible for us to imagine.

So, no I'm not talking about physics, since it deals with things as they appear; that is things which are not independent of human experience.

Seeing the same things and conceiving of them in different ways are two different things altogether. I haven't denied that we might come, and historically speaking have come, to conceive of things in novel ways.

I should have said "by real thing I mean....", That's what these interminable arguments are really about, motivated by—wanting to know how things are independent of how we routinely perceive them to be.

It doesn't surprise me that you misunderstood what I was saying, though.

Coke?

What do you mean, real? :kiss: — Banno

No, psilocybin. :hearts:

By "real" I mean how could we know whether some conceptual schema or other corresponds to what is independent of human experience and understanding, or how any conceptual schema could do so?