If I read you right you seem to be referring to internalized ideas.

And I have often felt this way myself as I have made my choices and a part of me dies... — Tom Storm

Yes, I think this is part of the deal of being human.

I think the salient point is not that the rock as appearance is not real, but that we have no idea what is behind appearances. Even the world understood as quantum field is just another way things can appear to us.

I think this is the subject/object thing again. I don’t think it’s either. There’s simply being in the world. However, once in a present-at-hand mode of being, a subject contemplating an object makes sense. In that case, sure, it’s dependent on consciousness — and everything Kant says rings true, etc. — Mikie

I think all our thinking is in dualsitic terms, and, inter alia, in terms of subject/object, substance/mode and so on. Even "being in the world" is dualistic; whereas simply "being" is not.

How deep and transformative is the well documented fear of death? The fact that one’s life must end is understood to invoke in most people a kind of existential terror. — Tom Storm

The fear of death may take several forms. I might feel an existential dread at the thought of annihilation, just because it cannot compute in the context of being alive. I might feel anxious because of the ineliminable mystery that the fact of death presents us with. I might be concerned that I have not realized my potential or that death might take me while I still have unfinished business. Death may be fearsome because it represents paradigmatically my powerlessness. Or I may just be afraid of the process of dying; the pain and sense of aloneness it can bring.

It’s often argued that all the achievements and struggles of life mean nothing if it all ends in blackness. How so? Aren’t the moments themselves worthwhile? Is eternity the only criterion of value? This seems ugly to me. — Tom Storm

If we live well, we never stop learning, and growing spiritually in the sense of overcoming shortcomings. If we think of this as a hard-won process of progression towards freedom, liberation or enlightenment, then its being cut short seems absurd and may make it seem like it was all for nothing, as whatever wisdom was gained will all be lost at death if it is nought but annihilation. For the creative person this wisdom may be embodied in their creations, but they too will be all but forgotten unless they are renowned, and even then the ultimate end will be oblivion.

Heidegger famously wrote, “If I take death into my life, acknowledge it, and face it squarely, I will free myself from the anxiety of death and the pettiness of life - and only then will I be free to become myself.” — Tom Storm

As I read Heidegger his notion of death does not refer (predominately at least) to physical death, but to the closing off of many possibilities that comes with committing oneself to anything. Of course actual death, if it is annihilation, is the ultimate closing off of all possibility. Committing oneself to something means the death of many other possible courses of action, but it also means the opening up of the possibilities that come with whatever one has committed oneself to.

I don’t fully understand notions of ‘being free to become myself’ - sounds like a 20th century existentialist trope. Even though death is not a concern to me, I'm not sure I have a better grasp of my becoming, or an enhanced feeling of freedom as a consequence. — Tom Storm

Being free of the concern about the closing off possibilities inherent in commitments allows one to commit, and without such commitment, whatever form it may take, one cannot become who they are, cannot fulfill their potential, but will be endlessly seeking distraction, so as not to have to make any commitment. It has been said that those who are afraid to die are afraid to live, and I think there is truth in that.

Spinoza says ( paraphrased), "A free man never thinks of death" and this may seem, on the face of it, to be the antithesis of Heidegger's "being towards death". But perhaps it is not; perhaps being genuinely free of concern about death (having thought it through to the end, as opposed to distracting oneself and refusing to think about it) just is the mark of the free person, who has transcended such concerns.

So, an acceptance/knowledge of death is a liberation from dread and anxiety and an open door to freedom? Does that resonate? — Tom Storm

Yes, provided the acceptance is real and not merely a pose or delusive simulacrum.

Was Montaigne right to say, 'To philosophize is to learn how to die.' — Tom Storm

In the light of what I've been saying, I would say 'yes', because to learn how to die is to learn how to live. That said, we are embodied beings and I think there will always be a visceral fear of pain and suffering, and pain and suffering may be inevitable in the process of dying. There may well also be a visceral fear of not being, simply because we only know being.

Anyway, congratulations for presenting a most significant OP. In some respects I think it is the only question which really matters.

So, why speak about propositional knowledge at all then, why not speak about more or less justified propositional belief instead, thus dissolving all the attendant paradoxes, and saving us from going over and over this same old boring ground ad nauseum? — Janus


I think it is very hard to let the idea of knowledge go, because it carries a promise of certainty. Even if we did speak only about justified belief, we would still argue about what counts as justification. It is not an unimportant idea.

Sadly, every philosopher has to be convinced of everything for themselves. It's foundational that one cannot trust anyone on any subject. Perhaps it's overdone, but I don't think there is any cure that would not be worse than the disease. — Ludwig V

I missed this response previously.

I draw a distinction between feeling certain and being certain. We can feel certain about many things, and be mistaken, but by definition if we are certain about something then we cannot be mistaken. And this is just what knowledge is generally taken to be (even if some usages of the term might belie this): being certain.

We don't need knowledge to carry the promise of certainty because belief already carries this intimation of certainty in two ways. Firstly, we can simply be convinced by our beliefs, that is feel certain about them. Of course we will then take beliefs that we feel certain about as knowledge, but if we cannot actually be certain about them then they are not knowledge, and we are deceived. Secondly belief carries the potential to become knowledge, which is certainty.

For example, say you believe your partner is having sex or planning to have sex with a particular person; you cannot be certain (although you might feel certain) until you catch him or her in the act at which point you know and become certain, and doubt and belief are longer relevant.

Is there anything we can be certain about? If so, we possess knowledge and if not, then we don't possess knowledge.

The JTB formula allows that we might know things we don't know that we know. This seems absurd to me, if you don't know that you know, then you don't know.

I also think that the things we do know are simply things that we can see, and belief is redundant in those cases. I look out the window and see that it is raining; I go outside to make sure it is actually rain, and I see that it is; no need then to speak of belief. It should not be "seeing is believing" but 'seeing is knowing'. It seems to go against the inherent logic of believing to say that you believe something of which there could be no doubt.

Of course we can always raise the spectre of universal doubt, which just shows that all propositional knowledge is contextual; there is no absolute propositional knowledge, and thus there is no absolute certainty.

Memory is an interesting phenomenon. I was referring to something that could be called an objective memory or external memory. This consists in various indications or traces that has been left in the "outer" world. Through these indications we can try to re-member, so to speak, various structural wholes and "adapt" ourselves into them. It can happen that we recognize ourselves in these already existing signs and their structures! — waarala

Are you referring to significant places or objects that may evoke strong associations and potent meanings due to their having being integral to important life events, or something else?

We need not, as far as I can see, insist on something 'internal,' for its language that gives us this distinction in the first place. — green flag

For me it seems more plausible that there would be a pre-linguistic bodily-based sense of inner and outer. Of course I cannot demonstrate that with empirical evidence.

There must be something prior to the spoken words themselves that enables coherent utterances; some pre-linguistic image or sense, since the words themselves cannot determine their use.

I think non-linguistic thinking is much more than a mere "footnote". Well, if you do decide to start a thread on that I'll be interested.
:up: I don't deny that language enriches experience. Poetry is my first love after all!

Intriguing!

:up: An interesting quote from Wittgenstein; not quite sure what the implications there are.

I think the way to understand Saussure is not to compare thinking-without-speaking to speaking now that you already have the sign system. Instead you should imagine a baby assimilating a sign system, expanding its vocabulary. — green flag

It's not clear to me what you are saying here. My point was only that it is possible to think without symbolic language but in images, and that such thinking is not a "shapeless and indistinct mass".

Or does the world indeed become more conceptually complex and differentiated as it learns how to use more and more signs ?

Every new observation and imagination increases the complexity of the experience and understanding of the human world. Of course I am not denying that the young are inducted into this human world in part at least by symbolic language.

Yes, but we can't explain the continuity with the mechanism of our personal memory alone (if at all). We move or act in various already as coherent understood situations which engender us to "see" or recognize its different aspects. We can't produce the world from our inner memory. — waarala

Without recognition there would be no continuity of experience. Without memory there could be no recognition. The condition known as "anterograde amnesia" attests to this.So memory is necessary, if not sufficient it seems; which leaves me wondering what are the other factors you have in mind. The world itself, with its similarities and differences?

My seeing is all images. Are photographs images or is my seeing the photograph an image? What are my seeings images of?

So, the question is whether Heidegger is thinking of "persisting presence" in a phenomenological sense, that is that with the present-at-hand experience, the object that was previously "transparent" comes into focus as a persistent presence to be noticed.

This persistent presence could be understood to be dependent on consciousness, on the perceiver, or it could be taken, as it is with materialist metaphysics, to be prior to consciousness. a persistent presence that is "there" regardless of whether it is being perceived or not.

Is it all just opinion? Maybe, since most philosophical assertions cannot be empirically tested.

My own experience of thinking seems to show me that thought without language is not a shapeless and indistinct mass. Could I be wrong about that? Maybe, but how could that be demonstrated and what could it even mean for me to wrong about that?

I'm convinced that humans are diverse in any case and that blanket statements about the relation between thought and language are misbegotten. But, as you say, that's just my opinion, right?

How about the continuity of our experience? You can't be conscious of change or novelty if you don't have a "feel" of sameness in the experience. If the experience is an aggregate or a series of "new" moments it resembles more like a constant series of separate shocks following each other. — waarala

Memory is always in play. Perhaps the sense of "continuity" in our experience is on account of a story we are constantly telling ourselves, choosing the aspects of experience that we can make coherent and consistent with what we remember from previous experience.

If some experience cannot be rendered consonant then we have cognitive dissonance. The other unifying aspect seems to be the basic feeling of embodiment.

Psychologically our thought-apart from its expression in words-is only a shapeless and indistinct mass. — green flag

All I get from this assertion is a desire to say "speak for yourself".

Very few would deny that. But there would be different and competing interpretations of what they mean. People will always defend what they have and usually look for improvement from where they are. — Ludwig V

I think it's more a case of disagreement over how to get there than disagreement over what they mean. I agree that people will defend what they have and that is the problem; for all to enjoy more or less equal prosperity it would be necessary for the most prosperous to become far less prosperous, so that the least prosperous can become far more prosperous..

It is easy to advocate for social justice and fairness and prosperity for all as an ideal; the actuality may be far less appealing to the side that currently enjoys the prosperity.

That's a thought I would not ordinarily associate with Heidegger. I would have thought we encounter persistence with the present at hand...we can stare at many kinds of objects and they persist without noticeable change for as long as we can persist in staring at them.

Heidegger seems to put Heraclitus in this role. Cycles of Becoming repeating without beginning or end. — Paine

Interesting, that's a different slant again: I was thinking more of the idea that all moments exist eternally and that there is no privileged present moment in anything but a relative (to us) sense.

I'm familiar with (to the extent I've had the patience to read) Derrida. I'm much more familiar with Heidegger, but that is presenting a different slant, where what exists is understood to be, according to traditional metaphysics, what exists in the present moment, Eternalism and the Block Universe are different views. It would interesting to see where and when the idea of Eternalism originated.

The tradition has always treated being as a persisting presence. — Joshs

Present to who, though? Wouldn't it be more accurate to say being has mostly been thought as persisting existence or simply persistence, rather than persisting presence? Unless you mean presence to denote simply a general "thereness", rather than something perceived, or even merely perceptible in prinicple.

It's likely to be Aboriginal culture/spirituality, which I don't pretend to understand but it is hinting at human nature having an openness to goodness as a dimension of how we were created. This is put together from longer conversations. — Tom Storm

That's interesting; I know not much about Aboriginal spirituality.

Yep. I think many human problems come down to how we get there. Just as morality is not a theory, it is what we do. — Tom Storm

:up:

Leaving aside the notions of knowledge as acquaintance and know-how. the idea of knowledge implies certainty, even if common usage sometimes contradicts that in applying the term to beliefs about which we are not certain.

So, why speak about propositional knowledge at all then, why not speak about more or less justified propositional belief instead, thus dissolving all the attendant paradoxes, and saving us from going over and over this same old boring ground ad nauseum?

I think the problem is that progress is hard to define and aligned with worldviews. Hence the internecine battles between 'progressives' and conservatives. — Tom Storm

I agree with the idea that there are different notions of progress, but wouldn't social justice and universal prosperity (and the other benefits that go with those) be in common, with the differences being more in the way of how to get there?

I think the notion of the ideal of progress was not overtly a part of his worldview. But he did feel there was some, shall we say 'transcendent' aspect of improvement built into human spirituality. — Tom Storm

Would you say that if he thought progress was desirable then the ideal of progress would at least be implicit in his worldview? I'm curious to know what a " 'transcendent' aspect of improvement built into human spirituality' would look like to your friend. Would this refer to just individual spiritual improvement via personal effort or to some kind of divine plan as in Christianity or some other religion perhaps?

I think where people sit on this has a lot to do with their aesthetics and politics more than anything. For instance, it seems that there are many people who have an understandable critical antipathy towards capitalism and though this lens it is almost impossible to see a version of the world that is not one of ceaseless exploitation, degradation and suffering. — Tom Storm

From some ethical and aesthetical perspectives, there is certainly something ugly, something degraded, about capitalism and the priveleging of the profit motive. Exploitation has always been with us in the forms of slavery and serfdom for example. but capitalism packages itself as a kind of meritocratic freedom, a survival of the best, a rising of the cream to the top; it creates a semblance of (a potential at least) universal prosperity that does everything it can to keep the real victims in the shadows, and if they appear on the stage for a few brief moments, a litany of promissory notes will be presented to set everyone's minds at rest.

I asked him if he believed in progress. "Fuck yeah!" he responded. 'But we're only part of the way there.' Progress is situational and specific and never completed and can't be understood as some kind of Hegelian process. — Tom Storm

The question is whether he meant to say that he believed in the ideal of progress, or to put it another way, whether he believed that progress is desirable. Would many people deny that progress in the sense of social betterment, fairness and justice and greater prosperity for all is desirable?

The question as to whether, and to what degree, these ideals are becoming actualized or whether their universal actualization would even be practicable are very different ones, it seems to me.

And on the flip side I agree that to see progress as inevitable, as a necessary evolution of consciousness or the Spirit seems to be largely wishful thinking.

Thing is, we are only impartial umpires for someone else’s judgements as expressed in his language. For each of us, for whatever our own reason concludes, there can be no impartiality, insofar as there are no disputants in a singular cognitive system. — Mww

True, (except for the fact that we can dispute with ourselves).

And while it may be only the philosopher that dreams this shit up, every human is capable of it, assuming his sufficient rationality. Just because he seldom if ever does, doesn’t mean he can’t, and pursuant to the proper interest of philosophy, we want to know what we can do, along with the consequence of it, not what we can’t be bothered doing. — Mww

Yep, it's most important to exercise that metaphysical imagination, and also to feel the affective differences different perspectives bring with them. Given that all views are under-determined and inadequate, it's the differences different views make to how we live our lives that are most important. Correctness and general usefulness are pedantic illusions.

Right, the logical distinction that is being lost, or ignored, is that between 'reality in itself' and 'reality for us'. We can only ever know the latter, but we cannot but think that there is also the former, even though it can never be anything determinable for us.

In one sense it does "drop out of the conversation", on account of its never being able to be a definitive part of our discourses, but in another sense it does not drop out of the conversation, because the fact that there is "in the background" so to speak, the unknowable, is an inherent and ineliminable aspect of the human condition.

Where is that quoted from?

Yes, the antinomies are intrinsically aporetic; and I think that is so on account of the way space and time are visualized.

It's just the ever-present temptation to jump to a conclusion, to believe one has the answer before the arguments are finished, that is to be avoided. — Banno

For me the lesson of the antinomies is that there is no possible non-paradoxical answer; and this reflects an inherent limitation of dualistic thought.

The contribution from your fellow human beings and the world around us is a better explanation of thoughts/ideas than appealing to introspection of a private world call "Mindscape." — Richard B

If all humans could access the Mindscape, would it qualify as a "private world"?

Alternatively, I could consider the new evidence as constituting a new referent of my present judgements , in which case I consider my earlier beliefs to be obsoleted by the new evidence, rather than being falsified by the new evidence. — sime

Yes, nice point, what we count as evidence for beliefs is always based on presuppositions as to what should count. If beliefs change while presuppositions don't, then falsification is presumed to have occurred. If presuppositions change then the context within which the belief finds it sense changes, and the old context and the beliefs that go with it are now obsolete.

Hoho, yes it's better to take it in a jolly and generous spirit as fun, of course.

It is fun, though, seeing how far apart the response is, from what the response is aimed at. — Mww

It can be, but I just lose my patience sometimes...which is admittedly my own failing.

Absolutely. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that the nature of language is such that we cannot possibly be always deceived - against what truth would we measure that deceit? — Isaac

It's not a matter of being deceived, but of being under-informed, and of acknowledging the limited scope of what we do know.

I'd suggest giving up on Banno; he does not discuss in good faith, is only concerned about winning the argument, or protecting his naive, simplistic views, and rarely tries to engage with what anyone actually says and thinks, if it differs from his own view, preferring to characterize it as 'empty, 'obtuse', 'unintelligible' and so on in order to appear to attain the illusion of a higher ground from which to dismiss it. More of a politician than a philosopher.

No. That's not what I'm saying at all. It's a common misinterpretation of all predictive coding models, they're models of how information is processed, nothing to do with the physics of the universe. They're not making any ontological claims. — Isaac

Exactly, just as the idea of the tree-in-itself makes no ontological claims other than that our perception of a tree does not exhaust its nature or show us what it is in itself, and these are actually epistemological, not ontological, claims. When I mentioned microphysical configurations it was just an example of the sort of thing that might be thought (think Democritus as the primal example) not any sort of claim as to what things in themselves are. It's a fact that we don't, and cannot, know, since all we study are appearances..

For the 'tree-as-it-is-in-itself' to be anything it must already be inferred (no less than the 'tree' was in the first place). It's existence is no less a product of our perception. — Isaac

No, it is simply inferred to be an unknown "something" that gives rise to the perception; "it" is simply a placeholder.

Can one assume that the above 'way of thinking' is, by your own theory, no more privileged than the one you espoused from which it is derived, by negation? Just a different way of thinking, yes? Equally valid. — Isaac

All views about the ultimate nature of things are just different ways of thinking. We can equally say that the tree which appears to us is, in itself, just as it appears or that it is not just as it appears. What is a fact is that we don't know.

Yes. I think that's what 'something' means. It refers to the linguistic/cultural object we're collectively constructing. So 'it' is all about appearance. We theorise (when we do cognitive science, not in day-to-day life) that an external (external to the system concerned) state constrains the parameters that object can take. We theorise this largely to explain the consistency of reaction we get when interacting with these objects. — Isaac

All you are doing here is stipulating a particular way of talking about things. As you say we theorize that there is something, some configuration of particles or energy or whatever, more or less invariant which gives rise to human perceptions of a particular tree. The characteristics of the tree we perceive are the result of our bodily interactions with whatever it is that appears as the tree. We cannot but think that it has some kind of existence beyond those characteristics, or the characteristics of any other percipients' perception, and we refer to that as the tree in itself. The tree as it is in itself as opposed to the tree as it appears to us is a voherent logical distinction, and really says nothing whatsoever about whether the tree in itself is the same as it appears to us.

Of course this is just a diferent way of thinking and talking about it than your preferred way, but neither way is priveleged in the sense of presenting any matter of fact; they are simply two different ways of thinking.

Are the activities of the human organism uncaused or caused by something else? — NOS4A2

An activity of the human organism may be caused by previous activities of the human organism (endogenous events), and may or may not also be caused by exogenous events.

I just said it regulates itself. I’m not sure how that implies two organisms. How do I make it sound as if there is? — NOS4A2

When you say this:
"and caused by a single entity: the human organism" you are saying the activities of the human organism are caused by the human organism, which sounds redundant. They are just the activities of the human organism. and in any case are also caused and conditioned by external influences such as oxygen, food, water, sunlight, trauma, injury and so on.

The control the human body has over itself is near total. Every action, weather it’s the heartbeat, the creation and secretion of hormones, the production of white blood cells, hair growth, breathing, talking, eating, walking, sexual arousal, digestion, is controlled and regulated and caused by a single entity: the human organism. — NOS4A2

Al those things you listed are the activities of the human organism. The organism regulates its activities, but it is not a "single entity" if by that you mean there is some overarching central program. You make if sound as if there is a super-organism over and above the organism, a super-organism that controls the organism

It is clear to me that I made a choice (on creating this topic)

Does that detract from my free will or affirm that I have free will? — invicta

At a certain moment you made a choice. Where did that choice come from? Did you choose to make that choice? Did you choose to choose to choose, or did the choice merely arise?

Let's say you are free to act according to your nature, your inclinations. Did you create that nature, those inclinations? Did you create yourself?

:up:

I came back to give you one last chance to come up with something other than shit.