The bird doesn't "know" that it's beautiful in the way that we "know" that (and of course, there's the problem of whether beauty can be epistemically apprehended in the first place). But putting that question aside, our unique, subjective apprehension of the bird's beauty is an experience of the bird that only occurs via our human conciousness. From our human vantage point, the bird is beautiful: not just the the colors of the plumage, but the physical way the bird flits, flies, and the songs that it sings. The bird is acting on instinct; the bird doesn't control it's physical appearance the way a beautiful man or woman does; the bird doesn't sing for the pleasure of song itself; the bird has no mirror in which to observe it's own beauty, both literally and figuratively (figuratively in the sense that conciousness is a mirror in which we reflect on ourselves). The bird has none of that. But we possess a view unique to us; The very sense-experience and abstract concepts that create our apprehension of the bird as beautiful are the things that are exclusive to our human conciousness.
Thank you!By "qualia" I mean "what it's like to experience some phenomena", that is, the qualities of an experience. See "(1)" under "1. Uses of the Term 'Qualia'": https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qualia/#Uses — numberjohnny5
#2 isn't quite right. What colour is the book if you turn out the lights, or if you're using a sodium lamp, and so forth? The point is that what you get from the book is reflected light, but nothing of the book itself.(1) specific properties intrinsic in the book (e.g. the molecules, atoms); (2) those specific properties actually interacting with the properties of our mental apparatus (e.g. our eyes, retina, nerve cells, etc.); (3) the changes in our mind caused by the interaction in (2) (e.g. within the occipital lobe, other brain/mental processes). We then (can also) infer "the colour red" as distinct from other colours based on experience (obviously). — numberjohnny5
Clear enough, but this is just definition, and not quite accurate. And it says that red is the name of a judgment made about a feeloing. People may agree that the book is red, but what does that tell us about red in-itself?So "red" is the name we give to a particular (qualitative, i.e. "qualia") experience which involves a dynamic process involving the properties of some object that causes our minds to make specific changes. — numberjohnny5
The point is that you're presupposing what you call properties in order for your understanding and thinking to make sense to you. This is in fact the way the world works. Sometimes there's a problem when the presupposition is taken for reality. For example, you say, "What would existents look/be like without properties?" I know what you mean. The trouble is that the remark, which I think makes perfect sense most of the time, doesn't make sense here.How do you know there are properties?
— tim wood
Because it doesn't make sense to me to think that existents aren't just a "bundle" of properties interacting. What would existents look/be like without properties? — numberjohnny5
Our inability to "see" it suggests the question as to whether it exists. If it's just a qualia in some being's mind, then what is that to us? If it's us (and we can't "see" it), then how do we know it? That leaves, "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder." And there's more to this remark than initially meets the eye!So now, moving up the theoretical macrocosmic hiearchy, the question becomes: Does a human person know that it's beautiful? And secondly, could there be a higher form of being that observes and apprehends a beautiful quality in us which we are incapable of seeing? — Noble Dust
Clear enough, but this is just definition, and not quite accurate. And it says that red is the name of a judgment made about a feeloing. People may agree that the book is red, but what does that tell us about red in-itself? — tim wood
A quale is "what it is like" knowledge. Birds are incapable of creating such knowledge, as are robots. — tom
The quale of red is the knowledge of what it is like to experience red. — tom
I dunno. Crows are supposed to be pretty intelligent. Granted birds cannot create people knowledge. Can you create bird knowledge? Perhaps you claim that birds are incapable of knowing. If so, make your case. — tim wood
The point that's getting skipped, here, is How Do You Know? — tim wood
I don't see knowledge in there at all. And even if so, your "knowledge" is just of "what it is like to experience red." That's not the same thing as the experience of red. And what does the experience of red have to do with red itself? — tim wood
#2 isn't quite right. What colour is the book if you turn out the lights, or if you're using a sodium lamp, and so forth? The point is that what you get from the book is reflected light, but nothing of the book itself. — tim wood
People may agree that the book is red, but what does that tell us about red in-itself? — tim wood
For example, you say, "What would existents look/be like without properties?" I know what you mean. The trouble is that the remark, which I think makes perfect sense most of the time, doesn't make sense here. — tim wood
This begins to look like the pre-Kant problem: if what you know is in your head, then how can you know about the world? If it's in the world (I.e., empirical/observational) then how can you know how it works? I say pre-Kant problem, because Kant resolved it. — tim wood
Do you mean birds are incapable of reflection? I've kept birdfeeders for some years. They behave both as if they have knowledge, and as if they can access that knowledge. There was a time when folks thought animals were mere automata, but we're several hundred years removed from that aberration, or most of us are. Most folks who have pets acknowledge their pets exhibit signs of having a rich intellectual and emotional life.A quale is "what it is like" knowledge. Birds are incapable of creating such knowledge, as are robots. — tom
How about as genus and species. And I'll tackle the how when you've accounted for human knowledge. Three questions: an sit, quid sit, quale sit, Is it? What is it? What kind is it? Are you denying the third because you haven't dealt with the first two?In what way is "bird knowledge" any different from knowledge? How do birds create this "bird knowledge"? — tom
The point that's getting skipped, here, is How Do You Know?
— tim wood
Funny! — tom
Yes, I agree. As you say, this is not a case of the actual book touching one's mental apparatus; the book is not actually touching my eye. What is touching my eye are the properties of light interacting with the both the book's properties and the properties of my mental apparatus.
People may agree that the book is red, but what does that tell us about red in-itself?
— tim wood
By "red in-itself" do you mean noumena? — numberjohnny5
I think we have direct perception of observables (I'm a naive realist). In other words, we experience externals (i.e. objective/external-to-mind objects) directly. We can make inferences from that direct experience, and that's how we can know about the world. — numberjohnny5
How about as genus and species. And I'll tackle the how when you've accounted for human knowledge. Three questions: an sit, quid sit, quale sit, Is it? What is it? What kind is it? Are you denying the third because you haven't dealt with the first two? — tim wood
In what way is "bird knowledge" any different from knowledge? How do birds create this "bird knowledge"?
— tom — tim wood
How about as genus and species. And I'll tackle the how when you've accounted for human knowledge. Three questions: an sit, quid sit, quale sit, Is it? What is it? What kind is it? Are you denying the third because you haven't dealt with the first two?
— tim wood
I see, you claim "bird knowledge" is different from knowledge, and now demand that I defend your claim? — tom
Don't you think you ought to try for at least a definition of knowledge before you ask people about the varieties of it? Keep in mind I did not say they were different; I did say I distinguished between them. If you locate knowledge in qualia, and qualia is an internal state of some kind, then I imagine that all knowledge is different. We both may be able to identify raspberries in a series of blind tests, but by no means does that lead to the conclusion that our mental states - our qualia - are the same.What is the difference between "bird knowledge" and "dog knowledge"? — tom
Don't you think you ought to try for at least a definition of knowledge before you ask people about the varieties of it? Keep in mind I did not say they were different; I did say I distinguished between them. If you locate knowledge in qualia, and qualia is an internal state of some kind, then I imagine that all knowledge is different. We both may be able to identify raspberries in a series of blind tests, but by no means does that lead to the conclusion that our mental states - our qualia - are the same. — tim wood
Granted birds cannot create people knowledge. Can you create bird knowledge? — tim wood
I certainly do distinguish between "knowledge" and "bird knowledge," as well as human knowledge, dog, cat, whale, otter, and every other kind of knowledge. Don't you? — tim wood
No. I think all life shares the same world, but each species confronts that world in their own way, utilizing what nature has provided to it according to its own pragmatics. — Cavacava
What is the difference between "bird knowledge" and "dog knowledge"?
— tom
Keep in mind I did not say they were different; I did say I distinguished between them....
(Btw, I do not know what knowledge is.) — tim wood
You claimed that dog knowledge and bird knowledge are different. Why do you not attempt to defend your claim, rather than pretending yu did not make it? If you don't know what knowledge is, how can you even make such a claim? — tom
Hi Cavacava. I think they do. But it depends on what you mean by "conceptualize." I have watched a pet cat do something that, it seems to me, required a lot of all kinds of mental capacity. (It had learned how to open a door. If you think this through, you'll recognize it's no small feat. In particular, it could not open the door the way I can: it had to figure out its own way. I think it's a twice-told tale that lot of animals know how to do lots of similar kinds of things.)I don't think dogs, birds or other creatures can conceptualize. — Cavacava
You offer an account: something that was outside comes inside, as qualia (fix this if I'm wrong), and the qualia - the "what it's like to see red" - is(?) the knowledge. Is that it? — tim wood
There was a time when there was a "projectionist" theory of perception. As you recognize above, people realized that we don't actually see the tree. — tim wood
So I find two flaws in the notion of qualia as an account of knowledge. 1) That qualia is the experience of what it's like to experience something (clearly not the experience itself, or the experience of the thing itself). And 2) even if it were, then how does it become knowledge. That is, how does the qualia itself establish knowledge and understanding? — tim wood
We can't both have and not have direct experience of externals. We agree we can't (we don't see the tree itself). Because we can't, we can't know about the world. — tim wood
By "mental apparatus" I'm thinking you mean mind. By "knowledge experience" I'm thinking you mean just that which is the reflection/awareness/consciousness of the experience - or that which is added to the experience-in-itself that makes it intelligible to consciousness - or something along these lines. I agree completely with the non-identity of same with propositional knowledge got from reasoning about experience. (By "not seeing" the tree, I only mean what you mean, except that our language and definitions differ.)The qualia refers only to the properties of the mental apparatus processing the environment in this case. And I'd say that the sensorial, perceptual, and acquaintance knowledge experience is not identical to the propositional knowledge one can infer from the experience. — numberjohnny5
Sure. But the perception of the touching. Therein lies the problem. In this sense touching is like seeing. You're defining seeing, and touching, as the entire process, and presupposing that what ends up in your mind is what's out there. What we have learned to call a tree is out there. All we have to work with is perception of the tree (whether by seeing or touch or any other sense) - in short, an image. I suppose the image is more-or-less accurate within the limits of my perception; I do not suppose it is the thing perceived (nor do you, I gather), nor do I suppose my image is exactly accurate, with respect to the thing - the tree - itself. In this sense, then, I disagree. Touching the tree isn't touching the tree. This just points at the problems with language that arise from informality of usage.I wouldn't say that touching the tree with one's hand isn't touching the actual tree. — numberjohnny5
Again, see my comment above: we have direct experience of observables; it's just not in the way you think qualifies as direct experience. Let me put this another way by asking you a question: what would need to occur for you to believe we have direct experience of observables...of say, a tree? — numberjohnny5
By "mental apparatus" I'm thinking you mean mind. — tim wood
By "knowledge experience" I'm thinking you mean just that which is the reflection/awareness/consciousness of the experience - or that which is added to the experience-in-itself that makes it intelligible to consciousness - or something along these lines. — tim wood
But the perception of the touching. Therein lies the problem. In this sense touching is like seeing. — tim wood
You're defining seeing, and touching, as the entire process, and presupposing that what ends up in your mind is what's out there. — tim wood
What we have learned to call a tree is out there. All we have to work with is perception of the tree (whether by seeing or touch or any other sense) - in short, an image. — tim wood
I suppose the image is more-or-less accurate within the limits of my perception; I do not suppose it is the thing perceived (nor do you, I gather), — tim wood
nor do I suppose my image is exactly accurate, with respect to the thing - the tree - itself. — tim wood
It's that "direct experience" that's throwing me. The only way I make sense of it is if the "observables" are the raw material of the perception, before it is put into order by the mind - but in no way to be confused with the thing itself. In this sense we do have direct experience of the "observables": we create them! As to direct experience of the tree, I'm with Kant (as I understand him): as a practical matter the tree is green and leafy and rough to the touch, and if it's a pine then it has a distinctive smell, and so on. And I don't doubt that the tree really is this way. — tim wood
As to knowing it in scientific sense, then no. — tim wood
I have watched a pet cat do something that, it seems to me, required a lot of all kinds of mental capacity. (It had learned how to open a door.
From http://www.philosophyzer.com/direct-realism-and-indirect-realism/:I take it you're a representative realist? — numberjohnny5
The observables are the facts/states of affairs that we observe/perceive.... (like trees). — numberjohnny5
Pets can be quite crafty, I think they learn (mimic) this from us, but I think it is more associative reasoning then conceptualized reasoning. So a is to b as b is to c rather than a implies b and b implies. c. — Cavacava
Does a human person know that it's beautiful? And secondly, could there be a higher form of being that observes and apprehends a beautiful quality in us which we are incapable of seeing? — Noble Dust
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