Indirect, because we only have mediated access to our own mind — Marty

One has to ponder this. The mind has mediated access to itself?

The mind is creative thought that is filled with its own memory. There is no mediating between the mind and itself.

It is not incorrigible, because we are often wrong about what we're thinking. — Marty

How so? Can you offer an example of this?

I am currently thinking about the sentence you just wrote, and this is what I find upon reflecting upon my experiences and my thoughts. Is there any way I can be mistaken or wrong in making that judgement?

I'm mostly working this in my head recently:

Considering that one does not have immediate access to all their memories at once, in virute of what is there this distance between our memories and awareness (self-consciousness)? But such a distance seems to require mediation. So we obviously don't have direct access to all of our minds.

As well: what would "immediate" realization even look like? Do we mean intuitions without concepts, or with concepts? If the prior, what are intuitions without conceptions? If the later, it seems as though this require mediation. But this seems to evoke distance.



I'm not sure why I could not be wrong in principle. No logical contradiction there. It is at least not logically necessarily.

If there were privileged access to our own minds, it'd only be in the case of: A person's R's belief that p at the time t is incorrigible if and only if there is no accepted procedure whose outcome would render it rational to believe in ~p at t. Meaning, they are the authority on the matter. So this seems to move from minds to current awareness.

So it is perhaps authority and not infallibility that is the hallmark of the mental? But could there not be some procedure in which allows us to have a higher authority with respect to someone's mental states?

And could it not be possible, that while we're experiencing something, we can only retroactively assign whether something is true or not about our mental states. That is, after the fact that I, say, went to a party, I knew it was unenjoyable, even if I experienced something enjoyable at the time. Or is it that I just know the party is enjoyable at that time?

Lastly, I'm skeptical of what seems to be purely mental states that are not intentionally related to the world, in such a way, where we wouldn't even say any experience is purely mental. If one held a disjunctive view, then only hallucinations and such are purely mental?

That our 'access' to ourselves is not an iota different to our 'access' to the world was established by Kant, and has been... well, incorrigible ever since. The illusion is persistent though, precisely because our familiarity with ourselves (and why not - we spend every waking minute with ourselves...) is mistaken for some kind of difference in kind with respect to our knowing. I think every serious reflection on 'mind' recognises this, and you'll find the theme pursued by those like Wilfrid Sellars, Peter Carruthers, Slavoj Zizek, and others. Since you mentioned Fitche, you might want to check out a book that Zizek co-authored with Markus Gabriel, Mythology, Madness, Laughter, which has one of the best treatments I know on this from the perspective of German Idealism.

Here's a teaser: " The real problem of the external world lies in the fact that it entails an even more radical problem, namely the problem of the internal world only implicitly at work in empiricism and finally made explicit by Kant and his successors. ... The self becomes an object among others as soon as it is drawn within the sphere of representation. Kant developed this problem in his First Critique and his argument is as plain as it is striking ... Whatever the object of our scrutiny may be, it has to become an object among others whereby it is determined as such in a wider context. .... We have no grasp of that which constitutes our world even though it is we who perform said constitution. The uncanny stranger begins to pervade the sphere of the subject, threatening its identity from within. Kant is thus one of the first to become aware of the intimidating possibility of total semantic schizophrenia inherent in the anonymous transcendental subjectivity as such. "

I'm not sure why I could not be wrong in principle. No logical contradiction there. It is at least not logically necessarily. — Marty

Well, let's say you find yourself having a red experience via. introspection. It's right there in front of you, you can point to it and refer to it as you are having it. Is it possible for you to not actually have a red experience when you are in this state of mind?

Well, let's say you find yourself having a red experience via. introspection. It's right there in front of you, you can point to it and refer to it as you are having it. Is it possible for you to not actually have a red experience when you are in this state of mind? — Mr Bee

Knowledge by acquaintance might be indubitable, and I put an emphasis on might, because I see no reason not to reduce it to a trick of language masquarading as knowledge, but even if it is so, it is also completely useless.

As for your example, the first problem is that it relates to ontology of colours, which is in itself a very peculiar and specialised field. The second is that, given a leeway on the language, one could very well say that reports of experiences of red absent of an object that could possibly give a red qualia are cases of false reports of experiences of red.

The positive criterion you listed are taken out of Descartes or Brentano. Good food for thought, I have an immense respect for Brentano despite disagreing with nearly everything he ever said about, well, everything. Husserl was better when he was closer to Brentano. But anyhow, you shouldn't limit youserlf to this limited selection of authors on philosophy of mind. They were, after all, wrong on about 98% of what they wrote about.

Limit case :

All you are experiencing is a red experience. Nothing else. Just a pure, unsectionned, unqualified experience of red qualia.

Should you not rather feel as if you aren't seeing red, and that rather something else is deeply wrong?

Supporting case :

if *red* = 'I know that *red*
then 'I know that *red*' should = 'I know that I know that *red*' should = *red*

But 'I know that I know that *red*' isn't = with *red*, since you can have an experience of something without being aware of it.

Indirect, because we only have mediated access to our own mind. Much like our access about the world. — Marty

How are we distinct from our mind that we have limited access?
Sounds like a contradiction

because we are often wrong about what we're thinking. — Marty

It is nonetheless true that, that IS what we are thinking, wrong or other wise.
You are setting up odd dualisms.

I would first suggest untangling the grammar of psychological predicates when used to directly express oneself in the first-person, from the grammar of the corresponding psychological predicates when inferentially applied to behavioural observations of the third-person, that are consequently re-applied in this behaviourist sense to the first-person via analogy of the first person with the third-person.

Disantangling the asymmetric grammars of first-person expression from third-person behavioural inference should help to clarify concepts pertaining to mental access.

Knowledge by acquaintance might be indubitable, and I put an emphasis on might, because I see no reason not to reduce it to a trick of language masquarading as knowledge, but even if it is so, it is also completely useless. — Akanthinos

Not sure what you mean by "trick of language" here, but I don't think our knowledge of our experience is useless at all. Pretty much everything we know about the world grounds out in facts about our experience. We are able to infer the existence of an external world from the sensations that we have that suggest it is there. Science is based upon empirical observation, which derives knowledge from the things we perceive. IMO, it is because facts about what is directly in front of us (subjectively speaking) are so certain that we use it as the foundation for understanding the world. Of course, the sort of conclusions we draw here aren't as water-tight by comparison, so there is always room for doubt, but that is beside the point.

The second is that, given a leeway on the language, one could very well say that reports of experiences of red absent of an object that could possibly give a red qualia are cases of false reports of experiences of red. — Akanthinos

Is it possible for one to have a red experience without a "red" object in front of them? If a neuroscientist were to stimulate the parts of my brain that represent a red experience resulting in me feeling like there is a red experience in part of my vision, does that mean that my report about a red experience in that part of my visual field is false?

The positive criterion you listed are taken out of Descartes or Brentano. Good food for thought, I have an immense respect for Brentano despite disagreing with nearly everything he ever said about, well, everything. Husserl was better when he was closer to Brentano. But anyhow, you shouldn't limit youserlf to this limited selection of authors on philosophy of mind. They were, after all, wrong on about 98% of what they wrote about. — Akanthinos

I certainly agree with that sentiment that the vast majority of what these authors write is hogwash (at least for Descartes mainly, though I can't really blame him given the time he lived in), but I think the cogito is one of the few exceptions to the rule.

Not sure what you mean by "trick of language" here, — Mr Bee

I mean that the epistemological problems of acqaintance comes down to the fact that language tends to put on the same footing experiences of *red*, the proposition 'I know that *red*, and other propositions like "I know that red is a colour with a dominant wavelenght of 625 to 740 nanometers'.

Properly distinguished, I think 'I know that *red*' should be considered an improper construction. Its only purpose is to refer to a position in an index of experiences.

I don't think our knowledge of our experience is useless at all. Pretty much everything we know about the world grounds out in facts about our experience. We are able to infer the existence of an external world from the sensations that we have that suggest it is there. Science is based upon empirical observation, which derives knowledge from the things we perceive. IMO, it is because facts about what is directly in front of us (subjectively speaking) are so certain that we use it as the foundation for understanding the world. — Mr Bee

But this is not provided by acquaintance. Bertrand Russell was very clear about that (although he did also think like you that knowledge was ultimately founded by acquaintance). Acquaintance of an object can never tell you anything about the external world, because those statements about the world are not propositions about knowledge by acquaintance, but propositions about knowledge by description. It doesn't put you in contact with the objectivity, or the objectuality, or materiality, it puts you in contact with something and you know that you have a direct cognitive relation with that something. As such, knowledge by acquaintance is only "existential" knowledge ; if you experience a memory, all the knowledge by acquaintance provided here is that you are experiencing a memory, nothing is experienced by acquaintance about the validity of the memory, about it's content.

That's, in part, why it is useless knowledge. The other reason can be expressed through a thought experiment used to challenge Russell's position on knowledge by acquaintance ; the spotted chicken scenario. Say you are looking at a spotted chicken. It has 47 spots on the side that you can see. Does your knowledge by acquaintance of the chicken and its spots justify the belief that you are looking at the 47-spotted chicken? More than likely not, since almost anyone will readily admit that it's likely there's at least a few spots that could be hidden from my view. Knowledge by description, that is, knowledge of how objects obscure sides when they display others, comes here to modulate the response we have to acquaintance, leading us to believe that the latter is insufficient in founding our beliefs about the chicken and its spots.

Is it possible for one to have a red experience without a "red" object in front of them? If a neuroscientist were to stimulate the parts of my brain that represent a red experience resulting in me feeling like there is a red experience in part of my vision, does that mean that my report about a red experience in that part of my visual field is false? — Mr Bee

At the very least, it could be an acceptable position, given a certain epistemology and ontology.

I certainly agree with that sentiment that the vast majority of what these authors write is hogwash (at least for Descartes mainly, though I can't really blame him given the time he lived in), but I think the cogito is one of the few exceptions to the rule. — Mr Bee

Well, what's the epistemological use of the Cogito, really? Perhaps, let's say someone offers you a bet weither or not you exist, and then ask you what you are willing to bet on it. The Cogito tells us that you should always literally bet everything you can on the fact that you exist, since you won't lose anything if you lose (since you don't exist). That's pretty much it.

Acquaintance of an object can never tell you anything about the external world, because those statements about the world are not propositions about knowledge by acquaintance, but propositions about knowledge by description. It doesn't put you in contact with the objectivity, or the objectuality, or materiality, it puts you in contact with something and you know that you have a direct cognitive relation with that something. — Akanthinos

Yeah, I agree that knowledge about experience does not necessarily provide us with any knowledge of the external world. We could only infer it at best, and to me it seems like we do, which was the point of my previous post.

The other reason can be expressed through a thought experiment used to challenge Russell's position on knowledge by acquaintance ; the spotted chicken scenario. Say you are looking at a spotted chicken. It has 47 spots on the side that you can see. Does your knowledge by acquaintance of the chicken and its spots justify the belief that you are looking at the 47-spotted chicken? More than likely not, since almost anyone will readily admit that it's likely there's at least a few spots that could be hidden from my view. — Akanthinos

You mean the problem of the speckled hen? I think that scenario describes something different from what you're saying. It says that even though we are directly acquainted with certain visual experiences such as an image of a hen with 47 speckles, we are either not aware of or even justified in our belief that we are having that sort of experience. It's a problem for the idea of knowledge by acquaintance in that it seems to suggest that there are limitations to what we can know from experience. Personally, I think the problem there has more to do with our concept of what an experience with 47 speckles actually amounts to more than anything but that is just how I see it.

Apart from that, if what you want to say is that such an experience in itself is not sufficient to conclude that there is a chicken with only 47 spots in front of us, then I can agree with that. We would need to look at the other side of the chicken first in order to come to any such conclusion at the least.

Well, what's the epistemological use of the Cogito, really? — Akanthinos

The cogito itself? I suppose not very much, but I think the thinking behind the cogito is useful when applied to experience in general (and not just facts about the self). Again, where we take it isn't perfect but it is a good starting point at least.

Considering that one does not have immediate access to all their memories at once, in virute of what is there this distance between our memories and awareness (self-consciousness)? But such a distance seems to require mediation. So we obviously don't have direct access to all of our minds.

As well: what would "immediate" realization even look like? Do we mean intuitions without concepts, or with concepts? If the prior, what are intuitions without conceptions? If the later, it seems as though this require mediation. But this seems to evoke distance. — Marty

Memory is jyst there and it's basically being filtered for the task at hand by the mind. There is no separation. It is all one.

Immediate is what we feel as the passage of time.

You mean the problem of the speckled hen? — Mr Bee

Ah, yes, I knew when I was writing this down that it didnt sound right. Speckled hen, spotted chicken, it's all a poule rousse in French. O:)

I think that scenario describes something different from what you're saying. It says that even though we are directly acquainted with certain visual experiences such as an image of a hen with 47 speckles, we are either not aware of or even justified in our belief that we are having that sort of experience. It's a problem for the idea of knowledge by acquaintance in that it seems to suggest that there are limitations to what we can know from experience. — Mr Bee

That's right, the problem is not presented as explicitely relating to the necessity of knowledge by description for knowledge by accointance to be useful. But I think it's easier to grasp the issue, as the speckle hen scenario does invalidate the idea that accointance is foundational.

Apart from that, if what you want to say is that such an experience in itself is not sufficient to conclude that there is a chicken with only 47 spots in front of us, then I can agree with that. — Mr Bee

That's the important part. If Knowledge by accointance must be related to knowledge by description to gain any value, than in what way could accointance meaningfully be said to be foundational.

The cogito itself? I suppose not very much, but I think the thinking behind the cogito is useful when applied to experience in general (and not just facts about the self). — Mr Bee

I disagree on this. The Cogito is interesting from an epistemologist point-of-view. I see very little general purpose to it. In fact, pretty much none.

Memory is jyst there and it's basically being filtered for the task at hand by the mind. There is no separation. It is all one.

Immediate is what we feel as the passage of time. — Rich

Except there is very obviously a seperation between memory states and conscious states.

I also dispute the idea that saying "immediate is what we feel as the passage of time" is in any meaningful. My feeling of time is anything but immediate in many situations : when I sleep, when I day dream, when my time is related too strictly to a task...

I disagree on this. The Cogito is interesting from an epistemologist point-of-view. I see very little general purpose to it. In fact, pretty much none. — Akanthinos

Yes, but what I meant was that the cogito is based upon our certain knowledge of our direct experience. Knowing that "I think" is the same as knowing that I am having a red experience where both are being directly had by us. It is this latter part that I think is useful for inferring knowledge about the external world, even though that inference is not a deductive (and therefore not completely watertight) one.

Except there is very obviously a seperation between memory states and conscious states.

I also dispute the idea that saying "immediate is what we feel as the passage of time" is in any meaningful. My feeling of time is anything but immediate in many situations : when I sleep, when I day dream, when my time is related too strictly to a task...
12 minutes ago ReplyShareFlag — Akanthinos

Separating memory from consciousness would be a neat trick.

When you sleep or in other states time changes because the nature of memory changes. Science had no explanation at all for how ir why the feeling of time changes. The mind is clearing experiencing a change in the type of memory it is pulling from.

Yes, but what I meant was that the cogito is based upon our certain knowledge of our direct experience. Knowing that "I think" is the same as knowing that I am having a red experience where both are being directly had by us. — Mr Bee

I don't see how useful that is. I guess it works as a sort of gauge of accointance. "Accointance can at least in principle reach the same degree of certainty we experience in the cogito".

I like the Cogito from a truth-value conservation point-of-view. At the very least there is one proposition which could always be put at the center of a network of propositions with a belief value of 1.

When you sleep or in other states time changes because memory changes. Science had no explanation at all for how ir why the feeling of time changes. The mind is clearing experiencing a change in the type of memory it is pulling from. — Rich

I'm sorry I don't follow. What changes in memory?

I'm sorry I don't follow. What changes in memory? — Akanthinos

Perception of actions both internal (imagination) and external (will).

Perception of actions both internal (imagination) and external (will). — Rich

Memory goes beyond imagination. For example, semantic memory doesn't require imagination.

Unless you use 'imagination' in it's non-cognitive, common acceptation.

Memory is fundamentally everything that is learned by some observation. It defines our being.