We have the form partially, not exhaustively. I fail to see how admitting this is nonsense. — Dfpolis

The point I've been trying to make, is that the form in the mind is a different form from the one in the object. You have been insisting that they are the same form. They are not, and the differences you refer to indicate that you ought to respect this fact. We do not have "a part" of the form in our minds, because that would require taking a part away from the object, so we do not have the form "partially" within or minds. What's in our minds is a completely different form from the form which the object has.

Our experiences are complex and contextual. In fixing attention on the object, we remove notes of comprehension that are irrelevant. We do not add notes in the act of perception, but we may add them in a second movement of mind in which we use past experience to fill in gaps. In adding these supplemental notes we may create an enhanced form that is not fully justified by the current experience. — Dfpolis

You still continue to deny the necessary conclusion. Since the form in the mind is completely different from the form which is in the object, you cannot describe the act of perception as the mind taking the form of the object, and subtracting things from it. In reality, the mind is creating a form, which is a representation of the object. Since this act is an act of creating something to represent something else, there is no necessity that the two are at all similar, in reality. The form which is in the mind might be just a symbol of the object, and as in the case of words, a symbol doesn't have to have any similarity to the object represented, it just needs to represent.

Repeating the claim does not justify it. — Dfpolis

Well, I could quote a passage to justify that claim, but I know from my experience with you, that you will just turn around and say "that's not what the author meant". So what's the point? If what the author said is not what the author meant ( according to you), then how could I justify my claim of what the author said, by referring to what the author said?

Fixed that for you. — Terrapin Station

Come again?

As I've said several times, evidence isn't, and needn't be, proof.

The convincingness of evidence is subjective, individual, and a matter-of-degree.

Convincingness for Terrapin Station isn't a requirement for evidence. It might not be evidence for you. that doesn't mean that it isn't evidence--Michael Ossipoff

Should I repeat what I said again, too? Would that be helpful?

Here you go:

Of course, since empirical claims can't be proved in the first place. No one is asking for proof. Just any evidence

Teleology in Reality? What else would that be other than a religious question? — Michael Ossipoff

The TC just said it's not necessarily a religious question in his view.

Come again? — Metaphysician Undercover

That's what she said.

Should I repeat what I said again, too? Would that be helpful?

Here you go:

Of course, since empirical claims can't be proved in the first place. No one is asking for proof. Just any evidence — Terrapin Station

1. No one is claiming that all evidence will appear to you as evidence. Evidently it's necessary to repeat to you again that the convincingness of evidence is subjective, individual, and a matter-of-degree.

...and likewise for non-evidence justifications for faith.

2. And maybe it's also necessary to repeat that, from what you say, for some reason, Theists aren't interested in debating Theism with you.

Evidently Theists have forfeited the debate to you, and you're the default winner of your debate.

To repeat what I already said:

Congratulations!!

Ask for evidence all you want. I suggest that, when you next ask for evidence at some other forum where you aren't known yet, you might try asking a with a bit more modesty and humility, and with a lot less arrogant assurance that you're right.

Has this discussion devolved to pure repetition? Are we done with it yet?

Michael Ossipoff

No one is claiming that all evidence will appear to you as evidence. Evidently it's necessary to repeat to you again that the convincingness — Michael Ossipoff

For example, if someone says "there are no trees" you can point out a tree to them. That thing you're pointing at is the thing that you're calling a tree.

We can worry about people who say "I dont see any tree there" later. Let's at least do some pointing first.

For example, if someone says "there are no trees" you can point out a tree to them. That thing you're pointing at is that thing that you're calling a tree.

We can worry about people who say "I dont see any tree there" later. Let's at least do some pointing first — Terrapin Station

Evidently you can't find any Theists who are interested in debating Theism with you.

Congratulations! You win your debate by default.

Oh wait--I already said that :D

Michael Ossipoff

Again, Dfpolis said that this isn't necessarily a religious thing in his view.

Again, Dfpolis said that this isnt necessarily a religious thing in his view. — Terrapin Station

It isn't a matter of objective correct and incorrect. It depends on what someone means by "religious".

To me, intentiionality, teleology, in Reality is a religious matter, by definition. I suggest that that's what is meant when people speak of God.

That, itself, would be a good definition for the religion topic. A broader definition, suggested by Merriam-Webster, would be anything about Reality--all that is (...about which, many agree, very little can be said.). Of course that broader definition would encompass the matter of intentionality in Reality.

So Dfopolis is including in philosophy and not in religion, discussion that I'd call religious.

No one is wrong. Definitions can differ.

Michael Ossipoff

To me, intentiionality, teleology, in Reality is a religious matter, by definition. I suggest that that's what is meant when people speak of God. — Michael Ossipoff

That's fine. You see it necessarily as religious. Dfpolis does not. So when Dfpolis says that in his view there is evidence of teleology, and then I ask what he considers evidence of it, I ask him to point at the stuff in question, and he doesn't bother, from our perspective, not yours, it's not a matter of getting into a religious debate or not.

In fact, I'm not even looking to debate anything at the moment. I just asked what he considers evidence of teleology, since he claimed he believed there was evidence of it.

That's fine. You see it necessarily as religious. Dfpolis does not. So when Dfpolis says that in his view there is evidence of teleology, and then I ask what he considers evidence of it, I ask him to point at the stuff in question, and he doesnt doesn't bother, from our perspective, not yours, it's not a matter of getting into a religious debate or not. — Terrapin Station

Whatever you call the topic, you might have gotten discussion if you'd approached the matter with a lot more humility and modesty, and a lot less arrogant assurance that you're right.

I don't (continually or otherwise) ask Atheists why they believe as they do. Why should I care? Why should I take the time to start threads to ask them? (...and spend more time complaining if they don't answer me.)

I have nothing against Atheists or their beliefs. Some of my favorite people are Atheists. Some Atheists aren't preachy or aggressive about their beliefs. I have no complaint about them.

Michael Ossipoff

Whatever you call the topic, you might have gotten discussion if you'd approached the matter with a lot more humility and modesty, and a lot less arrogant assurance that you're right. — Michael Ossipoff

The guy presented an argument for something that I think is obviously wrong. I pointed out a problem with that argument. He said he could meet that problem. It's up to him whether he wants to bother actually attempting to meet it or not. It's no skin for me either way.

I should have seen that comin, like a freight train. Oh baby! Don't stop me now!

The point I've been trying to make, is that the form in the mind is a different form from the one in the object. — Metaphysician Undercover

It is different in the sense that the part is different from the whole.is different from the part. It is not different in the sense of having a separate existence for in so far as it is the object acting within us, the form in our mind is part of the form of the object.

We do not have "a part" of the form in our minds, because that would require taking a part away from the object, so we do not have the form "partially" within or minds. — Metaphysician Undercover

We do not have a "part" in the sense of a physical part, but in the sense of an aspect, which is to say limited notes of intelligibility belonging jointly to the knower and known. This does not require taking the part away form the object, as things are where they act.

Aristotle was well aware of this issue, and points out that experiential knowledge involves shared existence. This is why he points out that the actualization of the object's intelligibility is the same as the actualization of the subject's capacity to be informed. As they are one and the same act, these actualizations share a common existence. So, while we may think of these actualizations separately, thye are ontologically inseparable.

Thus, no part of the object's form is taken away. In fact, as the form is not material, but the object's actuality, it has no parts outside of parts that would allow for such a division. The only possible division is mental -- apprehending this note of intelligibility, but not that.

You still continue to deny the necessary conclusion. — Metaphysician Undercover

You have not argued for a necessary conclusion. If you think you have, put it in the form of a syllogism.

you cannot describe the act of perception as the mind taking the form of the object, and subtracting things from it. — Metaphysician Undercover

I am not describing it hat way. "Perception" can mean either the sensory act, in which there is no separation or subtraction, or the mental act, in which we are not taking aspects away from the the form, but fixing on the object to the exclusion of its context. In doing that we apprehend, we are aware of, the individual object as something that can be distinguished form its context. So far we have taken nothing away from the form, we have only ignored the contextual noise.

It is when we go on to form a universal concept that we start taking away notes of comprehension. What we take away are the notes that individuate the the object, e.g. the time and place of our experience, the exact size, color, etc. We see, for example, that though Jane is freckled, a person does not have to be freckled to be human. Still, if we form our concept of <human> from Jane, the form of that concept is Jane's humanity informing us -- acting in us. So, in knowing Jane, she partially exists within us. That is what is meant by "intentional existence."

In reality, the mind is creating a form, which is a representation of the object. — Metaphysician Undercover

I have already acknowledged that as part of experience, there is a final, constructive phase. In it, we take elements from previous experiences, and add them to the intention existence of Jane within us. Aristotle likens this to the formation of a military unit: as each soldier assumes position, the formation emerges. We have seen Jane before, and so know that her ears are pierced, even though we cant see them now. We have seen other women before, and so we know what they look like naked, even though Jane is clothed. It is this constructive phase that can lead to errors. Perhaps Jane is a pre-operative trans-woman and her anatomy does not conform to our construct. If so, our construct has failed us.

The form which is in the mind might be just a symbol of the object, and as in the case of words, a symbol doesn't have to have any similarity to the object represented, it just needs to represent. — Metaphysician Undercover

As I have pointed out before, thoughts are formal signs, while words are instrumental signs. So, they do not signify in the same way. In the present case, our perception of Jane is identically Jane operating within us to inform our mind. The word "Jane" has not such ontological connection. It indicates Jane by convention, not by its intrinsic nature as our perceptual awareness does.

Well, I could quote a passage to justify that claim, but I know from my experience with you, that you will just turn around and say "that's not what the author meant". — Metaphysician Undercover

I don't usually rest arguments on what an author meant, but on the reality the author was considering. Of course, sometimes an author is misunderstood, but that then the issue is interpretation, not reality. Here we are concerned with facts, not texts.

So when Dfpolis says that in his view there is evidence of teleology, and then I ask what he considers evidence of it, I ask him to point at the stuff in question, and he doesn't bother, from our perspective, not yours, it's not a matter of getting into a religious debate or not. — Terrapin Station

I am sorry, did I not provide you with evidence on some point? I thought I did: determinate final states in physics; grains of wheat growing into wheat stalks, not oaks; spiders building webs to catch insects to eat. In my article I also point to the preferred (end) forms revealed by convergent evolution, punctuated equilibrium showing that evolution does not drift aimlessly, and refractory toolkit genes evolving before there is any pressure to fully express them as evidence of means preceding ends.

determinate final states in physics; grains of wheat growing into wheat stalks, not oaks; Spiders building webs to catch insects to eat. — Dfpolis

How is any of that evidence of intentionality?

determinate final states in physics; grains of wheat growing into wheat stalks, not oaks; Spiders building webs to catch insects to eat. — Dfpolis


How is any of that evidence of intentionality? — Terrapin Station

As I pointed out, there are a number of questions to be considered successively. This is evidence of teleology. The arguments for intentionality are given in my paper: (1) the discussion of logical propagators, (2) the discussion of intentionality as characterized by Brentano and (3) the recognition of intentionality by other, naturalistic authors.

As I pointed out, there are a number of questions to be considered successively. This is evidence of teleology. The arguments for intentionality are given in my paper: (1) the discussion of logical propagators, (2) the discussion of intentionality as characterized by Brentano and (3) the recognition of intentionality by other, naturalistic authors. — Dfpolis

How does that response answer how something like "grains of wheat growing into wheat stalks" is evidence of intentionality?

You're saying that it's evidence of intentionality only with respect to a discussion of logical propagators, for example? What would that even mean?

How does that response answer how something like "grains of wheat growing into wheat stalks" is evidence of intentionality? — Terrapin Station

By referring you to the arguments in my paper. What advantage is there to my retyping the arguments here when you can click on the link? (https://www.academia.edu/27797943/Mind_or_Randomness_in_Evolution). The intro to the arguments begins on p. 4, the arguments proper begin on p. 5.

By referring you to the arguments in my paper. What advantage is there to my retyping the arguments here when you can click on the link? (https://www.academia.edu/27797943/Mind_or_Randomness_in_Evolution). The intro to the arguments begins on p. 4, the arguments proper begin on p. 5. — Dfpolis

It's a bunch of irrelevant stuff to read through.

Insofar as that goes, though, even though this has absolutely nothing to do with what I'm asking you, re "Mary now intends to s!eak in the room tomorrow" It doesn't follow that anyone will hear Mary in the room tomorrow, because she might not carry through what she intends to carry through.

So whenever you'd get to the relevant point of all of that, the analysis is already wrong anyway.

It's a bunch of irrelevant stuff to read through. — Terrapin Station

I am sorry that you don't feel this discussion is worth the investment of your time. Given that you are unwilling to commit time to the discussion, there is no point in me committing time to further responses.

I am sorry that you don't feel this discussion is worth the investment of your time. — Dfpolis

Nothing like what I said. What you're referring me to is a bunch of stuff irrelevant to what I'm asking you. Maybe just simply address what I'm asking you. The stuff in your paper about logical propagation is not only irrelevant to what I'm asking you, but your analysis is incorrect as I just pointed out.

At any rate, it appears that one of the mistakes you're making is that you're assuming that:

Because it's sometimes the case that x obtains in the wake of S intending to x

that implies that:

If x happens, someone/something intended x to happen.

It should be painfully obvious, though, that the fact that sometimes x is the result of an intention to x doesn't imply that any arbitrary x is the result of an intention. It would be possible for some x to obtain where it's not the result of an intention at all. You'd need an argument that supports that any x can obtain if and ONLY if x was intended.

(Which is again not to mention that for some weird reason you were assuming that if S intends to x, then S will x. That's obviously not the case. And because it's obviously not the case, it's not at all a valid argument to posit that S intends to x, and then assume that x later obtains. It's not valid because it's possible for "x later obtains" to be false despite S intending to x . . . I see you later acknowledge that S can intend to x where S does not do x, yet despite acknowledging that, you still go ahead and said that an argument is valid where you're assuming that if S intends to x, then S will x. Validity and "ceteris paribus" where ceteris paribus amounts to "we're just going to assume that S will x if S intends to x don't actually cohere. You'd have to not understand what validity is to say the argument is valid)

Why did you title your paper after a false dichotomy by the way? "Mind or Randomness"?

It is different in the sense that the part is different from the whole.is different from the part. It is not different in the sense of having a separate existence for in so far as it is the object acting within us, the form in our mind is part of the form of the object. — Dfpolis

That's nonsense. We have distinguished the form as it is in the object, as different from the form in the mind. You do not argue against this. But the form in the mind cannot not be a part of the form in the object, nor is the form in the object a part of the form in the mind, for the following reasons. In sensation, the object might act on us, being external to us, but it is not "acting within us". if it were acting within us then the whole form of the object, not just a part, would be within us. We already agreed that this is not the case. If a part of the object were within us, this implies that the whole of the object would not exist without the mind which apprehends it, it would be missing a part. The object would be incomplete without being apprehended by a mind. If a part leaves the object to act within the mind, then the simple act of seeing an object would change that object. How would seeing the moon change the moon?

You have not argued for a necessary conclusion. If you think you have, put it in the form of a syllogism. — Dfpolis

Oh, I thought I already made this very clear. P1: To take the form of the object means to have the very same form. P2: The form which exists in the mind is not the same as the form which is in the object. C:Therefore the mind does not take the form of the object.

Now, all you are doing is trying to validate this proven wrong position through some odd qualifications, saying that the mind takes a part of the form of the object, instead of taking the complete form of the object. But this qualification is subject to the problems described above. Why not accept the obvious, and simple solution, that the form in the mind is distinct from the form in the object, just like a representation is distinct from the thing represented?

I am not describing it hat way. "Perception" can mean either the sensory act, in which there is no separation or subtraction, or the mental act, in which we are not taking aspects away from the the form, but fixing on the object to the exclusion of its context. — Dfpolis

Are you claiming that in sense perception there is no separation, no medium, between the object perceived, and the perceiver? If so, how do you account for the fact that we see things, like the moon, which are far away?

Still, if we form our concept of <human> from Jane, the form of that concept is Jane's humanity informing us -- acting in us. So, in knowing Jane, she partially exists within us. That is what is meant by "intentional existence." — Dfpolis

But you cannot form the concept of "human" from one individual, Jane, because such a concept is a generalization of many humans. And so the concept "human" extends to all human beings. Therefore even if the human beings which one has met already "partially exist within us", this does not account for intentionality, which gives one the capacity to designate a person not yet met as human. So this explanation "partially exist within us" must be dismissed as inadequate to account for intentionality, and therefore necessarily wrong.

(Maybe I should apologize that this reply couldn’t be brief. Often it just isn’t possible to adequately answer briefly.)
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Proof, or good reason to believe--we don’t significantly disagree.
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”The (as definitionally goes without saying) subjective nature of our experience, with experience being the center and source of what we know about our physical surroundings, suggests that there’s no more reason to believe in the Materialist’s inanimate and neutral Reality than in is his objective Realist metaphysics.” — Michael Ossipoff
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As I have said before, experience is inescapably both objective and subjective. There is necessarily both an experiencing subject and an experienced object. Materialists forget this -- focusing on the experienced object to the exclusion of the experiencing subject -- thus committing Whitehead's Fallacy of Misplaced Concreteness.

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Yes, the experiencer and hir (his/her) surroundings are mutually complementary.
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”But neither what I’ve just said, nor what you said, answers the question about why Benevolence would (in some lives) put us through a pretty horrible experience. …even though it’s temporary, arguably not real, and not-itself-created.” — Michael Ossipoff
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Yes. This is a profound question. The best I can come up with is, as you suggest, it is a small thing in the "big picture" -- a side effect that will be made up for in other ways. But, I claim no certainty here.

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I said it, but that answer didn’t entirely satisfy me.
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Can major injury, misery and horror, followed by early death be “made up for”?
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It can certainly be argued that risk, and sometimes hurt, suffering, loss and the most extreme suffering and horror, are an inevitable aspect of life.
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Who’s to say whether the good things about life mean that we should be conceived and born, when, for many persons’ and animals’ lives, that means undergoing tremendous injury, loss, and sometimes the worst misery and horror.
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Is it necessary to be in a life? Only for enjoyment and (sometimes intolerable) suffering. Someone who wasn’t in a life in the 1st place wouldn’t care a bit. Of course it isn’t even meaningful to speak of someone who isn’t in a life, and whether they’re worse off than someone who is conceived and born.
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I’ll repeat the Mark Twain quote that I mentioned in a previous thread:
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“Before I was born, I was dead for millions of years, and it didn’t inconvenience me a bit.”
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I agree with Barbara Ehrenreich, who said that death doesn’t interrupt life; life interrupts sleep. Sleep is the natural, normal, rightful, incompletion-less, discomfort-less, dis-satisfaction-less, state-of-affairs.
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Someone who comes into being is always getting something overall net-positive? For one thing, it isn’t a meaningful question, because there’s no such thing as someone who isn’t conceived and born. But many lives are very prematurely cut short, and filled with horror, injury and misery. Need I supply details? Check out current-events. Benevolence didn’t make there be those lives.
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But would it even mean anything to say that what’s happening to those people is somehow later (if there’s reincarnation) “outweighed” or “cancelled-out”? How does that change anything when it’s happening to them? When it’s there, it’s there, and that isn’t a good thing.
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Is there any such thing as “making up for” or “canceling out” horrors like that?
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(But I emphasize that I don’t agree with those who complain about having come into being, because 1) There’s no such thing as someone who doesn’t come into being, making it meaningless to speak of hypothetically being better-off if not conceived and born; and 2) I believe that it was inevitable (not made-to-be by intention), and therefore complaint about it is meaningless; and 3) Most such people don’t know what a bad life is, and have nothing to whine about.)
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Anyway, no, I don’t believe that Benevolence made there be those lives of extreme injury, misery and horror.
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…which leads to the next quote:
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”…hence the Gnostic position, which I agree with, that God didn’t create the physical universes, or make there be them.” — Michael Ossipoff
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I see this solution as ruled out by the need for a sufficient explanation -- which must terminate in one, self-explaining source.
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You’re saying that it’s necessary to attribute (and blame) everything on the First Cause, Reality’s Intention.
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It can be shown that it’s a tautology that there is no true-and-false proposition. Likewise, there couldn’t not be the logical relations that I’ve spoken of, among abstract implications and the propositions that they’re about, and the hypothetical things that those propositions are about. …and the complex systems of them that are our life-experience stories.
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Never mind whether or not the abstract-facts, propositions and hypothetical things “exist” or are “real”. That’s irrelevant. Whether they exist or not, they have inter-referring logical relations among them, and that’s what our experience-stories consist of.
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So, just like the fact that there is no true-and-false proposition, our lives were/are inevitable too.
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So don’t blame that on God.
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The role and relation between Reality’s Intention and our lives is subtle and not obvious. You’ve heard the saying that God works in strange ways. Well, we can’t expect to understand or judge that relation that I mentioned in this paragraph. We all (Theists) agree that there’s Benevolence. As Scholastics and Apophatic Theists have said, there’s really nothing else to be said about the matter. No details or detailed explanations.
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I suggest that there’s Benevolence, meaning that things are as good as could be, given the logical inevitabilities.
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(I suggest that that includes the fact that everyone’s sequence-of-lives ends well, with final and timeless well-deserved rest with no such thing as adversity, lack, or incompletion, with increasingly deep sleep--and that, before that end, in that sequence-of-lives, there are (as you suggested) good lives.)
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Those conclusions were called heretical when the Gnostics said it, in mediaeval and earlier times, and they still aren’t welcomed by most Theists.
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Perhaps the answer is that we see things too anthropocentrically -- as though everything needs to be judged in terms of what is good for us, instead of what is good for creation as a whole.

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Do you mean “Tough luck for the unfortunate war-maimed civilians, because what matters is the greatest good for the greatest number?” That doesn’t sound like a situation that Benevolence made there be.
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It isn’t about anthropocentricity, because the same misfortunes happen to the other animals too.
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[/i]”Isn’t continuation inevitable for each timeless, inevitable logical-system?” — Michael Ossipoff[/i]
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No, I don't think so, for two reasons. First, from an Aristotelian perspective, the persistence of a being through time…

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Time is only within a physical world, a property of a physical world. I’m talking about inevitable timeless logical relations and inter-reference among timeless abstract facts about propositions about hypothetical things.
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… is the ongoing actualization of its potential to exist in the next instant. As it does not already exist in that instance, it can't act to actualize its own potential. From the perspective of a space-time manifold, just as existence here does not imply existence there, so existence now does not entail existence then. Thus, we need something outside of the space-time manifold to effect the continuity we observe.

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Referring to the situation _within_ a physical world:
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First some brief background:
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A set of hypothetical physical-quantity values, and a hypothetical relation among them (called a “physical law”) comprise, together, the antecedent of an abstract implication.
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…except that one of those hypothetical physical-quantity-values can be taken as the consequent of that abstract implication.
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Our physical universe, in our experience, seems to have some conservation-laws, such as:
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Conservation of mass-energy
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Conservation of momentum
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Conservation of angular-momentum
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…and some newer conservation laws regarding quantities observed in more recent modern physics.
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Additionally, Newton’s laws of motion (though they’ve been shown to only approximate a more general physics) include a first-law-of-motion that says that a moving object will continue its same motion unless and until acted on by a force.
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(…and let’s not have a relativity-quibble here. Newton’s laws only approximate, under special conditions, a more general physics.)
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So, within this physical universe, there are a number of laws that require the continuations that you referred to.
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…and the whole system, a physical world that’s the setting for your hypothetical life-experience-story, is inevitable because your life-experience-story, as a complex system of inter-reference and relation among abstract implications about propositions about hypothetical things, is inevitable.
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Those relations and inter-reference in those logical systems are inevitable in the same way as it’s an inevitable tautology that there’s no true-and-false proposition.
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Michael Ossipoff

I don't know how the whole picture turns out but...

Everything in biology has a function. Brains think, lungs breathe, hearts pump and so on.

Is function the basis of teleology? Perhaps, as you say, teleology assumes a non-physical ingredient. I don't know.

If we do assume such a thing then the basis is some form of spiritualism with or without a deity.

If we don't then we can still work with limited teleology restricted to the physical. Right?

There's too much uncertainty in spiritualism and the nothing-but physical is unpalatable.

We're in some sorta fix I guess.

Is function the basis of teleology? Perhaps, as you say, teleology assumes a non-physical ingredient. I don't know. — TheMadFool

Function is not the basis of teleology, because it generally refers to an activity, while teleology is based in final cause, the end to the activity, the activity's purpose. The activity is the means to the end. So all these examples, brains thinking, lungs breathing, hearts pumping, and so on, are activities which are purposeful toward further ends. The activity is a means, and is not the final end, or purpose.

If we don't then we can still work with limited teleology restricted to the physical. Right?

There's too much uncertainty in spiritualism and the nothing-but physical is unpalatable. — TheMadFool

Do you think that there's no uncertainty in the physical?

The sort of teleological nonsense up with which I will not put.

We have distinguished the form as it is in the object, as different from the form in the mind. — Metaphysician Undercover

I think you're confused here. Forms are not material objects that can be different because they are in different places. They are what informs matter. That information can be entire, as it is with the the material object, or partial, as it is in the mind of the knowing subject.

In sensation, the object might act on us, being external to us, but it is not "acting within us". — Metaphysician Undercover

Of course it is. It acts on my retina to form the image by which I see it. It acts on my eardrum so that I hear it, etc. These lines of action continue in the neural signals distributing the information to the brain's various processing centers which present the information of which I am aware.

if it were acting within us then the whole form of the object, not just a part, would be within us. — Metaphysician Undercover

Why? When I mow the lawn, are all my capabilities revealed? Of course not. I am much more than a lawn mower. When things act, they reveal only part of the actuality, and forms are the actuality of a being.

If a part of the object were within us, this implies that the whole of the object would not exist without the mind which apprehends it, it would be missing a part. The object would be incomplete without being apprehended by a mind. — Metaphysician Undercover

This is quite true. As Aristotle notes, the object would have an unactualized potential -- its intelligibility.

If a part leaves the object to act within the mind, then the simple act of seeing an object would change that object. How would seeing the moon change the moon? — Metaphysician Undercover

This is the reason I said you were confused above. There is no "part" that leaves. There is a form that informs both within the sphere we draw around the moon and with in us.

Objects do change when we observe them. All observations are interactions, with action and reaction. We can usually ignore that fact because the changes to the object are negligible, but occasionally, as in quantum observations, they become pivotal. We could not see the moon were light not scattered off it. That light changes the moon, but in a small way we can ignore from a practical point of view.

P1: To take the form of the object means to have the very same form. P2: The form which exists in the mind is not the same as the form which is in the object. C:Therefore the mind does not take the form of the object. — Metaphysician Undercover

P1 is ambiguous. "Very same" can mean numerical identity, which is present in experiential cognition, or it can mean having the identical set of properties, which is not the case when only some notes of intelligibility are apprehended.

P2 is true if you mean that we do not apprehend all the notes of the object's intelligibility, but false if you mean that we are not informed by the numerically identical form that informs the object. We could not possibly know anything if one form informed the object, and a numerically different form informed our mind -- for then we would know the second form, not the from of the object.

C is a non sequitur.

Why not accept the obvious, and simple solution, that the form in the mind is distinct from the form in the object, just like a representation is distinct from the thing represented? — Metaphysician Undercover

Because a representation is informed by the artist, while my perception is informed by the object perceived.

Are you claiming that in sense perception there is no separation, no medium, between the object perceived, and the perceiver? — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, actions can be mediated; nonetheless, mediated acts are still their agent's acts.

But you cannot form the concept of "human" from one individual, Jane, because such a concept is a generalization of many humans. — Metaphysician Undercover

Abstractions are not generalizations. For example, there are deep ocean species that have only been seen once. Still, if another individual were observed, we would recognize that it was the same kind of creature as the first. Thus, only one individual is needed to abstract a universal concept.

And so the concept "human" extends to all human beings. Therefore even if the human beings which one has met already "partially exist within us", this does not account for intentionality, which gives one the capacity to designate a person not yet met as human. — Metaphysician Undercover

What accounts for the universality of concepts is the objective capacity (intelligibility) of many individuals to elicit the same concept.