I think naive realism is a name that carries along with it far too much philosophical baggage.
— creativesoul

Fair enough. But...
In philosophy of mind, naïve realism, also known as direct realism, common sense realism or perceptual realism, is the idea that the senses provide us with direct awareness of objects as they really are. Objects obey the laws of physics and retain all their properties whether or not there is anyone to observe them.[1] They are composed of matter, occupy space and have properties, such as size, shape, texture, smell, taste and colour, that are usually perceived correctly.
— Wiki — g0d

As I said... too much baggage.

I don't usually experience my car or my bed as a projection of my mind. I think both will obey certain 'laws' or exhibit certain regularities. I think both will survive me. Someone can inherit either. I think old trees in the park were there before I was born. — g0d

When one is talking in terms of any experience "as a projection of one's mind" one has already gotten things wrong.

If I read Kant, however, I can explore all the complexities and difficulties that are hidden in the common sense I mostly take for granted. — g0d

Kant followed Hume. Both have human thought/belief wrong. Neither takes account of pre-reflective thought/belief. Neither takes proper account of rudimentary thought/belief; in it's earliest stages. Kant tries with his categorical approach and was quite brilliant, but wrong nonetheless.

Furthermore Kant's a priori/a posteriori distinction is grounded upon a gross misunderstanding of what all human thought/belief consists of. There is no thinking possible without experience. There is no reason without thinking. All experience is chock full of thought/belief. Reason is thinking about thought/belief. Reason requires pre-existing thought/belief in the same way that an apple pie requires apples. Where there is no apple/thought, there can be no apple pie/reason.

Kant's notion of Noumena is untenable. Talking in terms of the way things are in and of themselves is fraught. It is a negative limitation within Kant's framework.

Some things exist in their entirety prior to our account of them. That's better.

'Pseudo-math with essences' means having a primitive theory of meaning and using it to do armchair science or traditional metaphysics. — g0d

Primitive theory of meaning...

What is that?

If I claim there is a sack of potatoes in the cabinet, I can check by looking. If I claim that truth is correspondence or that metaphysics is language on holiday, things are far more complicated. — g0d

Agreed. My interest here is an adequate account of that complexity.

If the potatoes we can check for are themselves understood as mere representations of potatoes-in-themselves, we are in trouble. Because it's hard to specify what the hell we mean by potatoes-in-themselves. It can't be atoms, since those are also mere representations. — g0d

I reject Kant for a few reasons. You've raised a few. Kant's Noumena serves as a negative limit... a full stop! We cannot know they way things are in and of themselves, by Kant's own stipulation.

For me the 'phenomenon' of world, a structure of assertion, is perhaps what Kant was trying to get at. But it's perhaps impossible to do 'world' justice in 'word-math.' And although it fascinates me, it's not of great practical importance. Still, I think this part of Heidgenstein is illuminating.

BTW, I recommend Groundless Grounds as a great book on 'Heidgenstein.' Lee Braver fuses the insights of both thinkers on the 'groundless ground.' — g0d

I'm sure that there are plenty of insightful authors who draw compelling comparisons between the two...

I see that they both make the same mistake of Hume and Kant. I like all of these greats and more. They've paved the way.

‘... Beliefs are what people know to be true, with or without enough evidence to have made a rational determination that the belief itself is actually true....’

Truth is tricker. One can begin to say something is true if it’s verifiable and has consensus, bit of course there are holes there that philosophers would love to disect.

Generally, a subjective point of view is one from an individual based on their personal values, feelings, background, etc.. Objectivity would rely on verifiable facts.

There is no thinking possible without experience. There is no reason without thinking. All experience is chock full of thought/belief. Reason is thinking about thought/belief. Reason requires pre-existing thought/belief in the same way that an apple pie requires apples. Where there is no apple/thought, there can be no apple pie/reason. — creativesoul

Of course, but why do you think Kant doesn't know that?

Here's how the CPR opens.

That all our knowledge begins with experience there can be no doubt. For how is it possible that the faculty of cognition should be awakened into exercise otherwise than by means of objects which affect our senses, and partly of themselves produce representations, partly rouse our powers of understanding into activity, to compare to connect, or to separate these, and so to convert the raw material of our sensuous impressions into a knowledge of objects, which is called experience? In respect of time, therefore, no knowledge of ours is antecedent to experience, but begins with it. — Kant

And reason deals with beliefs:

The first half of the Critique of Pure Reason argues that we can only obtain substantive knowledge of the world via sensibility and understanding. Very roughly, our capacities of sense experience and concept formation cooperate so that we can form empirical judgments.
...
In the famous “Refutation of Idealism,” Kant says the following: “Whether this or that putative experience is not mere imagination [or dream or delusion, etc.] must be ascertained according to its particular determinations and through its coherence with the criteria of all actual experience” (B279). To see what Kant means, consider a simple example. Suppose that our dreamer believes she has won a lottery, but then starts to examine this belief. To decide its truth, she must ask how far it connects up with her other judgments, and those of other people.[4] If it fails to connect up (she checks the winning numbers, say, and sees no match with her actual ticket), she must conclude that the belief was false. Otherwise, she would contradict a fundamental law of possible experience, that it be capable of being unified. As Kant summarizes his position: “ the law of reason to seek unity is necessary, since without it we would have no reason, and without that, no coherent use of the understanding, and, lacking that, no sufficient mark of empirical truth…” (A651/B679).[5]

In sum, what separates material error from true cognition for Kant is that true cognitions must find a definite place within a single, unified experience of the world. Since reason is an important source of the unifying structure of experience, it proves essential as an arbiter of empirical truth. — SEP

My interest here is an adequate account of that complexity. — creativesoul

Sure, me too. Or an adequate account of why such an account should no longer be hoped for or pursued.

I'm sure that there are plenty of insightful authors who draw compelling comparisons between the two... — creativesoul

Of course, but of course I didn't pick the one I mentioned randomly.

I see that they both make the same mistake of Hume and Kant. I like all of these greats and more. They've paved the way. — creativesoul

By all means let's have the mistake they all made.

As I said... too much baggage. — creativesoul

And I say not justification/explanation for 'too much baggage,' especially since common-sense realism is almost the minimal, pre-philosophical position.

There is no thinking possible without experience. There is no reason without thinking. All experience is chock full of thought/belief. Reason is thinking about thought/belief. Reason requires pre-existing thought/belief in the same way that an apple pie requires apples. Where there is no apple/thought, there can be no apple pie/reason.
— creativesoul

Of course, but why do you think Kant doesn't know that? — g0d

Fair question. He waffles. A priori and a posteriori.

Fair question. He waffles. A priori and a posteriori. — creativesoul

That's a good distinction, if not perfect. I suggest that we pretty much have only good-not-perfect distinctions.

Spell it out, as you understand it.

As I said... too much baggage.
— creativesoul

And I say not justification/explanation for 'too much baggage,' especially since common-sense realism is almost the minimal, pre-philosophical position. — g0d

Subject/object is included. Notions of perception are included. Etc. They are all fraught.

Taking account of human thought/belief must take proper account of how one acquires a worldview, and it must do so using a framework that is amenable to evolution.

By all means let's have the mistake they all made. — g0d

Not drawing and maintaining the actual distinction between thought/belief and thinking about thought/belief, and as a result mistakenly thinking/believing - as a result of the consequences following from an inadequate notion of thought/belief - that only humans are capable of thinking/believing.

Taking account of human thought/belief must take proper account of how one acquires a worldview, and it must do so using a framework that is amenable to evolution.
12 minutes ago — creativesoul

I think I agree with that. That's where anti-realism continues with Hegel, Heidegger, Wittgenstein, etc. The 'lens' (framework) is liquid and historical. The liquidity is realized as we get over the notion that words have fixed-enough context-independent meanings to build systems with. Our living liquid system has to already be working just fine before we even dream of fixing what isn't broken.

What I mean by 'math with essences' is treating concepts as sharp and distinct and then joining them together like legos and calling it a day. The situation is far more organic, and our skill surpasses the account we can give of it. Along with this our actions are hopelessly entangled with meaning-in-the-head. Wittgenstein's beetle in the box helps point this out. I'm sure your're aware of the idea, but this video is cute if you haven't seen it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x86hLtOkou8

Not drawing and maintaining the actual distinction between thought/belief and thinking about thought/belief, and as a result mistakenly thinking/believing - as a result of the consequences following from an inadequate notion of thought/belief - that only humans are capable of thinking/believing. — creativesoul

It seems to me that they use the distinction constantly. Isn't philosophy largely beliefs about beliefs? I don't claim that any philosopher is adequate in the sense of cannot-be-improved.

So are you thinking of animals, aliens? And are you saying that philosophers have tended to under-rate the intelligence of animals? Personally I think that some animals do indeed think (have concepts and beliefs). I suppose the difficult issue is how much language we demand before we use the word 'belief.'

But then humans have strong visual imaginations, and we can expect a basketball to rebound a certain way for instance without having words for it.

A landowner had been quite bothered by the crow since it had chosen to nest in his watch-house. He had planned to shoot it. The bird would fly away and wait until the landowner had left to return to its nest inside the watch-house, given that no-one would be inside to shoot it. In order to deceive it, the landowner had two people enter the watch-house and one leave. The crow was not deceived by this malicious plan, even when three men entered and two left. It wasn’t until five men had entered the tower and four had left that the bird did eventually fly back inside the watch-house. — link

https://blogofthecosmos.com/2016/03/01/the-numerical-abilities-of-non-human-animals/

More impressive:

er instructor and caregiver, Francine Patterson, reported that Koko had an active vocabulary of more than 1,000 signs of what Patterson calls "Gorilla Sign Language" (GSL).[4][5] In contrast to other experiments attempting to teach sign language to non-human primates, Patterson simultaneously exposed Koko to spoken English from an early age. It was reported that Koko understood approximately 2,000 words of spoken English, in addition to the signs.[6] Koko's life and learning process has been described by Patterson and various collaborators in books, peer-reviewed scientific articles, and on a website.[7]

As with other great-ape language experiments, the extent to which Koko mastered and demonstrated language through the use of these signs is disputed.[8][9] It is generally accepted that she did not use syntax or grammar, and that her use of language did not exceed that of a young human child.[10][11][12][13][14] However, she scored between 70 and 90 on various IQ scales, and some experts, including Mary Lee Jensvold, claim that "Koko...[used] language the same way people do".[15][16][17] — Wiki

Even if Koko was only like a 2-year old (which I'm not sure about), that's impressive.

Not drawing and maintaining the actual distinction between thought/belief and thinking about thought/belief, and as a result mistakenly thinking/believing - as a result of the consequences following from an inadequate notion of thought/belief - that only humans are capable of thinking/believing.
— creativesoul

It seems to me that they use the distinction constantly — g0d

One would think so... none wrote about it.

One would think so... none wrote about it. — creativesoul

Perhaps because it didn't seem important to them?

I confess: I'm still not seeing why the distinction is so important.

Perhaps because it didn't seem important to them? — g0d

More likely that they did not see their own mistake. Much more likely...

I confess: I'm still not seeing why the distinction is so important. — g0d

Are you saying that you do not see how getting human thought/belief right is so important?

So you mean something like mental and physical, right? Even then, I don't think it's a clean distinction, however usual as a first approximation. — g0d

I'm a physicalist, so I wouldn't say mental and physical, but mental and non-mental, or alternately, a subset of brain function (which is what "mental" is, physically) and everything else.

I'm a physicalist, so I wouldn't say mental and physical, but mental and non-mental, or alternately, a subset of brain function (which is what "mental" is, physically) and everything else. — Terrapin Station

Fair enough. So you acknowledge the experience of redness? A what-it-is-like to be a human being?

Are you saying that you do not see how getting human thought/belief right is so important? — creativesoul

No. Having good beliefs is absolutely central, hence philosophy and science.

I guess I think having beliefs about beliefs is uncontroversial. We talk about beliefs about things as well as beliefs about beliefs.

Fair enough. So you acknowledge the experience of redness? A what-it-is-like to be a human being? — g0d

Yes. I think those phenomena are obvious.

Me too.

I do like the 'non-mental' as the other to the mental. I like the lens metaphor. The mental is aimed at and reveals the non-mental. Or at least the lens metaphor gets something right.

What do you make of quarks, atoms, waves? These are mental in some sense (concepts) and yet applied to objects in the world. If the redness of the apple is mental, then why not also our understanding of it in terms of atoms? The non-mental is like a vanishing point. Yet I agree that we always aim our talk at something we might call 'non-mental.' The quest for objectivity suggests that communication presupposes a world or reality that is talked about more or less correctly.

Banno writes in English. I write in English. Being able to say it in the first person is not a sufficient criterion for separating the so called subject/object. It is all word salad.

@Wayfarer is right. Is a neuron self-aware? It can't make an object of itself.

Yes, consciousness is a network phenomenon of neurons some might say but is the neural network (the brain) conscious of itself (as a neural network)?

Since the brain isn't capable of making itself the object of its own study like it can with other things like a table or a person, the ability of the mind to self-reflect is physically inexplicable.

:roll: Your hand, for instance, can grasp anything except itself; however, that in no way makes your hand's functioning "inexplicable".

Since the brain isn't capable of making itself the object of its own study like it can with other things like a table or a person, the ability of the mind to self-reflect is physically inexplicable. — Agent Smith

You could cut carefully take your brain out, keeping the neural connections and blood flow intact. Then sling your brain around by the bundle of nerves and stones. I don't think you get dizzy. A bit light in the head, maybe.
Then you can lay your brain to rest and play with the visual cortex on the back. That will alter your vision of the brain, and might even caùse damage, so be careful.
You can even yo-yo the brain by rolling vaines and nerves around it and roll it off.
The most interesting things happen when you squeeze it like a peach or poke around in it with a variety of needles and metal charged sticks.
There is a lot to stick your nose in. Colored sounds may abe heard, melodic colors be seen, hot itch be felt, pain be tasted, and sweetness be smelt, or viciousness taken for an act of mercy.

So be careful and leave the nerves and vaines connected. You might loose your head...

Since the brain isn't capable of making itself the object of its own study like it can with other things like a table or a person, the ability of the mind to self-reflect is physically inexplicable. — Agent Smith

Connect a camera to a monitor and then turn the camera back to look at its monitor. The visual feedback in the monitor is the camera's view of itself - the camera-monitor system. This is like the infinite regress you experience when thinking about your self.

Thinking about thinking is what blurs the boundary of subject and object. In thinking about thinking object and subject are one and the same.

Connect a camera to a monitor and then turn the camera back to look at its monitor. The visual feedback in the monitor is the camera's view of itself - the camera-monitor system. This is like the infinite regress you experience when thinking about your self. — Harry Hindu

The camera captures itself, right but neither single neurons nor neural networks see themselves as they truly are, neurons or neural networks; in other words, they (neurons/neural networks) can't make themselves objects as they truly are.

Thinking about thinking is what blurs the boundary of subject and object. In thinking about thinking object and subject are one and the same. — Harry Hindu

Thus, in some sense, to a degree, the mind can't be the brain as it possesses capabilities the brain doesn't.

The camera captures itself, right but neither single neurons nor neural networks see themselves as they truly are, neurons or neural networks; in other words, they (neurons/neural networks) can't make themselves objects as they truly are. — Agent Smith

What do you mean, "see as they truly are"? Do you see anything as it truly is? Does the mind "see" itself as it truly is?

What do you mean, "see as they truly are"? Do you see anything as it truly is? Does the mind "see" itself as it truly is? — Harry Hindu

Metacognition: The mind forms and image of itself. This image, last I checked, is definitely not a brain.

Metacognition: The mind forms and image of itself. This image, last I checked, is definitely not a brain. — Agent Smith

Well no, an image is not the thing the image is of. You seem to be confusing the thing with an image of the thing. Is the image of the thing seen as it truly is?

If you don't see your brain as it truly is how can you say that you see other brains as they truly are? How is it that you have true sight of other people's brains but not of your own when you only have access to the image and not the thing itself?

If you are able to know about things by only accessing an image of those things, does it really matter that you don't have direct access to those things?

I'm not satisfied with your replies. Have a good day.