Whatever a dog represents as a ball or food, isn't learned, it's represented, learning doesn't arise.
In either case representations aren't learned. They grow in the mind. — Manuel
You have access to nothing whatsoever outside of your own mentation.
Because nobody does. All things are experienced from the first person subjective experience. Unless you're claiming you do, in which case, that's something that carries a burden of proof.
Isn’t all representation a creative act? Or are you arguing for innate hard-wired categories as an explanation of instinctive behavior? — Joshs
Even from the first-person point of view we come into direct contact with the outer world. I think the burden of proof lies with those who claim otherwise. — NOS4A2
Where do you find yourself at all? All there is is the things that are there... — Heiko
You have access to nothing whatsoever outside of your own mentation. — Dharmi
How do you know that? — frank
Because nobody does. — Dharmi
So, it follows that the nobodies you refer to are not "outside your mentation"? — Janus
So, I would say all things exist in the Mind of God. The only things I in particular have access to is the things in my personal mentation. But I'm not a Solipsist. God's Mind is what underlies the energetic flux of reality we experience. — Dharmi
I am not only are aware of smelling the rose, I am aware that it is I use smell the rose. Ther is what, after Nagel, they call the feeling of what it is like to experience anything, a quality of for-meness’ that attaches to all my encounters with the world. — Joshs
- but where is the proof? Maybe the warmth just IS warm. — Heiko
This again is an assumption. It just is warm.You are not only aware of the warmth. — Joshs
Experience? Do you mean the existence of the warmth? I try not to make an assumption here.You are also aware of the mode of subjective access to the experience. — Joshs
So you relate the existence of the warmth to "modalities"?One is not only aware of an experience but can report what modality the experience arose from. — Joshs
Do we access existence or do we construct it? Does our knowledge mirror an independent world or do we construct that world , contribute to its development? Is knowing copying an outside or is it an interaction that transforms what we see? — Joshs
So you relate the existence of the warmth to "modalities"? — Heiko
But this was not exactly the initial question.We all do, according to studies. — Joshs
Is that also related to "modalities"?And what about the use of the world ‘I’ here? — Joshs
It makes sense to ask if it is warm. If you say "it is", where is you?We can talk about the feeling of warmth in the abstract , in third personal terms, but when I have a personal feeling of warmth, does it makes sense to ask the question, ‘is it ‘I’ who is feeling warm’? — Joshs
It makes sense to ask if it is warm. If you say "it is", where is you? — Heiko
There is.There is a difference in meaning between ‘it is warm’ , which doesnt necessary require a subjective experience ( I could be looking at a thermostat) and proclaiming that it is I who feel warm. — Joshs
Not if you are a solipsist, for example.And what about my pain?Does it make sense to ask if it is ‘I’ who am in pain? — Joshs
That also depends on certain assumptions.Is my pain the same thing as ‘there is pain’? — Joshs
Hume: 'when I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never can catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe any thing but the perception…. If any one, upon serious and unprejudic'd reflection thinks he has a different notion of himself, I must confess I can reason no longer with him. All I can allow him is, that he may be in the right as well as I, and that we are essentially different in this particular. He may, perhaps, perceive something simple and continu'd, which he calls himself; tho' I am certain there is no such principle in me.” — Joshs
Yājñavalkya says: "You tell me that I have to point out the Self as if it is a cow or a horse. Not possible! It is not an object like a horse or a cow. I cannot say, 'here is the ātman; here is the Self'. It is not possible because you cannot see the seer of seeing. The seer can see that which is other than the Seer, or the act of seeing. An object outside the seer can be beheld by the seer. How can the seer see himself? How is it possible? You cannot see the seer of seeing. You cannot hear the hearer of hearing. You cannot think the Thinker of thinking. You cannot understand the Understander of understanding. That is the ātman."
Nobody can know the ātman inasmuch as the ātman is the Knower of all things. So, no question regarding the ātman can be put, such as "What is the ātman?' 'Show it to me', etc. You cannot show the ātman because the Shower is the ātman; the Experiencer is the ātman; the Seer is the ātman; the Functioner in every respect through the senses or the mind or the intellect is the ātman. As the basic Residue of Reality in every individual is the ātman, how can we go behind It and say, 'This is the ātman?' Therefore, the question is impertinent and inadmissible. The reason is clear. It is the Self. It is not an object. 1 — Brihadaranyaka Upaniṣad
My aim with the Hume quote was to show that the assumed pure
interiority of consciousness falls apart when analysed closely, because when we search for ourselves what we find is always reshaped by exposure to an outside. If you want to call that outside ‘physical’ then you’re maintaining a kind of dualism between interior and exterior. I prefer ‘phenomena’ or appearances’ to physical objects( as Nietzsche wrote, there is nothing behind those appearances) , because it indicates the indissociable reciprocal depends of interior and exterior, making mind embodied and embedded in a world , which itself is co-constructed by its relationships with embodied mind. In this view of mind-body-environment no clear-cut interior or exterior can be discerned.
So I'm offering my system, and I'm asking you to tell me what's wrong with my system. You haven;t done that, you're just rejecting it for some unknown reason that you haven't explained yet. — Dharmi
In my own view the self begins and ends at the exterior surface, which can be discerned from simple observation and direct contact. It cannot extend any further outward or inward, and any notion of the self that violates this principle is illusory. — NOS4A2
All I need do is point to myself to confirm this, in my view. — NOS4A2
my mind is not a physical thing with physical characteristics, like size, shape, weight, volume, etc. that I'm not making an assumption when I say my mind is not a physical thing. — RogueAI
If we can't rely on our senses to prove the physical world; can we rely on our senses to know that the mind is not physical?
I don't need my senses to know that my mind is not physical, in the sense that materialists/physicalists use the word. It's simply not in that category of things, because it's missing physical characteristics. — RogueAI
I wish you would address my thought experiment about the two ancient people talking meaningfully about their mental states. — RogueAI
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