It was not a concern, more an information. Honestly, I don't like your style. You are trying to be toxic and obnoxious, a behavior best left to unsecure teenagers.

@Olivier5

Honestly I don't care for your opinion on this.
Nor your amateur reading into my motivations.

And maybe you should look at the insecurity of yourself in not being able to handle counter opinions with Grace.

Whatever.

deleted.

@Olivier5

A very teenage response!

@khaled
It's only yours I called a shit post. Because it was.

As I said before,snowflakes be dishing out but can't handle some heat.

There is absolutely no empiricism in cognitive metaphysics, it being entirely a rational study under the auspices of logic alone.
— Mww

I disagree. What seems logical to you is an empirical finding from interoception. You find it logical that 2+2=4. That's not different than you finding the rocks are hard or roses smell sweet. — Isaac

We’ve been exposed to simple arithmetic since Day One, practically, so we don’t notice the fundamentals anymore. That 2+2=4 is a given, but it is merely the empirical proof, a euphemism for experience, that the logical inference “these things conjoined with those things makes a greater thing than either”.

Rote memorization is cognition, but isn’t cognitive metaphysics, which presupposes memory, albeit named by a different conception.
—————-

But surely it is either given that it is ("if it seems to me to be bacon then it is bacon") or you accept that things can seem some way yet turn out to be another. — Isaac

If it seems to be bacon presupposes what bacon seems like. What bacon seems like, to me, is my experience of it. So, all else being equal, if that which I now perceive seems like bacon, than I am justified in experiencing it as bacon.

That I am forced to admit that some things seem some way, but turn out to be quite different, is nothing but the manifold of conceptions I think as belonging to that thing, were insufficient for the valid cognition of it. These days, that’s just called “not enough information”. This is why we don’t need science to tell us empirical knowledge is both contingent, and incomplete; logic told us that eons ago.

Guy has the experience of a certain animal. He’s out for a stroll, sees an animal, perceives the same properties in the second he found in the first, says...yep that there’s a “dog”, too. Second animal does an about-face, guy then notices a stripe running the full length of its back. Oops, he says, that ain’t no dog like I ever seen. Gonna call that a “badger”.

Guy calls this thing a table. Some other guy comes along, miniaturizes him, takes him way down deep into the table, guy finds nothing but mostly empty space. Does he think his table isn’t what it seems? No, he does not, for he is no longer cognizing the table, but only that which occupies the space relative to himself, which quite obviously does not include his pre-conceived table.
—————

“...I can think what I please, provided only I do not contradict myself....”
— Mww

So... is the thought that some thought is a contradictory thought subject to the same restrictions? — Isaac

Thoughts are not contradictory. Thoughts are singular and successive, in that no thought is of more than the one thing to which it relates, and no thought is simultaneous with any other. Given a series of thoughts, if the judgement arising from them does not conform to them, the judgement is contradictory. For me to judge blue and square, that which I conceive to be red and round, is me contradicting myself. Simple, extreme, but serves as the general principle.

Me judging a car to be doing 50, when the cop giving me the ticket proves the car was doing 60, is not me contradicting myself, but me misunderstanding the empirical conditions, which is not irrational. If I judge the car as doing 50, look at the speedometer which shows the car doing 60, but insist the car is doing only 50 anyway, then I contradict myself by denial, which is quite irrational.
————-

Interoception. Interesting concept. I never heard of it. Care to elaborate?

We’ve been exposed to simple arithmetic since Day One, practically, so we don’t notice the fundamentals anymore. That 2+2=4 is a given, but it is merely the empirical proof, a euphemism for experience, that the logical inference “these things conjoined with those things makes a greater thing than either”. — Mww

Bad example because of the ambiguity. Logial inference is still something one 'senses' and so empirical, is the point I was making. Have you never thought something logically follows whilst another disagrees? You 'sense' it's logically valid, another senses it isn't.

Guy calls this thing a table. Some other guy comes along, miniaturizes him, takes him way down deep into the table, guy finds nothing but mostly empty space. Does he think his table isn’t what it seems? No, he does not, for he is no longer cognizing the table, but only that which occupies the space relative to himself, which quite obviously does not include his pre-conceived table. — Mww

I don't agree. You've limited the models to instantaneous experience, where models are really about expectations. My previous model of the table as solid contain in it an expectation that if I were to be miniaturised and travel into it I would be somehow 'swimming' in table, much like treacle or maybe set, unable to move, as if in concrete. That model changes when I'm taught about atoms. I have a different expectation, my story changes.

the judgement arising from them does not conform to them, the judgement is contradictory. — Mww

...which is a type of thought, no? Hence...

“...I can think what I please, provided only I do not contradict myself....”
— Mww

So... is the thought that some thought is a contradictory thought subject to the same restrictions? — Isaac — Mww

Interoception. Interesting concept. I never heard of it. Care to elaborate? — Mww

It's the sense of one's internal states. Like looking inwards.

Listen guy. Don't pigeon hole me or try to patronise me. — Protagoras

I don’t know you well enough to pigeonhole you. All I know is you’ve been on this site for less than two weeks and have already managed to show hostility to all but two of the people you have engaged with here. I think that’s some kind of record. Does that mean you are one who ‘doesn’t play well with others’? I guess that’s not for me to say. You’d know better than I if you have a pattern of feeling alienated from the social groups you find yourself involved with. Maybe that’s because you’re the only righteous one amongst all your peers. But if so that must be a lonely cross to bear.

Listen

If your too anal and think I need to show proof of every bit of malevolence in historical matters then you keep believing the narratives dealt to you by the powers that be. — Protagoras

I was hoping you’d humor me and show prooof of the specific malevolence you claimed.

Listen

You stick to your comfortable post modernist narratives.
— Protagoras

I’d rether you present an interesting critique of those post modern narratives. Isnt that what we’re here for?

Listen

As if I owe you a detailed spoon feeding of how to asses narratives. Do your own research and use your own brain not relying on academics to justify your every viewpoint — Protagoras

A good policy for all of us . But wouldnt it be quicker just to say that you don’t have any specific evidence to back up your assertion concerning Einstein rather than give me a lecture on interpretation of narratives? That’s what someone does who’s trying to cover their ass.

Listen

And the irony of ",conspiracy monger" when you read deleuze,Nietzsche,foucault et al and say there is a variety of perspectives. — Protagoras

That could be an interesting starting point for a discussion, Much better to go in that direction than just throw it out as an attack one-liner. It makes you more vulnerable but the other direction just closes you off to people.

@Joshs
Your talk about vulnerable and alienation is just your defensiveness.

Your "psychoanalysis" is born from the same.

Yes,the last point is interesting. We could have a good discussion. But if you want that,then talk in your own words,not just quoting others.

I like discourse with you on some level because you actually acknowledge intuition and a critique of enlightment "rationality",which is very rare on this forum.

We can start afresh,but i want your views,not scholar X on scholar Y.

Joshs
Your talk about vulnerable and alienation is just your defensiveness — Protagoras

I don’t have all that much to defend because I don’t have that high an opinion of myself. I’m just another shmuck on here trying to learn a thing or two. But there’s no question we all make ourselves vulnerable when we share our ideas , because they are a partn of who we are, and it can be devastating to have our self-image challenged. I think that’s why conversations often deteriorate into name calling.

Yes,the last point is interesting. We could have a good discussion. But if you want that,then talk in your own words,not just quoting others.

I like discourse with you on some level because you actually acknowledge intuition and a critique of enlightment "rationality",which is very rare on this forum. — Protagoras

I think within the continental tradition, and hewing closely to texts of part of that style, but I certainly don’t have to include quotes.

There are a number of contributors here who critique Enlightenment rationality, including Antony Nickles , Xtrix and Streetlight.

@Joshs

In honesty I don't mind if someone disagrees with me,it's the manner in which they post that can be the issue at times.

I'm very confident and certain in what I do know,so nobody is going to upset me on that score.

I'm not a fan of xtrix and definately not streetlight! Anthony Nickles I will have a look.

When I say a critique of rationality I'm talking foucault level of saying science is just control. However,I don't go foucault level of subjectivity being constructed purely by culture etc,nor do I say religious experience is invalid.

My critique is psychological,and with this everyone's philosophy is an expression of their biography,just like nietzsche alludes to.

Academic logic is just control in platonist style,with large chunks of aristotle.

When I say a critique of rationality I'm talking foucault level of saying science is just control. However,I don't go foucault level of subjectivity being constructed purely by culture etc,nor do I say religious experience is invalid. — Protagoras

Are you familiar with the work of Eugene Gendlin? He wrote about an approach that he dubbed ‘after postmodernism’. His approach , which he worked out when he was working with Carl Rogers, shows how logical forms and patterns are generated out of an implicit intricacy , which is not just the imposition of culture and language on individuals, as the postmodernists claim. One can think beyond language and culture. Gendlin argues that this implicit intricacy is both intentional and affective, before any notion of a split between feeling and thought. I wonder if this might be of interest to you. I’m also a big fan of the psychologist George Kelly, who also abandoned the distinction between feeling, knowing and doing.

@Joshs
Both those sound right up my Street!

I will look them both up.

If you give a little synopsis of what you think are some of their salient ideas,then we can have a good discussion.

See now,this is very interesting.

The core idea of Gendlin’s is that whatever we experience occurs into an implying. That is , the body is an interconnected mesh of behaviors, thoughts and feeling that functions as a single totality and always implies a next move. So what occurs as this thought or this perception isn’t a something out there disconnected from an in here. Objects don’t appear as cut off from our implying of them. They are connected to our implying as relevant and significant in some way, and this has a certain boldly feeling associated with it. The way we use words comes out of this bodily implying.

@Joshs
Thank you. I just read the wiki article on Gendlin.

It's quite amazing how close in some respects it is to my philosophy especially the part about Focusing.

Tremendous!

So now George Kelly if you would!

@Joshs

Just read the wiki on Kelly.

Superb psychological insights.

If you are into those two thinkers why even bother with the vast majority of continental thinkers? The ideas of those two if refined with some freud are sufficient.

It's also very instructive that those two and freud were all Practical therapists and not just writers or academics.

Further,the parallels with gendlin and yoga,zen and meditation are very instructive.

My philosophy in a nutshell. Focus on everyday tasks in a competitive non discursive way to elicit progress and growth. This from instinct and life experience,not books.

I'm always said sport is a microcosm of life and better than any philosophy.

I have a soft spot in my heart for Kelly His writing is packed with a playful humor which I see as reflecting the implications of theory itself. He is often credited as the founder of cognitive therapy but he didn’t want to be seen as a cognitive psychologist because cognition is too closely linked to logical criterion of meaning. Instead, he called his theory the psychology of personal construct. A construct differs from
the classical definition of a concept. If a concept is the dictionary definition of a word, then a construct is the particular sense of a word’s meaning that is unique to our own construct system. We may both use the word ‘dog’ when pointing to an animal , but they may mean slightly different things to each of us. Each construct gets its meaning from its role within a system
of constructs. Think about it this way. Our lives are organized by overarching themes having to do with the way we see ourselves in relation to others, what we stand for, etc. This would be the superordinate aspect of our construct system. The limits of our superordinate system
define a the limits of what we can understand , what we can make sense of. It also defines our affective limits. Those experiences that trigger anger, threat , guilt or fear are events that lie just outside the range of convenience of our total system. Negative emotions define our intellectual frontier. when we find ourselves in emotional crisis , we are prompted to reconstrue our situation , to find alternate ways of making sense of our world. In this way each of us is an incipient scientist.

If you are into those two thinkers why even bother with the vast majority of continental thinkers? The ideas of those two if refined with some freud are sufficient. — Protagoras

I have always said the ultimate test of any philosophy is how well it serves as a psychotherapy. What can it tell us about ourselves and others that rival psychotherapies miss?

@Joshs
Excellent stuff. Much appreciated.

Would you say there are people whose superordinate system rather than triggering negative emotions when in new unknown experiences or territory "Focus" hard and actually thrive joyfully in spite of the unknown?

Because thats a lot of my experience.

If you are into those two thinkers why even bother with the vast majority of continental thinkers? The ideas of those two if refined with some freud are sufficient.— Protagoras


I have always said the ultimate test of any philosophy is how well it serves as a psychotherapy. What can it tell us about ourselves and others that rival psychotherapies miss?

Agree in general wholeheartedly.

Now you see my beef with science and philosophy!?
@Joshs

Would you say there are people whose superordinate system rather than triggering negative emotions when in new unknown experiences or territory "Focus" hard and actually thrive joyfully in spite of the unknown? — Protagoras

Well, if I shift back a minute from Kelly to Gendlin, Gendlin would say that in feeling ‘ stuck’ in a new situation where one does not know how to go on , to move forward, one can use the technique of focusing to tap into one’s bodily implicit intricacy. The body knows how to go forward because it is always implying new possibilities.. But to make that knowing fully conscious and articulate , one has to get in touch with the bodily felt sense of the situation as a whole. Usually we just get stuck in a piece of the situation and react with narrow emotions., which keeps us trapped in the same cycle of thinking. When we sense the situation as a whole it begins to shift and create new possibilities of meaning for us.

Now you see my beef with science and philosophy!? — Protagoras

For centuries these have left US out of the picture , as if our relation to experience was not necessary to the facts of the world.

@Joshs

Yep. That's my personal experience.

I'm combining Kelly and gendlin in my above post.

If we threw in some freud, William James and Zen the circle would be complete!

For centuries these have left US out of the picture , as if our relation to experience was not necessary to the facts of the world

Yes indeed @Joshs. This is true. Though people outside academia didn't fall for the pure rationality nonsense.

Only philosophers,scientists and the bourgeois.

the judgement is contradictory.
— Mww

...which is a type of thought, no? — Isaac

We’re......I’m......talking about a system, a cognitive system, a determined speculative methodology. It behooves understanding the system from without, to maintain its components in relation to each one’s functionality as a whole, from within. Part.....“think: puzzle pieces”; part......“don’t overthink”, that which has already been completely rendered. As such, understanding/judgment is the faculty of thought, but a judgement is not a thought. A thought is a cognition from conceptions. Conceptions arise spontaneously from understanding in relation to phenomena, judgement is the unity of conceptions in relation to each other. These together are a cognition. Reason determines the relation of conceptions to each other, that is, a cognition, to experience.

Couple things that might help....an object cannot be perceived by a single property. An object cannot be cognized by a single conception. There’s a whole slew of both, but nevertheless usually resolving into a single item of knowledge, a single experience. It gets complicated for the system because the world is complicated, but we, as conscious agents, usually have no conscious notion of the work the system does, in order to keep us out of trouble, so to speak. It seems Mother Nature realized her rationally-inclined creations work better and last longer if mentally streamlined. It’s when things don’t quite fit together, that understanding of some theoretical system makes possible the understanding of why things don’t quite fit together. And the first realization is...it isn’t that things don’t fit together, but rather, it is that we ourselves that have misfit them.

But I made a mistake. I said, Given a series of thoughts, if the judgement arising from them does not conform to them, the judgement is contradictory. I should have said, given a series of conceptions.... From the correction, it clarifies that a judgement wherein the conceptions do not belong to the phenomenon, reason finds such cognition contradicts experience, re: “That ain’t like no dog I ever seen”. It is in judgement alone, with respect to a posteriori cognitions, that errors in our thinking occurs, and it is reason alone that discovers them, and is solely responsible for the possible correction of them.

It is from all that, that this arises: “...I can think what I please, provided only I do not contradict myself....”, which translates to, I can judge conceptions as being united with each other til the cows come home, in any manner and any combination I like.......as long as reason, finds nothing wrong with it.
—————

Logial inference is still something one 'senses' and so empirical, — Isaac

Does that, relate to this, re: interoception?

It's the sense of one's internal states. — Isaac

I’m not so sure about that. It reeks of the Homunculus Argument, in that if one senses an inference it begs the question...from whence did the inference arise, if one merely senses that there has been one? On the other hand, if one senses an inference presupposes he is the source of it, begs the other question....why would he call it something he sensed, if it was he who created it? What one senses, is the conclusion the inference obtains, which may or may not be empirical. He does not ‘sense’ the act of logically inferring from which the conclusion is given.

I think you may mean, from your point of view, that to ‘sense’ indicates that under the proper experimental conditions, evidence is presented that one does a logical thing in response to relevant stimuli, and so is empirically verified that such is the case.

If that is what you mean, do you see the problem? What else could possibly appear under such experimental conditions, if the human cognitive system is itself a logical system? Of course you’ll witness that ones ‘senses’ a logical inference, because he could not possibly do anything else, simply because that is the very nature of the system under which he does anything at all. Your system would be of great benefit, if it were demonstrated that the human system is not in fact logical, but a human still ‘senses’ logical inferences, because in that case, he would not be at the same time the source of it. If you can’t do that, in effect you’ve done nothing metaphysics hasn’t already done, 300 years go.

So...in order to reconcile the paradigmatic conflict, what I think you meant, and what you actually meant, are way more separate than laid out here. Which I grant beforehand.

Which brings up this: I’ve been telling you of my system, but you haven’t reciprocated by telling me of yours. And while all this is a proper demonstration of Socratic dialectic, it is necessarily one-sided. Just letting you know it doesn’t have to be; you could always lay some psychological counterpoints on me.

Conceptions arise spontaneously from understanding in relation to phenomena, judgement is the unity of conceptions in relation to each other. — Mww

OK, that makes sense, but it still leaves the substance of the question unanswered(or at least I can't see an answer there). Can you hold contradictory judgements? You say "Reason determines the relation of conceptions to each other, that is, a cognition, to experience", but 'reason', in my experience rarely delivers clean categorical judgements. One day one's reason might judge that minds are non-physical only to read an argument to the contrary and judge differently. I'm not sure I see the clear distinction you want to make between thoughts and judgements. Judgements are necessarily recalled post hoc (one doesn't re-judge every second) so a judgement being 'in mind' is a phenomena, an interocepted state one discovers one has.

it isn’t that things don’t fit together, but rather, it is that we ourselves that have misfit them. — Mww

Nice.

reason finds such cognition contradicts experience, re: “That ain’t like no dog I ever seen”. It is in judgement alone, with respect to a posteriori cognitions, that errors in our thinking occurs, and it is reason alone that discovers them, and is solely responsible for the possible correction of them. — Mww

The trouble with this is that, as you say, "we, as conscious agents, usually have no conscious notion of the work the system does, in order to keep us out of trouble, so to speak". Seems innocuous, but one of the activities 'the system' is strongly suspected of doing is filtering and even, in some cases, completely changing, the sensations to match the expected model - prior to delivering this information to the working memory (which is my term for the place where 'reason' is done). So it's not reason alone that discovers them and corrects them. There are three aspects which I cannot see could be maintained without contradiction. The brain is where reasoning takes place - We are conscious of all reasoning - Reason alone corrects perceptions which contradict experience. We know that areas of the brain are responsible for subconsciously correcting perceptions which don't match experience. So one of those three positions has to give.

I’ve been telling you of my system, but you haven’t reciprocated by telling me of yours. And while all this is a proper demonstration of Socratic dialectic, it is necessarily one-sided. Just letting you know it doesn’t have to be; you could always lay some psychological counterpoints on me. — Mww

It's relatively simple to lay out my system, but would take several textbooks to provide you with the evidential reasoning behind it, so you may either just assume a background of empirical evidence supporting, or take what I say as an interesting fairy tale. Either way...

I treat the mind as being the functional system arising from the arrangement and properties of the central nervous system. In other words, it's what the brain does by virtue of it's component parts being so arranged.

It transpires (according, of course, the the interpreted result of the experiments I take to be evidence for this sort of thing), that what the CNS does is almost nothing else but guess the cause of it's own states, all being entirely directed to improving the next guess. Surprise is the enemy here. The method is to have a hierarchy of subsystems, each guessing the cause of its inputs which then becomes the input to the next subsystem, and so on. The details need not bore you now (quite happy to expound on anything though), but the consequences for your comment...

I’m not so sure about that. It reeks of the Homunculus Argument, in that if one senses an inference it begs the question...from whence did the inference arise, if one merely senses that there has been one? On the other hand, if one senses an inference presupposes he is the source of it, begs the other question....why would he call it something he sensed, if it was he who created it? What one senses, is the conclusion the inference obtains, which may or may not be empirical. He does not ‘sense’ the act of logically inferring from which the conclusion is given. — Mww

...are...

The entire system is working post hoc, each input to a system is not the current state of the system below it, it is the state at the time of input - necessarily some point in the past. Inputs are actively blocked and filtered by backward acting neural network connections, partly to ensure this. So what you call 'making an inference' could mean one of two things - we could translate it as some system having a model (it has inferred the cause of it's inputs). This is the sense in which I use the term. But this sense doesn't marry with the way you use it (your requirement for conscious awareness). So for your use, inference would translate better to the model derived by those systems whose inputs are the activity logs for the other systems. Our conscious awareness is a kind of meta-model which unifies the goings on of all the other systems (or many of them, more like) under it's own model. This meta-modelling, we experience as awareness, consciousness...whatever you want to call it.

So, to have your conscious rational judgement, it can only be done by the meta-modelling consciousness systems, whose inputs are the activity logs of the other systems actually doing the inference modelling of sensations. At no point does your conscious, rational, system get access to the sensations from one's environment (nor from one's physiology). The brain simply doesn't trust such a flamboyant storyteller as consciousness with the important stuff.

Hence - what best translates from my system as your 'reason' is only ever something which gathers inferences about sensations, not makes them. The inferences it makes are those which unify the systems below it, to better predict what they are likely to deliver next. 2+2=4 is just such a model.

one of the activities 'the system' is strongly suspected of doing is filtering and even, in some cases, completely changing, the sensations to match the expected model — Isaac

Ain’t that the truth!! Some do it more than a others, the most prevalent, I would guess, being the long-ago story embellishment......“Damn thing was THIS big, I swear, then the line broke and he was gone!!!”....which relates to purely personal aesthetic judgements whereby the ego satisfies itself. More serious are occasions of rejecting empirical evidence in dispute with personal prejudice, which relates to discursive judgements whereby the ego finds its satisfaction from outside itself and maintains it at all costs. As Paul Simon says, “Still, a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest, mmm, mmmm, mmmmmm”.

But you know as well as I, only by understanding the properly working system does its impropriety become recognized, and the simplest, easiest to recognize error in metaphysical cognitive systems, is the LNC.

The purpose of my metaphysics is, hopefully, to have “....discovered the cause of—and consequently the mode of removing—all the errors which have hitherto set reason at variance with itself in the sphere of non-empirical thought....”
————-

Can you hold contradictory judgements? — Isaac

Technically, a judgement isn’t something one holds, and judgements are not themselves contradictory. The relativism of truths are that which are said to be held, and cognitions are those which are contradictory. So, no, one cannot hold contradictory judgements, but under a given set of conditions, he does hold with beliefs, the judgements for which its cognitions are only contingently true hence susceptible to contradicting themselves, or, under a given set of conditions he does hold with knowledge the judgements for which its cognitions are necessarily true, hence cannot contradict themselves.

In the former, a different judgement made on the same premises is sufficient to nullify or otherwise change the cognition of the object, but in the latter, a judgement made on an entirely different set of premises is necessary to nullify or otherwise change the object of cognition. The former is a different version of the same truth; the latter is a different truth entirely.
————-

Judgements are necessarily recalled post hoc (one doesn't re-judge every second)..... — Isaac

Yes, agreed. Recalled post hoc, but that merely implies pre-existence, indicating they are not themselves post hoc, but occurring immediately upon their temporal standing in the system. So, no, we don’t re-judge; we constantly, continuously, judge. Think of it like....we cannot have a cognition without its dedicated neural pathway, in accordance with the physical system, we cannot have a cognition without its judgement, in accordance with the metaphysical system Even cognizing the same thing but at a different time, still requires its own pathway/judgement. It doesn’t matter that it’s the same pathway/judgement, each is temporally distinct.

....so a judgement being 'in mind' is a phenomena, an interocepted state one discovers one has. — Isaac

Hmmm....dunno, man. When I think, “every good boy deserves favor”, am I referencing a judgement, or a cognition? I rather think I’ve cognized the veracity of the proposition, which follows from the antecedent judgement. So the state I’m in, or the state I currently have, is one of truth. I have trouble seeing the state I have is, “every good boy deserves favor”.

Disclaimer: a metaphysical theory of judgement is very complex, perhaps even to the point of massive confusion and obfuscation. It’s just like science trying to explain consciousness; we know it’s something but damned if we can figure out a bottom line for it. There is a critique of judgement, a treatise in its own right, but is even more dense that the critique of reason, and I make no claim whatsoever for having grasped its instructions.
—————-

Hence - what best translates from my system as your 'reason' is only ever something which gathers inferences about sensations, not makes them. The inferences it makes are those which unify the systems below it, to better predict what they are likely to deliver next. 2+2=4 is just such a model. — Isaac

When I speak of reason without qualifiers, I speak of reason in its empirical use, properly termed a posteriori. So, yes, contrary to your system, mine does make inferences about sensations. If a thing impresses me as this and this and this, I may safely infer it as that.

As regards making inferences which unify that which is likely to be delivered next, I must qualify reason as “pure reason”, insofar as there are conditions already in play, from which what follows isn’t so much inferred, but made possible. With respect to your math example, pure reason has already made the condition “quantity” available, in order for quantifiable objects to relate to each other. With respect to the real, physical domain, pure reason makes available “existence”, “possibility”, “necessity”, “causality”, “community”, and exactly seven other similar conceptions, as fundamental grounds for the possibility for the subsequent inferences a component makes on an input from an antecedent component.

2 + 2 = 4 is an exact inferential model of the relation between a possible pair of these extant things conjoined with a possible pair of those extant things necessarily ends as that final thing. The mathematical expression not only wouldn’t work, but wouldn’t even be conceivable, absent the pure conditions antecedent to it. In effect, unifying the whole system.
——————-

At no point does your conscious, rational, system get access to the sensations from one's environment (nor from one's physiology). — Isaac

My system agrees without equivocation. Remember I mentioned a few days ago we are not conscious of parts of the whole cognitive system. My conscious rational system is the part that thinks about the phenomena given from sensation, but never about the sensation itself. In effect, thinking has no access to sensibility, but is only conditioned by it. Such is the speculative representational system writ large

to have your conscious rational judgement, it can only be done by the meta-modelling consciousness systems, whose inputs are the activity logs of the other systems actually doing the inference modelling of sensations. — Isaac

Pretty damn close. Whose inputs are activity logs is my imagination. It isn’t a consciousness system itself, but it does inference modeling from sensations and conscious rational judgement is impossible without it.

“...By the word synthesis***, in its most general signification, I understand the process of joining different representations to each other and of comprehending their diversity in one cognition.(...) Synthesis, generally speaking, is (...) the mere operation of the imagination—a blind but indispensable function without which we should have no cognition whatever, but of the working of which we are seldom even conscious...”
(***for all intents and purposes, explanatorily synonymous with your meta-modeling)

Methinks the methods be different, but the results the same.

Thanks for sticking around, valiantly scaling The Great Wall of Text, and especially for showing another point of view.

Ain’t that the truth!! Some do it more than a others, the most prevalent, I would guess, being the long-ago story embellishment......“Damn thing was THIS big, I swear, then the line broke and he was gone!!!”....which relates to purely personal aesthetic judgements whereby the ego satisfies itself. More serious are occasions of rejecting empirical evidence in dispute with personal prejudice, which relates to discursive judgements whereby the ego finds its satisfaction from outside itself and maintains it at all costs. As Paul Simon says, “Still, a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest, mmm, mmmm, mmmmmm”. — Mww

I was talking about subconscious processing, so we're not talking about the ego, but rather about how to deal with aberrant data. Your sensations are imperfect, noisy (in data terminology) and cannot themselves distinguish context (is that a shadow or a change in the colour of the actual object?). As such they present a lot of extraneous and contradictory data to the cortices responsible for modelling it. To deal with that the higher cortices will simply suppress signals from the lower ones which do not match the model of what they're expecting to be there. What's more, they'll send instructions back to the muscles controlling, say, the eyes to get them to look at the places most likely to confirm the model.

I think ego preservation is a slightly different matter...but maybe there's a link there.

the simplest, easiest to recognize error in metaphysical cognitive systems, is the LNC. — Mww

At the rational level, maybe. the brain processes thousands of totally contradictory models at any one time quite without trouble. It's our conscious awareness that seems so obsessed with not holding contradictory beliefs. I've never quite seen the obsession myself. I mean a) it doesn't really help much because the main thing you want to know is which belief is true, not simply the fact that they can't both be, and b) unless you're absolutely sure about the answer to (a) it's more efficient to have one system believe one proposition and the another believe the other, thus spreading your risk.

we cannot have a cognition without its judgement, in accordance with the metaphysical system — Mww

But, being recalled post hoc, we have no way of knowing what that judgement actually is, only what we later recall it to be. I don't know how old you are, but at my age I can't always remember what I was saying in the middle of saying it. I don't have much faith in my accurate recollection of judgements.

When I think, “every good boy deserves favor”, am I referencing a judgement, or a cognition? — Mww

Depends how much stock you want to put by neuroscientific experiments. Try removing someone's hippocampus and see how much of the information from their senses they're able to rationally judge, yet they're still able to act appropriately toward objects and navigate a room.

pure reason makes available “existence”, “possibility”, “necessity”, “causality”, “community”, and exactly seven other similar conceptions, as fundamental grounds for the possibility for the subsequent inferences a component makes on an input from an antecedent component. — Mww

There was a study done by Peggy Sears many years back comparing probability judgements of contradictory sensory inputs to the probabilities worked out using Bayes theorem. She found a remarkable correlation. I wonder if these 'grounds of reason' might be something similar. Our vocalisation of the processing elements carried out by various neural networks.

My system agrees without equivocation. Remember I mentioned a few days ago we are not conscious of parts of the whole cognitive system. My conscious rational system is the part that thinks about the phenomena given from sensation, but never about the sensation itself. In effect, thinking has no access to sensibility, but is only conditioned by it. Such is the speculative representational system writ large — Mww

This is good, it explains a lot of the confusion I had about the extent of your metaphysical analysis of thought. You're talking about what I'd call higher level processing, where we review phenomena as given and create meta-models which feed back to the cortices developing those phenomena. I really do think that within this specialised region of mental activity it may well be just...

the methods be different, but the results the same. — Mww

Thanks for sticking around, valiantly scaling The Great Wall of Text, and especially for showing another point of view. — Mww

Likewise. It's been a pleasure.

It's the main reason I keep engaging, I'm hoping one time I'll understand a little more about the thought processes here. — Isaac

I'm responding here because don't want to derail KK's thread with such digressions. I did try and respond to your objections in this thread, but the point at which I first discontinued was in a debate about the extent to which consciousness - actually, I prefer to use the term 'mind' - can be understood through the perspectives of neuroscience, I was arguing that there is a difference between actually feeling pain, and having a concept of pain.

So at that point you said:

I can model the pain as an activity in neural circuits. It's seems quite clearly like an object to me. — Isaac

To which I said:

Well, if you can't make the distinction between felt pain and the concept of pain, there’s really no point discussing it. — Wayfarer

And again, I was accused of 'avoiding your arguments'. So I responded again - probably a bad call:

It's not that you disagree with me, it's that what you're saying is not amenable to reason. I say 'the experience of pain and the knowledge of the physiology of pain are different'. If you say they're not different, how could any argument prevail? How could it ever be proven that 'an idea of pain' and 'a pain' are different things, to one prepared to deny it? — Wayfarer

I regarded the answer to that as beside the point that was at issue, which is, the distinction between the first-person and third-person perspective. The fact that there is physiology of pain, or a neurology of pain, is not at issue in any of this.

I asked you before whether you favoured Dennett's approach - called 'eliminative materialism' - which you confirmed. Critics of Dennett make a similar point about his approach. His book 'Consciousness Explained' was derisively called 'Consciousness Ignored' - and not by armchair critics, but by other philosophers. Nagel - hey, I know you think Nagel is a dick, but whatever - said of his last book:

Dennett asks us to turn our backs on what is glaringly obvious—that in consciousness we are immediately aware of real subjective experiences of color, flavor, sound, touch, etc. that cannot be fully described in neural terms even though they have a neural cause (or perhaps have neural as well as experiential aspects). And he asks us to do this because the reality of such phenomena is incompatible with the scientific materialism that in his view sets the outer bounds of reality. He is, in Aristotle’s words, “maintaining a thesis at all costs.”

So, if you're taking that view, which you appear to do, then they're not the kinds of arguments I want to pursue. And really, I'm not to going pursue my declining to answer your objections and arguments beyond this point. I know it's a public forum, but I can decide who and who not to respond to.