This I believe is the problem: The mind's ability to grasp/comprehend/understand has been, for the better part of our evolutionary history, been directed outwards and to aid in that enterprise, we've developed concepts/ideas that are too externally-oriented i.e. they were designed to understand the world.

Then, something magical happened, the mind turned its gaze inward, to itself but then it employed/used/utilized those same conceptual frameworks that were fashioned for and adapted to the world, external. The inner world of the mind is an entirely new ballgame.

What could go wrong?

I think when claiming "mind can not be understood" you should clarify what would be deemed as a "necessary diagnostic of mind to dismiss your query". Just claiming that the mind is something that can't be understood without postulating any details as to what can't be understood and why it can't be understood seems rather vague.

you are right. Give me half an hour and I'll post what you requested.

What's a 'concept'? What's ' 'understood'? Without mind nothing can be conceived or understood.

I can conceive that I understand that the cat creeping across the lawn is minded to catch the sparrow digging for worms.

But if your point is merely that a hand cannot grasp itself, that too is readily understood. That's what relationships are for.

Concept is, metaphorically, an unopened sticker pack and a new sticker book - precisely their meaning in that state - I e. You collect stickers and stick them in the book (that's the concept of Football Sticker Book and Packs). Upon sticking a sticker in the book, it is no longer a concept. You may also refer to Concept Art, which is a type of pre-art to any media used as a foundry on which the actual product is built upon.

Understanding is the process by which we get, not have, a subject.

We may get something and then lose it or get it and then have it; understanding, to the point of acknowledgement.

Mind is something that begets our understanding for, either our circumstance or it's nature is strange to us.

Perhaps the problem is our dimensions; we may need a stillness near impossible to obtain in this life.

The nature of mind can be registered, but the absolution of such a nature is a matter we, unless by a miracle, or great feat of thought, cannot perfect.

Again - it's nature is strange to us(by it's nature, I mean mind directly, not indirectly by way of it's user's experience of it.)

"

We... — Varde

The group mind? A small word that carries a heavy load in many a philosophy. Now that really is a strange concept that I cannot understand. Clearly, we (thou and I) are not of one mind (do not share the same understanding) concerning many things.

I posit you won't be able to dismiss my query which thus proves my theorum, and to this I conclude this post. — Varde

Why do you think so? Prove to me that it cannot be understood, _then_ I may believe you.
Nonetheless I'll make a try: Mind is the form of ideas.

Light speed being invariant under motion. Quantum effects. Etc.

I think the answers to the mind have been right in front of our faces the whole time. The forest is just too thick.

https://philpapers.org/go.pl?id=GYDTFM&u=https%3A%2F%2Fphilpapers.org%2Farchive%2FGYDTFM.docx

Strange does not mean incomplete. It does not mean we have to fret. It does not mean dull or incoherent. It means, well... This is my point.

I cannot understand my mind because it is strange... And walah - that is all I can say on the topic.

It is, all I know, comprehensive.

It is... Sortable, we can make arrangements, and diminish.

Mind is not toy but a toy can be used to be concise about it.

That which employs a method to understand, cannot itself be subjected to that same method.

Map/territory dilemma.

It can only be given as an irreducible and necessary condition, then subsequently shown that the method it uses is both possible, and non-contradictory.

A strange conception not in itself possible to understand, and stands as an irreducible given necessity, in humans at least, is reason.

Well, we tend to look at ourselves by looking at others who themselves are external. I don't see why it would pose a problem in that regard.

I argue that you cannot make the necessary diagnostics of mind to dismiss my query. — Varde

You used the terms 'I' and 'you'. I think you can only point at fractions of what those terms are referring to so your conclusions are fruit of a tree you consider poison.

But if your point is merely that a hand cannot grasp itself, that too is readily understood. — unenlightened

There seem to be plenty of hands grasping another part around here. Could be the beginnings of a private language. :wink: On the other hand, cunning linguistics could be resorted to.

That which employs a method to understand, cannot itself be subjected to that same method.

Map/territory dilemma.

It can only be given as an irreducible and necessary condition, then subsequently shown that the method it uses is both possible, and non-contradictory.

A strange conception not in itself possible to understand, and stands as an irreducible given necessity, in humans at least, is reason. — Mww

I wonder what it could even mean to understand the mind, though. If we understood the workings of the brain completely, would that amount to understanding the mind? Not if you accept the coherency of the so-called "hard problem". So assuming that the question is as to how the physical brain can give rise to phenomenal experience, how could we, on the assumption that said experience is non-physical, possibly answer that by investigating neural processes?

We only think we have understood something if we can lay out a physical or a logical process to explain it. But these domains seem to be ineluctably incommensurable; two totally different kinds of description and explanation. We can already understand the mind in terms of concepts, meanings and reasons, but that tells us nothing about how it relates to the brain, even though we have every reason to think that it must. I think the difference is that we feel the mind and not the brain, whereas we can see and measure brain processes and not mental ones. So the mind is understood in terms of felt senses. How does a physical process become a felt sense? Perhaps we can never know, but that does not give us any reason to believe it is not possible, in fact we have every reason to think it is not only possible, but actual.

I wonder what it could even mean to understand the mind, though. — Janus

Best I can figure.....The conception of it means we can eliminate infinite regress. Gotta start somewhere, right? I don’t personally attribute anything to mind not already accounted for by reason. In that respect, I don’t need a felt sense of mind, and by the same token, a mere felt sense of reason can’t account for its usefulness.

The concept of reason does get me out of the infinite regress problem, so....bonus points for that.

Call ‘em both “transcendental objects” and leave it at that?

Right, so if I have understood you, you see reason as being fundamental. I see reason as relying on felt sense. How do I know that processes of inductive and abductive reasoning (creative hypothesizing) are sound? I'd say I just feel that they are or are not in the final analysis. It's true that deductive reasoning can be formally checked for validity, but deductive reasoning, on its own, doesn't tell us anything about anything beyond the form of its own validity.

I don’t think we worry so much about the soundness of logic, as we do for its proofs. The only proofs for logic lay in experience, whether or not the soundness of conclusions conflict or conform to observations. And I don’t think we need to worry about how the logic feels, other than we just might not like what it tells us. I guess, as well, we might not like the premises we are forced to start with in order to get a conclusion that proves the soundness.

I agree deductive reasoning alone can't tell us anything beyond its form, but we are allowed to substitute particulars into that form, subject that form to experience, to test it.

When it comes down to it, we can’t expect more from the system than it’s capable of delivering.

It seems as though you have misinterpreted what I said. In regard to processes of reasoning the important things is that the premises must be sound; what is deduced from those premises must be somehow implicitly "contained within them". We "see" that a premise entails its conclusion(s).

The question was as to how we "see" that. Is there a further process of reasoning which formally establishes it? But then how would we establish the validity of that further process of reasoning. And so on. But we short circuit all that by a kind of intuition; we just 'see'; and I am saying that "seeing" is a felt sense of 'rightness'. (Of course I am not suggesting it is infallible).

It seems as though you have misinterpreted what I said. — Janus

No, I was just responding to the queries, not the statements.

How do I know that processes of inductive and abductive reasoning (creative hypothesizing) are sound? — Janus

....to which my response was directed.

The question was as to how we "see" that. — Janus

That’s a different question altogether, which I gather refers to....

I see reason as relying on felt sense. — Janus

.....for which I can make no comment, because I don’t think of reason as relying on anything at all. It’s something we do, so I guess we could say reason relies on us.

On the other hand, if the questions are combined, we might arrive at, how do I see my reasoning is sound if I rely on a felt sense of reason? Well.....now we’re off to the rodeo.

That the human animal is imbued with a felt sense is given, otherwise morality itself is impossible. Ok, so what exactly is a felt sense? Just the words suggest a felt sense indicates a condition relating something to the kind of feeling, or the degree of a kind of feeling, a subject gets because of that something.

But humans are equally imbued with the capacity to reason, from which reasoning is derived.

So if humans are imbued with two separate and distinction qualities, or attributes, or capabilities, it is probably the case that there shouldn’t be an interconnectivity between them. Otherwise....why two? And why the two so different from each other?

Metaphysics understands this, by making reason the arbiter of the relations of our thinking in conjunction with a methodology (reasoning), and making feelings the arbiter of the rightness of those relations in conjunction with a personality (feelings).

But the rightness of relations is not the rightness of the ability that makes them possible. The true or false of reasoning does not reflect on the true or false of reason. A fast car going slowly, or a slow car going as fast as it can, is still only a car.

It turns out, feelings do not impinge on reason the ability, but restrict themselves to the objects derived from the method employed by that ability. We can have feelings about things we think (reasoning), but do not have feelings about reason (the innate faculty for creating relations).

If all that be granted, which from a metaphysical perspective it should, then the question, “how can I see the soundness of my reasoning if reason is a felt sense”, is a question that has no meaning, because the subject and the predicate do not belong together.

If all that’s just a heapin’ load of bullshit, then.......never mind. It’s all I got.

there are some concepts that cannot be understood. — Varde

Between "cannot be understood" and "100% of information on such subjects" there's a huge difference. You are kind of jumping from zero to infinity, from nothing to everyting, from indefinite to absolute.

I believe that you have to study (better) the subject of your topic. And take into consideration that 100% of information on any subject is totally impossible. You cannot understand absolutely anything, esp. a concept.

In addition, you must change the title --"Strange Concepts that Cannot be Understood: I e. Mind-- because the concept of mind can be as "strange" as any other concept. "Strange" means "difficult to undestand or explain".

I guess where we might disagree is that for me reason is not separable from affect. Although we can draw a distinction between reason and emotion; i think in vivo, no such distinction is operative. With reasoning as with the arts and pretty much everything in life, we feel it when we have got it right. We can say that reasoning is following rules, but how do we know we are following the rules? By applying more rules? IRL (infinite regress looming).