Silent philosophy is a philosophy where the underlying truth of an inanimate substance gives birth to a new sense of life within man. — Mohammad Asaduzzaman Chowdhury

This sounds like meditative practice. Awareness.

Welcome to the forum.

As long as it's all about us, then I'm sure it will find a way.

Temet Nosce

Those who know don't speak. Those who speak don't know — Laozi

Laozi said that, so I guess he doesn't know?

Laozi said that, so I guess he doesn't know? — Daemon

Its a lousy (Laozi) statement after all! I'm sorry, I couldn't resist the pun, :D

Laozi said that, so I guess he doesn't know? — Daemon

We'll all find out at one time or another, won't we? Perhaps...truths, assuming Laozi was into that to begin with, is not as effable as we supposed. Nonpropositional beliefs...there's even a thread on that topic.

Its a lousy (Laozi) statement after all! I'm sorry, I couldn't resist the pun — Philosophim

No, not lousy. Does saying something deny it its own validity at a certain level of understanding?

Does saying something deny it its own validity at a certain level of understanding? — Constance

Does saying something establish its own validity at a certain level of understanding? I think they call that begging the question, eh?

Does saying something establish its own validity at a certain level of understanding? I think they call that begging the question, eh? — Garrett Travers

More at a performative contradiction.
To speak is to imply that which you speak of can be spoken (nothing you can sing that can't be sung, sort of thing). But the tao, this is a concept that is "about" the unspeakable world. One cannot "say" an apple, rather, one speaks about it, contextualizes it, and without a context, it is not an apple at all. Nor is it a sensory field's impressions or an aggregation of atoms. Nor is it even "there" (where is there if not contextualized against a "here"?).
So there is something very interesting about our being able to on the one hand have our understanding bound to language and logic, and on the other, apprehend the world not-as-language. Of course, my not-as-language utterance is itself a performative contradiction.
Or is it? Perhaps in speaking about that which cannot be spoken I am not speaking "it" at all. But I am speaking "around it," "pointing" to it.
Question begging? How would this problem be cast as QB? to say the true tao cannot be spoken assumes that it CAN be spoken, and so this is an unproved assumption because it is unprovable, and it is unprovable because it is a contradiction.
All philosophy is question begging, eventually, down the road of explaining what is meant. But then, this is true of all claims whatever, as well. I say the bank is across the street, but can I give a determinative account of what "across from" means? It is a spatial designation that has to be in space somewhere, but being in space somewhere is always indeterminate for space itself is indeterminate.

To speak is to imply that which you speak of can be spoken (nothing you can sing that can't be sung, sort of thing). — Constance

Yes.

One cannot "say" an apple, rather, one speaks about it, contextualizes it, and without a context, it is not an apple at all. — Constance

Apple is a symbolic representation of a coherent enough amount of data accrual on a given percept, or group of perceptions reinforced by emotional valence and correspondence. This is a cognitive process. The "apple" is an abstraction from genuinely accrued data on the part of the brain. The existence of the apple presupposes its capacity for perception in conscious beings. In other words, your premises are correct, but your conclusion is wrong. It is the exact opposite.

Nor is it a sensory field's impressions — Constance

That's exactly what it is, if by sensory field impression you mean the brain accruing data through the use of its plethor of instruments designed by nature to do so.

aggregation of atoms. — Constance

Everything in the macroscopic realm is an aggregate of atoms of varying types, irrespective of experience or knowledge.

Nor is it even "there" (where is there if not contextualized against a "here"?). — Constance

Where is defined by relativity, which also does not require conscious recognition, but only an individual domain of influence as a result of its existence in relation to other phenomena across time and space. An atom is defined in space by its relation to other atoms in a given domain, with or without your recognition of such.

So there is something very interesting about our being able to on the one hand have our understanding bound to language and logic, and on the other, apprehend the world not-as-language. — Constance

No, it's just a conceptual tool, like math, used to validate correspondence and build coherence. "Cup" is a symbolic mapping of a perceived objective phenomenon to an applicable/actionable group of potential behaviors. The more applicable/actionable that potential behavior becomes, the more coherence is built around that original conclusion established via correspondence.

Of course, my not-as-language utterance is itself a performative contradiction. — Constance

No, it is your brain exploring an idea for applicable/actionable actions associated with your current perceptual understanding of such an abstraction. It isn't performative, you aren't pretending to explore this, I am witnessing you explore it. Exploration is a data accrual function of the brain, not performance. Performance would be you showing me what you can accomplish as a result of the framework you've built through that data accruing exploration. See what I'm saying?

Or is it? Perhaps in speaking about that which cannot be spoken I am not speaking "it" at all. But I am speaking "around it," "pointing" to it. — Constance

See? Exploration, not performance. Perhaps "that which cannot be spoken" is itself a conceptual framework worth exploring for validity that is clearly not established with a feasible amount of coherence, eh?

"Is it?" "Perhaps?" "it." "around it." "pointing." All expressions of exploration on a currently incoherent concept in your brain. Perhaps, you've already demonstrated to yourself that you are capable of speaking on any given topic. That's a cool idea to play with.

Question begging? How would this problem be cast as QB? — Constance

Because the establishment of a proposition cannot be the proposition. Validity is not established by issuing a proposition without premises, any more that its validity is negated by such. If the conclusion is the premise, you have a statement, not an argument, logically speaking. That is called question begging, because it begs the question: how did you come to that conclusion?

to say the true tao cannot be spoken assumes that it CAN be spoken — Constance

Yes, if it is in fact true. But, the truth of tao cannot be assumed to reach a conclusion, as that beggs the question: how do you know the tao is true? And if the truth of tao is already assumed, then so is its objective nature relative to reality. Cool how logic works.

and so this is an unproved assumption because it is unprovable, and it is unprovable because it is a contradiction. — Constance

Bingo. One thing you'll learn about valid propositional logic, that are also true, is that they are tautological in nature, and cannot be true without such. Here's where things get real fun. For example, A=A is a tautology, meaning it is unfuckwithably true. However, it is also begging the question, thus it is a logical fallacy. Objective reality is arranged in a self-evident manner, logically, as well as functionally. The key is to identify emergent characteristics of reality through induction.

All philosophy is question begging, eventually, down the road of explaining what is meant. — Constance

All real philosophy is. The fake philosophers would have you believe that reality is a misapprehension, that logic outweighs factual emergence, and that you aren't capable of deriving an ethical code of morality from the facts of that reality within which you exist. I exist to demolish these false conceptions where ever, and whenever I encounter them outside of individual exploration for the sake of exploration itself.

But then, this is true of all claims whatever, as well. I say the bank is across the street, but can I give a determinative account of what "across from" means? — Constance

You think accurately, friend. The position of that bank doesn't give a shit about whether or not you can mathematically, or linguistically prove its position and existence, it stands there to mock any attempt you may fail at to attempt to do so by declaring itself to your lying eyes.

It is a spatial designation that has to be in space somewhere, but being in space somewhere is always indeterminate for space itself is indeterminate. — Constance

Indeterminate as a premise, does not follow to the conclusion that spatio-temporal existence is to be negated. That would be a fallacy from ignorance. It is basically making an argument that is predicated on no clear premise, which does not produce a tautology characteristic of that which is true in terms of logic, or induction.

Apple is a symbolic representation of a coherent enough amount of data accrual on a given percept, or group of perceptions reinforced by emotional valence and correspondence. This is a cognitive process. The "apple" is an abstraction from genuinely accrued data on the part of the brain. The existence of the apple presupposes its capacity for perception in conscious beings. In other words, your premises are correct, but your conclusion is wrong. It is the exact opposite. — Garrett Travers

I apologize in advance for all the writing. Too much time on my hands these days.

That which sits before me as an apperceived phenomenon is thing of parts. as you say, it certainly does have "symbolic representation" which is pragmatically taken up all the time. The point here is that once this representation is exhaustively reviewed for what can be taken up in language, there is a residuum of what is not language. I would call this an aggregate of sensory intuitions, but then I have to wary of bringing such a notion to heel like this, for 'intuition' is itself a particle of language. So there is something of a performative contradiction in talking about it all, and I find myself in Wittgenstein's intentional dilemma in the Tractatus: to speak of what cannot be spoken in order to say just this. I claim that this is also a way to deal with the Toa that cannot be spoken.

That's exactly what it is, if by sensory field impression you mean the brain accruing data through the use of its plethor of instruments designed by nature to do so. — Garrett Travers

No. I am saying that in order to talk about brains and sensory fields one does this through language, and so before empirical science even begins, there is this presupposition of language. This makes language the foundational.
Of course, this is not at all do deny science, which is absurd. It is simply saying that there is more fundamental order of analysis.

Everything in the macroscopic realm is an aggregate of atoms of varying types, irrespective of experience or knowledge. — Garrett Travers

Of course it is. But then, philosophy proper goes beneath this, into the world of assumptions talk about atoms works through.

Where is defined by relativity, which also does not require conscious recognition, but only an individual domain of influence as a result of its existence in relation to other phenomena across time and space. An atom is defined in space by its relation to other atoms in a given domain, with or without your recognition of such. — Garrett Travers

This sounds like you agree that space is at the level of basic questions, indeterminate. That is what I am saying. Everything, I want to say, is like this. There is this game deconstructionists play that gets very childish sometimes; it is the "what's that" game, the point of which is simply to show how language can only refer to other language. Try defining something by accessing the "thing itself" and you will find yourself deep in language. The trick, if you will, is to bring the understanding OUT of the language that is used to talk about things. Turns out that this cannot be done because the things one is trying tot talk about are, as things, of-a-piece with the language, and language is this historical phenomenon, its "paradigms" in constant play.

No, it's just a conceptual tool, like math, used to validate correspondence and build coherence. "Cup" is a symbolic mapping of a perceived objective phenomenon to an applicable/actionable group of potential behaviors. The more applicable/actionable that potential behavior becomes, the more coherence is built around that original conclusion established via correspondence. — Garrett Travers

I think this is right. Seems so. But what of the world-that-is-not-language? Take value. My kidney is speared through, the pain is intense. This pain is not a language event. We can talk about it, obviously, but the "presence" of pain as a actuality transcends the spoken possibility. This, I would add just to make matters worse, is why I am a moral realist: the pain of this affair intuitively speaks through moral language. (A tough issue, granted).

No, it is your brain exploring an idea for applicable/actionable actions associated with your current perceptual understanding of such an abstraction. It isn't performative, you aren't pretending to explore this, I am witnessing you explore it. Exploration is a data accrual function of the brain, not performance. Performance would be you showing me what you can accomplish as a result of the framework you've built through that data accruing exploration. See what I'm saying? — Garrett Travers

Well, in itself to utter "X is a to be taken up not as language" is itself taking X up as language. That is all that means.
But I don't disagree with what you say above, or something like it. I simply say that this is not a basic analysis. Philosophy looks to presuppositions that make the above possible. Note this: when we talk about brains, observe actual brains and study them, the perceptual/cognitive that in the very act of gathering data is itself as opaque as an object can be: a brain. Brains talking about brains? Nothing could be more question begging that this.

See? Exploration, not performance. Perhaps "that which cannot be spoken" is itself a conceptual framework worth exploring for validity that is clearly not established with a feasible amount of coherence, eh?

"Is it?" "Perhaps?" "it." "around it." "pointing." All expressions of exploration on a currently incoherent concept in your brain. Perhaps, you've already demonstrated to yourself that you are capable of speaking on any given topic. That's a cool idea to play with. — Garrett Travers

Without a feasible amount of coherence. Right you are. This is the way scientist would talk, along the lines of, We are on the cutting edge of discovery and our collective paradigms ("conceptual frameworks") are realizing something true about the world.
I agree with science. But science does not address its own preconceptions. I cannot, and its not its job.

Yes, if it is in fact true. But, the truth of tao cannot be assumed to reach a conclusion, as that beggs the question: how do you know the tao is true? And if the truth of tao is already assumed, then so is its objective nature relative to reality. Cool how logic works. — Garrett Travers

And if we were dealing with something that could be reducible to what can be spoken, logically framed, then all this makes sense, but it misses the point of Taoism. Taoist "truth" is not propositional. And when you speak, your utterance automatically binds and conditions.

I should quickly add that I don't care much for this old Taoist saw. Language is to me an open vessel. God could appear before me and I could the next day tell you just what happened. Communication, however, depends on agreement: you, too would have to have had something similar in your experiences for me to make sense, but it is not language and logic as such that stands in the way. If there were something better than reason, reason would discover it. But importantly: this works because language never did "speak the world" as if the actuality of the world were IN the language. It interprets the world. Language is hermeneutical.

The Taoists are just telling us to shut up and stop interpreting because your are missing something in the presence of Being.

Bingo. One thing you'll learn about valid propositional logic, that are also true, is that they are tautological in nature, and cannot be true without such. Here's where things get real fun. For example, A=A is a tautology, meaning it is unfuckwithably true. However, it is also begging the question, thus it is a logical fallacy. Objective reality is arranged in a self-evident manner, logically, as well as functionally. The key is to identify emergent characteristics of reality through induction. — Garrett Travers

Yeah, I get this. Wittgenstein said this, and I took logic courses once upon a time. The question begged is, of course, why should I believe tautologies? There was a paper by Quine I read once, The Two Dogmas of...anyway, as I recall, analytic propositions fail to account for connotative distinctions. Something like that.. But Wittgenstein made the point best: logic cannot determine its own generative source, for it would take an act of logic to do so. Question thereby begged for any and all logically formed propositions. He, like Kant, condemned thought to its own devices, and this is absolutely right, but it is also rather vacuous since it says nothing at all about content. There could be hidden realities. powerful, profound, and logic would not flinch. Identifying emerging characteristics, content, is, as you say, key.

All real philosophy is. The fake philosophers would have you believe that reality is a misapprehension, that logic outweighs factual emergence, and that you aren't capable of deriving an ethical code of morality from the facts of that reality within which you exist. I exist to demolish these false conceptions where ever, and whenever I encounter them outside of individual exploration for the sake of exploration itself. — Garrett Travers

Not sure what fake philosophies you have in mind. I do realize that reality is a term that has serious problems providing context for making it clear. If you are a physicist and tell me you are making discoveries about the nature of reality in, say, string theory, I will nod in appreciation. I do understand.

But if you ask a philosophical question about those findings, you will find yourself deep in questions.

You think accurately, friend. The position of that bank doesn't give a shit about whether or not you can mathematically, or linguistically prove its position and existence, it stands there to mock any attempt you may fail at to attempt to do so by declaring itself to your lying eyes. — Garrett Travers

Good common sense. I use this common sense 24/7. Then I think about what common sense stands on and things become problems. That's life.

Indeterminate as a premise, does not follow to the conclusion that spatio-temporal existence is to be negated. That would be a fallacy from ignorance. It is basically making an argument that is predicated on no clear premise, which does not produce a tautology characteristic of that which is true in terms of logic, or induction. — Garrett Travers

Negated? No. Not this. Recontextualized. When is an atom not an atom? When I am not talking about atoms, but something else that makes talk about atoms irrelevant. Meanings are bound to the ways we talk about things.

I apologize in advance for all the writing. — Constance

:lol: Reminds me of Socrates' Apology (not an apology; rather a demand for compensation to the gadfly of Athens for all the trouble he had to go through educatin' the youth). Good one!

When is an atom not an atom? — Constance

When your common sense goes AWOL. :up:

I claim that this is also a way to deal with the Toa that cannot be spoken. — Constance

This conclusion is the result of us only recently understanding that all of our actions are computationally informed by senory data accrual and assessment as conducted by the brain through its functions. Everything you said leading to this is the result of numerous years of data collection building conceptual frameworks through which you navigate reality. The Tao, in other words, is not something you are designed to speak about, but to explore experientially and build waysto speak about,including speaking itself.

No. I am saying that in order to talk about brains and sensory fields one does this through language, and so before empirical science even begins, there is this presupposition of language. — Constance

That flies in the face of the fact that humans produced langauge as the result of experiencing reality over vast swathes of time and determining for themselves that having reliable communications between in-group members maximized homeostasis and well-being. So, langauge generation is in fact a form of primitive empirical scientific development. Langauge is presupposed by a reality that requires the necessity of its development on the part of conscious individuals who have determined its utility through inductive data accrual.

Of course it is. But then, philosophy proper goes beneath this, into the world of assumptions talk about atoms works through. — Constance

Not this philosopher, not until it is clear that something beneath reality, or above it exists. If your philosophical explorations are not correspondent with reality, then they are useless, irrespective of how much coherence you build around themlogically, theoretically, or linguistically; just ask the string theorists, whose theory has now been dispensed with by the scientific community for just that reason.

There is this game deconstructionists play that gets very childish sometimes; it is the "what's that" game, the point of which is simply to show how language can only refer to other language. — Constance

All one has to do in response to this type of gaslighting nonsense, is repeat the question back to them until they answer the question themselves. And then explain to them that "that," is a word used to describe a self-evident fact of reality that can be used to achieve greater outcomes in association with one's self-directed goals. You'll not be hearing anymore of that shit from them thereafter.

The trick, if you will, is to bring the understanding OUT of the language that is used to talk about things. Turns out that this cannot be done because the things one is trying tot talk about are, as things, of-a-piece with the language, and language is this historical phenomenon, its "paradigms" in constant play. — Constance

A fair point, as far as general perception, but not 100% accurate. The things is itself so. The sun does not require your explanation. It stands in defiance the human concept of "what for?" Becuase it says so, that's why, and such is logically the case with all objective phenomena, and all logical validity. A=A, tautologically, and it does not care that such does not make sense to anyone.

We can talk about it, obviously, but the "presence" of pain as a actuality transcends the spoken possibility. — Constance

The presence of pain is the production of the exact same computational system that produces consciousness, and thereby all known concepts in the universe used to navigate it: the human brain. It doesn't transcend it, it IS it, just as language is thought, or consciousness, or desire. It is all the same system of systems, producing these phenomena in accordance with the data retrieved from the reality within which it exists, and existing in unrivaled sophistication and complexity as realities greatest known productive achievement.

This, I would add just to make matters worse, is why I am a moral realist: the pain of this affair intuitively speaks through moral language. (A tough issue, granted). — Constance

Then you're already more of a philosopher the Kant, Marx, Nietzsche, or Plato ever hoped to be.

Note this: when we talk about brains, observe actual brains and study them, the perceptual/cognitive that in the very act of gathering data is itself as opaque as an object can be: a brain. Brains talking about brains? Nothing could be more question begging that this. — Constance

Again, this is why saying "philosophy looks to presuppositions for possibility," is inaccurate. Logical analysis is only a singular framework by which to navigate the truth of reality, and oddly enough, do you know what reveals to us? I'll show you:

If P then Q
P
_________
therefore Q

All logically valid propositions are distinguished a tautology of true premises, leading to a true conclusion. Logic itself demonstrates that reality and truth are of themselves so. A=A is both factually correct, and logically fallacious. Brains think because they do. Evolution created species because it did. You and I are speaking online because we chose to. Speaker speaking about speaking??? See how that line of inquiry doesn't make sense when you think about it?

Without a feasible amount of coherence. Right you are. This is the way scientist would talk, along the lines of, We are on the cutting edge of discovery and our collective paradigms ("conceptual frameworks") are realizing something true about the world.
I agree with science. But science does not address its own preconceptions. I cannot, and its not its job. — Constance

That's why you don't expect such a thing. What I expect science to do is reveal to me through inductive art the nature of the reality that is self-emergent. It has done this marvellously from a full perspective of the scope of the art.

Yeah, I get this. Wittgenstein said this, and I took logic courses once upon a time. The question begged is, of course, why should I believe tautologies? — Constance

Because the logical framework developed to determine what tautologies were are exactly the framework with which you asked the question. Furthermore, because such a property is an intrinsic characteristic of that which exists. However, belief is just a concept itself. You will be made to accept reality, irrespective of whether or not you believe it, and it will tautologically dominate your every thought and motion.

logic cannot determine its own generative source, for it would take an act of logic to do so. — Constance

Logic is itself a, self-generated concept. It cannot be expected to account for self-emergence. By proxy, because nature is self-generated, it is also impossible to understand it from within itself as a conscious observer created by it, to develop a way in which to break this universal law. Thus, exploration is the only path open to us for answers on anything.

He, like Kant, condemned thought to its own devices, and this is absolutely right, but it is also rather vacuous since it says nothing at all about content. — Constance

It's laziness wrought from fear of the Divine-nothingness that dominates the philosophical arts, and has been dominating it for thousands of years as the result of forcefully stealing it from the world of true philosophers that it murdered and looted. Wittgenstein was so close, though.

Taoist "truth" is not propositional. — Constance

That's correct. It is of itself so. A=A

The Taoists are just telling us to shut up and stop interpreting because your are missing something in the presence of Being. — Constance

And how right they were. What is it that we're missing? We're missing ourselves and the point of origin of the process of interpretation to begin with. We are the A that we cannot accept logically.

Not sure what fake philosophies you have in mind. — Constance

Just about all of them that dwell outside of the Epicurean and Aristotelian sphere of philosophical exploration. I can't think of more than a few that are truly important. I cracked open Beyond Good and Evil again three days ago and all I could see what immorality, stupidity, mysticism, nonsense, and anger. And this is one of our philosophical heros, just like it was for the National Socialists.

If you are a physicist and tell me you are making discoveries about the nature of reality in, say, string theory, I will nod in appreciation. — Constance

Yes, and real physicist concerned with the nature of reality would smile and nod at them hoping for a chance to break away and get back to their art.

Good common sense. I use this common sense 24/7. Then I think about what common sense stands on and things become problems. That's life. — Constance

Common sense is not what is useful. That concept has been behind the justification of many, many things that were either incorrect, or evil. Reason is your tool. Common sense is an ambiguous term that means nothing and is often employed by people to insult you.

Negated? No. Not this. Recontextualized. When is an atom not an atom? When I am not talking about atoms, but something else that makes talk about atoms irrelevant. Meanings are bound to the ways we talk about things. — Constance

A fair enough assessment, my friend.

This conclusion is the result of us only recently understanding that all of our actions are computationally informed by senory data accrual and assessment as conducted by the brain through its functions. Everything you said leading to this is the result of numerous years of data collection building conceptual frameworks through which you navigate reality. The Tao, in other words, is not something you are designed to speak about, but to explore experientially and build waysto speak about,including speaking itself. — Garrett Travers

The "ways" you are talking about are already in place. It is called phenomenology. You will find it is Husserl, Heidegger and lots of others, but its essential insight lies in Husserl's Ideas I and II; of course, he stands on the shoulders of Kant, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Frege, and everyone else, frankly. Read Kierkegaard and you find the core thoughts of Heidegger and Sartre and Jaspers and Levinas. It is an quite an undertaking looking into all this, which is why those whose educations were glued to the sciences, anyone who has attended high school, really, do not have access and are bewildered by the seemingly extravagant claims. You are what you read, and Kierkegaard is far, far off the beaten track of what is read in the West. He has to read to be appreciated. But, like Derrida, no one reads him. They hear about what he says and dismiss it. Similar, I think, to how modern physics would be received by the medieval mentality.

But I am NOT kidding about this. If you want to approach grasping what Lao Tsu had to say, read Eugene Fink's (Husserl's assistant) Sixth Cartesian Meditation.

That flies in the face of the fact that humans produced langauge as the result of experiencing reality over vast swathes of time and determining for themselves that having reliable communications between in-group members maximized homeostasis and well-being. So, langauge generation is in fact a form of primitive empirical scientific development. Langauge is presupposed by a reality that requires the necessity of its development on the part of conscious individuals who have determined its utility through inductive data accrual. — Garrett Travers

That part right there, "Langauge is presupposed by a reality that requires the necessity of its development on the part of conscious individuals who have determined its utility" I take to be well said. I am a pragmatist in that I follow Dewey, James and Rorty (though this does NOT mean I abide by all they say). What is a pragmatist's concept of language? It works! The best I have come across is the hypothetical deductive method which is simply a characterization of the scientific method: what is something like, say, nitro glycerin? It is, "IF you toss it across the room, Then it impacts and explodes." A very crude illustration, but it makes the point. All knowledge is of this nature, for the world is given to us in time, and time is a conditional structured affair (if...then), the meanings from which that emerge are, per Dewey, "consummatory".
But if this is the way meanings of terms emerge (imagine how an infant learns language like this, associating word sounds with objects, and so on. IF this sound is made, Then this "red" is designated)) then where is it in language's essential pragmatic nature to produce a-pragmatic meaning? The actualities of the world, the affectivity, the aesthetics, the struggles and delights, the "existence" these constitute, remain analytically untouched by the machinery of problem solving. Pragmatics is only foundational for our pragmatic relations. But falling in love is not reducible to the language pragmatics that deals with falling in love. There is, in fact, a vast horizon of intuited "world-ness" that has nothing at all to do with this, and herein lies the beginning of phenomenology.

Not this philosopher, not until it is clear that something beneath reality, or above it exists. If your philosophical explorations are not correspondent with reality, then they are useless, irrespective of how much coherence you build around themlogically, theoretically, or linguistically; just ask the string theorists, whose theory has now been dispensed with by the scientific community for just that reason. — Garrett Travers

"Beneath" is just a metaphor. It is there, always already, but ignored, largely because people don't take an interest in Continental philosophy. Of course, science is everywhere and most think now that this is philosophy. It's not.
It is phenomenology. A "getting back to the things themselves." The claim is that when you're doing science, you don't address questions about what lies there in the world that is taken up for science's paradigms to deal with. Take Time and space. We know about spacetime and how Einstein changed our thinking, but does his spacetime deal at all with the basic temporal intuitions that had to be in place PRIOR, as a presupposition, to thinking about spacetime? Of course not. He knew this, for he had read Kant when he was 13. Apples and oranges, these two approaches to an analysis of time. The phenomenology of time goes back to Augustine.

All one has to do in response to this type of gaslighting nonsense, is repeat the question back to them until they answer the question themselves. And then explain to them that "that," is a word used to describe a self-evident fact of reality that can be used to achieve greater outcomes in association with one's self-directed goals. You'll not be hearing anymore of that shit from them thereafter. — Garrett Travers

Ouch! I knew you would appreciate Derrida. But he does have a point and it goes back to Ferdinand Saussure's semiotics, structuralism and other places I've never been. Derrida is not reader friendly, but then, neither is Einstein, except to those who understand. One has to be prepared to read him, and I am not saying I am so wonderful at this. I have read it though, and its not nonsense.

Nutshell: You have to accept that when you talk about something, the words you use are completely without meaning on their own. If I say "cow" and you would need the English language to understand it. But what ELSE is there you need to understand? A lot. "Cow" doesn't come to us free of context, as if to know X is a cow is some stand alone acknowledgement. You must admit, such an idea is absurd. You have this long history of cows, stories about them, endless references and jokes about cow fill our world, and are there, attendant to any given occurrent cow encounter. Context is what gives the world its possibility for singularity in thinking; context is implicitly there along with the picture of the cow, the song, the casual reference, and on and on; these are all THERE always, already there. They "make" what a reference IS. A single reference to a cow is not single at all.

Rorty liked Derrida. He also thought Heidegger was one of the three most important philosophers of the last century.
Derrida says, among many many things, that in this matrix of intra-referential meaning, analysis cannot make its way OUT of this to actually get to the thing we get milk from. The referring is always bound up in the "difference" of the concepts in play. I say hi to you on the street, but what is hi in our understanding but a long history of language and culture acquisition?

Long story short, Read his Of Grammatology

A fair point, as far as general perception, but not 100% accurate. The things is itself so. The sun does not require your explanation. It stands in defiance the human concept of "what for?" Becuase it says so, that's why, and such is logically the case with all objective phenomena, and all logical validity. A=A, tautologically, and it does not care that such does not make sense to anyone. — Garrett Travers

The sun is not the sun without explanation, I mean, without the language that says, there is the sun. Once I was an infant child, blooming and buzzing the world was. Had I been born feral and survived, I would still relate to the sun, somehow. It would be part of my acquired pragmatic relations. But there would be no question, no symbolic meanings that could be put to logic to make for determinations about what it is. It's this "what it IS" dimension is a language affair. I think you don't appreciate this as much as you should.

The presence of pain is the production of the exact same computational system that produces consciousness, and thereby all known concepts in the universe used to navigate it: the human brain. It doesn't transcend it, it IS it, just as language is thought, or consciousness, or desire. It is all the same system of systems, producing these phenomena in accordance with the data retrieved from the reality within which it exists, and existing in unrivaled sophistication and complexity as realities greatest known productive achievement. — Garrett Travers

No. I am talking about that sensation of pain, not the way we talk about. And this brain talk has to stop. You think that thought is produced by the brain, but in order to conceive if this, the thinking comes first. This is worst possible case of question begging one can even imagine. Look, it is not that there is no correlation between brain events and manifest thought and behavior. That there is is obvious. The problem is when you try to reduce the latter to the former. Analysis reveals it is the other way around: the concept of a brain is FIRST conceived, then applied interpretatively to that three and a half pound mass. No thought, no talk at all of brains, mass, neurons and axons.
Also, just try the opacity test: consider that the only access to a brain is "through" a brain, and a brain is NOT a mirror of nature, at all. (Rorty wrote a book denying this). It is as opaque as a fence post,or a rock.
Having said that (which will resist your every attempt to deny it) we do have to deal with the apparent "sight" we have of affairs around us. Alas, this will not go well for science.

Again, this is why saying "philosophy looks to presuppositions for possibility," is inaccurate. Logical analysis is only a singular framework by which to navigate the truth of reality, and oddly enough, do you know what reveals to us? I'll show you:

If P then Q
P
_________
therefore Q

All logically valid propositions are distinguished a tautology of true premises, leading to a true conclusion. Logic itself demonstrates that reality and truth are of themselves so. A=A is both factually correct, and logically fallacious. Brains think because they do. Evolution created species because it did. You and I are speaking online because we chose to. Speaker speaking about speaking??? See how that line of inquiry doesn't make sense when you think about it? — Garrett Travers

Logic demonstrates reality and truth are OF themselves? Truth is propositional. Only propositions can be true of false, strictly speaking. But reality, this is another mater altogether. A=A is logically sustainable, yes, and it is a tautology. Why logically fallacious and what has this to do with it?
Saying brains think because they do is simply ignoring the problem stated above. Evolution? this is an empirical theory. Quite respectable, of course, but irrelevant. Philosophy is not an empirical science. It examines the presuppositions of science.
Speaking speaking about speaking actually makes the point: Language is an interpretative medium, and even as I write these words, I am working within a framework of meaning that is OPEN. Language is not a closed system; think of all we do and say as Thomas Kuhn thought about science: paradigms are inherently open, waiting for revision, and their is no finality to this, no Hegelian God at the end ot this process; or, if there is, it would take a God to finalize for what is "final" would have to reveal eternity itself).
Truth is Made, not discovered (This IS the pragmatist's pov.).

That's why you don't expect such a thing. What I expect science to do is reveal to me through inductive art the nature of the reality that is self-emergent. It has done this marvellously from a full perspective of the scope of the art. — Garrett Travers

Self emergent? But how do we characterize what is emergent? Saying something is an emergent affair is still dealing with an intuitive givenness which is what is presented. If you're a pragmatist, you are still going have accept that the calling something emergent is merely a pragmatic construct. The understanding constructs meanings that make for an essentially pragmatic epistemology. What you KNOW is the working of it, the success taking a certain meaning AS this thing of state of affairs. But knowing what it is in the way you would like to claim: One no more KNOWS this tree is a tree than dented car fender KNOWS the offending guard rail (that is lifted from Rorty). This brings the matter too the intuitive, a-pragmatic horizon of affairs mentioned above. This is philosophy: dealing with that which is foundational, or better, as foundational as possible.

Because the logical framework developed to determine what tautologies were are exactly the framework with which you asked the question. Furthermore, because such a property is an intrinsic characteristic of that which exists. However, belief is just a concept itself. You will be made to accept reality, irrespective of whether or not you believe it, and it will tautologically dominate your every thought and motion. — Garrett Travers

You seem to think that because thought is a rule governed activity, our affairs in the world can produce nothing but tautologies. If my every thought and motion is tautologically dominated, then so what? It is like saying every symphony is dominated by music theory. Listening to music is NOT music theory. (Nor, I should add, it logic truly logic. After all, 'logic' is a particle of language that is there grounded in utility and familiarity with the world. Its generative source remains a mystery).

Logic is itself a, self-generated concept. It cannot be expected to account for self-emergence. By proxy, because nature is self-generated, it is also impossible to understand it from within itself as a conscious observer created by it, to develop a way in which to break this universal law. Thus, exploration is the only path open to us for answers on anything. — Garrett Travers

Certainly. Logic will not be second guessed, and it is massively boring to inquiry as a mere system of moving parts. But then, logic is NEVER given to us like this. It is always given as an interest. Logic thus called is an analytical abstraction from analyses of judgment and thought (Kant). It is not the case that there is such a thing as logic. There are no actual conditional propositions, e.g. This is just a token of speech.

Common sense is not what is useful. That concept has been behind the justification of many, many things that were either incorrect, or evil. Reason is your tool. Common sense is an ambiguous term that means nothing and is often employed by people to insult you. — Garrett Travers

Or it can be taken as the way things are generally understood in everyday living. Husserl calls this the "naturalistic attitude". It is what we all have when we take out the trash, do our taxes and study physics. Then there is the phenomenological reduction which withdraws from this mundanity and studies its intuitive foundation.

The sun is not the sun without explanation, I mean, without the language that says, there is the sun. — Constance

You had me to this point right here. The sun is undefined as an entity that plays a specific role in the universe with or without observation? This, simply, is not, and will never the case. The sun is not the word, or the group of characteristics we have used to build coherence around the word used for its identification, but is most certainly itself so, and of itself so; and will likely outlast human existence, just as it preceded it.

It's this "what it IS" dimension is a language affair. I think you don't appreciate this as much as you should. — Constance

No, I dismiss it as I aught to, as it is a fallacy of reduction. What "IS" is beyond langauge, or any language affair, even if it has a linguistic dimension for us to analyze, it is not confined to it. If one claims it is a dimension of assessment, you have an ally in me. If one fallaciously claims that it IS a language affair, then I'm gonna have to remind you that language was use to identify what IS as a self-evident IS in the universe before we came along. And IS, more accurately, is an entity in a vast number of systems that are also not linguistically dependent or confined. And that such an assertion is also a reductionist fallacy.

And this brain talk has to stop. — Constance

Hmm. Um, No. That's exactly the kind of thing that someone who didn't want to venture into objective territory in philosophy would say: "This talk of established neuroscience has to stop."
Not just no, dude. Fuck no. If dismissing science is what you'd like to do, then go talk to a mystic.

You think that thought is produced by the brain, but in order to conceive if this, the thinking comes first. — Constance

Nope, no evidence suggests this. And boy, did I get the feeling you were going in this direction with your ambiguous rambling about nothing. You are not correct. Thinking is not something that comes before the production of thoughts by the brain that produces them via the most complex data computational networks in the known universe. Such an assertion isn't even entertained in neuroscience, it's absolutely laughable. Disregard of known science fallacy, and a bad one.

This is worst possible case of question begging one can even imagine. — Constance

A=A doesn't give a shit about your question begging. Logical validity doesn't imply truth. Again, all logically valid and sound arguments are tautological in nature. Neural function also doesn't care about your improper accusation of that fallacy.

That there is is obvious. The problem is when you try to reduce the latter to the forme — Constance

No, asserting established science is not reduction fallacy. A reduction fallacy is, in fact, YOU attempting to relegate the functions of the most complex and sophisticated computational piece of hardware in the known universe to what ever unexplained, mystical source you have concluded in your head. You are the reductionist here.

Analysis reveals it is the other way around: the concept of a brain is FIRST conceived, then applied interpretatively to that three and a half pound mass. No thought, no talk at all of brains, mass, neurons and axons. — Constance

Cite this horseshit analysis of yours. What analysis do you think you're about to reference that demonstrates thoughts are produced by something other than the brain? Provide any source that is scientific and asserts this claim based on experimentation. Any whatsoever will do. In the meantime, here's just a teensy hint that you're full of shit, just a little something: https://www.pnas.org/content/112/37/11732.full?sid=b9968895-810f-4713-8887-ae0445dfa79b

Also, just try the opacity test: consider that the only access to a brain is "through" a brain, and a brain is NOT a mirror of nature, at all. (Rorty wrote a book denying this). It is as opaque as a fence post,or a rock.
Having said that (which will resist your every attempt to deny it) we do have to deal with the apparent "sight" we have of affairs around us. Alas, this will not go well for science. — Constance

None of this makes sense. A brain is not a mirror of nature...? Okay, nobody gives a shit, got an argument in there that is coherent?

Here's a good one: the brain is an evolved system developed by nature to collect data to be used to inform behaviors most likely to maximize homeostasis. There we go, something true and coherent, now you go.

Logic demonstrates reality and truth are OF themselves? — Constance

Yep, and not linguistically, or rationally dependent, but observed and assessed through sensory computation by the brain. Glad you're finally coming around.

Truth is propositional. — Constance

No, it isn't. The propositional framework we have created to better understand truth is propositional. Truth is self-evident existence.

Only propositions can be true of false, strictly speaking. — Constance

Nope, only propositions can be given truth values to determine truth and falsehood conceptually and within that logical framework. A pattern, or entity in reality that existed before we created a propositional framework of analysis does not care about your truth values.

Why logically fallacious and what has this to do with it? — Constance

Because validity does not imply truth, especially with actually true things.

Saying brains think because they do is simply ignoring the problem stated above. Evolution? this is an empirical theory. Quite respectable, of course, but irrelevant. Philosophy is not an empirical science. It examines the presuppositions of science. — Constance

No, it's true, there's no problem.

Evolution? this is an empirical theory. Quite respectable, of course, but irrelevant. Philosophy is not an empirical science. It examines the presuppositions of science. — Constance

If your philosophical exploration is divorced from the data accrued by empirical analysis and science, you're no longer doing philosophy, you're playing make-believe. And any inclination to derail a philosophical exploration from established science, is called a disregarding known science fallacy. So, let's keep this bullshit away from this conversation. You're playing with the big boys, now, bud. This nonsense doesn't get past me.

Language is an interpretative medium, and even as I write these words, I am working within a framework of meaning that is OPEN. — Constance

Right, which necessitates the existence of an interpretive hardware that can both develop, and initialize interpretation protocols before the emergence of langauge. That'd be the brain and the exact point I was making.

Language is not a closed system; think of all we do and say as Thomas Kuhn thought about science: paradigms are inherently open, waiting for revision, and their is no finality to this, no Hegelian God at the end ot this process; or, if there is, it would take a God to finalize for what is "final" would have to reveal eternity itself).
Truth is Made, not discovered (This IS the pragmatist's pov.). — Constance

None of this is relevant to any position I've asserted. But, while I have you, your dismissal of science and the attempts to keep science out of this discussion are precisely against what Kuhn wished for in paradigmatic shifts. Truth is not made, this is made up. It is precisely discovered, that's why we make discoveries in science, or geography, or cosmology. We don't make planets and stars. You are nonsensical.

Self emergent? But how do we characterize what is emergent? — Constance

Easy: as in produced by the universe in accordance with its laws and strictures.

Saying something is an emergent affair is still dealing with an intuitive givenness which is what is presented. If you're a pragmatist, you are still going have accept that the calling something emergent is merely a pragmatic construct. — Constance

No, it is dealing with inductive recognition of existence that doesn't care about what intuitive process I am presenting. And, I never said I was a pragmatist.

dealing with that which is foundational, or better, as foundational as possible. — Constance

No, that can't be how you feel, you were just saying thoughts are not produced by the brain and that science has no place in philosophy. You don't give a shit about foundational understandings.

You seem to think that because thought is a rule governed activity, our affairs in the world can produce nothing but tautologies. — Constance

No, I think that that which exists is of itself so in accordance with the laws of nature, and presents itself to our minds as tautological, because everything that exists in a self-governing universe is tautologically extant. And there is no evidence at the current moment that would suggest otherwise, apart from games like you keep trying to have me play.

If my every thought and motion is tautologically dominated, then so what? — Constance

So what? That's the truth of things is so what. Nothing more. And any attempt to derail this conversation from this recognition on your part is going to be met with swift opposition.

It is not the case that there is such a thing as logic. There are no actual conditional propositions, e.g. This is just a token of speech. — Constance

About time you said something that wasn't woo.

You had me to this point right here. The sun is undefined as an entity that plays a specific role in the universe with or without observation? This, simply, is not, and will never the case. The sun is not the word, or the group of characteristics we have used to build coherence around the word used for its identification, but is most certainly itself so, and of itself so; and will likely outlast human existence, just as it preceded it. — Garrett Travers

You lost me at "it is most certainly itself so" I'm beginning to suspect you haven't read Kant. to understand the world philosophiclly you have to read philosophy, and this begins, I will hazard, with Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. You're objections, all of the, are simply based on this kind of thinking being so unfamiliar. You have never turned your analytical gaze to the intuitive foundations of science.

No, I dismiss it as I aught to, as it is a fallacy of reduction. What "IS" is beyond langauge, or any language affair, even if it has a linguistic dimension for us to analyze, it is not confined to it. If one claims it is a dimension of assessment, you have an ally in me. If one fallaciously claims that it IS a language affair, then I'm gonna have to remind you that language was use to identify what IS as a self-evident IS in the universe before we came along. And IS, more accurately, is an entity in a vast number of systems that are also not linguistically dependent or confined. And that such an assertion is also a reductionist fallacy. — Garrett Travers

But as I recall you were amenable to the suggestion that objects in the word were a synthesis of intuition and concept (this is Kant).
Before "we" came along? What could this be about?

What would Thomas Kuhn say about this? Before we came along, people lived in a paradigm of belief. Paradigms are evolving dispositions to believe. These have no grounding in some absolute about the universe that labels things according to the way we believe. Our beliefs rise up and address the universe up in historical paradigmatic terms, and work to deal with it. "Dealing with it" is pragmatic. That ancient person grunted at a rock was not saying, "my look; there is, let[s call it a rock, and notice its extension in space and inertial state sitting there." S/he was saying give me the rock! Or, Rock there. Paradigms of understanding are built up in time out of this kind of thing. But that shining thing in the sky ONLY A FAMILIARITY. The sun was THERE and this thereness never evolved. Telescopes and microscopes give us more detailed thereness and logic (keeping in mind, logic itself is "there" only in familiarity) is good for solving problems. But the basic pragmatic attitude never asked foundational ontological and epistemic questions until "WE" came along. THAT was paradigm shift.

The question that presents itself is this: If my understanding is essentially pragmatic, just taking up what is there, familiar, and making food and shelter and eventually making surgical needles and cell phones, does this exhaust an account of what is real?

This is where thinking takes a turn, asking questions like this. The quest for the nature of what is real, what exists, what being IS, is philosophy. It is a paradigmatically distinct set of values for inquiry. Sui generis, once you get through Kant to Husserl. The basis of the question "what is real?" exceeds the boundaries of empirical investigation, because there are questions there that are, if you like, begged in science: Science does not explore the intuitive foundation of being in the world. It only deploys paradigms that are grounded in utility and familiarity.
Principle of philosophy's prerogatives is ethics. Science has no interest in ethics for a very good reason. It cannot examine ethics empirically.

Hmm. Um, No. That's exactly the kind of thing that someone who didn't want to venture into objective territory in philosophy would say: "This talk of established neuroscience has to stop."
Not just no, dude. Fuck no. If dismissing science is what you'd like to do, then go talk to a mystic — Garrett Travers

It is not dismissing science, as I said, Science is fine; we love science. It is merely realizing that there are questions that do not belong to the domain of inquiry of empirical science. Einstein would tell you this. He read Kant when he was thirteen. He knew the difference.

Nope, no evidence suggests this. And boy, did I get the feeling you were going in this direction with your ambiguous rambling about nothing. You are not correct. Thinking is not something that comes before the production of thoughts by the brain that produces them via the most complex data computational networks in the known universe. Such an assertion isn't even entertained in neuroscience, it's absolutely laughable. Disregard of known science fallacy, and a bad one. — Garrett Travers

But neuroscience is an empirical account. Of course, we "see" the brain there on table. But explain how this works. What are you seeing when you "see"? How are you, in the familiar language of material science, NOT seeing just neurobiological entities?

Think hard about the opacity of the brain and ask yourself simply this question: how does anything out there (on the material model of the world, something Neil DeGrasse Tyson would accept) get in here (pointing to your head)? You can ignore this question, but note that the term 'ignore' is the grammatical basis of ignorance. This is the kind of thing the church did to early scientists.

You lost me at "it is most certainly itself so" I'm beginning to suspect you haven't read Kant. — Constance

Cute. Kant's philosophies are immoral and I wish nothing to do with them. Of course I've read, I reject him. And the sun is of itself so, irrespective of if you've been lost, that was clear when you said brains don't produce thoughts. It is not deniable that the sun is of itself extant in accordance with the strictures of reality, just like every other star, in all of the billions of galaxies, also of themselves so and universally present long before we discovered them. But, you can't keep asserting as much while the plants photosynthesize inspite of such non-arguments.

You're objections, all of the, are simply based on this kind of thinking being so unfamiliar. You have never turned your analytical gaze to the intuitive foundations of science. — Constance

No, it's quite the opposite. Their based on the ideas being familiar, and being rejected because they aren't correct. And don't bring up science as a standard, you were just called out for disregarding known science, that's not something you care about. It's in writing above numerous time, anybody can read it.

But as I recall you were amenable to the suggestion that objects in the word were a synthesis of intuition and concept (this is Kant). — Constance

No, they are amenble in the world as data integration and concept generation to embody behavior in association with them. Very different, more scientifically consistent idea.

Before "we" came along? What could this be about? — Constance

The human species. There's about 3.5 billion years of biological history, and about 2-300k years of human. That definitively ends your reality synthesis, Kantian mysticism that never made sense to begin with, and was predicated on Christian influence, which isn't philosophy. But, you know that.

What would Thomas Kuhn say about this? Before we came along, people lived in a paradigm of belief. Paradigms are evolving dispositions to believe. These have no grounding in some absolute about the universe that labels things according to the way we believe. Our beliefs rise up and address the universe up in historical paradigmatic terms, and work to deal with it. — Constance

Very true, about the most reasonable thing you've said so far. Paradigms of belief, just like logical validity, in no way imply knowledge of truth, systems of accurately accruing said knowledge, implementing it, or any other rational metric along which we could analyze such a thing. In fact, as Kuhn has mentioned, it is exactly the paradigms themselves, and the cultures they generate - which is actually what that was all about - that inhibit scientific progress, in the same way and for the same reason they inhibit philosophical progress, which science is a direct derivation of.

"Dealing with it" is pragmatic — Constance

No, it isn't. Dealing with it has 'a' pragmatic element, it is not exclusively relegated to such a label, as your post-modernist teaching would have you attempt. Meaning, you are only 1% correct about this assertion, as you have done yourself in by another reduction fallacy. You'll understand in time.

But the basic pragmatic attitude never asked foundational ontological and epistemic questions until "WE" came along. THAT was paradigm shift. — Constance

I don't have any issue with this assertion. However, there is no conclusion actually implied by the truth of it that is relegated to a single aspect of viewing the very complex manner in which humans accrue data, and generate concepts for better navigation of the world within which they are suspended. Broaden your analysis.

If my understanding is essentially pragmatic, just taking up what is there, familiar, and making food and shelter and eventually making surgical needles and cell phones, does this exhaust an account of what is real? — Constance

The reason why this seems strange to you, is because you are concluding with just "Pragmatic" as an essential. You're not an automaton, there is nothing simply pragmatic about you, or any other human to ever exist, or any other system to ever exists. That's what's messing you up, fellow. And no, there's no such thing as exhausting the account of what is real. You are talking about complexity beyond human reckoning. Complexity of which can be shown to be astronimcal, exponential, adaptive, self-contained, and self-emergent.

This is where thinking takes a turn, asking questions like this. The quest for the nature of what is real, what exists, what being IS, is philosophy. — Constance

Which is absolutely brilliant, I love the process myself. I'm fully committed to it. But, if you are really thinking, which is self-contained to your brain and senses, which can be used to verify things, and matter how many people we get on the subject, how many advanced tools we build to investigate, the only evidence that emerges as existent is that of material entities and systems, operating under universally understood pretenses, and arranging themselves in ways most closely approximating homeostasis; if that's the case, which it is, then thinking beyond the point of verification, or potential verification that one may strive for, is NOT philosophy, it is mysticism.

Science does not explore the intuitive foundation of being in the world. It only deploys paradigms that are grounded in utility and familiarity. — Constance

There's truth here, but it does attempt to get to the bottom of things. The greatest piece of art in human history was designed for exactly that reason, the LHC. The problem there is, if the univeres is tauological in it's nature of emergent truth, which it is, the odds of us being able to break that universally set paradigm may be out of our reach, as a stricture of reality, which so far has proven to be the case. So, we'll have to go from there. That being said, no amount of mystery can, or will ever be an argument for a reality that hasn't been observed, understood, philosophically explored with both correspondence and coherence together, and applicable utiliized. That's all there is to that.

Principle of philosophy's prerogatives is ethics. Science has no interest in ethics for a very good reason. It cannot examine ethics empirically. — Constance

Again with the reduction. It's fucking up your entire worldview, man, no kidding. NO, not true at all. The person that posited the idea of empirically, rationally investigating reality, as an ethical code, to avoid fear of bullshit mysticism, was in fact, not just a philosopher, but the philosopher whose legacy brought us out of mystic science, and into empiricism. That would be none other than Epicurus, to whom humanity in it's current form, owes so much to. Science, inductive investigation, was FOUNDED as ethics, my friend. You seriously need to take your training to this point, stash it away, and begin investigating where philosophy really comes from, and why Plato and Aristotle were miserable failures in practice in competition with Epicureanism, just as Christianity was. Problem there is, mysticism has this way of murdering those it can't take in open intellectual combat.

http://classics.mit.edu/Epicurus/princdoc.html

It is not dismissing science, as I said, Science is fine; we love science. It is merely realizing that there are questions that do not belong to the domain of inquiry of empirical science. — Constance

Then never say to me, or anyone elseif you desire this statement to EVER be taken seriously, that I need to stop incorporating it into my philosophical analysis, which is exactly what you did, and was in fact a disregard of science that I will let slide this one and only time, as you seem to be willing to correct yourself.

Einstein would tell you this. — Constance

Einstein would also say "Does the mopon disappear when we aren't looking?" Wonder what else he could be wrong about when not trusting his lying eyes.

But neuroscience is an empirical account. Of course, we "see" the brain there on table. But explain how this works. What are you seeing when you "see"? How are you, in the familiar language of material science, NOT seeing just neurobiological entities? — Constance

Empiricism is a philosophical tradition. It works in a vast network of highly complex, evolutionarily evolved organic systems of computation and control by way of elctromagnetic and chemical interactions that it is self-emergently designed to conduct to achieve homeostasis of the body its body. It happens to be the most complex system in the known universe. Here's a good source to start with, plenty more where that comes from too. What one is seeing are computational representations of data accrued through evolutionarily designed means of perception that correspond to objectively existential elements of reality that have developed as the result of achieving greater and greater homeostasis as a species in accordance with environmental and sexually mutative pressures placed on the species through the course of 3.5 billion fucking years of the most intense system generating and destroying crucible fathomable to ultimately give rise to a brain powerful enough to ask just that very question you did before receiving just this very answer from a being just like that individually represents that which is constituted as the Pinnacle Predator of this world, respectively: The Human Being.

How are you, in the familiar language of material science, NOT seeing just neurobiological entities? — Constance

More reduction reduction reduction. There's no such fucking thing as "Just," and damn sure not in regards to biological systems of such complexity and sophistication as to be incomprehensible. You're not going to get away with this kind of statement with me. Broaden. Your. Analysis. For your own sake.

Think hard about the opacity of the brain and ask yourself simply this question: how does anything out there (on the material model of the world, something Neil DeGrasse Tyson would accept) get in here (pointing to your head)? You can ignore this question, but note that the term 'ignore' is the grammatical basis of ignorance. This is the kind of thing the church did to early scientists. — Constance

Don't you see that it is actually YOU doing this exact action. Not me, the person not concluding things based on ignorance, but you doing so. Your inability to make senseof something, does not imply an argument for an alternative explanation, especially one that is not clear, and for which no evidence exists. How things get out there to in here, is through systems designed for perception in accordance with, and composed by the very same material elements out there being perceived. You understand? That's what the evidence to date suggests. To assume anything else without evidence is mystic faith. Period.

Cute. Kant's philosophies are immoral and I wish nothing to do with them. Of course I've read, I reject him. And the sun is of itself so, irrespective of if you've been lost, that was clear when you said brains don't produce thoughts. It is not deniable that the sun is of itself extant in accordance with the strictures of reality, just like every other star, in all of the billions of galaxies, also of themselves so and universally present long before we discovered them. But, you can't keep asserting as much while the plants photosynthesize inspite of such non-arguments. — Garrett Travers

Oh, well you've read Kant. Why didn't you say so. I would have to resort to materialist assumptions like brains thinking of brains, which was only done for your sake, to show that even prior to any talk about phenomenological analyses, the material assumption gives a perfect reductio. You know, brains conceived exclusively in brains can only produce things that are in and of brains. You have to show how one gets "out" of the brain to a perspective that is independent of the brain to affirm brains as a scientist would desire. It is just like Wittgenstein's argument: logic cannot explain its own generative source, for it would require logic to do this. Question begging.

Understand in this something really quite important, and almost always missed: We are still dealing with a world, and when the skull cap is removed and the surgeon who wants to keep you conscious so as not to remove important tissue, and is asking questions as the probe touches the interior, and the probe goes here, and you have a sensation of a smell, or a memory, perhaps, and so on. There is NO DOUBT whatever that the brain is connected to our mental awareness. No one doubts this. The question is not about this. It is about a reduction of mind to this. If mind were reducible to brain activity, then all that is in the mind is localized in the brain. Period.

But you know Kant?? Well then how do you solve the issue of synthetic apriority?

No, it's quite the opposite. Their based on the ideas being familiar, and being rejected because they aren't correct. And don't bring up science as a standard, you were just called out for disregarding known science, that's not something you care about. It's in writing above numerous time, anybody can read it. — Garrett Travers

I haven't once disregarded science. I claim you have done this. See the above. And see the latter part of what I wrote: The difference here is between science on the one hand, and the intuitive foundation of science on the other. These are not the same kinds of inquiry.

No, they are amenble in the world as data integration and concept generation to embody behavior in association with them. Very different, more scientifically consistent idea. — Garrett Travers

So then, this analysis of data integration and concept generation, you're talking like Kant. Isn't this the way all knowledge is? No, not scientific. Phenomenological. Because this is an analytical notion that attempts to explain the intuitive playing field of cognition, and this is presupposed by science. Phenomenology, of course, is a construct, in the Kantian sense, if you like, I mean, there is something intuitively plausible about Kant's "concepts without intuitions are empty; intuitions without concepts are blind." make no mistake, you have just landed your foot into a different body of paradigms altogether. Time to bring in Husserl, Heidegger, Levinas, and so on. Good luck!

The human species. There's about 3.5 billion years of biological history, and about 2-300k years of human. That definitively ends your reality synthesis, Kantian mysticism that never made sense to begin with, and was predicated on Christian influence, which isn't philosophy. But, you know that. — Garrett Travers

You have this all wrong. You live in a world of first order mundane beliefs built on top a reality you can't acknowledge because you haven't done the reading. If you think Kant was a mystic, then you have my sympathies. It's like calling day night. Hmmmm...you really haven't read this have you? I mean, people who have don't talk like this. Kant is the very most emphatic opposite of this. He was censured for not being like this.
Not that I am a Kantian at all. His ethics is all wrong. But did you call him immoral?? What ??! Tell me, how is his metaphysic of Morals immoral? You can't just throw outrageous things out there and...what did you expect?

Very true, about the most reasonable thing you've said so far. Paradigms of belief, just like logical validity, in no way imply knowledge of truth, systems of accurately accruing said knowledge, implementing it, or any other rational metric along which we could analyze such a thing. In fact, as Kuhn has mentioned, it is exactly the paradigms themselves, and the cultures they generate - which is actually what that was all about - that inhibit scientific progress, in the same way and for the same reason they inhibit philosophical progress, which science is a direct derivation of. — Garrett Travers

Remember, Kuhn was a Kantian. "Accurately accruing" begs the question, obviously. What is accurate apart context, and what is contextual in science? The rational metric you need to discover is called phenomenology. Again, you are working in a set of values that ignore foundational matters.

No, it isn't. Dealing with it has 'a' pragmatic element, it is not exclusively relegated to such a label, as your post-modernist teaching would have you attempt. Meaning, you are only 1% correct about this assertion, as you have done yourself in by another reduction fallacy. You'll understand in time. — Garrett Travers

No, look: pragmatics is not about the practical applications of things. You need to read more closely: it is a "property" if you will, of language itself. Pragmatism is an epistemic concept: to know AT ALL, is to know pragmatically. Such reductive fallacies must refer to the understanding that when we talk about things we work within a matrix of interpretation, and this means that even when we make our theories about, say, the pragmatic nature of language, we are as well working within pragmatic possibilities. This makes any attempt whatever to speak foundationally question begging, true. But, as Heidegger said, circular thinking is inevitable, but the important thing is where the working paradigms allow thought to go.
You work with science's paradigms and you are under the misguided belief that these are philosophically determinative. They don't. It is a common error made by those who only read science. But really, it is like explaining geometry with animal husbandry. Nonsense.

I don't have any issue with this assertion. However, there is no conclusion actually implied by the truth of it that is relegated to a single aspect of viewing the very complex manner in which humans accrue data, and generate concepts for better navigation of the world within which they are suspended. Broaden your analysis. — Garrett Travers

You broaden yours. Philosophy is the broadest perspective. You need to see that when a person gets "broad" in her perspective, other lesser perspectives are suspended. Physics does not care much about pottery, but physics is IN all of what pottery can be because its purview is much greater. Physics is subsumed under philosophy in just this way. But such is the way of impertinence.

The reason why this seems strange to you, is because you are concluding with just "Pragmatic" as an essential. You're not an automaton, there is nothing simply pragmatic about you, or any other human to ever exist, or any other system to ever exists. That's what's messing you up, fellow. And no, there's no such thing as exhausting the account of what is real. You are talking about complexity beyond human reckoning. Complexity of which can be shown to be astronimcal, exponential, adaptive, self-contained, and self-emergent. — Garrett Travers

I agree with some of this, though being an automaton is off the mark; it's not about human freedom.

The problem, however, does reveal itself here: You think the inexhaustible nature of what stands before an inquirer lies in the extension of science's paradigms into a future of evolving thinking. I am telling you that in order to grasp what is before the inquirer that eludes science foundationally is already there, at hand, in the world, and to access this and realize the dimensions of its epistemic possibilities, you have to perform the Husserlian reduction to acknowledge the intuitive ground of all things. Eugene Fink lays this out nicely.

Which is absolutely brilliant, I love the process myself. I'm fully committed to it. But, if you are really thinking, which is self-contained to your brain and senses, which can be used to verify things, and matter how many people we get on the subject, how many advanced tools we build to investigate, the only evidence that emerges as existent is that of material entities and systems, operating under universally understood pretenses, and arranging themselves in ways most closely approximating homeostasis; if that's the case, which it is, then thinking beyond the point of verification, or potential verification that one may strive for, is NOT philosophy, it is mysticism. — Garrett Travers

No, I don't think it is self contained in my brain. That is what you think. I put that out there to demonstrate a reductio ad absurdum that issues from the assumption of materialism. You see, you cannot produce meaningful knowledge claims out of this.
And I love science. But when I say it is not philosophy. See where I've said this many times. Mysticism?? and Kant is immoral, and...you can't talk like this and call yourself reasonable informed person.

There's truth here, but it does attempt to get to the bottom of things. The greatest piece of art in human history was designed for exactly that reason, the LHC. The problem there is, if the univeres is tauological in it's nature of emergent truth, which it is, the odds of us being able to break that universally set paradigm may be out of our reach, as a stricture of reality, which so far has proven to be the case. So, we'll have to go from there. That being said, no amount of mystery can, or will ever be an argument for a reality that hasn't been observed, understood, philosophically explored with both correspondence and coherence together, and applicable utiliized. That's all there is to that. — Garrett Travers

Did you say the universe is tautological? Wittgenstein said something close to this, one could argue, when he said that all facts are states of affairs constrained by logical structures. He has been, on this, considered a phenomenologist and a Kantian of sorts.
Apart from this it is bewildering. Unless you refer to the hypothetical deductive method which looks at possibilities for future discovery to be deductively predelineated: all there is to discover is possessed by what is known by analytic discovery. Analytic philosophers seem to hold something like this. But that ship has sailed, wrecked and sunk to the bottom of the sea.

Again with the reduction. It's fucking up your entire worldview, man, no kidding. NO, not true at all. The person that posited the idea of empirically, rationally investigating reality, as an ethical code, to avoid fear of bullshit mysticism, was in fact, not just a philosopher, but the philosopher whose legacy brought us out of mystic science, and into empiricism. That would be none other than Epicurus, to whom humanity in it's current form, owes so much to. Science, inductive investigation, was FOUNDED as ethics, my friend. You seriously need to take your training to this point, stash it away, and begin investigating where philosophy really comes from, and why Plato and Aristotle were miserable failures in practice in competition with Epicureanism, just as Christianity was. Problem there is, mysticism has this way of murdering those it can't take in open intellectual combat. — Garrett Travers

No, it's not about Epicurus. Your quaint references to philosophy's history are no match for just asking. My views here are about metaethics, and if you think Derrida is not plausible, because you haven't read him, then metaethics will send you screaming. First, you have to read G E Moore's Ethica Principia, then Wittgenstein's Lecture on Ethics, and parts of his Nature and Culture, then John Mackie, then of course, Heiddgger, then Levinas. Look, you're not equipped for this. And put mysticism out of your mind. this is just a pejorative reaction you have to unfamiliar thinking. You work from a position of deficit: you really don't understand anything that is being put before you.

Keep in mind that thinking about what someone said as recollection is not thinking.

Then never say to me, or anyone elseif you desire this statement to EVER be taken seriously, that I need to stop incorporating it into my philosophical analysis, which is exactly what you did, and was in fact a disregard of science that I will let slide this one and only time, as you seem to be willing to correct yourself. — Garrett Travers

No. See my comments on the distinction between doing science and bringing inquiry to bear on the intuitive foundation that science presupposes. Don't just ignore this. And you don't have a philosophical analysis. Not yet, anyway. You have to make that qualitative leap into philosophy.

Empiricism is a philosophical tradition. It works in a vast network of highly complex, evolutionarily evolved organic systems of computation and control by way of elctromagnetic and chemical interactions that it is self-emergently designed to conduct to achieve homeostasis of the body its body. It happens to be the most complex system in the known universe. Here's a good source to start with, plenty more where that comes from too. What one is seeing are computational representations of data accrued through evolutionarily designed means of perception that correspond to objectively existential elements of reality that have developed as the result of achieving greater and greater homeostasis as a species in accordance with environmental and sexually mutative pressures placed on the species through the course of 3.5 billion fucking years of the most intense system generating and destroying crucible fathomable to ultimately give rise to a brain powerful enough to ask just that very question you did before receiving just this very answer from a being just like that individually represents that which is constituted as the Pinnacle Predator of this world, respectively: The Human Being. — Garrett Travers

I am aware of all of this. I have taken lots of courses in empirical sciences. No kidding, lots.
But you have to make an effort. When I say philosophy is radically different from this, you have to at least be curious. Take a look at Husserl's cartesian Meditations, see if it makes sense to you.

More reduction reduction reduction. There's no such fucking thing as "Just," and damn sure not in regards to biological systems of such complexity and sophistication as to be incomprehensible. You're not going to get away with this kind of statement with me. Broaden. Your. Analysis. For your own sake. — Garrett Travers

See for "broaden" above. I have been down this road many times. When an interlocutor starts using fuck a lot, it means s/he's exasperated, which compromises objectivity. There is only on e reduction that makes the qualitative difference: the phenomenological reduction, or "epoche" of Husserl. You don't know what this is and this is the reason why you can't even begin to make sense of any of this. You have my sympathies, but then, it is up to you to find out.

So what? That's the truth of things is so what. Nothing more. And any attempt to derail this conversation from this recognition on your part is going to be met with swift opposition. — Garrett Travers

I mean, how is it tautological? I don't say that it's not, I just want you to explain it since there is more than one way to understand it. Ethics has it s existential grounding in something that is not tautological, e.g.

You have to show how one gets "out" of the brain to a perspective that is independent of the brain to affirm brains as a scientist would desire — Constance

No I don't. There is no "out of" the brains, such is not required for the brain to perceive what is out of it.

logic cannot explain its own generative source, for it would require logic to do this. Question begging. — Constance

And logic doesn't need to do so, as it is a concept generated by a self-perpetuating, and concept generating brain. And again, A=A. It does not matter if our methods do not know how to square that, it is already the case. Question begging is only applicable to non-correspondent claims of truth. Correspondent claims are not subject to our need for an answer to "why?" And never will be.

It is about a reduction of mind to this. — Constance

It cannot be a reduction for to highlight the most complex system in the universe as a source of thought, while you do not explain what else is doing it with at least as equal complexity. It is YOU doing the reduction if that is the case. And, as it happens, you have still not explained what you think the mind is if it isn't a function of the brain. If you do not explain this as sourced from something as equally complex as the human brain, which you will never for as long as you live, then your are beyond any doubt the only reductionist present, because it is not possible for it to be me.

If mind were reducible to brain activity, then all that is in the mind is localized in the brain. Period. — Constance

This is correct as far as any known evidence has ever been concerned.

But you know Kant?? Well then how do you solve the issue of synthetic apriority? — Constance

I don't regard it as an issue. It is propositional, and all propositions are created by words that are created and coherently understood before being placed in the proposition. Synthetic a priori is a mental distraction from a non-problem. "Some items are heavy." Every one of these words means something understood by all people in experiencial or emotional valence before being placed in the proposition. Let me demonstrate: Some x are X. See how that doesn't meaning, or truth value corresponding to anything with out the x values. Ah, except where the other words that are presnt have meaning. So, SOME x ARE, in fact, X. "Some are" has meaning, because they had meaning before being placed in the proposition.

I haven't once disregarded science. I claim you have done this. See the above. And see the latter part of what I wrote: The difference here is between science on the one hand, and the intuitive foundation of science on the other. These are not the same kinds of inquiry. — Constance

It's literally in writing above. Just know I will call it every time it happens.

Remember, Kuhn was a Kantian. "Accurately accruing" begs the question, obviously. What is accurate apart context, and what is contextual in science? The rational metric you need to discover is called phenomenology. Again, you are working in a set of values that ignore foundational matters. — Constance

Notice how this isn't any form of argument? It's the rational metric being removed from phenomenology in accordance with modern neuroscience which is the issue. The brain accrues data, data that is used to navigate the world in pursuit of its basic function of achieving and maintaining homeostasis. If that isn't where you start from phenomenological as regards thought, you aren't using a rational metric, you're using dogma.

I agree with some of this, though being an automaton is off the mark; it's not about human freedom. — Constance

No, you're not an automoton bound to ideas that do not make room for complexity, that's what I was saying. Not about freedom.

You think the inexhaustible nature of what stands before an inquirer lies in the extension of science's paradigms into a future of evolving thinking. — Constance

No, I don't do paradigms, I do facts and evidence. I regard the only real scientific paradigm to be that which disregards nothing about was is observable in reality as incompatible with any other elements of that reality. Paradigms are little more than cliques we find ourselves in.

I am telling you that in order to grasp what is before the inquirer that eludes science foundationally is already there, at hand, in the world, and to access this and realize the dimensions of its epistemic possibilities, you have to perform the Husserlian reduction to acknowledge the intuitive ground of all things. — Constance

Describe a property of anything you are referencing here. Because, unless this is cleared up, I'm going to have to remind you that science is not limited by what appears to be linguistic bullshit that doesn't correspond to anything in reality. Such as this "ground of all things." Describe that? Anybody seen it, or been there, or used it, whatever it is?

No, I don't think it is self contained in my brain. — Constance

Right, which is exactly why I said what you were doing such a case "is NOT philosophy, it is mysticism." Because the brain and consciousness are self-contained.

I put that out there to demonstrate a reductio ad absurdum that issues from the assumption of materialism. — Constance

And have only found yourself to be the absurd one not realizing that if one concludes the mind is not self-contained to the brain, that such would imply such possibilities of experiencing and thinking things that are not isolated to the individual. And materialism doesn't have any reductio ad absurdum, nothing you've shown at all. All the observable science indicates not function of the brain beyond its self contained nature.

You see, you cannot produce meaningful knowledge claims out of this. — Constance

Except it's literally mainstream science. All of the functions of the brain operate in, and only from within the body that it is part of. There has still yet to be a claim from you as to where else it is, or can go, or comes from at all, let alone anything that can be shown to be in a study, or experiment. So, I remain correct for now against the failed attempt of simple negation, I guess.

And I love science. But when I say it is not philosophy. See where I've said this many times. Mysticism?? and Kant is immoral, and...you can't talk like this and call yourself reasonable informed person. — Constance

Yes, I very much can. I can see that Kant's moral system is predicated on the noumenal realm, the mystical one where god dwells, and that every moral code of it's kind have led to the mass slaughter of humans. This includes the deontological ethics Hitler used to predicate his actions on for the German people, with the belief that god was on his side, the church sure was. Also, his ethics were predicted on duty to the state, not just the idea of his noumenal god. Which is the single greatest murderer of the human being in history. So, yes, I can quite easily confirm that Kant was evil, a mystic, and therefore dismiss anything about him that is included in his philosophy.

Wittgenstein said something close to this, one could argue, when he said that all facts are states of affairs constrained by logical structures. He has been, on this, considered a phenomenologist and a Kantian of sorts. — Constance

Yes.

Apart from this it is bewildering. Unless you refer to the hypothetical deductive method which looks at possibilities for future discovery to be deductively predelineated: all there is to discover is possessed by what is known by analytic discovery. Analytic philosophers seem to hold something like this. But that ship has sailed, wrecked and sunk to the bottom of the sea. — Constance

No, I mean that reality is objective absolute and self-evidently so, and does not require logic to validate. Only propositions require logic to validate, and all premises have to be able to be arranged in a tautological fashion. Furthermore that propositions are still only true, ever, or "sound," when thety have been shown to ACTUALLY be true, meaning self-evidently, and observably emergent. And there is nothing bewildering about it. It is bewildering that you reject it in favor of.... whatever else you claim is going on that you haven't explained.

My views here are about metaethics, and if you think Derrida is not plausible, because you haven't read him, then metaethics will send you screaming. — Constance

Yeah, right down the himmelstrasse of intellect. I am terrified by nothing Derrida has ever produced, or any of his little relativist minions. He, and his people, are terrified of philosophers like me, who reveal who they really are, anti-intellectual, power-hungry gaslighters, who contributed in no way to the flourishing of humanity and have tricked people into relegating the quality of behaviorl output of snake-oil salesman, to that of the neuro-surgeon. Their pathetic, pampered, ivory-tower asses never entered an ethical dilemma in their lives. Some of them even raped people, like Fouccault. These are chumps, man.

First, you have to read G E Moore's Ethica Principia, then Wittgenstein's Lecture on Ethics, and parts of his Nature and Culture, then John Mackie, then of course, Heiddgger, then Levinas. Look, you're not equipped for this. And put mysticism out of your mind. this is just a pejorative reaction you have to unfamiliar thinking. You work from a position of deficit: you really don't understand anything that is being put before you. — Constance

You're correct, terribly correct. I have no idea what it is you've before me. Primarily because you've neither explained anything you have asserted, and referenced no empirical confirmation of it. You've made it, in accordance with my human brain which perceives objective reality, impossible for me to know anything that you're talking about. Must be that synthetic a priori bullshit again. Or, perhaps I need to consider what Mogolians might have thought about it. I don't know...

See my comments on the distinction between doing science and bringing inquiry to bear on the intuitive foundation that science presupposes. Don't just ignore this. And you don't have a philosophical analysis. Not yet, anyway. You have to make that qualitative leap into philosophy. — Constance

No, I'd rather just use your actually direction to me. I don't care about unexplained intuitive foundations of anything. And I'm ignoring nothing, you've explained nothing about anything and thought that was going to work on me. A qualitative leap, huh? Well, I cannot do that without first understanding the synthetic a priori knowledge associated with the intuitive foundations of quality, not qualia, before philosophically expressing my qualitative rejection of empirically observed bullshit in favor of reality.

When I say philosophy is radically different from this, you have to at least be curious. — Constance

When I say that science was created by philosophy, that's what I mean. I'm correct, and you haven't explained anything.

Physics is subsumed under philosophy in just this way. But such is the way of impertinence. — Constance

It appears you've simply repeated my point, after having expressed a different one.

When an interlocutor starts using fuck a lot, it means s/he's exasperated, which compromises objectivity. There is only on e reduction that makes the qualitative difference: the phenomenological reduction, or "epoche" of Husserl. You don't know what this is and this is the reason why you can't even begin to make sense of any of this. You have my sympathies, but then, it is up to you to find out. — Constance

Is there an argument in there? Or, are just going to not respond to the fact that you using the term "just" to reduce the complexity of biology was clearly fallacious?

I mean, how is it tautological? I don't say that it's not, I just want you to explain it since there is more than one way to understand it. Ethics has it s existential grounding in something that is not tautological, e.g. — Constance

As in true premises and true conclusions that are of themselves so. Reality is itself is tautological because the premise is the conclusion. It also happens to be the law of identity. Ethics has it's grounding something that is most certainly tautological, that would be the self-evident emergence of consciousness which produces all ethic frameworks as an extrodinarily complex system of functions of the human brain, which is of itself so, and is human regenerated from the samples of genetics contained within the humans producing said brian through self-replication. Funny how that works, A=A. What is this non-tautological grounding you mention? Try not to answer me with the name of an author, or one of their concepts, just explain what the grounding is, let's give that a go.

And logic doesn't need to do so, as it is a concept generated by a self-perpetuating, and concept generating brain. And again, A=A. It does not matter if our methods do not know how to square that, it is already the case. Question begging is only applicable to non-correspondent claims of truth. Correspondent claims are not subject to our need for an answer to "why?" And never will be. — Garrett Travers

The concept of a brain is itself an empirical concept, and empirical concepts like brains and beetles do not constitute a basis for tautological reasoning. Brains are "accidents" meaning they don't have to be by design of logic, and with analyticity (though there is that paper by Quine that denies even analytic propositions are true that because different terms are not identical. In fact, the notion of identity itself suffers from this). You will have to deal with Descartes then Kant on this.

A=A does not get you anything. You're thinking on this doesn't really count as thinking.

you have still not explained what you think the mind is if it isn't a function of the brain. — Garrett Travers

THAT would be an massive post. I'll tell you what, though. I would give you a propaedeutic on the way this goes if you would simply provide an answer to the simple question, how does anything out there get in here? It has not gone unnoticed that this has been presented several times and been entirely ignored. It is pivotal. If all is so patently clear to you one this matter, then this should be easy.

We experience a world, not a brain. On that we agree. But how can there be an explanatory basis for this? You will have exceed the limitations of the positing of a brain as the sole material counterpart to the phenomenal world we experience.

This is correct as far as any known evidence has ever been concerned. — Garrett Travers

Then make it happen. See the question above. I'll get you started: There is my cat on the sofa. I know this. Now, explain the epistemic relation.

I don't regard it as an issue. It is propositional, and all propositions are created by words that are created and coherently understood before being placed in the proposition. Synthetic a priori is a mental distraction from a non-problem. "Some items are heavy." Every one of these words means something understood by all people in experiencial or emotional valence before being placed in the proposition. Let me demonstrate: Some x are X. See how that doesn't meaning, or truth value corresponding to anything with out the x values. Ah, except where the other words that are presnt have meaning. So, SOME x ARE, in fact, X. "Some are" has meaning, because they had meaning before being placed in the proposition. — Garrett Travers

Well, that is ...entirely not Kant. The Kantian matter has to do with the apriority of judgments made about the world of objects. How is this possible, he asks, that I know objects in space to conform to the laws of geometry, which are apriori, when understanding about the world only yields aposteriori affirmations.
You don't know what this is about do you.

Notice how this isn't any form of argument? It's the rational metric being removed from phenomenology in accordance with modern neuroscience which is the issue. The brain accrues data, data that is used to navigate the world in pursuit of its basic function of achieving and maintaining homeostasis. If that isn't where you start from phenomenological as regards thought, you aren't using a rational metric, you're using dogma. — Garrett Travers

You think like this because you don't know what it is. A "metric" would be a standard of determination. This would require judgment and content. Phenomenology does not conceive of the world with the same content. It looks, rather, to the broad intuitive field of "givenness" that goes unexamined in scientific work. Take time. Spacetime is now a popular concept, but it is based on measurements of objects in motion relative to one another. Ask about the phenomenological concept of time that is in the structure of the perceptual act that registers the world logically prior (meaning one cannot conceive of these measurement being possible unless this more fundamental condition were in place) to empirical measurements and you are in an altogether different set of paradigms for analysis. Time is an essential past present and future of the given moment in which the perception occurs. I see my cat, but this is not a perception simpliciter, but an apperception whereby the past issues forth content that entirely qualifies the future anticipation; but then this future looking event is never past nor future as the past presents itself as an adumbration of what was past and the future a present anticipation. Certainly, the analysis here suggests that there is only one palpable account of time, and this is a "present" givenness. Simply put, past and future are never experienced, only their vestigial remains in the one timeless reality, which is the timeless present. This has a long history called nunc stans. Absolutely fascinating the way this works if you read through the literature. Start with Kierkegaard's Concept of Anxiety.
This is something close to what Wittgenstein picked up from Kierkegaard and Augustine. Read his Tractatus. An interesting follow u[ on this is Paul Ricoeur's Time and Narrative. Of course, the most powerful work on phenomenological time is Heidegger's Being and Time.

Look, you don't read philosophy, and you don't have a clue about any of this. Why bother pretending you do? Just give it a rest. Phenomenology takes a lot of work. In the beginning nobody gets it.

I'm out, really. :smile:

The concept of a brain is itself an empirical concept, and empirical concepts like brains and beetles do not constitute a basis for tautological reasoning. — Constance

No, the brain is an empirical observation of an objective entity. Concepts are produced by the brain as a result of data accrual through exactly those empirical observations. That's as tautological as it gets, almost be trippy if wasn't empirical observable fact.

Brains are "accidents" meaning they don't have to be by design of logic, and with analyticity (though there is that paper by Quine that denies even analytic propositions are true that because different terms are not identical. In fact, the notion of identity itself suffers from this). You will have to deal with Descartes then Kant on this. — Constance

I can accept this, generally, there's definitely some stuff there worth checking out. But, no, Kant and Decartes beneath me. There's nothing they have posited that I can't dispense with in seconds using empiricism. You have to provide me either examples of something I have to deal wih from them, or provide some other contenders, Gassendi dispensed with both during the Enlightment, anyway. Probably didn't hear about him because of the mysticism.

A=A does not get you anything. You're thinking on this doesn't really count as thinking. — Constance

Your first assertion here is literally an A=A assertion, in an attempt to negate the law of identity. Meaning, you're begging the question. The law of identity cannot be not the law of identity because its not the law of identity, because that doesn't mean anything, when it means the law of identity. That's a spiral of anti-reality question begging nonsense. But, good try.

THAT would be an massive post. — Constance

Yeah, I thought as much. That's another home run for the empiricist.

how does anything out there get in here? — Constance

No, I already told nothing gets out there to in here. The brain accrues data through instruments developed to detect out there, that is used to formulate behaviors to be enacted out there, because out there actaully describes the environment within which it is suspended, which is 100% with evolution, and cog-sci.

We experience a world, not a brain. On that we agree. — Constance

The brain is producing experience as computation of sensory data of the world. Your reductionism won't work on me, man. Quit trying it.

But how can there be an explanatory basis for this? You will have exceed the limitations of the positing of a brain as the sole material counterpart to the phenomenal world we experience. — Constance

No, I will have exceeded what you assert are limitations, which my doing it anyway flies in the face of. Explanatory basis are conceptual frameworks produced by the brain. Conceptual frameworks are adaptive via limitless data accrual. That's why we went from no literacy, to observing quanta in 200 years using just that conceptual framework building process. Time to rethink how reductive you are being about the brain.

There is my cat on the sofa. I know this. Now, explain the epistemic relation. — Constance

You just said you know. Which would implie that the proposition is both valid, and has been observed in reality for soundness, logically, before even analyzing epistemologically, so there's that. The epistemic relation between you and the cat is all perceptual-to-conceptual framework adopted, and adapted by your brain to navigate reality. The more correspondent data accrued, the greater the resolution of the frame work. If you know it, there will be nothing that will stop it from being true, as your brain has integrated the data and verified it before it even formulated in your executive function centers as a proposition. Put it to the test. If there is a cat on the sofa, unmake that truth, manipulate it however you need to to make it untrue, and then tell me what you did to make it happen, what you had to do physically to make that statement not true any longer. If not, it will not be untrue until it is of itself not so.

Well, that is ...entirely not Kant. The Kantian matter has to do with the apriority of judgments made about the world of objects. How is this possible, he asks, that I know objects in space to conform to the laws of geometry, which are apriori, when understanding about the world only yields aposteriori affirmations.
You don't know what this is about do you. — Constance

Nope, completely Kant. This is the kinda thing you gotta quit dude: https://www.britannica.com/topic/synthetic-a-priori-proposition

It's you who didn't understand that Kant derives that kind of commentary from self made propositions that fit this Platonic, anamnesia mold that allows him to make it. But, he's wrong, for exactly the reason I objectively demonstrated.

This would require judgment and content. Phenomenology does not conceive of the world with the same content. It looks, rather, to the broad intuitive field of "givenness" that goes unexamined in scientific work. — Constance

It doesn't matter what it looks at. If it is looking the opposite direction that science is revealing, it is not going in the right direction. I assure you that if you pair phenomenology with neuroscience, you will find the directions that they DO got together in, as all things that are true do. And intuition is the opposite philosophy, it's literally religious revelation guised as reason.

Time is an essential past present and future of the given moment in which the perception occurs. I see my cat, but this is not a perception simpliciter, but an apperception whereby the past issues forth content that entirely qualifies the future anticipation; but then this future looking event is never past nor future as the past presents itself as an adumbration of what was past and the future a present anticipation. — Constance

I need you to attempt to read this, and when you realize that the reason it looks like this is because of its inherent contradictions, you will see that nothing you said here is even the realm of possibly true, along any metric. Perceptions are not a non-perception. Recognizing you see a cat, is not a past tense trick, nor a representation of the future, it's really there, right then. You've been lied into madness by hatters, friend. I am genuinely sorry about this. Philosophers that do this to people will have me to answer to one day, I promise you.

Certainly, the analysis here suggests that there is only one palpable account of time, and this is a "present" givenness. Simply put, past and future are never experienced, only their vestigial remains in the one timeless reality, which is the timeless present. This has a long history called nunc stans. Absolutely fascinating the way this works if you read through the literature. — Constance

No, what happened here is you stated a bunch of nonsense, and then proceeded to conclude something that was already self-evident, thereby asserting what I've already been asserting this whole time.

This is something close to what Wittgenstein picked up from Kierkegaard and Augustine. Read his Tractatus. — Constance

He denounced his tractatus in his later work. There's nothing of value in Witt that isn't present in neuroscience that is much more real and elucidating.

Look, you don't read philosophy, and you don't have a clue about any of this. Why bother pretending you do? Just give it a rest. Phenomenology takes a lot of work. In the beginning nobody gets it.

I'm out, really. :smile: — Constance

I expected nothing short of your departure the moment I cornered you on explaining what you're talking about and providing evidence that supports it. However, I'm glad you know understand who your dealing with. I tried telling you that you were playing the big boys with me. However, when you're ready to provide those understandings and evidence to demonstrate soundsness, I will be at your disposal. In other words, see you around.





:nerd: