"The mind" is not an empirical object, to be sure, but it is also not determinably anything more than a concept. If we were going to study a purported mind we would need to study its operations, i.e. thoughts, images and behavior.

But how can thoughts be studied if not by examining them? Is it possible to examine thoughts by introspection? If we could do that it would involve putting the thoughts into language, which is a kind of behavior.

Is it possible to examine images by introspection? I don't know about others, but my experience tells me I cannot hold images in mind steadily enough to examine them, so I would need to draw or paint them, or describe then in writing; again behavior and its results. So, it does look like we are back to examining behavior and its products as the only means to understand the purported entity we call the mind.

When you think about it the same thing goes for matter: it also is not determinably anything more than a concept and the only way to study and understand it is via studying its behavior and resulting forms. So we are back to studying behavior, results, phenomena; in other words we are back to phenomenology.

I asked if it actually did. there's no rational argument can be brought to bear on that question. It's answered with examples. — Isaac

You understand why that is implicitly empiricist? In any case, the examples of philosophy are, of course, the philosophers, although that looses cogency in modern culture, where the subject has become an academic speciality (except for the exemplary few actual popular philosophers, like Jules Evans, Alain du Bouton, Eckhart Tolle.)

"The mind" is not an empirical object, to be sure, but it is also not determinably anything more than a concept. — Janus

How could the mind be a concept? The mind is the faculty by which concepts are grasped. Of course, completely defining something as basic as 'concept' is a tricky business but going with the dictionary entry '1. something conceived in the mind : thought, notion. 2 : an abstract or generic idea generalized from particular instances the basic concepts of psychology the concept of gravity.' So, the mind is the faculty which can grasp concepts, but that doesn't make the mind itself a concept, although philosophers will have various concepts of mind.

How could the mind be a concept? The mind is the faculty by which concepts are grasped. — Wayfarer

We know there is an idea of mind, and we can stipulate that if there are ideas, there must be minds to "have" them, but since there is no mind to be found, we cannot rationally conclude that it is anything more than a stipulation, or a name for the process of generating and becoming aware of ideas.

Kant's idea of mind has been revisited in the latter half of the 20th Century in the form of functionalism according to the SEP:

In general structure, Kant’s model of the mind was the dominant model in the empirical psychology that flowed from his work and then again, after a hiatus during which behaviourism reigned supreme (roughly 1910 to 1965), toward the end of the 20th century, especially in cognitive science. Central elements of the models of the mind of thinkers otherwise as different as Sigmund Freud and Jerry Fodor are broadly Kantian, for example.

Three ideas define the basic shape (‘cognitive architecture’) of Kant’s model and one its dominant method. They have all become part of the foundation of cognitive science.

The mind is a complex set of abilities (functions). (As Meerbote 1989 and many others have observed, Kant held a functionalist view of the mind almost 200 years before functionalism was officially articulated in the 1960s by Hilary Putnam and others.)
The functions crucial for mental, knowledge-generating activity are spatio-temporal processing of, and application of concepts to, sensory inputs. Cognition requires concepts as well as percepts.
These functions are forms of what Kant called synthesis. Synthesis (and the unity in consciousness required for synthesis) are central to cognition.

Is it possible to examine thoughts by introspection? — Janus

The only way to study anything at all, is to represent it as a phenomenon if it’s a real object, or as a conception if it’s an abstract object. But the human system, predicated on relations, can cognize nothing by a single representation, insofar as a single representation doesn’t have anything to which it relates. So to study a thought, considered as an abstract object in itself, and without regard to the content of it, it must be turned into a conception. How can we conceive of something that has no content?

(“...Thoughts without content are void; intuitions without conceptions, blind....”)

And if we think of the thought we’re studying as having the relation which made it a thought in the first place, such that it is not an empty nothing, all we’re doing is re-creating, not studying, what we’ve already thought. All that does for us is confuse the matter, insofar as that which we re-create cannot be distinguished from that which is already in consciousness, which means we might not have re-created anything, but just recalled it. In which case, we’re studying something we already know all about.

Which brings up another issue. If it is the case that thoughts are singular and successive, then each thought is of its own time. If it is impossible to jump back to the time of a thought and to jump to the future of a possible thought, then no thought can be studied insofar as its time is not the time of the thought that studies it. We can study the contents of any thought, provided such content is common to a multiplicity of thoughts......but not the singular abstract conception itself.

Much more parsimonious, and less self-contradictory, to study what it is to think, rather than study a thought. We might be alright if we limit introspection to the examination of the relation of faculties to each other, but introspection becomes hopelessly tangled if we use it to examine the faculties themselves.

Besides....best to keep it as simple as possible, but no simpler than necessary. Somebody mentioned that some time ago...can’t remember who.

As usual, I have no idea what you're talking about. The Markov boundary is a statistical feature of a network. It's not an object. It is at the membrane, not the membrane itself. — Isaac

So if I look at a cell membrane through a microscope, I will see a "statistical feature of a network" there "at the membrane"? If not, then what do you mean by "it is at the membrane"?

It seems to me, like you are stuck in a huge category mistake, and instead of accepting this you dig yourself deeper in. The "network" is supposed to be the thing being modeled, the statistics are the modeling tool.

Do you see, that in systems theory, a "system" is a model, not the thing being modeled. They take a natural thing, and assume that the thing can be compared to a system a true system being an artificial thing, not a natural thing). So they create a model of a system which is comparable to the natural thing. But the natural thing cannot be called a system because systems are artificial.

The reason why I say systems theory is flimsy, is that instead of recognizing how big the differences are between the actual natural thing, and the model system which it is compared to, systems theory ontologies tend to find ways to dismiss or overlook all these big differences, and insist that the systems model provides a good representation.

That's the point. They seem external. The authors identified the models associated with them seeming external, but they are not actually external. — Isaac

All the things we hear, see, touch, and otherwise sense, "seem external", but this does not necessarily mean that any of them actually are. That is the point.

So to study a thought, considered as an abstract object in itself, and without regard to the content of it, it must be turned into a conception. How can we conceive of something that has no content? — Mww

Exactly, thoughts cannot be understood except as they are expressed in language. Is it meaningful to conceive of a thought as being a contentless "abstract object"? Sans content what else could we think of a thought as but an activity that has a certain quality or "feel" or image or set of images to it, or else as a neural process (which as such is outside of our awareness)? Content just is symbolic, linguistic; what else could it be?

All that does for us is confuse the matter, insofar as that which we re-create cannot be distinguished from that which is already in consciousness, which means we might not have re-created anything, but just recalled it. In which case, we’re studying something we already know all about. — Mww

This I don't agree with if I've understood what you're trying to say. It seems we are thinking all the time, while not being conscious of most of it, So to think is one thing; while to be aware of thinking is another. To have a thought is one thing, and to be aware of having that thought is another.

Which brings up another issue. If it is the case that thoughts are singular and successive, then each thought is of its own time. If it is impossible to jump back to the time of a thought and to jump to the future of a possible thought, then no thought can be studied insofar as its time is not the time of the thought that studies it. — Mww

I'm not sure what you are getting at here, so I'll just note that thoughts can be written down and studied at leisure, but of course that would be studying the content, not the experience, of thinking.

Much more parsimonious, and less self-contradictory, to study what it is to think, rather than study a thought. We might be alright if we limit introspection to the examination of the relation of faculties to each other, but introspection becomes hopelessly tangled if we use it to examine the faculties themselves. — Mww

I agree, and this is in line with what I said earlier: that phenomenology consists in reflecting on the general nature of experience. Thinking is one kind of experience, sensing is another. Because we are capable of self-awareness, we can reflect on how thinking and sensing are experienced. on how the doing of them seems to us, and how they differ from one another. But this is only ever going to tell us how they seem to us, not what they are in any imagined "absolute" sense.

And of course there is always the danger of being "bewitched by language". It is interesting that Wittgenstein said: “Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of our language.” It is ambiguous as to whether it is the battle or the bewitchment which is "by means of our language"; I think it is both.

The only way to study anything at all, is to represent it as a phenomenon if it’s a real object, or as a conception if it’s an abstract object. But the human system, predicated on relations, can cognize nothing by a single representation, insofar as a single representation doesn’t have anything to which it relates. So to study a thought, considered as an abstract object in itself, and without regard to the content of it, it must be turned into a conception. How can we conceive of something that has no content? — Mww

:100:

You understand why that is implicitly empiricist? In any case, the examples of philosophy are, of course, the philosophers — Wayfarer

Are you suggesting that it can be deduced rationally that philosophers succeed at doing what they claim to do? That we can rationally determine that if a philosopher claims to study 'the unconditioned' that they succeed in that endeavour?

We're talking about cultural presuppositions here. Ideas that seem to true by virtue of common sense, but which, when examined, turn out to be merely assumptions from one's culture.

You're claiming that scientists have such unexamined preconceptions (materialism, causality, etc), but that philosophers don't have any because "they say they don't".

systems theory ontologies — Metaphysician Undercover

I have no idea what a systems theory ontology might be. Systems theory is a modeling tool. It makes useful predictions and sets up the parameters of useful frameworks. It doesn't bring things into existence. The cell pre-existed systems theory, which merely describes how the cell functions in statistical terms.

I've no clue what you're arguing against, but it isn't anything I've claimed.

Are you suggesting that it can be deduced rationally that philosophers succeed at doing what they claim to do? That we can rationally determine that it a philosopher claims to study 'the unconditioned' that they succeed in that endeavour? — Isaac

They may not be successful, but that is what the purpose ought to be. (It is what the rationalist philosophers were all about!) Of course, as I've said, I recognise that in modern philosophy that is not at all the case, I have more in mind the traditional conception of philosophy up until the time of Descartes.

The unexamined preconceptions I'm referring to aren't matters of personal prejudice - they're the well-recognised assumptions of the scientific attitude of Galileo, Descartes, Newton, and the other founders of modern science. If you study philosophy of science (Kuhn, Feyerabend, Polanyi) it is the subject of considerable analysis.

Right. So both scientists and philosophers actually work under unexamined cultural presuppositions, but the difference is that philosophers claim not to. Whereas almost everyone knows and agrees that scientists do.

I don't see that as a positive for philosophy. If anything it's a downside. If you're going to work under cultural presuppositions, you might as well have it out in the open.

thoughts cannot be understood except as they are expressed in language. — Janus

You must mean one’s thoughts cannot be understood by another except as they are expressed in language.

Content just is symbolic, linguistic; what else could it be? — Janus

What else it could be is precisely what it is. Content of any particular thought is the schema/schemata of the conception/s representing it. The schemata are represented by images. Therefore the content of thought is the schema/schemata of the conception/s contained in it. A symbolic, linguistic representation nowhere yet to be found. Images as representations are rational, imbued in all humans; language as representation is cultural imbued in particular humans. Images are common across all subjects, words are not.

But surely you know all that, so.....what gives?
————-

It seems we are thinking all the time, while not being conscious of most of it — Janus

Yes, we’re thinking continuously while conscious, and the fact we’re not aware of most of it is reflection on our laziness on the one hand, and the simplistic, repetitive lives we lead on the other. So busy impressing everybody else we overlook ourselves. Got this one-of-a-kind intellectual gift, and don’t know shit about how it works.
(Wanders off, muttering insults, kicking the fake rubber tree pot and the way out.....)

I have no idea what a systems theory ontology might be. Systems theory is a modeling tool. It makes useful predictions and sets up the parameters of useful frameworks. It doesn't bring things into existence. The cell pre-existed systems theory, which merely describes how the cell functions in statistical terms. — Isaac

Oh good, because when you say things like "The only truly closed system is the universe so any part of it decreasing entropy is not defying the second law", and ""Everything within the cell membrane is the system, everything outside of it is not", you give me the impression that you think that things like the universe, and a cell, actually are, each, a different type of "system".

Now that we're clear on what a "system" is, a predictive modeling tool, do you see from the evidence I've provided you with, that systems theory would be a very flimsy sort of tool for modeling the true reality of things like the universe and a cell? Really, systems theory is not a good tool for modeling the true existence of any type of object or thing. As a simple predictive tool its usefulness is very limited to simple predictions, therefore there is no real place for it in ontology.

I don't see that as a positive for philosophy. — Isaac

Then again, you don't seem to hold philosophy in much esteem.

do you see from the evidence I've provided you with, that systems theory would be a very flimsy sort of tool for modeling the true reality of things like the universe and a cell? — Metaphysician Undercover

No. I have absolutely no idea what you're going on about.

you don't seem to hold philosophy in much esteem. — Wayfarer

On the contrary, I think it's a very important activity. Holding an activity in high esteem does not require that I treat its practitioners with a reverence that the practitioners of equally esteemed activities are not blessed with.

Or do you hold science in low esteem?

I don't see it as a competition, but as I've noted before, you look at the matter through an empiricist perspective, and you don't really see how it could be anything else - seems to me, anyway.

I don't see it as a competition — Wayfarer

Yet you're judging philosophers by a much less stringent standard than scientists. Scientists are marked down for actually having unexamined preconceptions, whereas philosophers can merely claim not to have any (having apparently examined them all) and you require nothing further to take that as gospel.

you don't really see how it could be anything else — Wayfarer

I'm very fond of empiricism in many aspects of life. I don't see how that leads to me being unable to see how the alternatives could exist. I just don't prefer them.

It's like me saying that because you don't like heavy metal, you don't see how anyone could. It's not the same judgement.

I can see perfectly well how alternatives to empiricism might exist. I don't find them persuasive (in those contexts where I prefer an empirical approach).

I'm no expert on philosophy, not by a long way, but I don't think that my disagreeing with certain philosophical approaches is, alone, evidence that I've not understood them.

I'm no expert on philosophy, not by a long way, but I don't think that my disagreeing with certain philosophical approaches is, alone, evidence that I've not understood them — Isaac

I don’t consider myself expert either, I did two two years of undergrad and have since read a bit. But I do know that it’s a different subject to cognitive science.

I do know that it’s a different subject to cognitive science. — Wayfarer

Absolutely. But can you seriously claim that nothing you've learnt about the world empirically has informed any of your metaphysical positions? Would you be of the same worldview had you spent your life in a cave as you are having spent it in the world?

All I'm trying to do here is bring what I know (cognitive science, psychology) to the discussion, together with the consequences I think that knowledge has for our options with regards to metaphysical positions.

If you believe that metaphysical positions are completely unconstrained by empirical observation, then I can see that this sort of approach is not for you, but I don't think it's in the least bit an odd position in philosophy to consider that results from the empirical sciences inform our metaphysics.

You yourself frequently cite discoveries in quantum physics in support of your idealism. Should we levy the same complaint against you. Philosophy is not quantum physics!

All I'm trying to do here is bring what I know (cognitive science, psychology) to the discussion, together with the consequences I think that knowledge has for our options with regards to metaphysical positions. — Isaac

You do, and while I respect the discipline it often tends to be a pretty one-way street. It’s like ‘if you want to demonstrate the limitations of empiricism you’d better have darn good empirical evidence.’

Besides from an empirical pov the OP question is meaningless - it goes without saying that there’s an external material world (indeed someone started an OP on exactly that point.) Naturalism starts with the accepted reality of the sense-able domain, and from within that framework of course there’s an external material world. It’s only a meaningful question when you start to question what ‘material’ really means, or what ‘external’ really means. And that’s where metaphysical or meta-cognitive considerations come into play. That’s the sense in which it’s a philosophical question.

Of course we’re all subject to and influenced by the environment and circumstances. I’m not a cave-dwelling hermit. Where I started my philosophical quest was in pursuit of spiritual illumination. Strange as it seems, that used to be a real part of philosophy although it is long forgotten and now abandoned. But as I’m not a tenured academic with a publishing career I’m not obliged to conform with current intellectual fashion. But that’s the metaphysical thread I’m attempting to follow through the labyrinth.

from an empirical pov the OP question is meaningless - it goes without saying that there’s an external material world — Wayfarer

Yet you've raised the apparent consequences of the double slit experiment in this very thread. Are you suggesting that wasn't an empirical observation? Or are you suggesting that, for example, a naive materialist need take no notice at all of that empirical result because empirical data need not constrain our metaphysics? Is materialism rescued after all? The main evidence thrown against it is from quantum physics.

You must mean one’s thoughts cannot be understood by another except as they are expressed in language. — Mww

No, I mean it is impossible to think anything complex, anything involving symbols,anything that involves more than simple sensory-motor images, without language.

What else it could be is precisely what it is. Content of any particular thought is the schema/schemata of the conception/s representing it. The schemata are represented by images. Therefore the content of thought is the schema/schemata of the conception/s contained in it. A symbolic, linguistic representation nowhere yet to be found. Images as representations are rational, imbued in all humans; language as representation is cultural imbued in particular humans. Images are common across all subjects, words are not.

But surely you know all that, so.....what gives? — Mww

None of this makes any sense to me, or accords with my own experience of what is involved in thinking. I don't know; maybe it's different for others, but I cannot see how it is possible to think anything discursive without language. I mean how would you think, for example, what I just wrote in that last sentence if you possessed no language? I have no idea why you would think that surely I would know something that I actually think is patently false. Complex concepts are possible only when there is language and via language, or so it seems to me, and I can think of absolutely no reason to believe otherwise.

Yes, we’re thinking continuously while conscious, and the fact we’re not aware of most of it is reflection on our laziness on the one hand, and the simplistic, repetitive lives we lead on the other. So busy impressing everybody else we overlook ourselves. Got this one-of-a-kind intellectual gift, and don’t know shit about how it works.
(Wanders off, muttering insults, kicking the fake rubber tree pot and the way out.....) — Mww

How could we possibly be constantly aware of the stream of thought, when we need to be aware of other things, what we are doing, the environment around us, how we are feeling, how others are feeling and so on? My own experience tells me that conscious attention can only be focused on one thing at a time. The "internal dialogue" is like a sub-routine most of the time, or at least that's what reflection on my own experience tells me. I don't deny that maybe it's different for others, but the many people I have discussed this with over the years have confirmed that their experience is in accordance with my own experience, and I find it hard to believe that people are all that different.

I am curious as to whom your "muttered insults" are directed.

Yet you've raised the apparent consequences of the double slit experiment in this very thread. Are you suggesting that wasn't an empirical observation? Or are you suggesting that, for example, a naive materialist need take no notice at all of that empirical result because empirical data need not constrain our metaphysics? Is materialism rescued after all? The main evidence thrown against it is from quantum physics. — Isaac

The debate over quantum physics is a debate over the meaning of the experiments. You can’t question what is observed - that is the empirical fact. But what it means is another matter. That’s the way in which quantum physics forced metaphysics back into the discourse. The naive materialist can completely ignore the question and just carry on using the method for his or her purposes - the attitude known as ‘shut up and calculate’. Quantum physics expertise is required for a huge range of disciplines and techniques nowadays, and many of those using it do exactly that.

You can’t question what is observed - that is the empirical fact. — Wayfarer

Actually, as philosophers, we can and ought to question what is observed. There are two principal facets of observation. First, the person prepares oneself into a position to observe. This is the perspective one takes, and the perspective greatly influences what is observed. So for example, observations in quantum physics are done through the means of instruments. And we ought to question the observational capacity of these instruments. Second, an observation is what is noted. So an observer notes what one thinks is important, and chooses one's words to describe what is observed. So we can question why somethings are noted, and others not, and we can also question the observer's choice of words in describing what is observed.

So does the double slit experiment constrain metaphysics or not?

Here's a couple if examples of what I mean about the way you use the double-slit experiment.

here we are dealing with 'things' (loosely speaking) that have various 'degrees of reality'; when the particle is observed, it is 'actualised' by the observation. And we don't like that because it undercuts scientific realism

Realism wants to say that what is being observed would exist regardless whether observed or not - and in one sense that is true. But it's not true in any ultimate sense. And that is what is thrown into sharp relief by physics

So their existence is not un-ambigious, which is what is the real problem for physicalism and realism.

Realism wants to believe that there are particles which exist whether or not the measurement is taken; this is what is thrown into doubt by the double-slit experiment

...and my personal favourite...

the inconvenient truth is that the hardest of hard sciences, namely physics, has now torpedoed this [naive realism] beneath the waterline.

What's going on here? The double-slit experiment doesn't constrain (or free-up) our metaphysical notions at all, yet you dedicate entire threads to the consequences, you consider the results to have "torpedoed" realism?

Yes, none of that is a given at all and what has been left out is "according to my favourite interpretation". I would not presume to have a favorite interpretation of a subject in which I am not qualified, and this lack of confidence all the more so, since interpretations are apparently manifold and controversial among the experts..

What's going on here? — Isaac

Hey thanks for taking the trouble to find all those quotes, but I don't really understand what you're asking. What I'm arguing in all of those is that quantum physics has a tendency to undermine scientific realism. This is not news. There has been a lot of commentary and controversy about this point since the 1920's. So what's the question again?