The failure to distinguish between two different kinds of bodies, terrestrial and heavenly or primary body, leads to false assertions and conclusions.

De Caelo On the Heavens:

These premises clearly give the conclusion that there is in nature some bodily substance other than the formations we know, prior to them all and more divine than they. (269a30)

On all these grounds, therefore, we may infer with confidence that there is something beyond the bodies that are about us on this earth, different and separate from them ; and that the superior glory of its nature is proportionate to its distance from this world of ours. (269b14)

It is equally reasonable to assume that this body will be ungenerated and indestructible and exempt from increase and alteration (270a13)

If then this body can have no contrary, because there can be no contrary motion to the circular, nature seems justly to have exempted from contraries the body which was to be ungenerated and indestructible. (270a17)

The reasons why the primary body is eternal and not subject to increase or diminution, but unaging and unalterable and unmodified, will be clear from what has been said to any one who believes in our assumptions. Our theory seems to confirm experience and to be confirmed by it. (270b1)

If then there is, as there certainly is, anything divine, what we have just said about the primary bodily substance was well said. (270b10)

And so, implying that the primary body is something else beyond earth, fire, air, and water, they gave the highest place a name of its own, aether, derived from the fact that it ‘runs always for an eternity of time. (270b21)

Possible errors do not imply actual falsity. — Dfpolis
Your categories are very confused Df. We were not talking about falsity, we were talking about identity. — Metaphysician Undercover

Let me remind you of your argument. It did not involve the identity issue directly. I said that in classification, we compared intrinsic properties to the class concept. You said that we do not because we cannot know intrinsic properties because of the possibility of error. I countered that the recognition of falsity implies that we can know the truth. You said the very possibility of error implied falsehood. My response is above.

My argument is that the possibility that the form in the knower is mistaken indicates that they are not the same. — Metaphysician Undercover

This confuses knowledge as acquaintance, by which we know forms or properties, with propositional knowledge, which results from judgement, and which alone can be true or false. Knowledge as acquaintance, which is what the actualization of intelligibility is, makes no assertion that could be true or false. We just experience whatever we experience. The possibility of error comes in categorizing what we experience. We might, for example, judge the tall pointy thing on the horizon is a church steeple when it is actually a pine.

This example also shows why the recognition of error implies an ability to recognize the truth. To know that the tall pointy thing not a church steeple, we must recognize that its actual properties are not those of a church steeple.

This analysis shows that your conclusion is unfounded. The error does not result from the lack of a form in the knower (we experience a tall, pointy thing), but from the misclassification of that form. The misclassification is the result of adding associated, imagined or hypothetical elements not in the experienced form. (We add that it is a human artifact, that it sits atop an unseen structure, etc., etc.) This kind of "filling-out" may have evolutionary advantages, (the two eyes we see in the darkness might belong to a predator), but its results are unreliable.

Let me ask you now, what is this "awareness" which is divided in the second stage? What is the content? Obviously, you would not be talking about the sense object itself being divided, in this process of abstraction, it is the "awareness" of it which is being divided. Where does this awareness come from, and how does it exist? Would you agree that the "awareness" you speak of here, from which properties are abstracted is a property of the sensing subject, and not a property of the object sensed? How then is the "form" which comes from this abstraction "the same form" as the "form" which we call the actuality of the sense object? — Metaphysician Undercover

Excellent questions!

Awareness has two aspects: intelligible contents (forms), and the awareness of those contents. In the first instance, we are aware of being -- that there is something present, something acting on our senses in empirical knowledge. The content of this inchoate awareness is Aristotle's tode ti (this something). If we choose to attend to it more closely, we begin to distinguish various notes of intelligibility, e.g. shape, color(s), dimensions and so on. These aspects of the whole are the "accidents" of Aristotle's Categories.

Where does our awareness come from? In my paper, I argue that it is ontologically emergent, meaning that it cannot be deduced from physical considerations. Christian theologians generally see it as a "Special Creation" of God, but that is a faith claim, not a philosophical conclusion. I see no empirical difference between these two claims, but theoretically, ontological emergence is less specific as it leaves open the possibility of emergence via secondary (natural) causes, while Special Creation does not.

I argue that the capacity to be aware of intelligibility is what Aristotle calls the "agent intellect" and it is a power of individual subjects. The intelligible content we are aware of is both an act of the object, and encoded by a modification of our neural state. Thus, it is a case of shared (accidental) existence. I say "accidental" because the action is an accident of the object, and the modification is an accident of the subject.

This answers your last question. The action of the object on our neural state is an aspect of the object's actuality or form. More precisely, it is the second actuality, or operation, of the object's form. For example, the object has intrinsic optical properties (aspects of its form) that interact with light and our eyes to create a visual image. That image is both the action of the object, and an aspect of our neural state.

First I was Kantian in my bias, now I'm Lockean. — Metaphysician Undercover

The error began with Locke and metastasized into utter confusion with Kant.

By your own description above, it is not the sense object which elicits the concept, it is "awareness" of the object which does that. — Metaphysician Undercover

I chose "elicit" because it means to call forth a response. To call forth is not to be an efficient cause. As I explained, in awareness, the neurally encoded content is the material, not the efficient, cause of knowing. Think about it. Intelligibility is a potential, so it needs an agent already in act, already operational, to make it actual knowledge, viz. the agent intellect. In every change, whatever is acted upon, whatever will be actualized, is the material cause. So, the intelligible form is the material, not the efficient, cause of knowledge. Since it is what is acted upon, the phantasm or neurally encoded contents becomes the passive intellect once the agent intellect understands it.

Let's place these "intrinsic properties" now, which you keep referring to. Since the content, "awareness" is what is abstracted in the described analysis process, the "intrinsic properties" are intrinsic to the awareness. Do you agree? — Metaphysician Undercover

No. Awareness is not what is abstracted, but the act of making what was intelligible actually known. Abstraction occurs when our awareness (the agent intellect) attends to some aspects of the object to the exclusion of others. So, we can be aware of the inchoate whole (tode it, the substance), and/or of some specific intelligible aspect(s) (accidents). These intelligible aspects are the intrinsic properties we are discussing. Since intelligibility is a precondition of knowledge, intelligible properties are prior to, and independent of, the act of knowing.

According to your explanation above, (2) is not "sensory content", it is "awareness". — Metaphysician Undercover

You misunderstand -- see above.

I really don't care how people classify me, but there's a lot worse names to be called than "Kantian". — Metaphysician Undercover

I am not name-calling. I am trying to understand your conceptual framework, and the source of your incomprehension.

the vehicle of intelligibility is the phantasm or neural state encoding sensory content -- and it is identically the action of the sensible on our nervous system. — Dfpolis

Melodie Stenger, with the support of Aristotle, suggests that the reason why something appears to one person to be one thing appears to another to be another is that the action of phantasia moves in both directions. To put it differently, things do not appear to be as they are simply because of how they are but because of how the particular person is. It is not simply the work of the imagination but of the imagination of a particular person, of their character, of their beliefs and experiences.

From Nicomachean Ethics:

But suppose someone were to say that all people aim at the apparent good, but they are not in control of how things appear [phantasias], but rather whatever sort of person each one is, of that sort too does the end appear to anyone. So if each one were in some way responsible for one’s own active condition, then each would be in some way responsible oneself for how things appear [phantasias]…(1114a30-114b20)

Since intelligibility is a precondition of knowledge, intelligible properties are prior to, and independent of, the act of knowing — Dfpolis

The language of 'independent' has an interesting role in your account. I agree with your approach that what can be known is a connection to our experienced world rather a visit from an alien planet. That is expressed clearly in this account (emphasis mine)"

For something is said to be a substance, as we mentioned, in three ways, as form, as matter, and as what is composed of both. And of these, the matter is potentiality, the form is actuality. And since what is composed of the two is an animate thing, the body is not the actualization of the soul, but rather the soul is the actualization of a certain sort of body. And that is why those people take things correctly who believe that the soul neither exists without a body nor is a body of some sort. For it is not a body, but it belongs to a body, and for this reason is present in a body, and in a body of such-and-such a sort, rather than as our predecessors supposed, when they inserted it into a body without first determining in which and in what sort, even though it appears that not just any random thing is receptive of any random thing. In our way of looking at it, by contrast, it comes about quite reasonably. For the actualization of each thing naturally comes about in what it already belongs to potentially, that is, the appropriate matter. That the soul, then, is a certain sort of actualization and account of what has the potentiality to be of this sort, is evident from these things. — De Anima, 414a15, translated by C.D.C. Reeve

This obviously does not fit with the Cartesian models you have criticized. But Aristotle says they do not fit with what came before him. The idea of the completely random is in a wrestling match with some kind of order.

Thanks for the link to the essay.
A quarter of the way in, I see that it is a serious challenge to established scholars.
I will study more before trying to comment.

Melodie Stenger, with the support of Aristotle, suggests that the reason why something appears to one person to be one thing appears to another to be another is that the action of phantasia moves in both directions. To put it differently, things do not appear to be as they are simply because of how they are but because of how the particular person is. It is not simply the work of the imagination but of the imagination of a particular person, of their character, of their beliefs and experiences. — Fooloso4

I have said that our knowledge is as much subjective as objective. In my model, the subjective side is depends on (1) what we select to attend to, and (2) the conceptual space into which we project our experience. The selection reflects our interests and the space reflects our prior experiences.

While we can choose not to taste, look or touch, I think we have no direct control over what happens (the phantasm created) once we do. It is a physiological response.

The Nicomachean Ethics quote seems very conditional -- like A. is discussing a possible position.

Thank you for the reference. I will look at it.

P.S. the phantasia is imagination. The phantasm is the sensory "image" resulting from a particular sensory encounter.

This obviously does not fit with the Cartesian models you have criticized. But Aristotle says they do not fit with what came before him. The idea of the completely random is in a wrestling match with some kind of order. — Paine

I like Reeve's translation of the passage. It presents the line of thought clearly. Yes, the Aristotelian tradition reflects order in nature. That is the matrix for intelligibility.

The failure to distinguish between two different kinds of bodies, terrestrial and heavenly or primary body, leads to false assertions and conclusions. — Fooloso4

We already went through this Fooloso4. those quotes come from a small part of the beginning of Bk 1, ch2, we he is stating some principles, theories put forward by the Pythagoreans, as what will be discussed in the book. The arguments and refutations of some of these principles is what follows in the chapters I referred to. It's nonsense for you to take what he states as the current theories of his time, as what he actually believed, and then simply ignore all the arguments he provides concerning these theories. The various arguments are where he states his case. What you are doing is exactly what you accuse me of, to ignore what he actually wrote. You look at Bk1 Ch2, then completely ignore all the logical arguments made throughout ch 3,,4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12.

Let me remind you of your argument. It did not involve the identity issue directly. I said that in classification, we compared intrinsic properties to the class concept. You said that we do not because we cannot know intrinsic properties because of the possibility of error. I countered that the recognition of falsity implies that we can know the truth. You said the very possibility of error implied falsehood. My response is above. — Dfpolis

Come on Df, that's a misrepresentation. What I said is that it is not the case that our knowledge of the sense object consists of knowing the properties which are intrinsic to the sense object (intrinsic meaning inhering within the the sense thing itself). And, my argument is that since there is a possibility of error within our knowledge of the properties, this proves that the properties which we know are not the properties which are intrinsic to the thing itself. If our knowledge of the sense object consisted of properties intrinsic to the sense object, it would be impossible that we are mistaken.

This confuses knowledge as acquaintance, by which we know forms or properties, with propositional knowledge, which results from judgement, and which alone can be true or false. Knowledge as acquaintance, which is what the actualization of intelligibility is, makes no assertion that could be true or false. We just experience whatever we experience. The possibility of error comes in categorizing what we experience. We might, for example, judge the tall pointy thing on the horizon is a church steeple when it is actually a pine. — Dfpolis

You are confusing "error" with "falsity". I already explained this to you, error does not necessarily mean false, it simply means mistaken, and this is "unsuccessful". It is very clear that "Knowledge as acquaintance" is very susceptible to error, poor memory, poor recognition, etc..

The problem here, is that you have restricted "judgement" to the higher levels of knowledge, propositional knowledge. Now you have no type of judgement involved in this "acquaintance" process, so you must say that this process cannot be wrong. But of course mistake dwell in the deepest levels, and your claim "we just experience whatever we experience" is nonsense, because something within the experiencing subject must select from that experience the aspects of it which will be remembered, and how they will be remembered etc.. And, there are all sorts of errors here.

This analysis shows that your conclusion is unfounded. The error does not result from the lack of a form in the knower (we experience a tall, pointy thing), but from the misclassification of that form. The misclassification is the result of adding associated, imagined or hypothetical elements not in the experienced form. (We add that it is a human artifact, that it sits atop an unseen structure, etc., etc.) This kind of "filling-out" may have evolutionary advantages, (the two eyes we see in the darkness might belong to a predator), but its results are unreliable. — Dfpolis

Sorry df, this nonsense has no sway over me. Error occurs without classification. We do not need to classify something prior to remembering it, in order to have a mistaken memory. We have mistaken memories about images all the time.

The opposite to what you say is actually what is the case. We classify things as a memory aid. Remembering the word "steeple " is much easier than remembering the image which was seen, so this facilitates memory. And when we put events into sentences, or descriptions into sentences, this enables us to remember entire sequences of images with a simple sentence.

It is very clear to me, that this higher knowledge, what you say is "judgement', actually eliminates a whole lot of errors which would otherwise occur if we did not have this judgement process. The processes which occur without this form of judgement are much more riddled with error. That's why human beings are generally considered to be more intelligent than other animals, they use this "judgement" process which the other animals do not use, to help them cut down on errors. And logic, as a higher form of judgement, helps us to even further reduce error.

Awareness has two aspects: intelligible contents (forms), and the awareness of those contents. In the first instance, we are aware of being -- that there is something present, something acting on our senses in empirical knowledge. The content of this inchoate awareness is Aristotle's tode ti (this something). If we choose to attend to it more closely, we begin to distinguish various notes of intelligibility, e.g. shape, color(s), dimensions and so on. These aspects of the whole are the "accidents" of Aristotle's Categories. — Dfpolis

But this "awareness" you spoke of is prior to the synthesis, prior to judgement. How can it consist of intelligible forms? Or, is there no difference between "intelligible forms" at the level of awareness, and "intelligible forms" at the post judgement level? If there is no difference, then what is the point of judgement? And if there is a difference, then wouldn't the ones which get rejected in judgement actually be rejected because they are not intelligible. If that is the case, then we cannot even call this content at the level of awareness "intelligible forms" at all, because some are intelligible and some are not.

I argue that the capacity to be aware of intelligibility is what Aristotle calls the "agent intellect" and it is a power of individual subjects. The intelligible content we are aware of is both an act of the object, and encoded by a modification of our neural state. Thus, it is a case of shared (accidental) existence. I say "accidental" because the action is an accident of the object, and the modification is an accident of the subject. — Dfpolis

So we have the issue of "selection" here, which I've been mentioning and you have not been addressing. The content at the level of awareness cannot all be intelligible, or else there would be no need for judgement at the higher level. Since there is a need for judgement, we must assume that the content of awareness contains many aspects which are unintelligible, illogical or nonsensical, just like when you see something in the distance and you can't tell what it is. So "judgement" is a form of selection which occurs at the intellectual level of reasoning. But many other forms of selection also exist.

Don't you think that there must be selective mechanisms built right into the sense organs, and the neurological system? The taste buds, and the cone cells in the eyes for example. Since these features are selective for the sake of some purpose, how can you say that they are accidental causes, on the side of the agent? In the Aristotelian conceptual space, things caused for a purpose are not accidental, but the product of final cause.

This answers your last question. The action of the object on our neural state is an aspect of the object's actuality or form. More precisely, it is the second actuality, or operation, of the object's form. For example, the object has intrinsic optical properties (aspects of its form) that interact with light and our eyes to create a visual image. That image is both the action of the object, and an aspect of our neural state. — Dfpolis

So that part of the questioning has been answered. The action of the "object's actuality or form, has a real causal impact. However, we still have to address the selective process which is inherent and intrinsic within the sensing subject. So when the eyes receive from the sense object, that activity which it will use in making the image, they select certain aspects of the activity which will be utilized.

Now here's the problem. If the sensing subject has the capacity to select from the object's actuality, then the object's actuality consists of possibilities, potentials, from the true perspective of the sensing subject. This would mean that the sense organs are not receiving forms from the sense object, but matter (potential) from the sense object. And so the type of cause which best describes the sense object's position is material cause. Since matter is what persists through a change, then in the act of sensation there must something which comes from the sense objects, and persists through the act of imaging, and the acts of abstraction and judgement, as the underlying matter. I would say then that the same matter might be within both the sensing subject, and the object sensed.

As I explained, in awareness, the neurally encoded content is the material, not the efficient, cause of knowing. — Dfpolis

This is consistent with what I just wrote above. However, if we take this approach we cannot say that the sensing subject receives the form from the sense object, because within the neurological system there is only the material content, rather than the form.

So, the intelligible form is the material, not the efficient, cause of knowledge. — Dfpolis

But this is a little confused now. Matter cannot be the "intelligible form", that is contradictory. And this is why we need to respect the selective process, judgement, intent, and final cause. The soul, with the intellect, operates as final cause, and selects the matter (as the means) best suited for the end. This is the Platonic principle of 'the good". The good he says is what illuminates the intelligible objects, like the sun illuminates sensible objects. So the good (the end) is the cause of the intelligible object in the sense that it is what makes it intelligible, like the sun is the cause of the visible objects in the sense that it is what makes the visible objects visible. And we cannot neglect the importance of this selective process, this final cause, which brings about an intelligible form from the material cause (neurological data).

Abstraction occurs when our awareness (the agent intellect) attends to some aspects of the object to the exclusion of others. So, we can be aware of the inchoate whole (tode it, the substance), and/or of some specific intelligible aspect(s) (accidents). These intelligible aspects are the intrinsic properties we are discussing. Since intelligibility is a precondition of knowledge, intelligible properties are prior to, and independent of, the act of knowing. — Dfpolis

This is that selective process, "attends to some aspects of the object to the exclusion of others". The issue is, that if the agent intellect has this selective capacity, then what is selected from must be possibilities, potential, therefore material. We cannot say that the aspects selected are "intrinsic properties", because properties are formal, and possibilities are material. And, the agent intellect selects on the basis of "the good", or "the end", not on the basis of intelligibility. Intelligibility in its relationship with the subject is posterior to the subject's relationship with the good, or final cause, as explained by Plato.

Since intelligibility is a precondition of knowledge, intelligible properties are prior to, and independent of, the act of knowing. — Dfpolis

Yes, is a precondition of knowledge, but intelligibility is not a precondition for selection. As I explained, selection is built into the sense organs. But selection is done for the sake of a good, final cause. Final cause and selection are prior to "intelligible properties".

theories put forward by the Pythagoreans — Metaphysician Undercover

He does not present them as theories put forward by the Pythagoreans. The premises are his own. In the beginning of 1.2 he repeatedly says "we" not the Pythagoreans.

those quotes come from a small part of the beginning of Bk 1, ch2 — Metaphysician Undercover

Except for the first two all of these quotes come from chapter 3, not from "a small part of the beginning of Bk 1, ch2.". And the first two do not come from the beginning of the chapter.

You look at Bk1 Ch2, then completely ignore all the logical arguments made throughout ch 3,,4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12. — Metaphysician Undercover

Aristotle makes the distinction cited above between primary and compound bodies. What is true of compound bodies is not true of primary bodies. The arguments you are referring to are not refutations for the simple and obvious reason that they are about compound bodies not primary bodies.

You are confusing "error" with "falsity". I already explained this to you, error does not necessarily mean false, it simply means mistaken, and this is "unsuccessful". It is very clear that "Knowledge as acquaintance" is very susceptible to error, poor memory, poor recognition, etc.. — Metaphysician Undercover

We are not talking about memory, but sensation. The "recognition" that is subject to error is judgement. You have provided no example of an error in experience per se. Again, we experience whatever we experience. There can be no error at this point. Further, if the result is not falsity, whatever you are calling "error" is irrelevant to our being acquainted with intrinsic properties.

something within the experiencing subject must select from that experience the aspects of it which will be remembered, and how they will be remembered etc. — Metaphysician Undercover

Again, we are not discussing memory, but sensation.

Sorry df, this nonsense has no sway over me. — Metaphysician Undercover

I do not expect to "sway" you. I answer your arguments to prevent others from being deceived.

The processes which occur without this form of judgement are much more riddled with error. — Metaphysician Undercover

Of course, judgement is superior to mere association. Still, a judgement not rooted in a knowledge of reality is baseless. What makes judgements superior is their ability to reflect reality.

How can it consist of intelligible forms? — Metaphysician Undercover

I have already explained this a number of times. I refer you to my previous responses.

what is the point of judgement? — Metaphysician Undercover

The point of judgement as classification is to reduce the footprint of knowledge. It takes fewer neural resources to think in terms of a few abstractions than many individual instances.

the ones which get rejected in judgement — Metaphysician Undercover

I have no idea what you are talking about. Judgement is not a process that rejects notes of intelligibility. Abstraction selects some notes, but it does not reject the others. It just leaves unattended notes alone for the present.

So we have the issue of "selection" here, which I've been mentioning and you have not been addressing. — Metaphysician Undercover

No. We do not. The object does not typically select anything, as most objects have no will by which they could select. They simply interact with their environment, including organisms capable of sensing some forms of interaction. We are one of those organisms.

Since there is a need for judgement, we must assume that the content of awareness contains many aspects which are unintelligible, illogical or nonsensical — Metaphysician Undercover

Non sequitur. To be contents in the sense I am using is to be intelligible.

Don't you think that there must be selective mechanisms built right into the sense organs, and the neurological system? — Metaphysician Undercover

You are confusing "selection" with specific responsiveness. Sense organs respond to specific kinds of stimuli, but they do not select what they respond to. Their response is automatic, not by choice. Consequently, we cannot and do not know objects exhaustively, but only as they relate to us. I have said this a number of times. This is what Aquinas means when he says that we do not know essences directly, but only via accidents.

how can you say that they are accidental causes — Metaphysician Undercover

I did not say they were accidental causes. I said action is an accident inhering in the agent in the scheme of Aristotelian categories.

things caused for a purpose are not accidental — Metaphysician Undercover

You are equivocating on "accidental." I made no claim that sensation was purposeless.

However, we still have to address the selective process which is inherent and intrinsic within the sensing subject — Metaphysician Undercover

I discussed this above.

the object's actuality consists of possibilities, potentials, from the true perspective of the sensing subject — Metaphysician Undercover

Tada!! YES. That is why I keep saying that the object is sensible.

This would mean that the sense organs are not receiving forms from the sense object, but matter (potential) from the sense object. — Metaphysician Undercover

No! Because what is merely potential cannot act, and, in particular, cannot act on the sense organ. What Aristotle pointed out, and I keep repeating, is that one and the same event (actually sensing) actualizes two potentials: (1) the object's potential to be sensed (its sensibility) and (2) the subject's capacity to sense. The sensing event is an action of the object and a passion of the subject. Both action and passion are Aristotelian accidents, and so inherent in the object and subject respectively. Since the action and passion are the same event, differently conceived, we have one event inherent in two substances -- a case of shared existence and the identity involved in sensation.

This is not material causality on the part of the object because the object is an agent acting to modify the state of the sense organ. So, objects are efficient causes in sensation, and the specification of a substance's causal power is its first actuality or form.

As I explained, in awareness, the neurally encoded content is the material, not the efficient, cause of knowing. — Dfpolis

This is consistent with what I just wrote above. However, if we take this approach we cannot say that the sensing subject receives the form from the sense object, because within the neurological system there is only the material content, rather than the form. — Metaphysician Undercover

You are confusing sensation as a physical process with awareness, which is an intentional process. In sensing, the object is an efficient cause. In awareness, it is a material cause.

Matter cannot be the "intelligible form", that is contradictory. — Metaphysician Undercover

Matter (hyle) is a potential principle. The same thing can be actual in one respect, say being a living organism, while being potential in different respects, being sensible and intelligible.

So the good (the end) is the cause of the intelligible object in the sense that it is what makes it intelligible — Metaphysician Undercover

Do you have a citation in Plato for this? I would like the reference to compare Plato's with Aristotle's doctrine.

if the agent intellect has this selective capacity, then what is selected from must be possibilities, potential, therefore material. — Metaphysician Undercover

Finally! That is why I said intelligible contents are the material cause of awareness.

And, the agent intellect selects on the basis of "the good", or "the end", not on the basis of intelligibility. — Metaphysician Undercover

No. The will, which does the selection and directs the agent intellect, is drawn to the good.

Final cause and selection are prior to "intelligible properties". — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, the Unmoved Mover is prior to all else, but it is not a proximate cause of empirical knowledge.

We are not talking about memory, but sensation. The "recognition" that is subject to error is judgement. You have provided no example of an error in experience per se. — Dfpolis

I cannot understand sensation without memory, this is incoherent to me. Sensation is the activity of a thinking being with a brain and a nervous system. I gave you an example of error in sensation, when you cannot distinguish what you are seeing. I could say the same for all the senses, when you can't tell what you are tasting, feeling, hearing, or smelling. If you want to make sensation something other than this to support your erroneous definition of judgement, and your proposed faulty way of separating sense acts from mental acts, then so be it.

Of course, judgement is superior to mere association. — Dfpolis

What is your argument now, that "association" (which my dictionary defines as "connect in the mind") is an aspect of sensation, but judgement is not? This is all becoming very incoherent to me.

How do you think that association occurs without the use of memory? What is associated with what, if memory is not involved in this act? And, why would you think that associations cannot be erroneous. If the association made is not conducive to the desired end which caused it to be made, then it is erroneous. Or is it your intent to remove final causation from "association", leaving no principle by which it may be judged as useful or not? If so, then all associations would be random and this could not provide any foundation for any knowledge to be built upon.

I have no idea what you are talking about. Judgement is not a process that rejects notes of intelligibility. Abstraction selects some notes, but it does not reject the others. It just leaves unattended notes alone for the present. — Dfpolis

When i look at something as illogical and incoherent, like the claims which you are presenting to me, i reject them as unintelligible. That is an example of judgement. Your narrowing of your conception of "judgement' is leaving it without any real instances to correspond with.

This is what happened to Socrates and Theaetetus in the dialogue with that name. They spoke of "knowledge" in a way which required that knowledge must contain only truth and no falsity, then they found no instances of any possible way that falsity could be excluded from the stuff which we call "knowledge", so they concluded that they were going in the wrong direction, they started with an erroneous idea of "knowledge".

That's what I find is occurring with you definition of judgement. You exclude "association" as not a form of judgement, and you exclude the use of logic as not a form of judgement, so what are you left with? Can you give an example of judgement which would not be a matter of association nor a matter of applying logic? You've already mentioned "classification", but to me classification is just a form of association, which you've already separated out to say that it occurs in sensation rather than abstract thinking and is not a form of judgement.

No. We do not. The object does not typically select anything, as most objects have no will by which they could select. They simply interact with their environment, including organisms capable of sensing some forms of interaction. We are one of those organisms. — Dfpolis

I was not talking about the object selecting, I was talking about the subject selecting. You said:

"The action of the object on our neural state is an aspect of the object's actuality or form. ... For example, the object has intrinsic optical properties (aspects of its form) that interact with light and our eyes to create a visual image. That image is both the action of the object, and an aspect of our neural state."

Clearly there are "aspects" of the form which the sensing being senses. The being does not sense the entirety of the form. The issue of "selection" is the question of how does the being select which aspects of the object's form will interact with it.

From the perspective of the being, the object exists as a multitude of possibilities for interaction. Only some of these possibilities are actualized in the act of sensation. Therefore the being must somehow "select" from those possibilities. That is the issue of "selection" which I was talking about.

You are confusing "selection" with specific responsiveness. Sense organs respond to specific kinds of stimuli, but they do not select what they respond to. Their response is automatic, not by choice. Consequently, we cannot and do not know objects exhaustively, but only as they relate to us. I have said this a number of times. This is what Aquinas means when he says that we do not know essences directly, but only via accidents. — Dfpolis

This does not answer the problem of selection. Let's assume that all responses are automatic, in respect to a specific kind of stimuli, as you claim. The question is why does a sense organ respond to only a specific kind of stimuli, and not to other stimuli. This is a matter of "selection". The sense organ must select, from a vast field of potential stimuli which specific kind of stimuli it will respond to. Clearly it does not respond to all stimuli, so it must somehow select a type of stimuli to respond to. Saying that its response to the specific type is automatic, does not answer the question of how that specific type was selected for.

So, we have this matter unanswered. And, we move on to the rest of your paragraph. "Consequently, we cannot and do not know objects exhaustively, but only as they relate to us." Now you need to acknowledge that what underlies "as they relate to us" is "as we select", in this matter. So "we cannot and do not know objects exhaustively", because we know them selectively, and deficiencies in our selective processes leave us unable to know objects exhaustively. We can write this off to evolution, and say that evolution has not provided us with the means to know the object exhaustively, but the fact remains that the form of the object which exists in the mind of the knower is not the same as the form of the object known, and this is very evident in what you say about Aquinas.

Tada!! YES. That is why I keep saying that the object is sensible. — Dfpolis

Now, can you take the next step, and grasp the reality that if the object exists as potential to the sensing subject, there must be a process of selection which determines which potentials will be actualized? And, this selection is caused, and that type of causation is what is known as final cause? We cannot say that this type of causation is random, because random selections and associations cannot support any type of knowledge.

No! Because what is merely potential cannot act, and, in particular, cannot act on the sense organ. — Dfpolis

You keep refusing to recognize that the act of sensation is an act of the sensing being. The source of the "act" here, is the first actuality, the soul itself. You know that the soul is active, actual. And, the object sensed exists as potential, from the perspective of the active soul, whose form of act is that of final cause, as described in the "Metaphysics". There is no need for the sense object to act on the senses, because the soul as the first actuality of the organized living body makes this body active in relation to the passive sense object. And this is how the soul can select which type of potential the various parts of the body (sense organs) will actualize in sensation, by being prior to, (as the first actuality), that very body which selects from those potentials, which exist as the sense object.

What Aristotle pointed out, and I keep repeating, is that one and the same event (actually sensing) actualizes two potentials: (1) the object's potential to be sensed (its sensibility) and (2) the subject's capacity to sense. The sensing event is an action of the object and a passion of the subject. — Dfpolis

See, you even talk about this "actual sensing", as if the organism is carrying out the act, "sensing". Then you go on to describe it as if the sense object is carrying out the act. And you conclude "sensing event is an action of the object". That is implied inconsistency.

You are completely ignoring Aristotle's designation of the soul as the first actuality of the living body, and the very fact that "living" is an activity. There is a reason for that designation. This makes all the powers of the soul, sense organs included, potencies, potentials in relation to the soul itself. He determines these powers, such as sensation and intellection as potentials, because they are not all active all the time. That is essential to understanding Aristotle's "On the Soul". The powers of the soul, potentials, must be actualized by the soul, to be active, operating, otherwise they lie dormant as potentials. And the fact that they are actualized by the soul, in the act of living, makes them each active in relation to each one's respective proper object, which exists as passive potential.

I suggest that this is how we ought to understand the passive and active intellect. Prior to Aristotle there was confusion between soul and mind, the two were sometimes used interchangeably, and sometimes distinct. There was a lot of ambiguity in Plato and others. Aristotle provided a proper separation between the soul, as first actuality, and the intellect as a power of the soul. This means that in relation to the soul, the intellect exists as potential, passive, to be actualized by the soul. And when it is actualized by the soul it is the active intellect.

This is not material causality on the part of the object because the object is an agent acting to modify the state of the sense organ. — Dfpolis

This is backward, not Aristotelian, but the perspective of modern science, which sees the object as an active cause, acting on the sense organ. But Aristotle describes the sense organ as potential in relation to the actuality of the soul. When the sense organ is not active (in sleep for example), it exists as the potential to sense. The soul as the first actuality, must activate it, and then it is actually sensing. When it is sensing, the sense organ is active in relation to the objects sensed, which are passive. That's why we intuitively comprehend the reality of our environment as "objects", first, then motion of the objects second. To the senses, which are active, the things being sensed are passive, objects.

You are confusing sensation as a physical process with awareness, which is an intentional process. In sensing, the object is an efficient cause. In awareness, it is a material cause. — Dfpolis

No, you are misrepresenting, "sensation" in an unAristotelian way, as a physical process, instead of as an act of the soul. You do not seem to comprehend that the soul is the first actuality, and that the powers of the soul, like self-nourishment, self-movement, sensation, and intellection exist as potentials relative to the actuality which is the soul. So you do not recognize that in Aristotle's conceptual space, the act of sensing is an act of the immaterial soul, through the operation of the sense organs, rather than a physical process. And this is why your descriptions are so backward in relation to Aristotle's descriptions.

he same thing can be actual in one respect, say being a living organism, while being potential in different respects, being sensible and intelligible. — Dfpolis

Here, you recognize that being a living organism is a type of act, but you refuse to recognize that the things which living organism do are also acts. So you do not see sensing as an act, you see it as a passivity in relation to the active sense object. This is to stray from Aristotle, who sees sensation as an act of the living organism rather than as an act of the sense object.

Do you have a citation in Plato for this? I would like the reference to compare Plato's with Aristotle's doctrine. — Dfpolis

The Republic, Bk 6, specifically 508b "What the good itself is in the intelligible realm, in relation to understanding and intelligible things, the sun is in the visible realm, in relation to sight and visible things". You'd be best off to read the entirety of that chapter, to get an understanding of the context and the complexity of the issue.

No. The will, which does the selection and directs the agent intellect, is drawn to the good. — Dfpolis

Why do you say "no" here? It appears like you are saying the same thing as me, but in a different way. If the will is drawn towards the good, and also directs the agent intellect, then if the agent intellect judges, this is done in the direction of "the good".

I really do not understand your way of conceiving judgement. it appears like you want to make judgement distinct from choice and selection, but why?

It should be noted that since antiquity the question has not been whether or not Aristotle held that the heavens are eternal but rather whether what he claimed was true or not.

I know of no credible scholarly work that supports MU's claims. Are there any?

I gave you an example of error in sensation, when you cannot distinguish what you are seeing. — Metaphysician Undercover

That is not an error. Being unable to "distinguish what" means we did not sense enough to elicit a prior concept. It does not mean that we did not experience what we experienced. It is impossible not to experience what we experience.

If you want to make sensation something other than this to support your erroneous definition of judgement, and your proposed faulty way of separating sense acts from mental acts, then so be it. — Metaphysician Undercover

There is no error in defining terms unless the definitions are circular or self-contradictory. You have not shown that my definitions are either.

What is your argument now, that "association" (which my dictionary defines as "connect in the mind") is an aspect of sensation, but judgement is not? This is all becoming very incoherent to me. — Metaphysician Undercover

Neither is an aspect of sensation. Either or both may follow sensation.

How do you think that association occurs without the use of memory? — Metaphysician Undercover

I made not such claim.

why would you think that associations cannot be erroneous. — Metaphysician Undercover

I did not say that they cannot be, but, since you bring it up, they cannot be because associations are not assertions that could be true or false.

If the association made is not conducive to the desired end which caused it to be made, then it is erroneous. — Metaphysician Undercover

Baloney! Ends do not cause associations except indirectly.

Or is it your intent to remove final causation from "association", leaving no principle by which it may be judged as useful or not? — Metaphysician Undercover

Not being useful does not imply being erroneous. Also, a process can be useful without every result of the process being useful.

If so, then all associations would be random and this could not provide any foundation for any knowledge to be built upon. — Metaphysician Undercover

Association is not the foundation of knowledge. Sensation is.

your conception of "judgement' is leaving it without any real instances to correspond with. — Metaphysician Undercover

<This rod is wood> is an instance of a judgement.

This is what happened to Socrates and Theaetetus in the dialogue with that name. — Metaphysician Undercover

I am not responsible for Plato's errors.

you exclude the use of logic as not a form of judgement — Metaphysician Undercover

Logic is not a form of judgement, but the science of connecting judgements in a truth-preserving way. Judgements are its material. So, some judgements must be prior to logic, even though others may result from its use.

Can you give an example of judgement which would not be a matter of association nor a matter of applying logic? — Metaphysician Undercover

See above. I did not deny that association may lead to judgement. I said associations are not judgements. Associations activate contents for review. They do not judge them. I may associate the setting sun with an orange beach ball or a romantic interlude, but I would not judge it to be either.

to me classification is just a form of association — Metaphysician Undercover

Philosophical discourse requires precision. I might associate a spider with insects, but that is not the same as judging it to be an insect. Again, association raises possibilities, but it does not classify. Judgement does.

Clearly there are "aspects" of the form which the sensing being senses. The being does not sense the entirety of the form. — Metaphysician Undercover

We agree.

The issue of "selection" is the question of how does the being select which aspects of the object's form will interact with it. — Metaphysician Undercover

I have not talked about selection in reference to sensing, but clearly we can choose to look at an object, or avert our eyes. The selection I was discussing was our choice to attend to some aspects of what is sensed, and not others. It does not select our physical interaction, but our mental response. We do this all the time. In racial profiling, police focus on a person's appearance instead of their behavior. We may be interested in the time displayed instead of a clock's mechanism (or vice versa).

From the perspective of the being, the object exists as a multitude of possibilities for interaction. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes.

Therefore the being must somehow "select" from those possibilities. That is the issue of "selection" which I was talking about. — Metaphysician Undercover

I have already said that we do not sense all the possible modes of interaction, and, as a result, our knowledge is limited rather than exhaustive. Still, there is no active selection by sense organs. They respond automatically, in a way specified by their intrinsic nature and current state.

The question is why does a sense organ respond to only a specific kind of stimuli, and not to other stimuli. This is a matter of "selection". — Metaphysician Undercover

This is not a philosophical question. It is a question for a neurophysiologist or an evolutionary biologist. From a philosophical perspective, it is a contingent fact that we can sense some forms of interaction and not others, and, as a consequence, our experiential knowledge is limited.

Now you need to acknowledge that what underlies "as they relate to us" is "as we select", in this matter. — Metaphysician Undercover

No. Our nature, which specifies our sensory range, is an ontological given, not something we select. Rarely, we choose to close our eyes or put our hands over our ears, but that is not the normal case. We can choose to correct some sensory defects, or to augment our range of exploration by inventing instruments, but neither changes our basic sensory modalities. Even if we could add a new sensory modality, say bat-like echo location, by some new technology, that would not change our fundamental relation to reality. We would still relate to it as it relates to us.

deficiencies in our selective processes leave us unable to know objects exhaustively. — Metaphysician Undercover

That is not the basic reason we cannot know essences exhaustively. The basic reason is that essences specify a substance's possible acts, not just its actual acts. Even if we could sense every interaction it has, that would not tell us every interaction it could have. So we would have only a partial knowledge of its essence. Further, once we become a sensing party to (say) a binary interaction, it ceases to be a binary interaction, for now three relata are involved. So, we are not sensing the possible binary interaction, but an actual tertiary interaction. This is a fundamental problem in social fieldwork.

the fact remains that the form of the object which exists in the mind of the knower is not the same as the form of the object known, and this is very evident in what you say about Aquinas. — Metaphysician Undercover

I have no problem with this. In Scholastic language, you are saying that we do not know fully know substantial forms. That does not mean that we do not know accidental forms, which is all that I claim that we know.

In reflecting on this, you need to realize that accidents are not separate from substances, but aspects of them. So, a growing knowledge of a substance's accidental forms is a growing knowledge of its substantial form.

Now, can you take the next step, and grasp the reality that if the object exists as potential to the sensing subject, there must be a process of selection which determines which potentials will be actualized? — Metaphysician Undercover

Again, "selection" is the wrong word. It has connotations of willed agency.

There is a specification, as there always is in actualizing a potential. Potentials are not "pure," not the possibility for any kind of actualization, but the basis for a limited range of actualities. (You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.) So, the sensed object acting on a sense can only produce a limited range of sensations.

And, this selection is caused, and that type of causation is what is known as final cause? — Metaphysician Undercover

This is confused. Sensing has all four kinds of cause. The final cause of sensation is to inform the organism of its environment so that it may respond in furtherance of its good (aka self-realization). The efficient cause is the sensible object acting on the sense organ. The material cause is the organ's receptivity to that kind of stimulation. The formal cause is the sensory information.

You keep refusing to recognize that the act of sensation is an act of the sensing being. — Metaphysician Undercover

That is because it is the passion of the sensing subject. In seeing a setting sun, I am not the agent specifying sun-information, the sun is. It acts on me to inform me. It emits light that enters my eyes and modifies my retinal state, and so my neural state.

You know that the soul is active, actual. — Metaphysician Undercover

Again, this is confused. The soul (psyche) is not a thing as Descartes imagined, but the actuality of a thing (here a human being). Being the actuality of something is not actually being something. The psyche is the being alive of an organism. It is not "being alive" that acts, but the organism that is alive.

the object sensed exists as potential, from the perspective of the active soul — Metaphysician Undercover

This is also confused. The object is actual, not potential. Founded in that actual object (as any potential must be) is the potential to be sensed, aka sensibility. That is a potential, not of the object to exist, but of the object to affect sense organs -- which it could not do unless it already existed.

See, you even talk about this "actual sensing", as if the organism is carrying out the act, "sensing". — Metaphysician Undercover

No, I am calling the event "actually sensing" and explicitly saying it is the action of the sensible object and the passion of the sense. Aristotle is quite clear in De Anima, that the sense organ changes in sensation. Being changed is undergoing passion.

You are completely ignoring Aristotle's designation of the soul as the first actuality of the living body, and the very fact that "living" is an activity. — Metaphysician Undercover

No, I am not. I am saying that actual things can be modified by other actual things. That is what happens in sensation. We are informed by the sensed object.

This means that in relation to the soul, the intellect exists as potential, passive, to be actualized by the soul. And when it is actualized by the soul it is the active intellect. — Metaphysician Undercover

You need to reread De Anima III. The role of the agent intellect is to make intelligiblity actually understood. The actualization of potential information (intelligibility) requires an agent in act, viz. the agent intellect.

So you do not recognize that in Aristotle's conceptual space, the act of sensing is an act of the immaterial soul, through the operation of the sense organs, rather than a physical process. — Metaphysician Undercover

There are two issues at stake here. (1) What did Aristotle mean? (2) What is an adequate account?

With regard to (1) I think Aristotle thought of sensation holistically, starting in the physical modification of the sense organ by the sensible object, and terminating in awareness, which is an intentional process. So, I half agree with you: immateral operations are involved in his model, and in them (but not in the physical operation of the sense organ) the agent intellect is an efficient cause. However, Aristotle did not see the operation of the agent intellect in awareness of sense data. He belived its proper object was universal knowledge. That was an error on his part.

With regard to (2) we need to correct Aristotle's error and assert that the agent intellect acts any time we are aware of anything -- singular or universal. There is a difference between data that is automatically processed (e.g. driving safeley while thinking of someting else), and sense data we are aware of, and that difference is the operation of the agent intellect to produce awareness of sensory contents.

No, you are misrepresenting, "sensation" in an unAristotelian way, as a physical process, instead of as an act of the soul. — Metaphysician Undercover

Being physical does not mean that it is not an act of the organism and so an expression of (not an act of) the soul as the actuality of the organism. Remember, even tunips have a psyche. The soul does not act because it is not a thing or a being.

Here, you recognize that being a living organism is a type of act, but you refuse to recognize that the things which living organism do are also acts. — Metaphysician Undercover

No, I do not. If I see a spider, it is acting on me. All I am doing is recognizing that we not only act, we are also acted upon (aka suffer passion). Interaction involves both acting and being acted upon.

The Republic, Bk 6, specifically 508b — Metaphysician Undercover

My sincere thanks. It has been 65 years since I read the Republic.

Why do you say "no" here? It appears like you are saying the same thing as me, but in a different way. If the will is drawn towards the good, and also directs the agent intellect, then if the agent intellect judges, this is done in the direction of "the good". — Metaphysician Undercover

I am trying to assign operations to the proper powers, but the result is as you say.

I really do not understand your way of conceiving judgement. it appears like you want to make judgement distinct from choice and selection, but why? — Metaphysician Undercover

My way of defining judgement is pretty standard among Thomists and neo-Aristotlelians. You might look at Jacque Maritain's Degrees of Knowledge or Henry Veatch's Intentional Logic. My views on ideogenesis and judging are close to theirs. I suspect that they dervive from João Poinsot's Ars Logica which is partially translated as The Material Logic of John of St. Thomas. (Material logic deals with the insturments of thought (concepts, judgements and arguments) rather than the valid forms of thought). The insight that only judgements can be true or false is central to Aquinas' theory of truth.

No, I am calling the event "actually sensing" and explicitly saying it is the action of the sensible object and the passion of the sense. Aristotle is quite clear in De Anima, that the sense organ changes in sensation. Being changed is undergoing passion. — Dfpolis

I agree that it takes two to tango. Aristotle, however, speaks of two concurrent activities on this matter rather than of one thing simply changing another:

The activity of the perceptible object, however, and of the perceptual capacity is one and the same (although the being for them is not the same). I mean, for example, the active sound and the active hearing. For it is possible to have hearing and not to hear, and what has a sound is not always making a sound. But when what can hear is active and what can make a sound is making a sound, then |425b30| the active hearing comes about at the same time as the active sound, and we might say that the one is an act of hearing and the other a making of a sound. — De Anima, 425b20, translated by CDC Reeve.

But this shared proximity happens within a 'goldilocks' zone.

Since, though, the activity of the perceptible object and of the perceptual part are one, although the being is not the same, it is necessary for hearing and sound that are said to be such in this [active] way to be destroyed and to be preserved together, and so also with flavor and tasting, and similarly with the others. But when these are said to be such potentially this is not necessary. The earlier physicists, however, did not speak well about this, since they thought that there was neither white nor black without seeing, nor flavor without tasting. For though in one way they spoke correctly, in another way incorrectly. For since perception and the perceptible object are spoken of in a twofold way, on the one hand as potential and on the other as active, what they said holds of the latter but not of the former. They, though, spoke in a simple way about things that are not spoken of in a simple way. But if voice is a sort of consonance, and voice and hearing are in a way one (while in another way not one and the same), and if consonance is a ratio, then hearing must also be a sort of ratio. And that is why each sort of excess, whether high or low pitch, destroys hearing, and similarly excesses in flavor destroy taste, and in colors the intensely bright and dark destroy sight, and in smell the strong odors, whether sweet or bitter, since the perceptual capacity is a sort of ratio. That is also why things—for example, the sharp, sweet, or salty—are pleasant when, being pure and unmixed, they are brought into the ratio, since they are pleasant then. And in general a mixture, |a consonance, is more pleasant than either high or low pitch, and for touch what can be [further] heated or cooled. The perceptual capacity is a ratio, and excessive things dissolve or destroy it. — ibid. 426a10

This relates to how touch is said to be the simplest form of perception. A being either touches another or not. If the encounter stops you from being what you are, that is not an act of perception any longer.

The question of the 'passive' does enter into the discussion of appearances and images but does not seem equivalent to the above discussion of 'material' near other 'material'. The use of 'ratio' (logos) in this description is an interesting observation about the natural world.

The activity of the perceptible object, however, and of the perceptual capacity is one and the same (although the being for them is not the same). I mean, for example, the active sound and the active hearing. For it is possible to have hearing and not to hear, and what has a sound is not always making a sound. But when what can hear is active and what can make a sound is making a sound, then |425b30| the active hearing comes about at the same time as the active sound, and we might say that the one is an act of hearing and the other a making of a sound. — De Anima, 425b20, translated by CDC Reeve.[Aristotle] — Paine

This is what I have been saying. One event actualized two potentials: that of the sensible to be perceived (of the sounding to be heard) and of the organ to sense (of the ear to hear).

To really see the passivity, you have to read the account of sensation in light of the discussion of action and passion in Physics III, 4. I it quoted a few days ago.

I take the general point from Physics regarding affecting and being affected. When looking at the movement from perception to 'intellection', the discussion becomes more difficult. Thus, all the arguments about what is an 'appearance' or an 'image' in Book 3 of De Anima. What is accepted for what it is and what is susceptible to error.

I think part of the problem with theories of intellection is confusing presentations, which are direct acts of the intelligible object, with re-presentations, which are not.

Do you know where Aristotle expresses this 'direct action' as clearly as that?

It seems to me that this is one of the most difficult parts of the text to decipher.

The discussion of phantisia in DA 3 is ample evidence of that.

No, Aristotle does not think in terms of representations. They appeared in the Muslim commentators and then in Aquinas (that is part of the paper I am writing) as the intelligible species. The presentation/re-presentation language is mine.

I do not know or think Aristotle held it, but I think that the passive intellect is the phantasm or neurally encoded contents as understood. So, concepts are not a new representations, but the neural presentation/intelligibility actualized.

Well, this is where we part ways. I read Aristotle to complicate the clear distinctions you embrace.

But I appreciate the aspect where we see sensation from a similar point of view.

That is not an error. Being unable to "distinguish what" means we did not sense enough to elicit a prior concept. It does not mean that we did not experience what we experienced. It is impossible not to experience what we experience. — Dfpolis

"Error within experience" does not imply that the person did not experience what was experienced, it implies that mistake is inherent within the experience. To make a judgement is a type of experience, and to make an erroneous judgement does not imply that the person did not judge what was judged. No, it implies that the person's experience of judging was erroneous. Your assertion that there cannot be error within experience because this would imply that the person did not experience what was experienced is nonsensical.

I did not say that they cannot be, but, since you bring it up, they cannot be because associations are not assertions that could be true or false. — Dfpolis

How many times do I have to tell you? "Error" is not necessarily related to truth and falsity, it is related directly to mistake, and many mistaken actions are not assertions which could be judged as true or false. "Mistake" is best understood as a wrong choice, and most choices which a person makes do not involve assertions which could be judged as true or false. So the majority of errors which human beings make cannot even be classed as errors by your restrictions. That's how erroneous your category of "error" is.

I have not talked about selection in reference to sensing, but clearly we can choose to look at an object, or avert our eyes. The selection I was discussing was our choice to attend to some aspects of what is sensed, and not others. It does not select our physical interaction, but our mental response. We do this all the time. In racial profiling, police focus on a person's appearance instead of their behavior. We may be interested in the time displayed instead of a clock's mechanism (or vice versa). — Dfpolis

I was the one talking about "selection", and I insisted that you need to recognize that selection occurs within the sense organ. You agree with me that there are aspects of the form of the sensible object which the sensing being senses, not all of the form in completion. How do you think it is the case that some parts of the form are sensed, but not others, unless there is some type of selection going on?

All you provided for me as an explanation of your belief is that it is automatic, the senses just happen to respond to specific stimuli automatically. What do you believe, that the senses are programmed like a computer, or some other piece of machinery to respond automatically to specified stimuli? Who do you think does the programming?

Yes. — Dfpolis

So you agree that the object exists as a multitude of possibilities. Do you not understand that when a specific set of possibilities is actualized out of a multitude of possibilities, it is necessary to assume that something selects which possibilities will be actualized? That is a necessity, because if it was just a matter of determinist causation, then we could not truthfully say that there were any possibilities in the first place.

Therefore in order to portray the sense object as existing as possibilities to the sensing being, you must allow that the sensing being selects from these possibilities. So when specific possibilities are actualized by specific sense organs, this is a selection process carried out by the sensing being. Otherwise you cannot say that the sense object exists as possibilities, because this would not be consistent, possibilities being actualized without any selection.

Still, there is no active selection by sense organs. They respond automatically, in a way specified by their intrinsic nature and current state. — Dfpolis

Do you not see the logic? If the sense object is present to the sensing being as possibilities, then when specific possibilities are actualized, this must be through a process of selection. If there is no type of selection made, then there is automatic, deterministic efficient causation, and there is no real possibilities in the sense object. The sense object just exists as active efficient causes acting on the senses, in a deterministic way, and it would be completely erroneous to represent those active efficient causes as possibilities.

This is not a philosophical question. It is a question for a neurophysiologist or an evolutionary biologist. From a philosophical perspective, it is a contingent fact that we can sense some forms of interaction and not others, and, as a consequence, our experiential knowledge is limited. — Dfpolis

Are you saying that it's a fact that we sense some things but not others, yet philosophers ought not ask why this is the case, because that's a question for neurophysiology? Come on Df, you've got to be joking. Neurophysiology intends to explain how the senses work, it does not question why the eyes are designed to interact with light, and why the ears are designed to interact with sounds, and why there are some things which we cannot sense at all.

That is not the basic reason we cannot know essences exhaustively. The basic reason is that essences specify a substance's possible acts, not just its actual acts. — Dfpolis

This is completely unAristotelian. Essence is form, actuality. Essence does not specify possibilities. Possibilities are derived in another way.

I have no problem with this. In Scholastic language, you are saying that we do not know fully know substantial forms. That does not mean that we do not know accidental forms, which is all that I claim that we know.

In reflecting on this, you need to realize that accidents are not separate from substances, but aspects of them. So, a growing knowledge of a substance's accidental forms is a growing knowledge of its substantial form. — Dfpolis

The problem though, is that primary substance, the sensible object, consists of matter as well as form. And why this is a problem is that matter must be understood as the essence of such objects. And since form is what is intelligible to us, this implies that we cannot know the essence of sensible objects. So you say that "a growing knowledge of a substance's accidental forms is a growing knowledge of its substantial form", but this is not true. There is a gap between the two which cannot be bridged as you suggest. Knowledge of a substance's accidental forms in no way implies knowledge of it substantial form, unless the principles required to bridge this gap (metaphysical principles) are produced.

Aristotle is quite clear in De Anima, that the sense organ changes in sensation. Being changed is undergoing passion. — Dfpolis

I believe you have already demonstrated that you misinterpret Aristotle. He distinguished two senses of 'actual" when defining the soul. You have representedAone of these as a form of potential. At Bk2 Ch 5 when he begins discussing the power of sensation, he refers back to those two senses of actual, and now describes two senses of potential. He says at 418a 3, "We cannot help using the incorrect terms 'being acted upon or altered' of the two transitions involved."

So, he uses these words, "acted upon", "altered' but he is explicit in saying that this is not a correct description. The words facilitate the discussion, but do not actually produce a true representation of the process, hence they are said to be "incorrect terms".

You need to reread De Anima III. The role of the agent intellect is to make intelligiblity actually understood. The actualization of potential information (intelligibility) requires an agent in act, viz. the agent intellect. — Dfpolis

This is not inconsistent with what I said. But what I also said was that the intellect is passive in relation to the soul, which is the source of actuality of the agent intellect. Bk3, Ch8. "Within the soul the faculties of knowledge and sensation are potentially these objects, the one what is knowable the other what is sensible." In relation to the soul, ("within the soul"), the powers are potencies, potentials, but in relation to their proper object the powers act. So the agent intellect provides the act which makes intelligibility understood, as you say, but the intellect is still passive, as a potential in relation to the soul, which actualizes the intellect to act as the agent intellect.

With regard to (1) I think Aristotle thought of sensation holistically, starting in the physical modification of the sense organ by the sensible object, and terminating in awareness, which is an intentional process. So, I half agree with you: immateral operations are involved in his model, and in them (but not in the physical operation of the sense organ) the agent intellect is an efficient cause. However, Aristotle did not see the operation of the agent intellect in awareness of sense data. He belived its proper object was universal knowledge. That was an error on his part. — Dfpolis

How can you claim consistency between "the agent intellect is an efficient cause", and, "starting in the physical modification of the sense organ by the sensible object, and terminating in awareness"? You have the start in the modification of the sense organ, and the end in awareness, as a sort of chain of efficient causation, yet you want to say that the agent intellect is the efficient cause as well. How can the efficient cause (as the agent intellect) be at the end point as well as the beginning point in a chain of efficient causation?

However, if we say that the agent intellect acts as final cause, immaterial causation derived from the soul, then we can also allow that the act of the sense object on the sense organ is efficient causation. But as I've been explaining to you, in relation to final cause, efficient causes are selected for, as the means to ends. The actions of the sense objects on the sense organs are selected for, by the final cause of the soul.

Being physical does not mean that it is not an act of the organism and so an expression of (not an act of) the soul as the actuality of the organism. — Dfpolis

An expression of the soul is an act of the soul. I don't think there are any principles allowing you to separate physical acts of the organism from acts of the soul. As the first actuality of the living body, all physical are acts of the soul. And, it makes no sense to separate physical acts, and call them 'expressions" of the soul, and say that expressions are not acts.

No, I do not. If I see a spider, it is acting on me. All I am doing is recognizing that we not only act, we are also acted upon (aka suffer passion). Interaction involves both acting and being acted upon. — Dfpolis

Sure, I do not disagree about "interaction" we've agreed on this already. What I am trying to impress on you is the priority of final cause over efficient cause, within the acts of the living being. in relation to final cause, efficient causes are apprehended as possibilities, as possible means to ends. Since efficient causes are apprehended as possibilities in relation to final cause, then final cause is prior in the absolute sense. This is why the soul is defined as "the first actuality". It is first in causal power, as the first actuality.

The insight that only judgements can be true or false is central to Aquinas' theory of truth. — Dfpolis

But you seem to make a type of inversion fallacy, because you claim that judgements can only be of truth or falsity. Aquinas might be right, that judgements are the only type of things which can be true or false, but this does not mean that all judgements must be either true or false. There are all sorts of different types of judgements, in the general category of "judgement", which do not involve truth and falsity. Judgements of truth and falsity are a specific type of judgement. Likewise with "error". Errors in relation to truth and falsity are a specific type of error, but this only constitutes a small percentage of all the mistakes which people make, which are called errors.

But I appreciate the aspect where we see sensation from a similar point of view. — Paine

Thank you

To make a judgement is a type of experience — Metaphysician Undercover

You are conflating sense experience, which is how we know intrinsic properties, with the experience of mental processes, such as judging. It is not that judging is a type of experience, but that we experience judging.

it implies that the person's experience of judging was erroneous. — Metaphysician Undercover

Again, this is confused. The judgement is wrong, not the experience of making a wrong judgement.

"Mistake" is best understood as a wrong choice, — Metaphysician Undercover

Associations are not choices, either.

So the majority of errors which human beings make cannot even be classed as errors by your restrictions. — Metaphysician Undercover

I am concentrating on truth and falsity because we are not discussing error in general, but having a false idea of an object's intrinsic properties. Other kinds of errors are irrelevant to that.

How do you think it is the case that some parts of the form are sensed, but not others, unless there is some type of selection going on? — Metaphysician Undercover

Because we inherit our sensory capabilities. We do not select them.

What do you believe, that the senses are programmed like a computer, or some other piece of machinery to respond automatically to specified stimuli? Who do you think does the programming? — Metaphysician Undercover

I base my claim based on the physics and neurophysiology of sensation. If you want to see this as programming, then the author of the laws of nature and the initial state of the cosmos would be the programmer.

So you agree that the object exists as a multitude of possibilities. — Metaphysician Undercover

No, I agree that the object has a number of possible ways in which it could be sensed. The object is actual, its sensibility (possible informing interactions with sense organs) is potential.

Do you not understand that when a specific set of possibilities is actualized out of a multitude of possibilities, it is necessary to assume that something selects which possibilities will be actualized? — Metaphysician Undercover

I agree that many possibilities are reduced to one actuality. I do not agree that the sensing subject has to choose what is sensed. Actual sensation is normally determined by the physical situation and the laws of nature.

if it was just a matter of determinist causation, then we could not truthfully say that there were any possibilities in the first place. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, we could. Potency alone does not entail free will. It just means that a change is possible.

Are you saying that it's a fact that we sense some things but not others, yet philosophers ought not ask why this is the case, because that's a question for neurophysiology? — Metaphysician Undercover

Philosophers can ask what they like. They do not have the means, as philosophers, to answer all the questions they ask.

Neurophysiology intends to explain how the senses work, it does not question why the eyes are designed to interact with light, and why the ears are designed to interact with sounds, and why there are some things which we cannot sense at all. — Metaphysician Undercover

In explaining how they work, we can see why they are limited as they are -- e.g. why the eye cannot respond to radio or sound waves. Evolution can also help explain why vision evolved to see the wave lengths we do -- they are the ones that penetrate water, where vertebrates evolved.

Also, philosophers cannot say why the eyes see, etc. Any attempt to do so would presume to know the mind of God.

This is completely unAristotelian. Essence is form, actuality. Essence does not specify possibilities. Possibilities are derived in another way. — Metaphysician Undercover

First, this confuses the first actuality of essence with the second actuality of the acts flowing out of a thing's essence. Second, the essence of sensible bodies is not simply their form. It also includes their matter, for if it did not, they would be essentially immaterial. Finally, if the acts of substances were determined solely by their essences, they could not interact with other things and would be monads.

matter must be understood as the essence of such objects. — Metaphysician Undercover

No, as I just wrote, their essences include both matter and form.

And since form is what is intelligible to us, this implies that we cannot know the essence of sensible objects. — Metaphysician Undercover

Not quite. We can know their essences, but not exhaustively.

Knowledge of a substance's accidental forms in no way implies knowledge of it substantial form, unless the principles required to bridge this gap (metaphysical principles) are produced. — Metaphysician Undercover

The principle is that accidents are aspects of the substance, inhering in it, not distinct entities. The more aspects we know, the more we know of the whole.

I believe you have already demonstrated that you misinterpret Aristotle. — Metaphysician Undercover

What follows is based on your misunderstanding of first and second act.

But what I also said was that the intellect is passive in relation to the soul, which is the source of actuality of the agent intellect. — Metaphysician Undercover

The soul is the actuality of the organism. That actuality includes the power of awareness, aka the agent intellect. So, the soul includes the agent as an aspect, specifically, as a power. Since it is not separate, it cannot be actualized by the soul, for then the soul would be actualizing itself.

How can you claim consistency between "the agent intellect is an efficient cause", and, "starting in the physical modification of the sense organ by the sensible object, and terminating in awareness"? — Metaphysician Undercover

I can because the process begins with physical operations, subject to physical analysis, and ends in an intentional operation, subject to intentional analysis.

How can the efficient cause (as the agent intellect) be at the end point as well as the beginning point in a chain of efficient causation? — Metaphysician Undercover

I did not say that the agent intellect was involved in physical stage of the process. It is only involved at the end in making the intelligibility carried by the phantasm or neural encoding actually understood.

An expression of the soul is an act of the soul. — Metaphysician Undercover

No. The soul is not a Cartesian res. It is the first actuality of a body. What acts is the whole -- the living organism, not some aspect of it. You are committing the mereological fallacy here.

What I am trying to impress on you is the priority of final cause over efficient cause, within the acts of the living being. — Metaphysician Undercover

I have no problem with this principle. My problem is with how you are applying it. The end of organic activity is the good of the organism = its self realization. The application to sensing and knowing is that information contributes to more effective living -- living better suited to our self-realization. Sensing and knowing could not do this unless they informed us of reality -- of the things we interact with as we interact with them. I am arguing that they do, and showing how they do.

you claim that judgements can only be of truth or falsity. — Metaphysician Undercover

That is not my claim. My claim is that only judgements can be true or false, because only they make assertions about reality. Experience, concepts, associations -- none of them claim anything about reality. So, none of them can be true or false.

There are all sorts of different types of judgements — Metaphysician Undercover

I agree. For example, there can be practical judgements -- about what should be done -- or judgements of taste -- what we prefer and what we have no interest in. Still, this does not bear on whether we can know intrinsic properties.

You are conflating sense experience, which is how we know intrinsic properties, with the experience of mental processes, such as judging. It is not that judging is a type of experience, but that we experience judging. — Dfpolis

I've told you already, this is a division which cannot be made. And we discussed what your use of "intrinsic properties" refers to. You agreed that it refers to properties of "awareness", not properties of the sensible object. The point is that we cannot separate sense experience from mental processes, to look at the intrinsic properties of sense experience, independent of mental processes, as you claim, because mental processes are intrinsic properties of sense experience.

Again, this is confused. The judgement is wrong, not the experience of making a wrong judgement. — Dfpolis

By what principles do you separate the judgement from the experience of making the judgement? The experience of judging, and the act of making the judgement are one and the same. How do you say that it is the judgement which is mistaken, but the act of judging, which is the experience of judging, is not wrong? Of course it is the act, which is the experience, which is mistaken.

Associations are not choices, either. — Dfpolis

To associate is to connect with the mind. This is done by choice. Your drive to separate basic associations done at the level of sense experience, from selective causes, for the sake of separating sense experience from mental processes, is inclining you deeper and deeper into false premises. I warned you about this already. You need to turn your ship around, stop trying to support bad conclusions by adopting worse premises.

I am concentrating on truth and falsity because we are not discussing error in general, but having a false idea of an object's intrinsic properties. Other kinds of errors are irrelevant to that. — Dfpolis

Look, your premises have gotten so bad, that you are confusing your own principles now. You've said that judgement, as a mental process is the only thing capable of truth and falsity. You've said that abstraction of intrinsic properties of the sense object occurs at a level prior to judgement. Since we are talking about mistake, error, concerning these intrinsic properties it is impossible that we are talking about error in truth and falsity, which only can occur at the higher level of mental activity, judgement. Please, respect your own principles and maintain consistency.

Because we inherit our sensory capabilities. We do not select them. — Dfpolis

I was not talking about selecting our senses, I was talking about the senses being selective themselves. An intrinsic property of sensing is that it is selective. It must be if we represent the sensible objects as sense possibilities.

You simply refuse to accept that there is any sort of selective capacity independent from conscious choice. Where do you think conscious choice 'emerges' from? Or do you believe that no other living beings practise any sort of selection, then suddenly human beings evolve this radically new capability called "free will", which is not based in any other selective capacities of living beings?

I base my claim based on the physics and neurophysiology of sensation. If you want to see this as programming, then the author of the laws of nature and the initial state of the cosmos would be the programmer. — Dfpolis

This does not explain why you want to exclude philosophers from considering the laws of nature and the designer of those laws.

I agree that many possibilities are reduced to one actuality. I do not agree that the sensing subject has to choose what is sensed. Actual sensation is normally determined by the physical situation and the laws of nature. — Dfpolis

I told you why this is illogical. If sensation is 'determined" by the laws of nature, then it is impossible that many possibilities are reduced to one actuality. By the laws of nature things act on other things through the application of force. There are no possibilities, as these are all in the human mind. Furthermore, as Aristotle explains, a possibility cannot act, it must be acted on. Therefore if it is the case, as you say "many possibilities are reduced to one actuality", then something must select which possibilities will be actualized.

So you have two inconsistent and incompatible statements right within this paragraph. 1) "many possibilities are reduced to one actuality", and 2) "determined by the physical situation and the laws of nature".

Yes, we could. Potency alone does not entail free will. It just means that a change is possible. — Dfpolis

This in no way justifies your illogical claim. It is not the existence of potential which implies a selective process, it is the act which reduces a multitude of possibilities to one particular actuality which implies a selective process. If the act is determined, then the supposed other possibilities were not real possibilities. If the possibilities are real, then something must select. So the issue is not "change is possible", the issue is "change is actual".

The choice is yours, choose from the alternatives. Either the idea that the sensible objects consists of possibilities is really false, and this is just an illusion, based in a faulty mode of expression, an inaccurate way of speaking, or else the possibilities are real possibilities, and there is a selective process that "chooses" which will be actualized. The former is the view from modern determinist scientism, the latter is the view from Aristotle. The two are fundamentally incompatible.

Evolution can also help explain why vision evolved to see the wave lengths we do -- they are the ones that penetrate water, where vertebrates evolved. — Dfpolis

The answers to these questions are speculative, and unverifiable, therefore not scientific. The scientific method requires experimentation to verify theories. So it is not science which gives these answers, it is philosophy.

First, this confuses the first actuality of essence with the second actuality of the acts flowing out of a thing's essence. — Dfpolis

This make no sense to me. When you say "the acts flowing out of a thing's essence", are these acts of final cause, or what?

Finally, if the acts of substances were determined solely by their essences, they could not interact with other things and would be monads. — Dfpolis

What kind of act does a material substance have which would be other than its essence? That would not be an Aristotelian principle. I went through this already in this thread, Aristotle explicitly says in Metaphysics, Bk 7 I believe, that in the case of subsistent things, the thing and its essence are the very same. This is the law of identity. It makes no sense to say that a thing has an act which is other than its essence. A thing has a description, which is formal, and therefore actual, but this is not a proper act of the thing, it is what is predicated of a subject, in the sense of secondary substance.

The principle is that accidents are aspects of the substance, inhering in it, not distinct entities. The more aspects we know, the more we know of the whole. — Dfpolis

We already discussed this we do not know the properties, or accidents which inhere within the sensible substance. You agreed that what we know as "intrinsic properties" is what is intrinsic to our awareness of the thing, not the thing itself.

What follows is based on your misunderstanding of first and second act. — Dfpolis

It is you who misunderstands the two senses of "act". You represent one as potential. I went through this with you already. You distinguish actually "operating" from "being operational". The latter though, "being operational" is just the potential to operate, and therefore not a true sense of "act" as Aristotle intends, an "actuality".

Aristotle's distinction is described as the distinction between the act of being in "possession of knowledge", and "the actual exercise of knowledge'. The former, "possession of knowledge" is the type of actuality which the soul is said to have. We cannot represent "possession of knowledge as you do, because this reduces it to the potential to exercise knowledge, which is not an actuality but a potential. Therefore we must represent it as a form, an actuality, which has the knowledge inherent within, as a possession, rather than as the potential which is the possessed knowledge.

So that is the mistake in your interpretation of these two senses of actuality. You represent the actuality which possesses the knowledge, as the possessed knowledge (a potential), when you say "being operational", instead of representing the actuality, "the soul", as separate from the potential possessed, (the potential to operate), and as the actuality which possesses that potential. In other words, you represent the predicate, "being operational" which is a potential, as if it were the subject itself, the soul, which is what is actual.

The soul is the actuality of the organism. That actuality includes the power of awareness, aka the agent intellect. — Dfpolis

No, this is wrong. All the powers of the soul are distinct from the soul, as potencies, potentials, while the soul itself is defined as the first actuality. This excludes the possibility that "the power of awareness" (not a power listed by Aristotle), as a potential, is included with "the soul". These powers are what the soul possesses, the soul being the actuality which possesses the potential, it has them as habits. The soul is clearly described as separate (an actuality, form) from the potentials possessed, which are the powers.

See, your way of interpreting the first act, as itself a potential, renders all the potencies of the soul as inseparable from the soul, but this is not what was intended by Aristotle who described the soul as the first actuality, and the potential as what is possessed (knowledge possessed) by that first actuality.

The agent intellect therefore is necessarily separated from the soul (as actuality) by the passive intellect. The intellect in relation to the soul is a power of the soul, therefore a potential. Aristotle clearly lists intellection as one of the potencies of the soul. Therefore it is a potential in relation to the soul, as a power possessed by that actuality which is the soul. Likewise all the other powers of the soul explicitly exist as potentials. These are like predications of the subject, the soul being the subject, and the predicates being the habits of the soul, as what the actuality has in its capacity to act.

However, all the powers in relation to their proper objects are active and causal, receiving that actualization from the soul. so the agent intellect is active in relation to its object, the senses are active in relation to their respective objects, the power of self-movement is active in relation to its object, which is movement, the power of self-nourishment is active in relation to its object, nourishment. But in relation to the soul, which is the first actuality of the living body, all these powers are potentials.

I can because the process begins with physical operations, subject to physical analysis, and ends in an intentional operation, subject to intentional analysis. — Dfpolis

This is wrong, the process "began" a long time ago with the soul as the first actuality of the living body, causing the body to become organized in a particular way, so as to be able to sense. Clearly this is prior to the "physical operations" and therefore where the process really begins.

No. The soul is not a Cartesian res. It is the first actuality of a body. What acts is the whole -- the living organism, not some aspect of it. You are committing the mereological fallacy here. — Dfpolis

This makes no sense. The whole, the living organism, is the body of which the soul is the first actuality. Any act of the whole is necessarily an act of the soul which is the first actuality of that organized body.

I have no problem with this principle. My problem is with how you are applying it. The end of organic activity is the good of the organism = its self realization. The application to sensing and knowing is that information contributes to more effective living -- living better suited to our self-realization. Sensing and knowing could not do this unless they informed us of reality -- of the things we interact with as we interact with them. I am arguing that they do, and showing how they do. — Dfpolis

The point though is that "the good" is relative to the soul itself, as the first actuality, not relative to any specific organism. Therefore the end is not the good of the organism, but the good of the soul. This is why the death of organisms is a necessary feature of evolution. Therefore "self-realization" is not relevant, and consequently your assumptions about sensing and knowing are also unfounded. Until you start with the good of the soul, instead of the good of the individual organism, you have not an appropriate approach to sensing and knowing.

That is not my claim. My claim is that only judgements can be true or false, because only they make assertions about reality. Experience, concepts, associations -- none of them claim anything about reality. So, none of them can be true or false. — Dfpolis

We agree here, the problem is that you want to equate error with judgements of true and false. But this overlooks the evidence that the bulk of errors occur in judgements which are other than judgement of true and false. Therefore we must conclude that error extends far beyond judgements of true and false.

I agree. For example, there can be practical judgements -- about what should be done -- or judgements of taste -- what we prefer and what we have no interest in. Still, this does not bear on whether we can know intrinsic properties. — Dfpolis

Yes it does bear on whether we know intrinsic properties. That is because what we perceive as properties which are "intrinsic" to the sense object might be erroneous. Therefore what we know is not really 'intrinsic properties", but something else which is subject to error.

I regret that I cannot continue this exchange. Responding to you is very time-consuming, and not enlightening as we go over the same points repeatedly. So, there is no sign that we are approaching agreement.

Wishing you well, Dennis

Does agent intellect as self possess form? — ucarr

I think the agent intellect has a form/actuality... — Dfpolis

Is this form a logical entity emergent from the neuronal processes of the brain?

Does awareness possess boundaries? — ucarr

Boundaries? That is a hard question. Normally the AI is directed to contents encoded in our brain, but in mystical experience it seems to have some awareness of God, at least in His agency. (This is a very complex subject. A good start, but only a start, is the phenomenology discussed by Bucke, James and especially W. T. Stace.) — Dfpolis

If agent intellect emerges from neuronal activity, then its ontic status, rather than metaphorical, is logical?

Logical emergence is one type of category, neuronal grounding of same is another type of category? If so, how does one type of category transduce to the other type?

Aristotle’s definition explains neither the genesis nor the dynamics of consciousness... — Dfpolis

Are you looking to current philosophical inquiry for answers to these questions?

Is this form a logical entity emergent from the neuronal processes of the brain? — ucarr

Philosophically, I can only say that what the agent intellect does cannot be deduced from physical considerations. So, it is ontologically emergent. When we cannot work out the dynamics, saying "from x" could be no more than a guess.

Is this form a logical entity emergent from the neuronal processes of the brain? — ucarr

Its ontological status is not logical (it really operates), nor is it an independent being. It is a power of a rational being.

Logical emergence is one type of category, neuronal grounding of same is another type of category? — ucarr

If we can show how it is grounded, that would mean that it is not ontologically emergent.

Are you looking to current philosophical inquiry for answers to these questions? — ucarr

No, I am looking for a better integration of the contingent facts of physical and intentional reality.

Responding to you is very time-consuming, and not enlightening as we go over the same points repeatedly. So, there is no sign that we are approaching agreement. — Dfpolis

I believe we have come to have a much better understanding of our differences, at least I think I understand your perspective much better. The biggest gap between us seems to be concerning the nature of things like selection, choice, decision, and judgement, as well as the relationship between possibility and these. So if we get together again, we'll know where to start. Until then, thanks for the stimulating conversation.

thanks for the stimulating conversation. — Metaphysician Undercover

You are welcome.

I think the agent intellect has a form/actuality... — Dfpolis

Is this form a logical entity emergent from the neuronal processes of the brain? — ucarr

Its ontological status is not logical (it really operates), nor is it an independent being. It is a power of a rational being. — Dfpolis

Please elaborate the essential details of the context, viz., the environment in which agent intellect is present and active. — ucarr

Philosophically, I can only say that what the agent intellect does cannot be deduced from physical considerations. So, it is ontologically emergent. When we cannot work out the dynamics, saying"from x" could be no more than a guess. — Dfpolis

***********************************************************************************************************************************

Consider: Intelligibility perceived by agent intellect = comprehension

Intelligibility has existence independent of the perception and comprehension of agent intellect?

Asking this another way, when a tree falls in the forest sans observer, is this event nonetheless an intelligible phenomenon?

Asking it obversely, does intelligibility propagate only in direct connection to the comprehension of the agent intellect (of the sentient being)?

Attacking from yet another angle: Does intelligibility persist in the absence of sentience?

Consider: Intelligibility ≡ Order

The above statement is true?

Obversely, does non-teleological evolution preclude all linkage between intelligibility and order?

Can there be unintelligible order?

If not, must we conclude there can be no non-teleological evolution?

If so, must we conclude mind takes the sensory input of the proto-order of the objective world and converts it into the following block chain: intelligibility_perception_memory-processing-comprehension_self

***********************************************************************************************************************************

I think the agent intellect has a form/actuality... — Dfpolis

Its ontological status is not logical (it really operates), nor is it an independent being. It is a power of a rational being. — Dfpolis

Using the above statements, can I deduce agent intellect is ontologically present and active within the mind of humans?

Moreover, can I conclude agent intellect lies somewhere between hard dualism at one end and hard reduction at the other end?