are you going to explain, how something can make a representation without some sort of decisions or judgement as to what the representation will be of — Metaphysician Undercover

Did that already. Sort of. Gave you the what, even if not the how. Doesn’t matter; we’re not concerned right here right now with how it’s done, insofar as we’re not conscious of it, but only with how it can’t be done because we’re not conscious of it.

What the representation will be of? Hell, that’s a given: an intuitive representation, a phenomenon, can be nothing other than whatever is an object of perception, or a manifold of objects. And the reason that there is no deception here. Phenomena represent only what the senses provide, regardless of what that provision is. Hence…..imagination. That we make mistakes is also given; just that we must be conscious of them in order to know them as mistakes, which makes explicit we don’t make them right here right now.

Remember….we’re still stuck in the domain you forced us into, by restricting the dialectic to perception, sensation and the deceptions therein, general sensibility. I’m trying like hell to get us out of it, but I’m not dragging you out kicking and screaming; you gotta get yourself out. Go into the light, kinda thing, donchaknow.

….you've told me… — Metaphysician Undercover

….I've shown you… — Metaphysician Undercover

demonstrate that what you belief is not the case. The evidence shows your belief is false. — Metaphysician Undercover

No. The evidence both of us show, is that it is incomplete. There’s more going on here than either of us have put forth, me because it hasn’t come up yet, you because you don’t get the full implication of what you’ve shown me.

The "methodological self-contradiction" which you refer to is the result of your faulty definition of "judgement", which makes conscious thinking a necessary requirement for judgement. — Metaphysician Undercover

I haven’t defined “judgement”. That conscious thinking is a necessary condition for the activity of judgement, does not serve as definition of it. Speaking of definitions, or, which is the same thing, asking about what it is…..silence, for which I have an excuse because I was never asked but you do not, because you were.

If you would divorce judgement from thinking, as the evidence of illogical, irrational, emotional, and random judgements necessitates, then this "methodological self-contradiction" would disappear. — Metaphysician Undercover

Ok, fine. All those are still judgements. We don’t care about kinds; we want to know what any kind is, what all kinds are. What is it that makes any kind of judgement, a judgement. How did this kind come about; how did that kind come about, which inexorably reduces to how does any kind come about, or, how do all kinds come about. Only then can sufficient reason be given for why a self-contradiction might disappear, which would seem to require from you a proof that thinking is not a requirement for any kind of judgement, in spite of at least a logical proof I gave that conscious thinking is a necessary requirement for at least one kind, that being with respect to phenomena.

So you’d have it that, e.g., an irrational judgement, is that judgement entirely divorced from thinking, but I would maintain that an irrational judgement is that judgement concluded from improper thinking. Your way cannot explain the irrationality itself, whereas mine stipulates it necessarily. You, therefore, haven’t alleviated a methodological self-contradiction, but in fact enforced it.

The survival of the pattern is its persistence. We reason back from this. What kind of patterns persist ?

They might have indestructible instantiations (if we still wanted to call them patterns), but those would probably be difficult to create in a world like ours.

So instead we get those that replicate. In biological cases, we have variation, and this explains increasing complexity. But we can also think of linguistic memes and computer algorithms. Exact or nearly exact copies could work in some contexts.

Small note : Instantaneous replication is hard to make any sense of. So an instantiation must survive long enough to replicate, even if that is only for a few nanoseconds.

they don't really understand what words mean, they are just programmed to be able to put coherent sentences together, a facility which relies on their being able to mimic grammatical structure based on statistical data showing how certain questions elicit certain kinds of responses. — Janus

But what if we are hardware 'designed' by evolution to do roughly the same thing ? These things can reason. They can outperform humans on important tests. It's starting to look like humans are superstitious about their own nature. As far as I can tell, it boils down to the problem of the meaning of being, the problem of the being of meaning, the problem of the thereness of 'qualia'. And I claim we don't have a grip on it. — plaque flag

Programming or designing is an intentional act, so I don't think the analogy holds. I'll beleive an AI is conscious when I see it write poetry that is not doggerel, but nuanced, musical and rich in allusions.

You can claim we are just being "superstitious" about our natures, and there may be cases of that, but I don't find it convincing as a general explanation for being reluctant to impute consciousness to AIs.

I don't think there is any one meaning of being; to claim there is would be to claim that the word refers to just one idea, reality or whatever. I don't know what "the being of meaning" refers to; but I know what the feeling or sense of meaning is. I don't favour the reificatory term "qualia", and I have no idea what the "thereness of qualia" could be referring to. Perhaps you mean something like the immediacy of experience?

We don't need to have a grip on experience, it being better to let go, although we do try to get a grip with language so that we can generate the illusion of an actual publicly shared world. Of course I'm not saying that illusion is not, in its own way real and important. There may be altered or higher conscious states where there really is sharing, but we would need to let go of the linguistically actuated "monkey mind" in order to know that.

If we are confident, is such confidence logically justified or just mere meatbias ? For most of our history, we have done what we like with machines, without worrying about their feelings, excepting of course some of the the 'machines' provided by biological evolution.

If 'sense of meaning' is understood to be immaterial and invisible to scientific and perhaps even conceptual approach, it's hard to see how such an assumption can be justified. — plaque flag

I doubt you really believe that machines feel or care about anything. Animals are not merely machines in my view, any more than humans are. The two concepts 'machine' and 'animal' are distinct enough. Machines are not self-regulating metabolic organisms, for a start.

Sense of meaning is an affect, and machines are not sentiently affected. Sense of meaning is an experience, and we have no reason to think that machines experience anything. I think 'immaterial" is a loaded term and so not helpful here. That said sense of meaning is not a physical object that can be publicly observed. We can talk about it; but only imprecisely.

Programming or designing is an intentional act, so I don't think the analogy holds. — Janus

What exactly is this ghost intention ? I 'know' in the usual way of course. But here again we seem to be invoking the divine spark. We are machines created by evolution, so perhaps 'it' can take credit for our inventions as much as we can.

You can claim we are just being "superstitious" about our natures, and there may be cases of that, but I don't find it convincing as a general explanation for being reluctant to impute consciousness to AIs. — Janus

Let me stress that we are visceral creatures. Wrap up a clever bot in a soft warm android body that purrs and see what happens. We can't find the souls of our cats in this or that location. Where is this divine spark ? Imagine a young man falling in love with woman who treats him wonderfully who then discovers she's an android, a fact which she's concealed for fear of losing him. How does he determine whether she is 'in' there and worthy of love ? Or is she already worthy of love ?

If we zoom in on a living fleshy brain, do we find consciousness under the microscope ? Or just zaps between cells ? Where is it ? Its where is soft, glued to the body somehow as if hovering around it, playing in its/her eyes and across its/her lips, indeterminately.

I have no idea what the "thereness of qualia" could be referring to. Perhaps you mean something like the immediacy of experience? — Janus

I think 'immediacy of experience') hints at the same kind of thing. It's not how but that the world is that is the mystical. It's that there is a world, any kind of world, in the first place. 'Beneath' the concept of red there is redness. Some people speak of pure immaterial pain, or the hurt of the toothache that surpasses as logic and meaning. I think they are touching on the problem of [the meaning of] being in a Cartesian framework.

I doubt you really believe that machines feel or care about anything. Animals are not merely machines in my view, any more than humans are. The two concepts 'machine' and 'animal' are distinct enough. Machines are not self-regulating metabolic organisms, for a start. — Janus

It's true that I don't currently project feelings on or having feelings toward machines. I just don't see why I couldn't in principle --- if those machines were more like my cat or wife with respect to my sense organs. It's not logically impossible that my cat is already a machine made by crafty aliens. What if they used DNA and test tubes to build their machines ?

Sense of meaning is an affect, and machines are not sentiently affected. Sense of meaning is an experience, and we have no reason to think that machines experience anything. I think 'immaterial" is a loaded term and so not helpful here. That said sense of meaning is not a physical object that can be publicly observed. We can talk about it; but only imprecisely. — Janus

You claim that meaning can't be observed. I don't see how that claim is justified. Bots have learned to talk with us. I agree that it's difficult to talk about, but how is 'affect' to be understood ? What should machines (Pinocchios) be incapable of affect unless it's immaterial and simply assumed to only come with real boys (human beings) ? If affect isn't 'there' in order doings and dispositions, where is it ? I claim it's more of a dance than a pair of legs. Is there something else, something elusive ? Is there an awareness of the there itself in a real boy ? But what is special about the human brain ? Is it the meat ? Or is it just a structure of a function ? And how does 'affect' get a meaning at all if affects aren't essentially public ? Why should you trust that 'affect' has the same reclusive referent for both of us ?

The empirical world is a Cartesian framework, if by that you mean dualistic through and through. On the other hand the immediacy of experience is not dualistic, and nor is what gives rise to experience and the shared idea of an empirical world.

What exactly is this ghost intention ? — plaque flag

When I say something is intentional I mean it is deliberate, consciously chosen or created; the usual implication being it is something we care about; nothing to do with ghosts, which I don't care about.

Wrap up a clever bot in a soft warm android body that purrs and see what happens. — plaque flag

Is the bot going to feel what happens to that body?

We can't find the souls of our cats in this or that location. Where is this divine spark ? Imagine a young man falling in love with woman who treats him wonderfully who then discovers she's an android, a fact which she's concealed for fear of losing him. How does he determine whether she is 'in' there and worth of love ? — plaque flag

I think the question about the location of souls, or experience, or consciousness is generated by categorical confusion. Are synthetic organisms that feel things like we do,, and care about what happens to them like we do, possible? Maybe, but we are a long way from that right now.

If your hypothetical android fears the loss of her lover then she is like a human. Do you think chat-gpt feels lonely when no one is conversing with it?

I don't believe consciousness is to be "found" anywhere but via introspection; we might find physiological signs that are taken to indicate its presence but that's about it I think.

It's true that I don't currently project feelings on or having feelings toward machines. I just don't see why I couldn't in principle --- if those machines were more like my cat or wife with respect to my sense organs. It's not logically impossible that my cat is already a machine made by crafty aliens. — plaque flag

Is it merely a matter of your sense organs? Many weird things are not logically impossible, like God, it doesn't follow that we ought to believe in them. I think we need something more convincing. We can talk about, try to explain in various ways, how we feel with a lover, and we might even spin up some doubts about whether they are really feeling beings like us; it's logically possible they might be robots, but there is no sense of this possibility in our living interactions with them. What to trust...lived experience or conceptually generated doubts that only have their mere logical possibility to sustain them?

You claim that meaning can't be observed. I don't see how that claim is justified. Bots have learned to talk with us. I agree that it's difficult to talk about, but how is 'affect' to be understood ? But what is special about the human brain ? Is it the meat ? Or is it just a structure of a function ? And how does 'affect' get a meaning at all if affects aren't essentially public ? — plaque flag

I don't see how the claim that meaning can be observed can be justified. Whatever meaning bots produce is just regurgitation of what we have programmed them with.

Who knows what is special about the human brain? Is it fundamentally meat? Does it produce consciousness or is it a kind of transceiver? How could we tell the difference?

I don't know about you, but 'affect' gets its meaning for me because I experience myself as affected and affecting. I know how I feel, and sometimes in the right kinds of situations seem to be pretty good at discerning what others feel, if I pay attention.

This is from another thread, and it makes the same point I did to you earlier about semantic reference being entirely dependent on our understanding that words do refer:

I once heard John Searle say something which I believe prevents one moving down the road to confusion.

Words do not refer, but human being use words to refer.

I think sometimes folk forget this which causes folk to think a word is magically "connected" to some object. — Richard B

Is the bot going to feel what happens to that body? — Janus

That is just the kind of excellent and beautiful question I'm trying to dig out.

What does it mean to feel ?

If answering this is no more than a matter of whether typical public criteria are satisfied, then I expect that we will indeed attribute feeling to such bodies as the technology gets better.

If answering this is more than a matter of whether typical public criteria are satisfied, then I don't know and I can't know if you feel or if I feel. This is the hole in the immaterial referent story. I don't think I can 'point' to my immaterial hidden states to generate communicable meaning. Either feeling is plugged into the inferential nexus (and a function of public criteria) or it's not.

Are synthetic organisms that feel things like we do,, and care about what happens to them like we do, possible? Maybe, but we are a long way from that right now. — Janus

Do you imagine 'mind' being summoned into existence 'within' 'matter' as this happens? Will something that can already talk better than most humans begin to 'overhear' itself ? What would convince you from the outside ? What level of performance ?

Who knows what is special about the human brain? Is it fundamentally meat? Does it produce consciousness or is it a kind of transceiver? How could we tell the difference? — Janus

But what is consciousness ? I don't think we should assume some elusive referent here. We have criteria to attributing consciousness already. The brain (with the rest of the body) 'does' consciousness. I suppose that the structure of the brain is what matters, just as in artificial neural networks. [I've mentioned the forgetfulness of being issue elsewhere, so I omit it here.]

Whatever meaning bots produce is just regurgitation of what we have programmed them with. — Janus

No, they absorb structure (norms) and generate novel sentences.. That's also what we do.

This is from another thread, and it makes the same point I did to you earlier about semantic reference being entirely dependent on our understanding that words do refer: — Janus

No, I've been attacking a certain theory of reference, not presenting my own. I like Brandom's approach , which he took from Kant, which makes an entire claim the 'atom' of what am I can be responsible for. Concepts get their meanings in terms of the material inferences they license or forbid according to current linguistic norms (like Saussure's structuralism with a new theme, making it richer.)

What does it mean to feel ?

If answering this is no more than a matter of whether typical public criteria are satisfied, then I expect that we will indeed attribute feeling to such bodies as the technology gets better. — plaque flag

Most of us, by all reports, feel, so those of us who do all know firsthand what it means to feel, even if it might be hard to define.

It's also true that people don't only indicate by direct statement, but also by their actions, actions that we have learned to associate with feelings, that they feel. Bots don't do that...maybe they will someday...who knows.

Do you imagine 'mind' being summoned into existence 'within' 'matter' as this happens? Will something that can already talk better than most humans begin to 'overhear' itself ? What would convince you from the outside ? What level of performance ? — plaque flag

If a bot had something equivalent to a CNS, the I might be convinced that it feels things, just as I am convinced that animals feel things, even though I obviously cannot know for sure. If a bot started initiating conversation and asking novel and pertinent questions, or produced fine artworks, literature or music that might make me rethink the issue. I haven't encountered anything like that, so....

I tend to think most of us know, even though we cannot precisely define, what consciousness is. We can't precisely define what anything is, if you start to dig into our definitions.

No, they absorb structure (norms) and generate novel sentences.. That's also what we do. — plaque flag

I don't think that's all there is to what we do. I think we care to explain ourselves, and we like to evoke feelings and associations which seem rich to us with language. I haven't seen bots doing that...all they produce, just like everyday bodily bots, is shit.

I don't understand what you're trying to say there.

Here's some background:

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Normative pragmatism is the idea that discursive practice is implicitly, but essentially, and not just accidentally, a kind of normative practice. Discursive creatures live, and move, and have their being in a normative space. What one is doing in making a claim, performing the most fundamental kind of speech act, is committing oneself, exercising one’s authority to make oneself responsible. The commitments one undertakes in claiming (the beliefs one expresses in sincerely asserting something) are ones whose entitlement is always potentially at issue. Understanding someone’s utterance is knowing what they have committed themselves to by producing that performance, by saying what they said—as well as knowing what would entitle them to that commitment, and what is incompatible with it. Those commitments, entitlements, and incompatibilities are inferentially connected to one another. The space discursive creatures move about in by talking is a space of reasons, articulating what would be a reason for or against what. That is what connects normative pragmatism to semantic inferentialism.
...
What is it one must do in order thereby to count as classifying something as being of some kind?
In the most general sense, one classifies something simply by responding to it differentially. Stimuli are grouped into kinds by the response-kinds they tend to elicit. In this sense, a chunk of iron classifies its environments into kinds by rusting in some of them and not others, increasing or decreasing its temperature, shattering or remaining intact. As is evident from this example, if classifying is just exercising a reliable differential responsive disposition, it is a ubiquitous feature of the inanimate world. For that very reason, classifying in this generic sense is not an attractive candidate for identification with conceptual, cognitive, or conscious activity. It doesn’t draw the right line between thinking and all sorts of thoughtless activities.
...
Classification as the exercise of reliable differential responsive dispositions (however acquired) is not by itself yet a good candidate for conceptual classification, in the basic sense in which applying a concept to something is describing it. Why not? Suppose one were given a wand, and told that the light on the handle would go on if and only if what the wand was pointed at had the property of being grivey. One might then determine empirically that speakers are grivey, but microphones not, doorknobs are but windowshades are not, cats are and dogs are not, and so on. One is then in a position reliably, perhaps even infallibly, to apply the label ‘grivey’. Is one also in a position to describe things as grivey? Ought what one is doing to qualify as applying the concept grivey to things? Intuitively, the trouble is that one does not know what one has found out when one has found out that something is grivey, does not know what one is taking it to be when one takes it to be grivey, does not know what one is describing it as. The label is, we want to say, uninformative.
What more is required? Wilfrid Sellars gives this succinct, and I believe correct, answer:

It is only because the expressions in terms of which we describe objects, even such basic expressions as words for the perceptible characteristics of molar objects, locate these objects in a space of implications, that they describe at all, rather than merely label.

The reason ‘grivey’ is merely a label, that it classifies without informing, is that nothing follows from so classifying an object. If I discover that all the boxes in the attic I am charged with cleaning out have been labeled with red, yellow, or green stickers, all I learn is that those labeled with the same color share some property. To learn what they mean is to learn, for instance, that the owner put a red label on boxes to be discarded, green on those to be retained, and yellow on those that needed further sorting and decision. Once I know what follows from affixing one rather than another label, I can understand them not as mere labels, but as descriptions of the boxes to which they are applied. Description is classification with consequences, either immediately practical (“to be discarded/examined/kept”) or for further classifications.
...
Here, then, is the first lesson that analytic philosophy ought to have taught cognitive science: there is a fundamental meta-conceptual distinction between classification in the sense of labeling and classification in the sense of describing, and it consists in the inferential consequences of the classification: its capacity to serve as a premise in inferences ( practical or
theoretical) to further conclusions. (Indeed, there are descriptive concepts that are purely theoretical—such as gene and quark—in the sense that in addition to their inferential consequences of application, they have only inferential circumstances of application.)
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https://sites.pitt.edu/~rbrandom/Texts/Inferentialism_Normative_Pragmatism_and.pdf

From this perspective, 'pain' gets its meaning from the inferences it's involved in: she called into work, because it hurt too bad to stand up. In our culture, pain is understand (for instance) as an excuse or reason not to do something. Assertions are fundamental as inputs and outputs of arguments. Concepts justify or forbid inferential relationships between such assertions. At the very least this theory shines a new light on meaning and the space of reasons, it seems to me.

I started a Discussion on Brandom if you want more info.

What the representation will be of? Hell, that’s a given: an intuitive representation, a phenomenon, can be nothing other than whatever is an object of perception, or a manifold of objects. — Mww

That's what the representation is, an object of perception. The "object" is not what the representation represents. The object is the phenomenon, the representation. The question is how is it possible to produce a representation without some sort of decision as to what will be represented. Of the vast possibilities available to be represented, there is a specific representation which is produced which represents a particular portion of the available possibilities. Obviously it is not random as to what will be represented, so don't you think there must be some sort of decision as to which possibilities will be represented?

Phenomena represent only what the senses provide, regardless of what that provision is. Hence…..imagination. That we make mistakes is also given; just that we must be conscious of them in order to know them as mistakes, which makes explicit we don’t make them right here right now. — Mww

So consider what you say here "phenomena represents only what the senses provide". There must be something which determines "what the senses provide". Of course the obvious answer would appear to be that the physical composition of the body makes that determination. However that is not a real answer, unless you can say why the body is composed in that specific way. You see the body is composed in a specific way, so that the various senses provide particular portions of the vast possibilities, but the question is how could the body get composed in this way without some decisions, judgements. Take the process of trial and error for example, this process can only proceed through judgements.

That conscious thinking is a necessary condition for the activity of judgement, does not serve as definition of it. — Mww

I think that is exactly what an act of definition is, to say what is essential of the thing being defined. It's just that the definition is not yet complete. Therefore it cannot serve as a complete definition in that sense, because there would be other requirements as well. The proposition "human is necessarily animal", is an act of definition. So for you to say judgement is necessarily thinking, is also an act of definition. You have not been able to complete your definition because this is the point which I dispute. So there are two ways in which this cannot serve, one is that it is incomplete, and the other is that the evidence which I presented indicates that your generalization is produced from faulty inductive reasoning.

Ok, fine. All those are still judgements. We don’t care about kinds; we want to know what any kind is, what all kinds are. What is it that makes any kind of judgement, a judgement. How did this kind come about; how did that kind come about, which inexorably reduces to how does any kind come about, or, how do all kinds come about. Only then can sufficient reason be given for why a self-contradiction might disappear, which would seem to require from you a proof that thinking is not a requirement for any kind of judgement, in spite of at least a logical proof I gave that conscious thinking is a necessary requirement for at least one kind, that being with respect to phenomena. — Mww

OK, now we're getting down to the point, the matter of exactly what a judgement is. Instead of being distracted by the idea that a judgement is defined by the necessity of thinking, we can put that requirement aside, and look at what "judgement" really consists of. Would you agree that judgement requires possibilities, and is in some way a selection from possibility? With this basic definition, would you agree that no thinking is required to select from possibility? Then if you can put the requirement of thinking aside, and start with the requirement of selecting from possibility, as the essential requirement, we could build a more complete definition from this starting point, instead of your proposal.

So you’d have it that, e.g., an irrational judgement, is that judgement entirely divorced from thinking, but I would maintain that an irrational judgement is that judgement concluded from improper thinking. — Mww

I used those examples to demonstrate the possibility of judgement without thinking, so that you might allow this as a possibility. I didn't mean that every irrational judgement is necessarily a judgement without thinking, but that it is possible that some irrational judgements might be judgements without thinking. So this is why I mentioned numerous possibilities for judgements without thinking. I also said emotional judgements, and judgements which appear to be random. I wanted you to consider these as possibilities too. And though you might say that some emotional judgements, and some judgements which appear to be random are actually based in thought, I wanted you to accept the possibility that some of these might be made without thought. Once you allow that this is possible, then your proposition that judgement necessarily requires thinking is unjustified.

As an aside, do you believe in free will? If so, do you see that a true, freely willed act would necessarily be free from the influence of thinking? This is what Augustine exposed, that the will is a distinct aspect of the intellect, distinct from reasoning. Then Aquinas showed that while the will is subject, subservient, to the reasoning intellect in common acts of judgement, ultimately the will must be free from this subjection to reason, in an absolute sense. This is how we can explain the problem exposed by Plato, of how it is possible for a human being to do what one knows is not good. Judgement sometimes goes contrary to the thinking.

Your way cannot explain the irrationality itself, whereas mine stipulates it necessarily. You, therefore, haven’t alleviated a methodological self-contradiction, but in fact enforced it. — Mww

i don't see that you have a valid point. Irrationality is fundamentally not explainable, that's what constitutes being "irrational", that it cannot be explained rationally. It must therefore remain unintelligible. So the fact that I leave irrationality as unexplained is consistent with what irrationality really is. That you think you can stipulate, necessarily, what irrationality is, indicates that you misunderstand irrationality.

The survival of the pattern is its persistence. We reason back from this. What kind of patterns persist ? — plaque flag

But this is inconsistent with what evolution actually is, as evolving, changing patterns. That certain aspects persist is not the same as saying that the pattern persists, because "the pattern" must encompass the whole, not just a part. So the fact that a part persists is not the same as "the pattern persists".

So instead we get those that replicate. In biological cases, we have variation, and this explains increasing complexity. — plaque flag

This is the problem right here. Variation is not replication. Therefore "replication" is a faulty, 'false' principle. It is not suited for describing evolution. What is essential and fundamental to evolution is difference, not sameness. That's why there is such a wide range of different living beings in our environment.

That's what the representation is, an object of perception. — Metaphysician Undercover

No. The object of perception is that which is perceived. It is external to the senses, and is merely that by which they are affected, depending on the mode of their presence. Technically, empirical representation is an object of intuition, which is called phenomenon. Herein lay the proverbial “veil of perception”, from which arises indirect realism, and in which much ado is made of nothing.

Of the vast possibilities available to be represented….. — Metaphysician Undercover

That there is a vast quantity of objects possible to perceive, and therefore become possible phenomenal representations, is true, but irrelevant.

……there is a specific representation which is produced which represents a particular portion of the available possibilities. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yep….represents that particular portion of all possible objects that is actually perceived, and is therefore relevant, insofar as such is the necessary ground of experience itself.

Obviously it is not random as to what will be represented, so don't you think there must be some sort of decision as to which possibilities will be represented? — Metaphysician Undercover

That which determines the possibility of being represented, is the type and structure, the physiology, of human sensory apparatus. No decisions need be made; if an object is present to perception and a sensation follows, there will be a representation of it. And the need for decision for mode of sensation is already determined by the physiology itself, in that it is impossible to see with the ears, and so for each of the senses.

The decision on the form the representation will acquire, as opposed to whether or not there will be one, is an entirely different consideration.
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So consider what you say here "phenomena represents only what the senses provide". There must be something which determines "what the senses provide". — Metaphysician Undercover

Sure. The senses can provide nothing that has no relation to both space and time.

You see the body is composed in a specific way…. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, we can say we see the extension or shape of its composition, as a specific condition of its space. And we can say we see the changes in the composition, as well as its motion, as a condition of its time.

…..but the question is how could the body get composed in this way without some decisions, judgements. — Metaphysician Undercover

True enough, but the question of how an object is composed in such and such a way is not possible from the mere fact it has a certain extension in space, which is all that can be represented in a phenomenon. The questions of the how of composition require conceptions relatable to the object, and intuition contains only two conceptions of its own, space and time.

Take the process of trial and error for example, this process can only proceed through judgements. — Metaphysician Undercover

True, but that doesn’t say trial and error occurs in intuition, which is the source of phenomenal representations, or that there is trial and error going on in the first place, anywhere. Rather than an object having its composition somehow represented, trial and error then suggesting attempts to find out what that composition entails, why not just attribute properties to objects in conjunction with its representation, in which case the object’s composition conforms exactly to our understanding of its representation. If this is the way it works, this certain thing of this certain composition, is called a sun comprised of hot burning gas only because we say so, hence how that thing is to be known by us.
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quote="Metaphysician Undercover;797591"]Instead of being distracted by the idea that a judgement is defined by the necessity of thinking, we can put that requirement aside, and look at what "judgement" really consists of[/quote]

Judgement isn’t defined by the necessity of conscious thought; it is conditioned by it. That conscious thought is necessary for judgements regarding phenomena, says nothing about what judgement is or does in this regard.

Would you agree that judgement requires possibilities, and is in some way a selection from possibility? — Metaphysician Undercover

No. There are possibilities and selections from them, but they been examined and selected by the time judgement intervenes. This is what conscious thought is for and why it is antecedent to judgement, hence a necessary condition for it.

Here it becomes clear why the presence of an object removes possibility for it, but still leaves possibility for what it is. This moves possibility to being considered in thought, which is not that there is an object, which is never questioned, but what possibilities are there for how the object is to be cognized such that it accords with its sensation. Turns out, judgement is that by which the relations are validated.

I hear a loud boom, so it cannot be denied I heard something, from which arises a mere phenomenon. I have no immediate understanding of what made the boom, insofar as I am never conscious of my phenomena, but depending on the range of sensations appearing in the boom I perceive, I can conceive a range of boom-causing things conditioned by my experience of booms in general. Here the phenomenon is subjected to the rule of the categories, to which the conception of possibility properly belongs, by which the sensations of which I am conscious is subsumed under a range of conceptions which set the rules by which an object conceivable as sufficient for the phenomenon, is determinable, and is thereby the product of conscious thought. So it is that I have been given the phenomenon via sensibility, but I must think the conception that relates to it via understanding, in order to cognize what caused the boom I heard, which is experience.

Singular judgements, then, regarding perceptions or any empirical cognition, is the correctness, or the validity, of the relation between the phenomenon given to me and my knowledge of its cause. There are other subsets of empirical, discursive judgements, but they all operate under the same general principle.
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That you think you can stipulate, necessarily, what irrationality is, indicates that you misunderstand irrationality. — Metaphysician Undercover

I don’t need to stipulate what irrationality is, for it is nothing but the complement of rationality, which I must stipulate in order to know I haven’t contradicted myself under the conditions I am given. If I know the one, which I must, the other is just not that.
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I used those examples to demonstrate the possibility of judgement without thinking, so that you might allow this as a possibility. — Metaphysician Undercover

I never said every judgment required conscious thought, but only those judgements having to do with empirical cognitions. Those judgements concerned with knowledge of real physical objects. The reason I wanted us to get away form perception, sensation and implied deceptions thereof.

Hence the question back on pg 6, hinting at the domain of judgements grounded on how a subject feels about that which he thinks, and while conscious thought is still present, it is no longer a necessary antecedent condition and judgements of this aesthetic form are therefore not validations of it.

As an aside, do you believe in free will? If so, do you see that a true, freely willed act would necessarily be free from the influence of thinking? — Metaphysician Undercover

There ya go, getting close. It shouldn’t be an aside at all, insofar as judgements connected with this purely subjective domain are part and parcel of the overall human condition.

But no, I reject the notion of free will as a conjoined conception. There is freedom and there is will, but it is the case the will is not free in regard to the objects representing its volitions in accordance with laws, but in another, absolute autonomy, which is a type of freedom, by which the will determines the laws by which it shall legislate itself.

Now it should become clearer that discursive judgements concern themselves with the condition of the intelligence of the subject, but aesthetic judgements concern themselves with the condition of the subject himself, his intelligence be what it may. Under these purely subjective conditions, judgement validates that which the subject does, in accordance with his inclinations, which are therefore contingent, in relation to what his obligations prescribe him to do, in accordance with his principles, which are therefore necessary.

Are we done now?

No. The object of perception is that which is perceived. It is external to the senses, and is merely that by which they are affected, depending on the mode of their presence. Technically, empirical representation is an object of intuition, which is called phenomenon. Herein lay the proverbial “veil of perception”, from which arises indirect realism, and in which much ado is made of nothing. — Mww

Ok, so we'll say that the object of perception is that which is perceived. So the question is what chooses the aspects of reality which will be represented by a given sense organ at a given time. Why does hearing give us a representation of some sort of waves, for example? The "what" here is what we understand as sound waves, and the "how" is the actual image of the sound, the perception, phenomenon.

That there is a vast quantity of objects possible to perceive, and therefore become possible phenomenal representations, is true, but irrelevant. — Mww

How can you say this is irrelevant, when it is the crucial point? Since there is a a vast quantity of possible objects, and only some of these are represented by each sense, then there must be a choice (implying judgement) as to which possibilities will be represented. That is the "what". Furthermore, there must be other judgements as to how the object will be represented, because there is also numerous possibilities here as well.

That which determines the possibility of being represented, is the type and structure, the physiology, of human sensory apparatus. No decisions need be made; if an object is present to perception and a sensation follows, there will be a representation of it. And the need for decision for mode of sensation is already determined by the physiology itself, in that it is impossible to see with the ears, and so for each of the senses. — Mww

You are wrong here, decisions are required to create that structure. The "human sensory apparatus" is structured in such a way that decisions would be required for its creation. Do you really think that a complex sensing apparatus like that could have been created without any decisions made? Do you not recognize that such a construction project requires decisions? How would that construction process proceed without decisions? Would bits and pieces just come together by chance, and create that highly complex apparatus, just by random chance? Something is clearly amiss with this type of thinking.

True enough, but the question of how an object is composed in such and such a way is not possible from the mere fact it has a certain extension in space, which is all that can be represented in a phenomenon. The questions of the how of composition require conceptions relatable to the object, and intuition contains only two conceptions of its own, space and time. — Mww

The fact being considered here is the fact of sensation itself. What is given is sensation, and I am asking how is it possible that there is a being which senses. And the question is being asked in the context of the concept of judgement, or decision. The question is, is it not a necessary requirement for some judgements or decisions to have been made in order for a body which senses to be created, or to simply come into existence, to become?

The example was, suppose we take evolution as a sort of trial and error process. Is it not necessary for decisions to be made for a trial and error process to proceed?

True, but that doesn’t say trial and error occurs in intuition, which is the source of phenomenal representations, or that there is trial and error going on in the first place, anywhere. — Mww

The process being discussed is not necessarily a process of trial and error, that's an example. It could be a different sort of process, but it would still require decisions.

What you say here, if I understand correctly, is that the decisions, or judgements are not necessarily "in" the act of intuition itself. I respect that perspective, and that's why I've been arguing that these judgements are required for, as logically prior to intuition, and not necessarily an actual part of the intuition process itself.

There's an example which some TPF participants used in the past, of a thermostat. The thermostat switches the power off and on according to heat or lack of it. Out of all the available possibilities, it takes temperature, and out of all the possible ways of representing, it switches. We would commonly say that the thermostat doesn't make these decisions, it doesn't do any judging, yet judgement of these parameters is necessary for its existence, as having been made prior to it being created. And this would be how we understand the required judgement in relation to the existence of that sort of tool.

That seems to be an acceptable solution to how we understand the role of judgement in the existence of that sort of thing. But when we look at evolving life forms this way of looking at it becomes extremely problematic. That way, that the judgement is prior to the construction, would be the archaic way of looking at God's creation. God would have made the judgements or decisions required for creating each separate type of being, with each of their specific capacities, and God created these species accordingly, from all these different judgements. But the science of evolution shows us that things are not like this.

Evolutionary theory provides us with no reason to remove the requirement of judgement or decision though. It shows us that the judgements, or decisions, are not prior to the existence of the being, like in the case of the thermostat, so we are left with no other place for the judgement except within the being itself. This ought to incline us to look at "intuition" more closely, to see if perhaps there is judgement inherent within it.

Rather than an object having its composition somehow represented, trial and error then suggesting attempts to find out what that composition entails, why not just attribute properties to objects in conjunction with its representation, in which case the object’s composition conforms exactly to our understanding of its representation. If this is the way it works, this certain thing of this certain composition, is called a sun comprised of hot burning gas only because we say so, hence how that thing is to be known by us. — Mww

The issue here is error. Error is very real, and we must account for it. If we all, every single one of us, sees the sun as the sun, and we all agree to call it that, then there would be no problem. But as soon as one person disagrees with this, or hallucinates and sees it in some other way, then we cannot say "the object’s composition conforms exactly to our understanding of its representation", because someone is left out by this use of "our". Now we want to say that this person is simply in error, but that opens a whole can of worms, because if there is the possibility of error, this negates the necessity "conforms exactly to our understanding". We can't say that because we must allow for the real possibility of error, to be able to say that the person who does not agree is in error.

Judgement isn’t defined by the necessity of conscious thought; it is conditioned by it. That conscious thought is necessary for judgements regarding phenomena, says nothing about what judgement is or does in this regard. — Mww

Come on Mww. If you say that conscious thought is necessary for judgement, that clearly says something about what judgement is. You are stating that conscious thought is a necessary property of judgement, just like if you said animality is a necessary condition of being human. To state a necessary condition is obviously to say something about what the thing is.

And this is the perspective which I am trying to demonstrate to you as backward. From what I've been explaining, judgement is necessarily prior to conscious thought, therefore conscious thought must be understood as conditioned by judgement, not vise versa. This is why our conscious judgements are often overwhelmed by biases and prejudices. Prejudice is base in prior judgement which may not have involved conscious thought. It is imperative that we turn that perspective around, and understand how judgement is prior to thought, in order that we can overcome the harms of prejudice.

We can take deductive logic as an example. Deduction proceeds from premises, and valid deduction will maintain truth or falsity in its conclusions according to its premises. In this way, valid deductive logic cannot be mistaken, if it is valid, error is eliminated. So if there was something like "pure deductive logic", just the formal aspect, with no content, this valid logic would provide us with "pure truth". However, without any content there is nothing there, just the form of the logical process, and this provides us with nothing true about the world.

So we can take the premises as providing content. However, the premises could be wrong. And so we have a source of error. But notice that this source of error involves judgements made concerning the premises, and these judgements are prior to the logical process. Now we can understand that the source of error in unsound premises is these prior judgements. So if we look at the bigger picture, and instead of just looking at the process of logic specifically, we look at conscious thinking as a whole, we can see by analogy that the major source of error in conscious thinking in general, is the prior judgements which are prior to the conscious thinking.

No. There are possibilities and selections from them, but they been examined and selected by the time judgement intervenes. — Mww

See, you are putting judgement after judgement here. You imply that something 'examines and selects' and that is what we call an act of judgement. And you say that this act of judgement has already occurred before judgement intervenes. Do you understand the need to confirm things, to recheck, retest, etc.? That conscious judgement comprises one level of judgement does not exclude the likelihood of numerous other levels of judgement.

Here it becomes clear why the presence of an object removes possibility for it, but still leaves possibility for what it is. This moves possibility to being considered in thought, which is not that there is an object, which is never questioned, but what possibilities are there for how the object is to be cognized such that it accords with its sensation. Turns out, judgement is that by which the relations are validated. — Mww

The possibility of whether or not there is "an object" is questioned though. What process philosophy does is deny the reality of the object saying that all is process, as did Heraclitus' philosophy of "becoming" in ancient times. Once we see that a coherent philosophy can be produced which denies the reality of "the object", then the "possibility" of an object must replace the "necessity" of an object. Now we must consider that sensation gives us only the possibility of an object, because "that which sensation gives us" can be represented purely as activity, without any objects. And cognition which "accords with its sensation" need not consist of any objects. And the object cannot be taken as a given, it may be created by the cognitive act, as a sort of judgement imposed on the possibility of an object.

I hear a loud boom, so it cannot be denied I heard something, from which arises a mere phenomenon. — Mww

Your premise presumes what you claim, that is known as begging the question. When you state "I hear a loud boom", that premise dictates that you actually heard something. But we cannot start with that assumption unless we are certain that it is correct. We may start with your claim, or proposition, "I heard a loud boom", but then we must allow for the possibility that this proposition is false, therefore it is possible that you did not hear anything. It may have been all in your imagination, or you may be lying, or have faulty memory or something like that. So this example is useless. The presence of an object cannot be taken for granted, it must be approached as a possibility.

So it is that I have been given the phenomenon via sensibility... — Mww

Yes, you have been given the phenomenon via sensibility, but there is no necessary relationship between the phenomenon and what it relates to. You assume "an object", but that itself must be taken as a possibility. So we are left with the question of why does sensibility give us only possibilities, never any necessities. And the further issue is why do we assume actualities, necessities. That is just a judgement we make, that there is something actual behind all these possibilities.

I never said every judgment required conscious thought, but only those judgements having to do with empirical cognitions. Those judgements concerned with knowledge of real physical objects. The reason I wanted us to get away form perception, sensation and implied deceptions thereof.

Hence the question back on pg 6, hinting at the domain of judgements grounded on how a subject feels about that which he thinks, and while conscious thought is still present, it is no longer a necessary antecedent condition and judgements of this aesthetic form are therefore not validations of it. — Mww

I don't see the point here. Isn't "how a subject feels" just a matter of sensation? You want to get away from sensations to talk about feelings, but feelings are just another way, (other than through conscious thought), that sensations affect us. So judgements based in feelings concern real physical objects just as much as judgements based in conscious thought do. And this is not a useful distinction.

But no, I reject the notion of free will as a conjoined conception. There is freedom and there is will, but it is the case the will is not free in regard to the objects representing its volitions in accordance with laws, but in another, absolute autonomy, which is a type of freedom, by which the will determines the laws by which it shall legislate itself. — Mww

I can't comprehend this. Are you saying that the will is free in so far as its volitions must be in accordance with laws, but also that the will determines these laws? Isn't that absolute freedom then? What's the point in saying "in accordance with laws", if the will is free to state whatever laws it desires?

And this part, "the objects representing its volitions", what are these objects here? Are they just possible objects, or the possibility for an object, as described above?

You say "getting close" here, but really our vocabularies are so far apart, and that's why we can't really get close without very lengthy discussion to understand the way each other talks.

Now it should become clearer that discursive judgements concern themselves with the condition of the intelligence of the subject, but aesthetic judgements concern themselves with the condition of the subject himself, his intelligence be what it may. Under these purely subjective conditions, judgement validates that which the subject does, in accordance with his inclinations, which are therefore contingent, in relation to what his obligations prescribe him to do, in accordance with his principles, which are therefore necessary. — Mww

So you make a distinction between discursive judgements and aesthetic judgements. But I don't see what an aesthetic judgement could possibly be, under the precepts you've described. Are these judgements which are done without conscious thought? If so, then why not allow that all the different animals, insects, plants, etc., also make some sort of aesthetic judgements or judgements of another sort? These judgements would validate what these living beings do.

Are we done now? — Mww

To tell you the truth, I don't think so, but we could quit anytime you want . You haven't convinced me of your perspective, nor have I convinced you of mine. We may be on the road to compromise with your proposal of two types of judgement though. Would you be open to the idea of numerous types of judgement?

The question is, is it not a necessary requirement for some judgements or decisions to have been made in order for a body which senses to be created, or to simply come into existence, to become? — Metaphysician Undercover

The only method for judgement I can use is right between my ears, and since that cannot be the creator of me, whatever that creator is, if it is, is something for which I have no interest.

This (evolutionary theory) ought to incline us to look at "intuition" more closely, to see if perhaps there is judgement inherent within it. — Metaphysician Undercover

Been done already. Came up empty. If there is, it’s going to require a whole new way of looking for it, in order to find it.

Sure, that there may be a decision-making process out there somewhere, is not impossible. But even if there is, what difference would it make to that which is, now. We are what we are, and everything is as it is, whether there was or was not a decision-making process. We and things could have been different but nothing is different than it is, so….who cares. Better to contemplate decision-making in which a change is given because I am the cause of it.
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I hear a loud boom, so it cannot be denied I heard something, from which arises a mere phenomenon.
— Mww

Your premise presumes what you claim, that is known as begging the question. When you state "I hear a loud boom", that premise dictates that you actually heard something. But we cannot start with that assumption unless we are certain that it is correct. — Metaphysician Undercover

We? Who the hell is we? I’m as certain as I need to be, and you can assume anything you like. I wonder, though, what you do first, when I state that I heard a boom. Do you immediately imagine what it’s like to hear a boom with your own ears, or do you immediately doubt I heard one with mine? Dunno about you, but when someone tells me about some perception of his, I start by assuming his certainty.
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Once we see that a coherent philosophy can be produced which denies the reality of "the object", then the "possibility" of an object must replace the "necessity" of an object — Metaphysician Undercover

I’m not ever going to experience a merely possible object, from which follows a coherent philosophy which denies the necessity of objects, with respect to my experience, is a contradiction.

And the object cannot be taken as a given, it may be created by the cognitive act, as a sort of judgement imposed on the possibility of an object — Metaphysician Undercover

An object can be created by cognition, but such object is, at the time of its being cognized, not a sensible object, hence not a phenomenon. These are objects generated by purely a priori conditions and are merely conceptions that are thought, but by which sensible objects can possibly be constructed that represent them. First and foremost, the most ubiquitous of these, are numbers.

The reality of perceived objects, is necessary; the reality of a priori objects, is contingent. The validity of objects a priori, is necessary; the validity of perceived objects, is contingent.

The judgement imposed on the possibility of an object is the same kind as imposed on real objects, only from a different set of categorical schema.
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Isn't "how a subject feels" just a matter of sensation? — Metaphysician Undercover

You tell me. Is the sensation you get from pictures you see of objects in the universe, the same kind of feeling you get when you imagine being there?

feelings are just another way, (other than through conscious thought), that sensations affect us. — Metaphysician Undercover

Take any A-HA!! moment of your life…..assuming you’ve had at least one…..compare it to stubbing your toe. The latter requires a real physical incident, the former does not, insofar as you can have your epiphany over a merely possible incident and of course there’s no sensation in a possible incident. So you could get away with saying feelings are concerned with possible sensations, but the problem then becomes the certainty of that feeling, however it manifests, but without the certainty of the thing that caused it. Then the best you can do is tell yourself you don’t know why you feel the way you do, the very epitome of confusion and doubt.

You can mix objective physiological sensation with subjective pain/pleasure if you like, but that won’t do in speculative metaphysics. This goes here, that goes there, and by mixing them up a contradiction can be forced, which does nothing but wreck the whole deal.

Sure, that there may be a decision-making process out there somewhere, is not impossible. But even if there is, what difference would it make to that which is, now. — Mww

To say it's not impossible, is to miss the reality that it is logically necessary. It's not impossible that the earth orbits the sun, but to say that this is not impossible misses the reality that it's logically necessary.

The difference that recognizing this reality makes, is that it is an ongoing decision-making process, and it is why we have free will. Conscious decision-making is the tip of the iceberg, that part of the decision-making process which is evident to the conscious mind. Understanding that conscious decision-making is just the tip of a much bigger process helps one to understand what it means to be a human being.

We are what we are, and everything is as it is, whether there was or was not a decision-making process. — Mww

This is a fatalist, determinist saying. In reality, the power of choice allows us to change, and become something new at each passing moment. There is no such thing as "what we are", or "as it is", because by the time you say "now", it is past, and there is something new. Therefore "what we are", and "as it is" are always in the past, and we're always moving on from that. The decision-making process is what allows us to be moving on rather than what we are.

We? Who the hell is we? — Mww

It was presented to me as an example. You and I makes "we". You may feel absolutely certainty of what you heard, but I'm not. So, I must accept it as a possibility until your assertion is justified. And that's why your example does nothing for me.

I’m not ever going to experience a merely possible object, from which follows a coherent philosophy which denies the necessity of objects, with respect to my experience, is a contradiction. — Mww

Your experience is quite different from mine obviously. That's why I was inclined to doubt you when you said you heard a boom.

Your experience appears to be self-contradicting. You told me the object is not the phenomenon. What you experience is the phenomenon. You do not experience objects so your experience produces no necessity of objects. You ought to realize that objects are merely possibilities.

The reality of perceived objects, is necessary; the reality of a priori objects, is contingent. — Mww

If the object is not the phenomenon, as you told me, yet the mind is known to create objects, which are contingent objects, show me how your mind derives a necessary object please.

Take any A-HA!! moment of your life…..assuming you’ve had at least one…..compare it to stubbing your toe. The latter requires a real physical incident, the former does not, insofar as you can have your epiphany over a merely possible incident and of course there’s no sensation in a possible incident. So you could get away with saying feelings are concerned with possible sensations, but the problem then becomes the certainty of that feeling, however it manifests, but without the certainty of the thing that caused it. Then the best you can do is tell yourself you don’t know why you feel the way you do, the very epitome of confusion and doubt. — Mww

Here's a better comparison. Let's compare when I stub my toe, with when I suddenly get a cramp in my leg. The two sensations, being sudden sharp pain, are quite comparable. Would you agree that they are both "real physical incidents"? The difference though is that I can point to the rock that I stubbed my toe on and blame that rock, saying that it caused my pain. But in the case of the cramp in my leg, there's nothing for me to point at and blame. In reality though, that is simply misplaced blame. The cause of my pain is not the rock, but whatever it is which is going on in my body, just like when I get a cramp, the cause of the pain is whatever it is which is going on in my body.

Likewise, pointing out external things, and saying that these things are the cause of any sort of sensations, is a mistake. These supposed "things" are not the cause of the sensations. Whatever it is which is going on in the human body is the cause. There is no shame in saying I do not know why I feel the way I do. However, there is shame in blaming the rock as "the cause" of your pain, and insisting that you are certain of this, because it is obviously mistaken.

that there may be a decision-making process out there somewhere, is not impossible.
— Mww

To say it's not impossible, is to miss the reality that it is logically necessary. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yeah, my fault, sort of. You began by claiming a necessary decision-making process for construction of human sensory apparatus, and I took that to decision-making for all reality. I should have left it at human sensory apparatus, in which, being a father, I’ve witnessed the construction of my children’s sensory apparatus from absolutely none at all, to fully functional, under purely empirical, decision-less, conditions.

I suppose you’re left to say that because I made the decision to be a father, my children’s sensory apparatus to come into existence necessarily from that decision alone, which is quite absurd, seeing as how my decision extended only so far as getting laid. My kids shouldn’t have had any sensory apparatus constructed, if your argument is the case, but they did. Your argument is flawed.

For a thing to be not impossible is sufficient for its possibility, but to be merely sufficient is very far from being necessary. The necessary does not logically follow from the not impossible, but from that which is not contingent. Your logic is flawed.

It's not impossible that the earth orbits the sun, but to say that this is not impossible misses the reality that it's logically necessary. — Metaphysician Undercover

(Gaspsputterchoke) Wha???? A pitiful sophism. Observations prove/disprove logical constructs. If a guy can observe some condition, he has no need for logical constructions regarding the reality of the observation, but he may construct logical explanations for them, iff he actually wants to know.
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Understanding that conscious decision-making is just the tip of a much bigger process helps one to understand what it means to be a human being. — Metaphysician Undercover

Unless conscious decision-making just is what it means to be a human being, in which case that process is all he needs, and if there happens to be a bigger process takes nothing away from his being one. Long been understood, a human being can think anything he wants. If he wants to think there’s a bigger process, fine. He still has to ask about that bigger process by means of that by which he asks anything, hence is subject to the very same rules as contained in the conscious decision-making process he used for those answers with which he’s satisfied.

This reminds me of something you said about a coherent philosophy. A philosophy for which the understanding of the human conscious decision-making process is complete and unabridged, for which there remains no questions that process could ask even of itself, would necessarily be the most coherent philosophy possible.
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We are what we are, and everything is as it is, whether there was or was not a decision-making process.
— Mww

This is a fatalist, determinist saying. In reality, the power of choice allows us to change, and become something new at each passing moment — Metaphysician Undercover

Fine. You say fatalist, determinist; I say logically incontestable. Even to be something new is to be what we are. We can be forced to change just as much as we can choose to change, therefore the means for of change has no necessary implication; we’re just as new whether the means is one or the other. Evolutionary change is neither forced nor chosen, but recognition of evolutionary change is not immediate, so carries no more necessary implication regarding newness than either of the other means that are.

There is no such thing as "what we are", or "as it is" — Metaphysician Undercover

So…you’re not what you are? If you constantly change into something new, then you are constantly not any thing but only some thing not what you were. But even what you were was only that which was not something before it. You have not much other choice than to say what you are not. To complete the circle, what remains from all of what you can say you are not, is what you can say you are. Which is where you started.

The decision-making process is what allows us to be moving on rather than what we are. — Metaphysician Undercover

It also limits the illusory appearance that we have.

Like I said…a human can think anything he wants. But he really does himself no favors by making a complete mess of it.
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Your experience appears to be self-contradicting. You told me the object is not the phenomenon. What you experience is the phenomenon. You do not experience objects so your experience produces no necessity of objects. You ought to realize that objects are merely possibilities. — Metaphysician Undercover

True, the object is not the phenomenon; the phenomenon represents the sensation an object provides. The objects are therefore the necessary material condition for sensation, subsequently the necessary spatial condition for the possibility of phenomena in general. No objects, no sensation, no phenomena.

True, my experience is of my phenomena. I do not experience objects, but only the representations of them.

True, my experience produces no necessity of objects. Necessity is produced in understanding.

If I perceive an object, and if that perception forwards a sensation in conjunction with the mode of its perception, and if the sensation is the means by which a phenomenon is given, then the object is necessary for all that. An object satisfying this criteria cannot be a mere possibility. It is utterly irrelevant that I as yet may not know what this object is from which these internal events follow, but because they do follow it is immediately contradictory to suppose it is only a possible object affecting me, and while the as yet indeterminable object grants the possibility of how it will eventually be known, such undeterminability does not take away from it being a necessary physical presence.
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The reality of perceived objects, is necessary; the reality of a priori objects, is contingent.
— Mww

If the object is not the phenomenon, as you told me, yet the mind is known to create objects, which are contingent objects, show me how your mind derives a necessary object please. — Metaphysician Undercover

The mind….properly theoretical pure reason a priori…..derives its necessary objects in conjunction with the conceptions under which they are to be subsumed. A necessary object is that object for which the negation is impossible, which makes any necessary object, a logical construct.

That being established, necessary objects the mind derives are not contingent; the reality of them, is, and such reality depends exclusively on the possibility of the phenomena that represent them. Your so-called bigger process is a good example, in that it is possible to logically construct a bigger process of whatever form, and understand it as such, but quite another to experience it, which would only be possible if that process, or the objects contained in it, were susceptible to phenomenal representation.

A bigger process is itself only a conception, as yet with no object that describes what such bigger process entails, what makes it a bigger process, how it is not merely a familiar lesser process with simply larger scope. Whatever that object is, or plurality of objects, however reason constructs, is necessarily related to the conception, subsumed under it, such that the conception takes a form without self-contradiction.

You’re welcome.
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Take any A-HA!! moment of your life….. compare it to stubbing your toe.
— Mww

Here's a better comparison. Let's compare when I stub my toe, with when I suddenly get a cramp in my leg. — Metaphysician Undercover

It is not a better comparison when only to like kinds when properly it should be unlike kinds.

But in the case of the cramp in my leg, there's nothing for me to point at and blame. — Metaphysician Undercover

So you don’t immediately and automatically rub the muscle in the exact location of a charlie horse? You rub the muscle far removed from it? Even if you do neither, your brain locates it, which represents as an image of that very location in fact being rubbed, because muscle extension as relaxation is already understood as the most feasible relief. It follows, with respect to empirical judgements, you’ve made the first regarding that a rub is feasible, and second, where the rub must occur in order for its feasibility to properly manifest. A-HA!!! moments, it should be clear, are judged not like that in a completed series of them, although the initial judgement may be with respect to an empirical condition, but the concluding judgement will have nothing whatsoever to do with it. It is nonsense to judge the cause of an event in the same way as the effect the event has, when ‘the cause of this’ and ‘this caused effect on’, are related to very different things.

Likewise, pointing out external things, and saying that these things are the cause of any sort of sensations, is a mistake. — Metaphysician Undercover

Could be, but only under the auspices of a method which suffices to prove it is, at the expense of whatever method which suffices to prove it isn’t.

I should have left it at human sensory apparatus, in which, being a father, I’ve witnessed the construction of my children’s sensory apparatus from absolutely none at all, to fully functional, under purely empirical, decision-less, conditions. — Mww

I've explained to you already, the decision-making process is not empirically observable. You can witness all sorts of different things, and people doing all sorts of different things, but you do not witness any decision making process, except some aspects of your own. Furthermore, empirical observation of the results of decision-making, the consequences or effects of decisions, indicates that one person's decision-making process is not the same as another's. This is why there is difference, and what induces us to say things like "you are wrong and I am right", "you're irrational", "illogical", "emotional", etc.. Because the decision-making process is not empirically observable, in any situation where it exists, it will not be apprehended by an observer, unless the observer proceeds from the appropriate premises, required to determine its existence.

Therefore, that there is a decision-making process occurring in anything other than my own conscious mind, is something which I can only conclude from a logical process, and the appropriate premises which allow for the possibility that there is decision-making process going on there. In other words, if your premise is that decision-making process only exists where it can be observed, you will not find it anywhere other than in your own conscious mind.

For a thing to be not impossible is sufficient for its possibility, but to be merely sufficient is very far from being necessary. The necessary does not logically follow from the not impossible, but from that which is not contingent. Your logic is flawed. — Mww

You see X as possible. I see X as logically necessary. This indicates that your decision-making process is different from mine. It does not indicate that my logic is flawed. It is evidence that supports my position though, that other decision-making processes are not the same as the one in your conscious mind. So it's looking more like it might be your logic which is flawed, not mine.

However, as I tried to explain earlier, it's not necessarily the logic which is flawed here. It's more likely that the premises are what are flawed. The premises, generally, are derived from our empirical observations, and the flaw is in how we generalize from observation. This is induction. Generalizations usually involve unstated premises, which are hidden, and exist as prejudices which influence the decision-making process. So, for instance, you said that you observed your children's development of sensory apparatus, and you never noticed any decision-making, so you concluded that there was no such decision-making going on. The unstated, hidden premise, which misled your decision-making process, is the idea that the decision-making process would be observable. That's a flawed premise which would create an unsound conclusion. but it's not the logic that is flawed, but the premise.

Now, we need to consider the reality of these hidden (and often flawed) premises. These are prejudices which often can influence the decision-making without the decision-maker even knowing, because they are often hidden even to the decision-maker. Therefore we have features of the conscious decision which the conscious decision-maker is not even consciously aware of. Now the conscious decision is not carried out completely by the conscious activity, because we need to allow for the reality of these non-conscious features which influence the decision.

Gaspsputterchoke) Wha???? A pitiful sophism. Observations prove/disprove logical constructs. If a guy can observe some condition, he has no need for logical constructions regarding the reality of the observation, but he may construct logical explanations for them, iff he actually wants to know. — Mww

You've got this backward Mww. Logic is what provides certainty, not empirical observation. That's the point of my example about the earth orbiting the sun. Empirical observation provides us with possibilities concerning the reality of things, and we use logic to produce certainties, which we call necessities. Then the logical constructs are employed to disprove all those possibilities provided by empirical observations, which are not consistent with the logical necessities. The empirical observation is that the sun rises and sets, the logical construction produces the necessity, or certainty, that the earth is really rotating, and this logical certainty disproves the empirical observation that the sun rises and sets, as a flawed possibility, actually impossible.

The way that you present things is exactly the reason why Socrates and Plato argued so fervently that the senses deceive us. Sense observations do not give us reality, they give us possibilities. This is very evident from the fact that a multitude of different people observing the very same event will always provide differing descriptions. These description, sense observations, are taken by the thinking mind as possibilities for reality. Then we must employ logic to determine which we want to accept as certainties, necessities.

Unless conscious decision-making just is what it means to be a human being, in which case that process is all he needs, and if there happens to be a bigger process takes nothing away from his being one. — Mww

This is clearly not the case. Being a human being involves a lot more than just conscious decision making. There is for example, the carrying out of the process called for by the decision, the acting. This is when the mistakes of the logic are really exposed, not in observation as you propose, but in action. Even the assumed certainties, or necessities, of logic can be flawed. So we have three stages. Observation, then employment of logic, then action. Each stage exposes mistakes of the prior stage.

This reminds me of something you said about a coherent philosophy. A philosophy for which the understanding of the human conscious decision-making process is complete and unabridged, for which there remains no questions that process could ask even of itself, would necessarily be the most coherent philosophy possible. — Mww

The problem is that understanding the conscious decision-making process reveals that it is flawed. It is flawed for the reasons exposed above, much of it is carried out by the non-conscious, as exposed above, with the "hidden premises", and all sorts of premises which are simply taken for granted without being consciously thought about to validate them. So "the most coherent philosophy possible" is the one which apprehends itself as extremely flawed. That's Socratic skepticism.

You say fatalist, determinist; I say logically incontestable. Even to be something new is to be what we are. We can be forced to change just as much as we can choose to change, therefore the means for of change has no necessary implication; we’re just as new whether the means is one or the other. Evolutionary change is neither forced nor chosen, but recognition of evolutionary change is not immediate, so carries no more necessary implication regarding newness than either of the other means that are. — Mww

The issue here is that "what we are" implies a present in time. "We are" indicates "now", the present. And when we put "now" into its proper temporal context we see it as a divisor between past and future. The past is determined and cannot be changed. The future is undetermined. However, our way of understanding temporal existence is to extend the determined past into the future, in the mode of prediction. This trends toward negating the reality of "now" as the divisor, by making the future determined equally with the past, by denying the separation between the determined past and the undetermined future.

Now, we realize that this mode of negating the now, and making all of reality determined is inherently wrong, because this would annihilate all the need for judgement. There would be no true possibilities, and no need to make decisions. So we are inclined toward a compromise, a sort of compatibilism. But all this does is cast the "now" into a position of unintelligibility by providing no coherent principles whereby we can separate the determined from the undetermined. Then we tend to base "possibility" on what we, as human beings have the capacity to change (what we could be in the future), and we base "necessity" on what we cannot change (what we are, as derived from the past). So for instance, we cannot stop the sun from rising tomorrow, so this is considered as a determined necessity, but I can prevent the tree from falling on my house in the future, by cutting it down today, so this is not determined. The problem, is that this produces a huge grey area when we do not truly know our own capacities. There is no clear division between what is determined and what is not determined, because that is based solely on human capacity rather than something objective.

So, I propose we go to that divisor, "now", and say that the now makes a clear and precise division between what is determined, the past, and what is not determined, the future. But if the entirety of the future consists of possibilities, with nothing occurring of necessity, then we need to assume a process which "decides" what will happen at each moment as time passes. That must be a decision-making process.

So…you’re not what you are? If you constantly change into something new, then you are constantly not any thing but only some thing not what you were. But even what you were was only that which was not something before it. You have not much other choice than to say what you are not. To complete the circle, what remains from all of what you can say you are not, is what you can say you are. Which is where you started. — Mww

Correct, that's what happens when we apprehend the "now" as the divisor. All of reality is either in the past or in the future, as the divisor is a non-dimensional boundary, as a principle, which separates the two. Nothing can be at the boundary so there is no such thing as "what you are", implying your existence "now". Part of you is on one side of the boundary, part is on the other, and there is no such thing as "what you are".

But he really does himself no favors by making a complete mess of it. — Mww

Well, it's arguably much worse to look at a complete mess, and insist that there is no mess at all.

If I perceive an object, and if that perception forwards a sensation in conjunction with the mode of its perception, and if the sensation is the means by which a phenomenon is given, then the object is necessary for all that. An object satisfying this criteria cannot be a mere possibility. It is utterly irrelevant that I as yet may not know what this object is from which these internal events follow, but because they do follow it is immediately contradictory to suppose it is only a possible object affecting me, and while the as yet indeterminable object grants the possibility of how it will eventually be known, such undeterminability does not take away from it being a necessary physical presence. — Mww

When you perceive phenomena as objects, and you insist that there must be objects beyond that, as the cause of this phenomena, you are doing just that, taking the mess which lies beyond your sensation, and insisting that it is not a mess. Your argument here is not sound. You have no premise which allows you to conclude that if there is a phenomena there is necessarily an "object" which causes it. You might state this as a premise but that would be begging the question. And, the existence of imaginary things in dreams for example, demonstrates that such a premise is false. So you have no sound argument.

You simply deny the mess by begging the question with, "if the sensation is the means by which a phenomenon is given, then the object is necessary". That which is sensed is not necessarily objects. Your hidden premise (prejudice) is that what is sensed is objects. Rather than recognizing that what is sensed is a mess, and the act of sensation cleans up the mess by presenting to your conscious mind the appearance of objects, as phenomena you simply assume a necessity of objects. You provide no justification for your use of "necessary" here in relation to objects.

The mind….properly theoretical pure reason a priori…..derives its necessary objects in conjunction with the conceptions under which they are to be subsumed. A necessary object is that object for which the negation is impossible, which makes any necessary object, a logical construct. — Mww

Right, here you even admit it, a necessary object is a logical construct. But in the last paragraph your premise was that sensation produced a necessary object. So the only necessary objects are those in the mind, produced from conception. That which is sensed is something different, therefore not necessary objects.

That being established, necessary objects the mind derives are not contingent; the reality of them, is, and such reality depends exclusively on the possibility of the phenomena that represent them. — Mww

What happened to this "pure logical process" you were talking about before, the a priori? that is what you said produces necessary objects, why bring in phenomena here? if you believe in a pure logical process, then the reality of objects, and the necessity of them might be purely logical. I denied that idea, of a purely logical process, insisting that there must be content of some sort. However, the content need not be objects, so from my perspective there is no necessity to objects at all, either as mental constructs or as that which is sensed. As mental constructs, "necessary objects" never gets justified because the phenomena cannot provide that justification. And as something independent, the assumption of "necessary objects" suffers the problems described above. So there is really no place at all for the idea of "necessary objects".

It is not a better comparison when only to like kinds when properly it should be unlike kinds. — Mww

If the kinds are unlike then there is no similarity and the example is pointless.

So you don’t immediately and automatically rub the muscle in the exact location of a charlie horse? You rub the muscle far removed from it? Even if you do neither, your brain locates it, which represents as an image of that very location in fact being rubbed, because muscle extension as relaxation is already understood as the most feasible relief. It follows, with respect to empirical judgements, you’ve made the first regarding that a rub is feasible, and second, where the rub must occur in order for its feasibility to properly manifest. — Mww

When I get a cramp in my leg I stand up and walk to relieve it. I do not rub it, there is no external stimulus required, nothing which fulfils your description of "real physical incident". So I think you ought to accept my proposal, a "real physical incident" does not require an external cause, it could be entirely within the body.

Because the decision-making process is not empirically observable, in any situation where it exists, it will not be apprehended by an observer, unless the observer proceeds from the appropriate premises, required to determine its existence. — Metaphysician Undercover

Then there is no sufficient reason to think…..

The "human sensory apparatus" is structured in such a way that decisions would be required for its creation. — Metaphysician Undercover

….this has any approximation to being the case. If a process is not empirically observable there’s no reason to look for the initial premises sufficient to find it. It isn’t observable, so how would it be known what to look for?

Furthermore, empirical observation of the results of decision-making, the consequences or effects of decisions, indicates that one person's decision-making process is not the same as another's. — Metaphysician Undercover

Nonsense. I add 12 to 30, get 42. You add 18 to 6, get 24. We got different results, but used exactly the same process. While it may be an unauthorized stretch to apodeitically claim what the decision-making process in fact is, it is not so much of a stretch to say that for any member of a given kind, whatever it is will be the same across the spectrum of its members.
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However, as I tried to explain earlier…… — Metaphysician Undercover

You mean this?

From what I've been explaining, judgement is necessarily prior to conscious thought, therefore conscious thought must be understood as conditioned by judgement, not vise versa. This is why our conscious judgements are often overwhelmed by biases and prejudices. Prejudice is base in prior judgement which may not have involved conscious thought. — Metaphysician Undercover

All you say here is uncontested, but says nothing with respect to origins. It is fine for the mediocre understanding, but hardly of metaphysical value. Even the judgement which serves as current bias, was at its inception, the result of conscious thought. All you’ve done is kicked the can backwards, but haven’t given it a place to rest.

However, as I tried to explain earlier, it's not necessarily the logic which is flawed here. It's more likely that the premises are what are flawed. The premises, generally, are derived from our empirical observations, and the flaw is in how we generalize from observation. This — Metaphysician Undercover

Right, which is shown by the arithmetic examples above. For empirical conditions, for a logical conclusion regarding real things, the premises are generally derived from observations. And how we generalize from observation, is in fact, how the observation, and by association, the real thing, is understood. From which follows that the premises used for logical conclusions, arise in understanding, therefore whatever flaws there may be in the construction of our premises, also arise in understanding.

For me to misjudge is merely for me to think conceptions relate to each other when some other judgement or some empirical observation, shows my error. For two people to disagree is nothing but one thinking his conceptions relate, the other thinks his relate, but in fact the two sets of conceptions themselves do not relate to each other.
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The way that you present things is exactly the reason why Socrates and Plato argued so fervently that the senses deceive us. Sense observations do not give us reality, they give us possibilities. This is very evident from the fact that a multitude of different people observing the very same event will always provide differing descriptions. — Metaphysician Undercover

They may well have argued fervently, but they both took insufficient account of the depth of human cognition. Sense observations give reality; understanding gives the possibility for determining a relation to that reality, and its relation is described by how it is thought, and how it is thought is the conjunction, the synthesis if you will, of conceptions to intuitions, which is a judgement.

These description, sense observations, are taken by the thinking mind as possibilities for reality. Then we must employ logic to determine which we want to accept as certainties, necessities. — Metaphysician Undercover

Given a representational human cognitive system, these descriptions taken by the thinking mind….properly understanding itself….are not the observation, which gives nothing but phenomena, but are conceptions, as possibilities for how the phenomena are to be thought. Logic is employed with respect to judgements made on the relation of conceptions understanding thinks as belonging to each other (plates over holes should be steel and round, re: manhole covers), or, the relations of judgements understood as belonging to each other, in the case of multiple judgements regarding the same cognition (plates over ditches should be steel but must not be round, re: ferry ramps).
————

The problem is that understanding the conscious decision-making process reveals that it is flawed. It is flawed for the reasons exposed above, much of it is carried out by the non-conscious, as exposed above, with the "hidden premises", and all sorts of premises which are simply taken for granted without being consciously thought about to validate them. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, there are flaws possible in the conscious decision-making process, but that does not say the process is flawed, but only the use of it, is. And whatever “hidden premises” there are in conscious decision-making cannot be the responsibility of the conscious agent making the decisions, insofar as it is contradictory to arrive at a conscious decision grounded by premises of which I am not conscious. To simply take for granted bias and prejudice as premises for conscious judgement, is a flaw in the subject’s character, not in the process the agent employs in his decision-making. One can be tutored in correcting erroneous judgements, but if he is so tutored, yet decides to disregard the corrections, he is called pathologically stupid. If tutored, and receives the corrections and thereby judges in accordance with them, that is called experience, and serves as ground of all empirical judgements.

Observations prove/disprove logical constructs.
— Mww

You've got this backward. Logic is what provides certainty, not empirical observation. That's the point of my example about the earth orbiting the sun. Empirical observation provides us with possibilities concerning the reality of things, and we use logic to produce certainties, which we call necessities. — Metaphysician Undercover

No, I don’t. Logical certainty may not require empirical proof, and indeed, may not have any at all afforded to it, this being a limit of forms, re: A = A. But for any logical certainty, using constructed objects of its own manufacture and representing empirical conditions, only observation can serve as proof of those constructs, re: the sun doesn’t rise or fall as the appearance from certain restricted observation warrants.

Empirical observation presupposes the thing, and merely provides the occasion for thinking about the possibilities concerning what a thing is or does, its reality already given by the occasion itself. Logic, on the other hand where observation is not presupposing anything because there’s nothing to observe, dictates the possible reality of things. Subsequent observation then proving the possibility, but having nothing to do with the reality of that thing, insofar as it was always an existent thing, just unobserved. At last, an empirical construct directly proceeding from the merely logical, re: things created by an intelligence because the logical possibility for it antecedes from the same intelligence, that never was possible to observe in order to validate the possibility, but rather, the construction is the observation, re: any gas station anywhere in the world.
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When I get a cramp in my leg I stand up and walk to relieve it. I do not rub it, there is no external stimulus required, nothing which fulfils your description of "real physical incident". — Metaphysician Undercover

Yeeaahhhno. As if standing up and walking isn’t a real physical incident.

Then there is no sufficient reason to think….. — Mww

The reason is produced by logic, not by empirical observation. I went through that already. You wrongfully apply a requirement of "empirical observation".

If a process is not empirically observable there’s no reason to look for the initial premises sufficient to find it. It isn’t observable, so how would it be known what to look for? — Mww

So says, the person with no philosophical desire to know. Your claim amounts to: 'What I cannot see I have no desire to know anything about'. We venture into the dark without necessarily knowing what we're looking for, but still looking for what we want to know. That is the philosophical desire to know.

An effect has a cause, even if the cause is not observable. This is how we can know God, Who is not observable. Through observation of His effects, and application of logic such as the cosmological argument, we can conclude the necessity of God, without ever observing Him empirically.

I add 12 to 30, get 42. You add 18 to 6, get 24. We got different results, but used exactly the same process. — Mww

if you really think so, then I'm sure you could describe this process in detail, which we both used. I'll be waiting. And, I'm just as certain that I will assert that you did not describe the process which was used by me.

All you say here is uncontested, but says nothing with respect to origins. — Mww

Do you not understand the meaning of "prior to"? It means before, therefore it says something about the origins of that which it is before.

And how we generalize from observation, is in fact, how the observation, and by association, the real thing, is understood. From which follows that the premises used for logical conclusions, arise in understanding, therefore whatever flaws there may be in the construction of our premises, also arise in understanding. — Mww

This is the heart of our disagreement. I do not agree with your premise, that how we generalize from observation is how the real thing is "understood". I believe that such generalizations, especially the most fundamental ones (such as my example, the sun rises, the sun sets), which are things we take for granted, cannot be spoken of in terms of "understanding", because if we use this term many would have to be misunderstandings. That is known as the problem of induction.

To state it succinctly, a description does not qualify as an "understanding". So we need to apply a distinction between the application of reason, including deductive forms of logic, which provides understanding, and observation, which provides description. We see this in the scientific method of experimentation. Experiments are designed to test an hypothesis. So the descriptions which are provided by the observations are only conducive toward "understanding", when employed in the proper way, the way of the design of the experiment. I.e., the method must be followed in order that the observations are conducive to understanding.

Now, this casts doubt on this whole proposed structure of understanding, which holds that the premises are derived from observation. What we can see, from the example of the scientific method, is that the premises are derived from hypotheses rather than observations. Then, the observations (descriptions) are formulated in such a way so as to either confirm or deny the hypotheses. This indicates that observations, are fundamentally biased, or prejudiced, as directed purposefully toward the underlying hypotheses which form the basic premises. That the observations have the possibility to support confirmation, or support rejection, of the hypothesis, and therefore appear to be unbiased, does not negate the fact that they are fundamentally directed toward the underlying hypothesis and are therefore biased in that way.

For me to misjudge is merely for me to think conceptions relate to each other when some other judgement or some empirical observation, shows my error. — Mww

I find that to be a very strange way of looking at "misjudgement". It is impossible that you have misjudged unless someone demonstrates your error?

Sense observations give reality... — Mww

This is where I strongly disagree. Like I said last post, sense observations provide only possibilities. All of them. That's why we have a multitude of senses, to allow cross-checking. You thought you heard something for example, but when you look you see it was very likely other than what you thought. And, it's very obvious that observations give only possibilities, when a number of people describe the same event in conflicting ways. So logic demonstrates very clearly that it is impossible that sense observations give reality, they give possibilities.

Given a representational human cognitive system, these descriptions taken by the thinking mind….properly understanding itself….are not the observation, which gives nothing but phenomena, but are conceptions, as possibilities for how the phenomena are to be thought. Logic is employed with respect to judgements made on the relation of conceptions understanding thinks as belonging to each other (plates over holes should be steel and round, re: manhole covers), or, the relations of judgements understood as belonging to each other, in the case of multiple judgements regarding the same cognition (plates over ditches should be steel but must not be round, re: ferry ramps). — Mww

As explained above, you and I have strong disagreement on this matter.

Yes, there are flaws possible in the conscious decision-making process, but that does not say the process is flawed, but only the use of it, is. — Mww

This makes no sense. The process is what is carried out, what actually occurs, and this is the use. If you propose a separation between the process and the use, then one would be either a description of the process, or a prescription for the process. Either way, these are not the process, which is what actually occurs.

And whatever “hidden premises” there are in conscious decision-making cannot be the responsibility of the conscious agent making the decisions, insofar as it is contradictory to arrive at a conscious decision grounded by premises of which I am not conscious. — Mww

Legally, ignorance is no excuse, and you are responsible for the "hidden premises" which you employ in your decision making. And, it is not contradictory "to arrive at a conscious decision grounded by premises of which I am not conscious", this is simply called invalid logic, unstated premises required to reach the conclusion. The reality of this is very clearly exposed with issues of defining terms, and equivocation.

Through what I wrote above, I can bring the nature of these "hidden premises" further into the light. One form of such premises would be the underlying hypotheses which guide and influence descriptive observations, as explained above. We can refer to these underlying hypotheses as the person's "attitude". So for example a specific type of laziness may incline a person to think that easy money means a good, happy life. Then the person may be inclined to observe the existence of money with the attitude of looking to get it easily, and may be inclined toward fraud or theft, for example. Such "hidden premises", which we call the person's "attitude" influence the person's observations, as well as the person's use of reason, and this is not at all contradictory. Nor is it correct to say that the person is not responsible for decisions which are base in these subconscious premises. One is clearly responsible for such actions.

To simply take for granted bias and prejudice as premises for conscious judgement, is a flaw in the subject’s character, not in the process the agent employs in his decision-making. — Mww

Obviously, flaws in character which affect the decision made, are flaws in the decision-making process. Furthermore, we all have flaws in character, therefore we all employ flawed decision-making processes. We cannot avoid that, and we must face it as reality.

One can be tutored in correcting erroneous judgements, but if he is so tutored, yet decides to disregard the corrections, he is called pathologically stupid. If tutored, and receives the corrections and thereby judges in accordance with them, that is called experience, and serves as ground of all empirical judgements. — Mww

The problem is that what you refer to as "pathologically stupid", is very real. And, it exists in all sorts of grades or degrees, such that we all resist education to some degree, then we all qualify as pathologically stupid to some extent. It's very evident here at TPF. What produces this pathological stupidity is what we commonly call "intuition". When we are taught something which is counter-intuitive, we automatically reject it because it is counter to the hidden premises (attitude) which we already hold.

So I proposed to you, that this is a flawed attitude which you are displaying here. We cannot continue to posit "experience" as the ground to everything, because this would create an infinite regress of experience, as if we've all lived forever. That is the problem Plato exposed with the argument of recollection in the Meno. The capacity to learn something new must come from something other than experience, or else we get the absurdity of the infinite regress of "recollection", and all knowledge has existed in each person's soul eternally, as grounded in prior experience.

Therefore we must accept something other than experience as the grounding of empirical judgements, to avoid that absurdity. In modern times there is a tendency toward a proposed division between nature and nurture, what comes to us by instinct, and what comes to us by experience. The instinctual is prior to experience. This is the basis for "intuition", which we are born with to some degree, as innate, prior to experience at its base, and consequently prior to a person's empirical judgement.

Now, if we seek to analyze this "intuition" which is prior to, and the grounding of empirical judgements, we must divorce ourselves from the notion that experience is the grounding of empirical judgement. That would imply that experience could judge itself. So instead, we look for a judgement which is the judgement of experience. And, to be able to appropriately act as a judge of experience, it must be grounded in something independent from experience. Now you should be able to see very clearly, the logical necessity to conclude that there is a type of judgement which is prior to empirical judgement (judgement based on experience), enabling us to judge experience itself. The premise that experience needs to be judged is derived from the inconsistency which is inherent within described experience, that is described above.

No, I don’t. Logical certainty may not require empirical proof, and indeed, may not have any at all afforded to it, this being a limit of forms, re: A = A. But for any logical certainty, using constructed objects of its own manufacture and representing empirical conditions, only observation can serve as proof of those constructs, re: the sun doesn’t rise or fall as the appearance from certain restricted observation warrants. — Mww

Well look. You allow for logical certainty without any empirical proof, as "forms". Then you add the condition of "constructed objects" and this we may call the "content". Now you say that this content can only be verified by empirical observation. Do you see that what adding this condition of content does, is reduce the certainty of the conclusions? So it is exactly as I say, the stuff verified by empirical observation only reduces the certainty of logic. In its pure form, logic is extremely certain, but adding content, objects constructed from empirical observation, reduces that level of certainty. Therefore it is exactly as I say, empirical observations have a lower degree of certainty. And, we employ logic in an attempt to reduce the uncertainty which inheres within empirical observations.

Logic, on the other hand where observation is not presupposing anything because there’s nothing to observe, dictates the possible reality of things. — Mww

This is done through the use of the concept of "impossible". Logic dictates the impossible with laws such as non-contradiction, thereby limiting the field of possibility with the elimination of the impossible. That is known as the process of elimination.

Now when you say "Empirical observation presupposes the thing", this is incorrect. As I explained, "the thing" is only a possibility, and this is what Descartes painstakingly demonstrated. With the application of logical principles, such as the law of identity, demonstrated by Aristotle, we rule out as impossible, that there is not "the thing". Many modern philosophies reject Aristotle's law of identity, and the necessity of "the thing". Therefore "the thing" is not given by empirical observation at all, it is given by that logical process which demonstrates that it is impossible to be otherwise, rendering "the thing" as a necessity by showing it is impossible that there not be "the thing". But of course freedom of choice allows us to reject even that demonstrated impossibility (necessity).

You continue to give "empirical observation" undue credit. This has been the issue since the beginning, your assertion that sense observation cannot be wrong.