I find there to be a conceptual error here of Kant’s (and maybe perhaps Schopenhauer to) of the mind’s ontological status. — Bob Ross

Ok. What do you see as his concept of the mind’s ontological status, and what was the error you found in it?

If the forms of representation are space and time, then that thereby (by my lights) admits the mind as having ontological status. — Bob Ross

Oh. That. Ok. What ontological status does the mind have then? You just mean it is a real thing? But it isn’t real in the sense it can be measured, so you must have a different sense for an ontological status the mind could hold. Which is fine, perhaps even called for in analytic idealism.

If we have no access to the things-in-themselves because our experience is just the expression of them in space and time which is produced by our minds, then our minds must be a thing-in-itself. — Bob Ross

Aren’t you just doing with the mind what Schopenhauer did with the will? If not, then awful close to it, seems like. Again, good enough, I suppose, but I can’t really comment on it.
————-

The only way to reconcile this (by my lights) is for Kant to claim that our minds have no ontological status either—but, then, the mind cannot be producing space and time. What would your response to that be? — Bob Ross

Using your vocabulary for dialectical consistency, the mind doesn’t warrant an ontological status if it doesn’t produce space and time. I think it more the case the mind recognizes that all things are separate from each other and no thing can be more than one thing at once. Two things can be at once but two things cannot be in the same place at once. It recognizes things can change place but no thing can change place instantly. You say the mind produces space and time; I say there is that which are necessary conditions for the explanation of object’s relation to us and to each other, and these reside in that faculty which forms those relations.

Your way, re: the production of space and time, requires the production of two infinites, with all the irregularities found therein. My way needs no infinites, but only those spaces and times which condition the perception, or possible perception, of an object, followed by the experience or possible experience thereof. Lots cleaner and simpler. Or as the mathematicians are wont to say…..much more elegant.

So no, the mind does not produce space and time, it conceives apodeitic conditions as explanatory devices. Therefore, it is possible the mind has no warrant for ontological status.
————

I find that Kant’s view is incompatible with reasonable, parsimonious metaphysical explanations of scientific knowledge. — Bob Ross

FYI, he wrote the precursor essays that would eventually become tectonic plate theory, nebular theory, tidal retardation of axial velocity theory, a refutation of Newtonian absolute space and time, all grounded by the Metaphysical Principles of Natural Science, 1786, which includes a chapter on the first dedicated modern exposition of what would eventually become phenomenology. I rather think his view just IS a metaphysical explanation of scientific knowledge, so you might mean his view is incompatible with someone else’s.
————-

if our mind doesn’t ontologically exist, then it can’t be producing space and time to represent things to itself. — Bob Ross

Again, FYI……in CPR, mind is the subject of a proposition 176 times, reason is the subject over 1300 times, in ~800 pages total. Mind can be merely a convenient placeholder, signifying nothing more than the terminus of infinite regress hence omitted generally without detriment to a metaphysical theories of the human condition, but reason cannot, insofar as reason actually belongs to every human and without which he is just an animal. If we’re going to reify an abstract, let’s reify that which a human can be proved to possess, rather than that which he could conceivably do without.
———-

with Kant’s view, we are forced to claim that we cannot infer that there is an natural environment, that we are impacted by other bodies, etc. because we cannot know anything about the things-in-themselves. — Bob Ross

Kant proves that the impossibility of denying the existence of my own body is sufficient to prove the existence of the external world. The reverse establishes the truth, in that without an external world conditioned on space and time, there is no apodeictic certainty for my own body, the denial of which is blatantly contradictory. As such, the inference of an external world is not necessary, for its reality is certain. It follows that that by which we are impacted and that from which representations are given and empirical knowledge is possible, is not the thing-in-itself, which is the ground of his empirical realism doctrine from the beginning.

…..has great significance for understanding the situation we find ourselves in. — Janus

Exactly right. In other words, whatever the situation, guard against the illusions inevitably contained in the understanding of it. But I hold a rather low opinion of the human species in general, so, there is that.

The objection to Dennett remains that no third-person account of even something as simple as pain can ‘do justice’ to the actual feeling of pain, because no amount of analysis of the firing of nerve fibres, no matter how scientifically accurate, actually constitutes ‘the feeling of pain’ (‘what it is like to be in pain’). This is why, for example, John Searle parodied Dennett’s book as ‘Consciousness Explained Away’. — Wayfarer

It is not the analysis of the firing of nerve fibers but the actual firing of nerve fibers through stimulus that could cause a third person to report feeling pain.

Is this another way of saying that it's not measured until it's measured? — Srap Tasmaner

Essentially yes, I am saying that it's not measured until it's measured. But the important thing is the meaning here, and the implication it has on those who believe otherwise. "Distance" is relative, and therefore a value which must be determined through the application of principles, implying measurement. So it is impossible that "the distance" between here and there has any existence prior to being measured.

With respect to the distance "itself", as it were, it is indeterminate before measurement; with respect to those who will measure, but haven't yet, there is an assumption that the distance is measurable, that it can be determined. Is this a way of saying that scientists, unless they are foolish indeed, ought to agree that values they have not determined are values they have not yet determined? Or is there more to this assumption? — Srap Tasmaner

The assumption that there is an existential distance which can be measured is the false and misleading assumption. The better assumption would be that the distance is produced, or created by the measurement. The truth of this is demonstrated by the fact that different measuring techniques will produce a different measurement (as indicated by jorndoe's post), and each will be a valid measurement by the principles of the technique. The assumed "distance" is really as much a feature of the measurement as it is a feature of the reality or "itself" of the thing measured. Therefore the assumption that there is a distance "itself" is a false assumption, because "distance" requires an interaction between the "itself" and the subject's measurement..

So, it is more than just a matter of what you say here, that "values they have not determined are values they have not yet determined", it is a matter of a faulty way of looking at values. A "value" is something subjective, its existence is dependent on a subject, or a multitude of subjects in the case of intersubjectivity. To assume that the value "itself" exists prior to being determined by the subject, and is "discovered by measurement" (as in jorndoe's expression "Whatever distance is discovered, not invented, and not existentially dependent on whatever human discoverers' heads.") is a faulty misleading assumption. And, that this assumption is misleading becomes very evident in quantum physics.

If by "distance" you mean a value, the result of a measurement, indeed it won't exist until it exists. Or do you mean that the spatial separation of the earth from the moon doesn't exist until someone thinks it does? Something must underwrite the assumption that "it" can be measured; its existence of that "it" to be measured would do nicely. — Srap Tasmaner

This just brings the problem to a deeper level. Since it is true that the value, which comprises "the distance" is subjective, and it's existence is dependent on the subject, then we must further consider the supposed real thing, the "itself" which is supposedly represented by that term "distance". This you call "spatial separation". Now, what was previously a simple problem of the reality of measurement becomes a very complex problem. "Space" is conceptual, and it is a concept we use to represent separation between individual objects, as well as the extension of objects in volume, along with the changes and movements of objects. All of these are relative, and turn out to be subjective values just like "distance". And so the existence of individual objects, and the separation between these, and all those related concepts are equally dependent on the subject, as that which produces the separation in conception.

Furthermore, the way that "an object" is determined by the subject, as "one", is the foundation for quantitative values, which accordingly are subjective. Now, to produce objectivity in quantitative values we must proceed even deeper, so we look to order instead of quantity to ground the numbers. But the problem just gets more difficult.

then how come we sometimes get it wrong? We can get estimates wrong. (Some more than others.) Doesn't make sense for inventions. That's the direction of existential dependency. — jorndoe

"Wrong" is a matter of being outside the boundaries of convention. Conventions are subjective in the sense of intersubjective.

The idea is that, although we can’t infer that everything is a part of a universal mind by directly experiencing it ... — Bob Ross

I prefer to talk about "universal consiousness" rather than "universal mind".
I believe that some individuals have experienced it and are experiencing it. Maybe myself I will be able too, some day, if I consider all the sudden realizations and experiences I have had in my life. However, I don't much mind about it.

... we can infer that it exists because otherwise we have no ability to explain the mental: we have the hard problem of consciousness. — Bob Ross

In order to infer its existence we must use one or the other worldview, theory, system, etc. Their multiplicity only indicates how hard --for me, impossible-- this is. And somewhere here enters the HPC that you mentioned.

BTW, how can we infer that "universal mind" exists? Can you present a specific agrumentation to support it?

We posit that the most parsimonious explanation for what reality fundamentally is is mentality because positing it is mind-independent leads to an irreconcilable dilemma. — Bob Ross

Right. But also positing that it is mind-dependent leads to an impasse. That's why I maintain that only experience can lead to such knowledge.

we infer there is a universal mind just like we infer there are other conscious animals — Bob Ross

Well, I think I explained the difference. (Well, for me at least, it is very obvious. And I'm sure you can see that from what I have said so far on the subject.)

the kind of existence they have is unimaginable to us, we can only imagine that they do not have the kind of existence they have as perceived phenomena, so it is an apophatic kind of imagining — Janus

Not obvious how you would even justify the "they" here...

So the upshot is that when you conceive of these unobserved rocks, you conceive of something unobserved which you can only say is not like what we usually think of as "rocks", not even in the sense of existing as we think rocks do.

So why do you call this something-or-other you're conceiving "unobserved rocks"?

in fact it is more difficult to imagine that they cease to exist when not being perceived — Janus

Something like this then: when I imagine a rock existing unobserved, I imagine a rock and then conceptually remove things like color and other perceptible attributes, until I can only say that right there, where we would observe rocks if we were observing, there is something about which we can say nothing, except that it's still there when we're not looking.

The assumption that there is an existential distance which can be measured is the false and misleading assumption. The better assumption would be that the distance is produced, or created by the measurement. — Metaphysician Undercover

(1) Measurements that have not been done have not been done.
(2) Distances are created not discovered.

Certainly yes, if you start from (2), you can derive (1). But (1) is a tautology, so you can get it from anything.

The question is whether the truism (1) provides any support for (2).

The truth of this is demonstrated by the fact that different measuring techniques will produce a different measurement (as indicated by jorndoe's post), and each will be a valid measurement by the principles of the technique. — Metaphysician Undercover

This is an actual argument for your position, so you need to spell it out. How do various techniques for determining a distance differ, what principles are involved, and how are they valid with respect only to their own principles not each other?

Looking back, I see that you take this variation as evidence:

The distance between here and the moon is indeterminate until it's measured. This means that there is no fixed value. The variance in the numbers you [ i.e., @jorndoe ] gave are evidence of this. — Metaphysician Undercover

The other side would like various techniques to give the same answer, or, in the case of estimates, roughly the same answer -- which means: the same, but only to a certain degree.

(Funny, @Wayfarer used to make exactly the opposite argument, that because the content of a statement can be translated from one language to another -- as we might convert from imperial to metric, say -- this content must be somehow transcendent or whatever.)

You can and you can also pick up the table with cup on top of it or you can pick the table apart, say by breaking one of its legs. Or you can sit on the table and use it as a chair, say someone who has never seen a table, might use it that way.

, so, with definitions of meters, miles, stadia, whichever, we can get it wrong. It's not about our definitions, it's about a distance that we may or may not estimate with whatever (arbitrary) definitions/conventions. There is something to get wrong. Seems like you were responding to something else.

Distance to the Moon doesn't begin to exist because someone makes an estimate, rather it can be estimated because it exists. — May 27, 2023

That's the direction of existential dependency. — May 28, 2023

I outlined an argument for why I do know this. I am unsure as to why you said this: it is unproductive. — Bob Ross

Getting someone to realize that they do not know something they think they know can be very productive.

This is true and that is why I specifically used the term ‘reductive physicalism’. I do not think that irreductive physicalism is a valid position (as it either dissolves into reductive physicalism or becomes a closeted substance dualism). I can elaborate on that if you would like. — Bob Ross

You have it backwards, it is not that physicalism dissolves into reductive physicalism but that the analysis of a complex involves an understanding of its parts as they function in terms of the whole. By analogy, you cannot understand how an engine works by taking it apart. A pile of parts is not an engine. Taking it apart in only a part of the process whose goal is to understand the whole.

Complaining about a valid metaphysical position is kibitzing. Insisting on a metaphysical position when trying to understand a biological organism is counterproductive. Fortunately, most working in this field are unconcerned with such issues.

Correct, but the claim that the living organism is fundamentally a mind-independent organism is to reduce consciousness thereto. — Bob Ross

Physicalism is not a rejection of mind. To the contrary, it seeks to understand mind in terms of the organisms that have minds, without assuming that mind comes from somewhere other than the organism.

If one cannot account for consciousness with a reductive physicalist approach, then the only other option is that it is not emergent. The proof that it is emergent rides on the idea that it can be reduced to brain states. — Bob Ross

A misunderstanding of physicalism is not proof. Brain states are only part of the story. But of course the brain is an important part of the story. It is not clear what you think a brain state is.

As I said before (in the proof), the only way to argue that it creates consciousness (without just making it up) is to argue in the form of “consciousness is [set of biological functions] because [set of biological functions] impact consciousness in [this way]”. You are assuming it creates consciousness even though this form of argument cannot prove it. — Bob Ross

Consciousness is not a set of biological functions. I think this mistake is the source of your claims about brain states. Consciousness has content, it is of something, and that something is the biological functions that are the conditions for consciousness.

The only way you can prove that consciousness is produced by the brain is by the reductive physicalist method. — Bob Ross

If by proof you mean argument, such proofs are beside the point. But then again, if you think the problem of consciousness is a metaphysical problem, then your only recourse is to rely on argument.

So if you can’t prove it with reductive physicalism, then you have no reason to believe it. — Bob Ross

I would counter by saying you can't prove it by metaphysical argument, but you think you have. Back to the top of this post.

Hello Manuel,

It's the eternal problem of the one and the many. Are we ourselves in reality separate beings or are we one being, that perceives itself as many? The latter option is not so trivial to get rid of...

I see. Kastrup’s Analytic Idealism would postulate that we are truly one mind but we only have phenomenal access to our own mentally because the universal mind has DID.

Still basing a large part of one's philosophy on DID is risky and one should be cautious in relying on it too much. Maybe when more is learned, it could be sensible to use, or it could end up being a false avenue.

This is fair. I think even without postulating DID we can infer that everything is most feasibly mind, but then we have to leave the soft problem of decomposition open-ended for now. To me, I gravitate towards naturalistic explanations (as I don’t find it appealing to just say ‘God’ creates our souls or something), so I would still argue that our minds are separate but that separation from the universal mind is a natural process (whatever that process may be). I can say that the extrinsic representation of that process is evolution + procreation, but there isn’t a complete account of the underlying mental processes nor how the first life form was created. I would say that the first life form is going to be best account for by abiogenesis because that is what it will ‘look like’ from the phenomenal side of things but metaphysically it will be the first separation of a mind from the universal mind.

Bob

Hello Sime,

If your "analytic" idealism abandons "esse is percipi" how does it differ from representational realism?

“perception”, under analytic idealism, is an evolved faculty of higher conscious life forms: it is the ability for a life form to represent to itself the outer world. Firstly, the most parsimonious explanation of the world around us (and the observed regularities) is that there was a world prior to perceptive-organisms. Not only do not all organisms and life forms, especially the lower forms, perceive but likewise they haven’t always existed in reality either. For Berkeley, the world prior to perceptive beings is not real: it is just something God is projecting onto your dashboard of experience. To me, that is an incredibly unparsimonious explanation.

Likewise, according to berkeley, because there is no world beyond perceptions, objects (within perception) don’t have definite sizes: God is projecting different sizes for the same objects depending on what angle and distance you are viewing them. This has to be the case if one goes the subjective idealist route, whereas objective idealists (which I would count analytic idealism in this group) posit that we are all within a universal mind and thusly there are definite sizes to objects: we just, as higher evolved life forms, perceive it differently depending on how we observe them. I find this to be a better explanation and much more parsimonious.

Objective idealists think that there really is a tree but it is fundamentally ideas that are being represented on your dashboard of perception, whereas subjective idealists claim there is not tree (and not ideas corresponding to it outside of perception other than God’s projection of it onto them).

Berkeley's subjective idealism was already "analytic" in the sense that he postulated that observation and conception is tautologically equivalent to existence.

Yes, but the perceptive world around you is completely synthetic under his view and I don’t see how that coheres with modern science.

It is much more parsimonious to claim that our perceptive screens are representations of something real, but in terms of analytic idealism it is a representation of ideas and not mind-independent objects. Perhaps this view is a form of representational realism, I am not sure.

What Berkeley's principle is actually saying, is rather trivial ; that only what is observed or conceived can be thought or talked about. If a realist asserts that "unperceived objects such as quarks exist", Berkeley wouldn't contradict the content of the assertion but remind the realist that his use of "unperceived" requires elaboration until it refers to something thought or perceived, for the assertion to become sensical.

To me, this is just false. I don’t need to perceive other people being conscious directly to know that they are conscious. I don’t need to perceive that other people see the world in a colorblind, black-and-white manner to acquire the knowledge that they are really perceiving it that way. Perhaps you might counter that the principle pertains to someone perceiving it and in that case I still thinks it is false.

The best explanation for people getting sick is germs, regardless of if anyone has ever perceived germs. The best explanation for why the atomic bomb worked is that there are atoms. The best explanation of organisms is that they represent an external reality to themselves: they acquire knowledge of it and that is their perceptions.

Now, where I can get on board with this, and maybe this is what you were conveying, is that it doesn’t follow that an atom, as a physical mind-independent entity, exists as a part of the underlying ontology of reality simply because we should expect to perceive it if we ‘zoom in’ far enough within the dashboard of our perception. The difference between Berkeley and Kastrup, for example, is that the former claims the atom doesn’t correspond to anything outside of one’s perception while the latter claims that it corresponds to ideas in a universal mind (of which our perceptions are representing). For Kastrup, we are not immortal souls that have ideas impressed on us by God but rather we are in God.

Bob

Hello Mww,

So no, the mind does not produce space and time, it conceives apodeitic conditions as explanatory devices. Therefore, it is possible the mind has no warrant for ontological status.

But under Kantianism the mind is producing space and time (being synthetic a priori), is it not? Perhaps you have a neo-kantian view, but I am talking about Kant’s original argument.

For your position, are you saying that the mind doesn’t produce space and time? Rather, it just has a priori logic that is required for one to represent to the world around them to themselves?

FYI, he wrote the precursor essays that would eventually become tectonic plate theory, nebular theory, tidal retardation of axial velocity theory...

That is very interesting: thank you for sharing!

Again, FYI……in CPR, mind is the subject of a proposition 176 times, reason is the subject over 1300 times, in ~800 pages total. Mind can be merely a convenient placeholder, signifying nothing more than the terminus of infinite regress hence omitted generally without detriment to a metaphysical theories of the human condition, but reason cannot, insofar as reason actually belongs to every human and without which he is just an animal. If we’re going to reify an abstract, let’s reify that which a human can be proved to possess, rather than that which he could conceivably do without.

The same argument, by my lights, still applies whether you invoke ‘reason’ or ‘mind’: either there is a unified subject that is producing a representation of the world to itself or there isn’t. If Kant is right in that we represent the world in space and time and that there isn’t a space and time beyond that, then, by my lights, he can’t also claim that we can’t understand the noumena because that unified subject, in order to produce space and time (i.e., synthetic a priori pure forms of intuition), must be outside of those synthetic apriori forms. I am not following what your response is to that argument, could you elaborate more please?

Kant proves that the impossibility of denying the existence of my own body is sufficient to prove the existence of the external world. The reverse establishes the truth, in that without an external world conditioned on space and time, there is no apodeictic certainty for my own body, the denial of which is blatantly contradictory. As such, the inference of an external world is not necessary, for its reality is certain. It follows that that by which we are impacted and that from which representations are given and empirical knowledge is possible, is not the thing-in-itself, which is the ground of his empirical realism doctrine from the beginning.

Correct me if I am wrong, but it sounds like Kant is arguing that there is an external world that is impressed onto our senses but that is not the thing-in-itself. But, then, I ask: doesn’t that concede that the mind’s synthetic a priori pure forms of intuition isn’t the only origin of space and time? If we are admitting that the world is external to our mind and that it operates likewise in space and time, then space and time are not purely synthetic. What you say to that?

To me, when I read CPR, it sounded like he was claiming anything beyond the two pure forms of intuition is the noumena (i.e., the things-in-themselves) and the only way that works is under epistemic solipsism (viz., if the phenomenal world around me is just a representation under space and time that are synthetic of my mind, then I cannot know anything about an external world beyond my mind because it lies outside of space and time).

Likewise, if space and time are truly synthetic of my mind, then how do I even know that my mind is representing anything beyond its self? Likewise, the other option is that my mind doesn’t exist and the thing-in-itself is the only thing that does.

Your way, re: the production of space and time, requires the production of two infinites, with all the irregularities found therein. My way needs no infinites, but only those spaces and times which condition the perception, or possible perception, of an object, followed by the experience or possible experience thereof.

I don’t think my view requires two actualized infinite spaces and time: the space and time produced by minds (which is only what is required for perception) is a representation of the ideas of space and time within the universal mind. I think within Kant’s view space and time are not a representation of anything (being synthetic a priori).

Bob

Hello Alkis Piskas,

BTW, how can we infer that "universal mind" exists? Can you present a specific agrumentation to support it?

There is an external world that my mind is representing: either that world is mind-dependent or mind-independent. If it is the latter, then I cannot account for myself as a conscious being. Therefore, the most parsimonious account of the data of experience (being that the latter can’t even account for experience) is that it is mind-dependent. Now, either the mind-dependent world is only my mind or it has other minds: the former is special pleading that somehow I am the only non-philosophical zombie when other people clearly exhibit the same symptoms of being conscious, so I say the best explanation is the latter. Now, either these minds are ontologically primitive or they a part of a universal mind: the former doesn’t cohere with empirical knowledge as it is clear that organisms are born and die within the world, so I would say the best explanation is that they are a part of one universal mind. (also, side note, if one posits that the minds are ontologically primitive then they also have to account for how they experience the same objective world which they obviously do).

That would be the short proof.

Bob

Hello Fooloso4,

By analogy, you cannot understand how an engine works by taking it apart. A pile of parts is not an engine. Taking it apart in only a part of the process whose goal is to understand the whole.

I don’t see how this helps your case that physicalism doesn’t dissolve into reductive physicalism. The pile of parts of an engine does explain the weakly emergent property (or properties) of a running engine. The explanation is to reduce the weakly emergent properties to the its parts: this isn’t to say that when we have a pile of parts that we know what weakly emergent properties will arise given it being assembled but, rather, that we can account for those weakly emergent properties by reductive analysis of the parts and how they relate to each other. So, yes, physicalism dissolves into reductive physicalism.

Insisting on a metaphysical position when trying to understand a biological organism is counterproductive

I don’t have a problem with being ontologically agnostic when performing science. Nevertheless, we can know that the reductive physicalist’s position doesn’t work and so we shouldn’t expect science to prove it.

Physicalism is not a rejection of mind. To the contrary, it seeks to understand mind in terms of the organisms that have minds, without assuming that mind comes from somewhere other than the organism.

Reductive physicalism is the idea, most generally, that the mind exists but is weakly emergent from the brain. Irreductive physicalism makes the nonsensical claim that it is strongly emergent. I am not claiming that reductive physicalists say there are no minds but rather that it can be explained by reducing it to a combination of mind-independent parts.

A misunderstanding of physicalism is not proof. Brain states are only part of the story. But of course the brain is an important part of the story. It is not clear what you think a brain state is.

By ‘brain state’ I referring to any state that the brain may be in (e.g., neural firings, wavelength resonance in terms of sleeping vs. awake, etc.). One can just use the term ‘mind-independent organic part’ where I say ‘brain state’ if you would like to keep it more abstract. Most people agree that if reductive physicalism is true then that the ‘mind-independent organic parts’ is brain states that produce the mental states.

Consciousness is not a set of biological functions. I think this mistake is the source of your claims about brain states.

If consciousness can’t be reduced as a weakly emergent property to a set of biological functions, then you will have to posit that it is a part of a different substance than physicality.

I would counter by saying you can't prove it by metaphysical argument, but you think you have. Back to the top of this post.

You didn’t counter my argument except maybe in the previous quote (of you made above). If consciousness isn’t a set of biological functions, then you can’t claim it is a part of a physical substance. Are you suggesting that there is a different methodological approach that proves things are mind-independent without using reductive explanation (which is what we use for explaining everything)?

Bob

(1) Measurements that have not been done have not been done.
(2) Distances are created not discovered.

Certainly yes, if you start from (2), you can derive (1). But (1) is a tautology, so you can get it from anything.

The question is whether the truism (1) provides any support for (2). — Srap Tasmaner

Right, (2) is an ontological principle while (1) is epistemological. (2) is not derived from (1), and you might question whether (1) provides "any" support for (2).

This is an actual argument for your position, so you need to spell it out. How do various techniques for determining a distance differ, what principles are involved, and how are they valid with respect only to their own principles not each other?

Looking back, I see that you take this variation as evidence: — Srap Tasmaner

Yes, it was jorndoe who provided the evidence of variation, so it is better to ask jorndoe about that.

The other side would like various techniques to give the same answer, or, in the case of estimates, roughly the same answer -- which means: the same, but only to a certain degree. — Srap Tasmaner

This is a faulty principle in ontology. Differing by degree implies "similar" means at least two, or a multitude, with differences. And this is completely different from "same", which means one thing, by the law of identity. "Similar" and "same" have very distinct meaning in ontology, and this is a distinction which needs to be respected for adequate understanding.

(Funny, Wayfarer used to make exactly the opposite argument, that because the content of a statement can be translated from one language to another -- as we might convert from imperial to metric, say -- this content must be somehow transcendent or whatever.) — Srap Tasmaner

I think Wayfarer and I disagree on this matter. I do not believe in Platonism in the sense of a transcendent realm of "numbers". I think that since the numeral "2" for example, has a different meaning in different contexts, and different interpretation by different people sometimes within the same context, we cannot say that there is one thing, an object which is the number two symbolized by the numeral. And this is how all concepts and ideas are, the symbols which represent them have different meaning in different contexts, so "a concept" is actually flexible in that sense.

Some argue that this is a difference which does not make a difference, but I argue that in ontology that would be contradiction. That this difference does not make a difference, may be the case in some pragmatic epistemologies, but since the person notices it as a difference, it cannot be truthfully held that the difference doesn't make a difference. The fact that the person notices the difference implies that it already has made a difference.

And, as explained above, it is a very important difference ontologically because it is the difference between two different objects which are similar, and one object which is the same as itself, by the law of identity. So to say that two distinct objects are similar enough, that we can call them the same, instead of similar, is to introduce a meaning of "same" which is inconsistent with the law of identity, thereby creating ambiguity in that word, and the opportunity for equivocation.

The law of identity is the means by which Aristotle separated true "objects", having a material existence, complete with accidentals which inhere within, from the supposed "intelligible objects" which are abstractions that exclude accidentals. The abstraction, as a supposed object has no true identity as "an object", by the law of identity.

There is something to get wrong. — jorndoe

As I said, wrong is a matter of convention. So long as there is a convention which constitutes "right", then being inconsistent with this is to get it wrong. That there is right and wrong has nothing to do with whether or not there is actually an independent "thing" called "the distance", which is being measured. That there is a "right", and consequently multiple possibilities of wrongness, only implies that there is an accepted convention. In the case of something like moral principles, there is inconsistencies between various conventions, therefore a number of incompatible "rightnesses". I think you'll also find this in high level mathematics where one can choose from competing axioms, incompatible rightnesses depending on the axiomatic system chosen.

And this is how all concepts and ideas are — Metaphysician Undercover

How about a (I hope) non-mathematical example: stars and planets, for instance, are both celestial bodies, and they behave similarly as massive objects (gravitation and all that), but they are structurally quite different, have quite different life stories, and so on. Given how astronomers define these terms, their application to a given celestial object is correct or incorrect. (The "evening star" is in fact a planet, etc.)

We are not, under most circumstances, compelled by nature to distinguish stars from planets, but the distinction is there to be captured in our terminology, should we choose to. Nature supports making this distinction, enables it. For comparison, the "morning star" and the "evening star" turn out to be the same object. Nature supports both using two names, since the times of day Venus rises are distinguishable, and using just the one, picking out a unique body in our solar system.

”So no, the mind does not produce space and time, it conceives apodeitic conditions as explanatory devices. Mww

But under Kantianism the mind is producing space and time (being synthetic a priori), is it not? Perhaps you have a neo-kantian view, but I am talking about Kant’s original argument. — Bob Ross

I’m saying it doesn’t, taken from Kant’s original text. Apparently we’re at odds over interpretations, which is certainly nothing new. Be that as it may, the second edition introduction states a priori cognitions are contained in the intellect, of even the philosophically unsophisticated. Now for the mind to produce them in order to be contained in the intellect, is for you to say but not Kant himself.

But nevertheless, benefit of the doubt: where does the notion that space and time are synthetic a priori come from? Synthetic a priori does not stand alone, insofar as they indicate the kind and source of cognitions or judgements, which space and time are not. Synthetic/analytic has to do with logic, hence subsumed under reason, but space and time have to do with empirical objects hence subsumed under intuition. While all experience is synthetic, space and time are not experiences. And while space and time are representations a priori, they are not synthetic. I guess I don’t see how you’ve come up with the notion, is all.

He says that there are two pure forms of sensuous intuition, as principles of knowledge à priori, namely, space and time. Now this stipulates that there are synthetic a priori principles of knowledge, but that is not to say space and time are themselves synthetic a priori. Which, pardon me for saying, doesn’t make sense for its incompleteness. Synthetic a priori…..what?
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Correct me if I am wrong, but it sounds like Kant is arguing that there is an external world that is impressed onto our senses but that is not the thing-in-itself. But, then, I ask: doesn’t that concede that the mind’s synthetic a priori pure forms of intuition isn’t the only origin of space and time — Bob Ross

Not wrong; he is arguing that. Whatever other origins there are for space and time are irrelevant to any system that conceives its own. Human intelligence originates them this way, its the only intelligence we know about so that kind of origin is all we need. Could our intelligence originate space and time in a different way? Maybe, dunno. Has anyone tried? At any rate, we’d best not get bogged down by mere names. Whatever best answers our questions, right?
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If we are admitting that the world is external to our mind and that it operates likewise in space and time, then space and time are not purely synthetic. What you say to that? — Bob Ross

I say I don’t agree the mind operates likewise to the external world. The mind operates conditioned by time, but not space.

I say I understand the pure ideality of space and time, but don’t understand what you mean by qualifying them with synthetic.
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To me, when I read CPR, it sounded like he was claiming anything beyond the two pure forms of intuition is the noumena (i.e., the things-in-themselves — Bob Ross

Noumena are not things-in-themselves. The latter are real spatial-temporal existences, the existence of the former is only possible for an intelligence unlike our own.

If by beyond the two pure forms of intuition you mean not conditioned by them, then it is the case noumena are beyond them. Still, anything not conditioned by space and time is utterly unintelligible to us, therefore we are not authorized to say that which is beyond them, are noumena.

if the phenomenal world around me is just a representation under space and time that are synthetic of my mind, then I cannot know anything about an external world beyond my mind because it lies outside of space and time — Bob Ross

Again with your vocabulary, the mind is not outside time, is conditioned by it. We can validate this iff it is the case all thoughts are singular and successive, which presupposes a temporal conditioning.

As for knowing anything about the world beyond the mind…..how can anything at all be known beyond the mind, if the mind is absolutely necessary and sufficient for all knowledge. Phenomena are of course necessary, but not sufficient, in that mere perception and representation in phenomena does not give any knowledge at all.
————

I don’t think my view requires two actualized infinite spaces and time — Bob Ross

You said the mind produces, and in common vernacular to produce is to actualize, I should think.

I think within Kant’s view space and time are not a representation of anything — Bob Ross

It’s stated as representing an infinite given quantity. Space does not represent any property of objects as things in themselves, nor does it represent them in their relations to each other; in other words, space does not represent to us any determination of objects such as attaches to the objects themselves. Time, on the other hand, represents coexistences or successions.

Great talk; I’m liking it, so….thanks.

I don’t see how this helps your case that physicalism doesn’t dissolve into reductive physicalism. The pile of parts of an engine does explain the weakly emergent property (or properties) of a running engine. — Bob Ross

The point is that reduction is only a part of the process. You cannot understand an engine if you do not understand the parts. That is the reductive part. But you can't understand an engine at that point. The parts have to fit and operate together. You have to look at the functional whole. That is the non-reductive part of the process.

Let's look at this from a different perspective:

Your argument eliminating the physical cuts both ways.

If the mental cannot be explained in terms of the physical then the physical cannot be explained in terms of the mental.

The hard problem in reverse.

Wayfarer used to make exactly the opposite argument, that because the content of a statement can be translated from one language to another -- as we might convert from imperial to metric, say -- this content must be somehow transcendent or whatever — Srap Tasmaner

That the meaning could be separated from the symbolic form, on the basis that the same number can be represented in many symbolic forms.

It is not the analysis of the firing of nerve fibers but the actual firing of nerve fibers through stimulus that could cause a third person to report feeling pain. — Fooloso4

But the point of the hard problem of consciousness argument is precisely that no amount of objective analysis can capture the first-person experience. And that can be acknowledged without denying that scientific analysis is indispensable for medical purposes, in understanding drugs to alleviate pain.

Physicalism is not a rejection of mind. — Fooloso4

You might ponder, then, what it is that ‘eliminative materialism’ seeks to eliminate. Speaking of the organic molecule Daniel Dennett says ‘An impersonal, unreflective, robotic, mindless little scrap of molecular machinery is the ultimate basis of all the agency, and hence meaning, and hence consciousness, in the universe.’

But I hold a rather low opinion of the human species in general, so, there is that. — Mww

I'd love to be able to disagree with you about that.

But the point of the hard problem of consciousness argument is precisely that no amount of objective analysis can capture the first-person experience. — Wayfarer

Yes, I am aware of the claim. The third person report is first person.

[Added: a joke that fell flat. The person's report is first person, but third person to the investigators.]

You might ponder, then, what it is that ‘eliminative materialism’ seeks to eliminate. — Wayfarer

I'll leave it to them to tell you what they are eliminating and why.

An impersonal, unreflective, robotic, mindless little scrap of molecular machinery is the ultimate basis of all the agency, and hence meaning, and hence consciousness, in the universe.’ — Wayfarer

My great, great, great ... grandthing. We keep a picture of it in a prominent place.

This is, of course, a poetic simplification, but it is a provocative way of stating his physicalist stance.

So why do you call this something-or-other you're conceiving "unobserved rocks"? — Srap Tasmaner

It refers to whatever it is, apart from the human, that gives rise to observed rocks. Exactly like this:

in fact it is more difficult to imagine that they cease to exist when not being perceived
— Janus

Something like this then: when I imagine a rock existing unobserved, I imagine a rock and then conceptually remove things like color and other perceptible attributes, until I can only say that right there, where we would observe rocks if we were observing, there is something about which we can say nothing, except that it's still there when we're not looking. — Srap Tasmaner

You can and you can also pick up the table with cup on top of it or you can pick the table apart, say by breaking one of its legs. Or you can sit on the table and use it as a chair, say someone who has never seen a table, might use it that way. — Manuel

That's right, but from a human perspective a table is a table, and a cup is a cup. A table is a table even if there are no cups on it and a cup is a cup regardless of whether it's on a table. On the other hand, if you smash the cup it ceases to be a functioning cup and likewise with the table if you start removing its legs.

Nature supports making this distinction, enables it. — Srap Tasmaner

I never intended to argue against nature providing support for our conceptualizations. The point was that distance is not the type of thing which has independent existence. In fact, in the discussion on distance I said there are two aspects to distance.

The assumed "distance" is really as much a feature of the measurement as it is a feature of the reality or "itself" of the thing measured. Therefore the assumption that there is a distance "itself" is a false assumption, because "distance" requires an interaction between the "itself" and the subject's measurement.. — Metaphysician Undercover

So, unlike jorndoe who seems to think that "distance" refers to some independent thing, I would say that the word "distance" refers to a specific type of interaction which we have with whatever it that is independent. So there is no real truth or falsity (in the sense of correspondence) with respect to distance, only conventional ways of acting and speaking, norms.

So there is no real truth or falsity (in the sense of correspondence) with respect to distance, only conventional ways of acting and speaking, norms. — Metaphysician Undercover

Hmmm.

Given how we talk about distance, you're either using words the conventional way when you compare the distance from the earth to the sun and the distance from the earth to the moon, or you're not. Saying the former is "bigger", not the latter, is how we use the word "bigger". So there is a piece of a sort of "true by convention" account here.

Now you've granted that nature supports and enables our conceptualizations, and in this case using the word in the normal way is choosing that word instead of "smaller" only if the sun is further from here than the moon. The norm for usage of the word "bigger" requires something like this, else no one could understand and follow the norm.

(Quine tried to convince us many decades ago that trying to separate the empirical and the conventional elements of a statement was a fool's game.)

For "bigger" to be meaningful at all, there must be things (I'm speaking loosely and generally here) that are stably different sizes. If nature supports us coming up with a bigger / smaller pair of concepts, it's because they can be consistently applied to things that are what we choose to call "bigger" and "smaller" when compared to each other.

Do we disagree?

Hello Mww,

I really appreciate your elaboration, as it appears I may not have understood Kant as well as I originally thought I did. Let me pick your brain a bit more.

Firstly, let me clarify what I thought the terminology was, and you tell me what you think.

By ‘synthetic’, I took it to mean that something is added which wasn’t previously there. For example, the judgment of ‘all bodies are heavy’ is synthetic if one is defining ‘body’ in a way that doesn’t itself immediately contain ‘heaviness’.

By ‘analytic’, I took it to mean the coming to understand something which is already there. For example, the judgment of ‘all bodies have extension’ is analytic if one defines ‘body’ in a manner that immediately includes the concept of ‘extension’.

By ‘a priori’, I took it to mean that which is necessary for the possibility of experience; and by ‘a posteriori’ that which is derived from experience.

By space and time being synthetic a priori, I was taking it that Kant was arguing that space and time are necessary for the possibility of experience and that they are produced by our faculty of representation (which I guess I may have inferred was our minds that had that faculty). Is that an improper usage of the terminology?

But nevertheless, benefit of the doubt: where does the notion that space and time are synthetic a priori come from?

Honestly, I probably just misused the terms then. I only found one search result for that term and it was:

Since the propositions of geometry are synthetic a priori and are recognized
with apodictic certainty, I would like to inquire as to the origin of such
propositions and what supports the understanding in order that it achieve to
such utterly necessary and universally valid perceptions?

It has been a while since I read the book admittedly.

Synthetic/analytic has to do with logic, hence subsumed under reason, but space and time have to do with empirical objects hence subsumed under intuition.

Interesting: wouldn’t Kant be thereby claiming that we have a unified faculty called ‘reason’ and ‘intuition’ which then, to me, would have to be outside of space and time? No?

And while space and time are representations a priori, they are not synthetic.

I would interpret this as you saying that space and time are necessary preconditions for the possibility of experience but not that they add anything new to experiences. In that case, where does space and time originate in? Would you say that they aren’t productions of our mind?

Now this stipulates that there are synthetic a priori principles of knowledge, but that is not to say space and time are themselves synthetic a priori.

I didn’t quite follow this part: so you are saying that the pure forms of sensuous intution are a part of the mind, or no? And that entails that there are ways we come to know the world (synthetic a priori principles of knowledge) but aren’t those principles in our mind? Wouldn’t that entail that space and time are also?

Whatever other origins there are for space and time are irrelevant to any system that conceives its own.
…
Could our intelligence originate space and time in a different way?

To me, this sounds like you are saying that space and time are conceived by minds, but you are calling it a ‘system’ or ‘intelligence’. How is your claim different from saying our minds conceive space and time?

I say I understand the pure ideality of space and time, but don’t understand what you mean by qualifying them with synthetic.

I mean that our minds are adding something which isn’t a part of the objects that are impressed on our senses, namely the pure forms of intuition.

Noumena are not things-in-themselves. The latter are real spatial-temporal existences, the existence of the former is only possible for an intelligence unlike our own.

Interesting, I thought the phenomena vs. noumena distinction was the same as representations vs. things-in-themselves: are they not?

If a thing-in-itself is a real spatial-temporal existence, then wouldn’t we have access to things-in-themselves (just not directly)(but just not noumena) because Kant agrees that we can know about things within the empirical, external world. For example, wouldn’t another organism be a thing-in-itself that is being represented phenomenally within one’s perception, and we can infer how accurately we are representing that other spatial-temporal organism.

If by beyond the two pure forms of intuition you mean not conditioned by them, then it is the case noumena are beyond them. Still, anything not conditioned by space and time is utterly unintelligible to us, therefore we are not authorized to say that which is beyond them, are noumena.

I thought noumena were purely negative conceptions and are that which is beyond space and time, and I also thought things-in-themselves were the same as noumena.

Again with your vocabulary, the mind is not outside time, is conditioned by it

Would it be fair to say that space and time are not something our minds produce (and not even as the pure forms of intuition) but rather our conscious-perceptive forms of intuition (i.e., of experience) are objective (i.e., only in the sense of being beyond our subject minds) and our minds are within time (but arguably not space)?

how can anything at all be known beyond the mind, if the mind is absolutely necessary and sufficient for all knowledge.

Because we can infer what most reasonably is the case. If it were the case that we can’t infer anything beyond one’s mind, then I wouldn’t even be able to claim your mind exists (nor that you are conscious).

in that mere perception and representation in phenomena does not give any knowledge at all.

I think empirically we can infer things sufficiently even though they are phenomena. I can learn to explain most parsimoneously other people as conscious beings even though I have no direct access to that knowledge experientially (for example).

You said the mind produces, and in common vernacular to produce is to actualize, I should think.

Correct. But I was thinking that the mind produces only the space and time which it requires to perceive whatever it is that is within ‘view’ so to speak. Although I would expect to find infinite space as I zoom into my perception, I don’t see an infinite space all at once per se.

Space does not represent any property of objects as things in themselves, nor does it represent them in their relations to each other; in other words, space does not represent to us any determination of objects such as attaches to the objects themselves.

But then isn’t space something our mind is introducing into experience, which doesn’t pertain to things-in-themselves, which would mean that it is synthetic?

Great talk; I’m liking it, so….thanks.

Likewise my friend!

Bob

So why do you call this something-or-other you're conceiving "unobserved rocks"?
— Srap Tasmaner

It refers to whatever it is, apart from the human, that gives rise to observed rocks. — Janus

But why choose the word "rocks" if you're not attributing to it any rock properties? Why not "balloons" or "elegies"?

Is it like this: You start with rocks as observed and conceptualized by us, then peel off our conceptualizations leaving only a something that, on the occasion this something was observed, gave rise to our rock-conceiving, and then for the last step you just subtract the observation itself, leaving only the something that, were it observed, we would say was rocks.

The thing is, without observation, how do you know what conception it would give rise to in us and critters like us? How do you know it would be rocks? And if you don't know it would, why say there's a something we would call rocks if we observed it?

The whole procedure feels somehow disingenuous. (I don't mean this as a point about your character, you understand.) We're still talking about rocks, but we're embarrassed about it, so we kinda half-heartedly pretend we're not. "Something that when we observe it gives rise to the conception rock" -- we already have a word for that, and it's "rock". (Or "Stein", whatever.)

Roughly, I'm not convinced you've made any progress toward removing us from your conceptions.

So there is a piece of a sort of "true by convention" account here. — Srap Tasmaner

But convention does not make truth, it makes "right". It may turn out later that the convention needs to be changed, like in the case of the planet named Pluto.

Now you've granted that nature supports and enables our conceptualizations, and in this case using the word in the normal way is choosing that word instead of "smaller" only if the sun is further from here than the moon. The norm for usage of the word "bigger" requires something like this, else no one could understand and follow the norm. — Srap Tasmaner

The "norm" only requires that we all perceive things in a similar way. This does not imply that we perceive things as they are. We see the sun as rising and setting for example, and years ago the convention was that the sun went around the earth. We all perceived in a similar way, the sun rising and setting, and this convention was supported by that similarity in perception. Then it turned out that the convention needed to be changed. The fact though, is that in that time when convention held that the sun went around the earth every day, this is what was "right", or "correct". And, if someone tried to argue that the earth was actually spinning instead, this person was wrong, or incorrect, as not obeying the convention.

For "bigger" to be meaningful at all, there must be things (I'm speaking loosely and generally here) that are stably different sizes. — Srap Tasmaner

No, that's not true. There is no need for things, that's the point Descartes made. All that is required is that we have similar perceptions, and we identify parts of these similar perceptions as things. And, for "bigger" to be meaningful it is required that there is consistency in the similarity between our perceptions. This allows for what is sometimes called intersubjectivity.

So let's move beyond Descartes form of extreme skepticism, and allow that there is something external, and independent, which is real. We have perceptions, and there is some degree of consistency between us. The consistency reinforces the idea that there is something external, independent, and real. Furthermore, our activities, and interactions demonstrate decisively, that there is something real which separates me from you. Now, we can inquire about "things". What do you suppose separates a thing from its environment, to justify us calling it "a thing", as a unit, an entity, individual, or one, a whole?