didn't take myself to be articulating the structure of reality there... I had imagined something broader, something closer to the "whole truth", as you say. Something overarching. Was I wrong? — Judaka

When I say 'structure of reality,' I mean the whole truth in essence, because there's an infinity of facts. I also emphasize what's atemporal in reality, as is typical with philosophical knowledge (we want our truths to stay true.) Does that help ?

Nonetheless, if I wanted to find a nuance that allowed me to avoid the performative contradiction, it would be doubtless easy. Such is the fickle nature of logic and reason, after all. — Judaka

Ah, but if logic was indeed too fickle, I don't think it would be easy, because whether you avoided the performative contradiction wouldn't be definite or stable. You are even using the proposed 'fickle nature of logic and reason' to support a claim, right ? Let me reiterate that I intend no rudeness. I'm just interested in only apparently skeptical performative contradictions that function by making grand ontological claims .

I don't think it's that simple. Of course I see why one would say so. But are mountains mountains in the same way without us grasping them as mountains with all that that entails ? I'm serious about my anthropormorphic ontology. — plaque flag

I think it's just different ways of talking. I don't know what mountains are independently of humans recognizing them as mountains, but it seems reasonable to think that they somehow do exist independently of humans grasping and recognizing them as mountains. Of course, I don't claim to know that, for all I know nothing at all would exist if there were no humans.

For me the phenomenologically (and spiritually) important thing is precisely our not knowing. If we knew everything, or even in principle could know everything, then there would be real mystery, only things yet to be known, and thus no room for faith. Faith, different faiths, open up whole areas of thinking and feeling. And as I've said, for all we know our faith-based speculations do open up windows to what lies "beyond the veil", although of course we can't know that is the case either.

I love the "divine ignorance" of humanity as much as I love its knowledge. Divine ignorance is the dialectical counterpart of knowledge and a profound source of creativity.

Any description of the past OR the future is always in relation to a particularly embodied present. It seems to me that what you’re referring to is the difference between a living being’s relation to the past and their relation to the future, in terms of what is possible and what is impossible for them, in that moment. There is no unambiguous way to differentiate between ‘the past’ and ‘the future’ - an embodied intra-action (observation/measurement) occurs with one OR the other, but not both simultaneously. — Possibility

This seems contradictory to me. If an embodied intra-action occurs with one or the other, but not both, then this implies that there is an unambiguous way to distinguish between past and future. The embodied intra-action, as described clearly provides the means for an unambiguous differentiation, because it must occur with one or the other and not both. And to say that "there is no unambiguous way to differentiate" contradicts what is implied by the description of the embodied intra-action.

But the important point is that all of this separability occurs within the phenomenon of one’s unique temporality. “No inherent subject-object distinction exists.” So the past as we describe it is only relatively ‘determined’ - Newtonian physics justifies ignoring this relativity by presuming that one can always reduce the effect of measurement interactions to the point where they are negligible. Quantum physics has demonstrated this presumption to be false. — Possibility

The reason why "the past as we describe it is only relatively 'determined'", is because of our mode of description. There is always intent, purpose behind any use of language, therefore any type of description. Intent, or purpose is a view toward the future, therefore "the past as we describe it" is always conditioned by the future as we anticipate it, as the description is conditioned by intent. But the future we know is full of possibility, and so this possibility is allowed to be reflected into the past which we describe. Therefore we allow that the past is only relatively determined, in our descriptions, because this allows the past to be more consistent with the future which we know as undetermined, thereby supporting our physical representations, or models of temporal continuity.

By changing material-discursive practices, measurements and observations of ‘the past’ (marks on bodies) change, which can alter ‘the facts’ of what happened. — Possibility

I really don't understand what you are saying with this statement. Things change, marks on bodies change such that a measurement of the marks might be different in a remeasurement than in the original measurement. But these changes do not happen in the past, they happen at the present, while time is passing. So I do not see how changing material-discursive practices can cause the past to change.

What I’m referring to has nothing to do with counterfactuals or intentionally choosing to ‘change things in the past’ according to the classical ideal of causality. It isn’t that the past or the future consist of possibilities, but that intra-actions “change the very possibilities for change and the nature of change”. In this sense, how we may intra-act in the future with ‘the past’ (through techno-scientific practices, for instance) remains full of possibilities in gaining new information about the past, while other information becomes irrelevant to the future. To paraphrase Barad, since there is no inherent distinction between object and instrument, these ‘possibilities’ cannot meaningfully be attributed to either abstract object (the past) or abstract measuring instrument (the future). — Possibility

There very clearly is a meaningful distinction to be made between the object and instrument, as there clearly is a distinction to be made between the act of operating, and the thing being operated on. To deny this distinction is simply to deny the reality of the distinction between active and passive. And if we deny this then all things become equally active and passive, such that we rob ourselves of any principles of causation, along with any hope of understanding temporal reality.

I'd say my view is built from several pieces that work together all at the same time.

It's a form of rationalism in that it puts us as reasoners as the undeniable center of reality. We cannot rationality doubt our own rational community, for we demand justifications for claims, and any such justification assumes that very community. So the community is given and undeniable. The details of the world and even of rationality itself can be debated endlessly.

It's a form of direct realism because in rational conversations we almost always care about the public object. As Husserl saw, I intend the coffee table or London Bridge and not some picture of it in my mind ---though we can also intend what's on our mind if we want. Note that my direct realism doesn't exclude mental entities. Your daydream exists in my world, because we can reason about it. But you have special access to it, while I have to trust your reports. Access to numbers is also different than access to chairs. But we intend (usually) the public number and the public chair.

Related to this, I think the subject and object are interpendent. There is no world except 'for' or 'through' subjects, but there are no subjects who aren't in this world. Like my Klein bottle icon. Or like a donut and a donut hole. Or the right and left hand. My argument for this is empirical, semantic, and holist. But it's in the OP, so I'll stop there.

but it seems reasonable to think that they somehow do exist independently of humans grasping and recognizing them as mountains. — Janus

:up:
It seems reasonable. But I could only project experience based on a combination of my own living brain and other worldly objects. I've got no experience of a world apart from this brain. It's a bit like a lamp that I've never switched off.

For me the phenomenologically (and spiritually) important thing is precisely our not knowing. If we knew everything, or even in principle could know everything, then there would be real mystery, only things yet to be known, and thus no room for faith. — Janus

I will join you in celebrating the inexhaustible infinity of the world. I want very much for there to always be something around the corner, something at least a little new. I want more to learn and the same old good stuff to further clarify. I had a bout of religion in my youth, but I think I'm wired for immanence. I never looked much at the stars in the sky. Always stuck on people. Beauty and wit and kindness. When the conditions are right down here, it's everything I want. Paradise would be renewed youth, friends lovers philosophy and music, sunny days, cool 55 degree air. But I'm pretty happy even without everything on that wish list anyway. I know it can't last, but that too I try to forget or forgive.

I love the "divine ignorance" of humanity as much as I love its knowledge. Divine ignorance is the dialectical counterpart of knowledge and a profound source of creativity. — Janus

:up:
I can relate. And even knowledge is almost a byproduct of joyful exploration, joyful creativity. To play at ontology is to play seriously a science. Nonfiction is the goal, but it's also a constraint like the form of a sonnet.

:up:

I want to add that I've often heard it said the we humans are the world coming to know itself, and in that sense, it didn't exist until it came to be known by us. But then what about the other animals, whose cognitive umwelts are (mostly) hidden from us?

If the pre-cognitive world is at worst altogether non-existent and at best totally "dark" and totally blind, what if we and the other animals are expressions, manifestations of that darkness, blindness and ignorance as much as we are the expressions, manifestations of newborn knowledge (in every sense of the word)?

Of course, this "vision" precludes a God or universal intelligence, or at least allows only a blind striving deity like Schopenhauer's "Will". The very idea of an all-knowing God seems to be an affront to the dignity and sanctity of both animals and humans.

If the pre-cognitive world is at worst altogether non-existent and at best totally "dark" and totally blind, what if we and the other animals are expressions, manifestations of that darkness, blindness and ignorance as much as we are the expressions, manifestations of newborn knowledge (in every sense of the word)? — Janus

Well that's one of the more beautiful myths/hypothesis I've heard in a while. Nice !

I want to add that I've often heard it said the we humans are the world coming to know itself, and in that sense, it didn't exist until it came to be known by us. But then what about the other animals, whose cognitive umwelts are (mostly) hidden from us? — Janus

I like the idea of all the sentient creatures as different kinds of 'eyes.' Humans are the grand conceptual eyes, but eagles actually see better and more. What is it to hear like an owl ? To smell like a bloodhound ? I do love animals. Their umwelts are entities we are forced to see from the outside. I totally admit them as entities. Like someone else's dream : it exists in my world (the one world we all share), but not in the same manner as it does for the dreamer. Differential access in a direct realist context.

When I say 'structure of reality,' I mean the whole truth in essence, because there's an infinity of facts. I also emphasize what's atemporal in reality, as is typical with philosophical knowledge (we want our truths to stay true.) Does that help ? — plaque flag

Sadly no, what is "the whole truth in essence"? Well, I doubt it matters, it's clearly a creative endeavour using language, an undertaking that will involve making choices by necessity, and not because there's a right answer.

Ah, but if logic was indeed too fickle, I don't think it would be easy, because whether you avoided the performative contradiction wouldn't be definite or stable. You are even using the proposed 'fickle nature of logic and reason' to support a claim, right ? Let me reiterate that I intend no rudeness. I'm just interested in only apparently skeptical performative contradictions that function by making grand ontological claims . — plaque flag

Logic is just thought, it's present in every opinion, from the most foolish to the most clever.

We need "good" logic. Though that's not good enough either, we need good selection biases, good understanding, good interpretation, good emphasis, and good clear thinking. Having all of these and whatever else be "good" is no guarantee of a "good" result, but that's what trial and error is for, right?

Can't the performative contradiction you talking about be resolved by the word "good"? If not "good" then just the same thing by some other clever name. Isn't this word or set of words we use nuanced, complex and reliant on interpretation? I don't like my logic because it's logic, there's some "good" thrown in there, somewhere, right? Doesn't logic need to be compelling? Isn't logic so easily wrong? I know you know that, so, help me understand the performative contradiction.

This seems contradictory to me. If an embodied intra-action occurs with one or the other, but not both, then this implies that there is an unambiguous way to distinguish between past and future. The embodied intra-action, as described clearly provides the means for an unambiguous differentiation, because it must occur with one or the other and not both. And to say that "there is no unambiguous way to differentiate" contradicts what is implied by the description of the embodied intra-action. — Metaphysician Undercover

I can see that, and I will try to clarify. The important point is that this differentiation occurs within phenomena - the separability is agential, not inherent. What I’m describing is two setups, two phenomena: one in which the embodied present (inseparable from the future) unambiguously differentiates from ‘the past’, and one in which the embodied present (inseparable from the past) unambiguously differentiates from ‘the future’. There are no inherent boundaries or properties to speak of here, no outside observer, and no way to describe the entire system. The description always occurs from within.

It matters whether or not we are ‘looking’ inside the phenomenon (in which case the ‘instrument’ itself is excluded from the description, and it is only the marks on the ‘instrument’, indicating and correlated with the values intra-actively attributable to the ‘object’-in-the-phenomenon as described by a mixture, that are being taken account of), or viewing that particular phenomenon from the ‘outside’ (via its entanglement with a further apparatus, producing a new phenomenon, in which case the ‘inside’ phenomenon as ‘object’, including the previously defined ‘instrument’, is treated quantum mechanically).

So when I state that there is no unambiguous way to differentiate between the past and the future, I’m viewing both phenomena from ‘outside’, within a new phenomenon, in which case both ‘the past’ and ‘the future’ are treated not as these previously defined ‘objects-within-phenomena’, but as entanglements inseparable from their respective embodied intra-actions.

The reason why "the past as we describe it is only relatively 'determined'", is because of our mode of description. There is always intent, purpose behind any use of language, therefore any type of description. Intent, or purpose is a view toward the future, therefore "the past as we describe it" is always conditioned by the future as we anticipate it, as the description is conditioned by intent. But the future we know is full of possibility, and so this possibility is allowed to be reflected into the past which we describe. Therefore we allow that the past is only relatively determined, in our descriptions, because this allows the past to be more consistent with the future which we know as undetermined, thereby supporting our physical representations, or models of temporal continuity. — Metaphysician Undercover

Are you suggesting there is a mode of description, observation or measurement that does objectively determine ‘the past’? This is my point: that regardless of intentionality, language or other human exceptionalism, there is no referring to an inherent, fixed property of abstract, independently existing objects, except under Newtonian assumptions that have since been scientifically disproven, over and over. It is more accurate that the past, the future, whatever matters “is substance in its intra-active becoming - not a thing but a doing, a congealing of agency... phenomena in their ongoing materialisation.”

Attributing ‘possibility’ to the future or the past is inseparable from the phenomenon in which we are embodied as that part of the world to which such possibility makes a difference.

I can see how what you’re saying here makes sense classically, but an honest ontology needs to combat human exceptionalism and the disproven assumptions of Newtonian physics:

• Representationalism: the independently determinate existence of words and things;
• The metaphysics of Individualism: that the world is composed of individual entities with individually determinate boundaries and properties; and
• The intrinsic separability of knower and known: that measurements reveal the pre-existing values of the properties of independently existing objects as separate from the measuring agencies.

So there’s a paradigm shift required in how we describe reality. Our physical representations and models of temporal continuity are largely inaccurate, and have been proven so. To continue shoe-horning our ontology to fit these assumptions seems to me an ignorant and dishonest way to do philosophy. I’ve been working my way out of this, and have lately found Barad to be helpful in articulating the connections I’ve been seeing.

Sadly no, what is "the whole truth in essence"? Well, I doubt it matters, it's clearly a creative endeavour using language, an undertaking that will involve making choices by necessity, and not because there's a right answer. — Judaka

You claim there is no right answer. That's the whole truth in essence, no ? The big one that gives you leverage. Think in those terms. What meta-claims give a speaker leverage ? They often take a skeptical form, truly mistaking themselves for humility. But 'no right answer' is a claim not only about you but about everyone else. A massive ontological claim that not just you but all of us are doomed to quest in vain for more than pragmatic delusions ---but why wouldn't that be a pragmatic delusion that serves your personally ?

Please note that this is not a personal attack. I'm trying to make a larger point that transcends us both.

You claim there is no right answer. That's the whole truth in essence, no ? — plaque flag

It's a definitive answer to the question of the whole truth, at least.

A massive ontological claim that not just you but all of us are doomed to quest in vain for more than pragmatic delusions — plaque flag

I wouldn't have called them "pragmatic delusions", so long as we're aware they're pragmatic, it seems unfair to call them delusions.

but why wouldn't that be a pragmatic delusion that serves your personally ? — plaque flag

I'd prefer to hear your answer to it actually. You've agreed with every premise in my argument, what exactly do you disagree with? Thinking requires arranging truth, and truth is created by correct references. My arguments are my creative effort, produced by my choices, my biases, and my goals. Why aren't these conditions leading you to conclude as I do?

Made me think of Donald Hoffman's reframing of the "construction view."

Precisely which causal architecture for integrating information is the smell of pine? No answer has been offered and none ever will: these proposals set themselves an impossible task by assuming that objects in spacetime exist when not observed and have causal powers. This assumption works admirably within the interface. It utterly fails to transcend the interface: it cannot explain how conscious experiences might arise from physical systems such as embodied brains.

Suppose that I am an agent—a conscious agent—who perceives, decides, and acts. Suppose that my experiences of objects in spacetime are just an interface that guides my actions in an objective world—a world that does not consist of objects in spacetime. Then the question becomes: What is that world? What shall we place in that box labeled WORLD?

Let’s grant, provisionally, that we have conscious experiences, that we are fallible and inconsistent in our beliefs about them, and that their nature and properties are legitimate subjects of scientific study. Let’s also grant that our experiences, some of which we are consciously aware of and many of which we are not, inform our decisions and actions; again, taking these as ideas to be refined and revised by scientific study. Let us grant, in short, that we are conscious agents that perceive, decide, and act.


Then the question remains: What is the objective world?

Could conscious experiences bubble out of a computer simulation? Some scientists and philosophers think so, but no scientific theory can explain how. Simulations run afoul of the hard problem of consciousness: if we assume that the world is a simulation, then the genesis of conscious experiences remains a mystery.


--

We can convey an experience by a mere expression. This is data compression of impressive proportions. How much information is wrapped up in an experience, say, of love? It’s hard to say. Our species has explored love through countless songs and poems and, apparently, failed to fathom its depths: each new generation feels compelled to explore further, to forge ahead with new lyrics and tunes. And yet, despite its unplumbed complexity, love is conveyed with a glance. This economy of expression is possible because my universe of experience, and my perceptual interface, overlaps yours.

There are, of course, differences. The visual experiences of the colorblind differ from the rich world of colors that most of us relish. The emotional experiences of a sociopath differ from ours in a way perhaps inconceivable to us, even in our darkest moments. But often the overlap is substantial, and grants us genuine, if but partial, access to the conscious world of another person, a world that would otherwise lie hidden—behind an icon of their body in our interface.

And then this part gets at:
But then what about the other animals, whose cognitive umwelts are (mostly) hidden from us?

When we shift our gaze from humans to a bonobo or a chimpanzee, we find that the icon of each tells us far less about the conscious world that hides behind it. We share with these primates 99 percent of our DNA, but far less, it would seem, of our conscious worlds. It took the brilliance and persistence of Jane Goodall to look beyond the icon of a chimp and glimpse inside its conscious world. 15

But as we shift our gaze again, from a chimp to a cat, then to a mouse, an ant, a bacterium, virus, rock, molecule, atom, and quark, each successive icon that appears in our interface tells us less and less about the efflorescence of consciousness behind the icon—again, “behind” in the same sense that a file lies “behind” its desktop icon. With an ant, our icon reveals so little that even Goodall could not, we suspect, probe its conscious world. With a bacterium, the poverty of our icon makes us suspect that there is, in fact, no such conscious world. With rocks, molecules, atoms, and quarks, our suspicion turns to near certainty. It is no wonder that we find physicalism, with its roots in an unconscious ground, so plausible.

We have been taken in. We have mistaken the limits of our interface for an insight into reality. We have finite capacities of perception and memory. But we are embedded in an infinite network of conscious agents whose complexity exceeds our finite capacities. So our interface must ignore all but a sliver of this complexity. For that sliver, it must deploy its capacities judiciously—more detail here, less there, next to nothing elsewhere. Hence our decline of insight as we shift our gaze from human to ant to quark. Our decline of insight should not be mistaken for an insight into decline—a progressive poverty inherent in objective reality. The decline is in our interface, in our perceptions. But we externalize it; we pin it on reality. Then we erect, from this erroneous reification, an ontology of physicalism.

Conscious realism pins the decline where it belongs—on our interface, not on an unconscious objective reality. Although each successive icon, in the sequence from human through ant to quark, offers a dimmer view of the conscious world that lies behind, this does not entail that consciousness itself is on a dimmer switch. The face I see in a mirror, being an icon, is not itself conscious. But behind that icon flourishes, I know firsthand, a living world of conscious experiences. Likewise, the stone I see in a riverbed, being an icon, is not conscious nor inhabited by consciousness.

---

Conscious realism contends, to the contrary, that no physical object is conscious. If I see a rock, then that rock is part of my conscious experience, but the rock itself is not conscious. When I see my friend Chris, I experience an icon that I create, but that icon itself is not conscious. My Chris-icon opens a small portal into the rich world of conscious agents; a smiling icon, for instance, suggests a happy agent. When I see a rock, I also interact with conscious agents, but my rock-icon offers no insight, no portal, into their experiences.

So conscious realism reframes the AI question: Can we engineer our interface to open new portals into the realm of conscious agents? A hodgepodge of transistors affords no insight into that realm. But can transistors be assembled and programmed into an AI that opens a new portal into that realm? For what it’s worth, I think so. I think that AI can open new portals into consciousness, just as microscopes and telescopes open new vistas within our interface.

I'd say my view is built from several pieces that work together all at the same time.
Like my Klein bottle icon. Or like a donut and a donut hole. Or the right and left hand. My argument for this is empirical, semantic, and holist. But it's in the OP, so I'll stop there. — plaque flag

Sorry, that view-splaining was as clear as a donut hole, and as straightforward as a klein-bottle. You had me at "holist", but it's the other bits that don't fit --- into my unsophisticated semantic receptacle. I guess, for now, I'll just have to muddle along with the naive Wiki definition of Direct Realism.

PS__As I mentioned before, it would help me to hear your response to the alternative views of Direct Realism linked in my previous post.

I wouldn't have called them "pragmatic delusions", so long as we're aware they're pragmatic, it seems unfair to call them delusions. — Judaka

OK, it's a bit unfair. But there's something self-eating about instrumentalism. And I've wallowed in the mud of it myself --- it's even intoxicating the way it turns on itself.

If there's no truth but only useful fictions, then that itself is just a useful fiction. There's also no fact of the matter about whether or not a fiction is useful. So we'll have to decide if it's useful to believe that it's useful to believe that it's useful to believe...

Another version: truth is 'just' consensus. But how do we find out if we have a consensus ? We need a consensus to determine whether there's a consensus to determine whether there's a consensus and so on.

To be fair, such maxims can be taken as edifying moderately ironic speech acts -- and this may be how they are intended. But maybe it's good for me to point out how they seem to fail as serious ontological assertions.

I'd prefer to hear your answer to it actually. You've agreed with every premise in my argument, what exactly do you disagree with? Thinking requires arranging truth, and truth is created by correct references. My arguments are my creative effort, produced by my choices, my biases, and my goals. Why aren't these conditions leading you to conclude as I do? — Judaka

To some degree, we can't help but model one another as unfree objects determined by their environment. Hence the constant temptation toward psychologism. But too much psychologism is a performative contradiction, a denial of our own 'freedom' (responsibility),dignity, and our rationality itself --- hence the trustworthiness of self-subverting psychologizing claims.

You might be tempted to tell me that I'm just being sentimental, but such accusations of sentimentality (of motivated reasoning) would just be 'irrational' opining on your part unless you have some leverage on me in terms of norms binding us both. I could trivially turn folk psychology on you and say you are just antisocial, superstitious, etc. [ Of course I see us as in a friendly conversation here, so I'm just offering examples. ]

Do we aspire to be more than shit throwing superstitious monkeys ? The dignity and the freedom of the individual are entangled with the concept (ideal on the horizon?) of a universal rationality.

Made me think of Donald Hoffman's reframing of the "construction view." — Count Timothy von Icarus

I very much think philosophy is correctly obsessed with subjectivity. But I also (for now) think indirect realism is a bad approach. A sophisticated phenomenology-enriched direct realism is just must cleaner, largely in terms of 'Hegelian' insights. As 'scientists' as opposed to mystics or daydreamers, we've already made (mostly tacit) deep ontological commitments that affect what other commitments are sensible.

A very simple point found in Husserl (and surely in some AP guys) is that we intend the public object. I talk about our real number system, not my own experience of it -- except that Husserl might intend that experience, which is possible, to make this very distinction. The normative discursive self (Brandom is great on this) is profoundly social: the "I that is We, We that is I." Dramaturgical ontology ! It makes no sense for 'science' (the inquiring normative community) to put itself outside of the 'Object,' for it co-determines the 'Object' of which it must be part.

it would help me to hear your response to the alternative views of Direct Realism linked in my previous post. — Gnomon

Hopefully these quotes from Zahavi's book on Husserl will help.

Phenomenology is not a theory about the merely appearing, or to put it differently, appearances are not mere appearances. For how things appear is an integral-part of what they really are. If we wish to grasp the true nature of the object, we had better pay close attention to how it manifests and reveals itself, be it in sensuous perception or in scientific analyses. The reality of the object is not hidden behind the phenomenon, but unfolds itself in the phenomenon. As Heidegger would say, it is phenomenologically absurd to say of the phenomenon that it stands in the way of something more fundamental that it merely represents. To repeat: Although the distinction between appearance and reality can be maintained, according to Husserl it is not a distinction between two separate realms, but a distinction internal to the realm of appearances. It is a distinction between how the objects might appear at a superficial glance, and how they might appear in the best of circumstances.

Some good stuff from Zahavi's book on Husserl (pdf not hard to find, paperback well worth the price):

According to Husserl, reality is not simply a brute fact detached from every context of experience and from every conceptual framework, but is a system of validity and meaning that needs subjectivity, that is, experiential and conceptual perspectives if it is to manifest and articulate itself. It is in this sense that reality depends on subjectivity, which is why Husserl could claim that it is just as nonsensical to speak of an absolute mind-independent reality as it is to speak of a circular square (Hua 3/120).

This is obviously not to deny or question the existence of the real world, but simply to reject an objectivistic interpretation of its ontological status. What does it mean to be a transcendent object? For Husserl, this question can only be answered critically, that is, undogmatically, by turning to the phenomenologically given, namely to the objects qua appearing. To speak of transcendent objects is to speak of objects that are not part of my consciousness and that cannot be reduced to my experience of them. It is to speak of objects that might always surprise us, that is, objects showing themselves differently than we expected. However, it is not to speak of objects as independent of or inaccessible to my perspective in any absolute sense.

On the contrary, Husserl believes that it only makes sense to speak of transcendent objects insofar as they are transcendent for us. The objects only have significance for us through our consciousness of them. To be real, to be an objectively existing object, is to have a specific regulated structure of appearance, it is to be given for a subject in a certain way, with a certain meaning and validity, not in the sense that the object can exist only when it actually appears, but in the sense that its existence is connected to the possibility of such an appearance. To claim that there are objects that are not actually experienced—stones on the backside of the moon, plants in the Amazon jungle, or colors in the ultraviolet spectrum, for instance—is to claim that the objects in question are embedded in a horizon of experience and could be given in principle (though there might be empirical or anthropocentric difficulties connected to this). It is precisely for this reason that every transcendent object is said to remain part of the phenomenological field of research.

Occasionally, Husserl describes his idealism as an attempt to comprehend and clarify the richness and transcendence of the world through a systematic analysis of constituting intentionality (Hua 1/34). In this sense, Husserl's transcendental idealism can be seen as an attempt to redeem rather than renounce the realism of the natural attitude. Or, to put it differently, Husserl would claim that the transcendental reduction enables us to understand and account for the realism that is intrinsic to the natural attitude. In fact, Husserl writes that his transcendental idealism contains natural realism within itself (Hua 9/254).41 [T]he transcendent world; human beings; their intercourse with one another, and with me, as human beings; their experiencing, thinking, doing, and making, with one another: these are not annulled by my phenomenological reflection, not devalued, not altered, but only understood (Hua 17/282 [275]). That the world exists, that it is given as an existing universe in uninterrupted experience which is constantly fusing into universal concordance, is entirely beyond doubt. But it is quite another matter to understand this indubitability which sustains life and positive science and to clarify the ground of its legitimacy (Hua 5/152-153). There can be no stronger realism than this, if by this word nothing more is meant than: 'I am certain of being a human being who lives in this world, etc., and I doubt it not in the least.' But the great problem is precisely to understand what is here so obvious' (Hua 6/190-191 [187]).
...
In making these claims, Husserl is not only approaching Kant's famous dictum about the compatibility of transcendental idealism and empirical realism, he is also getting close to what has occasionally been called internal realism. To a certain extent, it might actually be said that Husserl's criticism of representationalism does support a kind of (direct) realism. We are ... directed at real existing objects, and this directedness is not mediated by any intramental objects. But if one wants to call this position realism, it has to be emphasized that it is a realism based on experience. It is an experiential realism or an internal realism not unlike the one espoused by Hilary Putnam, having no affinities with a metaphysical realism. In the same breath, and perhaps even more appropriately, one might say that Husserls criticism of representationalism can be seen as a criticism of both realism and idealism. If one defines the opposition between realism and idealism with the use of the doublet internal representation/external reality, idealism claiming that the only entity existing is the intramental representation, while realism claims that the mental representation corresponds to an extramental and mind-independent object, it is obvious that Husserl must reject both.

Is my recollection of our discussion wrong? I thought you agreed with most of what I've said, quite abruptly, it seems as though it must've been the opposite.

If there's no truth but only useful fictions, then that itself is just a useful fiction. There's also no fact of the matter about whether or not a fiction is useful. So we'll have to decide if it's useful to believe that it's useful to believe that it's useful to believe. — plaque flag

Okay... but I thought you had agreed with my views on truth, I'm puzzled.

Another version: truth is 'just' consensus. But how do we find out if we have a consensus ? We need a consensus to determine whether there's a consensus to determine whether there's a consensus and so on. — plaque flag

Huh... This is a straw man, but I won't correct it.

To some degree, we can't help but model one another as unfree objects determined by their environment. Hence the constant temptation toward psychologism. But too much psychologism is a performative contradiction, a denial of our own 'freedom' (responsibility),dignity, and our rationality itself --- hence of the trustworthiness of self-subverting psychologizing claims. — plaque flag

This seems like more straw-manning, at least, I can't see anything I've said in this.

Do we aspire to be more than shit throwing superstitious monkeys ? The dignity and the freedom of the individual are entangled with the concept (ideal on the horizon?) of a universal rationality. — plaque flag

First time hearing about this, and it's not an argument, just telling me this is not a great start.

I asked for an explanation on why you thought I was wrong and you haven't provided one. But if you want to finish things up here, that's fine as well.

Okay... but I thought you had agreed with my views on truth, I'm puzzled. — Judaka

In case it helps:

I suggested that 'P is true' is (roughly) the assertion of P.
Then I said that assertion was possibly irreducible.

Huh... This is a straw man, but I won't correct it. — Judaka

I'm just showing some classic problems with attempts to reduce truth to something else.

I asked for an explanation on why you thought I was wrong and you haven't provided one. But if you want to finish things up here, that's fine as well. — Judaka

Sorry if I offended you somehow. I felt quite calm and friendly and when I wrote all that.

I think you just misunderstood my explanation --or I misunderstood what you wanted explained.

I don't mention ethics for sentimental reasons. Rationality is fundamentally ethical (implicitly about autonomy and freedom), though psychologism tends to try to reduce evade the normative dimension.

Also the passages quoted on language, about its protean character, don't destroy [ paradoxically ] a 'faith ' (trust) in conceptuality but inspire a respect for the complexity of the situation.

I suggested that 'P is true' is (roughly) the assertion of P.
Then I said that assertion was possibly irreducible. — plaque flag

Does that represent a substantial disagreement?

I'm not opposed to the idea that saying "P is true" is roughly an assertion of P. If I say, it's true that an item is overpriced, I am asserting that it's overpriced. Is that claim irreducible? Sure, generally speaking.

I'm just showing some classic problems with attempts to reduce truth to something else. — plaque flag

The classic problem of requiring an infinite series of consensuses?

Sorry if I offended you somehow. I felt quite calm and friendly and when I wrote all that — plaque flag

I have no idea what you're even criticising so searingly in your response, but it's in a response to me, with a bunch of straw-mans, and talk of shit-throwing superstitious monkeys. I am annoyed, but I won't hold a grudge about it, and I appreciate that I've interpreted you in ways that weren't intended.

I don't mention ethics for sentimental reasons. Rationality is fundamentally ethical (implicitly about autonomy and freedom), though psychologism tends to try to reduce evade the normative dimension. — plaque flag

What's the relevance of psychologism? I feel like you've made a lot of implicit assertions, but I want them to be spelled out.

Also the passages quoted on language, about its protean character, don't destroy [ paradoxically ] a 'faith ' (trust) in conceptuality but inspire a respect for the complexity of the situation. — plaque flag

As opposed to what? Am I arguing against the concept of something being overpriced? Or any other concept? Concepts are fundamental to language, the relevance of your comment is lost on me.

I can see that, and I will try to clarify. The important point is that this differentiation occurs within phenomena - the separability is agential, not inherent. — Possibility

The differentiation might be "agential" in the sense that it is a feature of the agent's sensibility, and carried out through the process of sensation combined with other agential processes, memory anticipation, etc., therefore be inherent within the phenomena, or, it might be performed by the agent's application of logical processes. The application of logic to the sense appearances (phenomena) produces a differentiation which is distinct from the differentiation which inheres within the phenomena, produced by the agent's pre-conscious systems. The application of logic toward understanding any phenomenon as actually different from how it appears in sense perception is what Plato strongly argued for when he insisted that the senses deceive us.

Because of this, the proposed agential separation must be understood as complex and multi-faceted. Consequently, restrictions to differentiation, which are fundamentally within the phenomena, making some aspects of separability of the phenomena appear to be impossible, are not really impossible with the appropriate application of logic.

What I’m describing is two setups, two phenomena: one in which the embodied present (inseparable from the future) unambiguously differentiates from ‘the past’, and one in which the embodied present (inseparable from the past) unambiguously differentiates from ‘the future’. There are no inherent boundaries or properties to speak of here, no outside observer, and no way to describe the entire system. The description always occurs from within. — Possibility

These "setups" you describe would be logical separations. They are not separations which are within the phenomena itself. These are propositions for logical proceedings. The problem here is that because there are "no inherent boundaries or properties to speak of here", as you say, within the phenomena, which is how the present appears to us, then such distinctions are somewhat arbitrary, and not necessarily in correspondence with reality. This implies that we need to determine a reality which is beyond, or transcends, phenomenal reality, in order to ground such distinctions in something real.

From the perspective of phenomenal reality, i.e. empirical evidence,and what appears by way of sensation as 'reality', no clear boundary between past and future can be supported. Therefore the unambiguous differentiations you propose, between past and present, and future and present, cannot actually be made without reference to a transcendental reality. Without this, "the present" remains vague, and so do any differentiations proposed.

So when I state that there is no unambiguous way to differentiate between the past and the future, I’m viewing both phenomena from ‘outside’, within a new phenomenon, in which case both ‘the past’ and ‘the future’ are treated not as these previously defined ‘objects-within-phenomena’, but as entanglements inseparable from their respective embodied intra-actions. — Possibility

According to what I stated above, you need reference to a transcendental reality in order to justify the perspective of "outside". The "new phenomenon" which you propose is not a phenomenon at all, being independent, or "outside" all sense appearances, and simply the basis for propositions or premises for logical proceedings. But unless the propositions can be justified, they are nothing other than imaginary, fictitious fantasies. We might consider the axioms of pure mathematics as an example. These axioms are not "new phenomenon", nor are they grounded in any sort of phenomenon, they are taken to be prior to phenomenon, and this is the way that mathematics gets "outside" phenomena.

Are you suggesting there is a mode of description, observation or measurement that does objectively determine ‘the past’? This is my point: that regardless of intentionality, language or other human exceptionalism, there is no referring to an inherent, fixed property of abstract, independently existing objects, except under Newtonian assumptions that have since been scientifically disproven, over and over. It is more accurate that the past, the future, whatever matters “is substance in its intra-active becoming - not a thing but a doing, a congealing of agency... phenomena in their ongoing materialisation.” — Possibility

What I am suggesting is that there are strong indications that it must be possible to objectively determine 'the past'. And, the reason why we cannot, at the current position of human evolution is that we have not established the necessary logical premises. I would also propose that the only way to "objectively determine 'the past'" is to establish a very clear and unambiguous understanding of "the present". "The present" is where the future and past meet. The required principles (premises) are not as you propose, a clear distinction between past and present, and future and present, because this would leave the entirety of "the present" as inconsistent with both the past and the future, rendering "the present" as completely unintelligible from any temporal, empirically derived principles. This sense of "the present" gives us eternal immutable Platonic Forms, along with the so-called "interaction problem", and it validates the realm of imaginary, fictitious and fantastic mathematical axioms So the required principles are not as such, but I propose that they are those which establish a clear distinction between past and future.

So the problem which is now arising, is that Newtonian physics, and the physics of "objects" in general are based in a faulty understanding of "the present". The object is represented by Newton's first law as a static continuity of being, staying the same through time, eternally, unless caused by a force to change. The object is then represented by its past existence, and the cause of change to it, is generally represented as the past existence of another object which exerts a force. The consequence of this model is determinism.

The problem which I mentioned is that this is not a proper representation of the object's past existence, because it is actually produced with a view toward the future. The purpose or intent is to model the continued existence of the the object, into the future, for the sake of prediction. Generally speaking, this is the purpose of the conception of "mass" to show a continuity of the object from past into future through inertia. The issue is that this supposed continuity between past and future, is not real. It has been created just for that purpose of prediction. And this presupposes that eternal continuous existence of the object, at the present, unless caused to change. That is temporal continuity.

So there’s a paradigm shift required in how we describe reality. Our physical representations and models of temporal continuity are largely inaccurate, and have been proven so. To continue shoe-horning our ontology to fit these assumptions seems to me an ignorant and dishonest way to do philosophy. I’ve been working my way out of this, and have lately found Barad to be helpful in articulating the connections I’ve been seeing. — Possibility

Clearly I agree with this. The issue with temporal continuity is mentioned above. The problem is the assumed continuity of inertia, taken for granted by Newton's first law. Phenomena gives us the appearance of objects, and these objects are apprehended as a continuity of sameness. That continuity of sameness is expressed in Newton's first law. The problem is that this observed continuity and the ensuing proposition, as that law, is not supported by necessity. This lack of necessity is accounted for by change, and in Newton's laws, the concept of force, which is the cause of change. So the eternal continuity is not a necessity, but this is qualified with "a force is required to alter it". And so long as we can understand the cause of change, and model the forces involved, the lack of necessity doesn't not present us with a problem. We model the causes of change as other temporally continuous objects, and we get the illusion of a determinist world. But when we get to the finer aspects of the universe, free will for example, and some aspects of particle physics, the forces involved are not well understood. Then we reach the limits of capacity for this type of representation, that of temporal continuity, and much of reality remains as unintelligible. So, we must accept that it is required to dismiss this type of representation in order to go further in our understanding.

I'm not opposed to the idea that saying "P is true" is roughly an assertion of P. If I say, it's true that an item is overpriced, I am asserting that it's overpriced. Is that claim irreducible? Sure, generally speaking. — Judaka

:up:
If we agree, as we seem to here, at least, then beliefs as 'pragmatic delusions' (my phrase) don't seem to work. Of course I can get behind mere fallibilism.

I have no idea what you're even criticising so searingly in your response, but it's in a response to me, with a bunch of straw-mans, and talk of shit-throwing superstitious monkeys. — Judaka

I really did mean in all in a friendly tone. I paraphrased part of an argument I found in a book that changed my mind about certain relativistic positions I once found convincing.

Doesn't logic need to be compelling? Isn't logic so easily wrong? I know you know that, so, help me understand the performative contradiction. — Judaka

I think we 'have' to separate logic in its ideal / normative sense from logic as a mere description of our fallible often illogical (in a normative sense) thinking process. I'd say that truly logical thinking ought to compel us. We ought to defer to the 'force' of the better reason. But we may in fact be more impressed by sophistry. This might be what you meant by logic being 'so easily wrong.'

This is tautological. I mean I'm trying to explicate the normative sense of logic -- unfold what is folded/implicit.

Equally, the "truth" of my argument, involves interpreting reality as meeting the prerequisites of something like "useful". It's true that my argument seems correct, or it's true that my argument seems accurate, or something like that.

In the simplest terms, if a method achieves its goal then that is a truth, and it's this kind of truth we seek, not "that which is in accordance with reality", barely anyone gives a shit about that. In a very real sense, anything useful is truth, specifically in its use. — Judaka

This is where you pretty directly write as a pragmatist. Later I try to show the issue with that position.

If there's no truth but only useful fictions, then that itself is just a useful fiction. There's also no fact of the matter about whether or not a fiction is useful. So we'll have to decide if it's useful to believe that it's useful to believe that it's useful to believe... — plaque flag

You call it a strawman, but I don't see why it's a strawman. Pragmatism is close to instrumentalism and the idea of useful fictions. In some version of prag/inst, the claims/beliefs are more like shovels, neither truth nor false,

What's the relevance of psychologism? — Judaka

It's part of the family of post-philosophical 'irrationalisms' that 'reduce' rationality and logic.

https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Psychologism

Psychologism is a philosophical position that attempts to reduce diverse forms of knowledge including concepts and principles of logic and mathematics to states of mind or phenomena that occur in the mind. It takes psychology as the fundamental discipline that can explain and justify knowledge in philosophy. .. Psychologism is a form of reductionism that attempts to reduce other forms of knowledge including those of logic and mathematics into psychological concepts.

The issue is that psychological claims are only authoritative if logic is. In our context, I tried to use logic to show that pragmatism has serious issues. We seem to agree that truth is about assertion. But this means truth transcends utility.

'P is useful to believe' is different 'P is true.' Correct ?