That is a tree." What does "that" refer to? Do you begin to see the difficulty? If it's another interpretation, then you never escape from an endless chain of interpretation. On the other hand, if there is something about the tree that is not merely interpreted by you, then you have a grasp of reality not interpreted. — timw
If it's all interpretation, how do you know? — tim wood
...and have no access to anything but interpretation... — tim wood
Our brains are locked up in our skull; there is no way for the brain to directly access anything outside the skull, except chemical signals that are delivered by blood from elsewhere in the body. — Bitter Crank
And it's all a construction (but not a one-off construction -- the brain revises the construction all the time.) — Bitter Crank
Comment and discussion welcome. — tim wood
I don't think of "reality" as being constructed by the brain, I don't think of it as "construction" at all, but as a collaboration involving the environment and the body (the brain being merely a part of the latter). The collaboration is ever changing, just as the environment and the body are constantly changing. — Janus
It seems odd to think of the body as being discontinuous, separate, from the environment. You seem to be thinking of "direct access" in terms of some kind of 'prime-itive' intuition of it as being analogical to touching objects with the skin. — Janus
I don't think of "reality" as being constructed by the brain, I don't think of it as "construction" at all, but as a collaboration involving the environment and the body (the brain being merely a part of the latter). The collaboration is ever changing, just as the environment and the body are constantly changing. — Janus
Well, on your account these are realities - which you have ruled out. In particular, you (apparently) think they persist across time, but what makes you think so? — tim wood
My point here is simply that to insist there's no access to reality is to be entangled with a set of arcane presuppositions that predate Kant.
I'd like to sharpen this a bit: my position is that there is a reality that we perceive, that grounds our perception, such that we can know the reality and make true statements about it. — tim wood
But the interpretive function of the brain -- the making sense of everything -- is inside the skull. — Bitter Crank
Well. Kant took a shot at it. Maybe he's why you can write a phrase like "objects of the senses" and think you understand it. — tim wood
My point here is simply that to insist there's no access to reality is to be entangled with a set of arcane presuppositions that predate Kant.
On your account, your and my agreement as to a tree is simply a coinciding of interpretations and nothing more (and how would we know?!). My position is that your account is an incomplete account, and at the least fails to account for the tree or how we can agree?
Agreed. Duration that we live in it's a process, and in this process we are constantly interacting with all that is around us and in this process creating memories which are equally fluid. Memories define who we are and are the source of future actions/choices.
It is an ongoing process. This is the real time that we experience and call it life. — Rich
I'm not convinced the notion of interpretation being in the brain even makes sense. There may be neuronal activities in the brain that are correlated with interpretative activities, but I don't see how those activities can be artificially cordoned off, so to speak, from the activities (cellular, muscular, electrochemical, and so on) of the whole body — Janus
nor how the activities of the whole body can coherently be separated from the energetic environmental processes that they are responses to. — Janus
I think this is certainly true in part, but I don't believe it can be the whole story. I think we are also influenced by what we don't remember, and were perhaps never even aware of. — Janus
But, as it happens, the brain is in charge. — Bitter Crank
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