If a knowledge of the connexion of the elements (sensations) does not suffice us, and we ask, Who possesses this connexion of sensations, Who experiences it ? then we have succumbed to the old habit of subsuming every element (every sensation) under some unanalysed complex, and we are falling back imperceptibly upon an older, lower, and more limited point of view.
The underlined part is more of Mach's spirituality, and I suspect that of many scientific and artistic types. I'm sure many of us here would love to contribute something worthy --- somehow push the conversation forward. Even if such a drive also includes petty-selfish elements, so be it. We are mud that breathes.That in this complex of elements, which fundamentally is only one, the boundaries of bodies and of the ego do not admit of being established in a manner definite and sufficient for all cases, has already been remarked. To bring together elements that are most intimately connected with pleasure and pain into one ideal mental-economical unity, the ego; this is a task of the highest importance for the intellect working in the service of the pain-avoiding, pleasure-seeking will. The delimitation of the ego, therefore, is instinctively effected, is rendered familiar, and possibly becomes fixed through heredity. Owing to their high practical importance, not only for the individual, but for the entire species, the composites " ego " and " body " instinctively make good their claims, and assert themselves with elementary force. In special cases, however, in which practical ends are not concerned, but where knowledge is an end in itself, the delimitation in question may prove to be insufficient, obstructive, and untenable.
Similarly, class-consciousness, class-prejudice, the feeling of nationality, and even the narrowest-minded local patriotism may have a high importance, for certain purposes. But such attitudes will not be shared by the broad-minded investigator, at least not in moments of research. All such egoistic views are adequate only for practical purposes. Of course, even the investigator may succumb to habit. Trifling pedantries and nonsensical discussions; the cunning appropriation of others' thoughts, with perfidious silence as to the sources; when the word of recognition must be given, the difficulty of swallowing one's defeat, and the too common eagerness at the same time to set the opponent's achievement in a false light: all this abundantly shows that the scientist and scholar have also the battle of existence to fight, that the ways even of science still lead to the mouth, and that the pure impulse towards knowledge is still an ideal in our present social conditions.
The primary fact is not the ego, but the elements (sensations). What was said on p. 21 as to the term " sensation " must be borne in mind. The elements constitute the I. s have the sensation green, signifies that the element green occurs in a given complex of other elements (sensations, memories). When I cease to have the sensation green, when I die, then the elements no longer occur in the ordinary, familiar association. That is all. Only an ideal mental-economical unity, not a real unity, has ceased to exist. The ego is not a definite, unalterable, sharply bounded unity. None of these attributes are important; for all vary even within the sphere of individual life; in fact their alteration is even sought after by the individual. Continuity alone is important. .. But continuity is only a means of preparing and conserving what is contained in the ego. This content, and not the ego, is the principal thing. This content, however, is not confined to the individual. With the exception of some insignificant and valueless personal memories, it remains presented in others even after the death of the individual. The elements that make up the consciousness of a given individual are firmly connected with one another, but with those of another individual they are only feebly connected, and the connexion is only casually apparent. Contents of consciousness, however, that are of universal significance, break through these limits of the individual, and, attached of course to individuals again, can enjoy a continued existence of an impersonal, superpersonal kind, independently of the personality by means of which they were developed. To contribute to this is the greatest happiness of the artist, the scientist, the inventor, the social reformer, etc.
Not only the relation of bodies to the ego, but the ego itself also, gives rise to similar pseudo - problems, the character of which may be briefly indicated as follows:
Let us denote the above-mentioned elements by the letters A B C . . ., X L M . . ., a, b, c . . . Let those complexes of colours, sounds, and so forth, commonly called bodies, be denoted, for the sake of clearness, by A B C . .; the complex, known as our own body, which is a part of the former complexes distinguished by certain peculiarities, may be called K L M . . .; the complex composed of volitions, memory-images, and the rest, we shall represent by a b c . . . Usually, now, the complex a , c . . . K L M. . ., as making up the ego, is opposed to the complex A B C . . ., as making up the world of physical objects; sometimes also, a b c . . . is viewed as ego, and K L M . . . A B C . . . as world of physical objects. Now, at first blush, A B C . . . appears independent of the ego, and opposed to it as a separate existence. But this independence is only relative, and gives way upon closer inspection. Much, it is true, may change in the complex a b c . . . without much perceptible change being induced in A B C . . .; and vice versa. But many changes in a b c . . . do pass, by way of changes in K L M . . ., to A B C . . .; and vice versa. (As, for example, when powerful ideas burst forth into acts, or when our environment induces noticeable changes in our body.) At the same time the group K L M . . . appears to be more intimately connected with a b c . . . and with A B C . . ., than the latter with one another; and their relations find their expression in common thought and speech.
Precisely viewed, however, it appears that the group A B C . . . is always codetermined by K L M. A cube when seen close at hand, looks large; when seen at a distance, small; its appearance to the right eye differs from its appearance to the left; sometimes it appears double; with closed eyes it is invisible. The properties of one and the same body, therefore, appear modified by our own body; they appear conditioned by it. But where, now, is that same body, which appears so different? All that can be said is, that with different K L M different A B C . . . are associated.
A common and popular way of thinking and speaking is to contrast " appearance " with " reality." A pencil held in front of us in the air is seen by us as straight; dip it into the water, and we see it crooked. In the latter case we say that the pencil appears crooked, but is in reality straight. But what justifies us in declaring one fact rather than another to be the reality, and degrading the other to the level of appearance ? In both cases we have to do with facts which present us with different combinations of the elements, combinations which in the two cases are differently conditioned. Precisely because of its environment the pencil dipped in water is optically crooked; but it is tactually and metrically straight. An image in a concave or flat mirror is only visible, whereas under other and ordinary circumstances a tangible body as well corresponds to the visible image. A bright surface is brighter beside a dark surface than beside one brighter than itself. To be sure, our expectation is deceived when, not paying sufficient attention to the conditions, and substituting for one another different cases of the combination, we fall into the natural error of expecting what we are accustomed to, although the case may be an unusual one. The facts are not to blame for that. In these cases, to speak of " appearance " may have a practical meaning, but cannot have a scientific meaning. Similarly, the question which is often asked, whether the world is real or whether we merely dream it, is devoid of all scientific meaning. Even the wildest dream is a fact as much as any other. If our dreams were more regular, more connected, more stable, they would also have more practical importance for us. In our waking hours the relations of the elements to one another are immensely amplified in comparison with what they were in our dreams. We recognise the dream for what it is. When the process is reversed, the field of psychic vision is narrowed; the contrast is almost entirely lacking. Where there is no contrast, the distinction between dream and waking, between appearance and reality, is quite otiose and worthless. — Mach
This is part of Mach's showing how relatively permanent enties (including the ego) can be decomposed into elements which will turn out to be neither mind nor matter, prior to both, the raw ingredients of both. By dissolving primary qualities (as Kant also did), he goes beyond Hobbes and Locke. But unlike Kant he feels no need to hang these neutral elements on something obscure. This is probably because he wasn't religious in the same way. He also didn't need an afterlife. Digression, but Mach's minimal, understated 'spirituality' (if we still want to call it that) also speaks to me.Colours, sounds, and the odours of bodies are evanescent. But their tangibility, as a sort of constant nucleus, not readily susceptible of annihilation, remains behind; appearing as the vehicle of the more fugitive properties attached to it. Habit, thus, keeps our thought firmly attached to this central nucleus, even when we have begun to recognise that seeing hearing, smelling, and touching are intimately akin in character. A further consideration is, that owing to the singularly extensive development of mechanical physics a kind of higher reality is ascribed to the spatial and to the temporal than to colours, sounds, and odours; agreeably to which, the temporal and spatial links of colours, sounds, and odours appear to be more real than the colours, sounds and odours themselves. The physiology of the senses, however, demonstrates, that spaces and times may just as appropriately be called sensations as colours and sounds. — Mach
I suspect that many people come to this same realization. The same virtues that die with the old return with the young. The flame leaps from candle to candle. In Feuerbach, we find also that
Further, that complex of memories, moods, and feelings, joined to a particular body (the human body), which is called the "I" or "Ego," manifests itself as relatively permanent. I may be engaged upon this or that subject, I may be quiet and cheerful, excited and ill-humoured. Yet, pathological cases apart, enough durable features remain to identify the ego. Of course, the ego also is only of relative permanency.
...
The ego is as little absolutely permanent as are bodies. That which we so much dread in death, the annihilation of our permanency, actually occurs in life in abundant measure. That which is most valued by us, remains preserved in countless copies, or, in cases of exceptional excellence, is even preserved of itself. In the best human being, however, there are individual traits, the loss of which neither he himself nor others need regret. Indeed, at times, death, viewed as a liberation from individuality, may even become a pleasant thought. Such reflections of course do not make physiological death any the easier to bear. — Mach
Haven't you said this from your own perspective? — Angelo Cannata
Of course you can compare a photograph or a painting with the actual subject that it's supposed to represent, but that is not at issue. — Wayfarer
Thinking is not an activity performed by the individual person qua individual. It is the activity of spirit, to which Hegel famously referred in the Phenomenology as “‘I’ that is ‘We’ and ‘We’ that is ‘I’” (Hegel [1807] 1977: 110). Pure spirit is nothing but this thinking activity, in which the individual thinker participates without himself (or herself) being the principal thinking agent. — plaque flag
I agree, but we should be careful not to turn perspectives into objective realities. This mistake can be avoided by considering that, by talking about perspectives, we, as a consequence, need to apply the relativity of everything to the idea of perspectives as well, so that, at the end, we need to admit that, ultimately, we don't know what we are talking about. — Angelo Cannata
The brain doesn't appear at all. Not unless you're someone who is studying brains. — Wayfarer
There's no way of being sure that we are both believing about the same Jones. — Angelo Cannata
There's no way of being sure that we are both believing about the same Jones. — Angelo Cannata
The form of experience is temporality, which is to say that whatever is directly experienced occurs “now”, or at the moment in time to which we refer as “the present”. Experience, in other words, is essentially transitory, and its contents are incommunicable. What we experience are the perceivable features of individual objects. It is through the act of thinking that we are able to identify those features through the possession of which different individuals belong to the same species, with the other members of which they share these essential features in common.
Unlike sense experience, thought is essentially communicable. Thinking is not an activity performed by the individual person qua individual. It is the activity of spirit, to which Hegel famously referred in the Phenomenology as “‘I’ that is ‘We’ and ‘We’ that is ‘I’” (Hegel [1807] 1977: 110). Pure spirit is nothing but this thinking activity, in which the individual thinker participates without himself (or herself) being the principal thinking agent.
Perhaps your view is changing as the discussion proceeds. But here you said :No. If the world as it is in itself is unknown to us, then it's not a thing. It neither exists nor does not exist. — Wayfarer
By ‘creating reality’, I’m referring to the way the brainreceives, organises and integrates cognitive data, along with memory and expectation, so as to generate the unified world–picture within which we situate and orient ourselves. — Wayfarer
Commonsense wisdom holds the opposite view: It holds that facts exist in the universe regardless of whether anyone notices them, and irrespective of whether they have been articulated in words. You may now judge for yourself if that is true. — Pinter, Charles. Mind and the Cosmic Order (p. 93). Springer International Publishing. Kindle Edition
What do you make of this? — Wayfarer
I don't agree with 'indirect realism' because it posits two separate things - the reality and its representation. As if we could compare them — Wayfarer
Sure we can. We just can't achieve a perfect match between our representation of the world and the full detail of the way the world is. Every day, billions of people are comparing their representations of the world with reality. Some manage to increase the accuracy of their representations. — wonderer1
I don't think the phrase 'indirect realism' was invented yet. But let's just look.Which 'primary source' describes Kant as an 'indirect realist'? Is it something Kant says about himself? — Wayfarer
But Kant described himself as transcendental idealist, and differentiated that from what he described as 'problematical idealism'. — Wayfarer
Kant took pains to distinguish himself from Berkeley, because critics accused him of being like Berkeley, whom Kant described as a 'problematic idealist' on account of Berkeley saying that a world outside himself is dubious or impossible to know. — Wayfarer
I don't think it does. Equations are forms; Classificatory systems are forms. They use another language is all. — unenlightened
My argument is simpy that the mind or brain assimilates sensory and rational information and from this constructs what we understand as 'the world'. I'm not denying that there is a world apart from the mind, but saying that whatever we think or say about that purported world absent any mind is meaningless. I'm struggling to understand what about this is controversial or confusing, it seems very straightforward to me. — Wayfarer
:up:I confess. In my own research I have never cared, being more concerned with the difficult trivia that goes on outside the hallowed halls of Foundations. For instance, I rarely came into contact with transfinite theory — jgill
:up:To the extent I have a problem with indirect realism, it's the fact that it tends to lead to this sort of soft dualism and hidden humonculi who are there to view the "representations" of the world. — Count Timothy von Icarus
Perhaps, as per Bourdieu, 'my habitus' (or Merleau-Ponty 'my flesh' ... Nietzsche 'my body'). — 180 Proof
Saying that we are perspectives implies that the idea that "we are perspectives" has a meaning only inside the perspective of those who say it. This is equivalent to say that it is meaningless, because its meaning is entirely limited inside itself, entirely determined by itself. — Angelo Cannata
Idealism consists in the assertion, that there are none but thinking beings, all other things, which we think are perceived in intuition, being nothing but representations in the thinking beings, to which no object external to them corresponds in fact. Whereas I say, that things as objects of our senses existing outside us are given, but we know nothing of what they may be in themselves, knowing only their appearances, i.e., the representations which they cause in us by affecting our senses...Can this be termed idealism? It is the very contrary. — Kant
Sorry, I don't see the connection. Spinoza is talking about reflective reasoning from (parallax-like) both the perspective of eternity and the perspective of time. Wittgenstein, on the other hand, is talking about constitutive the meta/cognitive constraints of logic-grammar. I suppose for both thinkers the "I" is impersonal (ergo universal? ontological?) ... — 180 Proof
the very concept of perspective is completely unreliable, because, after all, it remains a hidden way of saying that there is an objective reality, from which perspective tries to be different. — Angelo Cannata
"Blessed is he whose beginning is before he came into being!"
Jesus - Gospel of Thomas - V 20
"The disciples said to Jesus, "Tell us how our end will be." Jesus said, "Have you discovered, then, the beginning, that you look for the end? For where the beginning is, there will the end be. Blessed is he who will take his place in the beginning; he will know the end and will not experience death."
Gospel of Thomas - V18
This refers to what in Taoism is 'our face before we were born'. If we can dive this deep we can overcome life and death, and this would be the Grail experience of total 'holiness'. In its proper meaning yoga is the 'art of union with reality',and this definition reveals what meditation is all about. It's about going back to the beginning, before we began to identify as a subject with a perspective.
. . . . — FrancisRay
In its proper meaning yoga is the 'art of union with reality',and this definition reveals what meditation is all about. It's about going back to the beginning, before we began to identify as a subject with a perspective. — FrancisRay
For the mystics reality and consciousness are the same phenomenon, and perhaps this is the idea you need to overcome the idea of pure subjectivity. They say the subject-object distinction is functional or conventional, and not ontological. — FrancisRay
Of course, how is simply recognizing the nature of being "mystical?" It's a loaded term for sure. But I'd say it fits in that we obviously have such a strong tendency NOT to see the world this way, making the turn a sort of "revaluation." — Count Timothy von Icarus
Sounds right; I agree. :up: It seems like we are pretty close, but I'm sure we'll manage to find something to argue about one day. :razz: — Leontiskos
(I am also willing to toy with the idea that intellect is able to obtain a universal or rather quasi-universal point of view, which is I think what much of philosophy and science is interested in.) — Leontiskos
I want to say that the soul ultimately transcends and encompasses the world, and is not metaphysically co-extensive with it. So the subject is the world from a point of view, but it is at the same time more than that. It is not only world-from-a-point-of-view. Do we even disagree on that? — Leontiskos
For me the possibility of perception is derivative on the thing that exists in itself. The thing is more than a possibility of perception, even though we always know by means of perception. ...But then given what you say <here> I think we might be on the same page, and I may just be splitting hairs. — Leontiskos
I think perhaps you underestimate just how deep it is possible to go. — FrancisRay
Okay. But in this case how do you explain the odd fact that the mystics have the only metaphysical theory that works? — FrancisRay
All others are rejected by analysis. Also, meditation is said to be shallow if it does not go beyond mind. — FrancisRay
Absolutely we agree on this. This is why I endorse the perennial philosophy, for which reality is not a perspective but a phenomenon, Reality would be our identity, not a perspective on something else. Kant shows that the ultimate is inconceivable and unsayable, as the OT story of the golden calf suggests. It would be knowable, however, as it is who we are. , — FrancisRay