you have both simulated senses grounding the generated experience of reality, as well as actual senses coming through from your body in bed. — Christoffer

Yes, I guess that's another possibility -- dream and body may switch roles, mutually reinforcing the experience. At one point the bodily sensation informs the dream, then at another point the dream that unfolds influences the body.

Good, and glad you like the post. Everyone, please add 4. to list of possibilities!

So let's be a bit pedantic and oppose necessity with possibility, and define these in terms of possible worlds, while also and distinctly opposing the analytic and the synthetic, such that the analytic is understood by definition while the synthetic is understood by checking out how things are in the world. — Banno

I'm fine with this, as long as we understand that this terminological clarification has only sharpened the questions; it's not an answer in itself. We still want to know which things that we learn about the world (synthetic knowledge) turn out to be necessary, a la Kripke and (I guess) Aristotle, and what this says about possible worlds. Is there a possible world in which water is not H2O? Kripke says no. So is there a possible world in which a human is not a rational animal? I don't know if Kripke weighed in on this, but I would say yes.

"must be seen..."
— J
is, then, what musty happen if modal logic is to avoid the issues with quantification that Quine raises - in this Quine is more or less correct, and the strategy Kripke adopts is pretty much the one Quine sets out - there are properties of things that are true of them in every possible world.

Whether these properties are "essential" is another question. — Banno

So my suggested paraphrase, "To be a bound variable in modal logic is to entail a choice of some necessary predicate(s)" would be correct. And I think we're both saying that "necessary predicates" might turn out to be so ontologically minimal that they wouldn't fit the concept of "essential properties" at all.

Good. This highlights the distinction.

I like the bead illustration as a guide to intension/extension.

Being a bead is part of the (Aristotelian?) essence of 1, but being red is not. — Banno

Interestingly, we could number a set of objects extensionally without knowing what they were. So "being a bead" (or any other common noun) wouldn't come into play. Must something serve as an "essence", though? "Object"? "The thing I am speaking about"? Relates to Kripke.

I might have missed a response somewhere, but I'm still curious about this, from Part 3.

An object, of itself and by whatever name or none, must be seen as having some of its traits necessarily and others contingently, despite the fact the latter traits follow just as analytically from some ways of specifying the object as the former traits do from other ways of specifying it.
— Quine, 155

I have a number of questions about this analysis, but let me start with this: What does Quine mean by "must be seen"? Is this referring back to the act of quantification? Is this a doctrine (like "To be is to be the value of a bound variable") that would state, "To be a bound variable in modal logic is to entail a choice of some necessary predicate(s)"? — J

Certainly, on a common sense usage of "possible," I should not worry about the possibility that giving my child milk will transform them into a lobster — Count Timothy von Icarus

Agreed. But don't we also have to agree that this is not necessarily true? Otherwise, where do we draw a conceptual line between what is necessary and what is overwhelmingly likely? But by all means, let's not worry about any wildly unlikely things.

You have it that the specific individual proposition involving Washington's birth is necessarily true in virtue of the particular event of Washington's birth. This is not how it is normally put at least. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Bracketing whether this is ever normally put (!), I don't see what's wrong with it. Isn't it an instance of the general principle? It seems clear enough. The general principle, if I understand you, would be "a proposition is necessarily true if the fact that it describes obtains." (This invokes the "adequate to being" idea, which I find a bit opaque, but no more so than any other attempt at a correspondence theory of truth.)

"

I think the Principal of Non-Contradiction is enough. Something cannot happen and have not happened. George Washington cannot have been the first US President and not have been the first US President (p and ~p). — Count Timothy von Icarus

Here's the real rub. I can't remember how much of the Kimhi thread you followed, but one of the major themes was whether PNC applies to both logical and physical space, and why. We know ~(p and ~p) (in most logics), but why is it that physical occurrences cannot both obtain and not obtain? Is it because of the PNC, or is the explanatory arrow reversed, with the PNC being as it is because it reflects something about the way the physical world must be actualized? Or, ideally, both -- we're equipped with rational equipment that is perfectly suited to the way the world in fact operates?

"GW was President in our world, but there are other worlds in which he was not." When we say this, are we saying the same thing as "The (logical version of the) PNC applies in our world, but there are other worlds in which it might not"? Or, if we don't like possible-worlds talk, is saying "GW might not have been president" the same kind of statement as "The (logical) PNC might not apply"? There's a pretty stark difference, seems to me, and it's tied directly to how we should understand "necessity." But I'll pause here and see what you think.

Okay, I see where you’re coming from, thanks.

This really gets to the heart of Quine's problem with modal logic. Going back a bit from the passage you quoted, Quine explains:

We can see pretty directly that any quantified modal logic is bound to show . . . favoritism among the traits of an object . . . — Quine, 155

The favoritism he has in mind, if we could quantify in modal logic, would be:

An object, of itself and by whatever name or none, must be seen as having some of its traits necessarily and others contingently, despite the fact the latter traits follow just as analytically from some ways of specifying the object as the former traits do from other ways of specifying it. — Quine, 155

I have a number of questions about this analysis, but let me start with this: What does Quine mean by "must be seen"? Is this referring back to the act of quantification? Is this a doctrine (like "To be is to be the value of a bound variable") that would state, "To be a bound variable in modal logic is to entail a choice of some necessary predicate(s)"?

body and mind would have to be ontologies. — Wolfgang

I assume you mean "separate ontological entities". But if they aren't (in some sense), then what is it that's being correlated?

The relationship between body and mind exists only at the level of description. There is no specific relationship between the two beyond a correlation. Identity theory makes the mistake of relating the two to each other one-to-one, but such an ontological reference does not exist. — Wolfgang

Could you say more about this? How do we know that there is no relationship between mind and body other than a correlation? There seems to be some pretty strong evidence for such a correlation, and it's fair to ask whether it's anything more than a correlation, but I'm confused as to why you think the issue has been settled.

I'm getting a lot out of the thread too, and I'm especially glad to see you pointing at the exchange between me and @Count Timothy von Icarus. I think this kind of "accidental disagreement" is extremely common, and not just on TPF. Sometimes, of course, people really do use terms differently and/or differ as to whether they refer to real things. But charitable interpretation stands a very good chance of straightening it out. I hate to see exchanges in which each person seems to want the other to be defending a dumb or inconsistent position. Count T is certainly not such a person, and I hope I'm not either.

"In fact, before I develop this any further, let me ask whether you think (2) is a fair elaboration of what you meant by "If it is not possible, then it is in some sense necessary."

- J

it seems accurate in the sense that something that has happened cannot possibly have not happened. It has already been actualized. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Good, glad I understood you.

So we're working here with a sense of "necessary" that means "impossible to change." As you point out, past events may not be the only things about which this can be said, but let's stick to that for now.

The first point which arises about this usage is that it seems to rely for its truth on certain beliefs about the physical world. I'm thinking of something like: "The causal 'flow of time' is unidirectional, toward what we call the future. Nothing can reverse this causality, and nothing can return to a previous moment in the flow and 're-cause' something in a different manner."

Do we know this to be true? I would say we do not -- we know so little about how time functions, physically -- but let's grant it. Is it, then, a necessary truth? This, notice, would be a necessary truth that guarantees a whole host of other necessary truths, but on quite different grounds. Do we need it to be a necessary truth? Could the (in 2025 allegedly necessary) truth that "Washington was born in 1732" depend for its necessity on a contingent truth that "Nothing can be uncaused or re-caused"? Well, why not?, we might reply. Why shouldn't a contingent truth ground a necessary truth? Isn't it the same case as the (contingent) truth that GW was born in 1732 causing the (now necessary) truth that "GW was born in 1732"?

But there's a flaw here. We're equivocating. We don't want to say that GW's birth in 1732 caused anything here other than the truth of a subsequent statement to that effect. Whereas, with a law about "causality and the flow of time," we do want to say that this law, whether necessary or contingent, literally causes events to become necessary subsequent to time T1 -- that is, when they in fact occur.

So, pausing again before I go on -- do you think this is a reasonable analysis of some of the issues involved in "necessity" statements involving the past? I know that some of this is modeled more precisely in Logicalese but I have my reasons for wanting to stay with English, as you'll see . . .

As naming a convention, sure. Not otherwise. In fact, that 'A' has been designated at various frequencies over the centuries. Kind of like the "standard meter." Relatedly, people with absolute pitch don't miraculously hear some out-there entity called 'A'. They're told the names of pitches as they hear them but, unlike the rest of us, they can recall and re-identify them.

However, notice that I spoke of a "designated range". Having a range of frequency which provide the criteria for any specific "pitch", adds another parameter. — Metaphysician Undercover

I think I see where you're going with this. A sound engineer could say (quite correctly), "Well, we hear a range of frequencies between A430 and A450 as an 'A', so even though this range includes mostly pitches that are technically sharp or flat, for all practical purposes we can specify this range as 'A'; just about no one can hear the difference." Is that what you mean?

mis-post

This analogy is not about music or composition. It's about the fact that music comprises individual sounds which, by themselves, are not music. — Wayfarer

I know. I just thought the point about composition was interesting, sorry.

the organism is not just matter in motion but something that cares about its own persistence — Wayfarer

Yes! But . . . no! For me, a good example of how inadequate our current concepts are for thinking about these questions. A microbe "cares"? Absurd! we say. And yet it certainly behaves as if it does. Well, it must just be a machine then, that "acts as if." But it's alive, and a machine is not . . .

(I'm deploring the paucity of our philosophical talk in general here, not targeting you own [always interesting] thoughts in particular.)

The image that comes to my mind is of a toddler trying to arrange blocks to her satisfaction, while adults look on at this charming stab at set theory. Some day, if the species survives, we will be the adults, looking back on our kiddy selves and saying, "So cute! They thought they could understand what they called 'life' and 'consciousness' with terms like 'care', 'behave', 'causality' . . . adorable!"

The problem is that the machine would not be distinguishing that as a distinct and separate note, it would just be registering the time when the transmitted frequency passes the designated range. So it's an artificial and arbitrary creation of "a pitch". — Metaphysician Undercover

Interesting. I'm tempted to respond, "Well, if 'a frequency passing into a designated range' is not a standard understanding of what pitch is . . . then what would you suggest?" This would be too glib, but I am curious what you have in mind that would not be "artificial and arbitrary." Or does any use of "pitch" have to be that way?

. . . the question of whether we sense distinct and discrete perceptions, impressions, or ideas, (as described by Hume), or whether we sense a continuity of changing information. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes. Music makes a good laboratory to examine some of our intuitions here, because (most?) acousticians accept the idea that the "movement of sound" is an illusion. We could just as well use film, I suppose, and talk about how individual frames do not move, but taken together create the illusion of a "moving picture."

. . . attempts to help Banno to resist the bad habit of equivocation — Metaphysician Undercover

Speaking of bad habits, I don't know why so many on this forum seem compelled toward personal disparagement. It is perfectly possible, and surely preferable, to respond post by post without deleterious characterization of others' alleged strengths and weaknesses.

Think of a melody. Each note has its own distinct individuality while blending with the other notes and silences that come before and after. As we listen, past notes linger in the present ones, and (especially if we’ve heard the song before) future notes may already seem to sound in the ones we’re hearing now. Music is not just a series of discrete notes. We experience it as something inherently durational. — Aeon.co

Nice. As you may know, this question of how we retain previous moments as we listen, and project future moments, is integral to a composer's skill. Can I reasonably expect a listener to remember that a song chorus has been played twice before, and recognize (at least part of) it the third time? Can I expect her, hearing it for the first time in the song, to project the likelihood of its repetition? The answers to these kinds of questions in turn depend on how a composer imagines their audience -- what cultural familiarities and listening skills are presupposed.

Terminology again . . . we do hear a series of tones, we just can't recognize them. A software program can.
— J

As I said, there is only a series of tones in conception, and when that conception is applied. That's what the software program does, applies the conception. We do not hear a series of tones, evidenced by what you say, we "can't recognize them". — Metaphysician Undercover

I'm fine, then, with adopting the other usage I suggested:

But if you'd rather reserve the term "hear" to mean "can distinguish acoustically," that's fine. Then we would say that I don't hear a series of tones when I hear a slide, I "process them auditorially" or some such, and when I do that, being human, I don't hear the discrete pitches — J

But I think you're questioning whether even the most sophisticated software can "hear the pitches." That is, you're wondering if "discrete pitches" is something a perceiver brings to the auditory stream, rather than locating or identifying them there. A fair question, but then there would be nothing special about this question as applied to music. It would be the huge, overhanging question of the extent to which our subjectivity creates the reality it seems to encounter.

2) A slide moves from D to E.
— J

The pitch moved from D to E. — Banno

But see above. The pitch changed. There is nothing called "pitch" that can move yet be self-identical. Unless we're OK with saying, e.g., "The logic of the argument deteriorated as he went along" and maintaining that "the logic" is an item that holds steady, and be said to deteriorate (compared to what standard?). Sure, there's something like "logic" in the world, but it isn't much like Achilles in terms of what we can say about it.

Are we gnashing over usage here? To some extent. I talk about pitches and melodies "moving" all the time; it's standard English. I just wanted us to reflect on how differently this idea of movement must be understood in such a context. And I firmly hold out for the position that, literally, acoustically, a pitch cannot move. In what (conceptual?) space is it moving? Why can't my software detect the movement?

@Banno Yes.

Did you not study calculus? — Banno

Actually, no! :grin: But I recognize why calculus would be relevant here. Thinking about it, I realize I may have been wrong in saying that pitches are theoretically divisible ad infinitum. There must come an interval too short for a sound wave to vibrate. So, unlike numbers in that regard.

Here's why I don't think "movement" is the right way to describe what a slide does:

1) Achilles moves from point D to point E.
2) A slide moves from D to E.

These look the same but are not. In 1), Achilles goes on a journey from D to E. We could call that "the journey of Achilles". In 2), "slide" is the name of the journey; it's the equivalent of "the journey of Achilles." Unlike with 1), we're not describing a situation in which some entity (call it Slide) stands ready to set off from D, does so, and then arrives at E. There is no guy called Slide doing this. "Slide" is what happens, just as "the journey of Achilles" is what happens. But in 1), there is a guy called Achilles that we can additionally talk about. I maintain there is no such comparable figure in 2). If you try to substitute "pitch" as the protagonist, the thing that moves, you run into the basic acoustical fact that if a pitch moved, it would no longer be the same pitch. We can again see the dissimilarity with Achilles -- he doesn't change every time he moves on his journey (at least with common ontological commitments). We hold him constant; but there is nothing to hold constant in 2).

Sound produces the illusion of movement -- it fools us into believing that something is going from D to E, where in fact there is only the going, which proceeds pitch by pitch.

Actually, we do not hear a series of tones, we here a slide, which is a sound of changing pitch, consisting of no distinct tones. That's the point of my discussion of Hume's misrepresentation of sense perception. Hume describes sensation as a succession of impressions, which is consistent with "a series of tones". But that's not what we actually sense, which is a continuity of change, a slide. It is only when we apply the conception of distinct tones, to the sound which is heard, that we conclude there is a series of tones. — Metaphysician Undercover

This fits nicely with what I was saying to @Banno. Terminology again . . . we do hear a series of tones, we just can't recognize them. A software program can. But if you'd rather reserve the term "hear" to mean "can distinguish acoustically," that's fine. Then we would say that I don't hear a series of tones when I hear a slide, I "process them auditorially" or some such, and when I do that, being human, I don't hear the discrete pitches. If a hundred people all speak at once, do I "hear what they're saying"? Depends how you want to divvy up the terminology. It doesn't really matter.

"But that's not what we actually sense, which is a continuity of change, a slide."

OK -- again, as long as we don't take the illusion of movement as real.

No, I'm familiar with how slide guitar works, and counterintuitive as it seems, when you slide from the D to the E, you really are producing a series of notes that can be discretely specified, though not, as I said, by the human ear. The "movement" is no less illusory than a standard non-slide move from D to E in which, because there are no intervening notes, we can hear the moment of the (only) pitch change. Now granted, there is a limit to pitch identification by any "ear," even the ultra-sophisticated software I might use in my studio. (I have a modest home recording studio, and used to make my living as a musician.) In that regard, it's Achilles and the Tortoise -- you can keep drilling down on microtones until you run out of bits, but wherever you stop, it's still a specific, determinate pitch that could, in theory, be further subdivided.

Is the slide or the portamento a physical entity? If not, then I am not sure what else it might be... Calling it a perception is wrong. — Banno

This is where it gets philosophically interesting. A slide from D to E is composed of nothing but physical stuff. But then lots of items that aren't physical as such are also composed of physical stuff. The familiar example of the football game . . . no ghostly material in use, yet it seems completely wrong to say that the game is a physical item, or least it does to me. I would argue roughly the same thing for musical "movement." No surprise, this gets us into terminology, because it comes down to whether "entity" is the right thing to call a slide. If you're not happy with "perception," how about calling it an "event"? The main thing I care about, in such talk, is that we don't picture a tone moving from T1 to T2 in the same way that a rabbit moves from P(lace)1 to P2. If asked, in the latter case, "What's moving?" we can point to the rabbit. The same question, in the former case, can't be answered at all. There's no entity or object that has the attribute "moves from D to E".

What you're interested in just seems outside of the scope of phenomenological analysis, so we'd need some other frame of reference. — Dawnstorm

That may well be right. I was alluding to that possibility when I speculated that "an account of brain development that will explain the emergence of our 'higher' capacities" might be incompatible with phenomenological method -- that the two approaches are mutually exclusive. To me, it remains an open question, but your point of view has a lot of merit.

As for Kant vs. Husserl, it's true that Husserl didn't feel the need to postulate any noumena. The reason I linked the two philosophers together in this context was that both seem to favor an account of subjective experience that lacks development; both noumena and the lifeworld are somehow "present to consciousness" (or deducible from it, if you prefer) whenever there is consciousness. This is questionable, I think.

Some further thoughts . . .

But in both cases the hard problem is explaining why we experience the world the way we do. — The Neural Binding Problem, Jerome S. Feldman

I don't think he's formulating it radically enough. Yes, this is part of the hard problem, but even more basic is the question, Why do we experience the world at all? Why aren't we robots, or philosophical zombies? If all we want is "a plausible functional story," what would be wrong with organisms that just react to stimuli without experience? What we want to say about this, of course, is that it's impossible -- the idea of an organism "just reacting" without any form of subjectivity is offensive somehow. Or maybe we want to say that the very concept of "reacting" presupposes experience. But none of this is obvious; we can't just declare this picture it to be impossible. If it is, we need to know why -- back to the hard problem.

We, therefore, in our experience and thoughtful activity, have moved from a perception to an articulated opinion or position; we have reached something that enters into logic and the space of reasons

(Sokolowski)

Once again I want to raise the question of infants and psychological development. Sokolowski clearly means, by "we", fully-functioning adult humans. Infants do not do what he describes. They don't have a recognizable "thoughtful activity," and they don't reach anything that enters logical or rational space. So what story must we tell about this? None of this standard phenomenological/Kantian picture can be said to obtain until a certain developmental point has been reached. James's "blooming buzzing confusion" has to give way to something like what Sokolowski is describing.

So why does it happen? And is there some way to transform what looks like a scientific question into a phenomenological one? That is, we want an account of brain development that will explain the emergence of our "higher" capacities. Yet at the same time we'd like a transcendental argument that shows why all this must characterize human being-in-the-world. Are the two desires mutually exclusive? Or the same thing, on some basic level?

More worrying, will a semi-naturalistic account of this development tend to reduce Sokolowski's "space of reasons" to a strictly functional concept? I'd like a way to understand rationality as both a biologically inevitable phenomenon and a doorway into knowledge that really does provide reasons and justifications. This is a tall order, and thus far unreached, as far as I know.

Sorry, didn't see you guys on this sub-thread. See my reply to @Banno, above.

I understand what you're saying, and of course "movement" is used to refer to all sorts of things that aren't physical entities. In speaking about music and tones, I'm talking about an illusion of a particular kind of movement that seems to be physical but isn't.

We can say, "The melody moves higher, then lower." This is true, if we allow "melody" as an item to be talked about (as we should) and if we allow the metaphor of "higher and lower frequencies" to be analogous to physical highs and lows. But a melody is not a physical object. While comprised of physical stuff, it is our way of perceiving successions of tones. No physical thing moves when a melody occurs. And the only reason this is interesting is that, as we listen, we could swear that we hear something moving. I don't know whether this is a baked-in mental construction, or whether we're taught to think this way from such a young age that it seems unavoidable. All I know is that, acoustically, pitches can't move. There is no "there" there to move.

Maybe listen to more slide? — Banno

Seriously, it's a good example. We watch the finger with the slide move up the guitar string. This is certainly "movement" if anything is. What do we hear? A series of tones that change pitch, at intervals that are in fact specifiable acoustically, but indistinguishable to the human ear. So we want to say that "the tone moves up." But it doesn't. Each tone changes in the direction of higher and higher frequencies. But there is no substratum that starts at A, then moves to Bb, then to B natural . . . etc.

Oh, and as for the "higher/lower" metaphor with frequencies: Frequencies are measured in hertz, and numbers are assigned based on cycles of vibrations per second. The more cycles, the larger the number. So this is the metaphor of, say, 1,000 being a "higher number" than 500. It's an absolutely standard and acceptable use of "higher" as long as we don't confuse it with physical height. Having more of something (hertz, in this case) doesn't render it physically higher.

Then yes, with this as the final chapter, I agree with what you say about Alex's redemption. Here's the interesting story about that chapter's history:

The 21st chapter was omitted from the editions published in the United States prior to 1986. In the introduction to the updated American text (these newer editions include the missing 21st chapter), Burgess explains that when he first brought the book to an American publisher, he was told that US audiences would never go for the final chapter, in which Alex sees the error of his ways, decides he has lost his taste for violence and resolves to turn his life around. At the American publisher's insistence, Burgess allowed its editors to cut the redeeming final chapter from the US version, so that the tale would end on a darker note, with Alex becoming his old, ultraviolent self again – an ending which the publisher insisted would be "more realistic" and appealing to a US audience. — A Clockwork Orange, Wikipedia

This same darker ending was the one used in Kubrick's film.

I've got the original British edition, which evidently organizes the chapters differently (and includes a final section omitted from most U.S. editions, I believe). Does your Chap 21 start the same way my Part 3, Chap 7 does?: "What's it going to be then, eh?" And does it end with: "Amen. And all that cal." ?

The ear is very complex, and it's parts are moving, so there are physical entities which are moving. It's just that description, that the tones are moving, which is inaccurate. In reality if there was a physical entity called the melody, it is an arrangement of parts, which can't really be moving because that would mess up the arrangement. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, that's it. Yet the illusion is extremely strong.

Well, the whole thing is a fantasy. Kind of a "what if?" story. But the novel helps us think about other forms of conditioning that are all too real. See Foucault.

Very thought-provoking, and I want more time to reflect on your ideas. But just quickly:

This points to a structural parallel between mind and life as different facets of the same underlying logos. — Wayfarer

This is a major reason why I suspect it will turn out that only living things can be conscious. Sorry, AI!
More to follow . . .

What could happen is that we could install extreme empathy chips in criminals so that the rest of us can then punish them for their crimes by triggering their empathy for others -- the empathy chip itself could be put to horrible uses. — Moliere

Yes. But even if the chip is only put to a "good" use, Burgess' novel asks, "What have we done to a human being if we remove the choice to be good -- freedom, in other words?"

An interesting example of the continuity problem occurs with sounds, as can be easily seen with music. We describe a melody as "moving from start to finish"; we say the pitches "go up" or "go down"; we say that a tune is "slow" or "fast". In fact nothing like this happens -- there is no physical entity doing any "moving". It is strictly a (delightful) acoustical illusion. But our senses -- irresistibly, it would seem -- analyze the sequence of sounds as movement.

Sorry for any misunderstanding. — Count Timothy von Icarus

No worries. I wish I too was a model of clarity!

"If it is not possible, then it is in some sense necessary."
— Count Timothy von Icarus

This proposal is a neat and simple way to bring out different alleged senses of "necessity." We look at event X; it is no longer merely "possible," since it has occurred, been actualized; therefore we're tempted to say that it must be necessary, since it has been removed from the realm of possibility.

But what exactly is the "necessary" part here? Compare two statements:

(1) "It is necessary that X occurred."

(2) "It is necessary that, since X occurred, it cannot un-occur, or not be the case."

Statement (1) is pretty clearly not what the proposal means. My cat is named Bunny, but it could have been otherwise.

Statement (2), though, does seem to express what we mean by the original proposal. Now that my cat is named Bunny, we can't rewrite the past so that she is named Methuselah. Her being named Bunny is "necessary" in that sense.

In fact, before I develop this any further, let me ask whether you think (2) is a fair elaboration of what you meant by "If it is not possible, then it is in some sense necessary."

And in defense of Christian social values, surely the idea that humans should be custodians of the environmental order can't be bad one. — Wayfarer

It's a very good one. But we'd have to say that either 1) institutional Christianity has paid little attention to it, or 2) institutional Christianity regards the wholesale slaughter and torture of billions of animals annually, along with the destruction of our planet's resources, as exemplifying being "custodians of the environmental order." That is taking Newspeak way too far, in my opinion.

In fairness, there are Christians, and Christian communities, who take seriously the idea of stewardship of the environment, but they are a small minority, and even they usually draw the line at saying that we don't have a God-given right to use animals for our own purposes.

I also very much value a further extension -- did the Greeks have a word for it? -- that would refer to love of Creation itself, and all the beings, not just humans.
— J

Didn't that come about to some extent with the Bible? God seeing the world as 'good'? — Wayfarer

Certainly you can find that in the Bible, but in general Christianity has tended to stop at "loving humans" and not considered what it might mean to actually love animals -- or the environment in general, as we are now seeing, to our dismay. Or maybe we should say: Far too much traditional Christian doctrine places humankind at the pinnacle of creation -- made in God's image, dontcha know -- and sees nothing inconsistent with preaching agapē while at the same time claiming the right to use other animals for our own purposes, no matter the pain this may cause. This is a terrible failing. And I speak as a Christian.

I recall the folk wisdom often quoted at wedding ceremonies, about the different kinds of love - eros, philia, agapē, storge and so on (there's eight). I think in English all of these tend to be congealed together under the heading of romantic attachment. Whereas the Buddhist 'karuna' or 'mudita' is perhaps closer to the Christian agapē, which 'pays no regard to persons'. — Wayfarer

This is good. I would amend it slightly to say that "love" in English also tends to be construed as family love (storge), not just eros. The "impersonality" of agapē can perhaps best be seen as the crucial step in the widening of the circle of compassion/connection. Romantic love for an individual, family love for your kin, loyalty to your tribe/community/nation -- these are increasingly more general, until finally we arrive at agapē, which loves without condition. I also very much value a further extension -- did the Greeks have a word for it? -- that would refer to love of Creation itself, and all the beings, not just humans.

we still need to ask: Relations among what? I don't think we can talk of "relations" that have no relata.
— J
In the context of this thread, intentional conscious acts (cognitives) could be considered as relata. What is important is that each of these relata can be decomposed into a bundle of interrelated mental activities. — Number2018

OK, let's try to plug that in to the quotes:

"Hegel shows that the condition for the truth of an immediate experience is that the things that appear to consciousness are perceived as objects whose identities are constituted by a forceful dynamic of negative and reciprocal relations among intentional conscious acts (cognitives)."

Does that really work? We're talking about what constitutes the identities of apparent "objects" -- why we perceive them that way. But now the quote seems to be saying that it's all within the intentional conscious acts themselves. Either I'm misunderstanding, or we haven't left any room for the "flow," the "things that appear to consciousness."

"The experienced identities and differences presuppose the dynamics of dialectical progression, which make these experiences meaningful. However, they are grounded in underlying forceful relations among intentional conscious acts (cognitives) that are not directly present in sensuous experience itself."

This seems to exhibit the same problem. The experienced identities and differences, which are required to make experience meaningful, are grounded strictly in relations among conscious acts. How could this answer the question about the role of "flow" in our constituting consciousness?