organismically — invicta

Really?

I'll leave you to your monologue. — plaque flag

As you wish, simpleton.

Not in the libertarianist sense. Either our decisions are determined by some prior cause or they occur spontaneously, neither of which seem to satisfy libertarian free will. — Michael

What's wrong with the idea of free will choices occurring spontaneously? That looks like an adequate descriptive word for libertarian free will to me, though I suppose you might have a different idea of what constitutes libertarian free will. Wouldn't it be necessary for the will to act spontaneously, in order for one to be quick witted? Spontaneity appears to be very consistent with free will. So, of your two choices, let's go with "spontaneously", and that seems to satisfy libertarian free will.

We might not even have it in the compatibilist sense. See unconscious determinants of free decisions in the human brain: — Michael

"Determinants" is not a problem to the concept of free will. It is well known that there are numerous determinants, but free will takes numerous determinants and produces one act which is not determined by any one of those determinants, nor is it the sum of any number of determinants. That is why it is proper to say that our freely willed actions are affected by these determinants, but we cannot say that they are the effect of these determinants. We must look elsewhere for the cause of these actions.

From what I can see, the article you linked doesn't seem to have any real evidence against the reality of free will. I could decide today, what I will do tomorrow, and that's a lot longer time span than ten seconds. But that time span is irrelevant. The critical point in time is when I spontaneously move to act on what I previously decided to do, that's when the will acts. That the will to carry out the act does not occur at the same time the decision to act is made, is evident from the reality of procrastination and changing one's mind.

That's why Augustine divided the intellect into three parts, memory, reason, and will. The will, being free, does not necessarily follow reason. That is why a person sometimes does what one knows ought not be done, and has even decided not to do it, in the case of bad habits and temptations for example.

I am a very ambitious person. — Average

I think that's a good quality, and in itself could provide you with a whole lot of purpose.

To me that looks like superstition. — plaque flag

Why would you think that free will, the capacity to make a choice, is superstition? Do you really believe that you do not have the capacity to choose?

I'm surprised that you would say so. The obvious next question is : 'why did that intentional agent make such a choice?' One does not explain something relatively simple (a natural world without life in it yet) in terms of something hopelessly complex (the psychology of a superior being, perhaps of a god.) This is anti-explanation. — plaque flag

Oversimplification of that which is inherently complex, is not a way toward understanding. It is misunderstanding. The problem with your approach, obviously, is that there is no such thing as "a natural world without life in it yet". So this counterfactual proposition is completely misguided. You propose this as a means of simplification, to produce the logical conception of a simplified world. But it's based on a false premise, a counterfactual.

However, what this counterfactual reveals is that this simplification renders "the world" as unintelligible, incoherent. "Emergence" fails as a rational proposal for understanding the becoming of the universe, and we are left to accept the reality that the proposition of "a natural world without life in it yet" is fundamentally flawed.

The issue here, and the obvious deficiency, is that you cannot remove the observer from the observation. So, "a natural world without life in it yet" is not a true proposition which a life form can make. Therefore this does not give us an acceptable, true ontological starting point. Instead, we must take as the staring point, the perspective of the life form making the observation. And, since choice and intention are fundamental aspects of this life form, we need a thorough understanding of these before we proceed toward any hypothetical removal of the observer from the observation. This is because to remove the observer from the observation requires that we remove all the influence which the observer contributes to the observation. And, we know that choice and intention have great influence on observations.

But why do some think it is a genuine explanation ? Because it makes them feel good. It gives them an emotional orientation. Fine. Let people have their religion. But I like explanation and clarification, which is joyful sober hard work. For me this is essentially social / normative. Serious critical minds come together to tell a truer and truer story about our shared world. — plaque flag

That's pathetic. You reject "feeling good" and choose "hard work", and you pretend there's something "joyful" about this choice. Where are your priorities? That your "explanation and clarification" is directed toward a "truer story" is demonstrably false, as analysis of your counterfactual premise displays. Therefore you ought to realize that any such hard work of explanation and calculation will be misdirected, fruitless and endless. Where is the joy in fruitless hard work? Next, you will need to direct this hard work toward hiding the deficiencies of your metaphysics, rather than toward a truer understanding. So not only will you be claiming to be enjoying the fruitlessness of your hard work, but also the hard work of covering up that fruitlessness. That becomes deception. So the honourable course here is to admit to the mistake of oversimplification, and get back on track toward understanding the true complexities of reality.

Mind is the capacity to grasp meaning and is present in very rudimentary form even in the simplest organisms. In rational sentient beings it attains the capacity for reason and self-knowledge. — Wayfarer

This is consistent with Aristotle's description, but the issue which necessitates dualism logically, comes down to what we might call the first living organism. Such a material body came into existence as an organized body, with that rudimentary capacity. Now there must be a cause of that organized body with that capacity, and this cause must be an actuality. This supports the concept of an immaterial soul, as the actual cause of existence, 'the first actuality" of that organized body. As the actual cause, it is necessarily prior to it, and in that sense not dependent on the material body.

The same principle is shown to be applicable to the entire universe through the cosmological argument. Since all material things have some degree of organization (form or actuality) in order to exist as a "thing", and matter itself without form would be pure potential without the actuality required to cause actual organized existence, we must conclude an actuality which is prior to all material things, as cause of them. In theology this is God.

As I see it, the reason why dualism is called for is that the forms which we come to know in our minds, as intelligible objects, are derived from the material objects, through the means of sensation. But the forms which are shown logically to be independent from material objects, are prior to the material objects as cause of them. This leaves a medium of "matter" which lies between, and separates the forms within the human mind, as dependent on the material body, from the truly separate, immaterial forms which are prior to and not dependent on material bodies.

As far as I can tell, the only 'mystery' (and I think 180 Proof agrees ?) is that of any postulated origin, because we can always ask but why ? Why this and not something else ? — plaque flag

Notice how this comes down to a question of "why". And questions of "why" are readily answered when intention is the cause. So when the question "Why this and not something else" is asked, it is easily answered with, that was choice of the intentional agent. When we overcome the physicalist prejudice, which inclines us to believe that all causes must be physical, then we can understand the reality of intention and free will as truly non-physical causes. And when we come to understand that this type of non-physical cause is very real, and prior to, rather than posterior to the activities of material objects, we can apprehend how this sort of cause must pervade the entire physical universe.

Have I ever discussed this article with you - The Indispensability Argument in Mathematics? It makes reference to a 1963 paper by Paul Benacerraf which is apparently canonical. The maths experts on this forum generally know it and judge it accordingly. But some of the statements made illustrate what I see as the basic philosophical point, to wit:

Standard readings of mathematical claims entail the existence of mathematical objects. But, our best epistemic theories seem to deny that knowledge of mathematical objects is possible.

Why is this? Because apparently our 'best epistemic theories' include the assumption that

human beings [are] physical creatures whose capacities for learning are exhausted by our physical bodies.

Whereas,

Some philosophers, called rationalists, claim that we have a special, non-sensory capacity for understanding mathematical truths, a rational insight arising from pure thought.

The basic drift of the remainder of the article is this:

The indispensability argument in the philosophy of mathematics is an attempt to justify our mathematical beliefs about abstract objects, while avoiding any appeal to rational insight. Its most significant proponent was Willard van Orman Quine.

What am I not seeing here? Why would it be that one of the purportedly major 20th c philosophers wants to 'avoid any appeal to rational insight?' — Wayfarer

There is a 'compromise' to this problem with "rational insight" which allows for both of these positions, it's called dualism. This is the position presented by Thomas Aquinas. The immaterial soul, in its present condition, as united with a material body, in the human being, is restricted in its capacity to know the truly immaterial Forms (God and the angels) because of that union with matter, and the human being's dependence on the material body. The soul itself is not dependent on the material body, but the human being is, so it is not the immaterial soul itself which is limited in it's capacity to know immaterial Forms, but the human being is.

The human being, in its present condition, as an immaterial soul united with a material body, is limited in its capacity to truly know immaterial objects because human knowledge is dependent on the material body. So the human being's knowledge of the immaterial is always through the means of material representations. In the case of mathematical objects and other logical forms, the material representations are symbols. The need to use material representations, and therefore the material body with its sense organs, in the human mode of understanding, greatly hinders our capacity to grasp the reality of the truly immaterial. Monist materialists for example will refer to these material aspects as evidence that there is no need to assume anything immaterial, thus hindering the advancement of this knowledge which is already restricted.

For Aquinas there is a proposed condition of the soul posterior to the existence of the human being, when the soul is freed from this dependence on the material body. It is only in this condition, when the soul is freed from the human being's dependence on the material body, that the soul can truly know the immaterial Forms. You'll notice how Faith is a requirement here. If we cannot truly know the reality of the immaterial Forms when we are immaterial souls united with a material body, in the human condition, then the whole reality of such Forms within the human conceptual structure, therefore the "rational insight" which you refer to, is subject to skepticism. Materialism, (physicalism included), which is best characterized as a radical skepticism, undermines faith, and the capacity of the immaterial soul to know itself as such, consequently the capacity to know all immaterial Forms is corrupted.

Augustine goes on to call the light, God, and went from being a libertine to a saint. It seems like his experience was something more than "seeing stars." — Art48

I told you earlier in the thread, this is a reference to Plato's "the good", which he compared to the light of the sun. What "seeing the light" means is to gain an apprehension of the importance of "the good". This is commonly cited as the reason why one changes from misbehaviour to good behaviour, the person claims to have seen the light (apprehended "the good"). That's why Augustine went from libertine to saint.

I first define the concept of ultimate ground of existence as that which underlies physical existence. The table’s ground of existence is the wood; the wood’s ground of existence is its atoms; etc., etc., down to the ultimate ground of existence which underlies the entire universe. At this point, it’s a philosophical concept, not unlike Kant's Thing-in-itself or Schopenhauer's Will. I'd say the concept of ultimate ground is harmonious with science, which is looking for a theory of everything.

Does the concept of ultimate ground of existence refer to something real? It may not. But mystics often describe their experience as experience of ultimate reality, which gives some support for the idea. And others who ascribe their experience to some God may be guilty of what I call “gratuitous attribution.” For instance, Pascal had an experience of FIRE and attributed it to "the God of Abraham."

I assume in the article that the ultimate ground of existence is an objective reality. At this point, I believe I’m still doing philosophy, not theology. — Art48

The ultimate ground of existence is very simple actually. It is "the good". Philosophically "the good" is very significant "The good" answers the question of why there is what there is. The answer is because it is good. This is why monotheists tend to establish an equation between existence and good. Why did God create the universe? Because He saw that it was good.

Then there is no sufficient reason to think….. — Mww

The reason is produced by logic, not by empirical observation. I went through that already. You wrongfully apply a requirement of "empirical observation".

If a process is not empirically observable there’s no reason to look for the initial premises sufficient to find it. It isn’t observable, so how would it be known what to look for? — Mww

So says, the person with no philosophical desire to know. Your claim amounts to: 'What I cannot see I have no desire to know anything about'. We venture into the dark without necessarily knowing what we're looking for, but still looking for what we want to know. That is the philosophical desire to know.

An effect has a cause, even if the cause is not observable. This is how we can know God, Who is not observable. Through observation of His effects, and application of logic such as the cosmological argument, we can conclude the necessity of God, without ever observing Him empirically.

I add 12 to 30, get 42. You add 18 to 6, get 24. We got different results, but used exactly the same process. — Mww

if you really think so, then I'm sure you could describe this process in detail, which we both used. I'll be waiting. And, I'm just as certain that I will assert that you did not describe the process which was used by me.

All you say here is uncontested, but says nothing with respect to origins. — Mww

Do you not understand the meaning of "prior to"? It means before, therefore it says something about the origins of that which it is before.

And how we generalize from observation, is in fact, how the observation, and by association, the real thing, is understood. From which follows that the premises used for logical conclusions, arise in understanding, therefore whatever flaws there may be in the construction of our premises, also arise in understanding. — Mww

This is the heart of our disagreement. I do not agree with your premise, that how we generalize from observation is how the real thing is "understood". I believe that such generalizations, especially the most fundamental ones (such as my example, the sun rises, the sun sets), which are things we take for granted, cannot be spoken of in terms of "understanding", because if we use this term many would have to be misunderstandings. That is known as the problem of induction.

To state it succinctly, a description does not qualify as an "understanding". So we need to apply a distinction between the application of reason, including deductive forms of logic, which provides understanding, and observation, which provides description. We see this in the scientific method of experimentation. Experiments are designed to test an hypothesis. So the descriptions which are provided by the observations are only conducive toward "understanding", when employed in the proper way, the way of the design of the experiment. I.e., the method must be followed in order that the observations are conducive to understanding.

Now, this casts doubt on this whole proposed structure of understanding, which holds that the premises are derived from observation. What we can see, from the example of the scientific method, is that the premises are derived from hypotheses rather than observations. Then, the observations (descriptions) are formulated in such a way so as to either confirm or deny the hypotheses. This indicates that observations, are fundamentally biased, or prejudiced, as directed purposefully toward the underlying hypotheses which form the basic premises. That the observations have the possibility to support confirmation, or support rejection, of the hypothesis, and therefore appear to be unbiased, does not negate the fact that they are fundamentally directed toward the underlying hypothesis and are therefore biased in that way.

For me to misjudge is merely for me to think conceptions relate to each other when some other judgement or some empirical observation, shows my error. — Mww

I find that to be a very strange way of looking at "misjudgement". It is impossible that you have misjudged unless someone demonstrates your error?

Sense observations give reality... — Mww

This is where I strongly disagree. Like I said last post, sense observations provide only possibilities. All of them. That's why we have a multitude of senses, to allow cross-checking. You thought you heard something for example, but when you look you see it was very likely other than what you thought. And, it's very obvious that observations give only possibilities, when a number of people describe the same event in conflicting ways. So logic demonstrates very clearly that it is impossible that sense observations give reality, they give possibilities.

Given a representational human cognitive system, these descriptions taken by the thinking mind….properly understanding itself….are not the observation, which gives nothing but phenomena, but are conceptions, as possibilities for how the phenomena are to be thought. Logic is employed with respect to judgements made on the relation of conceptions understanding thinks as belonging to each other (plates over holes should be steel and round, re: manhole covers), or, the relations of judgements understood as belonging to each other, in the case of multiple judgements regarding the same cognition (plates over ditches should be steel but must not be round, re: ferry ramps). — Mww

As explained above, you and I have strong disagreement on this matter.

Yes, there are flaws possible in the conscious decision-making process, but that does not say the process is flawed, but only the use of it, is. — Mww

This makes no sense. The process is what is carried out, what actually occurs, and this is the use. If you propose a separation between the process and the use, then one would be either a description of the process, or a prescription for the process. Either way, these are not the process, which is what actually occurs.

And whatever “hidden premises” there are in conscious decision-making cannot be the responsibility of the conscious agent making the decisions, insofar as it is contradictory to arrive at a conscious decision grounded by premises of which I am not conscious. — Mww

Legally, ignorance is no excuse, and you are responsible for the "hidden premises" which you employ in your decision making. And, it is not contradictory "to arrive at a conscious decision grounded by premises of which I am not conscious", this is simply called invalid logic, unstated premises required to reach the conclusion. The reality of this is very clearly exposed with issues of defining terms, and equivocation.

Through what I wrote above, I can bring the nature of these "hidden premises" further into the light. One form of such premises would be the underlying hypotheses which guide and influence descriptive observations, as explained above. We can refer to these underlying hypotheses as the person's "attitude". So for example a specific type of laziness may incline a person to think that easy money means a good, happy life. Then the person may be inclined to observe the existence of money with the attitude of looking to get it easily, and may be inclined toward fraud or theft, for example. Such "hidden premises", which we call the person's "attitude" influence the person's observations, as well as the person's use of reason, and this is not at all contradictory. Nor is it correct to say that the person is not responsible for decisions which are base in these subconscious premises. One is clearly responsible for such actions.

To simply take for granted bias and prejudice as premises for conscious judgement, is a flaw in the subject’s character, not in the process the agent employs in his decision-making. — Mww

Obviously, flaws in character which affect the decision made, are flaws in the decision-making process. Furthermore, we all have flaws in character, therefore we all employ flawed decision-making processes. We cannot avoid that, and we must face it as reality.

One can be tutored in correcting erroneous judgements, but if he is so tutored, yet decides to disregard the corrections, he is called pathologically stupid. If tutored, and receives the corrections and thereby judges in accordance with them, that is called experience, and serves as ground of all empirical judgements. — Mww

The problem is that what you refer to as "pathologically stupid", is very real. And, it exists in all sorts of grades or degrees, such that we all resist education to some degree, then we all qualify as pathologically stupid to some extent. It's very evident here at TPF. What produces this pathological stupidity is what we commonly call "intuition". When we are taught something which is counter-intuitive, we automatically reject it because it is counter to the hidden premises (attitude) which we already hold.

So I proposed to you, that this is a flawed attitude which you are displaying here. We cannot continue to posit "experience" as the ground to everything, because this would create an infinite regress of experience, as if we've all lived forever. That is the problem Plato exposed with the argument of recollection in the Meno. The capacity to learn something new must come from something other than experience, or else we get the absurdity of the infinite regress of "recollection", and all knowledge has existed in each person's soul eternally, as grounded in prior experience.

Therefore we must accept something other than experience as the grounding of empirical judgements, to avoid that absurdity. In modern times there is a tendency toward a proposed division between nature and nurture, what comes to us by instinct, and what comes to us by experience. The instinctual is prior to experience. This is the basis for "intuition", which we are born with to some degree, as innate, prior to experience at its base, and consequently prior to a person's empirical judgement.

Now, if we seek to analyze this "intuition" which is prior to, and the grounding of empirical judgements, we must divorce ourselves from the notion that experience is the grounding of empirical judgement. That would imply that experience could judge itself. So instead, we look for a judgement which is the judgement of experience. And, to be able to appropriately act as a judge of experience, it must be grounded in something independent from experience. Now you should be able to see very clearly, the logical necessity to conclude that there is a type of judgement which is prior to empirical judgement (judgement based on experience), enabling us to judge experience itself. The premise that experience needs to be judged is derived from the inconsistency which is inherent within described experience, that is described above.

No, I don’t. Logical certainty may not require empirical proof, and indeed, may not have any at all afforded to it, this being a limit of forms, re: A = A. But for any logical certainty, using constructed objects of its own manufacture and representing empirical conditions, only observation can serve as proof of those constructs, re: the sun doesn’t rise or fall as the appearance from certain restricted observation warrants. — Mww

Well look. You allow for logical certainty without any empirical proof, as "forms". Then you add the condition of "constructed objects" and this we may call the "content". Now you say that this content can only be verified by empirical observation. Do you see that what adding this condition of content does, is reduce the certainty of the conclusions? So it is exactly as I say, the stuff verified by empirical observation only reduces the certainty of logic. In its pure form, logic is extremely certain, but adding content, objects constructed from empirical observation, reduces that level of certainty. Therefore it is exactly as I say, empirical observations have a lower degree of certainty. And, we employ logic in an attempt to reduce the uncertainty which inheres within empirical observations.

Logic, on the other hand where observation is not presupposing anything because there’s nothing to observe, dictates the possible reality of things. — Mww

This is done through the use of the concept of "impossible". Logic dictates the impossible with laws such as non-contradiction, thereby limiting the field of possibility with the elimination of the impossible. That is known as the process of elimination.

Now when you say "Empirical observation presupposes the thing", this is incorrect. As I explained, "the thing" is only a possibility, and this is what Descartes painstakingly demonstrated. With the application of logical principles, such as the law of identity, demonstrated by Aristotle, we rule out as impossible, that there is not "the thing". Many modern philosophies reject Aristotle's law of identity, and the necessity of "the thing". Therefore "the thing" is not given by empirical observation at all, it is given by that logical process which demonstrates that it is impossible to be otherwise, rendering "the thing" as a necessity by showing it is impossible that there not be "the thing". But of course freedom of choice allows us to reject even that demonstrated impossibility (necessity).

You continue to give "empirical observation" undue credit. This has been the issue since the beginning, your assertion that sense observation cannot be wrong.

Interesting. I've never heard the argument that past and future are different substances. Substance is generally supposed to be able to undergo change though, so doesn't that presuppose that it exists through time? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Our understanding of change is based in empirical observations which are always of past time, observations are memories. We have no observations of the future yet we have observations of the past, so we produce an understanding of change based on these memories, which are our observations of the past. it might appear, and you might think, that these observations are made at the present, but they are not, they are always in the past, always existing as memories. So our understanding of change, and consequently the associated understanding of time is restricted to past time, and this is the type of "change" which substance is said to undergo.

On the other hand, our understanding of future events, future changes, and future time, is merely a logical projection. We take our memories, our observations of the past, and apply a premise of continuity, and project into the future. But this is really insufficient, because that supposed continuity is a determinist principle which denies the possibility of free will, and real change.

Notice I've introduced a new concept "real change". This type of change is inconsistent with the determinist premise of continuity, and it allows for the reality of free will. When we allow that there are real possibilities for change, at any given moment in the passing of time, we must deny that the continuity of substance, as time passes, is necessary. Then "substance" as it is in the past, according to empirical observations, is inconsistent with whatever it is in the future.

Here's an example. Suppose that a free will act could annihilate a substance at any moment of passing time. This act of annihilation could be chosen at any passing moment. If this were the case, then the substance could have no real temporal extension into the future, because it could be annihilated at any moment. if it could be annihilated at any chosen moment, then it is impossible that it has any actual existence in the future of any moment at all, even if it isn't annihilated at any moment, because the possibility of it being annihilated is always there.

This is the way we ought to look at the possibility of real change. Anything which might be changed by a free will act, cannot have any temporal extension into the future. If the free will act can end its existence as it is, at any moment of passing time, then its existence as it is, cannot have any extension into the future. So if it's possible that you could smash a glass at any moment of passing time, it is impossible that the glass has any real existence in the future of any moment of passing time.

I'm not talking about formal logic. I'm talking about largely tacit norms that govern what follows from what as a way to understand meaning. — plaque flag

You referred to an "inferential nexus". The "largely tacit norms that govern" the use of this term "inferential", generally dictate that "Inference" refers to what is deduced from the application of reason. "Deduced" implies according to strict formal rules.

he master-idea of semantic inferentialism is to look instead to inference, rather than representation, as the basic concept of semantics. — plaque flag

This is a deceptive use of "inference", which is outside the "largely tacit norms". It is a use manufactured for sake of sophistry. To say that the meaning which one derives from a word or a sentence is an "inference", rather than simply an "association" or "relation", implies that there is some form of logic behind this derivation of meaning, when in reality there need not be any logic involved at all. Obviously, that is a very misleading use of "inference" which leaves no separation between the consequences of emotional feelings and the results of reasoning, suggesting that emotions produce inferences.

That to me is an unclear and uncertain concept. Selves are normative entities. I'll give you that. We are held responsible. But that's all the 'freedom' I'm confident about at the moment. — plaque flag

I see you want your cake back, after you've already eaten it, plaque flag. You give "inference" the most vague of meaning, by allowing that the basic semantic association of a words is "inference", then you complain about free will being "an unclear and uncertain concept". If you do not want to delve into the world of unclear and uncertain concepts, then restrict your use of "inference" please, so that the vague associations and relations of emotions are not classified as equal to what is inferred from formal logic, as "inferential".

Even thermostats respond differentially, categorize. — plaque flag

Thermostats don't seek and avoid. Any categorizing involved with a thermostat is done by the engineers who produce the design. Categorizing is a distinguishing of different types. A thermostat is designed to work within the parameters of one type.

As I see it, anything we can make any sense of is for just that reason 'part' of the same inferential nexus — plaque flag

A whole lot of reality we cannot make sense of, as physicists have found out.

The principles of modal logic fail to make a true separation between what is necessary and what is possible, leaving the necessary as a subcategory of the possible. This renders formal logic as inapplicable to a wide aspect of reality, what happens at the present time, when possibilities are actualized (become necessities). By designating the necessary as already a subcategory of the possible, there is no place in that structure of logic for that act which occurs in reality, which actualizes a possibility, rendering it as a necessity. This aspect of reality is not included within the "inferential nexus", meaning that the inferential nexus is not applicable to it.

Because we do have the capacity to, and we can actually make sense of this act, which mediates between the possible and the necessary, (the freely willed choice for example), yet we know not how to allow for it in the "inferential nexus", your statement is false. There are things we can makes sense of, acts of free will for example, which are not included in the "inferential nexus".

We can abstract (yank out) entities from their context. — plaque flag

The true context is temporal, therefore we must understand entities within that context, not yank them out of it. And, as I explained we cannot make an acceptable unity out of time because the actualities of the past are incommensurable with the possibilities of the future. The two cannot be measured by the same principles. Therefore the "unity" you refer to, is nothing but a false premise, a deficient metaphysics which results in a whole lot of reality ending up in the category of "what we cannot make sense of'. However, if we ditch that idea of unity, and accept a better metaphysics, we bring that part of reality into the fold of "what we can make sense of", by providing us the means to understand why such a unity is false.

It totally makes sense that life responds differentially and can (must ? ) be interpreted as seeking and avoiding.

But qualia are slippery eels. — plaque flag

To distinguish between what is to be sought, and what is to be avoided, is to make a distinction of kind, which is to categorize, and this is a qualia based judgement.

I believe this is a basic problem with Kant's metaphysics. We can see this with his phenomena/noumena distinction. It seems that we cannot have any real knowledge of the noumenal world because it appears to us only through the medium of the phenomena.

Plato on the other hand, allows that the human intellect can have direct knowledge of the independent Forms, as intelligible objects. Which way would be the correct way is a complex issue.

But while Kant closes that door, he opens another with his notion of pure, a priori intuitions. In this way he allows that we do have some sort of knowledge which is prior to, and therefore independent from, the appearance of phenomena, but the exact nature of these pure intuitions, and where they come from, is difficult to grasp.

He has a paper suggesting that qualia - broadly speaking, knowledge of good and bad - comes into existence with any form of living organism. There's nothing good or bad in chemistry or physics - stuff just happens. But as soon as there's a living organism, even the most rudimentary, then that organism has to navigate away from what harms and towards what helps. So the emergence of sentient life-forms is the emergence of a dimension of being that is not possible in the inorganic domain. — Wayfarer

Very good, this is why I was arguing in some other thread, that 'judgement' is fundamental to living systems. This perspective gives us a different way of looking at the reality of free will.

One reason I like the above line of thought is that I find it so much more satisfying, intellectually and philosophically, than, to be blank, religion’s fairy tales. And I think it may even be a true and accurate picture of reality. — Art48

Augustine is Neo-Platonist, and "the Light" referred to by him is "the good" of Plato's "Republic". "The good" Plato says is what makes intelligible objects intelligible, just like the sun makes visible objects visible. In the cave allegory, the philosopher escapes the traps of realism, to see that the sensible objects which we perceive as being all around us are really just shadows, silhouettes, or reflections of the Forms which are the cause of their existence, through the projection of the good. Apprehending "the good" in this way became known as "seeing the light".

I'm not denying that philosophers can engage in a sophisticated defense of dualism, but it's a tough position to play. — plaque flag

Are you aware that the future is radically different from the past? We might say that the past consists of what has actually occurred, and the future consists of what will possibly occur. And since there is no substance to the non-dimensional boundary which separates past from future, all substance is either of the past or of the future. Because the substance of the past is radically different from the substance of the future, substance dualism is justified, and it is the best option for understanding the nature of reality.

I should have left it at human sensory apparatus, in which, being a father, I’ve witnessed the construction of my children’s sensory apparatus from absolutely none at all, to fully functional, under purely empirical, decision-less, conditions. — Mww

I've explained to you already, the decision-making process is not empirically observable. You can witness all sorts of different things, and people doing all sorts of different things, but you do not witness any decision making process, except some aspects of your own. Furthermore, empirical observation of the results of decision-making, the consequences or effects of decisions, indicates that one person's decision-making process is not the same as another's. This is why there is difference, and what induces us to say things like "you are wrong and I am right", "you're irrational", "illogical", "emotional", etc.. Because the decision-making process is not empirically observable, in any situation where it exists, it will not be apprehended by an observer, unless the observer proceeds from the appropriate premises, required to determine its existence.

Therefore, that there is a decision-making process occurring in anything other than my own conscious mind, is something which I can only conclude from a logical process, and the appropriate premises which allow for the possibility that there is decision-making process going on there. In other words, if your premise is that decision-making process only exists where it can be observed, you will not find it anywhere other than in your own conscious mind.

For a thing to be not impossible is sufficient for its possibility, but to be merely sufficient is very far from being necessary. The necessary does not logically follow from the not impossible, but from that which is not contingent. Your logic is flawed. — Mww

You see X as possible. I see X as logically necessary. This indicates that your decision-making process is different from mine. It does not indicate that my logic is flawed. It is evidence that supports my position though, that other decision-making processes are not the same as the one in your conscious mind. So it's looking more like it might be your logic which is flawed, not mine.

However, as I tried to explain earlier, it's not necessarily the logic which is flawed here. It's more likely that the premises are what are flawed. The premises, generally, are derived from our empirical observations, and the flaw is in how we generalize from observation. This is induction. Generalizations usually involve unstated premises, which are hidden, and exist as prejudices which influence the decision-making process. So, for instance, you said that you observed your children's development of sensory apparatus, and you never noticed any decision-making, so you concluded that there was no such decision-making going on. The unstated, hidden premise, which misled your decision-making process, is the idea that the decision-making process would be observable. That's a flawed premise which would create an unsound conclusion. but it's not the logic that is flawed, but the premise.

Now, we need to consider the reality of these hidden (and often flawed) premises. These are prejudices which often can influence the decision-making without the decision-maker even knowing, because they are often hidden even to the decision-maker. Therefore we have features of the conscious decision which the conscious decision-maker is not even consciously aware of. Now the conscious decision is not carried out completely by the conscious activity, because we need to allow for the reality of these non-conscious features which influence the decision.

Gaspsputterchoke) Wha???? A pitiful sophism. Observations prove/disprove logical constructs. If a guy can observe some condition, he has no need for logical constructions regarding the reality of the observation, but he may construct logical explanations for them, iff he actually wants to know. — Mww

You've got this backward Mww. Logic is what provides certainty, not empirical observation. That's the point of my example about the earth orbiting the sun. Empirical observation provides us with possibilities concerning the reality of things, and we use logic to produce certainties, which we call necessities. Then the logical constructs are employed to disprove all those possibilities provided by empirical observations, which are not consistent with the logical necessities. The empirical observation is that the sun rises and sets, the logical construction produces the necessity, or certainty, that the earth is really rotating, and this logical certainty disproves the empirical observation that the sun rises and sets, as a flawed possibility, actually impossible.

The way that you present things is exactly the reason why Socrates and Plato argued so fervently that the senses deceive us. Sense observations do not give us reality, they give us possibilities. This is very evident from the fact that a multitude of different people observing the very same event will always provide differing descriptions. These description, sense observations, are taken by the thinking mind as possibilities for reality. Then we must employ logic to determine which we want to accept as certainties, necessities.

Unless conscious decision-making just is what it means to be a human being, in which case that process is all he needs, and if there happens to be a bigger process takes nothing away from his being one. — Mww

This is clearly not the case. Being a human being involves a lot more than just conscious decision making. There is for example, the carrying out of the process called for by the decision, the acting. This is when the mistakes of the logic are really exposed, not in observation as you propose, but in action. Even the assumed certainties, or necessities, of logic can be flawed. So we have three stages. Observation, then employment of logic, then action. Each stage exposes mistakes of the prior stage.

This reminds me of something you said about a coherent philosophy. A philosophy for which the understanding of the human conscious decision-making process is complete and unabridged, for which there remains no questions that process could ask even of itself, would necessarily be the most coherent philosophy possible. — Mww

The problem is that understanding the conscious decision-making process reveals that it is flawed. It is flawed for the reasons exposed above, much of it is carried out by the non-conscious, as exposed above, with the "hidden premises", and all sorts of premises which are simply taken for granted without being consciously thought about to validate them. So "the most coherent philosophy possible" is the one which apprehends itself as extremely flawed. That's Socratic skepticism.

You say fatalist, determinist; I say logically incontestable. Even to be something new is to be what we are. We can be forced to change just as much as we can choose to change, therefore the means for of change has no necessary implication; we’re just as new whether the means is one or the other. Evolutionary change is neither forced nor chosen, but recognition of evolutionary change is not immediate, so carries no more necessary implication regarding newness than either of the other means that are. — Mww

The issue here is that "what we are" implies a present in time. "We are" indicates "now", the present. And when we put "now" into its proper temporal context we see it as a divisor between past and future. The past is determined and cannot be changed. The future is undetermined. However, our way of understanding temporal existence is to extend the determined past into the future, in the mode of prediction. This trends toward negating the reality of "now" as the divisor, by making the future determined equally with the past, by denying the separation between the determined past and the undetermined future.

Now, we realize that this mode of negating the now, and making all of reality determined is inherently wrong, because this would annihilate all the need for judgement. There would be no true possibilities, and no need to make decisions. So we are inclined toward a compromise, a sort of compatibilism. But all this does is cast the "now" into a position of unintelligibility by providing no coherent principles whereby we can separate the determined from the undetermined. Then we tend to base "possibility" on what we, as human beings have the capacity to change (what we could be in the future), and we base "necessity" on what we cannot change (what we are, as derived from the past). So for instance, we cannot stop the sun from rising tomorrow, so this is considered as a determined necessity, but I can prevent the tree from falling on my house in the future, by cutting it down today, so this is not determined. The problem, is that this produces a huge grey area when we do not truly know our own capacities. There is no clear division between what is determined and what is not determined, because that is based solely on human capacity rather than something objective.

So, I propose we go to that divisor, "now", and say that the now makes a clear and precise division between what is determined, the past, and what is not determined, the future. But if the entirety of the future consists of possibilities, with nothing occurring of necessity, then we need to assume a process which "decides" what will happen at each moment as time passes. That must be a decision-making process.

So…you’re not what you are? If you constantly change into something new, then you are constantly not any thing but only some thing not what you were. But even what you were was only that which was not something before it. You have not much other choice than to say what you are not. To complete the circle, what remains from all of what you can say you are not, is what you can say you are. Which is where you started. — Mww

Correct, that's what happens when we apprehend the "now" as the divisor. All of reality is either in the past or in the future, as the divisor is a non-dimensional boundary, as a principle, which separates the two. Nothing can be at the boundary so there is no such thing as "what you are", implying your existence "now". Part of you is on one side of the boundary, part is on the other, and there is no such thing as "what you are".

But he really does himself no favors by making a complete mess of it. — Mww

Well, it's arguably much worse to look at a complete mess, and insist that there is no mess at all.

If I perceive an object, and if that perception forwards a sensation in conjunction with the mode of its perception, and if the sensation is the means by which a phenomenon is given, then the object is necessary for all that. An object satisfying this criteria cannot be a mere possibility. It is utterly irrelevant that I as yet may not know what this object is from which these internal events follow, but because they do follow it is immediately contradictory to suppose it is only a possible object affecting me, and while the as yet indeterminable object grants the possibility of how it will eventually be known, such undeterminability does not take away from it being a necessary physical presence. — Mww

When you perceive phenomena as objects, and you insist that there must be objects beyond that, as the cause of this phenomena, you are doing just that, taking the mess which lies beyond your sensation, and insisting that it is not a mess. Your argument here is not sound. You have no premise which allows you to conclude that if there is a phenomena there is necessarily an "object" which causes it. You might state this as a premise but that would be begging the question. And, the existence of imaginary things in dreams for example, demonstrates that such a premise is false. So you have no sound argument.

You simply deny the mess by begging the question with, "if the sensation is the means by which a phenomenon is given, then the object is necessary". That which is sensed is not necessarily objects. Your hidden premise (prejudice) is that what is sensed is objects. Rather than recognizing that what is sensed is a mess, and the act of sensation cleans up the mess by presenting to your conscious mind the appearance of objects, as phenomena you simply assume a necessity of objects. You provide no justification for your use of "necessary" here in relation to objects.

The mind….properly theoretical pure reason a priori…..derives its necessary objects in conjunction with the conceptions under which they are to be subsumed. A necessary object is that object for which the negation is impossible, which makes any necessary object, a logical construct. — Mww

Right, here you even admit it, a necessary object is a logical construct. But in the last paragraph your premise was that sensation produced a necessary object. So the only necessary objects are those in the mind, produced from conception. That which is sensed is something different, therefore not necessary objects.

That being established, necessary objects the mind derives are not contingent; the reality of them, is, and such reality depends exclusively on the possibility of the phenomena that represent them. — Mww

What happened to this "pure logical process" you were talking about before, the a priori? that is what you said produces necessary objects, why bring in phenomena here? if you believe in a pure logical process, then the reality of objects, and the necessity of them might be purely logical. I denied that idea, of a purely logical process, insisting that there must be content of some sort. However, the content need not be objects, so from my perspective there is no necessity to objects at all, either as mental constructs or as that which is sensed. As mental constructs, "necessary objects" never gets justified because the phenomena cannot provide that justification. And as something independent, the assumption of "necessary objects" suffers the problems described above. So there is really no place at all for the idea of "necessary objects".

It is not a better comparison when only to like kinds when properly it should be unlike kinds. — Mww

If the kinds are unlike then there is no similarity and the example is pointless.

So you don’t immediately and automatically rub the muscle in the exact location of a charlie horse? You rub the muscle far removed from it? Even if you do neither, your brain locates it, which represents as an image of that very location in fact being rubbed, because muscle extension as relaxation is already understood as the most feasible relief. It follows, with respect to empirical judgements, you’ve made the first regarding that a rub is feasible, and second, where the rub must occur in order for its feasibility to properly manifest. — Mww

When I get a cramp in my leg I stand up and walk to relieve it. I do not rub it, there is no external stimulus required, nothing which fulfils your description of "real physical incident". So I think you ought to accept my proposal, a "real physical incident" does not require an external cause, it could be entirely within the body.

Such as??? :chin:

(Please, no equivocating uses of "knowing". Thanks) — 180 Proof

Doesn't "different kinds of knowing" imply different senses of "knowing"? Therefore equivocating uses would be a requirement. So what sense does your question make, if you deny the possibility of answering it with your stipulated conditions?

But at the bottom of it, the fact is that the subject of experience - you and I - are not reducible to objects - which is what neuroreductionism, as a philosophical attitude, tends to do. — Wayfarer

The problem with this type of reductionism is that nothing ever gets 'reduced to...' in any absolute way. The attempt at reduction always leads off into unintelligibility as the inevitability of infinite regress is approached. So the attempt to reduce the material world of inanimate objects, in this way gets swallowed by quantum uncertainty, leading to the unintelligibility of symmetry-breaking and related concepts. Likewise, the attempt to reduce an organized being (a living being), to an inanimate object, so that it might be reduced in the way of physics, is futile because of the two incompatible ways of understanding the source of organization in the material body. The form of organization required to understand the living being is not compatible with the form produced by QFT, and so unintelligibility results from the attempt at reduction.

This problem is nothing new. Though it is framed in modern terms it is as old as philosophy itself. And, in the past it has been demonstrated that a well formed dualism provides an adequate resolution.

Sure, that there may be a decision-making process out there somewhere, is not impossible. But even if there is, what difference would it make to that which is, now. — Mww

To say it's not impossible, is to miss the reality that it is logically necessary. It's not impossible that the earth orbits the sun, but to say that this is not impossible misses the reality that it's logically necessary.

The difference that recognizing this reality makes, is that it is an ongoing decision-making process, and it is why we have free will. Conscious decision-making is the tip of the iceberg, that part of the decision-making process which is evident to the conscious mind. Understanding that conscious decision-making is just the tip of a much bigger process helps one to understand what it means to be a human being.

We are what we are, and everything is as it is, whether there was or was not a decision-making process. — Mww

This is a fatalist, determinist saying. In reality, the power of choice allows us to change, and become something new at each passing moment. There is no such thing as "what we are", or "as it is", because by the time you say "now", it is past, and there is something new. Therefore "what we are", and "as it is" are always in the past, and we're always moving on from that. The decision-making process is what allows us to be moving on rather than what we are.

We? Who the hell is we? — Mww

It was presented to me as an example. You and I makes "we". You may feel absolutely certainty of what you heard, but I'm not. So, I must accept it as a possibility until your assertion is justified. And that's why your example does nothing for me.

I’m not ever going to experience a merely possible object, from which follows a coherent philosophy which denies the necessity of objects, with respect to my experience, is a contradiction. — Mww

Your experience is quite different from mine obviously. That's why I was inclined to doubt you when you said you heard a boom.

Your experience appears to be self-contradicting. You told me the object is not the phenomenon. What you experience is the phenomenon. You do not experience objects so your experience produces no necessity of objects. You ought to realize that objects are merely possibilities.

The reality of perceived objects, is necessary; the reality of a priori objects, is contingent. — Mww

If the object is not the phenomenon, as you told me, yet the mind is known to create objects, which are contingent objects, show me how your mind derives a necessary object please.

Take any A-HA!! moment of your life…..assuming you’ve had at least one…..compare it to stubbing your toe. The latter requires a real physical incident, the former does not, insofar as you can have your epiphany over a merely possible incident and of course there’s no sensation in a possible incident. So you could get away with saying feelings are concerned with possible sensations, but the problem then becomes the certainty of that feeling, however it manifests, but without the certainty of the thing that caused it. Then the best you can do is tell yourself you don’t know why you feel the way you do, the very epitome of confusion and doubt. — Mww

Here's a better comparison. Let's compare when I stub my toe, with when I suddenly get a cramp in my leg. The two sensations, being sudden sharp pain, are quite comparable. Would you agree that they are both "real physical incidents"? The difference though is that I can point to the rock that I stubbed my toe on and blame that rock, saying that it caused my pain. But in the case of the cramp in my leg, there's nothing for me to point at and blame. In reality though, that is simply misplaced blame. The cause of my pain is not the rock, but whatever it is which is going on in my body, just like when I get a cramp, the cause of the pain is whatever it is which is going on in my body.

Likewise, pointing out external things, and saying that these things are the cause of any sort of sensations, is a mistake. These supposed "things" are not the cause of the sensations. Whatever it is which is going on in the human body is the cause. There is no shame in saying I do not know why I feel the way I do. However, there is shame in blaming the rock as "the cause" of your pain, and insisting that you are certain of this, because it is obviously mistaken.

What I generally do at about this point in the discussion, is bring out the weapon of mass destruction that is The Meaning of Meaning, by Ogden and Richards. It is the definitive text, and to my mind an object lesson in the futility of trying to define a word and thereby divorcing meaning from context.

When I say 'context', I invite you to imagine not just the words around the word in question, but also the armchair around the philosopher and the ever-collapsing political order in which they are necessarily embedded. — unenlightened

I would say, that context provides the most significant aspect of meaning in most cases. But a lot of people don't want to deal with context when discussing meaning because it can be very tricky. So they might prefer to talk about definitions. I like to distinguish between immediate context, and secondary context. Immediate context is the mind of the individual philosopher using the word, the person's thinking. Secondary context is the individual's environment, this would include the armchair.

It is good to recognize this order, because we must go through the perspective of the writer to get to the writer's environment, if we want a proper understanding of what the writer is saying. If I were to take the environment as the primary context, then I would proceed from my own perspective of the environment, and impose my understanding of the environment onto the writer. This could cause a faulty interpretation of meaning, a misunderstanding. Therefore I have to take the writer's words first, as an indication of what the writer is thinking, and then build a perspective of the writer's environment from this, rather than imposing my understanding of the environment onto the writer's words, in order to have a proper understanding of what has been said.

When used in a certain way this is a fallacy, the fallacy of persuasive definition, a mark of sophistry rather than philosophy. Even when it’s not fallacious, it forecloses on certain of the range of possible results. — Jamal

That’s interesting. I hadn’t even thought to question Kant on that. I suppose then that when he says in the same section that “Mathematical definitions never err,” he’s wrong?

But here’s the full passage:

Mathematical definitions can never err. For since the concept is first given through the definition, it contains exactly just what the definition wants us to think through the concept. But although there cannot occur in the concept anything incorrect in content, sometimes–although only rarely–there may still be a defect in the form (the guise) of the concept, viz., as regards its precision.
— Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, B759

I wonder if that covers it. — Jamal

So, the sophistry of persuasive definition extends right into mathematics as well. Set theory provides a very good example of this.

For example in order to know what counts as a definition, one needs to know what counts as a 'count'. And there's no accounting for that, except by making up a story. — unenlightened

Or, you could do like the mathematicians do, and practise what Jamal calls the fallacy of persuasive definition.

In Socrates' defense he was not looking for definitions but accounts, and this for the sake of inquiry.

For example, in Plato's Republic Socrates defines justice as minding your own business. A deeply ironic definition.

We all have some sense of what justice means. What Socrates is asking is that we go further. The problem is not resolved by definition. Whatever definition is proposed we can always ask whether this is what justice is? Does this determine what is and is not just in a particular case? — Fooloso4

This is the method known as Platonic dialectics. What Plato does is proceed through all proposed definitions for a term, and demonstrates the deficiencies of each. So we are left without any acceptable definition and the true meaning of the term remains unknown, or even in the extreme we might find, like Wittgenstein does, that such a thing as the true meaning, is an impossibility. A good example is Plato's "Theaetetus" where they submit "knowledge" to that method.

There only has to be one substance with the "stable property" of "change". — Benj96

"Change" is incompatible with "stable property"

No. The object of perception is that which is perceived. It is external to the senses, and is merely that by which they are affected, depending on the mode of their presence. Technically, empirical representation is an object of intuition, which is called phenomenon. Herein lay the proverbial “veil of perception”, from which arises indirect realism, and in which much ado is made of nothing. — Mww

Ok, so we'll say that the object of perception is that which is perceived. So the question is what chooses the aspects of reality which will be represented by a given sense organ at a given time. Why does hearing give us a representation of some sort of waves, for example? The "what" here is what we understand as sound waves, and the "how" is the actual image of the sound, the perception, phenomenon.

That there is a vast quantity of objects possible to perceive, and therefore become possible phenomenal representations, is true, but irrelevant. — Mww

How can you say this is irrelevant, when it is the crucial point? Since there is a a vast quantity of possible objects, and only some of these are represented by each sense, then there must be a choice (implying judgement) as to which possibilities will be represented. That is the "what". Furthermore, there must be other judgements as to how the object will be represented, because there is also numerous possibilities here as well.

That which determines the possibility of being represented, is the type and structure, the physiology, of human sensory apparatus. No decisions need be made; if an object is present to perception and a sensation follows, there will be a representation of it. And the need for decision for mode of sensation is already determined by the physiology itself, in that it is impossible to see with the ears, and so for each of the senses. — Mww

You are wrong here, decisions are required to create that structure. The "human sensory apparatus" is structured in such a way that decisions would be required for its creation. Do you really think that a complex sensing apparatus like that could have been created without any decisions made? Do you not recognize that such a construction project requires decisions? How would that construction process proceed without decisions? Would bits and pieces just come together by chance, and create that highly complex apparatus, just by random chance? Something is clearly amiss with this type of thinking.

True enough, but the question of how an object is composed in such and such a way is not possible from the mere fact it has a certain extension in space, which is all that can be represented in a phenomenon. The questions of the how of composition require conceptions relatable to the object, and intuition contains only two conceptions of its own, space and time. — Mww

The fact being considered here is the fact of sensation itself. What is given is sensation, and I am asking how is it possible that there is a being which senses. And the question is being asked in the context of the concept of judgement, or decision. The question is, is it not a necessary requirement for some judgements or decisions to have been made in order for a body which senses to be created, or to simply come into existence, to become?

The example was, suppose we take evolution as a sort of trial and error process. Is it not necessary for decisions to be made for a trial and error process to proceed?

True, but that doesn’t say trial and error occurs in intuition, which is the source of phenomenal representations, or that there is trial and error going on in the first place, anywhere. — Mww

The process being discussed is not necessarily a process of trial and error, that's an example. It could be a different sort of process, but it would still require decisions.

What you say here, if I understand correctly, is that the decisions, or judgements are not necessarily "in" the act of intuition itself. I respect that perspective, and that's why I've been arguing that these judgements are required for, as logically prior to intuition, and not necessarily an actual part of the intuition process itself.

There's an example which some TPF participants used in the past, of a thermostat. The thermostat switches the power off and on according to heat or lack of it. Out of all the available possibilities, it takes temperature, and out of all the possible ways of representing, it switches. We would commonly say that the thermostat doesn't make these decisions, it doesn't do any judging, yet judgement of these parameters is necessary for its existence, as having been made prior to it being created. And this would be how we understand the required judgement in relation to the existence of that sort of tool.

That seems to be an acceptable solution to how we understand the role of judgement in the existence of that sort of thing. But when we look at evolving life forms this way of looking at it becomes extremely problematic. That way, that the judgement is prior to the construction, would be the archaic way of looking at God's creation. God would have made the judgements or decisions required for creating each separate type of being, with each of their specific capacities, and God created these species accordingly, from all these different judgements. But the science of evolution shows us that things are not like this.

Evolutionary theory provides us with no reason to remove the requirement of judgement or decision though. It shows us that the judgements, or decisions, are not prior to the existence of the being, like in the case of the thermostat, so we are left with no other place for the judgement except within the being itself. This ought to incline us to look at "intuition" more closely, to see if perhaps there is judgement inherent within it.

Rather than an object having its composition somehow represented, trial and error then suggesting attempts to find out what that composition entails, why not just attribute properties to objects in conjunction with its representation, in which case the object’s composition conforms exactly to our understanding of its representation. If this is the way it works, this certain thing of this certain composition, is called a sun comprised of hot burning gas only because we say so, hence how that thing is to be known by us. — Mww

The issue here is error. Error is very real, and we must account for it. If we all, every single one of us, sees the sun as the sun, and we all agree to call it that, then there would be no problem. But as soon as one person disagrees with this, or hallucinates and sees it in some other way, then we cannot say "the object’s composition conforms exactly to our understanding of its representation", because someone is left out by this use of "our". Now we want to say that this person is simply in error, but that opens a whole can of worms, because if there is the possibility of error, this negates the necessity "conforms exactly to our understanding". We can't say that because we must allow for the real possibility of error, to be able to say that the person who does not agree is in error.

Judgement isn’t defined by the necessity of conscious thought; it is conditioned by it. That conscious thought is necessary for judgements regarding phenomena, says nothing about what judgement is or does in this regard. — Mww

Come on Mww. If you say that conscious thought is necessary for judgement, that clearly says something about what judgement is. You are stating that conscious thought is a necessary property of judgement, just like if you said animality is a necessary condition of being human. To state a necessary condition is obviously to say something about what the thing is.

And this is the perspective which I am trying to demonstrate to you as backward. From what I've been explaining, judgement is necessarily prior to conscious thought, therefore conscious thought must be understood as conditioned by judgement, not vise versa. This is why our conscious judgements are often overwhelmed by biases and prejudices. Prejudice is base in prior judgement which may not have involved conscious thought. It is imperative that we turn that perspective around, and understand how judgement is prior to thought, in order that we can overcome the harms of prejudice.

We can take deductive logic as an example. Deduction proceeds from premises, and valid deduction will maintain truth or falsity in its conclusions according to its premises. In this way, valid deductive logic cannot be mistaken, if it is valid, error is eliminated. So if there was something like "pure deductive logic", just the formal aspect, with no content, this valid logic would provide us with "pure truth". However, without any content there is nothing there, just the form of the logical process, and this provides us with nothing true about the world.

So we can take the premises as providing content. However, the premises could be wrong. And so we have a source of error. But notice that this source of error involves judgements made concerning the premises, and these judgements are prior to the logical process. Now we can understand that the source of error in unsound premises is these prior judgements. So if we look at the bigger picture, and instead of just looking at the process of logic specifically, we look at conscious thinking as a whole, we can see by analogy that the major source of error in conscious thinking in general, is the prior judgements which are prior to the conscious thinking.

No. There are possibilities and selections from them, but they been examined and selected by the time judgement intervenes. — Mww

See, you are putting judgement after judgement here. You imply that something 'examines and selects' and that is what we call an act of judgement. And you say that this act of judgement has already occurred before judgement intervenes. Do you understand the need to confirm things, to recheck, retest, etc.? That conscious judgement comprises one level of judgement does not exclude the likelihood of numerous other levels of judgement.

Here it becomes clear why the presence of an object removes possibility for it, but still leaves possibility for what it is. This moves possibility to being considered in thought, which is not that there is an object, which is never questioned, but what possibilities are there for how the object is to be cognized such that it accords with its sensation. Turns out, judgement is that by which the relations are validated. — Mww

The possibility of whether or not there is "an object" is questioned though. What process philosophy does is deny the reality of the object saying that all is process, as did Heraclitus' philosophy of "becoming" in ancient times. Once we see that a coherent philosophy can be produced which denies the reality of "the object", then the "possibility" of an object must replace the "necessity" of an object. Now we must consider that sensation gives us only the possibility of an object, because "that which sensation gives us" can be represented purely as activity, without any objects. And cognition which "accords with its sensation" need not consist of any objects. And the object cannot be taken as a given, it may be created by the cognitive act, as a sort of judgement imposed on the possibility of an object.

I hear a loud boom, so it cannot be denied I heard something, from which arises a mere phenomenon. — Mww

Your premise presumes what you claim, that is known as begging the question. When you state "I hear a loud boom", that premise dictates that you actually heard something. But we cannot start with that assumption unless we are certain that it is correct. We may start with your claim, or proposition, "I heard a loud boom", but then we must allow for the possibility that this proposition is false, therefore it is possible that you did not hear anything. It may have been all in your imagination, or you may be lying, or have faulty memory or something like that. So this example is useless. The presence of an object cannot be taken for granted, it must be approached as a possibility.

So it is that I have been given the phenomenon via sensibility... — Mww

Yes, you have been given the phenomenon via sensibility, but there is no necessary relationship between the phenomenon and what it relates to. You assume "an object", but that itself must be taken as a possibility. So we are left with the question of why does sensibility give us only possibilities, never any necessities. And the further issue is why do we assume actualities, necessities. That is just a judgement we make, that there is something actual behind all these possibilities.

I never said every judgment required conscious thought, but only those judgements having to do with empirical cognitions. Those judgements concerned with knowledge of real physical objects. The reason I wanted us to get away form perception, sensation and implied deceptions thereof.

Hence the question back on pg 6, hinting at the domain of judgements grounded on how a subject feels about that which he thinks, and while conscious thought is still present, it is no longer a necessary antecedent condition and judgements of this aesthetic form are therefore not validations of it. — Mww

I don't see the point here. Isn't "how a subject feels" just a matter of sensation? You want to get away from sensations to talk about feelings, but feelings are just another way, (other than through conscious thought), that sensations affect us. So judgements based in feelings concern real physical objects just as much as judgements based in conscious thought do. And this is not a useful distinction.

But no, I reject the notion of free will as a conjoined conception. There is freedom and there is will, but it is the case the will is not free in regard to the objects representing its volitions in accordance with laws, but in another, absolute autonomy, which is a type of freedom, by which the will determines the laws by which it shall legislate itself. — Mww

I can't comprehend this. Are you saying that the will is free in so far as its volitions must be in accordance with laws, but also that the will determines these laws? Isn't that absolute freedom then? What's the point in saying "in accordance with laws", if the will is free to state whatever laws it desires?

And this part, "the objects representing its volitions", what are these objects here? Are they just possible objects, or the possibility for an object, as described above?

You say "getting close" here, but really our vocabularies are so far apart, and that's why we can't really get close without very lengthy discussion to understand the way each other talks.

Now it should become clearer that discursive judgements concern themselves with the condition of the intelligence of the subject, but aesthetic judgements concern themselves with the condition of the subject himself, his intelligence be what it may. Under these purely subjective conditions, judgement validates that which the subject does, in accordance with his inclinations, which are therefore contingent, in relation to what his obligations prescribe him to do, in accordance with his principles, which are therefore necessary. — Mww

So you make a distinction between discursive judgements and aesthetic judgements. But I don't see what an aesthetic judgement could possibly be, under the precepts you've described. Are these judgements which are done without conscious thought? If so, then why not allow that all the different animals, insects, plants, etc., also make some sort of aesthetic judgements or judgements of another sort? These judgements would validate what these living beings do.

Are we done now? — Mww

To tell you the truth, I don't think so, but we could quit anytime you want . You haven't convinced me of your perspective, nor have I convinced you of mine. We may be on the road to compromise with your proposal of two types of judgement though. Would you be open to the idea of numerous types of judgement?

What the representation will be of? Hell, that’s a given: an intuitive representation, a phenomenon, can be nothing other than whatever is an object of perception, or a manifold of objects. — Mww

That's what the representation is, an object of perception. The "object" is not what the representation represents. The object is the phenomenon, the representation. The question is how is it possible to produce a representation without some sort of decision as to what will be represented. Of the vast possibilities available to be represented, there is a specific representation which is produced which represents a particular portion of the available possibilities. Obviously it is not random as to what will be represented, so don't you think there must be some sort of decision as to which possibilities will be represented?

Phenomena represent only what the senses provide, regardless of what that provision is. Hence…..imagination. That we make mistakes is also given; just that we must be conscious of them in order to know them as mistakes, which makes explicit we don’t make them right here right now. — Mww

So consider what you say here "phenomena represents only what the senses provide". There must be something which determines "what the senses provide". Of course the obvious answer would appear to be that the physical composition of the body makes that determination. However that is not a real answer, unless you can say why the body is composed in that specific way. You see the body is composed in a specific way, so that the various senses provide particular portions of the vast possibilities, but the question is how could the body get composed in this way without some decisions, judgements. Take the process of trial and error for example, this process can only proceed through judgements.

That conscious thinking is a necessary condition for the activity of judgement, does not serve as definition of it. — Mww

I think that is exactly what an act of definition is, to say what is essential of the thing being defined. It's just that the definition is not yet complete. Therefore it cannot serve as a complete definition in that sense, because there would be other requirements as well. The proposition "human is necessarily animal", is an act of definition. So for you to say judgement is necessarily thinking, is also an act of definition. You have not been able to complete your definition because this is the point which I dispute. So there are two ways in which this cannot serve, one is that it is incomplete, and the other is that the evidence which I presented indicates that your generalization is produced from faulty inductive reasoning.

Ok, fine. All those are still judgements. We don’t care about kinds; we want to know what any kind is, what all kinds are. What is it that makes any kind of judgement, a judgement. How did this kind come about; how did that kind come about, which inexorably reduces to how does any kind come about, or, how do all kinds come about. Only then can sufficient reason be given for why a self-contradiction might disappear, which would seem to require from you a proof that thinking is not a requirement for any kind of judgement, in spite of at least a logical proof I gave that conscious thinking is a necessary requirement for at least one kind, that being with respect to phenomena. — Mww

OK, now we're getting down to the point, the matter of exactly what a judgement is. Instead of being distracted by the idea that a judgement is defined by the necessity of thinking, we can put that requirement aside, and look at what "judgement" really consists of. Would you agree that judgement requires possibilities, and is in some way a selection from possibility? With this basic definition, would you agree that no thinking is required to select from possibility? Then if you can put the requirement of thinking aside, and start with the requirement of selecting from possibility, as the essential requirement, we could build a more complete definition from this starting point, instead of your proposal.

So you’d have it that, e.g., an irrational judgement, is that judgement entirely divorced from thinking, but I would maintain that an irrational judgement is that judgement concluded from improper thinking. — Mww

I used those examples to demonstrate the possibility of judgement without thinking, so that you might allow this as a possibility. I didn't mean that every irrational judgement is necessarily a judgement without thinking, but that it is possible that some irrational judgements might be judgements without thinking. So this is why I mentioned numerous possibilities for judgements without thinking. I also said emotional judgements, and judgements which appear to be random. I wanted you to consider these as possibilities too. And though you might say that some emotional judgements, and some judgements which appear to be random are actually based in thought, I wanted you to accept the possibility that some of these might be made without thought. Once you allow that this is possible, then your proposition that judgement necessarily requires thinking is unjustified.

As an aside, do you believe in free will? If so, do you see that a true, freely willed act would necessarily be free from the influence of thinking? This is what Augustine exposed, that the will is a distinct aspect of the intellect, distinct from reasoning. Then Aquinas showed that while the will is subject, subservient, to the reasoning intellect in common acts of judgement, ultimately the will must be free from this subjection to reason, in an absolute sense. This is how we can explain the problem exposed by Plato, of how it is possible for a human being to do what one knows is not good. Judgement sometimes goes contrary to the thinking.

Your way cannot explain the irrationality itself, whereas mine stipulates it necessarily. You, therefore, haven’t alleviated a methodological self-contradiction, but in fact enforced it. — Mww

i don't see that you have a valid point. Irrationality is fundamentally not explainable, that's what constitutes being "irrational", that it cannot be explained rationally. It must therefore remain unintelligible. So the fact that I leave irrationality as unexplained is consistent with what irrationality really is. That you think you can stipulate, necessarily, what irrationality is, indicates that you misunderstand irrationality.

The survival of the pattern is its persistence. We reason back from this. What kind of patterns persist ? — plaque flag

But this is inconsistent with what evolution actually is, as evolving, changing patterns. That certain aspects persist is not the same as saying that the pattern persists, because "the pattern" must encompass the whole, not just a part. So the fact that a part persists is not the same as "the pattern persists".

So instead we get those that replicate. In biological cases, we have variation, and this explains increasing complexity. — plaque flag

This is the problem right here. Variation is not replication. Therefore "replication" is a faulty, 'false' principle. It is not suited for describing evolution. What is essential and fundamental to evolution is difference, not sameness. That's why there is such a wide range of different living beings in our environment.

All of reality is a prison. The question is, what is outside of that prison? — an-salad

I think the more appropriate representation is "the belief held by most people, as to what constitutes 'all of reality', is a prison". Once we dismiss this belief, to see that reality is much different from what most people believe it to be, then we are released from that prison.

Personally I reject the thesis that signs have private immaterial referents. — plaque flag

I'm talking about meaning. Do you accept that the same physical thing, the sign itself, might mean something different to me as compared to what it means to you? To me, that would indicate "private immaterial referents". "Referent" here implies what the sign symbolizes, or is associated with, for the individual.

Instances of the pattern will only need to survive long enough to replicate. — plaque flag

Yes, this is exactly why reproduction and survival, as ends or goals, are completely different. If a particular instance of a pattern only needs to survive long enough to replicate, then survival is simply a means to the end, which is to replicate. Survival is only necessary so far as to replicate, and if replication could be accomplished instantaneously survival would not be necessary at all. So if replication is the goal, we can dismiss survival as not the real goal at all. Survival is not necessarily consistent with replication.

The problem with your presentation though, is that "replicate" is not a good word for you to use here. That is why I used "reproduce" instead. "Replicate" implies the production of a replica, a copy, but that is not what living beings do, they change through the course of reproduction, they do not replicate. This change is an essential aspect, as necessary for evolution. So we ought not call reproduction replication, because replication is not conducive to evolution, but reproduction is.

This difference is why it is important to separate reproduction from survival. If maintaining the very same being was what is important to life, then survival would take precedence over reproduction. But if change is more important than staying the same, then reproduction takes precedence over survival. The latter is what is the case. If you model reproduction as replication then you negate the importance of change, and you are left with little if any difference between survival and replication. Then you have no principle for the reality of evolution, which is change.

And there it is. Right in front of you the whole time. I wasn’t going to use the word until you did, which sooner or later you must. No silver platters for you, though, nope, no way. Get there on your own, only way to the possible epiphanic moment. — Mww

Well, are you going to explain, how something can make a representation without some sort of decisions or judgement as to what the representation will be of, and how it is to be produced, so that I can have that epiphanic moment, or are you just going to continue with your unsupported assertions that judgement requires a conscious mind?

Been telling you all along how I think judgement as you use it could NOT be done, which presupposes I think how it can. It could NOT be used as you’ve been suggesting because eventually it leads to methodological self-contradiction. — Mww

All you've told me is that you believe that judgement necessarily implies conscious thinking, as a logical requirement. I've shown you how the existence of illogical, irrational, emotional, and seemingly random judgements, demonstrate that what you belief is not the case. The evidence shows your belief is false.

The "methodological self-contradiction" which you refer to is the result of your faulty definition of "judgement", which makes conscious thinking a necessary requirement for judgement. This leads to multiple levels of "thinking" within the same being. If you would divorce judgement from thinking, as the evidence of illogical, irrational, emotional, and random judgements necessitates, then this "methodological self-contradiction" would disappear. You would no longer be confronted with multiple levels of thinking because you would accept the reality of what the evidence indicates, that the act of judgement does not require any thinking at all.

Anyway….editorializing aside…..I’ve posited some boundaries/limitations on it, but I’m going to wait til you work on bringing out what you think it is, before going further. I’m sure you’ll bring along your own necessary presuppositions in support, cuz you’re gonna need ‘em. — Mww

We're going to have to discuss these boundaries. I think your proposal of a purely logical system is untenable. There is no way to free ourselves from content in an absolute way. Some types of formalism attempt this task, but what happens is that the content gets hidden within the form and this leaves the logic less reliable.

Another unwarranted deductive inference. Excepting perception, no concept used thus far in this dialectic can be associated with a material system. In fact, I stated for the record I’m working with abstract conceptual analysis, which makes explicit an isolated metaphysical system. — Mww

I have no idea what you mean here by "metaphysical system".

In a closed physical system, it is the material that is necessary cause for metaphysical effect. But in the metaphysical system itself, any faculty contained in it is necessarily related to, but may not be caused by, some other faculty in that same system, re: cum hoc ergo propter hoc logical inconsistency. — Mww

It makes no sense to me, to talk about a faculty which is contained within a metaphysical system. A metaphysical system, to the extent that this makes any sense, would be the product of the faculty which produces it.

Not in so many words, no. Given a purely logical metaphysical system, the consequence of judgement is determined by its antecedents. Cause/effect doesn’t say enough, and there is an argument, perhaps too obscure for this particular discussion, that because cause/effect is a category and the categories are only applicable to empirical conditions, cause/effect does not apply to purely logical systems, which are concerned merely with rational form without regard for empirical content. — Mww

You've gone off on some strange tangent. What the heck is a "purely logical metaphysical system"? These assertions you are making are not based in anything. There is no such thing as "purely logical systems, which are concerned merely with rational form without regard for empirical content", because even a logical form requires expression through the means of symbols which demonstrate the method, and these symbols are empirical content.

No. The agent is not in the judgement, the agent is of the judgement, although you might get away with agency is in the judgement. Judgement relates to an agent, insofar as the one belongs to the other, but an agent does not relate to a judgement, insofar as the agent does not belong to the judgement. Judgement relates to agency as the one is only possible from the other, and agency relates to judgement as the one is necessary for the other. — Mww

Yes, this is the point, the agent is necessary for the judgement. So my point was that the agent, as cause, is something other than the conditions which make judgement possible.

As I said….they are inescapable. It is impossible that there be no judgement. Again, in accordance with the predicates of a particular speculative metaphysical system. Which of course, has absolutely NO WARRANT FOR BEING RIGHT. Logically coherent and internal consistent, yes; correct….not a chance.

Take a hint, fercrissakes!!!! — Mww

I really do not understand what you are saying here. I'm not good at communicating through hints. If there are judgements, as you assert, then there is necessarily right and wrong. Right and wrong are the necessary presuppositions for judgement. If right and wrong are not presupposed, then there is no will to judge, therefore no judgement.

So, in you own words, you are being incoherent, and inconsistent, to say that it is impossible that there be no judgement, but also claim in the same statement that there is no warrant for being right. If judgement is necessary, then right or wrong is also necessary.

You've dug yourself into a hole, because in reality judgement is not necessary, it is freely chosen. Therefore it is possible that there is no judgement, and this is the first principle of some forms of skepticism, to suspend judgement. Once you allow that judgement is voluntary, rather than necessary, then you see that it is possible that there be no judgement, and only from this perspective could you conclude that there is "no warrant for being right". But the way you presented it, where judgement is necessary ("impossible that there be no judgement"), it is logically inconsistent or incoherent to say that there is no warrant for being right.

There is no mistake in sensation. Determinism from human sensory physiology grounded in natural law.
In a strictly representational cognitive system, on the other hand, in which the natural determinism of sensory apparatus, re: Plato’s “knowledge that”** or Russell’s “knowledge by acquaintance”, Kant’s “appearance”, is translated into purely logical explanations immediately upon loss of empirical explanatory knowledge, the loss of which occurs as soon as consciousness of the operations of the physiological system is lost, leaves the human being to fend for himself, but still legislated, not by natural law, but by logical law in the form of the LNC.
(**quotation marks here indicative of attribution to the respective author’s terminology, to nip that in the bud) — Mww

As I said, "purely logical explanations" is fictional nonsense.

The loss of consciousness of operational conditions and therefore empirical knowledge in fact occurs, but only at the faculty of intuition, an altogether abstract conceptual device, which is the point where real physical objects become represented as mere phenomena. We are not the least bit conscious of this activity, however physiological it still is, re: peripheral nervous system constituency, hence can say nothing about it with respect to empirical knowledge. Even more importantly, without this conscious awareness, we can say nothing whatsoever about the effect the real object has on the subject himself, which in turn reflects on the absence of subjective agency, which in its turn, eliminates any form of judgement being present in the faculty of sensibility. — Mww

You describe a situation here, in which judgements are being made (objects are being represented as phenomena) without conscious activity, then you make the inconsistent conclusion that there is no form of judgement present. If the object is not present in sensibility as the object, but instead there is a representation, or phenomenon, then we must conclude that something decides how the object will be represented. How do you not understand this? How do you think that something could make a representation without some form of judgement as to how this will be done?

'Hurt' doesn't refer to immaterial pain here. I mean instead damage to our ability to thrive and replicate. — plaque flag

The problem though, is that what is real, and present to us, is the feeling of pain. So when you talk about "our ability to thrive and replicate", this is just an interpretation of the real hurt, the feeling we get when we suffer such damage. And since this hurt may be interpreted in many different ways, this is why it is appropriate to understand these sensations as symbols.

It's hard to see how a 'mind' (control module, tribal-individual software) will persist if it tends to ignore what is likely to harm it in this way. Patterns that don't tend to avoid harm (their destruction) and seek help (what they require) tend to vanish. — plaque flag

This is but an initiation to the problem. We all die and vanish, so that's not the issue. The purpose of the hurt therefore is not to incline us to avoid the harm so that we do not vanish. Vanishing is already inevitable. So what is the real purpose of the hurt? Is it so that we might continue to reproduce? Surviving and reproducing are two very different purposes. The former promotes a continued existence of the same. The latter promotes difference.

Sound familiar? For me it sounds like relativity. — Benj96

Of course it sounds like relativity. Your premise is an equation derived from relativity, so your conclusion will be relativistic as well. To get a different conclusion you'd need to start with a different premise concerning the relationship of matter to energy. The problem is that "energy" is a concept which is manipulated to conform to how we understand the movement of mass. So you'd have to relate matter to something other than energy, like relate matter directly to time and space. But that would leave something out, "substance". So it's like attempting to take the substance out of matter, which is the essential aspect of matter anyway. Therefore it's a misguided attempt in the first place.

Thought and memory can then be rectified with one another relativistically. And so the hard problem dissolves.
But it means space and time relationships must change for this to happen. — Benj96

Actually, the fact that the relationships must be altered indicates that these cannot be related relativistically.

It's a singular "substance" that has the capacity to phase transition between stability (memory) and instability (active thought, imagination, creativity). — Benj96

This exemplifies the problem. "Substance" is itself stability. So treating substance as if it could loose it's stability is to take the substance out of substance. So if way say that there is something else, which transitions from stability (substantial) to instability (non-substantial), then we have to account for the occurrence of stability. We would need to analyze what "stability" implies, and determine what type of thing could pass from being stable to being unstable, and see if this is even a coherent concept.

In line with the title of the thread, we could call this the hard problem of mass.

The idea that science give a view from everywhere is wrong. The scientific view is from anywhere. — Banno

What Wayfarer shows is that this proposal, the view from anywhere, does not make any sense. It is incoherent, an oxymoron, because a view must be from somewhere or else it would not be a view. Therefore your understanding of science, as being a view from everywhere, is wrong as incoherent, it does not describe what science really is.

You could alter that proposal, and say that science attempts to be a view from everywhere. But that makes no sense either, to say that science would attempt to do something which is illogical, as incoherent. So the proposal really just shows a misunderstanding of what science really is, or aims to do.

As you imply, what hurts us is real for that reason. — plaque flag

The deeper metaphysical issue here is that in order to say that what hurts us is real, we must assume that the hurt itself is real, because the hurt has logical priority. So the conclusion that what hurts us is real is derived from the premise that the hurt is real. Now the metaphysical question is what does it mean to be hurt.

This is where the icon analogy is relevant. Hurt is simply a meaningful sensation representing some sort of damage to the living system. We could say it's a symbol The base tactile sensations are all like this, pleasure, pain, soft, rough, firm, etc., they are simply symbols of meaning, significance. The higher senses like hearing and sight, or even taste and smell, are able to discern many finer differences, so they can build much more complex structures of meaning, through these many different symbols produced. But they all can be seen to be like icons, fundamentally, as symbols of significance.

Where the analogy is limited, is that unlike the icons we really do not adequately understand the underlying significance. And despite the claim of 'fitness" we really do not understand the value structure, upon which all these feelings, pleasure pain, etc., are supported. reproductive fitness really does not suffice here. Furthermore, we do not adequately understand the system which constructs the symbols either. So the real problem turns around this value structure which creates these symbols of significance, sensations. It must be a structure of value because the basics are grounded in the categories of pleasure and pain.

There you go again. We’re not talking about the location of a system, but only the location of a faculty within it. — Mww

It's you who is creating the problem by saying that this faculty is 'within" the system. By doing this you are necessarily confining the possible location to 'within" the system. Now "the system" refers to something physical, the material body, so you've restricted us to a materialist premise by saying that this faculty must be within the system. This excludes the possibility that the faculty is related to the system, as cause to effect. In the case of freely willed, intentional acts, the system is the body, and the faculty moves the system. By Plato's analysis it is incorrect to say that the soul is "in" the body.

Using your parlance, the reality of any judgement just is that judgement. Even basic understanding grants judgement to be merely a conclusion of some kind, which immediately presupposes that which makes it possible. So not all that is necessary is the reality of a conclusion, which wouldn’t even occur without its antecedents. Besides, we don’t care about the reality of judgements, insofar as we cannot possibly escape them. What we care about, is their validity, which cannot be determined by the judgement itself. — Mww

I agree with the first, the reality of a judgement is the judgement itself. Further, we can consider the effects of a judgement, and we might consider the causes of a judgement. Do you agree?

You say, that a judgement presupposes "that which makes it possible". By using the word "possible", this does not necessarily refer to the cause of the judgement, but more like the physical conditions which allow for a judgement to occur. Would you agree, that as well as "that which makes it possible", there must also be an actual cause, that which makes the judgement actual, and this we could call the agent in the judgement? So we would have the physical conditions which make a specific judgement possible, and also an agent which makes the actual judgement.

Why do you think that we do not care about the reality of judgements? Isn't this the debate of free will vs determinism, the question of whether judgement is real. Do you not apprehend the ramifications of this question, in relation to validity? If judgement is not real, and that which appears to be a judgement is causally determined simply by the passing of time, then there is no difference between valid and invalid. The apparent "judgement" is what it is, by causal determinism, it can not be otherwise. Any supposed further judgements like valid or invalid are completely unnecessary, and irrelevant, because the judgement simply is what it is.

I think that we are back to the principles of the argument against mistake in sensation. If sensation is simply a determinist cause/effect relation, then there is no mistake in sensation, it simply is what it is. But that's what I see as clearly wrong, because it leaves the human being without free will, and completely determined. Then judgement is not real.

Odds are I’m going to regret this, but it might be helpful to know what you think judgement is. — Mww

That's what I'm working on bringing out. It seems you might already regret being involved in this.

All you’ve said here most recently, makes no mention of that which I take particular exception, that being where in the system this “judgement”, where that which “decides for me”, resides. You’ve maintained its residence to be in intuition, subsequently broadened its residence to sensibility in general. Hence, my objection that whatever you think this “judgement” is, sufficient for it to “decide for me”, being necessarily a conscious activity insofar as unconscious or subconscious decision making is inconceivable in accordance with the human intellectual system, the business of both this ambiguous form of “judgement”, and proper judgement itself, do not belong to sensibility, said objection expressed as “tantamount to proposing that sensibility thinks”. — Mww

Ok, I'll be clear. I do not know exactly where, within me, this system lies. I know it must exist because the premises I've presented produce the logical conclusion that it must be. Secondly, I did not say that it "decides for me", simply that it makes some form of decisions or judgements.

And, your unjustified assumption that it is impossible for any type of unconscious or subconscious decision making, has been shown by me to be wrong.

Imagination is the thing I found in the analysis of your term in your context. I analyzed “judgement” and rejected it as philosophically ambiguous. Of course I would be unfamiliar with “judgement”, given the established abstract conceptual system to which judgement necessarily belongs. To use it, or any of its derivatives, no matter how disguised, other than as that system demands, is to destroy it altogether. — Mww

Ok, your analysis leads you to "imagination". Now, further analysis of "imagination" itself, will demonstrate that there is judgement inherent within imagination, as my example of dreaming demonstrates.

Your assumption that "judgement" necessarily belongs to abstract conceptual structure has been proven wrong, with the evidence of real cases of irrational, illogical, emotional, and even seemingly random judgements.

Nahhhh, you don’t. You’re presupposing I have no idea what you’re talking about. I say that because at the end of our first set of comments here, pg 6, there’s a question for you left unaddressed, which would have given a different perspective entirely for what was initially a general agreement between us.

With that unanswered question, combined with my mentioning something about a form of judgement related to intuition and you changing that into a form of “judgement” contained in intuition…..we’ve digressed into irreconcilable differences.

All else is superfluous. — Mww

I don't recall the unanswered question. If it is the question of where does this faculty of judgement reside, I do not see how this is relevant. When there is evidence that judgement has been made, the evidence is posterior to the judgement. The particular instrument which makes the judgement is very rarely evident in the effects of the judgement. This is why we cannot look at what was done, and know for sure who did it. Furthermore, we do not see the intention in the intentional act, nor do we see free will in the freely willed act. All of these conclusion can only be brought from a logical procedure.

So the question of where this faculty is, which makes the judgements, is not even relevant at this point. All that is necessary now is that we recognize the reality of those judgements. This is first and foremost the requirement we need before proceeding toward determining any further feature of that source of judgement. That is how we work with acts of judgement, like intentional acts, we first determine that there was intention involved, then we can proceed toward specifying the agent.

Aren't 'things' periodic patterns of ("indivisible")^ events? — 180 Proof

A "thing" is what is involved in the event, as what engages in the activity. There is not matter to a described event unless an independent thing (a thing independent from the description) is signified.

Let's say "X moved from A to B" is a description of a simple event. This description is not itself an event, it is simply a description. But if "X' represents a real thing, which is involved in a supposed real event, then we have a representation of the "matter". However, "X" as representative of the matter, is not the event itself, but something which is implied to have existed before the event, and persist after the event. Therefore the matter is independent from the event.

These are declarations, mere assertions, with no detailed explanation accompanying them. — Mww

The explanation is in the earlier exchange with you, in my response to your claim that one cannot be deceived by one's own feelings. The gist of what I said was that since some sensations strike us directly as beautiful, pleasurable, or painful, without conscious classification to that effect, it is necessary to conclude that the "decision", or "judgement", that these sensations are of such a character is performed at a level prior to conscious judgement.

The example was when I eat something which tastes "good", but isn't really "good" because it makes me sick. The result is that we have two completely Incompatible senses of "good" here, one according to the subconscious judgement inherent within the sensibility itself, and one according to the rational thinking. To understand this more clearly, look at any so-called "bad habit". The person is directly inclined toward a specific type of act because at the subconscious level it is judged as "good" by that "judgement" performed at this level, yet the rational mind judges it as "bad".

Instead of addressing this explanation which I provided for you, you simply responded with: "This is tantamount to proposing that sensibility thinks ,,, Have it your way". I addressed the "sensibility thinks" issue by stating that this is not a form of thinking, therefore we must conclude that there is "judgement" without thinking, and I took the "have it your way" as implying that you had no reasonable rebuttal to what I presented.

Now you pretend to have rebutted.

And I reject anything needing quotation marks that merely substantiate its ambiguity. It’s judgement or it isn’t, such a thing as “judgement” just doesn’t say enough to be taken seriously. — Mww

OK then, let's just call it judgement and get on with the show. That's how most philosophers write, using words in ways that other people might not be too familiar with, without special quotation marks to indicate special usage. I thought it might assist you to understand, if I used the quotations to indicate that my usage might be one which you are not very familiar with. That would be the case if you haven't done the analysis required to find the thing which the term refers to in that context. I think of it as a courtesy which I afford for you, but if you dislike it and it appears to you like a bad habit, let me know clearly, and I'll try to refrain in future discussion.

Everything in general about what you call the form of “judgement” inherent in intuition, inasmuch as your exposition of it has entailed, has already been rendered in the pertinent literature as imagination, which meets the explanatory criteria for the human intellectual system as a whole in much more satisfactory manner, and, first, eliminates such notorious ambiguity as “judgement” altogether, and second, serves as sufficient reason for not realizing you are right. Like…..my employment of methodological imagination is much right-er than your employment of methodological “judgement”. — Mww

Incorporating this form of judgement into the more general conception of imagination does not eliminate the need for the use of the term "judgement" in reference to the various aspects of imagination. Do you understand that there is judgement, which is inherent within imagination as fundamental to it? This judgement must be independent from conscious judgement.

Take dreaming for example. Do you see that there is judgement, which is not conscious judgement, that is foundational to the dreaming process? Decisions must be made as to what will occur within the dream, otherwise the dream would be random in an absolute way. Of course dreams appear to the conscious mind as somewhat random in many ways, but not in an absolute sense. What the appearance of randomness indicates is that the judgement process involved in creating the dream is very inconsistent with the judgement process of the conscious mind, so it appears to have many random aspects.

This is analogous with the conscious judgement that something is "illogical". When one person judges another's judgement as illogical, this does not imply that the other's judgement is judged as not a judgement, it means that the judgement is not logical. Likewise, when we judge a dream as random, this does not mean that the judgements which created the dream are not judgements, it only means that these judgements are judged by us as random.

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This is an unwarranted presupposition that the nature of all living beings is imbued with conscious mental activity, all that being completely irrelevant anyway, for all I care about properly understanding, is the living being that is me. I for one, have no problem restricting judgement to conscious mental activity, for I assert without equivocation that is impossible for me to judge anything whatsoever, if I am not conscious of what is being judged. — Mww

This is why you are wrong, and I am right. If "to judge" is defined by the capacity to judge which your own conscious mind possesses, then no one else can judge in any way other than the way that you judge . So, evidence of differing judgements induces us to allow that others judge in different ways. There are judgements, and ways of judging which are inconsistent with mine. Therefore to recognize a judgement as a judgement I need to allow that judgements are not necessarily consistent with my way of judging.

So, your assertion that it "is impossible for me to judge anything whatsoever, if I am not conscious of what is being judged" says only something about your own judgements. It says nothing about other judgements which are not made by you, judgements which may not be consistent with your judgements. And, it is clearly wrong to exclude judgements made by someone other than yourself, from the category of "judgement", just because you did not personally make that judgement, and the judgement is inconsistent with yours. And, an inconsistent judgement implies that the mode of judgement is inconsistent with yours. Therefore it is very clearly incorrect to say that since your mode of judgement is conscious judgement, all modes of judgement must be conscious judgement.

Furthermore, when we allow that there are judgements made by others, we not only encounter the problem of judgements which are inconsistent with our own, but also judgements which appear to be "illogical". Further, we see judgements which appear to be completely irrational, immoral, unprincipled, rash, irate, emotional, and even random (like in dreams).

Therefore your grounds for 'all judgement is conscious judgement' is unjustifiable by the means you propose.

Sure. But my point wasn't about truth as such, it was about the nature and validity of science and empirical data, which surely has a compromised status if human senses are not able to apprehend reality. — Tom Storm

It's not that "truth" has a compromised status. That would be a backward way of looking at things. We can still hold truth up to the highest standards. We simply need to recognize that empirical data and science are insufficient for truth.

This means that if science does not maintain truth as its goal, and receive guidance from other sources (metaphysics) its results will be less than truth. So for instance if capacity to predict replaces truth as the goal of science, it is not truth which is compromised but science which is compromised. "Truth" would only be compromised if we lowered it to what empirical data, or science provides us with. That's why I said it depends on how you define 'truth".

Fermions & bosons. — 180 Proof

These particles are what Nick called activities. I need an explanation as to how an activity is "matter".

What?....sir, "matter" describes a specific type of "activity" responsible for structure low level and high lever features (basic or advanced properties). Not all activities are matter. Its an equivocation fallacy based on a beef you have with the word "matter"! — Nickolasgaspar

I would say that "matter" refers to whatever it is which is involved in the activity, what is doing the activity. An "activity" without something performing the activity is just a description of an activity, an abstraction. There is no substance without something performing the activity, therefore no "structure". A "structure" requires substance, and "activity" is not substantial, the substance is what is doing the activity. "Matter" is responsible for structure, by being that substance which is engaged in the activity. Without the matter performing the activity there is no structure.

No, I said that specific glitches(with specific properties) are responsible for the phenomenon of matter. — Nickolasgaspar

I've never heard that proposal. I find it very strange. Specific "glitches" produce matter. A glitch is a malfunction. Are saying that all material existence is a malfunction of reality? Everything is a composition of mistakes.

That's an interesting "ontology of matter"; not one I'm inclined to respect though. If it is "glitches" which produce matter, and glitches are malfunctions, what was supposed to be happening? If the malfunctions had not occurred, which produced matter, and the activities operated smoothly, what would the world be like then? I suppose there would be no life without these malfunctions. And of course that would be a better reality than the one we're in, which is the product of malfunctions.

From your questions I understand that you are not ready. I did my best to describe you the ontology of matter with really plain words and metaphors but you keep asking the same questions again and again as if nothing was said. — Nickolasgaspar

OK, your ontology is 'matter is "specific glitches"'. For me, that equates with "nothing was said". Care to try again?

This still doesnt answer what this "matter" is in itself. Its just saying how the appearance arises.
It just says how the icon on a computer screen arises not what it is. — TheMadMan

Do you mean, what the icon signifies? Simply put, it has meaning, like a word or a symbol. The meaning of "matter" is as I explained, it signifies what we observe as temporal continuity. It's not like this particular icon, "matter" has a thing which it corresponds with, like a proper noun or something, it has meaning which allows it to be used in many situations. So it's more like a word than an icon. And that word relates to an "appearance", the appearance of temporal continuity.

If we want to understand the meaning here, we need to address this appearance. What is the reason for the appearance of such a temporal continuity in the world?

I'm not sure how science can lead to truth when Hoff says we are hardwired by evolution to be unable to recognise reality. — Tom Storm

The position of truth would depend on how you would define "truth". If truth is correspondence, then truth is possible, but the problem is in knowing when truth has been obtained because human judgements are teleologically based, based in purposefulness (predictability etc.) rather than judgements of truth.

I think that the position is best understood as a form of pragmaticism. The way we sense the world, consequently the way that we understand the world, has been formed or shaped by some type of purposefulness. That's what Banno states as "fitness beats truth". Here "fitness" which is commonly associated with "survival" in accounts of evolutionary theory is reduced to reproductive capacity. Strong evidence for how reproductive capacity affects sensation is found in the sensual pleasure of sexual intercourse. We can understand this as a form of pragmaticism because the way that the human being perceives and understands the world is directed overall, by usefulness. And pragmaticism is based in natural teleology. The overall purpose or end for life in general (the meaning of life), escapes our grasp, but the purposefulness inherent within living systems implies that this perspective is not misdirected.

From the pragmatist perspective truth is possible, but it needs to be given priority as something which is useful. So truth does not come naturally to us because "fitness beats truth". So we must shape our priorities through moral training etc., (the classic God is Truth for example), in order to direct ourselves toward the usefulness of truth. The usefulness here being communion and social interaction, propagated by truthfulness, which in turn produces a higher knowledge and greater usefulness overall. The desire for truth has a place in the rational mind, bit it is commonly suppressed by irrational desires which are natural to living bodies, so it does not obtain a place of priority without culture.

So if all of our mistakes are always behind us, in the past, then there's nothing we can do to change them. Thus, there is no reason to dwell on them/live in guilt or shame due to them. — Benj96

I think the Christian idea of confession of sin is probably worth assimilating. — green flag

I think this is the idea behind confession, confess to one's mistakes, be forgiven, and move forward, released from guilt and shame.

What I wanna ask is how does this assumption arises from mind. — TheMadMan

I think I provided an initial answer, here:

Traditionally it's the concept Aristotle used to account for what was observed as the temporal continuity of sameness. As time passes it appears like some aspects of the observed world do not change. "Matter" was proposed as the concept which relates to the real unchanging features of the observed world. What does not change as time passes is matter. So, simply put, we see that some features remain unchanged as time passes, we figure there must be a reason for this, and we posit 'matter' as the reason for this. That is how "matter" arises from consciousness. — Metaphysician Undercover

We don't assume "particles" in the sense you understand it. Its NOT an existential claim of an entity in the classical sense! Particles is the label we use to name an observed and quantified activity. — Nickolasgaspar

Right, there's no "matter" there, in those "particles", just activity.

Sure we don't observe " crystal marbles" if this is what you mean. Energetic glitches is what we observe, quantify and predict. This is what we call "particle" part of Matter.
Did anyone tell you that particles are some type of rocks? What is your argument here.??? — Nickolasgaspar

"'Particle' part of matter"? What does that mean? You already said that a particle is just an activity.

You (I mean anyone) can not get in a conversation about Matter and mental properties without understanding the known ontology of matter. — Nickolasgaspar

I'm ready. What is the known ontology of matter? You've said a few things about energy, also about activity, and you've said that energy relates to matter. So let's have it, where do we find this matter that is related to energy?

The validity of the one does not necessarily follow from the validity of the other. There is no necessary relation between a form of subconscious “judgement” in intuition, merely from judgement as a given conscious mental activity in understanding. — Mww

I explained in detail why it is necessary to conclude that there is some form of "judgement" occurring at a subconscious level. You said: "This is tantamount to proposing that sensibility thinks". I said that there is no need to restrict "judgement" to conscious thinking. I didn't suggest a necessary relation, only that the inclination to restrict "judgement" to conscious mental activity is a misunderstanding of the nature of living beings.