Not sure where you get this idea. PoR is defined in a few places
In physics, the principle of relativity is the requirement that the equations describing the laws of physics have the same form in all admissible frames of reference. — noAxioms

Try this:

Galileo formulated the principle of relativity in order to show that one cannot determine whether the earth revolves about the sun or the sun revolves about the earth. The principle of relativity states that there is no physical way to differentiate between a body moving at a constant speed and an immobile body. It is of course possible to determine that one body is moving relative to the other, but it is impossible to determine which of them is moving and which is immobile. — https://www.tau.ac.il/education/muse/museum/galileo/principle_relativity.html#:~:text=The%20principle%20of%20relativity%20states,moving%20and%20which%20is%20immobile.

Sorry noAxioms, but we're just too far apart in terminology to carry on any meaningful discussion. I spend all my time just having to show you that you don't know what you're talking about. First we spent forever on the meaning of "inertial frame", now we're stuck on the meaning of "the principle of relativity". It's pointless, we can't discuss anything significant.

Some claim matter is neither created nor destroyed. How do you go about refuting this? For example: do you think caused and created are two different things? — ucarr

That might be true, but under the Aristotelian conceptual structure matter has no existence without form. Matter without form is an unintelligible and incoherent idea. So what some claim about matter, that "matter is neither created nor destroyed" is completely irrelevant, because when we talk about material objects we are talking about matter with form, and form is what is created and destroyed.

Do you think the {cause ⇒ effect} relationship always implies a temporal sequence? — ucarr

Yes.

If someone claims God is self-caused, how would you refute this refutation of {cause ⇒ effect} is always temporal? — ucarr

I would say "God is self-caused" is incoherent because it would mean that God is prior to Himself in time, and that seems to be contradictory.

Outstanding critique. Well-thought, and asks pertinent questions, not all of which have answers. — Mww

Thanks Mww. It's difficult to do. It's easy to take what another says and disagree with it because it's somehow counterintuitive, so it doesn't make sense. But it's actually quite difficult to take apart what another has said and determine the reasons why it doesn't make sense. So on this forum, we tend to do the easy thing, and just disagree with each other and never make any progress in finding out why. Anyway, I'll answer your question, but sometimes its even more difficult to take apart one's own intuitions, then to take apart the statements of others.

.what happens in the very first instance of a perception or an idea in a particular human cognitive system? By first instance I mean the very first observation of something in Nature, or the very first flash of a possibility a priori? The implicit ramification being of course, there is no experience on which to draw, therefore there is nothing in memory, re: consciousness, therefore the representation by already present conceptions is quite impossible. — Mww

That the conception is prior to the sense perception is what validates the idea of "a priori". What is implied is that there is some sort of conception which is prior to sense perception. You could look back at an individual person's first sense perception, or the first human being's first sense perception, or even the first sense perception of a living being, and ask the same question, how is it possible that there is a conception prior to sense perception. But even if we look only at the physical aspects of sensation, I think we would find that not only is a sense organ required for sensation, but also some sort of brain.

Notice the way that conceptualization works, consisting of universals, categories, etc.. So it is not necessary that there is a conceptual representation of each thing, prior to it being perceived by sensation, it is only necessary that there is a sort of conceptual structure of universals, which gives the mind the capacity to categorize the information received from the particular. Therefore I wouldn't say that perceiving a particular is an instance of conceiving the particular (that would be contradictory), it's more like an instance of categorizing the particular according to an already held conceptual structure..

The point being that on the other side, the sense side, the image which we are able to get. via the sense, is limited by the capacity of the mind to support the sense. But we tend to think that the senses are giving us a direct representation of the thing sensed, when in realty what the senses give us is greatly restricted by what the mind has the capacity to apprehend.

This is why the Aristotelian description was that the mind abstracts the form of the thing, through the means of the senses. It is the mind which is creating the form or image, through the means of sensing. But we commonly attribute the production of the image or form, to the sense. This is because of the pervasiveness of the physicalist mind-set, in our current society. This mind-set apprehends a chain of causation from the thing itself. The thing causes an effect in the sense, which causes an effect in the mind. From the dualist perspective, the mind creates, using information received by the senses. So what is produced as "a sensation" is restricted by the capacity which the mind has to create. Therefore it is possible that the senses received a whole lot more information than what we receive as a sense image, but if it doesn't fit into the mind's capacity to represent it, it doesn't get represented within the representation which the mind creates.

The base of the problem is found in Zeno's paradoxes, and manifests in the way that calculus resolves the issue with the concept of approaching the limit, or approaching zero. When this concept is applied to the temporal existence of waves, the uncertainty principle rears its ugly head.

To determine the features of waves requires a period of time because waves are activities. As the period of time utilized becomes shorter and shorter, the capacity to determine the wave features is debilitated, and the result is an increase in uncertainty. As the zero point in time is approached, uncertainty approaches infinity. In classical mechanics this was the problem of infinite acceleration required for a change in motion . Any body at rest, if it began to move, would require a time of infinite acceleration at the point when it was caused to move. The problem transposes to relativity theory when a body at rest is replaced with a body with uniform motion, and we consider changes to that motion.

So we have a fundamental incompatibility between "position" which refers to a object's rest spot, and "velocity" (or any wave features) which implies no rest spot. What is demonstrated by the need to employ the concept of "infinite" in the calculus which relates these two, is that our way of plotting an object's position, and our way of plotting an object's movement, are fundamentally incommensurable. This basic incommensurability demonstrates that our mathematics of "space" is fundamentally inadequate. Zeno demonstrated this very well with the tortoise and the hare. And the issue remains as the uncertainty principle.

But it is important to realize that, while the behavior of the smallest particles cannot be unambiguously described in ordinary language, the language of mathematics is still adequate for a clear-cut account of what is going on. — Werner Heisenberg, The Debate Between Plato and Democritus

The problem though, is that mathematics really does not give a "clear-cut account of what is going on". The uncertainty principle is produced by the application of the mathematics, in an attempt to understand elementary particles. The uncertainty is not resolved by the mathematics. So this statement from Heisenberg is not true at all.

And the conclusion drawn from that statement, that the elementary parts of material objects are "Ideas, which can be unambiguously spoken of only in the language of mathematics" is not a sound conclusion either. The reality of the situation is quite the opposite, that quantum theory demonstrates to us that the elementary parts cannot be understood through the application of conventional mathematics. The uncertainty principle is obviously a failing of our mathematics, in its capacity to understand the reality of space, time, and material existence, not a success of our mathematics.

The concept of God is inherently unprovable and unverifiable. — gevgala

Every material object has a cause. The cause is prior in time to the object. Therefore the cause of the first material object is not material. This immaterial cause is what is known as "God".

In the sense that “house” includes glass, wood, metals, it does, yes. One cannot cognize without these antecedents, but one can have those antecedents without being cognizant. This is partially why cognition regards perception alone, insofar as to say we are cognizant of our thinking, is quite superfluous. — Mww

I don't quite understand this, so let me put an example to you. Suppose I look around me. What I perceive with my eyes is a bunch of different colours around, and I also somehow see a separation between some of them, as a difference in distance. Because they appear separated, I think of them as distinct things, and I have a name for many of them, "house", "car", etc.. The latter part is all conceptual, me seeing them as things, and as specific things. And the former part is supposed to be perceptual, seeing the differences.

The problem I have, is that to talk of them as "colours" and "separations", or "distance", is also conceptual. Now I have to keep reducing the type of differences I am sensing, to a most basic concept, "differences", which is still conceptual, but as close as possible that I can get to making a separation between the perceptual (of the senses) and the conceptual (of the mind). But when I do this, I deny myself the capacity to even distinguish between what is being perceived by one sense, and what is being perceived by another sense, because "colour" and "sound" are conceptual separations. All the senses are just demonstrating "differences" in general, and they are completely uncategorized because categorizing them is conceptual.

Since this distinction, between sound, coulour, taste, etc., appears to me to be done at a level prior to any form of conceptualization as I would understand "conceptualization", it doesn't look right to me. It appears to me like there is some form of relating sensations inherent within the act of perception, which already categorizes them prior to even relating them to any conceptions. So I think that your proposed division between 'of the thing' (cognition) and 'of the conception' (reason) doesn't make any sense to me because the two seem to contaminate each other right from the most basic levels and one cannot be said to be prior to the other. So sense perception has inherent within it a fundamental relating of percepts and classification, because I naturally distinguish between colour and sound. Likewise, the objects of reasoning always seem to have a sense aspect, as they seem to always be representations of something sensed, like words, symbols or images. I am incapable of reasoning without employing some sense images.

Yes, given the fact cognitions are of things, from which follows we are not conscious of the relating of conceptions, nor are we conscious of the judgement itself. We are conscious only of the relation of one cognition to another, which is reason. On the other hand, in aesthetic judgements having to do with conceptions alone, we are conscious of these as to how they make us feel, but we cognize nothing by them. It is easy to see that how we feel has no predication on logic, in that it is true we do in fact sometimes feel very differently than the judgement warrants. Like….the guy who fell off a ladder should have caused consternation, but you laugh because it looked so funny when he landed. — Mww

Here is where the problem I had above, manifests into a bigger problem. You say there are cognitions of "things" which is at a sub-conscious level. I assume these "things" would be the differences I referred to above, as I explained "differences" to be the fundamental object of the senses. So when you say "cognitions are of things", you mean cognitions are of differences according to the description I provided above. "Things" is reducible to "differences". Also, within the act of "cognition", there is some sort of relating of differences to each other, and a basic classification going on, and this is the "judgement" you speak of, which we are not consciously aware of.

Now, there are what you would call "cognitions". And reason relates cognitions one to another. However, and here's where the problem lies, you now have another separation, within the conscious level of reasoning, and this appears to be between aesthetic judgements, involving the relations of cognitions, and logical judgements, involving purely abstract conceptions. So the problem is, where do these purely abstract conceptions employed in logic come from? You provide a big description (which I find to have problems) of how a cognition can come to a reasoning mind, being 'of things', but no description of how purely abstract conceptions come to a reasoning mind. And, I explained how each of these, cognitions, and purely abstract concepts, are both fundamentally contaminated by each other, so this renders that whole division as ineffectual. In reality, it appears like both cognitions and abstract concepts are produced in the same way within the sub-conscious, so that when they come to the reasoning mind, they simply come as different categories similar to how colours and sounds come as different categories, but they are actually created in much the same way.

I’m ok with that. Except that my example is concerned with form, but yours is concerned with content. I’m saying the kid stacks numbers, gets a result, you’re saying the kid stacks 5 over 9 and gets 14. I’m saying the kid will necessarily get a result from any stack whatsoever, you’re saying the kid will only get a certain number contingent on the numbers he stacks. I’m constructing the math, which is not itself an experience, you’re using the constructs, which is. — Mww

I was emphasizing the process, which must be learned. So yes, the kid stacks 5 over 9, and gets 14, but more than this, the kid puts 4 below the 5 and 9, and carries the 1 to the next column. So what I am saying is that what you call "the math" is just a learned process without any necessity to it. The kid does not have to write down the 4 and carry the 1, if it's a simple case, it might be all kept in the mind. Then there would be some other way to remember the digits, rather than writing them down. So your determination of necessity is completely meaningless. It's like saying, put some numbers in front of the kid, and the kid will necessarily do something, but you can't make any statement of necessity as to what the kid will actually do. What point is such an assertion of necessity? It's like saying something will necessarily happen, but it could be absolutely anything.

Yes, as long as the stipulation of being taught applies, because there are two distinct methods involved. In such case as being taught, the things being learned about are given to him, the method is presupposed, re: addition, also taught to him, which eliminates him having to exercise his pure a priori conceptions for the construction of them, an entirely different method. In other words, he needs not think what a two is, or how it came to be a two, nor does he need to understand the cause/effect of succession, but only that he should conform to an expectation.

A question of….why is it, that which is known by rote practice makes far less impression than that known from self-determination. Stands to reason it is because the mental effort of the former is far less stringent than the latter. If far less, which effort is not used, as opposed to when it is. — Mww

This conclusion you make here, ought to serve to demonstrate to you the problem with your division between cognition and reason which I explained above. What you describe is the two different ways of learning a rule, explained by Wittgenstein. You can be taught the rule, or you can observe activity and learn the rule simply from observation. As you describe, the two produce a fundamentally different understanding of what is here called "the rule". Both means of acquiring "the rule" are sense based. In one case you acquire the instructions through language, as a prescriptive rule, and in the other instance you observe, and make a descriptive rule.

The problem is that the two are fundamentally different. The rule that you learn from being taught will not be the same as the rule that you learn from observation, as you say, the latter involves a deeper understanding. But does it really? In reality, the other way, being taught the rule, involves a whole lot of purpose, meaning, which the observational way does not reveal. So prior to even being able to understand the rule in language, a whole lot of other education is required, and this is implied already when one is taught the rule, so there is a whole package of understanding purpose, and meaning, inherent within learning the rule through language. So really we cannot say that one is a better understanding than the other because they are both completely different, and understand completely different aspects. To have a complete understanding requires both.

How this bears on the division you proposed, between cognition and reason, is that both these ways of understanding "the rule", prescriptive and descriptive, are based in cognition, recognition of things. However, they involve completely different ways of looking at things. In the descriptive way you look at the activity of "things", people in this case, and notice that their activity is patterned and intelligible, and you thereby make some conclusions about those patterns, allowing you personally to replicate them. In the prescriptive way, you look at "things" as carriers of inherent meaning, like words and symbols, and you learn some understanding about what these things are supposed to represent.

So I would say that the division here is not between cognition (of things), and reason (of concepts), but a difference in the way that we look at things. So each "way" is cognitive in the sense that it deals with things, but in one way the thing is seen as something which you must personal assign meaning to, in your attempt to understand it, and in the other way you see the thing as having meaning already inherent within it, and this is taken for granted.

The phenomena in your mind are representations of physical words, just as in any perception. In the sense that you already know a language, you don’t need to conceptualize the words, you’ve already done it when you learned the words that constitute the language. All you need now is to judge the relation of the word you’ve learned, to the word you perceive. If you cognize a sufficient correlation, you understand what’s been said. In some cases, though, if you cognize a necessary correlation, you know what’s been said is true.
(Guy says…I just went to Home Depot. Ok, fine, you understand how that could be the case. Guy shows you a garden rake, says…I just went to Home Depot and bought this rake. Now you understand he more than likely actually did go to Home Depot. Guy says….I just went to Home Depot and bought this gallon of ice cream. Now, you understand he might have gone to Home Depot, but he more than likely didn’t buy the ice cream there, because yo have no experience of any Home Depot ever selling ice cream. Guy says…I just went to the bank and got a cashier’s check. Now you understand he had to have gone to a bank, because you know for certain there is no where else to get a cashier’s check.)
———— — Mww

This further demonstrates the two different ways of cognizing things. Once we understand that there is meaning inherent within the thing, get a fundamental grasp on this meaning and take it for granted, we can move on toward understanding further meaning which is within the context of the thing. What context is, really, is the assumption of a larger thing ( eg. instead of a word, a sentence) with meaning inherent within that larger thing. But if we cognize a thing without inherent meaning assuming that we must assign meaning to the thing through some act of reasoning, then we allow for the existence of unintelligible "things". That ends up being like the ice cream at Home Depot. If the things cognized, "ice cream" and "Home Depot" in this example have no inherent meaning, then we allow any form of relation. But such a judgement would render everything unintelligible because there would be no inherent rules for relating things.

So we must allow that within cognition, which is the first interaction between mind and thing, there is already assumed by the apprehending mind, that there is meaning already inherent within the percept. So perception presents all things to the reasoning mind as if they are symbols or representations of a concept already. And that's why I do not like the division between cognition and reason, because there would reasoning already inherent within the cognition, because the meaning of the thing cognized has already been understood, just like after we learn to speak, we recognize words as things because we understand the meaning which inheres within.

Yeah but I still thought it was pretty good. — Wayfarer

That's the way poetry rolls. There's no need to follow any particular rules. And if certain styles become conventional, often it's stretching the bounds of the convention which makes the poetry good. Or, like in your example it's good for other reasons, and going outside the conventions really doesn't matter, because that 's the way poetry rolls.

This is the problem with telling people it is "a game". Then the psychology of game play, competition and all sorts of things, enters the picture. And we'll try all kinds of tricks, strategies, to get as much advantage as possible, on the other, without crossing the line of cheating, upon which one would be expelled from the game.

This is the problem with the op, as expressed. It doesn't make clear whether the "players" are told whether they are playing a game or not. If they are simply told the rules, and proceed, that means one thing. If they are told that they are playing a game, that sets completely different stakes. And even just giving the players a set of rules implies that they are playing a game, so that it's a game, and there's different stakes, is unavoidable. And because "the game" is an entity itself, distinct from the person's real life existence and association with money, the person's way of dealing with money will differ. This is probably how gamblers come to feel comfortable with high stakes games, they disassociate the money in the game from their real life relation to money.

So if you pull out the Monopoly board and say we're going to play this game of Monopoly, and the starting amount is 70/30 in your favour, I'd say fuck you, put your game away, I'm not playing. That the game of the op uses real money is just a ruse thrown in by the creators of the game, intended to create ambiguity as to the objective of the game. The stakes are unrevealed. So you urge me on, and say come on play Monopoly with me, it's real money we're playing with, so you really can't lose. I'd be even more inclined to say fuck you, you deceptive bastard, quit messing with my head, I'm losing just by agreeing to play.

Tell that Chat bot poetry composer that "how" and "know" do not rhyme. Neither do "stars" and "ours" for that matter. Where does that thing get its sense of rhythm? Send it back to school. and tell it to work with sound waves rather than letters, if it wants to write poetry.

Incidentally, that is the reason why the physical universe doesn't reduce to mathematics properly, the difference between numbers and waves. Mathematics cannot accurately represent waves because human geometry uses ideal representations of space which are unreal (evidenced by irrational ratios), and the result is the Fourier uncertainty principle. In reality the physical universe would only be accurately reducible via temporal concepts like frequency and rhythm. But this reduction doesn't get very far because division of the octave has always been fraught with problems.

Succinctly, we have not yet solved the problems exposed by the Pythagoreans. Nor have we solved Zeno's problems. Modern mathematicians have created elaborate structures which merely hide 'unsound' foundations. We see immense elegant mathematical structures and simply assume that they must have sound foundations, or else they couldn't be sustained. But sustenance of these just requires endless maintenance.

Cognition is only of things, thus things, re: real spacetime objects, are always involved, albeit indirectly, as representations in the form of phenomena. Thing is…imagination, which is the matter of relating conceptions, and judgement, which is the relation of conceptions**, do not require things that are immediately sensed; as parts of understanding, these work on mediate things, re: prior experience, or, without any thing of sense whatsoever, re: fantoms, magic, or just possible experience. — Mww

OK, so this is how you lost me. "Cognition" for you, does not include imagination, judgement, or relating concepts. But isn't "cognition" generally used to refer to all forms of mental activity, thinking, and understanding? And I was earlier talking about logical processes being an activity of relating conceptions. Do you exclude logic from cognition then?

**the adding of numbers, in the way kids are taught in school, put one number above another, draw a line under both, the implicit operation in the arithmetic above the line is analogous to the mental operation in understanding, called imagination, whereby numbers are exchanged for conceptions, regarding mere thought of things without the immediate presence of them, or even without any real sensed thing at all. This method is all a priori, and no experience is forthcoming from it. — Mww

And this I do not understand either. How can you say that learning to do mathematics does not provide one with "experience"? I think that's exactly what practising things like that does, gives one experience.

That which is below the line, regardless of which combination is above it, after the analogous arithmetic operation as sum, is the mental operation of judgement. And this for just a single perception, or a single thought. There are gazillions of them both but only one at a time, some of which we are conscious some of which we are not; reason is how they all relate to each other, how they are kept organized…..how we are not in a constant state of utter confusion yet still sometimes in a minor state. How we know things or not; how we remember things or don’t. — Mww

This gives me something to talk about. The kid puts two numbers, and draws a line underneath. Let's say each number has multiple digits, so the student has to employ a method, understanding how to carry over from one column to the next for example. If the student is to be successful, the method must have already been learned. The student was taught by a teacher, or read how to in a book, but at that time, when the student learned, this is the time when understanding occurred. Now the student relies on this understanding, which has already occurred, to practise what is already understood.

Through the practise of what is already understood, the student makes judgements about what digits to write below the line. The digits written are a representation of those judgements. And the judgements come from employing the method which has been learned earlier through experience. There may be some underlying a priori principles involved in the learning process, but the method itself, which is what is employed in the judgements is learned through experience. Do you agree?

Just as all the number operations of different forms grouped together is mathematics, so too the entirety of the mental operation, is understanding, and thereby is it deemed the faculty of rules. It should be easy to see, that just as adding two numbers is exactly the same as adding a whole series of numbers, each stacked on top of the other in arithmetic form, two conceptions synthesized to each other is a simple, problematical, judgement, many conceptions synthesized all together, is a hypothetical judgement.
(Pointy ears may give the cognition of a dog, but pointy ears in conjunction with a bushy tail gives a more certain kind of dog. Pointy ears, bushy tail and brown spots yet a more certain kind. And so on. Sooner or later, the synthesis of sufficiently many conceptions whether from appearance or mannerisms, may very well end being the cognition of one single dog, YOUR dog, an apodeitic judgement.) — Mww

But where is cognition in relation to all of this synthesis? You separated cognition off, at the beginning, to be only about things, and not about relating conceptions, and judgements. But aren't these mental operations you describe really about things? The numerals which the student works with have a real physical presence on the paper. Likewise, "pointy ears", "bushy tail", and "dog" are real physical symbols in front of me. And if I think by mulling them over in my mind, I am using a representation of the physical symbol. This is phenomena isn't it? I cannot form those conceptions of those dogs without using those words. And the words in my mind are representations of physical words. So why isn't such conceptualizing, cognition, as working with things?

….to which I meant to offer…..“reasons, i.e., thinks about things”….. just doesn’t say enough. I went on to distinguish what a thing is, such that thinking as a whole does not necessary include them. In other words, reason concerns itself with everything we think, whether of real tangible things of perception, necessarily conditioned by space and time, or abstract intangible conceptual objects which understanding thinks for itself, conditioned only by time. — Mww

You have set up two parallel forms of thinking. one concerning real tangible things, the other concerning abstract intangible concepts. But I do not see that this separation is warranted, or even sustainable in application. The real tangible thing itself does not enter into the thinking itself, only the representations of it. But by the time the representation gets into the conscious mind, it's already tied up with so may abstract conceptions, judgements already made (prejudice), that I do not see the advantage of trying to separate the thing (as phenomenon) from the concepts. I think this just gives an unreal representation which may mislead.

If the slave can claim his right to freedom, or in the case of natural rights, already has it, why is he in chains? — NOS4A2

Some people don't respect the claims that others make. That does not mean that the person is wrong. So if the slaver does not respect the claim of the slave to have a right to freedom, this does not make the slave wrong about this claim.

In any case, when it comes to asserting rights, the slaver’s right to own the slave has won out over the slave’s right to freedom. — NOS4A2

Again this does not hold up logically. That something is done in a particular way, does not produce the conclusion that it is the right way. One's actions do not necessarily display one's rights. If a person lives one's life as a thief, and gets away with it, this does not mean that the person has the right to live that way.

Your so-called balance and equality is might makes right. The slaver has the right to own the slave so long as he can claim and take the right. The slave has the right to freedom so long as he can claim the right and make an exit. — NOS4A2

Oh, so now you change your tune! You said rights had to be given. I said what is given had to be balanced with what is taken. Now you say rights are taken. Which do you really believe? Or do you really believe like me, that rights are a balance between the two?

As i said, I am not very familiar with Schopenhauer.

Only man can confer rights. Man is not a rights holder. Rather, he is a rights giver. — NOS4A2

This is an incorrect representation of "rights". A right is an equality, therefore a balance. You portray it as something which is completely dependent on the act of giving, thereby denying the balancing part which is the act of taking. So that aspect, whereby human beings assert their rights, claim their rights, and thereby take their rights, you deny by saying "man is not a rights holder". In reality there is a balance between people claiming "these are my rights" and standing up for that, which is a matter of taking, and people saying "those are your rights", allowing you specific unimpeded actions, which is a matter giving.

Unless you portray "rights" as a form of equality, or balance, whether it is "natural rights" or whatever, which you are portraying, it is not a correct portrayal. But since you are portraying rights as something given by human beings, you are not portraying "natural rights" anyway, and the op is improperly named.

The point though, is that the PSR (sorry, I said PoR in the last post, but I meant PSR) is only circumvented by assuming the reality of randomness. And that would render "will" as unintelligible, or nonsensical, as is "blind striving".

There are ways in which the artist may attempt to minimize the role of the PSR in one's creations, by employing elements of randomness, but this exclusion of the PSR cannot be complete. The artist must choose a medium of presentation, and this choice is always made with a purpose. So even if the goal is to minimize the role of the PSR, this cannot be complete, because that is in itself a goal and therefore subject to the PSR.

Will is blind striving. But is it? Let me examine… — schopenhauer1

There is no such thing as blind striving. Striving must be directed or else whatever it is that is occurring cannot be called "striving". That's what "striving" implies, directed actions.

Schop posits Forms as immediate objects of the will. So what this could mean is that forms are created in order to have desires to achieve so the goals can be directed towards something. — schopenhauer1

So this is backward. "Will" implies goals. The goals don't need to be directed toward something, because they are what actions are directed toward. The actions are the means, the goals are the ends. So subjugated goals are means, and the goal which the means are directed toward is logically prior to the means. Therefore the object which the goals are directed toward, if it is supposed to be a Form, is prior to the goals which are directed toward it, as these are the means.

So in a way, Will does have a telos, that is, to create never ending goals for itself in the goal of completion. — schopenhauer1

Since you reversed the logical order, it is not really a never ending process. The means are determined, and carried out, the goal is achieved. That's why the goal is called "the end", when it is achieved it puts an end to the process.

If you posit a further purpose (goal) for the will itself, a purpose to the process of creating goals for itself, that purpose would itself be an end which would be achievable, by that nature of being an end. Therefore the process could not be characterized as never ending. So if this were the goal of completion, that would be an achievable goal and the process would not be never ending. But if the process whereby the will creates goals for itself is completely purposeless (contrary to the PoR), this would turn out to be a never ending process. But that perspective, of course, is to deny the PoR.

Fundamentally, humans are driven to survival, not toward selfish promotion. If it works toward our survival that we abuse one another, we will, and the same holds true for cooperation. But we don't intuit our best survival techniques a priori. We learn through trial and error (natural selection). — Hanover

It appears like you are mixing things up here. The natural tendencies which I am born with, form the basis of my intuitions, the innate features which influence my thinking. It is not I who has learned these through trial and error, these are qualities passed to me from others who lived before me. And since the qualities I get in this way, have been selected for by natural selection, rather than by the agent doing the testing, we cannot call it "trial and error". That's a different concept from natural selection. In order to call this trial and error we would need to assume an overarching "life" as a form of being, which is learning from natural selection.

So we actual do intuit our best survival techniques a priori, because they are produced prior to one's own experience, and are innate to the person. But this was not a case of learning something through trial and error, it was a case of something being produced by natural selection. On top of this, the complicating factor is that natural selection has produced the capacity for an individual to learn from one's own experiences in one's own environment, and make decisions based on these learned factors, rather than the innate features. Now the learned knowledge appears to have the capacity to overrule the innate in judgement. And, we must consider this capacity to learn anew, and overrule the selected for qualities, to be a selected for quality itself. Therefore it appears like one of the innate tendencies, which has been selected for, as well-suited for survival, is the innate tendency to allow for the innate tendencies to be overruled by something freshly learned. On the other hand, it seems like this would have to be self-destructive. Allowing all those qualities which have been selected for as best suited for survival, to be overruled by a free will whim, would have to be itself a self-destructive quality. So the basic innate tendency is a tendency toward self-destruction, nut this constitutes "survival" for that overarching being of "life".

Starting five days ago, I said exactly the opposite. — Mww

I thought you said cognition doesn't involve things, it's only a matter of relating conceptions. I'm going to go back and reread that post.

That’s not all we’re doing. Relating conceptions IS the judging. And we don’t make a judgement about a thing; we cognize a thing, from the relation of conceptions thought as belonging to it. And, need I remind you, we’re talking about things here, real spacetime objects….you know, the things not in our heads (sigh)…..represented as phenomena, which in the thinking process, requires something else from understanding not yet considered. — Mww

OK, I see now, you said judging is relating concepts, and we do not make a judgement about a thing. However, you say we cognize a thing. So I'm confused now, what does "cognize a thing" mean? I see here, an act of relating conceptions, which you insist, is the act of judgement. But then there is also an act of cognizing a thing, described here, which is the act of thinking that the conceptions belong to a thing. Isn't this itself a judgement? And isn't it a judgement about a thing? It seems to be an instance of relating the conceptions to an assumed thing, rather than to other conceptions, and this is a judgement about a thing.

Now, I really do not understand the nature of this "thing" you were talking about back then, five days ago. Maybe if I took the time to question you properly back then, we wouldn't have spent five days getting nowhere. How is it that there are things which a person cognizes, but a person doesn't make a judgement about a thing, only thinks that certain conceptions are related to that thing?

Then you go on to make a short statement about what a thing is, but it doesn't really make sense to me. So it probably went right past me.

That which enters the mind as phenomena is that physical thing which represents how that feeling is to be understood. — Mww

Are you saying that the physical thing actually enters the mind as phenomena? Is this, in your belief, how we cognize a thing? The thing enters the mind as phenomena, and when the mind relates conceptions to it, this is cognizing a thing? If this is the case, then why do you not say that this is a form of judgement?

To me, I think that this is what I've been describing as the highest level of cognition, judging possibilities. But you seem to place it at the lowest level, not even obtaining the status of judgement. Deciding which conceptions are related to the thing, which appears as phenomena, is a matter of judging possibilities. Under Aristotelian conceptions, matter is potential, so the material thing is the substance of possibility. Judging possibilities, which is fundamentally judging things, is what I would say is the highest form of judgement. Furthermore, this type of judging often consists of moral judgements, because the things which enter our minds as phenomena, appearing to us in the form of possibilities, are often other human beings.

Yeah, well….my true understanding of reality demands they be separated. Guess I just haven’t reached the end yet.

But this exchange is getting pretty close, what with the conversational inconsistencies, and the Platonic and the transcendental being fundamentally incompatible. — Mww

I really don't believe that the Platonic and the transcendental are fundamentally incompatible. I think there is a medium between the two, which is the Aristotelian. And I think that the transcendental is in many ways, a rejection of Aristotelian terminology. The Aristotelian terminology is based in a Platonic relating of concepts, and this is what creates the appearance of incompatibility. So what I see is a rejection of the Aristotelian interpretation of Plato, but this does not prove to be fundamentally incompatible with Plato, as Plato can be interpreted in numerous different ways. It's difficult for a philosopher to be fundamentally incompatible with Plato, even if one tried, because Plato offered so many different ways of looking at everything.

That sounds like an absolutist statement, which sort of violates PoR. PoR might be used to say that any body is in motion relative to certain frames. Without the frame reference, motion is undefined. — noAxioms

It is not an absolutist statement, it is a deductive conclusion derived from two premises, the PoR, along with an inductive conclusion derived from empirical observation. It is observed that as time passes, there are always things moving. Along with the PoR we can conclude deductively that any existing body is always in motion.

You are reversing logical priority here. The concept "frame of reference" is derived from the principle of relativity, not vise versa. So motion was defined first, as relative (PoR), and then the concept "frame of reference" was developed as the means for measurement. The PoR discusses the motions of bodies relative to each other, and there is no need for a concept of frame of reference in this discussion.

Only when the intent is to put numbers to the motion, measure it, is the reference frame needed, due to what the PoR assumes. So the PoR gives one of the basic rules for constructing the frame. Also, we need a rule concerning the conceptions of space and time to be employed in the measurement. Newton employed a fixed, static backdrop of space, from which a coordinate system could be applied, along with an "absolute" time. Time is absolute in the sense of constant and continuous. Einstein proposed an alternative conception of space and time.

As per above, the conceptions of space and time are essential aspects of the conception of frame of reference. Also, Einstein used substantially different conceptions of space and time, from Newton. Therefore we can conclude that the substantially different conceptions of space and time employed by Einstein result in a substantially different form of "frame of reference".

I’d have said ‘every moment of time’. I don’t see what the word ‘passing’ adds to that. — noAxioms

There's a big difference in conception of "time" here, which we can apprehend through analysis. Some would posit "the present moment" as a moment which clearly and concisely separates the past time from the future time. No time passes at "the moment" in this conception because it is a precise, non-dimensional, division, similar to the way that a non-dimensional point divides two line segments. The past, along with the future, provide a complete representation of time, and the moment is an arbitrary (yet substantialized, and justified by "the present)") point in time. The abstracted point, removed from the assumed real point at the present, may be projected anywhere in time, to produce specific durations, like specific line segments.

So when I said "every moment of passing time", I implied that within any "moment" there is inherently some duration of time. This denies the reality of the abstracted "point", implying that instead of being a non-dimensional point, like a point which divides one line into two line segments, it is an infinitesimal point, such that there is some time within that point. Now there is not a clear and precise division between the two time segments past and future, as some time passes within the present moment. And since "the moment" is the dividing point by which time is measured, the time which inheres within the moment under this conception, evades measurement. It escapes from being measured. The measured durations are the line segments, yet some time inheres within the points which provide the boundaries to a segment, so that the boundary is somewhat vague, and this time within the point ends up as an unknown relative to the segments produced when a line is divided.

The first conception of "the moment" discussed above, is consistent with the Newtonian conception. The passage of time is constant and continuous and such consistency provides the basis for the assumption that we can posit points of division anywhere, just like what was done with traditional spatial conceptions. The second conception of "the moment" is consistent with the one employed by Einstein. This is understood as "the relativity of simultaneity". The moment in time which marks "now", as the divisor between past and present is not a clear and precise, non-dimensional point. Each frame of reference is allowed to have an independent and separate point which divides the two line segments, past from future. Within the frame of reference, the point is still supposed to provide a clear and precise non-dimensional divisor, but the vague boundary occurs when different frames, the basis from which measurements are made, are related to each other.

Under the Newtonian proposal, there is supposed to be an absolute divisor, "the present", which is substantiated or justified by human experience. This grounds all measurements of time as being consistent with each other, based in the experienced "present". Einstein removes this, saying that "the present" is relative to the frame of reference, rather than the human experience of a division between past and future. As a result, we have no basic principle to resolve any discrepancies in measurement which manifest as the result of the positioning of the divisor, the point which measured time segments are relative to, as measurements are made as time passes at the present. Resolutions would be arbitrary.

Simply put, Einstein recognized that human experience cannot provide a clear and precise non-dimensional division between one time period and the next, and he exploited this fact to employ the principle that there is no precise division between future and past. Consequently the Einsteinian observation perspective is based in this assumption, and all observations recorded from this perspective will demonstrate this feature, as conclusions reflect premises.

Our intuition is doing something more than just a straight forward self-interest. — Banno

Of course, isn't that obvious to you? We didn't need the experiment to demonstrate that. We have certain deep seated tendencies which some people call innate ideas. In the Plato/Forms thread we discussed the innate idea of equality. In your referenced experiment it shows up as a sense of equity. In philosophy this sense of equality serves as the basis for conceptions like "natural rights". The same intuition which makes me want to punish you for not being fair (even at my expense), also inclines me to believe in human rights and equality.

We might, as philosophers, delve into an investigation as to how such innate ideas exist,. And we'll see, as Plato did in his investigation into the meaning of "just", the reason for a wide range of human behaviours in the responses demonstrated in the experiment. There is inconsistency between individuals within one's own particular understanding of the supposed innate ideas. The supposed innate ideas manifest differently in different people. We might take this as an indication that there is no such thing as an innate idea, but if you go to the other extreme you end up in unenlighten's category of sociopath.

So we might reject the descriptive terms, "innate ideas", as wrong because they give an inaccurate impression of what is there, but we cannot deny the reality of the behaviour, and its cause, which the words are meant to refer to. The discrepancy between the description and the thing described indicates that we have a poor understanding of what is there. Therefore further philosophy is required.

And here we’ve switched from cognition of things, to that which can only be moral constructions. — Mww

I never made a switch. You said a long time ago that cognition does not involve things. I've been talking about considering possibilities, and making judgements. Moral principles very often enter into these considerations, that's unavoidable.

Maybe we've been misunderstanding each other all along, and that's why we can't work out our differences.

Remind me….didn’t we agree feelings are not cognitions? And didn’t we agree the judgement of cognitions is discursive in the relation of empirical conceptions, but the judgement of feelings is aesthetic in the condition of the subject himself? — Mww

You've unduly restricted "judgement" here, to either feelings or empirical conceptions. And I never agreed to this restriction. I agreed to leave feelings aside, as not entering cognition (though I still believe that feelings influence cognition).

Since abandoning feelings, I've been talking about judging possibilities. I think that all forms of judgement are reducible to a matter of judging possibilities. In other words, judgement requires possibility. To judge is to make a decision, and "decision" implies "choice", which implies "possibility".

Why are they being intermingled, when each is of its own domain, and have no business interfering with each other? Allowing the one to cross over to the other weakens the human condition of intrinsic duality, the prelude to a blatant contradiction. — Mww

It is not a matter of allowing one to cross over, and intermingle with the other, it is a matter of what is natural to the human condition. Such intermingling is a natural part of the human condition, which we cannot rid ourselves of. This is why feelings influence cognition. When I am upset, for example, I can't think straight. I cannot prevent the feeling from influencing the thinking, so I have to wait unit the feeling subsides. This situation is not describable as preventing the feeling from intermingling, which I cannot do, it is describable as suppressing the thinking until the feeling which has a bad influence on the thinking, subsides. Getting rid of the feeling requires a diversion, meditation, or some other calming practise. If they both occur at the same time, the feeling and the thinking, they automatically intermingle.

Still, best to keep them separate in philosophical dialectic practices. — Mww

I don't thinks so Mwww. The separation you propose is not real, therefore in dialectical practises which are directed toward the understanding of reality, it's best not to accept that proposed separation. This is why Plato placed "the good" at the top of all knowledge. In the end, right/wrong is inseparable from good/ bad, and they are both meant to be based in a true understanding of reality.

HOWEVER, where I see conundrums in Schop's metaphysics is when he starts discussing the Forms as the "immediate" object of Will. This smuggling in of Plato, gets problematic as we now have to ask "Why?" and there seems to be little answer, other than the post-facto that we know objects exist. Also, how do these Forms turn into the sensible world of "phenomenon" that is of the PSR variety? All of this just gets confusing.

ARE the forms and the phenomenal representation of them mediated from the PSR "primary" along with the WILL? He did say, the World as Will AND Representation, afterall. If it is primary with the Will, how could the Will be "objectified"? It was then ALWAYS objectififed. — schopenhauer1

I would say that the independent Forms are of God's Will, and the phenomenal representations of them are of the human will, as basic idealism, though I am very unfamiliar with Schopenhauer in particular.

If we remove God, then any proposed independent Forms are unsupported and meaningless conjecture. The only "world" or "worlds" are those created by human wills, and there is nothing to justify anything external.

ARE the forms and the phenomenal representation of them mediated from the PSR "primary" along with the WILL? He did say, the World as Will AND Representation, afterall. If it is primary with the Will, how could the Will be "objectified"? It was then ALWAYS objectififed. — schopenhauer1

In my opinion, the op does not make clear the relationship between the PSR and the will for Schopenhauer. It is stated as "no object without a subject" which is no consistent with my understanding of the PSR, and also the inverse "no subject without an object" is derived without any demonstration of the logic behind this inversion. So it is no wonder that you are confused. Maybe can help to explain this.

My takeaway from my hour of research here is that as actual dollars increase, rejections decrease, but to the extent we can afford to fuck those who try to fuck us, we will, but there is a limit to how much we will spend on the joy of vindictiveness. — Hanover

Ahh, I see. The real self-interest, or greed factor does display itself, but in the actions of the receiver rather than in the actions of the one who makes the offer. That makes sense, because the one making the offer is in the unknown and must make decision based on possibility or assumed probability, and might be punished by the other for making an ill-judgement. The one receiving has only two possibilities, take, or punish the other. And the amount taken has a value in an outside system. So punishing the other, which is only a part of the experimental system, becomes less and less relevant as the reward in the outside system, which is fundamentally more important, increases.

In other words, I don't mind punishing another for bad behaviour, if it only costs me a little. And if the amount of bribery is sufficient, and the bad behaviour is rather insignificant, anyone would gladly refrain from punishing.

Interesting, basic and to the point. It may be, that reality is far different from the way that it is conceived by scientists.

I believe the key to understanding this principle is to recognize the reality of time. If the future consists of possibilities, and the past consists of events which have been actualized, then the present must be conceived as the time when possibilities are actualized. This "present" would need to be be a "time period" which consists of some duration, during which possibilities from the future become actualities in the past. For reasons demonstrated by some philosophers, this transition can not be instantaneous, the present is not a "moment", not a non-dimensional division between past and future. "Actualization" itself implies an act which requires some amount of time for possibilities to be actualized at the present time.

Time is measured as it passes, so all measured time is in the past, necessarily, requiring action (actual motion) to make a measurement of time. As we move toward measuring faster and faster motions (pure energy) in our experimentation and practise, we deal with shorter and shorter periods of time. When the present is conceived as having temporal duration, then part is future-like, and part is past-like. In dealing with extremely short periods of time we deal with the part which is future-like, consisting of possibilities, just starting to become actualized. Moving further into the future-like part of the present in our practises provides us with more "power" over how possibilities are actualized at the present.

As the article states, this "new" perspective is not actually "new". It is as old as philosophy itself, and has manifested as the theological perspective. It is from this perspective that moral principles, and our understanding of free-will is derived. The human mind partakes in the future-like part of the present, that part which is immaterial, being prior to the measurable physical activity which occurs as time passes. From this position it has the capacity to direct the actualization of possibilities as time passes. This is the Aristotelian biology, which places the soul as the first actuality of a living body. All the capacities (potencies or powers) that the living being has, are understood as possibilities for actualization (potentials), under direction of that first actuality.

In the mini-treatise preceding this conclusion, and following from your argument just above it, there is not much with which to take exception. Pretty much conforms to what I’ve been saying. I might counter-argue that conclusions can follow immediately from the considering. The only way for there not to be a judgement at all, neither in affirmation nor negation of the considering, is if that which was under consideration wasn’t even imaginable in the first place. Hence the principle…that of which the imagination is impossible the object cannot be conceived. Or, if you prefer, the conception of the unimaginable is empty. — Mww

Yes, it's turning out that we're not really very far apart in our opinions. Nor were we really, at the beginning of this exchange, it was just a matter of fact that we use slightly different terminology, and there was a need to hammer out some details.

But there are still some significant points of disagreement. Why do you think that the only way in which there is no judgement, is if what was being considered was unimaginable? What about my example of relating possibilities, and leaving judgement until later? Suppose I am considering my course of action for tomorrow, and I would like to go to place A, place B, place C, and place D. I have a number of possibilities for ordering these events A,B,C,D, or A,C,B,D, etc.. I decide to keep an open mind on this decision, between now and tomorrow morning, in case new, relevant information comes up. Clearly, what I am considering is imaginable, and also I haven't yet made the required judgement.

Do you understand this situation differently than I do? Or is there a matter of terminology which I am missing?

To which I adamantly object: the highest level of cognition is not judgement. The source of all human cognitive error, insofar as such error is in fact error in the relation of conceptions to each other, judgement, cannot be the highest level to which cognition can attain, from which follows the possibility of error far outweighs the possibility of correct thinking. — Mww

Wait a minute, this conclusion is not valid at all. You proceed from the fact that error is possible, to the conclusion that it is more likely than not, without the required premises. Just because there is an aspect of cognition (judgement) which provides for the possibility of error, doesn't mean that error is more likely than not when this faculty is being used.

It is my belief, that this aspect of cognition, judgement, is the highest level of cognition, for that very reason, that it provides for the possibility of error. It allows for the possibility of choice, and this same freedom of choice is what allows for the possibility of error, as an unavoidable byproduct. It is the highest level of cognition because it provides us with the greatest capacity for the largest variety of activities. So it also provides for the greatest possibility of a good life, due to the nature of ongoing risks and dangers which need to be avoided in order to have a good life.

Reason the faculty subjects judgement, and thereby the cognitions given from them, to principles, by which the immediate judgement is regarded as conflicting or sustaining their antecedents. It is here phrases like, “I knew that” and “Now I know that”, hold as, or become, truths. — Mww

This is where take the determinist perspective which I adamantly object to. Reason does not subject judgement, and this is the crux of our disagreement. That reason does not subject judgement is evident from Socrates' argument, and what in the dialogue is called "being overcome by pleasure".

The issue is not a matter of "I know that", or "I knew that", It is a matter of "I know that I ought not do this, but I am doing it anyway". Reason tells the person "I ought not do that", but judgement has the person do it anyway. In this case we cannot say that reason subjects judgement.

HA!!!! Yeah….everybody that speaks involves himself in language games. I let my abject abhorrence of analytic philosophy impinge on my transcendental nature; I only meant to try making it clear when we say stuff like we do this or that, the manifested doing has no personal pronouns connected to it. If, as you say, we think in images….kudos on that, by the way…..it is absurd to then demand that images themselves invoke personal pronouns. Recognition of this removes the Cartesian theater from being a mere oversimplication, as you claim, but eliminates it altogether. — Mww

Doesn't it make sense to you if I say "I walk to work each day", or "I go to bed each night", as these are activities which I do? Would you recommend removing the "I" from these statements? Thinking is an activity as well. So why doesn't it make sense to you to say "I think", "I relate concepts to each other", and "I decide"? Why does this conjure up an idea for you of an homunculus, which you for some reason think is a wrong idea? It makes no sense to me, to remove the subject, the "I", and propose that thinking is something which just happens, judgement just happens, decisions just happen, intentional actions just happen. What does "effort" mean to you? Is effort something that just happens as well?

Yeah, Schopenhauer is not arguing that objects have subjectivity, only that they have an inner aspect, the inaccessible object-in-itself. He calls it will or will-like on the basis that the thing-in-itself is undivided, so what is inmost in us, being part of the wider thing-in-itself, is what is inmost in everything. — Jamal

This is very consistent with the Christian (theological) view of the temporal continuity of objects, commonly represented as inertia. Newton stated that his first law of motion is dependent on the Will of God. If God pulls out His Will (which is His choice to do at any moment as time passes), then the temporal continuity of objects, which constitutes the material existence of an object, represented as mass, disintegrates, and we have no more material objects.

Sorry @T Clark that reply was meant for

My sense of fairness is worth more that $1 or even $10. If it were $10,000, that would be a different thing. On the other hand, telling someone to go fry ice when he tries to stiff me for thousands might be worth it. — T Clark

That's right, monetary value systems are based in equity, fairness. If someone else gets nine to my one, it is in my "self-interest" to reject the entire system, putting us each at zero.

The issue of the "reality" of mathematical objects. Over two millennia have passed with no consensus. When we speak of Platonism isn't that something from ancient times? — jgill

As I see it is, there is really no question about the reality of thoughts, ideas, concepts and abstractions. Very few people would deny the reality of such things. The problem arises from how we talk about these things. The words we use which facilitate such communication often do not properly represent the way that we understand (or fail to understand) these things. Notice for example, I've referred to thoughts as "things". I really do not believe that thoughts are even similar to material objects which I also call "things". With talk like this, we create an environment where ambiguity and equivocation are highly probable.

So, we talk about mathematical "objects" and we also talk about physical "objects". What is implied by this talk is that there are two types of objects, one type having the properties which mathematical objects have, and the other type having the properties which physical objects have. Then we need principles to distinguish one type of object from the other type, and this is where the difficulties arise. When we try to separate two distinct types of objects we employ a reductive analysis, and they end up "converting" into each other.

What is implied by this, is that we cannot maintain a separation between two distinct types of objects. There is not any real principles to separate the two. The separation of two types of objects is not supported by reality and our attempts to create such a separation are fraught with problems because it is a fictional categorization.

Now we are left with a choice, which of the two types of "objects" provides us with a real representation of what an object is. What Plato argued, with the cave allegory, is that the intelligible objects, thoughts, ideas and abstractions, are the real objects. The supposed physical objects are really just the reflections of the true objects which are the intelligible. However, the majority of human beings, the masses, live in a world directed toward fulfilling their bodily desires. Therefore they prioritize their bodily senses, and they refuse to follow what the intellect demonstrates to them. Accordingly, they reject the guidance of "the philosopher", who has come back from his journey into the intelligible in an effort to disillusion them, returning to the cave where the others are imprisoned by their sense inclinations. They refuse to be led toward the truth.

What this shows is that ubiquitously, folk do not make decisions on the basis of rationally maximising their self-interest. Some other factor intervenes. — Banno

You need to recognize a person's attention to probability, odds. If the person offers $0 they know the odds of acceptance are zero or close to it. As the amount offered increases, so do the odds of acceptance. The person offering 50% of the money is making a pretty safe bet, and will still reward one's own self-interest. Therefore you cannot conclude that the person offering 50% is not "rationally" trying to maximize their own self-interest, while the person offering 10% is. Otherwise you'd have to say that buying lottery tickets is "rational". In other words, being rational is respecting the odds.

That kind of thinking is where the notion of Cartesian theater, or the dreaded homunculus, comes from. The relation of conceptions just IS judgement. WE don’t relate; there just is a systemic process in which that happens. Beware of….and refrain from, at all costs….those abysmally stupid language games. — Mww

I don't agree with this at all. I see a clear difference between relating concepts to each other, and making judgements. As I explained, when I am planning for action, I consider numerous possibilities (relate these concepts), then I make a judgement as to my best course of action. If relating the concepts, and making the judgement was the same thing, I couldn't relate possibilities without coming to a conclusion, which i often do. If judgement was not separate from reasoning, we could not have free will. If the act of relating possibilities to each other (thinking) necessitated a conclusion, then it would be the possibilities themselves which cause the conclusion, rather than the will of the thinking person. That is how we can say that the will is free, because decision is not causally determined in this way. Are you determinist?

There is nothing inherently wrong with the notion of the Cartesian theatre, and the homunculus, other than that it is an oversimplification. It doesn't properly represent reality because it is an oversimplification, but it is a very useful concept for understanding dualism. In that sense it is no different from fundamental concepts of math, physics, and other sciences. They are over simplifications so they don't accurately represent reality, but they are still very useful. A straight line, being one dimensional doesn't represent anything real, but it is very useful. Inertia doesn't represent anything real, but it is simple and useful.

And the infinite regress commonly cited as a problem with the homunculus is unjustified because the will which causes the act is immaterial, while the person acting is material. Therefore the act of the will is a completely different type of act from the observable act of the human body, and cannot be compared in the way necessary for infinite regress.

Note the rela-TION of conceptions is not the relat-ING of them. Relating, which is the subsuming of a manifold of minor conceptions as schema of a greater, technically, a synthesis, is done by imagination; judgement merely signifies the relative belonging of them in the collection, one to another. — Mww

It is you who is playing a silly language game here. The act of relating two conception together, will cause a relation between them, in the mind. But it does not necessarily cause a judgement. I can relate possibility A to possibility B, thereby causing a relation between them, and still not decide which one to proceed with in my actions. We might say that in establishing this relation, I did make a judgement, the judgement not to act. But if this is the case, then every thought is itself a judgement. Just to think of possibility A is to make a judgement. And even to have any thought enter the mind at all would be to make a judgement. Even to remember something would be to judge. Then there would be no difference between thinking and judging.

The problem now is that we'd have no difference between deliberating and deciding. Clearly there is a difference between deliberating, the thinking activity which leads up to making a choice, and deciding, which is the finality of actually choosing. We must allow for this difference to allow for the fact that some deliberations are quick, while others are slow. Therefore it cannot be just considering the possibilities only which causes the conclusion, or else all conclusions would be immediate after the possibilities were considered. So, I believe that the cause of the conclusion, judgement, comes from something other than the act of considering the possibilities.

So it is that, under the auspices of this particular theory, because no cognition of a thing is at all possible from a singular, stand-alone conception, a synthesis of a collection of conceptions is itself necessary for cognition and all which follows from it, and because the synthesis is necessary, the judgement follows from it necessarily. So, no, there is no relating of conceptions without judgement signifying the relation. — Mww

Your use of "necessary" and "necessarily" here indicate that you are determinist, and this is either the result of, or the cause of your refusal to separate reasoning from judgement.

Let me take a look at your proposition here. A collection of conceptions is necessary for cognition, and it is what results from cognition. You ought to recognize that this is a vicious circle of causation. If a collection of cognitions is the effect of cognition, then how could the initial collection of conceptions come into existence, which would be required for the first act of cognition, which would be required to cause the first collection of cognitions?

Here's another proposal, let's look at what "synthesis" means here. Suppose we have existing separate conceptions, not yet related so as to form a collection. These are the things which will be the parts to a collections the parts of a whole. And let's say that there is an act required to "synthesize" these conceptions to make them a collection, a whole. You'd be inclined to say that this is cognition, the act which relates the parts, synthesizes, and produces the whole. However, cognition is required already, to support the existence of the parts, the concepts which will be united in synthesis, allowing them to exist in a way where synthesis is possible. By that fact, that they exist in a way which will allow for synthesis, it is implied that they have some sort of relations to each other. So we need another name for the act which causes the synthesis.

I think we can see this in all natural situations where there is a whole with parts. We need an act which supports, or causes the existence of the parts, and another distinct type of act, which supports or causes the unification of the parts as a whole. So each level we pass through, where a whole becomes a part of a larger whole, in synthesis, a different type of act is required from the act which made the part a whole in the first place.

Sidebar: there is a caveat here regarding the cognition of things, but for the sake of simplicity, it shall be overlooked, re: intuition. For the mere thinking of things, the synthesis of conceptions holds by itself, and judgement works the same way for both. — Mww

I think we are actually not far from agreement. You notice that at the base level of cognition there is needed a different type of act, intuition. I am arguing that at the highest level of cognition, judgement, there is also the need for a different type of act.

Think about it. Has it ever occurred to you that, say, this thing (a perceived object) can’t be “__” (a cognized known object) because it’s missing some property (a conception) already understood (judged) as belonging to (synthesized with other conceptions) that certain “__”? — Mww

I don't think I understand you here. Are you talking about changing my mind because I recognize that I made a mistaken judgement? If so, that's fairly common. If not, what are you asking?

Rhetorical question, because that is precisely what you did right there, which would be readily apparent to you, when you examine what and how your disagreement came about. — Mww

Again, I don't understand. Did I misunderstand your question?

Here, but, the above is not really an argument for will as being Kant's thing-in-itself....it seems only to establish will as the "inner side" of representations (he doesn't even mention thing-in-itself" in the above)... So he still needs to get from "will as inner side of representation" to thing-in-itself. How does he do that??
he later relates will and thing-in-itself? I would assume it would be soon thereafter (one would think). — KantDane21

Here's a simplification, KD21, which may or may not help you to understand.

When I look into my internal self, in introspection, I notice that the representation of myself as a body is a creation of my mind. And, the part of my mind which demonstrates the power to create is the will. So I can conclude that the representation of myself as a body is a creation of my will. From here I can proceed toward understanding the general principle that any representation of a body which I may hold in my mind, is equally a creation of my will.

If I assume an independent body which influences my will in its creation of the representations of bodies which I hold in my mind, I have no way to assess this influence unless I can understand how my will creates these representations. In other words, if I look toward any proposed noumenon, or thing-in-itself, I reach an end to my investigation, at my own will. I see that my will is responsible for creating the representations of things, within my mind, and unless I can make a thorough understanding of how my will does this, I have no approach to any proposed noumenon.

You can see that this analysis goes deeper than Kant, because it looks for the cause of phenomena, the cause of the appearances of bodies within the mind. Kant has proposed a separation between phenomenon and noumenon. If this separation is true and real, as proposed by Kant, then there cannot be a direct causal relation between a noumenon and a phenomenon. This is because a direct causal relation would allow us to know the noumenon through the implications determined from an understanding of cause and effect. So the reason why we cannot know the noumenon is because there is no such causal relation. This is because one's own will is what creates the phenomenon.

How this relates to the principle of sufficient reason (PSR) is a bit more difficult. I believe the relationship is something like this. The PSR states that there is a reason for the existence of anything, and everything. When we look at the occurrence of representations within our minds, phenomena, we must turn to the will as the reason for their existence. So the reason for the existence of bodies, (as how noumenon appear to us), is a cause in sense of Aristotelian "final cause", a teleological willful cause. This means that there is a reason for, in the sense of a purpose for the appearance of bodies, as this appearance has been created by the will.

That's the exact definition I copied above:

"Uniform existence" is having an unchanging presence, as in not being acted upon by forces; what is described by Newton's first law, which is commonly referred to as "the law of inertia". Check the Stanford article I previously referenced:

The laws of Newtonian dynamics provide a simple definition: an inertial frame is a reference-frame with a time-scale, relative to which the motion of a body not subject to forces is always rectilinear and uniform, accelerations are always proportional to and in the direction of applied forces, and applied forces are always met with equal and opposite reactions.
— https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/spacetime-iframes/#QuasInerFramNewtCoroV\ — Metaphysician Undercover

I think, "uniform existence" and "unchanging presence" are adequate descriptions. Notice that "uniform" is even used in the passage. "Motion" is taken for granted by me, for the reasons I gave already. Under the precept of the relativity principle any existing body is always in motion. "Existence" is how I described a body relative to a time-scale. The problem appears to be that you did not have a very good understanding of what an inertial frame is, so you did not recognize my description as a good one. You were trying to deny the importance of an essential aspect of the inertial frame, the time-scale.

So we have two features of the inertial frame. Firstly, what I called "uniform existence", which is the unchanging presence of a body not being acted upon by forces, and secondly, a time-scale relative to this body.

Would you agree that the inertial frame is just an ideal, and it does not actually represent anything real in the real world of physical, material bodies? In reality, whenever time is passing a body is subject to forces, and there is no body in the universe which is not subjected to forces at every moment of passing time. So the "inertial frame" is really just a convenient fiction, serving as a pragmatic principle to base mathematical calculations around. It really does not serve as a good representation of what is actually going on in the world. The use of "rectilinear" to describe the uniform motion which the inertial frame is based on, is a dead give away for revealing the fictitious nature of the concept. No true motion is really rectilinear, but this assumption supports the use of vectors (discussed above with jgill), in that fictitious misrepresentation of motion.

Agreed, but you’re in a different systemic time. In the time I used, re: “with respect to cognitions…”, which makes explicit the conceptions have already been related to each other, which means judging has already been accomplished, satisfying the conditions necessary for knowledge. I’m saying it is stupid to grant the possibility of suspending a judgement that’s already happened, which implies the possibility that something has become known. — Mww

Don't we relate conceptions to each other, without necessarily making a judgement, as in the case of considering possibilities? We relate possibilities without necessarily judging, because sometimes the possibilities are not well enough known to support a judgement. So when Socrates talks about comparing possible future pleasures in Protagoras, isn't it possible to suspend judgement in a matter like this? And the problem he referred to is that the ones closer to the present appear bigger than the further away, just like when looking at spatial objects. Socrates said we need to do some sort of scaling. Probability would be an important factor, but once we assign probability we have judged.

Therefore I think it's actually quite common to relate concepts without judgement. If I am trying to figure out the meaning of a philosophical passage for example, I'll consider numerous possible meanings, relating words in different ways, without making a judgement if I'm not convinced that I understand. If, when considering possibilities, one starts to assign probabilities, this implies that judgement is being made.

If, by "cognition", you refer to a process which leads to knowledge, you must admit that there is a time while that process is occurring, which is prior to the knowledge being produced but this is still "cognition". That time period might be a long period or a short period depending on how one suspends judgement. And we can't really assume that there is necessarily pieces of knowledge being used in the cognitive process, or else we'll require prior knowledge for each new piece of knowledge, resulting in an infinite regress implying that knowledge has always existed. So I think it is completely reasonable to assume that we have cognitive activity of relating concepts, thoughts, images, perceptions, whatever, without judgement.

Then Socrates brings up the virtue of courage, which Protagoras has argued is distinct from the other virtues. It is different, because it appears to invert the priority of knowledge. Courage is to proceed into the unknown. This is to make a judgement when it appears like judgement ought not be made. When it appears like judgement ought to be suspended, courage allows us to make the judgement any way.

Nahhhh, it isn’t. Pleasure is the feeling, fun is merely the relative qualitative measure of it. Would you agree that every quality of feeling is reducible to one or the other of only two of them? — Mww

No, I would not agree with that at all. Plato produced a good argument, (I believe in the Gorgias), which demonstrates that feelings cannot be reduced in this way. Socrates' argument was that pleasure is not the opposite of pain. If it was, then all pleasure would be a matter of being relieved from pain. Therefore acquiring pleasure would require a want of that pleasure, which would be the condition, pain. This would be the necessary prior condition to pleasure, being deprived of that pleasure, which would be pain. Then he described how some pleasures do not require the prior pain, therefore these pleasures are not opposed to pain.

From this we can say that pleasure is one general category of description, and pain is another general category of description. But this does not mean that all feelings are one or the other, pleasure and pain might just be different aspects of the same feeling. The reality, I believe is that many feelings are a combination of the two, each type of feeling combining aspects of the two in its own unique way. So the two categories are simply an aid for description, and real feelings don't obey those boundaries. It's better, I believe, to have numerous different categories of feelings, each of which may or may not have aspects describable as pleasure or pain.



Sorry frank, I explained in my last post why we ought not derive ideology from an historian. You haven't shown me anything to make me believe that Moses Finlay is anything other than an historian. I think the idea you presented, that modern dualism is based in a conflict between religion and science is very good evidence of why we ought not derive ideology from historians. When it comes to ideology the historians just make stuff up to add substance to their narrative. The problem being that it is fictional and therefore not substance at all. So I've got nothing further to say.

"History" is the faulty perspective in looking at ancient ideas. So you only replaced the better perspective with the worse, when you allowed history to taint your view.. "History" is created from the perspective of the intentions of the modern day person, looking backward in time with specific goals. And "intention" guides and shapes our understanding, as explained by Plato's conception of "the good". So the understanding of ancient ideas, which is given from the perspective of "history" is necessarily flawed, by understanding those ancient ideas through the lens of an historian's intention rather than directly pursuing the intention (meaning) of the ancient person who produced those ideas. This is why Plato objected to narrative as an inaccurate source of knowledge. It is twice removed from the actual ideas which are represented. Instead of looking directly at the expression of the ideas, therefore once removed, to look at the narrative is to look at a representation of the expression, therefore twice removed. It's the difference between primary source and secondary source. But when the secondary source is an historian, there is not even the intent to understand the true meaning of the expression, only the intent to put into the context of an overall narrative created by the historian.

Plato gives us a very good glimpse into how ideas are passed down through time. In the earlier times there was no writing, and stories were passed by word of mouth, accompanied with chanting and song to aid in memory. But this was very defective because each generation would produce changes, interpretations guided by the intentions of the interpreters. So a person living at one time, looking back hundreds of years toward the source, trying to understand the true meaning of the myth, would have to make an attempt to account for all the intermediate changes. This would require determining the cultural conditions of that intermediary time which influenced the interpretations. For Plato this was to determine how the myth was transported from its origins to its current position.

However, written material provides far more stability, allowing us to look directly at the expressions from ancient times. But there is still the difficulty which Plato outlines, we interpret according to our intention which we have now. And this includes translations. So when we look back at ancient material we still have to take into consideration intermediary intentions, translations, and cultural influences on one's own intentions.

The perspective of "history" does none of this, looking only at material artifacts, to make some general conclusions about people and cultures. So it provides a very much inferior way of looking at the ideas of ancient people. Interpreting the words of the ancient people, though there may be layers of intention between the interpreter and the original speaker, provides the only real course toward understanding the ideas of the ancients. Looking at the ancient ideas through the intent of an historian, to put the writer's ideas into the context of the historian's own narrative, provides no real approach to the intent (meaning of the writer.

What are the "real" attributes of space? — jgill

I wouldn't know the answer to that question, nor would anyone else, I believe. The point though is that we can represent space in two fundamentally different ways, as being a real thing with real properties (though unknown), or as completely abstract, being a conceptual tool to help us understand the existence of things. In the former, we are constrained by a desire to know the real properties of space, and produce models accordingly. In the latter, we are constrained only by arbitrary principles, pragmaticism, according to what serves the specific purpose. This is the basic difference between absolutism and relativity. Absolutism dictates that there is an absolute truth to the way that motions are modeled, while relativity dictates that differing models of motion are equal.

So, in the case of "the continuum", continuity is a principle based in the Aristotelian conception of "matter". Matter is how Aristotle accounts for the continuity of sameness as time passes, consistency in existence. Continuity is a temporal concept. So Newton gave matter a principal property, "mass", and mass is proposed as the means by which temporal continuity is maintained, the first law, inertia. That is supposed to represent a "truth" about time, the continuity of mass, as inertia. But geometric representations of space, perfect squares, perfect circles, perfect triangles, the number of degrees in a circle, the number of spatial dimensions, etc., derived as mathematical axioms, are not supposed to be "truths". They are abstractions created for practise, and mostly derived from practise, containing the arbitrariness which pragmatism relies on.

Special relativity takes the arbitrariness of spatial abstractions, and assigns it to our conception of time. Under this conceptual structure there is nothing real, no "truth", to ground the continuity of time. Continuity is now based in spatial conceptions, and the true basis for the conception of continuity, time, is left as obsolete. Since the conception of "space" has no real continuity, being arbitrary because of its base in pure abstraction, and "time" has been subsumed under "space", we are left with no principles for a real or true "continuum". Our lived experience of temporal continuity, and the only access we have toward an understanding of "true" continuity, is made no longer relevant, by denying its bearing on our concept of "time". The "continuum" now is just another arbitrary spatial concept, guided by pragmatism, and our real experience of continuity which is the continued existence of material objects as time passes, is not allowed to have any bearing on this conception of "the continuum". So our conceptions of mass must be manipulated to be consistent with the arbitrary conception of "the continuum", instead of altering the conception of "the continuum" to be consistent with our true observations of mass.

I had no idea that this was such a big confusion among some of you. I thought it was intuitive what an "object of perception" is. I took it for granted that this comes easy. — L'éléphant

You ought to read Kant and Berkeley. That there are objects of perception is intuitive, what an object of perception is, is not.

But you never, ever, have come to the point that you are outside the mound perceiving it. Never. — L'éléphant

Why do you think that perceiving is done from the outside? Isn't it the case that the person perceiving is in the centre of the field of perception, perceiving one's surroundings, one's environment? So if perceiving is to be described in terms of inside/outside, the perceiver is inside, and what is perceived is outside the perceiver.

I wouldn’t accept that reason is a causal feeling. At bottom, thinking is the reasoning process, and we do not think our feelings. While thinking is an innate human ability, the constituent objects of which aggregate over time to reflect the condition of the intellect, feeling is an innate human quality reflecting on the condition of the subject itself, the constituent objects of which subsist in themselves as wholes. The former reduces to experience, the latter reduces to conscience. — Mww

If I understand you, you are saying that feeling is a property of the whole subject, while thinking is a property of a part, the intellect. So thinking is a capacity of that part, the intellect, and it is what the intellect does. Feeling, as a quality of the subject, is a property of the human subject, and therefore not an activity which could be assigned to a specific part.

I take things here to mean represented by phenomena. Real spacetime objects. A conclusion with respect to a thought about things would come about naturally, but it wouldn’t be a judgement. All judgement does in thought of things, is relate concepts to each other, this being the discursive kind as opposed to the aesthetic, the relation itself called a cognition. Reason concludes whether the immediate judgement conflicts with antecedent judgements, hence determines the truth of the relation. — Mww

Well, I think this is just an avoidance of the question. We don't have "real spacetime objects" within our minds when we're thinking, we think with concepts, or at least with images. So you can't dismiss judgements about things, as not being judgements, because judgements only relate concepts to each other. When we think about things, that's what we're doing, relating concepts to each other, and from this we may make a judgement about the thing.

Or do you mean to separate images from concepts, so that thinking about a thing is a matter of relating concepts to an image? So would you say that the image is not properly a part of the intellect, not a part of the thinking, but more like a feeling? How would the phenomena, or image, relate to the intellect, so that the person could be thinking about it, if it wasn't in the mind, and part of the thinking?

With respect to cognitions in an empirically grounded logical system employed by the understanding, to suspend judgement reduces to denying the very knowledge phenomena provide, which reduces to not knowing what is known, which is absurd, the efforts to do so is called stupidity. — Mww

This is exactly the problem Plato uncovered in that part of Theaetetus. Positing "false judgement" resulted in not knowing what is known. But what was exposed was a misconception of "knowing". Here, you are saying that phenomena provides knowledge in an empirically grounded system, and suspending judgement would be to deny that knowledge, i.e. not knowing what is known. The problem is that this is a misconception of "knowledge". Phenomena does not provide knowledge, it provides a material condition, or a condition necessary for the possibility of knowledge, which is not in itself knowledge. So when "knowledge" is conceived in the way I propose, suspending judgement reduces to preventing the production of knowledge, not to not knowing what is known.

With respect to volitions in a rationally grounded logical system employed by the will, to suspend judgement is not to deny the volition, which would lead to the same absurdity, but to deny the rationality of it, which is certainly possible, and even occasionally observable, but herein the efforts to do so, is called immorality. — Mww

So, I do not see how you can separate a rationally grounded system from an empirically grounded system, in the way that you do. If you separate the phenomena, images, or whatever you want to call it, from the intellect, to provide an outside grounding, making the phenomena necessarily known, then it cannot get into the mind in the first place. If it's in the mind, then it's just part of a rationally grounded system.

It appears to me, like you want to have your cake and eat it too, forcing a separation between thoughts and feelings, but then allowing the feelings into the mind as phenomena, which might ground the knowing in some kind of necessity. Is that what's going on here?

The guy exhibiting stupidity elicits pity; he who exhibits immorality, elicits disgust. Ya know what’s ironic here? It is actually impossible to accuse ourselves of being stupid, in the pathological as opposed to the incidental sense, then proving it, but we can very easily accuse ourselves of being immoral and very easily prove it. Why? Because it is impossible to know why I might be stupid…..if I knew why I couldn’t be stupid….but it is easy to will the proper moral volition, then completely and utterly disregard it. In addition, with respect to the subject himself, there is no feeling per se in being stupid, but there is always a feeling necessarily conjoined with being moral with its complementary feeling in being immoral. — Mww

This is the inversion of not knowing what is known, it's the problem of knowing what is not known. When we allow that knowing is a form of becoming, we allow an intermediary condition, between knowing and not knowing, between being and not being. This is how Socrates approached that sophistry. So just like there is a feeling associated with being immoral, there is also a feeling associated with being stupid, it's a feeling of ignorance. So this feeling, which motivates the philosopher, is the intermediary between not knowing and knowing, and all feelings are similar. Likewise, phenomena are intermediary between not knowing and knowing.

Ehhhh….depends at which point one is examining the system. If he thinks an end is the act, then will could be the means, insofar as will does not cause an act. If he thinks an end is the determination of how to act, but not the act itself, then will can be said to cause such determination. The former causality of will as means is a volition, the latter causality of will as cause proper, is an imperative.

Havin’ fun yet? — Mww

I don't know. Fun is a feeling. And I can suspend judgement, can't I?

Do you agree that it's a mistake to project our own mental/physical division on the dialogs? That distinction, so embedded in our own worldview, didn't exist around 2400 years ago. If they thought of the realm of the gods or Hades, they thought of concrete places. Likewise, the forms weren't thought of as vaporous categories. They're actually part of the makeup of the world around us. — frank

No, I do not see that as a mistake. This is because truths are timeless, eternal as some say, and comprehensible to all subjects. So, what was relevant 2400 years ago is relevant today. That's what really impressed me when I first picked up Plato years ago, because I had to for school. I thought, what's the relevance of this ancient stuff, until I read it. And it blew me away because it all seemed so relevant.

Lattice field theory avoids virtual particles, which are mathematical conveniences. — jgill

Hmm, there seems to be an incommensurability between the lattice representation, and the continuum representation. Here's from Wikki' entry on lattice guage theory:

"When the size of the lattice is taken infinitely large and its sites infinitesimally close to each other, the continuum gauge theory is recovered...
...Such calculations are often extremely computationally intensive, and can require the use of the largest available supercomputers."

I think the issue with the lattice representation is that the designation of a quantum (discrete unit) of space is completely arbitrary, not based on any real attributes of space itself. Then it becomes just a matter of re-representing a spatial continuum as an infinity of spatial units. That an infinite number is required demonstrates the incommensurability. But when mass, forces, and motion are represented, there's probably no significant different from points and vectors, because it appears like they are just trying to reproduce this in a different form anyway.

I'm curious how you would express what you have said in the context of field theory. — jgill

I think that field theory gives properties to space itself, the electromagnetic field for example. But since the electromagnetic field is observed to react with massive objects like atoms, or even just electrons, through quanta, the tendency is to give the quantum of energy a particle-like existence, as a point. This is very similar to what I said above, that the object with mass is represented as a point (centre of gravity). It's a matter of simplicity, to interact with a particle with mass, which is represented as a point, the thing interacting is also represented as a point. As I said above, I believe this is inaccurate. So in as much as the representation of fields might in some way represent real spatial attributes, the points in the field, which are supposed to be particles are not adequate representations. But these points are needed to explain how the field interacts with mass which is represented as a point, a centre of gravity for the sake of simplicity. So what is needed is to get away from representing mass as a point. Then when the field interacts with mass in the way of quanta, it is not at a point in the field.

Consider the way that an electron interacts with a proton in an atom for example. The interaction does not occur simply between a point where the electron is, and a point where the proton is. The interaction is occurring everywhere within the orbital, so it is understood as the "electron cloud". It is not the case that at any moment, the electron is at some point in the cloud, it is the case that at every moment, the electron is everywhere in that cloud. This is because "the electron" does not exist as a particle at a point, that's just a representation which was made for simplicity sake, to show its mass as being at a point.

I'm not familiar with Richard Swinburne, but I will check your reference.

Isn't this something to do with the parable of the three horses, being the various appetites? That the appetitive part of the soul overwhelms the rational part? Would seem like 'plato 101' to me, but then what do I know.... — Wayfarer

Neither am I familiar with "the three horses", and I'm a bit thrown off by your use of "appetites" (plural) here. Aristotle had an "appetitive part", referring to bodily desires, and the source of action toward such desires. But "appetites" is more proper to Aquinas. He proposed two principal types of appetites, sensitive and rational and made further divisions beyond this. Each appetite is directed towards a "good". Notice that even bodily desires are directed towards "a good". This was to maintain consistency with Aristotle's separation between apparent good (sense appetite) and real good (rational appetite). The sensitive appetites would remain unintelligible if not directed towards a good, so that good is designated as apparent, and not necessarily real.

From Aquinas' perspective, the entirety of the living being, body and mind, has appetitive motivations. Appetite is the source of movement, in general. The problem which Plato inherited from the pre-Socratic idealists, was that the whole realm of intelligible objects, therefore the intelligible realm in general, was portrayed as passive, inactive, eternal objects, which could have no causal efficacy. This is often referred to by modern monists as producing the problem of interaction. Plato showed this problem to inhere within the theory of participation. So he introduced "the good" as the source of motivation, activity, and therefore causal efficacy in the intelligible realm. This made a clear division between bodily appetite and intelligible good.

Prior to this, causal motivation of human beings, 'appetite', had to come from the world of sense objects, therefore manifesting as bodily desires. This was the only source for active causation in the human being. But Plato recognized that the intellect itself had to have within it causal motive power, and this he proposed as "the good". Now he had a clear division between bodily motivation represented as sensual desire (appetite), and intellectual motivation represented as the good. From the latter developed the concept of "will", which became Aquinas' rational appetite. But Plato proposed a medium between these two sources of active causation, as passion or spirit. Passion could ally with the body to overwhelm the mind, or it could ally with the mind to subdue the body. In any case, passion is the medium between body and mind, which along with "the good" or Aristotle's "final cause" as the source of activity within the intelligible realm, resolved the problem of interaction.

Notice that following Aristotle all sources of motivation are represented under "good", whether real or apparent. This provides consistency throughout the entirety of the human being, so that there is no conflict between body and mind, as Plato represented the body and mind within a sort of conflict. This allows the intellect to smoothly rule over the body by making the bodily desires intelligible as "goods", and as Aquinas proposed, the intelligible goods of the will are equally "appetites".