I think we are talking past each other a little but it's just nomenclature issues I think.
My physics level is 1st-year uni plus some online courses I completed but its not even graduate standard.
Photons(photonic), massless, energy (packets), radiation, yes. Energy has a mass equivalence but it does not have mass. — universeness

The trick of modern physics, energy has inertia, without mass. But we need to be careful not to confuse the inertia pf energy with the inertia of mass.

I've read a little of Max Tegmark, after an OP of his about his neo-Pythagorean philosophy. But as I understand it, he nevertheless remains committed to a physicalist (or a kind of physicalist-panpsychist) account of consciousness (e.g. here) where matter still remains fundamental (opposite of Pierce’s ‘matter as effete mind’). Alain Badiou I've encountered mainly via this forum but haven't read anything about him, he wasn't on the radar at the time I did undergraduate studies. — Wayfarer

This is the problem with the physicalist approach. When adhered to, it leads to some form of panpsychism by logical necessity, because ultimately, matter cannot be given logical priority. But placing the principles of life, experience, consciousness, intention, as inherent within matter leaves them as fundamentally unintelligible because "matter" is the concept devised by Aristotle to account for the reality of the unintelligible aspect of the universe. So consciousness is rendered as unintelligible in this way.

We're good friends, remember? — Streetlight

Partners in crime (...like Putin and Trump) often become enemies when the chips are down.

...only for Biden to be like "yes we are trying to get rid of Putin" on national TV... — Streetlight

Consider Putin's involvement in America's 2016 election, and maybe you'd understand this attitude. Whether or not the actions, which are a manifestation of the attitude, are justifiable, is another question.

I’m sure it’s the other way about. People act upon words. We hear them, read them, learn them, write them, speak them, use them. They do not affect us more than any other sound from the mouth or any other scribble on paper because they are hardly different in physical constitution and energy.

As you said yourself, we are predisposed to act upon certain sounds and images because we’ve learned and trained ourselves to do so. — NOS4A2

To speak is to act. And, in many cases the crime is in the intent behind the words. Whether or not the words have causal efficacy is irrelevant. That's what "conspiracy" is all about.

The only thing different between animals and humans is that the latter can alter their perspective on life but the former can't. — Agent Smith

Or, is it that we think we can alter our perspective on life, when we really cannot. In that case, the difference might be that we're the only animals capable of self-deception.

How about this idea? We construct a big kite and fly it high above the earth's atmosphere to collect energy from the solar wind, just like Ben Franklin is said to have done with lightening.

I think the biggest problem is that there are too many human beings on the earth. Cultures of living creatures who thrive tend to keep expanding until they wallow in their on waste where it inevitably extinguishes them. Human beings might think that they are special, but they're not. A few may escape or something might evolve to adapt to the polluted environment. One being's waste is another's nutrition.

Metaphysics provides us with an approach to the unknown. It is essential to the growth and evolution of knowledge, and is therefore indispensable to philosophy, as the desire for knowledge. The scientific method, for example, relies on hypotheses which are derived through metaphysics.

Some people seem to believe that knowledge has reached its limits, that all there is to be known, is already known. These (know it all) people will see no use for metaphysics.

From past posts I assume you refer to instantaneous acceleration. — jgill

Acceleration in general, is not well understood. If an object is at rest, and later it is in motion, then there must be a time when acceleration is infinite, when it goes from zero motion to having some motion. This
problem, of accurately representing acceleration, is tied together with the problem of representing how a force acts on an object, such as when one object hits another. I believe the acceptable way of representing this (application of force), is through the means of fields, so that the kinetic energy of the one object is represented as potential energy in relation to the other object. There is always a discrepancy between the two which is written off as entropy.

But logically, as the superposition refers to all of the elements in an entangled system, then to measure the one is to measure the other. — Wayfarer

The issue is with those who "dispute that there is any 'effect' at all". Of course measurement has an affect, because that is how measurement in quantum systems is done, by eliciting an effect. If there is an effect in the measuring device then by Newton's third law there is also an effect on the thing measured. That thing being measure is the system. I believe the mode of measurement is to measure a part of the system, then through logic and extrapolation, extend this to the entirety of the system.

The problem of entanglement is an extension of the simple measurement problem; physicists have no accurate way to measure any part of a quantum system. A "particle" does not have independent existence, it is always a part of something. Be wary of the use of "system" as well. A system is always artificial, or else it is how something natural is represented as "a system". If it is artificial, there is losses of energy to the system, accounted for with entropy. And representing something natural as "a system", is to neglect aspects of the reality of the thing, accidentals in Aristotelian terms.

Here, it is explained, "object permanence" is being questioned. It is typical of the 'copenhagen interpretation'. — Wayfarer

In mysticism, the principle is that every object must be recreated at each moment of passing time. This is the moment of the present. The principles employed by modern physics make the moment of the present observer dependent. This renders the moment of recreation of the object as vague.

But I am going to say that I think to all intents, (a) simultaneous and instantaneous mean the same in this context, — Wayfarer

Simultaneous means at the same time, and as noAxioms explained, in relativity theory whether or not two events are simultaneous may be dependent on the frame of reference. This implies that whether one event is prior to another, or posterior to the other, is also frame dependent.

Instantaneous is more of a mathematical concept derived from calculus I believe. I think it represents an infinitesimal period of time. So for instance, if one event causes another, the one is prior to the other, and there must be an infinitesimal amount of time which separates the two. The concept is useful for applying mathematics to acceleration. Acceleration has never been adequately understood by human beings.

Ok, that’s fine, if you like. I hold that objects are material substance with extension in space and duration in time. With that, objects cannot be created by the sensing system, but exist as physical things independently from it. — Mww

But space and time are conceptual. They are concepts created to help us understand the appearance of objects. We really have no thorough understanding of what it is which is independent of us.

Ehhhh....technically I wouldn’t say here appearances are in the mind, insofar as we are not conscious of the creation of these representations as phenomena. This has support in the physical sciences as well, so....all is not hopeless metaphysical handwaving. It is here, also, I find agreement with your sub-conscious system that creates its “object”. — Mww

Well, what is in the conscious mind then, if it isn't the appearances? When I look around with my eyes, and I have images in my mind, of objects, aren't these images "in my mind"? If not, what is it which is in my mind? Is anything "in" my mind? The sub-conscious system creates these images (objects), but aren't they given to the conscious, so that they are "in" the conscious mind.

Yes, exactly, but such idealism is rendered obsolete by late-Enlightenment transcendental idealism. — Mww

I wouldn't say "rendered obsolete" unless every aspect of it is conclusively refuted. That's the thing about philosophy, any individual philosophers will have their good parts and bad parts, so we can go through and pick and choose, without accepting anything as a whole, each person accepting what is consistent with what that individual believes, as well as changing one's beliefs when deemed necessary.

Representation is that, but much more than that. Think scientifically: for any exchange of energy dissimilar systems, there is a loss. If there is a loss, the output of the exchange cannot be equal to the input to it. As such, the output merely represents the input. — Mww

I don't get this. If there is a loss, then the output cannot accurately represent the input. If it is a representation, it necessarily represents something other than the input, as a value less than the input. What does it represent then? It must represent the input minus the loss. But the loss is an unknown, so there is something unknown which is part of what is represented, if it is supposed be a representation.

Besides, if, as I maintain, the sense system has no cognitive abilities, it cannot assign symbols, insofar as, on the one hand, there is no faculty or repository from which to withdraw symbols, and on the other, there is no conscious logical system in sensibility which authorizes which symbol to draw in relation to a given perception. — Mww

Ok, but what does the percept consist of, if it is not some type of symbol? I'm looking at my computer screen, so I have an image (in my mind?). This image, which I would like to say is in my mind, I would assume is a symbol which represents what is outside of my mind, what you call the independent object. If this image is not a symbol of some sort, then what is it? And isn't it the case that only a symbol can represent something, so how could we even talk about it as a representation if it is not a symbol of some sort?

I submit, one must understand what he perceives long before he can talk about it. I mean, if one doesn’t understand.....what could he say about it? — Mww

I don't believe this is the case. We name things without understanding them. I believe that the use of language for a memory aid, and the use of language for communicating have two completely different histories, roots and foundations, as written language and oral language. In communicating we simply name things so that we can identify and talk about the aspect of the external world which has been identified. But when I name something, this requires no understanding on my part, just memory. Then if I tell you the name, and try to get you to understand the aspect of the world which bears this name, understanding is requires on you part.

Ok, fine. How does a system that receives sense data create something that falsifies what it receives? If this were the case, what prevents us from always being deceived? How does the sensing system distinguish a deception from a valid appearance? — Mww

The sensory system doesn't distinguish this, the conscious mind does. I maintain a sort of separation between these two to allow for the real possibility of hallucinations. My distinction is between the conscious and the subconscious, rather than between the imaginative and the perceptive (real and fictitious).

But I think we are "always being deceived" anyway. It is deception because we believe that the sensing system is giving to our conscious minds accurate representations, images, or facsimiles, which are what the world is really like, when the sensing system really is not giving us this. It's just giving us meaningful symbols of representation, not a true facsimile of what is there. Chemistry and physics have shown us, that what is really there is something far different from what the sensory system is presenting to the conscious mind. But the conscious mind has another more powerful tool, logic, and this is how it tries and tests what the sensory system is giving to it.

See, in modern scientism we get things backward. The scientific method, which uses the sensory system to test what speculation gives us, is seen as the end all to knowledge. But the scientific method is really just the beginning, because philosophy shows us that we then have to use logic to test what the scientific method gives us. This is due to our propensity toward being deceived by the bodily senses. Empirical confirmation is extremely fallible.

Correct, and a perfect reason to require the actual conscious system to ride herd on it, to regulate it, by synthesizing conceptions to the objects created by the sensing system, in order to make them understandable, and hence, to permit knowledge of them.

But you are correct, in a truly metaphysically undercover way: we have no way of knowing exactly anything at all, except that by which the system itself informs. I am sufficiently informed that the thing I just tripped over was a tree root, but was it really? I have no good reason to ever think it wasn’t, and I do myself no favors by going through the motions of attempting to come up with one. — Mww

I think you need to go one step further here, and respect the power of logic. It is by the means of logic that the conscious system regulates, and synthesizes conceptions. But logic is also restricted by the premises it employs. This is why analysis of premises is very important. Aristotle wrongly said that logic leads us from the more certain towards the less certain. But this is actually backward. The logical process itself is what gives us great certainty, so the conclusions have a high degree of certainty. The uncertainty is always within the premises, and it's the mistaken premises which lead to faulty conclusions.

“It” understood as creative power of the sensing system, if what you say is the case, then it is possible the creative system can create its objects without anything being perceived. If not logically limited by what it is sensing, it follows it is limited by itself, or it has no limits at all. Which, in effect, if true, makes the creative system a self-contained causality.

While I tacitly agree with the validity of a self-contained causality, I hold that it is not in the creative power of the sensing system, but in the synthetic a priori manifestations of pure reason. So...you are basically on the track, but you’ve got the cart before the horse. — Mww

So this is the big question here, which one of us is actually the one putting the cart before the horse. There's two subjects here in this passage, to consider, "self-contained causality", and "pure reason". And the question is, can pure reason qualify as a self-contained causality.

The self-contained causality is unlimited by anything other than itself. We could say it is the pure source of free will, intentionality. I say "source" because we haven't yet determined whether the free will is the very same thing as the self-contained causality, or if the free will is a sort of manifestation of the deeper self-contained causality. My position would support the latter.

But how would you describe "pure reason"? Doesn't logic necessarily require some sort of premises which are derived from outside the logical system? These would be like the "building blocks" you referred to earlier (which you placed within the sensing system), what I call "content". Mathematical formalists attempt to remove all content from logic, arguing that this will provide a greater degree of certainty. But all they do is disguise the content so that it inheres within the rules they employ, and this makes it extremely difficult to determine the fallible aspects, as the content is not isolated to specific premises, but is spread out throughout the system.

You refer to "the synthetic a priori manifestations". But if they are synthetic, there must be some fundamental building blocks, and we may ask where does the proposed "pure reason" get these fundamental building blocks from? It must get them from some other system, like the sensory system, or an internal system of feelings or emotions. Being dependent on these building blocks of content, the reasoning system cannot be absolutely pure, therefore it cannot be the self-contained causality. Aristotle pointed to this, saying that thinking requires sense images.

To find the proposed self-contained causality we must analyze deeper into the living systems. I suggested the sensing system, but I think if we analyze this we will find a need to go even deeper, to the source of life itself, the soul. I think that all living forms display some sort of purposeful, intentional, activity, and this will demonstrate that the self-contained causality is really at the source of living being.

So you place the self-contained causality as the highest aspect of living existence, "pure reason", the faculty which evolved from all the prior ones, layered on top, to appear as the sovereign of all. I place it at the very bottom, as the cause of existence of all the other faculties, and therefore inherent within each of them. Who really has the cart before the horse? As a form of "causality", the self-contained causality must be prior in time, therefore its existence must be prior to any faculty which it is found to reside within, or else that faculty would be dependent on something else for its capacity to function. The "something else" then would be its cause, and it would not be a self-contained causality.

If by sensing capacity you mean the functionality of the sense organs, you’ve invoked a logical question-begging. We have THIS sensing capacity, which makes explicit the creative power couldn’t have developed any other kind, and doesn’t give sufficient ground for allowing that creative power, in and of itself, developed anything except itself, which excludes sensing capacities, which are strictly predicated on physiology. While it is true we would have a completely different experience base if the creative power evolved differently, but.....it didn’t, so what we have is all we’re logically permitted to discuss.

Unless I misunderstand, you’re saying a different creative power could have developed our senses to sense differently, which is a function of natural evolution alone. — Mww

I don't really agree with this. In logic we are able to employ counterfactuals, and they prove to be very useful. We just need to be very careful as to how they are employed, because their use can be deceptive. So it's not true to say "what we have is all we’re logically permitted to discuss", because there is a variety of ways in which "possibility" is dealt with by logic. The problem though is that there are a number of different forms of "possibility", each requiring different rules of logic to properly represent. Allowing "possibility" into the structure of the logical system, I believe, is the way that formalism allows the fallibility of content to inhere within the formal system.

You say arbitrary, I say undetermined. It is true humans....the only living beings I care about.....cannot remove what already there deep within the sensing system, such is just an admission that the use of it is inescapable. Extending that necessity, we find that, at this stage of the reasoning system as a whole, anything perceived is as yet undetermined, which is precisely how a thing is completely unknown. — Mww

No, I really mean arbitrary, so I think you misunderstand. Suppose we assume an object which is completely unknown. Now, we want to set up a sensing system to develop some knowledge about that object. Since we know absolutely nothing about that object, anything we set up would be completely arbitrary. We'd have to set up some sort of trial and error system without any knowledge of where to start.

This is what I say about the sensing systems of living creatures. Prior to evolving any sensing systems, living beings would have had no knowledge of the world to be sensed. When these sensing systems came into existence, the creatures knew nothing about the objects they wanted to learn about. So whatever sensing systems came into existence, they had this feature of trial and error arbitrariness. Now the creatures have learned a lot, and we as human beings sit at the top of the ladder, but at the base of our sensing systems is this sort of trial and error arbitrariness. And this gives us a fundamental fallibility. It's at the very foundation of the living systems. We cannot go into our very being and try to remove this fallibility, because it inheres within every aspect of our being. All we can do is use logic to try and exclude it as much as possible. However, we have to recognize that since logic is itself such a system, there is fallibility which inheres within logic itself. So we need to try to and isolate it (I assign fallibility to the content), as the fallible part, instead of incorporating it into the system, so that we know where the possibility of mistake lies. Of course the possibility of mistake inheres within this process itself. So the system of learning involves repeating what is basically the same thing, but in as many different ways as possible, because of this trial and error feature which is essential to it.

Real metaphysics is in books of hundreds of pages covering everything pertinent; modern metaphysics is in a few peer-reviewed pages covering minor incidentals. — Mww

That's right, because real metaphysics involves looking at the same thing, over and over again, in as many slightly different ways as possible. It is not a matter of stating assumptions. Good philosophy demonstrates this to us. We cannot remove the fact that we are stuck in a sort of arbitrary trial and error mode of learning. This is very evident in the scientific method.

The sublation you refer to is the negation of being. It is superseded in its becoming something "new". For Hegel, this synthesis is the evolution of being, and the basis for a contingent dialectal cycle.

On a side note, I enjoy some of the existentialists that emphasize the importance of becoming for people in pointing out the relevence of the dialectical negative. it is accurate to identify them as the earliest modern psychlogists. — Merkwurdichliebe

Yes, I agree with this. The important thing to understand is that there is a "becoming" which contains both being and not being. The reality of becoming is what allows for the violation of the law of non-contradiction.

In relation to the Aristotelian format, "matter" (as the potential for what may or may not be), for Aristotle is what allows for the reality of "becoming". Marx places matter as the basic element of the idea, the foundational content, the kernel.

Except the object is never given to the cognitive system, that being merely a representation of it. So yes, we need a sub-system that accounts for the creation of representations. — Mww

This depends on how one understands "the object". From the perspective of what I've been arguing, objects are a creation of the sensing system. You call (what I call) the object, a representation, but what it represents you cannot really say, though you assign "object" to that. So there is an appearance in the mind, the appearance of an object, you say it is a representation, I say it's the object, but what it represents, we don't know. This is the Idealism described in Plato's Republic, and Berkeley's Dialogues, the reality of objects is within the mind.

There is a further issue to consider. The object, (I'll call it a symbol), created by the living system, is not necessarily a representation. Symbols have meaning, and some are used as representations, while others are not. So when we look to the tactile senses like taste and touch, the object, (my example sweetness), doesn't really represent any particular thing, it's just a type of sensation. So we have to be careful when we say that the "image" created by sensation, is a representation. It doesn't seem like it really is. "Representation" I believe, is a way of using symbols which evolved from communication, when we assume an external object which we both may apprehend and talk about.

Except the sense system has no cognitive power, only creative, the object itself determining the limits of such creative power. It isn’t my eyes that are deceived by hallucinogens or mirage or delusions in general, it is that fault within the conscious system, that is. Sense system does this job but not that; the conscious system does that job, but not this. — Mww

I don't agree with this. I think it is the sensing system itself which creates the hallucination. So it is a fault within the sensing system, and this in turn deceives the cognitive power. In severe visual hallucinations even the boundaries of objects may dissolve. We do not exactly know what the "creative power" is, and the extent of its creative capacity. So I do not think we can conclude logically that it is limited by what it is sensing. The creative power has evolved so that it is adapted to the world it is sensing, and the needs of the sensing being, but that doesn't mean it couldn't have developed a completely different sensing capacity.

Hallucination resides right there, merely a misunderstanding of that which the sense system gives to it. — Mww

Hallucination is not a misunderstanding at the conscious level, it is a "misunderstanding" (if you could call it that) at a much deeper level. This is why people who suffer mental illness cannot learn to control their hallucinations through learning the proper understanding. The fault is at a deeper level, and the consciousness might not be able to understand it, but that is because whatever is given to the conscious mind is mixed up and confused, unfamiliar to it.

I agree the sense representation could be extremely arbitrary, but only when under the influence of an object completely unknown to us. In such case, we can say only what the object is not, but cannot say what it is. Otherwise, we’d know it, hence not arbitrary at all. — Mww

The problem I see here is that the sense system is something developed over time, evolved, and it seems to have been built up on earlier layers. So when the basics were laid down, when living beings began sensing, (what you call) the "object" actually was completely unknown. Then as it became more and more known, the sensing system evolved around this. But the living beings cannot remove what's already there deep within the sensing system, developed when the "object" was completely unknown. So this makes the fundamentals of basic sensation very arbitrary. We must bear in mind that knowing comes after not knowing, and senses are used in the process which leads to knowing. So sensing is fundamentally based in a not-knowing system.

left to its own devices, possibly, sure. A very good reason why it isn’t; it is utterly dependent for its creative powers, on the object perception gives to it. — Mww

I don't agree with this obviously, having explained that I believe the sensing system creates the impression of an "object" itself. So I do not see these limitations of the creative power which you propose. And by extension of this principle, for example, this is why mathematics with its axioms freely creates mathematical objects, without any real limitations. The creative powers are not limited in this way, and the idea of infinite, or infinity, shows that this lack of limitation is inherent within the creative power.

Nevertheless, without the object, there is still imagination, which does not depend on perception, in which case, we can manufacture any damn thing we want. Even logically contradictory objects.....dogs with wings. — Mww

See, I do not respect this proposed division between imagination and sense perception. I don't think it's real or true. Both of these are acts of the creative power, and each (if we tried to uphold this division) contains aspects of the other. So for me, they are all acts of imagination, and the difference is in the novelty of specific acts of this type, as I described earlier. Perception always adds novelty, and the creative system has to deal with the novelty through means already developed from past experience.

But no matter what, we can’t seem to imagine impossible things. Impossible experiences, yes, but not things we cannot think, which is all that makes a thing impossible in the first place. — Mww

If "impossible things" is not defined by some form of "logically impossible", like contradictory, then what would constitute an impossible thing? I know you can't give me an example, but why would you think that there was such a limit? It seems to me, that logic would be the only possible limitation to thought, and if we can think of things which are logically impossible, we can think of anything, without limitation.

Still, if the sub-conscious does all this....how would we be made aware of it? — Mww

It's what we are aware of, and all that we are aware of. You call it intuitions, I just describe it without giving it a name, because it has many different components. That's why I suggested a number of different types of intuition earlier.

Good stuff. Fun to play with. No right or wrong here, just musings galore, right? Or...musing run completely amok. (Grin) — Mww

Yeah, speculating, I like to do that. When I come back later, on a different thread, and start talking about objects as if they are the independent external things, because this is customary, the norm, and required for communicative understanding, don't accuse me of contradicting what I said here.

Sorry for the delay. But your post does deserve a reply.

I hold with materialism with respect to external objects of perception, yes. All external objects are substance, or, material, and the material of the object is that which affects my perceptive apparatus. In conjunction with that, I hold that these sense organs have no cognitive power, they merely relay the presence of material, upon which that part of the reasoning system having to do with sense impressions, functions. — Mww

The issue here is in what you call "cognitive power". I think that the power to create, i.e. to be a productive system which synthesizes, does not require cognition. So the lower powers of living beings, photosynthesis, self-movement, and even sensation, may be creative powers which are not cognitive powers. However, we see with sensation, that it comes in a multitude of types, and there is a sort of unity which holds the multiple senses together in coherency, and the cognitive power is closely related to this. That's why some ancient philosophers were seeking a sixth sense. Generally "cognitive power" is assigned to the consciousness. But the power which receives information from the senses and presents the sense impression to the conscious mind, in the form of sensation, is a creative power, creating the sensations presented to the consciousness, but it is not properly a "cognitive power".

Do my eyes qualify as chemically imbalanced upon hallucination, or is it in the brain, where the impressions are received, that the chemical changes occur? If in the brain, and the philosophical equivalent of brain is a theory of cognition, in which comparable manifestations appear, then it is in the reasoning process where judgement is affected, that stands in for chemical changes in the brain. — Mww

"Cognition" I believe, is an ambiguous term. It can refer to what the conscious mind is doing in conception, and it can refer to what the subconscious is doing in creating sense perceptions to be presented to the conscious mind. If we conflate these two under one sense of "cognition", then we conflate the prior (impressions which are presented to the conscious mind, created by a system deeper in the psyche than consciousness) and the posterior, conceptions created by the conscious mind. We must respect the fact that the sense perception received into the conscious mind, has already been produced by a creative system. This is evident for example, in the way the visual image is made to appear right side up, when it is received upside down. And so it's very clear in the other senses, like tasting sweet, the sweetness which is the taste to the conscious mind, is something created by the deeper system. Hallucinations are a change to this deeper system. And some illnesses can cause things to taste differently.

It is the cognition of the object given from the reasoning process, not the impression the object gives me, that tells me I’m stoned. — Mww

What I am saying is that we need to account for the system which gives the object to the cognitive (conscious) system. This system is intermediate between the object itself, and what appears in the mind as the sense image of the object. This is the sensing system. So it's somewhat inaccurate to say "the impression the object gives me", I have to say that it is 'the impression that the sense system gives me'. Then with the conscious mind, cognition, I can remember the drugs I took, apprehend incoherencies in the sense perceptions, and recognize that I am hallucinating.

Then I can understand that the sense impression in my mind is not "given" by the object sensed, it is given by that deeper system, and it is faults within the system which are causing me to hallucinate.

Agreed, in that the body (actually, the sub-conscious process you favor, which I call intuition) creates a phenomenon that determines how the impression should be represented. In this respect, then, causes are always and only internal, but only regarding the reasoning process itself, having nothing whatsoever to do with causes of objects, or that which objects cause.

We might agree, on the other hand, that objects cause, are the raw unprocessed material for, perceptions, but then, perceptions (raw material) alone are not impressions, which are the purview of sensation (representation of raw material). Again....minutia. — Mww

The problem is that we cannot go to this level of saying "how the impression should be represented". All we have is how the object is represented, how it is given to the conscious by the subconscious. We can see when something is outside of the norm (hallucination caused by drugs, or a sudden onset of illness), but we really cannot say that the norm is "real", or even how things "should be represented".

Consider that the representation could be extremely arbitrary, like the way we use symbols and words to represent. The word, or symbol, has no necessity to bear any resemblance to the thing represented, it may be a completely arbitrary assignment, for memory purposes or simple facility. If the conscious mind uses symbols in this arbitrary way, (no real reason why this symbol represents that object), then the subconscious could behave in a very similar way. So, the image presented from the subconscious sensing system, to the conscious mind, might be created in a similar way. Aspects of the object which have been proven to have evolutionary significance are represented in some symbolic way, to the conscious mind, facilitating memory of these significant aspects, but they don't really have any similarity to the object. The sensation of sweet has no similarity to sugar molecules for example.

He has some odd notions concerning instantaneous velocity you might find amusing. — Banno

It's simply a matter of bad axioms, useful but not truthful. If you judge good by usefulness, you'll say the axioms are good. If you judge good by truthfulness you'll say the axioms are bad. To choose the latter may seem like having "odd notions" to you.

This is also Hegel's dialectic. In simple terms, all opposites are defined by a shared property. — Jackson

This is the root of the problem, and it's demonstrated well in some of Plato's dialogues, like The Sophist and The Parmenides. If we take two things which are categorically different, and set them up as opposites, then we falsely assign a shared property to them. True opposites, in the absolute sense, cannot share any property, or else they are not absolutely opposite.

Absolute opposition requires a separation of category. So for example, if negative and positive are supposed to be opposite in an absolute sense, they cannot share a common property, or else they are not absolutely opposite. And when we allow what you call the "shared property" to be a property of the of the ideas which are opposite, we make a category mistake because opposite is what is assigned to the properties, not to the object itself. Now we produce a property of the property.

So for example, hot and cold are opposite. We can say these two are possible properties of the same thing. But if we look for a "shared property" of hot and cold, we make the category mistake. Hot and cold are not the type of things which themselves have properties. Hot and cold are defined in different terms, terms of activity (becoming), and becoming is not the type of thing which is described through properties, its described by a change in properties.

No. Advertising to the public does not create a legal or binding relation with the audience. You could ignore advertising. I think it's clear from the definition here that those relations that would create personal relations are ones that are binding -- financial obligations, for example, as in loans or extension of credit. — L'éléphant

Who said the relation must be "legal or binding"? Most relations are not, especially personal relations. By using these terms, you are trying to make the personal relation into something impersonal. Then you say the relationship which advertising seeks to establish is not such an impersonal relation, such as a legal obligation. It makes no sense for you to take that tact, to limit "relations" to impersonal relations, then say that a lack of such impersonal relations constitutes an impersonal market.

I think it's clear from the definition here that those relations that would create personal relations are ones that are binding -- financial obligations, for example, as in loans or extension of credit. — L'éléphant

I think this is a clear misunderstanding. "Relations" includes family, friends, or any other emotional attachment. Advertising very clearly, often seeks to establish emotional attachment. Therefore the person entering the market seeking to purchase the advertised good, has a prior, "personal" relation to the seller.

We don’t work on memories. A memory modified is a new memory. — Mww

This is where we disagree. I think that memory requires effort, this effort is called memorizing. Memorizing consists of repetition within the conscious mind. After something occurs, to remember it well, in detail, I must go over it again and again in my head, to keep all the details straight, order of occurrence, fine details, etc.. Without this repetition, the details get lost and are not remembered properly. Then, when I try to recount the event at a later time, I will get parts of the ordering wrong, or some of the details wrong, or not be able to recount them at all.

Language serves as a memory aid. When something happens which I want to remember, I put it into words in my mind. This gives me far greater capacity to remember the details and order than if I try to remember all the details of an event through imaging. Order of occurrence of the details is what I find to be the most difficult. If I can't establish some relation (causal) between the images within my mind, I cannot connect them fluidly, and the memory becomes a bunch of disjointed images which become difficult to give temporal order to. This is where using words really helps me for some reason (perhaps because I've been trained in giving order to words when I was very young, as counting). When I order the parts of the event in my mind with words, I find it's far easier to remember the details, and the order. Writing the words takes memory to another level altogether, and sometimes people write journals as a memory aid.

I think that we must always work on memories, to keep them established in the memory. To memorize something requires a conscious system of repetition. Once the thing is memorized it has that status as being memorized. But the status of being remembered is temporally limited, and it is not death which limits it. In other words, to have something memorized does not mean that you'll always be able to recall it until your dying day. Things are forgotten. So there is a temporal limitation to memory, such that if the thing is not recalled and repeated again, by the conscious mind, within that duration, it will be forgotten. We can give many examples of memories which haven't been forgotten. And, memories which prove to be useful are the most recalled, therefore the most remembered. But it would be pointless for me to try and give an example of a memory forgotten. I know for sure though, just by looking at how many things I remember in any given day, and how many days there are in a year, that the things forgotten by me vastly outnumber the things which I remember to this day.

Memorization is a method of repetition, yes, but we don’t memorize memories; we memorize cognitions that become memories. — Mww

This seems like contradiction. Repetition requires 'the same thing' (or same type) more than once. If the same thing comes into your mind a second time, then it comes as a memory. In all my experience of memorizing, it is very clear to me, that what is repeated within the mind in the act of memorizing is the memory. Think about it. Suppose you're learning something fundamental, like how to count. What comes after "two"? If every time you get to "two", the teacher shows you "three", and you mimic it, then you never memorize it. What is required is that you recall "three" as being after "two" from your own memory, and this effort is what establishes the memory that three is after two.

We don’t recall memories merely to refresh them; we recall them to compare to a current cognition. — Mww

Yes, we recall memories to use them, but this is what refreshes them, and keeps them well established. This is why it is the useful memories which are maintained. Unless you start refreshing them simply for the purpose of refreshing them, like when you write a journal, it is only the useful memories which end up maintained.

The longer between recall of a memory the less it may relate, yes, but that is not a change in the memory. If a memory no longer is accurate recollection, it’s simply because we’ve more with which it no longer compares. At ten y.o. my memory of going fast was 50mph; at 30 y.o. my memory of going fast was 100mph. My memory of 50mph is still an accurate recollection and hasn’t been replaced; it just doesn’t accurately relate to going fast. — Mww

When the memory is no longer useful, therefore no longer recalled, it gets forgotten, plain and simple. The vast majority of memories are actually forgotten in this way. Your example is a judgement, as to what constitutes "fast", it's not really a proper example of memory. But how could one give an example of memory which has been forgotten?

But I don’t know what my sub-conscious mind is doing, so what grants the authority for it to do what you say it is? — Mww

We can use introspection and logic to figure out what the sub-conscious mind is doing. That is philosophy.

And why does it seem like I’m remembering objects? — Mww

As I said, this is a feature of language, to think of yourself as remembering objects is a practise which has come about for the purpose of facilitating communication concerning internal affairs. That it is useful to speak about internal conditions as if they are objects has made such language the norm.

So the sub-conscious is repeating a learning process, the results of which is a memory. What are the ingredients, the constituency, the composition, of this process? What is learned and what learns it? I can see a comparison being created, maybe, but what is recognizing it as such?

I can see having no material properties, but the content is still an object as “memory”, right? Gotta be a memory of something. I agree my memory of an object is mere convention, insofar as there is no material object being recalled from memory, but there is still a representation of one, which should, for all practical purposes, be a replica of the original material object. So it would seem to have a material aspect. — Mww

These are thoughtful questions, ones which I have no real answer for. Essentially you are asking, how can there be a process without an object, or thing involved in that process (i.e. contnet). What I think we have to do is place the cause of the process as outside the process. "What learns it?", is something outside the process, but is engaged in the process as the cause of it, and this is the person, "the self", as the agent. But what is actually moving, changing, or active in the process, is unknown. The conclusion I make is that the process has no content. Compare this to quantum physics. Remove the particle (as the content), and all we have left is the process, wave pattern. Now ask, what controls the wave pattern if there is no particle, and in our case, it is the self, as the agent. What the "self" is, I cannot answer.

Did you memorize your favorite birthday present, or do you....you know....just remember what it was? If you don’t remember what it was, then you didn’t work hard enough memorizing, in which case you conventionally say you don’t remember, but in fact the truth is, you just don’t know. — Mww

Again, this is an example of judgement, not straight memory. To remember your favorite birthday gift requires that you remember all your gifts, and make a judgement, unless you've already made that judgement and memorized the consequent.

But I don’t see a repetitive sub-conscious process at work, if you have to tell yourself to repeat the impression in the reasoning process. — Mww

What I think, is that the process itself is subconscious, but the judgement to repeat is conscious, and that's why it takes conscious effort to have a good memory. It's a type of habit, where the habitual action itself has been subrogated to the subconscious, but still requires a conscious judgement to initiate. So for instance, like walking, is a subconscious action, not requiring conscious decisions about where to put your feet, but it still requires a conscious decision to initiate the action, and it still requires a sort of conscious effort to be aware of what you are doing. Walking is an activity done subconsciously, but requiring a conscious decision to initiate.

Recall first, yes, but the recollection is not itself the judgement. The recalled memory is in relation to your experience, which is judged. No, this impression doesn’t represent what I got for my birthday; no this is doesn’t.....yes, this does.

No, this impression doesn’t represent how I remember Stephen King’s antagonist in The Shining. No, this doesn’t, yes this does. The object brought up from consciousness meets general criteria first, becoming more particular as the reasoning process examines that which is given to it. Each object is brought up and discarded or not depending on your experience from which the original object became a memory in the first place.

It is usually the case that the reasoning process helps itself by bringing up several objects, all of which were pre-conceived representations related to the past experience.....who was there, what your brother was doing, what kind of cake, and so on. These aid the reasoning process in giving the conscious mind the impression it’s looking for.....your favorite birthday present. — Mww

I think there is a problem with representing the reasoning process in this type of relationship with memory. If you had to bring up an object, and judge it as to whether it is the correct memory, you would have nothing to compare it with to make that judgement, because that would require that you already had the correct object to make the comparison with. So, I think that when the memory (supposed object) is recalled from the memory, it must be taken for granted as the correct memory. The memory (object) comes into relation with the reasoning process if it doesn't fit with other memories, then reasoning is required to sort things out. That we take for granted that the memory (object) which is brought up is correct, is the reason why people with faulty memories, dementia etc., are so hard to deal with. People are always naturally convinced that their memories are correct. So when two different peoples' memories disagree, there is a problem.

Maybe, dunno how that process works, exactly. In the system I know, sense impressions are given to us, not created by us. The impression I get from an object is determined by that object. I can’t tell an object it is round; it tells me.

I don’t see why the recollections can’t be dealt with by the same system. They’re all representations. — Mww

This I believe is the root of the problem, the faulty materialist way of looking at things. You place the "cause" of the sense impression in the external object, rather than within the human being, and you conclude that the "impression I get from an object is determined by that object". A little experimentation with psychedelics and hallucinations would probably show you otherwise. The human body is very finely tuned, and a slight alteration in the chemical balance will change the sense impressions greatly. This demonstrates that the impressions are really determined by the human body, not by the external object. The human body receives information from the object, but it is this human body which creates, and determines the impression, not the external object.

Once we come to apprehend this reality, that the basic cause is internal, rather than external, then many philosophical issues, like free will, become far more intelligible. Then we can place recollections and sense impressions in "the same system", but the system has an internal cause, and it is not "determined" by the external factors.

Musicians would like to have a word with you! You're an existential threat to all musicians and music companies. — Agent Smith

I am a musician, and I speak to myself all the time. Hilary thinks that means I'm mad. I'm also a composer. How do you think an artist could create a piece of music if they didn't have it in their mind? Do you think it's a matter of trial and error? Or do you think composers simply use mathematical formulas to put the music on paper, then try it out on the instrument?

What do you mean? I have music in my mind almost all the time. And, I find it fascinating how I can have a song going on in my mind, while I am thinking of something else at the very same time. It's similar to the way that I can be sensing things while I am thinking at the same time, yet the production of the music in my mind is independent from all sensations. It appears like producing the song in my mind is carried out by a different faculty than that which is thinking, just like receiving sensations is done by a different faculty from that of thinking.

The point being that the song in my mind, though it is a memory of music I heard, is definitely created by my mind, rather than being a repetition of something I sensed, because I can't replicate the melody exactly as I heard it, and I need to ad lib on the lyrics, because I can't remember them properly.

The question between Mww and I is whether 'the memory' is created by selecting from a bin of spare parts (and whether or not the spare parts qualify as 'raw material' is another issue), or whether it is simply a process which creates the internal images, a process which attempts to replicate the original sensing process, without any need for material content.

If, in analysis, we remove the "raw material" provided by sensation, we have an inclination to replace it with some sort of stored material, something stored in the memory to replace the raw material of sensing. But I don't see how this material could be stored in the memory. The raw material received through sensation is always active, activities which affect the senses. How could the mind store activity? It would need to be maintain as 'the same' activity over an extended length of time. And if the mind simply recreates the activity, then it is a process without any stored raw material. However, somehow the information of how to recreate the activity must be maintained (stored).

For purposes of expediency, let's stick to the description below that Streetlight provided, see quote below. I'm cool with it. — L'éléphant

Obviously, advertising qualifies as a pre-existing relation, so that the exchange cannot be called an impersonal exchange. The type of relation which advertising is, needs to be further expounded to draw out the affect which it has on the exchange.

If the mind recreates the memory each time it remembers it.....what would prevent each memory being a little different than the object being remembered? — Mww

I think that's actually very common. We have to work hard to ensure that a memory doesn't change. This requires constant effort. It takes effort to memorize something, that is a method of repetition, and a similar method of periodic recollection is used to ensure that the memory doesn't change. The longer the duration of time between the acts of recollection, the more substantial the change in the memory is likely to be.

If you remember an object often enough, it becomes possible you haven’t remembered the original object at all. And if you haven’t remembered the original, what is it you’re remembering? — Mww

That's exactly the point, you are not remembering an object at all, you are learning a process. And what I said is that there is no content, or material aspect of this process at all, so there is no object. Your sub-conscious mind just repeats a process, and the process creates the material or content, as "the memory". So the content is present to your consciousness, but it is created by the process which is not present to your consciousness. We would say that the process is "the same" each time, but since each time is a different time, there are accidentals which are different, and that accounts for differences in remembering the same thing.

Now the ground is set for, say, by the time you got to 6th grade, you should have failed to remember at least most of which you learned in first grade. But, of course, you have not. What do we do about that? — Mww

You do not forget everything you learn in the first grade by the time you get to the sixth, because you have to keep recalling much of it, at every step of the way between first and sixth. However, much is actually forgotten because we do not make the effort of repetition required to hold onto it. I believe the young mind is much more adept than the older mind though. But unless you sit down at the end of the day and recall everything that happened to you that day, the majority will be forgotten. Something could happen the next day, to bring it back to mind, but as time passes it gets harder and harder to bring it back to mind.

Sure, the remembered thing is always in the mind, the thing remembered remains where it was put. — Mww

This is what I dispute, there is really nothing put anywhere, just a process learned and repeated.

In the case where the impression by an object becomes knowledge of it by the synthesis of intuition and concept into a cognition of that object, post hoc memory recall, then, is merely a judgement made on a pre-conceived representation, and the error in recall of an extant representation the object of which is known, is negligible. — Mww

This makes no sense to me. You must recall first, before you can make a judgement on the thing recalled. How can recollection itself be a judgement? Recollection cannot be "a judgement made on a pre-conceived representation", because judgement is a conscious act, and the pre-conceived representation must be recalled to the conscious mind before a judgement can be made on it. I agree that there is a judgement made to recall a specific representation, but the recollection is not itself a judgement.

While the degree of identity of the recall is determined by the degree of accuracy in the original, the error in the recall is not impossible, but so vanishingly small as to be disregarded. That is to say, if the one is somewhat wrong, the latter will be exactly the same somewhat wrong, but if the original is correct, so too will be the recalled impression. Usually fault is predicated on fault in the entire system as a disfunction of age in the form of electro-chemical brain disability. But we’re concerned with the rule, not exceptions to it. — Mww

I don't agree with this at all. In my experience there is a heck of a lot of inaccuracy in recollection. We have to work extremely hard if we wish to try to avoid inaccuracy, and this is called memorizing. But even with extraneous efforts, mistakes abound if the thing being memorized is at all complicated. Try reading a long sentence or two, then turn around and try to reprint that, word for word.

In the case of re-creation, with the impression of the object of sense already established, what is being used as the source, if not the impression in consciousness? And more importantly, how does that source make itself usable to the system? In the former case, the impression is right there, the faculty being used in recall knows where to find it, and just goes and gets it. In the re-creation scenario, some faculty constructs, but apparently without being told where to get its construction material. Or at least, you’ve haven’t yet posited such a source. — Mww

The "source" is the process, plain and simple, and it is repeated. You add something extra, the "it" in "the faculty being used in recall knows where to find it". You have the faculty carrying out a process, whereby it goes to find something, gets it, and presents it to the conscious mind. I see no need for the "it". The faculty is not finding anything, it's just doing something, and what it is doing is creating an impression in the conscious mind. And what I've said repeatedly now, is that there is no " construction material". The act which the faculty carries out, is the act which creates the content, the material, which is present in the consciousness.

If it was a sense impression there would be material content involved, from the sense. But material content is responsible for the uniqueness of individual acts of sense impression. In memory and recollection, the goal is to remove all material content, because material content is responsible for uniqueness, and differences, which in memory are accidentals, mistakes. So the pure, perfect memory without mistake must be pure process with no material content.

Otherwise is to claim there are thoughts without that which is thought about, a contradiction. — Mww

Not quite, thinking is the process which produces thoughts, so thinking is prior to thoughts. Notice "thought" is past tense of thinking. Therefore it is necessary to conclude that there is thinking without thought. There is thinking without that which is thought about, because that which is thought about is produced by, created by, thinking.

For there to be a process makes explicit that which is processed. — Mww

Ultimately, there must be a process which creates the things to be processed. Otherwise things are designated as first, prior to process, then we have no way to understand the existence of things. If we say that there is a process which creates things, then we have the means for understanding the existence of things. We have to address that process, and try to understand it.

The process is indeed very formal and entirely free from material content, but is necessarily conditioned by it when such material affects sensibility, from which is given the affective representational content. — Mww

This is why the process which deals with sensations, and creates sense impressions within the conscious mind, must be completely different from the process which recollects. The process which creates sense impressions is confined to dealing with the material received by the specific sense, and is directed toward that sense, whereas the process which recollects must be free to recollect anything. The one is restricted by material content, the other is not.

Nature would have ruined us if making it so we needed a different process every time something new came along. — Mww

But it's true, we need a different process for every new thing that comes along, otherwise we could not remember each one as different. I suppose that's why we have so many neurons.

Put another way, all economies have the generalized impersonal markets and production for market. — L'éléphant

Capitalism does not succeed in creating impersonal markets, The personal relations are just disguised, so as not to appear as part of the actual market. Consider advertising for example, it's nothing but a personal appeal. This we call marketing.

The closest capitalism gets to an impersonal market is the stock market. But here the only goods being exchanged is the capital itself, being marketed for a return on investment. The appeal is the appeal of easy-money which requires no advertising.

It appears like the only way to escape personal relations in the market is to market something which is not a true "good" in the first place, easy-money. Or is it the case that goods which require marketing are not true goods, because they won't sell without advertising, and the only true good is the one which everyone desires (easy-money) without the need for advertising?

Yet even here, neither the generalization nor the reproduction of the conditions impersonal production is enough to get us to capitalism. One further, crucial step needs to be taken. And this involves looking not at ‘exchange’ - how goods or money circulate - but production. In the absence of impersonal exchange, the production of stuff often does not take place for the market. Rather, one produces so that one can pay the lord’s taxes; or else one produces so that one can feed one’s family. And so on. However, once impersonal exchange becomes wide-spread enough, it brings with it a change in the ‘who’ or ‘what’ production is geared towards: no longer lords and family, but markets. — Streetlight

I believe modern day capitalism is derived from the practise of mass production. It came upon us hand in hand with the industrial revolution. Huge factories to produce huge quantities of goods required huge amounts of capital to establish. Technical advancements propagate capitalism, assembly line appliances, cars, airplanes, these factories all need to be retooled each time there's a change in the marketplace, and change requires more capital. Our throw-away society produces a greater need for goods, and the new ones must always be an upgrade from the old.

Inherent within capitalism is the practise of making profit from a loan, what we call interest. This is a side-shoot of capitalism, and it can be apprehended as a sort of easy-money, which gives privilege to those already endowed. That creates the appearance of a financial inequality amongst people, allowing for a privileged class of those who have the freedom of easy-money.

Oh sorry Mww, I got mixed up between your two posts. Here's some more points

Things from memory are not manufactured by the internal process; they are recalled as pre-manufactured impressions of things from the spare parts bin, called consciousness, by the internal process to bridge a gap in some subsequent raw material processing, or just to give the process something to do in the absence of raw material to process. — Mww

Making something from spare parts is still manufacturing. But then you still have to account for where, and how the spare parts are stored.

So, yes, there is a difference in raw material content, in that there isn’t any raw material at all in things from memory. — Mww

Doesn't this contradict the notion of "spare parts"?

The fallibility resides in judgement, the only part of the reasoning process susceptible to fallibility. — Mww

But then what is remembering? Surely it's an essential part of the reasoning process. And surely it is fallible. So there is fallibility which is prior to judgement, in the memory process.

After working on this seemingly forever, I find I can’t offer a conclusive response, because I don’t have a clear idea of your meanings of mind. The mind may be conceived to contain a reasoning process, but if it contains it, it cannot be it, so why not remove the reasoning process from “mind” and just let the reasoning process be itself? Then it can have all the constituent parts it needs to be a proper method, and even if things in memory are not being thought about, they wouldn’t be in memory if they weren’t thought about at some time. From which follows to be in memory is the same as being in the mind, in the reasoning process, just at a different time than the other distinct impression the memory merely represents. Besides that, things that are currently thought about may be impressions from memory, which is the very same thing as my recollection of appearance. — Mww

I think the issue here is not what "mind" means, but what it means to be in memory. We tend to believe that the mind takes an object, an idea, sense impression, or something like that, and places it somewhere, holding on to it, to be referred to for later use. Under this belief, the thing remembered, the memory would be in the mind somewhere.

That, I think is a mistaken belief. I think, that in reality, the mind must recreate the impression or idea every time it supposedly retrieves it from memory. If this is the case, then we cannot say that things in memory are actually in the mind. The mind must recreate the memory each time it remembers it.

Accordingly, the issue is not a question of what "mind" means, it's more a question of what mind does. If mind puts the object, sense impression, in a storage place, to be pulled out later, then the remembered thing is always in the mind. If it recreates the object (the memory) each time it recalls it, then the object is not in the mind, in the mean time. I believe that the fallibility of the remembering faculty, and the changes which occur to the remembered object, from one time to the next, which I've already referred to, indicate that the latter is the truth. The other, is a sort of naive way of talking about remembering, which facilitates communication ("I have it in my memory"), but it doesn't suffice for a philosophical inquiry into this matter. So you say, "much easier for me to grasp", that way, but sometimes taking what appears to be the easy way, is to be misled.

If the sense impression is not deposited in the memory, as an object, but replicated each time that a person remembers something, then we ought to inquire about this capacity to replicate a sense impression, without the use of the senses, and consider how similar it is, or isn't, to an actual sense impression.

The internal process is a chain of events determining an output relating to the input raw material. If a memory is being recalled to fill a gap in a current process, the impression dropped into the gap will either allow the process to continue to its conclusion, or cause the process to stop manufacturing, culminating in no output. Therefore, there must be an authority responsible for which memory to recall from the huge manifold of spare parts in a lifetime’s worth of consciousness. — Mww

If the process is as I propose, that the mind recreates, or replicates a sense impression (consider having a song in your mind) every time that it remembers something, then we have to question what exactly is the content here. You say that memory can provide content to fill gaps in the input raw material, but what is this content which the memory is providing? The mind is not making it up as pure fiction, but it is attempting to replicate something. But how could the mind replicate something which already happened in the past, unless it has that something to look at and copy? But if it has that something to look at, then that something is the real memory. Maybe the mind puts a token, or representation of the thing somewhere, but a token doesn't look like the thing itself, so the token can't produce the memory.

I think it's just a pure process, with no content. The mind learns a process, and it can repeat this process. It's entirely formal, a process free from material content. The process creates the impression, whether or not there is any input from the senses. In its fundamental "pure" form, there is no sense input, no raw material, just a formal process. That process allows itself to be affected by raw material.

But the internal process could be just in idle, energized and waiting for the next raw material to process, operating under the condition where there isn’t any. The process doesn’t stop operating in the absence of raw material, for the conscious mind is stil conscious even in idle mode. The process can still recall impressions of things from memory to present to the conscious mind, using that, not as raw material.....because it isn’t raw material, that being the input from sense alone....but as mere impressions as such. In this case, there isn’t any gap to be dropped into, so there isn’t any ceasing of the process because the wrong impression was recalled. — Mww

I see it similar to this, except I see no necessity for raw material. The mind can continually create impressions without any raw material, like in the case of dreams and memories. But then it can also do the same in thinking, manufacturing conceptions, mathematical axioms etc., without any real need for new raw material. The difference between this type of impression, and the ones which use sense input, is that the mind uses the sense input to learn new processes and techniques, because the sense input is stimulus which excites new feelings, and new challenges for the mind. So it's sort of ironic because the process is fundamentally free to do anything, but it won't do anything until provided with the initiative, because it has to first learn how to do something. So novelty comes not from freedom, but from being subjected to new limitations.

The internal process by which the conscious mind gets its pre-manufactured impression of objects of sense from consciousness, is nothing but pure thought. — Mww

I don't see how you can validate this idea of a "pre-manufactured impression". How could the mind store an impression?

Easy-Peasey...... — Mww

Maybe, but like I said, sometimes taking the easy way is to be misled.

"Inductive reasoning" produces general principles. It is not defined as "expectation based on prior experience", whatever that means. When I awake in the morning, and I am not surprised, because I see things in my bedroom to be as they were, I am not applying inductive reasoning at this moment when I open my eyes.

In your deceptive definition of terms, Janus, you do not separate out the specific thing being defined, from the general category of which it is a part. So if there is there is a general attitude in a mind, which we could call "expectation based on prior experience", and also there is a much more refined, very specific form of this general attitude, directed and applied in a very specific way, which we call "inductive reasoning". The proposition that inductive reasoning is a form, or specific type, of expectation based on prior experience, if we accept that as a true premise, does not produce the conclusion that all instances of expectation based on prior experience are instances of inductive reasoning.

This seems to be your MO, you define the more specific word as something more general. Then you try to put forward the argument that we ought to accept as reality that the more specifically named thing is occurring everywhere that we see the more general occurring. What's the point to such an argument. Is it your intent to reduce the capacity of deductive reasoning through the use of vague definitions?

You don't seem to understand what inductive reasoning is.

Inductive reasoning is a method of reasoning in which a body of observations is synthesized to come up with a general principle.[1] — Wikipedia

Your example of the sniffing dog is not an example of a dog deriving a general principle from a body of observations.

Two distinct impressions the mind gets, yes. The immediate from perception, the mediate from the mind itself. The impression the mind presents to itself is not immediately sensed, so in that respect, they are not the same type of impression. Technically, then, we can say the impression from sense is an appearance, the impression from the mind on itself, is a recollection of an appearance. — Mww

The point though is that to be in the memory is not the same as to be in the mind (the reasoning process), because things which are being thought about are in the mind, while things in the memory are not necessarily being thought about. So I do not think we can accurately say that this impression which is derived from the memory is derived from the mind itself. We might divide the mind, like Augustine did. He proposed three parts, memory, understanding (or reason), and will. Each is understood as a sort of distinct faculty, but operating together as one trinity.

What is relevant to our discussion is that these impressions derived from memory are more fallible than impressions derived directly from sense. And, we have to account for where they are derived from. They are similar to sense impressions, yet they are produced by an internal system without the necessity of sense input. So we have to assume a different sort of intuition involved int the creation of these impressions which do not utilize immediate sense input, they are created from an internal source. We have a whole category of such things, dreams, creative fantasies, and even mathematical axioms might be placed into this category.

Since I described these things through reference to memory you called them "recollection of an appearance". But this is clearly not accurate because of the fictional aspect. And as evident in dreams, the fiction need not be a product of the conscious mind. So this category of internal intuitions includes a creative element which is other than the creativity of the conscious mind. This nonintentional (or perhaps more properly called undirected intention) is very evident in dreams, and also in certain instances of memory we might call creative memory, which produces a defective recollection with manufactured parts. We must be very wary of this 'behind the scenes' creativity, especially in its epistemological presence, in fields like pure mathematics, because it is often faulty.

But distinction in impressions on the mind is not the same as distinctions in intuitions given to the mind. Not yet worked on by the mind implies no knowledge; worked on by the mind implies knowledge. Otherwise, why have a working mind? An impression we know must be very different than an impression we don’t know, but that doesn’t qualify intuitions themselves as being of different types, or, there being one type of intuition for this impression and another for that impression. — Mww

The problem now, is that if you use "knowledge" in this way, you allow these varying degrees of fallibility into what we are calling "knowledge". Things derived from memory are manufactured by the internal process and presented to the conscious mind in a way similar to the way that things derived from sensation are manufactured and presented to the conscious mind, but the difference is in the raw 'material', content. You are saying that the content of the internal (non-sense) process uses 'knowledge' as the content, but I am saying that this supposed 'knowledge' has a high degree of fallibility and ought not be called 'knowledge'.

If I remember something, I will call this "knowing", in common parlance. But in the stricter, epistemological sense, knowledge requires justification. "I remember it that way" does not qualify as justification, so this content, derived from the internal source is not "knowledge" in the epistemological sense. This is the problem Wittgenstein approaches in the Philosophical Investigations, internal justification is not proper justification. The issue is that "worked on by the mind" as an internal process, does not imply "knowledge", in the stricter sense of the word.

Which is a perfect rendition of the intrinsic circularity of the human cognitive system. We use reason to examine ourselves, ourselves being that which reasons. We can never examine the inside of the self. We merely call it self-consciousness, represent it to ourselves as “I”, and reason from it, to everything else, by using a system reason itself invents. Like it or not, we’re stuck with it because we’re human. Or, we need to come up with a better explanatory, albeit speculative, methodology. Which hasn’t happened since 1787. — Mww

I wouldn't characterize the process as circular, because it does make progress, as you say progress occurred in 1787. And small amounts of progress do occur consistently. An inward spiral is not a circle, because it proceeds further and further inward, though it might appear to many who do not observe many revolutions, as circular.

Since "reason" is essentially method, then each advancement involves changes to methodology. Coming up with a better methodology, is exactly what I am proposing that we have a need for. The 'better methodology' is the different type of logic required to understand the internal.

Place future possible things in this category, yes. I can place existent things in this category just as well, insofar as experience only qualifies my condition, not that of the object. There’s millions of existent things I can think about and never hope to experience. — Mww

To place present existent things into the category of future possible things would be a category error. The exact "present" is fleeting, and indeterminate, because by the time anything is pointed to as present, it is gone into the past. So the judgement of present and existent, is produced from past experience. A continuity of presence is observed over a temporal duration in the past, and extended to the current present, as "now", and the existent at present is determined, judged by us, in this way. So present "existent things" really refers to things of the past, with the assumption of continuity at some indeterminable "now".

So present is a junction between the determinate past, and the indeterminable now. What is existent at the present "now" is indeterminable because the future consists only of "possible things" while the past consist of determinate things, and we do not understand how this changes at "the present. Our conception of "existent things" is a product of past experience, and you can place "possible things" in this category if you want, but I think that would be a category mistake.

Agreed, in an off-handed way you may not appreciate, insofar as the object I perceived is “real” in a way the object I haven’t perceived is “real”, because, for me, they are both equally represented by my cognitive system, the past thing “real” as a phenomenon, the future thing just as “real” as a mere conception. Again....differences in source faculties within the system, not differences in logic used by the system.

Now, the actual reality of the thing may be quite different, insofar as the past thing certainly existed, whereas the future thing may not, so it is correct to say I have no reason to affirm one is more REAL....that is to say, more existent....than the other, and I am in fact logically prohibited from claiming such is the case. Logically permitted is exactly the same kind of logic as logically prohibited, the difference being merely the conditions manifest in the premises and not its operation by means of them. — Mww

Consider the difference I described above, concerning the internal manufacturing of the impression derived from memory, relative to the more direct production of the impression derived straight from sensation. If we proceed now to a representation of a future thing, from memory, we need a further level of manufacturing, and a further level implies another opportunity for mistake, therefore more fallibility, in anything produced as a future impression.

This is where I see the biggest failure in our logical systems. We have immediate impressions at the present. And we have two distinct types of less immediate, 1) memories of the past, and 2) anticipations of the future. But when we proceed toward making an impression of a future thing, we employ the empirical method, turn to memories of the thing in the past, and flip this around toward the future, to make the future impression, instead of turning directly toward our anticipations of the future, to produce our impressions of a future thing. So this is where the empirical method totally misleads us. We think that we can turn to the thing in the past, and from this produce a representation of the thing in the future, but all we do here is produce a larger probability of mistake. In reality, to produce a proper representation of a thing in the future, we need to look directly at how the thing in the future appears to us, in anticipation, and use this to produce our representation of the thing in the future. We need to look directly at intention, to understand our intuitions of future things.

There is a fundamental difference in the type of internal object, sure, but why not simply because of the fundamental differences in their respective sources? If the different types of internal objects came from the same source, in what way could we say they are different? All conceptions represent different objects, but all conceptions, as internal objects of the faculty of understanding, are all the same type, just as phenomena represent different objects but are all the same type of object of the faculty of intuition, or maybe we could say the same species, respectively. — Mww

The different sources for the internal object produce the need for a different type of analysis. Having a different source means that they are different species. So, we have memories which originate from the past, and anticipations which originate from the future. Right away, we can see a logical problem, saying that something originates from the future. This is indicative of our faulty way of looking at the future, through the past, then reflecting the past, onto the future. and using the same descriptive terminology. The terminology does not apply properly. It's evident that we have not adequately developed the proper way to discuss things which have the future as their source.

Even the goals and objectives are different respecting different types of objects. If the goal is empirical knowledge of the world because it is always objectively conditioned, we require both kinds of internal objects; if the goal is proper moral activity, which is always subjectively conditioned, we have no need of the type of internal object found in intuition. Although, post hoc, we will need intuition to determine whether or not our moral activity is in fact properly moral. — Mww

What I'm talking about is a categorical difference, so that the different species are not reducible to being of the same genus. When the different species of objects do not have the same source, i.e. part of the same genus, we need to assume different genera.

Yep, I surely do. The logic is the same; what the logic concerns, doesn’t have to be. It is the difference between the form of logic as such, and the conceptions contained in its propositional architecture. — Mww

Perhaps, this is the way that the two types of internal objects are commonly treated, by logicians, as being different content, yet subject to the same form of logic, but what I am saying is that this is a mistake. I'm arguing that the different types of content, are subject to real distinctions, therefore requiring different forms of logic, to be properly understood. The further problem though, is that to distinguish one type of content from another, is to apply formal principles, so we already fall back on a type of logic here. This implies the need for a third type of logic, the type needed to distinguish which things are of one category of content, and which things are of the other. The "form of logic" needs to be structured so as to adequately deal with the type of content. We have one type of content which is an indeterminate future, another type which is a determined past, and a third type which is both.

Logic improperly employed is still logic. — Mww

No, it really isn't still logic, unless we can demonstrate the logic which justifies the judgement of "improperly", and show that this is somehow proper, therefore still logic. And this is the mistake made by Janus. If the process is invalid, then it is not logical and cannot be called logic. To be logical is to properly follow the principles. If you say that it is "improperly employed" then you are saying it is illogical, therefore it cannot be logic.

This is the whole point. If you ground "proper" and "improper" in some sort of "ought", which is other than that which is described by the rules of the logic, then we need another type of logic to determine "proper and "improper" in this sense. This would allow that the person is using logic, but the way that the person is using the logic is "improper" by some other rules, therefore some other logic. Then we could make sense of "Logic improperly employed is still logic", because the "improper" is determined by some other type of logic, rather than the logic which is said to be employed. If it is not determined by some type of logic, then the judgements of "improper" or "proper" have no validity, and we would have to turn to the logic itself, which is said to be "improperly employed", and there'd be no justification for the claim that it is "logic".

While the content of logic can be of real-world things, the content can also be of things thought and felt, with equal justice, from which follows that logic itself cannot belong to any faculty of mere perception, which justifies the idea that logic is a purely formal condition of human understanding and reason. — Mww

Because of the difference in content, we need a difference in form as well. Different types of content submit to different formal structures. This is fundamental to art. The freedom to create a form is limited by the medium, or content used. We can see that "real-world things", is a medium, or content of past experience, empirical truth, what is and what is not, based in our judgements of past experience. Also, we can understand that future goals, objectives, as "what ought to be", is a medium, or content of future expectations. These two distinct type of content clearly require distinct formal structures of logic to understand them.

As Aristotle showed, the three fundamental laws of logic, identity, non-contradiction, and excluded middle, break down, or are inapplicable to future occurrences. This is because the judgement of truth and falsity is inapplicable to future events. He insisted that we maintain the law of non-contradiction, and allow exception to the law of excluded middle. This means that there is neither truth nor falsity to the future event, and that is what he proposed, we cannot speak about future things in those terms because they do not apply. The modern trend following Hegel, dialectical materialism, and dialetheism is to deny the applicability of the law of non-contradiction. This means that contradiction could be acceptable in statements about future things. This perspective is incorporated into modern physics, the energy moves as a particle and as a wave, contradiction. And the particle both is, and is not, at a specific place, because being a wave at the same time allows for this.

What we ought to be able to see, is that the real problem is not with non-contradiction, or excluded middle, it is with with identity. The future thing, not having a material existence as a particular, really cannot have a proper identity. This renders both non-contradiction, and excluded middle as inapplicable. But now we have the problem of producing a form of logic which can deal with this type of content, things without identity.

So, back to the is/ought. What "is", is identifiable things, and this can be dealt with by classical logical principles, truth and falsity. What "ought to be" is not something which can be properly identified, therefore there is no truth and falsity. But we have another choice term, "good". The logic which deals with "good" is not the same as the logic which deals with truth, because the object cannot be properly identified.

Already addressed; read more carefully and you might avoid further misunderstandings. — Janus

Sorry Janus, I'm not interested in your manipulation of ill-defined words for the purpose of deceptive sophistry. Your conclusion, "if the rabbit didn't go down either of those paths it went down this one" is not "inferential", because without the premise "the rabbit must have gone down one of the three", it is not valid logic. And if it is not valid we cannot say it is "inferential". If you remove the criteria, that valid logic must be employed to call the conclusion "inferential", then any decision whatsoever, can be said to be inferential. But "inference" under this use does not require logic. So even if the dog made an inference, under this definition, we cannot conclude that the dog used logic.

The dog sniffed a couple places, got tired of the trial and error process, and ran down the nearest path, and you claim that this is "inference". You show absolutely no discipline in your usage of the term.

You're conflating deductive with inductive logic. The classic example, given by an ancient Greek thinker whose name escapes me at the moment, describes a dog tracking a rabbit by scent along a path; when the single path forks into three she is observed sniffing down two paths and when no scent is detected on those, immediately continuing pursuit, without bothering to sniff, down the third. This is inferential: we would express it as "if the rabbit didn't go down either of those paths it went down this one". It doesn't matter that the dog could be mistaken and that the rabbit might have gone off into the bushes; not all inferences are correct; and not discounted as inferences if they are shown to be incorrect. — Janus

Again, you demonstrate the same problem I already pointed out. You obviously didn't get what I meant. The rabbit didn't necessarily go down a path, logically, it could have gone anywhere, therefore the dog's conclusion was not a logical conclusion. It does matter that the rabbit could have gone anywhere, because the only way we have valid logic is by assuming the unstated premise that the rabbit must have gone down one of the three paths. Only through this premise can you logically conclude the third path, by excluding the first two. So the dog did not use logic, because what it concluded was invalid. It concluded that if it wasn't the first or the second, it must be the third, without considering other logical possibilities. That's illogical, when all other possibilities are not excluded. Therefore the dog did not use logic. And I will not accept your sophistic attempt to define "inference" in such a way which allows an illogical conclusion to be called an "inference".

That other animals don't use logic is an implausible assumption in my view. When I used to throw the ball for the dog onto the verandah and it went over the edge to drop onto the ground below, and he didn't see it go over, he used to look everywhere on the verandah, and when the ball was not to be found would immediately run down to look on the ground below. he didn't run off somewhere else in the garden but only looked where the ball could plausibly be, since it could only have gone off the verandah in the direction I was able to throw it. And he did this from the very first time the ball went over the edge, so it wasn't merely an acquired habit.

Of course animals don't self-reflectively use logic; that is they are not aware that they are using logic, and they don't have thoughts like "I am using logic"; but logic is everywhere inherent, obviously to greater or lesser degrees, in the perceptions of both humans and animals, if the behavior of the latter is anything to go by. — Janus

I did reply to this post, the first time you posted it.

I really don't think that we can truthfully say that an individual (dog or whatever animal) uses "logic" without being aware of it. This activity would not fulfill the common definition of "logic" which is a learned activity following a specific method. My OED calls it "the science of reasoning...". The method employed must be identifiable, and categorizable as a specified type of "logic", following the method of that type. Adhering to the method is what makes it science.

So I think this form of intentional activity which is sort of seen as unintentional because we cannot identify the specific intentions involved, or the specific thinking method, is not correctly described by words like "logic" which have a specific corresponding intelligible concept. When you call something which is squarish, "a square", you provide yourself the opportunity to mislead people if they accept your proposition, 'this is a square'. So I will not accept your proposition that a dog uses logic, to protect myself from being misled by you.

Logic on the basic level is just simple deduction like "if not this, then that", although obviously not expressed linguistically in the case of animals. — Janus

This is clearly not an example of simple logic, because it is invalid. Out of many possibilities, you cannot conclude that if it's not one it's necessarily a particular one of the others. You are missing a premise here, the premise which states that it must be either this or that. The dog does not grasp this premise, the law of excluded middle, that a proposition must be false if it's not true.

Since I don't believe basic rational inference is dependent on possessing language I see no problem in ascribing varying degrees of capacity for it to animals. — Janus

This is a very real problem. "Inference" has a very specific, almost technical definition. It means to form a conclusion from premises. Clearly it requires language to make premises. When you do not adhere to accepted definitions, allowing yourself to use words in an ambiguous, or ill-defined way, to make an argument, you engage in sophistry and your intent can only be seen as the intent to deceive. That is a very real problem.

Actually, on further reflection, I think that the ability of animals to plan and act according to goal-directed purposes (something also central to the Steve Talbott article) supports the idea that reason, per se, is not solely confined to the conscious intellectual operations of h. sapiens, but rather is somehow latent or potentially existent throughout the organic world. But the 'something more' that h. sapiens has, is the ability to consciously recognise it. — Wayfarer

I agree with this. There is intention, purpose displayed throughout the living world. The problem is with distinguishing intent, as it manifests within the human consciousness, as consisting of specific definable goals, and intent as it exist within the natural world, as an undefinable source of direction. Intent, in its natural form, wells up within us, in the form of primitive desires and wants, but the human mind has developed a method for analyzing those basic feelings, subjecting them to what we call "reason", and resisting those temptations which are designated as unreasonable.

So we as human beings have a very specific type of "intent", layered on top of the natural intent. This is the self-conscious "intent" of the human being which is the most common use of the general term. "Intent" under this definition refers to the goals which the human mind, in its filtering, altering, and specifying, of the natural intent, comes up with. It is rational intent, unless the human being is designated as acting irrationally.

But when we go to define "intention", if we say that this self-consciousness is an essential aspect of intent, we make self-consciousness the broader term, therefore logically prior to, intention. Then self-consciousness would be required for intention. This can be seen as a mistake, because then all the purposeful activities of living beings appear as outside the realm of intentional, and these activities become unintelligible to us. So it is better to define "intention" with reference to "purpose", making self-conscious intention a specific type of the broader, more general "intention". Then "intention" is seen as logically prior to self-consciousness, being essential to self-consciousness, and required for it. The more general term is logically prior to the more specific, as essential to it, like "animal" is logically prior to, as essential to "human being". Definition in this way is what enables deductive reasoning. If an individual is human, one is necessarily animal, as "animal" is logically prior to (essential to) human.

Anyway, all that to say this: you are correct in saying there are two types of objects, external and internal, but incorrect in saying these are two types of intuitions. The two types of representations corresponding to the two types of objects are united into a single type, which is called cognition, on which only one type of logic is needed in order to determine the validity of it, which is called judgement. As an oversimplification, it is in this way that perception of something with wings, known as such from antecedent experience, is immediately cognized as what it may be, but as yet with insufficient judgement for what it is. — Mww

I'll state very clearly and concisely the reason why I believe there must be two types of intuition for the two types of objects whose impressions are received into the conscious mind. Let's say that the conscious mind must work, or make effort to understand an impression given to it. From the senses the mind gets an immediate impression, one not yet worked on by the conscious mind. From the memory the mind gets an impression already worked on by the mind. So we have right here, two very distinct forms of impressions, the virgin, and the ones already worked on.

I believe it is necessary to allow for the possibility of virgin impressions, because these are the most immediate, up to date, and present in time. To the conscious mind, the virgin impression appears very real, every sensation is new to the mind, so all seem to the mind, to be unaffected by the mind, therefore virgin. But if we allow "mind" to include subconscious activities of the brain, then the claimed "virgin impression" within the conscious part, is just an unrealistic looking ideal. The impression is presented as virgin to the conscious part, but it's already been worked on by the subconscious part. Even in the case of a sense which seems very immediate, like eyesight, the impression is well worked on by the subconscious brain before it is present to the conscious mind.

By insisting on this division, between the immediately present, and the represented, we can understand that the conscious mind itself is actually not immediately present, it is entirely representative in respect to its relation to empirical phenomena. The conscious mind works with representations, not immediate images. The immediately present is an ideal which the conscious mind attempts as a goal, (it's the goal of scientific observation for example), but necessarily fails in its attempts to obtain immediacy, because this is impossible from the empirical perspective.

Now, even though the reality is that all these sense impressions are to some extent representations, produced through, amongst other things, the application of memory, the ideal which is the immediate present, serves the conscious mind to divide and separate intuitions of the future from intuitions of the past. This is what we haven't really touched on, intuitions directed toward the future. Notice the inversion, in relation to the conscious mind. The mind is directed by intuitions from the past (sensations), yet it directs intuitions toward the future. The ideal. is not the immediate present (eternal and removed from time), but what lies on the other side of the present, in the future, as the goal, or object. This renders the ideal object as more than just fantasy or fiction, but just as real as the empirical object, being validated by the reality of the future, as the empirical object is validated by the reality of the past.

So say it is a tool, and he shows you what it does.....you still perceive the object in exactly the same way as when you didn’t know what it was for. If the object itself didn’t change, then the intuition of it couldn’t have changed, which makes explicit the understanding of it must be the sole factor in whatever judgement you came to for its use.

Now, under the conditions you propose, you are using one type of logic for your ignorance, and a different type of logic for your knowledge. Wouldn’t it be the more parsimonious to suppose ignorance is the inability to use any logic, than to suppose ignorance uses a logic of its own kind? — Mww

So the other type of intuition I am talking about, is of the goal itself, as an object, not an intuition of the tool. The tool may be a material object, understood through intuitions which relate to sense impressions, or the tool may be a concept, understood through its application toward ends, and the intuitions involved with the objects of intention. In reality the two mix together in complex relations

I'm not talking about one type of intuition for knowledge, and another for ignorance, because both the internal and external share in known and unknown.

Intuitions represent the object the feeling is directed toward. — Mww

Now, do you accept the reality of "the object" as a goal? And when feelings are directed toward these objects, there must be intuitions involved?

I love my car, the car I can intuit because it is an object, but I do not intuit the love of it. In short, love, hate joy, disgust and feelings in general, are not phenomena, those being the objects of intuitions. We can accede to this, because sometimes we have feelings, but either cannot describe them (because the object to which they relate is unknown), or, we simply don’t know why we even have that feeling in the first place (because the object to which it relates contradicts your experience). — Mww

You are assuming that the material object is something known, and intuition is of the known. I assume that the object is fundamentally an unknown. Regardless, my point is that there are aspects of the material object which are known, and aspects unknown, likewise with ideal objects. The known and unknown of the material are fundamentally different from the known and unknown of the ideal, and that's why we need a different sort of logic for each.

The key is the notion that feelings are not cognitions, but are just some condition in which the subject finds himself. You were all fine and dandy one minute, somebody stepped on your toe the next, and POW!!!....your condition.....the condition of yourself....immediately changes, directly proportional to the feeling in your toe and your reaction to it. And you never cognized a single thing in that briefest of instances. That there is something wrong with your foot is far systematically antecedent to the cognition of the cause of it. — Mww

Do you see, that just like there is a material object of sensation which is responsible for a sense intuition, there must also be an intuition involved with the sensation, or feeling of pain in the foot, described in your example? You said "intuitions represent the object the feeling is directed toward". The object in your example is the pain in the foot. The feeling is directed toward this, so there must be an intuition which represents the pain in the foot.

Absolutely, which makes explicit the natural duality of the particular human cognitive system. On the one hand, as you sit there looking out the window, you perceive all that is presented to your senses. But if you shut off your senses, or make it so nothing is given to them, or just not pay any attention to those that get through, you can still think any object you like, those you know from experience and those you might know if you ever do experience them. But you can also sit there and think objects you will never experience, either because they exist but are nonetheless beyond your capability, or they don’t exist at all. But either way, you understand something about each and every one of them, and judge them accordingly, otherwise you wouldn’t be able to explain how they were thought. — Mww

All right, I see you have a good understanding of what I was saying here. Now, when you say you can think any object you like, even ones you've never experienced before, place future things in this category. The future thing has a degree of reality which is comparable to the past thing which has been perceived through the senses. In fact, there is no reason to affirm that one is more "real" than the other. But notice how the judgements which we make concerning future things require a completely different type of principles from judgements we make about past things.

With respect to what you said, though, I submit there are two conditions under which the system can be directed inward, one in consideration of the world but without the sense of it, when you sit there and only think about it, and the other is with nothing whatsoever to do with the world. To direct the cognitive system inward without any regard for the world at all, is to employ the faculties of the system on itself. But if that is the case, and all the objects of experience and thought related to experience are eliminated from contention....where does that which we are inwardly directed toward, come from? What do the faculties of the system employ themselves on? Even to say they operate by different principles, principles are meaningless without something to which they apply, so we still need the something. — Mww

These are the goals, the objects of intention. In a sense they have "nothing whatsoever to do with the world", because they have to do with what is wanted, and this is completely distinct from what is. The object of intention, the goal, I propose, Is fundamentally outside the world. I cannot answer your question, ;where does it come from', because that is an aspect of the intentional object which is fundamentally unknown. All I can say is that it comes from within. The "something" though, is the object, the goal, so we at least know what the principles need to be applied toward

So....one kind of object is given from sense, the other kind cannot be given from sense, so must be given from within the cognitive system itself. — Mww

It's not necessarily from within the cognitive system, depending on how you define "cognitive system". I think it's simply within the living system, and that's why other living beings also have goals, or different sorts of intention, or objectives in their activities. So when we turn the cognitive system inward, we see that it has a position sort of medium between the most inward and the most outward.

Our scientifically minded society goes completely outward, then it dissects the external objects in an attempt to get to the inside. However, this technique is fundamentally flawed, because the act of dissecting, or dividing, only brings the inside outward, such that it cannot be apprehended by us as being inside, because we have already brought it outside to be able to see (observe) it. We can only get a true approach to the inside by turning the cognitive system toward the inside of the self of which it is a part of. Then we do not go outward, and try to get back inward, which makes a mess of temporality due to the necessary delay, we turn the cognitive system directly toward the inside, to apprehend what is further inward from it.

But granting the differences in principles is most readily accomplished by granting differences in their source, rather than the form of their logic, in that it is possible for two differing sources can operate under one logic, if both the sources and the logic are all contained in and used by, a single unified cognitive system. — Mww

I do not agree that the same logic can be applied toward the possibilities of the future, as is applied toward the necessities of the past. There is a fundamental difference which one can easily apprehend. When we look to the past, there is a truth, a necessity of what actually happened. If we do not know exactly what happened, we can use a logic of possibility, in an attempt to determine the truth. But we know there is a truth, and all the possibilities are just logical possibilities, and there is a real, actual truth. When we turn to the future however, there may be a number of possibilities, and each one may have an equal chance of becoming true, depending on the choices which are made. So the sense of "possibility" is completely when referring to the past, from what it is when referring to the future.

One of the “vast” differences, then, is that the one object is empirically determined when the cognitive system is directed outward, the other “object” is rationally determinable when the cognitive system is directed inward and examines only itself. It would seem to be the case that for determinable rational objects, principles different from those which ground the propositions containing conceptions longing to objects of experience. But granting the differences in principles is most readily accomplished by granting differences in their source, rather than the form of their logic, in that it is possible for two differing sources can operate under one logic, if both the sources and the logic are all contained in and used by, a single unified cognitive system. — Mww

Yes, I suppose this is similar to what I am saying. The empirical object is determined necessarily, but not by the cognitive system, but by the reality of passing time, such that by the time it is observed it is in the past, determinate. The internal object, being based in goals and objectives, is somewhat indeterminate. But I would argue that the difference is not simply a difference of source, but a fundamental difference in the type of object.

There are differences in objects and principles, but they arise from differences in reason, not differences in logic. These all belong to a far different philosophy, the outer world of sense being epistemological, the inner world of feelings being moral. In the former Nature is the causality of its objects and they belong to it alone, in the latter it is we who are the causality of the objects and they belong to us alone. Just as there is no real physical basketball in our heads, there is no real physical beauty in the world. Reason in the former is pure theoretical, reason in the latter is pure practical. Judgement in the former is discursive, in the latter it is aesthetic. Imagination in the former is productive, in the latter it is re-productive. The former is conditioned by space and time, the latter is conditioned by our innate constitution. The former defines our intellect, the latter defines our character. The former concerns itself with what is, the latter concerns itself with what ought to be.

All without a necessary difference in logic as such. — Mww

Yes, this is the difference I'm talking about. But I surely do not see how you draw your conclusion "All without a necessary difference in logic as such". Do you recognize the difference between is and ought? If so, do you think that the same logic which we apply to "what is", will work just as well if we apply it to "what ought to be"?

That other animals don't use logic is an implausible assumption in my view. — Janus

Again, this is one of those definitional things. It all depends on how you understand "logic". If we have loose definitions, then all sorts of things qualify as "logic". So I don't think you can conclude necessarily that your dog uses logic, just from the description you've provided of his behaviour.

Take the process of 'trial and error' for example. There are ways that people use this process which clearly employ logic, but there are also ways that the named process may be applied which do not use logic. A simple case of not repeating an action because it ended in something unwanted qualifies as 'trial and error' but I would argue that it does not qualify as using 'logic'.

If we do not accurately describe the process which is being applied, and decisively define 'logic'. we can make all sorts of odd claims of where logic must have been applied. The process of evolution can be said to be a sort of trial and error. But if we say that this means that there is an intelligence involved, which is using logic, we run into peculiar difficulties. Then life itself must be some sort of intentional agent which is applying logic, and using trial and error to evolve itself.

And this just brings us to the problem which Banno demonstrated. Instead of attributing 'logic' to the individual beings which utilize it, we attribute it to the collective of beings. But this exposes the requirement for the fundamental difference in logical principles which I've been outlining.

The law of identity applies to a particular, an individual thing,. We can say that a thing necessarily has an identity, and we can proceed from here, to describe that thing. And, when we have a group of things, we can identify a common trait, and say that the things are 'the same' with respect to that aspect. This creates a whole, a set, which is not a true or real whole or thing, because it's artificial, fictional. Its identity is what we say it is. Rather than having its own identity within itself as the law of identity dictates for a true particular, the set has an identity which is assigned to it, therefore distinct from it. Therefore these are two distinct forms of objects.

So in those two instances, we have two distinct types of objects ("wholes"), the particular and the artificial collection of particulars. Now we need a third type, which is the real, or natural collection of individuals, which would would allow attributing properties to a natural group, and justify Banno's claim that reason is "a group enterprise". This object ("whole"), the group, is not a definable set, nor is it a particular with a unique identity. However, it seems to have some sort of real existence. So how do we make it an object which we can represent as a subject for predication, and employ logic? What type of object has no identity, neither that which is true to itself, as dictated by the law of identity, nor that which is assigned to it as an abstraction?

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These two comments of yours say different things, and the second doesn’t respond to mine. — Mww

You said: "But if it is the case we don’t function at all, in any way, shape or form, when we dismiss the basic principles of logic, then it is reasonable to suppose we couldn’t do that in the first place".

My point was that it is not the case that we wouldn't function at all without the basic principles of logic. Other animals and plants do not use logic and they still function. Young babies do not use logic, and they still function. So there is no reason to believe that without logic we couldn't function. That is my response, I dismiss that proposition as false, and so there is nothing more to say about it in response.

First it was the ground of the nature of logic, now it is the grounding of logic itself in substantiation. — Mww

Sorry, you misunderstood. I meant the nature of logic, and its grounding, meaning logic's grounding . I did not mean the grounding of the nature, which would be in itself a description. It was a simple case of me expressing myself poorly, so that you misunderstood what I meant, and not a case of me changing what I meant.

If it is the case that we are not conscious of our intuitions, in some strictly metaphysical sense, then it follows we do not apply our logic to them. — Mww

I don't think it is correct to say that we are not conscious of our intuitions. I think it is more correct to say that we do not necessarily understand them, but we are conscious of them. We might compare intuitions to our emotional feelings, they enter into our conscious mind, and influence the way we think, but we do not necessarily understand them very well. And since they do have some sort of presence to the conscious mind, we can apply logic to them. The difficulty is in producing accurate premises to work from.

Nevertheless, we are not stymied, insofar as we do apply logic to something, so even if we do not apply logic to our intuitions, then it must be the case we do apply them to that which arises from them. Under empirical conditions, that is. Again, because we do apply logic to that which is not under empirical conditions, the ground of empirical conditions, which is intuition, does not qualify as a condition of the nature of logic, but merely the employment of it with respect to understanding the external world. — Mww

What I meant is that we are stymied in our attempt to apply logic directly to the features of the external world, because we can only apply logic to our intuitions concerning the world. And, as explained above, we do not necessarily understand our intuitions, so the premises which we work with might not be accurate.

Now, I read this sentence ("Again, because we do apply logic to that which is not under empirical conditions, the ground of empirical conditions, which is intuition, does not qualify as a condition of the nature of logic, but merely the employment of it with respect to understanding the external world.") over and over, because it seems to be the key to understanding what you are claiming, but I can't get it. Can you try to explain this to me?

Truth be told, I don’t think it proper to say logic is something human beings create. Logical principles, yes, logical conditions, logical this or that, sure. But logic itself, I think, is just the natural modus operandi of the human being himself. We just are logical creatures, from which we can say the nature of logic just is the nature of human beings. — Mww

I do not think that this is correct, and this difference between the way you understand "logic" and the way I understand "logic" is probably why I couldn't understand that last sentence. I think that human beings existed before they started using logic, just like babies exist before they start using logic. So children have to learn logic before they become logical, and human beings had to learn logic as well, before they became logical. Therefore, I think that logic is not "the natural modus operandi of the human being", it is something which human beings have learned.

This is why I suggested that human beings use different types of logic to understand different types of things. Internal intuitions require a different type of logic than do the external.

The importance disappears if it is the case that all intuitions are internal, which they would be if all they do is represent physical objects, and those only given by a particular cognitive system. — Mww

But not all intuitions represent physical objects, some represent internal feelings, like emotions. This is the problem. Any particular cognitive system, when directed inward, needs different principles of understanding, from when it is directed outwards. The two types of "objects" to be understood by these two different directions are so vastly different, that I think they require fundamentally different forms of "logic".

External intuition simply refers to the possibility of an external object... — Mww

OK, now if we can say external intuition refers to the possibility of an external object, can we say that "internal intuition" refers to the possibility of an internal object? And if these two types of "objects" are fundamentally different, then the two types of intuitions will be fundamentally different. And if the two types of intuition are fundamentally different, then we need two types of logic.

Technically, Kant speaks of understanding from an external sense or from an internal sense. And in that formula, is found the fundamental differences in how space and time are to be understood, if only with respect to transcendental philosophy. But that stuff is deep and convoluted as hell, and requires a whole bunch of blind head-nodding I’m here ta tell ya, so...best maybe leave all that alone here. — Mww

Well, no. The deepest, most convoluted part is the best part. If our goal is to understand, why leave the best part alone?

After wading through five pages, we arrive at, in a damn footnote, of all things.... — Mww

I find that in Kant, the footnotes have the best explanatory information.

"...Now, as I do not possess another intuition of self which gives the determining in me (of the spontaneity of which I am conscious), prior to the act of determination, in the same manner as time gives the determinable, it is clear that I am unable to determine my own existence as that of a spontaneous being, but I am only able to represent to myself the spontaneity of my thought...” — Mww

I think this is similar to what I was saying earlier. When we move from trying to understand space, toward trying to understand time, because what we learn about space forces us to recognize that an understanding of time is logically required in order to understand space, then there is nowhere to turn but to one's own presence in time, to derive that understanding. Then we must apprehend the internal intuitions.

Anyway....you have great thoughts and you’re not entirely wrong. Just not quite right. But then....is anybody? And by “right” I just mean we’d agree more often than not. — Mww

Thank you Mww, that makes me feel good, and you seem to be honest. But I would appreciate it if you could refrain from automatically designating the person who doesn't agree with you, as not right.

We do not intuit time or space; we intuit objects in time and space. To intuit is to follow from sensation, and the sensation proper of time or space is impossible, insofar as both are conceived as infinite and empty. — Mww

I'd say "to intuit" is not well defined, and people use "intuition" in various different ways which are pretty much all quite vague. Intuition may refer to immediate apprehension by the mind, or it may refer to immediate sense apprehension, perception. The latter would follow from sensation, but the former not necessarily so.

There's a further problem with the concept of "conception". If conception is understood as something the mind does, to create a concept in one's mind, or if conception is understood as receiving a concept from somewhere else, these two different modes of understanding produce different ways of apprehending "intuition".

Our discussion concerns the apprehension of space and time, and I've already cautioned you about the need to separate these two, i.e. not to place them in the same category as both being apprehended in the same way. We can see that "space" is fundamentally conceived out of necessity, it is necessary that we allow that there is something called "space", the medium within which objects exist, allowing them to move around. The conception of "space" is necessary to allow for the reality of independent objects.

But the issue of how we conceive of "time" is far more difficult. This I believe, is because we already have a sense of before and after, within us, by the time we are born. As we grow it manifests as the difference between memory of the past, and anticipation of the future. But I believe a fundamental respect for a difference between future and past is already inherent within the constitution of living beings. This supports a more specific sense of "intuition" which is based in what we know as "instinct".

So I think we apprehend the difference between future and past in a way which is not the product of a logical necessity like our apprehension of space; the concept of space being something required to make sensation intelligible. It is already deep within our constitution as a base for fundamental disposition, and the problem is that we cannot call this a form of understanding. I can say that I intuit a difference between past and future, but I cannot say that this is derived from sensation, nor can I say that it's a product of any logical reasoning. It's something I've received, or simply have, but I do not understand it, nor can I conceptualize it, or sense it in any real way.

Second, the most basic mathematical principles are subsumed under the schema of quantity, not relation, or, in your terms, order. — Mww

I thought the same, but I was corrected in this forum, where there are many participants who are well versed in math. If you look at mathematical axioms you'll see that cardinals are derived from ordinals. And even as far back as Plato there was questioning concerning the relation between quantity and order. Ultimately, we can see that One was understood as first, rather than as a quantity.

When we are very young we learn to count, and counting is first learned as ordering, two comes after one. This is what makes "numbers" so consistent with platonic realism, the number itself is seen as an object with a place in an order. If a number simply signified a quantity, we'd say the numeral signified the quantity, and there would be no need for "the number" as an intermediary between the numeral and the quantity. But since the numerals are used to signify an order, then we have to assume something which occupies that place in the order, hence "the number". Then one comes before two, and two comes before three, etc.. These are not the symbols we are talking about, but the assumed numbers themselves, which have that order, and the symbols, the numerals, represent the numbers.

True enough. But if it is the case we don’t function at all, in any way, shape or form, when we dismiss the basic principles of logic, then it is reasonable to suppose we couldn’t do that in the first place, insofar as we must use them in order to assume their dismissal. It follows that if we cannot assume to dismiss them, we are left with merely getting them as correct as we can. — Mww

I don't agree with this at all, and I've argued it in many places in this forum. We do not need to assume replacement principles to reject principles which we find unacceptable. This is fundamental to skepticism, we can reject principles without replacing them. And, rejection itself need not be principled. So for example, if I refer to this fundamental instinct, this "feeling" which I have concerning the difference between past and future, I cannot understand this instinct, nor can I formulate it in a principled way. However, I can reject propositions based solely on this "feeling" which I have. So we can reject propositions based on "feelings", and dismiss them, though the rejection is fundamentally unjustified, therefore not properly principled, and others might call this rejection "irrational".

Sorry, but the nature of logic is in judgement, not intuition. — Mww

That's not what I said though, I said it was grounded in intuition. And the grounding of logic, substantiation, what makes validity work for us, is fundamentally different from logic itself. The grounding has to do with the relationship between logic and our world. "Substance" is what grounds logic, but it is not a part, or characteristic of logic itself.

Think of it this way: you know how when we perceive something, when we are affected by some imprint on the senses, we are never conscious of the information that flows along the nerves? We sense the beginning, we cognize what the beginning was, at the end, in the brain, but all that between, we know nothing about whatsoever. THAT is intuition, in the proper, albeit metaphysical, sense. And because we are never conscious of our intuitions, but we are certainly conscious of the judgements we make on our sensations from which the intuition is given, and logical determinations are the objects of judgements alone, it follows necessarily that intuition cannot stand in any relation to the nature of logic. It may be said intuition is the ground for the possibility of logical determinations, but that is not to say they determine the nature of logic. — Mww

So I think that what you say here about "intuition" is consistent with what I said about intuition grounding logic, if you understand the difference between logic itself, and the grounding of logic. But I obviously do not see the basis for your conclusion "it follows necessarily that intuition cannot stand in any relation to the nature of logic". Remember that standing in relation to something is different from being a part of that thing.

What is at issue is your final phrase here, "but that is not to say they determine the nature of logic", and how we understand "the nature of logic". What is the nature of logic? Where does it come from, and how does it exist? However one answers these questions, and there are different possible answers depending on one's metaphysics, dictates whether this proposition is judged as true or false. If logic is something produced by the conscious mind, for the purpose of understanding all this information you describe as being between the thing perceived, and the perception of it, what you call "intuition", then the exact opposite of what you state is the case. Logic is something created by the conscious mind, shaped and formed for the purpose of understanding intuition, therefore intuition determines the nature of logic.

It is far too common, for people to attempt to associate logic to an external world which is the object of perception. Then they will try to see how logic works to understand this external world. But that is to ignore all which is intermediate, what is between logic and the world, what you call "intuition" here. The problem of course being that we cannot apply logic directly to the external world, all we have is the in between, the information received, the intuitions, to apply logic to. So even if logic is something created by human beings for the purpose of understanding the external world, we are stymied in our attempts to apply it because all we have is intuitions about the external world to apply it to.

Besides....there are those occasions when we employ logical principles even without an intuition, without an object making an impression on the senses. Case in point....the guy that invented the Slinky. Sure, springs and stuff falling are sensuous impressions, but you can’t get a Slinky as such, from those two intuitions. To connect those into an object that doesn’t yet exist requires more than the antecedent intuition of each. In just the same way, you cannot get to 12 if all you have is a 7 and a 5. — Mww

This is why we need to distinguish internal intuitions from external intuitions. This I think is very important. If we simply say that logic gets applied to intuitions, and if internal intuitions are fundamentally different from external intuitions, then we'd need different logic for internal than we need for external.

Kant, I believe outlined this division, space as the condition for understanding external intuitions, and time as the condition for understanding internal intuitions. The senses are the principal medium in the external intuitions, and emotions, or "feelings" (in that sense) are the principal medium for internal intuitions. The internal intuitions are not well understood, because the observations required for science are difficult. Internal intuitions are often compared to, and even described by the same terms as the external, internal "sensations", and internal "feelings" for example. But we do have a clear division in definition of "intuition", between immediately apprehended by the mind, and immediately apprehended through the senses.

Maybe, the red pill and the blue pill actually consist of the very same thing?

Actually though, I think there is a very real difference, which involves the relationship between space and time. As explained in my post, intuitively, time is logically prior to space. And for any person who takes a few moments to contemplate this question, in meditation or any other mystical practise, this intuition starts to become very clear. But in the science of physics, this order has been reversed, such that space is prior to time. Therefore we can conclude that our true intuitions must be suppressed for the sake of adopting the time/space relationship employed by physics.

When presented with this problem, we can proceed toward resolution by assuming that our basic intuition of time is wrong, or by assuming that the representation of time employed within physics is wrong, (or both). But if we assume that our fundamental (base) intuitions are wrong, then we have nothing left to go on. We must dispose of the most basic principles of logic, such as identity, and non-contradiction, and we are left with zero, nothing as a starting point. Any chosen starting point, for any sort of understanding, would be completely arbitrary and randomly chosen.

This is what "pure mathematics" gives us. It appears like we can choose any arbitrary starting point (axiom), and produce a synthetic conceptual structure based solely on One point. Order is not necessary, we can start at any given point. However, the nature of logic, and it's ground in intuition, really demonstrates to us that this is untrue. In reality we need more than one starting point. And, we need an assumed relationship between the plurality of starting points. If the relationship between the multitude of points is not assumed to be one of necessity, the entire structure has no logical stability.

In turn, this reality show us something about "intuition" itself. It can be neither a priori nor a posteriori, but it must necessarily be a combination of both. That is what produces reliability.

But to 'explain reason' is to invariably sell it short! As soon as you account for it in anything other than it's own terms, then you're denying the sovereignty of reason. I'm beginning to suspect that the very existence of reason is actually an inconvenient truth for a lot of analytical philosophy. — Wayfarer

This is why Banno characterizes (defines) "reason" as "a group enterprise", rather than as the activity of an individual mind. Instead of describing reasoning as something which an individual mind does, Banno describes reasoning as having the essential property of "language" (requiring, or needing language). This makes language logically prior to reasoning.

Now, instead of the true description, in which individual reasoning minds use language as a tool, Banno has a group of people involved in an activity called reasoning, and the group are using language as their tool. The obvious problem with Banno's argument is that it is utterly impossible to locate, identify, and understand this group activity, called reasoning. Every time that we try to find and identify the activity of reasoning, we see very clearly that it is the activity of an individual reasoning mind. Therefore Banno's argument is based on a false description; the unsound premise that reasoning is a group enterprise.

It's usually called collective intentionality — Banno

Take the following passage and replace "intersubjective" with "collective intentionality", and tell me how is "collective intentionality" supposed to resolve the problem you said "intersubjective" has.

"Intersubjective" is one of those oxymoronic terms that folk use to avoid thinking. If the subjective is private, then the notion of the "inter" subjective makes no sense. If the subjective is not private, then adding "inter" to it is superfluous.

Nothing is solved by waving such a word around. — Banno

All you have done is replaced one oxymoronic term with another. Nothing is solved by waving "collective intentionality" around.

How boring. The real fun starts in going the other way. Everybody thinks; no one knows how thinking happens. So...there ya go, ripe for theoretical musings. — Mww

Well, I'll qualify my statement then. Instead of saying that there is no such thing as pure a priori, I'll say that if we seek such, we find a big division between the intuition of space, and the intuition of time. And this division manifests itself in the principles of mathematics. Time is fundamentally order, and space is represented by lines. But order is of discrete units, while a line is a continuity.

Space, being an intuition dealing with how we relate to the external, cannot be a priori. This is because it can only be created from the individual seeing oneself as an individual, distinct or independent from one's environment, and this condition is posterior to the most primitive experience of the human being, being born. If we look back to the prior condition, the earlier condition, which is being in the womb, at that time the developing individual is united to, as a part of something larger. So there is no self with an external, as the thing which will be a self, is simply an internal part of something else. This is the condition which some mystics guide us toward, the position in which we are simply united within a grander whole, and there is no proper individual self, and no proper "external".

From this position, there can be no intuition of space, as this the original condition, in which there is no external, therefore no space, and this experience is prior to the intuition of space. And this is why, within the manifestation of mathematics. spatial conceptions lack in necessity. Geometrical principles can be altered as we see fit, so that, for example, parallel lines may meet in a curved spacetime. Our spatial intuitions, which lead us into geometry are contingent on how we conceive of time, which is derived from our temporal intuitions.

This places the intuition of time as deeper than, and prior to, the intuition of space. It manifests as the most basic of mathematical principles, order. The issue which Wayfarer points us to with this thread is the question of necessity in order, which is understood through "causation". But the real question is whether necessity can be removed from order, in a way similar to how I described that necessity can be removed from spatial conceptions.

Modern mathematics uses axioms which deny the necessity of order (a set of objects without an order for example). To validate such an axiom, "order" would have to be contingent on an even deeper intuition. We'd have to intuitively apprehend something deeper which order is dependent on. But I cannot find any deeper intuitions, to say that order is dependent on something else, and validate removing necessity from order. So I find that such axioms which attempt to remove necessity from order, are extremely counter-intuitive. How this intuition of time, manifesting as order, is itself grounded, whether it is grounded in experience, or something more fundamental than experience, as prior to experience, and a condition for the possibility of experience, is probably an issue of how we define the terms.

I remember. I generally agree, taking exception only to your referring to “pure physics” in a Kantian context. As brought to light by ↪waarala, it is clear there is a pure part of physics with respect to the a priori principles which make the science possible, but “pure physics” as a general conception, has not the same distinction as....

“...Before all, be it observed, that proper mathematical propositions are always judgements à priori, and not empirical, because they carry along with them the conception of necessity, which cannot be given by experience. If this be demurred to, it matters not; I will then limit my assertion to pure mathematics, the very conception of which implies that it consists of knowledge altogether non-empirical and à priori....”

....in which we see how he wishes “pure” regarding the “theoretical sciences of reason” to be understood. — Mww

I believe there is no such thing as "pure" a priori. The a priori is always conditioned by the basic intuitions, space and time, which are inherently dependent on experience. Even in mathematical principles, if we attempt "the pure", we remove ourselves from an applicability with the consequence of useless fiction.

The US could not have stopped the invasion. Just because you know something is brewing, doesn't mean you can stop it. — Olivier5

I think the US surely could have prevented the invasion, by submitting to Russia's demands, and pressuring Ukraine, and all NATO countries to submit to Russia's demands. But we do not know the full scope of Russia's demands. On the surface it appeared as the demand that Ukraine stays out of NATO, but I'm sure it wasn't so simple, and there was much more below the surface. So the issue of whether it would have been wise for the US to collaborate with Russia, and prevent the invasion, is another question altogether, regardless of any far-right extremism which Isaac mentions (which is really irrelevant as an internal matter).

Notice that these synthetical a priori principles are called "judgements". This is why skepticism as an approach to fundamental principles is very important, as a tool to find mistakes within these judgements. Without skepticism, these synthetical judgements are simply taken for granted as "discovered" principles like Hilary says, when in reality they are synthetical structures created by judgement. Plato is often misunderstood as promoting a position in which we take these principles for granted as eternal truths, when in reality Plato was a skeptic demonstrating the need to question such principles.

Galileo counters the Aristotelian approach not by performing experiments, but by showing that it [e.g. the mathematical fabric of space-time] must be so and not otherwise. In this sense, physics is made to be an a priori discipline of necessary truths. Koyré sums it up as follows: ‘The Galilean revolution can be boiled down … to the discovery of the fact that mathematics is the grammar of science. It is this discovery of the rational structure of Nature which gave the a priori foundations to the modern experimental science and made its constitution possible.

That, I think, is the source of Kant's conviction that physics can be an a priori science - that 'physics, like mathematics, is a body of necessary and universal truth.' Noble sentiment but hardly sustainable in respect of physics since Einstein, I would think. — Wayfarer

When mathematics is "the grammar of science", which formats the way that the structure of nature is revealed to us, then what is understood as "the structure of nature", the phenomenon which bears that name, is literally formed or created by that mathematics.

The issue then becomes the quest to maintain correspondence between "the structure of nature" (as created by the human mind), and intelligibility (as dictated by what the mind can understand). When mathematicians allow the axioms of "pure mathematics" to stray outside the limits of the fundamental laws of logic, identity for example, then there is inconsistency between the grammar of mathematics and the grammar of intelligibility. Since "the structure of nature" is based in mathematics, it is possible that this structure may become completely unintelligible to us, depending on the intelligibility of the axioms employed.