Substituting one form of "substance" ontology for another does eliminate the issue? — Arne

Interaction requires two or more things to interact. If we are one thing, which seems pretty obvious, this mis-states the question, and bad questions lead to bad answers. We can ask what is the relation between intentional and physical actions without assuming that that relation is an interaction. That is a sensible question and has sensible answers involving the origin and nature of such relations, not interactions.

Do you think a mindless universe is possible? — RogueAI

If you mean biological minds, then, yes, I think a mindless universe is possible and that this was such a universe for a long time. On the other hand, the laws of nature (not to be confused with their approximate descriptions, the laws of physics) are intentional in Franz Brentano's sense, for they are about the succession of physical states they lead to, just as by intention to go to the store is about my arriving at the store. Intentions imply a source of intention, namely a Mind. So, I think a lawful universe entails an intending Mind.

Spinoza's idea of substance was very different than Aristotle's. Not sure about Aquinas' since I am little familiar with his writings. — Janus

Yes, but they agreed that we did not need two substances.

With your background and interests, I presume you hold to realism concerning universals. Am I right in that? — Wayfarer

I am a moderate realist. That means I think universals do not have a separate existence, but do have a foundation in reality.

Do you see what I'm getting at? Is this a topic for discussion in the sources you're aware of? — Wayfarer

Yes. There are volumes on this. I discussed my position on universals (with references) in light of the fact that species are not static but but evolve, in "Metaphysics and Evolution: Response to Critics," pp 849-857. The basic idea is that each instance of a universal has the objective potential to elicit the same idea. It is this objective potential or intelligibility that is the basis in reality for our universal concepts. As populations evolve, the kinds of ideas their members can elicit shift and, so new species concepts are called for.

You can Google "the problem of universals".

These must be one and the same form, or else we have the so-called interaction problem. — Metaphysician Undercover

No. You cannot have an interaction between a prior intention and its instantiation anymore than a line can interact with its terminal point. First, the intention to create terminates once the object is created, and second, a form as plan is not a form as actuality. If they were, we would have an actuality whenever we had a plan.

f there is a gap between the form as desired end, and the form as individual object (outcome), there is no causation between the two, and the telos or end is not causal. — Metaphysician Undercover

True, but that continuity does not make a plan the same as an actuality.

The difference is attributed to accidents, and the accidents are the influence of the matter which is chosen by the artist. — Metaphysician Undercover

We must not confuse accidents as unplanned outcomes with metaphysical accidents, which are notes of intelligibility that inhere in, and can be predicated of, the the whole. It is not unplanned accidents that make a thing actual, but the efficient cause implementing the plan. Accidents inhering in a being cannot be prior to that being. Matter as potential is prior, but once we have an actuality, all accidents belong to that actuality or form. For a human artisan, the actuality may depart from the plan because of the stuff used, but that is not the reason a plan is not an actuality.

Now the question is whether the influence of matter, and the resulting accidents, renders the form of the individual as a distinct form, or is it just a change of form, allowing the form to maintain its identity as the same form, in the way that a changing object maintains its identity as the same object, by the law of identity. — Metaphysician Undercover

Again, if plans were identically actual beings, every time we made a plan, we would automatically make a reality. That would make cars and houses much cheaper.

if we do not allow that the form in the artist's mind, and the form of the artist's finished work, are one and the same form, there is a gap between the two which produces an interaction problem. — Metaphysician Undercover

Again, no. The mental form part of the process of execution. There is no gap because that process terminates in the executed reality. If there were a gap, it would mean that were were finished making the thing before it became actual, a contradiction.

The problem here is that physics does not deal with telos, ends, and intention, but metaphysics does. — Metaphysician Undercover

It does deal with ends, it just calls them "final states"; however, it does not deal with them as intentional.

Physics cannot give an explanation for this, but metaphysics can. — Metaphysician Undercover

They both explain, but at different levels. Each level involves a different degree of abstraction, and so the explanations are complementary, not contradictory or even competitive.

What I am saying is that the oak tree has creative intent when it produces the acorn. — Metaphysician Undercover

But, it cannot, because it has no mind. God has a creative intent. It is manifest in the laws of nature which guide the transformation of the acorn's potential into an oak.[quote="Metaphysician

Undercover;844673"]at this point we might be inclined to turn to God.[/quote]
We have to turn to God immediately because oaks do not have minds, and we need a mind as a source of intentionality.

Spinoza already solved this Cartesian puzzle. There are not two substances, extensa and cogitans, but one substance seen under two attributes. This renders the interaction problem moot. — Janus

He was anticipated by Aristotle, Aquinas and others in the Aristotelian tradition.

(BTW, I'm leaning towards Platon. And I'm a pro-Socrates. Although I have never alalyzed or examined them from a "dualistic" point of view.) — Alkis Piskas

Why take one human and divide her into two separate parts?

Well, chatGPT can almost pass the Turing test, but as Turing said, his test is just a game. It does not prove that machines have consciousness, just that they can fool people.

The problem is that natural science is based on a third person perspective and the resulting data, while being conscious is only experienced from a first person perspective. Because of this, there is no way to use natural science deduce consciousness as the effect of some physical process. At best, we would have a correlation, as we do between certain types of brain states and types of qualia.

Anything a computer does, including outputting "I am conscious," can be explained physically, i.e. in terms the third person perspective. If a device were to behave in way that we could not so explain, it would not be a computer, because we know what they do and how they do it.

You could not design such a device using physics or math because physics does not predict mental effects and computations produce quantities, not ideas. It is only when we look at the results that ideas are formed.

If some device were conscious, we could never it know for sure. We only know other people are conscious by analogy -- they are structured and act like we do, so they must be like us. A device would not be structured like us, and so we could not understanding it from a first person perspective. So, how we could we know it is conscious?

Well, the sperm is not a potential human body. It needs to be united, combined with other organic stuff for an embryo to be created. Same thing with seeds and plants. — Alkis Piskas

Of course, more is required. Still acorns grow into mature oaks, not pines or oats.

But even if sperm is potentially a human body, i.e. the same thing in different development stages, they are both matter. Their relation could not be considered as soul and body or mind and body, a relation from which the subject of dualism arises. Am I right? — Alkis Piskas

The problem is that there are two traditions about souls. One is dualistic, and followed by Plato, Augustine and Descartes. The other is non-dualistic, and followed by Aristotle and Aquinas. In De Anima II, Aristotle argues against the idea of a separate soul, and concludes, essentially, that "to have a soul" and "to be alive" mean the same thing. He formulates this by defining the psyche (soul) as "the first actuality of a potentially living body." "First actuality" is being operational, which, for organisms, is being alive. Under this definition, every living thing has a soul, but not in the dualistic sense. Aristotle's psyche carries no mental implications, except in humans because human life involves thinking.

Since to have a soul is to be a living being, there is no separate addition to visible a human being (which is a tode ti = "this something" -- Aristotle's definition of a substance). In other words, one substance performs both physical and mental acts. Aristotle held that our ability to think (nous = intellect), was uniquely human, but not separate.

Still, not separate in life does not exclude separability at death, and Aristotle seemed to believe that the active or agent intellect was separable. Aquinas certainly did.

BTW, nice handling of the ancient Greek language ... — Alkis Piskas

Thank you.

when a thing comes into existence it necessarily has a cause of being the thing it is, and not something else. — Metaphysician Undercover

Indeed it does, but a being's own form/actuality cannot be a prior cause because nothing is actual until it exists. What is prior is a being's matter, its efficient cause, and its telos or end. Thus, the efficient cause, working on specific matter for a specific end produces a specific form or actuality.

To defend your position, you need to explain how a thing can be actual before it is. I think you are confusing two meanings of "form." An artisan has a "form" in mind before she produces her work, but that "form" is not the "form" (actuality) of the finished product, but her intention, i.e. an end (final cause). In the same way, the laws of nature, which are intentional realities, act on prior states produce final states.

since potential encompasses many possibilities, it cannot be restricted by one specific thing, such as your statement, "an oak tree". — Metaphysician Undercover

You are confusing the hyle of artificial processes, where the clay or wood can become many things, with that of natural processes, which is determinate. (See my hyle paper.) An acorn has a determinate potential. It will never sprout into a pine or a stalk of wheat.

So your statement "to be an oak tree" does not represent the matter of the acorn, it represents the form of the acorn, as that which restricts the matter to specific possibilities. — Metaphysician Undercover

No, an acorn is not an actual (operational) oak tree, but a potential one. If you never saw one spout and did not know where it came from, you would not know that its end is to become an oak tree.

So it is very clear that the form of the acorn "a kind of nut", which restricts the potential (matter) of the acorn so that the possibilities for what it may become are limited, pre-exists the material existence of the acorn. — Metaphysician Undercover

Every creature has a prior creative intention in the mind of God. But, that is a metaphysical, not a physical, explanation. Physically, the form of an acorn is the foundation for the form of the oak into which it may sprout, but, being the foundation for a form is not being the form. It is being a potential.

This pre-existence of the form of the acorn, as prior in time to the acorn, therefore separate from the acorn, is what we need to deal with as implying the requirement for dualism. — Metaphysician Undercover

This is confused. What is ontologically, not temporally, prior is God's creative intent. But, God is simple, having no intrinsic diversity. What allows us to speak of distinct "exemplar" ideas in God is the fact that ideas are relational -- relating God, Who is simple, to creation, which is not. So, the Divine exemplars are diversified by terminating in diverse creatures, not by any diversity in the mind of God. Thus, without actual, existing creatures, there are no distinct exemplars. Since exemplars are inseparable from the actuality of the exemplified creatures, there is no dualism.

doesn't this separate existence, whether its called a principle or a thing, necessitate dualism? — Metaphysician Undercover

If it were a separate entity, we would have dualism. It is not. A "principle" is the source (arche) of a concept. Consider the actuality and potential of an acorn. Its actuality (eidos = form) is being a kind of nut. Its potential (hyle = timber, poorly as translated "matter") is to be an oak tree. These are not two substances joined in some way, but one thing considered in two ways. So, human souls are actual human beings, while human "matter" is our potential to be planting soil for daisies.

If the soul, as the form of the body, is the blueprint, or principle of organization, and the living body comes into existence as an organized body, then the soul must be prior to the living body, as cause of it, and therefore a separate thing. — Metaphysician Undercover

Aristotle defines the soul is the first actuality of a potentially living body (De Anima ii, 1, 412b28). ("First actuality" is being operational. "Second actuality" is operating.) Aquinas accepts this definition. What is ontologically prior is God's intention to create whatever He creates. No actuality can be prior to the existent of which it is the actuality.

Thank you for commenting. In the paper I published in January, I take the position you suggest, offering hylomorphism as providing a better conceptual space than Cartesian dualism. I just finished a draft of "How the Agent Intellect Works," which proposes a different model than that of Aquinas. (If you would like a chance to comment, message me.)

My ideas on abstraction as the basis of science come from Aquinas's Commentary on the De Trinitate of Boethius, Maritain's Philosophy of Nature, and Whitehead's Science and the Modern World. Please expand on why you disagree.

Well, not most people (they're more sensible), but most philosophers of mind are monists. I was not saying they are dualists, but that they use Cartesian categories to frame their arguments. Dennett's "Cartesian Theater" is an obvious example. Very few think there are unified beings than can act both physically and intentionally. Instead they ask themselves whether thinking stuff is a possibility, and if so, how it interacts with extended stuff. It is the imposition of disjoint concepts, not the reality of psychophysical humans, that is the source of the problem. There is no intrinsic problem with one being acting in different ways.

As I argued in my article, there is no reason to think that physics has no intentional effects. — Dfpolis

I mistyped. I meant. "As I argued in my article, there is no reason to think physics has intentional effects."

Does agent-intellect have three essential functions? Are they: entanglement, causation, over-arching cognition? — ucarr

As Aristotle defined it, the agent intellect has one function: to make intelligibility actually known. I am identifying this with the act of awareness, by which neurally encoded contents are recognized.

Again, this begs the question. If you assume the possibility, you are not investigating it, you're simply declaring it. — Isaac

Not at all. I am articulating a common and accepted view, viz. that people are capable of self-deception. Cf. Zengdan Jian, Wenjie Zhang, Ling Tian, Wei Fan and Yiping Zhong, "Self-Deception Reduces Cognitive Load: The Role of Involuntary Conscious Memory Impairment," Frontiers of Psychology 10 (30 July 2019) https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01718/full.

People often hear classic allusions such as plugging one’s ears while stealing a bell, pointing to a deer and calling it a horse, drawing cakes to satisfy one’s hunger, and the emperor’s new clothes. These allusions reflect the principle that people believe in nonexistent phenomena to satisfy their desires. This is called “self-deception.” Self-deception is a personality trait and an independent mental state, it involves a combination of a conscious motivational false belief and a contradictory unconscious real belief. — Jain et al. (2019)

What they are calling "a contradictory unconscious real belief" I am calling "knowledge."

Further references:
Z. Chance, M. I. Norton, F. Gino, and D. Ariely (2011). "Temporal view of the costs and benefits of self-deception." Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 108, 15655–15659.
W. Hippel and R. Trivers(2011). "The evolution and psychology of self-deception," Behav. Brain Sci. 34, 1–56.
J. Liu, W. Zhang, Y. Zhan, L. Song, P. Guan, D. Kang, et al. (2019). "The effect of negative feedback on positive beliefs in self-deception," Front. Psychol. 10, 702–713.
M. Ren, B. Zhong, W. Fan, H. Dai, B. Yang, W. Zhang, et al. (2018). "The influence of self-control and social status on self-deception," Front. Psychol. 9, 1256–1267.
I could go on, but this should suffice.

There's obviously a difference between mere belief and actual knowledge, but that difference is not sufficient to justify a claim that people believe something despite knowing its opposite. — Isaac

I am not saying it is sufficient. I am saying that it is an accepted psychological fact that some people self-deceive as described by Jain et al. above.

people acting as if p is not an indicator that they believe p, it is an indicator that they believe acting as if p is in their best interests. — Isaac

I would say that it could indicate either. I only claimed that acting on a belief was a sign of commitment, not that it necessarily entailed commitment. Smoke is a sign of fire, but that does not mean that every instance of spoke entails an instance of fire.

stuff you believe is true is not necessarily true. — Isaac

We agree entirely on this.

Just because you personally believe Trump didn't have the largest crowds, doesn't mean he didn't. you didn't personally count them, you didn't personally see them. — Isaac

I saw the picture of his crowd next to the picture of Obama's crowd. You could pettifog with various objections, but that is a rational basis for my conclusion on crowd size.

It is perfectly rational behaviour to not trust those others — Isaac

Hardly! It is paranoid behavior unless one has specific sound reasons for distrusting. I suggest you consult DSM 5.

PPD (Paranoid Personality Disorder) is a DSM-5 (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fifth edition), diagnosis assigned to individuals who have a pervasive, persistent, and enduring mistrust of others, and a profoundly cynical view of others and the world. — American Psychiatric Association, 2013

Case in point. who told you he told over 13,000 lies? — Isaac

Pettifogging. You are creating a diversion instead of addressing my point that no rational follower of D.T. could fail to notice many of his lies.

That may well be true, but you haven't demonstrated that he, at the same time, knows it to be true that his crowds were smaller. — Isaac

I am not seeking metaphysical certitude with my examples. I am merely suggesting directions to look in order to see what I see. So, raising possible alternatives in specific cases misses the point. The point is that this type of behavior occurs, and it is useful to reflect upon it. It is not that my example is infallibly a case of such behavior. I am morally certain it is -- certain beyond a reasonable doubt. Aides normally inform presidents of such things. I am not metaphysically certain that it is -- my conclusion lacks absolute necessity.

I'm arguing that there is no ground for saying that external objects (with properties consistent to that object) exist outside of our definition of them. — Isaac

"No ground"? In that case, you have a long way to go. It seems clear to me that many of our perceptions have specific, enduring sources, and that specificity grounds our property concepts.

no grounds for assuming that it could not have been otherwise. — Isaac

I agree that sensible objects have no intrinsic necessity. They are metaphysically contingent. Beyond that, I have no idea what you mean by thinking it could have been otherwise. Do you mean that ants might not have evolved? Or that we might not have noticed that ants are organic unities, and so might not have formed the concept <ant>? Or that we could have evolved without giving "privilege" to sensations of organisms? Or what?

Like the constellation Orion. It definitely is in the shape of a man with a belt and a bow. We're not making that up. But it is also in the shape of dozens of other things we've chosen to ignore. — Isaac

Quite true, but, I think, entirely irrelevant. In thinking of an ant, we are not saying this little six-legged thing in the sugar bowl is like something else. We are saying it is an ant. It is also like many other things -- say, a moving speck of pepper -- but that likeness is irrelevant to calling it "an ant." We call it "an ant" because it has the objective capacity to elicit our concept <ant> -- not because it is like a moving pepper speck. Orion does not have the objective capacity to elicit the notes of comprehension in our concept <a man with a belt and a bow>.

What degree of variation or change in an ordered sequence crosses the threshold dividing integral change from entropic breakdown? Entropy, a thermodynamic measurement essential to systems theory feels to me like a suitable context in which to pursue a contemporary and useful definition of order. — ucarr

In statistical mechanics, entropy measures how many microscopic states could underlie a macroscopic state. It is only defined for closed systems. For example, in a box filled with a gas, many microscopic states could underlie a uniform temperature. Vastly fewer microscopic states have high temperature at one end and low temperature at the other. We can conclude that random motion is far more likely to produce one of the many uniform temperature macroscopic states than one of the few large temperature difference macroscopic states. Still, there is a theorem that says, if you wait long enough, the system will get as close as you like to any distribution you choose. Sadly, the wait times are large compared to the age of the universe.

The question is, how do we connect this relation between the macroscopic and the microscopic to order as a philosophical concept? Do we really want to define philosophic order in terms of the number of its possible microscopic realizations? I think such a definition would miss the point entirely. It seems to me that the idea of order is related to unity and intelligibility, rather than microscopic realizations, which were never thought of by classic authors. We see things as ordered, for example, when they are directed to a single end -- e.g., the parts of an organism being ordered to sustaining its life or propagating its species.

I do not think that this could be the case, because the growing seed is subjected to external forces, these are accidents, and the way that the growing form responds produces a unique order. — Metaphysician Undercover

That was the reason for my hesitation.

This is why evolution is possible, and consequently a reality. — Metaphysician Undercover

That was Lamarck's theory. It is not the current view.

This provides for the reality of a being with free will, the form in the mind must be created from within, rather than determined by the external accidents. — Metaphysician Undercover

As I argued in my article, there is no reason to think that physics has no intentional effects. So, how could physcal interactions produce free will?

Well, no. Atheists believe there is no God, or theists believe there is a God. Will has little to do with it. — Banno

They both cannot know what they claim, so what kind of act do you see engendering belief? And, when they each believe what they believe, is that not the same as being committed to that position?

Why? As in, why must there be a commitment? — Banno

If you engaged in a discussion of God's existence, you would quickly find that theists and atheists are strongly committed to their positions. So, it is a contingent fact that firm belief is inseparable from firm commitment.

And when you take this far enough, will becomes no more than intentionality - directedness. — Banno

Almost. It is the cause of intentionality in the sense of directedness.

One might will oneself to believe Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs will win against the Sharks, but one does not will oneself to believe that this text is in English. — Banno

Perhaps not, but either atheists will themselves to believe there is no God, or theists will themselves to believe there is a God. Both cannot know the truth of the matter, despite claiming that they do. So, there must be another source of their commitment. I claim that it is will.

While one might be said to will oneself to act in a certain way based on one's beliefs, one does not in every case will oneself to believe this or that. — Banno

I agree that generally these acts are spontaneous rather than the consequence of deep reflection. I do not think that willing requires such reflection. I think that in most cases it is a spontaneous and unreflective valuing.

Returning to your example, it takes no "will power" a la William James to commit to the truth of "This text is in English." We spontaneously value (are drawn to the goodness) of truth, and that valuing results in commitment. So, believing what we know is the normal response.

n other words, do we have distinct properties that are inseparable? — ucarr

I suspect so, but we need a good definition of order to do the analysis.

Please assess the following conjecture: An apple is an ordered state of being of an existing thing. By definition, its order is active, not potential*. — ucarr

Again, I think this is putting the cart before the horse. We need to go through the Socratic exercise of finding a good definition. I think we can agree that where order occurs, it is actual, not potential.

About the seed: I wonder if it does not already have all the order that the mature tree will have, but packed tighter. If not, where would the tree's order originate? I am reminded of St. Augustine's idea of rationes seminales, which were supposed to contain all the information needed for future creatures.

I'd characterise this differently. The child, ex hypothesi, believes they only want to complain; they do not believe they are hungry, and hence can not know that they are hungry. — Banno

The problem with this is that the sequence begins by the child knowing they are hungry. Being convinced they are not is an abusive consequence of that.

Believing it adds a commitment to its truth. — Dfpolis

I think that wording is misleading. You'r over egging the cake. — Banno

I think the difficulty is that in common use, believing and knowing are often used interchangeably. The question is, is there a difference between being aware of a state and being willing to act (even mentally) on the fact of that state. I am saying there is.

here's a difference between something's being believed because one wills it and someone willing some act as a consequence of their belief. — Banno

I would say that if you claim to believe something, and are unwilling to act on that "belief," you do not really believe it.

In your example, lying about the crowd size is 'acting as if it were bigger'. It's acting entirely consistently with two other beliefs. 1) the crowd size was smaller, and 2) if I say it was bigger nonetheless, some people might believe me and I might be more popular. It Trump believed (1) and (2), he would act as he did. His 'commitment' to those two beliefs would be demonstrated in his claiming "the crowds were the biggest". — Isaac

I agree that this is possible and likely. Still, the possibility that Trump may have convinced even himself (self-deluded) is all that I need to show that knowledge is not a species of belief. In that case, he may well have seen the pictures comparing his to the Obama inauguration crowds, found them so distasteful that he put them out of his mind, and comforted himself with the belief that his was crowd was bigger.

It's perfectly rational to construct a system of beliefs where one cannot trust the media representations — Isaac

The question is not if it is rational, but if it is possible, to construct beliefs. One cannot construct knowledge out of whole cloth, only make explicit what was only implicit in what we already know. One might construct a belief that was adequate to reality, but unless it was informed by the reality it was about, it would not be knowledge. Its adequacy would be accidental -- a coincidence.

Given that such a construct is a true belief, adding rational justification cannot convert it into knowledge, unless that justification is being aware of the relevant intelligibility. This is the same point made in a different way by Al Goldman's response to the Gettier problem (“A Causal Theory of Knowing,” Journal of Philosophy (1967), 64, 357-72.) Knowledge, in the strictest sense, requires a causal chain of action linking object to subject in which the former informs the latter. This is not to deny that in both common and technical use, what is called "knowledge" turns out to be "justified" belief -- for example, the "knowledge" that the world is determined by Newtonian mechanics. This was simply an over-commitment to a theory with a limited range of application, i.e. believing in Newtonian mechanism.

Suppose I am lied to by a usually reliable source. I am morally justified in believing what I am told, but the belief is false. (The justification is surely moral, rather than logical, because it is based on an estimation of character.) On the other hand, if my source is reporting what actually she actually experienced, there is a line of action from the objective event to my information-bearing neural state. So, I know (by my definition). This leaves us with no infallible test for knowing, vs. merely believing, p, but there is no reason why we should have such a test. We can only know and believe as humans do, i.e. fallibly.

We can only act on rational beliefs, but now we are talking about the basis of action, not simple knowledge. Our willingness to act on p is what I am calling commitment to the truth of p or believing p. It is different from knowing it is the case that p. We can know p, but lack the confidence to commit to the truth of p, and act on it.

Aquinas offers a related insight in the Summa Theologiae in discussing commitment to God as our end, which he calls "intentionality toward God." He writes that we know we are committed to an end when we will the means to that end. In other words, when we "walk the walk" instead of merely "talking the talk." That is why I offer action premised on p as a sign of commitment to the truth of p.

there's nothing in such a belief system which is contrary to that same person's knowledge. — Isaac

I would suggest that with over 13,000 lies in office, it is virtually impossible to follow Trump and not to know he routinely lies.

You call the awareness of their state "believing." I find that confusing because people also believe things they have no knowledge of. — Dfpolis

That's begging the question. — Isaac

How can being confused be begging the question? My only assertion was that "people ... believe things they have no knowledge of." Are you denying that?

Nothing in the actions you describe requires p to be true. — Isaac

Again, it need not be true in every case. If there is one case in which a rational actor knows p is false and acts based on the belief that p is true, by the modus tollens, knowledge is not a species of belief.

he's committing to it being false and acting to cover up that fact. — Isaac

It is my opinion, based on listening to Mary Trump, Donald's niece and a clinical psychologist, that Donald could never commit to his crowd size being less than that of an African American. He would see it as being utterly demeaning and so impossible.

o. The information from assumed external states effects the changes described. All external states. — Isaac

Information is an abstraction, not encountered in a disembodied form. Rather, there are informing actions: sending a message, forming an image on the retina, causing cochlear cilia to vibrate, etc. Sensible objects are agents that effect changes in sense organs, and it is those changes, specified jointly by the nature of the object and of the organ, that embodies information.

Claude Shannon defined information as a reduction in possibility. Of all the possible ways in which the sense organ could be affected, it is affected in a way specified by the action of the sensible object. The object's essence is the specification of its possible actions. So, the actual action of the object on the organ informs us about the object's essence/specification -- the way it acts on us is one of the ways it can act.

External states are not "assumed." They are consequent on how we structure our experience. In other words, "external states" is the name we give to the source of certain experiential contents, as "internal states" is the name given to the source of other contents or aspects of contents. You can deny that experienced contents have a source, but if you do, you are a solipsist, and we have no basis for further communication as, in your view, I may not be real.

The entirely of the heterogeneous soup of data states that the hypothesise as being external to our system. — Isaac

This is not a sentence.

No 'objects' are defined prior to our defining them. — Isaac

I find this unintelligible until you define "'objects.'" There are sensible existents with organic unity prior to being perceived. I could argue this, but the burden is on you to clarify and possibly justify your claim.

Very different groups of people have different rules of distinction. Take colour, for example. There are several different ways of dividing up colour responses in different culture. the evidence seems, rather, to point in the direction of language and culture being at least substantially, if not mainly, responsible for the 'dividing up' of our sensory inputs into objects. — Isaac

I have no problem with projecting experience into different conceptual spaces. I raised the issue in my first (Metaphilosophy) paper and discussed it in my last three articles. However, the existence of diverse conceptual spaces does not entail the non-existence of organic unities, aka organisms. Further, your dismissal of my evolutionary explanation suggests that you not only reject organisms, but the modern evolutionary synthesis that explains their genesis.

I note that language expresses thought, making thought ontologically prior to language. We often struggle to find le mot juste to express our thought, showing that thought is not totally dependent upon language.

I agree that culture can and does shape our conceptual space, but it typically does so through the medium of language. Since language does not preclude thought that cannot be linguistically expressed, there is no reason to think that culture is the only source of one's conceptual space. In confirmation of this, we see that new concepts constantly come into being.

This would be to privilege one neural response above others. without begging the question, you've no grounds on which to do that — Isaac

Of course, I do. Experiments show that some stimuli activate specific neural net nodes while others do not. Those that activate nodes might be called "privileged" (your term, not mine).

None of these responses is the 'real' one (with others being merely peripheral). Only our culturally embedded values can determine such a thing. Scientifically, they're all just equally valid responses of a system to stimuli. — Isaac

You are mischaracterizing my position. I do not deny that any neural response is real. Still, some activate nodes formed by prior experience, and some do not. Those that do not lack discernible immediate consequences. They may not even activate the next neuron.

So, our evolution and experience make certain stimuli "privileged" in your jargon. Evolution plays a role because other organisms can be predators, sources of nourishment, and/or otherwise dangerous or useful -- making it advantageous for them to be "privileged." Thus, there is good reason to think that nature rather than nurture makes ostensible unities (Aristotle's tode ti = this something) "privileged." We relate to the world precisely as humans, and not as abstract data processors. Still, we would not have adapted to privilege organisms were there no organisms to privilege.

And no neural structures correspond with 'tree' either (or at least not consistently). — Isaac

I am not a metaphysical naturalist, but I think this claim is unsupportable. The neural net model seems a reasonable first approximation to how information is categorized. If so, there ought to be nodes assocated with each sortal in our conceptual space and activated by its instances. Thus, there ought to be a "tree" node, which is activated by encountering trees. Further, its activation should be consistent, though not infallible. If not, we would have great difficulty in predicating "tree" of an oak we have encountered.

Scientifically, they're all just equally valid responses of a system to stimuli. — Isaac

I am not sure what you mean by "valid" here. Are all responses equally logical? No. Equally adaptive? No. Equally effective in activating sortal nodes? No. They are only equal in all existing. That does not make them "valid" in any sense I can think of.

It's not 'pathological'. We hallucinate, for example, the content of a scene which is behind our punctum caecum. We hallucinate a stable scene despite regular changes in the angle of perception. — Isaac

To hallucionate is to "experience an apparent sensory perception of something that is not actually present." I am discussing the case where an object is actually present. Thus, what you are describing does not meet the defintion of a hallucination.

Still, I agree: we fill in data. I discuss filling in motion between cinema frames in my book. Neural data processing is an adaptive resonse to the action of the object. Just to be clear, I am not claiming that the "image" we see in our minds corresponds one-to-one with the object seen. It does not.

My claim is that our intellect being informed by the intelligible object is identically the intelligible object informing our intellect. That claim is incontrovertible, as it merely identifies alternate formulations of a single event. It also implies that knowing is not purely objective, as some believe, but a subject-object relation. Thus, it is as inescapably subjective as it is inescapably objective.

None of the filling-in of data we are discussing would or could occur were there not objective information to supplement in what has proven to be a normally adaptive response -- and there is no response without something to respond to.

What makes you think he committed to that? He said it. He probably lied. — Isaac

He certainly lied. The sign of commitment is subsequent behavior, not a clear conscience. I could distinguish sincere and insincere commitment, and say that the intentional state we call belief requires sincere commitment. I am unsure precisely how to define sincere commitment. Using behavior as a criterion is pretty clear-cut. Suggestions?

What do you mean 'no basis'? Trump said it. That's basis for someone who trusts Trump. — Isaac

I mean no basis in reality, of course.

Again, this doesn't mean they believe they have sufficient funds, it just means they're going to do it anyway. — Isaac

We are saying the same thing in different ways. You call the awareness of their state "believing." I find that confusing because people also believe things they have no knowledge of. So, I choose to call awareness of reality "knowing." Further, if you are going to do something that rationally requires p to be true, I call that committing to the truth of p -- and we agree that people do that knowing that p is false.

Without actually asking you just come across a really arrogant, assuming you know what's going on in other people's minds. — Isaac

If I accused a particular person, that would be arrogant and presumptuous. To say that it happens without accusing a specific person is not. It is a generalization based on experience.

nowhere in it does the object even make an appearance. — Isaac

Of course, it does. The action of the object on the sensing subject effects the changes described.

"the Tree" hasn't even got in there yet, nor will it until much after the visual cortex has finished with the processing. — Isaac

You are confusing having sense data, with the classification of sense data. To apply the term "the tree" we need to classify the "this something" (Aristotle's tode ti), a particular sensory complex, as an instance of a sortal. That comes later. The perceived interacts with its environment in specific ways, one of which is to scatter light capable of being focused into a retinal image into our eyes. That image, together with data from other sensory modalities (perhaps the smell of pine or of orange blossoms), combines into what Aristotle called the phantasm (cf. the binding problem), which we now know to be a modification of our neural state.

We identify organic unities because it was evolutionarily advantageous to do so. If it were not, we might well model the world differently. If "this something," the preceived unity, turns out to be a tree, it will be because it has an organic unity and function that qualifies it as an instance of the sortal or universal concept <tree>.

Once we have a sensory "representation," Humean association comes into play. I think of it in terms of the activation of specific nodes in our neural net. An "image" of the setting sun may activate nodes representing other experiences of the sun, together with those of beach balls, golden orbs, etc. None of these associations is a classifying judgement. They are merely candidates for comparison. Still, their activation is the result of the sun's action on, the sun's dynamic presence in, the sensing subject. This is not to deny that they are also the inheritance of prior experience.

In fact, nothing we could call "the Tree" arrives in the whole process until at least the inferotemporal cortex near the end of the ventral stream.Until that point, the photons from beside the tree and the photons from the tree are processed exactly the same way, no distinction is made. — Isaac

While it is of great neurophysiological import where and when various stages of sensory processing occur, it is really of little philosophical interest. What is of interest is that they do occur, and occur in and can be explained by, our neurophysiology.

However, I think we still need to be careful in identifying the experience as (as opposed to associating it with) a tree. As Paul M. Churchland notes, no neural structures correspond to propositional attitudes ("Eliminative materialism and the propositional attitudes," The Journal of
Philosophy (1981) 78, pp. 67-90.)

The idea that objects are recognised as a result of some unique 'signal' sent from them is not supported by the science on the matter. — Isaac

I do not recall asserting this. In a recent article, I argued the opposite (http://gilsonsociety.com/files/847-891-Polis.pdf p. 855 in discussing the definition of man).

without the action of the object, none of the consequent changes of neural state, which are our visual representation of the object, would exist. — Dfpolis

This is also untrue. Hallucinations are an obvious example of objects having the appropriate neural state associated with their presence being created, without their actually being there. — Isaac

You are mixing cases. I am speaking of the normal perception of an existing sense object. I am not discussing pathological conditions. Please deal with the case at hand. In the case you describe, there is no sensed object, only a neural disturbance.

In normal sensation, the sensible object informing our nervous system is identically our nervous system being informed by the sensible object. These are alternate formulations of one and the same process.

By 'further specifying the "attitude" as commitment'. — Banno

I do not understand the contradiction.

But "taking p to be true" is not the same as "willing P to be true". — Banno

Of course, it is not. We do not will p to be true. We will to act as if p is true (or false). While commitment is an intentional act, it has behavioral consequences. (See my response to Ludwig V above.)

I am glad we agree.

First, some options are imagined. — Dfpolis

Could you clarify whether this is an action and, if so, a rational action? — Ludwig V

Yes, generating initial options for consideration is an action, but it need not be rational in the sense that the options result from judgement. Judgements come later, after there are options to judge. I see it as akin to Humean association, which results from neural net activation processes.

I would agree. But I would not believe that I chose to focus my attention elsewhere. — Ludwig V

Choices need not require long reflection. I have not been in battle, but I have been in life and death situations, and I know I chose my responses in under a second. Teachers of meditative practice train their disciples to focus their minds, excluding distractions from the chosen object. In my paper, I cite numerous philosophers' examples of consciousness focusing on one thing, while generating complex neurophysical behavior or responses to unrelated stimuli.

The point is that physical stimuli cannot make themselves known. We must choose to attend to them. How conscious that choice is varies among individuals. By default, we choose to attend to our body as presented by sensation, perhaps unaware that other options are available.

How does doubt affect our commitment to the truth of what we know if it does not undermine it.? — Ludwig V

It does not. The truth is unaffected, which is why the Cartesian meditation does not undermine cognition. What is affected is our commitment to the unaffected truth. Our commitments are reflected in our willingness to act on the truth we know. The abused child who has been told she is not really hungry, but only seeking attention, may cease asking for food and feel guilty about seeking attention -- all the while knowing she is truly hungry. When asked if she is hungry, she says, "No, sir" instead of "Please, sir, more gruel."

We have the power to value and to choose. Why do you posit anything over and above those powers? — Ludwig V

Did I? I only named that power "will."

When philosophers talk about belief, they are talking about the attitude we have towards something such that we take it to be the case, to be true, and that is all. — Banno

How does that contradict what I said? I am simply further specifying the "attitude" as commitment. Isn't "taking" p to be true the same as committing to the truth of p?

The sense of belief in JTB does not involve commitment. — Banno

I beg to differ. Commitment is indicated by consequent behavior. If A believes p, then when asked "is p is true?" A will say, "Yes." That verbal behavior signifies commitment.

I'm sugesting that the way you are using belief is somewhat different to the way it is used by epistemologists in general. — Banno

I agree. I do not see it as a genus in which knowledge is a species. This is because I take a narrower view of what constitutes knowing.

That's right. And so is believing that your are hungry. — Banno

Believing it adds a commitment to its truth. Suppose a child is hungry and says so. An abusive parent says, "You're not hungry, you just want to complain." The child might believe this, even though she continues to know she is hungry.

How does what you are calling "will" differ from what philosophers call "intentionality"? Or does your theory not make such a distinction? — Banno

Will is a power that allows us to value and so choose. Intentionality is not a power, but a property of certain acts, in virtue of which they point beyond their own existence. E.g. we do not just know, we know something. The same for hoping, fearing, loving, hating and so on. This is often described as possessing "aboutness." Valuing and choosing are instances of intentionality, as there is no valuing or choosing without something valued or chosen.

I can believe that I am hungry yet muse about not being hungry, without contradiction. No contradiction is involved. And thinking about what I might do were I not hungry is not the same as believing that I am not hungry when I am. — Banno

Musing is not doubting. It is imagining. Doubting questions our commitment to a proposition. Musing does not.

Could you please explain how that the requirement of a specific kind of intentional act before any action doesn't give rise to an infinite regress? — Ludwig V

Sure. The need is to reduce the many potential plans contemplated to one line of action. The act doing this is not the result of contemplating its own meta-options, but of relating to the same options differently.

First, some options are imagined. This is the generate portion of generate and test. Second, we judge which are in our power. This is a recursive process, Aristotle's proairesis, in which we work from high level ends to lower level goals considered as means to those ends until we come to means in our immediate power. This winnows the imagined plans down to possible plans. The final step, that involving will, is valuing the plans. As Aquinas noted, the intellect is directed to truth, and the will to good. So, while many plans may be feasible, only one is most valued and therefore implemented. Since valuing is not judging feasibility, no regress is involved.

The above is somewhat simplified, as valuing also occurs in the proairetic process of working out the structure of intermediate means and ends.

But I also think that sometimes we do not. When I burn my fingers on a hot stove, I do not choose to attend to the pain. — Ludwig V

I am not sure that you did not, at least implicitly. Far greater wounds are suffered in battle and may pass unnoticed because attention is not focused on one's body, but on something else. So, I would say that by not fixing on another focus, we default to focusing on our body state.

Doubts question his commitment to the truth of what he continues to know and believe. — Dfpolis

Ah, so knowledge does also require commitment. Thank you for clearing that up. — Ludwig V

That is not what I said. I said doubt can affect commitment. I did not say that commitments can change what we know. Doubts can only affect our commitment to the truth of what we continue to know. Of course, we can refuse to look, but that is a different issue.

Do you really mean to say that one knows something that one doubts? — Ludwig V

I mean that if one really knows, doubts cannot change that knowledge to ignorance. They can only lead us to suspend our commitment to the truth of what we know. This can happen as the result of social pressure or brainwashing. Discrimination can convince people who know their self-worth to doubt it.

Your belief that all actions of whatever kind stem from a single power is a distortion through over-simplification. Your description of how we need to balance our values shows that there are different kinds of action which stem from different needs and wants and desires - and habits and customs. — Ludwig V

I thought I dispensed with that misunderstanding. I pointed to multiple motivating factors from which action stems. Still, given multiple conceptual possibilities (lines of action), one needs to be actualized. That actualization is a specific kind of intentional act. Do you disagree? It would violate the principle of parsimony to posit multiple powers doing the same sort of actualization (committing to a line of action).

Also, since a power is not a thing, but a capability, either humans have the capability of actualizing one to the lines of action we contemplate, or we don't. If we don't, we could never pass from the contemplation of diverse plans to the implementation of one. So, we have the power I am calling "will."

Your description of how we need to balance our values shows that there are different kinds of action which stem from different needs and wants and desires - and habits and customs. — Ludwig V

I already said that.

I find it hard to see why you want to call something a presentation when it is never presented to anyone or anything. — Ludwig V

Because objects act on the senses to inform the nervous system, thereby presenting themselves for possible attention. When we choose to attend (focus awareness on) to them, we actualize their intelligibility, knowing them.

The actions by which they inform our senses are not the only ones they are capable of. As a result, our knowledge is partial, not exhaustive. Still, we know that they can act as they do act on us.

If Descartes thought he might not be in his chamber writing, one might have expected him to be rather alarmed and to stop writing while he worked where he was and what he was doing. But he never stops believing that he is in his chamber writing. — Ludwig V

Thinking he was not would be alarming. Thinking he might not be -- not so much.

He tells us he has doubts. Doubts question his commitment to the truth of what he continues to know and believe. If the doubts prevail, he will continue to perceive, and so know, that he is in his chamber, but he will no longer be committed to the truth of what he knows. So, there is a difference between knowing and believing as I have defined them.

I’m not a fan of the concept of “the will”. I don’t understand what it means. It seems to be an attempt to sweep up into one category all the various beginnings of action. But our actions are very various and have many different beginnings. Moreover, while it seems reasonable to suppose there is a beginning to most beliefs, it isn’t clear to me that that all actions have the same beginning or that the beginning can be called an action of the same kind as cooking a meal or starting the car. — Ludwig V

Thank you for commenting.

I do not see will as the beginning of action. Physical action can be traced back to the Big Bang, and if multiverse theories are true, perhaps prior to that. More proximately human, humans are psychophysical organisms and have multiple, incommensurate needs. Some, like breathing, are normally dealt with automatically, others, like that for social relationships, require thought. Employing the strategy that AI researchers call "generate and test," we imagine several possible, but mutually incompatible, lines of action to meet our needs. These we subject to conscious reflection.

Because our needs are incommensurate (e.g., we cannot trade off between our need for oxygen and our need for calories or vitamin C), we cannot decide on the plan to be implemented based on the maximization of some utility (as utilitarians believe).

Metaphysical naturalists (who are not naturalists, but physicalists who seem to believe that intentional acts are un- or supernatural) would have us believe that this intentional issue is resolved by a purely physical process. I pointed out in my recent JCER paper (https://jcer.com/index.php/jcj/article/view/1042/1035) that physical operations have physical, not intentional, effects. Committing to a line of action is an intentional act in Franz Brentano's sense, because we do not simply commit, we commit to something. So, commitments exhibit aboutness.

So, we are left with multiple possibilities and the need to actualize one in light of conscious reflection by an intentional act. Since we resolve such issues daily, we have the power to make such commitments. I am calling this power (which is not a thing) "will." It is different from our capacity to know (the "intellect") as we can know without committing.

Coming to believe that p is often simply accepting or recognizing that p is true. — Ludwig V

I distinguish accepting from recognizing. Acceptance is the result of a choice, in which not accepting is a possible result. In recognition, there is no alternative. There may be a prior choice to attend to or ignore information, but once we attend to it, we are aware of it, which is no different from recognizing it. So, if you say that believing is accepting, we agree. If you say it is recognizing, you are speaking of what I am calling "knowing."

But you are taking a partial view here. There are also many examples of people accepting a situation that they very much do not want to be true. — Ludwig V

Advancing evidence that supports a conclusion is not taking a partial view, unless one ignores evidence against the conclusion. I agree: many people align their beliefs with their knowledge, however painful they may find it.

“Deciding to believe” would be a misdescription when I find out that p or notice that q. — Ludwig V

Yes, because such acts describe knowing p or q. Suppose that I find out that the perihelion of Mercury precesses at a rate that is incompatible with Newtonian mechanics. I can decide to maintain a prior belief in Newtonian mechanics, or say it is inadequate. My commitment will affect my subsequent acts. Some may be private, in how I think about nature. Some may be public, in my teaching or work.

Descartes is astonishingly casual in introducing his suspension of belief, and I’m not at all sure that I really understand it. Clearly, he did not suspend his belief that he was holding a pen and writing on paper. We have the evidence of the text he wrote. — Ludwig V

My distinction between knowing and believing allows us to understand what he did. He knew he was in his chamber, writing, but chose to believe he might not be. The same applies to what you describe in your next paragraph.

No brain state is our visual representation of the object. We can't see it, and if we did, we would not know what we are looking at. — Ludwig V

I make this very point in my paper in discussing David M. Armstrong's proprioception theory of consciousness (p. 98). Still, I hope to be forgiven for using conventional language in order to simplfy the discussion. I cannot address every point in a single post, a single article, or even a single book.

My preferred language is to call the neural modification induced by the action of the object on our senses a "presentation." A re-presentation occurs when we recall the experience. It is "enhanced"/modified by the memory and recall process. Neither is a representation in the sense that a picture or a text is. They are instrumental signs, which must be recognized to be what they are before they can signify. Our neural encoding need not to recognized to be neural connections and/or activation rates before it can signify. Nor is its whole existence (all that it can and does do) to be a sign, as would be the case if it were a formal sign. So, it is sui generis.

Suspending belief isn't the same as ceasing belief. I'm required to suspend disbelief while hearing or reading or watching a fictional story. — Ludwig V

You are quite right. I overreached for another example.

Still, it shows that beliefs are commitments with behavioral consequences that bare knowledge does not have. It is because of the suspension of belief that we can respond emotionally to a story. Commitments have behavioral consequences knowledge does not have.

Belief is an act of will: committing to the truth of some proposition. — Dfpolis

Hmm. That's a pretty broad notion of "will", there. I believe I'm a tad hungry, but I'm not willing myself to be hungry. Quite the opposite, since i need to drop a kilo or so. — Banno

To make a commitment is to will. In choosing, we are not merely more motivated toward one alternative than another, we commit to a line of action. We know there is a commitment when we act on the false belief as though it were true. We buy things we cannot afford or commit to the idea that a politician is really a moral person and so vote, when we know he or she is not.

Being hungry is not a commitment. It is a physiological state, and perhaps our awareness of that state. If will enters, it is only in choosing to attend to or ignore the neurally encoded information informing us of this state. Choosing how to respond to this information is the province of will.

Nor is an act of will involved in my committing to the proposition "I am hungry". It's more a recognition of a fact. — Banno

But, it is. I may pretend, to myself, that I am not hungry, even though I know that I am. Such a pretense is committing to, believing, the false proposition that I am not really hungry.

It appears to be contradictory to say "I know such-and-such, but I don't believe it". — Banno

As I have defined these acts, no contradiction is involved. Descartes knew he was in his chamber, but chose to suspend his belief in it. In watching a movie or play, we enter a state aptly described as "a willing suspension of disbelief."

I agree that people often use "know" and "believe" interchangeably. I have given technical definitions to distinguish my use of the terms in this discussion from their common use. Clearly, those to propose to define knowledge as "justified true belief," or "causally justified true belief" must mean something different by "knowledge" and "belief." If they did not, the definition would be circular. Such a definition assumes that there can be false beliefs that are not knowledge. There is no reason that knowledge and a commitment to a contradiction of knowledge cannot co-exist.

When one suspends belief, as in the Descartes example you give, one does not thereby commit to the alternative being true. — Banno

Agreed. But, if knowledge were a type of belief, we could not know without believing. Believing would be a necessary condition to have knowledge. That we can continue to know while suspending belief shows that belief is not a necessary condition for knowing.

And Present ineligibility looks a but fraught. I know stuff that is not present to me... that Paris is in France, for example which is on the other side of the world from here. — Banno

If you think about it, this knowledge depends on a chain of action that can be traced back to the city acting on a subject's senses. If your knowledge is true, that sort of action is in you indirectly. If that action were not in you, at least indirectly, you might have an unjustified belief, but it would not be knowledge.

This means that we cannot always know that we know. This is not problematic, because we know we can be and have been deceived.

Let's have a few then... — Isaac

Donald Trump in his claims that he had the largest crowd at his inauguration and that he won the 2020 election. Also, all who chose to believe him, knowing that there was no basis for doing so other than their own desire that it be so. People who know, but will not believe, that they have insufficient funds to buy what they want, and act on this commitment by buying it because they want it.

How does that work? Take me through the neurological processes you envisage bringing this about. Let's say you see a tree. We have some photons hitting the retina...what then? — Isaac

The object acts to scatter light into our eyes, activating its rods and cones. Some of these activate the optic nerves which convey the information through the ganglion axons to the optic chiasm where information from both eyes is combined. The signals then pass to the lateral geniculate thalami. Other neurons connect to primary visual cortex for processing, extracting features such as edges and colors. Thence, information is conveyed to the visual association cortex for integration with prior experience.

This complexity of visual precessing does not change the fact that without the action of the object, none of the consequent changes of neural state, which are our visual representation of the object, would exist. So, again, the action of the sensed object on our nervous system (as complex as it is) is identically our neural representation of the object.

"We have stated, then, that time exists and what it is, and in how many senses we speak of the 'now', and what 'at some time', 'lately', 'presently' or 'just', 'long ago', and 'suddenly' mean." — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, time exists, but as a measure number, a being of reason.

Notice that all these terms, all these ways of speaking, are grounded in time being something real. — Metaphysician Undercover

No, they are grounded in the reality of change.

Aristotle was a student, of Plato, and numbers were considered to be existent things, as well as the symbols we use to count things. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, Aristotle was a student of Plato. He went on to reject his theory that ideas and numbers are substantial.

Sure, but don't you see that in order for "before and after" to have any meaning, there must be time which is something real in nature — Metaphysician Undercover

No, the potential and the actualized ground before and after.

I don't get this at all , maybe you could explain. — Metaphysician Undercover

Change is measurable according to before and after, say in the movement of clock hands. The act of measuring this produces time as a measure number.

How could one measure the potential passing of time? — Metaphysician Undercover

It is not the potential passing of time, but the passing of potential time, stages in the process of change, that is measured.

In our minds, in theory, we can work with all sorts of time intervals, and time durations, these mental constructions we might call "time potentially". — Metaphysician Undercover

No, what is imaginary is not potential. Potencies are grounded in actual states of nature, not the mind.

I do not intend to continue explaining this to you.

Belief is an act of will: committing to the truth of some proposition. Sadly, what we know does not always elicit belief. There are many examples of people committing to what they want to be true, rather than what they know to be true. If you can know a proposition p, and not believe p, then knowledge cannot be a species of belief. Additionally, belief can be suspended. Descartes tells us he was in his chamber when he was writing, showing he knew the facts of his situation, but chose to suspend belief in those facts. His suspension of belief in no way affected what he knew for a fact.

A much better definition is awareness of present intelligibility. To know something, it must be able to be known, aka intelligible. Objects typically make themselves present by acting on our senses. It frequently passes without notice that a sensed object modifying our neural state is (identically) our neural state being modified by the sensed object. In other words, our neural representation of an object is its action on us. It is by this action that the object makes itself present in us, awaiting our awareness. When we become aware of the neurally encoded information, we know it. Such awareness is knowledge as acquaintance.

As I explain in my recent article (discussed in a different thread) propositional knowledge derives from knowledge by acquaintance via abstraction and recombination.

Scientific knowledge is partly observational and so a case of sense based knowledge, or it is hypothetical, and so not knowledge as defined above. Still, "knowledge" is analogously predicated when we assert that well-confirmed theory as knowledge. (A is analogous to B if A is partly the same as, and partly different from B.) It is partly the same because it is founded in, and descriptive of, a broad range of sensory experience. It is partly different because it is not based on sufficient experience to preclude the need for further refinement or correction.

That would be "Physics" Bk 4, Ch 11-14. — Metaphysician Undercover

The discussion of time begins in ch. 10. There he notes that "no part of it is" (218a6). So, we need to be aware that while it is convenient to speak of beings of reason (ens rationis) as though they exist simpliciter, they do not. Time, as a measure number, exists only in the minds contemplating it. So, you need to distinguish between what is a convenient way of speaking, and Aristotle's doctrine.

Then, in ch. 11, he says, "Time then is a kind of number. [Emphasis mine] Number, we must note, is used in two ways—both of what is counted or countable and also of that with which we count. Time, then, is what is counted, not that with which we count: these are different kinds of thing." (219b6-9) As a number, it is not something existing in nature, but a mental entity resulting from a numbering operation. We can only number something which can be numbered, ie. change, which he has already argued time depends upon. This is entirely compatible with the classic definition of time as the measure of change according to before and after.

There is no point in continuing to pile quotation on quotation. You are misinterpreting the text.

The explicit equivocation is that "time" refers to both the thing measured, and what is produced by the measurement. — Metaphysician Undercover

There is no equivocation. What is measured is time potentially. The result is time actually.

That sure looks like inconsistency to me. If one way of measuring time results in a reversal of before and after, in comparison with another, and time is defined with reference to before and after, then there is inconsistency within the way that time is measured. — Metaphysician Undercover

I suggest you read about simultaneity, and the difference between the time-like and space-like separation of events in special relativity. It would take too much of my time for me to explain to you.

the law exists with or without our perception and inferences. — Relativist

Of course.

have you read Thomas Nagel's "Mind and Cosmos"? — Relativist

No, I have not read it. You might take a look at this review: https://www.academia.edu/31170852/Mind_and_Cosmos_Why_the_Materialist_Neo_Darwinian_Conception_of_Nature_Is_Almost_Certainly_False_by_Thomas_Nagel

It seems superfluous to try and construe order as an intrinsic property, because laws of nature fully account for the perceived order. — Relativist

An effect (order) is distinct from its cause (the operation of the laws). Looked at differently, order is evidence for a source of order.

It seems to me, the reason we can sometimes perceive order is because the laws of nature result in patterns and order. Conceivably, there are laws of nature that we we may never become aware of, and thus a sort of "order" we can never perceive. More importantly, I think "order" is too fuzzy (and subjective) to treat as an intrinsic property of a state of affairs, whereas the perception of order is explainable with laws of nature- which do seem to reflect something intrinsic. — Relativist

I agree with you for the most part. Order is a result of the laws of nature, which are not the same as our descriptions of them, because they act to determine the outcome of physical (vs. intentional) processes. I also said, "order is one of those things which we may know when we see it, but does not have an agreed upon definition." So, whether it is an intrinsic property cannot be determined until a definition is agreed upon.