They can recognize their own offspring and kin. If these don't qualify for you as meaningful experiences, I'd be interested to hear why not. — Janus

Because they are all reducible to instinct. Meaningful experience implies reason, or at the very least, understanding, which is not a component of mere instinct.
————-

…..but Mww may correct me on this. — Janus

Thanks for the nod, but I wouldn’t ever be so presumptuous as to say I’m right. That being said….

So, on that account perceptible things become meaningful, and are thus perceived. — Janus

….might be better spoken with perceptible things become meaningful and are thus understood. That which has become meaningful, at least empirically, must have already been perceived, which makes “are thus perceived” superfluous. In short, meaning is not a quality of perception itself, but may be for that object which appears to it.

On this account there must be some pre-perceptual interactions already going on of course — Janus

There are pre-perceptual conditions, but not as yet interactions. If pre-perceptual, then there isn’t anything to which the pre-perceptual conditions can be connected. They’re there, ready and waiting, but idle, so to speak.

…..they involve the objects and the senses but are yet to reach the status of perception. I think Kant refers to this as "intuition" — Janus

It is not actually wrong from a Kantian point of view to say intuition involves objects and the senses. Nevertheless, to be technically correct, one should say, that which Kant refers to as intuition, re: “….the faculty of representation….” involves synthesis in imagination the object of which is a phenomenon. As you can see, this procedural episode is after, thus apart from, perception. That is to say, because they are given from perception, it is impossible that they reach the status of perception. Probably more simply understood by relegating perception to physiology, while holding intuition to mentality, each maintaining its own ground.

…..a bare minimum criterion for experience - shared between all individual cases thereof, is that the experience itself is meaningful to the creature having it. If all experience is meaningful to the creature having the experience, then the candidate under consideration(the creature having the experience) must be capable of attributing meaning to different things. — creativesoul

I agree that for a creature to have a meaningful experience, such creature must be able to at the very least describe the conditions of that experience, even if only to himself, in order for the meaning of it to be given.
— Mww

I don't agree with that. Weird way to use "I agree". — creativesoul

Ok, so how would you attribute meaning to an experience without a description of its conditions? If meaning is a relation, wouldn’t the relations need to be describable in order to comprehend that they belong to each other, which just is the meaning of it?
—————

Your proposal has several layers of complexity; several layers of existential dependency. We're looking for a bare minimum form of meaningful experience. We start with us. We set that out. — creativesoul

I agree we start with us, because “us” is what we know, it is that by which all else is judged. When we examine “us”, we find that the bare minimum form of experience is the very multi-layered complexity of the human cognitive system. No experience is possible at all, without the coordinated systemic process incorporated in human intelligence. Which is why I maintain the position, that without the complexity, experience, as such, the kind we know best and by which all other kinds must be judged, is undeterminable at least, and altogether impossible at most.

Bottom line….in examining meaningful experience the first thing to be done is to eliminate instinct, or any condition that could be attributed to mere instinct. And the best, more assured way to eliminate instinct, is to ground the necessary conditions for experience, as such, in reason alone.
————

I think one important thing to keep in mind is that meaningful human experience happens long before we begin to take account of it.
— creativesoul

Oh, absolutely.
— Mww

How do you square that with your minimum criterion presented earlier which demanded being able to describe the conditions of one's own experience in order to count as meaningful experience?

You see the problem? — creativesoul

There shouldn’t be one. I said describes even if only to himself. To describe conditions to oneself, is to think; to think is to synthesize conceptions contained in the conditions into a cognition.

Perhaps you’ve subbed in accounting for the experience insofar as it must be meaningful, while I’m accounting for the conditions by which being meaningful is possible. Meaning must be cognized insofar as it is a relation; experience is not a relation hence is not a cognition, it is an end, a terminus, of cognitions.

F’ing language games. When I hear “long before we begin to take account of it” I think long before we talk about it. To account for is to determine conditions; to take account of implies the determinations have been met. Dunno….maybe too analytical on my part.

…..for whatever a purpose is supposed to be follows from the kind/content of the judgement from which it is given.
— Mww
Ok, but this would seem to cover everything — tim wood

My teleological/aesthetic to your purposivity/purposefulnes…..don’t we want all our bases covered?

…..predisposition in accordance with subjective moral law.
— Mww
Hmm. There is in this a question of governance. — tim wood

Yes, undoubtedly. Or, if not governance per se, then at least legislation.

About ol’ Sydney’s last act: where/how does he fit into your notions of purpose with it?

Hey…..
Good to see you once again.

And purpose comes with – or is invented by – mind. — tim wood

Agreed. However purpose is understood, it follows from judgement alone, and for whatever a purpose is supposed to be follows from the kind/content of the judgement from which it is given.

Can we do purpose without first doing teleology on the one hand, or aesthetics on the other?

Invented or discovered? Neither: they follow implicitly and necessarily from that which is the condition for them, that being….a-hem…..predisposition in accordance with subjective moral law.

Not much more I can contribute here, however interesting the topic is. I have neither opinion nor knowledge regarding purpose in and of itself, so….

…..a bare minimum criterion…. — creativesoul

I agree that for a creature to have a meaningful experience, such creature must be able to at the very least describe the conditions of that experience, even if only to himself, in order for the meaning of it to be given.

I'm saying that direct perception of distal objects is necessary for all cases of human perception, and that there are many other creatures capable of it as well. — creativesoul

I agree with that as well, with the caveat that mere direct perception is very far from meaningful experience. It would be far less contradictory to posit creatures with eyes directly see things, than it is to posit that same creature that directly sees things obtains a meaningful experience from that direct perception alone.

Are you saying that direct perception of distal objects is not necessary for meaningful experience….. — creativesoul

Assuming the possibility of experience in general, yes, not necessary for meaningful experience, re: echolocation in bats and whales. Direct perception is an unmediated receptivity by the creature, whereas echolocation is direct receptivity of that which has been initially projected from the creature.
(awful loosely-goosey here, cuz the counterpoint will inevitably take the form….light reflected off objects enabling direct perception by vision is no different in kind that echolocation reflecting off objects. Depends on how precisely one needs his definitions to be, I guess, and their relation to a complete system)

…..or that direct perception of distal objects is insufficient for meaningful experience…. — creativesoul

In humans, yes, it is very much the case that very much more than mere perception is necessary for experience. In any other creature, it is impossible to justify with the same irreducible certainty, in that it is not so certain that other creatures have experiences, as such, in the same form as those creatures which require more than mere perception for the meaningfulness of their experiences to even be possible in the first place.

…..or that direct perception of distal objects is something that is exclusive to only humans? — creativesoul

We are entitled to say that direct perception is necessary for human experience, but we are not entitled to say experience predicated on direct perception is exclusive to humans.
—————

I think one important thing to keep in mind is that meaningful human experience happens long before we begin to take account of it. — creativesoul

Oh, absolutely. One of my philosophical pet peeves is the gross mistake in thinking a speculative prescription of the human cognitive system, which requires language use, is how the damn thing actually works, which needs no language use whatsoever. I’ve said in this conversation, that we in fact do not know what experience in humans really is, but that doesn’t dissuade us from inventing stuff in order to relieve the itch of wanting tell ourselves at least something about it.

So, yes, I agree without equivocation that whatever human experience is, it happens long before it can be talked about. And if such is the case, and is the case beyond legitimate scepticism, what does that say about our talking about those creatures, the only indicator for the possibility of experience in them, manifests as nothing more than mere behavior? From which logically follows…plants have meaningful experience insofar as they behave in a very specific fashion in relation to sunlight.

How dare we, from no more than perceiving whales in the motionless vertical position, suppose they are experiencing sweet dreams over gruesome nightmares.
—————-

Again, I think that one basic necessity for having meaningful experience is the ability/capability of attributing meaning to different things. I do not see how it is possible for any creature that is inherently incapable of perceiving different things. — creativesoul

This still leaves the problem of attribution of meaning even when the perception is given. It now becomes the situation where the perception is merely the occassion by which a meaningful experience is possible, but in itself, perception does not give whatever meaning the experience will end up having.

This relates to our conversation because in humans there is an established methodology for attribution of meaning to experience predicated on biological structure, and it is always and only by this methodology we can say what experience is. It is, therefore, illegitimate to attribute this known established methodology to those creatures the biological structure of which cannot support the conclusions thereof.

Ya know….if we say other creatures have meaningful experiences, just not like ours….what have we really said? Nothing. Not a damn thing. Who the hell cares about an experience that isn’t like ours, when it is ours alone by which we can understand anything at all?
————-

And how do we get our experiences right?
— Mww

That's a great question. Methodological approach matters. Guiding principles matter. Basic assumptions matter. Comparison to/with current knowledge base matters. — creativesoul

Do you have, can you iterate, offer examples of, those?
————-

…..a priori and a posteriori are used to distinguish types of knowledge, justification, or argument by their reliance on experience — creativesoul

Distinguish types, yes, but not by reliance on experience. By the origins of conceptions and their relation to each other in cognitive propositions which are one or more of either knowledge, judgement or argument. All of which is a function of understanding alone, not of, hence not in reliance on, experience. This minor rejoinder would have been different if you’d said distinguished in relation to, rather than by reliance on, experience.

…..we must first get our own meaningful experience right prior to being capable of discriminating between experiences that only humans are capable of and experiences that some other creatures are as well. — creativesoul

And how do we get our experiences right?
——————

Direct perception of distal objects is one physiological capability that all experiencing creatures must possess. This points towards the irrevocably important role that biological machinery plays. — creativesoul

This presupposes all experiencing creatures experience via direct perception, which makes explicit there is no other way to experience, irrespective of the type of creature. We have no warrant for claiming that is a valid condition, from which follows there is nothing necessarily pointing to the irrevocably important role biological machinery plays. Just because it is so for humans does not mean it is so for all intellects.

Do you restrict experience to only humans? Are non human animals forbidden, by definition, from having any experience? — creativesoul

Experience, as such, yes, the reason being, all of that by which experience is considered a valid concept is derived purely a priori from the nature of human intelligence alone, and insofar as this concept is a priori, it can never apply outside the intelligence from which it arises. That being said, experience, as such, is forbidden to non-human animals, but that does not preclude them having something conceptually congruent with it, albeit exclusive to their kind of intelligence.

Besides, and we’ve previously agreed on this without equivocation, to profess that a human condition may also be assigned to non-humans, is anthropomorphism, the bane of good philosophizing. So while other animals may have something, we aren’t qualified to say what that something is, even if logically we are authorized to say what it is not.
————-

For my part, although we cannot know everything, we can surmise one very important feature of our own experience. It is meaningful to us. — creativesoul

Yes, I suppose experiences are meaningful, but to surmise meaning from experience is to presuppose experience, which still leaves the primary question of what it is, which just means that in order for experiences to be meaningful, experience would need to be defined in such a way as to accommodate meaningfulness in it.
(Sidebar: my definition of experience is unlikely to meet with more than your passing glance, which is fine; I don’t mind. No theoretical philosophy is correct, after all, right?)

I rather attribute meaning to conceptions, in that whatever is represented by a conception is the meaning of it. To attribute “round” to an object just means that object is understood to have a certain shape and no other is attributable to it without self-contradiction. This pertains because we can attribute concepts and thereby meanings to a thing without ever actually experiencing it, that is to say, we can merely think it, re: algebra. Or, heaven. But I guess all that just reduces to all experiences are meaningful but not all meaningfulness is experiential.

Anyway…..for what it’s worth.

It's the direct perception part we agree on, I think? — creativesoul

Ahhhh….yes, sounds good to me.

We differ when it comes to what all is involved in/for experience. — creativesoul

It’s tough, innit? On the one hand we just don’t know, on the other we make stuff up to tell ourselves at least something.

What all is involved? That’s gonna be a pretty long list, I should think, depending on what one thinks experience is. In my world, experience is an end, the terminus of the human speculative intellectual methodology, from which follows, all that is involved for that end, is the sum of the means necessary for the attainment of it.

I know you’re not a great fan of this kind of method, and you’re certainly not alone. But we’ve all got our favorite persuasions, for better or worse.

This topic finds agreement between us. — creativesoul

Hopefully you’ve understood and I were both talking about human experience related to things active in the world, re: “what a cow is doing”, and its manifestation as an appearance to people such that experience of it is possible.

Under the assumption you’ve understood that, it causes consternation when juxtapositioned to…..

….whether or not cows can have experience…. — creativesoul

…..which is quite disconnected from human experience, and for which….

Biology looms large. — creativesoul

……would have no apparent relevance insofar as all humans have the same biology.

Help me understand what agreement we’re having here?

I don’t understand how you get from “unmediated empirical affect” to “mediated representation”. — Luke

From the object’s point of view, it is an effect on human sensory devices. From the point of view of those devices, the object is an affect on them, they are affected by it. Upon transformation by the components of the system, the object that effects has become a mediated representation, called phenomenon.

Just as perception is that by which the external object passes into the internal domain of sensation, so too is intuition that by which the sensation passes into the domain of representation. Perception is where an object is sensed, intuition is where the sensed object is represented.
————-

Are you talking about the mediation of our perceptions of objects? — Luke

Not exactly. Perception is just like a knock on the door, letting you know there’s someone on the other side wanting something from you. Also called the veil of perception, the epistemic problem, when all it really is, is an occassion for initiating the use of the intellect under empirical conditions alone.
—————

What is being mediated here? — Luke

The effect the object has on the human sensory receptivity, called sensation.
—————

What are they mediated by? — Luke

Scientifically, this sensation goes to this part of the brain, that sensation goes to that part of the brain, so as not to confuse one with the other. Sensation, then, is mediated by the section of the brain to which it is sent in accordance with the nerve bundles in the body responsible for transferring from one place to another.

Metaphysically, hence the implication of indirect realism itself, sensations are mediated by that which arranges the content of a sensation according to its form, meaning from which apparatus the sensation arose. All this is doing, is informing the downstream cognitive part of the system which conceptions belong to which kind of sensation, such that those related to the smell are not adjoined to what is heard, and so on. It is the reason we never associate the concept “loud” in the determination of an object’s sensation delivered by the nose. Understanding, according to rules, donchaknow.

Some folks have better luck with, and actually this whole snafu originated from, the conceptions mediate and immediate, rather than direct and indirect. Objects are given to us immediately….they are there or they are not, no gray area, nothing controversial, insofar as it makes no difference what the something is, but only that something is there. Objects considered, contemplated, conceived, judged, experienced, whatever……are mediated, meaning something is being done to the given by that which is not contained in it.
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…..I am not an indirect realist. — Luke

Oh, but as soon, or as long, as you talk about this kind of stuff, you must be. The really real is the brain at work you can’t talk about because you don’t know what to say, the indirectly real is the brain at work that you can talk about because terms are invented in order to make it possible.

Brains aren't presented with cows. — Michael

Correct; you’re preachin’ to the choir. See my comment to Banno three days ago, pg. 66.

The difference now is, you said “talk of what the cow is doing”, which presupposes it as an extant experience.

We don't need to talk about what a cow is doing to talk about what the brain is doing. — Michael

Nope, we sure don’t. To talk about what the brain is doing there doesn’t even need to be a cow to talk about. But to talk about what the brain is doing when presented with a cow, there damn sure better be one.

Good on ya for “acquaintance”. Might be useful to juxtaposition with “description”; all the cool kids have already done it.

On the sense datum view, seeing an object, O, is a matter of having some visual experience, E, that has been caused by O in the appropriate way (whereby E's intrinsic nature can be characterised independently of O).

Caused by O in an appropriate way…yes.

Whereby E’s nature can be characterized independently of O….not a chance.

There must be something given by O, first, that makes E possible, and second, grounds that by which the knowledge of O becomes possible.

E’s nature cannot be characterized independently of O. If E could be characterized well enough independently of O, there wouldn’t need to be an O in order to have an E:

(“….We would find ourselves in a position whereby we would require to affirm an appearance without that which appears, which would be absurd….”)

O’s causal conditions must be determined, in order for E to be determinable.

If you want to argue for indirect realism, then you must hold the view that our visual perception of material object is mediated by the perception of some other entities, such as sense-data (or mental representations). — Luke

….mediated by the perception of synthesis with some other entities, such as representations.

We don’t perceive both the object and the representation of the object. We don’t mediate the perception of the object, re: direct realism of the given; we mediate the affect the object manifests via its sensation, re: indirect realism of the phenomenon, or image, but either as representation.
———-

Then where is the mediation of our perception of visual objects by the perception of some other entities such as sense-data? — Luke

All representation is mental; “mental representation” is redundant, confusing and unnecessary;
Sense data is one thing, representation is quite another; if all representation is mental, then it is the case all sense data is not;
To mediate is to arbitrate or condition; that which is a perception cannot arbitrate or be arbitrated by, another perception. Perception mediated by perception is improper and confusing;
Sense data just is the unmediated empirical affect the object has, that data, that affect, conditioned by something very different, is the subsequent mediated representation of the perceived object. This is indirect realism.

Only in this way is it possible for the object to be external, re: in the world, but the experience of the object internal, re: in the brain. Which, of course, is exactly the way it is for humans, and probably for every intelligence of any kind.

Direct realism has to do with perception of objects; indirect realism has only to do with conditions by which the system continues is procedure, insofar as without something to work with, the system stops, and in the case of humans there would be nothing beyond sensation, which is absurd. The realism of representation merely expresses a necessity for the internal systemic process, the external world be whatever it may.

All good.
—————

….we never see shoes. — Banno

Correct. We see things. Undetermined things. Through metaphysical systemic functionality, we cognize representations of those perceived things, in this case as “shoes”. Nothing is lost in conventionally saying we see shoes, insofar as merely saying stuff takes no account of, thus has no appreciation for, the origin of what is said.

However speculative it may be, there’s nothing amiss with the system, hence no infinite regress. And no idiotic homunculus argument, the proverbial red-headed stepchild of the ill-informed.

And what lies downstream? — NOS4A2

Speculative metaphysics, a complete, logically consistent, sufficiently explanatory theory on the one hand, scant but progressive empirical knowledge on the other.

You sense sensations, then? — NOS4A2

Mmm…….no.

At any rate, it’s closed system. — NOS4A2

Metaphysically, yes, downstream from that which is not physiologically conditioned; scientifically, yes, downstream from nerve endings.

The process of perception begins with an object in the real world, known as the distal stimulus or distal object.

That which appears….

the object stimulates the body's sensory organs.

Perception….

These sensory organs transform the input energy

Sensation….

This raw pattern of neural activity

Intuition….

These neural signals are then transmitted to the brain and processed

Productive imagination…..

The resulting mental re-creation of the distal stimulus is the percept.

Phenomena…..

Full stop.

Of particular note is the resulting mental re-creation of the distal stimulus, as yet has no name, but is merely the instantiation of the system operational parameters in general, constant over every “distal stimulus”, a.k.a., sensibility. In other words, the brain has only been informed that there is an object, which has been transformed into something it can use, as opposed to the object’s real worldly material composition, from which follows the properties which define the object, or articulate how the material composition is to be comprehended, are not included in, nor are they available from, the mere sensation of it.
————

the grammar of "I experience percepts" that just isn't there…. — Michael

This is correct, insofar as experience cannot be of mere precepts, iff the above is the case. By experience is made explicit knowledge of what that distal object is, which cannot occur from mere nameless presentation to the brain without the brain then doing something additional to it, by which a name is given. In metaphysics, this is the domain of cognition; in neuroscience, network enabling, and tacit explication that experience should never be part of the systemic process itself, but is the end obtained by it.
————

And what is seen is the shoe; what is heard is the phone - not the percept. — Banno

What is seen and heard is sensation in general, derived from the stimulus of the distal object, in general. It has not been determined, i.e., as “shoe” or “phone”, or as any particular named objects.

Is it not the precept that is seen or heard, or, in general, it is not the precept that is sensed. It is the sensed that is the precept, non-fallicious cum hoc ergo propter hoc, upon arrival in the brain (in fact), or, arrival in understanding (metaphysically).

The definitive footnote: it can only be said what is seen is the shoe iff there is already extant experience of that particular distal object, and even so, such is merely facilitated convention, and not the technical operation of the system itself, which remains ever constant.
————

Indirect realists aren't idealists. — Michael

They must be, albeit of a specific variety, insofar as indirect realists, as such, cannot be proper scientists. Following the “science of perception”, only an idealist will be inclined to assign conceptual systemic representations to the operation of the brain without ever taking a single measurement, whereas the measurements with which a scientist concerns himself do not have the same names as the idealist’s representations.
———-

All this has been done already. Only the names have been changed to protect ignorance of its ancestry.

….you clearly don't know anything about the religion Flawlessism….. — Echogem222

Nor do I have to, in order to argue the philosophy of its ground.

All we have are "stories" that are constructed and enacted in experience and we argue about their merits. — Apustimelogist

That’s half of what we have, albeit the more important half. It is necessary there be that which serves as the occassion for the construction of the stories, therefrom the experiences we argue about. If there weren’t things to be experienced as trees, there wouldn’t be trees.

…..it just means that you'll never think about it. — Echogem222

If it is the case to think just is the employment of the faculty of understanding, then the negation would be necessarily true, in that to not think is to not employ that faculty. So it isn’t so much a lack of understanding, which implies an attempt, but rather, understanding, with respect to this certain thing, is never even brought to bear.
————

we could all have been created by something that we have no awareness of, which would be nothing to us, therefore, nothing creating everything is reasonable — Echogem222

This could only be justified by changing “nothing creating everything” to nothing to us creating everything. Otherwise, there is something that creates us but nothing creating everything, a blatant contradiction.

Or so it seems…..

But I don't want to go further and impute a dualistic structure to the mind-independent actuality. — Janus

A perfect example of the difficulties with language: to impute dualism to actuality is metaphysically disastrous, re: whatever is just is, Aristotle’s A = A, but when actuality is qualified by “mind-independent”, a dualism is automatically given.

An overly-critical analyst might even go so far as to assert there is no such thing as “actuality” without an intelligence affected by it, the repercussion being non-dualism is impossible, from which follows A = whatever I think it is.
———-

It seems that language is dualistic in its logical structure, its grammar. If that is so, then all of our discourse will be dualistic also. (…) I don't think our mindsets are that far apart. — Janus

Respectfully, I submit that our intelligence is dualist in its logical structure, and language merely represents the expression of its employment, so our mindsets are at least that far apart. Dualistic in logical structure just meant to indicate the rational/empirical grounds for proof, the former being necessary from which follows the possibility of truth, the latter contingent from which follows the possibility of knowledge.

Anyway….historically we’ve noticed between us the pitfalls of OLP, so in that respect, we’re not that far apart.

…..accept a set of principles that increases the prospects of others….. — Rob J Kennedy

A set of principles? Given the fundamental nature of principles in general, why would a set of them benefit the opportunities of one person over another?

If it is the case “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” is a fundamental principle, and each member in a community is subject to that principle, why would I need to relinquish anything in order for any of them partake in it?

No, I would not be willing to give up my job, such that the next guy could claim the income from it. On the other hand, I might be willing to relinquish something in order to facilitate the opportunity for another to be subject to that fundamental principe, ranging from going to war, or merely going to vote.

Hardly a simple question, methinks, insofar as the domain of the query itself is more anthropological/psychological than philosophical, but the response is predicated entirely on a moral disposition, which is altogether philosophical. The ol’ apples/oranges thing.
————-



HA!!! You beat me by scant seconds.

Our own notions of representations will constantly come up against fuzziness and exceptions to rules. All this suggesting that what we think of as representations are redundant to whatever is going on underneath the hood — Apustimelogist

No disagreement from me here. Nevertheless, we don’t know what goes on under the hood, yet we rise to the occassion of making it comprehensible to ourselves, in some form, by some method. Representation is merely a component which fits into one of those methods. Besides, and quite obviously, we do not think in terms of neural activity, even if that is exactly how the brain works, which is perfect justification for a substitute descriptive methodology. To be a rationally adept human is to be discontented with no understanding at all, so we throw stuff at the wall, see what sticks, and whatever does is what we deem as understandable. Hence, speculative metaphysics; been that way since Day One.
—————

a tacit admission that whatever is said from a purely speculative point of view…..cannot possibly be the method the brain…..actually uses.
— Mww

I'm not understanding this. Could you say more? — frank

Maybe what I said just above is sufficient? Enlightenment philosophy in general understood the brain’s overall necessary functionality without knowing hardly a single thing about the brain, so whatever we say about what’s going on between our ears is a fiction with respect to the physical operation of material substances. All Kant wanted to state as a warning to his peers, is to be careful in the construction of those fictions, one of which….his in particular it so happens….is what you already said regarding a built-in a priori framework.

The more I think about it, the less I think representationalism makes sense. — frank

Think about what? Representationalism makes perfect sense metaphysically, which just indicates an logically necessary method describing how our intellect works. But to think about how the brain as a physical substance works, as that by which our intellect is possible, representationalism wouldn’t even be a theoretical condition, hence wouldn’t make any sense to include it in an empirical descriptive method.

In A4/B8 Kant says, “…..(may be avoided if) we are sufficiently cautious in the construction of our fictions, which are not the less fictions on that account.…”, a tacit admission that whatever is said from a purely speculative point of view, sufficient for us to comprehend what it is we do with our intelligence, cannot possibly be the method the brain, in and of itself, actually uses to provide it.

I don't like to assign locations to things like ideas or experiences — Janus

Understood. Concepts. Intuitions. Judgements. Representations. Numbers. Pretty hard to pin down the location in the brain of those thing that don’t even exist in concreto anyway, except as explanatory devices in abstracto.

OK, fine. Experiences don’t exist in the brain, but the things the brain does, whatever that is, that makes it seem like experiences exist in the brain, exist in the brain.
————-

I am no dualist, though, except when it comes to our thinking and judging. — Janus

In for a penny, why not in for a pound? Thinking and judging is just about the entire human conscious intellectual environment anyway, isn’t it?

At least now I have a better idea regarding your mindset, so, thanks for that.

…..it doesn't follow that experience is in the brain. — Janus

The implication being, it is possible experience is not in the brain, which is the same as outside the brain, or in a place where the brain is not. If one maintains that he experiences things in the world, in conjunction with the implication his experiences are not in the brain, and, if he maintains all his experiences belong to him alone, then it is necessarily the case he himself is not in his own brain.

I’m sure you do not hold with that perfectly justified logical deduction, or at least its conclusion. So which is the false premise?

We have a space in which representing occurs (internally)….. — NOS4A2

With respect to the thread topic, re: realism, this space has been called “intuition”, the faculty of empirical representation, in which the matter of things perceived unite with a form “….which lies a priori in the mind…”, which gives rise to “phenomena”, that is, representations in the form of images, which are the first instances of becoming conscious of the particular nature of whatever was initially a mere sensation.

The respect for the thread title here is necessary, insofar as there is another internal space in which representation occurs, wherein perception is not a precursor, thus these must be kept separate for theoretical consistency.

Just, you know….FYI.

Naive realists claim that distal objects and their properties are constituents of our experience and indirect realists claim that they're not. — Michael

Objects and their properties. This implies the objects come fully equipped with whatever constitutes them as they are. While this is certainly true, it is not always the case these constituent properties are perceived, re: phases of the moon, how many feet of a running horse touch the ground at the same time, and so on. Insofar as it is impossible that any object not be completely constituted, and if it is at the same time impossible to perceive the totality of a manifold of constituent parts, it is not contradictory that the human intellectual system itself, imposes those properties. If it is not contradictory that the intellect supplies the missing properties, and given the impossibility of perceiving all possible properties, it is also non-contradictory that the intellect supplies all properties, insofar as there is no established mechanism by which it would be possible to determine which properties were perceived and which were supplied.

The direct realist wants his objects already fully equipped with its identifying properties, the indirect realist wants to assign the properties by which he thinks the object identifiable. If follows that the object along with its properties comprise the experience of the former, while the properties alone comprise the experience of the latter.

Breaking it down a little…..so we got one of each persuasion standing next to each other, watching the moon rise. It is a natural characteristic that the moon appears larger the lower on the horizon it is, from which follows the direct realist must allow the moon physically, naturally, changes its size/mass/volume as it traverses the sky, iff however the moon’s changing properties cum hoc just are the experience of it. The indirect realist, because he only assigns properties to the changing representations of an object post hoc, the object itself does not need the property of change insofar as the object itself never was a component of experience in the first place.

Breaking it down a lot…..the direct realist maintains space and time belong to things as properties of them, no more or less necessary for their experience than any other property, but the indirect realist maintains space and time belong to him alone, are not properties of things at all, but are the conditions absolutely necessary for the experience of them.

Breaking it down completely….the realism of objects is direct in the perception of them, their properties be what they may; the realism of properties is indirect in the experience of them, the object be what it may.

….doesn't seem to account for hallucinations…. — Lionino

In the interest of metaphysical doctrines by which the rules of a given system are determined, hallucinations are merely the exceptions to them. In conjunction then, with the current understandings, in which hallucinations are different from delusions, the former sensory the latter cognitive, it is theoretically consistent and logically sufficient to find something they both have in common, and, is susceptible to error on its own accord.

A good candidate for that, is imagination, an added bonus resident in the fact imagination is that faculty whose function it is to synthesis the conceptions in a relation, from which follows that if imagination combines, say, concepts that do not belong to each in the construction of its sensory phenomena, e.g., flying animals with antlers, hallucinations are given, and if imagination combines concepts in the construction of its cognitions, e.g., to see one mountain is to see them all, delusions are given.

While this is all well and good, there is nothing contained in synthesis itself of which we are conscious. Thus, another faculty is required, such that the errors the system makes are brought to the attention of that which is conscious of them, and this faculty, is judgement, a component of understanding. Here, in judgement, the phenomenon “flying animal with antlers” is just confusing, where the delusion from cognition, is utterly irrational

But even that is not enough, insofar as there must be a means for self-correction, given that both hallucination with its empirical ground or delusion with its logical ground, contradict experience. And that faculty, is the Mighty and Highly Esteemed Judge Advocate General, reason.

But with respect to your misgivings, I submit that the objects of hallucination are just as real as far as the physiology of perception and the necessary subsequent sensations given from them, as those that are not hallucinatory. None of my senses can tell the difference between a hallucination and a not-hallucination. So saying, the possibility of error arises from a glitch in the system downstream from mere perception, at least from a metaphysical point of view.

Which is probably why we have psychologists nowadays, so we can be told what’s wrong with us, rather than accepting the intrinsic fallibility of the system with which Nature….theoretically…..saw fit to burden us, and allowing it the opportunity….theoretically….to fix itself.

See what happens when you say there weren’t any idealists here? One of ‘em inevitably has to pipe up and put forth his brand of stuff, just to prove you wrong. (Grin)

Can you rephrase? — Lionino

Hmmmm…ok, try this: guy stubs his toe on a tree root, cannot then legitimately deny he stubbed his toe on a tree root. He might claim he didn’t in order to save face after removing the leaves from his hair and whatnot, but reason won’t allow him to intelligently disregard the fact there was a time when he was no longer upright, however temporary that condition may have been.

While this a trivial example, the principle which sustains it is nonetheless congruent with that for which experience, hence the perception which is its occassion, is merely possible. Although, there is precedent wherein denial of a sensation follows from the inability to comprehend its cause, but this is improper application of human cognitive methodology. Guy might say he didn’t see the thing because he couldn’t figure out what it was, but this is only half true, in that he is justified in not knowing a thing but that doesn’t relieve him of admitting its being met with his own sensibility.

Dunno if that was any help or not. Might’a just made it worse, for which I offer apologies.

Perceptions are that which affords the immediate consciousness of the real, in a sensation.
— Mww

Which doesn't protect you against the uncertainty of whether those perceptions are really of the outside world or generated by your own mind. — Lionino

If it be granted the senses inform but do not judge, the notion here of protection from mental uncertainty regarding mere perception, is moot.

The physiological certainty on the other hand, manifest as an affect on the sensory apparatuses by real things external to those apparatuses, which just is that affordance, and from which sensations necessarily follow, is given and is thereby incontestable, insofar as the negation or denial of a given, is self-contradictory.

To even suppose the mind generates the very perceptions which occassion the pursuit of knowledge as a cognitive terminus, is to anesthetize the human intellectual system from its empirical predicates, which is tantamount to denying to Nature its proper authority as arbiter of human experience.

What brand of idealists does that?
— Mww

Subjective idealism or phenomenalism perhaps? — Michael

I dunno. But even the Good Bishop, if acknowledged as the foremost subjective idealist, granted to his fellow humans the reality of objects, the existence of non-mental entities.

The pure phenomenalist**, on the other hand, wants to deny, or limit, the real object’s non-mental existence, which is absurd, considering the inescapable affect plane crashes or mosquito bites have on our intelligence.
(** not to be confused with the Kantian sense of intuitive representations called phenomena, which isn’t technically phenomenalism. He gave it a quick once-over gloss with phenomenology, but left such naming as philosophically inconsequential)

It also seems that nobody here believes that our perceptions are the objects (…). But I imagine that is because no idealist has entered the thread yet. — Lionino

So idealists believe our perceptions are the objects? What brand of idealists does that?

I’m a card-carryin’, non-apologetic dualist, which makes me half-idealist, and neither that half nor the empirical half believes our perceptions are the objects.

Even if the idealist grants we perceive objects, or, which is the same thing, our perceptions are of objects, he does nothing by such warrant to explicate what perceptions are.

To perceive, to have perceptions, is to be affected by the real;
Perceptions are that which affords the immediate consciousness of the real, in a sensation.

After this physiological groundwork, and for sufficient methodological epistemic justifications, it’s off to the metaphysical rodeo, like it or not.

I don't think "I don't understand" requires either space or time. — Lionino

Certainly not space, but I rather think any philosophical framework mandates time as a fundamental prerequisite for its methodology. Or, maybe I just wouldn’t entertain the possibility that there are those that do not.

The idea of space is not required to say something is "beyond me"…. — Lionino

Agreed, but “beyond me” still qualifies as a certain relation. If there are but two fundamental relational representations, and for relations in which space is not required, all that remains, is time.

A context-driven conceptual dichotomy, nonetheless.

Doesn't that suggest there is a cosmic time? — Bob Ross

I suppose one could be justified in claiming something like, “….There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy…”, while at the same time, the guy next to him could retort with, ehhhh, so what if there are.

Even if there is such a thing as cosmic time, isn’t that just another conception given from the same intelligence from which all others arise? Why should cosmic time that manifests in certain objective or empirical relations, negate the subjective intuitional form of time in general, which is the condition of every relation?

Gotta admit to the fascinating science, though, all things considered.

I think that what we scientifically know, is a rough estimation of what is really there in-itself. — Bob Ross

I suppose, depending on how logically consistent one wishes to be, but generally I agree with that, which should relieve me of scientific anti-realism. What we scientifically know, then, just indicates a particular method; that which is known about being what it may.

Without taking an anti-realist position, I don't see how you can explain the observable phenomena of 'time dilation', for example, by appeal to "phenomenal", a priori, time. — Bob Ross

All time dilation shows is the relation between sets of conditions with respect to each other. Nothing particularly amazing about it, insofar as time dilation only manifests to that which is outside both relative sets of conditions, so if a guy is contained in one or the other of those, there is no time dilation for him at all, but he intuits relations in time for himself a priori nonetheless.

But regarding your concern, maybe it is that appeal to phenomenal intuitions of time isn’t really necessary to explain the scientific experimental result. Or to explain even the mathematical justification before the scientific experimental result. Maybe it is sufficient to presuppose the intuition within the domain of empirical science, and only appeal to it within the domain of metaphysics, the interest of which being the possibility of knowledge itself.

I don't think that space and time are proper substances…. — Bob Ross

Cool. That’s what I understood by your space and time in a “cosmic” sense.

I think physics demonstrates quite sufficiently that space and time are valid 'entities' in our calculations….. — Bob Ross

True enough, insofar as physics is nothing more than human intelligence at work in the specific domain where the physicist investigates the conditions by which things relate to himself or to each other. If the fundamental relation between things is the where and/or the when of one with respect to the other, space and time are necessary conditions……or in your terms I suppose, valid entities…..in calculating that relation.

……and not in the sense that they are merely our modes of intuition. — Bob Ross

I would argue that they are in that very sense, insofar as the physicist still has to intuit the things** to which his calculations are applicable. He knows a priori one thing is in a different space and a different time than another thing, which would be the most certain when the other thing is himself; his calculations merely determine how much space and time are between one and the other. He also knows a priori one thing can be of two times in one space but never two spaces at one time. None of such a priori intuition is possible without the conceptions to which any and all things must relate, from which follows necessarily that space and time, as those conceptions are represented, and that by which the physicist intuits the relation of things as determinable, must reside in the physicist himself.
(**the theoretical physicist, when concerned only with possible things, still must treat them as if their reality is given, iff he subjects them to the same natural law as he subjects the real things of his experience)

Anyway….for whatever that’s worth.

the task of decomposing thoughts on the axis of time is very troublesome, and I would be interested to know if there was ever a philosopher to undertake this task. — Lionino

“…. The schema of substance is the permanence of the real in time…..
……The schema of possibility is the determination of the representation of a thing at any time….
……The schema of reality is existence in a determined time….
……The schema of necessity is the existence of an object in all time….

……It is clear, from all this, that the schema of the category of quantity contains and represents the generation (synthesis) of time itself, in the successive apprehension of an object….
……the schema of quality the synthesis of sensation with the representation of time, or the filling up of time….
……the schema of relation the relation of perceptions to each other in all time (that is, according to a rule of the determination of time)….
……and finally, the schema of modality and its categories, time itself, as the correlative of the determination of an object—whether it does belong to time, and how.

The schemata, therefore, are nothing but à priori determinations of time according to rules, and these, in regard to all possible objects, following the arrangement of the categories, relate to the series in time, the content in time, the order in time, and finally, to the complex or totality in time.…”
(CPR A143-145/B182-185)

Maybe not exactly what you asked for, but does show there was/is a philosopher tasking himself with decomposing that which is thought about, to its necessary relation to time.