if something like time cannot be measured can it be said to exist at all? — invicta

Ehhh….I’d give that a big fat no. Can’t buy it by the pound, can’t store it in the freezer. Usually when we say something exists we can lay a hand on it, or could lay a hand on it if we knew where to find it. Or if not that, then just sit around and wait for it to show us an effect impossible for anything else to cause. Far as I know, none of those have happened.

Our senses (…) are not anchored by a sense of time. We simply lack it hence us building clocks to tell its passage in a consistent way. — invicta

Our senses are not anchored by a sense of time, true, but we can’t say we lack a sense of it, in that we must somehow have a sense of that which eventually will be conceived as “time”, otherwise there’s no legitimate reason for us to build clocks at all.
————-

if space is removed from time then the notion of space loses meaning I’d say. — invicta

If the notion of space loses its meaning, how could you say one object is adjacent to, far from, or contained in, another?

I do have some sympathy toward a part of what you're saying there. — Eugen

Couldn’t wish for anything more.

So I can’t know anything unless some facts are transmitted to me by language? — Mww

No. — Andrew4Handel

No, I can’t know anything unless….?

I think personal experience is a rich source of knowledge. — Andrew4Handel

So I can know, even without facts transmitted to me by language. All clear to me now. (grin)

Reality doesn’t have fundamental properties;
— Mww

So there are no fundamental properties, only properties. There is no fundamental reality in your opinion, right? — Eugen

There are properties; there are fundamental properties. These all belong to objects alone.

There is the conception of reality, a metaphysical placeholder for all that is possible to experience, all that is real. There is no qualifier for reality; fundamental reality just is reality.
———-

'Fluidity" is not a property over and above the properties of H and O. — Eugen

Depends on what you want a property to represent. If a property is the determinant factor in the identity of a thing, fluidity is a better service, insofar as H and O, in and of themselves, cannot identify anything except themselves. I mean…..H and O are gases, but water, as such, is not, so I think it difficult to maintain gases are properties of fluids.

The term ''fluidity" is just a shorthand for something that could be fully described by other properties. — Eugen

True, but the description is of water, not fluidity. Minor categorical error, so to speak. Besides, the descriptions of fluidity do not necessarily apply to water alone, but could also apply to oil. And I did say amphoteric fluidity, which is more specific in regard to which fluid substance the property relates.

”Water" and "fluidity" are just language…. — Eugen

True, but language is nothing but representation of conceptions. The conception that “water” represents is very far from the conceptions by which the constituent matter of water are represented.
————

let's assume for the sake of the argument that consciousness's existence is dependent on matter (created by matter), but its properties are not reducible to matter.
— Eugen

That is strong emergence. Are you embracing it? — Eugen

Again, strong/weak emergence is just language tripping all over itself. I’m not of a mind to embrace that which is impossible to know, which leaves me with nothing but the LNC. Even if I don’t know how, I can still hold that the brain is responsible for my intelligence, from which follows my thinking consciousness as a valid representation, all without contradicting science or reason contradicting itself. That’s as far as I’m inclined to go.

because the thing conceived (as shown in brackets) in 4) is "greater" than in 3)….. — Michael

“…. By whatever and by whatever number of predicates—even to the complete determination of it—I may cogitate a thing, I do not in the least augment the object of my conception by the addition of the statement: This thing exists.…”
(CPR A600/B628)

…..then 2) must be true, which again is a fallacious reinterpretation. — Michael

2) positing “and this entity exists”, is precisely the fallacy in the original argument expounded in the Kantian objection to it.

The OP is full of holes, but your breakdown is agreeable.

I think once we accept that language transmits facts we have a basis for knowledge….. — Andrew4Handel

So I can’t know anything unless some facts are transmitted to me by language?

By temporality I mean the passage of time and its experience….. — invicta

Would you entertain the notion finite beings don’t experience the passage of time, but rather, only experience change? And even if change makes explicit successions in time relative to each other, it remains it is not time itself that is the object experienced.

Question: would such a progression of linear time to a conscious being allow them to understand its infinite nature…. — invicta

If the above notion is granted, it follows time doesn’t have the infinite nature, but the infinite resides in the changes that are possible to imagine. If space and time are merely necessary conditions for human experience, then each would be only as infinite as that experience which is conditioned by them.

But the apparent infinite nature of space and time, properly understood, is merely the infinite possibility for change. The argument goes….even given the infinite divisibility of space and time, each division is still just space or time.

Where is the ''nonsense"? — Eugen

Maybe not so much nonsense, as violation of principles.

Reality doesn’t have fundamental properties; the objects which constitute reality, do.

A property of water is amphoteric fluidity. The constituency of water, H and O, do not have fluidity as a property.

The properties of the constituent matter to which water is reducible, are weight, number, charge, spin, and so one, but these are not properties of water.

Water, if reduced to its fundamental constituency, is no longer water. It follows that water cannot be reduced beyond the very properties by which its identity is determinable.

let's assume for the sake of the argument that consciousness's existence is dependent on matter (created by matter), but its properties are not reducible to matter. — Eugen

Just like that…..

Thanks.

The link brings up a rather large list of links. Which one contains “ One of [ Kant's ] cardinal innovations…”?

Cool.

The meaning of "the apple tastes disgusting" has nothing to do with whether or not Suzy throws the apple out of the car. — Michael

Fundamental in principle, deduced and proved, in 1787.

Your description is one of the interpretations of Aristotle's view of phantasia. — Paine

You mean as in De Anima, or something else?

Some have theorized that writing may have preceded speech, but I doubt it. — frank

Yeah….what would a written grunt or bellow look like?

Yep. Just like that.

Ironic, innit? The human thinks in images, but cannot express himself by them. So he invents language to represent his thoughts, but finds words sometimes inadequate, or, he doesn’t know how to use them properly. So what does he do? By his imagination he reproduces similes of the very representations he started with, but this time, he thinks himself communicating by means of them.

Ha!! Oh, what a tangled web we weave….

Thoughts? — frank

A few.

The brain. Amazing piece of machinery. In humans, the irreducible source of knowledge, except the knowledge of how it is that the brain is the irreducible source of knowledge.

The brain. Amazing piece of machinery. In the absence of knowledge of itself, it is still sufficient as the irreducible source of speculation regarding itself, in which case, the brain is really no more than the perfect source for mystifying its own operation, by disguising itself as that which contains a speculator, and from which arises that the brain is mystifying itself by containing a spectator which says so.

What is actually 3.5lbs or so of specialized meat, has the innate capacity to manifest itself as having the capacity to suggest specialized meat has the capacity to mystify itself.

WTF is a self/spectator supposed to do with that?!?!

Be thankful, insofar as he only validates himself….endures….as long as does the brain containing him.

Be pissed, insofar as the brain makes all this knowledge, like natural law and whatnot, possible, but then mocks him by making it impossible to use his knowledge on the scale where the brain operates.

Be suspicious, insofar as should he somehow find out how the brain makes it possible for him to find out how the brain works…..will he find out he was, at best, a mere accident, or, at worst, he never was?

Be audacious, insofar as if he can’t explain himself as conditioned by the brain, then he’ll just go ahead and explain himself as conditioned by that about which he knows even less.

Be sardonic, and instead direct his explanatory power to language and social constructs and such stuff as needs other selves by which to justify his superficial sagacity.

That’s how the myth of the self endures. Cuz the brain won’t let it not. Which is something I couldn’t possibly know, so….

(Sigh)

Why would it be that one of the purportedly major 20th c philosophers wants to 'avoid any appeal to rational insight?' — Wayfarer

Dunno, but Quinne at least, wishes to avoid such appeal by substituting “ontic necessity”, in that if a scientific theory is grounded by abstract mathematical objects, and the theory is believed to hold, then those objects are necessary, re: indispensable.

Apparently, the escape from rational insight reflects the disregard for the origin of those abstract objects, and those a priori conditions by which they are even possible. In other words, such objects are merely given, hence the rational insight for their origin is not required, insofar as the accepted theory is concerned, it doesn’t matter.

As for the avoidance of rational insight altogether, Quine 1981, “…abandonment of the goal of a first philosophy…”, re: naturalism writ large, relegates all rational insight to the back burner, when the goal of a first philosophy is the deduction to principles by which natural science itself is possible, which seems a perfect way to shoot yourself in the foot.
————-

Still feel as though the point I was labouring has somewhat slipped the net here. — Wayfarer

I would like to think I helped put it back.

It is the case that if Kant’s Prolegomena claims that we cannot know anything of God (or other supernatural things for that matter) through rational thought, then, if it is right we should not be doing any rational theology at all. — ClayG

It is not the case. Kant does not tell us what we should or should not think, but only gives the conditions under which whatever we do think, is held within its proper limits, and, how to distinguish when it isn’t.

This is because if we cannot know anything of theology through rational thinking alone then rational theology is not a study worth pursuing since there is nothing that can be known about it or come from it. — ClayG

Self-contradictory, in that how did it come about that we can know nothing of theology through rational thought alone, if not be rational thought alone? Knowledge of theology is one thing; knowledge of the objects that belong to theology, is quite another.

However, this is not to say that we should not be employing experiential a posteriori) knowledge to give us clues to how God or other supernatural things function. — ClayG

The employment of a posteriori principles only tell us about empirical things, which could only give us clues as to how supernatural things do NOT function. If a posteriori knowledge told us how supernatural things function, they wouldn’t be supernatural.

For what it’s worth……

Because the decision-making process is not empirically observable, in any situation where it exists, it will not be apprehended by an observer, unless the observer proceeds from the appropriate premises, required to determine its existence. — Metaphysician Undercover

Then there is no sufficient reason to think…..

The "human sensory apparatus" is structured in such a way that decisions would be required for its creation. — Metaphysician Undercover

….this has any approximation to being the case. If a process is not empirically observable there’s no reason to look for the initial premises sufficient to find it. It isn’t observable, so how would it be known what to look for?

Furthermore, empirical observation of the results of decision-making, the consequences or effects of decisions, indicates that one person's decision-making process is not the same as another's. — Metaphysician Undercover

Nonsense. I add 12 to 30, get 42. You add 18 to 6, get 24. We got different results, but used exactly the same process. While it may be an unauthorized stretch to apodeitically claim what the decision-making process in fact is, it is not so much of a stretch to say that for any member of a given kind, whatever it is will be the same across the spectrum of its members.
————-

However, as I tried to explain earlier…… — Metaphysician Undercover

You mean this?

From what I've been explaining, judgement is necessarily prior to conscious thought, therefore conscious thought must be understood as conditioned by judgement, not vise versa. This is why our conscious judgements are often overwhelmed by biases and prejudices. Prejudice is base in prior judgement which may not have involved conscious thought. — Metaphysician Undercover

All you say here is uncontested, but says nothing with respect to origins. It is fine for the mediocre understanding, but hardly of metaphysical value. Even the judgement which serves as current bias, was at its inception, the result of conscious thought. All you’ve done is kicked the can backwards, but haven’t given it a place to rest.

However, as I tried to explain earlier, it's not necessarily the logic which is flawed here. It's more likely that the premises are what are flawed. The premises, generally, are derived from our empirical observations, and the flaw is in how we generalize from observation. This — Metaphysician Undercover

Right, which is shown by the arithmetic examples above. For empirical conditions, for a logical conclusion regarding real things, the premises are generally derived from observations. And how we generalize from observation, is in fact, how the observation, and by association, the real thing, is understood. From which follows that the premises used for logical conclusions, arise in understanding, therefore whatever flaws there may be in the construction of our premises, also arise in understanding.

For me to misjudge is merely for me to think conceptions relate to each other when some other judgement or some empirical observation, shows my error. For two people to disagree is nothing but one thinking his conceptions relate, the other thinks his relate, but in fact the two sets of conceptions themselves do not relate to each other.
————-

The way that you present things is exactly the reason why Socrates and Plato argued so fervently that the senses deceive us. Sense observations do not give us reality, they give us possibilities. This is very evident from the fact that a multitude of different people observing the very same event will always provide differing descriptions. — Metaphysician Undercover

They may well have argued fervently, but they both took insufficient account of the depth of human cognition. Sense observations give reality; understanding gives the possibility for determining a relation to that reality, and its relation is described by how it is thought, and how it is thought is the conjunction, the synthesis if you will, of conceptions to intuitions, which is a judgement.

These description, sense observations, are taken by the thinking mind as possibilities for reality. Then we must employ logic to determine which we want to accept as certainties, necessities. — Metaphysician Undercover

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

The problem is that understanding the conscious decision-making process reveals that it is flawed. It is flawed for the reasons exposed above, much of it is carried out by the non-conscious, as exposed above, with the "hidden premises", and all sorts of premises which are simply taken for granted without being consciously thought about to validate them. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, there are flaws possible in the conscious decision-making process, but that does not say the process is flawed, but only the use of it, is. And whatever “hidden premises” there are in conscious decision-making cannot be the responsibility of the conscious agent making the decisions, insofar as it is contradictory to arrive at a conscious decision grounded by premises of which I am not conscious. To simply take for granted bias and prejudice as premises for conscious judgement, is a flaw in the subject’s character, not in the process the agent employs in his decision-making. One can be tutored in correcting erroneous judgements, but if he is so tutored, yet decides to disregard the corrections, he is called pathologically stupid. If tutored, and receives the corrections and thereby judges in accordance with them, that is called experience, and serves as ground of all empirical judgements.

Observations prove/disprove logical constructs.
— Mww

You've got this backward. Logic is what provides certainty, not empirical observation. That's the point of my example about the earth orbiting the sun. Empirical observation provides us with possibilities concerning the reality of things, and we use logic to produce certainties, which we call necessities. — Metaphysician Undercover

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

Empirical observation presupposes the thing, and merely provides the occasion for thinking about the possibilities concerning what a thing is or does, its reality already given by the occasion itself. Logic, on the other hand where observation is not presupposing anything because there’s nothing to observe, dictates the possible reality of things. Subsequent observation then proving the possibility, but having nothing to do with the reality of that thing, insofar as it was always an existent thing, just unobserved. At last, an empirical construct directly proceeding from the merely logical, re: things created by an intelligence because the logical possibility for it antecedes from the same intelligence, that never was possible to observe in order to validate the possibility, but rather, the construction is the observation, re: any gas station anywhere in the world.
———-

When I get a cramp in my leg I stand up and walk to relieve it. I do not rub it, there is no external stimulus required, nothing which fulfils your description of "real physical incident". — Metaphysician Undercover

Yeeaahhhno. As if standing up and walking isn’t a real physical incident.

that there may be a decision-making process out there somewhere, is not impossible.
— Mww

To say it's not impossible, is to miss the reality that it is logically necessary. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yeah, my fault, sort of. You began by claiming a necessary decision-making process for construction of human sensory apparatus, and I took that to decision-making for all reality. I should have left it at human sensory apparatus, in which, being a father, I’ve witnessed the construction of my children’s sensory apparatus from absolutely none at all, to fully functional, under purely empirical, decision-less, conditions.

I suppose you’re left to say that because I made the decision to be a father, my children’s sensory apparatus to come into existence necessarily from that decision alone, which is quite absurd, seeing as how my decision extended only so far as getting laid. My kids shouldn’t have had any sensory apparatus constructed, if your argument is the case, but they did. Your argument is flawed.

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

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

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

Understanding that conscious decision-making is just the tip of a much bigger process helps one to understand what it means to be a human being. — Metaphysician Undercover

Unless conscious decision-making just is what it means to be a human being, in which case that process is all he needs, and if there happens to be a bigger process takes nothing away from his being one. Long been understood, a human being can think anything he wants. If he wants to think there’s a bigger process, fine. He still has to ask about that bigger process by means of that by which he asks anything, hence is subject to the very same rules as contained in the conscious decision-making process he used for those answers with which he’s satisfied.

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

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

This is a fatalist, determinist saying. In reality, the power of choice allows us to change, and become something new at each passing moment — Metaphysician Undercover

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

There is no such thing as "what we are", or "as it is" — Metaphysician Undercover

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

The decision-making process is what allows us to be moving on rather than what we are. — Metaphysician Undercover

It also limits the illusory appearance that we have.

Like I said…a human can think anything he wants. But he really does himself no favors by making a complete mess of it.
————-

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

True, the object is not the phenomenon; the phenomenon represents the sensation an object provides. The objects are therefore the necessary material condition for sensation, subsequently the necessary spatial condition for the possibility of phenomena in general. No objects, no sensation, no phenomena.

True, my experience is of my phenomena. I do not experience objects, but only the representations of them.

True, my experience produces no necessity of objects. Necessity is produced in understanding.

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

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

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

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

That being established, necessary objects the mind derives are not contingent; the reality of them, is, and such reality depends exclusively on the possibility of the phenomena that represent them. Your so-called bigger process is a good example, in that it is possible to logically construct a bigger process of whatever form, and understand it as such, but quite another to experience it, which would only be possible if that process, or the objects contained in it, were susceptible to phenomenal representation.

A bigger process is itself only a conception, as yet with no object that describes what such bigger process entails, what makes it a bigger process, how it is not merely a familiar lesser process with simply larger scope. Whatever that object is, or plurality of objects, however reason constructs, is necessarily related to the conception, subsumed under it, such that the conception takes a form without self-contradiction.

You’re welcome.
————-

Take any A-HA!! moment of your life….. compare it to stubbing your toe.
— Mww

Here's a better comparison. Let's compare when I stub my toe, with when I suddenly get a cramp in my leg. — Metaphysician Undercover

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

But in the case of the cramp in my leg, there's nothing for me to point at and blame. — Metaphysician Undercover

So you don’t immediately and automatically rub the muscle in the exact location of a charlie horse? You rub the muscle far removed from it? Even if you do neither, your brain locates it, which represents as an image of that very location in fact being rubbed, because muscle extension as relaxation is already understood as the most feasible relief. It follows, with respect to empirical judgements, you’ve made the first regarding that a rub is feasible, and second, where the rub must occur in order for its feasibility to properly manifest. A-HA!!! moments, it should be clear, are judged not like that in a completed series of them, although the initial judgement may be with respect to an empirical condition, but the concluding judgement will have nothing whatsoever to do with it. It is nonsense to judge the cause of an event in the same way as the effect the event has, when ‘the cause of this’ and ‘this caused effect on’, are related to very different things.

Likewise, pointing out external things, and saying that these things are the cause of any sort of sensations, is a mistake. — Metaphysician Undercover

Could be, but only under the auspices of a method which suffices to prove it is, at the expense of whatever method which suffices to prove it isn’t.

The question is, is it not a necessary requirement for some judgements or decisions to have been made in order for a body which senses to be created, or to simply come into existence, to become? — Metaphysician Undercover

The only method for judgement I can use is right between my ears, and since that cannot be the creator of me, whatever that creator is, if it is, is something for which I have no interest.

This (evolutionary theory) ought to incline us to look at "intuition" more closely, to see if perhaps there is judgement inherent within it. — Metaphysician Undercover

Been done already. Came up empty. If there is, it’s going to require a whole new way of looking for it, in order to find it.

Sure, that there may be a decision-making process out there somewhere, is not impossible. But even if there is, what difference would it make to that which is, now. We are what we are, and everything is as it is, whether there was or was not a decision-making process. We and things could have been different but nothing is different than it is, so….who cares. Better to contemplate decision-making in which a change is given because I am the cause of it.
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I hear a loud boom, so it cannot be denied I heard something, from which arises a mere phenomenon.
— Mww

Your premise presumes what you claim, that is known as begging the question. When you state "I hear a loud boom", that premise dictates that you actually heard something. But we cannot start with that assumption unless we are certain that it is correct. — Metaphysician Undercover

We? Who the hell is we? I’m as certain as I need to be, and you can assume anything you like. I wonder, though, what you do first, when I state that I heard a boom. Do you immediately imagine what it’s like to hear a boom with your own ears, or do you immediately doubt I heard one with mine? Dunno about you, but when someone tells me about some perception of his, I start by assuming his certainty.
————

Once we see that a coherent philosophy can be produced which denies the reality of "the object", then the "possibility" of an object must replace the "necessity" of an object — Metaphysician Undercover

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

And the object cannot be taken as a given, it may be created by the cognitive act, as a sort of judgement imposed on the possibility of an object — Metaphysician Undercover

An object can be created by cognition, but such object is, at the time of its being cognized, not a sensible object, hence not a phenomenon. These are objects generated by purely a priori conditions and are merely conceptions that are thought, but by which sensible objects can possibly be constructed that represent them. First and foremost, the most ubiquitous of these, are numbers.

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

The judgement imposed on the possibility of an object is the same kind as imposed on real objects, only from a different set of categorical schema.
————-

Isn't "how a subject feels" just a matter of sensation? — Metaphysician Undercover

You tell me. Is the sensation you get from pictures you see of objects in the universe, the same kind of feeling you get when you imagine being there?

feelings are just another way, (other than through conscious thought), that sensations affect us. — Metaphysician Undercover

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

You can mix objective physiological sensation with subjective pain/pleasure if you like, but that won’t do in speculative metaphysics. This goes here, that goes there, and by mixing them up a contradiction can be forced, which does nothing but wreck the whole deal.

“…. Thus the criterion of the possibility of a conception (not of its object) is the definition of it, in which the unity of the conception, the truth of all that may be immediately deduced from it, and finally, the completeness of what has been thus deduced, constitute the requisites for the reproduction of the whole conception.…”
(CPR B115)

Note the lower textual location in B only, this in reference to understanding, whereas the other quotes with higher textual locations, refer to pure reason’s dogmatic use, and is found in both editions.

Of course definitions have a place, if only in justifications for a method.

That's what the representation is, an object of perception. — Metaphysician Undercover

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

Of the vast possibilities available to be represented….. — Metaphysician Undercover

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

……there is a specific representation which is produced which represents a particular portion of the available possibilities. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yep….represents that particular portion of all possible objects that is actually perceived, and is therefore relevant, insofar as such is the necessary ground of experience itself.

Obviously it is not random as to what will be represented, so don't you think there must be some sort of decision as to which possibilities will be represented? — Metaphysician Undercover

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

The decision on the form the representation will acquire, as opposed to whether or not there will be one, is an entirely different consideration.
—————

So consider what you say here "phenomena represents only what the senses provide". There must be something which determines "what the senses provide". — Metaphysician Undercover

Sure. The senses can provide nothing that has no relation to both space and time.

You see the body is composed in a specific way…. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, we can say we see the extension or shape of its composition, as a specific condition of its space. And we can say we see the changes in the composition, as well as its motion, as a condition of its time.

…..but the question is how could the body get composed in this way without some decisions, judgements. — Metaphysician Undercover

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

Take the process of trial and error for example, this process can only proceed through judgements. — Metaphysician Undercover

True, but that doesn’t say trial and error occurs in intuition, which is the source of phenomenal representations, or that there is trial and error going on in the first place, anywhere. Rather than an object having its composition somehow represented, trial and error then suggesting attempts to find out what that composition entails, why not just attribute properties to objects in conjunction with its representation, in which case the object’s composition conforms exactly to our understanding of its representation. If this is the way it works, this certain thing of this certain composition, is called a sun comprised of hot burning gas only because we say so, hence how that thing is to be known by us.
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quote="Metaphysician Undercover;797591"]Instead of being distracted by the idea that a judgement is defined by the necessity of thinking, we can put that requirement aside, and look at what "judgement" really consists of[/quote]

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

Would you agree that judgement requires possibilities, and is in some way a selection from possibility? — Metaphysician Undercover

No. There are possibilities and selections from them, but they been examined and selected by the time judgement intervenes. This is what conscious thought is for and why it is antecedent to judgement, hence a necessary condition for it.

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

I hear a loud boom, so it cannot be denied I heard something, from which arises a mere phenomenon. I have no immediate understanding of what made the boom, insofar as I am never conscious of my phenomena, but depending on the range of sensations appearing in the boom I perceive, I can conceive a range of boom-causing things conditioned by my experience of booms in general. Here the phenomenon is subjected to the rule of the categories, to which the conception of possibility properly belongs, by which the sensations of which I am conscious is subsumed under a range of conceptions which set the rules by which an object conceivable as sufficient for the phenomenon, is determinable, and is thereby the product of conscious thought. So it is that I have been given the phenomenon via sensibility, but I must think the conception that relates to it via understanding, in order to cognize what caused the boom I heard, which is experience.

Singular judgements, then, regarding perceptions or any empirical cognition, is the correctness, or the validity, of the relation between the phenomenon given to me and my knowledge of its cause. There are other subsets of empirical, discursive judgements, but they all operate under the same general principle.
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That you think you can stipulate, necessarily, what irrationality is, indicates that you misunderstand irrationality. — Metaphysician Undercover

I don’t need to stipulate what irrationality is, for it is nothing but the complement of rationality, which I must stipulate in order to know I haven’t contradicted myself under the conditions I am given. If I know the one, which I must, the other is just not that.
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I used those examples to demonstrate the possibility of judgement without thinking, so that you might allow this as a possibility. — Metaphysician Undercover

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

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

As an aside, do you believe in free will? If so, do you see that a true, freely willed act would necessarily be free from the influence of thinking? — Metaphysician Undercover

There ya go, getting close. It shouldn’t be an aside at all, insofar as judgements connected with this purely subjective domain are part and parcel of the overall human condition.

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

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

Are we done now?

Cool. I was hoping someone would mention looking at the shadow to switch the rotation. Doesn’t happen all the time, but often enough. Could just blink, too, like that hollow cube that switches orientation.

Might be me, but reflection or shadow, I can’t get it to mesh with the movement.

Fun anyway, so, thanks for that.

The shadow’s wrong.

Cute. New one on me.

are you going to explain, how something can make a representation without some sort of decisions or judgement as to what the representation will be of — Metaphysician Undercover

Did that already. Sort of. Gave you the what, even if not the how. Doesn’t matter; we’re not concerned right here right now with how it’s done, insofar as we’re not conscious of it, but only with how it can’t be done because we’re not conscious of it.

What the representation will be of? Hell, that’s a given: an intuitive representation, a phenomenon, can be nothing other than whatever is an object of perception, or a manifold of objects. And the reason that there is no deception here. Phenomena represent only what the senses provide, regardless of what that provision is. Hence…..imagination. That we make mistakes is also given; just that we must be conscious of them in order to know them as mistakes, which makes explicit we don’t make them right here right now.

Remember….we’re still stuck in the domain you forced us into, by restricting the dialectic to perception, sensation and the deceptions therein, general sensibility. I’m trying like hell to get us out of it, but I’m not dragging you out kicking and screaming; you gotta get yourself out. Go into the light, kinda thing, donchaknow.

….you've told me… — Metaphysician Undercover

….I've shown you… — Metaphysician Undercover

demonstrate that what you belief is not the case. The evidence shows your belief is false. — Metaphysician Undercover

No. The evidence both of us show, is that it is incomplete. There’s more going on here than either of us have put forth, me because it hasn’t come up yet, you because you don’t get the full implication of what you’ve shown me.

The "methodological self-contradiction" which you refer to is the result of your faulty definition of "judgement", which makes conscious thinking a necessary requirement for judgement. — Metaphysician Undercover

I haven’t defined “judgement”. That conscious thinking is a necessary condition for the activity of judgement, does not serve as definition of it. Speaking of definitions, or, which is the same thing, asking about what it is…..silence, for which I have an excuse because I was never asked but you do not, because you were.

If you would divorce judgement from thinking, as the evidence of illogical, irrational, emotional, and random judgements necessitates, then this "methodological self-contradiction" would disappear. — Metaphysician Undercover

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

So you’d have it that, e.g., an irrational judgement, is that judgement entirely divorced from thinking, but I would maintain that an irrational judgement is that judgement concluded from improper thinking. Your way cannot explain the irrationality itself, whereas mine stipulates it necessarily. You, therefore, haven’t alleviated a methodological self-contradiction, but in fact enforced it.

How do you not understand this? — Metaphysician Undercover

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

you make the inconsistent conclusion that there is no form of judgement present. — Metaphysician Undercover

(Sigh) I said no form of judgement present…..in sensibility. But if I made an inconsistent conclusion, which is a judgement, but necessarily beyond, outside, other than by means of, sensibility……fill in the blanks for yourself.

How do you think that something could make a representation without some form of judgement as to how this will be done? — Metaphysician Undercover

Been telling you all along how I think judgement as you use it could NOT be done, which presupposes I think how it can. It could NOT be used as you’ve been suggesting because eventually it leads to methodological self-contradiction, exemplified by, regarding phenomena, the notion of my concluding something when I’m not conscious of that which I’m concluding about. That I’m not conscious of the construction of my intuitive representations, is a fact, even if such construction being necessarily the case for the operation of human intelligence, is not. Point being, such construction is nowhere contradictory, neither naturally nor logically, so while there may be no satisfaction with respect to empirical knowledge, there is complete satisfaction with respect to reason.

Horace Greeley: “go west, young man!!!!”
Me: “Go deeper, young man!!”

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

Now "the system" refers to something physical, the material body, so you've restricted us to a materialist premise by saying that this faculty must be within the system. — Metaphysician Undercover

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

This excludes the possibility that the faculty is related to the system, as cause to effect. — Metaphysician Undercover

In a closed physical system, it is the material that is necessary cause for metaphysical effect. But in the metaphysical system itself, any faculty contained in it is necessarily related to, but may not be caused by, some other faculty in that same system, re: cum hoc ergo propter hoc logical inconsistency.
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we can consider the effects of a judgement, and we might consider the causes of a judgement. Do you agree? — Metaphysician Undercover

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

You say, that a judgement presupposes "that which makes it possible". By using the word "possible", this does not necessarily refer to the cause of the judgement, but more like the physical conditions which allow for a judgement to occur. — Metaphysician Undercover

In this case, cause is better than physical conditions, but again, with respect to a purely logical system, antecedent is better than cause. An effect presupposes its cause but does not presuppose any knowledge or understanding of it. In judgement, which is a logical conclusion, the antecedents are also presupposed, but they are always understood, in accordance with their respective placement and functionality in the system.

That there is an absolutely necessary physicalism involved here is given, but it is irrelevant with respect to metaphysical systems. The former we can’t talk about because we don’t understand enough about it to answer all it is possible to ask, we can talk about the latter because its very invention, from which its understanding is given automatically, was in order to talk about all it is possible to ask.

Would you agree, that as well as "that which makes it possible", there must also be an actual cause, that which makes the judgement actual, and this we could call the agent in the judgement? — Metaphysician Undercover

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

Why do you think that we do not care about the reality of judgements? — Metaphysician Undercover

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

Take a hint, fercrissakes!!!!
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If sensation is simply a determinist cause/effect relation, then there is no mistake in sensation, it simply is what it is. But that's what I see as clearly wrong, because it leaves the human being without free will, and completely determined. Then judgement is not real. — Metaphysician Undercover

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

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

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

Nahhh, I got nothing better to do. Beats the shit outta these woke social-media oriented dweeb’s topics hereabouts.

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

“….. When we try to discover the nature of the reality behind the shadows, we are confronted with the fact that all discussion of the ultimate nature of things must necessarily be barren unless we have some extraneous standards against which to compare them. For this reason, to borrow Locke's phrase, "the real essence of substances" is forever unknowable. We can only progress by discussing the laws which govern the changes of substances, and so produce the phenomena of the external world. These we can compare with the abstract creations of our own mind…”
(James Jeans, “The Mysterious Universe”, 1930, in “Quantum Physics and Ultimate Reality Mystical Writings of Great Physicists”, Michael Green, 2013)

Big doings back in those days, for sure. The ultimate Humpy Dumpty.

I do not know exactly where, within me, this system lies. — Metaphysician Undercover

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

So the question of where this faculty is, which makes the judgements, is not even relevant at this point. — Metaphysician Undercover

Man, your system is nothing like mine. Not only do you not know where a faculty is within a system, it is irrelevant where it is. But you’re still going to insist this faculty does something, despite not knowing the influences on it given you don’t know where in the system it is found.

All that is necessary now is that we recognize the reality of those judgements. — Metaphysician Undercover

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

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

The gist of what I said…. — Metaphysician Undercover

I do not work with gists; proper dialectics require I work with only what is given to me, and that subjected to my own understanding.

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

I addressed the "sensibility thinks" issue by stating that this is not a form of thinking — Metaphysician Undercover

You said this form of “judgement” in sensibility “decides for me”. You’ll have to forgive me for thinking that the making of a decision requires some sort of conclusion derivable from some antecedent conditions, which is for all intents and purposes, a logical relation, in fact, a syllogism. If such is the case, it requires that sensibility be equipped for the construction of logical relations. So either sensibility thinks in the construction of logical relations, from which is given the necessity of two thinking faculties in the same system (what a mess that would be), or, “judgement” in sensibility which “decides for me”, is patently absurd.

By saying “judgement” which “decides for me” is not a form of thinking, thereby attempting to relieve the two thinking faculties dilemma, matters are made even worse, for now it must be told how a decision can be made for me which requires no logical relations.
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I used the quotations to indicate that my usage might be one which you are not very familiar with. That would be the case if you haven't done the analysis required to find the thing which the term refers to in that context. — Metaphysician Undercover

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

I think of it as a courtesy which I afford for you…. — Metaphysician Undercover

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

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

All else is superfluous.

However there must be some form of "judgement", though not rational judgement which is inherent within intuition — Metaphysician Undercover

What I am saying is that inherent within my sensibility, there is some sort of "judgement", which "decided" to present this display to me — Metaphysician Undercover

I explained in detail why it is necessary to conclude that there is some form of "judgement" occurring at a subconscious level — Metaphysician Undercover

These are declarations, mere assertions, with no detailed explanation accompanying them. And I reject anything needing quotation marks that merely substantiate its ambiguity. It’s judgement or it isn’t, such a thing as “judgement” just doesn’t say enough to be taken seriously.

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

‘Nuff said.
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the inclination to restrict "judgement" to conscious mental activity is a misunderstanding of the nature of living beings. — Metaphysician Undercover

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

Surely you must understand that subconscious mental activity is just as much a part of the human psyche as conscious mental activity. Why not acknowledge that this subconscious activity involves some form of "judgement" just like conscious mental activity involves judgement? — Metaphysician Undercover

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

Of course, because you realize I'm right. — Metaphysician Undercover

Day-um, man!! How big is your ego, anyway??? You got “you realize I’m right” out of “have it your way”? Like….the only possible analysis of the one reduces to the other? If I made such a preposterous deduction, I would not be so inclined to admit to having a degree in philosophy.

Be interesting to see what has to say about your claim that it’s….

…overwhelmingly obvious that I am right. — Metaphysician Undercover

Bet it won’t be pretty, and justifiable so, insofar as the causes of the disrespect on both our parts is so easy to present. One little sample among many:

Me: two thinking faculties in one system;
You: two “faculties” in one system.

From which it becomes obvious to you that you’re right, not by correcting a wrong, but by changing content to force a right.

So…..have it your way.

What I am saying is that inherent within my sensibility, there is some sort of "judgement", which "decided" to present this display to me in a way which is beautiful, or pleasant. — Metaphysician Undercover

This is tantamount to proposing that sensibility thinks, from which follows that given that understanding is the faculty of thought, there are now two thinking faculties in the same system. What a mess that would turn out to be.

What happens if I eat something, and I think that it tastes good, but it ends up making me sick? Clearly that inherent "judgement", which judged it as good was mistaken. — Metaphysician Undercover

You tell me. Something tastes good, turns out to make you sick, so……what, it really didn’t taste good?

Have it your way.

I do agree if the pictures of those objects being outside the skull are intended to demonstrate that the objects, exactly as they are perceived, exist outside the skull. — Janus

Agreed, but does to exist carry the same meaning as to be named? I maintain that the objects in pictures meant to demonstrate human perception shouldn’t have names. Objects don’t come pre-named, right?

The philosophically discerning mind realises its own judgement is central to the generally taken-for-granted nature of the sensory domain — Wayfarer

My sentiments exactly. The average Joe isn’t philosophically discerning, but he could be, given proper instruction.

….an acknowledgement of the limitations of empiricism. — Wayfarer

And the limits of empiricism is not tacit approval for some relative increase in idealism’s authority.