He shows that there are a posteriori necessities. — Banno

For instance? Quick and easy and to the point, please.

Naming and Necessity, by Kripke — frank

Oh. Language philosophy. Hard pass.

I speak, you listen. You speak, I listen. Figure out whatever differences there might be.

End language philosophy 101.

Read the essay. — frank

You’ve linked to trope theory and Cartesian theater. Which of these is the essay?

You still have properties. Judge yourself as you see fit. Those properties are just not essential. — Banno

Then I am left to judge myself by that which changes, which makes explicit I cannot know myself as a singular self, insofar as my self must change as do the properties of me. And insofar as it is always and only myself that judges, and that which judges, and that which is judged by, always changes, then it is impossible for there to be a singular identifiable self which is judging.

What a mess am I.

Your properties change, yet you remain Mww. (…) Individuals need not have an essence. — Banno

I am this, my properties change, therefore the this I remain is not my properties.
I am an individual, but I don’t need an essence.
I am not my properties, and my essence is not necessary.

Then I have absolutely nothing by which to judge myself, thus I cannot know anything about myself.

Yet, I do.

….(to) teach a girl that females are bad at math….. — frank

….is just to be a bad teacher.

You'll be a very different person in each of these cases, — frank

I’ve had a dozen occupations, both professional and incidental, yet I’m still just lil’ ol’ me.

Can the interest which makes one good at something, and conversely the lack of it that makes him not so good, be predicated on cultural or environmental influences?

….the unity of apperception in the mind is mysterious. — RussellA

Ain’t that the truth. Especially since mind is itself merely a conceptual placeholder for whatever’s going on upstairs. Gotta call it something, right? Calling it something isn’t enough, in that it still needs be explained what the hell it’s for, what it’s doing, and how do we know all that.

I prefer reason over mind, myself.
————

….each thought (…) is a distinct unified whole and as a unified whole is not only irreducible but has meaning. — RussellA

Agreed, but the ultra-moderns will insist each thought is reducible to its meaning, which is directly related to its communal, collective use. Without, of course, a strict methodology by which that actually happens.

Because they don’t like metaphysics, they kill it.

I'd call consciousness the act (activity) of having sensations, thoughts, and so on — Banno

Can’t be the act of; it is only that to which the unity of all our representations belong, such that it is then possible for them all to be my representations, which, in turn, makes explicit a singular self, which gives “I think”. Consciousness does not act; it is merely indicates a relative quality of being acted upon.

The activity of the having of sensations is a function of physiology, the exchange of the affect of the sensation to the representation of it, is intuition, the object of which is phenomenon.

The act of having thoughts is understanding, the representations of which are conceptions, the objects of which are judgements.

“…. this principle of the anticipation of perception must somewhat startle an inquirer whom initiation into transcendental philosophy has rendered cautious….”

I) works just fine:

“… But the conjunction of representations into a conception is not to be found in objects themselves, nor can it be, as it were, borrowed from them and taken up into the understanding by perception, but it is on the contrary an operation of the understanding itself, which is nothing more than the faculty of conjoining à priori and of bringing the variety of given representations under the unity of apperception. This principle is the highest in all human cognition.…”

All that presupposes “I think” has some irreducible meaning. Whether we actually do think or not, is irrelevant, insofar as the very seeming of it requires an account.

Ok, but I take exception to compound conceptions. I know what is meant by it, but I think it a misunderstanding. Some thing, with a set of properties in the form of conceptions subsumed under it, is still represented only by its own conception.

Yeah, well, you know: horse, water. Smart horse drinks, stubborn horse won’t unless it’s chilled Perrier.

Outstanding.

This doesnt mean that science isn’t extremely useful, just that truth as pragmatic usefulness is not about knowledge of the “true nature of things”, or even knowledge at all so much as practical ways of interacting with a world. — Joshs

To have a practical way of interacting with the world, I should think it might help to know something about it, which we trust science to provide.

As for the true nature of things….we have no warrant to make any such claims.

Yeah, even stating what a fiction might be, is fraught with ambiguity. I just figure a non-fiction is that for which denying the object of it hurts me, and this extreme sets the conditions for its lesser occasions. For that I need no intesubjective community. Still, our strict empirical proof may be a fiction, iff some other intelligence so informs of it. We can only work with what we got, so until then…..

I consider scientism as standing for the notion that science can answer for every conceivable thing asked of it, which is false, from the point of view that science can only answer for that which is asked of it empirically conceived. From that, it follows, first, that science may very well be the only true method for obtaining knowledge about the nature of things, and second, the nature of things is not the only knowledge possible for humans to obtain.

Philosophy in the form of speculative metaphysics is fiction, if by fiction is meant the impossibility of strict empirical proofs for its conditions.

“…. This, however, may be avoided, if we are sufficiently cautious in the construction of our fictions, which are not the less fictions on that account.…”
(CPR, A4/B8)

“Avoided” means not contradicted by experience, “sufficiently cautious” means logically justified, from which follows that speculative metaphysics, even when treated as a logically grounded science, as in pure mathematics, has no empirical proofs. And without strict empirical proofs, itself a euphemism for indubitable fact, it cannot be said such speculations are indeed the case, hence are fictions, albeit logically justified.

….measured value…. — Metaphysician Undercover

That there are things to be known, is given; how the things are to be known, is determined.

You wish.

I was after all only ever your fleeting sensation anyway. — Banno

“Banno” the singular linguistic object, was a sensation; the manifold of linguistic objects related to “Banno” the singular object, were sensations. One and all merely phenomenal representations, just as are comets and cats, one and all absolutely useless without a judgement or a series of judgements made on them, by the subject affected by those objects.

Nothing whatsoever related to “Banno” the subject from which the linguistic objects arise, was ever a sensation of mine, nor anyone else’s. “You” were never a sensation, hence to say “I was your sensation” is exactly the paralogism, the transcendental argument of your reason formed into a proclamation of your language, you profess to dislike.

There is no difference in kind or relation between thinking objects sensed as red possess redness, and thinking linguistic objects sensed as words possess I-ness. Or, simplified, red does not belong to objects just as “I” does not belong to sensation.

“…. They are sophisms, not of men, but of pure reason herself, from which the wisest cannot free himself. After long labour he may be able to guard against the error, but he can never be thoroughly rid of the illusion which continually mocks and misleads him.…”

Here, lemme fix it for ya: my words were after all only ever your fleeting sensations.

Perfect. No need to thank me; I’m here to help.

Yep. But be careful; I hear Gene and the guys are particularly defensive regarding their brand.

you use "experience" in an unusual way — Metaphysician Undercover

Anachronistic might be the word you’re looking for. I get that a lot. I don’t mind.

What a incredibly foolish (…) way to do things, wouldn’t you say?
— Mww

I think that to deny the reality of deception is what is incredibly foolish. — Metaphysician Undercover

So here we are, two mutually indestructible foolish dialecticians. I don’t mind that either.

Occam’s Razor: the principle that says the fewer ways there are to make a mistake, the easier it is to correct it.

I’d accept that principle.

What makes that transcendental
— Mww

It's the name for arguments with that sort of logical structure... — Banno

That right there is a Gem if ever there was one. Like…what makes this a block of wood? Why, because it’s a block and it’s made of wood. DUH!!!

The “nothing but” merely indicates sensation is always related to objects in the world...
— Mww
Presumably except when they are dreams or hallucinations... — Banno

Opps. There’s an even worse Gem. Or would that be, a better Gem. My sentence has sensation as its subject, and the only possible way your sentence makes any sense at all, is if yours has objects as its subject. There’s a name for that, and it ain’t pretty.

Hell, now that I think about it….how can either a sensation or an object be a dream, re: “when they are dreams”? Sensation or object in a dream, dreams of sensations or objects, yeah, sure, but being a dream? Nahhhh, not so much.
————

You are not just sitting in your head with a bunch of Kant's a priori scripts, looking out at a world to which you have no direct access. — Banno

You had a lengthy discussion with a Kantian professor, and still think this has any legitimacy? If you really think we have no direct access to the world…try walking through a doorway without opening the door that blocks it. Artemis 1 is on its way back from the moon, in case you haven’t heard. Hope you don’t think I mean “moon in itself”. PleasepleasePLEASE don’t say that.
————

Euphemistic and metaphorical implications aside for the moment, as soon as you think it true you’re not just sitting in your head with a bunch of Kant’s a priori scripts, you’ve contradicted yourself, insofar there is at least that one Kantian a priori script in your head, immediately upon thinking a truth. And if it isn’t really that you’re thinking a truth, you shouldn’t have said it as if you were. And if you said it the way you did because there isn’t any other way to do what you meant to do…subsume a set of particular representations under a general….there’s another a priori “script”.

Can you say….flood gates?

Oh. Afterthought: don’t bring rope to a game of chains.

Transcendental arguments are those with roughly the following form: — Banno

As I mentioned, depends on one’s definition which depends on one’s doctrine in play. Mine in play doesn’t consider “attempts to get folks to agree”.

1) A is true
2) The only way in which A could be so is if B
3) Hence, B is so. — Banno

What makes that transcendental? What do you think transcendental means?
—————

The problem here is the truncated "nothing but" pretends that our sensations are prior to our "being in the world". It assumes the perspective of an homunculus. — Banno

Who’s the nutjob that came up with that? If our sensations are necessarily of that which is in the world, how is it possible our sensations can be prior to that which the sensation is of?

The “nothing but” merely indicates sensation is always related to objects in the world, insofar as there is nothing else to which a sensation could relate. The raisin d’etre for our sensory apparatus is to deliver sensations.

Homunculus: how to argue a conception by using it. (Sigh)
————

that "we call all these things red, therefore there is a thing, redness, that all these have in common" - another transcendental argument, for ↪Mww. — Banno

Footnote at B79 shows the attribution of red, among other examples, as a thing, to objects, is illusory.

iff the sensation of the thing being piped sufficiently replicates the sensation by which coffee became known.
— Mww

Sufficiently? — Isaac

Yes, the quality used when necessity doesn’t have the authority. Metaphysically speaking, the cognition of this sip cannot be understood as coffee unless there is enough in this sensation relatable to that sensation by which the conception “coffee” first became a valid conception. It became a valid conception when it could be said of it….I know what this is.
———-

Coffee with sugar will always be experienced as coffee with sugar
— Mww

I don't think even this is the case. On a nice day it will taste better than on a bad day. — Isaac

What sense does it make to suggest the type of day the coffee is consumed, determines what my sensation of it will be?
———

But surely how a thing does something is the result of an investigation, it's not just given to us. We don't get to see howbthd engine works unless we look under the bonnet. — Isaac

Investigation…yes, agreed. Still, what’s being investigated determines the kind of investigation it will be. Popping the skull to figure out how thinking works is very far from popping the hood on a car to see how an engine works. We think, thinking is a given. As a general rule, there are no humans that don’t think, even if there are vanishingly small exceptions to the rule. Thinking is given to us as just something else to investigate.

You were saying that "the smell of coffee" is experienced as a "thing" — Metaphysician Undercover

Is precisely what I’m NOT doing. The smell of coffee is that by which an experience OF a thing is concluded, in the case of first instance of it, or, the smell of coffee is that by which knowledge of a thing is given, in all cases subsequent to, and under the same conditions as, the first. The first is a learning by synthesis, all others are then merely sufficient correspondences to it.

Smell is not a thing, therefore cannot in itself be an experience at all. But the smell of, henceforth subsumed under a conception, is of a particular thing, in this case coffee, therefore not a generalization. Now, coffee itself may be a generalization, but it is still the case that each particular coffee subsumed under the general conception, will exhibit its own sensation. Otherwise, how else to ground the distinction one from the other?

I shouldn’t have to tell you that the more conceptions subsumed under a general, and relating to it without contradiction, the better understood the thing will be. And if it is irrational to assign conceptions arbitrarily, then it must be that the assignment of conceptions must follow a rule, such that irrationality is circumvented. Because coffee is an empirical object, the rule must follow from that which is the case for any empirical object, and that which is the case for any empirical object which makes the rule and thereby the circumvention of irrational reasoning possible, is the sensation by which objects are presented to us in order for there to be anything to even assign non-contradictory conceptions to in the first place.
———-

You ought to separate the means from the end. That the error in judgement occurs, as the end, is evidence that the deception has been successful. — Metaphysician Undercover

Judgement is not an end, it is an intermediary result. It still must be allowed how the error in a judgement manifests, by its comparison to that which follows from it. That an error in judgement occurs must be proven.

Error in judgement can have many causes. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, which presupposes that from which judgements occur.

That the error in judgement occurs, as the end, is evidence that the deception has been successful. But the act of deceiving is not necessarily successful — Metaphysician Undercover

Am I to understand by this, that the act of deceiving is the presupposition for the cause of errors in judgement? All we need to justify that, is posit what the act of deceiving is. If judgement is part of the cognitive process, the act of deceiving as cause must be antecedent to the error contained in the judgement as effect, thus also contained in the cognitive process. So what part of the cognitive process deceives? What’s worse, apparently, is whatever part that is, it may not deceive, thus may not be the cause of errors in judgement, which is to say there isn’t one. So some part of the cognitive process both deceives and doesn’t deceive, and the only way to tell which, is by whether or not there are errors in judgement. But determining whether or not there are errors in judgement can only arise from a judgement made on whether or not there has been a deception.

What a incredibly foolish….errr, irrational…..way to do things, wouldn’t you say? Let’s just remain with the idea there isn’t a deception, there is only a subsumption of conceptions in a synthesis of them that doesn’t relate to that which the conceptions represent. That this doesn’t belong to that isn’t a deception, it’s merely a misunderstanding, which manifests as a error in judgment, proven by a different understanding that does relate different conceptions properly. Simple, sufficient, logically non-contradictory. What more do we need?

You cannot make blanket generalizations like this. A small coffee with triple sugar is much different from a large with single sugar. — Metaphysician Undercover

Oh, but I can, and I’m justified in doing so, if the point to make was the valid notion of differences in experiences relative to differences in the objects senses.
————-

That is why it is commonly said by philosophers that the senses deceive us. — Metaphysician Undercover

….and said by the critical philosophers that they don’t. Deception is merely error in judgement, and judgement is not what the senses do, so…..
———-

The sports car is a different tone in the shade, under a street light and in the full sun, yet red in all three cases. — Banno

Of course. And what do you suppose it is that tells you that? Perhaps the same as what tells you…so what? The car is this color, even if it appears not to be this color at this time under these conditions. Coffee is still coffee with sugar or without, hot, cold, burnt or otherwise. Sorta like ol’ Bertie, back in 1912….threw a tablecloth over the table, then asked if the table was still there despite being unseen as such. (Sigh)
————

There need be nothing in common between various cases for which we use the same word. — Banno

Need is irrelevant, in the face of universal necessity. I mean….the commonality is cloaked in the very assertion claiming there isn’t one.
———-

I don't like transcendental arguments — Banno

Good onya; and those who actually know what one is, wouldn’t be caught using one.

And I made a mistake, for which I should have known better. Paralogisms are arguments of illegitimate form, content be what it may, whereas transcendental arguments are false with respect to their content, hence immediately invalid. In short, transcendental arguments are those in which the categories are contained in the predicates of pure a priori cognitions, where they don’t belong.

Still…as in all philosophical doctrines, just depends on how one defines the term, which in turn depends on the doctrine in play. You say you don’t like them, but leave it to the reader to figure out for himself what it is you don’t like. You imagine one should be able to figure out what you mean by the term by associating it to its antecedents, but if one doesn’t understand the antecedents, or disagrees with them, he’s no better off then he ever was.

And you really should relinquish your love affair with David Stove. To say any propositional content with a hyphen is a bad argument is itself a bad argument.

We use the word "red" for sunsets and sports cars and blood, but these things are not the same colour. — Banno

I can perceive a sports car that appears blood-red in color. What’s the point again?

the transcendental argument is false. — Banno

A transcendental argument is merely an illegitimate logical construction, insofar as the premises are derived from conditions the conclusion cannot meet, or vice versa, the truth or falsity of it thus being irrelevant.

Impeccable timing?

To claim there's such an entity as 'the smell of coffee' requires that coffee produce a consistent experience, but it doesn't seem to. — Isaac

The smell of coffee is nothing but a sensation that belongs to a certain thing, experienced as the thing it is conceived to be. This thing being sipped will always be the same coffee experience iff the sensation of the thing being piped sufficiently replicates the sensation by which coffee became known.

Coffee with sugar will always be experienced as coffee with sugar, coffee with just milk will be experienced as coffee with just milk. Same for old coffee, burnt coffee, cat-shit coffee, Folger’s freeze dried coffee, and on and on an on. It’s how we are informed of differences in fundamental conceptions, by adding to or taking from, those basics. And the coffee we sip, is of course, merely water of different qualities, which are determined by the sensations given from them.
————

These are aesthetic judgements on an object already perceived, not the sensation itself given from objects themselves as they are perceived.
— Mww

Where is that sensation? What are we using as evidence (rational or empirical) that such a thing exists? — Isaac

The evidence is quite apparent. It manifests in how a thing elicits a feeling. It manifests as “this just doesn’t feel right”; “I don’t feel good about doing this”. “Je-SUS, that’s the ugliest freakin’ thing I’ve ever seen”. This kind of sensation addresses the quality of our subjective condition, and is most often understood as mere opinion.

As to where it is….ehhhh, consciousness is as good a location as any. It isn’t an existence per se. Doesn’t matter much, in that every otherwise acceptably rational human makes aesthetic judgements. Or, to be fair, does something in the form that could be called aesthetic judgements.

it seems like there must be some method by which a sip of this liquid gives the experience with this name, and no other,
— Mww

Why do think that? Have the same drinks not given you different experiences at different times? — Isaac

How could it, if I call it the same drink? And conversely, if I have different experiences, how could I say such experiences are of the same drink?
————

Did wine taste the same to you at five as it does at 50? Does water give you the same experience when thirsty as it does when added in excess to your whisky? — Isaac

No, but there is a significant categorical distinction herein. These are aesthetic judgements on an object already perceived, not the sensation itself given from objects themselves as they are perceived. They belong to me as a perceiving subject, not to the perceived object. How the taste of wine manifests in me as a sensation is not the same as the sensation that wine manifests from its being a thing. It’s the difference between the kinds of taste there may be, which I decide, rather than the taste there is, which the kind of wine decides.

Of course, the kind of taste I decide I can talk about; the taste the kind of wine decides, I cannot. By the same token, then, the sensation of the satisfaction water gives belongs to me, but that sensation by which water satisfies, belongs to it. Pretty easy to see why coffee lacks the sensation of curing my thirst, but satisfies the same basic criteria as the experience of water.

I think maybe my poor writing is creating some confusion — Isaac

Yeah, maybe me too. I didn’t mean, and I didn’t take you to mean either, by one-to-one correspondence that for each sensation there is only one network by which the brain tells us about it. Makes sense, though, that sommeliers may have the ability to reduce or localize correspondences closer to one-to-one, if it is true they can distinguish all those minor sensations contained in the major. I dunno….I can’t do it myself.

On the other hand, it seems like there must be some method by which a sip of this liquid gives the experience with this name, and no other, which is a form of one-to-one correspondence. And while it may indeed be a language condition that says this sensation is of coffee and not gasoline, it is hard for me to understand why the brain needs coffee or gasoline to inform that one sensation is not like the other.
————-

We've no apparent biological reason to group the various neural goings on in the way we do. — Isaac

Agreed. No biological reason, yet we do it anyway. So we have physics that doesn’t answer, we have metaphysics that does answer but doesn’t satisfy.

What an odd bunch of creatures we are, huh?

If there were a direct one-to-one correspondence between some neural goings on and us wanting to say "I smell coffee", then I think the 'ineffable' crowd might have a better argument (though still flawed) — Isaac

To deny the correspondence is to deny the brain as the singular source of all mental activities. Flawed insofar as to merely affirm the correspondence is not to prove it, and the correspondence itself does not lend itself to being proven. We are left with the impossibility of it being otherwise, given the undeniable validity of mental events themselves, but cannot isolate and thereby verify the relation we insist must be the case.

But there is no such correspondence…. — Isaac

So epiphenomenalism then? Just because a correspondence has yet to be empirically demonstrated does not mean there isn’t one. The “ineffable crowd” merely grants the necessity of the correspondence as a function of natural law accorded to all physical substances, and simultaneously the impossibility of proving the form it must have, as a cause/effect relation, so ending up with the very epitome of the conception the crowd endorses. From which is derivable the principle, for that which is granted as necessary but at the same time impossible to describe in the same terms as the necessity requires, nothing for that can be said.
———-

We 'assign' narratives to the various neural happenings according to some rules-of-assignment….. — Isaac

Exactly right. But does this not leave us with a bigger problem than being unable to demonstrate how physical conditions permit non-physical activities, iff such is in fact the case? You should have already determined what all you just said means, before you can proceed with actually doing it. And for the particular you…in this case because you said it….so it is for all you’s in general, which is precisely the same as any “me” in general. Wherein lay the problem.

You say "but we can't put the smell of coffee into words!". Of course not, it's a smell….. — Banno

Thanks….made my day.

The rest of it…..ehhh, anti-climatic.

We do talk about the aroma of coffee.
— Banno

Yes, we do. We also talk about swimming like fish, flying like birds, going to the ends of the Earth. — Mww

I don't agree that your counter-instance works. — Banno

We talk about this, we talk about that. We talk about all sorts of stuff, some of it eccentrically. Which is just another word for irrationally. What about that doesn’t work?
————

the aroma of coffee not being reducible to chemistry, it is caused by chemistry. — Banno

What’s the difference? That which is caused by only this, is reducible to this for its cause. A tautology. True insofar as its negation is a contradiction.
————

two different ways of talking about the same thing. Not unlike the piece of paper being a dollar bill. — Banno

Talk of these types of judgements are not talking about the same thing, just as talk of, e.g., “right” as direction, is not the same as talk of “right” as correct. And irrelevant with respect to your analogy, insofar as there is nothing whatsoever contained in talk of a piece of paper by which talk of a dollar bill must necessarily follow from it. While it may be true the conception of a dollar bill is contingent on the conception of a piece of paper, it is not the case the conception of a piece of paper is contingent on the conception of a dollar bill.

Language. An affront to the dignity of philosophy itself, and justified by being the single human condition completely unnecessary for having an opinion.

……says the guy who must use language in order to voice an opinion on how evil it is.

(Sigh)

We do talk about the aroma of coffee. — Banno

Yes, we do. We also talk about swimming like fish, flying like birds, going to the ends of the Earth.

And we do talk about that aroma, which might rather eccentrically be worded as "it is the aroma to which language construction and use is directed". — Banno

Eccentrically indeed.
————

it is the chemical composition of coffee that gives it that aroma. — Banno

Yep, sure is. All those chemicals you took the pains to research? Nary a one of ‘em ever registers on the brain as a sensation.

the aroma of coffee is not reducible to chemistry. — Banno

Than what was the point conveyed by listing the chemicals as the source of the aroma of coffee?

involves ritual, pleasure, anticipation, awakening, and so on. — Banno

Yes, these are aesthetic judgements concerning human feelings, rather than the discursive judgements concerning human experience. More dualism.
————

there are two distinct ways of speaking about the same thing, for what of a better differentiation, one chemical, the other intentional. — Banno

I can think of a better one: mine is one of the abstract, yours is the reification of the abstract. Mine is trees, yours is…..ehhhh, you know.

the aroma of coffee. — Banno

Yes, obviously you and I treat sensations differently, and no, it is not possible to reconcile the contradiction intrinsic to those differences. You ask how is it that we can talk about sensations, but I ask what is it about sensations that enable them to be talked about. Your question treats language use as subject, presupposing sensation as that which satisfies the criteria by which we can talk about anything. My question treats sensation as subject, presupposing only that we can talk about anything iff it meets certain criteria. Your question has always an affirmative response, but mine has always negative, hence the impossibility of reconciling the differences.

Reason hides in obscurity, but perhaps the science does not. Do you not see that it is not aroma as sensation that arrives in the brain? If aroma is a chemical form of energy affecting a certain sensory device in one way, but the energy changes form to electrical energy affecting the nerves in a different way, which merely represents the chemical energy, and it is then the case the chemical energy is never transferred to the brain…..how can it be the sensation that is received in the brain, to be talked about?

Furthermore, do you see there is no physiological sensory apparatus in a human being that inputs electrical or electrostatic energy alone, such that a 100% efficiency is possible to obtain in the transition between the energy in sensory devices and the information energy carried by nerves? From which follows necessarily that all outputs of physiological sensory devices are representational, and therefore not of the same form, and cannot carry the exact same informational content, as the originating perceptions.

If all language construction and use originates in the brain, and no chemical information given from the sensation of aroma is ever received in the brain, it cannot be aroma to which language construction and use is directed.
————

You want obscure? I’ll give you obscure:
(Figure of speech; I know you don’t actually want it. Just sayin’)

…..Science has advanced by leaps and bounds. The nerves transferring nose energy has been isolated. Some device is invented….or, hell, falls out of the sky…who cares….and it is figured out how it can be attached to those nerves. What are the chances the amazing device would output an odor? For shits and giggles, let’s say it does. What kind of device would that have to be, then? Why….wouldn’t it have to be a nose? Well, it couldn’t be a nose, for if it was it wouldn’t be some amazing device that just fell out of the sky. Which leaves the theory of irreversibility in self-contained thermodynamic processes in macrostates, which translates into the impossibility of any device attached to nerves outputting the exact same information inputted to them. So it is clear…..of course it is…..noses cannot deliver to the brain what the brain is actually using. And if all language use arises in the brain….yaddayaddayadda.

Odd, innit? The proper metaphysician and the scientist both use the same term for that which is untranslatable…..phenomenon. Between what the nose puts out as sensation and what the brain receives as mere information, the untranslatable gap between is a phenomenon. Physics and metaphysics doctrines alike both maintain the immediate presupposition that no human is ever consciously aware of either peripheral nerve activity on the one hand, and sensory output on the other, which grounds both empirically and logically, that sensation itself is never what is talked about.

See how simple it is, really? The opposite of obscure, which leaves you alone with your disappointment. But maybe now you can at least be entertained at the same time.

Hiding in obscurity — Banno

‘S ok; I like it here.

Frankly I don't understand what you are saying here. — Banno

Without a thorough study of Enlightenment speculative metaphysics, there’s no reason you should, and for the oversight, you are hereby forgiven. (Grin)

….a charitable way of interpreting this discussion in which these statements are not contradictory. — Banno

Best I can do is caution against mistaking the operation of a system in situ, for discussions about it after the fact. In the former sensation is ineffable, insofar as that part of the system responsible for language use is very far from that part to which sensation proper belongs, but in the latter it is not, insofar as all parts of the system are treated equally by the language used to describe them.

And yet we do talk about them. — Banno

Dualism. Human nature.

The system, in its proper modus operandi, is knowledge. That’s what reason is for. With respect to objects, then, sensation has no cognitive power, is not of that part of the system which cognizes what object shall be known as. Here, sensation is nothing but the alarm, the trigger for the knowledge system to initiate its operation.

“… For, otherwise, we should be required to affirm the existence of an appearance without that which appears, which would be absurd…”

Hence it is not given the attribute of conceptual schemata, the very root of its ineffability, which is to say the system doesn’t consider what sensation in general is, nor what sensations in general are, but only that by means of them alone, a representation of the object as it is perceived is possible, and that by means of the mode, re: the sensory apparatus, by which the sensation is delivered.

Talk of the form sensation is given, such that the effability of it is supposed, the sting of a bee, the taste of Lima beans, is still nothing but a post hoc recollection, in which reason has already judged the relation between the perception and the phenomenon which follows from it, because of the affect the sensation provided. In fact, albeit theoretically, what’s accomplished here is the assignment of a property or attribute to an object that relates that object in a non-contradictory fashion, to the sensation, but is mistaken as a condition by which the sensation itself can be named. See the conversation between myself and , pg 23, for a taste of the scientific/metaphysical cognitive dichotomy.

This systemic methodology goes back to Plato, reiterated with various names through Locke, Hume, Kant, Russell, et. al.. Knowledge of/knowledge that. Knowledge a posteriori/knowledge a priori. Knowledge by description/knowledge by acquaintance.

“….intuition cannot think, and understanding cannot intuit. It is only by them in conjunction with each other, is our (empirical) knowledge at all possible….”

Dualists one and all. As humans are by their very nature. Or, perhaps, the very nature of their intelligence. And the later-modern advent of phenomenology becomes self-justified, in that no one likes the idea that we cannot immediately describe our own sensations, as early-modern metaphysics demands. Rather than wait for the system to complete its task as a whole, it is claimed as possible to circumvent half of it, yet still lay claim to knowledge. Abysmally short-sighted, I must say.