The second straight out of the Enlightenment transcendental idealist playbook. The first he would deny.

Footnote 18:
“....Some philosophers enjoy arguing about how best to characterize the relation between a statue and the lump of bronze of which it is made. This can be as good as playing chess. It’s absorbing, and provides great scope for ingenuity. But it has nothing to do with real metaphysics, for in real metaphysics the initial description of the case (we have a statue and the lump of bronze of which it is made) already gives us all the relevant facts. It does not itself give rise to any metaphysical issue. All that remains is juggling play, play with our existing concepts and categories and ways of talking, questions about how best to couch things given those concepts and categories and ways of talking...”

I bring this up because it reminds me of.....

we can assign to it the capacity to move, or be moved, and it is the movement of it which affects the senses. — Metaphysician Undercover

....in that the assignment of capacity to move or be moved is all the relevant facts we need to prove the reality of material objects, the actually movement of them claimed to be that which affects the senses being the juggling play with our existing concepts.

“....Matter is essentially dynamic, essentially temporal, essentially changeful. Objects (or matter) can’t be conceptualized as things whose existence can be grasped separately from their temporality. What is matter, on this mistaken view? A dust-covered china doll in a frozen pirouette on a chimney piece, a rock, an old boot, something just there, supremely motionless before our eyes, something that proposes itself as—in some fundamental sense—comprehensively given to us in this confrontation alone, wholly given to us in its basic essential quality as matter. And all this is wholly wrong....”
(Strawson, “Nietzsche on Mind and Nature”, in https://www.academia.edu/3051045/Nietzsches_Metaphysics_2015)

I never said you had no support for your thesis on the physics of materialism. Nevertheless, the topic is the metaphysics of it, which grants the physics but still asks why it should be so.

I am wanting is someone to defend or steelman a version of idealism..... — Tom Storm

Steelmanning or otherwise, without granting....understood a priori as given.....the intrinsic duality of human nature, no defense of any version of idealism will be acceptable. Or, another way to put it, the only defense of any version of idealism is predicated on an intrinsic duality of human nature.

the capacity to, or possibility of affecting your senses is not the same as actually affecting your senses. (...) it becomes extremely difficult to explain why, or how, there could be such a difference. — Metaphysician Undercover

I’m perceiving something, or, I’m not perceiving something. Something is present to my senses, or it isn’t. The negations, I perceive what isn’t there, or, I don’t perceive what is there, are absurd. How much less difficult can it be?

we can assign to it the capacity to move, or be moved, and it is the movement of it which affects the senses. — Metaphysician Undercover

So if I don’t think the tree capable of moving, it can’t, and because of that, I won’t see it?

Cum hoc ergo proper hoc, and you should know better.

The matter in it is what gives it the capacity..... — Metaphysician Undercover

....to affect my senses.

‘Nuff said.

So we uphold the law of identity because we believe in this. — Metaphysician Undercover

The law of identity, being a human construct, has Nature as its justification, so is upheld merely from lack of contradiction.

the first person would be saying “you’re selfish” and the other would reply “but everyone is selfish”. — Skalidris

The second person commits a hasty generalization fallacy, secundum quid, commonly called “converse accident”, in making a overly broad conclusion given a sample that fails to warrant it.

More syllogistic than propositional, but....close enough?

But "matter" is purely possibility in the first place — Metaphysician Undercover

That the “matter” of the thing that just broke my finger is a “hammer” is indeed mere possibility, but it remains that a material thing broke my finger. To say otherwise, is only to exhibit “....recourse to pitiful sophisms....”.

If we adhere to the formal understanding of "matter" as expounded in Aristotle's hylomorphism (which our current understanding of matter is based in), it is forms which affect your senses, not matter. — Metaphysician Undercover

You know the drill as well as I, that theories expand as a consequence of general experience. Or maybe just speculative imagination. Aristotle, though a great and honorable thinker and still serves as reference to some modern metaphysics, has himself been at least partially superseded, with or without justification being moot. So saying, while I agree hylomorphism is still the current paradigm in human cognitive systems metaphysically, the occasions or placements of them have been separated, insofar as matter is external, but form has been moved to the internal and deemed.....

“....that the content of the matter can be arranged under certain relations. But that in which our sensations are merely arranged, and by which they are susceptible of assuming a certain form, cannot be itself sensation. It is, then, the matter of all phenomena that is given to us à posteriori;; the form must lie ready à priori for them in the mind, and consequently can be regarded separately from all sensation.....”.
(Remember...I dislike the term “mind”, but that’s what the guy said, so, far be it from me to be so presumptuous as to change it)

That being the case, it is not form that affects sensibility, but matter alone. Perfect example of the meaning of all that, can be found in, e.g., circa1909/1919 Picasso paintings, which exemplify how representations of matter can be disarranged purely from the thought of it.

.....hearing, seeing, touching are active capacities, they just don't feel active, because they are unconscious or sub-conscious. — Manuel

In a way, it is confusing, insofar as it is empirically undeterminable, in that sensing is an active capacity of which we are quite conscious, but of the generation of phenomena which represents those sensations, we are not. Hence, speculative, albeit logically consistent, metaphysical theory.

Nevertheless, the human physiology, and the empirical science behind it, sustains the fact that we are not internally conscious of what happens between the sensation of a thing, and the registration of it in the brain. It can be measured, displayed on test equipment, and so on, but not be present in a first-hand, subjective consciousness.

The possibility of matter absolutely presupposes space and time,
— Mww

Matter is what maintains its spatial presence as time passes. — Metaphysician Undercover

Your position presupposes matter, mine presupposes the possibility of matter. You’re talking about matter as if its already given, I’m talking about how it possible that it is given.

For that matter which affects my senses, I don’t care about matter that is merely “extended in time”, but absolutely require matter that is extended in space, otherwise there is no affect on my senses at all, and for me in which case, I would have no means to know matter exists, a most profound absurdity.

Not to say there’s anything wrong about your physics, only that it is misplaced. Which makes this.....

But the issue is matter which has no spatial extension. — Metaphysician Undercover

.....entirely irrelevant.

we do add colours, sounds and textures to the representations — Manuel

We add conceptions to the representations in the naming of them, sure...red, loud, rough, etc., a veritable plethora, but I’m not sure we add color, sound, or texture to general intuitions. I rather think these are given to us merely by the mode of receptivity having the capacity for it. Why have ears if not to hear sound?
————

Not everybody buys it as you know. — Manuel

You’re too kind; hardly anybody buys it.

I take metaphysics to be about the world, but it turns out we can say very little about it. — Manuel

I take metaphysics to be about me, which I can say everything about, and all me’s of like kind, which I can infer some things about. The world? Ehhhh.....it’s there, always was, always will be, or not, not my concern. Or, I suppose, only of relative concern.
————

we add much more to the world than what we otherwise would normally assume...... — Manuel

You mean, like, we build stuff? Redirect Nature from her own course? Yeah, we do that alright.

......If one can appreciate the scale of this, then the very scheme which Collingwood elaborates as being "metaphysics", seems to weaken. — Manuel

How does the fact we add to the world weaken Collingwood’s metaphysical scheme? I thought his metaphysics was predicated on “thinking scientifically”, same as Kant. You must have meant something else by adding to the world.
————-

.....what would the function of intentionality be...
— Mww

A guess would be, it (....) helps anchor thoughts to representations, which would otherwise not be differentiated properly. — Manuel

Ok, I can see that. Me......I just leave that anchor to understanding, and proper differentiation to judgement. I know intentionality implies teleology, purposesiveness, so to speak, but I think that a bridge too far. I’m an admitted metaphysical reductionist, so from where I sit, the only intentionality in humans, is knowledge. Game’s end, donchaknow.

I don't think that "extension" is a well defined term..... — Metaphysician Undercover

No, it isn’t, nor does it need to be. It is a general, albeit necessary, condition of objects met with unaided human perception.

In a sense, it means to be extended in a specific way, but that way is left unspecified. — Metaphysician Undercover

To be extended does not make necessary extension in a certain way. To be extended in a certain way, or, to possess a specific bounded extension, is shape. All shapes are reducible to extension in space, which is all that is necessary for the matter of objects, as far as our sensibility, and thereby our representational faculty, is concerned.

Not sure why we would need to individuate objects when they individuate themselves and we merely recognize the differences.
— Mww

I don't think this is the case. That's something we do to objects. — Manuel

Ahhhh, mon amie....I submit we don’t do anything to objects, but only to their representations. Objects do things to us, by the affect they have on our sensibility, which gives us those representations. This is how they individuate themselves, by affecting us differently. If we did things to objects, there wouldn’t be any ding an sich.

I think the thought experiment can be done as an illustration, while not denying the very real, insurmountable problems, associated with things in themselves. — Manuel

What if it isn’t a mere illustration, but a given necessity pursuant to the kind of intelligence in play? In fact, why couldn’t the ding an sich be a Collingwood-esque absolute presupposition?

But all that aside....what would a list of these problems entail?
————-

The point of intentionality as I see it, is that it can't be eliminated from thought. — Manuel

If it can’t be eliminated from thought, and thought is a part of a system, and all parts of systems have a dedicated function....what would the function of intentionality be, such that the absence of it makes the system untenable at best, and thought impossible at worst?

intentionality is the continuation of intuition, say, it's conscious aspect? — Manuel

OK, that would seem to be a function of some kind. What is the result, or, what is its contribution to the system?
————-

Sensations do not give us reasons to invoke individuation, that's what the intellect does. — Manuel

Agreed, sensation does not invoke reason or reasons.

How do you feel about equating individuation with conceptualization?

If we lacked this capacity of our experience being directed at objects, there would be no way for individuation of objects in our conception of them. — Manuel

Not sure why we would need to individuate objects when they individuate themselves and we merely recognize the differences.

I mean....it’s logically possible all objects are exactly the same in themselves, but if they are we can’t explain why we don’t perceive them all as possessing the exact same uniform identity. Probably why Mother gave us multiple sensory devices, to prove to ourselves objects are individuated already.

It's not clear to me that say, Kant's comments about intuitions are the same or different from intentionality. They appear similar to me, but am not sure yet. — Manuel

In Kant, the generation of phenomena arising from intuition is sub-conscious, so doesn’t seem conducive to intentionality, which I agree with you as being a conscious inclination. Again.....I don’t know enough about the history of it, so I speak uninformed.

Would intentionality have an anterior name I might be more familiar with?

res extensia — Joshs

I can dig Rene’s res extensa and res cogitans as absolute presuppositions. Opposing ends of a methodological duality, natural on one, intellectual on the other.

Hmmmm. Brentano 1874 is certainly pre-1905. Sartre, 1943...oops...too late. Husserl 1900....cuttin’ it close there.

To be honest, I haven’t spent a lot of time on intentionality. Not enough to judge the idea as an absolute presupposition.

What about it makes it attractive as a presupposition, do you think?

How could we tell that space and time are a priori without something else that allows us to put them to use? — Manuel

I don’t think we could say anything at all about space and time, a priori or otherwise, without the relation of which they are part. It has been said that these conceptions are meaningless unless they can be the condition of something; if not for being the condition of something there isn’t any reason for their conception.

Thing to bear in mind, as you probably already know, is that the conception and the employment of them, is quite different. You would be correct, with respect to your analogy, if taken as intuitions, for then they are, as you say, put to use. As conceptions, on the other hand, they are not put to use, which actually corresponds to the notion of absolute presuppositions rather well, insofar, as according to Collingwood, they are not for the use of answering questions, which is precisely what they do as intuitions, re: in human cognitive system, are there that present in it, such that its non-presence makes the experience of objects impossible. Just as, physiologically, does the absence of light make the perception of color impossible.

So....yes, the potential of objects (colors) is there, but not for us without a means to represent them as phenomena (appropriate stimulus).

Perhaps matter, alongside being presupposed by space and time, allows us to discover that space and time are a priori. — Manuel

Do you see....or is it just me seeing.... a problem with logical efficacy in saying matter is presupposed by space and time, in juxtaposition to matter presupposes space and time?

It appears to me that “presupposed by” implicates space and time as ontological causalities, insofar as if there is space and time then there is necessarily matter, which is not logically justifiable.

Or is it? You tell me.....you’re the one with letters after his name, which I thoroughly respect.

That's why its principal properties are inertia and mass. — Metaphysician Undercover

I think to reduce further: the principle property of matter, is simple extension, the one thing impossible to abstract from matter, and still have matter identifiable as such. In the case of inertia or mass, to maintain a state in the first, or to obtain a state in the second, presupposes that to which they both belong, those properties being impossible to even conceive, without first conceiving the occupation of a self-determined limit.

I suppose it remains whether or not extension is technically a property, per se, but if it can be so thought, inertia and mass become secondary, and if extension is subsequently defined by a certain shape, they become tertiary. Inertia implies change and mass implies mere quantity, both of which are consequential, not antecedent to extension, so....there is that.

But then I wonder, in manifest experience, would we be able to isolate space and time absent stuff (matter, substance, etc.)? — Manuel

In manifest experience? Not a chance, metaphysically speaking, considering that experience is of stuff, and considering that for humans at least, space and time are the necessary conditions for stuff. Experience presupposes stuff, and stuff presupposes space and time, so I would venture we cannot isolate either from the other. Space and time can be isolated absent stuff, but not with respect to manifest experience.

.....without matter, I don't see how space and time, innate as they are, could be exhibited. — Manuel

Pre-1905, or certainly pre-quantum cosmology, space without matter could be easily proved: just hold out your hand, palm up, with nothing in it. Actually, I suppose you’d have to go with pre-Faraday/Maxwell/Ampère science for exhibition of empty space, but still, space empty of matter is not the same as space empty of fields.

.....reconceptualizing what possible experiences could be conceived as. — Manuel

Exactly what that guy did, ol’ whatzizname......you know, the guy who never met a hairbrush he couldn’t do without.....somewhere around 1907, wondering what it would be like, long before the possibility of experiencing it, to descend in measurably extended free fall, contained in a closed box, such that you couldn’t tell if you were falling down or accelerating up. Now known as the “local position invariance”, which of course, he never thought of calling it at the time, insofar as he never had the actual experience of it, but recognized the non-contradictory logic in the conception of its possibility nonetheless. I like to think he quietly thanked Sir Issac for the ground of the idea, taken from the latter’s mathematical expressions of exactly what he was reconceptualizing.

The only thing that would be required given the constraints of the thread would be the pre-supposition that everything that is, is made of matter. — Manuel

Agreed. Still, the thread title stipulates the metaphysics of materialism, and as you say, given the constraints, I think your space and time are the only permissible absolute presuppositions. The possibility of matter absolutely presupposes space and time, and perhaps more importantly, is consistent with both the scientific pre-1905 constraints in the OP, and RGC’s doctrine used to qualify the metaphysical conditions in the title.
———-

.....possible experience..... — Manuel

Yeah, I’ve occassioned on the phrase a time or two myself. Loaded with subtleties, I must say.

This thread is not for discussion of the validity of materialism. You guys all know that but you’re doing it anyway. — Clarky

Not I. I’m still waiting on some rendition of the metaphysics of it.

I don’t think “underlying basic assumptions”, being merely suppositions, count as metaphysics.

I’ll wait for something to actually qualify as an absolute pre-supposition, which a metaphysics of anything, would surely demand.

I am proposing the items in my list as the underlying assumptions — Clarky

That’s fine. It’s your thread, you can do with it as you please. But you referenced Collingwood, so it hardly seems fair to call something an AP that conflicts with the predicates of that reference.

Anyway....carry on.

You say you’re enumerating, meaning to list or itemize, absolute presuppositions, re: RGC, by listing propositions, but according to RGC.....

“...Prop. 5: absolute presuppositions are not propositions.

This is because they are never answers to question, whereas a proposition is that which is stated, and that which is stated is always in answer to a question...”
(Essay on Metphysics, 1,4, pg 41, 1940, in https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.187414/page/n40/mode/1up)

A proposition is that which is true or false, but “....absolute presuppositions are not verifiable...”, hence not true or false, hence are not propositions.

It is true or false that “We live in an ordered universe that can be understood by humans.”, therefore “....” is not an AP.

Did you not mean to call the propositions in that list APs?

Page the second.....

There are two major necessary characteristics imbued in the human being, such that he can be so called: morality and reason......
— Mww

What I am trying to get you to consider is the conditions which are antecedent to reason. — Metaphysician Undercover

Careful here, not to conflate reason the human condition, with reason the cognitive faculty. In the first sense, there is nothing antecedent to a necessary condition, but in the second sense....

we can start with the requirement for images, representations, or symbols. Reasoning cannot proceed without some such things. — Metaphysician Undercover

......it is true reason-ing, the action of the cognitive faculty, needs these things, but reason the distinguishing human condition is that which makes reason the faculty even possible. When I offer the two conditions for being human and you counter-offer something which seems to reference those conditions but doesn’t belong there, it is technically a categorical error. Nevertheless, you are correct if you mean these things are necessary for reason the cognitive faculty. But you didn’t stipulate it as such. So I did it for you.

Reasoning cannot proceed without some such things. — Metaphysician Undercover

Agreed.

This means that reasoning cannot be a "self-contained causality". — Metaphysician Undercover

Agreed. But again, you’re responding to my stipulation of reason the condition, which is not reasoning itself. Reason is a self-contained causality, reasoning is not.
————

this is where that problem with terminology rears its ugly head. However, I think that "wanted to learn" makes more sense then saying that the creature already had some type of "understanding". But this is the question, 'what is prior to understanding and knowledge?'. — Metaphysician Undercover

This gets too close to anthropology and empirical psychology for me. I don’t care about wanting to learn, insofar as I’m perfectly capable of learning stuff even if I had no desire for it. And if I want to learn something,I must do it in the exact same way as if I didn’t care if I learned it or not. I’m interested in the how, not so much in the how come.
———-

Possibility is dealt with in one way only, in affirmation or negation, one or the other, not both simultaneously for the same thing.
— Mww

This is not true, possibility is most successfully dealt with through modal logic and probabilities. — Metaphysician Undercover

Possibilities, the possibility of things, is dealt with the modal logic and probabilities. Possibility, in and of itself, as a singular pure category, having no object belonging to it, is not dealt with at all; it is what things are dealt with, by. A thing is possible, or it is not. We understand a thing to be possible or not, only because the conception “possibility” already resides within the system a priori. Logic and probability affirm or deny the validity of the object to which the pure conception “possibility” applies.

Think about it: we can neither think nor perceive an impossible object. It follows that to think or perceive an object, the reality of that object must be possible. In addition, if this object only exists because of that object, that object must exist necessarily. Some conceptions belong to the faculty of understanding simply because it is that kind of understanding, the human kind. Hence....speculative metaphysics.
————-

I don't think you are grasping the necessity for an intermediary between the sensing system, and the conscious mind which is the knower. — Metaphysician Undercover

Of course I do. My entire private transcendental metaphysics is predicated exclusively on it.

The intermediary (for simplicity I'll call it the brain) produces the images or representations which the conscious mind works with. — Metaphysician Undercover

I guess you could use the brain. But the brain is physical, and the conscious mind is metaphysical, so you’re making it so the t’wain shall meet. While it is true the brain carries sole responsibility for whatever goes on between the ears, as soon as you bring abstractions into the picture, you’ve removed the brain from doing anything, insofar as the brain functions in concreto according with natural law. I agree the brain creates images, but how the images are made usable by the conscious mind has never been determined, and whether or not there is any conscious mind to make use of them, the physicalist will deny outright.

These representations are not produced by the sensing system (evidenced by the reality of dreams), nor are they produced by the conscious mind. So we must assume something intermediary. — Metaphysician Undercover

I vote for consciousness. The conscious mind is a philosophical construct, therefore, to develop a sufficiently explanatory theory, any participant in that construct, must be philosophical as well. In fact, the brain does all that stuff, but we don’t know how, so we are free to hypothesize logically, in order to satisfy ourselves.
————-

So it's not the sensing system whose assignments are arbitrary, it's the assignments made by the intermediary, the brain, which are arbitrary. — Metaphysician Undercover

Ok, I can see that. Truth be told, we’re both sailing first class on the ship of ignorance here: you can’t tell me exactly how the brain gives images to the conscious mind, and I can’t tell you how exactly intuition creates phenomena.

The pivotal point is that the type of sensing system which we, as human beings have and use, was created prior to there being knowledge about the things to be sensed. This is fundamental to the nature of knowledge, as emergent, coming into being from not being, and the question of how is this possible. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yeah, I kinda figured that was where you were going. This makes it much clearer, and agreeable.

Page, the first:

Yes we do have a way of thoroughly understanding: (...) in direct accordance to the rules by which understanding works.....
— Mww

But we do not have a thorough knowledge of the rules by which understanding works.... — Metaphysician Undercover

True enough, hence speculative metaphysics. It doesn’t matter that the rules for how understanding works are known with certainty or not; all the rules have to do is set the ground for sufficient explanatory power. It follows that any set of rules must accord with how the understanding is thought to work. If it works this way, these rules; if it works that way, those rules, but rules nonetheless.

Consider, as well, that the claim is not that understanding works according to law, which would be to say understanding could not work any other way than as grounded by apodeitically certain principles, which, of course, is impossible to prove. Rules, on the other hand, having less power than law, are merely regulating relations, rather than legislating principles, and therefore stand in no need of proof, when all that’s needed is logical consistency.

So while I agree there is no thorough knowledge of these rules, or any other condition of human reason, I can say I know the rules for how the understanding works from the perspective of my speculative metaphysics.
————

Independent existence of objects is what I disputed. — Metaphysician Undercover

Is it your position then, that objects do not have independent existence?

But the issue is, how can you distinguish between an "appearance" (I'll call it an 'image' maybe) which is a direct percept, derived through sensation, and an image which is a creation of the mind, like a dream, or a memory. — Metaphysician Undercover

I hold “appearance”, not as what a thing may look like, which you’ll call its image....maybe..., but that a thing has initially presented itself, has made its appearance, a euphemism indicating something’s made itself available to sensibility. I don’t need to distinguish anything about appearances; they, in effect are the distinction, between having and not having sensations. As such, I rather think sensations are derived from appearances, not the other way around. Nothing is actually lost by deleting the term, going straight from perception to sensation.

I ask this, because I do not know how you can separate out "the reasoning process" as you do. — Metaphysician Undercover

Reason the verb is a conscious activity, whereas perception the noun is physiological, hence passive with respect to reason. Remember the physical system in play here, too, with respect to the change in forms of energy between the reception of an object, and the electrochemical manifestations of them in the nerves between the sense organs and the brain. It shouldn’t be an issue as to whether or not there is any reasoning going on during that energy exchange.

Furthermore, such exchange is a perfect iteration of that old stumbling-block, the thing-in-itself. The ding an sich is that which exists, the sensation is the thing that exists after we get ahold of it. Our knowledge of objects is given from the sensation alone, never by the thing. So we say, the sensation represents the appearance of an object. While it is true no knowledge is at all possible without the thing-in-itself, it is not the thing-in-itself that we know. And it is here the difficulty often arises, wherein the change-over between the external object and the internal representation occurs.
————

Where was I...oh, yeah, separating out the reasoning process....

I think that because of this reality of the mind creating such things, and it's not the conscious mind doing the creating, nor the sensing process, we must allow that there is creative activity of "the mind" which is neither sensing nor reasoning. — Metaphysician Undercover

Wasn’t it you that said he didn’t give much credence to the faculty of imagination? Odd, then, you should have just described exactly that very faculty. Only, such faculty needs a division, which I mentioned previously, as productive and reproductive. The sub-conscious productive variety synthesizes the matter of an object with its form, to give a phenomenon, an “object” of sensibility. You can say it is “the mind” doing all this, doesn’t hurt anything. Me, I just leave it as part, albeit a sub-conscious part, of the whole cognitive system. The conscious part, the one with which we are familiar, is the reproductive imagination, which fabricates that which will become the representation of the external object as it is actually cognized. Or, simply put....as we think it to be.

I place this creative activity as intermediate between reasoning and sensing because it can create principles (or rules if you like) for reasoning to follow, but it does not necessarily derive the things that it creates directly from the senses. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, this creative activity is between sensing and reasoning, but it doesn’t create principles. And yes, it does derive the things it creates immediately from the senses and the act of synthesizing, is to intuit, and intuiting in general, is intuition. Don’t forget....we’re still sub-conscious here, insofar as we have not as yet thought about the object given to the senses; we’re still in the process of arranging the matter of the sensed object into a logical form....the job of imagination....such that it can become a phenomenon.

I think when you speak of arbitrary, you might be hinting that it is reasonable to suppose the synthesis of matter with form by imagination could be arbitrary, if there were no regulatory methods, and you’d be correct. Because this is all sub-conscious, there couldn’t be any regulatory methods, and the aforementioned logical form, has not yet been judged to be that. Another chapter in the saga of human knowledge.
—————

So this is how I propose that the mind creates the objects which we believe that we are sensing...... — Metaphysician Undercover

All that’s well said, but I would change believe to think, which transposes to, the objects we think we are sensing...which is exactly what is happening, from my perspective. We don’t immediately have knowledge of the things we sense, but is that the same as saying we believe something about them? Dunno, maybe.

....they are somehow created by the subconscious mind, or maybe "brain" or "nervous system" would be more appropriate here. — Metaphysician Undercover

No, because brain and nervous system are physical realities, but the sub-conscious mind is only metaphysical, and speculative at that. No empirical proofs possible kinda thing.

I think you go by a different definition of "understand", or "understood" than I do here. (...) However, "understanding" is a product of the reasoning process. — Metaphysician Undercover

From my armchair, human cognition is a tripartite system: understanding, judgement and reason. Understanding provides the representations it thinks belong to the object by means of conceptions (the major); judgement relates the manifold of conceptions thought to make up the object to each other (the minor or minors), reason arbitrates the logic of the relation (the conclusion). Then and only then, is there cognition, the end of the reasoning process. Herein, then, understanding isn’t the result of the conscious reasoning process, but a participant in it.

I would say that "understand" implies the use of the conscious reasoning process to derive some sort of meaning. — Metaphysician Undercover

Isn’t this what modern analytic philosophy posits? Nevertheless, before there is meaning, there is relation. Or, perhaps the meaning is the relation. To say a representation means something, it must relate to that something. Simplest rendition of this notion, is the dictionary. For any given word (representation), the meaning given for that word relates to only that word. In other words, before the meaning, there is the word which possess it. It follows that understanding is a faculty of relations, those being the relation of phenomena to conceptions. Herein, then, yes, understanding implies the use of the reasoning process, but to foster logically consistent relations rather than to derive meaning.

You know.....maybe we’re looking at the same thing from opposite ends. Everything I’m saying has to do with how knowledge is possible. It almost seems as though you’re operating from a perspective where knowledge is already given, and you’re going backwards to find out how it came about. Could that be the case?
——————

Now, we have to consider the "objects" given by the subconscious system, which is is not a part of the conscious system, not a part of the the reasoning process. These are the representations. In order for the conscious system to work with them in a reasoning process, a logical process, they must be given names. — Metaphysician Undercover

As far as the reasoning process in and of itself is concerned, why do representations need to be given names? What the reasoning process is actually doing as a reasoning process, doesn’t use names. The reasoning process assigns names post hoc for no other reason than to describe itself. The use of words in your consciousness is mere rehearsal, the method by which what is thought is then going to be objectified in some form of physical action.
———-

So we have two layers of representation. The images or representations, received into the conscious mind, and the names, words, which the conscious mind assigns to these representations, to represent them, in order to understand them. From this perspective then, the naming is necessarily prior to the understanding, as a prerequisite for understanding. — Metaphysician Undercover

Close enough. I offer that there are two kinds of representation, not levels, and, names are assigned to indicate how a thing has been understood because of the logical synthesis of representations. Which puts understanding before the naming, not after. When a word is a foreign language is heard by a person, he will not understand the meaning of it. Or, say, an action indicating a meaning is given to a person who doesn’t understand the act, like....putting a finger orthogonal to the lips to indicate being quiet....if a guy doesn’t know that sign, he won’t understand what is expected of him when he perceives it. Only from experience, then, does meaning antecede understanding.

If you’d said....in order to judge them.....close enough would have become exactly right. From my perspective.
————-

Therefore we can conclude that naming must occur without understanding, as a primary step toward understanding. — Metaphysician Undercover

This works for a two-party communication. You naming something must occur before my understanding of what you mean by that name, yes. We see that right here in this dialectic, wherein each of us uses words with their inherent meaning derived by our individual cognitive systems, and that use is not thoroughly understood by the other. “Appearance” is a good example, insofar as a word common to each of our vocabularies carries different understandings with it pursuant to what it is meant to indicate. As we can see, we each misjudged the understanding of the other in his use of a common word. The prime indicator of all that is...we each refrain from calling out the other as wrong in what is said, but rather, we say we do not agree (do not concur from similar judgement) with what was said, or we say we do not understand what was said (cannot afford a judgement at all).
————-

This allows that knowledge and understanding can be emergent. — Metaphysician Undercover

Half and half. Yes, knowledge is always emergent: in me because of me, or, in me because of you. Understanding is only emergent in me because of you but is intrinsic in me because of me. Understanding here indicates the specific function of a faculty in a systemic whole, not that on which the faculty operates as means to an end.

You probably mean you can get me to understand something, which seems to say understanding emerges, but it is still my understanding that does all the work, such that I may know what you mean. Which is to say, An understanding emerges. The understanding of something emerges.

Please don’t consider this as mere quibbling, when in fact, it is the very reason why decent metaphysics tomes are of so gawd-awful-many pages. Getting things just so, no over-lap, no confusion in terminology.

But the living beings cannot remove what's already there deep within the sensing system, developed when the "object" was completely unknown. So this makes the fundamentals of basic sensation very arbitrary.
— Metaphysician Undercover

You say arbitrary, I say undetermined. — Mww

You say arbitrary, I say undetermined.....
— Mww

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

I understand we can’t remove what’s already there deep within the sensing system. I understand all objects are completely unknown with respect to the sensing system we have, which is that very system we cannot remove. Again.....the senses do not give knowledge; they merely set the stage for the possibility of it.

I don’t understand why the fundamentals of basic sensation are very arbitrary. I guess I’d have to ask.....what are the fundamentals of sensation, such that any sensation can be of any thing? I mean...I cannot see an odor and I cannot hear a twisted ankle. I cannot smell a color, and I cannot taste H2O. It follows that any sensation is only given from the physiology that permits it, which hardly seems arbitrary. I certainly know which sense is being impressed, while at the same time I may not know to what the sensation relates, therefore I am justified in saying the object is undetermined rather than the sensing system being arbitrary.

I agree we would use trial and error to invent a sensing system for that which we know nothing about, but I disagree we have no knowledge of where to start. First, whatever sensing system we set up must possible, which is the same as we won’t set up a system we don’t know how to design. Second, whatever sensing system we set up must be capable of sensing something that will be intelligible to us, for to set up for sensing that which we would never understand, is quite impossible. To get technical, the categories always tell us the absolute bare necessities of anything we sense, but we’ll leave that alone for now.

Nahhhh....I suggest we might very well set up an arbitrary sensing system for objects we know nothing about, but that system must be conditioned by what we already know. Case in point, we really knew nothing about celestial manifestations, and the telescope sensing system for far-away big stuff we set up to find out about, was designed specifically with respect to the sensing system we already have. Going the other direction, we knew absolutely nothing about germs until we set up a sensing system that magnifies close-in little stuff, which also respects our own sensing system.

Yes? No? Maybe?

Outbound on our first post-covid seasonal road trip. We got to where we were going, so assuming you’re still interested.....

I hold that objects are material substance with extension in space and duration in time....
— Mww

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

Yes we do have a way of thoroughly understanding: we declare what each and every single thing that is existentially independent of us, how it is to be known by us, in direct accordance to the rules by which understanding works. We may fail in our thorough knowledge of what the object actually is, but we do not fail to understand the existential independence of them.

And while space and time are conceptions, they have nothing to do with the ontology of objects themselves, but only with the human method of granting their possibility.
————-

technically I wouldn’t say here appearances are in the mind....
— Mww

Well, what is in the conscious mind then, if it isn't the appearances? — Metaphysician Undercover

Ahhh....conscious mind is your reasoning process. Appearances are merely informative impressions, affects on physiology, hence not yet part of the reasoning process. Appearances tell us that; the reasoning process tells us of. It is not the case I know what a thing is, merely because I perceive it; that thing still has to run the entire gamut of the human reasoning system. Just because we aren’t as aware of it from repetition, as we were from its first occurrence, doesn’t mean it isn’t still the same process. How else to ensure epistemic consistency, then to repeat epistemic methodology?

When I look around with my eyes, and I have images in my mind, of objects, aren't these images "in my mind"? If not, what is it which is in my mind? Is anything "in" my mind? — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, the images are in your conscious mind, but they are representations, which are not given by looking around with your eyes. All looking does, and perception in general, is give material to form the representations. Technically, images are the schema of the concepts which understanding synthesizes with the representations called phenomena, which are given antecedently from looking around. We can have images without immediate perception of an existing object (dark side of the moon), and we can have images of a merely logically possible object without any perception whatsoever of that which the image represents (a line consisting of only two points).
———-

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

I don't believe this is the case. We name things without understanding them. — Metaphysician Undercover

Actually, this is quite impossible. A name is assigned to a thing at a time strictly in accordance to how it is understood at that time. That is not to say such named things are understood correctly, but that has nothing to do with the naming of them.

A name being tacitly understood as a representation of a conception, presupposes the conception. It follows that a guy can represent in speech a conception by any damn word he wants, but it is always the case he has thought the word long before he spoke it.

Now, I suppose I could just throw out a word representing the thing I don’t understand, but doing that is not representing a conception, because I don’t have one, which contradicts the notion of what a name is meant to do.

In the case of extreme abstraction, e.g, quantum mechanics or such like, even if not understood in its entirety, names can still be assigned for conditions necessary for possible understanding. Even for feelings, we discover it is the reasons for the feelings that we don’t understand, while understanding perfectly well that some particular feeling is present in us, and can certainly be named.
————

As a form of "causality", the self-contained causality must be prior in time, therefore its existence must be prior to any faculty which it is found to reside within, or else that faculty would be dependent on something else for its capacity to function. The "something else" then would be its cause, and it would not be a self-contained causality. — Metaphysician Undercover

There are two major necessary characteristics imbued in the human being, such that he can be so called: morality and reason. In keeping with the topic, reason the condition, is antecedent in time to all that for which it is the condition. Hence, the notion of self-contained causality is logically justified.

It is confusing, though, insofar as reason the human condition is a descriptive noun, but reason the procedural verb is a inferential method. To make matters worse, reason is also the end in a tripartite logical system, and as such, performs the function of conclusion in a syllogistic relation. And it is here that your......

The uncertainty is always within the premises, and it's the mistaken premises which lead to faulty conclusions. — Metaphysician Undercover

......shows up, in that, where reason is the conclusion, understanding is the major and judgement is the minor premises respectively. It is common knowledge our judgements are quite apt to be erroneous, hence the conclusions will be as well. Understanding, on the other hand, the faculty from which all our conceptions arise, cannot be in error, with respect to that part of a synthesis for which it alone is responsible. This requires some exposition which I won’t go into here.

free will is a sort of manifestation of the deeper self-contained causality. My position would support the latter. — Metaphysician Undercover

Mine as well. Causality for a will operating freely, is the transcendental conception of “freedom”. Freedom has nothing to do with pure reason in matters of a priori propositions regarding empirical matters. The former describes what is, the latter describes what should be. The former legislated by Nature, the latter legislated by us alone.
————

Suppose we assume an object which is completely unknown. Now, we want to set up a sensing system to develop some knowledge about that object. — Metaphysician Undercover

Nahhhh....that ain’t gonna work. Any developed sensing system still needs to go through the one we have, in order to obtain knowledge. Telescopes were such a system, but we still need to look through the eyepiece, or look at the the display which obtains its information directly.

When these sensing systems came into existence, the creatures knew nothing about the objects they wanted to learn about. — Metaphysician Undercover

Before sensing systems, what sense does it make to say creatures wanted to learn?

So it's not true to say "what we have is all we’re logically permitted to discuss", because there is a variety of ways in which "possibility" is dealt with by logic. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, dealt with logically, by us. What we have.....

While it is true we would have a completely different experience base if the creative power evolved differently, but.....it didn’t, so what we have is all we’re logically permitted to discuss. — Mww

.....should have been understood as the creative power we have. The number of possibilities is not the same as the variety of ways possibility is dealt with. Possibility is dealt with in one way only, in affirmation or negation, one or the other, not both simultaneously for the same thing.

Anyway, Momma says it’s time to do what we came here for, so, more later.

This depends on how one understands "the object". From the perspective of what I've been arguing, objects are a creation of the sensing system..... — Metaphysician Undercover

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

......You call (what I call) the object, a representation, but what it represents you cannot really say, though you assign "object" to that...... — Metaphysician Undercover

Actually, I assign “phenomenon” to that, but exactly what it represents I cannot say, is true enough, because there are no cognitive abilities in the sensory sub-system. This is classic Plato “knowledge that” (there is something present to my senses), as opposed to “knowledge of”, which informs as to what the presence is. Or, more accurately I suppose, informs as to how the presence is to be known.

So there is an appearance in the mind, the appearance of an object, you say it is a representation, I say it's the object, but what it represents, we don't know. — Metaphysician Undercover

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

This is the Idealism described in Plato's Republic, and Berkeley's Dialogues, the reality of objects is within the mind. — Metaphysician Undercover

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

"Representation" I believe, is a way of using symbols which evolved from communication, when we assume an external object which we both may apprehend and talk about. — Metaphysician Undercover

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

Symbols, then, are representations, but not of the kind given from sensibility, which merely determines something about the physical presence of some external object, but are representations given from the next stage, which is the reasoning system proper.

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

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

It isn’t my eyes that are deceived by hallucinogens or mirage or delusions in general.....
— Mww

I don't agree with this. I think it is the sensing system itself which creates the hallucination. So it is a fault within the sensing system, and this in turn deceives the cognitive power. — Metaphysician Undercover

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

We do not exactly know what the "creative power" is, and the extent of its creative capacity. — Metaphysician Undercover

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

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

So I do not think we can conclude logically that it is limited by what it is sensing. — Metaphysician Undercover

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

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

The creative power has evolved so that it is adapted to the world it is sensing, and the needs of the sensing being, but that doesn't mean it couldn't have developed a completely different sensing capacity. — Metaphysician Undercover

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

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

But the living beings cannot remove what's already there deep within the sensing system, developed when the "object" was completely unknown. So this makes the fundamentals of basic sensation very arbitrary. — Metaphysician Undercover

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

So sensing is fundamentally based in a not-knowing system. — Metaphysician Undercover

Exactly. Thing is, of course, we’re so used to repetitive perceptions, a.k.a., experience, we just grant we immediately know what we perceive, and don’t need to consider the operation of the whole system. It’s like it’s in automatic, but in fact, the system operates exactly the same way for each and every single thing we perceive. Just does it oh-so-much faster when the conscious system recalls from itself rather than constructs for itself.
—————

Nevertheless, without the object, there is still imagination....
— Mww

See, I do not respect this proposed division between imagination and sense perception. I don't think it's real or true. — Metaphysician Undercover

Well then, you’re reeeaaalllllyyyyy gonna have trouble accepting the notion of aesthetic as opposed to discursive judgement, with productive as opposed to reproductive imagination. Which is to say, there’s a lot more to this “deeper system” than we’ve encountered so far in this dialectical foray into the sublime.

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

I hold that these sense organs have no cognitive power....
— Mww

....But the power which receives information from the senses (...) is not properly a "cognitive power". — Metaphysician Undercover

So we end up in the same place. Good enough for me.
———-

What I am saying is that we need to account for the system which gives the object to the cognitive (conscious) system. — Metaphysician Undercover

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

This system is intermediate between the object itself, and what appears in the mind as the sense image of the object. This is the sensing system. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes....sorta just like that. In my language, that is sensibility, and subsumed under it, is the faculty for the reception of impressions, better known as intuition, the purview of which is the creation of phenomena, which are the intermediate representations between the object itself, which is only perceived, and the conscious system, which only thinks.

So it's somewhat inaccurate to say "the impression the object gives me", I have to say that it is 'the impression that the sense system gives me'. — Metaphysician Undercover

To say the impression the sense system gives me, says nothing about the object that caused the sense system to create the impression. Which leaves us with.....impressions of what? At best, an impression given by the sense system merely says which sense, or combination of them, made the impression possible.

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

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

The representation in my mind is certainly given by the object, but I understand that representation only by a deeper system. Understanding is the deeper, cognitive, system. Hallucination resides right there, merely a misunderstanding of that which the sense system gives to it. One word: imagination.

Still, I see what you’re getting at. If the sense system creates a faulty impression, and the mind works with that alone, you would be on firm ground. In which case, all you’d have to do is account for how a hallucinogen can change the impression of an object from it’s actually sense. Or, how a hallucinogen manipulates creative powers in the sense system, which requires an account of exactly what creative power entails, such that it can even be manipulated. Which is the advantage from my view, in that the sense system can’t be manipulated by that which is a consequence of it. (Remember...this does this, that does that) In other words, the system as a whole cannot work backwards.
—————

We can see when something is outside of the norm, (....) but we really cannot say that the norm is "real", or even how things "should be represented". — Metaphysician Undercover

Actually, we can, at least the norm with respect to “should be”, that being experience. Anything that appears as it should not be, contradicts experience. Besides, to see something outside the norm presupposes the norm, which is, again, experience. As for the “real” I suppose that’s more the purview of logic than experience proper. Maybe we can only say the real is so for us, which makes it true we cannot know the real otherwise than as we say it is.
————

Consider that the representation could be extremely arbitrary, like the way we use symbols and words to represent. — Metaphysician Undercover

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

The word, or symbol, has no necessity to bear any resemblance to the thing represented, it may be a completely arbitrary assignment, for memory purposes or simple facility. — Metaphysician Undercover

Again, not so much to the sense representation, but to the concept representation, the word stands for the conception, and while arbitrarily assigned, in your words, no necessity to bear, initially, Gel-Mann’s “quark” being a prime example, henceforth actually represents exactly how the concept should be represented. Your “simple facility”.

If the conscious mind uses symbols in this arbitrary way, (no real reason why this symbol represents that object), then the subconscious could behave in a very similar way. — Metaphysician Undercover

If left to its own devices, possibly, sure. A very good reason why it isn’t; it is utterly dependent for its creative powers, on the object perception gives to it. Nevertheless, without the object, there is still imagination, which does not depend on perception, in which case, we can manufacture any damn thing we want. Even logically contradictory objects.....dogs with wings. But no matter what, we can’t seem to imagine impossible things. Impossible experiences, yes, but not things we cannot think, which is all that makes a thing impossible in the first place.

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

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

So, is the claim that we have that idea from the moment of birth? — Janus

Perhaps, but not developed enough to be useful. covered it well enough, I think.
———

The body has its inherent capacities, no doubt, and we are not born as "blank slates". — Janus

D’accord.
————

Are we able to think of anything that is not something we have heard of, or at least a composite of things experienced and/ or heard of? — Janus

I would say yes, in a logical cognitive system, predicated necessarily on relations. Isn’t this the method of doing science?

I’m a 20th century Swiss patent clerk. I took the train to Berlin a month or so ago, dropped my fork on the floor, obviously landing right at my feet. Went straight down. Bounced once or twice. Couple days later, I was standing on the platform, train went flying by, guy dropped his fork, and I’ll be damned if it didn’t occur to me that fork landed 10 feet further down the track from where it got dropped.

Even us common folk....ever used a butter knife for a screwdriver? Experience with the one has no relation whatsoever with the experience of the other, yet there resides in understanding the possibility of substitution. It must....otherwise, why would the cognition manifest at all? Similarly, while it may not be so conceptually far-fetched to use a butter knife to spread axle grease, it is quite another matter to use a twig.

Furthermore, that someone else has combined red and blue on a paint palette and I have absolutely no knowledge of it, such antecedent experience has no relation to me. If I think of doing it, then I have met the criteria which affirms your query: yes, I can think something that is not an experience nor composite of them. That I should have experience of mixing this paint or that paint, doesn’t in itself give me the thought of mixing together different paints. But here you would be kinda right, in a second-step kinda way; experience tells me merely adding them to each other is not going to cut it, I need to mix them.

I won’t state the theoretical justifications, unless you’re interested.

But I get what you mean. In this day and age, with the world seemingly so small, so many damn people, so much information, so much new stuff all the time.....seems like it’s impossible not to be influenced by it all. Think about it, though......what gets lost in all that noise?

Folks are generally empiricist and realist by upbringing and cultural inclination. — Wayfarer

Yeah, which generally leads to intellectual laissez-faire....let it be, don’t bother me with the details, kinda thing.

I am sure I remember.....a priori judgements are independent of any particular experience, but not independent of experience in general. — Janus

If you should happen across it again....
————

(You couldn't conceive of causality, for example if you had never experienced constant conjunctions of events or number if you had never experienced different objects). — Janus

This reflects post of Magee’s position. It seems the norm nowadays, to put the cart before the Kantian horse, which is fine, if one is comfortable with it. The theory goes....and of course it is only theory.... that a human rational agent only understands because the conditions for it are already contained within that agency. Long story short...we understand stuff because we’ve come equipped to do it, and one of the ingredients we come equipped with, is the idea of cause/effect.

(Not technically an idea as commonly thought. We call it that because “transcendental conception of pure reason” is just too far out, and misleading, because that conception is developed by pure reason in order to talk about it, but the idea doesn’t belong to reason at all; it belongs to understanding, which is just makes it.....er......further far out)

In fact, we only have the effect of the experience of objects because those objects are the cause of it. From there, it is a short hop to understanding the effects of objects themselves as having a cause. It is clear, then, we don’t have to conceive causality; it is the natural order of our understanding, and antecedent to any use of it.

Take “possibility” for instance, another intrinsic condition. That idea doesn’t represent our ability for understanding might be possible, which is a non-starter because our understanding is given by the type of intelligence that makes us human, but instead, represents that for a thing to be presented to us, that thing must at least be possible. Obviously, things we perceive must be possible, else we wouldn’t perceive them, but that doesn’t hold for things we merely think. As such, Nature....or sheer evolutionary happenstance if you prefer.....has ensured we don’t waste time thinking about things that are impossible, in our pervasive reach, and sometimes over-reach, for knowledge.

So no, we don’t conceive causality, or the cause/effect dichotomy. We conceive individual representations of it.....because that’s how it’s done, dammit!!!!!

Sorry.....not so short after all.

All the rest is good philosophy, so it doesn’t really matter that I can counter-argue many of its points. Because you’ve done a worthy job of self-expression, it becomes now a matter of minutia.

You place the "cause" of the sense impression in the external object, rather than within the human being, and you conclude that the "impression I get from an object is determined by that object". The human body is very finely tuned, and a slight alteration in the chemical balance will change the sense impressions greatly. — Metaphysician Undercover

I hold with materialism with respect to external objects of perception, yes. All external objects are substance, or, material, and the material of the object is that which affects my perceptive apparatus. In conjunction with that, I hold that these sense organs have no cognitive power, they merely relay the presence of material, upon which that part of the reasoning system having to do with sense impressions, functions. Do my eyes qualify as chemically imbalanced upon hallucination, or is it in the brain, where the impressions are received, that the chemical changes occur? If in the brain, and the philosophical equivalent of brain is a theory of cognition, in which comparable manifestations appear, then it is in the reasoning process where judgement is affected, that stands in for chemical changes in the brain.

So no, the sense impression does not change; what the reasoning process makes of it, does. It is the cognition of the object given from the reasoning process, not the impression the object gives me, that tells me I’m stoned.

The human body receives information from the object, but it is this human body which creates, and determines the impression, not the external object. — Metaphysician Undercover

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

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

A priori means before experience, or a condition of experience. — Jackson

The foregoing conversation is in reference to Kant, so.....

“....By the term “knowledge à priori,” therefore, we shall in the sequel understand, not such as is independent of this or that kind of experience, but such as is absolutely so of all experience. (....) If, on the other hand, a judgement carries with it strict and absolute universality, that is, admits of no possible exception, it is not derived from experience, but is valid absolutely à priori....” (...) Not only in judgements, however, but even in conceptions, is an à priori origin manifest....”
(B3-6, A2 says something a little different, but always go with the latest)

....which is not to say there is no other reasonable criteria for the conception, but any such is useless in this transcendental context.

Kant acknowledged that a priori judgements come after experience. — Janus

I think Kant means the validity of a priori judgements are demonstrated by experience.

“....The possibility of experience is, then, that which gives objective reality to all our à priori cognitions....”

An a priori judgement is an a priori cognition, insofar as a judgement is the synthesis of representations from which a cognition follows. As such, then, an a priori judgement is valid iff a possible experience may follow from it. All this is intended to show, is that we can synthesize all the representations we want, but if they don’t lead to an experience, or a possible experience, they are generally useless. Or what he calls “without sense or meaning”. Which is the conventional way of describing the ever-dreadful transcendental illusion.

We’ve been here before, and honestly, I can’t find anything to substantiate Kant’s acknowledgement as you’ve posited it. I’d understand if you’ve no wish to pursue this line of disagreement; to each his own, etc, etc.....

It's one-way. — Wayfarer

Of course it is; couldn’t be otherwise.

Forgive them, for they know not what they say. If they did, no citation would be necessary, it (the “experiment” you mentioned) being the foundation of the entire systemic transcendental enterprise.

(Sigh)

we don't make reality as Kant and Berkeley did — val p miranda

What do you mean by “make reality”? Something like...make reality out to be? If it is considered that the closest synonym for “to make” is “to create”, the statement reads, “we don’t create reality as Kant and Berkeley did.” Surely that is not what you wish to convey.

Just wondering, and from which would follow...how do we make, or, what do we make of, reality, if not as Kant and Berkeley did.

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

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

Not all that common, but occasionally, sure., especially in the case of individual particular objects. I have no idea exactly what I held in my hand at any given time four years ago, but I remember full well a trip I took to Yellowstone four years ago, and most, but not all, of what I did on that trip.

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

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

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

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

I think, that in reality, the mind must recreate the impression or idea every time it supposedly retrieves it from memory. (...) The mind must recreate the memory each time it remembers it.
— Metaphysician Undercover

If you remember an object often enough, it becomes possible you haven’t remembered the original object at all. — Mww

That's exactly the point, you are not remembering an object at all, you are learning a process. And what I said is that there is no content, or material aspect of this process at all, so there is no object. Your sub-conscious mind just repeats a process, and the process creates the material or content, as "the memory". — Metaphysician Undercover

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

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

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

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

While the degree of identity of the recall is determined by the degree of accuracy in the original, the error in the recall is not impossible, but so vanishingly small as to be disregarded....
— Mww

I don't agree with this at all. In my experience there is a heck of a lot of inaccuracy in recollection. We have to work extremely hard if we wish to try to avoid inaccuracy, and this is called memorizing. — Metaphysician Undercover

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

I agree, though, that there are times when you tell yourself something is really important and it is a great benefit for you to remember it. Maybe it is in these cases where continuous recall is the method by which the memory becomes embedded and readily available. But I don’t see a repetitive sub-conscious process at work, if you have to tell yourself to repeat the impression in the reasoning process.
———-

.....post hoc memory recall, then, is merely a judgement made on a pre-conceived representation, and the error in recall of an extant representation the object of which is known, is negligible.
— Mww

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

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

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

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

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

This is why the process which deals with sensations, and creates sense impressions within the conscious mind, must be completely different from the process which recollects. — Metaphysician Undercover

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

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

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

I reject it’s true. If you ca convince me it’s possible, I’ll work with it.

and without reference to neuroscience, which is the point. — Wayfarer

Reification of metaphysical predicates with empirical principles, destroys both.