non-physical doesn't make sense as a concept — Kenosha Kid

......but rather, makes sense as that which.....

either interacts with the physical, in which case it's physical, or it does not, in which case it cannot make itself known. — Kenosha Kid

....exemplified by....

it is simply that which does not supervene on or is not supervened on by physical reality. — Kenosha Kid

How can it be said something doesn’t interact with the physical, if that something hasn’t made sense as a concept? That the mind is a valid concept is given merely from the thought of it, and all valid concepts make sense in relation to something, which we can see in the construction of syllogisms including it in a premise. Which is, of course, the only possible way to even talk about it in the first place. But this still leaves the question of whether or not the mind and other non-physical conceptions make themselves known, an admirable subtlety on your part, I must say.

Supervenience is a post-modern analytic construct, which is irrelevant in epistemic methodologies in which “mind” doesn’t hold any power. In such methodologies, there are pure conceptions that make themselves known, represented as “the categories”, not of mind, but of reason alone. And to substitute reason for mind, as equally non-physical entities is absurd, in that pure practical reason can indeed supervene on physical reality, re: morality.

I submit to you, Good Sir, that you have already imbued your comments with a conception that has made itself known to your thinking, if not to your words. You have attributed “quality” to the concept of mind, as the only possible means for you to state what it is or is not, and what it can or cannot do. How would you suppose, guess, want, need or just think any of that, without some ground by which to make those judgements, when experience offers no help?

So....it is at least logically consistent, that “quality” is a concept that makes sense (the absence of which is impossible), is not itself physical (the objects to which it relates, are), does not interact with the physical (only attributes relative degree), and most certainly makes itself known (as a necessary condition pursuant to a given methodology).

But ya know what? The physicalist doesn’t have to show such non-physical conceptions make no sense, or don’t exist, or anything else. All he has to do, is show how the human cognitive system can operate in its historically recorded functionality, without them. Which is impossible, because it is the case that he must necessarily employ the very things he is attempting to revoke. He must, then, rely on knowledge he doesn’t have, with respect to a kind of technology he wouldn’t know how to use, for experiments he doesn’t know how to formulate, culminating in results he wouldn’t understand.

In other words, he can explain nothing the metaphysician hasn’t already.

(Mic drop....exit stage right)

You’ve used “different aspects of the same thing” several times, but without exposition of what the same thing would be. Is it spatial/temporal relations? But then, of what are they aspects?

By definition in physics, and general logical inference in metaphysics, it seems unlikely for physical and non-physical conditions to have a condition in common, which would tend to solve the paradox if such should be the case, but perhaps at the expense of necessarily creating another.

Just wondering if you had something in mind......

I count perception as the act or process of something being perceived. So, for me it is a cognitive act. — Janus

Maybe. But even science acknowledges that the energy input to the sense organs is not the same kind of energy output. From that it follows that upstream is a physical act or process, but on the downstream it is a cognitive act or process. But then, of course, the physicalist says even if the output energy is of a different kind, it is still energy. To which the metaphysician rejoins, output energy must then be merely representational of input energy.....and the war continues unabated.
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once we have perceived something it has become an object; something more than a mere phenomenon. — Janus

I would agree, in that what we perceive is an object, but further stipulate that which we do not perceive as still a possible object. Otherwise we are left with the absurdity that anything we don’t perceive isn’t an object, and that inevitably reduces to the mandate for our creation of reality, necessarily. Might be better to say that while it is true what we perceive is an object, but it doesn’t become an object merely upon once being perceived.

Following you by the letters, yes, what we perceive becomes an object.....but only FOR US. This permits what we perceive to have always been an object, even antecedent to its perception. Also by the letters, yes, objects are more than mere phenomena, insofar as objects are naturally complete in themselves, whereas phenomena are incomplete by our own logical inference.

I do understand that phenomena are generally taken to mean all that is external to us, of which we as yet have no knowledge, which is, as you say, that which impinges on the senses. The contradiction only arises when one thinks the impingement is the sensation, but also says sensation is not phenomenon. So the one contradicts the other, or the one or the other contradicts itself.
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Matter of taste, indeed. The object though, is to find common taste. People been trying for thousands of years....ain’t quite there yet.

Forest/trees.

“...We find, too, that those who are engaged in metaphysical pursuits are far from being able to agree among themselves, but that, on the contrary, this science appears to furnish an arena specially adapted for the display of skill or the exercise of strength in mock-contests—a field in which no combatant ever yet succeeded in gaining an inch of ground, in which, at least, no victory was ever yet crowned with permanent possession....”

Makes no difference.

Hard-core physicalist/scientist = S
Regular dude = R
Metaphysician = M

R: I think.
S: No you don’t. That’s the brain at work.
R: How does the brain work so it makes me think I think?
S: Damned if I know, but it couldn’t be any other way.
R: Oh, so...when you figure it all out, does that mean I won’t be able to claim I think?
S: Hell, you can claim anything you want, but you’d be wrong. All physical stuff.
R: Hmmmm.....I think I’ll just go ahead and disregard all that and just be me.
S: Fine. Guy can think whatever he likes, far as I’m concerned.
R: Wait. What? You just said I don’t think, it’s all brain work.
S: What I meant was, if push comes to shove, it all boils down to brain work.
R: So what you’re really saying is, before it all boils down, I actually am right in claiming I think.
S: Well...you’re right enough in claiming you think you’re thinking, because you don’t know any better, you don’t know the facts of the matter.
R: So if I go my entire life without knowing the facts of the matter, I can say I spent my whole life thinking.
S: I suppose. Like I said....we really don’t know how the brain works.
R: Then you’re no use to me at all, then, are you? Except for toaster ovens and penicillin. Credit where credit is due, I always say. Let’s get a coffee, bug the barista for a minute.
S: Fine. You’re buyin’.

John is justified in believing that the cat is on the mat.
John's belief that the cat is on the mat, is justified.

What's the difference? — Wheatley

There are two differences. One is the error of equivocation. John is the subject of the statement in the first, belief is the subject in the second, but the implication is that justification is the same for both. The informal fallacy lays in the implication that John is constructing a judgement which may or may not be true, insofar as the cat may or may not be on the mat, in the first statement. The implication carried by the second statement, on the other hand, is that John’s constructed judgement is in fact true.

The second difference is the conditioning of each statement by time. The one is a current judgement process of John’s believing, the other the judgement process for John’s belief is presupposed.

Easy-peasy.

When is a belief not justified? — Wheatley

When it contradicts experience.

When are you not justified then? — Wheatley

You being justified or not, is very different than a belief being justified or not. The thread concerns beliefs, not the holder of them.

To me it sounds a bit authoritarian, I have to justify whatever I believe — Wheatley

If you believe, you’ve already justified. Of course it’s authoritarian; you’re it.

Good refresher article. Thanks.
(Sidebar, of little or no import: right across the inlet from Harris Island, is the 1718 Sayward-Wheeler House, a colonial mansion/museum. Ancestry, perhaps? Dunno.)

What do we as Everydayman gain, by knowing of the extremely large or the extremely small? Nothing whatsoever, I say, which reduces those sciences to mere interest. That we are part of the large and the small is a part of us, is given, but quite irrelevant to the general public.

Case in point....I read somewhere, given the double slit and the extension of it to massive objects like toaster ovens and such, the dynamics of the experiment would have to be of the scale which makes them impossible to enact. The dimensions of the slit, in relation to the dimensions of the electron that passes through it, scaled up to the dimensions of dump trucks as passing objects, just to prove the invariant validity of a scientific principle......ain’t happenin’.

That, and spooky action at a distance is up to, what......34 miles now? Fascinating, indeed, but still.......

Sum over histories, while rationally sustainable, presupposes a possibility all objects of experience are prohibited from manifesting. Which reduces to....for that which is impossible to experience, to that is permitted its own laws.

There’s always gonna be a “but”, no matter what, isn’t there. Seems like that’s what we do best.

Ontological democracy — Janus

Oh, I like that. Yours?

To be sure becoming aware of them does entail something of construction, but that process of conceptual construction is not, and cannot be, conscious. — Janus

Perception informs of a general affect on sense, sensation informs which sense is affected. Both of which are sufficient for being aware of the presence of objects. But neither tells us what is affecting, nothing is yet being constructed, conceptually nor intuitively. The cognitive system that does the constructing, is not yet in play.

From the physical point of view, all that is between the external world out there, and the brain in here. The eyes, ears, skin, etc., don’t tell us anything at all about what is affecting them, only that there is something.
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what we sense are phenomena; light, texture, sound, taste, smell, mass, etc., and from that "buzzing, blooming confusion" we pick out objects by becoming aware of them. — Janus

If I get stung on the back of my neck, where’s the buzzing blooming confusion of phenomena in that? There is only one, the sting. I never taste the sting, I never smell it, it is not lit. The confusion resides solely in the object that stung me in accordance with a particular kind of sensation, which relates my confusion to some unknown object, and it is a phenomenon to me for that reason. I know I’ve been stung, but I may not know what stung me.

I can see the legitimacy of saying we sense phenomena, in effect, that’s exactly what we do. But I do not grant legitimacy to the notion that phenomena are sensations. Phenomena are that to which the sensations belong, not that that’s what they are. It may at first appear non-contradictory to say we experience smells, but if that were the case, we should be able to experience smell without ever having perceived anything with the nose. I can’t do that, myself, and I suspect no human has that capacity. I can easily think occasions where I smell bacon, say, but I cannot actually smell bacon unless there actually is bacon readily available, affecting my nose.
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"Conceptions, fully abstracted notions, ideas" are not "things we think but never perceive", but simply another kind of phenomena we do perceive or more accurately enact in the act of thinking ( if it is a conscious act, at least). So, that enaction may be either conscious or unconscious (subconscious). — Janus

Are you saying justice is not a fully abstracted notion, and that justice is a kind of phenomenon we perceive? That we perceive justice in that which is just? While that may be true, it is so iff we already know what justice is, in order for that which we perceive as just, conforms to it necessarily. Justice must be antecedent to all its instances, and that which is antecedent to all instances of anything at all, is thought. So yes, conception is an enactment of thinking, but it is not a different kind of phenomenon.

Food for thought: subconscious enactment is imagination, and, no thought can be subconscious.

I see where you’re coming from, but if we look closer at how we might do what you say is being done, we might find it doesn’t hold as well as it first appears. Of course, you might have a better methodology than I, so, there is that......

1610......Whoa!! Something really weird about Saturn.
1612......HOLY _____!!!! (Sorry, Lord) There’s something REALLY weird about Saturn.
1613......Man, I ain’t diggin’ this chit. That 1610 thing about Saturn, that disappeared two years later? Well, guess what. It’s back.
1655......Hey, dudes!!! That thing with Saturn? We’re looking at rings!! Yea, that’s right, detached....er....stuff!!!
1659........Rings is right, but that mystery of 1612 is solved, cuz we’re just looking at them edge-on every so often. Phases of the moon kinda thing, doncha know.
1787.....Yeah, well, guess what. Rings? Yeah, but there’s a whole bunch of ‘em. All just....like....there. Not stuck to anything, not flyin’ off, not doing much of anything but throw shadows.
—————

Prussian guy comes along, says some Irish guy says God did everything, and accedes that maybe he did. So God put that stuff around Saturn just to give some Italian guy something to look at. But then he thinks maybe it doesn’t matter who or what did what was seen about Saturn, it is reasonable that Saturn always did what we see it doing, long before we ever noticed it. Otherwise, he continues (yaddayaddayadda), Saturn had no handles at all until Italian guy invented his looking device, which means God put the handles there simultaneously with being looked at, per Irish guy’s esse est percipi, which means God knew all about Italian guy thinking about, then creating his telescope, per the Biblical account. Possible, sure. It is God after all.

But still, he thinks, that’s hardly a thoroughly natural way to do things, disregarding he’s never seen a platypus, seeing as how Nature shouldn’t be inclined to cater to those guys, plus an English guy, plus a Dutch guy, plus a quasi-French guy, plus a really French guy, just because they-all questioned Her inner workings, all with respect to the exact same thing. If that were true, and She did so cater to all those questioners, each would see a completely different Saturn according to a corresponding idea in the mind of God to which Nature must adhere, and all different from the farmer out in the fields who doesn’t question anything, but sees merely a spot of light in the night sky. Now we got maybe a whole basketfull of Saturns, and that just seems awful stupid. Much better to say there’s rather many ways for us to see the one thing, whatever the mind of God or Nature is doing.

To follow up on that gem of rationality, and which makes more sense actually, he then suggests, Prussian guy does, even if God did it a long time ago, let’s suppose the rings had been in existence as long as Saturn itself, which makes them, as far as he’s concerned anyway, even if at one time mere ideas in the mind of God, per Irish guy, existing long before they happened to be perceived after the perception and hence the existence of Saturn itself. And if that is the case, we can safely say Saturn, rings and all, once perceived as merely different from stars but subsequently perceived as different than stars and at the same time also different from other planets, is a thing all its own, or, a thing-in-itself. A thing that is as it is, whether we know of it, its differences, or its parts, or not. Then he goes ahead and spends ten years and fully 1700 total pages justifying it, consequently destroying the esse est percipi establishment.

True story. Saturn’s rings were just another discovery in the 1610 natural philosophy domain, but blew up the 1781 metaphysical philosophy domain and from which it thankfully never recovered. Big whoop, things exist. Yea. Real things out there, and even some real things waaaaayyyyy out there. Matters not a whit that some real things can’t be touched as can a banana or a cannon ball, all it needs be is not a measly idea in the mind. We don’t care that things exist near or far; we want to know what things exist as, and the things out there can never give that to us.

And the beat goes on...........

nowadays what is understood to be matter-energy, is the only real subject — Wayfarer

Subject?

“....We have found a strange footprint on the shores of the unknown. We have devised profound theories, one after another, to account for its origins. At last, we have succeeded in reconstructing the creature that made the footprint. And lo! It is our own....”
(Arthur Eddington, in Quantum Physics and Ultimate Reality—Mystical Writings of Great Physicists, Michael Green, 2013)

the formulation 'objects presented to consciousness' is not any more conventional than any other — Janus

No, it isn’t any more conventional; it is nonetheless conventional. Unqualified, stand-alone objects, as such, are conventionally that which is in space and time.

Of course we call the objects presented to consciousness 'phenomena'. — Janus

I don’t. Objects aren’t presented to consciousness; phenomena are but phenomena aren’t objects. Objects are presented to sensibility....the faculties for physical impressions, the senses.

What I haven’t said anything about, the other half of it, is the a priori presentation to consciousness of mere conceptions, fully abstracted notions, ideas....the things we think but never perceive.

If you’d said representations of objects, as phenomena, I would have agreed, but that’s still only half of it.

As far as being parsimonious.....ehhhh, sometimes we need to be down and dirty, not merely conventional.

That just has to be the absolute best one-liner in TPF history.

Wouldn't it be more parsimonious (....) to simply say that cognition is presentation? — Janus

Depends. Presentation of what, to what?

Don’t know, don’t care. I have this life or I apparently have this life. Either way, this life is mine.

The world isn’t mathematical; we are.
— Mww

I think that's an artificial distinction. The point is that we can predict, ascertain, control, discover, all through the application of mathematics. — Wayfarer

Ok, fine. Artificial distinction because I was speaking euphemistically. We aren’t mathematical, exactly. Instead, because we do all those things you listed, and we do them through application of a logical system, then it follows we must be imbued with that very logical system. How can we apply that which we haven’t already authorized, and how can we authorize that which we haven’t already determined as sufficient?

I’m going to maintain......via cognitive prejudice, I readily admit......that the mathematical nature of the domain of phenomena is not given to us in the observations of it. Relations between members of the domain, or between its members and its investigators, are given, and that by which relations are comprehensible to the investigators, cannot be in the relations themselves, but derived solely from the method for understanding them.
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Put another way, it's not just how 'the mind' works, but that there's a corresponding order in nature. — Wayfarer

Yeah....that’s the ubiquitous on-the-other-hand, and the bane of metaphysics in general. Is it right because we think it, or is it and we think it rightly. The only possible solution to the epistemological dichotomy must arise from a critique of the commonality, which is “we think”, but when the prime of metaphysical reductionism is found regarding it alone, it turns out not to apodeitically solve anything at all.

As Michael Schenker, UFO, “Rock Bottom”, 1974, so fondly laments.....where do we go from here?

Existence seems a more primordial concept, then, and something out of which all other human activities emerge — Xtrix

Agreed, and is an extension of Kant's argument by which Descartes’ thesis is deemed “problematic idealism”, in which “existence” as a predicate is at least redundant, hence gives no support to the subject. From this, and if “I think” is given, then “I am” is also given immediately from it. The only reason “I” am is because “I” think, so there is no need for “I am” iff “I think”.

But in Descartes’ time, the “I” that thinks was not given, and had to be proved as a valid conceptual presence, yet separate and distinct from the material realm of things of sense. So, yes, existence is a much more primordial concept.....in fact, it is its own category, given necessarily a priori in human cognition....but Descartes, even if he knew of Aristotelian categories, still needed to prove the existence of a certain thing. In hindsight, we tend to attribute to Descartes a mistake, but in his time, he didn’t commit one.

Whatever possessed you to revive this, a year after its demise? Always an interesting topic, but still....

Addendum:
Scrolling back to gather groundwork, I see it is your thread. Which serves as the best reason there is for reviving it. My bad....sorry.

I mean, we can't see UV waves for one but we're still affected by them. — khaled

Ahhhh, yes, I see what you mean. Can’t argue with that.

Interesting article.

You are more well-versed than I, so I’m not about to bore you to tears with stuff you already know, or infuse you with metaphysical precepts you already hold. You’ve said it yourself, and I agree without equivocation....science has ostracized the subject, and doesn’t even realize the fault in doing so.

So briefly.....

For us, the only certainty is logical, and because mathematics is a form of logic, we are assured mathematics itself is certain, which in turn assures us that which is grounded in mathematics is certain.

I don’t find the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in the natural world remarkable at all, because it is a logical system investigating it mathematically. The world isn’t mathematical; we are. If experience isn’t contradicted by observation, and observation is explained mathematically, then the system is justified.

It was Wayfarer that was trying to conceive of an “order out there”, so I pointed it out that it’s useless to talk about such a thing because you’ll never have access to it. — khaled

There is an argument that says the world must be ordered, for the simple reason our understanding is very seldom in conflict with it. With that being granted, and granting that “logical principles are not out there” is true, as you say, then we are given a method for explaining why there is seldom any conflict between experience and that which is the extant objects of it.

I agree with wayfarer if he says it is conceiveable that there is order out there, which makes perfect sense iff it is we who order, which, of course, we do. But it isn’t reason, it’s intuition, the subconscious part of the human cognitive system, responsible for it.

So....there is order out there, because we put it there. Or, it could be that we just recognize the world as it conforms to the order we ourselves have. Either way, and no matter what, without us and our system, the world, ordered or otherwise, is ontologically, epistemologically, and completely, irrelevant.

The reason there even is metaphysics, is because it is impossible to tell whether the world is ordered with the absolute certainty we think for it, or the world is as it is and our thinking conforms to it. So all we have with which to judge, is the least contradictory of two established doctrinal methods: idealism or materialism. Anything else is some combination of both with one or the other the superior.
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I would say the argument that our reasoning capacities can be trusted since there is evolutionary advantage in having good reasoning is valid. But not the argument that our reasoning or senses are complete — khaled

In general, yes, they can be trusted. We seldom experience a thing today, and then worry about what our experience will be tomorrow, of the same thing. Still, humans are famous for errors in judgement, that being one of reasoning’s capacities.

As weak as they are, I think our sensory system is complete, insofar far as we are affected by the external world with the system we have. We’d be more or differently affected with a better of different system, but then, we wouldn’t be human.

As for our reasoning being complete....hell, I wouldn’t know about that. There would have to be something to compare it to, seems like. Other intelligent species might have a more complete system, but how would we find that out?

My two thalers worth......

Are you an academic? — Nelson E Garcia

(sidelong glances)......who, me???? Nahhh......no formal training. I couldn’t sit still long enough for the superfluous stuff. Plus, there was the......you know.....the draft.

Thanks for the offer.

Actually.....that’s not half bad, gathered from the “about the book” section. Most of it is within, or amendable to, my metaphysical disposition.

On the other hand, I reject the “facts of intelligent design” and “supernaturally imposed programmed features” out of hand, whatever their associations, and tentatively withhold judgement on “force surface”......not quite getting the gist of that one.

Do you have time to read a book? — Nelson E Garcia

Yeah...about that. Theses days, I got all kinds of time, but I seem to have lost a great deal of interest. So, yep, got time, but maybe not inclination.

Hmmm.....I don’t know Barth. Still, for me at least, “most influential” isn’t going to be a book anyway, but a “most influential” book isn’t going to be a novel.

Man, I could have sooo much fun with that......

L
E
T
T
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Sorry. I just had to, doncha know.

I don't have access to "the reason that orders the world" so I don't care about it. — khaled

I don’t care about that which orders the world either, and I do not have access to it. But I wouldn’t say reason orders the world in the first place, which grants me access to it, whatever its composition or use.

Reason doesn’t organize.....order.....the world; it only informs me of the consistency and legitimacy of the ordering. And THAT I certainly do care about.

How can a singular superlative be a list?

A firm requirement of existence is for existents to include traits and details which the external world lack, — Nelson E Garcia

Self-contradictory? If existants require it, but the external world doesn’t have it.....how does an external thing meet its own requirements?
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what is cognized is not something located in the external world — Nelson E Garcia

Agreed. What is cognized is representation of that which is in the external world. But that which does not exist in the external world cannot affect sensibility, therefore cannot be represented, hence cannot be cognized.
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the external world is constituted by force (different levels of force) — Nelson E Garcia

Dunno so much about that, but......

appearances or details do not exist there independently, it is only stimuli promoters what lead to appearances or details when mind does its job using the five human senses. — Nelson E Garcia

....this is agreeable, insofar as “stimuli promoters” are merely the matter of extant objects. In effect, appearances logically reduce to stimuli promoters. There’s no significant difference between something appearing to be “round”, and that which promotes perception to respond to the conditions of “round-ness”.
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if a question is needed for the topic to be valid — Nelson E Garcia

What is this “force” you’re talking about? I suppose one could say extants in the external world “force” themselves upon sensibility, iff any of them are in fact perceived. But if that’s the case, how is that I still cognize my four-legged childhood companion “Sparky”?
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No existence without an actualizing mind, is Berkeley’s dogmatic idealism; attribution of “traits and details” is Kant’s transcendental idealism, albeit by means of reason, not mind. “Force” may be original to you, but the rest is well-worn.

And no, no one can prove your claims wrong, because it’s metaphysics. But your claims can be argued and theoretically refuted given some generally identical initial premises but operating under different systemic conditions from them.

Have fun with it, I say.

A reader, or, start from scratch, never mind the title: “Cartesian Meditations”, 1931.

You probably don’t need to start from the beginning, as I did, so if not........never mind.

(Chuckles to self)

Yeah, I get that a lot, as you can tell from the fact my comments far outnumber my mentions.

(Insert enthusiastically appreciative picture-thingy here)

I was think of experience as just awareness if things. — frank

Which is fine, in the General Grand Scheme of Things. But then....what would consciousness be?

In the Reduced Critical Scheme of Things, where only one conception can relate exactly to an idea, experience and awareness cannot both represent things.

SO...............there’s Frank, walking down the street, only hears a BOOM!! Frank can indeed tell himself he is aware of a sound, but he cannot tell himself of the thing that made the sound, because he only heard it. So he cannot say, even when aware of the one, that he is aware of the certainty of the other. So Frank has no experience of a particular thing relating to the sound. So Frank’s notion of experience as awareness doesn’t hold, in the Reduced Critical Scheme of Things.

Now, Frank is certainly authorized to tell himself he has never ever heard a sound that didn’t have a thing immediately connected to it, he’d be correct, he could just walk on, and his notion of experience as awareness, in the General Grand Scheme of Things, holds.

The question becomes, for those bothering to ask it.....under what conditions is it possible for the General and the Critical Schemes to be completely irrelevant. And that can only occur if experience of things and awareness of things, are at all times and under any conditions, exactly the same, without exception. Which is, of course, quite unfounded, for it is completely logical to be aware of some things for which there never has been a corresponding experience.

How are you using it? — frank

Experience: a posteriori cognition by a subject as mediate ends, by means of sensation;
Awareness: immediate affect on the subject by means of sensation, such that a posteriori cognitions become possible. Experience absolutely requires awareness, but awareness does not absolutely promise experience. Which reduces to the validity of pain awareness absent experience for its immediate cause.

It is permissible for pain to be a component of experience, which is different than to say pain is an experience. Which is what all the above jaw-flappin’ was about.

Over there:

BOOOO!!!!....another damned Kantian. Spouting like, super, like, you know, old-guy stuff, nobody really understood to begin with, and therefore long since upended by disassociative anti-intellectualism.

Over here:

YEA!!!....another Kantian. Recognizing the paradigmatic shift in critical metaphysics, the proverbial crate and barrel of all current epistemological intellectualism.

I’m over here.

but I could still in principle verify that collapse has not occurred for me. — Kenosha Kid

Sure, because it wasn’t you that measured. This is the quantum elaboration derived from the metaphysical truism....only experience is empirical knowledge.

Pain is thought of as an experience, not a behavior. — frank

Plus side:
Agreed. From somebody else’s observation of my behavior if I’m in pain......it is possible I can project a behavior directly inconsistent with the pain I feel. When I go to the doctor, it is possible to inform him of effects having nothing to do with the cause. Senseless to do, but proves someone’s observation of my behavior does not necessarily correspond to the pain I feel.

From my own point to view, it is entirely possible that the behavior I exhibit is an intentional disguise for the pain I feel. If it’s, say, the most important game of the year, and the coach knows I’ve pulled a muscle in my leg, I may falsify my behavior to an extent sufficient for his observation to allow me to play, even if it hurts like hell. ‘Course....if I screw up....well, that’s on me, but.....the point stands.

Everyone probably has the diversity of experience, when, e.g., a twist of the ankle, once in public, once in private. I’m here to tell ya, even with the exact same degree and occasion of pain, I’ll cuss like a sailor, throw things and kick the dog in private, but exhibit an entirely different behavior in a crowd. But I can’t distinguish the pain in the one scenario, from the pain in the other.

Another may/may not know that I feel pain, in direct accordance to my display/disguise of it, but only I may know of it, regardless of any display at all.

Still, these days, people do associate pain with behavior, first because of the rise of psychology, in which case the rest of us are merely being told some arbitrary truth of Nature’s Way, and second because humans have become a tribe of whining crybabies, looking for sympathy they may not deserve.

Minus side:
Pain is not an experience, in the truest sense. Experience is always of a known cause, pain is not. One will have a direct corresponding pain or pleasure given an experience which is its cause, but one will not necessarily have a direct corresponding experience caused by pain or pleasure itself, re: a simple headache.