To say "I am my subjective experiences" means that "I am my subjective experiences of thoughts and feelings". — RussellA

My subjective experiences can include both thoughts and feelings. — RussellA

—————

It is usually enough to say I am that which these two different things have in common.
— Mww

I would not say that "I am what thoughts and feelings have in common". — RussellA

Sorry. I figured there was no loss of truth value in my configuration of the statements as opposed to yours. Didn’t intend to flagrantly misinterpret.

The reason I said “it is usually enough” is because conventionally, it is. But technical metaphysical reductionism in the continental tradition denies that thoughts and feelings are experiences in the first place, so all that remains.....currently in vogue.....is the facility of convention, re: analytic language games.

Sorry for the delay. OK...fine. I totally missed this. My bad, because it was worth a response.

Descartes campaigned for a particular method of epistemology to be the benefactor of his establishment of the cogito. — Paine

Doubt is a negative truth claim, but is it a knowledge claim? Rather than a method of epistemology, I might go with a method of inference. This sorta fits, because establishment proper should follow from an ”ergo”, right? I mean.....”therefore” seems to indicate that which is established, as consequent, from some antecedent necessary truth.

How about this: Descartes campaigned for the establishment of “sum” as the benefactor of his particular method of inference.

Now, there is a particular method of epistemology that benefits from the establishment of “cogito”, but Descartes didn’t campaign, and wasn’t himself responsible, for it. Had to wait about 150 years for pure a priori cognitions to make the scene, which are the source of knowledge given from the thinking subject alone.

Minor technicality maybe, but still....should probably keep things in order.

It is usually enough to say I am that which these two different things have in common.

Until it is asked what those two different things are, what makes these two things different. Then it is not enough to say they are those which are common in me, for no two things can be distinguished by something common to each.

Perhaps Descartes should have said: "I am my thoughts, therefore I am" — RussellA

Not bad. — Mww

———-

As Descartes might have said "I am my subjective experiences, therefore I am" — RussellA

Better.

You still have to prove that thoughts and feelings are equally experienced, in order to affirm that I am only my subjective experiences. The principle of identity cannot justify that which is comprised of two unequal things. Strawson gave the clue.

and because experience is not in the world......
— Mww

That doesn't seem right to me. — Andrew M

Yet you’ve preface every one of those examples with “I”, the feeling of excitement, fond memory of the restaurant, more knowledge on the job. All of those belong to you alone, you said it yourself. So how can any of them be in the world if they are in you. If you’re right, I should go to that restaurant and experience your fondness for it. But it happened to be Thai and I hate Thai. So.....sorry, doesn’t work that way; when you get right down to critical examination there arise too many inconsistencies.

Are you using the term "experience" differently to all of those? — Andrew M

You betcha I am. Experience is an end in itself, a result, the finished product, in this case, of the employment of an individual, private, subjective human cognitive system, which is its means. That every single human that ever lives experiences things in the world is hardly sufficient reason to claim experiences are things in the world.

Still.....benefit of the doubt. When we both experience clouds, but I imagine a lion and you imagine a seagull in the same cloud formation......how do you explain those different experiences given from the exact same object? Rather than mandating a contradiction in the form of the same experience of the same cloud as both lion and seagull simultaneously, it is much more logical to say our simultaneously imagined experiences contradict each other, the cloud being merely its own single thing.
———-

On a non-representationalist view, no copy is being made. Instead we are perceiving the original object — Andrew M

The representationalist also perceives the object directly. All sensation is a direct affect of a particular object, or an assemblage of them. The impressions on sensibility are all direct perceptions. How could it be otherwise, and still make legitimate claims as to what the object is? How could a thing perceived as round legitimately be experienced as square? Or anything other than round? Can’t get it right in the end, by beginning with a wrong.

So we both perceive the original object directly. We both can say the impressions on our senses are given from a very real, very distinct, very “right there” object. If the representationalist makes copies of the object to pass on to the remainder of the system, what does the non-representationalist pass on to the same system? Even if he passes on mere information, doesn’t that still represent the perception? Otherwise he must pass on the red itself flower itself in itself a vase itself, which is quite absurd.

Put some instrument on a nerve bundle, say, for mere tactile reception. Wait for a mosquito bite. Do you really think a mosquito is going to show up on the instrument display? Nahhhh....you’ll see a graph, or a voltage reading, or some.....wait foooorr itttt.....representation of whatever object is affecting the skin. I suppose you could make the instrument such that it takes that information and makes a picture, but then, why bother when you’ve got a brain doing just that.
————-

This is a conceptual, not an empirical point. We're investigating what we perceive (i.e., can point at), and what we perceive is the object "as it is in itself", so to speak. — Andrew M

Yes, we’re investigating what we perceive. Yes, what we perceive is the object. That is the empirical point.

No, not as it is in itself. If it were as it is in itself, why are we involved? That is the conceptual point. “In-itself” means not in us. And by extension, not in any intelligence whatsoever. How else to explain the logically necessary objective reality of things before there were ever any intelligences to perceive them?

And herein lay the real problem. These days, there are so very many objects for which we are the empirical causality. For these we are wont to say we perceive them as they are in themselves, because we made them as they are in themselves. But this is an aberration, insofar as we still do not perceive the material constituency of the object, but only the final form the constituency is given.
————-

On a non-representationalist model, objects have natural characteristics that we can discover. — Andrew M

I get your point. Nevertheless, I would invite you to explain what you mean when you say “we discover”? What are we really doing when we discover? That objects display tendencies, or are imbued with qualities, is given, else we wouldn’t be able to perceive them, or know them as a particular thing, but that does nothing to address discovery, but only makes discovery possible because of those antecedent conditions. It follows that, with respect to that vase for instance, didn’t we already have to know, rather than discover, what form the vase must have, in order for it to be a water-holder?

The point being.....information or representation....you still gotta do something with it. Just calling it something doesn’t get us what we want.

my thoughts and other attributes are things that belong, or else pertain, to me (rather than equating to me) — javra

I think that closer to the case, yes. I am the unity of all my representations. Something along those lines.

I was going more for knowledge by acquaintance — javra

Yes, another iteration of a Platonic dualism. His: knowledge of, knowledge that; Russell, knowledge by acquaintance, knowledge by description. Kant somewhere in between with knowledge a priori and knowledge a posteriori. It’s all good.

In contrast to such stance...... — javra

Which stance are we talking about here? His, or mine? You quoted me, so supposing my stance, that we are not only our thoughts, your comment that we don’t necessarily change along with our thoughts, seems to support it, which isn’t in contrast to it.

So...I shall assume his, in which case, I agree, but only in the lesser sense, that we do not change along with our thoughts. But, as soon as we bring in time, we leave the lesser sense, and get down to the technical, greater, sense.
—————

Descartes: if he knew he was because he thought — javra

Gotta be careful here. Rene never said he knew anything; all he ever said was he doubts, and that necessarily. Makes no sense to say I know I doubt, while I am actually engaged in doubting.

“....I wasn’t meaning to deny that one must first know what thought, existence and certainty are, and know that it’s impossible for something to think while it doesn’t exist, and the like. But these are utterly simple notions, which don’t on their own give us knowledge of anything that exists...”
(P. P., 2. 10., 1647)

From that, we can say he never claimed knowledge of “I”, or mind as subject, even after having proved “I am” because his thoughts are indubitable. That a thing is necessary doesn’t tell us anything about what it is. Or, ontology claims are not epistemological claims. Descartes never said he knew he was merely because he couldn’t doubt his thoughts; his successors foisted that on him, without proper warrant.

On the other hand, one could fall back on “knowledge that”, in order to escape “knowledge of”. Like I said....gotta be careful.
————-

personal identity is quite the headache, at least for me — javra

Personal identity invokes conceptions of virtue, which involves reason, as do any conceptions. But reason is fallible, so.....there ya go.

Not bad.

Except I am more than my thoughts. I am not only my thoughts.

all experience has phenomenal ground.....
— Mww

So I'm curious whether you think that statement is compatible with the view that experience is grounded in the world, understood as that which we can point to around us..... — Andrew M

Hmmmm. “In the world” implies spatial location, and because experience is not in the world, I would go with “grounded by the world”. This removes the ambiguity of location but leaves the necessary implication of time, insofar as experience always presupposes its objects.

A common rejoinder is the notion that phenomena are themselves in the world, but this is not the case. Phenomena are “the undetermined objects of intuition”, most easily grasped by comparing phenomena to the information transferred along the nerves. This separates the external object from the impression it makes on our senses, and because we are never aware of such physical transfer, it fits with the “undetermined” in the metaphysical definition. Convention puts phenomena in the world; critical reason does not.
————-

.....that which we can point to around us (and which do have characteristics, e.g., the red flower in the vase). — Andrew M

Ever wonder how it became “red flower in a vase”? How does something....anything.....get its characteristics?
————-

while experience is certainly predicated on sense data given from objects of perception.....
— Mww

And also whether that statement is compatible with saying that what we perceive are objects in the world..... — Andrew M

Yes, what we perceive are objects in the world, that which impresses, or affects, our senses.

....objects in the world (which we have attendant thoughts and feelings about). — Andrew M

No, we have thoughts and feelings about representations of perceived objects in the world. It behooves the purely physicalist-minded, to remember 100% efficiency of energy transformation is absolutely impossible for human sensory apparatus. Because there is necessarily energy loss, that which is upstream from sensation can never be the same as what is downstream from it. If the latter is different in some way, it can no more than merely represent the former to some arbitrary degree.

That relieves us of invoking the tautological nonsense of saying things like, “there are no basketballs, ‘57 DeSoto’s.....and no “red flowers in a vase”.....in my head”.
————-

(I note that you mention "sense data", but also that it is not "sense data" that is perceived, since it is not an object of perception). — Andrew M

Correct. Which gets us back to how objects get their characteristics. Sense data is quite general, yet characteristics are particulars. That the particulars are derivable from the generals doesn’t say how the one is separated from the other, if that is the case, or annexed to the other, if that is the case.

All that reduces to.....is it a red flower in a vase because it just is that, or, is it a red flower in a vase because we say it is just that. Personal preference?

Color, form and dimensions are characteristics that objects have. Perception is the process by which we become aware of an object with such characteristics. It's not a process of purple, squareness and boxhood being synthesized in our minds or, alternatively, brains. — Andrew M

Apparently so.

if I cannot understand the nature of the mind by looking at the minds of other, and I cannot understand the nature of the mind by looking at my own, then I will never be able to understand the nature of the mind. — RussellA

Agreed, which means this.....

I agree that "I am my mind". — RussellA

....is wrong, and is only corrected by shortening it to “I am”, which immediately reconciles the contradiction stated here......

Schopenhauer wrote: “that the subject should become an object for itself is the most monstrous contradiction ever thought of” — RussellA

.....and has the added benefit of being apodeitically certain.

They stand in relations and thus ground a structure of relations but qualia themselves are not relations and have no internal structure. — litewave

Be that as it may, it only goes to sustain my opinion for the superfluousness of qualia, in that the Kantian categories adhere to that very same criteria and serve the same general purpose.

I reject the concept of “qualia” outright, as superfluous....
— Mww

Thanks! You omit those words (as superfluous) but, as I understand it, retain the underlying representationalist model. — Andrew M

Remember the times. Pierce, 1866, inflicted “quale” on the metaphysical world for one reason only: Kant didn’t elaborate on his infliction of “pure aesthetic judgement” on the metaphysical world. Or, I suppose....his elaboration was so complex its validity escaped everyone, so they speculated on their own. Given that Pierce was a Kantian, at least he was in 1866, and given that it is the case that he defined “qualia” as “the character of phenomenal experience”, it is clear he speculated his way far from the original, insofar as all experience has phenomenal ground, hence the notion of “superfluous”, and, experience doesn't even have “character” in the Enlightenment transcendental sense, hence the notion of speculative advancement of a standing theory.

Subsequent elaborations removed qualia from the phenomenal character of experience, per se, to manifestations of the “feeling of what it is like to have a phenomenal experience”, which predicated the concept on the affect of sense data has, that is, sensation, as elaboration over phenomena, on the subject’s feelings. This elaboration in effect twice removed qualia from Kantian metaphysics, in the first because, re: Pierce, experience doesn’t have character, and second, because, re: Lewis, 1929, while experience is certainly predicated on sense data given from objects of perception, feelings just as certainly are not. Continuing these conceptual monstrosities through time just made it easier to counter them, as they got further and further removed from the inception of them.

But back to the beginning......representations are all and only given from sensibility as intuitions, or understanding as conceptions. A representational model of cognitive metaphysics leaves room for qualia, obviously, because they can be thought, and furthermore they stand as valid conceptions insofar as they do not carry an intrinsic contradiction.
————-

Which gets us to......

The theorem:
One can hold with such representational model, while abstaining from incorporating qualia in it.

....which in turn dialectically mandates....

The proof:
Major:
It is really quite irrelevant that there is a quale representing a “feeling of what it is like”, if there is no aesthetic judgement made in relation to it. If we have the feeling and make no judgement, the feeling, and by association its cause, doesn’t matter. If we have a feeling and make a judgement on it, we have cognized that which belongs to the judgement as it relates to its cause but not always with a sufficient determination of it.

Minor:
We know this to be true, given we are sometimes presented with an occasion where we do like (instances of the beautiful which is always a pleasure) or do not like (instances of the sublime which is always a pain), the feeling we get from some thing or other of our experience, but can’t say why. And if we can’t say why, if we cannot judge a sufficient cause of the feeling, there’s no reason, under these beginning conditions, to say qualia are anywhere involved. It follows logically that if we cannot attribute qualia to some feelings, we loose justification for attributing them to any feelings, given that all feelings are, in and of themselves alone, regardless of degree or kind, all exactly equal as merely a human condition.

All that to posit this conclusion:
Qualia do nothing but give feelings an unwarranted cognizable object, and thereby make it so there is no need for aesthetic judgements to which cognizable objects actually belong, which is anathema to every single transcendentally conditioned human that ever lived. In other words.....all of us.

So there, dammit!!! How come everybody doesn’t know this already???? Obvious to even the most casual observer, right??? ‘Course it is.

You can even say that the mind is the cause of the force that propagates material processes. — Raymond

Nahhhh....I can’t. Reeks of reification. Misplaced concreteness.

But you can if you like. I’ll wait for the peer review.

the mind is not a cause of a new state of affairs — RussellA

Finally.

As if an abstract non-entity can be a force.

Point:

when you think, you see - mentally see - a form which could not, in principle, be identical with a particular — Lloyd Gerson, Platonism v Naturalism

Counterpoint:
“....No image could ever be adequate to our conception of a triangle in general. For the generalness of the conception it never could attain to, as this includes under itself all triangles, whether right-angled, acute-angled, etc., whilst the image would always be limited to a single part of this sphere....”
(CPR, A141/B180)

These two guys cannot both be right. Or....under what conditions could they both be right. Granting the validity of mental seeing in both cases, is seeing the form in the first the same or not, as imaging in the second?

Inquiring minds......

What is thinking? — Xtrix

Thought is cognition by means of conceptions.

Thinking (rationally), then, is the conscious act of synthesis of a diversity of conceptions in a logical unity.

And now you know.......

A small infant doesn't see...... — Wayfarer

Right, and I don’t think any epistemological science or metaphysics should concern itself with pre-teen individuals. We want to know the rules, after all, not the exceptions to them.

percepts however require concepts — Wayfarer

Right again, at least as far as human knowledge is concerned, and I would add it’s pretty hard to get “concept” out of “brain state”, while it’s rather easy to get percepts....read as object of perception.....out of them.
———-

Thanks for the link; good stuff. Wouldn’t let me C & P though, which is a bummer.

The question is: when is it justified? — Raymond

Depends on the premises of the theory, I guess. Empirical theories are justified by correspondence with natural law; metaphysical theories are justified by correspondence with logical law.

Subtleties sold separately.

Could you expand on what you mean by "subjective experience"? — Andrew M

I only used the compounded terminology because that was how it was originally presented. All experience is subjective, in that any experience belongs only to the rational agent that reasons to it, therefore “subjective experience” is superfluous.

I reject the concept of “qualia” outright, as superfluous as well, insofar as the given senses of them are already accounted for in established metaphysics. That is not to say they are false, or don’t have their own predication, but only that such predication has earlier, and better, representation.

While advocating modified theories, or generating new ones, is perfectly warranted, if the modified or new theory doesn’t justify relinquishing the old one, it doesn’t really serve any purpose, other than perhaps making a name for its provocateur.

......the brain contains no stable, high-resolution, full field representation of a visual scene, even though that is what we subjectively experience (Martinez-Conde et al. 2008) — Wayfarer

....what is being described here is close to, or identical with, what Kant describes as synthesis. (....) I wonder if @Mww would agree with that. — Wayfarer

He would, with the caveat that Kant is talking about the rational side of human mentality, but the brain having no representation of a visual scene, is the empirical side of brain mechanics.

Hence the inescapable duality of being human: there is no place in the brain for visual representation, but humans think in images.

(Delete overly extensive and manifestly unsolicited exposition on the real explanatory gap, so as to prevent the your sorrow, and the gallery’s dirty looks, for asking me whether I agreed with something or not.)

why would a "neural representation" be assumed in the first place? — Andrew M

Because this: representation is necessarily the case, and because neurons are the only possible source of representations as such, therefore neural representations.

But not this:

Because "subjective experience" (...) is a Cartesian conception of experience (the Cartesian theater, as it were). — Andrew M

Cartesian theater was never the case, and subjective experience has long evolved from Descartes, as so aptly noted.

Brain machinations can be scientifically determined all day long, but how the “sense of self” manifests out of them isn’t answered by them. So either there is no sense of self, a veritable species-wide anathema, or, science wants it to be that there isn’t, by physical means.

Sad state of affairs indeed, that science wishes to determine rationality right out of being human, and at the same time, manifests a self-contradiction in attempting to do it.

I mean....so what if all the science is right? So what if all the brain machinations are determined as pure physicality and therefore subjective experience is pure physicality as well? B.F.D. The scientist is still going to sit there, and wonder what to do about it, which requires him to employ the very thing he just proved doesn’t exist.

Probably outta stick to better toaster ovens and birth of the Universe and such. You know....that which might make a difference.

“HEY!!! TEACHER!!! Leave us kids alone!!!”

It feels as though if we cannot establish a foundational inerrant truth to build our knowledge upon, then somehow by extension all claims to truth are equal, knowledge is impossible or meaningless — Reformed Nihilist

Been that way for millennia, so...this:

http://www.arts.uwaterloo.ca/~pthagard/Articles/metaphors.pdf

Agreed, both.

Reason always seeks the unconditioned, something to use as an irreducible bottom line, for which mind seres the purpose. After the conception of it, barring logical self-contradiction or non-compliance with natural law, best just to leave it be.

All good. With reference to.....

....attacks on dualism.... — SophistiCat

....do you think the attacks are legitimate, or is it just the human proclivity for arguing with each other?

Did you read any further than that opening sentences? — SophistiCat

Yep, seeing as how the first snippet was from the beginning of the article, and the second from about half-way through it. But, yeah, I did skim over the life-after-death part, and bypassed completely the spiritual believer part.

I must say, though, “we struggle to imagine our absolute nonexistence”, isn’t the slightest, that “science forces us to accept that we are not living on a flat Earth” is a gross over-estimation of maritime history, but at the same time, it makes me all warm and fuzzy inside, to be informed I am “entirely normal and psychologically adaptive”.

Whether to advance my sympathies, or demean the author’s credibility.....I dunno. He’s a shrink, writing in a psychology journal, meaning he’s neither natural scientist nor philosopher, so yeah......blah, indeed.
————-

the argument that the article cites is not confined to restating Descartes definitions. — SophistiCat

I take this to mean the footnote, which is exactly what prompted me to comment in the first place, insofar as it appeared Carroll didn’t really know what Descartes’ definitions actually were. Or if he did, he misrepresented them. Be all that as it may, it is quite clear Descartes never intended his mind “substance” to interfere with the material or body “substance”, even going so far as to warn his readers not to confuse the two. Not his fault some of his successors did it anyway, and to this day, they still do. All because of one little word. I mean...if the guy needs to be shot, shoot him for the use of the pineal gland, not the use of a word.

And probably to everyone’s annoyance, I shall mention the fact it was Kant who removed mind from any form of manifest causality, relegating it to a mere logical condition, thereby eliminating any requisite Cartesian “substance” dualism.

That’s ok. If you understand why you agree with then you’ll be closer to understanding me.

Here it is derived from 'ouisia' which is nearer in meaning to 'being' or 'bearer of attributes'. — Wayfarer

Yes, and Para 54 of Principles is prefaced with just that qualification, re: ”...each substance has one principle attribute...”, which is the same as saying each is the bearer of one principle attribute.

This is a very small part of what constitutes holding someone accountable. It applies in all sorts of situations where there may be no specific rules - in employment, in personal relationships, in business relationships, basically in every aspect of human interaction. — T Clark

If it is such a small part, how then does it concern all those things you listed?

The subject matter has to do with accountability, which is to say, in this case, the way in which people account for the activities of others. The subject wished to be held in abeyance, has to do with the account one person takes for himself.

The difference is in the kinds of judgement related to the two different accounts. The one I speak about, and the one with which the topic concerns itself, is judicial judgement alone, whereas the judgement concerned with the will of the individual in relation to himself, is aesthetic. The two cannot mix, and still maintain the differences in accounts, for the interests of the individual determine the judgement under which he is to subsume himself.

The article stipulates, “...Mind-brain dualism is the view that brain and mind are derived from entirely different kinds of things—physical stuff and mind-stuff....”, and that, “...for dualism to be true, all of science would have to be false...”

If it be granted the initial predication for mind/body dualism arises in Descartes,1641, and that there is further elucidation of it in 1647, and included in that latter a distinction in substances for each, then it should be noted that such elucidation of “substance”.....

“...As for corporeal substance and mind (i.e. created thinking substance), they can be understood in terms of a single common principle, all we can mean by ‘substance’ is ‘a thing that exists in such a way that it doesn’t depend on anything else for its existence....”
(Principles of Philosophy, 1. 52., 1647)

“....We can easily come to know that we are in the presence of a substance by one of its attributes. The nature of corporeal substance is extension in length, breadth and depth; and any other property a body has presupposes extension as merely a special case of it. The nature of thinking substance is thought; and anything else that is true of a mind is merely a special case of that, a way of thinking....”
(Ibid) 53

“....Thus we can easily have two vivid and clear notions or ideas, one of created thinking substance and the other of corporeal substance, provided we are careful to distinguish all the attributes of thought from the attributes of extension. (...) We must confine our idea to what we clearly perceive, not cramming into it any invented features beyond the ones that really belong there....”
(Ibid) 54

....does nothing whatsoever to justify that the validity of physical science is destroyed by it.

All that says nothing of other subsequent renditions of the stated dualism, but it’s always best to start from the beginning.

In a generally civilized society, the members of it are already held accountable, by means of the tenets of an agreed upon administrative code. Such code, and the voluntary adherence to it, is predicated on the mutual desire to live under some set of conditions as a community, and has nothing to do with an individualized personal will.

The question as to whether or not the individual ought to conform to the code willingly, is irrelevant, when the only interest he has in it, relates to the mere desire for its benefits. There is no need to will himself to comply, when a want suffices for the same end.

Public accountability can be given without any consideration of will. Or....will has nothing whatsoever to do with public accountability.

I dispute your ability to speak for the Everydayman since you are on this forum. — fdrake

Yeah, busted, for sure. Pretty presumptuous of me to declare a demographic doesn’t care about something, then appoint myself to represent them on exactly what they don’t care about.

Hey.....

The three I’s.....interesting, informative and intelligent. This discussion over the last few days.

In the back of the room, taking notes, sits Everydayman, nodding in affirmation once in awhile, but shaking in negation generally, for he knows beyond doubt that his head just doesn't work that way.
He’s actually chuckling to himself, because to him Mother Nature has pulled a fast one on those who wish that the belief that the door is open ever was a belief, and that merely a product of ionic activation potentials forced as sufficient justification for it. I mean...he invented “mind” to cover all that stuff, and it doesn’t bother him that technically, he cannot include such a thing in his list of thing-like possessions. Maybe why he’s here in the first pace, but also why he sits back here and keeps his mouth shut.

But don’t get me wrong; I’m a lot smarter....I’ve studied many centuries worth of philosophy, I’ll have you up there on the podium know.....than these other guys back here, and I know the brain does all those things, from which arises that which is present to all of us. I’m just here keeping him company, because I sympathize with him in his perceived loss of individuality which must follow from the strict determinism of natural law under which the brain necessarily functions, combined with some sort of social contract, which I’m sure you'll forgive him for treating as pure horseshit.

So....as self-appointed spokesman for Everydayman, just let me advise you that he ain’t buyin’ it, for he has never once in his life ever realized anything of which the grounds of the discussion promises. And while I personally agree with the foundational premises of the discussion, I am in agreement with him that it doesn’t, and never will, make the slightest impact on humanity in general, who just plain doesn’t think in terms of ion potentials and energized neural networks, and therefore couldn’t possibly care less about them.

Furthermore....he says.....it makes not the least difference what the public determines as intentionality of language predication, for he is first and foremost perfectly capable of disregarding the entirety of it, and, somewhat to his own detriment perhaps, the more redneck....obstinate....he is, the more apt he is to do it. In effect, he is saying, and even Intellectuals must admit the truth of it, that no matter what the test equipment probes and dye traces say, and.....sorry, Isaac, what theoretical psychology wants....he can immediately deny it, simply because he can think otherwise in refusing to be lumped with the crowd.

Yeah, ol’ Mother, She did indeed pull a fast one. On the one hand, possible empirical proofs of a thing, on the other, perfect deniability for that very same thing. Technology gives pictures of synaptic clefts, but not one human ever has formulated his mentality in terms of them.

That’s it, from the back of the room. Or....Token Rebuttal from the Vulgar Majority!!!!!

This exercise is merely another edition of the first antinomy of pure reason, the inverse of which is just as logically sound, in which is found we shouldn’t even be here to consider how us not being here would be impossible.

Might be fun to think about, but there’s no profit in it.

By sheer accident.

I’ll see your 2 cents, and raise you a nickel.

Where the self falls in all this is what phenomenology is about. My 2 cents — Gregory

While this seems to be the case, it means that somewhere buried in the depths of the phenomenology literature, must be some sort of proof that the self is a phenomenon. Hence, the debate amongst later German idealists and neo-Kantians, all in the name of justifying the evolution of transcendental philosophy from its Enlightenment origins, in which the self cannot be a phenomenon.

Interesting read. So...thanks for the link.

It seems as though you have misinterpreted what I said. — Janus

No, I was just responding to the queries, not the statements.

How do I know that processes of inductive and abductive reasoning (creative hypothesizing) are sound? — Janus

....to which my response was directed.

The question was as to how we "see" that. — Janus

That’s a different question altogether, which I gather refers to....

I see reason as relying on felt sense. — Janus

.....for which I can make no comment, because I don’t think of reason as relying on anything at all. It’s something we do, so I guess we could say reason relies on us.

On the other hand, if the questions are combined, we might arrive at, how do I see my reasoning is sound if I rely on a felt sense of reason? Well.....now we’re off to the rodeo.

That the human animal is imbued with a felt sense is given, otherwise morality itself is impossible. Ok, so what exactly is a felt sense? Just the words suggest a felt sense indicates a condition relating something to the kind of feeling, or the degree of a kind of feeling, a subject gets because of that something.

But humans are equally imbued with the capacity to reason, from which reasoning is derived.

So if humans are imbued with two separate and distinction qualities, or attributes, or capabilities, it is probably the case that there shouldn’t be an interconnectivity between them. Otherwise....why two? And why the two so different from each other?

Metaphysics understands this, by making reason the arbiter of the relations of our thinking in conjunction with a methodology (reasoning), and making feelings the arbiter of the rightness of those relations in conjunction with a personality (feelings).

But the rightness of relations is not the rightness of the ability that makes them possible. The true or false of reasoning does not reflect on the true or false of reason. A fast car going slowly, or a slow car going as fast as it can, is still only a car.

It turns out, feelings do not impinge on reason the ability, but restrict themselves to the objects derived from the method employed by that ability. We can have feelings about things we think (reasoning), but do not have feelings about reason (the innate faculty for creating relations).

If all that be granted, which from a metaphysical perspective it should, then the question, “how can I see the soundness of my reasoning if reason is a felt sense”, is a question that has no meaning, because the subject and the predicate do not belong together.

If all that’s just a heapin’ load of bullshit, then.......never mind. It’s all I got.

Thanks for the add-on. I was wondering what I was supposed to do with the original.

Thinking of a dreamscape is a way to imagine time as a construct, because dream time literally is constructed. The things that populate a dreamworld don't really have the origins implied by their presence. — frank

I can see how it might seem that way. The content of dreams is of a different time than the content of the experiences from which the dream content arises. But it’s the same for plain ol’ conscious memory recall, too, so, not sure we’ve gained much. As to origins, I think we’re stuck with a common origin for every manifestation of human cognition, whether conscious thought, memory recall, or dream state content.
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Cause and effect fails, but only from a perspective beyond the world. — frank

Does this relate back to dream worlds as being beyond the world? So c&e doesn’t hold power there? True enough, I suppose, but then, dreams are just imagination without arbitration from reason, meaning that not only is there no proofs of the possibilities contained therein, but there isn’t any need of them. There’s no need to subject dreams to logical principles, so it doesn’t matter if c&e holds or not. I’m sure we’ve both known folks who would claim they’ve whooped Bobby Fisher. Or copied Albert’s beam-riding.
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If you depend heavily on cause and effect and implied origins, you're bound to an in-world perspective. You can't mix that up with an out-world one. — frank

Absolutely. I mean....what would an out-world be? How would it manifest? How would we even know if we were in it? If we were in it, it wouldn't be an out-world. The nature of the human intellect: for any possible conception, it’s complement is given immediately from it. The implied origin of a possible out-world is given necessarily from the fact of the in-world.

Can I getta A-MEN!!! brutha?

Yeah? And......?

It is difficult to disentangle aspects of the brain and sensory awareness. — Jack Cummins

Yes, but we’re disentangling parts, not aspects. Brain and eye can be aspects of something common to both without being parts of each other.

As a yankeevirgobabyboomer.....you know, everything in its proper place.