Do you actually believe this? — frank

Ehhh.....I don’t have much use for the concept of time. I can get all I want from the usefulness of it with a clock. I can defend his theory, but it is just that, a theory. Everybody’s got one.

What’s your take on it?

It was only after a few eye problems that I became aware that the retina is actually part of the brain. — Jack Cummins

Then why isn’t the eye problem you have, a brain problem? What part of the brain got fixed when the eye did?

I don’t think we worry so much about the soundness of logic, as we do for its proofs. The only proofs for logic lay in experience, whether or not the soundness of conclusions conflict or conform to observations. And I don’t think we need to worry about how the logic feels, other than we just might not like what it tells us. I guess, as well, we might not like the premises we are forced to start with in order to get a conclusion that proves the soundness.

I agree deductive reasoning alone can't tell us anything beyond its form, but we are allowed to substitute particulars into that form, subject that form to experience, to test it.

When it comes down to it, we can’t expect more from the system than it’s capable of delivering.

What is time according to Kant? Obviously we perceive it, but what's up with our apriori knowledge of it? — frank

Time is nothing but the condition by which things are successive to, or coexistence with, each other. We don’t perceive time; we perceive things in relation to it. Two things can never at once occupy the same space, but two things can at once occupy the same time. One thing can never be in two spaces, but one thing can be in two times. And that’s all there can ever be for us to know about.....no things, one thing, or more than one thing.

Our a priori knowledge of time arises because we invented it. It is a purely human intellectual conception, used only to make the natural world understandable by means of the system that invented and uses it. Same with mathematics and formal propositional logic.
————-

We didn't understand S that differently, in the end. He does something like you said, but rather than some elan vital you implied, the force behind everything, he merely makes will a substitute for the unknowable, such that Kant’s unknowable thing-in-itself is removed. Problem is, he spends the first part of the book telling us what will is for us, and the second part telling us how it applies to the world, but makes no proof that the human will we know is the same as that which grounds everything. So we are still left with a thing we don’t know, except by a name that we do.

He removed will from time, in the world, but will in humans absolutely requires time. So how he decided to use human will as the way to understand the world as will, is far too long a reach for me.

It is now, but was it always?
— Mww

If we're in a dream right now, that question is dubious. What's your answer? — frank

If we’re dreaming we wouldn’t be in a public domain, so we can say the question isn’t dubious, right? At least for that reason anyway.

My answer is no, naming isn’t always in the public domain. After the first naming, yes, if repeated or recorded as such. Before it, no. Unknown natural thing, first discovered, then named, at the discretion of the discoverer. Usually.

Think man-made objects that don’t exist in Nature until constructed or invented. As it is for that, so it is for everything.

Pass? Fail?

And when you name the rose, this naming is anchored in a public domain. — frank

It is now, but was it always?

I wonder what it could even mean to understand the mind, though. — Janus

Best I can figure.....The conception of it means we can eliminate infinite regress. Gotta start somewhere, right? I don’t personally attribute anything to mind not already accounted for by reason. In that respect, I don’t need a felt sense of mind, and by the same token, a mere felt sense of reason can’t account for its usefulness.

The concept of reason does get me out of the infinite regress problem, so....bonus points for that.

Call ‘em both “transcendental objects” and leave it at that?

what you're saying is that perception, as you understand it, is the end-to-end of the nervous system from stimulation of nerves through to awareness. — Kenosha Kid

No, actually it isn’t.

My fault. Guess I didn’t make myself clear.

No worries. It was fun anyway.

If that’s what you got out of it, far be from me to say otherwise.

Naming a function in a process doesn't suggest there's nothing else in that process. — Kenosha Kid

No, it doesn’t. But it can suggest too much included in the process.

I have, and used it as reference. It has its good parts.

There is only one perceiver that is somehow magically multiplexed. — frank

As each human is a replica of any other, in a general sense, why not?

I think Arthur just wants to say all of us cognize, judge, and experience, the same way.

So you end up close to Schopenhauer's take on perception. — frank

Pretty close, if you’re going from this, in WWR, 1.3., 1844, in Haldane/Kemp, 1909:

“...We shall consider these abstract ideas by themselves later, but, in the first place, we shall speak exclusively of the ideas of perception. These comprehend the whole visible world, or the sum total of experience, with the conditions of its possibility....”

Gotta be careful of the world as idea, though.

That which employs a method to understand, cannot itself be subjected to that same method.

Map/territory dilemma.

It can only be given as an irreducible and necessary condition, then subsequently shown that the method it uses is both possible, and non-contradictory.

A strange conception not in itself possible to understand, and stands as an irreducible given necessity, in humans at least, is reason.

The issue is what the word 'perception' means, and it means the organisation of sensory information by the brain, and therefore is brain function. — Kenosha Kid

I agree organization of all sensory information is the function of the brain. From both an empiricist’s and a rationalist’s point of view. Certain flavors of idealists, on the other hand, while granting the authority of science with respect to natural law, are justified in forwarding logically predicated theoretical systems, until, if ever, our empirical knowledge supports the scientific dominion over them. That being said........

Sensation is the downstream side of sensory apparatus, that which the apparatus reports.

Sensation without a cause is an unconditioned natural event, which violates the principle of cause and effect, and is logically impossible on certain initial grounds.

To sustain the principle of cause and effect, there must be that which is antecedent to sensation, as the cause of it.

Each of the plurality of modes of sensation, as singular, dedicated effects, are internal to the body, all causes of sensations as objects in general, are external to the body, the apparatus being merely the natural physiology sufficient to mediate one with the other.

There are distinct modes of sensation, but that in itself does not require correspondingly distinct modes of cause, insofar as it is possible a single cause can affect separate modes of sensation, and that even simultaneously.

“Perception” is that conception which represents the appearance of an physical object, such that the sensory apparatus is caused to evoke a sensation as effect. As simple cause and effect, there is no organization, no cognition, being a strictly passive one-to-one transition of empirical information.
“Appearance” herein not to be confused with “looks like”.

Perception as brain function alone disregards the absolute necessity for causality of sensations, and at the same time, disregards the spatial distinction between the external cause and its internal effect.

“.....For how is it possible that the faculty of cognition should be awakened into exercise otherwise than by means of objects which affect our senses....”
(Master and Commander of Outdated Theories, 1787)

Qualia aside, it turns out in the end, that it isn’t philosophy that “has a problem tolerating useful words associated with outdated theories”. It is science, or at least psychology, that hijacks a perfectly reasonable, established philosophical conception, and the domain of its employment, turning it into something it was never intended to represent.
—————

In humans, reason is a major contributor to that organising ability — Wayfarer

Sad commentary indeed, that in 13 pages, that word hasn’t once made an appearance. The only saving grace must be that reason is tacitly understood as given, which even if true, still leaves the mistakes being made under its name.

“They have forgotten the faces of their fathers”.

Btw I enjoyed this very much. — Kenosha Kid

Cool. I had fun with it. Just because we take our philosophy seriously doesn't mean we need to take ourselves as much.

I'd tell the boss that I had been slapped and how hard. — Kenosha Kid

Just what I’d hoped. Would you agree the empirical occurrence, and the quality of it, as reported, belongs properly to the concept of sensation? Do you think the conclusions follow from the proof? The intent of the exercise is in the question at the end, which was meant to pave the way for relieving the concept of perception from any internal predication, pursuant to the relative validity of the answers.

.....information flows from nerves to brains. We're in disagreement that this alone constitutes perception. — Kenosha Kid

I don’t think you said it was, and I know I would never claim it was. So we are not in disagreement with this. That perception is a brain function, is the major premise of our disagreement, you in the affirmative, me in the negative.

Perception is the organisation of these messages, not the messages themselves. — Kenosha Kid

Which forces the “empirical occurrence and the quality of it”....the message.....to remain internal, as you’ve maintained all along, and I understand it as such.
————

In taking exception to your rendering, it is not incumbent on me to supply an alternative
— Mww

If your counterargument is that there is a different authoritative definition, you ought to be able to cite it. — Kenosha Kid

True enough, but I’m not counter arguing in favor of a difference, but in arguing in refutation of a stated claim.

Given that the criteria for the possibility of a conception is its definition, and, say, I delivered an authoritative definition for “perception”, you are then entitled to ask me to cite the criteria that supports it. OK, fine, but we’ve already got one: perception is a function of the brain. If I advance a successful refutation of that definition, which is my wont because I’m denying its validity, by showing how the criteria do not support it, beginning with the gedankenexperiment, then I don’t need a different definition. And in the case at hand, should I offer one, I might be susceptible to accusations of committing an informal etymological fallacy. A fancy-assed way of saying what was once acceptable now isn’t.

Not to mention.....and conspicuous in its absence.....nobody’s asked me for one.
———-

If I was _certain_ that a given perception was caused by a particular object, then I'd be saying that such an object is necessary. — Kenosha Kid

Of course, but certainty is a knowledge condition, so this statement is correct from that perspective. But the thought experiment attempts to show that the cause of sensation is entirely unknown. or, more accurately, knowledge of the object is not given, is impossible to derive, from the mere sensation of it, just as you yourself made explicit in your “hard slap”.

Regarding the proposition, then, all you’re justified in saying is, if you are certain a sensation is caused by an object, the object is necessary, and its existence is therefore given, and nothing else whatsoever.

There is no knowledge of the object, and there is no organization of any kind at this level of the system, therefore there is no inclusion of brain function.

If perception is a brain function, and there is no brain function at this level, there is no perception at this level. Or, perception was never a brain function in the first place, which grants the possibility that perception is something else entirely.

Refutation success!!!! YEA!!!! (Does the Happy Dance, feet just a-blur. Look it ‘im go, sawdust ‘n’ peanut shells ‘n shot glasses flyin’ all over the place.)

if perception is a brain function, then it has lost its established meaning,
— Mww

(...) Can you cite the established meaning? — Kenosha Kid

That would be whatever says perception means a thing of its own and not a brain function. In taking exception to your rendering, it is not incumbent on me to supply an alternative, but to argue as to how yours doesn’t work. Socratic dialectics, donchaknow.

Case in point, in your entry to ......

None of this is to say I am dubious about the existence of any object that purportedly causes my perception of it. — Kenosha Kid

.....is found no disconnect between saying perception over brain function, insofar as external objects in general actually are sufficient causality both perception and brain function, which implies interchangeability without contradiction. However, in the next.....

Nonetheless, I am proceeding only in extremely high confidence in the hypothesis that my experience of the red flower is caused by an external object with certain properties that cause that experience. — Kenosha Kid

....is found the necessary causality not given in the first, re: certain properties. As these certain properties as assumed to belong to the object, they are not given from brain function, but they are nonetheless perceived as residing in, or appended to, the object as the means of its distinction from objects in general.

This is called direct realism, or epistemological monism.
————

Subsequently, in this...

nothing of the external world is, for instance, in my brain. — Kenosha Kid

....is found that those conditions sustaining epistemological monism are apparently false, insofar as herein it is said there is nothing of those given properties of that object found in the brain. Now we see that it is the case that the loss of, or the non-existence of, the monistic properties of the object in the brain, says absolutely nothing whatsoever about the loss of, or non-existence of, those very same properties given from the perception of them.

The logical deduction from all that is twofold:

The theorem:
Properties never did belong to the object, therefore the loss of them is irrelevant, and, perception of objects is distinct from the brain function with respect to them.

The proof:
Imagine yourself a dendrite, just under the skin. A very young dendrite, perhaps an infant dendrite. At least inexperienced. You know what your job is, but haven’t yet had a chance to impress the boss. You know, His Esteemed Grayness sitting all lofty up there, surrounded by bone and long flowing locks. Suddenly, this protrusion of unknown origin (nod to Eric Bloom, aka, Blue Oyster Cult) slaps you right in the dentrical face. YEA!!! You finally....AT LAST....get to send a message. You’ve trained for this since mamma met papa, but you’re cool....you do your job.

First......What do you tell the boss?
Second......do you, as dendrite, really expect the boss to send a return message saying.....thanks, but I already knew all about it.
Third....if the second becomes the case, wouldn’t you wonder, in your dendrite manner.....WTF am I doing here then????
(Then you get all depressed and pathologically stupid and shoot yourself with an overdose of calcium ions, bursting yourself, taking your cell body with you. Your neighbor dendrites look at each other and wonder as well.....he’s got a point. What are we doing here anyway, if the boss already knows what we send him.)

The intent here is to ask....what is NOT sent upstream?

Are you saying that if I personally don't know the collective noun for something, I'm saying that something is a non-entity? — Kenosha Kid

Not exactly. I’m saying that if perception is a brain function, then it has lost its established meaning, hence become a non-entity with respect to it.
———-

I'm open to whatever you've got. — Kenosha Kid

History. Not gonna help me much, is it.

Well the senses themselves don't cogitate. So there's no puzzle by itself here. — Manuel

Believe it or not, I was about to butt in to yours and Janus’ dialogue with, “the senses don’t think and cognition doesn’t sense”, but I figured he’d think I was picking on him....again. So I deleted myself.
————-

Why not just have cognition alone? — Manuel

We always have cognition, but sometimes we have cognition alone, meaning without perceptions. Any mathematics done in your head, without transferring it to speech or paper or whatever, is cognition alone. Something else that seems to have bit the modernization dust....a priori knowledge. Can’t see it, can’t smell it, can’t measure it, get rid of it.
————-

why is that what we sense differs so much from the phenomena that causes the sensing. — Manuel

Maybe it’s as simple as hardware vs software.

.

Sorry. What?

HA!!!

No.

Wait. Are you serious? I can’t tell.

Different senses have different kinds of receptors, so what name covers them all, if not perception?
— Mww

Sensation? That doesn't seem right either. I don't think I know the word for it, but I'm pretty certain perception isn't it. — Kenosha Kid

It is so odd, that the precursor to the human cognitive system, the mere transformation of one kind of energy into another, in a measly five modes of operation, in a near one-to-one correspondence, fully observable and reproducible......finds itself relegated to a non-entity. The exact opposite of what natural science is meant to do, but theoretical psychology grants because it just doesn’t know any better.

There’s no explanatory gap in sensibility, yet it finds itself forcefully conjoined to that which has one. What sense does that make to anybody?

Anybody????

Ref:
Perception is a brain function.
— Kenosha Kid

I understand all that, but isn’t what I want to know. Isn’t what I’m asking.

I wouldn't call actual excitement of nerves in the skin perception, — Kenosha Kid

Like Michael Corleone, “just when I think I’m out, they pull me back in!!!!”

Different senses have different kinds of receptors, so what name covers them all, if not perception?

If perception organizes, what does the brain do?
— Mww

It's the brain that's doing it. Perception is a brain function. — Kenosha Kid

Oh.

Ya know.....I’m in agreement pretty much down the line, these last few pages, with minor adjustments maybe. But this.....too far out for me.

It escapes me completely, how sensory receptor stimuli perception in my skin, can be construed as a brain function in my head. Related, of course; similar, maybe, both respect natural law. Identical? Ehhhh.....beyond my comprehension.

Causality for perception is very far removed from causality for brain function.

Maybe I better understand your “collapsing”, insofar as combining perception with brain function, the need for language to make the difference between them intelligible, is eliminated. And while psychologically convenient, it is empirically disasterous.

With that, I’m out.

Perception is the wibbly wobbly organisation of data into an always fleeting, always updating model of our environment. — Kenosha Kid

If perception organizes, what does the brain do? If vision data goes here, olfactory data goes there, is that not organization of data, relatively long after the sensory input of it?
———-

Backtracking, I find you said this, pg 3. I can’t get it to quote because I’m editing here, but anyway....

“Data comes in via the senses.
The (unconscious, system-oney) brain integrates, transforms, filters, and annotates that data to build a model.”

Not trying to be contentious, but I wonder which of the two seemingly disparate iterations you actually favor.

Dupe. Deleted.

So we arrive at a thesis for qualia, in that for you, they provide properties of experiences.
— Mww

They _are_ properties of experience, by definition, aren't they? — Kenosha Kid

Not necessarily. Depends on who’s advocating. Dennett, 1991 holds with this, but I think it the most restrictive and the least justified. The literature stumbles all over itself trying to keep them apart.

the seeming of qualia — Kenosha Kid

....the root of all this particular evil. This seeming, what it feels like, has been around forever, qualia being merely the latest rendition of it. The same fox entering the same henhouse, but through a different hole.

if reference to an object is the experience, or the possible experience...
— Mww

If... Is this you introducing the idea, or a mistranslation of mine? — Kenosha Kid

Introduction. I hope I didn’t mistranslated. The idea is that an object cannot be referenced in any way, shape or form, without it first being subjected to a method for doing it.
———-

With respect to what qualia do for you, this.....

Aside from saving me from prepending every reference to an object with "my experience of" — Kenosha Kid

....became this.....

shorthand for reference to the experience of the object. — Kenosha Kid

When I refer to the red flower, I am generally referring to my experience of it. — Kenosha Kid

Properties of those experiences are therefore also interesting, and we have the word 'qualia' for them. — Kenosha Kid

So we arrive at a thesis for qualia, in that for you, they provide properties of experiences. “Red” belongs to the experience, “flower” belongs to the experience, “stem”, “petal”, and so on, all belong. Different, but not necessarily contradictory
————

I'm interested in the bit between photons hitting my retina and me perceiving a red flower. — Kenosha Kid

And somewhere in there will be a bridge for the explanatory gap? Talk about a paradigm shift, if so.

Anyway.....I got what I was after: properties of experiences. So, thanks.
———-

I just meant collapsing the distinction between objects and our experiences of them in language doesn't seem helpful for talking specifically about experience. — Kenosha Kid

I suppose this to mean making them the same. Not an issue for me, insofar as I hold them to be distinct necessarily, therefore the collapsing one to or into the other, is unintelligible. Collapsing an object to its representation is standard for some cognitive procedures, but representation is not experience. They are that which makes experience possible.

So sayeth the better of the outdated theories.

I think the collapse we're talking about is hardcore idealism. — frank

Oh. I didn’t get that from the statement. I take KK to be very far from an idealist, so I guess that’s why I didn’t make that connection.

Even so, as far as my readings go, the blanket hardcore idealist maintains the reality of experienced objects....how could he not.....yet holds the collapsible distinction to be a concern of that which experiences, and not as much as we, the lesser human experiencers, distinct from our objects.

Aside from saving me from prepending every reference to an object with "my experience of"...... — Kenosha Kid

Ya know.....if reference to an object is the experience, or the possible experience, then qualia is itself a prepending, which was the ground of the negation argument from the beginning.
—————

Collapsing the distinction between a thing and my experience of it eliminates the language to ask interesting and relevant questions — Kenosha Kid

True enough, but in certain circles it is as alive and well, talked about and pondered, as it was since the Renaissance. Everydayman collapses it as a matter of course, but he doesn’t ask about it either.

....acknowledging the shorthand allows me to ponder how we get from currents along optic nerves to experienced images. — Kenosha Kid

Initially, representational systems authorized that kind of progression, but without sufficient knowledge of the inclusive physiology as validation. Would your acknowledgement indicate qualia are meant to replace representations, as a consequence of empirical knowledge?

When I refer to the red flower, I am doing so as a shorthand for my experience of the red flower. — Kenosha Kid

Is there some benefit for you, in the shorthand over the experience? What does the shorthand do, that the experience hasn’t already done?

Under which circumstance could objective reality remain inaccessible to us? — Mersi

None.....

What fundamental properties (or flaws) must we accuse of our cognitive faculties to justify this assumption? — Mersi

....iff we accuse our faculty of sensibility of proper physiological function, which is passive indifference to its input. The cognitive faculties operate on that which is given to it, which presupposes sensibility. It isn’t, therefore, the cognitive faculties that determines accessibility.

Objective reality in itself, as a conception in general, is always inaccessible, so if anything, the cognitive faculties could be accused of creating that which is valid for itself, but nonetheless impossible for sensibility. But we as intelligent agents lose nothing by it, for it is certain that the constituency of the general conception remains accessible to sensibility.

Qualia: what’s done when the good stuff has already been done.

Ehhhh......think I’ll leave it to the audience from here on out. Assuming there is one. Let them be the judge.

And this prevents us from just going right back to a new bias, a new inclination of a different color, but inclination nonetheless?
— Mww

Yes, but the decision is made from a more fully developed intellect (...) more rational (...) develop the full capacity of logical reasoning (...) a matter of introspection (...) a matter of time — Metaphysician Undercover

That's the whole point. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, my point exactly. Yours is predicated on education, the qualifications above listed being more attributable to experience than mere education. One cannot even become properly educated without those qualifications. Or, in other words, becoming educated presupposes those qualifications. Either way, and however reduced. It is education that comes as a consequence, and never as an antecedent.

So any bias can be overcome, that's the nature of free will, and will power. — Metaphysician Undercover

And that right there is the proverbial knife-in-the-heart of your predication on education. Will power cannot be taught. And while experience is a form of education, absent the stipulation that says otherwise, education as used herein indicates the formal, sit-down-shut-up-and-memorize brand of it.
————-

We naturally have feelings, but can certainly distinguish a good one from a bad one.
— Mww

I don\t agree that we can "certainly distinguish a good feeling from a bad feeling". Sometimes the distinction is easy, other times not so easy. — Metaphysician Undercover

Categorical error aside, easily or difficultly, even problematically, distinguishing a good feeling from a bad, or the relative degree of one or the other with respect to themselves, is a distinction.
————-

Doubt implies dismissal Without the opportunity for correction.
— Mww

No, "doubt" implies indecision. — Metaphysician Undercover

Hmmm....yeah, I’ll own that. I should have said implies possible dismissal.
————-

we need to reassess the principles to see what the problem is. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yep. Given the principle......

Learning to overrule whatever biases one is inclined toward due to genetics or predisposition, is part of a proper education. — Metaphysician Undercover

.......the proposed counterargument suggests both a reevaluation of conditionals and a reassessment of the principle the conditionals endorse.

With respect to which, I offer, for your consideration: education in the minor and my experiences in the major determine the possibilities toward biases in general, my biases represent a rational determination from those possibilities, which is called persuasion, my innate predispositions judge a priori whether my biases conform to my nature, which is called interest.

Agree with any of that?

....some innate biases can be overcome. — Metaphysician Undercover

True enough, if one accepts that biases are innate. I don’t think I’d go that far, and apparently, neither do you, because you said, “inclined toward due to genetics or predisposition”.

we cannot properly distinguish between good and bad biases, when we are already biased. — Metaphysician Undercover

We naturally have feelings, but can certainly distinguish a good one from a bad one. It follows that how we feel about a bias may be exactly how we distinguish them from each other, by how the object of each affects us.

This means we must rid ourselves of all biases, form an open mind, then reassess all those dismissed biases from this newly established position. — Metaphysician Undercover

And this prevents us from just going right back to a new bias, a new inclination of a different color, but inclination nonetheless? Hell.....even the claim of having an open mind is a bias of its own.

Skepticism instructs us to doubt..... — Metaphysician Undercover

True, but it serves no purpose to doubt ourselves into oblivion. If humans are naturally inclined to biases and cognitive dispositions, it seems rather futile to effect their collective demise. Besides, I suspect there are some biases we refuse to over-rule, and in conjunction with them, the innate predispositions we couldn’t over-rule without destroying the manifest identity to which they belong.

Therefore we must subject anything which appears as knowledge, to doubt. — Metaphysician Undercover

Ehhhh.....rational criticism, perhaps. Doubt implies dismissal Without the opportunity for correction.

I get what you’re saying; I just think you’ve gone too far with it, in terms of practical purposes and the consequences for philosophy.

No fair. If I’m transported to a time not my own, I should be classed accordingly. If a mere paysan I might grab a seat, if I’m a Rousseau/Voltaire-type, I might not. Louis’ cousin.....I’d beat a hasty retreat to Quebec. One could argue it was the degree of exploitation, rather than education, which determines attendance. All quite irrelevant regardless.

Still...can a innate predisposition, as such, be subjected to over-ruling, whether by education or otherwise? And what of a good bias? Should my innate predisposition to help the proverbial lil’ ol’ lady cross the street be educated out of me?

You made no distinction between the relative values of our individual biases, grouping them all as biases in general, the compendium of which we can be taught to overcome. To that alone, I make objection.

Learning to overrule whatever biases one is inclined toward due to genetics or predisposition, is part of a proper education. — Metaphysician Undercover

My education sucks. I have this bias, this predisposed inclination, to detest beheadings that I haven’t learned to over-rule.

Thoughts can trigger emotions, but there can also be emotionless thoughts. To complete I would say that emotions require thoughts not the other way around. — neomac

There ya go. Now the parameters are set for the assertion of pros and cons.