I've yet to have understood exactly what it picks out to the exclusion of all else. — creativesoul

I’m not sure about “all else”, but in the interest of a science of thought, the text has psychology, which is normative in that its propositions contain judgements by a thinker concerning the correctness of other people’s thoughts, opposed to metaphysics which is criteriological, in that it makes no propositions but retains the power of judgement respecting his own thoughts only.

This all evolves from the Greek understanding that the science of feeling is very different than the science of thought. The former were attributes of the psyche, the latter of the mind; the former was, by Greek standards, what we would call empirical because it has to do with directing towards ends in the form of behavior, and the latter has to do with determination of ends in the form of constructing opinions or knowledge. The latter was considered a theoretical science of thought called logic, the former the practical science called ethics.

Both these are called normative, insofar as “they paid great attention to the task of defining criteria by which they judge their own success” in the field in which they operate. But the judgement of success of one’s own thoughts is never given, if it be granted that thought is sometimes self-refuting, which implies normative in its strictest sense, cannot apply. In other words, success does not belong to a thinker’s faculty of judgement, for if there is a judgement, judgement is immediately successful because of it. Judgement cannot be unsuccessful.

On the other hand, judgement by a thinker respecting his own thoughts, has absolutely necessary fundamental conditions, whatever their name may be, so the appellation “criteriological”, is apt.

Close enough? I skipped some of the finer points, for expediency, so I trust you to correct me if I missed something important.

I don't see the advantage in throwing out good quality research in favour of your introspection. — Isaac

“...Furthermore, it provides a mathematical specification of ‘what’ the brain is doing; it is suppressing free-energy. If this uses gradient descent, one can derive differential equations that prescribe recognition dynamics that specify ‘how’ the brain might operate....”
(Your link, conclusion)

.....that’s the advantage. The brain does what it does, and it makes no difference to me how it does it. And don’t throw out anything just because of my introspections. Do it for your own, if the occassions arise. It’s called learning, doncha know. Also called mysticism, which ain’t so good. Or good in a strange way, maybe. Dunno, don’t care.
——————

“....one can understand the hierarchical deployment of cortical areas and the nature of message passing among cortical levels in terms of minimising prediction error under hierarchical dynamic models of the world....”

One can understand. Hmmmm. Does that mean one has to calculate? Or might he....you know....introspect?
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What ta hell is a hidden state anyway?
— Mww

(reference) — Isaac

“...Causal states link levels, whereas hidden states link dynamics over time and endow the model with memory. (....) In short; a hierarchical form allows models to construct their own priors. This feature is central to many inference procedures....”

....including human reason, in which the construction of priors, is just plain, good ol’ experience. FYI, I can present the same system....without the use of differential equations....which says basically the exact same thing. All that’s happened here, is neuroscience has taken the human subject into the personally inaccessible and generally useless. But that’s ok, really, for, as Kant says....

“...This can never become popular and, indeed, has no occasion to be so; for finespun arguments in favour of useful truths make just as little impression on the public mind as the equally subtle objections brought against these truths. On the other hand, since both inevitably force themselves on every man who rises to the height of speculation....”

.....and by your own admission, this science is itself speculative, so all that’s happened is we’ve substituted an older speculative system for a newer one, which is nonetheless speculative for it.
—————-

An exercise for Occam’s Razor:

“.....For example, we cannot avoid pain unless we remove the noxious stimulus....
(Sound familiar?)

.....In short, we sample the world to ensure our predictions become a self-fulfilling prophecy and surprises are avoided. In this view, perception is enslaved by action to provide veridical predictions (more formally, to make the free- energy a tight bound on surprise) that guides active sampling of the sensorium....”

Or...for all intents and purposes, why not just say we simply reason to the prevention of cause? What the science doesn’t allow for, insofar as differential equations, because they are equalities that “perscribe recognition dynamics” thereby permitting no self-negation, is the fact humans can reason to prevention, then proceed to ignore it. Of course, the proper scientist is well aware of this, so makes allowances for it with “hidden states”, which I take to indicate what the author terms “observation noise” and such-like random stuff.

One thing I noticed: the paper recognizes the human cognitive system as representational; there are eleven instances of that conception therein. Always a good first step, methinks.

Interesting paper nonetheless. Thanks for the exposure.

We have mathematical rules (...) to describe many events (...). However, do you think that we have "understood" nature itself? — The0warrior

Nature itself, no. Since Hume, understanding events as parts of a whole, does not necessarily grant understanding of the whole. Technically, knowledge, but one follows from the other so.....

do you think we have a way to finally "understand" it? — The0warrior

Non-sensical query. What would it look like if it turns out we never did?

Do you agree with the following sentence: "the end of science is theology"? — The0warrior

No. The end of science implies, on the one hand, complete empirical knowledge, and on the other, the impossibility of complete empirical knowledge. Neither necessarily implies theology, which has its ground in rational knowledge alone.

Interesting topic.

I really love it and believe everyone should be a philosopher-sovereign — DeGregePorcus

If everybody should be a philosophy-sovereign......how could it be taught? That which is taught is philosophizing by one to the receptivity of another; that which makes one sovereign belongs to him alone and therefore never is passed to him, but originates in him.

So just to begin, what about Anaximenes and Thales would you teach to kids? — DeGregePorcus

Whatever they are capable of understanding. Whatever that is won’t make them philosopher-sovereign, but only give historical background. Such instruction could still serve as ground for it.

For what it’s worth.....

we only create our own new beetles — Isaac

Create our own new....

What better inkling of “private” could there be? “Create our own new” is merely speechifying synonyms for inventive, individual, personal, and time-successive, all necessary ingredients in the recipe for “private”.
————

your model yesterday (....) Replaced by a filtered and re-arranged version moderated by... yep, your social environment. — Isaac

Nahhh....nothing so dramatic. Nothing but time, replaced because whatever instantiated the model is no longer present, and that from which successive models are created merely represent successive qualities, or degrees, of the original, predicated on successions in time. Otherwise, I couldn’t recognize being in more or less pain today than yesterday if there were no witnesses, which is quite absurd. While it may be the case how I model my pain to my mother is very different than the pain I model for my doctor, there is a certainty belonging to me alone that underpins them both equally, and from that I construct models different from each other.
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No-one just 'knows' what pain is. — Isaac

Correct, but irrelevant. Nature saw fit not to require humans to run the gamut of reason, in order to realize injury; survivability is directly proportional to how long one thinks about the danger he’s in. Pain speaks to dangerous effect; reason speaks to the quantity and quality of the cause of it. The one is immediate and not a cognition, the latter is mediate and is always a cognition. Pain can never eliminate its own cause, but reason can eliminate causes such that pain will never be an effect, possible empirical occassions being presupposed.
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the hidden states themselves within any inference system, — Isaac

In a discourse concerned solely with humans, which intersubjectivity must be, there is no inference system that is not an a priori human logical construction. How can an inference system have hidden states? What can be inferred from that which is not present as the conditions for it?

Perhaps you’re intending that hidden states refer to the conscious subject who actively infers, but that is a classic categorical error, insofar as the assertion states explicitly “within any inference system”. The inferring subject represents the use of the system intrinsic to his nature as a rational being, but he is not within the system, which grants the states may be hidden from the subject, but not the system the subject employs. If follows that hidden states may be said to drop out in conversations given the necessary predication for its possibility, but inference systems as such, do not speak. They merely present that which is spoken about.

What ta hell is a hidden state anyway? Wait wait, don’t tell me. Hidden states are what machines see but common human thinkers don’t notice, right? So...a common thinking human sees the hidden states a machine shows him, and what.....says to himself...well lookie thaya, I’ll be damned!!! Next time ol’ Perceval next door’s dog dumps on my lawn, those hidden states will show me just how much I hate that farging dog. OH...wait....I’ve already got a pretty good idea about that, so screw a buncha stupid machines. At the same time, probably muttering something unintelligible about their operators.

(Termination of teeth-grinding)

grant definitions/senses of key terms. — creativesoul

“criteriological” pg 118.

New one on me. Got a nice ring to it, much cooler than “normative”.

basic presuppositions (....) are constitutive of the processes of thought — Janus

I certainly agree with that, so....good enough. Thanks.

I fell the two work together — EnsambleMark

This is closer to the matter.

Despite popular literature, Kant didn’t so much unite the two, as to show, beginning with himself, how they couldn’t have been separate in the first place. Kant didn’t add anything to the human cognitive system that wasn’t already there; he only informed as to its better use.

Now THAT’S a comeback worth a decent chuckle right there. I appreciate it.

True enough. Some logical arguments conclude sound inferences, some do not.

If epiphenomenalism is true, then epiphenomenalism is an epiphenomenon. — Olivier5

Yep. Circularity. Never provable, but refutable, by merely invoking different majors or minors.

Start here, you get epiphenomenalism; start there, you don’t.

Common courtesy mandates a response, so......Thanks.

And therefore... — Olivier5

Circular. Not contradictory. With respect to illusion.

1.) The mental model of the brain.....

that determines brain workings.....
which determines mental models to be illusory....

....must therefore be illusory.

1A.) An illusory mental model of the brain....

that determines brain workings....
which determines mental models to be illusory....

....remains consistently illusory.

This is the “killer blow” so far missed. It is human reason itself, the ground of everything human, that is intrinsically circular, therefore susceptible to an illusory conclusions. It is the nature of the rational beast, inevitable and irreconcilable, possible only to guard against, but never to eliminate.

Science as a doctrine sets the ground for trying, but it is always a human that does science, so.....just more potential circularity.

Mental models for brain workings that determine that mental models are impossible......is contradictory.
————-

With respect to epiphenomenalism, science may eventually falsify the premise, empirically, but it is currently viable as an explanatory thesis, metaphysically, merely because we don’t possess knowledge sufficient to negate it, and while it violates the principle of cause and effect physically, it stands as non-contradictory from a purely logical domain.

Rhetorically speaking.....

Interested in reading group, or another thread? — creativesoul

I’m non-committal, but I might eavesdrop from behind the fake rubber tree.

I don't disagree with what you say there. I agree that it is accordance with ordinary parlance to say that causation is presupposed in all our searches for explanation. — Janus

Ordinary parlance, yes.

I also see that basic presupposition as a kind of foundational belief — Janus

Presuppositions, yes.

we don't consciously presuppose or believe in causation, it is rather constitutive of our whole process of thought. — Janus

I’m sure you wouldn’t contradict yourself as obviously as this last seems to contradict the first, so I’ll just assume I’m not getting what you’re saying.

I guess I’d first have to ask what you mean convention, consensus, to be the primary reasons for.
— Mww

Why do we assume the presuppositions that, often unconsciously, underlie our understanding of the world. — T Clark

Ahhhhh....Ok, gotcha. Reasons for assuming presuppositions. All those are sufficient reasons for assuming presuppositions, experience being my personal favorite, probably. At least the most obvious. Only nit worth picking is, intuitions are not representative of “spontaneity” as I used it.

I guess I’d first have to ask what you mean convention, consensus, to be the primary reasons for. Spontaneity and those are very far apart, so just wondering what they might have in common.

if by that I mean in line with RGC. — creativesoul

Yeah.....(chuckles to self).....I’m trying really hard to stay in the proper lane.

what is the absolute presupposition they express? You say it is causality; but what could it mean to presuppose causality — Janus

I emphasize “metaphysically speaking”, for none of the following has any affect on Everydayman, who doesn’t know, and cares even less, about any of it. Speculative epistemology is intellectual entertainment, not a solution to existential difficulties.

Metaphysically speaking, humans presupposes causes, which we question and answer for ourselves in propositions; we absolutely presuppose causality, which we never talk about because without causality, there wouldn’t even be any cause questions to ask. We reason to instances of cause; we grant causality, which is the point of departure for reason to come up with causes.

Much like...when we go to the store for a thing, we presuppose the thing to be there, because of experience (milk, eggs, butter) or it’s just the kind of store that has that thing (granite, lawnmowers, Chinese silk), but before all that we always absolutely presuppose the reality of the thing, because if we’ve presupposed it being in the store, we must have absolutely granted that the thing exists.

Furthermore, after granting its existence, we still presuppose the possibility of the particular thing being in the store we’re going to (because it is impossible to know it’s actually there), then it must be the case that we’ve already absolutely granted the general notion of possibility itself, because without it, whether the thing was in the store or not would never have become a question, a concern or a satisfaction/disappointment, for us. This is the possibility in relation to space, because we’ve already granted the possibility of the thing in relation to time, from the mere fact it exists.
—————-

Once the concept of causality is formed, then the idea that it either obtains or does not obtain logically follows. — Janus

This is part of RGC’s thesis, in that once the concept of causality is formed, whether or not it either obtains or does not obtain, is a nonsense implication. Once it forms, it has obtained, hence the logic of it is irrelevant. Which is not quite the right way to express it, but the point remains. The reason for this is given in Kant, but not so much in Collingwood, so I’ll refrain from it.

Don’t mean to speak for you, but perhaps your sentence would have been better stated as...once the concept of a cause is formed, whether it obtains or does not obtain, logically follows (that is to say, whether or not the necessarily conjoined effect follows from it).
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then the term "absolute presupposition" understood as being beyond truth aptitude, seems itself simply wrong, because causality is being proposed, even if not explicitly. — Janus

Agreed, it is confusing, and seemingly self-refuting. Collingwood covers this confusion by stipulating that absolute presuppositions are not “propounded”, which we take to mean not proposed. Thus, if the conception of causality is not proposed, it is immediately removing from susceptibility to truth aptitude, and, rather, it is tacitly understood a priori, antecedent to our conscious construction of empirical propositions.

Remember....all our conceptions arise from something. It is easy to see conceptions of objects arise from sensibility, but it is not so easy to see from whence abstract concepts arise. It is irrefutable that we have them, re: time, beauty, justice, etc., but they cannot arise from sensibility, so....wherefrom?

I’ll leave you with....(gulp)......spontaneity.

I don't agree the three examples of absolute presuppositions Tim Wood quotes there have no truth value — Janus

Tim didn’t quote absolute presuppositions; they were explicitly stated by the author as metaphysical propositions, and as such, can have truth value. You are justified in asserting truth values are possible for them as propositions, but cancel yourself by calling them absolute presuppositions.

On pg 52, the author says these proposition express an AP, albeit under three different configurations, which is very different than saying they are AP’s, in and of themselves. It is in the underlaying conception expressed, taken for granted, by the proposition, to which a truth value assignment is tantamount to “nonsense”, because that which the proposition takes for granted, assumed as immediately given, is nothing but a single, solitary, unconditioned conception, re: causality.

For all intends and purposes, pursuant to the reference literature, AP’s are just single words, which is sustained by the author asserting that AP’s are not propositions. Linguistics attributes truth value to propositions alone, which includes beliefs, but single words are not propositions not are they beliefs, hence, as such, can not have the truth value of a proposition, re: is “yes” true or false? Metaphysics can ask if AP’s are logically valid, and if answered that they are, then to ask if they are true or false, is utterly irrelevant. Or.....in the author’s vocabulary......nonsense.
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I would consider it a great success if I could get you to see that AP’s are not beliefs, I shall smooth potentially ruffled feathers beforehand, by reminding you that while your ordinary language use is all fine and dandy, the reference material for this thread is predicated on critical thinking, for which, one must admit, ordinary language use lacks sufficient authority.
————

Once more, into the breach........

as I said before, the logic is inexorable. — Janus

DANGER, WILL ROBINSON. DANGER!!!!

“...Now it may be taken as a safe and useful warning, that general logic, considered as an organon, must always be a logic of illusion, for, as it teaches us nothing whatever respecting the content of our cognitions, but merely the formal conditions of their accordance with the understanding, which do not relate to and are quite indifferent in respect of objects, any attempt to employ it as an instrument (organon) in order to extend and enlarge the range of our knowledge must end in mere prating; anyone being able to maintain or oppose, with some appearance of truth, any single assertion whatever. Such instruction is quite unbecoming the dignity of philosophy....”

Nothing wrong using the logical form supposition/belief; presupposition/belief; absolute presupposition/absolute belief. They’re just words thrown together. But try to substitute reasonable arguments against the words, and you find that the relationship the words imply were, shall we say, unbecoming.

Now for the success. Maybe. Logical consistency maintains that if suppositions are beliefs, which could be true, then presuppositions should be pre-beliefs, which is a logical illusion, for we have no idea what is contained in a pre-belief. And then we have what should be.....absolute pre-beliefs. You can easily get from supposition to belief and do so rationally, but you cannot get so easily from presupposition to pre-belief. And it is quite irrational indeed, to attempt to get to absolute pre-belief from absolute presupposition. Parsimony suggests the better illusory reconciliation to be, therefore, that suppositions can be beliefs, but presuppositions and absolute presuppositions, cannot.

TA-DAAAA!!!! (Mic drop, exit stage left)

One man’s pedantry is another man’s precision.

We don’t think in terms the scientists use to tell us how we think. You’re asking a stonemason how he would plumb a bidet when all he knows how to use is a trowel and mud.

Thankfully, you know that as well as I do.

Cool. Thanks.

I would say that, according to ordinary parlance, there is little difference between the two terms....... — Janus

Little difference in ordinary parlance, yes. But what difference there is, speaks volumes: the first says “the fact of believing....” and the second says “something believed....”. The first makes explicit an object that is a rational cognition, the second is a rational cognition in which an object is implied. The first presupposes believing, the second presupposes something. The first, iff it is a fact, stands as an absolute presupposition, the second can only be a relative presupposition because some question can be answered by it, what the something may actually be.

But even aside from that, the definitions are so close, virtually using the same words, they practically define the same conception. Except the conceptions are not the same.
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.......although a presupposition might be considered more basic. — Janus

Agreed; my sole raison d’etre for getting involved in the first place, to demonstrate how that is actually the case.

I take Kant's to be a construction, Collingwood's to be a finding. — tim wood

Pretty much, yeah. Kant bottom up construction, Collingwood top down analysis.
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The short historical perspective which Kant inherited from Voltaire was at this point his undoing — tim wood

As far as physics is concerned, and the notion that his presuppositions were sufficient for future physics, this is true. But Kant didn’t base his philosophy on physics, but on mathematics, which far antecedes both Voltaire and Greek physical science. He does this to demonstrate why physics as a science didn’t advance as far and as surely as mathematics, because the Greeks didn’t apply the same apodeitically certain a priori principles of mathematics to physical science. Enter Copernicus, whom Kant supposed, did.

Good stuff, Maynard.

Beliefs are more fundamental than knowledge — Pantagruel

More fundamental only as in less rigorous. Ehhh....not going to get into the speculative subtleties explicit therein. Too long, too deep and not relevant to the topic.

In what sense is a "presupposition" not a kind of belief? — Pantagruel

In ordinary linguistics, they may be, from which arises the relative presupposition, according to Collingwood. In metaphysics, on the other hand, where I stake my epistemological tentpoles, presuppositions are taken as necessary conditions, re: absolute presuppositions, and beliefs, at best, are merely contingent judgements. Only here does it become apparent that the negation of a judgement does not falsify the presupposition that supported it. “Elvis is not dead”, a possible belief, has no affect on the presupposition of Elvis, the condition necessary for the belief. We don’t need to analyze the proposition to grant the necessity of the presupposition contained in it, even while analyzing the truth of the proposition itself.

Also according to Collingwood.....beware customary jargon from “desultory and casual thinking of our unscientific consciousness”.

There is no reason to believe that absolute presuppositions are not presupposed. — Pantagruel

Hey.....no fair confusing me, dammit!!! I had to go back through all my comments to see if I indicated absolute presuppositions were not presupposed, and I couldn’t find where I gave that indication. I’m arguing contrary to your claim that presuppositions are beliefs, which I emphatically reject on purely metaphysical grounds. So, no, there is no reason to think absolute presuppositions are not presupposed. In fact, it is no other way possible for them to be logically viable, then to be presupposed.

If they are presuppositions, then they are "pre-supposed". — Pantagruel

Yes, but these are relative presuppositions, and according to Collingwood, may serve as answers to previous question, re: Prop 5. Answers must be subjected to rational predication, which permits them propositional form, which in turn allows them to be supposed antecedent to the question they are intended to answer.

They are "fundamental hypotheses" about the nature of reality, not expressible in propositional form directly but consonant with some set of relative propositions, which are taken for granted and acted upon as if they were real, in consequence of which is engendered all manner of actual behaviours, including scientific theorization. — Pantagruel

And these are the absolute presuppositions. Although, while certainly fundamental, I’d hesitate to call them hypotheses, which implies the very propositional form denied to them.

Why should we construe belief so narrowly? — Pantagruel

Because metaphysics is the science of thought, and any science is grounded by basic principles, axioms or conditions.

The best answer is the reduction to the the capacity to distinguish belief from knowledge. And if certainty is one of two fundamental human interests, the other being some moral disposition, it is all the more metaphysically pertinent to disseminate the conditions for its possibility scientifically, as opposed to the contingency of mere belief.

Beliefs apply to things like cultural norms and habitual practices and for the vast majority of people take the form of presuppositions. — Pantagruel

These are at best in the purview of psychology, which, according to Collingwood, is “anti-metaphysics”, probably because those applications are in the public domain. Besides, “Beliefs apply to.....”, while correct from the view of practical reason, still makes no allowance for that which justifies both the content and the applicability of belief in general, which only arises from pure reason. One must, after all, think a belief before applying it.

Absolute presuppositions are not considered, weighed, and chosen — tim wood

Agreed, and sustained in Prop. 5, “absolute presuppositions are not propositions”, and if not a proposition, cannot be considered in propositional form, which weighing and choosing would seem to require.

But if be said thatbsomeone holds a presupposition is that not equivalent to saying that they believe it? — Janus

If we allow a supposition to be a belief, which is not contradictory, then from mere language we see a pre-supposition makes explicit that which has yet to meet the criteria of belief. If belief is the consequence of some cognition relative to a thing in conjunction with a judgement made upon it with respect to the subjective validity of the cognition, it follows that presupposition does not lend itself to any of those cognitive faculties relating thought to an object, but, if anything, given their validity, are necessarily antecedent to them. Hence, in Collingwood, the notion of “logical priority”.
(In Kant, “logical priority” is the transcendental condition making the categories possible, which Collingwood modernizes to “absolute presuppositions”, in his attempt to modernize post-Kantian metaphysics in general, in order to accommodate advances in the hard sciences)

So the question, at least from one point of view, attempts to misuse our cognitive faculties, which leads to self-contradictions. Throw in “absolute” as a quality of presupposition, and it makes that idea not even contained in cognitive faculties, from which arises the ground of the contradiction, re: the absolute is the unconditioned, for which no object is possible in human experience. In addition, with respect to Collingwood, to further qualify absolute presuppositions as, A.) that of “to any question it is never an answer” (Def. 6), and B.) “never verifiable” (pg 32), in that absolute presuppositions are in and of themselves not contained in, are indeed never even subjected to, the faculty of cognition at all. And that which is never cognized can never be a belief.

Problem is, of course, neither Kant nor Collingwood venture an altogether satisfactory origin of the categories in the former, nor absolute presuppositions in the latter. They each arrive at his own version of some irreducible metaphysical necessity, and each recognize they’ve tacitly boxed themselves in.

Same as it ever was......

If suppositions or presuppositions are beliefs, which in accordance with ordinary parlance they indeed are, then absolute presuppositions are absolute beliefs. The logic is inexorable. — Janus

Not going to gang up on you, so I’ll just say I’m surprised you’d consider presuppositions are beliefs, or, as you say later, are truth-apt. Both of those would seem to make presuppositions congruent with empirical judgements and absolute presuppositions congruent with a priori judgements. Dunno how to justify that, at least from a metaphysical domain.You know...what with logical priority and all.

But you did stipulate “ordinary parlance”, so.....there is that.

Found it, thanks.

Agreed, as far as I give ontology any consideration at all.

“..... and the proud name of an ontology which professes to present synthetical cognitions a priori of things in general in a systematic doctrine, must give place to the modest title of analytic of the pure understanding....”
(CPR, A247)

“....the metaphysician’s business is not to propound them, but to propound the proposition that this or that of them is presupposed...”

These “absolute presuppositions” hold congruent with the categories, insofar as any ontological or epistemic proposition is grounded by them a priori, without exception.

1.) is necessity; 2.) is reality; 3.) is causality; 4.) is possibility.

Thanks, . That’s what I wanted, from Collingwood himself, not a reference which gives me examples of what they do but does not tell me what they are.

Here's the thing i would guard against: — Banno

No need, really. Having gained their victory, such theoreticians find precious little profit in venturing into that which for them, would be naught but a wasteland.

Still, probably best beware the odd quixotic nonetheless, for whom the proper theoretician is not responsible.

very unambiguous example in the Essay on Metaphysics. — Pantagruel

Would you cite that for me, please? Or something similar? I just want to know what is being used as an unambiguous example of an absolute presupposition.

I’m wondering if I know it by another name, is all.

Thanks.

True enough. But it doesn’t follow from the general capacity for feeling pain, that individual instances of it are necessarily mutually inclusive.

Dunno if it relates, but you said “metaphysically” and “anyone?”, so....pain is a subjective condition common to humans in general; pain, as the subject’s “appraisal of his subjective condition”, is never shared.

Just as is, or is not, pleasure.

cooking breakfast. — Banno

HA!!! We just finished dinner, which on this fine Saturday night, consists of.....breakfast.

Isn’t relevancy a judgement? Or do you just wish to disregard the part where the authors all but reduced the experiments to “episodic memory”?

I wanted to ask you.....the “bottom of page 84” is a footnote, so what was that article supposed to tell me?

Why those quotes? They don't say anything relevant. — Banno

Oh, I dunno. If one chooses between yours consisting of 4:36 minutes of anecdotal hogwash, and mine consisting of peer-reviewed publications, I guess you’d be right.

Of particular note, at 1:08, “...my brain automatically tries to recreate the sensory experience of other people as if I am them and they are me...”, which SERIOUSLY begs the question.....what difference does it make to say, “as if......”?

Gimme a break.