If it is the case that we are both objects in the world and subjects taking account of it and/or ourselves, then the dichotomy cannot be used as a means to draw a distinction between us and our accounts... — creativesoul

Us and our accounts are not the dichotomy, they are the same thing, in that the account is contained in us. An account is, after all, merely a judgement, thus the account belongs to that which judges.

The dichotomy is between the constituency of the account, and that which judges of what the constituency entails. My body (in the world of things) has arms and legs (objects included in the world of things) is an account I make as a judge of things in the world belonging to my body. My account is not in the world, it is in me as the judge of the relatedness of things.

The only way to reject the counter-argument favoring the necessary subject/object dualism, is to deny the human cognitive system is inherently a logical system. We don’t know with apodeitic certainty that the human system is in fact predicated on natural logic, but we certainly know we can’t talk about it unless it is. Besides, it is absurd to suppose Nature allows us to examine ourselves, and then not give us the means to do it with some measurable degree of rational assurance.

For you, the grocer is an object and his subjectivity is irrelevant to you. For the grocer, you are the object and your subjectivity is irrelevant to him.
— Mww

I realize this remark is partly in jest, and in response to a mind denier. I don’t think people treat other people as pure objects, without ever thinking of other people’s opinions — Olivier5

True enough, but in context, the discussion concerns not people in general but a person in particular, in relation to another person in particular, with respect to a certain activity. I have no consideration of opinion, when I require certain things from the only person in the position of grant the requirement. Opinion would count if I asked the grocer which apples would be better for me to want. But when I tell him to give me two apples, his opinion is completely irrelevant to me. Just as my opinion as to why I want apples and not bananas is irrelevant to him. He doesn’t give a damn why I want apples.
————-

what we have between the ears IS indeed primary, as a matter of fact, because it is necessary for any knowledge to accrue. That’s the purely logical aspect of the problem, the easiest aspect to fathom.......

Agreed.

.......The really tricky part is to realize what we do when we try to think of consciousness — or of phenomena as they ‘appear’ to our consciousness, (...) as an object of knowledge, when we study it as another phenomenon, as another object ‘out there’ as you put it. — Olivier5

Tricky indeed. To think of consciousness, and to think of phenomena as they appear to consciousness as objects of knowledge, are two completely difference domains within a system common to both. Consciousness cannot be a phenomenon, hence cannot be an object of knowledge. We don’t know consciousness in the same way we know skyscrapers, but we can think consciousness, that is, represent consciousness to ourselves, just as well as we can think skyscrapers without any contradiction, hence.....the primacy of subjectivity. Which is, at bottom, nothing but the activity of pure thought, or, reason itself.
——————

It extends to the need for the subject trying to understand himself to remain connected with his own subjectivity, to include himself as part of his description of any experience. — Olivier5

Extends to the need? If the subject is absolutely indissoluble from himself, how could he NOT include himself? Ever notice the absence of the first person personal pronoun “I” when you think to yourself? You never think “I think.....”, “I am....”, I want.....”, “I feel....”. If that first person personal pronoun is a representation, and in some cases there is no use of the representation, then all thinking IS the subject itself that thinks. Then it becomes the case that subjects don’t include themselves at all, but are that which includes.

To include himself as part of a description of any experience, on the other hand, because all descriptions carry objective implications, requires a representation of the subject that is describing experience as an object, and here the “I” stands as that representation. The description of the going, re: “The other day, I went to the grocery store to get two apples”, is very far removed from the going.
————-

don’t even start to get it. — Olivier5

Boy howdy. Metaphysical reductionism is your very best friend.

Ok. Thanks.

See top of pg 83 for context.

I reject the subject/object framework altogether. We are both objects in the world and subjects taking account of it — creativesoul

How are those two assertions not contradictory?
——————

I take similar issue with the very notion of "proposition" (....)....

Ehhhh....all discourse requires them, so we’re sorta stuck with them.

.....and the role that it plays in our experiences — creativesoul

I don’t think they play a role in our experiences, but necessarily play a role in the expression our experiences. But that’s just me.
—————

Sidebar: is a language-less creature one that has no language to use, or one that has no use of the language he has?

Red cups, apples, and pains in hands are not propositional content. — creativesoul

Can’t they be subjects or objects of propositions, hence contents of them? Or can propositions not have content?

They are most certainly always part of the correlational content of belief about them. — creativesoul

Yes, always, with the caveat that correlational content of belief is not propositional.

What happens in the head of the grocer is irrelevant. — Banno

Not to the grocer, it isn’t. For you, the grocer is an object and his subjectivity is irrelevant to you. For the grocer, you are the object and your subjectivity is irrelevant to him. You want two apples, the grocer must understand you want two apples, or he isn’t going to do anything, or he will do what doesn't conform to your ask.

If we have to have both, between the ears and not between the ears, as you say, this is the way. In order to have two apples in your hand, unless you get them yourself, you and the grocer must understand each other. How do you suppose it is you asked for two apples but it happens you were given two rutabagas? Asking for and getting in hand the same thing you asked for, makes explicit the happening of mutual understanding.
——————

Do you see that in order to understand each other, what goes on between our respective ears must be at least congruent, if not fully matching?
— Mww

No. What goes on between the ears is irrelevant. That's rather the point pushed by PI, that it's what happens that counts, not what goes on in heads. — Banno

Yes, what happens counts, as verification. But how does P.I. take account if what happens is wrong?

Oh no you don’t. Check it out:.

“The words you hear....” are every bit the same empirical perception as the itch, or the huge car. The sound of words, the touch of an itch, the sight of a car, are all empirical conditions of perception. The understanding and possible knowledge about all those things.....all things so perceived.....is the analysis of them, done between the ears. The difference is, with the discussion, the object is put out in the form of sentences by me; with the empirical perceptions, the objects of the discussion, the words in the sentences, are brought in by you. (Me too, but I don’t care....I wrote ‘em)

Do you see that in order to understand each other, what goes on between our respective ears must be at least congruent, if not fully matching? If they matched exactly, one of us would have what’s call an epiphany.

This discussion is not only going on in the space between your ears
— Banno

Of course it isn’t, only. But the ground of it, the beginnings, the source, the construction of it, are, and are only. — Mww

If everything begins with what is between your ears, — Banno

Oh my. The goalposts went from the end zone clear out to the farging parking lot!!
—————

I don't agree that everything begins with what is between your ears. — Banno

As well you shouldn’t; not everything does. No empirical stuff, as such, has its origin between the ears. If it did, there could be no such thing as an itch, or a ‘57 DeSoto. Knowing what an itch or a car with ridiculously over-sized fins is.....begins and ends only between the ears.
—————-

Drop the notion that the stuff between your ears has primacy. — Banno

It absolutely must.....for certain stuff.

The stuff you might describe as "out there" is just as valid. — Banno

Not only valid, but necessary.

you can't have one without the other. — Banno

No, you cannot. Hence.....wait for it......the subjective and the objective. By whichever name you wish to call it.

Ahhh....so if we can’t talk about some things we can’t talk about anything?

Besides, there can be talk about.....has been for millennia.....the subjective, the private, the ineffable, just not at the same time as its use by the one talking. Hell....every time the first person personal pronoun is used in an objective expression, a subjective condition is rendered by the expression.
————-

But has he an argument for this? Or is it just obvious? — Banno

Yep, and, should be, assuming you think about stuff the same way I do. If you don’t think, or if you think in a different way, I got nothing.

Irreducibly, yes. But not practically.

We operate in terms of biological machinery, but we don’t think or talk in those terms.

he thinks that both are "between your ears". — Banno

Nope, he doesn’t think that.

There is stuff that is not between your ears. — Banno

Again.....there most obviously is stuff not between the ears. Nobody ever said all stuff was between the ears, not even ol’ Bishop Berkeley.

It is pointless to continue a discussion in which it cannot be agreed that some stuff is only between the ears.

This discussion is not only going on in the space between your ears — Banno

Of course it isn’t, only. But the ground of it, the beginnings, the source, the construction of it, are, and are only.

It’s the same hole everybody’s in; some admit it, some don’t.

All we would have is wrong, we all would have, is right.

‘Nother topic?

....and language itself can be quined away from the necessities of evolution, but maybe not the accidental convenience of it.

Dunno, I’m not much of an anthropologist. Seems odd, though, that Nature mandated us with reason, by which we confuse ourselves, then mandated we should have language, by which we confuse ourselves even more.

Cruel Mistress indeed.

why is it inaccessible to an observer? — Harry Hindu

An observer is so from his own perceptions; that which is inaccessible to an observer indicates that which is unperceivable by him. All perception is only possible from an empirical condition, the subjective, which is the rational activity of a subject, which is subjectivity, is never an empirical condition, hence subjectivity is never possibly given to perception, hence inaccessible to that which perceives as an observer.
—————

Isn't it (subjectivity) indirectly accessed via observation of behavior and neural activity? — Harry Hindu

No one, and I mean no one, has ever seen my neural activity, and if subjectivity is necessarily predicated on neural activity, it follows no one has, even indirectly, accessed my subjectivity.

Again, observation is perception, perception is empirical, no observation of other than the empirical is at all possible. If that which is observed must be empirical, and if it is behavior that is observed, behavior must be empirical. If it stands as proved that subjectivity is never empirical, it follows necessarily that observation of behavior can never be observation of subjectivity.
—————

In other words, is the subjective accessible objectively? — Harry Hindu

The subject may represent himself objectively, yes. But the observer only perceives the object of subjectivity, not the means by which the representation obtains its form.

it seems to me that yours is a path to an unneeded and misleading superstructure... — Banno

Generally speaking, sure. Precious little need for analytic or speculative philosophy fulfilling a grocery list. If life in general was only that mundane, we wouldn’t have gone to the moon.
—————-

This is were I differ, since it seems to me that those things which are private, ineffable, inaccessible, are also not suitable for analysis. — Banno

Sure, but that still asks, do you not compare the words you hear, to the words you yourself use, and is that not an analysis? And doesn’t that analysis transpire between your ears? And is not the space between your ears your own personal private space? If that is the case, and every single rational agency does the same thing, it is clear none of them are analyzing each other, but each of them are analyzing themselves. In this sense, you are correct, insofar as it is not my analysis of your private, ineffable attributes, but is really my analysis of their affect on my private, ineffable attributes.

Problem is of course, all that analysis is almost always immediate because that to which it applies is familiar. Nature’s way of not cluttering up the works, doncha know. It is only when presented with something new and different, that the active analysis comes center-stage and we become conscious of its activity. Still, being inattentive to it doesn’t mean it isn’t happening.

Nahhhhh.....we analyze, to some extent, every damn thing we come in contact with, before, now or later; it’s called thinking.
————

Kant, like Wittgenstein, pointed to stuff about which we cannot speak. We should take their advice, and not. — Banno

What kind of stuff can be pointed to, but not spoken about? Tell me that, in order that I can consider their advice.

Anything pointed to, that is, indicated by thought, is conceivable, anything conceivable has its representation, any representation has its schema. The schemata representing conceivable things are words, words are that which are spoken. If it can be thought, it can be spoken about.

Witt said that of which we cannot think is that of which we cannot speak, which is tautologically true, because there wouldn’t be anything to point to if it isn’t thought. Kant never makes mention of what we cannot think, meaning, for him, that which is not present to possible cognition, which translates to, we can speak about anything we do think. Kant generally seeks to affirm, rather than disavow.

Ever onward.....

HA!!! You said all we needed was a topic, I tossed around stuff like space and time, mind/body. I never thought of the subjective/objective dichotomy. Would have been a good topic.

You and I agree Trump is venial. Don’t we have the same belief? — Banno

I’d rather say we have the same agreement.

The ice in your toddie is just like the ice in my cocktail, but the ices are not the same ices. You manufacture your beliefs in the same way I manufacture mine, but your brain is not my brain.
——————

Subjective, whatever it is, is not private. — Banno

Under what domain? Philosophically, the subjective is private, private taken to mean inaccessible to an observer.

The issue you want to develop is how we attribute beliefs to others, including those of the feline persuasion. — Banno

I’d be interested in how someone else might develop that issue, but I’m of the mind beliefs are far too subjective to attribute to any intelligence other than the singular intelligence arriving at them.
—————-

Beliefs set out a relation of a particular sort between an agent and a proposition. — Banno

Perhaps, but that’s what beliefs do. If we want to know what a belief is, in order to then know what a belief can do, we need to delve a lot deeper than language.

You look? — creativesoul

Not at what you mentioned, no. Just regarding our conversations.

Nowadays folks tend to think what we perceive is just the way things really are.
— Mww

Anyone who does that is truly naive...... — Marchesk

Yep, for even without all the -isms and -ists so prevalent these days, that kind of naive rationality cannot explain how it is we don’t have immediate knowledge of everything upon its being presented to us.

For as long as we can say, “WHAT WAS THAT!?!?!?”.....is as long as naive realism will be a less than sufficiently explanatory paradigm.

Understanding that conscious experience consists of correlations drawn between different things is just the start of a very disciplined practice. — creativesoul

Absolutely. And you’re the only current participant that even attempts an exposition of some form of the discipline, even if it’s your own personal creation. I’m down with the attempting the discipline, but promise nothing regarding the practice of it.

all we need is a topic. — Banno

Of course cats have beliefs. — Banno

We know beliefs to mean a certain something, and we come by them is some certain way. If cats don’t come by their beliefs in the same way, what right do we have to claim they have them?

Oh, ok. Yes, that’s the Kantian representational system. Nowadays folks tend to think what we perceive is just the way things really are.

if we could only find the right topic. — Banno

I’m game. You’re inclined to more modern thought than I, so....there is that.

conflating perception with reality stigma — creativesoul

You lost me. Nobody’s a Kantian because that’s what they do, or that’s what he did?

Hardly anyone is.

I didn't understand much of what Mww had to say. — Banno

‘S ok. Take refuge in my having quined qualia years ago. In principle anyway, insofar as nothing with which qualia is supposed to be concerned, hasn’t already been accounted for.

knowing that I have doubted is a detection. — Kenosha Kid

What can it really mean to detect, when knowledge of having doubted is given immediately from it. It is impossible to doubt without doubt being known as that which has occurrence. There is no need for the one to test for the other.

No different than saying a spinning wheel detects its own roundness. It spins because it is round, it couldn’t spin if it wasn’t. Being round is a necessary condition for wheel spinning, hence, if there is spinning, roundness is necessarily given. There is no requirement or admission of detection.

In the same way, I know I doubted because I doubted; I couldn’t know I doubted without having doubted. That which is known about is a necessary condition for knowing; upon doubting, knowledge of doubt follows necessarily, without requirement or admission of detection.

Besides, if there is that which knows, and there is that which doubts....what is it that detects? Knowledge doesn’t need to detect that which it already knows, and doubt doesn’t need to detect itself. If, on the other hand, it is I that knows and it is I that doubts, but it is only possibly I that detects, then there is no real knowledge of detection because it may not have been I that detects. And if it is I that detects, all that has happened is I’ve detected what I already know I did, which is the same as admitting I haven’t done anything by detecting.

Waiting for my bread to rise, saw this, so........rhetorically speaking......

Surety is not the sort of thing that has a spatiotemporal location, so the question doesn't make sense — creativesoul

Correct, but surety, the quality, has a definite relation to its object. I’m suggesting the quality of non-personal experiences in general, because they can only be second-hand, have none.

The only way out of the dilemma is to assert that cat’s experiences have only empirical content, which is certainly determinable by mere observation, but if such is the case, the “conscious” part of the content....because it is being called “conscious experience” of the cat....would seem to be completely absent. This, in turn, reflects on the quality....the surety.....of the cat’s experience.
————-

Are you asking me to justify my asserting what the content of the cat's conscious experience is? — creativesoul

Apparently, the content is that which exists in its entirety, and so far, that’s the extent of the assertion. Maybe not asking so much the justification for asserting content, but asking instead, what the something’s content actually is. And even if the something’s content is some ubiquitous or pervasive correlation, I still have no more understanding of that, than I had with understanding merely the ambiguous something.

Yes. E-lusive, not IL-usive. Good catch.

The something else must already exist in it's entirety.
— creativesoul

..... “elemental constituents”, yes?
— Mww

What they can actually be is determined, in part, by virtue of their own existential dependency. — creativesoul

Determination by virtue of existential dependency doesn’t say what the dependency is. If I knew what the something depends on, I might be able to figure out what the something is.

The breakdown intrigues me, honest.

Never mind. Your post was blank for 3 hours, now it isn’t. My response no longer applies.

Welcome back my friends, to the show that never ends.
We’re so glad you could attend, step inside, step inside.

I’m guessing “going inner” wasn’t a typo.......was it?

Point:

I was merely drawing distinctions between our report of a language less creature's conscious experience and the language less creature's conscious experience. — creativesoul

.......Counterpoint: I’m not sure we have the warrant for that.

Point sustained:

It's all about the content. That would be the distinction between rudimentary, basic, language less thought and belief(pre-theoretical conscious experience), and our accounts thereof. — creativesoul

.......Counterpoint sustained: where is the surety of what the content is.

....that meaningfulness always comes by virtue of being part of a correlation being drawn between it and something else. (...) It's the something else that matters most here when it comes to the actual content of (...) experience. The something else must already exist in it's entirety — creativesoul

BOO-YAAH!!!!

Those elusive, enigmatic, nay, even damnable, “elemental constituents”, yes?

You:

The introduction of the neologism ‘qualia’ into the discourse about the nature of mind was simply a gigantic red herring — Wayfarer

Me, page 1:
Qualia....a metaphysical invention by those to whom “representation” doesn’t say enough, by means of that which is itself a representation, but attempts to say too much.

Bonnie Raitt:
“...A little mystery to figure out
Let's give 'em somethin' to talk about...”

Cats can even have a conscious experience of drinking Maxwell House coffee from a red cup without ever experiencing it as such. — creativesoul

Hypothetically, so pre-theoretical.

Does it matter what is the cat is drinking? Is it the same to say, cats can have a conscious experience of drinking without ever experiencing it as such, which reduces to, can cats have a conscious experience of drinking without ever experiencing it as drinking? If so, what the cat can have a conscious experiencing of, in this case, is undefined. Given it is a conscious experience the cat can have, yet the experience is undefined, it follows that whatever permits the cat to be conscious of its experiences, is at the same time insufficient for it, from which it is perfectly permissible to surmise either the cat isn’t experiencing, or, it isn’t conscious enough.

Cat’s been drinking since it was birthed. Of the manifold of things it has imbibed, because it is assumed to be in good health, none of those things have been detrimental to its health. From the fact it is in good health because nothing imbibed has the properties to cause otherwise, that which is henceforth imbibed can be recognized as detrimental, merely from the fact it is nothing like that which has never hurt it. If such be the case, the cat isn’t drawing any conscious correlations at all, for all such recognizant operations are sufficiently attributable to instinctive reaction to pure biological physiology, no part of which can be called necessarily conscious. And of course, cats being language-less creatures is utterly irrelevant, for even in language-imbued humans, instinct is quite sufficient for involuntary reaction.

With respect to higher as opposed to lower intelligences, it is the preemptive capacity to consciously create the correlations to draw, rather than the consequential drawing of them. The latter we do, but only because the former is the condition that makes the doing, possible. Even of there is a valid argument that lesser intelligences have the capacity to create that which is not already extant, in which ever form but for us it is conceptions, it remains hypothetical that such creations, and thereby any employment of them, are inaccessible to any intelligence that didn’t create them, and by which the logical right to talk about them is immediately sacrificed, unless indulging in rampant. anthropomorphism.

Me....enjoi-ing. For a change.

That’s looks like I felt, after analyzing entries on page 72.

The picture is: meaning, thought, any inner processes (how some use Forms of Life), corresponds to the world. We know one (world) through the other (word/meaning)--correlation. — Antony Nickles

Agreed, in principle. The picture....the mental image as I use “picture”......corresponds to the world, such image I would call intuition, but the remainder of the inner process must ensue before there is knowledge. Different metaphysics, similar principles.
————-

it's just we have a relationship to the Other that is more than knowledge ("know" in a different sense--aaaand I just lost Mmw because this is Witt as Ordinary Language Philosopher.) — Antony Nickles

Kindasorta lost me, I guess, insofar as I attribute no philosophical authority to ordinary language. But I’m still interested in this “know” in a different sense, from its point of view.
——————-

reasoning using concepts is adaptable to circumstance.
— Mww

......Concepts have different "uses" as in different ways in which they make sense.....

Doesn’t that say the same thing?

........the sense a concept has, is part of the context at the time (as it were, to be determined, if necessary).......

Doesn’t that just say more of the same thing?

..........just that what counts as reasonable for each concept, in context, may be different. — Antony Nickles

And that too?

A concept is, after all, nothing but a representation of something. A representation, in and of itself, has no meaning. It only attains to a meaning upon being conjoined with something else, and the only way to conjoin, is to reason. To think. It is here that it becomes more rational to insist concepts are fixed, concepts do ensure something, otherwise we couldn’t ever claim any knowledge whatsoever. If we are not certain of a specific representation of a specific quantity, conceived, say, as the number 1, we wouldn’t have any ground at all for what stands as the absolute truth of mathematical expressions. But the number 1 is completely meaningless by itself, and actually wouldn’t even have been conceived at all, if it weren’t for a need only it could satisfy.

And as an added bonus, we see what counts as reasonable for each concept may indeed be different, insofar as “green” will never be a reasonable substitute for the number 1.

Also continued......

We've discussed that at length — creativesoul

Yeah....I was wondering which of us would break the dialectical ice.

I will begin by saying for the record, you are soooo close in your reasoning, to my own. As before, the only thing missing, and the potential source of complete affirmation or possibly negation.....gotta allow that, after all....., is method. As far as I’m concerned, existential dependency and elemental constituency are given, but I want to know what they are and HOW they are given. I can tell you, from a very particular speculative methodology, but you haven’t told me. I grant you may find mine untenable, if not inadequate, but at least you have something to judge.

I submit for your esteemed consideration, we cannot use reason to acquire knowledge of consciousness, because reason invented it. The very best we can do, is use the notion of consciousness in such a way that it does not contradict its own invention. And the best way to use it, is, not as a thing to know about, but as a necessary condition for something we do know about.

Perhaps you recognize that last sentence.

Robotic voiceover: “...Shall..we..play..a......game?”

You invoke consciousness, I invoke reason. The same intrinsic circularity is patently inevitable.

Nature of the beast.