Forget Kant and get back to me. — Galuchat

“...If we find those who are engaged in metaphysical pursuits, unable to come to an understanding as to the method which they ought to follow; if we find them, after the most elaborate preparations, invariably brought to a stand before the goal is reached, and compelled to retrace their steps and strike into fresh paths, we may then feel quite sure that they are far from having attained to the certainty of scientific progress and may rather be said to be merely groping about in the dark....”

It is quite clear Kant thought science to be the direction metaphysics should follow, which is pure reason applied to something, not that pure reason should be the direction science should follow.

Not to say you can’t forget Kant if you wish. Nobody cares one way or the other. Just don’t go along with ol’ Uncle Albert, without knowing the rest of the story.

but they are not phenomena.
— Mww

Of course they are. — Xtrix

Oh. Well.......can’t argue with that logic.
————————

The phenomenal world is the world of representations. — Xtrix

True, but that doesn’t say phenomena are representations. If it did, it would be tautological, re: the phenomenal world is the world of phenomena. Thus, to have meaning, either it is not the world of representations, or phenomena are not representations. Take your pick.
————————

All else is noumenonal, the thing in itself. This isn't that hard. — Xtrix

It isn’t that hard because it isn’t that correct.

There is only phenomenal experience as that is all the experience there can be — I like sushi

This is correct, another way to say all experience is of phenomena. Good thing I didn’t say pure rational activity is an experience, and went so far as to say it cannot be.
——————

.....intuitions without concepts are blind.” — I like sushi

Also correct, which is the explanation for why phenomena are not representations. In context, intuitions will always be blind (undetermined objects) until a concept Is synthesized with them by understanding. Both together are the form of all cognitions a posteriori. It is of note that Kant doesn’t give a similar conjunction for conceptions alone, as in conceptions without something are.....something. This is because there are conceptions that have no intuition associated with them, re: space, time, the categories, which are relevant to the very possibility of human empirical cognition, or, experience.
—————-

You cannot have ‘rational activity’ without experience — I like sushi

Again, from the Kantian epistemological system, with which we....you and I....are currently involved, that is categorically false because I must have something clearly different in mind. A good example is right here on this thread, where the dissension between being and existence has run amok. A human cannot even begin to cognize the being of anything whatsoever, the objective reality of a particular, which translates into an experience, without first granting the existence of it a priori. And because there is no experience of “existence” in itself, but rather the existence of something, nor is there experience of any of the other pure categories, it is quite clear it is not only possible, but absolutely necessary, to indulge in rational activity without involving experience for it.

One would do well not to confuse rational activity with conscious thought. Mental machinations antecedent to judgement are rational activities, judgement and the consequences of it are conscious thought. And THAT is the primary ground for the notion of the subject/object dualism of the Kantian variety.

Assignment of a property to an object is indeed the activity of a subject, but I don’t think it is merely a matter of opinion.
— Mww
That depends on the properties — Samuel Lacrampe

I changed my mind; regardless of whether we call it a property or predicate, opinion can assign a property, but it might not be logical in itself, or consistent with other properties befitting the object. To further assign a property by means of mere opinion, to an object already cognized as a certain thing, may even be irrational. The denial I worked from originally is based on the notion that allowing opinion to assign properties is barely distinguishable from what we might call imagination.

A deeper investigation into speculative theory of cognition stipulates that both imagination and opinion are pre-conditions for judgement, thereby not denying that of which imagination and opinion are capable, but denying them legitimacy for their efforts.
——————-

We have agreed that opinion, belief and knowledge are just relative degrees of truth; my opinion is this is true, I believe this is true, I know this is true. Any statement of truth is a judgement, which makes explicit judgement must have a ground consistent with its degree. The ground for a knowledge judgement is obviously, experience. The ground for a belief judgement is a possible experience. The ground for an judgement of opinion has no experience or possible connected with it.

Greatest degree: I know falling out of a tree certainly can hurt because I fell out of a tree once and it hurt like hell.
Lesser degree: I believe falling out of a tree hurts, but never having fallen out of a tree....I might get lucky, fall on a pile of leaves, and suffer no hurt.
No degree at all: experience and possible experience having been accounted for, there is no other degree of truth available, so there is no opinion on falling out of trees. Nevertheless, it is my opinion these statements are true.

Assuming the lack of dishonesty, meaning a bite has actually been taken out of said apple, to say “this apple tastes good” is a knowledge claim. It is non-contradictory, thereby entirely possible, the taster of the apple and the author of the claim are the same. If a subject knows something certain about an object, which he does not then have to tell himself post hoc, it is an objective statement, because he is telling someone else a fact, or something he knows for a fact, about an object.

If I hand you an unbitten apple, tell you this apple tastes good, you would be correct to call my claim unsupported, and claims without support of truth, are opinions, and all opinions are necessarily subjective.

Now, “Sam thinks this apple tastes good” has a distinction in subjects, the one being Sam who thinks, and the other being the one who knows Sam thinks. The former, the claimant who merely thinks an object meets a certain condition, has a belief because the degree of truth to the claim relies on him alone, for he merely thinks the apple tastes good. Therefore, the claim is subjective for Sam. To the recipient of Sam’s thinking about the apple, whoever says, “Sam thinks....”, the indirect subject if you will, because Sam isn’t going to say “Sam thinks.....” knows for a fact what Sam thinks something. It is therefore an objective statement.

Thing about metaphysics.....nobody’s right if everybody’s wrong, to quote the immortal words of Stephen Stills.

Sorry for the long delay.

I’m talking more about Kant’s variation- that we as subjects have representations of the outside world (the phenomenon, the object).
— Xtrix

That’s mistaken I believe. The ‘phenomenon’ is all there is for us — I like sushi

From the Kantian epistemological thesis, yes, it is a mistake: we as subjects have representations of the outside world, but they are not phenomena. The representations of objects as such are, first, appearances from sensation, and intuitions, from extant experience. Phenomena are “...undetermined objects of empirical intuition...”, thus not technically representations.
(There is a neo-Kantian, analytic argument** that phenomena indeed represent the synthesis of appearance with intuition, a systemic method Kant does use. But it is worthwhile to consider that Kant doesn’t so argue, because the phenomena to him is “undetermined”, and as such, would represent nothing. Also, Kant does not say objects represent something, but are themselves represented, so it is consistent for phenomena, as “undetermined objects”, not to represent anything.)

It is also mistaken to say “the phenomenon is all there is for us”, for such claim disallows the possibility for any and all pure a priori rational activity, or, that which occurs in us without any empirical intuition connected to it. This won’t matter to those who reject a priori knowledge, or synthetic a priori logical propositions in general***, Nevertheless, the domain here is “talking more about the Kantian variation”, so it would be better suited to follow Kant when looking at a Kantian variation.

And forget noumena; the notion of them is utterly irrelevant in discussions by humans about humans.

**Strawson, 1966
***Hume, 1748; Quine, 1951

Ok.

Internally, the thinker is the thought.
— Mww
Actually, this is exactly what I meant. — simeonz

D’accord.

self-interest is present in most thought processes - even animal ones. So, although it is not formally present, the subject still emerges "organically", so to speak, from the coherent pursuit of personal advantage. — simeonz

This escapes me.

Maybe only thoughts have subject and object proper. — simeonz

Thoughts, strictly speaking, are the one thing that does NOT have subject/object dualism proper. In pure subjective privacy, the sole constituency of which is our thoughts, there is no need to communicate, therefore there is no need to qualify a relation between the thinker and the thought; they are the same thing. Internally, the thinker is the thought.

.....with philosophical implications. — Wayfarer

Readily accessible from the realization “existence” is a category, yet “being” is not. The first is irreducible, the second reducible to the first.

Sorta like.....”Heraclitus and Parmenides walk into a bar......”.

If those two had just sorted this nonsense out, back in The Day, we might not now have been “....strained and ruined by the nonsense of Hegelism...”
(WWR-2, Preface, 1818)

So be it.

Interest is determined by your goals. What is interesting depends on the present goal in the mind. The only interest in knowing about the claims of long-dead philosophers is to know how far we've come since. — Harry Hindu

The first may be true, but the second does not necessarily follow from it. If I don’t know the current state of philosophy, the reading of long-dead philosophers in order to be informed of it, isn’t going to work. Parsimony suggests I might just read long-dead philosophers merely to know what they thought, regardless of their relative antiquity.
—————-

I more than assume dualism; I advocate it.

There is no justification for why they discovered it. — alcontali

We’re not asking about justifications; we asking about the facts. There is a theorem, there is a proof, so the justifications for the why of their reality is completely irrelevant. Actually, the justification for the why of them could very well be sheer accident, although we both should logically recognize it isn’t.

Both were the products of pure reason, within the context of the paradigm sufficient to facilitate it. Fermat reasoned his theorem from Pythagoras’ triples, and the justification for the why of the proof was nothing more than the mere existence of the theorem.
—————-

If it were possible to discover new knowledge by reasoning, i.e. by using a documented procedure, we would have discovered all knowledge already. — alcontali

The fact that we haven’t, and the fact that we understand knowledge is always tentative, makes explicit either knowledge isn’t that which is discovered, or reasoning isn’t the means for it. Reason is a fundamental human condition, so whatever else is the case, it must have to do with reason; anything else is contradictory and therefore absurd. So it follows necessarily that knowledge as a discovery is a false representation.

I’ll leave it there.

But we can't know if they would say something differently. — Harry Hindu

True enough, but irrelevant. Interest is judged by what is, not by what might not have been. It would be irrational to hold an interest in falsified theoretics of long-dead natural philosophers, but it isn’t irrational to hold an interest in theories metaphysicians create that empirical science cannot conclusively address. Don’t have to live and die by it to be interested in it.
—————

you should probably be knowledgable of what people who study the brain are saying when they can make predictions about what you experience when parts of the brain are abnormal. — Harry Hindu

There’s really no good reason to worry about what may never be the case, so it follows that there is no good reason I should be knowledgeable on predictions. Truthfully though, I hope they find a cure for Alzheimer’s before I catch it. Otherwise, I shall deteriorate predicated on the standard process of all biological creatures.
—————

discussing the mind-body relationship on a philosophy forum — Harry Hindu

Can that really correlate to the predictions of cognitive neuroscience, if that paradigm has to with physical mechanics, but philosophy has to do only with simple human rational capabilities?

Don’t get me wrong. Science in general is both fascinating and quite useful. But I, a stand-alone thinking subject, am more concerned with what my mind does for me directly, however abstract that may be, than I am with what my brain does for my indirectly.

So you’re saying Fermat didn’t reason to his theorem and Wiles didn’t reason to his proof? How would you account for either the theorem or the proof, if the cognitive faculties of each of their respective originators were not in play?

one definition....... — Samuel Lacrampe

I like that one....

second definition....... — Samuel Lacrampe

.....not so much that one.

Assignment of a property to an object is indeed the activity of a subject, but I don’t think it is merely a matter of opinion.
—————-

Have you noticed that the propositions “This apple tastes good" and "Samuel thinks this apple tastes good" have the same message, and yet the first one is subjective and the second one is objective? — Samuel Lacrampe

I’ve noticed it now, insofar as the message is the telling of something about the taste of apples. I’ve also noticed that seemingly the first is objective and the second is subjective. I’ll withhold my rebuttal until you’ve assured me you didn’t inadvertently misplace your qualifiers and thereby shown me the error of my ways.

If there is at least one long-dead philosopher who would hold with his claims given what is known today, then if he was interesting then, he would seem to be just as interesting now. Why would such long-dead philosopher give a crap about the claims neuroscientists and biologist are beginning to make, when his philosophy is not affected by them?

Works just as well the other way around. If some guy doesn’t give a crap about what neuroscientists and biologists are beginning to claim, he Is perfectly justified in holding with the same claims long-dead philosophers put forth in their day.

Makes no difference to me personally, as a regular ol’ human being, that one part of my brain communicates with another such that I feel good or bad about something, or whatever else happens behind the curtain between my ears. Actually, I couldn’t possible care any less about it. That a certain neural pathway is triggered by a certain activation potential invokes not the slightest interest in me at all, when it occurs to me it’s time to go check the mailbox.

Just sayin’........

I think it is misunderstanding that is the origin of concepts. Concepts are generated in an attempt to resolve misunderstanding. — Yohan

Sometimes, perhaps. Dark matter was conceived pending a possible misunderstanding of observation or mathematical prediction. Nevertheless, it is pretty hard to de-legitimize the concept of “incline plane” when you see a ball merrily rolling from a higher to lower elevation.

OK.

I'm highly dubious of attempts to 'explain reason'. — Wayfarer

Absolutely. I’ve harped on this forever.......reason cannot explain itself without being used to explain itself. No one is going to take seriously anything to patently circular. It matters not what name is given a particular methodology for the explanation, it still must be derived by reason. At least, as long as it’s a human doing it.

Let the free-for-all begin!!!!

The established standard on reason, understood as the primary activity of the conscious mind, gives no origin or identity to it. Nowhere in any critique, even while giving the fullest account of what it does, its authoritative role in human morality and knowledge, is there a single solitary comment on what it is.

After 50 years of writings, and the development of a very specific philosophy dedicated exclusively to it, containing not one inkling of a definitive formulation for its origin or constitution, I’d be mighty suspicious to see one show up anytime soon.
————

Sorry...I got carried away. You asked about the “origin of the concept “reason””, which is easy enough to answer: understanding. Understanding is the source of all concepts, but the question remains as to whether reason is a concept. The argument has been made that a definition is sufficient to justify the possibility of a concept, but we find so many definitions for reason that conceptual veracity for it diminishes accordingly.

This would be naming a particular, for which the main cause of its individuality is the particular matter — Samuel Lacrampe

Yes, agreed, but reductionism mandates that for the simplest objects, or complex objects perfectly congruent, the particularity of identity reduces to the space and time of it. The irreducible identity of a thing is itself.

Which inevitably leads to an absurdity: rationally, the simplest possible thing can only be conceived as possessing a singular conception, but empirically, even a photon is conceived by at least two, its energy and its velocity. The simplest singular conception is time, and if time cannot be a property of things, then there can be absolutely no things conceivable by a singular conception.
—————

the activity of a thinker is not necessarily a mere matter of opinion; neither in act (it is either true or false that I am thinking), nor in content (my thinking process could be right or wrong). — Samuel Lacrampe

Agreed, not necessarily. I didn’t mean to intend that. The subjective conscious activity is reason in general, and opinions, beliefs and knowledge are mere matters of degree reason judges of truth. A natural condition of rational agency is determinations of certainty.
—————

Yeah this is could be a whole discussion in itself. — Samuel Lacrampe

Wonder what the opening salvo would be.

Maybe language was originally mostly visual like sign language. — frank

A reasonable assumption, yes. Then came drawings, geographical markers, all sorts of visual aids. Generally though, I think conversants engaged in some dialogue has the listener recalling from his own congruent experiences, images relevant to the speaker’s words.

Not too much controversy there, right? Other than giving the rabid solipsist a gigantic soapbox.

What I thought you were talking about was habit, something in which the subject/object distinction (and even consciousness) often plays no role. — Xtrix

I was. Except consciousness, which inescapable under any conditions of human action whatsoever, depending on what one thinks consciousness to be, of course.

Tying shoes is somewhat simplistic, granted, but if it is the case that instances of imaging is the modus operandi of the mind when there is no need of a subject/object dualism, the question then arises, what is the origin of those images. Psychologically speaking, it is memory; origin, philosophically speaking, it is a priori pure reason, the very thing Hume denies as having any such power.

The reason this matters, is that habit cannot explain the first learning of what may eventually become habitual. Pure reason, on the other hand, has no problem with it. Again, depending on whether one accepts that there even is such a thing, as opposed to pure naturalistic determinism, or the myriad of relative absurdities in between.

Anyway.....didn’t mean to go so far afield.

You say:

At most we could say that our experiences correspond with a world. But no amount of correspondance makes the experience of the real world itself. — Yohan

I say:
The most we could say is that our experiences are merely representations of the world. But no amount of representation makes the experience of the world as it is in itself.

Close enough.

Minor point; you’re gonna get your butt handed to you on a platter if you say “atom of light” in any
less than gracious company.

Maybe we are all different when we come to talk about philosophy. — Brett

Yes, I would say so, when it comes to talking about philosophy. But we’re all the same in obtaining one.

That's a very interesting point and, incredibly, often overlooked when discussing human action. — Xtrix

No doubt, and is the ground for refutation of Hume’s human action by mere habit, or, which is the same thing, convention. I can tie my shoe via mere image without conscious thought because I already know all there is to know about tying shoes, that is, by habit. But that tells me nothing whatsoever about how I learned to tie my shoe in the first place.

The eye can't see itself. — frank

A perfect example of the problem: reason thinks it can see itself, knows it makes mistakes, so informs as to how to prevent them. It’s all a mere chimera: we in our very nature are required to use something to express what we do when we think. But when we think qua thought alone, we require nothing of the sort.

So, no, the eye cannot see itself, but the eye still needs to construct an explanation for what it does see.

Good post, and not all that long. Much appreciated.

you say you saw a brown dog at such time and such place, and I say I saw also saw a brown dog at the same time and place, then we conclude that your dog and my dog are identical, that is, we speak of the same dog. — Samuel Lacrampe

Yes, agreed, but that presupposes we each have the antecedent experience of brown dogs enabling our perceptions to be consistent with each other. The principle works for anything for which we have a common experience. Nevertheless, all we’ve done is identify a general conception.....dog.

If you call out, “here Sparky!!” and I call out “here, Fido!!”, the dog comes to you but ignores me, we have gone further than the establishment of identifying a general conception, that is, we have given an identity to a particular instance of a general conception.

Maybe, in the interest of metaphysical reductionism, we only make the notion of identity such a big deal, is because we absolutely insist on having one for ourselves. At the end of the day, when it’s all said and done, we cannot abide being confused with something that is otherwise identical to us.
——————-

It sound to me you equate the identity of a thing with its name. — Samuel Lacrampe

Close, but a little further down the line. I agree to identifying a thing by its name, which is the same as my conception of it. Or, I identify a thing by means of its concept. But I still may have need to single out a particular thing out of a bunch of things all conceived as possessing the same name. No big deal if I need to pick out Ford from all cars, an even lesser deal if I need to pick out Mustang from all Fords, lesser still if I need to pick out convertible from all Mustangs. But these reductions are all concerned with empirical predicates, easily explained from the fact the conceptions corresponding to each reduction is itself a reduction. In this way, I can reduce to a very specific instance of just one general conception using nothing else but those properties, from which I can give an identity to what I really want to know. Maybe, in the case of a single instance, being identical to and having the identity of.....are exactly the same thing. Maybe, that’s what Aristotle wanted the rest of us to understand.
———————

The answer, as per Aristotle, lies in the distinction between essential properties and non-essential (or accidental) properties; where if you change non-essential properties, like weight, you retain your identity, but if you change essential properties, like dying, then you lose your identity. — Samuel Lacrampe

Agreed. But what is it that is lost? That is, of what is identity comprised? What is an essential property?
——————-

"Object" is the thing observed, thought about. "Subject" is the observer or thinker. — Samuel Lacrampe

Yes.

So subjectivity means abstract, rational, non-empirical ideas, and objectivity means empirical things, is that more or less correct? — Samuel Lacrampe

More or less, yes. There is objectively valid, which are not empirical things, like equations, geometric figures, notions and ideas, that we think, and, there is objectively real, which are empirical things, like equations and geometric figures we construct, plus anything whatsoever we perceive. For the objectively valid, the conscious activity of a thinker, the internal domain, is responsible for those objects of reason, which is subjectivity. For the objectively real, the world, the external domain, is responsible, for all that which occurs without any thinker.
———————

Objective claims are about reality, and can be true or false, right or wrong. Subjective claims a mere matters of opinions, and cannot be true or false, nor right or wrong. — Samuel Lacrampe

Absolutely. Which is why metaphysical investigations are so much fun. How to tell the difference, and what to do about it when the difference is told.

Took me all day to write this....ho’made chili and cornbread and the Rose Bowl and Mama’s special Eye-talian bubbly got in the way.

Sorry.

Very true. I meant it in the former way. — Xtrix

Cool. I’d add that the subject/object notion isn’t even used in the internal, everyday occupation of the brain. The image of tying a shoe is much more the case than the thought, “I am tying my shoe”. Reason creates the dualism as the means to explain itself internally in thought, or express itself externally in language, the intrinsic circularity of which tends to make reason its own worst enemy, a condition the pure physicalist/naturalist/empiricist exploits, and the speculative philosopher ameliorates.

Humans....what an odd bunch, eh?

Are we choosing it or are we hardwired? — Brett

I suggest we are hardwire for reason; from reason comes philosophy. Experience may mediate, but reason is always the adjudicator, for the adoption or maintenance of a philosophical doctrine.

Nahhhhh.....nothing as exotic like that. The notion of subject/object is me thinking as subject in relation to the world as object, not the world as subject/object in itself, which is how I understood the question, re: “see the world that way”.

Explain away if you’re so inclined; no argument from me.......promise.

Yes, I favor idealism of a certain sort, along other disciplines. But that doesn’t matter here, cuz I’m not arguing anything. Just listening, even though I might ask a question or two.

see the world in this way or something similar to it. — Xtrix

Chalk me up in the pro subject/object notion column, but I don’t see the world that way.

Direct experience does not reveal an external physical world. — Yohan

Why wouldn’t it?
—————-

You actually have to assume metaphysical physicalism in order to have the illusion of experiencing an external physical world. — Yohan

What if I don’t want my experience illusory?

”Two" things are identical or one-and-the-same if they have all the same properties that make their identity. — Samuel Lacrampe

our identities are distinct precisely because you and I have different properties. Matter, for one thing: my body is not yours. Then a few other properties I'm sure, like height, weight, etc. — Samuel Lacrampe

So you’re saying our identities are distinct because we have different properties, as in, your height is this and my height is that. Your mass is this my mass is that. You’re right-handed, I’m left-handed. So you have one identity and I have another. If that is true, are identical twins one-and-the-same? Even if their parents couldn’t tell them apart by their properties, is it permissible thereby to say they have the same identity?

I submit that all empirical predicates are properties, without the least regard to the specifications of them. I doubt you think of yourself as “Samuel LaCrampe” just because you are a certain height, because “Samuel LaCrampe“ has been many heights. Therefore, some other condition must determine why we are separately identifiable as particulars in the set of all general instances. Existence in simultaneous time yet different spaces serves as sufficient conditions to distinguish the individuality of our proprietary phenomenal humanity, but still does not condition that which we each assume as a subjective identity specific to ourselves.
—————-

[...] no metaphysical proposition can be shown to be valid without empirical justification.
— Mww
If by that you mean the original data must come from empirical observations, then I agree. If you mean that the concluding metaphysical claim must be empirically verifiable, then I disagree. What is metaphysical is not directly observable; it can only be deduced. — Samuel Lacrampe

What is metaphysical is not directly observable and can only be deduced.....absolutely. That different times are not coexistent but successive as different spaces are not successive but coexistent, is a metaphysical proposition because it is not directly observable, or, in proper philosophical parlance, is a synthetic a priori judgement. In order to justify that claim, however, to demonstrate an objective validity for it, if there should be one at all, there must be empirical observations sustainable from it. Otherwise, it remains rattling around between our ears, not doing anything useful. A metaphysical claim cannot be proven, but only shown to be non-contradictory in keeping with the principles of universality and necessity, consistent with the current state of our understanding. Case in point.....all mathematical propositions. In fact, any a priori metaphysical deduction. A = A, the LNC, the LEM.
——————-

A thing is real/not real independent of our knowledge of it.
— Samuel Lacrampe

......Then you should be able to tell me about a real thing unknown to you.
— Mww

Of course I can't do that; but I can tell you about a real thing that existed before I knew about it — Mww

I was pretty sure that’s what you meant; just wanted to see what you did about it.
——————

So in the stool example, it doesn't matter if a subject does not know if the stool was previously assembled or not. — Samuel Lacrampe

.....which is why I covered my ass with, “...but having the experience of chairs (stools) in general...”. With that, he knows it is possible the pieces can become a stool if he puts tab A in slot B correctly.
——————

Subjectivity by definition refers to the subject of thought, not the object of thought. — Samuel Lacrampe

What do you mean by subject of thought? The answer to this is the beginning of the extrapolation of the notion of identity itself, which is what we’ve been stabbing at for days.

I offer subjectivity to be the conscious rational activity of a thinking subject.

The object of thought is a cognition, an empirical cognition grounded in phenomena is an experience, a rational cognition grounded in abstractions is a judgement, all of which requires a thinking subject, that to which those cognitions, without exception, all belong.
———————

Could you give an example where we perceive two things which seem identical without knowing what those things are? — Samuel Lacrampe

How about perceiving two things that each have 4 legs, wings, and speaks. It is entirely possible for such things to exist, because there is nothing contradictory about them, which makes explicit the possibility of perceiving them. Damned if I would know what they are, but I certainly could perceive and recognize the properties they have. Identical things only means we already have the intuitions representing their properties in us, such that we know what it means to be identical, even if we have yet to give them a name corresponding to the synthesis of those intuitions in that form. We know dogs so we know legs; we know ducks so we know wings, we speak so we know speech. We just haven’t antecedent experience of an instance where all three of those properties co-exist simultaneously. Another example of the distinction between identical to and identity of.

And if that’s a little too far-fetched, the same principles apply to any circumstance where something is first learned.

Ever onward........

I don't understand why you are bringing knowledge and perception in a metaphysical topic. — Samuel Lacrampe

Because no metaphysical proposition can be shown to be valid without empirical justification.
———————

A thing is real/not real independent of our knowledge of it. — Samuel Lacrampe

Then you should be able to tell me about a real thing unknown to you.
———————

Two" things are identical or one-and-the-same if they have all the same properties that make their identity. — Samuel Lacrampe

Then why are you and I not identical? Are our respective identities really from the properties we have in common?
———————

what is your definition of "identical"? — Samuel Lacrampe

As I said, I don’t have a problem with identical things, if as you say, they all have the same properties, or empirical predicates. But no two things are identical before there is an identity for one thing to which the second may relate, and no one thing can be assigned an identity before the conditions for it are thought, in the case of ideas, notions and such subjectivities for which there is no particular object belonging to it, or before the conditions of things are perceived, in the case of all else for which there is a phenomenal object of some kind belonging to it necessarily. It follows that if either class has even one incongruent thought (properly conception) or perception (properly intuition), the things cannot be identical, for the simplest of reasons that they cannot have the same identity. Assuming correct judgement, naturally.

Furthermore, whether we grant two things are identical or not, we are given nothing from that, that we can use to establish the identity of just one of them. I can perceive two things which seem identical without knowing what those things are. Therefore, being identical must be different than having an identity. The irreducible ground for identity is of course, A = A, in which a thing is equal only to itself, which carries the implication that any A is equal only to its own self. A rose is a rose is a rose may imply rose A is identical to rose B, but does not imply rose A is equal to rose B.

I can muddy the philosophical pond further if you like: being identical invokes the categories of quantity, quality and modality, whereas identity invokes only the category of relation. The former juxtapositions things to each other as they are perceived, the latter juxtapositions things to us as they are thought.

Anyway.......call enough is enough? If you got more, though, I can keep up.

I’m ok, thanks. Nothing against your science; I just prefer mine with a little more rational foundation.

As far as I can tell, all counter-intuitive theoretical and/or mystical talk is parasitic upon ordinary usage. — thing

You mean like this:

“....the nervous system sends 'messages' of a sort to future generations....”

(Sigh)

I don't see it come up much on forums. — thing

Nahhhh......discourse on pure a priori metaphysics never was a popular pastime.

I'm thinking the example of snowball is not adequate — Samuel Lacrampe

Lest we forget where this current dialectic came from, I submit it is quite adequate for a response to the original proposition......

If my status could change from pre-existence to existence, then necessarily my status could also change from post-existence to existence — Yohan

......in which an argument, via snowballs, is constructed in the attempt to show that any arbitrary status post-existence is indeed very far from that same status in existence prior. If “my status” is taken to mean the metaphysical “I” of the OP, and if the argument via snowballs holds, then the claim the metaphysical “I” is eternal, is successfully falsified, insofar as in one form “my status” is this, and in another form, “my status” absolutely cannot be the same this, but is rather, that. The second form has a status, certainly, just not the same status, which serves as sufficient reason to deny the externality of, not so much “status” as a general condition, but the “status of me” as a particular condition.

The logic grounding the falsification is the distinction between identical to and having the identity of. Granting that the common understanding allows, say, re-constructed snowballs to be claimed as identical to that from which it was re-constructed, merely given the sameness of its properties from which relatively indistinguishable appearances follow, does not grant the proper philosophical understanding the warrant to also grant the original and re-constructed snowballs to have the same identity. And because the subject matter has to do with metaphysical abstracts, philosophical understanding should have the floor, the empirical experiment being simply the ground for showing a logical proof is possible.

As to chairs, the argument would be much the same: the appearance of the re-constructed chair is justified in being claimed as identical to the original chair, merely from the fact the material for both is exactly the same material, but that in itself is not sufficient to justify the claim that it is the chair of singular identity. Say, for example, someone else comes into the room and not having the experience of all that material he sees laying around as having at one time been a chair, but having the experience of chairs in general, puts all that material together properly such that a chair is created, will not have any justification whatsoever in claiming the chair he just made, is the chair from which the pieces came. I mean.....as far as he is permitted to say, those pieces were just delivered from IKEA, and they never had been coalesced into the form of a chair at all.

OK, fine. But now we’ve incorporated different epistemological perspectives, which the original argument does not abide. We can overcome that by simply allowing the guy dissembling the original chair, having been called away for something, to return finding a chair, for all his intents and purposes because of the chair’s appearance, comprised of the pieces he left in a heap a few minutes ago. What right does he have to claim the chair he sees now is the same chair (some chair of singular identity) he took apart before? I submit he has no right at all, for he cannot know that someone didn’t bring in a twin-like chair and removed the pieces left strewn about when he left the room.

As long as these possibilities are logically reasonable, claims with respect to identity cannot be determined by them, which makes explicit the truth of identity cannot arise from appearance, which in their turn arise from properties, which in their turn arise from perceptions, which in their turn arise from empirical conditions, or, which is the same thing, objective reality.
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From all that, just between you and me and the transcendental fencepost, could you now think that your.....

by "identical", I mean not that they are similar, but that they have the same identity, that is, they are one-and-the-same. — Samuel Lacrampe

........may have an internal inconsistency? Because I think there is an internal inconsistency, I will say you are correct in saying....

I understood that your answer would be no. — Samuel Lacrampe

......in as much as, no, the two chairs do not have the same identity, they are not one-and-the-same.