Comments

  • Indirect Realism and Direct Realism
    in agreement on direct perceptioncreativesoul

    Absurd to deny, I should think, and thereby easily dismissed.

    Now, whatever shall we do with realism?
  • Indirect Realism and Direct Realism
    I'd say there is ample evidence of perception and thinking being entangled.wonderer1

    And I’d agree. They are entangled insofar as they work in conjunction with each other, and that necessarily, but only for a specific end, re: experience or possible experience. But to be entangled with each other in a system is not the same as mingled with each other, which is implied by saying perception contains both sensation and cognition.
  • Indirect Realism and Direct Realism
    Maybe you misunderstood what I meant by "distant". I just meant "situated outside the body".Michael

    Yeah, I did. Sorry. Distant to me means far, so I just took that and ran with it.
    ————-

    The known mechanics of perception make clear that objects outside the body and their properties are not present in conscious experience (which does not extend beyond the body), and so in no meaningful sense are "directly presented".Michael

    And I agree with that, iff it is the case the human intellect is strictly a representational system, which is to say there are no real objects nor are there properties supposed as belonging to them, as content of experience. But it remains, that something must be an effect on that system, in order to initiate its systematic procedure, whatever that may be. Pardon me, but I just gotta do this:

    “…. For, otherwise, we should require to affirm the existence of an appearance, without something that appears—which would be absurd….”

    What if conscious experience itself doesn’t extend to that by which objects are sensed? If such were the case, external objects could directly appear to the senses without contradicting the predicates of a strictly representational system.
    ————-

    Simply saying that they're direct isn't explaining what it means to be direct.Michael

    Should be obvious, given its complement, re: indirect. Direct simply indicates that which is unmediated, hence, regarding perception, direct perception merely indicates that which is perceived is not mediated by anything. There’s nothing between the thing perceived and the perception of it.

    I guess what it means to be direct could reduce to….the effect one thing has on another, and affect on the other the one thing causes, are altogether indistinguishable.
    ————

    Take the duck-rabbit.Michael

    HA!! You mean that perception where the cognitive part can’t make a decision? Or, can make two valid decisions given a single perception? But wait, he said!! If cognition belongs intimately to perception, why can I not cognize BOTH manifestations at the same time?

    While it is of course necessary that perception and cognition work together to facilitate experience, it does not follow that one belongs to or is contained in or part of, the other. If sensation and cognition both belong to perception, it would then be impossible to cognize an object that wasn’t first a sensation. Which is exactly the same as saying I could never imagine an object that I’ve never seen. It goes without saying, we all can do exactly that.

    All that is so obvious, I must not have the whole picture. Or, more likely, I don’t have the whole modern picture. (Sigh)
  • Indirect Realism and Direct Realism
    What sits between the lemon and the creature's smelling?
    — creativesoul

    A necessary relation, and some means by which it occurs. (??)
    — Mww

    Causal. Biological machinery(physiological sensory perception).
    creativesoul

    Pretty much what I had in mind, yep. The object, lemon, is given, the means for the occurrence, smelling, is necessarily presupposed, but neither of them by itself tells us anything we didn’t already know.
  • Indirect Realism and Direct Realism
    So, again, in what meaningful sense can we still say that perception of distant objects is "direct"?Michael

    First and foremost, because this….

    There are (at least) two parts to perception; sensation and cognition.Michael

    ….would seem impossible to justify. There is no cognition in perception; the senses don’t think. That being the case, the meaningful sense in which we can say perception of distant objects is direct, is given from the fact the purely physiological operational status of sensory apparatuses is not effected by the relative distances of their objects. For your eyes the moon is no less directly perceived than the painting hanging on the wall right in front of you.

    There are two parts to experience, sensation and cognition; perception is not experience but only the occasion for it.

    Anyway….two cents. I found that “two parts to perception” comment particularly noteworthy, is all.
  • Indirect Realism and Direct Realism


    First….thanks for the response. I’m not singling you out, honest.

    …..I think such perceptual distortions are caused by special circumstances.Janus

    ….while I have a hard time accepting, given physiologically proper operations, that there are any. Distortions, yes; perceptual distortions, nope. Mother Nature wouldn’t saddle us with such arbitrarily inconsistent devices.

    I mean, think about it. That bent stick? Are we not perceiving reality explicitly in accordance with natural relations? I can’t justify receiving the lawful effects of light refraction while at the same time blaming my eyes for giving me blatant distortions.

    It is easier and simpler, though, gotta admit to that.
  • Indirect Realism and Direct Realism
    Perceptual experience may be…flannel jesus

    Be that as it may, when I observe the statement “perception sometimes distorts reality” I have but two conceptions and a copula relating one to the other to work with, entirely dependent on my understanding of them, neither of which has to do with experience, both being methodologically antecedent to it.

    The rejoinder should have been understood as affirming the notion perception cannot be causal with respect to reality, when it is necessarily the case all that belongs to reality alone, is all that can have an effect on it. That which is affected cannot at the same time be causal regarding the very thing by which it is affected.

    Perception gives the undistorted reality manifest in the relations of material substances; mere convention, re: the path of least linguistic resistance, translates that into broken sticks and other various and sundry misconceptions.
  • Indirect Realism and Direct Realism
    For no particular reason….

    ”perception sometimes distorts reality. We know this to be so because mostly, it doesn't".Janus

    How do we go about proving whatever distortion there may or may not have been, is caused by perception? What is the nature of perception such that it is possibly causal, but not necessarily? If perception is causally distortive, what makes it only sometimes causally distortive, but not always?

    Does it ever arise within me, that I begin to mistrust the report of my senses? And if it does so arise, at what point do I mistrust them entirely? And what wtf am I supposed to do if I can’t trust them at all?

    Experience tells me I have no reason good enough to generally mistrust my senses, in that my knowledge of things, which always begins with it, is, for all practical purposes, both sufficiently constant regarding only me, and non-contradictory when in regard to others cognitively similar to me.

    If there is some means by which I know reality is apparently distorted, why is it not therefore possible it is that knowledge itself that is distorted, perception having nothing whatsoever to do with it, doing nothing but pass downstream that which is given to it? And if perception merely passes on, and I know there is an apparent distortion, why can’t I say it is reality itself that is distorted, and if I allow that I’m in the same boat of mistrust as I was with my senses.

    Is perception of a pinprick ever doing to be distorted enough to be the perception of a sonic boom?
  • Indirect Realism and Direct Realism
    What sits between the lemon and the creature's smelling?creativesoul

    A necessary relation, and some means by which it occurs. (??)
  • Wittgenstein’s creative sublimation of Kant


    Reasonable, to be sure.

    On the other side of that methodological coin, I kinda think endorsement of the LNC makes even beneficial scepticism over-rated.

    Anyway….I was just curious, so, thanks.
  • Indirect Realism and Direct Realism
    Realism is what both sides agree upon…hypericin

    Doesn’t seem that way to me.

    If all agreed on realism being the doctrine that describes a condition of a thing, what sense does it make for some to disagree on the criteria by which the thing meets that condition?

    If a thing can be directly real under these conditions, but indirectly real under those conditions, realism is no longer the descriptive doctrine all agree upon, but is reduced to being itself conditioned by criteria having nothing whatsoever to do with a thing being real in accordance with the original agreement.

    Or, on the other hand, the description is of something supposed as real but still something other than the real thing met with under the criteria of the original doctrine, hence not contained in the realism all agreed upon.

    I mean….you said it yourself: realism is assumed under these conditions, but is known under those conditions, which puts realism itself right smack-dap in the doctrinal crosshairs.

    Nahhhh…..if we are to append “real” to this only because of this, we are not legitimately allowed to then append “real” to this because of not-this.
    —————

    Once we hit page 20 we will surely be able to say what it is we are arguing about.Leontiskos

    Forever the optimist, are we? Ehhhh….even if you’re right, there’ll always be something else to take sides over. Like…..those gawd-awful qualia. (Sigh)
  • Indirect Realism and Direct Realism


    Even if all that’s fine, with respect to the direct/indirect dichotomy alone, how does that, or how does each of them, relate to realism? Realism is the concept in question, after all, its apparent dual nature, right?
    ———

    We perceive the world via phenomenal experience.
    — hypericin

    The world is first in the chain of events leading to phenomenal experience, and the experience is last. Therefore, we perceive the world indirectly.
    — hypericin
    Mww

    I won’t say I reject the assertion that the world is perceived indirectly via phenomenal experience, but I will say I’m having trouble with how that would work. Dunno why it should be that we perceive the world indirectly just because it’s first in a chain of events.

    Differences in understanding of the related conceptions, I guess.

    Anyway….thanks.
  • Wittgenstein’s creative sublimation of Kant
    I think there is no real place for skepticism within the transcendental idealism, and I take this to be one of its flaws.Metaphysician Undercover

    “…. scepticism—the principle of a technical and scientific ignorance, which undermines the foundations of all knowledge, in order, if possible, to destroy our belief and confidence therein….” (A424/B452)

    “…. Thus, the critique of reason leads at last, naturally and necessarily, to science; and, on the other hand, the dogmatical use of reason without criticism leads to groundless assertions, against which others equally specious can always be set, thus ending unavoidably in scepticism….” (B23)

    Apparently, there isn’t a place for scepticism in transcendental philosophy anyway, insofar as to support our belief or confidence in our knowledge is exactly what the a posteriori aspect of the thesis promises, and, the exposure of flaws in the use of reason without proper critical restrictions on its authority is exactly what the pure a priori aspect demands.

    I suspect you might mean as one of the flaws in transcendental philosophy, insofar as the philosophy as a whole is dedicated to defeating scepticism, is the sceptical method….

    “…..This method (…) of originating a conflict of assertions, (…) to discover whether the object of the struggle (…) each side strives in vain to reach, but which would be no gain even when reached—this procedure, I say, may be termed the sceptical method. (…) For the sceptical method aims at certainty….” (Ibid a)

    ….which is part-and-parcel of the nature of reason itself. I’m just saying I don’t think it responsible to fault a predicate of a philosophy that addresses the very thing the human intelligence is prone to doing, and in acknowledging it, guarding against its interference, is possible.

    Might be interesting to be informed as to what you think scepticism actually is, and therefrom, where in transcendental philosophy it resides, as a flaw in it.
  • Indirect Realism and Direct Realism
    We perceive the world via phenomenal experience.hypericin

    What, then, of the senses?

    The world is first in the chain of events leading to phenomenal experience, and the experience is last. Therefore, we perceive the world indirectly.hypericin

    Agreed on the first, but how does the second follow?
  • Thought Versus Communication
    You think thought and communication are divorced from brain activity?ucarr

    Did I not say that brain activity, relative to the self, is given?

    ….the noumenal section….ucarr

    The…what????

    Reflexivity and redundancy are not synonymous.ucarr

    Your reflexivity is my reciprocity, and no, they are not synonymous with redundancy.

    spending the rest of your days in solitary confinement within a white room would be for you a matter of indifference.ucarr

    Yep. Why not? Euphemistic escape: the white room is of my own design, laying in the dark, where the shadows run, not from themselves, but from me, because they are mine. You, being just as human as I, inhabit your own white room, in which you will be confined for the rest of your days.

    Riddles, cleverly disguised as clandestine aphorisms, don’t interest me, although their construction is kinda fun. I mean, really…how can there be shadows, running or not, in a dark room. And if you’re laying in the dark, what does it matter if the room is white? Peter Brown needed his head examined. Or maybe just laid off the windowpane.
  • Thought Versus Communication
    I think brain activity occurs in spacetime.ucarr

    Of course, but we weren’t discussing brain activity. If you wish to go there, you’re obligated to connect the self and its activities, a predominantly metaphysical paradigm, to the brain and its activities, a predominately scientific paradigm, with apodeitic specificity. That the self is impossible without the brain is given, but is at the same time far to general a proposition to be of any explanatory help.
    ————

    Guilt is an everyday example of the self judging its own actions and finding fault with itself.ucarr

    Such is the superficial appearance, but I disagree that the self is finding fault with itself. It is actually the self finding fault with an act a posteriori, as effect, but not necessarily with its antecedent judgement by which the act is determined a priori, as cause.
    —————

    The gist of my thesis is that the self is not reducible to a unitary person.ucarr

    I, on the other hand, hold the self is reducible to a unitary, or singular, rational identity.
    —————

    You seem to be implying self cannot be objectively aware of self.ucarr

    I’m familiar with arguments in which the self is both subject and object. This happens only in expositions of it, wherein what the self is in itself as object, is confounded with the manifestations of the self’s doings as subject. In other words, the self is necessarily reified when attempting to explain itself. Which gives rise to the inevitable absurdity of the self reifying itself. Still, conceptions, intuitions, morals, thoughts, subjects and objects and whatnot, are all required pursuant to expressions of the human kind of intelligence, but the self doesn’t use any of them to do what it does, except to manifest itself as subject.

    So, yes, I submit the self not only isn’t aware of itself objectively, but is absurd to suppose it needs to be. In fact, I reject the notion that the self is aware of itself subjectively, hence the redundancy, while merely granting the availability of some mechanism by which it seems to be the case.
  • Thought Versus Communication
    Is there any differential in space and time separating the self and its thoughts?ucarr

    There isn’t any space in a thought, and if the self just is that which has thoughts, one is temporally inseparable from the other.
    ————-

    ….a) a thought is about the judgment of the self in reaction to a perception of the worlducarr

    I don’t think of judgement like that. The self judges, so it can’t be that the self is judged. Using your terms, I’d only admit to judgement as being the self’s manifest reaction to a perception.

    …..b) a judging self is self-aware in its acts of judgment…..ucarr

    Tautologically true, but congruent with every other aspect of what the subject does….

    …..and self-awareness requires a separation of self (…) from self…..ucarr

    I personally don’t agree with that; I find it a mischaracterization of self, in its irreducible sense. Self-awareness is redundant. Awareness presupposes self, and, self is necessarily that which is aware.

    …..if there is no separation of self from self….ucarr

    I wonder how that can even happen. By what mechanism can a singular identity become detached? If self separates from self, what then becomes of self-awareness?
    ————-

    this inter-communitive relationshipucarr

    Thought and judgement, because they are related to each other….communicate? Why can’t they just be specific components integrated into a particular process? It’s like saying the water communicates with the soil in which the plant grows.

    Anyway, it’s become too psychological for my interests, so, thanks for the alternative perspective.
  • Thought Versus Communication
    When the self has a thought, the content of the thought gets conveyed to the self having the thought.ucarr

    Conveyed….from where?

    Given that there is no such thing as an empty thought, it follows necessarily that when a self has a thought, it must be that the content does not get conveyed to the self, but arises from the self in conjunction with the thought the self has.

    The assertion, then, reduces to either the conveyance, not of the content, but of the thought itself, to the self that has the thought, a contradiction, or, there is nothing whatsoever conveyed to the self regarding thought and its content, that doesn’t already reside therein, such that, ipso facto, thought is possible.

    Not to say there isn’t something conveyed to the self, as something must be in order to justify his experience. It just isn’t thought or its content.
  • Wittgenstein’s creative sublimation of Kant
    the conception is posterior to the intuitions which Kant confirms are active in each person.Paine

    Absolutely. All conceptions are posterior to intuition, in Kant.

    Sort of taking half of Descartes' certainty at the expense of the other.Paine

    You mean, cogito at the expense of substance? If so, then yes, I’d agree with that.
  • Wittgenstein’s creative sublimation of Kant
    He does say at the beginning that it is an empirical proposition, so yeah, I'm disagreeing with thatJanus

    So does he. The empirical proposition is initially a derivative of Mendelssohn's materialism; the disagreement is the evolution of the “Refutation of Idealism” in A, to the “Solution of the Psychological Paralogism” in B.

    In short, the “I”, previously taken as Descartes’ “thinking substance” and Mendelssohn's “simple being”, cannot exist as conditioned by modal categories, but can only be represented as a non-contradictory transcendental object.

    While we all might be quite happy to be informed our respective “I”’s can’t be really real, we still might be a little reserved in our happiness from being informed it’s no more than an intellectual conception.
  • What makes nature comply to laws?
    ….where is the "immediate" object?Pez

    Immediate appearance is before the processing. Object here just indicates that which is processed, depending on which sense is affected. The object for the ear is sound, for the tongue, chemicals, etc. The intellectual system, metaphysically speaking, the brain physically speaking, determines how the object of sense, referred to as sensation, is to be known by that system.
  • What makes nature comply to laws?
    I can take it only as subjective opinion….Pez

    Was my “Dunno, but maybe….” your first clue? Is any opinion not subjective? Doesn’t “opinion” characterize the majority of postings in this kind of public media? So it is no big deal to take what anybody says, at least initially, as mere opinion.

    Speaking of nonsense…..

    the only fact, that I can be sure of is, that I exist. (…) reminiscence to Descarte's „cogito ergo sum“Pez

    …..relevant insofar as, because there is an antecedent necessary condition supporting the fact you exist, which is fundamentally reminiscent of Descartes, it is nonsense to assert the fact that you exist is the only fact there is to be sure of.

    But any knowledge in a strict sense about objects entirely out of our consciousness is impossible, especially regarding their behavior in the future. If this was the case, Hume's arguments are indeed irrefutable.Pez

    ….. it is the case knowledge of objects out of our consciousness is impossible, which makes both their future behavior superfluous, and, the connection to Hume’s argument, irrelevant.

    Categorical error: knowledge of objects impossible because they are not in consciousness, is very far from knowledge of objects impossible because they are not immediately perceived. Hume’s argument, re: that knowledge of unperceived objects is validated by “constant conjunction”, or, habitual cause/effect thinking, has nothing to do with the objects as the content of consciousness, and is entirely refuted by theories of empirical knowledge wherein the immediate appearance of objects to the senses is a fundamental prerequisite.

    My opinions, of course. I can give the textual references for them, from Rene’s, Dave’s or Manny’s opinions, if you like.
  • What makes nature comply to laws?
    Would You not say a dream is of Your own making? And as long as You dream is it absurd to say You live in that dream?Pez

    Yes to both. I cannot do science in a dream. While it could be said by dreaming I may represent myself as if I am doing science, in fact I’m not doing anything scientifically.
    ————

    What do You mean by "really existent things"?Pez

    Ehhhh, that’s just me being…..me. Existing indicates that for which the negation is contradictory; really existing just indicates that for which the negation is stupid.

    …..Transcendental Idealsms has nothing whatsoever to do with ordinary idealism or solipsism.Pez

    True enough, but it is a form of idealism nonetheless. Dunno, but maybe these days the term has been transitioned onto one of those newfangled language games, where idealism of old is now raw subjectivism, or some other such nonsense.
  • What makes nature comply to laws?
    I’m a week late to the party, so the following is more or less rhetorical…..

    Does this mean that transcendental idealism is in the end unavoidable and there is no realistic alternative to this world-view?Pez

    TI is not a world-view, although it may be said to contain the ground for the development of one. TI is a doctrine, supported by a speculative metaphysical theory concerning the human intellect in general, and as such, has no warrant beyond its own logic for actually being the case.

    So saying, even if not a world-view per se, TI is certainly avoidable by not having any knowledge of it, and, there can be realistic alternatives to it by assuming a different set of initial conditions. Just as in any theory, TI is neither certifiably irrefutable nor unalterable.

    On the other hand, TI is unavoidable iff the rational thinking subject….that to which the theory applies….subscribes to its rules. With respect to the thread title, one of the major rules is the source of the legitimacy for attributing to Nature, only that by which its observable relations are comprehensible, and its unobserved relations are nonetheless possibly comprehensible.

    Only if comprehension is invariant, that is to say, subsumed under the principles of universality and necessity, and thereby under any legitimate condition, is the attribution to Nature a law. From which follows as a matter of experience alone, we do in fact influence the laws of Nature, insofar as we propose them, even if it is true we cannot influence Nature or the intrinsic relations observable in it.
    ————-

    The spatiotemporal world we live in is, according to Kant, of our own making. It exists only in our ideas (Vorstellung) and gives us no clue to what these things might be „an sich“ or per se.Pez

    If it is the case the spatialtemporal world resides in our intelligence, insofar as “it is of our own making”, it’s absurd to then suppose we live in it.

    If something is of our own making, how is it possible we don’t have a clue about what that something is? If it is something because of us it cannot be nothing to us.

    Wouldn’t the fact we don’t have a clue about these things, immediately presuppose them? How is it possible to have or not have clues about things that aren’t there to have or not have clues about? And if things are presupposed, the notion of ideas alone as conditions for having no clue about the existence of things, is categorically false.

    If that in which we live exists merely from our ideas of it, why do we have and employ apparatus for the receptivity of various modes of physically real affectations caused by really existent things?
    ————-

    “….. In the transcendental æsthetic we proved that everything intuited in space and time, all objects of a possible experience, are nothing but phenomena, that is, mere representations; and that these, as presented to us—as extended bodies, or as series of changes—have no self-subsistent existence apart from human thought. This doctrine I call Transcendental Idealism….” (A491/B519, in Kemp Smith,1929)

    It is, then, in Kant, representations are that which exists only in human thought, and subsequent peer review iterations have extended mere human thought to ideas. That in which we live, in which we exist as a particular kind of thing amongst all things in general, is necessarily presupposed as existing by its own accord, independent of human intelligence, in order for there to be spatialtemporal phenomena at all.
  • Reason for believing in the existence of the world


    Yeah, ok. All my fault. Sorry.

    Good luck.
  • Reason for believing in the existence of the world
    Your misunderstanding seems to come from thinking judgements are concepts…..Corvus

    Good luck finding where I said judgement are concepts. If I didn’t say it, what possible ground could there be for you to claim a misunderstanding of mine related to it?

    …..and judgements have no association with reasoning in the operation.Corvus

    What operation? For this operation it doesn’t, for that operation it does. I’m not going to guess which one you’re talking about.
  • Reason for believing in the existence of the world
    Worshipping Kant and CPR as if he is some God, and CPR is the bible is not a good philosophy.Corvus

    While this is correct, do you see the fault in judgement in supposing it has been the case with respect to this conversation? And if there’s no evidence for the case other than mere observation of the disparity in our respective comments, and even if that assertion never was directed towards this conversation in the first place, what purpose is served by stating the obvious?

    But never fear; it’s ok. It’s covered in the bible (of critical human thought):

    (those finding themselves in a dialectic corner) “…must either have recourse to pitiful sophisms or confess their ignorance…”.
  • Reason for believing in the existence of the world
    CPR is not a bible….Corvus

    For a few hundred years, it is, for all intents and purposes, the bible for critical human thought.

    It has to be interpreted and understood in making sense way for the present days.Corvus

    Why wouldn’t it? Knowledge has certainly evolved, but the human intellectual system, in whichever form that actually is…. by which knowledge evolves, has not changed one iota in these few hundred years. Or even if a couple iotas, still not enough to make a difference. Given current education and peer review, Kant would understand “qualia” just as well as anybody these days.

    ”To understand Kant is to transcend him."Corvus

    Nahhhh. To understand Kant is to think as if in his place and time. Work with what he worked with. You didn’t read in that link, where the author said pretty much the same thing? That people are apt to misunderstand him because they’re using asymmetrical conditions in attempting to arrive at congruent conclusions. Sadly, Kant must be wrong because he’s three hundred years old?

    (Sigh)
  • Reason for believing in the existence of the world
    If you already have the concepts of things, why do you need further judgements on them?Corvus

    Further? This implies concepts are judgements, when they are in fact only representations.

    For why judgement is needed, when there are already conceptions, consult A67-76/B92-101.
  • Reason for believing in the existence of the world
    make judgements with conception only…..Corvus

    All judgements having to do with things, are of conceptions only.

    …..without any other mental faculties associated?Corvus

    I never said no other faculties were associated. In fact, other faculties must be, given the previous comments.
  • Reason for believing in the existence of the world
    How can you judge if the apple taste good without having eaten it? Just by conception of apple, it is impossible to judge if the apple tastes good.Corvus

    All and each sensation, depending on its mode of intuition, is represented by its own conceptions. The compendium of those conceptions, synthesized in an aggregate series of relations to each other, gives the cognition of the thing as a whole. For those singular sensations, by themselves, not in conjunction with other modes of intuition, only judgements relative to that mode of intuition, that sensation, are possible.

    Sufficient to explain why not all possible sensations are necessary to judge an object, and, that each sensation manifests in a possible judgement of its own, in accordance initially with its physiology, henceforth in accordance with the rules implicit in the faculty of understanding.
  • Reason for believing in the existence of the world
    ….judgement needs reason for its proper operation.Corvus

    Depends on what you think proper operation of judgement entails. Pretty sure I made clear, according to the original transcendental philosophy, it doesn’t need reason.

    Judgement needs conceptions for its operation, proper or otherwise, such operation being the functional unity in understanding.
  • Reason for believing in the existence of the world
    The association theory of mind for Hume and Kant is not that the different mental faculties are the same entities. It means they work together just like the car parts as you presented. But you seem to misunderstand the association theory of mind.Corvus

    What….so the associative theory of mind works like the relation of car parts, I understand the relation of car parts….obviously, since I presented it…..yet I don’t understand the associative theory of mind which is just like it?

    Didn’t I mention that each member of a system works in conjunction with the others?
  • Reason for believing in the existence of the world
    Judgement doesn’t conclude, it synthesizes.
    — Mww
    Why does it synthesise? What does synthesis do, if it doesn't offer conclusion?
    Corvus

    Crap, I spoke too fast. Imagination synthesizes; judgement merely represents the synthesis. My badly stated shortcut, sorry. Productive imagination synthesizes conceptions, that is, relates the conception in the subject of a possible cognition, to the conception in the predicate, the unity of that relation is then called judgement.

    Reason certifies the relation as logical iff it accords with the corresponding principles, by which we consider ourselves positively certain, re: knowledge, and illogical otherwise, by which we find ourselves negatively certain, re: confused.
    ————-

    But it doesn't mean that reason has nothing to do with the other mental faculties.Corvus

    That each member of a system operates in conjunction with the others, does not make explicit any have to do with the other. Pretty simple, really: the engine in a car has nothing to do with the rear axle, each being specific in itself for purpose and function, but without both, the car goes nowhere.
  • Reason for believing in the existence of the world
    How can judgement function for rational conclusionsCorvus

    Judgement doesn’t conclude, it synthesizes.

    “…. Conceptions, then, are based on the spontaneity of thought, as sensuous intuitions are on the receptivity of impressions. Now, the understanding cannot make any other use of these conceptions than to judge by means of them. (…) All the functions of the understanding therefore can be discovered, when we can completely exhibit the functions of unity in judgements.…”
    (A68/B93)

    “…. General logic is constructed upon a plan which coincides exactly with the division of the higher faculties of cognition. These are, understanding, judgement, and reason. This science, accordingly, treats in its analytic of conceptions, judgements, and conclusions in exact correspondence with the functions and order of those mental powers which we include generally under the generic denomination of understanding.…” (A131/B170)

    So it is, in merely representing the higher powers of the overall human intellectual program, re: as a means to expose and enable discussions of it, a speculative tripartite logical system in the form of a syllogism, the order or sequential procedure of which understanding is the major, judgement is the minor or assemblage of minors, and reason is the conclusion.
    ————-

    Reason can serve nothing useful or rational if it stood itself in the mind with no connections to the experience, appearance, intuitions and judgement.Corvus

    Just ask yourself….what did Hume say reason couldn’t do? And if the major raison d’etre of CPR was to expose what reason can do, such that Hume’s philosophy was proved incomplete, then it is the case reason has nothing to do with experience, appearance, intuitions and judgement, which Hume’s empirical philosophy covered well enough on its own. It has to do with, not all those, but how the use of those in non-empirical conditions is not only possible but necessary, and they are so only iff it is the case synthetic, and altogether pure a priori cognitions are themselves possible.

    THAT….is what reason does, and we call them…..waaiiiitttt for itttttt…..principles!!!!!
  • Reason for believing in the existence of the world
    I am not sure if reason has no warrant or entitlement to do in the pursuit of empirical knowledge….Corvus

    Given that empirical knowledge just is experience**….
    (“… to convert the raw material of our sensuous impressions into a knowledge of objects, which is called experience…”)
    **translator-dependent, as we are all so familiar.

    “…. Reason never has an immediate relation to an object; it relates immediately to the understanding alone. It is only through the understanding that it can be employed in the field of experience. It does not form conceptions of objects, it merely arranges them and gives to them that unity which they are capable of possessing when the sphere of their application has been extended as widely as possible. Reason avails itself of the conception of the understanding for the sole purpose of producing totality in the different series. This totality the understanding does not concern itself with; its only occupation is the connection of experiences, by which series of conditions in accordance with conceptions are established. The object of reason is, therefore, the understanding and its proper destination. As the latter brings unity into the diversity of objects by means of its conceptions, so the former brings unity into the diversity of conceptions by means of ideas; as it sets the final aim of a collective unity to the operations of the understanding….”
    (A643/B671)

    But reason when applied to the appearance….Corvus

    Reason has nothing to do with appearances as such, as shown above, inasmuch as immediate relation to an object IS its appearance to sensibility alone.

    Illusory or outright mistaken understandings relative to real things, is a function of judgement, not reason.

    That reason has for its object understanding, and understanding has for its object experience, it does not follow that reason has to do with experience or empirical knowledge itself.
  • Reason for believing in the existence of the world
    …..proper account…..Corvus

    Because the point was…..

    “….we do not have to conceive of the ‘something’ that underlies appearances as a material object. It might as well be considered as something that is immaterial and can only be thought….”

    ….and because to conceive is a logical function of understanding, it follows that the something that underlies appearances, if considered as merely something immaterial and can only be thought, whatever that conception might be, cannot be phenomenon. And if not phenomenon, it is impossible for that conceived something to be an experience or a possible experience, which means there will be no empirical knowledge of it.

    “….. For, otherwise, we should require to affirm the existence of an appearance, without something that appears, which is absurd….”
    (Bxxvii)

    My opinion on that account: the use of transcendental conceptions of reason, re: that which underlies appearances as immaterial or simply conceived as something, is what the critique was all about, that is, an exposition on what not to do. Or, technically, what reason has no warrant or entitlement to do, in the pursuit of empirical knowledge, which is all that appearances concern.
  • Reason for believing in the existence of the world
    What is your own point?Corvus

    Didn’t have one; just curious.

    The following is the point I used to agree with, and still do.Corvus

    That’s fine, provided proper account is taken for it.
  • Reason for believing in the existence of the world
    ….various commentaries…..Corvus

    Did you read the “Multi-Layered Conception….” paper linked on the previous page?
  • On The 'Mechanics' of Thought/Belief
    Few, if any, other things pique my interest as much as meaningful human thought, belief, and/or experience.creativesoul

    Same here.

    I do believe all experience shares a core set of common denominators.creativesoul

    As they must, I should think.

    Generally, all meaningful human experience consists in very large part of correlations being drawn between different things by the individual at that time.creativesoul

    I rather think experience consists in very large part of entirely of correlations…..
    —————

    I still maintain that at conception there is no meaningful human experience.creativesoul

    I agree. But your use of “in utero” implies a very different notion of “conception” than I would ever use, relative to experience. You’re indicating conditions relative to a general biological development, I’m indicating conditions relative to a specific constituent in a systemic methodology, in which such biological development is necessarily presupposed.

    I think it undeniable that correlations are drawn in utero.creativesoul

    Perhaps, but what kind of correlations? And if the kind that have only to do with, not even fundamental survival but solely with continuous successful biological development, does it matter how they are made?
    —————

    I've found that the subject/object dichotomy is incapable of properly accounting for all meaningful human experience.creativesoul

    Incapable of properly accounting, agreed, meaning the subject/object dichotomy makes no sense as an operational predicate of the human cognitive system itself. In other words, the proper accounting for all meaningful human experiences, is the acquisition of them. The problem is, that system can never be examined or discussed by an intelligence in possession of it, without that very dichotomy, invented by that same intelligence in order to examine and talk about it.
    —————

    I am convinced that biological structures are key.creativesoul

    Agreed, but even if they are there is as yet not enough knowledge for how they are.

    We may agree on a bunch of stuff, but I think I’m satisfied with logical explanations regarding human thought/belief and experience, whereas you’re….not so much?