I get what you're saying, but unless one assumes that all life is endowed with language, then language appeared at some point in time after life appeared. — javra

I think that such a starting point should only be seen provisionally, and as an artificial imposition on what is otherwise a dynamic flux. — baker

First off, I am sympathetic to your views. In entering into the realms of primacy, which is a metaphysical issue, I do hold a non-materialist slant on things. So this colors my world view. And the topic is not something worthy of this thread's theme. But to address the issue of language having had a beginning:

Language. Are we by this term intending “words and their grammatical use” or “communication of meaning”? Certainly all animals use “body language” to communicate meaning, often enough, this between species. A solitary cat will raise its hairs and spit; a solitary rattlesnake with rattle its tail; etc. All this done to communicate its private intentions of action that are not yet action - and thereby intimidate - and, often enough, this again to animals of other species which, more often than not, understand (or "get") what is being communicated. Arguably, to communicate is to make common that which is otherwise not. It can be intended and thereby voluntary or involuntary (such as how sweat can unintentionally communicate one’s fear).

Did Neanderthals speak with words. TMK, we don’t know. Nevertheless they exhibit being endowed with a great deal of complex meaning in their placing of flowers into the graves of their dead - from the meaning of flowers, to that of graves, to that of a potential spirituality. Though we don’t know whether they had words, we can only sanely infer that they communicated complex enough meaning to each other.

Once we get into interpreting language as “communication of meaning” and further into plain “communication” we can further abstract language to be the imparting of information from one form to another via any type of interaction. And then we can get into propositions such as, “the hammer communicates its force to the stone which it hits”. And so would crystals, prions, bacteria, and so forth.

Now, again, I’m sympathetic to the gradualism of evolution when looked at from afar. But when evolution is looked at up close, it holds mutations that result in punctuated evolution, if not punctuated equilibrium then punctuated gradualism. Unless the rate of successful mutations is constant, punctuated evolution necessarily unfolds. Just as there logically was a mitochondrial Eve from which Homo Sapiens as we know it resulted, so too I logically find the necessary occurrence of a mutation-driven punctuation in the evolution of communication that gave birth to the grammatically correct languages which we now know of.

So, due to this line of reasoning, I do maintain that there was a start to language in the sense of "words and their grammatical use" - a beginning that is ontic rather an artificial imposition on what otherwise is.

As to agency, I’m of the view that it is intrinsic to life, all life, differing only in magnitudes and the quality that ensues from such different degrees. In the history of biological evolution, mutations (and the novel genetic instincts that mutations can bring about, which can affect not just body but cognition) do not subvert agency in my view, but merely facilitate its degrees of presence. Hence, in simplistic manner and imo: a mutation brought about the cognitive degree of agency (this alongside the needed biological workings of the body that may have already been sufficiently present) required to create, aka invent, words. But as I first commented, this issue of agency working in tandem with biology is a very different topic than that of the thread. And I have little to no interest in debating it for the time being. Merely wanted to give my perspective.

Besides, rare as they might be, novums - new features - perpetually occur, thereby the evolution of any living language, and how are novums not invented? - javra

But most things that seem new are actually made of old, already existing things. — baker

Here I find an equivocation between that addressed and its constituents. Genotypically, a mutation is "actually made of old, already existing things" but the phenotype the mutation brings about is utterly novel. So too do I find with the novums of language. For example, the letters of novel words will be old stuff, but the new words and what they gradually come to convey to a populous will be utterly novel. As one concrete example of this, there is "meme" (coined in 1976, and today a common aspect of the English language). A good example of a recently invented word.

Additionally, I notice you say "most". What do you make of the exceptions?

You know, there is something about this kind of thinking that I find compelling, though not quite as you put it. You and I are, after all, the world, and the logos as any of its expressions is what the world is doing through us, so the ascription of the logos to the world, as what the world is and does, is not an improper anthropomorphism of sorts, as many would claim. I grant, it is hard to make this intuitive connection, because we are all so used to thinking of the world as, as you say, boundaried, we forget that there is some foundational genesis of all that is (See Eugene Fink's Sixth Meditation, e.g.; though here, it is a differently conceived). "Cosmic reasoning" may be pushing it, for I don't think the world of other things, trees, tables and desktops, is apart from language, rationally constructed, and that there is an "ordering" or "choosing" going on in the underpinnings of the world. WE are, however, what the world does and is and cannot be separated, so there certainly is a "becoming" in the world through us, these agencies of rationality and meaning; the world is becoming (but here we run into postmodern concerns I will not bring in) — Constance

I think I may be able to boil this down to a single question: Are what we linguistically call “the basic laws of thought”, thinking here primarily of the law of identity and of noncontradiction, existentially fixed and, hence, universally applicable? Or, are they simply the byproduct of biologically enactive cognition, such that they do not govern reality at large but merely serve as an evolved instrument relative to (some?) life via which we interpret those aspects of reality we can filter through these principles of cognition?

If existentially fixed, then, imo, cosmic reasoning.

Dogs experience the world, and in this there is an "innocence" that we should envy, but our intelligence is something we (and hence the world) are doing that is qualitatively unique, something new that our evolving condition manifests. What Sparky cannot do is think explicitly, and cannot separate language from immediate affairs, can't wander off into a corner and wonder. Wonder takes thought to new boundaries as it brings in questions of existence and experience that have no answers, but around such questions there develops a culture inquiry. — Constance

Yes, I agree.

Thank you for addressing the example I gave. Since you claim it to be plausible, you didn’t give me much to argue against, for I too find it quite plausible.

BTW, do you by “homunculus” simply intend a euphemism for “consciousness”? The little person within the total person that itself has a littler person within, and so on ad infinitum, is not something I can fathom anyone believing in.

At the moment, don’t have much interest in arguing one way or another about the reality of consciousnesses. But I thought I’d ask, since I am curious.

:smile:

Should someone let the lofty one know? I think it even more interesting were s/he to discover it for themselves.

Interesting! :wink: :razz:

Religion will do that to you. — Noble Dust

Yea, true, but only when it consists of following infallible folk. At any rate, doubt that Wittgenstein took himself to be such, though I can't say as much about some of his adorers.

Maybe if I can find a fuck to give, I'll reply to you. — Banno

Cute. Especially seeing how you put in the effort to reply. :lol:

No worries, but to evade the circularity that could manifest in arguments, I did give two examples regarding the meaning of color that could be addressed by anyone if they were inclined to engage in an honest discussion regarding what I posted. A wink to @Banno.

In case it's pertinent, I browsed through the thread and read it. Your discussion with Cheshire centers on what color the term of a color references: the meaning of a term. Whereas what I'm addressing is what colors themselves symbolize and thereby mean: the meaning of a color.

OK, not fully, just the latter parts regarding French grey. Should I have? But I'm still interested to hear about how you reply to the two examples I gave regarding color's meaning.

Metavalue and metaethics - the Good - refers to the possibility of an ideal relational structure (ie. logic) to this interweaving of energy and quality (in relation to an embodied rationality). — Possibility

How so?

If logic is not front and centre, then it’s the system you embody in order to describe what is. — Possibility

This I duly agree with.

Nuh.

Have a read of Philosophical Investigations. Especially the first forty or so paragraphs. — Banno

No, and I'm so far not inclined to. Have you read the two examples of color's meaning which I just posted?

Well ... a per my initial post to you, in equating meaning to what an agent intends by a symbol, this being (intra-)subjective, I then also find that communication is inter-subjective, consisting of an accord between different subjects in what they individually intend by symbols.

In short, a language does not strictly exist in my head, no. Yet meaning - or, what is intended via symbols - does.

As one example, the pain or pleasure I might at one moment associate with a given color due to my own idiosyncratic experiences - with this color momentarily leading my thoughts to a certain outcome of affect and, in so governing my thoughts' intentionality, granting this color a momentary meaning to me - will be a fully private occurrence. That the color orange momentarily means putrid to me on grounds that it vividly reminds me of an orange I one ate that was spoiled will be a meaning of the color orange that is fully private to me.

Its just that when it comes to language, there is a conformity between a) what an individual intends via a symbol and b) the commonly agreed upon understanding of what is to be intended via a symbol which pertains to the cohort (a) is a part of. This general conformity - whose limits can on occasion be tested - is necessary for communication.

So for example, that the color red means passion or love when on a rose or a heart will be an intersubjective meaning relative to those who understand red to so symbolize in the given contexts - a meaning that resides in the head of each individual and which is commonly agreed upon.

If someone else has a different "intended meaning of tree", does that prevent communication? Usually not. Meanign is not a thing in your head. — Banno

Usually, but not necessarily. Suppose someone intends the generalized idea of cat by the use of "tree". We'd likely call them other than perfectly sane, but that's beside the point of what constitutes meaning.

At any rate, is intention not something in your head?

No, that's not at all what "meaning is use" is. Quiet the contrary, the meaning is found in the place of the words used in the language game being played. Meaning is essentially social.

Contrast "The meaning of the word is whatever I say it is" with "The meaning of the word is the part it plays in the language game being played". — Banno

Can there be use devoid of intention?

I find that to mean X is to intend X. The meaning of "tree" I cognize at any given time is what I intend via the use of the symbol - hypothetically ranging from aspects of divinity like the tree of knowledge of or life to fully profane generalized ideas like the biological workings of a lifeform (no, I'm not Abrahamic). What another might mean - intend - by "tree" is relative to what they as other individual agency intends. There then is intersubjective, or shared, intention. The atheist and the spiritualist will both minimally intend by the symbol "tree" the generalized idea of something endowed with roots, a trunk, and branches. But this shared, hence social, intention is yet constituted of individuals' intentions ... a plurality of intentions that find accord.

Unless you subscribe to a kind of biblical "and then God gave man language", you're always looking at matters of language as someone who is birthed into and thereby embedded within, at the very least, one language.

I assume that just like there is unbroken evolutionary continuity that spans through time to our present state, from our ancestors who lived in the sea to ape like creatures to H. sapiens, so there is unbroken evolutionary continuity of language, where at each t + 1 we use what was already there at t and make other things out of it (but which cannot rightfully be called "new"). It's not recycling, but it's also not invention.

I don't see how the "which came first" question can be asked meaningfully. — baker

I get what you're saying, but unless one assumes that all life is endowed with language, then language appeared at some point in time after life appeared. (One could even extend this form of reasoning prior to life: if bacteria have language, do self-replicating protein molecules like prions have language, how about crystals, rocks, atoms, and so on.) In this line of reasoning, language appeared out of non-language at some point in time.

Besides, rare as they might be, novums - new features - perpetually occur, thereby the evolution of any living language, and how are novums not invented?

You're looking at things from the perspective of one who is birthed into and thereby embedded within, at the very least, one language, and from this vantage I of course agree with you. I looked at the "which came first" question a bit more literally in the ontological sense. And I understand if we disagree on that.

(But it seems that the actual question that such inquiries are trying to answer is something like, What came first: use or definition?) — baker

Going by the Humpty Dumpty quote ( :up: , btw), shouldn't this be: What came first: use of pre-established symbols or the intentional creation of symbols we use?

Hence, the "which is to be master" part: words that create the limits of concepts with which we think or the agency to express concepts we choose to think via words.

Something I learned many moons ago in my psychology of language class. From Wikipedia:

The hypothesis of linguistic relativity, also known as the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis, the Whorf hypothesis, or Whorfianism, is a principle suggesting that the structure of a language affects its speakers' worldview or cognition, and thus people's perceptions are relative to their spoken language. — T Clark

If we change "perceptions" to "experiences", and if we understand experiences to be strongly entwined with all manner of conceptualizations which over time become ingrained into the way we experience, then I think this hypothesis of linguistic relativity makes a good deal of sense.

While there are basic concepts that can safely be assumed common to all beings and hence languages - such as the roundabout concept of other(ness), or the dichotomy between thing(ness)/noun and activity/verb - think, for example, of the vast chasm between Western and Eastern concepts which in English go by the term of "emptiness". Such as in statements like "heightening your own realization of emptiness". There's a great divide in conceptual understanding here, and a plethora of entwined connotations that result in generalized meaning that get lost in translation. And, were one to be in no way exposed to Eastern thoughts, one as typical Westerner would almost certainly hold no experience whatsoever - regardless of how marginal - of what a philosophically educated Easterner's experience is in relation to reality at large.

Then there are languages and cultures we are fully unacquainted with, many an individual tribal culture for instance. A typical Westerner cannot experience reality in the animistic ways that many an individual from such tribal cultures do - in large part due to the differences in languages used to engage in internal thoughts regarding reality.

I love German. I think being able to speak it a little opens me up to concepts and ways of thinking. On the other hand, I think that's the weak version of the Whorf hypothesis, i.e. some ideas are easier to express and come more naturally in one language vs. another, but it's possible to translate. Or, you can just steal the word. — T Clark

Yes, but this already presupposes that some individual which so translates or steals words holds multilingual understanding, hence knowledge of two or more languages. Were the other culture's language to not be known by a given cohort, this cohort would not have recourse to the concepts uniquely captured by the given other language.

:grin:



I agree with your thoughts on Sparky (and kin).

As to logos and reason, to add some further comments, we moderners have lost the likely animist notion of reason that used to be pervasive with the ancient notion of logos. We nowadays abstract reason as something that (all too often, only elite) sentient beings do in their intents for figure out what is. Whereas, to my best understanding, logos used to address reason as that which in any way determines, or else sets the boundaries or limits of, that which is; e.g., all four of Aristotle’s causes were of themselves reasons for, and, hence, would have been elements of the cosmic reasoning for what is (to the Stoics if none other). What we think of as causation, then, used to be an integral aspect of the logos, i.e. of the cosmic reasoning.

Once so conceptualized, its an easy inference to the conclusion that speaking – the determining of what is, can be, etc., via symbols wherein the being(s) in question produces, or causes, the determining symbols – is itself one aspect of the logos which animates reality. But then so too could be construed a dog’s bark, for instance; the dog’s production of a sound which can symbolize, and serve to determine in others, the dog’s emotive state of mind and associated intentions. At any rate, from this vantage of cosmic reasoning, it can be important to remember that lego, from which logos is derived, can mean “I put in order” and “I choose” in addition to “I say”. Logos then, can be interpreted as the cosmic ordering which chooses what is … and which expresses itself (hence “speaks”) via this ordering.

We moderners are inclined to view reality as mechanistic in manners fully devoid of agency, even to the extent when pressed that our own sense of agency is but illusion. Ancient logos pertains to a worldview wherein agency pervades the cosmos.

However, all that having been said,

But it is not reason that is front and center; it is value. Metavalue and metaethics. That is, the Good. — Constance

Couldn’t agree with this more – be it from a modern or ancient pov regarding reason, or anything in between. But then, some further thoughts:

If there cannot be any reasoning that is not dependent upon metavalue, upon the Good, then can one find any alternative conclusion to that of the Good as metavalue in some way determining all reasoning? (for clarity, I take it we both understand the Good to not be a personhood)

However, it may not be possible to class my examples of holding up a number of fingers, and an object and asking what colour it is, as automatic, or habitual. — Metaphysician Undercover

Think of the movie "Rain Man", a movie based on real cases of autistic savants. The guy could instantly visually discern complex numbers. Though I'm no savant, when you hold up two fingers, I don't need to count them analytically to discern they are two rather than one or three. I discern, hence know, this instantly. Same with discerning yellow from red. It's automatic. Placing what one discerns into language on occasion does require conscious deliberation that may not take very long at all. But the discernment can very well occur innately as that which one experiences in manners devoid of conscious thoughts regarding what is.

Obviously we need more distinctions then simply conscious judgements and non-conscious discernments, because we have to account for all sorts of different habits, both innate and learned. — Metaphysician Undercover

We conceive of things differently. What I directly observe as a first person perspective I consciously discern instantaneously (relative to the conscious experience) on most occasions. It's only when there are uncertainties of what it is I am observing that I then analyze alternatives so as to arrive at a conclusion - or else change my focus. These uncertainties are most often emotive, stemming from the subconscious. But my apprehension of these uncertainties as a first person perspective is a conscious experience.

I don't assume any division between consciousness and sub/unconsciousness as though they were two separate entities. Rather consciousness to me is again a unified plurality of subconscious agencies that interacts with, among other things, subconscious agencies it is not momentarily unified with. One's conscience and one's emotions that seek to influence one's behaviors (e.g. pangs of anger, or envy, or romantic attraction, etc., which one as a consciousness is antagonistic to) are two examples of such subconscious agencies of one's total psyche. Lots to explain here, but to keep things relatively simple, one's conscious experiences are perpetually constructed from, so to speak, one's subconscious activities of mind. I can infer that my subconscious mind might make deliberations whose concluding verdicts are then kicked up to the level of consciousness, but at the level of consciousness what I experience most of the time are instantaneous (conscious, rather than non-conscious) discernments. These conscious discernments are of course greatly influenced by past experiences, from memories that can be consciously recalled to habits of behavior to associations regarding pleasure and pain in relation to certain stimuli, and so forth. But there are mostly held subconsciously. Nevertheless, consciously they manifest automatically as part of the very process of consciously experiencing.

I think you would agree that there is a big difference between the response to a flash card, and the response to the tap on your knee when the doctor tests your reflexes. And as well, a big difference again between the reflex of your knee, and the behaviour of the ameba.

I believe that the difference lies in the mode of anticipation. I think that the different systems of living beings have built into them different anticipatory mechanisms. — Metaphysician Undercover

Here's what I find wondrous about ameba: they need to successfully anticipate the behaviors of their prey - and this differently from how they successfully anticipate the behaviors of their predators - if they are to live. So I can't place the total organism of an ameba as having less complex anticipatory mechanisms that the knee jerk you refer to.

That said, I continue to maintain the mainstream view that the physical future can only occur after the physical past. — javra

I think you ought to consider that there is no such thing as "the physical future". — Metaphysician Undercover

I don't assume the block cosmos of eternalism. I so far give my ontological beliefs the label of presentism, for lack of a better term. But the details are complex (e.g., laconically, and for all intended purposes, the past is yet static due to causal reasons that are conjoined into the realities of the present - and it is remembered as having been physical, hence "the physical past"), and, besides, I did say I'd drop the subject of time.

That said, although we'd both agree that there currently is no physical future, would we nevertheless agree that there will be a future physical present as a consequence of what occurs in the present? If so, as shorthand, I termed this future physical present the physical future.

Restating my affirmation to be more in line with my own presentist beliefs: What will physically be can only occur after what once physically was.

Or perhaps better: Language as we know it in our complex symbolic dealings in logic and math, is not qualitatively distinct from what Sparky does when retrieving toys and such. — Constance

Very much in agreement here. I like to think of it as there being no metaphysical division between human cognition and that of lesser beings ... only a gradation of magnitude. Principles of thought such as that of identity and of noncontradiction may not be cognized by lesser animals (nor children) but all life makes use of them to the extent that life experiences and then both acts and reacts relative to that experienced. Its hard to properly justify this, though it seems self-evident to me. And this degree of cognition, of course, becomes exponentially greater in adult humans in large part due to our capacity to manipulate symbols to a vastly greater extent, with human language as the prime example, so as to further abstract from more basic concepts. At any rate, enjoyed reading your views.

As an aside, having skimmed through some of this thread, as with @Alkis Piskas, I very much equate "the Word" not with human language but with Heraclitus's, and later the Stoic's, notion of logos. Heraclitus's can be confusing, but the Stoics more directly equated the logos to the Anima Mundi, the operative or animating principle of the world. Here, to keep to the previous examples, Sparky is as much of the logos as is his human caregiver ... as is anything that is part of the cosmos. I know, its a more mystical-ish reading of Genesis 1, but "In the beginning was the logos (the Anima Mundi and all it entails)" makes sense to me, whereas "in the beginning was the one linguistic term produced by some omni-this-and-that person" ... not so much. While I get we're not strung up on mythologies:

No language, no logos, for language is the bearer of logos, — Constance

I find that: no logos (e.g., no Stoic anima mundi, including its metaphysical laws of thought), no human language, for human language is dependent on such things as laws of thought which are themselves intrinsic to the logos / the anima mundi.

These being my own passing musings.

I'm beginning to see that you and I have completely different ideas as to what constitutes a "conscious judgement". — Metaphysician Undercover

Thanks for the reply. Yes, what you term "conscious judgement" I would term "conscious discernment". To me a discernment can be automatic from the pov of consciousness whereas a judgment is an act of judging, which in turn is the process of forming an opinion, which takes time to come to a conclusion. But there is no fixed set of rules for use of linguistic expressions in cases such as this. Yes, I think more intelligent lesser animals can make conscious judgments as I've just described the term, and, more so, that all animals can make discernments. A favorite example of mine: ameba (which are far simpler than animals) can discern predators from prey - but in my lexicon I wouldn't say that ameba can make judgments about what is predator and what is prey.

So if time did have a start, then the perspective which places the future as before the past is the true perspective because there was necessarily a future before there was any past. — Metaphysician Undercover

But was there a future before there was any present? Personally, I find that whether time had a start is unknowable in principle. Still, I think I can understand what you're expressing. If so, I find that there is in this statement an equivocation between that which is physical and that which is, for lack of better words, metaphysical. For instance, an ultimate final cause can only be metaphysical, and, when hypothesizing the reality of such, here we can simplistically express that such predates all that physically is, including all physical past. That said, I continue to maintain the mainstream view that the physical future can only occur after the physical past.

Those examples, time slowing down, and time speeding up, are really more evidence that we do not experience time. If we do not pay attention to the clock we quickly lose track of how much time has passed. Then when we try to make the judgement as to how much time has passed, simply by referring to what we remember as having happened, we are very wrong. Gotta go---where has all the time gone? — Metaphysician Undercover

I can remember being bored out of my wits while in after-school detention without being allowed to look at any clock, and that one hour going by very, very slowly for me. But I'll drop the subject.

Safe to say, Sparky has no conceptual knowledge. — Constance

Do you mean by this “knowledge by acquaintance of abstract ideas” or “propositional knowledge”. I of course agree they don’t have the latter. But, in the example I linked to, to categorize items by function and by shape demonstrates an acquaintance with abstract ideas, i.e. the awareness of concepts. Outside and inside are themselves abstract ideas addressing a relation between an enclosed space affixed to a relatively opened space and the directionality between these. But I think the example I linked to carries more weight. I by examples such as this conclude that language is not necessary for the apprehension of concepts.

A thought: no, your dog does not understand "no". Understanding what another says means there is agreement between both parties, and a dog's received meaning has no conceptual contextualization. Humans say this word, and the prohibition is wrapped a body of associated thought. Not so with Rover. Rovers "no" does not register symbolically because she has no language. She does have, you could argue, associated experiences that make the "no" familiar and is conditionally connected to punishment and reward, the same as us. But "to understand" the word, well, dogs don't have words. — Constance

How then do you explain a dog's ability to recognize the names of 1022 items, replete with a capacity to "categorize them according to function and shape"? Less extraordinary, border collies are notorious for knowing such things as their left from their right in herding sheep per the instructions of their caregiver. All this requires a good deal of conceptual contextualization regarding what sounds symbolize - with no language production on their part.

Heck, my own dog recognizes the difference between "go inside" and "go outside", be this the house, a specific room, or the car. A very abstract idea that is very relative to context. And this without any formal training; hence, no formal punishment and reward.

We might look the other way too, toward "time speeding up". You can see that these two roughly correspond to the way I divided a). For the active participant with a vested interest, each detail matters, so time slows down, but for the passive observer who just wants to see it all and do nothing about it, time speeds up. — Metaphysician Undercover

Forgot to address this part:

Do you then not find this slowing and speeding up of time to be experiential in nature? What is commonly termed "time perception". I'm asking so as to clarify where we stand on the capacity of experiencing time. Again, not philosophical time which can only be an abstraction obtained via inference but lived time as it's innately experienced.

And in all my experience of simple awareness, I never experience one thing as before or after another thing, this is always a conscious judgement I make upon reflection. It may be the case, that within my evolved intuitions, this capacity has not been developed, as important, yet within your evolved intuitions it has been developed, so you have intuitions which judge before and after subconsciously, while I have to judge this consciously. — Metaphysician Undercover

Awareness can greatly differ between individuals, yet I still take this quote with a grain of salt. Maybe we're using words differently? By "conscious judgment" I understand deliberation between alternatives that one then settles on in the form of a conclusion. This deliberation often takes significant time, such that by the time a deliberation is made regarding what is observed, that observed (and deliberated upon) has usually already transcended into either the far reaches of short term memory or else into the first instances of long term memory. But, by then, a plethora of new observations have already occurred. Where each such novel observation to require conscious deliberation to discern, one would never be able to react more or less instantly to a stimulus. Such as in turning one's head automatically milliseconds after hearing an unexpected loud boom ... one that distracts one from all the deliberations one engages in. Here, this loud boom would serve as one sonic event. And one would know that one turned one's head after one hears the boom - rather then before - in manners devoid of deliberation, I would assume.

In my experience of simple awareness I find a continuous stream of differences, changes, things which are distinct from each other, in many different ways, but I do not seem to have any awareness of how they differ from each other, they are simply different. So without conscious judgement I do not recognize one thing as bigger than another, as greener than another, louder than another, or before another. I do not even distinguish the end of one thing and the beginning of another thing because I do not even separate things. These are all judgements which require associating words with what is happening, and for me this requires conscious judgement. — Metaphysician Undercover

I can't help but think of how lesser animals discern comparative sizes, colors, loudness, and which events occur before others (with this discernment being requisite in, for example, both classical and operant conditioning) without associating words with what is happening. As adults we're accustomed to using language for many if not most activities, yet certainly we were able to discern the items listed when we were pre-linguistic children - otherwise we could not have learned what words signify. Again, although awareness can greatly differ between adult human individuals, I can't help but take what you here say with a grain of salt.

Still, I'll take your word for it if in your reply you maintain the same.

Referring to your divisions here, I do not see a clear separation between a) and c). Whenever I am actively partaking in an event, (a), there is always a view toward what I intend to bring about (c). — Metaphysician Undercover

While this muddles the picture, the same can be said regarding how almost all occurrences of both (a) and (c) are contingent upon what takes place within realms of (b). As one simplistic example, one cannot anticipate that the sun will rise again tomorrow without memory of the sun's activities in past days. The same applies to predicting what another person will do. And so forth. Anticipation is conjoined with (long term) memory.

That said, my ability to influence occurs within realms in which I am actively observing; plans of what to do in case of X, Y, and Z so as to satisfy intent i, are themselves formulated, changed, and maintained by the conscious mind within realms of (a). So, while I agree that all conscious activities that occur during (a) extend toward (c) in one way or another - this being the theme of intent-driven determinacy regarding what occurs within (a) (to not say "within the experienced present") - I yet find a clear distinction in that (c) hasn't yet happened physically whereas (a) is happening physically (and, to complete the list, (b) has already happened physically).

[Edit: for clarity, "hasn't yet happened, is happening, and has already happened physically" strictly relative to one's immediate awareness of occurrences - rather than relative to one's abstract ideas regarding the ontological nature of physicality and time. And I get that I'm repeating myself in expressing "immediate awareness/experience of," which I know you find contentious. Hence the feeling of going in circles ... ]

There would be more to say but, here again, there is use of a temporality which we so far disagree upon.

However, I can make a clear division within a), between actively participating, and observing. This is like the difference between playing a game, and watching a game being played. The two are very distinct, and I think a division is called for here. — Metaphysician Undercover

Sure, but then, granting this basic distinction between consciousness's receptivity and consciousness's activities, do you yet agree that they both occur within (a)? Consciousness's activities are pervasive throughout consciousness's receptivity: from turning our gaze to analyzing what we see, these are all events that intertwine what we passively observe with what we voluntarily do as consciousnesses at any given moment.

BTW, I qualify this with "consciousness's" because perception is, as you've previously commented on, creative from the point of view of the subconscious mind, and is therefore an activity in and of itself when looked at from the perspective of a total mind. Arguably, an activity that holds its own sub/unconscious intents - with these being involuntary from the pov of consciousness.

What I think we might do is remove any temporal references from our description of "the experienced present", which are loaded with third person prejudices and biases, which we have learned from others, rather than directly from personal experience, and start from a clean slate. Do you agree that when we are experiencing the present, we are experiencing things happening, like events? And do you feel as i do, an inclination to interfere with, change, and even create, things happening? If so, we might proceed to look at what motivates and supports such an inclination. — Metaphysician Undercover

Not sure how to proceed. An event is not eternal but has a beginning and an end, with the former preceding the latter; otherwise expressed, with the beginning occurring before the end and the end occurring after the beginning. Again, I find this intrinsic to awareness when addressing specific, concrete events - and not something ascertainable only after inferences are made. And to address befores and afters is to address temporality.

Then there are a) events (in the plural) I sense myself to be actively partaking in - even if only as an observer - some of which I feel myself capable of changing to some extent were I to so want, b) events that I can remember which have already transpired and which I sense myself to no longer have any capacity to affect, and c) events I can for example foresee happening or that I intend to bring about through some form of effort. But here, again, I find the experiential nature of what I can only term "time": the progression into (c) with (a) and with the perpetual passing away of an ever-changing (a) into realms of (b). Experiential because I don't need to put it into language or infer it in order to immediately experience it. Temporal because I can only linguistically describe (c) as the future (b) as the past and (a) as the (lived, experiential) present.

So I don't know how to remove all temporal references from what is directly experienced nor from activities one engages in.

BTW, have you never experienced time slowing down for you when, for one reason or another, you paid extra-close attention to details (e.g., a first kiss or a near car crash) - and, conversely, time speeding up for you when you were so engaged in some activity that you hardly payed any attention to the environmental details you'd normally take into account (e.g., an enthralling festivity or an intense preoccupation with a hobby)? This relative to the time clocks keep.

As to "true agency", in a slip of the tongue where the conscious mind intends X and the subconscious mind intends Y, which of the two if any hold the "true agency" of the whole? I say both hold (true) agency to the degree that agency occurs, each in this case being a discordant aspect, or part, of the whole psyche.

But, as with our discussion of our awareness of time, I find that you are quick to superimpose ontological principles obtained from inferences upon what we consciously experience. Nothing wrong with that, only that it diverges from the perspective which I'm doing my best to work with, which is as follows: That we (as conscious minds, i.e. as first person perspectives) experience what we experience is the strongest form of certainty regarding what takes place that we can obtain; everything which we (as first person perspectives) infer - including about why we experience what we experience - is of a lesser degree of certainty. And, implicit in all this, we can only hold a first person perspective awareness.

Going back to the principle topic of the experienced present, that we experience a present that is neither memory of former present times nor extrapolation of upcoming present times is an occurrence of the strongest degree of certainty. That this experienced present is specious, fictitious, illusory, etc. is a conclusion drawn from inferences made by the conscious mind that wells within the experienced present which, as conclusion, is less certain than that which is experienced - here, namely, the present moment. And, furthermore, a conclusion that requires there first being an experienced present which is then to be labeled "specious, or fictitious, or illusory".

All the same, because I feel like we're going around in circles in regard to the experienced present, I'm tempted to let things be for now.

Anyway, to make a long story short, I think that "experience", like "intention" is a property of a whole being. These two terms express something which cannot be said of a part, but refer to aspects of the unifying feature, which makes parts exist as a whole. This I think, is one reason why we say that the sum is greater than its parts, there are properties which cannot be associated with the individual parts, and can only be associated with whatever it is which unifies the parts to make a whole. . So we can say that the whole being, as a being, experiences, but it doesn't make sense to say that a part of a being experiences. And also, I think it would make sense to say that a living being which doesn't have consciousness, like a plant, still experiences, but it doesn't make sense to me to say that the subconscious part of a conscious being, experiences. This has to do with what type of things we can attribute to a part, and the type of things we can attribute to a whole, and the reason why a whole is greater than the sum of its parts. — Metaphysician Undercover

Maybe (?) this plays a significant role in how we diverge.

By subconscious experiences (which I grant is not a mainstream usage of terms) I in part am address things such as this: When we forget an item, ask ourselves "where did I place it" with our inner voice, and then consciously experience an intuition regarding where the item is that reminds us, it is not us as a consciousness that knew of the answer but aspects of our subconscious mind that informed us after we as consciousness sent out a request to our subconscious mind to be so informed. It is the subconscious mind's agency (here simplistically abstracting a unified subconscious) which informs us as consciousness - and not our conscious agency. In this example is inferred that aspects of our subconscious mind hold an awareness of what we as consciousness desire to know, along with a subconscious awareness of the answer that we are momentarily ignorant of consciously - and this inferred awareness of the subconscious can be termed the non-conscious experience of one total psyche, or sub/unconscious experience. Same can be said of one's conscience, which is aware of what one as consciousness is aware of but informs (or even goads) one as consciousness of alternative avenues to that which one as consciousness intends; one's conscience then being another example of a subconscious agency that can be inferred to experience.

To me consciousness is a unified agency composed of an ever-changing plurality of subconscious agencies. (With some subconscious agencies, such as one's conscience, not being unified with it; minimally, while a conscience is sensed by a consciousness.)

So, to me consciousness is exactly one part of a total psyche - which consists of parts in addition to that of consciousness.

I grant that this is a complex subject, but I'm not sure how to proceed from here if we in fact disagree in regard to what conscious experiences and conscious intentions entail.

At any rate, by the experiential present of consciousness I, again, am not referring to a total psyche, but to strictly consciousness as a first person perspective - which holds first person awareness and which infers about matters such as the mechanisms for its first person awareness.

I plan on replying in further detail later on. For now:

Without in any way denying the reality of conscious experience, down the line of my reasoning I fully acknowledge that conscious experience is the product of a commonwealth of subconscious agencies that hold their own subconscious experiences. And, even more, that conscious agency, which includes conscious experience, is itself a unified bundle of subconscious agencies, such that the sum is greater than its parts. But the issue here is that of conscious experience per se.

Whereas conscious experience is a brute fact, subconscious experiences are inferred, and this by none other than conscious experience.

On what grounds would you disagree with the previous sentence?

Now, Javra has stated that the present consists of a duration of time, the present moment is a duration. So within that duration some parts must be in the future relative to other parts which would be in the past. What this implies is that within the present, there is also future and past. And when we see that, within our experienced present, part is in the future, and part is in the past, then we can acknowledge that the part in the future is before (prior to) the part in the past. — Metaphysician Undercover

To address what you've last written, a correction: I've repeatedly asserted that the experienced present has a duration. For clarity, implicitly requisite in this is that I'm referring strictly to conscious awareness as that which experiences - i.e., to the first person point of view - and not to the experiences of our own unconscious minds, of which we as first person points of view can only infer. Furthermore, yes, within this experienced present, there are givens that occur before other givens (else, givens that occur after other givens) but, from the vantage of the experienced present as experienced by the first person point of view, these occurrences that consist of befores and afters are yet the present - hence, are neither the experiential future (which consists of yet to be experienced experiential present moments) nor the experiential past (which consists of already-experienced experiential-present-moments that are re-presented to our conscious selves, either automatically relative to us as conscious selves or via our volition as conscious selves of so remembering, with the latter most often termed "recall"). The befores and afters that occur in the experienced present are neither our experienced past nor our experienced future. But before further engaging in explaining this:

First, you've repeatedly claimed that we do not experience time. One such example:

I've been arguing that we do not directly experience time at all. It's conceptual, an abstraction. You end the paragraph with "we nevertheless experience time as such" , but you don't say what you think we experience time as. — Metaphysician Undercover

This is direct contradiction to time perception studies - with the sole point to referencing such studies here being that we as first person points of view do hold subjective awareness of time. Hence, we experience time. To my knowledge, this experiencing of time is something utterly non-controversial among both academics and non-academics. Can you point to a reference of someone who affirms that we humans do not experience time? (Again, they might claim that our experiences of time are illusory, but not that we don't directly experience time, aka temporal order.) ((Also, note the amount of information on the linked Wikipedia page regarding the subjective experience of time.))

What I've called the "experienced, or experiential, present" W. James famously termed the "specious present":

James defined the specious present to be "the prototype of all conceived times... the short duration of which we are immediately and incessantly sensible" — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_perception#Philosophical_perspectives

The person he borrowed this term from, E. R. Kelly, is quoted to more elaborately comment:

The relation of experience to time has not been profoundly studied. Its objects are given as being of the present, but the part of time referred to by the datum is a very different thing from the conterminous of the past and future which philosophy denotes by the name Present. The present to which the datum refers is really a part of the past—a recent past—delusively given as being a time that intervenes between the past and the future. Let it be named the specious present, and let the past, that is given as being the past, be known as the obvious past. All the notes of a bar of a song seem to the listener to be contained in the present. All the changes of place of a meteor seem to the beholder to be contained in the present. At the instant of the termination of such series, no part of the time measured by them seems to be a past. Time, then, considered relatively to human apprehension, consists of four parts, viz., the obvious past, the specious present, the real present, and the future. Omitting the specious present, it consists of three ... nonentities—the past, which does not exist, the future, which does not exist, and their conterminous, the present; the faculty from which it proceeds lies to us in the fiction of the specious present.[1] — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specious_present

I have and will use "the experiential present" rather than "the specious present" precisely due to my disagreement with the inference that what I experience is "fictitious", as per the part of Kelly's quote I've boldfaced. (I am most certain of what I directly experience, and less certain of the inferences I abstract from such - this outlook being pivotal to my approach to philosophy in general; a different topic, maybe.) Nevertheless, there is yet mention of an experienced present in Kelly's inference of it being "fiction".

This quote by Kelly, quite likely, cuts to the marrow of our disagreement on this subject. Only that you go a step further and tell me that I don't experience time at all.

Experiments have shown that rats can successfully estimate a time interval of approximately 40 seconds, despite having their cortex entirely removed.[23] This suggests that time estimation may be a low level process.[24] — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_perception#Neuroscientific_perspectives

To emphasize, what this implies is 1) that conscious reasoning (which occurs in the cerebral cortex) is not a necessity to the discernment of temporal sequences - hence, the discernment of time - and (here overlooking the rest of the linked to article) 2) that lesser animals are quite capable of experiencing time - again implying that conscious reasoning is not essential to the activity.

As to memory, for the sake of brevity, I did and will for now continue to address memory as strictly that which is brought into consciousness by the unconscious which of itself re-presents a perceptual event that has already transpired and ended. To be as explicit as I currently can, this experiential memory (i.e., memory as it is experienced by the first person point of view) always consists of long term memory (e.g., a phone # I had ten years back); usually consists of short term memory and/or working memory (the memory of a phone # I have been exposed to 10 seconds after the fact), and on rare and extra-ordinary occasions of sensory memory (e.g., the experience of an afterimage). Complexities galore with all of this. And yes, I dully acknowledge the role of various memory types. Yes, having said this, what I do not agree with is that there is no experiential difference relative to the first person point of view in question between, for example, looking at an apple (this being the person's experiential present) and remembering once seeing an apple (this being the person's experiential past). Here, experientially, there is a clear distinction between what I deem to be the present perceptions I am aware of and what I deem to be former perceptions I am aware of - one whose threshold is fuzzy, granted, but experientially a clear distinction nevertheless.

(In some ways it's akin to watching a movie and claiming that what we are in fact experiencing is a series of still frames when, in fact, we are experiencing fluid motion while so viewing. Slow down the movie reel's motion and there will be a threshold where we witness both motion and still frames, true. Yet our perception of unadulturated motion is nevertheless experientially real when the movie progresses at its intended pace. In a roundabout way, the same allegorically applies to our experienced present (our seeing motion) and the nitty-gritty analysis of sensory and working memory (the still frames of a movie reel): the perceived present is to us experientially real, despite being made up in many a way by memory. Maybe this will help in getting across what I mean by "experiential present".)

Note, though, that by "experiential" I am neither addressing sub/unconscious experiences nor am I inferring what is experienced to necessarily be an objectively factual state of affairs - one that necessarily occurs in manners indifferent to one's experiences.

I would have furthered this post with more direct replies to your last post to me, but I realize that if we disagree on there being an experienced (or, else, specious) present, we then lack any and all common ground that would be required for further discussing this topic.

In the case of a "snap", also other quick sounds like a gunshot, I do not experience a beginning and end. It's all at once, a snap. Only by inference do I decide that there must be a beginning and an ending. — Metaphysician Undercover

You're telling me that devoid of your conscious reasoning, aka inferences, what you would experience is an eternal sound, one that is thereby devoid of a beginning (a transition from no sound to sound) and an end (a transition from sound to no sound)?

A closely related question: You thereby consciously reason each and every instance of sound that you hear to determine its beginnings and endings as these stand relative to all other sounds that overlap? For instance, suppose you're blindfolded and a buddy snaps his fingers on both hands at approximately the same moment, with each hand being placed next to one of your different ears; without inferences (again, conscious reasoning) that you decide upon, you would be unable to discern which hand's snap ended first relative to the other, hence ending before the other?

(As can be confirmed with recordings and their analysis: An "all at once" sound, such as a snap, a hand clap, a car honk, a dog's bark, and so on a) holds duration (is not durationless, nor even of infinitesimal duration), b) is constrained, or limited, or bounded by a start and end, and, furthermore, c) the beginnings of such "all at once" sounds typically have different auditory qualities then the endings, in addition to the transitions from "no sound to sound" and from "sound to no sound" - again typically unless one is addressing certain synthesized sounds. But maybe this part in brackets is neither here nor there since we're addressing our direct experiences.)

... an interesting topic. I figure either one of us is in some way mistaken, or we experience things differently.

EDIT: Upon closer scrutiny, it turns out that when I snap my fingers there's first a swooshing frictional sound made by rubbing my middle finger against my thumb that overlaps with a popping sound made when my middle finger touches my palm at a fast enough rate ... quite audible to me when I snap my fingers slowly. Evidencing that in my experiences there can be discerned a unique beginning sound from a different ending sound in an individual finger snap - with no memory utilized on my part to so discern (in my own experiences). Thought this to be an interesting tidbit to add.

Javra's conception is based in before and after, which is circular if before and after are not based in something other than time. — Metaphysician Undercover

Your conception, based in past and future, is just as circular. — Luke

Luke, since I’m not sure what to make of your statement, I’ll take it at face value. So, out of curiosity, I’ll make this reply:

Circularity applies to reasoning that is circular. For example, one relies on X to explain Y and on Y to explain X. “Direct awareness of” is a brute fact, with no circularity involved. For example, one sees a pink elephant (whether or not what one sees is a hallucination is irrelevant to the reality that one sees a pink elephant; one’s so seeing is a brute fact to oneself). My own direct experience is that when I snap my fingers, I hear the one snap in the lived present; i.e., I neither experience it as an auditory memory nor as an auditory anticipation, but as a total sound which is happening concurrently with my direct awareness of the world external to me. As part of this brute experience, the snap has a beginning and an end, neither of which is memory to me when I hear the snap. Furthermore, the snap’s beginning occurs before the snaps end; this, again, at the very least in my own direct experience, is in no way a reasoned inference but an immediate observation (with no need to here address Kantian like innate intuitions required to so observe). This brute direct experience of the snap hence consists of a before and after, neither of which is memory or anticipation. From concrete direct experiences such as this, I then abstract before and after into the notion of time (with many more details involved in so abstracting).

Q: How does so abstracting what time is from the concrete particulars of direct experience consist of circularity of argumentation? Although I’m neither a philosophical empiricist nor a philosophical rationalist, but a bit of both, in this case this is what empiricism consist of: deriving generalized ideas from the concrete particulars of immediate experience. Does one then deem that all philosophical empiricisms are circular in argumentation?

From your second to last post:

I can see your point, to think of your experience in terms of befores and afters, But this is to look at time from the perspective of memory. Notice that you only assign (judge) a before and after, after remembering the entire sequence. We can remove the need for this type of judgement if we look directly at our experience of memories and anticipations, to derive our conception of time. — Metaphysician Undercover

And from your last post:

No, I do not agree with immediate "percepts". There is mediation between the sense organ and the image in the mind. That's why I argued that the thing sensed is always in the past. I feel pain in my toe, and I know that there is mediation between the feeling, and the organ which does the sensing. I believe this is the case with all senses. So the feeling, or "percept" is a creation of the mind, the subconscious part of the mind, in response to the sense organ, then presented to the conscious part of the mind as the "percept", image, or feeling. — Metaphysician Undercover

We seem to have come to a standstill. I find that you incorporate so much of neuroscientific knowledge and inferential reasoning into your understandings of percepts, this so as to accommodate your understanding of time, that you conflate what is immediately experienced with very abstract inferences concerning a hypothetical nature of time.

To sum up your stance as I understand it: We know from science that all our immediate percepts occur nanoseconds after our physiological senses first register data, and you thereby conclude that all our perceptions occur in the past. We however do not perceive expectations, so these are not of the past, being instead inferred to regard the future. There then must be inferred a transition between this non-past and past, an infinitesimal threshold of some sort, and this you demarcate as the non-experienced but purely conceptual present.

Please specify where I’ve characterized your stance badly, if I have.

To the average person on the street (who most likely doesn’t even have the learning to know that our immediate percepts of which we are consciously aware occur nanoseconds after our physiological senses register information) that all our “perceptions are remembrances” would be utter nonsense. To such, there is a clear distinction between “I am now seeing a house” and “I am remembering a house I once saw ten years back”. By the conclusions you've so far advocated, I'm tempted to speculate that this person should instead be saying, or at least conceptualizing, “I am right now remembering that house over there that I’m now point to (with our awareness of our so pointing also being a memory to us, since this awareness too is perceptual and therefore of the past)” and “I am remembering a house that I visually first remembered ten years back.” Again, to the average person so conceptualizing is nonsense, precisely because it contradicts the experiential nature of present perceptions as contrasted to what is commonly understood by memories.

I, again, was addressing what we directly experience, and not any reasoning regarding the mechanisms of our perceptions or the ontological nature of time.

But I accept that we will disagree on this.

Just to clarity, is your stance that of deeming the notion of a language to be a "fundamental ontological error". Thereby making languages ontologically nonexistent? Because in what I wrote I was addressing a language as having downward determinacy upon a collective of individual psyches. — javra

Yes, I think that is a fair conclusion. I see the concept of "a language" as an ontological entity, to be fundamentally flawed. — Metaphysician Undercover

I can only extrapolate from this that the proposition, "We are now debating in the English language," is to you untrue - this because the notion of "the English language" as something that exists is fundamentally flawed to you. Am I wrong in this?

This is close, but not quite what I'm thinking. The difference between generalities and particulars is a category difference, The subordinates and supraordinates are all within the same category, as generalities. The difference between them is just like the difference of making things more specific, in the example above. The more general the goal, the more opportunity for different possibilities in fulfillment. As we move toward less and les general, i.e. more specific, the possibilities are narrowed down.

Here is the reason for maintaining the category separation. Suppose we get to the extremely specific. My goal is to eat that particular hamburger, now. Until the action is actually carried out, there is still possibilities, with a bun, condiments, etc.. It is only after the action is carried out, that it can be described as a particular, without any possibilities. This is the endstate, and it is categorically distinct from the goal, as a particular occurrence, having already occurred. The goal is a view to the future, with respect for possibilities, while the endstate is something which has happened and is now in the past, there are no more possibilities if truth is to be respected.

So that is the reason why we need a good understanding of "the present", because the present, "now" is what provides us with that category separation, and confusing the two categories is a category mistake. We have a difference between the activity described as a goal for the future, and the activity as described as a past occurrence (the endstate). What lies between these, within the medium, is the accidentals of the actual activity. No matter how specific we get with our description of the desired activity, we cannot include all the possibilities for accidentals, so the goal will always remain as something general in relation to the activity which will be brought about, allowing for a multitude of different possible endstates to fulfill the conditions of that goal. — Metaphysician Undercover

I've decided not to comment due to our disagreements regarding what the experienced present consists of, or, rather, of whether there is such as thing as an experienced present.

Hm, I agree. I guess in the back of my mind is the neo-Platonic notion of the "the One" as g-d. Which is likely not what Kant had in mind. But I don't want to digress the thread with this. BTW, kudos for a really well thought out appraisal for and list of questions to Kant's critique.

Fractals – the example with which you illustrate your point – have boundaries, thereby being bounded, and thereby being subject to limits. We can discern one type of fractal from another because of the boundaries of each.

God is supposed to not be subject to any boundaries, for these impose limits, as well as to be divinely simple, i.e., not consisting of any parts; “infinite”, or "limitless", in this specific sense; rather than that of a qualified infinity (one which is restricted or limited) - for example, the infinite length of a geometric line that assumes endless constituent points bounded by their particular alignment.

Also, I claim Plebeian-Removed as a future band name. — Noble Dust

:yikes: Honored, actually. But now I'm toying around with band name "Plebianesque" myself. Darn, they're getting really hard to find nowadays ... if anyone has tried to come up with a novel band name. :grin:

Since its such a large part of our contention, I'm going to ask a few questions that I take to be relevant to what I find to be the experience of time:

Do you hold percepts that you deem to be immediately obtained from the workings of your physiological senses? Images obtained via the physiological sense of sight that pertains to your physiological eyes; sounds obtained via the physiological senses of sound that pertains to your physiological ears; smells obtained via the physiological sense of smell that pertains to you physiological nose; etc.?

E.g.: I see that horse you're point to, and I can hear it neighing.

Next, can you hold any percepts that you deem to not be immediately obtained from the workings of your physiological senses? Images that you see with the mind's eye but not with your physiological eyes; sounds that you hear with the mind's ears but not with your physiological ears; smells that you smell with the mind's nose but not with your physiological nose; etc.?

E.g.: I see the unicorn I am right now visualizing, and I can hear its neigh in my imagination.

If you honestly answer "no" to either of these, then we have drastic differences in what we experience, and I'd be inclined to find out more about our differences. Assuming that you can experience both as I can:

Next, are the memories you experience of the first or of the second type of perception?

Answering these I think would give me a better idea of where it is that we might differ.

Downward determinacy and upward determincay are not mutually exclusive. That said, one aspect of culture is language. Yes, we might and on occasion do communally change the language which we speak in minute ways (dictionaries change over time), yet that does not negate that the thoughts and expressions pertaining to a collective of individual psyches which speak the same language are in large part governed by the language which they speak. It's why foreign words are sometimes introduced into a language by those who are multilingual so as to express concepts that would otherwise be inexpressible (if at all imaginable) in the given language. Zeitgeist as one example of this. We as individual constituents of a language do not create the language we speak in total; our thoughts and expressions are instead in large part downwardly determined by the language(s) we speak. Do you disagree with this as well? If so, on what grounds? — javra

I disagree with you fundamentally on this issue, so I do not see any point really in discussing it. I think that assuming "a collective of individual psyches" as a whole, is a fundamental ontological error. derived from a category mistake which males a generalization into a particular. — Metaphysician Undercover

Just to clarity, is your stance that of deeming the notion of a language to be a "fundamental ontological error". Thereby making languages ontologically nonexistent? Because in what I wrote I was addressing a language as having downward determinacy upon a collective of individual psyches.

Taking an expression at face value, you find it an impossibility that there can be more than one way to skin a cat? Here "skinning the cat" is the goal. The "one or more ways" are the means toward said goal. If you do find this to be an impossibility, on what grounds? Determinism? — javra

I say this on the grounds of how a particular object, a thing, is defined, by the law of identity, each thing being different from every other. When you define "goal" in such a way, so as to make it a thing (the particular desired endstate), then you must respect the differences between particular things, what Aristotle called accidentals. Since the accidentals between two things are different, then despite being the same type of thing, the two things are distinct. And the existence of a contingent thing is inseparable from its causes,, as what is required for the existence of that thing. So we cannot say that two contingent things, being "two" because they exist under differing circumstances, are the same thing, because that would contravene the law of identity. The best we can say is that they are two of the same type of thing. — Metaphysician Undercover

Pardon the crudity of this. If one were to skin a cat from tail to head rather than from head to tail then the given outcome of having skinned the cat would itself be different?

In this sense, fulfilling a goal can be said to be bringing about a particular endstate from a general goal. In maintaining a separation between the goal, as something general, and the endstate as something particular, we allow that many different endstates can truthfully be said to fulfill the same goal. But if we say that the goal is a particular endstate, eg., I need that particular hamburger, then we misrepresent what a goal really is, and force upon ourselves an unrealistic need (the need for a particular endstate) in relation to fulfilling our goals. Fulfilling our goals does not require particular endstates, and creating this illusion that on particular thing is required to fulfill your goal is self-deception. — Metaphysician Undercover

What your thinking of in terms of particulars and generalities I'm thinking of in terms of subordinate intents relative to the given intent itself - and then of supraordinate intents to boot. In the example you've given, the intent is that of alleviating the hunger one experiences. A subordinate intent might be to intake a particular hamburger. And a subordinate intent of so doing might be to open up the fridge. And then, the supraordinate teleological reason for intending to alleviate one's hunger is, or at least can be, that of intending to survive. Before continuing, do you find so addressing the matter problematic? And if so, why?

Running a marathon is an activity driven by the desire to finish the marathon. So is the person's finishing, or not finishing, the marathon not real, else fictional? — javra

I still don't agree with this. The motivating desire is to run the marathon, not to finish the marathon. If the desire actually was, as you say, to finish the marathon, the most inspired marathoners would be looking for the best cheats, ways to finish without making the effort of running. But clearly the goal is to make the effort and actually run the marathon, not just to reach the finish line. — Metaphysician Undercover

Finishing the marathon is implied in running the marathon, otherwise one would either 1) run indefinitely without ever stopping or else 2) run for a few yards or so and consider one's goal actualized. And, as with most anything else, implicit in finishing a marathon is that of doing so honestly. If one were to finish a marathon by driving a car, how would that yet be a marathon? If one were to take a shortcut from the marathon's path, one again would cross the finish line without having run the given marathon.

Ok - but would you give any credence to that view? — Banno

Not one bit when I have my biological sciences hat on, no.

Doing so must introduce a ranking, and hence a move from description to evaluation. Whence the "ought"? — Banno

Very true. Nevertheless, going with the flow of culture, there is the use of "more evolved" in the sense of "better than". "Better" always stands in relation to that which is good; in some abstract sense, that which no better than can occur: a superlative. Here, the implicit ought - which is of course riddled with biases when analyzed in detail - is that things ought to be maximally proximate to this superlative good. So, if we deem intelligence or wisdom to so be more proximate to this ultimate good, then we deem ourselves as humans to be more evolved than bacteria.

Does such a superlative good exist? Seems like a different topic for a different thread. In short, though, without it there can only be moral relativism, this to state the obvious.