This is the reality I am experiencing, and so I can conclude it exists in so far as I am capable of thought.

I think, therefore I am, and I am, therefore my reality is as well. — Lif3r

For me, the validity of this affirmation rests one what one here understands by “my reality”. In one sense, we each inhabit individual and personal realities which at places perfectly overlap and at other places do not. While philosophically problematic, if one were to actually be accordant to a Wittgenstein-like mentality, it is readily meaningful in colloquial usage to express, “Your reality is different from mine.”

In this sense, I’d say sure.

But when addressing reality as being that which is impartially applicable regardless of beliefs and so forth, the philosophical problem is that false awareness of reality can occur. Yes, sometimes in the form of hallucinations and illusions, but, more pertinently I believe, in the form of false beliefs, i.e. delusions. Sometimes, we can appraise from our own perspective (often itself shared with many others) that some group(s) will hold communal delusions of what is reality; e.g., for most of us, those who subscribe to Earth being flat will easily fit this description. Here, “they” will share a false (appraisal of) reality which they nevertheless inhabit with a type of tunnel vision (apparently being unable to conceive of the possibility that it might in fact not be so).

In this sense of “reality”, the OP’s affirmation no longer holds:

What one here thinks to be reality can very well be a falsehood and, thereby, nonexistent (in all senses other than that of existing in the biases of the given subject(s)). That one’s beliefs are commonly shared in unison with many, even most, others will not, of itself, bestow the same degree of certainty regarding what is real that the cogito does. Again, as can be exemplified by those who share a flat-Earth worldview (only that here this possibility of a communally held false system of beliefs would be self-referentially applied).

The trick, I believe, is to find ontological givens that 1) hold the same degree of certainty that the cogito does and 2) are commonly shared by all others (this in the same manner that the cogito is commonly shared by all sapient beings). To the degree that one can incrementally accumulate these, one could, in principle, then obtain an understanding of reality whose certainty is on par with the cogito.

Then again, one does not need a cogito-like certainty about things in order to contemplate and hold onto perspectives of reality.

Changing the tune a bit—but in line with the thread’s topic, and mainly oriented at @Kenosha Kid posts on this thread (haven't read all of them):

[...]explaining the phenomenon of first person experience from a physically causal perspective[...] — Janus

How is the very nature of causation a topic that is in the purview of the empirical sciences—rather than in that of the philosophical branch termed metaphysics?

To me this is a Hume 101 question. Succinctly explained, a cause is not a percept—and so cannot be empirical (as empiricism is understood in modernity).

This is not to deny that empirical science uses metaphysical understandings of causation in it analyses. It is instead to try to make the point that the empirical sciences are themselves grounded in metaphysical understandings of reality—minimally, via their use of certain notions of causation and their simultaneous denunciation of other notions of causation (for example, the avoidance, if not outright denial, of teleological causation, and hence of purpose, in all aspects of biological evolution and all other scientific fields).

Modern mainstream science—and, maybe more importantly, the worldview that often gets referred to as “scientism” and is just as often taken to be synonymous to both physicalism and realism—would be impossible sans non-empirical metaphysical claims and the metaphysical worldview(s) that accompany these. Because causes are not percepts (are not observable sensory information), the metaphysical claims regarding causation upheld by modern science cannot of themselves be the study of the empirical sciences—but instead serve as foundation of understandings upon which the empirical sciences operate.

Ps. IMO, hence the boogieman of not allowing for things such as teleological causation in our contemplations of reality: the fear that such would undermine science and, by extension, our very understandings of reality.

Your physicalist bias is showing. I didn’t ascribe any value to disorder and order, so why the fuss? As to the metaphysics I’ve previously mentioned in jest, humor here aside, it is far more aligned to Peirce’s pragmatism than the Heat Death you take to be true on grounds of the physicalism you espouse:

An especially intriguing and curious twist in Peirce's evolutionism is that in Peirce's view evolution involves what he calls its “agapeism.” Peirce speaks of evolutionary love. According to Peirce, the most fundamental engine of the evolutionary process is not struggle, strife, greed, or competition. Rather it is nurturing love, in which an entity is prepared to sacrifice its own perfection for the sake of the wellbeing of its neighbor. This doctrine had a social significance for Peirce, who apparently had the intention of arguing against the morally repugnant but extremely popular socio-economic Darwinism of the late nineteenth century. The doctrine also had for Peirce a cosmic significance, which Peirce associated with the doctrine of the Gospel of John and with the mystical ideas of Swedenborg and Henry James. — https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/peirce/#anti

Topics to make one gag or snide, right? Spewed by none other than Peirce.

At any rate, have no present interest in debating against physicalist metaphysics. More pertinently, the question concerning the disparity between IT’s model of entropy and the thermodynamic model of entropy has not been answered clearly, if at all.

I’ll let you at it.

So entropy is a modelling construct - and all the better for the fact that is not disguised. The mistake was to talk about energy as if it were something substantial and material - a push or impulse. And now people talk about entropy as a similar quantity of some localised stuff that gets spread about and forces things to happen. — apokrisis

Yes, entropy is a model just as much as, say, our notions of biological evolution are a model. However, I yet hold that there is a terrain which is being modeled in both cases. And, as with biological evolution, due to lack of better phrasing, we yet term the terrain by the name of the model we employ to map it.

Because of this, until I stand corrected, I’ll be addressing entropy as the terrain which we do our best to model.

Also, thought I’d mention this: Maybe I’m cheating, wanting to take a shortcut, by having asked the question - rather than taking time to get into serious study of the differences and commonalities between IT’s entropy and Thermodynamic’s entropy. But to try to make my previous post better understood:

When considering the metaphysical issue of identity: It can be argued that the universe’s identity as a whole is currently not maximally ordered, being instead fragmented into multiple, often competing, identities – residing within the universe, and from which the universe is constituted – whose often enough conflicting interactions results in a relative disorder, or unpredictability, and, hence, uncertainty. By “identity” I intend anything which can be identified in principle which, for simplicity of argument, is corporeal: be these individual photons, rocks, humans, stars, black holes, etc.

On the one hand, when considered from the vantage of some individual identity: each existent given within the cosmos is a) in a state of flux (a flux which can be ascribed to entropy and negative entropy) and b) holds its own imperfect order of identity – imperfect on account of a flux that moves toward maximal entropy. As maximal entropy (cosmic thermodynamic equilibrium) is approached, each existing identity within the universe becomes increasingly disordered – this until all identities within the universe cease to be upon obtainment of maximal entropy. From this vantage, increased entropy leads to increased disorder (namely, relative to the parts of the universe as whole).

On the other hand, when considering the cosmos’s identity as a whole: increased entropy will simultaneously result in an increased order of the cosmos’s being as a whole - this till maximal entropy is obtained, wherein the identity of all parts of the cosmos vanish so as to result in a maximally ordered, maximally harmonious or cohesive, and maximally homogeneous identity of the universe. From this vantage, increased entropy leads to increased order (namely, relative to the universe as whole).

You might not agree with this, but hopefully I’ve better expressed the perspective which I previously mentioned.

I acknowledge that argument/observation. Thanks for the correction.

So back to the LEM not being derived from the LNC. Having mulled it over some, should have said the LEM is derived from the Law of Identity (LID) via notions obtained from the LNC – with the LNC being derived from the LID. For instance: If A is A (ID) then A cannot both be A and not-A at the same time and in the same respect (NC); next, if the LID and the LNC, neither can A be something intermediate between A and not-A which, thereby, would be neither A nor not-A.

Any objections to that formulation? For the record, I don’t know of any non-arbitrary way to obtain the LEM in manners not derived from, else dependent on, the LID via notions of “A and not-A” provided in the LNC. If you happen to, curious to learn of them.

As an aside: Dialetheism to me … well, let’s say doesn’t exist on the very grounds that it does.

What then do you make of this:

The law of excluded middle is logically equivalent to the law of noncontradiction by De Morgan's laws [...] — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_excluded_middle

And this:

The [law of excluded middle] should not be confused with the semantical principle of bivalence, which states that every proposition is either true or false. — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_excluded_middle

I know, it's Wikipedia. Still...

Thanks for the account. As previously, some minor metaphysical differences between us - you say the end-state of the universe is a physicalist’s Heat Death, I say it’s some cosmic form of Nirvana, kind of thing :razz: - but I respect your metaphysics in its own right. (And have few doubts that many here about don't much respect mine.)

But to rephrase things in as simpleton a fashion as I can currently produce: The entropy of given X within the universe leads to disorder relative to given X (its permanency, or identity, or determinacy steadily ceasing to be), but simultaneously leads to greater order in respect to the universe itself as a whole. Entropy thereby simultaneously increases disorder and order relative to parts and to everything, respectively. Is that about right? If it’s not, please correct this interpretation as needed.

ps. Glad to see you're still around. :grin:

So a more general definition of entropy would be grounded in an information theoretic perspective. What about this world counts as a degree of uncertainty or surprise in relation to my simplest model of it as a system? [...] A truely entropic situation would be if the balls could randomly take on any colour at any time. Even as you grouped them, they could switch colour on you. Or split, merge, be in multiple places at once, etc.

[...]

Then at the other end of the story, you have the Heat Death which - to our best knowledge - will be a state of immense order and uniformity ... measured from a relative point of view. — apokrisis

Wanted to read your thoughts on what I’ve traditionally viewed to be a contradictory semantics between IT notions of entropy and, for lack of better phrasing, empirical notions of entropy. Trying to keep things short:

IT notions of entropy equate entropy to degrees of uncertainty - to which I'll add: such that multiplicities of possibility result that thereby diminish what is, or else can be, ontically certain and, hence, determinate. I naturally further interpret that the more extreme the ontic uncertainty, or indeterminacy, of a given the more chaotic the given becomes.

On the other hand, the empirical notion of entropy holds it that the process of entropy moves individual givens via paths of least environmental resistance toward an end-state of maximal order and uniformity.

In short, increasing IT’s entropy results in increased disorder. Whereas increasing entropy when empirically understood results in increased, global, homogenized order.

To me, this is 180 degree turn in semantics.

I’m partial to what I’ve here labeled the empirical notion of entropy (entropy leading toward a global, homogenized order), and can’t so far find means of making it cohesive with IT’s notions of entropy.

You’ve made use of both notions. How do you make sense of them in manners devoid of equivocation? Hopefully I’m missing out on something here.

Can you say that I am not God? — Punshhh

Because I get the feeling this question might easily be misconstrued by many (here hoping I'm interpreting it properly enough):

A Yogi informs his pupil that his pupil is God. The pupil then sits on a street and attempts to telepathically stop an elephant from further approaching the pupil from afar. The ridden elephant approaches and nearly knocks over the pupil, who quickly runs away at this point - leaving an audience of spectators to laugh at the pupil in an uproar. The pupil informs his Yogi of this, who then laughs at the pupil in turn, saying, “Well, yes, you are God … just as the elephant you tried to stop and all spectators that laughed at you are also God.”

This is paraphrased from a parable told by someone whom I can’t currently recall. Still … it’s a mystic’s take on the existence of God.

By the way, when did you meet my cat? — tim wood

Dude, up until now, didn't know it was yours!

@fishfry nicely addressed the dichotomy between zero and one.

As to "yes" and "no" there is "maybe". Example: "Will you be going to the event?"; here "yes" (I am decided on going), "no" (I am decided on not going), and the intermediate of "maybe" (I have not yet decided whether or not I will go) call all make sense.

As to true and false, there can be propositionally expressed partial truths which are thereby incomplete and, in so being, can at least given the epistemic impression of being partially false. A relatively easy, but trite, example is most any honest answer to the question of "what do you see?" That one is focusing one's visual attention on some item, say a lamp, is true. But it is equally true that one also sees a plethora of other items while focusing one's visual attention on the lamp - for instance, that on which the lamp rests and the immediate background to the lamp. So, at least form one semantic angle, the answer of "I'm seeing a lamp" will be a partial truth - also being partially false in not conveying all the other givens that are likewise seen by me simultaneously. Here, no deception is intended - but one cannot help but give a partial truth to the question. Hence, if you ask me what I see, I reply "a rock", and you then interpret by this that I don't see the mountain behind the rock, I wouldn't have lied to you about what I do and don't see - even though I also saw the mountain in the background.

BTW, I so far find that the Law of Excluded Middle always applies to cases where the alternatives are at least interpreted to be clearly dichotomized. The cat is either inside the room or outside the room - with no middle ground possible in this clear dichotomy between "inside" and "outside". But change the contextual semantics one interprets and one can change the possibilities addressed, thereby changing the parameters of what is intended by some given statement. For example, to answer that "the cat is both inside and outside the room" can make sense without negating either the Law of Excluded Middle or the Law of Noncontradiction, from which the former is derived - this by interpreting the cat to be sitting on the threshold of the given room's door. Here, the state of affairs of the cat is to be both inside and outside the room or, else, neither inside nor outside the room, in perfectly noncontradictory manners.

Hence, imo, all apparent contradictions are either contradictory and thereby nonsense or, else, can be interpreted to be partial truths. The statement, "they're the same but different" serves as an example: it either intends "same" and "not the same" at the same time and in the same respect as a middle between the two - in which case its nonsense - or that they're the same in one way and not the same in a different way at the same time - in which case it's use is intended to convey a noncontradictory state of affairs without in any way negating the Law of the Excluded Middle. Just that it does this without explicitly stating what the addressed, complete state of affairs is, and so can be interpreted as an expressed partial truth.

Same then applies to statements such as "neither is there a self nor is there not a self": these are either nonsense due to being contradictory and thereby breaking with the Law of the Excluded Middle or, else, convey more complex and noncontradictory states of affair by expressing partial truths. Hence, as with the cat being neither inside nor outside the room, but in-between on the door's threshold, were these statements to be nonconctradictory, they then would not break with the Law of the Excluded Middle.

So:

I would like to ask if, in terms of truth, do we only have true or false, zero or one, yes or no, or does exist something else in the middle describing something between the two. — mads

In my opinion, givens can occur in the middle of these conceptual dichotomies, but, when they do so occur, they will yet manifest in manners accordant to the Law of Noncontradicition and the Law of the Excluded Middle.

But maybe I'm deviating too much from the thread's content with the aforementioned.

But, the poems are pretty and have their own kind value, yes like a sunset, but also in their own highly novel way. — csalisbury

Sometimes aesthetic the way sunsets are sometimes aesthetic - and since no two sunsets are ever exactly the same ... aesthetic in their own novel ways. Yes. :up: No qualms there.

I wouldn't necessarily agree with the intent to convey meaning, but that may just be a matter of semantics. The reason is something close to what I belive James Baldwin to be talking about here (in an interview with Paris Review:

"When you are standing in the pulpit, you must sound as though you know what you’re talking about. When you’re writing, you’re trying to find out something which you don’t know. The whole language of writing for me is finding out what you don’t want to know, what you don’t want to find out. But something forces you to anyway."

I think the best art is an articulation which, in being articulated, reveals both to the reader and the writer its meaning - its not a message intended ahead of time. — csalisbury

Very nice quote. Yes, approaching this from my own experiences, I agree with what you address being an important aspect to the process of art creation. To use my own words and understandings here, artistic manifestation is as much a conscious as it is an unconscious goal oriented (hence, intended) processes. In my own experience at making (sometimes crappy) art, the conscious self chooses - if only emotively - between what the unconscious self throws up at it while at first having, maybe, a generalized intention of producing X; and, at the end of the process, what one ends up with is outcome Y - which resembles X only in the most basic structural ways, but is in many ways utterly different, and unforeseen at the very commencement. And this the final product, when it receives the last stamp of approval by its creator, so to speak, reveals meaning to the conscious creator as well as communicating some basic aspect of what the conscious creator intended. Revealed meaning that on occasion can leave the conscious creator in awe in terms of what is gained and learned from what was created (rather than from the egoistic sense of what “I” made). But, notwithstanding, for me the conscious self’s goal-oriented decisions between the alternatives which the unconscious self presents nevertheless play a role throughout. And in this, I'd like to think that the conscious self chooses the meaning which the final product conveys - even if the meaning is only that of a particular aesthetic devoid of conceptual content. .

Its nice to have such complex aspects of art creation brought up and discussed.

It's sort of off topic, but those mechanisms of behavioural modification are already in place. [...] it'd be able to link personal experience to words and generalise from it, just not "its own" experience. — fdrake

Most of what you say here goes without saying, but it misses the point I was making: not its own experience on account of it not being sentient, or conscious, or aware, or cognizant. That is, not until Strong AI comes about, if it ever will.

As in cordoning off poetry from machine functionality? Nah; that's super prevalent in the thread for mostly unargued reasons. — fdrake

Hmm, I’ve given an opening argument for why art, poetry included, necessitates some sentient being’s intention to convey meaning here - thereby precluding Weak AI from being creators of (authentic) poetry, for they lack sentience and thereby sentient intentions to convey meaning. These un-emotional arguments have so far not been addressed, and so have not been debunked.

For the record, I’m more than open to learning how artistic manifestations can be denoted as occurring in the absence of sentient intentions to convey meaning, this without wreaking havoc on commonsense understandings of what constitutes art.

Ego defense mechanism metaphysics everywhere. — fdrake

Seems like this is true for all sides of this issue, at least in relation to some.

Anxious about what? — Brett

There being so much data to feed gigantic models that they're getting extremely close to being functionally indistinguishable from human conduct in limited domains. The all too rapid and usually hidden encroachment of machine learning techniques (faciliated by panvasive surveillance and automated tabulation of all human experience) into the folk thought ineluctable freedoms of our souls. — fdrake

Speaking for myself, you’re projecting metaphysical issues way too much into this. When and if a technological singularity will occur, whatever sentient beings have that distinguishes them from rocks will be had by Strong AI as well in equal measure. Be this the “ineluctable freedoms of souls” or something else. Thereby making whatever metaphysical issue one has qualms about mute in this respect. And besides, anxiety is not it. Anxiety is reserved for more pertinent things.

Again speaking for myself, the issue I was mentioning earlier is that of non-autonomous, non-sentient, decoys which mimic the autonomous and sentient behavior of humans. It’s fathomable that these can be built by humans with big loads of cash and programed so as to manipulate the other humans into beliefs that serve the short sighted interests of those who spend the money on building these decoys. Don’t know about you, but I don’t like the notion of living in (or, more likely, of today’s children growing up to live in) a world of vastly greater misinformation, misinformation that is propagated by AI decoys to boot. As one example, put enough chat bots on the internet which argue for Earth being flat and you’ll have an increased number of voters who vote on the conviction that Earth is in fact flat. This being a very innocuous example.

Robots aren't conscious; and they produce interesting poems. Can we start from there, please? No one is demeaning actual poets, including me; but almost all comments seem to be defending poetry as real against the robots. Yeah, I agree, but I never for a second felt threatened by them - why do so many people here? — csalisbury

Yes, there is a bit of discomfort that I feel in seeing noteworthy aesthetics originated by a non-sentient entity with a significant degree of regularity. An aesthetics which I grant being present in the technical know-how that the AI acquired.

As to the OP’s presentation, I’m grateful for it. Thanks. Good to know such things. As to philosophical comments on what the OP presents, I think one underlying issue is the nature of what art is:

A sunrise can, on some occasions, be beautiful. Does this of itself make the sunrise art? I’ll argue that if and only if one assumes that the sunrise was the intentional creation of one or more sentient originators, one can then hold that the sunrise is art. If no such assumption is made, the aesthetics of the sunrise then does not get interpreted as an instantiation of art. Same will then apply, for example, to some dog accidentally kicking over a number of paint buckets with the result of an aesthetic arrangement of colors. Since no aesthetics was intended, the dog did not create a work of art.

On the other hand, I can mason a brick wall without any intention of conveying anything by it. I would be a sentient originator of the brick wall but, because there was nothing I intended to communicate by it, it would not be to me an instantiation of art. However, after the brick wall is finished, I then place a loose random brick on top of it with the explicit intention of conveying “the precarious nature of abstraction is always supported by a solid substratum of concreteness”. (Why not, right?) This brick I subsequently place on top the brick wall I built is now to me an artistic manifestation, thought the brick wall is not. And it will to me be art irrespective of how good an art piece it is. (In this case, not that great.)

In these scenarios, the difference between that which is and is not art is the occurrence of a sentient being’s intention to convey meaning via that which they originate. To this effect, even ordinary conversations can be deemed to be an art form. And, as goes without saying, poetry is a form of art.

Because the AI program is not sentient, it lacks this intention of conveying meaning. Yet what it produces mimics the outcomes of just such an intention.

There is discomfort in this, for me at least. A bit off topic relative to the OP, but pertinent to the issue of discomfort: AI chat bots are known to exist. They’re not perfect, but are improving by the day. The Orwellian implications of, for example, the degree of propaganda that can occur on social media platforms as a result … are for me unpleasant to think about. And present day AI’s ability to mimic human poetry to me points in such directions.

At any rate, with this I’m just trying to convey where my discomfort is coming from.

As to it being real poetry, verses mimicked poetry - and as per my previous examples - can it be real if it was not originated via a sentient being’s intention to express something of meaning?

:blush: Blushing on account of your reply, but thanks. Yea, I agree with your embellishments in terms of love poems. Definitely.

There are many reasons to engage in art, poetry included. Two of these that I’ve so far found most central are a) a need to express something this is otherwise inexpressible via commonplace language and b) a need to imbibe this expression with the closest proximity one can get to a perfect, and thereby powerful, aesthetic. To me everything else is technical know-how that can be learned via (a) and (b), but which when devoid of (a) and (b) will seem somewhat hollow.

I’ve for example worked with a visual artist that excelled at technical know-how, but was always going about asking others what he should draw or paint next—not having an internal impetus to express something of personal significance for as long as I’ve known him. To me, at least, there was always something missing form his otherwise exceptionally portrayed artwork.

The AI poetry reminds me of this high level of technical know-how sans the burning desire to express something that one holds to be important—to me, for the obvious reason that the AI is not strong AI endowed with consciousness. For example:

Between mouthfuls of apple pie,
they discuss the panda's defection,
the new twelfth-man problem, the low
cardinality of Jesus, and whether
Saint John broke the bread at the Lord's Supper
instead of the guest Aava.
Their talk is either philosophical
on the one hand, or distressing personal
on the other.
Eve, it is whispered, died of exposure. — csalisbury

At the risk of sounding stupid or snobbish—which I probably will—what is it that this stanza (or poem?) communicates? There’s a lot of technical know-how to it, but what is its content—moreover, a content whose aesthetic reaches into my being, captivating me, in manners that refuse to let go (so that I will remember it's affect upon me a long time after)? One can project abstractions into it—just as one can into a blank canvas—in this particular case, maybe something about the ennui of certain conversations. Still, why would this quoted poem not be one more case of the emperor’s new clothes phenomena?

As an apropos, for decades now, one litmus test for good quality poetry I’ve pointed out to is the poet's ability to express the positive aspects of intense romantic love via metaphorical concepts in manners that don’t result in kitsch, i.e. in something one deems to be silly if not worse. This to me is one of the most difficult things to accomplish via poetry.

I don’t foresee being elated and enlightened about romantic love by AI produced poems within my life. Still, if enough good quality love poems are poured into some AI program, and if monkeys at typewriters could type out a good quality play if given sufficient time, what AI could accomplish in the future in this respect is to me an interesting question.

So if we take the OP seriously, and think this an interesting question, and we think that I could have been other than bert1, then we must think that "I", even when spoken by bert1 does not entirely mean "bert1". — bert1

I’m having a hard time following. IMV, and in disagreement with causal determinism, of course you could have been other than who you are, but you would still be you.

You present an issue of signified and signifier, or of designated and designator, in reference to identity. “bert1” designates you as a particular conscious being – which, as such, is a composite of particular past and present experiences and cognitive actions (here overlooking complexities of body and what determined it to be it … although I’d like not to fall into a dualistic mindset in so doing).

You as a conscious being are designated by “bert1” due to your own choice, cognitive act, of which avatar name to hold. Had you chosen “bert2” instead, the designator would have been different due to your different cognitive actions. So you as designated conscious being would have held a different history of cognitive actions and would thereby now be a different you.

There is the truism that a rose by a different name is still a rose. But, firstly, this would be a different designation provided from without that which is being designated – thereby not altering the internal history, so to speak, of that which is designated. Secondly, and maybe here more pertinently, without going into the details of what you as a particular conscious being specifies, every change in your experiences and cognitive actions is a change in what you as a conscious being are. However, if we’re searching for the you that remains relatively continuous over expansive periods of time – this so as to ask why are you you and not some other – this is a fuzzy or else elusive topic. An age old question that can be simplified into the dictum, know thyself.

It seems to me that prior to premising what you as a conscious being are, questions of why you are the conscious being you are rather than being some other will be devoid of grounding.

Or if I completely misconstrued, are you by "I" referring to awareness in general? But then are we not individual instantiations of this general property, individualized by our experiences and actions?

Haven't read the whole thread, so hopefully I'm not repeating topics.

------

BTW, I have the suspicion that the OP was aiming at trying to prove solipsism. :grin: If so, I’m glad you took things in the direction that you did! A whole bunch of “solipsists” conversing and debating over why I’m me and not some other … makes for a nice rebuttal. :up:

Without the underlying logic of the soul choosing, and it being a matter of chosen opinion what is in the soul, or if the soul is real, then the concept of the soul is arbitrary meaninglessness. — Syamsu

I do find the notion of soul to be somewhat arbitrary when comparing different cultures, but not altogether meaningless. I’m guessing there might be something that, however imperfectly, is being referenced in all cultures by the notion of soul. As a very simplistic metaphor, that to which the conscious self is tethered across the timespan of an entire life as though by a rubber-band – such that one’s character can be more this or that but will always come back to some general, core attributes of character – could be likened to a person’s soul. Can’t currently think of an interpretation of soul where this wouldn’t be the case. Would be interested to find out about such.

As to the soul being that which makes choices, it might make choices, but even in common Christian theology it is held that the soul can be sold (and bought) by the choices of conscious selves. So, even here there is maintained a distinction between soul and the conscious self which chooses – although not necessarily one of otherness.

I think you could potentially square this with the buddhist 'no-soul' (I'm not sure, I know only the very basics of Buddhism) by seeing the soul less as a fixed thing (as the parameters of thought often our in our 'minds' if we've grown sclerotic) than a kind of ephemeral unfolding its own right - ephemeral, but with continuity — csalisbury

I like this interpretation. Likely because I happen to agree with it. :wink:

The ego is a kind of psychic structure that emerges (?) from the world soul. It expresses the world's potential to cling protectively to a single vantage point. — frank

I (too?) have an affinity to the world soul. On a more analytical note, this concept seems to me to then necessitate some form or other of panpsychism. But, while I like the concept of a world soul emotively, I can’t yet make heads or tails in relation to panpsychism intellectually – this once details are gotten into.

Continuing with the terminology you've used:

I placed this thread in General philosophy rather than Metaphysics due to an initial intention to not engage in debate pro or contra the significance of specific Aristotelian causes. All the same, I find a lot more significance to formal and final causes than what you’ve outlined.

As an example of formal causation: I don’t subscribe to a temporal causation between brain and consciousness. I do subscribe to a somewhat complex formal causation between the two which, as such, occurs in simultaneity between causes and effects. Complex because it encompasses both bottom-up processes and top-down processes. Yet both these process types occur in simultaneity. We might disagree in this, but maybe you can via this example understand why formal causation is to me of great significance.

As to the metaphysical significance of teleological causation, this would depend on the metaphysical significance one ascribes to conscious and mind in general – and, thereby, to cognitive actions. While there as sub- and unconscious cognitive acts of whose intentions we consciously have little if any awareness of, I maintain that mind is in significant part teleological, end-product driven. Because no efficient causations could be apprehended in the absence of minds, I then find teleological causation to be of great significance in its own right.

I’m happy to further this, but. more in line with my reason for starting this thread, do you have any qualms in terming Aristotle’s four modes of explanation four types of causes? Or would you rather that the term “causes” is reserved for only those causes/determinants that are temporally prior to their effects?

So there are determinations which are not causes. Though mathematicians will say things like "it causes the only element left to be three". — fdrake

Thank you for the example.

If meaning is use, and if the determinant can be stated via common language use to be a cause but can likewise be stated via same to not be a cause, the issue of whether it is proper for the determinant that is being referenced to be termed “a cause” still remains muddled, at least to me.

To try to better explain the equivocations I find in the term “cause”:

In Aristotelian terms, the scenario you’ve presented could be explained via formal causation: The singular form of {3} is being fixed, else established, via the property offered of “not equal to 1 or 2 in the set: {1,2,3}” – such that while the property offered is contemporaneous with the determined 3 (the two are not temporally separated) there would not be this determination in absence of the offered property. This is fully in line with counterfactual definitions of causation: X causes Y iff, where X to not be or occur, Y would not be or occur. This, then, makes this exemplified determinacy causal when going by the counterfactual definition of causation – at least, again, when causation is interpreted in Aristotelian terms. But then, as I believe you implicitly express, this is not an efficient causation wherein causes temporally precede their effects and, therefore, is not what we today commonly deed to be a causal process.

The same counterfactual definition can be applied to material causation: e.g., a wooden sphere would not have the particular buoyancy it does (its buoyancy being the given effect Y) if it were not made of the given wood (this being the material cause X to the particular buoyancy as effect Y); hence, X causes Y because were X to not be or occur Y would not be or occur; yet, as with formal causation, here X and Y are contemporaneous – and so cannot be deemed causal in the sense of efficient causation where X temporally precedes Y. Notwithstanding, it can be easily said that the sphere’s buoyancy is caused by the wood form which it is composed: the wood causes the buoyancy.

Likewise for teleological causation. An intention X causes choice Y in so far as Y would not have been or occurred as a choice in the absence of intention X. Yet the intention, the goal – which is the striven for future which occurs in the present – occurs contemporaneously with the choice that is being taken. The process is not an efficient causation. Nevertheless, although a bit more awkward to our ear, we can express that, “His desire to be win first place in the upcoming race caused him to choose practicing over the party he was invited to.”

If one defines causation as a process wherein the cause temporally precedes the effect, then formal, material, and teleological causes cannot be properly termed “causes” – for in the latter three cases that which determines is contemporaneous with that which is thereby determined. Yet – especially for someone like myself who finds value in Aristotle’s four determinants, or causes (or, at today more commonly translated, explanations) – whether or not this prescription is adequate becomes murky on account of common language use sometimes expressing these same three determinacies as causal processes.

That said, because I can only construe all causes to be determinants (of effects) – may I be corrected if counterexamples exist! – and because some determinants are often concluded to not be causes – as is illustrated in your post – I so far remain inclined to think it best to specify causes as one subtype of determinants. Namely, that subtype of determinacy wherein that which determines is temporally prior to that which is being determined.

So the short version of all this: I so far agree.

It seems to me that the difference is simply temporal. Both events are required to occur in sequence, one before the other - writing a program and then running the program on a computer - for the image to appear on the screen. You can't run a program that hasn't been written. — Harry Hindu

I agree that in both examples the processes are temporal. So, if I’m interpreting you correctly, you’re saying that (efficient) causation is necessarily temporal whereas determinacy in general is not. Hence, material, formal, and teleological determinacy can each occur in simultaneity relative to that which determines and that which is thereby determined – whereas efficient determinacy, what we today most often interpret as causation, is always temporal. If so, I agree with this as well.

Going by this, it currently seems to me that it would be more accordant with modern English use to specify causation as being a peculiar subspecies of determinacy: namely, that one subspecies of determinacy which is necessarily temporal.

So, then, we have multiple possible types of determinacy with only one such type being properly termed causation. In which case, as one example, we ought not say "material cause" but, instead, "material determinant". Or, as another example, we ought not use the phrase "teleological causes" but "teleological determinants".

When I write a dynamical systems program to obtain an image, I determine the image. When the program runs, it causes the image to appear. — jgill

Right, good example. So when you determine the image via X, Y, and Z, how do you not cause the properties of the image via these same means? And when the running program causes the image to appear, is not the image’s appearance determined by the running program?

I’m trying to figure out what, if anything, makes the two different.

If “to determine” signifies “to fix the form or character of”, how is a determinant not a cause, or a cause not a determinant?

You can either refer to a fantasy world where A does indeed cause (or determine) B.
Or otherwise if you want to refer to the 'real world' you will have to rely on statistics (and perhaps the inferred probability associated with those statistics.) — A Seagull

To be clear, in your view causation doesn’t exist? Or are you alluding to probabilistic causation? If the former, why maintain this? If the latter, I’m so far finding the same semantic difficulties between cause and determinant with probabilistic causation.

Nice OP.

If we had no memory of the previous moments how would we ever know there was a "then" to this "now", a "cause" to this "effect". — Benj96

In such a hypothetical, wouldn't inference be sufficient? Here thinking of people with certain forms of amnesia, but taken to an extreme. As I was recently expressing in a different thread, the experienced present, or now, can not so be experienced if devoid of duration. So, when I hear a hammer hitting a nail, there will be a beginning to this sound that occurs before this sound ends, even though this sound will as experience occur within the timespan of the present moment I experience, from its beginning to its end. Normally, this then gets changed into memory of what once was the present but no longer is. But sans any such memory, some befores and afters would yet be experienced to occur within the duration of the experienced present moment. From this, I'm thinking that one could then infer that what occurs in the present had a "before the present moment" to it - even if one could not remember such past moments.

Even a hiker at the base of a mountain experiences slower time passage than one at the top even if infitisimally small. Your now is different to mine. When I react instantly to something you see it occur slightly afterward at a different point in "time" due to the fact we occupy different space. — Benj96

Yet, experientially speaking - here momentarily placing aside the mathematical models of time of which we know - when we causally interact, will we not at such juncture share a commonly experienced reality of what temporally occurs during the present between us - this in contrast to what has already occurred between us? In other words, when we causally interact with each other don't we then share a commonly experienced now - a commonly shared present moment that isn't duration-devoid - wherein we act and react to each other?

You were born now and you are reading this now and you will die now. — Benj96

Even when presuming a presentist position, the now I currently find myself is neither my birth as an infant nor my death as (hopefully) and oldtimer. Even if the present is all that materially exists, the present is ever changing, such that what is memory and forethought - though only knowable in the present - reflects either former present moments that no longer materially are or, otherwise, future present moments that have yet to materially be. Not just for one or two, but for every living entity, arguably including bodily cells and neurons. For the record, I subscribe to this form of presentism.

Ah, saw that @prothero already gave a lengthy reply. I'll stop short. Save to comment on this:

I'm skeptical to believe time actually exists in the universe. — Benj96

What then is you're take on the proposition that conscious beings exist in the universe? If we exist in the universe and our so being requires that we are aware of time, then wouldn't time necessarily also exist in the universe?

I don't personally favor Cartesian dualism, so I'm inclined to believe the contrary of what this last quote affirms. I'd say that mathematical models don't require time to exist in the universe, but these are models of what is experientially evidenced: they are a mapping of the road, but not the road itself.

If reality fails to push back will the GOP march ahead in the vein of the creation of an alternate reality? Has this threshold already been crossed? Can this threshold be pinpointed? — ZzzoneiroCosm

That the Republican Party has the gall to call itself the Good Old Party - as contrasted to what? - and that others, including myself, have nowadays come to use this same euphemism in acronym form, says a lot.

Reality will always bite back - but not always in what we consider to be timely manners.

While I neither wish to bum out nor insult anyone, on the darkly humored side of things, here’s an answer to the question, “What Keeps Mankind Alive?”



I’m in agreement with the general sentiment you express. Still, sort of in line with this linked song, there are quite a bit of bestial acts which mankind engages in worldwide. In a sense, mankind is what it is due to its inhumanity, due to its cruelty, so that were all or most humans to miraculously become humane overnight, mankind as we know it would vanish and be replaced by something we can hardly imagine.

Cruelty is first bred in a person from some sort of basic want, be it of food, or warmth, or fairness. And once this cruelty comes to fruition in a person, it won’t be easily dissuaded.

There’s a lot of cruelty in the world, which plays a very significant role in breeding more basic wants in newcomers to it, which then turns into a vicious cycle. How to alleviate these basic wants in those that haven’t yet become cruel, and this in spite of the cruelty that already exists, is to me the pivotal question.

Otherwise, those that are cruel hold different goals than those who are not. And most often the goals of the former are shortsighted when it comes to humanity at large, to not mention the biosphere or the planet upon which we all depend.

I like the idea - I don't know where it originates, but it crops up here and there - of the soul as something you have a relationship with. It's like something you take care of, but which, in its turn, inspires and aids you. The soul is also you, or part of you, but you're also something in addition which tends to it. Not a philosophical definition, but I think its a nice one. — csalisbury

In a way reminds me of the Golden Compass. Haven’t read the book but I liked the movie. It's why I mention it.

How do you feel about the Latin concept of anima as soul – in contrast to the animus as mind? The anima, to my understanding, is at least in part that which causes one to be endowed with breath, quite literally. It’s there even when you’re in dream-devoid sleep and hold no consciousness. Whereas animus, mind, tmk is at least in part that which deals with conflicts at a conscious level, as in conflicting ideas and drives that one as consciousness has to contend with.

Then again, there’s the Buddhist stance of no such thing as a permanent self, the stance of no-soul, as it’s sometimes translated. Still, in fairness to the Buddhist platform, here there’s still something of semi-permanence that persists lifetime to lifetime. I take it this up to the time Nirvana is obtained.

I'm not talking about a duration devoid present. I am talking about how experience exists. I believe that understanding what I am describing, necessitates a twofold understanding of time, a two dimensional time. Time has "length", what we call temporal extension. But since the intellectualized "present" is used to divide one part of this extension from another, past from future, as a point in time (your duration-less present), yet the present necessarily has duration, as you describe, we must allow for this duration at the present, by giving time width, what I call the "breadth" of time. You can search this idea online, but it's difficult to find much information on it because it's mystical, and physicists who experiment with multidimensional time use a completely different approach with different presumptions. — Metaphysician Undercover

I’m somewhat baffled. Namely, if this was your stance all along, why all the fuss in relation to what I’ve been saying. Such as your accusation of “complete illogicality” in reference to hearing a bird’s chirp within the timespan of the experienced present - prior to this experience becoming a memory of what once was and, hence, the experienced past.

At any rate, glad to see that we agree on the temporal extension of the experienced present.

Think of a piece of music, a melody. You hear a note, then the next note and the next, and so on. — Metaphysician Undercover

Musical notes are representational models of what is heard – an intellectualization of what is experienced, so to speak. “Notes” in English usage only retroactively reference the very sound that a note otherwise represents. Otherwise, one might as well speak of sounds, and not of notes. Even so, musical notes have duration embedded in them via their note value. So each note one hears in the present holds a specific duration of time. Be it via a piano key being struck, via the plucking of a guitar string, as so on.

There is no such thing as a duration-less sound – to be even clearer, no such thing as the experience of a duration-less sound. When we speak to each other, for example, we do not apprehend what is said at any given present moment by relating past beginnings and future endings of particular verbal sounds within some duration-less present.

There are sounds we hear in the present, there are sounds we remember, and there are sounds we anticipate. Those that occur in the present can only have duration.

But how is that not completely illogical? The bird's chirp has temporal extension, so you hear the beginning of it before you hear the end of it. — Metaphysician Undercover

A bird's chirp, just like a musical note, has a duration. Like a musical note compared to an entire song, a bird's individual chirp is not the entirety of the bird's song. The temporally extended present moves through the duration of both songs while hearing individual chirps an notes in the present. But each bird's individual chirp, like each individual note of a melody - with both chirp and note having a beginning and end to a duration - will be apprehended within the experienced present, not the experience past nor the experienced future.

I'll reciprocate the same tonality by asking in turn:

How is the concept of a duration-devoid present wherein sound is experienced not "completely illogical"?

This is clearly not true, due to the nature of time. — Metaphysician Undercover

As your reply just reminded me, we disagree on the nature of time. While I don’t want to turn this tread into a discussion of time, to me the present is experienced to be extended and not duration-less – nor is it experienced to be extended via Plank lengths of time, which is already a model derived from what is experienced (and thereby experientially known) and not the experience itself. As one example, my presently hearing a bird’s chirp (to be clear about temporal extension, for a bird’s chirp has duration) occurs in the present – from the beginning of the chirp to its end; my memory of a bird’s chirp (even if one I recently heard) references an aspect of the past; and any prediction, for example, of when I might hear another bird’s chirp is an aspect of the future. Yet neither my memory of what has occurred in the world nor my forethought of what will occur in the world reference what I experience to be presently occurring in the world around me. The present is ever changing and fleeting, yes, like a current (hence, "the current moment"); and the present we adult humans find ourselves in is always typically for most and most of the time (editing the "always": a common example: when one spaces out there sometime is experienced only the present sans any past or future) in conflux with cognizance of both past and future, yes; yet the present, of itself, is experientially – is experienced to be – extended. And this experienced duration of the present occurs in manners that cannot be easily, if at all, quantified – the duration of the experienced present moment certainly cannot be plotted onto a chart.

Again, I don’t want to turn this thread into a discussion of time. But because we approach the nature of time differently, we approach the issue of experiential knowledge differently. I’m happy to leave it at that on this thread.

You're missing the point. To know that you hold the property of being requires that you conceptualize the property of being. — Metaphysician Undercover

No. The point was one of experiential knowledge. A concept is a generalized idea of which one is aware, abstracted from what else if not concrete instantiations of experience? And how can a concept be known if at least some of the concrete instantiation of experience from which the concept is abstracted are not themselves known (hence, experiential knowledge)? But I’ll reference back to the first part of this post.

Our foundational beliefs contain all the attributes of knowledge and justification. — boethius

Have to go soon, however: If a so deemed bedrock belief - such as that of experiencing two hands - can be justified, why do you then object to it being termed a known? This, btw, is what my initial post was in reply to.

As a reminder, it is widely held that the law of non-contradiction cannot be justified on account of being a first principle. Again though, if it can, why would it not then be a known?

That there cannot be a justification is the concept of bedrock beliefs. — boethius

In a way I agree. Yet, as per Aristotle, this addresses the laws by which beliefs become justified. However, as to so termed bedrock beliefs such as that of experiencing having two hands, I gave an example of how such may be justified.

Sure, but this adds no content to our idea of truth. Real is just another word for truth to add to our list; useful in certain situations to clarify ordinary language but adding no new content. — boethius

I'll acknowledge that for all of Wittgenstein's sometimes profound insights, I don't find things to be a game of words all the way down - such that turtles are replaced with words. To me, meaningful words have referents to their users - and sometimes, as with the word "real", these referents hold objective existence, rather than being the concoction of individuals who find agreement in that which they invent, or create . "What is real" is therefore to me not a word game. I'm hoping, or presuming, that we don't find too much disagreement in this.

If "real" as a conceptual abstraction has a referent that impartially applies to all - thereby, imv, making truth likewise meaningful - this referent will occur regardless of the words used, or even if any words are used at all. Yet there clearly occurs numerable disagreements of what "real" as sign signifies. That a coffee mug is real in no way addresses, for example, whether or not physicalism is real. So analysis of what is and is not real seem to me to be appropriate.

If language use via word-game rules was all there is to it, to me it would be on par to saying, "stop thinking about things and be ignorant". Yet this implicit commandment of what one must do is antagonistic to, at the very least, any and all discovery - rather than, as you say in your latter post, to the "making" of new knowledge.

I agree with the contents of your reply. My emphasis, however, was on bedrock beliefs holding the capacity of being justified to be true. And, by extension, of certain bedrock beliefs then holding the capacity to constitute knowledge in the JTB sense of the term.

and our foundational belief that some things are true and what that means has no further analytic content. — boethius

I'll argue that we are psychologically incapable, even in principle, of forsaking the notion of truth as that which is in accordance with what is real. We might abstract the term truth in multiple ways, going even so far as to say there is no truth, but in all these cases there will remain our psychological dependency on what is existentially real.

Would this not qualify as "further analytic content"?

Saying "I know..." often means that I have the proper grounds, as Wittgenstein points out. — Sam26


Yes, Wittgenstein is simply correct. "I know I have a hand" or then more basic sense experience that makeup that "knowledge" if you prefer (i.e. I know there's something I grab things with that people call "a hand"), is not knowledge but belief. It's simply the axioms that makeup our knowledge framework. It's knowledge in the sense that we believe it to be true, but it's not knowledge in the sense that we have prior knowledge to justify it. — boethius

I can think of a way around this, at least for some aspects of experience. As you later note, belief is hard to pin down, so I'll here be assuming something along the lines that all experiences are tacitly believed.

That “I know I have two hands” might not be the best example, so, instead, I’ll make use of “I know that I experience having two hands”.

As a caveat: Being a fallibilist, I could come up with a general argument for why this belief is not infallible. Rather than saying it outright, inklings of this argument might indirectly show up in what follows. That said:

The tacit belief that I experience myself to have two hands, upon enquiry, is something for which I cannot find any justifiable alternative to once I explicitly address this belief (let an unjustifiable alternative be, for example, the just-so statement that I make, without grounding in either experience or reasoning, stipulating that “I don’t so experience having two hands). Firstly, any conceived (and justifiable) alternative to the given state of affairs introduces some degree of potential error, irrespective of how small this degree of error might be. Nevertheless, one can go so far as BIVs and Cartesian daemons – and my experience of having two hands would still lack justifiable alternatives to me which so experiences having two hands. That my experience of having two hands is, to me, devoid of any justifiable alternative I can fathom relative to this experience will not of itself prove the truth of my so experiencing to have two hands with infallible certainty: The lack of justifiable alternatives can well be due to my subjective faculties of imagination being, by their very nature, limited; and were someone to hypothetically know everything there is to know in principle, maybe such alternative would then be fathomed. Notwithstanding, it could also be the case that I cannot fathom justifiable alternatives to this experience on grounds that no such alternatives in fact exist – and if no conceivable alternatives to my so experiencing can in principle exist, then my so experiencing would necessarily be true. (A tangential emphasis: this doesn't hold vice versa: sometimes what is true can be fathomed to have alternatives.) This state of affairs would then necessarily be the only actual state of affairs that is ontologically, even metaphysically, possible – and not even a supposed omniscient being could discover a scenario of how it could be otherwise.

So, I (or anybody else for that matter) can thereby obtain a JTB account of “I experience having two hands”. I cannot fathom any possible (and justifiable) alternative to my experiencing having two hands while I experience having two hands, which is what would occur were this experience to be true. My bedrock, and typically tacit, belief that I experience having two hands is thereby justified to be true. And, here taking a shortcut, I have as much reason to believe it’s true as I do to believe anything else is true. That I experience having two hands thereby is a JTB and, hence, a known.

The only potential flaw I see in this argument is going from something being justified to be true to something being in fact true. But this has more to do with epistemology in general than with particular bedrock beliefs such as that of “I know I experience having two hands”.

My cat has being (a being), she knows/is her being equally as I am and know my being. She doesn't require intellectualisation to be. Therefore neither do I, so in expelling my intellectualisation of being (putting it to one side), I can experience my being absent conceptualisation. — Punshhh

Here, you are using "know" in a very strange way. You are saying that if someone or something, such as you or your cat, experiences something, then they know that thing. So you claim that you, and your cat, each knows its respective property of being, simply by experiencing that being. But that's not consistent with any acceptable use of "knowing". — Metaphysician Undercover

To butt in slightly, there are experiential knowns. If one experiences X – though knowledge that X is as one experiences it might require more than brute experience – one’s experience of X, as experience, with be a factual given. And, hence, will be a known. For instance, I see a tree while strolling in a park. What I visually interpret to be a tree might, in fact, be an elaborate statue that someone’s placed in the park I’m in and, therefore, not the tree that I visually experience at this juncture. Nevertheless, that I visually experience seeing a tree while so visually experiencing seeing a tree will, of itself, be a known fact to me. Though maybe different in some ways, this is at the very least related to what is termed knowledge by acquaintance. To here rearticulate the point I’m making, my acquaintance with X is known to me simply on account of my acquaintance with X – this irrespective of whether or not X is in fact as I experience it to be.

Then, in reference to experiential knowledge of being: To know one is a being (which to me does not entail a conceptualization of being a thing … I, for example, experientially know that I am – hence that I hold the property of being – without in any way conceptualizing myself to be a thing) all that is required is a tacit awareness of acting and reacting relative to that which one experiences as other – which endows one with direct experiential knowledge of being un-other, or what we term a self, in relation to other. In this sense, a cat has experiential knowledge of being, even though it cannot articulate this experiential knowledge via concepts that it linguistically expresses to itself or others. Its experience of being other than, for example, the mouse it is after or the dog it is standing in relation to will be all that is required for the experiential knowledge of one's own being to occur.

This is at least my take on what @Punshhh was here saying. To the extent we differ, I'm sure Punshhh will elaborate on his own views.

Big point: There is no "self". — Heiko

Since this will be just as laconic:

An equally big point: Neither is there an absence of a first person point of view as self - a plurality of these coexisting in the world, that is.

How does the case of dreams dispel the proposition that "the transcendentally apprehensive self is neither its mind nor its body, though conjoined to both"? — javra

Because your body does not need to be there (as normal) in dreams.
You may very well be right that "dreams are dependent upon the workings of an organism's physiological body". But this is simply not what the "subject" means in trancendental dialectics. Here the perceptions are taken "as-is" without presumptions. — Heiko

Yes, our waking awareness of our physiological body is absent in most REM dreams. All the same, doesn’t there remain the same disparity between subject of awareness and that which it is aware of as other in REM dreams? For instance, if one sees something in an REM dream, does not one see this given from a visual first-person point of view? And if what one sees causes one to be in a state of being of fright, for example, is not one (as a transcendentally apprehensive self) frightened during such juncture at seeing this other during the dream?

I don’t intend to be a badger, so I’ll take a breather from the forum for now.



Just saw this.

That is to say, if “thirst” is an object of awareness and “basketball” is an object of awareness, some method must be instituted in order to tell them apart, which mandates that ideas such as thirst and sadness and such not be converted to phenomena on the one hand, and physical objects of sense not be converted into mere contingent ideas on the other. — Mww

Yes, but of course. I won't bicker too much about term use. But I'm supposing that if well enough defined for the purposes employed beforehand, what you mention shouldn't be a problem.

Thanks again for the replies.