This is why I think rejecting the reality of types also entails rejecting the reality of particulars, insofar as even particulars already belong to the order of types (and vice versa!). — StreetlightX

Right, this is why dismissing the predicate would be a mistake for any ontology. It breaks down the categorical division between the object (particular), and what the object is doing (universal). What follows is the appearance of vagueness, and the illusion that vagueness has real ontic status, when the vagueness is really just due to this sloppy use of language. As I described, this is very evident in the concept of "energy".

I don't get you. You said "there's no actual boundary". You're clearly not talking about apparent boundaries, you're talking about actual boundaries.

No, what I am is not a thing at all. There's awareness ... There's the contents of awareness ... but there's no actual boundary and no 'out there.' So it does seem that any relation is dependent upon an apparent duality. — snowleopard

So you have relations without boundaries, how?

The sides of a square are parallel, a relation. That relation does not make the square exist. I'm not claiming relation prior to existence. But one side of a square exists (existential quantification, not a designation of ontology) in relation to the other sides and to the angles. This doesn't mean any of it has objective existence. — noAxioms

OK, I'll see if I can make sense of this. You are assuming "a square", that is your premise. Now you are talking about the sides of that square. It is all in your mind, the square and the sides, so you say that it has no objective existence. How do you get to the point of talking about things outside of the mind?

Similar, the moon and I stand in relation to each other, and so I say it exists in relation to me, but that is not a declaration of absolute ontology. Yes, the view is a form of ontological nihilism, but I've read up on nihilism, and it is something else. — noAxioms

Now you are talking about the moon. Aren't you assuming that the moon has some sort of existence, before you can talk about a relation between you and the moon?

just quoted what I just posted above. I am not being careful with my wording. I say the moon exists, but formally I say it exists only in relation to me. We're part of the same structure. — noAxioms

Aren't you assuming the existence of this thing, the "structure", in order to make this claim of relations? I still don't see how you get to the point of saying that any of this is outside your mind. The "structure", the "relations", the "moon", they are all just in your mind. How would you give reality to this "structure" if you do not assume that it is a thing outside your mind?

Is not he "recognition of things" entirely relational .. An aware subject in relation to phenomenal objects? — snowleopard

No, I don't agree. You are simply assigning to the "recognition of things", a relational existence. You are simply assuming, falsely concluding, or something along those lines, that a recognition of things is necessarily a subject in relation to objects, but this need not be the case. The recognition of oneself, as a thing, is not a relation. If you posit the recognition of oneself as a relation, then oneself is not an identified thing, but a relation between two distinct things. But that's contradictory to say oneself is two distinct things And if oneself is one identified thing, then it is one and the same thing, and this is not a relation, it is the simple recognition of a thing.

Yes, I feel it does support it. But then the argument falls apart by not solving the problem. It just adds one more turtle under the current unexplained turtle pile, and violates the spirit of the argument by asserting that no more turtles are needed. If that is a valid option, no new turtle is needed. You just declare the bottom one not to need anything to stand on just like you did with the God turtle. — noAxioms

I don't see what you mean by "not solving the problem". Nor do I get the turtle reference. The assumption is "that there is something". The cosmological argument demonstrates that from this assumption it is impossible that there ever was nothing. Therefore the question, why is there something rather than nothing, is solved, it is because it is impossible that there is nothing. But this raises the question of why is it not "possible" that there is nothing

So we can proceed, and replace "nothing" with "the potential for something", or the simple possibility for something. This appears to be a more rational question because we observe that prior to the existence of anything there is the potential, or possibility, for that thing. So to avoid an infinite regress (perhaps this is the turtle reference), we might assume a time when there was the potential for things, but no actual things. This is what the cosmological argument denies. If at one time, there was the potential for things, with no actual things, no actual things could ever come into existence from that potential because any potential requires something actual to actualize it. This is what is referred to as the necessary actuality which is prior to all contingent things.

I'm not saying the interpreter must try to do anything, btw. I'm saying the interpreter has a choice to match the writer's intention through the writing. They don't have to choose that though. They can choose to interpret the writing any way they want. That's what I meant by these earlier statements: — numberjohnny5

OK, so what you are saying is that anything written can have absolutely any meaning whatsoever, depending entirely on the interpretation. What the written thing means is whatever any individual who interprets it thinks it means.

Do you recognize that this means that the written material cannot communicate any information from one individual to another? The interpreting individual gives the written material any meaning whatsoever.

One approach, and perhaps this was more like what you are getting at, is to say the dualism issue isn't about two distinct realms at all, but just about two distinct kinds of attributes that are possessed by things that are in one and only one realm. — ProcastinationTomorrow

I don't think that this really resolves the issue. The issue is not that we can make two different types of descriptions concerning the same thing, it is that some things require one type of description, and other things require another type of description. So the things get placed in different categories. Consider that there are concepts, which are immaterial objects, universals, and there are also physical things which are material objects, particulars. Do you see how it is not the case that the two different types of descriptive terms can be applied to things of both classifications, but it is the case that the things require a different type of description, and this necessitates the distinction?

If the idea is that realm C contains the necessary and sufficient conditions for causal occurences, the passing of time won't cut it. Time passing might be necessary for causation, but since we can imagine nothing happening over a period of time, it is not sufficient. — ProcastinationTomorrow

That's exactly why the argument from sufficient reason doesn't hold as a valid argument. Activities in realm A may be causing activities in realm B, but the determination that the activities in realm B are posterior in time to the activities in realm A doesn't suffice to prove that the one is the cause of the other. So it may still be the case that activities of realm A cause activities of realm B, without any realm C. The realm C is just required to prove that the one causes the other. It is the proof which requires this unity of coherency between the two realms. However, in order that activities in realm A may cause activities in realm B, the passage of time must be common to both, because "cause" implies a temporal succession

Just because Causal Processes can happen over time doesn't mean you don't need a C Realm. Any Causal Process of the C Realm must deal with Physical Realm Activity and translate that to Conscious Realm Activity. Maybe these Causal Processes are in Realm A and Realm B but somehow a Bridge between Realm A and B must be constructed. — SteveKlinko

As I explained above, the "Bridge", which is realm C is not necessary. The realm C is only required to prove a causal relation. Realm A and realm B be may be causally interactive without any realm C. The so-called "Bridge" is just needed to understand the causal relation. However, since understanding is already a property of the one realm, let's say realm A, the Bridge would be entirely within realm A, principles of understanding, and not a real bridge, nor a realm C, at all.

This is the real problem of consciousness. We assume a material, physical, world, a realm which is outside the realm of consciousness. But we have no real way to understand it because everything which we understand is within the realm of consciousness. So we poke and prod at this material world, observing how it behaves in response, but we can only make conclusions based on a supposed causal relation, because we haven't discovered any real Bridge. There may not actually be a Bridge, and any constructed Bridge would just be within realm A, and only a false Bridge

would have perhaps worded it as "Not anything is", and I'm not asserting it, but just asserting the viability of it. — noAxioms

Well I guess this is quite different then, because it now appears like you are allowing for the actuality of things, but there is a property or attribute which is referred to with "is", that you are denying as unreal. I would assume that "is" refers to being at the present, and you are saying that nothing could actually be at the present. This is very reasonable, because the present is very much unsubstantiated and it doesn't appear likely that it could support things. For instance, every time I say "now", by the time I finish saying that it is in the past. So it seems very unlikely that anything "is" at the present, because that which is supposed to be at the present would always disappear, instantaneously, into the past.

But that evidence is based on only relations, so the premise of "there is something" is unfounded since the same empirical evidence is had in either interpretation. — noAxioms

I don't know what you mean by this, "based only on relations". I think a relation requires things that are related, and the recognition of the things is prior to the recognition of the relations. In other words we must acknowledge that there are things, before we can acknowledge that there are relations. Therefore it is impossible that there is only relations. So I would argue the exact opposite of what you are saying. Evidence that there are relations is based on the premise "there are things". Therefore the conclusion "there are only relations" is invalid because "relations" requires necessarily, that there are things which are related..

I'd say that "any brain can interpret a piece of writing in any way that it wants," (there's no objective rule saying everyone must interpret anything in any particular way whatsoever); and that those interpretations that the brain is trying to match (by speculation) with what they believe the intention of the writer was/is can be relatively similar or dissimilar to the writer's intentions. — numberjohnny5

If any brain can interpret a piece of writing in any way that it wants, then on what basis would you say that there is any "information" in any writing? If there is nothing objective, and any mind can determine the meaning as whatever it wants, then we cannot say that the writing gives us any information because any meaning derived is completely fabricated by the interpreting mind.

But to say that the interpreter must try to match the intention of the writer, is to contradict this (any way that the brain wants). So which is it, that you believe? Can the writing be interpreted in any way that one wants, or do we assume that there is a correct way, the way intended by the writer? If we assume that there is a correct way, then don't we have to turn to conventions and such to support an interpretation?

For once, we agree. — Sapientia

What could I have possibly done wrong to deserve this? Now the next point the premise "that there is something" supports the cosmological argument. You still agree?

So how does one define distinctness of metaphysical realms if not in terms of self-containment of that realm? Perhaps I'm overlooking something in your post, but I don't see a definition. — jkg20

I don't see how "self-containment" is even relevant. I would think that if the descriptive terms used to describe the properties or attributes of the members of one realm are distinct from, and not reducible to the descriptive terms of the other, then the two are distinct.

Perhaps the descriptor 'apparently' distinct realms would be pertinent here. The realm of mind being not other than its phenomenal, experiential appearances, in some sort of self-observing sense, echoing the revelation of Buddhism that formlessness is not other than form, but within the context of Idealism. — snowleopard

No I wouldn't agree. The whole point I am arguing is that the distinction is real, not apparent.

The Correlations are predictable and consistent enough that we must assume there is some kind of causal Interaction between A and B. I think we need a C Realm, at least as a place holder, for the Interaction to take place in. — SteveKlinko

The C realm here is completely imaginary. What is real is the activity of A and the activity of B. That there is a "causal interaction" is your description, so it is something which is completely a product of your mind, imaginary. If you want to assign "reality" to this causal interaction you would need to base it in something real, independent of your mind. You could assign reality to the passing of time, to make the causal interaction real, but this is not introducing another "realm", it is just assuming that the passing of time is real, and is common to both realms.

I think we really need this Realm C to keep us concentrating on what the problem really is. — SteveKlinko

Do you agree, that the passing of time satisfies the conditions required of the place holder (realm C)? We do not need the realm C as a place holder if the passing of time is real and common to both A and B, allowing for causal relations.

Metaphysical dualism requires two distinct realms, and the only way I can see of fleshing out the notion of separate realms is in terms of self-containment. — jkg20

I'll reiterate. This is not what "distinct" means. Your premise that distinct realms must be "self-contained" is simply designed to support your monism. It is begging the question.

There is no logical reason for you to insist that one distinct realm cannot interact with another distinct realm. It appears like you have not read my entire post.

I found that all my views have come from exploring two simple questions, one of which is “Why is there something, not nothing?”. This seeming paradox has been brought up in many threads, including the cosmological argument for God, but they all seem like rationalizations. So I noticed the question presumes there is something. What if there wasn’t? What empirical difference would that make? While difficult to get past the bias that there needs to be something, it turns out there is no difference. — noAxioms

I think the assumption "there is nothing", would need to be supported, and this would be impossible to support. All the evidence indicates that there is something, therefore "there is something" is a more sound premise than "there is nothing". And, "there is something" is the premise which supports the cosmological argument.

Aristotle explains in his Metaphysics, that when we separate the potential for existence from actual existence, and realize that the potential for a thing necessarily precedes that thing's actual existence, then the inquiry as to why there is something and not nothing is to question something in which the answer is necessarily inaccessible to us. It is a futile question because we cannot grasp "the potential for existence" except through the analysis of what actually exists, and this requires the assumption that there actually is something. To assume simply the potential for existence, is to assume nothing, and this leaves us with no premise to proceed from. This is why we must start with the premise "there is something", and the appropriate metaphysical question, he says, is the question of why there is what there is, instead of something else.

Let's suppose you believe that reality consists of two realms, we can neutrally call them realm A and realm B. If they are genuinely two distinct realms, then they are self-contained insofar as all the elements in one realm can be accounted for in terms only involving other elements of that same realm. This is real dualism about reality. — jkg20

To separate two things as "distinct" things, does not require that those things do not interact with each other. You and I are distinct things yet we are interacting here. So I think you are placing unnecessary restrictions on your definition of "genuinely" distinct. If that is what is required to be genuinely distinct, then absolutely nothing could be genuinely distinct from anything else, because it would have to be self-caused. So that definition of "distinct" is unreal and unacceptable. We ought to allow that distinct things may interact with each other.

But the principle of sufficient reason would then require us, from the perspect of realm B, to reject the existence of realm A, since realms that just "tag along for the ride" have no sufficient reason for existing. — jkg20

I don't see how you bring the principle of sufficient reason to bear in this way. What you have described is simple solipsism. You are suggesting that I must reject the reality which you apprehend with your mind, because my apprehended reality is the only true reality. But since I can recognize that your perspective is different from mine, there is no real reason for me to reject yours. From my perspective, you might "tag along for the ride", but from yours, I might "tag along for the ride". So you haven't given sufficient reason to reject one or the other.

So, we then suppose that realm A and realm B are not separate realms. — jkg20

It is only by your assumption of a third realm that you claim A and B are not separate. As I explained above, A and B may be distinct, and interacting. When you give reality to this "interacting", you make A and B parts of a larger whole, C, which contains this interacting. But there is no necessity to assume C. There is simply A interacting with B and the reality of the interactions is accounted for by the activities of A and the activities of B.

This is why there appears to be a "problem" of consciousness. We keep assuming that if A and B interact, the "interaction" itself ought to be evident. So we look for the interaction. But this is a mistaken procedure because the assumption of this third realm, the realm of interaction, is not supported logically. there is no need to assume a realm of interaction. We have activity occurring in A, and activity occurring in B. Some of the activity in A might be the cause of some activity in B, and vise versa. There is no need to assume C, the realm of interaction, unless your intent is to make A and B two parts of a larger whole, C. But that is simply the intent to reduce the two distinct realms to one realm, C. It is a monist intent. If the realm of interaction is not supported by evidence, then this is an incorrect procedure, and the monist intent is a misguided attempt to simplify what cannot be simplified..

OK, maybe I misunderstood your point.

But don't you think that "me", "self", "identity", etc., refer to a composite body and soul, not just the soul?

Or better: what kinds of thing are kinds? — StreetlightX

Kinds are not things at all, they are the activities of things. As concepts they are the habits, activities, of the human mind. As properties of objects, attributes, they are an object's way of existing. Just don't conflate these two, and say that an object's way of existing is a habit.

Blue" is something created, conceptualized, defined by human beings. It corresponds to a range of wavelengths of light visible to humans in general. — T Clark

Right, "blue" is something created, conceptualized, and defined by human beings. It corresponds to the colour that the sky is. Likewise, "soul" is something created, conceptualized, defined by human beings. It corresponds to the immaterial aspect of the human being.

I'm not being obtuse, my question is very simple. On what principles do you base your assertion that it's a fact that "blue" refers to the colour that the sky is, but not a fact that "soul" refers to the immaterial aspect of human beings?

That's just confirmation bias. I want verification, as you say, a demonstration that it is true that the colour of the sky is blue. That there is a range identified as "blue", and the light from the sky fulfills this condition, does not verify that the range identified as "blue" is the true blue. All this does is confirm that the defined range is consistent with the colour of the sky. It verifies the definition.

If this were all it takes to "verify", we could easily verify that people have souls. "Soul" is defined as the immaterial part of the living human being, which all human beings have. Therefore to be a human being is to have a soul.

To deny that people have souls, is to deny the definition, just like one could deny the definition of blue, and say that the sky isn't really blue. Why do you say one is a fact and the other is not?

From the point of view of triadicism, nothing at all has been left out. There's the stoop, the non-stoop, and the third thing. You don't have to leave the stoop to understand it. Heck, there's war, non-war, and the third thing. Lazily explain that to the soldier going by, 'oh no, i get it, trust me' — csalisbury

The problem with this triadic ontology is that it is really just a veiled process monism. The logical contraries of being and not being do not allow for the third option by the law of excluded middle. When we allow for the third option, becoming, and assign reality to becoming, then the two ideals, being and not being appear as the limits of becoming. These ideals are no longer real because the reality of becoming cannot reach the limits of being or not being. So unless we give priority to the dualist position and give reality to these two distinct categories, the logical ideals, and becoming, reality is apprehended as being completely within the one category of becoming, and the logical ideals cannot be real.

To relate this to the op, yes it is very possible to dissolve the division between the subject and the predicate, as the example of Jumblese demonstrates, and this might serve us very efficiently in common instances of communication. In relation to ontology though, this is probably not a wise thing to do. The subject/predicate division provides us with a distinction between the object (subject), and what the object is doing (predication). The ontological results of the dissolution of the subject/predicate division are evident in the concept of "energy", and the ideas of those who reify "energy". The reification of "energy" transforms its apprehended existence from being the property of a moving object, to being an object itself. Now "energy" is often understood as the subject/predicate combined, the object and its activity combined into one, and this produces a wave/particle obfuscation. This is the ontological difficulty produced by dissolving the subject/predicate division.

Here's my problem. You seem to be implying that some ideas (matters of fact) can be verified and some other ideas (matters of metaphysics) cannot be verified. But you don't say what verification is. Let's say for example, "the sky is blue" is a matter of fact. How would you verify this?

To be clear: I don't understand you at all.

You actually can't do any of that with sincerity, but we've had that argument before and I'm not in any rush to have it again. — Sapientia

It was T Clark who suggested soul is a matter of choice. I know you believe in determinism, so you can't with sincerity choose to believe anything. But that's your problem not mine.

Principles of physics are matters of fact. Principles of metaphysics are not. They are "...not verifiable. This does not mean that we should like to verify them but are not able to; ·it means that the idea of verification is an idea which does not apply to them... (R.G. Collingwood) — T Clark

I don't understand, some ideas we can verify and some we can't? What do you mean? Doesn't it seem more reasonable just to believe that different types of ideas get verified in different ways?

Why do I need to say either one? And of what use would such an answer be? Let's first decide what it means to be, to exist, then the question "does anything exist" might be meaningful.

One (spiritual entities) is a metaphysical phenomenon. It's a matter of value, choice, faith. — T Clark

You can choose whether or not you have a soul? Perhaps you really mean that you can choose whether or not to believe that you have a soul. So how is this different from any principles of physics, which you can also choose whether or not to believe?

That's mainly becuase I think there's often a stigma when employing "reduction" in these debates (probably from those who aren't identity theorists and dualists, which makes sense), at least in my experience, and I think that can sometimes be a red-herring about views like mine. — numberjohnny5

I have no problem "reduction", I think it's a useful tool. I've been accused of being reductionist but generally speaking I don't see how that's bad. Anyway, I'll try to refrain form using it in conversation with you.

Located in minds/brains — numberjohnny5

I don't think that this is consistent with nominalism. Generally a nominalist will claim that meaning is the property of a community of language users, as the result of conventions, agreements, or rules of language use. Without these communal rules, how could one brain interpret a piece of language in a similar way to another brain? And without that consistency between individual language users, how could there be meaning? Or, do you think that meaning is completely subjective, entirely within each brain? Do you think that any brain can interpret a piece of writing in any way that it wants, and each way would be an equally valid interpretation?

I suppose the issue is this: if you are a realist about mental phenomena and a realist about physical phenomena, then - because we know from our own case that mental phenomena impinge on physical phenomena (e.g. what I want affects how I act in the world) - then there is some sort of correpondence between them to account for. — jkg20

I'll assume then, that you mean interaction or something like that, when you say "correspondence". So, there is interaction between the mental and the physical. Where's the problem?

A tree is a type, therefore "tree" is conceptual. I may judge something as being a tree, or you may judge something as being a tree, but how would such a judgement make it a tree?

Numberjohnny claims to be both physicalist and nominalist. That ought to play out nicely. I would think that there is no room for meaning in such an ontology. Ideas are reduced to mental states and mental states are reduced physical brain states.

Where's meaning?

I am contrasting the atomist conception - where for no reason, the world starts with a bunch of balls in motion in a void - with a Peircean-style ontology where there is less than nothing at the beginning. Beginnings are vague - just unbound fluctuation without a relational organisation. There are no meaningful elements to get a game going. These meaningful elements have to evolve out of the murk via bootstrapping self-organisation. — apokrisis

I see you're still clinging to that mouthful of illogical incoherencies. Why don't you just give it up? Obviously this "new physical view of reality" which you profess is nothing but nonsense.

Do I think wave is matter? No so much. Rather, it seems best described as a pattern of matter (although I defer to the quantum mechanics amongst us). — Kym

What about light waves, what do you think they are a pattern of?

Moderators close this thread! — Kym

I don't think the moderators just randomly close threads like that.

That is, since you're so clear that the external whatever-it-is-if-it-is is not what we make of it, then how do you know what it isn't? — tim wood

I'm not saying that the external whatever it is is not what we make of it. I said it's not necessarily similar to how we represent it, just like the word "tree" is not similar to a tree. So I don't get your question. I know that "tree" is not "grass", because these two representations are different. I also know that my perception of a tree is different from my perception of grass. So I can say that the tree is not grass. But this does not mean that the tree, as it is, is not completely different from my perception of a tree, like the word "tree' is completely different from my perception of a tree.

A long question is possible here - who needs that? Maybe this: what do you make of the idea, that I call Kantian, of practical knowledge, and that it is dependable? My own view is to grant that (in terms of vision) we do not see the tree in all of its glory, but what we do see is accurate, its deficiencies more-or-less understood. Practical knowledge is, then, an assurance. And for the most part - the practical part - it doesn't even need an asterisk. So, practical knowledge, yes? Or no? — tim wood

No, I don't agree with this at all. What we see of the tree is not accurate at all. Science tells us that the tree consists of all sorts of different molecules, each of which have different atoms themselves composed of different parts. We don't see this at all. The tree looks completely solid yet science tells me that there is much space between the parts

Furthermore, what you call "practical knowledge" is limited by its relation to the particular application, and is therefore extremely incomplete, deficient. For example, ancient people might have had enough knowledge concerning trees to dry the wood and use it to make fires. Yes, practical knowledge is dependable, dry the wood and use it for fuel. But this tells us nothing about shaping the wood and using it to build houses and furniture. This requires further knowledge. Beyond this comes the knowledge that we can make paper out of wood, and now we can do all sorts of things with wood fibre and the various molecules which can be separated out of the wood. So practical knowledge doesn't get us anywhere beyond the particular activity which is being carried out. We need theoretical knowledge to dream up all sorts of new things that we can do. That is why we need to think beyond what is immediately evident to our senses.

First, if they are genuinely two distinct realms, then there must be things that exist in the one that will not correspond with things that exist in the other. — jkg20

Why would you think that things in one realm ought to correspond with things in the other? Shouldn't they just be two complimentary aspects of existence?

It is widely agreed that experience arises from a physical basis, but we have no good explanation of why and how it so arises. — Kym

This is the root of the problem. If you take away this premise, "that experience arises from a physical basis", there is no such problem. Why accept a premise which causes an irresolvable problem? Doesn't that tell you something about the premise?

Actually, no matter. If a perception is caused by something present to the senses, then what is it that is present to the senses? — tim wood

The point I am making is that it is incorrect to say that a perception is "caused" by the thing which is present to the senses. Do you not understand sensation as an activity of living beings? And isn't the act of sensing the cause of a sense perception? The living being is sensing, and this act of sensing is the cause of what you call "a perception". The external thing which is being sensed (and may well be passive) does not cause the perception, the sensing activity of the sensing being causes the perception.

Compare this to other activities which sentient beings are involved in. A human being builds a house. Would you say that the wood causes the existence of the house? Or is it the constructive activity of the human being which causes the existence of the house? Likewise, a human being sees a tree. Would you say that it is the tree which causes the perception of the tree, or is it the constructive, sensing activity of the human body which causes the perception of the tree?

If you get to the point of understanding that the sensing activity of the sentient being is the real activity which causes the existence of a sense perception, you might come to realize that it is not at all necessary that the external thing which is represented in the sense perception is even similar to the representation in perception. For instance, the word "tree", though it is used by the sentient being to represent the external thing, is not at all similar to the visual image. The thing which represents is not at all similar to the thing represented. So we ought not think that the external thing which we call 'tree" is even similar to the visual image which represents it in sense perception.

If a "system of the being," how does that work; what gets it going? — tim wood

Well isn't this one of the mysteries of life? How is it that a living being is self-moving? How is it that the will is free? But we can easily understand that it is so, without understanding how it is so. One can understand that water freezes when it gets cold without understanding how it is so.

Perceptions, then, come and go. Can we say that they're caused? We can remain agnostic as to what, exactly, the cause is, but there must be one, yes? — tim wood

If you say "there must be one", then you imply necessity in relation to what you have described as contingent, the perception. Since a cause is required to bring about the contingent thing, then causation is implied here.

Perhaps the difficulty is with "cause." I only mean that for this perception of this tree, the tree is sina qua non. I'm giving no account as to how it works, simply that it does. We could parse it: no light, no perception - I can't see the tree. Light (then) reflects off the tree into my eye, and I see it : I perceive it. — tim wood

I cannot agree with this description of perception, because I have all sorts of things in my dreams, people, cars, buildings, and trees. Of course we commonly differentiate between things in dreams and things in perceptions, by saying that in the case of perception there is something present to the senses, and there is no such thing present to the senses in dreaming, but this does not dismiss the example, which indicates that objects present to the mind are created by the systems of the being which presents these objects to the mind, not by some external things.

So my argument is that your claim "no light, no perception" though it is correct, because perception is defined in such a way as to require sensation, does not amount to "no light, no tree", because a tree might appear in a dream. And, my argument concerns the real existence of objects. My claim is that the living being creates the object. As the creator of the object, it is the cause of existence of the objects which appear in the perception, just like it is the cause of existence of the objects which appear in dreams.

We affirmed above that when anyone says they see a tree, the one thing that does not happen is that they see a tree, agreed? There's a process, not well understood, that we call seeing the tree. But whatever it is, it involves something - we call it a tree. Is this MU's difficulty, on this understanding of cause? He (MU) appears to say that I create my own perceptions, and not only does the tree have nothing to do with it, but that apparently there ain't no tree. — tim wood

No, that's not what I am claiming. What I say is that in creating perceptions, just like in creating things in the world with one's hands, we work with raw materials to bring about the product. So in creating perceptions, the living being works with raw materials to produce the object, as the image, which is present to the mind. In the case of dreaming the raw materials used are different from the raw materials used in perception, but this does not mean that the object is not created by the being in each of the two cases.

The claim that the raw materials are the cause of the product would indicate a gross misunderstanding of what is going on. The fact is that the working being may create all sort of different products with all sorts of different raw materials, as is evident from my example of dreaming, as well as the various different senses which produce distinct images of the world.

Let's suppose it real, it then puts the question to MU: either it (MU's experience of being whopped and perhaps returning the favour) is all in his head, or he has to 'fess up and say plain that something about it came from "outside" and caused his perception. Which is it? — tim wood

Clearly the pain derived from being whopped is a product of the living body. To move backward down the causal chain, looking for an outside cause, is to take a step away from understanding the cause of the pain. Since you are requesting that we move in this direction, which is the direction opposed to the direction which leads to understanding, I think you are leading us toward misunderstanding.

There is something very unnerving about the lawyer/client privilege being infringed on — ArguingWAristotleTiff

You ought to recognize, that nothing, unless it's left unspoken, is truly private. And maybe the neuroscientists can extract it right out of your mind. Also be aware of anything marked "pentothal".

The warrants were handled by the office of US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Geoffrey Berman, a recent Trump appointee. — Cavacava

The raids were likely well expected by Trump and Cohen. I wonder how well they hid everything.

Sorry, but you totally lost me here. I have no idea what you're getting at. — Arkady

Yes, it appears to be as if you have no real understanding of "meaning".

Firstly, it's not necessarily the case that "what a given proposition means to me is not the same as what it means to you:" different people may well glean the same meaning from the same proposition. — Arkady

I don't see how this is possible. What a given proposition means to me is produced according to my physical disposition, and my experiences as a human being, which are both completely different from any other human being. And this is the same with all other people. Therefore I think it is completely impossible that a given proposition can have the same meaning to different people.

If you attribute meaning directly to the physical existence of the proposition, you might claim that the proposition carries the same information to me as it does to you. But since there is a matter of interpretation, which is carried out according to the value structures of the individual, we cannot conclude that it means the same thing to you as it does to me.

...then I don't even see how communication between agents would be possible. — Arkady

Yes, I've seen this argument before, and if you would give it any thought, you would see that it is absolutely non sequitur. Communication does not require that one person produce the same idea within another person, it just requires that we get the general idea across, the gist. If you define communication as requiring that one person interprets the very same meaning from a saying as another, then you completely misrepresent what communication actually is, and your argument is based in a false premise.

People disagree on occasion, yes, but it doesn't follow that said disagreement isn't sometimes just due to linguistic confusion on the part of one or both parties. — Arkady

Agreement does not require that both parties interpret the same meaning from what has been said. Agreement just indicates that each party accepts the meaning which they have interpreted. Agreement cannot be construed to imply that each party interprets the same meaning. So we can put disagreement aside, and look at agreement directly. When two people agree to the truth of a proposition, this in no way indicates that the two attribute the same meaning to that proposition.

You seem to hold "meaning" in some sort of quasi-religious reverence. My point with regard to the brain scanning technologies discussed here was only that investigators can, with a certain degree of reliability under highly controlled experimental conditions, determine what a subject is thinking about using brain imaging. If you find it more "satisfying" to drop talk of "meaning" from any of this, then feel free to do so: I have no special affinity for the term. — Arkady

I don't see how you could possibly verify this claim. We cannot even determine what a person is thinking about by interpreting what they are saying, so how could you determine what a person is thinking about by using brain imaging? Sure, you could start with some assumptions like X image is equivalent to X thought, and proceed in this manner, but how would you know whether these assumptions are true? You could ask the patient, but it would just be a matter of interpretation, and how would you know that the patient is being honest? Would you start with a lie detector test? Doesn't the lie detector make the same claim anyway, to be able to determine what the patient is thinking? How are your referred experiments any more reliable than a simple lie detector?

Philosophy does the "thinking about thinking." Questions such as what reason is, which sorts of arguments and beliefs are reasonable or rational, etc. fall in the purview of philosophy. How agents reason, how the cognitive and neural mechanisms operate in their brain (and other relevant systems) when they're thinking is in the purview of cognitive science, neuroscience, and other allied fields. — Arkady

I still don't see the difference. If a philosopher is "thinking about thinking", isn't that person thinking about how reason operates? The question of which beliefs and arguments are reasonable is a different question, it is a question of judgement. We all have to make such judgements in our day to day life, and it seems like you are trying to restrict philosophy to the mundane. We have some innate judgement capacities and we learn others.

The matter of "thinking about thinking" is an exercise in examining such judgement making, and this is exactly the question of "how agents reason", which you say is proper to cognitive science. The problem with your approach, as wayfarer points out, is that you need to begin with some assumptions about how agents reason, derived from philosophy, in order to establish a correlation with brain imaging. If X image is equivalent to X thought, then you must start with the assumption of what X thought is. That is why the lie detector must start with a bunch of background questions to establish a baseline. But all of this relies on the assumption that a person's words are a good indication of what a person is thinking, and as I described above, in relation to "meaning", this is a false premise. When the philosopher practises "thinking about thinking", one comes to realize that words are very impotent for expressing what thought really is.

Consider this, we often think in words, we can decide what to say, we can do logic, and we do mathematics by thinking in symbols. We come to conclusions. But this is very shallow, off the top of the head stuff, it's more like recollection of memories. Meaningful thinking lies much deeper. I could tell you that two plus two equals four, and you might say that I am thinking this. But that's not really the case, I am simply recollecting it. When I am assessing different ways to apply this equation, then I am thinking. So if I tell you "my computer is on", the reason why I chose those words to say, and not something else to say represents my thinking. We really cannot get to the act of thinking, from examining the words spoken, because the words spoken are the manifestation of thought, the effect of it, not the thinking itself.

...it has lost that sense... — Wayfarer

"Lost" is an appropriate word here. The empiricism places an emphasis on the importance of the reality of the "external object" as sensed, thus denying the possibility that the mind may be mislead by sensation. So when the determined "real order of things", which is produced by intellectual endeavours such as mathematical formulations, is inconsistent with what is sensed, science is incapable of resolving the problem, lost.

The problem is really not very difficult to resolve though. It stems from a misunderstanding of the act of perception, sensation. The misunderstanding is as tim woods says, that the external object causes the perception. Once we recognize that it is the perceiving being which is causing the perception (as tim would say, the being is working), not the external world which causes the perception, then we can understand that the inconsistencies between the way the mind apprehends the world, and the way that the senses apprehend the world, are all due to the different ways that one working being may interpret the world.

This is the first hurdle. Can we get past it? — tim wood

No, it doesn't appear like we can get past this hurdle. I guess you haven't been reading my posts, or you would have noticed this problem already.

But the thing itself? What about the thing itself - is that abandoned? Apparently in Cavacava's view - we don't have to worry about it. And I think there's something to this. If the tree-in-itself really is as we perceive it, then we've gained, but not more than we already have. If it isn't, well, first question would be, how do we know it isn't. Second, what difference does it make? — tim wood

The point is that the "thing itself" is not an object. The object is produced in the mind of the perceiver, in the act of perception.

The tree, then, whatever it might be, gives rise to - causes - the perception of the tree. — tim wood

This is where I strongly disagree. The perceiver causes the perception, as the agent in the act of perception. The thing being perceived does not cause the perception. The content of the perception may be associated with the thing being perceived, but this cannot be the cause of the perception, and this is demonstrated by the reality of hallucinations and dreams.

Where is - what is - the phenomenon, if it is not the tree itself? — tim wood

The phenomenon is the perception. You would completely distort the philosophical meaning of "phenomenon" if you were to place the phenomenon outside the mind of the perceiver. That's why Kant distinguished what's out there, what you call "the tree itself", from the phenomena, as the noumena.

I think this yields - is - Cavacava's point. He extends it by way of consensus, which arguably leads to a community OC, almost as a kind of transitivity. I accept this for what it's worth, but extend it as a greater OC through verification. — tim wood

That's exactly what I argued against. What you and Cavacava called "objective certainty" I would call a false certainty. True, real, certainty is proper to the individual subject alone; and therefore objective certainty is that certainty which occurs to the individual subject, by way of the reasoning of the individual, and not necessarily by way of consensus or community. Consensus and community may play a role in certainty, just like "what's out there" plays a role in perception, but real (and therefore objective) certainty is within the human subject, just like the phenomenal object is within the human subject.