To study the mind presupposes it. So.....if mind is the unconditioned relative to human cognitive systems, what is there that can presuppose? To posit an antecedent to an unconditioned is a contradiction. Which relates to introspection, in that the mind ends up studying itself, which must be impossible. Now we got all kindsa metaphysical roadblocks, in that we are mistaking the replication of the doing of the deed, for the deed itself being done.

It just may be Kant’s greatest philosophical gift was not to try to explain stuff that didn’t need it.

Nice.
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How would it be possible to study the mind other than via observing behavior, if introspection is ruled out? — Janus

The answer is in the paper. Simply put: we don’t.

Interesting paper. Between you and I get all kinds of nifty stuff to rock my epistemic water vessel, so sincere thanks for it.

“.....and he did not set out theories of learning....”
(From the link, under “A Note on the A Priori”

Why would he, when the theory on knowledge he did set out presupposes it? It is either tautologically true, or a useless exercise, to suggest we know things we haven’t the ability to learn. If the former, a theory of learning is unnecessary; if the latter theories of knowledge are all catestrophically irrational.
———

The active state. We move, interact with the world, harvest data, even change the world to fit our models better... and all this is part of the process of inference. Does Kant have an equivalent? — Isaac

Dunno about changing the world to fit our models; seems sorta backwards to me. Be that as it may......

The active state would be cognition. The process of inference would be the tripartite logical syllogistic functionality between understanding (major), judgement (minor(s)), and reason (conclusion). Now, as you’ve said, albeit in a different way, re: the talking is not the doing, this is how we talk about it, how we represent to ourselves a speculative methodology, but the internal operation in itself, functions under the condition of time alone, such that cognition is possible from that methodology.

Not sure that’s a very good answer, but best I can do with what I’m given, and considering my scant experience with Markov blankets.

Takes nothing away from the paper, though, don’t get me wrong.

“....A Markov blanket comprises a set of states that renders states internal to the blanket conditionally independent of external states....”
(Friston, et.al., 2020)

If that which is internal to the blanket is external to that which observes it, the proposition is a mere rework of.....

“....objects are quite unknown to us in themselves, and what we call outward objects, are nothing else but mere representations of our sensibility, whose form is space, but whose real correlate, the thing in itself, is not known by means of these representations, nor ever can be, but respecting which, in experience, no inquiry is ever made....”

...a 1787 treatise on human reason. The conditions are representations, thus “conditionally independent” descriptions of a set of states is nothing more than “not known by means of these”. So it is that behind a Markov blanket resides a ding an sich.

Is it a far-fetched personal cognitive prejudice, or is it a case of the more things change, the more they stay the same? Dunno, who’s to say? But it’s fun to play with all the same.

I didn't mean to say nothing was going on. — Isaac

Granted. But you did say neither one nor the other of the two possible explanatory methodologies, was going on, with respect to a single given occasion, that is....what did Issac do with what Mww gave to him.
————

I think that the scientific and the philosophical domains are not so very different from one another, and so the question of which came first is not answerable by declaring 'philosophy!' or 'science!'. — Isaac

If it be agreeable that the domain of philosophy is rational thought in accordance with logical law, and the domain of science is empirical experiment in accordance with natural law, and furthermore that no human ever performed an experiment without first thinking how it should be done in order to facilitate an expected outcome.....we arrive at both a clear chronological succession and a clear methodological distinction.

The success rate, the productive usefulness of one over the other......well, that’s a different story, innit.
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All ideas are culturally embedded narratives. All of them. — Isaac

If that were true, there would never be such a thing as a paradigm shift, whether in science, ethics, metaphysics or anything else. If there ever was that which is sufficient reason to cause the collapse of an antecedent condition, then that thing could not be contained in that which collapsed. No paradigm shift as such, is possible if the idea from whence it originated was already included in an extant cultural narrative.

Even if the argument is that ideas acting as sufficient reason for a paradigm shift are already culturally embedded narratives, the instantiation of a different relation between any two of them, or between any one of them in relation to experience, is itself a different idea, hence sustains the notion of being not itself already culturally embedded.

The alleged “hidden state” was once a new idea, despite both “hidden” and “state” being already preconceived and not necessarily related to each other.

Anyway....you got lots of folks vying for your attention, so I’ll just retreat to the back row, with all the other Group W troublemakers......

I'd have to say neither. — Isaac

.....yet it appears to me that you responded with logically consistent intelligibility. I have no choice but to seriously admire that response, arising as it apparently does from one human, and directed toward another, constructed from neither consideration of brain machinations nor philosophical predications as a product of them.
———-

Attempts to supplant natural human subjectivity with mechanistic necessity.
— Mww

Again, on point, but is any philosophical text less attempting the same thing. — Isaac

Less attempting implies a relative quantity. But the mechanistic necessity of neuroscience, as opposed to the logical necessity of philosophical texts, is a relative quality. So, no, the one is not attempting a measure of the other. While it is certain that each form of necessity belongs to its own domain, holding sway only within it, it still remains to be acknowledged which came first.
—————

As an aside, your hidden states are an interesting concept. I might find a place for them.

Is there something specific about my attempts that have failed for you, or just in general? — Isaac

If I may, from the back row, hitherto being a silent witness:

In general:
Your theoretics are fine, and more than likely, close to that which is the case. But nobody cares; the average Joe doesn’t consider himself as a thinker in the terms and conditions scientifically expounded as the means for it. That leaves you and the cognitive scientists in general, to say Joe never does think the way he thinks he does, or, which is quite objectionable, he doesn’t think at all, insofar as mere brain machinations are solely responsible for such private, personal, seemings. It follows as a matter of course, that the very brain machinations the cognitive scientist expounds are never even recognized by himself. That is, he promotes, from the perspective of a particular kind of human, that which never occurs to him from the perspective of a human in general.

Those of the philosophical bent, on the other hand, don’t have such inconsistency, for they don't profit in the consideration of brain machinations qua physical necessity, in the first place, but rather, if anything, merely take whatever that necessity may be, for granted. Which justifies my asking, as super-intelligent and well-versed as you are, are you immediately considering, upon reading this, what part of your brain is doing what, or, are you immediately considering only the relation between your reading and my writing?

Something specific that fails, for me:

Attempts to supplant natural human subjectivity with mechanistic necessity. Which reduces to, albeit egotistically....even if your science is in fact the case, I shall never relinquish the metaphysical conditions for my purely rational intellect. And neither should anyone else, dammit!!!!!

So sayeth a nobody on the internet.....

As in Nicomachean Ethics, Bk. VI, or, Prior Analytics.....yes, though maintained pretty much intact through the Enlightenment, now woefully absent as such.

As if the wonder of human intelligence can be displayed on a ‘scope, traced with a red dye. Or brought forth from a couch at $300/hr.

(Sigh)

It seems to me phenomenalism is unarguably true. — Art48

It would seem to be true, but only in relation to an intrinsically dualistic human cognitive system.

But whether the basic human cognitive system is in fact intrinsically dualistic, remains questionable.

the hallmark of anything that exists is that it is determinate.... — Wayfarer

“Anything that exists” is a latent presupposition. Attributing sufficient warrant to this presupposition, “determinate” is a valid inference, insofar as something has already been subsumed under a categorical rule.

On the other hand, “anything that exists” is a general conception not derived by a particular inference, which implies there is either a different categorical rule, or none at all, under which “anything” may be subsumed.

For humans, it is impossible to cognize anything not subsumed under a categorical rule. It follows that “anything that exists” cannot be determinate under a definition, but rather, “anything that (possibly) exists” must still be determin-able under a definition.

there is an ontological distinction..... — Wayfarer

Absolutely. Which calls into question the determinate warrant for “anything that exists”.
————-

whether it is meaningful to speak of what exists in the absence of an observing mind. — Wayfarer

Put a check mark in the not-even-a-chance column for me. Although, if I’m being metaphysically honest, I’d substitute rational intelligence for mind.

Oh....I like your Pinter stuff.

Ok, fine. It was quoted verbatim, but before my feet get held even closer to the torturous fire, I must admit the original context is in regard to the schools (that raise a loud cry), whereas my context is the theoretical science community.

All good.

It would be counterproductive, I think, to get into the subtleties of Kantian metaphysics. That being said, the aforementioned contradiction resides in the proposition, “...nothing can be said about its objects except that they exist...”, insofar as that “they exist” says something about its objects.

The confusion arises by calling something an object of pure thought, when, from the perspective of the faculty responsible for it, it is just a thought. Understanding thinks conceptions, understanding thinks noumena, noumena is a conception understanding thinks, and nothing more. It is we that screw it all up by reifying it through conventional language use. Thus it is, that “an object of pure thought” has very different connotations than “that which understanding thinks”, yet we, as careless thinkers, use the same word to represent both.

Yes, Kant treats noumena differently, in that for him, they are merely not logically impossible, the existence of them being beyond the capacities of our system, or of any rational intelligence similarly predicated on intuitive representations, to cognize.
————

there's a tricky point here, which is that the noumenal 'exists independently of human sense or perception'. But that is rather different from the idea of a thing that exists independently of human sense or perception, is it not? — Wayfarer

The tricky point is existence, of which you hold a different perspective than I. I consider both noumena and ideas as non-existent, hence their existence independent of sense is moot. Noumena and ideas do have the commonality of being conceptions having their origins in understanding alone. Ideas, though, with a sufficient aggregate of empirical knowledge, may eventually have conceptions inferred as belonging under them, whereas noumena can never have that end. Kant shows that, by such as “the idea of space”, “the idea of justice”, the “idea of an ens realissimum”, but not once ever enounces an idea of noumenal object.

Strokes....folks.

All good.

As Kant said about the noumenal world (which is the same as the mind-independent world), nothing can be said about its objects except that they exist.

Is there any way at all, to reconcile the glaring contradiction in that statement?

I wanted to bring this up the other day, but thought better of it, cuz it was so obvious to me it made me think I missed something, even while in tune with the rest of the passage. But now that it’s been presented again, as if to reiterate a point, its weight has doubled.

Forgive the monkey wrench, but, you know......inquiring minds.....

the Great Burgermeister — Janus

That got a chuckle outta me, I must say. And you know me.....everything philosophical worth repeating originated in Königsberg.

.....it seems this is the crux of the issue..... — Janus

Agreed, in principle. Whatever the name of the issue, in the form of various and sundry -ism’s, and thereafter the juxtaposition of any single -ism with its dialectical negation, or, as you say....its polemic..... the crux is always the instigation of it, which is, of course, us. We are the crux, insofar as nothing, other than sheer accident, ever happens to or because of us that isn’t determined by us.

Which is precisely the exposition given by : “What the observer brings *is* the picture”.

if we say it is "something" that defies all categorization because it is "beyond" all our categories of judgement and modes of intuition then we would not be saying much, if anything. — Janus

....just like that.

Yeah...I said the links were interesting, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say I agree the implications contained in them are all that meaningful.

“To see the Universe as it really is” means nothing to me. And while I accept the counterintuitive tenets of QM, decoherence never enters my consciousness of grocery lists, road rage or the abysmal foolishness of talking heads. And while it is a mathematical fact toaster ovens will create an interference pattern just as do photons, the scale of the experiment to prove it is currently quite impossible, which reduces to....so what????

So, yes, “scientific idealism” is emerging, which itself reduces to no more than to, “....raise a loud cry of danger to the public over the destruction of cobwebs, of which the public has never taken any notice, and the loss of which, therefore, it can never feel....”.

Interesting links; now I understand what you meant by emerging.

Ok. Thanks again.

plus reinventing Kant's noumena that we can never know. — Count Timothy von Icarus

As in....reinventing them so they can be known? Then they wouldn’t be Kant’s noumena, then, right? So it isn’t so much reinventing as re-defining. Which is fine; happens all the time. Historical precedent and all that.

Even so, if “scientific idealism” is a version of “evolutionary epistemology”, I’m no better off then when I started. From this armchair, both look like a subject with a qualifier, that is, idealism as a doctrine grounded by scientific conditions, and, epistemology as a doctrine grounded in human evolution. I find it more productive to ask folks what they mean by these phrases, or, ask how they wish me to understand what they mean.

Anyway....thanks.

Well there is such a thing as'scientific idealism'. We're seeing it emerge. — Wayfarer

For my sake....what is scientific idealism? Single sentence kinda thing?

Not that big’a deal; support for your.....

Plainly an idealist philosophy in my reckoning. — Wayfarer

....is all.

In addition to what you’ve been saying, Hoffman says, “space, time, causality are fictions.....useful fictions”, and the proper idealist against which at least some if not most modern idealists are judged, says, “....the construction of our fictions, which are not the less fictions on that account....”, in speaking of just those notions.

In the wiki reference, there’s a citation, #9. Did you investigate?

If not, check out the 40 minute mark, and thereafter.

Truncate our imaginations. Cool turn of a phrase.

Any misgivings at all? — Janus

Ehhhh....suffice it to say there are differences in modeling perspectives. One perspective is mere convention....we model a cup because we already know what that thing is; the other perspective is ignorance....we model “something” because we don’t know what that thing is.

The perspective is, then, experience; the difference is whether or not there is any.

Ahhhh....but the technicalities. That’s where the fun is, ne c’est pas? When does “something” become cup? Somewhere in that theoretical exposition, will reside the possible misgivings.

Cool. Nothing there to seriously jeopardize my initial agreement.

Thanks.

All I was looking for was your idea of why we can say we are modeling a cup, or from different perspective, we can say we are modeling “something”.

Now we can say that what has been modeled is the cup, or we can equally, from a different perspective, say that what is being modeled is "something" that results in seeing a cup which is a model of that "something". — Janus

I agree. Do you have an idea of what that different perspective might be?

Nope, but then, no need to floss, so.....

Would he just admit that he hadn't thought of the ways science has uncovered his noumena? — Banno

No he wouldn’t, because science hasn’t, nor will any science done by humans, ever have the means for it.

Nahhhh.....crotchety ol’ Prussian would more likely be pissed at being intellectually bushwhacked.

Tasty bait. Thanks.

I'm not a philosopher — Tom Storm

Cool. Neither am I.

is this a critique of phenomenology? — Tom Storm

No, just a restriction on the concept of phenomena itself. A limitation on their function, if you will. Which reduces to mere opinion on my part, of course.

Sorta like that, I guess. I only brought up myself, or any self of like kind, because to treat these as both subject and object, is demonstrably impossible.

Philosophy can’t be said to go wrong, but to answer the question......by Brentano, 1874,1889, turning it into a psychological doctrine describing different kinds of phenomena as intentionally directed toward consciousness, rather than being the merely empirical content of it. This expands phenomena into any form of content for consciousness, instead of representations of sensibility alone. In turn, objects of judgement, imagination, volition, and so on, including cognition and even (gasp) experience itself, then assume the guise of phenomena, at the expense of the notion of sensory “appearance” from which the term originated.

Yes. The phenomenological argument.

Not where I’m coming from, but ok.

Perhaps the most difficult exposition to fathom in transcendental metaphysics,....a speculative idealism if there ever was one.....is how I, as thinking subject, can at the same time be the object I think about.

As one of the ol’ muppet dudes on the balcony says to the other.....BRILLIANT!!!

Or.....how to take the pristine condition of human reason, and turn it against itself.

‘Tis a lonely journey, methinks.

It’s like....why even think of owning a Model T when there is an e-Ferrari. Doesn’t matter you can’t afford to buy one, couldn’t maintain it, can’t fit the family in it, and you’re afraid to take it out on bumpy roads and rainy days......

“.....Instead what answer we get depends on the question we put...”
(Physicist, 1983)

“...approach nature with the view, indeed, of receiving information from it, not, however, in the character of a pupil, who listens to all that his master chooses to tell him, but in that of a judge, who compels the witnesses to reply to those questions which he himself thinks fit to propose....”
(Philosopher, 1787)

The more things change, the more they stay the same, for both genius and clown.

I'm assuming when I see and handle an apple, my perceptual apparatus provides matter (the apple) with all its qualities - colour, size and shape, smell, texture, even taste. This is all an elaborate construction work that humans seem to (largely) share. A bat would have a different range of experiences with this fruit, but it would still be of the apple, right? (....) Where have I gone wrong? — Tom Storm

I detest the taste of Lima beans, and if you like the taste....how can the exact same matter have one quality for me and a completely different quality for you?

When you see and handle the matter provided by your perceptual apparatus, and I see and handle the matter provided by my perceptual apparatus.....why should, and what determines whether or not, we agree about what’s been provided to us?

If matter with all its qualities is provided by perceptual apparatus......why should anything need to be constructed?

How did “matter”, a general term, get to “apple”, a particular term? By what rights do matter and (the apple) belong together as stated in the assertion of that which perceptual apparatus provides?

So if the construction work humans share is how matter gets to “apple”, then it must be the case the qualities of the matter are not contained in it, but are provided by the construction. Otherwise, there would be no justification for the change from the general to the particular, and the questions above obtain only insufficient answers.
————-

To say a bat has different experiences, then to ask if it would still experience “apple”, is a categorical error of relations. Given different experiences, that which is given from one kind of experience is necessarily incompatible with any other kind, which makes explicit the bat cannot experience “apple”. We know this to be apodeitically certain because it is absolutely impossible for us to echo-locate flying bugs. All that can be supposed is that the bat experiences, and that only insofar as bats are known to have integrated sensory systems, and it is at least a non-contradictory presupposition that any sensory system is sufficient ground for experiences compatible with it. And THAT....only insofar as humans have determined it to be so, in relation to themselves, in the resolution of the error.

Matter has only been “apple” since some human said so, which makes explicit the perceptual apparatus does not provide matter (the apple), but provides matter alone, the common human construction, whether brain machinations or speculative metaphysics, is that which determines that matter to be apple. Apple, then, is provided post hoc by common human constructions, or, that which we all know as.......waaaiiiitttt fooor ittttt......experience.

I submit that you’ve conjoined matter (the apple) as a given singular only because you already know what an apple is, you’ve met with that experience. But there was a time when you didn’t, you haven’t, so.....what happened?

You haven’t gone wrong. Just haven’t gone far enough.

Yeah, I feel ya, bud. But then, ol’ Freddie didn’t like anybody except maybe his sister, so one more rip on his peers doesn’t mean a whole lot.

A change went through German intelligentsia, true enough, but whether for the better or not remained questionable at the time, given from the simple fact no one understood the implications of it well enough. The “old habits die hard” kinda thing.

Note as well, that theology was dying around the French Revolution, but wasn’t as dead as it became in N’s time, close to a century later. The “theological instinct” of Germans in general, in Kant’s time, was alive, even if on it’s last legs, and it remains highly doubtful Kant intended German scholars to apprehend a revival of it within the confines of his critical metaphysics.

I found it quite odd, that N advocated the will to power as determinable by the proverbial ubermensch.....he who frees himself from the absolute restrictions of the world, “...acquired self-mastery....”, yet accuses Kant of an illegitimate method by which he might actually do it. Not to mention, self-mastery in himself over the world presupposes the very “hateful duality” he accuses Kant of bringing to the fore.

Kant thought he provided humanity with a complete and unalterable metaphysics, but humans, being all too human, will inevitably find something wrong with just about anything.

Besides....while it is the more parsimonious supposition that brain states are our thoughts, it remains incontestable that we do not think in terms of brain states. That is to say, that which we consider as our thoughts, in and of themselves, even if they are not, have no purely cognitive connection whatsoever with the lawful physical necessities which make them possible.

Good to see you mulling. Shows interest, which is usually a good thing.

As the brain-body ages and I or the ego develops, mentality, feelings and body activity belong to I or the ego. — val p miranda

......straight out of the Enlightenment transcendental idealist playbook..... — Mww

Do you have a different view? — val p miranda

Nope. Pretty much my own personal philosophy as well.

might shed light on noumena. — Tom Storm

Ehhhh....when all is said and done, noumena are best left unlit. They’re an intellectual anomaly, confusing more than enlightening. To classify something as merely not impossible doesn’t help with what we want to know.
—————

But the point about the Aristotelian-Platonist attitude is that complete knowledge is only possible for intelligible objects, because in knowing them, there is in some sense a unity with them, which is plainly impractical with the objects of sense, — Wayfarer

Well said, and I grant Kant appropriated the meaning of the ancients to suit himself, but with respect to your point here, Kant had already speculated that “complete knowledge” of anything is not even a cognition, but instead, is a feeling, an aesthetic as opposed to a discursive judgement, hence, the separation of reason into its pure theoretical and pure practical domains. Pure practical reason is entirely deductive, thus self-sustaining and necessarily true, insofar as we ourselves are the complete source of its objects......how can we NOT know exactly what we have determined by ourselves alone, which is exactly what “unity with them” indicates......as opposed to speculative reason with respect to the world, which is always contingent because our knowledge depends entirely on that which the world gives us, which can be stated as “unity of them”.

Kant....er....upgraded....a lot of the philosophies of the ancients, but noticeably left logic as it had always been. And ya know....while accused by Schopenhaur of changing the meaning of established conceptions......

“....For this reason, when it happens that there exists only a single word to express a certain conception, and this word, in its usual acceptation, is thoroughly adequate to the conception, the accurate distinction of which from related conceptions is of great importance, we ought not to employ the expression improvidently, or, for the sake of variety and elegance of style, use it as a synonym for other cognate words. It is our duty, on the contrary, carefully to preserve its peculiar signification, as otherwise it easily happens that when the attention of the reader is no longer particularly attracted to the expression, and it is lost amid the multitude of other words of very different import, the thought which it conveyed, and which it alone conveyed, is lost with it...”

.....he apparently didn’t think he did any such thing. It remains, in the text, that he called noumena mundus intelligibilis, so...just how far did he actually go in changing the meaning of the concept?