Pardon me If I’m being nosey, but.....what do you use for reference material?

Could one argue that abstract things have their own independent existence? — 3017amen

Depends on how far one wants to obfuscate the relationship between word and meaning. If one considers basketballs as an exemplar of existence, then of course abstracts do not. If one considers that which reason constructs of its own accord as existing, then abstracts exist. But it absolutely cannot be both, equally and without contradiction.

Pretty dumb, actually, to require reason to not contradict itself in its constructions, then turn right around and contradict ourselves in the use of them. It is not contradictory to say abstracts are real and empirical objects in spacetime are real, as long as it is understood spacetime objects to us are phenomena given by intuition and abstracts are not phenomena, being given to us by conception alone. Then we are allowed to claim the former are conditioned by existence while the latter are not, but are none the less real.

The ultimate rendition of......stay in your own lane.

You seem to be confusing subjective concepts with physical objects. In the typical bar magnet illustration of a magnetic fleld, you never sense the field itself, only its effect on iron filings. — Gnomon

On the one hand, fields are real and modeled mathematically:

"The fact that the electromagnetic field can possess momentum and energy makes it very real ... a particle makes a field, and a field acts on another particle, and the field has such familiar properties as energy content and momentum, just as particles can have....”
.....A “field” is any physical quantity which takes on different values at different points in space....
.....There have been various inventions to help the mind visualize the behavior of fields. The most correct is also the most abstract: we simply consider the fields as mathematical functions of position and time....”
(Feynman lectures, (CalTech, 1956), in Vol. II, Ch 1.5, 1963)

And on the other, fields are completely abstract and quantitatively incommensurable directly:

“....We now take it for granted that electric and magnetic fields are abstractions not reducible to mechanical models. To see that this is true, we need only look at the units in which the electric and magnetic fields are supposed to be measured. The conventional unit of electric field-strength is the square-root of a joule per cubic meter. A joule is a unit of energy and a meter is a unit of length, but a square-root of a joule is not a unit of anything tangible. There is no way we can imagine measuring directly the square-root of a joule. The unit of electric field-strength is a mathematical abstraction, chosen so that the square of a field-strength is equal to an energy-density that can be measured with real instruments. The unit of energy-density is a joule per cubic meter, and therefore we say that the unit of field-strength is the square-root of a joule per cubic meter. This does not mean that an electric field-strength can be measured with the square-root of a calorimeter. It means that an electric field-strength is an abstract quantity, incommensurable with any quantities that we can measure directly....”
(Dyson, EuCAP, 2007)

All that to say this: While it is true we never sense the field itself, I’m not sure that qualifies fields to be purely subjective concepts. I think perhaps we abstract the reality of fields from demonstrated characteristics of real physical objects. It follows necessarily that abstractions are immaterial, for the simply reason they are themselves irreducible to mechanical models, but nevertheless, that which is immaterial is not thereby merely a subjective concept.

Still, I suppose all concepts originate in a subject, but calling them subjective concepts implies they have no use outside the subject that originates them, which is far from the case. The only purely subjective concepts are space and time, insofar as nothing causes time or space in the same way as physical objects cause fields. QFT refutes this, of course, but......one thing at a time, right?
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As an aside.....Kant didn’t know about fields, his natural science having to do with forces alone, without the conception of field associated to them.** So I wonder if he would have considered a field as a thing-in-itself, given what he actually did consider that way of things in general. I suspect not, for things-in-themselves are real objects of sensation to which our representations relate, but fields in and of themselves have no such reality of that phenomenal nature, in as much as their representations are actually representations of something else that is phenomenal, such that the conception of them becomes empirical. And, as we understand, representations of representations, are more commonly known as abstractions.

** See M. P. N. S., 1783, Pt II, Prop. 5, 6

In other words, we see reality in the form of as-if ideas, not as-is matter & energy. — Gnomon

I see some logic in that, insofar as we do not mentally operate in the same terms we prescribe to our composite elements as the means for them to physically operate. I suppose science will eventually describe our mental machinations in terms of C, N/m/s, or other physical designator, but I refuse to relinquish my humanity for it. But....I’m too old already, so....good luck to the rest of ya!!! (Grin)
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so the reality of the objects absolutely must be different.
— Mww
That's why I make a pragmatic distinction between Reality (sensory) and Ideality (mental). — Gnomon

As well we all should. Neither is complete in itself.

Oh, maaannn.....this isn’t the ol’ “we’re all stardust” argument, is it? Say it isn’t so, Mr. Bill!!!

Nahhhh....I wouldn’t go so far as to say consciousness evolved from mindless, purposeless forces. Consciousness evolved because we are capable of thinking it. If one wishes to say that because we are comprised of physical constituents, then everything about us has to do with those constituents, including our capacity for thought, then he wouldn’t be wrong as much as his explanations for it would be insufficient. And it is only insufficient because our knowledge is limited.

We think we possess consciousness and we deem ourselves self-aware because we haven’t figured out any other way to explain how it appears that way. We are only allowed to theorize our own internal condition because science can’t yet prove otherwise. And if it should be the case science is incapable of proving the complete physicality of our rational system, then our proper theories with respect to them are at least legitimate, without claiming to be true.

I’ll go with the former, indifferent cosmic drama. Nice wordsmithing, by the way. I guess I should say I don’t consider myself anything all that special, especially on a cosmic scale. Doesn’t matter that there’s only one of me when there are 7B pretty much just like me right now, and several billion in total.

Besides.....we’re not doing anything Nature hasn’t allowed us to do.

Science is correct enough, in saying, given the right conditions, objects like us would be inevitable. But the infinitesimal minutia of those necessary conditions is unfathomable, so given all that, how could we NOT be here. So saying we’re inevitable doesn’t say much.

Be really cool, though, to get to a similar eco-system, evolved from a similar set of conditions.....and see no evidence of life at all. In which case, I guess we would indeed be special. Slightly less cool would be a similar eco-system evolved under similar conditions and find an entirely different kind of life. Then we go back to being not so special.

you need to explain what do you assume the word “existence” means by specifying your definition — Zelebg

Oh fercrissakes, no I do not. I don’t give a crap how existence should be defined, in order to show the concept “existence” as it is already defined, or at least understood, adds nothing to the conception “experience”, in a synthetic a priori logical judgement.

This represents a long-standing principle of basic epistemological metaphysics, at least since Aristotle.

And as my ol’ buddy Forest said......and that’s all I have to say about that.

Scientists typically try to limit experience to Empirical or A Posteriori Knowledge gained from sensory impressions. But Philosophers and Theologians often include Theoretical or A Priori (tautological) knowledge in their discussions of Consciousness — Gnomon

Good point, although I would add that a priori knowledge is not necessarily tautological. That is, synthetic judgements afford knowledge a priori, but are not tautologies, re: mathematics.
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The confounding problem here is that human beings are capable of acting as-if concepts that exist only in the mind (e.g. fictional characters) are real. — Gnomon

Hmmmm.....I’d suggest the confounding problem is humans treat acts of the mind that are real as actually existing. Thoughts, ideas, intuitions, concepts are real, but only to the mind, and not to sensibility. And real to the mind only as hypotheticals in a speculative theoretical epistemology. Sensibility is impossible without objects that impress it, and thought is impossible without objects that impress it, but the impressions are different, so the reality of the objects absolutely must be different.

One man’s semantic quibble is another man’s logical consistency, n’est ce pas?

You: Existence of experience is what defines the difference between conscious and unconscious human

Me: Experience is what defines the difference between conscious and unconscious human

(Sigh)

Mww
There’s no profit in thinking experience is something that exists.

Can you summarize what argument you are having...... — Zelebg

I’m assuming the comment I was responding to implied that experience has some kind of existence. In the proposition, the logical judgement, “experience is something that exits”, experience is the subject, exists is the predicate. The argument countering that implication is grounded on the premise that....no matter how I cognize a thing, even to the completion of it so that my cognition represents the thing exactly as it is, in this case experience, I add nothing whatsoever to it, by stipulating “existence” to be the concept contained in the predicate.

Just by cognizing experience as subject in the first place presupposes its possibility, to which my conceptions describing it, belong. Otherwise....how could I be cognizing that thing? That in itself is sufficient reason to claim there is no profit in granting “existence” as a predicate in a logical judgement. It’s the same argument for the conceptions “necessity”, “possibility”, and any other pure a priori conception; none of them add anything to the subject.

“Experience is something that is possible”. “Experience is something that is necessary”. Big whoop, right? Tautological truths, but affording no information whatsoever for supplementing my understanding of experience in and of itself, which, when it comes right down to it, has no business being thought of as a thing anyway.

........and what is the point you're making? — Zelebg

And the point is: Nope, no way...not on even a good day in hell...can a category be used to underwrite a cognition not originated in sensibility. We can think whatever we want about “experience”; we just don’t gain anything by saying it exists. Furthermore, given that ontology is the doctrine by which existence is studied, and existence is not a necessary condition for experience....what does that say about ontology itself, with respect to the human rational system, which is the sole determinant factor for what experience is?

if I experience something that you don't, how then do I know it exists (...) Said another way, how does one know if that experience exists if one doesn't experience it himself? — 3017amen

So you’re asking:
.......how I would know the thing of your experience exists......
(By experiencing that thing myself, which makes no promise on agreement as to what the thing is, except that there is a thing)

........or are you asking how do you know the thing of your experience exits.....
(From the experience itself. It is impossible to experience that which does not exist.)

.....or are you asking how do you know experience exists?
(The existence of experience is a nonsensical notion. Experience is the termination of a particular rational process, and not an existence qua existence. Existence is a category of modality by which all sense objects are conditioned, which make experience possible.)

......or are you asking how does one know someone else’s experience exists without the one having the same experience as the someone else?
(Wouldn’t matter; false dichotomy. I can’t ever know anyone’s experiences. The very best I can do is judge it impossible he had no experience whatsoever, given the same set of empirical circumstances for the both of us.

There’s no profit in thinking experience is something that exists. Existence is a condition only of sensible objects, and experience is very far from a sensible object.

Granted, but still raises the question.....why would we care about what we are not?

Existential Phenomenology: what academics do now, because Kant didn’t bother then. Not that there’s anything wrong with that......

If you insist, so be it.

Either you are misusing probabilities or you are being unreasonable. — SophistiCat

I don’t think so. All I was asked was......

Do you believe him based on that message? — Wheatley

......and the message was merely informing me he won the lottery. I wasn’t asked to determine an answer based on any conditions. Pretty simple really: he said he won, do you believe him. So I do or I don’t, and it makes no difference whatsoever which it is. It can only be one or the other, from which follows the probability of .5 for the answer (my belief), conforming to the fact contained in the question (he won).

Subsequently, if asked why I responded with I do or I don’t believe him, then I would have to condition that answer with other beliefs, but those beliefs would necessarily be based on what I know about the man, not what I know “....based on that message”.

If anything, I’d be unreasonable, indeed irrational, to read stuff into the original query, such that I’m answering questions that weren’t even asked, or, I’m answering under conditions not given in the question that was asked.

Good.

Why couldn't we just not assign probability in that case? Leave it as an unknown probability. — Wheatley

We could, and most likely would. But there was a question asked, for which an answer is called.

Probability of 1 is certainty. Only he has the certainty, thus only he knows he won or is lying about winning. If he just tells me he won, I do not have the certainty of knowledge, so I do not have the probability of 1 (he won) or the probability of 1 (he is lying). The very best I can do, without the facts, is split the difference. Splitting 1 in half gives probability for me, of .5.

Not sure if we can estimate the probability that your friend is lying — Wheatley

Sure we can; he is lying or he isn’t lying. No such thing as a partial lie. The probability is exactly .5.

As to whether I’d believe him, I guess I would. I mean....he’d look pretty stupid if he told me he did, but couldn’t prove it. So if I believe no one intentionally wants to make himself look stupid, I’d also have to believe he wasn’t lying. But he could have won and then disappeared, so I wouldn’t know either way anyway.

I am arguing that it's logically impossible ( driving and not driving at the same time) — 3017amen

Whoa, hold on there, mon ami. I’m arguing the logical impossibility angle. You started this free-for-all by claiming....and I quote...”I am both driving and not driving”. I wouldn’t even be here if not for that Aristotelian faux pas, which I am duty-bound to quibble over.
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The A and -A issue, is occurring in one's mind. — 3017amen

Yep. It is logic in pure form only. The A means the form is without content, or, means that any content in general replacing A, that accords with the pure form, is going to be logically correct. It is an analytic proposition a priori, tautologically, therefore necessarily, true.
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My question remains; how can consciousness be logically possible (?). — 3017amen

I done already told ya. At least, from how I think about it. I guess, according to you, it isn’t logically possible at all. In the immortal words of Stephen Stills....nobody’s right if everybody’s wrong.

Well your point is very well taken! — 3017amen

As well it should be, dammit!!!! A guy is dealt twenty cards, the probability of him getting those specific twenty cards is exactly 1!!!! It is absolutely impossible for him to be dealt any other than those specific cards, because those were exactly what he was dealt. Semantic hair-splitting quibble.....those. Attending to that quibble immediately falsifies the original proposition as stated.

Easy-Peasy.
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If A and -A holds ( law of non-contradiction/LEM ), one could reasonably conclude that consciousness is logically impossible. — 3017amen

Did you miss the part where I reasonably concluded consciousness is not logically impossible?

Within the context of “I am both driving and not driving”, the A and -A both driving does not hold. Either A is driving or -A is driving. There does exist both A and -A, but not in the same place at the same time. Or, not doing the same thing at the same time.

Easier-peasier.
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They are not aware that there are not aware. How can that be? — 3017amen

Damned if I know. It does seem to be the case, though. I’m never aware of daydreaming as such, until I’m no longer daydreaming. Then I can certainly tell I was, but am not now. What’s even cooler, is you can never tell exactly when the turnover occurred. I can tell I just fell asleep if I come awake soon after, but try as I may, I can never distinguish the point of departure from one state to the other.

Humans...every bit as amazing as they are ignorant.

Hmmmm......So instead of splitting semantic hairs, we have successfully compounded propositional hairs.

Be that as it may, you’ve deduced the correct answer, although you should have been able to deduce the correct answer without invoking swarming or emergence, or anything else, except what was contained in the question itself. Which is where the semantic hair-splitting quibble is to be found, and a perfect example of why sometimes such quibbling is proper dialectical procedure.

I haven't checked to see where that other thread was located. — 3017amen

To answer the question, you don’t the thread. All the context you need is given.

I would just caution against splitting semantic hairs. — 3017amen

Yeah, that is a common problem. But what about this, and pardon me, everybody, for stealing from another thread:

“When someone shuffles a deck of cards and deals you the first twenty cards, the probability of getting those specific cards is extremely unlikely.”

Is it extremely unlikely?

When someone shuffles a deck of cards and deals you the first twenty cards, the probability of getting those specific cards is extremely unlikely. — Wheatley

No. The probability is exactly 1. It is impossible to get any other cards except those first twenty you were dealt.

The probability of getting specific cards in those first twenty, is not the same as getting those specific cards in the first twenty.

Hence their driving but not driving. — 3017amen

Ok. Driving but not driving is very much an argumentative improvement over driving and not driving.
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But one does not know the difference. All the person knows is he or she is in another reality..... — 3017amen

True enough, but one doesn't have to know the difference to know there is one. And it does seem like a different reality, when it is actually quite impossible to show it isn’t just a different perspective on the same reality. If you crash while daydreaming, the car is every bit as damaged as if you’d crashed under purely accidental conditions, through no fault of inattention.

I’ll end this by stating for the record I do not deny daydreaming and the like, done it myself more than a few times, both naturally and .........shall we say, chemically stimulated (gasp)......but I maintain such mental distractions are merely reason without due restraint. Maybe like Janus’ “mystic unreason”. Transcendental philosophy seeks to bound reason so as not to cause confusion within itself, but subconsciously, the rational gloves come off and reason is allowed to think whatever it wants. And I prefer my reason to be under control, thank you very much, so while granting the subconscious its existence, I consciously allot to it no power.

So you intend a falsification of A = A, insofar as some occasions permit A = not-A? I submit that if you’re daydreaming you’re not driving
— Mww

Mww, precisely! As far as our consciousness is concerned, we are not driving, which is why we have the potential to crash and kill ourselves. Cognitive science says that our subconscious is driving. Hence, I'm driving and not driving at the same time. Therefore, consciousness is beyond our logical understanding. — 3017amen

OK, fine. If you’re not driving and your subconscious is, then it follows necessarily the dichotomy (I am both driving and not driving) is false, because “I am driving” is contradicted by the “subconscious is driving”, while the “I am not driving” remains true. Otherwise, you and your subconscious must be identical, in the exact same way you and your consciousness are identical, which is quite absurd.

While I grant consciousness is beyond our empirical knowledge, it does not follow from being beyond knowledge that it is also beyond logical understanding. As a matter of fact, if consciousness is considered as merely some metaphysical abstraction, the only possible way to understand it at all, is from logical conditions. And as we all know, all logic needs for certainty, is identity and non-contradiction, consistent with itself. So if a theory speculates an identity and adds in a purpose for good measure, consciousness is no longer beyond our logical understanding, as long as the theory for it holds no contradictions in its construction.

If you want to attribute the impossibility of logical understanding to something, might I suggest you attribute it to the subconscious you used to justify your falsification of the Identity Law? I mean, you can always use the subconscious as a logical premise, insofar as the possible availability of something in juxtaposition to consciousness. But consciousness lends itself to theoretical speculation, whereas the subconscious cannot be the subject of a meaningful theoretical speculation because of the very quality our own rationality demands of it, without opening the door to the bane of all speculation, infinite regress.

Now....science. Do you really give a crap what science says, with respect to driving your car? Tell me the truth....do you flash on a peer reviewed paper when the phone rings and you go through the mental motions of whether or not to pick up? If not, and I certainly hope not, then how can you possibly justify negating a purely rational law (A = A) with a purely empirical doctrine (cognitive neuroscience)?

If you grant reason is un-mystic, yet allow for its complement (....), then you are a dualist. But a dualist is a small kind of pluralist, so maybe you’re ok.
— Mww

A dualism between rational thought and feeling? — Janus

That’s one aspect of duality, yes. Feelings are not cognitions, but cognitions arise from rational thought. Ergo, rational thought and feelings suggest an intrinsic duality, either in form or substance, origin, purpose, or, something else theoretically untenable. But my point was that the human system is complementary, so it stands to reason that sooner or later we’re bound to arrive at the duality of immanent/transcendent, under which we can subsume all complementary pairs in relation to each other. Then we have the total rational dualism as the SOP for humans. There may be some over-arching monism, but it won’t matter to us; we still would have to use our innate dualistic nature to understand it.
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our propensity for reification so easily allows to become manifest in many forms of faux-determinate transcendence. — Janus

Yeah, we do seem to want to objectify our notions, don’t we?

Driving a vehicle daydreaming and thus having an accident suggest s I'm driving and not driving at the same time. — 3017amen

Ahhh....really? So you intend a falsification of A = A, insofar as some occasions permit A = not-A? I submit that if you’re daydreaming you’re not driving. While you may be behind the wheel, which is merely a relative location, you’re not conditioning the act of driving with the attributes that qualify the act as such. To condition the relative position of behind the wheel with the attribute of daydreaming, you cannot be conditioning the relative position of behind the wheel with the attributes of driving.

What’s that sound??? Oh. That? That’s just Aristotle breathing a heavy sigh of......see? Tolja so. (Grin)
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I agree that there are metaphysical truths that are necessary. In consciousness examples would be our sense of wonder, intuition, love, sentience and other various forms of qualia. — 3017amen

I’m not sure this isn’t a hidden rendition of the cum hoc ergo propter hoc, or questionable cause, irrationality. It would have to be the case that metaphysical truths of various demeanor are found in consciousness, when in (theoretical) fact, all that’s to be found in consciousness is the totality of intuitions, which are always given from phenomena alone. Our sense of wonder is conditioned by experience, but wonder itself is a feeling, thus not an empirical predicate, hence not found in consciousness. Rather, it is that which is loved, or is wondered about, or to which is directed our sentience, that occupies our conscious state. We never cognize feelings; we cognize that which causes feelings, and is therefore always antecedent to them.

Same with metaphysical truths, per se: the principles of them may be found in reason a priori, and the possible objects given from those principles may be exemplified by experience, but that is not sufficient in itself to allow truths of any kind to reside in consciousness. Truth is where cognition conforms to its object, and no cognition is possible that is not first a judgement. Therefore, it is the case that truth resides in judgement, and if there is such judgement we are then conscious of that which is cognized as true.
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The closest we get to a posteriori truth 's in this context, is once again, the synthetic a priori; all events must have a cause. — 3017amen

All judgements of experience, from which are derived a posteriori truths, are synthetic, yes, but not necessarily a priori. Synthetic a priori judgements, which we understand as principles in propositional form, such as “all events have a cause”, and that ubiquitous 2 + 2 = 4, always involve necessity, which cannot be a ground for empirical conditions, which are governed by the principle of induction.
(If it was necessary that a foundation be the cause of a building to be upright, we cannot explain why earthquakes topple buildings even when the foundation is unaffected. Upon reductive examination, it shall be found that the uprightness of the building is contingent on the forces acting on it, and if the forces are sufficient, and the building falls, necessary causality of the foundation is negated, and anything susceptible to negation cannot be necessary)
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What is true nature of consciousness (?). — 3017amen

Why would it have one?

Don’t mind me......I ramble a lot. Sorry.

it behooves us to acknowledge that the map or model is not the territory — Janus

Yes indeed. Just as Kantian noumena requires a sense of intuition not belonging to us, so too does map/territory infinite accuracy require a comprehensibility that does not belong to us. Neither can be claimed as manifestly impossible; just impossible for us, because of intrinsic contradictions we can’t find our way around.
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allow for the mystic tides of unreason. — Janus

Yeah, well, if you do that, you immediately acquiesce to a dualism. If you grant reason is un-mystic, yet allow for its complement, which is the natural condition of the human agency, then you are a dualist. But a dualist is a small kind of pluralist, so maybe you’re ok. But you still can’t be a monist and be human at the same time.

Beware the transcendental illusion!! Don’t let it come up and bite you in the hindquarters!! (Grin)

I'd say we cannot prove anything at all, except in relative contexts. — Janus

You’re correct, of course. (I fixed it)

We can’t actually prove anything, given the singular nature of our objective reality. I mean.....what do we compare it to? We can, as you say, compare and thus prove conditions within it, relative to each other, but nothing more than that.

I think it’s even more unrealistic to posit no duality at all. A human being has to operate from a duality in order to theorize he isn’t, using a logic that shows he’d be contradicting himself by trying.

Nothing against folks thinking far downstream, though.

Yeah, I get it. I read Tegmark, 2007, when it first came out, where he argues, “....that, with a sufficiently broad definition of mathematical structure, the former (ERH, external reality hypothesis, your concrete structure) implies the latter (MUH, mathematical reality hypothesis, your mathematical structure)...”

Sound right?

I’m not equipped to counter-argue the thesis, but it doesn’t float all that big a boat, seems to me. Little too far outside the box for my comfort zone.

So at least one abstract, mathematical object is definitely real: the concrete, physical world. If that's the case, then like with modal realism, which addresses why the actual world exists instead of some other possible world by assuming all possible worlds exist and "the actual" world is just the one we're in, likewise we can dissolve a lot of philosophical questions about why the concrete world follows the mathematical laws that it does by assuming that all mathematical structures exists, and "the concrete" world is just the mathematical structure of which we're a part. — Pfhorrest

Lot of stuff in there, all predicated on the possibility of a 1:1 representation/existence correspondence. Disregarding the logical impossibility of perfect replication still leaves us with a hyper-reality, where the mathematical structure and the concrete structure are the same thing, so how would we know we’ve even cognized ourselves as belonging to one or the other?

If we can’t tell the difference, we’re losing nothing by leaving ourselves with the duality we already acknowledge, rather than assume a fringe duality only a few can wrap their heads around.

Just a thought.........

I think the dichotomy rears its head when we try to reconcile a priori truth's with a posteriori truth's. Meaning the fact that a priori/mathematical truth's describe the physical universe (a posteriori/cause and effect) so effectively, remains an unsolved mystery of sorts. — 3017amen

Yes, but it doesn’t have to. A priori truths are proved by pure logic (transcendental logic from one methodology), but a posteriori truths are proved from observations. It is an a posteriori truth that an object impresses my hand by its matter; it’s an a priori truth that to be an object it must have matter. If the a priori truth doesn’t hold, we are inclined to say the a posteriori truth cannot hold either. But this is not necessarily the case, for there may be some other reason of which I have no knowledge, that causes objects to impress my hand. But it is altogether impossible for logical truths to be false, because if they are, I can’t even justify any of my thoughts at all, including the very truths I thought logical. If A does not equal A, I am well and truly screwed!!!! Not to mention, now that Voyager has traversed to actual deep space and is still working, the principle of universality, itself an a priori truth we predicated to applied mathematical logic, yet always requires empirical proofs, gains credence.

So to eliminate the dichotomy, we limit a posteriori to the material and use empirical proofs, which turn out to be contingent, we limit a priori to the rational and use logical proofs, which turn out to be necessary. And we are certainly justified in doing this, because we can think things that don’t exist in the world, and there are things in the world we have not thought.

But I agree it is a mystery why our thinking is sustained by the world, how the world is so well explained by us. On the other hand, we are explaining the world to ourselves, using our own human apparatus, so....what else should we expect? Funny thing though, used to be if we didn’t know which path a particle takes, we are authorized to say it took all possible paths simultaneously (Feynman, 1948), and if we don’t know where a particle is until it is measured, then we are authorized to say it is no where, from which follows the logical assumption the measure is the causality (Heisenberg, 1927) YIKES!!!! Reason run amok, or, the way things really are? Mystery, indeed.
(Keyword....used to be)

mathematical primitives - integers I presume - 'exist independently from anyone's understanding of them', (...) I presume the same applies to e.g. Pythagoras' theorem, the law the excluded middle, f=ma and many other such principles. — Wayfarer

While I agree Nature has its dynamic procedures independent of our understanding, it is we that legislate the principles for them, as you say....

Reason is able to discern these principles — Wayfarer

.......given some relevant observation, the sole purpose of which is to make those dynamics understandable to us, hence accessible to our knowledge. Pythagoras’ Theorem being a perfect example: it is impossible to derive the relationship between the boundaries of a triangle merely from the fact a space is enclosed by three straight lines. And Galileo had absolutely no means to derive 32ft/sec/sec, a perfectly natural mathematical primitive existing independently of our understanding, from watching an object fall out of a tower window. That’s why it’s so much fun to listen as post-Kantian analytical philosophers try to annihilate the synthetic a priori adaptation of the human cognitive system. It just can’t be done without the guy attempting it immediately contradicting himself. Substituted for, maybe; refuted......not a chance.

Not sure why integers would be considered mathematical primitives. That a symbolic representation of a completed series presupposes “quantity”, sure, but that implies quantity is itself a mathematical primitive. Maybe that’s what Frege was getting at. There’s no contradiction in the occurrence of a natural series of continuous spacetime events independent of our understanding, for its negation is quite absurd, so maybe that’s qualification for “primitive”.
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Besides humans are not really outside of, or apart from, nature. (This insight originates with non-dualism). — Wayfarer

Dunno if that originates with non-dualism, but the idea holds within some dualisms as well. Awful hard to justify being outside the very nature, re: Nature, we’re using to justify our own physical existence. Kinda funny, really. Nature gifts the ability to think, but doesn’t gift the ability to restrict thinking. In all her wonder, she left it to reason itself, to think without thinking too much, to think more than its qualifications admit. Sorta like giving a 5yo a chess set for his birthday: he stands as good a chance of learning the basics of the game as he does using the pieces to suit his imagination.
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On Augustine:

Interesting. I can see it for the most part. From where I sit though, being a pseudo, or pre-modern, the possibility of the immutability of intelligible objects is irrelevant, if I have no means to know anything about them. Wisdom, e.g., may indeed be higher than reason and be the judge of reason, but for me, it doesn’t matter if that is the case. I am restricted by my very nature to employ reason to both discover and understand anything about wisdom, including whether or not I even have any. THAT it is may be given, but I want to know WHAT it is, how it manifests, what it does for me. This goes back to my “kinda funny” above: we had to think of wisdom as being immutable, otherwise we couldn’t claim that it is, because obviously no outside source told us it is, then made the attempt to show how it must be above the means we used to think it in the first place. Rational dog chasing its metaphysical tail.
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Whereas now 'understanding' is seen merely as adaptation and is devoid of any purpose save that of survival and instrumental utility. — Wayfarer

Agreed. Understanding has become the red-headed step-child of the adoptive cognitive neuroscience. Which is fine, if you got a machine strapped to your head. But I don’t, and never will, so I need my understanding to do its damn job.....you know.....as the intelligible object it is.......in order to function in the world alongside my kind. As far as the hard problem goes, I’d say it is indeed hard, given from the excruciatingly simply reason we don’t know enough empirically about it sufficient to justify the speculative ground on which it is based.
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so thoroughly internalized the modern outlook that they've lost all sense of what is problematical about it. — Wayfarer

What do you think entails the problematical? How would you characterize it?
(Addendum: did you mean Steve Talbot’s “love it or hate it”?)

some "unexpected" discovery of wide consequences is needed for further progress. — Zelebg

“...There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now. All that remains is more and more precise measurement...”, spoken by Al Michelson, 1894, who went on to disprove luminiferous ether, which, ironically enough, refuted the first by doing the second.

Tidbit of useless trivia.

The reason I mentioned that passage is because there is an arguable similarity between the Kantian transcendental ego and the Vedantic 'atman'. — Wayfarer

Agreed.

Humans: in particulars the more they differ, universally the more they remain the same.
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But, the rationalist’s claims appear incompatible with an understanding of human beings as physical creatures whose capacities for learning are exhausted by our physical bodies.' — Wayfarer

Nothing against iep, but that is one LOADED assertion, right there.
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But, our best epistemic theories seem to debar any knowledge of mathematical objects.' — Wayfarer

Taken straight outta British Enlightenment empiricism: a priori knowledge is useless, if not altogether impossible. The claim we know things solely from the habitual experience of cause and effect, whereas the truth of the matter is that claim is catastrophically wrong, which cleared the way for the reality of a priori knowledge, and thereby, abstract mathematical objects.

Disclaimer: I couldn’t find that 1973 paper, so it may be he wasn’t talking about that at all. In that case....my bad. I just wrote the first thing that popped into my head that seemed to relate to that snippet I quoted in this section.
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On mathematical Platonism:

Man, I dunno. I reject the opening statement in the SEP article, out of hand. Mathematical objects only really exist if we objectify them, so I don’t see how they can be independent of our language, thoughts or practices. That which the mathematical objects express certainly exist independently of us, re: spatialtemporal distinctions, quantities, distance and the like, but we cannot know anything about those things, other than the fact of them, without the abstract objects we create as the means for it. It’s pretty obvious the Earth and the moon aren’t in the same place, so.......take it from there.

numbers and so on are not actually objects at all, they’re intelligible ideas. They’re an aspect of reason. So I don't accept the idea that information constitutes the world or physical objects. — Wayfarer

Absolutely. The argument sustaining those is also the paradigm shift in epistemological philosophy.

I don’t think anyone with a half-metaphysical brain doubts the reality of abstract mathematical objects. I mean, mathematics itself doesn’t even exist in Nature; it is a science constructed by humans in response to a need to facilitate talking about quantities. That’s all it was ever meant to do, just as logic was created by humans solely in response to a need to talk about relations. It follows that anything invented by humans is necessarily predicated on whatever idea serves as ground for the very form of its respective science. Things exist in Nature, but how many things, or how things relate to each other, is not a concern of Nature.

If information constitutes the physical world, we are at a loss as to how to explain cases in which separate observers do not arrive at the exact same experience of a singular given thing. Even if the exception to the rule is very much less the case, it still serves to falsify the principle of induction, which is the necessary ground for the idea that pervasive information should result in non-contradictory, hence invariably consistent, observations.

The argument claims that it is absolutely impossible to tell the difference between whether an object consists of its properties in order for us to know them as they are, or we install the properties in objects such that we know how we are affected by them. This dichotomy is exactly the same as whether information constitutes physical objects, or we are merely informed about physical objects in accordance with how our intrinsic cognitive system treats them.

The real irony is, the one thing on which humans in general will always agree, despite differences in language or culture, is the principles governing the very sciences they all themselves construct.....math and logic. They can argue the a posteriori truth of “the sun is in the sky”, but none of them can argue the a priori truth “no figure is possible with two straight lines”.

the Functioner in every respect through the senses or the mind or the intellect is the ātman. (...) Everything assumes a meaning because of the operation of this ātman in everything. Minus that, nothing has any sense.

Do you think the atman is supposed to represent what we would call consciousness, even if it is called the Self? We use ego to represent consciousness in Western philosophy, I’m guessing that

basic Residue of Reality in every individual

might be the same thing. One way to think of the residue of reality is intuitions, which are the contents of consciousness in some epistemological methodologies.
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I believe that that number is 'real but incorporeal', hence showing that materialism is false. But the philosophical implications are very tricky. — Wayfarer

I’m down with real but incorporeal, but I’m not sure one could justify denying materialism entirely from the immaterial quality of pure a priori conceptions. Each and every number is nothing but a pure concept that categorizes a quantity, and we often need to quantize, or quantify, real objects, which are pretty much always material things. Still, we use numbers to quantize time and space, which definitely aren’t material things. All kinds of implications, no doubt.

I, for instance, as the creator of half a communication, become immediately irrelevant with respect to you, for instance, as the receiver of that half-communication. Your job is to decipher the in-coming half-communication in order to extract some meaning from it. It becomes full-fledged communication when your extracted meaning is congruent with my prescribed meaning. This is the norm, the common state of affairs, and is as boring as watching paint dry. It adds nothing whatsoever to our investigations into cognitive metaphysics, which happens to be what we’re talking about in this discussion.

In any theory, we hypothesize the conditions under which authority for the conclusions the theory predicts is justified. The normative procedure for intercommunication does none of that, for the hypotheses for a cognitive theory aren’t even given by such communication, insofar as I, as the creator and you as the receiver, are already established as extant, thus very far from hypothetical. The hypotheses can only arise with respect to the relative meanings, and therefore the derivations of them, contained in the language of the communication, which is, in itself, nothing but an objective representation of them.

Now we arrive at the fact that I as subject in the form of creator and you as subject in the form of receiver, are mutually exclusive, for we have reduced the hypotheses of a possible cognitive theory to the necessity of meaning and intention contained in the objective representation itself, each subject operating completely independently of each other. I had to assemble concepts with respect to each other to create an object of thought with a specific meaning, you had to disassemble the object of perception into its related concepts for it to become a possible meaningful thought. We communicate if the two meanings, arising in reverse order respectively, are sufficiently congruent.

So stop and think about all that. Say, create your half a communication that will eventually be perceived by me. You will speak or write something like, “I remember my first bicycle.....” from which beforehand you’ve assembled a bunch of concepts to form an article of your experience. But when you were assembling cognitively, never once did you include the “I” you used in the objective reality, the prose or speech that I will perceive, to create the object of your thought. Not once did you precede the inclusion of a concept with “I will use this concept, and this one, and this one....”. Yet all those concepts did not instantiate themselves. And because they must have intend some meaning, only certain concepts can be called into play. But “I”, the conscious thinking subject, didn’t do it. Whatever did do it, THAT serves as the identity of apperception, apperception being a predicate of human nature which grants that concepts can even be assembled, understanding being the capacity to assemble the correct concepts to fit the object. It is hidden from conscious thought, but conscious thought is impossible without it. And THAT is the foundation for the highest principle in human cognition.

Theoretically self-consistent and non-contradictory, which makes it logically possible, yet unfalsifiable, which relegates it to a mere metaphysical theory. Because consciousness stands in no chance of being empirically demonstrated, it must remain......until technology catches up......maybe.....nothing but a metaphysical project with rational constituency.

In other words, something fun to play with. Beats the crap outta dinkin’ around with mere language, I must say. Gots ta figure out thinking before figuring out talking about it, right?

I am not talking about the subject in the contents of the experience — Zelebg

Good. All we are allowed to talk about, with respect to experience, are the objects in the contents of it; experience is always of phenomena, because they are conditioned by the categories. The self, the entity that reasons, is not conditioned by the categories, hence is not phenomenon, hence not found in the contents of experience.
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subject outside of the experience which is subjected to experience that experience. — Zelebg

Yes, the theory-specific, metaphysical “I”, that under which the plurality of objects of experience are united in a single representational consciousness. What I meant when I said your proposition and wayfarer’s proposition both have contained in them as subject (as conjoined with predicate in a propositional construction): you both use the representational “I”........as we all do as a matter of course.
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This subject is the subject per se, and it is the only mystery here — Zelebg

Yes, the subject of whichever theory of mind, or general cognitive theory, chosen to dignify its validity.