Is there a way to know the world without our modeling of it?
— Mww

Yes. Observe it. — Terrapin Station

Hmmm, yeah, I suppose. Observation tells me that, but use of “modeling” makes explicit I wish to know of. Observation in itself, tells me nothing of the world except it is not nothing.

My understanding is that rationalists posit, not that everything in life is logical, but that everything humans think, is predicated on logical conditions.

All phenomena are conditioned by time. For while it is possible, and indeed necessary, to conceive the existence of things in time, it is impossible to conceive existence as a phenomenon, which makes explicit existence cannot be conditioned by time. That which exists requires time is a valid premise; existence requires time is a logically invalid premise.

Rationality is not so much acting from reason, but acting from reason logically. There is much historical precedent for human’s reasoning illogically, both unknowingly and knowingly. The former may be called ignorance, the latter may be called immoral.

Just in passing by.....

Not all thought and belief should be deemed "a report" because some exists prior to language. — creativesoul

Cool. Thanks.

I guess my concern, with respect to understanding each other, was to eliminate “report” as a metaphor, as in the case where, say, the senses “report” their perceptions to their respective receptors. Of course, the metaphoric report from the senses, while such machination certainly “exists in its entirety prior to language use”, isn’t a thought or a belief either, until or unless such machination is taken into account by a thinking subject.

Everything is phenomenon
— I like sushi

If that's the case, then the notion itself can and ought be cast aside for it cannot be used to further discriminate between anything at all. It becomes superfluous, unhelpful, and offers nothing but unnecessarily overcomplicated language use. — creativesoul

Eventually.....maybe....we would have arrived here, at this very place. It is not correct to say everything is phenomenon, but rather, every object of sensibility, called appearance, united with an intuition by imagination, is phenomenon. It is the same as an object in general, the form of objects in general. But not as yet a named object. Understanding synthesizes phenomena to some manifold of conceptions, and a logically consistent, non-contradictory named object is cognized. Or not. There are phenomena cognized as possible, there are phenomena cognized as impossible, but no phenomena will ever be cognized that is possible and impossible simultaneously.

Phenomena aren’t used to discriminate, it’s not their job. They are more than helpful; they are necessary, in order for concepts to relate to something given to us by perception. This is also why the source, or occasion, for concepts is vital, because these same faculties are used even if there is nothing presented to sensibility, which means there is nothing that appears....but the rational system maintains its operational capacity. We need to account for how we can think empirical objects when there aren’t any, or they are merely possible objects, and more importantly, how we can cognize that for which no object of experience is at all possible, while using the exact same system that gives us empirical knowledge.

I admit Kantian epistemological metaphysics is historical...to be kind. It is, nonetheless, complete in itself, and incorporates enormous explanatory power. Doesn’t at all make it correct, but what speculative philosophy is, especially one developed long before science got its fingers into the human brain.

If you insist on casting phenomena aside, what would take its place?

How would we be able to know this without knowing what the world is like sans modeling for comparison? — Terrapin Station

Is there a way to know the world without our modeling of it?

Specifically, it seems that you've taken that to include things like letters and such. — creativesoul

Nahhhh.....I was just circumventing what we don’t do when reading a word, as opposed to what we do, re: relate the word to experience. I had in mind to juxtaposition “quark” with, say, “ice cube”, or your “dog”, these being much more familiar, hence more easily fathomable, conceptual identities, but having the same naming procedure. I used a weird word to emphasize that all words are invented, have a first instantiation but always bear a relation, which prioritizes the relation over the word that names it. I was fretting over the length of the comment. Nothing to do with letters and such.
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understanding is imperative to good, productive, and valid discourse. I'm assuming we both seek just that... — creativesoul

Absolutely. In keeping with that, please elucidate “report” for me, if you would, please. I realize you’ve probably done that already, sometime ago, but as I said......I’m very much nearer my expiration date than my born-on date, so my retention isn’t what it used to be. Humor me?

Here’s how it relates to the dialogue:

All experience consists entirely of the thoughts/beliefs of the creature having the experience. — creativesoul

I claim that we cannot even offer an adequate report if we do not know what all thought and belief consists of. — creativesoul

Correlations drawn between different things are the building blocks of everything ever thought, believed, spoken, written, and/or otherwise uttered. — creativesoul

Is it that the combination of all three of those has something to do with “report”? I grant that everything ever spoken, written and/or otherwise uttered is the superficial rendition of the concept “report”, but I hesitate whether everything ever thought and/or believed should be deemed a “report”.

I don’t see how all the old-fashioned dichotomies an be eliminated, when the primary dualism intrinsic to correlation, is part of your theory. I mean, correlation just screams dichotomy, however simplistic it may be. It’s part of mine as well, but I’m not trying to get rid of it. Nevertheless, there is the dichotomy of experience and what it’s like that can easily be dismissed.

Little help?

I would also propose that some of our concepts are capable of describing and/or pointing towards that which existed in it's entirety prior to our reports.
— creativesoul

Of course, no argument here. Their names are in the literature, if one knows where to look. Do you have names for them of your own, or from some other literature?
— Mww

Do I have names for those concepts of my own? (...) To directly answer your question, or at least what I think you're asking me for...

Thought, belief, meaning, and truth all exist in their entirety(on the most basic level/degree of complexity) prior to our conceptualizations/names of/for them... that is... prior to common language use. — creativesoul

OK, I’ll buy that. At the very lowest level, these are concepts, and they can be empty of content. There must be truth, on order for something to be true.
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, if all A's consist of B, then no A exists prior to B. If all A's consist of B, then each and every A is existentially dependent upon B. That which is existentially dependent upon something else cannot exist prior to that something else. These are the sorts of reasoning that come into play here. — creativesoul

Ok, sound logic, yes.
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There's no difference between our conception of games and games. — creativesoul

Yes. Reflecting back to names and concepts being equal here, in this dialogue, and the point I was making awhile ago in another where it was proposed that the criterion of the possibility of a conception (not of its object) is the definition of it. It is the name of the objects of concepts that are different than the name of the concept.
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Correlations drawn between different things are the building blocks of everything ever thought, believed, spoken, written, and/or otherwise uttered. — creativesoul

Agreed, without equivocation. I think we need to stipulate correlations, in order to proceed.

Your turn. Agree, disagree, question all the above as you wish.

I thought we would agree there. — creativesoul

I’ll address this, and forward my agreements with your comments shortly. I don’t want you to think there’s no common ground going on here.

What I meant by "it's not just a matter of which came first", was that that is an gross oversimplification of the methodological approach needed in order to even be able to acquire the knowledge we're seeking to obtain here. I think you'll agree with this? — creativesoul

Yes. Even if there must be a first, here meaning a first in a methodological approach, a first by itself is meaningless.
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Knowing which came first requires knowing what all thought, all belief, and all concepts consist of. For when we know what each consists of, it offers us solid ground to be able to deduce which came first, by knowing what each is existentially dependent upon. — creativesoul

This would be true enough, again with respect to a methodological approach, if it were not for the fact that there are firsts in that approach that have nothing to do with it, per se, but serve as means for its inspiration. You are correct for those considerations within the approach, but we still need a reason, an occasion, to use the method to begin with. And rather than knowing what all thoughts, beliefs and concepts consist of, it is better suited for the method, to know what they do. If they do what they do without contradiction or inconsistency, their constituency may not matter. That being said, there are those things the constituency of which is quite relevant, but it remains to be seen whether the constituency is a population given to them by their use. In other words, a faculty certainly has a population of a priori objects of reason for its constituency, but each a priori object of reason that is a constituent, may not consist of anything. We must nip inevitable infinite regress at the root somehow.

What I'm left wondering still, is not only what exactly is it that you're claiming "always comes first", but "first" - as in prior to what else? I want to say that the primary namesake comes first, but I'm hesitant for you may be saying that the phenomenal object comes first. If it's the latter, then I would agree that some conceptions are of phenomenal objects and in those cases the object 'comes first'. — creativesoul

You got it...it is the object, the primary namesake, some thing of perception, to which the methodological approach can be directed. It appears from your terminology, you accept that the namesake has not been named, and no concept yet applies to it. If we wish to go even deeper into the particulars of the methodological approach, the namesake, while it suffices to call it a phenomenal object, because it is an object that will be named a phenomenon, technically it’s a sensation, and stands as the inspiration for the inductively quantitative evolution, which you readily grasped.
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There is deductively qualitative evolution, as the procedural method itself reduces from the compendium of possible named identities for a phenomenal object to a particular named identity judged as belonging to it, which always comes last.
— Mww

This bit I cannot understand. Could you set it out with an example? — creativesoul

Keyword....judged. If it be granted the quantitative, re: numerical, evolution concerns itself with part of the methodological approach, then the deductive qualitative, re: logical authority, should concern itself with another part. In short, when we understand a particular concept belongs to....names....a phenomenon, without contradicting what the concept has previously named (what we already know), we at once deduce what was previously a general unnamed sensation, is indeed cognizable as a certain named object. We are in effect, evolving from the general to the particular. It is how we arrive at experience, the last of the cognitive chain, called empirical knowledge.

Quark.

An odd word, n'est-ce pas? I submit for your consideration, that you, immediately upon reading the word here and now, referenced your experience with it. You didn’t look at the composition of the word by letter or order of letters, you related the word itself, as an established member of a particular language, with some referent, with that which the word is intended to represent. In other words, you already understand the word as a representation, you already understand the word relates to something, because antecedently, you understand and infer from that antecedence, that no word serves any informative purpose if it doesn’t refer to something.

But what, exactly, did Gell-Mann do in 1964, as causality for the absolutely very first instantiation of this particular representational indicator “quark”**? Without regard to the inherent silliness of the word, we can reasonably suppose he wanted nothing but a way to identify this theoretically mandated physical reality, even if such reality had never yet been demonstrated, and may never have been in the case Gell-Mann made a mistake in his theorizing.

From this, two significant predications arise:
1.).....the totality of an existence need not be given in order for a representation to be assigned to it; the totality of its possible existence needs merely be thought;
2.).....simply from the silliness of the name, that even if it is merely the framework for a name that is given, the name does not require any symbolic likeness to it, which in turn is sufficient reason to permit that names can be spontaneously generated without regard to representational pertinence**;
3.)....the spontaneously generated name “quark”, and the framework the name is to represent, in order to maintain logical consistency, must be the same thing, and therefore, immediately upon being named, the concept obtains.
4.)....combining 2.) re: spontaneous generation, and 3.) re: simultaneity, we can conclude that the relation to concepts, that is, their purpose in speculative epistemological methodology, does not in any way depend on a relation in concepts with respect to their development. Thought develops concepts relative to something, but thoughts are not the constituency of them.

** I’m aware of “Finnegan’s Wake”, and the historical precedence of the word. Hopefully, no rebuttal to the philosophical point being made, ensues, for it is obvious Joyce’s and Gell-Mann’s use of the word are only related accidentally.
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Try this: concepts do not begin with naming, but end with it. This way, the presupposition of names is eliminated, as well as their constituency, because the concepts are the names.
— Mww

This approach puts all concepts on equal footing as being the names. It would only follow that there are no concepts prior to naming. I could agree actually, but something tells me that you may not? My agreement to that would lead to a denial that that which exists prior to it's namesake is a concept. — creativesoul

YES!!!! Concepts and naming ARE on equal footing, there are no concepts prior to naming, and it SHOULD be denied that that which exists in its entirety prior to its namesake, is a concept. We are not thereby denying existence of namesakes, whatever its entirety, that is, that which lends itself to being nameable, but rather, we are demanding the occasion for it.

And here, I think, lay the altogether more importance of source, which is the same as occasion, as opposed to constituency, of concepts, with respect to the correlations we both acknowledge for, or by, them.

It's not just a matter of which came first. — creativesoul

It certainly is if there’s no way to tell which one of two or more somethings came first. How are we supposed to keep in mind evolution is important if it isn’t just a matter of which came first. How can there be said to even be any evolution if the matter of a first, and thereby a succession in time, isn’t resolved?

This I think is only important if we think concepts consist of something other than just other concepts. Actually, I guess it could get real muddy, depending on the scope of reductionism being played with.
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The evolution part is important to keep in mind. — creativesoul

There is an inductively quantitative evolution, as major name concepts multiply in complexity by a compendium of minor names inhering in the same phenomenal object, which always comes first. There is deductively qualitative evolution, as the procedural method itself reduces from the compendium of possible named identities for a phenomenal object to a particular named identity judged as belonging to it, which always comes last.

There’s your evolution!!! Happy now? Simultaneous bi-directional evolution. Betcha never saw that one coming, didja!?
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Nevertheless. You brought up evolution, so.....lay it on me. What do you consider evolving and how do you consider it evolving?
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I would also propose that some of our concepts are capable of describing and/or pointing towards that which existed in it's entirety prior to our reports. — creativesoul

Of course, no argument here. Their names are in the literature, if one knows where to look. Do you have names for them of your own, or from some other literature?

I call our reports cognitions. Will you agree reports are at the end of the cognitive chain? Or for you, where are reports located? Where....when.....does a report manifest?

The SEP begins with this...

Concepts are the building blocks of thoughts.

Of course, I strongly disagree! — creativesoul

Because you hold the reverse, that thoughts (and beliefs) are the building blocks of concepts? Is this what you mean by......

What do you think is the constituency of concepts?
— Mww

Thought and belief — creativesoul

Step 1: reconcile the chicken/egg temporal dichotomy. Do we think, thereby develop concepts to justify the thinking, or do we conceptualize, then think by means of them.

Eneenie meenie miney moe.....

there is no difference between one's concept of a dog and one's thought and belief about dogs. — creativesoul

This is agreeable, but doesn’t say anything about what concepts consist of, which is the base of the dialectic. And to say concepts begin with naming only kicks the constituency can down the thought/belief road, for now we have not only concepts presupposed as extant with respect to their source, but also names presupposed with respect to their concepts. If concepts begin with naming, the names must already have occurred somehow, in order for them to begin the correlations from which concepts develop.

Try this: concepts do not begin with naming, but end with it. This way, the presupposition of names is eliminated, as well as their constituency, because the concepts are the names. Now, all that remains is the actual correlation, that which a conceptual identity relates to.

And the source of them. Can’t neglect that. Probably the most important aspect of this whole thing.

Done for the night. Been real.

Never mind; extracting information in the wrong direction, kinda.

I agree we do correlate things. And such correlation develops out of thoughts. I hesitate to call such correlation the development of concepts.

Oh, ok. We draw correlations and concepts are the results of the correlation of names and things named. Does that mean the thing and the named thing are things of thought or things of belief then?

OK, so concepts correlate different things. What are those things? And how do concepts correlate them?

How can we know what a concept is existentially dependent upon if we do not know what a concept consists of? — creativesoul

Would it matter, if concepts don’t consist of anything? What does a notion consist of? An idea? Other than to say what each of those does, or from whence they arise, what else can be said about them? If objects are predicated on the concepts that characterize them, how is it possible to characterize the concept, except with another concept, which tells us nothing about the constituency of concepts.

What do you think is the constituency of concepts?

I'm more than willing to continue this one. Are you? — creativesoul

Sure. I’m old, retired and lazy. Perfect for philosophical musings. Have to acknowledge, however, we’ll bore the holy bejesus outta the physicalists, anthropologists, empirical psychologists in the audience, as well as the subjective idealists and phenomenalists. Hell...just about every -ist ever invented, except maybe empirical realists, and even those guys are apt to shrug off most speculative metaphysics.

So, we're talking about methodological approach here, aren't we? — creativesoul

Dunno about anybody else, but I am. No one denies that humans do things, but examination of methodology is required for understanding how it is possible those things are done. If there is an interest in it, of course.
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If the question is how is it possible to distinguish whether concepts arise from different mechanisms, or by degree from a simpliciter, or divide into simpliciters from a whole, aren't we asking two questions about our candidate? — creativesoul

Not so much about the candidate, for the candidate, in this case, a concept, is presupposed. In effect, we are asking two questions about possible mechanisms which serve as sources of the candidate.
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If the question is how is it possible to distinguish whether concepts arise from different mechanisms, or by degree from a simpliciter, or divide into simpliciters from a whole, aren't we asking two questions about our candidate? 1.) What does it consist of? And 2.) What is it existentially dependent upon? — creativesoul

Because the candidate is presupposed, it’s existence is given but that of which it consists is at this point, irrelevant, because the source that facilitates its existence has yet to be determined.

1.) Without a source, there is no indication of what kind of concept it is, nor what it is used for, which makes its constituency moot. Not to mention, there is no indication concepts have a constituency, even if they absolutely must have a source. After the source is identified, it is the purview of the logical laws of rational thought, as to whether or not a concept has the capacity to do its job as reason asks. Whether or not the concept is drawn from the correct source, is the determining factor of its employment, not that of which it consists.

2.) That which a concept is existentially dependent upon, is the entirety of the argument, is the only potentially informative question to be asked about concepts, for from that, both 1.) and 2.) are answerable.

Back to methodology. Reason the verb, is of course, a procedural methodology. A speculative procedural methodology predicated on logical relations. Logical relations having to do with what we think about the world as it appears, with respect to the world as it actually is.

All that to say this: you’re on record as saying we are too far apart in our thinking, so.....enough is enough, right?

.......or what. (...) i.e. depends on the point of view. — Zelebg

Pretty much, yep. One point of view is to separate free from will, because as you say there are times when the will is not free at all, then define freedom as the absolutely necessary condition under which the will is permitted to operate autonomously.

The problem is as it has always been....the concept of freedom, as any pure abstract concept, cannot be proved to either exist, or to function as supposed. The very best that ever be deduced from it, is that the determinations given from its mere possibility, do not grant any self-contradiction within the theory that employs it.

Still, if we cannot choose because who we are always determines the choice, and who we are always changes, then it follows that choices must also change in order to keep up with who we are. If everything seems to be changing, it must be considered whether we are free to choose our particular volitions from the myriad of changes in our identities.

Good first post, far better than others on the same topic.

I figured as much, that you were intending “I can’t do this and that”. It would be semantically nit-picky, if we were talking about anything except the logical law, which doesn’t allow any ambiguity.

Aristotle would shake his head in great dismay to hear us talk of “two different that’s”.

The 'law of non-contradiction' is no more than "I can't do that and that". — Isaac

Hmmmm.......

I can’t walk and walk. Isn’t that more incomprehensible than contradictory? I didn’t think comprehension to be the proper measure of contradiction.

It’s a fine line between comparison and relation. It suffices to say comparison, when the rational chronology is from knowledge backwards to perception, insofar as knowledge may or may not compare one-to-one apodectically with the object. In the case of that chronology from perception forward to knowledge, which is the major concern of reason anyway, wherein all procedural methodology is strictly a priori, the much more general relational operative is better suited for deducing precisely what the object is, out of the manifold of possible objects it might be.

Arguments can be made either way, I suppose.

Thanks to both.

My literature and philosophical inclinations cross-reference with fdrake’s comment more than Issac’s, although each are interesting and informative.

Isn't a contingent just a law that describes a necessary function - if->then? — Isaac

I thought that was called a conditional. There are lawful conditionals, yes; “if/then” is merely a form of cause/effect, which has the power of law in its a priori principles. There are no lawful contingents.

I reject the idea that contingency has the power of law. Law incorporates the principles of universality and necessity, whereas rule does not. Mathematics being the prime example: if the human understanding of mathematical principle doesn’t hold no matter where a human finds himself, he has no access to knowledge whatsoever, at least in his present evolutionary status.

Although, in the Grand Scheme of Things of course, everything is contingent because absolute truth is unknown. Even so, we generate conditions under which understanding is prevented from contradicting itself, and the predicates of law are such.

Understood.

The question then arises, how is it possible to distinguish whether concepts arise from different mechanisms, or concepts arise by degree from a simpliciter, or, divide into simpliciters from a whole, from one mechanism? The obvious answer would seem to be, the difference in concept kind, or, the difference in their respective application, demonstrates the difference in their respective source.

Is it not reasonable to suppose, that if concepts arise from different mechanisms, they should be different in and of themselves? It follows necessarily that if the difference in concepts is given, there needs be a faculty whose sole modus operandi is to determine, not which concept but which kind of concept, is required for that which concepts are designed to accomplish. Then, have we not succeeded in complicating the human rational system without proper warrant?

....concepts mediate and inspire.... — fdrake

........which implies contingent rule;

rather than being strongly....tied to the neural architecture — fdrake

......which implies necessary physical law.

How can both inhere in a pure wetware environment? In effect, law is subsumed by mere rule, which contradicts itself.

concepts I create with concepts I voluntarily create....... — Isaac

.......implies two separate and distinct mechanisms from which concepts arise. Is that what you meant to suggest?

You do need to talk "around" them in natural language. — Terrapin Station

Good enough for me. Which is indeed fortunate, because I do it all the time.

Thanks.

The hazard of not being at all times, even while swimming, rigorous in explication. — tim wood

Ahhhh, yes. The inevitable bane of subjectivity.

Ok, good on me!! YEA!!!

Still, don’t we need conventional language for truth tables to have any meaning? I understand logical truisms to be guides for rational thought, but we still need to quantify that guide, do we not?

By this I understand you to mean the conditional “if p then q” does not translate into natural language. If so, I agree, for formal logic is empty of content.

Is that what you are saying?

Sorry....that flew right over my head. Are you asking me to reword the statement “ all effects must have cause” to validate its truth value? I don’t know how to do that, because as stated, it’s negation is a contradiction, so its truth value is given by itself.

As I said, I ain’t no logician. The only logic I concern myself with, are the Aristotelian laws of thought, to which of course, the cause/effect proposition is a prime example.

#2 is answerable directly: Yes. — tim wood

What am I missing, such that you would say yes, but I would say no?

And now Tim got there first; I also wish a clarification of.....what he said.

I am going to allow you the chance to notice the very specific qualifier in my comment, which should permit you to better understand its validity.

Kantian epistemological philosophy is predicated exclusively on reason and logic, of which “all events must have a cause” is the foremost rendering of it a priori. So, no, the Kantian “all effects must have a cause” does not fit into a category of something beyond reason and logic. Truth be told, I can’t imagine anything beyond reason and logic. Even the alleged “transcendental illusion” is itself reason and logic, however misguided it may be.

Nevertheless, I’m not a logician per se, so I wonder about this conditional stuff. If it rains tomorrow I will go for a jog may be true, but if it doesn’t rain tomorrow, what prevents me from going for a jog anyway? What is it about the rain that if there isn’t any I can’t go for a jog?

The cause/effect proposition and negation I understand, insofar as any effect must have a cause and if there are no effects no cause can be supposed. But the rain thing doesn’t seem to be the same kind of proposition.

1.) The evidence is out there for anyone to see, that of all the trades available for human endeavor, philosophers tend to pick on each other moreso than others.

2.) The more one exposes himself to the thoughts of philosophers, the more he tends to think himself worthy of being the copy of one. And the more one adopts the philosophy of an established author, the more he relinquishes the philosophy of others, at the real risk of becoming the proverbial one-trick pony in the world’s metaphysical rodeo.

3.) I’m never going to tell anybody how much philosophy I’ve studied, because I’m self-antiquated by 2.) and thereby I am deathly afraid of 1.)

Understood.

If the premise had been, “can reason and logic explain that which is present to human observation or mere thought” I wouldn’t have been so quick to jump. The human cognitive system, re: reason, is a relational system, re: logical, therefore it is by means of a methodology based on reason and logic a human should ever claim to know anything at all.

I see no reason to suspect you do not accept that physical science is grounded by pure reason, at least in its theoretical domain, which all science must be at some point. Whether the laws which justify our understanding of the world inhere in the world and are merely discovered, or are rationally determined a priori in response to the affect of the world on our sensibility, is sufficient to demonstrate the absolute necessity for pure reason with respect to the human’s ultimate seeking after knowledge.

Nevertheless, in a certain sense, you are correct, insofar as nothing whatsoever a consciously interactive human ever does, excepting pure reflex or sheer accident, is not immediately preceded by the thought of it, which is the epitome of reason and logic, however rational/irrational, logical/illogical it may be.

.......reason is explained by science, — Wayfarer

Yeah, but it isn’t. Mental machinations resulting in observable conditions, sure. Tickle this part of the brain, my toes wiggle. Measure 16 phosphorus ions cross the gap in sector 3 of the occipital lobe, see a particular,repeatable pattern on the ‘scope with respect to my appreciation of a nice French burgundy. B.F.D.

How a person arrives at personal understanding of his own experience a posteriori, or why a particular moral predicate is favored over another.....never gonna happen.

Hopefully.

Odd, isn’t it? How inherently circular, that reason gives us the means to talk about itself.