So, your "orbit" analogy is not apt, since an orbit must be thought to either an observable third person phenomenon or an abstract model, and subjective feelings are neither of these. — Janus

But, demonstrably, we do talk about feelings in the third person.

Yes we say things like "she was angry" or sad or depressed or whatever, but that is not what I'm talking about. Those are simplified labels for lived feeling, and lived feeling is never observed as a third person phenomenon, it is felt by the person 'having' the feeling.

It is that we can experience feelings which is mysterious and inexplicable, and no physical theory about how it occurs will ever touch that mystery or dissolve that inexplicability. And even it could why would we want it to?

Exhibit A would be that philosophy is entirely founded on dialectical reasoning. — apokrisis

An all-and-some statement, neither provable nor falsifiable, much loved by conspiracy theorists.

What I am unhappy with is you insistence that truth conform to your specifications. It just doesn't.

For example, when I see a tree while wide awake using my eyes, am I conscious of a mental tree, or the tree itself? — Marchesk

Perceiving is the continual construction of objects represented by our mentality. All perception is mental.

To claim that would be to deny that non-social animals don't have raw feelings. — Janus

I would indeed claim that non-linguistic animals can't have "raw feelings" as they don't have introspective awareness.

Animals would just be aware "directly" of the world. They would not have the linguistically-scaffolded ability to be "aware of the contents of their own consciousness". That is, they wouldn't have the learnt attitude that is being "directly aware" of mental appearances.

So what I am trying to get at here is that this notion of "raw feelings" is very much a particular way of construing phenomenology. Yes, there is certainly this general thing we call "mind" going on in our heads. There is experience. But to talk about qualia or raw feelings is already to have entered into a narrative version of what is going on. To introspect is a conception-heavy action, not some kind of direct perception of a set of self-independent mental facts.

This comes back to my point about perception being bi-directional. The self gets produced in the process, as much as the world viewed. Both the subjectivity and the objectivity get formed as the complementary parts of the world modelling relation.

To introspect is "perception" of the contents of awareness. So really, it involves the production of the kind of narrative selfhood - the one that can call itself by a name - which can then turn around and "see" that it is seeing, or hearing, or tasting, or feeling. This narrative self - after it has been formed in the right fashion by a school of philosophical thought - can come to "see" that it is seeing qualia or raw feelings. It will know the way to frame its experience so that it appears to be pointed at the redness of red, or whatever.

Attention will be focused so that awareness of everything else is suitably suppressed for a fleeting moment. The redness of red will dominate the mental view. It will seem the most intensely noticed aspect of that instant of phenomenology. A snapshot of that moment will be made and held in working memory so it can be discussed in philosophical fashion as evidence for a theory. The narrating self will protest that it has raw feelings - as it just managed to adopt a socially-constructed attitude where that was true.

So I am questioning your too easy claim that you can introspect and directly perceive that there are a bunch of raw feelings "in there" - along with a narrative self that is beholding these raw feelings and passing comment on them, describing them, understanding them as real "intention-independent" phenomenal qualities.

If even raw feelings are socially constructed then they are not raw feelings; there would be no raw feelings. Then how much more so would the notion of raw feelings or anything else be socially constructed; which would mean all of our idea and theories are nothing more than arbitrary social constructs. — Janus

I'm not saying it is social construction all the way down. I am saying it is semiosis all the way down. So there is the biological level of perception that is foundational for the social. Animals are aware. It is just that their awareness would be extrospective rather than introspective. They would have what we would call phenomenal states or raw feelings - but that is what we would call it, not how they could view it.

So we are imagining ourselves being inside their heads and watching a parade of raw feelings playing out. We are adopting the "homunculus beholding a representation" model that is our notion of the right way to introspect. That social intentional stance - that kind of narrative selfhood - is what a non-linguistic animal can never have. The animal is just thoughtlessly reacting to the world it experiences. It doesn't see its experience as an appearance.

Animals would just be aware "directly" of the world. — apokrisis

They would also be directly aware of their bodies; and that is precisely what I mean by "raw feeling". This is not introspection that looks for "contents", you seem to be still stuck in the objectivist model. It is simply feeling yourself. I have no doubt you can do it right now as you sit at your computer. That basic feeling of ourselves, that really cannot be put into words adequately is the primal basis upon which everything else is constructed.

So we are imagining ourselves being inside their heads and watching a parade of raw feelings playing out. — apokrisis

That's not the way I am thinking about it at all. There is no such separation between feeling and the one who feels. What I am trying to get at is prior to the subject/object distinction. Apologies that I don't have time for longer replies at the moment.

They would also be directly aware of their bodies; and that is precisely what I mean by "raw feeling". — Janus

So you mean that "raw feeling" is about the division that gets made in terms of self vs world? It is the primal distinction between self and other?

I would tend to agree this is the most basic level of "perception". Everything starts from the epistemic cut of this difference-making.

So I object to qualia talk as it already dualises self and percepts. It is a faux realism about the contents of a phenomenal space.

But I agree with the semiotic position which sees all awareness beginning from the complex knot that is a self~world symmetry breaking.

That basic feeling of ourselves, that really cannot be put into words adequately is the primal basis upon which everything else is constructed. — Janus

But now you switch back into a constructive mode of analysis where some thing must be foundational, rather than some process.

So instead of a phenomenology of world being basic, you talk of the phenomenology of selfhood as being basic. And this is sort of right. You are talking about the bare fact of there being "a point of view". There is a directionality in play - the one that points from a self to a world.

But I would stress that the deeper analysis would be the semiotic view where what gets everything going is a symmetry-breaking process.

It starts with the lack of any self~world distinction, just a vagueness. So the primal foundation is "a state" that is not even divided as yet. Then both self and world are what co-arise as the two necessary ends of the one pointing arrow.

The semiotic approach ensures that we don't have to claim that mind, or spirit, or some other kind of mentalistic substance, is the "foundational stuff". We can avoid the usual reductionist bottom-up causality that bedevils philosophy of mind.

We say things like "I viewed Io exiting an eclipse at such-and-such a time", these are lived observations - are these so different to feelings?

Those are simplified labels for lived feeling, and lived feeling is never observed as a third person phenomenon, it is felt by the person 'having' the feeling. — Janus

And yet we talk about them.

In so far as we can discuss and theorise about them they are not private. In so far as they are private, we cannot discuss or theorise about them.

You can't have your cake and eat it.

Nothing prevents us from realizing , discussing and theorizing about our inability to discuss and theorize about some kinds of experience. It's not a matter of "having your cake and eating it ", but simply a matter of being able to recognize the difference between what we can talk about in precise terms and what we cannot. I would say that difference is not black and white but a continuum with extremes at either end.

Nothing prevents us from realizing , discussing and theorizing about our inability to discuss and theorize about some kinds of experience — Janus

I quite agree. I only would add that many philosophical problems come from failing to recognise when we have slipped from discussing ineffability to discussing the ineffable.

Edit: Such as when people claim that we cannot talk about trees, but only about about private experiences-of-trees...

Then when we experience a tree, it presents itself to us, when we think about the tree , we represent it to ourselves with our memory, imagination and reason. What we experience is different in kind from what we represent to our self. Say perception is a habitual two stage process of presentations becoming representations, where representations are foregrounded in consciousness.

There are no lines drawn in experience. All our senses, all our affects provide the basis for what we perceive. How our senses, how our affects have developed (physically and historically) determines what we filter out as well as what we retain in our representation of our perceptions. Perhaps some presentations are unrepresentable, yet still meaningful because of the pleasurable or pain experienced, what Kant and Burke described as the sublime.

It should also be noted that it's a sign of absolute philosophical failure when discussion about perception glibly slides into discussion about 'experience' or knowledge more generally, without any attention paid to the specificity of perception. Or for that matter when people speak of sensation and perception as though they were the same thing. These last few pages in this thread have been one long litany of failire in that regard.

There are intents whether we are conscious of them or not. — Magnus Anderson

Others'.

Self isn't a single thing. It is many things. — Magnus Anderson

Self? What is that? Or rather, what are those?

Go ahead and believe that all intent is conscious if you want to. I think you are wrong if you believe that, but it's no skin off my nose. It's not important enough to me to waste time trying to convince you of something which is

so obvious, and yet for whatever reasons you don't want to believe. — Janus

It's not whatever reasons. I've offered them for you to consider. Our positions conflict with one another. At least one of us is wrong. Thus, because holding false belief increases the likelihood for error, and it's impossible to make a mistake on purpose, and avoiding error is a good thing to do, tell me... what are your reasons for believing otherwise? Where does what I say about it go wrong?

Well, for starters we need to realize that the very notion of 'self-deception' is self-contradictory. It doesn't really make any sense when placed under careful scrutiny. I mean think about it differently for a minute. What sense does it make to say that we deliberately set out in order to trick ourselves into believing something that we don't?
— creativesoul

I haven't said we do it deliberately. — Janus

Then we don't do it at all. That's the point being made here.
— creativesoul

Most of what we do is not deliberate; following your argument that we therefore do not actually do it, we actually do very little at all. :-} — Janus

That's not my argument, nor does it follow from what I've written.

Not all things we do are deliberate. Some are. Deception requires intent. Intending to trick someone is deliberate. I've argued for how that is the case. You've neglected to give the argument due attention.

Hand-waving isn't acceptable.

It should also be noted that it's a sign of absolute philosophical failure when discussion about perception glibly slides into discussion about 'experience' or knowledge more generally, without any attention paid to the specificity of perception. Or for that matter when people speak of sensation and perception as though they were the same thing. These last few pages in this thread have been one long litany of failire in that regard. — StreetlightX

Unsurprising though...

Certainly, this notion of self-deception requires believing falsehood(s). Are false belief said to be the cause of self deception or the result?

An interesting thing about certainty is that the degree to which one is certain of 'X' is determined by virtue of how many other thought/belief are grounded upon 'X' and/or share grounding with 'X'...

...or so it seems.

Not a helpful comment unless you identify just what you are referring to and where it fails according to your criteria, preferably quoting the specific passages you are targetting.

Of course it is possible to deceive others or oneself without consciously intending to.

Braggarts who. probably out of a sense of insecurity, bullshit about what they have done and even come to believe their own bullshit are a good example. People practice all kinds of subtle deceit and are more complex than your simple model seems to give them credit for. Makes me think you don't get out much.

In any case if you have never observed this kind of unconscious deceit in yourself or others then your experience of people is simply different to mine and nothing I can say will make any diiference to what you believe.

So, one knows that what they say about themselves isn't true, as they're saying it but they say it anyway as a means to make themselves look a certain way to another that they're actually not. This telling of falsehood about oneself happens repeatedly enough and over a sufficient enough time period that the speaker forgets that the falsehood isn't true and begins to actually believe it?

So, one knows that what they say about themselves isn't true, as they're saying it but they say it anyway — creativesoul

If they thought about it at the time; if not then they tell a lie without being conscious of doing so. Quite common I would say.

I quite agree. I only would add that many philosophical problems come from failing to recognise when we have slipped from discussing ineffability to discussing the ineffable.

Edit: Such as when people claim that we cannot talk about trees, but only about about private experiences-of-trees... — Banno

Now, that's a distinction I can get behind! It's true that we can talk about ineffability, but we cannot say anything at all about the ineffable by definition. So when we allude poetically to the ineffable, or to God, or the Eternal, we are not speaking about the ineffable, God or the Eternal, but about our own sense and understanding of ineffability, godliness or eternality. So, that's a very useful distinction to make.

As to tree-talk, I think it's right to say that people talk about trees, not about "tree-experiences". ON the other hand people can only speak with knowledge about trees, insofar as they have experience of them, and can only speak of what emerges from that experience, and not about 'what a tree is' absent any human experience or perception of it. About the 'what the tree is beyond human experience' people may conjecture, and it is an open question as to whether such conjecture is empty, but in any case it cannot be knowledge.

So you mean that "raw feeling" is about the division that gets made in terms of self vs world? It is the primal distinction between self and other? — apokrisis

I would say the raw feeling becomes localized as self, allowing the distinction of other (wherever I do not locate the raw feeling). But my experience of the other (totalized as world) is still my experience and no one else's. In that sense personhood is foundational.

it is an open question as to whether such conjecture is empty, — Janus

What would such a conjecture look like? Can an example be provided?

I doubt it.

Of course it is possible to deceive others or oneself without consciously intending to.

Braggarts who. probably out of a sense of insecurity, bullshit about what they have done and even come to believe their own bullshit are a good example. — Janus

So, one knows that what they say about themselves isn't true, as they're saying it but they say it anyway as a means to make themselves look a certain way to another that they're actually not. This telling of falsehood about oneself happens repeatedly enough and over a sufficient enough time period that the speaker forgets that the falsehood isn't true and begins to actually believe it? — creativesoul

If they thought about it at the time; if not then they tell a lie without being conscious of doing so. Quite common I would say. — Janus

Well, if one bullshits and later comes to believe it, then they didn't believe it at first. They were aware of the fact that they did not believe what they were saying - at first. If they later come to believe the bullshit, they are not aware that they once believed otherwise. Lying is deliberately misrepresenting one's own thought/belief. So, in the case of the bullshitter who later comes to believe his/her own bullshit - after they've come to actually believe it - they are no longer lying. That holds good regardless of whether or not what they say is false/true.

As to tree-talk, I think it's right to say that people talk about trees, not about "tree-experiences". ON the other hand people can only speak with knowledge about trees, insofar as they have experience of them, and can only speak of what emerges from that experience, and not about 'what a tree is' absent any human experience or perception of it. About the 'what the tree is beyond human experience' people may conjecture, and it is an open question as to whether such conjecture is empty, but in any case it cannot be knowledge. — Janus

Are you saying that we cannot form and/or hold well grounded true belief about what the tree is beyond human experience? I've already argued for that and against the position you're arguing from/for above without subsequent refutation or attention. Care to address it directly, or are you satisfied with neglecting it?

...when we allude poetically to the ineffable, or to God, or the Eternal, we are not speaking about the ineffable, God or the Eternal, but about our own sense and understanding of ineffability, godliness or eternality. So, that's a very useful distinction to make. — Janus

What distinction?

There is no distinction between belief about the ineffable and the ineffable.

...if you have never observed this kind of unconscious deceit in yourself or others then your experience of people is simply different to mine and nothing I can say will make any diiference to what you believe. — Janus

Well, good arguments make a difference to me. The simpler the better. However...

Aren't we talking about metacognition here?

It makes no sense to talk about observing unconscious deceit in oneself. It makes sense to talk about becoming aware that our thought/belief has efficacy, and that holding unshakable certainty in some belief or other has the effect/affect of not allowing us to believe something to the contrary, even if that includes an overwhelming amount of evidence.

I'm being reminded of Russel's Why I'm Not a Christian...

All the world's religions, mythology, hermeticism, theosophy and anthroposophy, as well as pre-critical philosophy should provide plenty of examples.

Although if "conjecture' is taken to imply the possibility of empirical refutation then 'think' or even 'imagine' would be more appropriate terms.