How do you know when you are reasoning and when you are not if not by sensation? What form does your reasoning take as opposed to being irrational if not some sensation? — Harry Hindu

By thought. We have thoughts and some of those thoughts are generated by our faculty of reason. And they tell us about the thoughts of Reason herself.

I suppose you're not familiary with e.g. paraconsistent logic or E.M. Escher's illustrations or dialetheism or Salvador Dali's paintings or QM superpositionality or frenemies? Mind, Smith, is reality-dependent (i.e. embodied, ecologically imbedded, causally enabled-constrained, necessarily contingent) and not the other way around, so "idealism" neither obtains nor follows from LNC. If anything follows from LNC, it's modal-ontological realism (i.e. actualism), which I ruminate on here (with further links, scroll down).

:up:

One point in your own post you linked to caught my eye - modeling/mapping reality. It appears that the idea is to create/generate mental models/maps of reality. The mind can't do contradictions - it's beyond its ken as it were - and so it rejects aspects of reality that are either contradictions or very nearly contradictions.

Notice here that reality doesn't have to be consistent (contradiction free), only the mental map/model has to be. This is like saying I can't understand Wittgenstein and so Wittgenstein is nonsense!

I argue in my link that reality is necessarily not contradictory (i.e. an impossible world). And our maps certainly can and do contain contradictions, some of which I mention in the first sentence of my previous post.

I argue in my link that reality is necessarily not contradictory (i.e. an impossible world). And our maps certainly can and do contain contradictions, some of which I mention in the first sentence of my previous post. — 180 Proof

To my knowledge, the mind simply can't handle contradictions. It might appear as though we can take contradictions in our stride (vide cognitive dissonance), but remember they cause distress/anxiety and people go to great lengths, bend over backwards so to speak, to resolve the offending antinomy.

Experimenting on myself, I attempted to conceive of a ball wholly red AND wholly not red (I chose black). It was a failure, it can't be done, by me at least.

Returning to what I said my earlier post, I believe paradoxes, like anything else for that matter, can be put to good use. I compare them to statements that computers can't parse - DOES NOT COMPUTE! I believe they are portals to nirvana, at least in a Zen context (koans are paradoxes, that seems to have been the aim in formulating them anyway).

Experimenting on myself, I attempted to conceive of a ball wholly red AND wholly not red (I chose black). It was a failure, it can't be done, by me at least. — Agent Smith

One problem with arguments from (in-)conceivability is that what are called 'private mental states' can have no significance for serious inquiry.

A more worldly approach would be to note that almost no one knows what to do with phrases like 'the ball that's red all over and also not red all over.' (It's thinkable that such a way of speaking could become useful, as in 'I love her and yet I don't.'

IMV, one the fundamental confusions in philosophy is taking a realm of shared logical intuitions and qualia for granted as foundational ur-stuff and trying to construct a world from it. In many ways it makes more sense to work in the other direction, and to think of the 'self' as a convenient fiction. It's a learned habit, the training of a single body to conform in terms of a central 'ghost' as target of praise and blame. So it must be (to jam it into the straitjacket of this myth) a morally responsible blob of freedom.

One problem with arguments from (in-)conceivability is that what are called 'private mental states' can have no significance for serious inquiry. — lll

Why not? I can inquire into my own private mental states, can't I? It appears that our analytic brain has become used to doing what it does (analysis) symbolically. No symbol, no analysis. If our "world" is essentially analytic in character then, as Wittgenstein said, "the limits of my language are the limits of my world." However, there's more to our world than simply comprehending it, there's pure experience of it, something that actually takes place as part of the process of data collection, pre-analysis.

almost no one knows what to do — lll

Yes, almost. Let's say that's 99% of folks. Who are the 1% and where are they?

MV, one the fundamental confusions in philosophy is taking a realm of shared logical intuitions and qualia for granted as foundational ur-stuff and trying to construct a world from it. — lll

Excellent. It doesn't have to be that way, and the truth has no obligation to reveal itself thus. However, what's the alternative? Every man for himself? That would be amazing! The question is, are we as similar as we think we are or are we, each one of us, irreconcilably unique? How do we know that this "shared intuitions and qualia" isn't an illusion i.e. there's no consensus, even if there is, it's in name only?

Okay. You're incorrigible on this point. We'll have to discuss something else.

Okay. You're incorrigible on this point. We'll have to discuss something else. — 180 Proof

:blush: Sorry. G'day.

Can you please tell me what exactly goes through your mind when, for example, I tell you to conceive (is this even the right word/concept?) the following:

1. Square & Not square (easy)
2. A quark & Not quark (hard) — Agent Smith

To me both are impossible. In trying to imagine a square & no square I picture a square and then picture a circle, but they both cannot appear in the same instance and in the same mental space unless they overlap, but then aren't the same object. The same for quark/not quark.

I argue in my link that reality is necessarily not contradictory (i.e. an impossible world). And our maps certainly can and do contain contradictions, some of which I mention in the first sentence of my previous post. — 180 Proof

Contradictions are a misuse of language, or if you want to use maps, are a misuse of maps.

Some people claim that contradictions follow the rules of some language, but only when you forget the rule that language refers to things or events in reality (which includes our minds) (which like you said is necessarily not contradictory).

To me both are impossible. In trying to imagine a square & no square I picture a square and then picture a circle, but they both cannot appear in the same instance and in the same mental space unless they overlap, but then aren't the same object. The same for quark/not quark. — Harry Hindu

Same here! Yet...there has to be someone or something that can do this (conceive of or, as you put it, hold a contradiction). There's gotta be someone, there usually is someone, that's the law (every rule has an exception). And if (supposing) I can do it, so can you; that's another law. I don't think all men are mortal! :grin:

That's just a flight of fancy. On a more serious note, this: We can't look directly at the sun, you know that! Retinal burn would render you blind. However, there are workarounds for that...

Why not? I can inquire into my own private mental states, can't I? — Agent Smith

Why are you so sure there's a you in there in the first place?

We've been brought up to behave as if there's a little self in here who pinks at a little screen and tweaks various knobs to make the body go boom boom. Unscrew the doors from their jambs, friend. Or shall I say friends, acknowledging that your skull may be haunted by a plurality of flu officers? Or are we both just ripples in the same semantic symbolic dance? (Have we plumbed the depths of what it mines to share a lung-wedge?)

'Unscrew the locks from the doors ! Unscrew the doors themselves from their jambs ! (Wilt Whetman.)

The question is, are we as similar as we think we are or are we, each one of us, irreconcilably unique? — Agent Smith

Excellent question. This is actually the problem with taking qualia seriously. If there's a gap between the thing and its label (if words get their meaning from and refer to 'private experience'), then the synchronization of our practical affairs via our barking and scribbling is unbearably miraculous. I say the meaning must flow in the other direction, that synchronization of bodies is primary, and that the 'self' and its private theatre is a derived, convenient fiction -- something like smoke that rises from the fire of bodies working together to replicate like mad (products indeed of evolution.)

However, what's the alternative? Every man for himself? — Agent Smith

No man is a island. As I see it, one of the discoveries of philosophy (and not just of philosophy) is the primacy of the social. The penisolated ego gets it backwards. The muttering 'solipsist' is ringing changes on an inherited softwhere hugged and spanked into him as a child. The fantasy of God and the fantasy of the penisolated ego are two sides of the same coin. The unity involved is that of reason itself, which is a kind of distributed computation belonging to a tribe which is potentially the electrically networked species ('World City'). Just as species have DNA, which encodes and adjusts to experience, social organisms have culture. We are 'time-binding' 'fermented' beings. Our tongue tools are our greatest inheritance, it seems, and one wrench in this bag of tongue tools is the tall tale of the big lonely ego, which is ever so useful for training a body to police itself.

Yes, almost. Let's say that's 99% of folks. Who are the 1% and where are they? — Agent Smith

Example. 'I love her and yet I don't love her.' The point is that outright contradictions can work just fine for expressions of ambivalence. More specifically, we can imagine kids making up a game where the pieces can be 'completely red' and 'completely blue' at the same time. They'd know what to do with such a 'contradiction.'

Much of logic, seems to me, is just congealed and fetishized grammar. Heat it up and it's plastic again. We make the rules and forget we made them. The contingent is mistaken for the necessary. Tale as old as time.

Why are you so sure there's a you in there in the first place?

We've been brought up to behave as if there's a little self in here who pinks at a little screen and tweaks various knobs to make the body go boom boom. Unscrew the doors from their jambs, friend. Or shall I say friends, acknowledging that your skull may be haunted by a plurality of flu officers? Or are we both just ripples in the same semantic symbolic dance? (Have we plumbed the depths of what it mines to share a lung-wedge?)

'Unscrew the locks from the doors ! Unscrew the doors themselves from their jambs ! (Wilt Whetman.) — lll

That went over my head. Anyway...

You're correct to point out that the this idea of self we have maybe an illusion, but a distinction that seems relevant is this: Is our self an assumption or an inference? Does it matter which it is? Cogito ergo sum (Decartes).

It all depends I suppose on the definition of "self" or "I".

penisolated ego gets it backwards. — lll

:up: :clap:

Our tongue tools are our greatest inheritance — lll

Yep, language is part of tbe so-called cognitive revolution. Even so, evolutionary success is not predicated on language; in fact shooting oneself in the foot seems to be the defining feature of those who can speak/write viz. garrulous apes (h. sapiens). We've understood the world, yes, but its destruction, our own too, is the price we pay.

Breeds there the man...

'I love her and yet I don't love her.' — lll

The undercurrent!

That went over my head. Anyway... — Agent Smith

Try to imagine that the subject is an invention/convention so ancient that we mistake it as the single most obvious fact. 'The soul is the prison of the body.'

We've understood the world, yes, but its destruction, our own too, is the price we pay. — Agent Smith

A magnificent tragicomedy ours. Are we better than roaches? I like us more, but I'm biased. If a roach had enough of a nervous system, it'd presumably grunt a preference for a lovely nymph with its own stretch of code (Do Not Annihilate.)

Try to imagine that the subject is an invention/convention so ancient that we mistake it as the single most obvious fact. 'The soul is the prison of the body.' — lll

:ok: I have a vague understanding of what you're trying to get at. It's an interesting perspective. Taoist. Toooo Taoist? I dunno!

roaches — lll

Bah! Humans! — Roaches

You're correct to point out that the this idea of self we have maybe an illusion, but a distinction that seems relevant is this: Is our self an assumption or an inference? Does it matter which it is? Cogito ergo sum (Descartes). — Agent Smith

Descartes was deceived by grammar (or pretended to be). Paraphrasing Nietzsche, mutterphysics is substance abuse. We learn to say 'I think' and we learn to say 'it rains.' Who's this thing that's raining? I think I prefer 'convention' to 'illusion' for the self. It's more about recognizing the contingency of any given content and less about digging through all the layers of 'illusion' or 'appearance' to find some core that is finally It. As one wit put it, it's turtles or interpretation all the way down. Perhaps there's no man behind the curtain but only more curtains for ever endeavor.

I have a vague understanding of what you're trying to get at. It's an interesting perspective. Taoist. Toooo Taoist? I dunno! — Agent Smith

Just to be clear, I'm an egostic human like most, so this rather speculative transcendence of the ego convention is largely a flower in my theoretical bouquet. On the other hand, I do genuinely believe that we melt more and more into the cultural realm as we study. I mean that we see more and more how much we are just a rearrangement of the same old parts. Sure, there is some novelty and progress, but an education is mostly catching up with the dead.

Schopenhauer talks about a philosopher wanting to get his insights in a book so that he can die with the peace of an insect that's laid its eggs. I relate to that. The book is the life of that kind of man as as individual, which Schop saw as a kind of surplus or extra slice of the usual monkey that he mostly was. (His wife, or in S's case the whores he may have been sweet to, will remember something else, the tang of his flatulence after oysters perhaps. But for us he's a ghost made of words, to be conjured in our imaginations and in whom we can find not only ourselves but future generations who will read the footnotes we scribble in 'his' book.)

Here's a quote from Wittgenstein's Blue Book which seems relevant.

What makes a subject difficult to understand — if it is significant, important — is not that some special instruction about abstruse things is necessary to understand it. Rather it is the contrast between the understanding of the subject and what most people want to see. Because of this the very things that are most obvious can become the most difficult to understand. What has to be overcome is not difficulty of the intellect but of the will.
...
The philosopher strives to find the liberating word, that is, the word that finally permits us to grasp what up to now has intangibly weighed down upon our consciousness.
...
What I give is the morphology of the use of an expression. I show that it has kinds of uses of which you had not dreamed. In philosophy one feels forced to look at a concept in a certain way. What I do is suggest, or even invent, other ways of looking at it. I suggest possibilities of which you had not previously thought. You thought that there was one possibility, or only two at most. But I made you think of others.

Part of this suggests to me that good philosophy is often offensively 'unintelligible' just because we don't want to hear it. Same with some science (the theory of biological evolution is beautiful in its way but terrifying, a veritable acid.) (I'm not saying the offensively unintelligible is therefore good philosophy.)

Here's one more quote from the Blue Book. It's along the lines of questioning the single ego habit and the tale of that grand ol' penisolated ghost.

Imagine that it were usual for human beings to have two characters, in this way: People's shape, size and characteristics of behaviour periodically undergo a complete change. It is the usual thing for a man to have two such states, and he lapses suddenly from one into the other. It is very likely that in such a society we should be inclined to christen every man with two names, and perhaps to talk of the pair of persons in his body. Now were Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde two persons or were they the same person who merely changed? We can say whichever we like. We are not forced to talk of a double personality.

There are many uses of the word "personality" which we may feel inclined to adopt, all more or less akin. The same applies when we define the identity of a person by means of his memories. Imagine a man whose memories on the even days of his life comprise the events of all these days, skipping entirely what happened on the odd days. On the other hand, he remembers on an odd day what happened on previous odd days, but his memory then skips the even days with out a feeling of discontinuity. ... Are we bound to say that here two persons are inhabiting the same body? That is, is it right to say that there are, and wrong to say that there aren't, or vice versa? Neither. For the ordinary use of the word "person" is what one might call a composite use suitable under the ordinary circumstances.

I'll need time to process all that. I'll get back to you (when I can).