might shed light on noumena. — Tom Storm

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

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

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

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

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

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

Steelmanning or otherwise, without granting....understood a priori as given.....the intrinsic duality of human nature, no defense of any version of idealism will be acceptable. Or, another way to put it, the only defense of any version of idealism is predicated on an intrinsic duality of human nature. — Mww

Still mulling over this. It occurred to me then that Nietzsche greatly disliked Kant's formulation of idealism because he saw it as a form of Christianity disguised as philosophy - a hateful dualistic world of two realms - a 'false' physical world, which is overshadowed by the special, hidden realm, the beyond world that is the legitimate subject of metaphysics... Sounds familiar....

"Why all the rejoicing over the appearance of Kant that went through the learned world of Germany, three-fourths of which is made up of the sons of preachers and teachers--why the German conviction still echoing, that with Kant came a change for the better? The theological instinct of German scholars made them see clearly just what had become possible again. . . . A backstairs leading to the old ideal stood open; the concept of the "true world," the concept of morality as the essence of the world (--the two most vicious errors that ever existed!), were once more, thanks to a subtle and wily scepticism, if not actually demonstrable, then at least no longer refutable... Reason, the prerogative of reason, does not go so far. . . Out of reality there had been made "appearance"; an absolutely false world, that of being, had been turned into reality. . . . The success of Kant is merely a theological success; he was, like Luther and Leibnitz, but one more impediment to German integrity, already far from steady."

- Nietzsche, The Antichrist, 10

Which is why it is better to use things like shape and volume for example. — Bylaw

Why? What's the relevant difference between shape and colour? And is that shape as seen or as felt, because they're very different things (see Molyneux's problem for example).

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Because red is only a quale. The object is not red. But come at an object with sensors, cast it in brass,shoot particles at it, feel it, and the shape or volume will be confirmed. There literally is not color on the surface of an object that we are seeing. I am not sure what Molyneux's problem says about the external to the perceiver existence of shape. They've been blind and have not learned to see shapes, and then they learn. Sensing is a learned skill, to some or great degree. If I run through a field the colors have nothing to do with what the ding an sich have on their surfaces, but my vision does allow me to make out shapes that, as far as we can tell, actually exist out there. That is significant difference between seeing color and seeing (or feeling) shape and volume. We seem to be incredibly effective at this. Using machine testing, no red is found on the surface of the object, but it will show shape. Now of course this is not a proof against a simulation universe, brain a vat scenarios or various forms of the observer is necessary for even large objects to manifest out of superposition or become real and other sorts of questioning the existence of an external world. But regardless using color will seem very telling in ways that other qualities will not.

I am not sure what Molyneux's problem says about the external to the perceiver existence of shape. They've been blind and have not learned to see shapes, and then they learn. — Bylaw

That people who were born blind and recognise an object's shape by touch are not, after becoming able to see, immediately able to recognise an object's shape by sight. This shows that the feel of a sphere isn't like the look of a sphere. So which of the feel of a sphere and the look of a sphere, if either, is a property of the external world object and not just a quale?

Then what do you think consciousness is? Some etherial entity that extends beyond the body and somehow "contains" or "touches" the external world object that is said to be the object of perception?

Adjectives describe or modify nouns. Though it is certainly unavoidable, I believe turning descriptions or modifications of nouns into nouns only confuses things when it comes to these matters, so I don’t think “consciousness” is the right term. Nonetheless, we can turn the word back into an adjective, see which noun it modifies, and remind ourselves what it is we are actually speaking about here.

This doesn't say anything of relevance. The painting is of a woman, not of paint, but the painting is still paint, not a woman. There's no "direct connection" between the paint and the woman. So even if the experience is of an external world object (and you still haven't explained what it even means for an external world object to be the object of perception) it doesn't then follow that there is a "direct connection" between the experience and the external world object.

Note that I'm not saying that we "experience an experience" or "perceive a perception" (anymore than I'd say that the painting is of paint); I'm saying that experience is a mental phenomena, that there is no direct connection between mental phenomena and external world objects, and that the qualities of mental phenomena are not properties of external world objects.

None of this entails the kind of red-herring grammar ("we experience an experience") that you're trying to argue against. After all, when I dream I don't dream about dreams; I dream about eating an apple - and it's all just mental phenomena with no direct connection to external world objects.

Do we not experience mental phenomena then? Because to me it still sounds like you’re saying that instead of a painting you are experiencing mental phenomena, which is an experience. If you’re not experiencing an experience, then how is it you are able to view, observe, see, feel, sense mental phenomena? Upon what do mental phenomena appear and to whom do they appear to?

I don’t know what it means “for an external world object to be the object of perception”. This is one of the issues with turning verbs into nouns, when actions performed by things become things themselves. We start to shift our focus to figments and lose all semblance of reality. All I know is we perceive external world objects. External world objects do not turn into objects of perception.

See my post here about glasses, microscopes, telescopes, mirrors, and camera feeds.

None of which we experience indirectly.

Your question has 'inherent meaning' doesn't it? — Wayfarer

I'm afraid repeating the assertion with increasing incredulity isn't making it any clearer. What I asked was a question. It has meaning to you, it has meaning to me. It means nothing to anyone who doesn't speak English, or who doesn't know the words. It means something slightly different to you than it does to me. Exactly the same could be said of a tree. It means something to you, something slightly different to me, nothing at all to someone who blind, deaf and unable to reach it.

You're describing how words have meaning, but that's not the issue. I'm questioning what makes them separate from any other object in the world. It's the 'inherent' meaning that your Feser quote requires as a property of thought to separate it from neural activity, but I see nothing inherent about it at all.

neural processes, like marks or shapes or whatever, have no inherent meaning, but that we read meaning into them. — Wayfarer

I agree with that. Where I disagree is with the further claim...

Yet our thoughts do have inherent meaning — Edward Feser

I don't see how our thoughts are any different to the "marks or shapes or whatever" in that they lack 'inherent' meaning. We might find meaning in them on reflection, but I don't see any evidence that the meaning is inherent.

That people who were born blind and recognise an object's shape by touch are not, after becoming able to see, immediately able to recognise an object's shape by sight. This shows that the feel of a sphere isn't like the look of a sphere. — Michael

They are obviously different, they are different senses. So, they experience this thing called shape differently. And one sense has never been used. Sensing are learned skills, just because feeling the shapes doesn't translate into what another completely difference sense experience doesn't mean either one is just a quale.

And I notice you only responded to one part of what I wrote.

Do you acknowledge that there is a difference between colors and shapes in modern science? That the former is not seen to actually be a quality of the object, but the latter in science is seen as a quality of the object? That shape can be confirmed in a variety of ways including by fairly simple machines that presumably to not experience qualia, but can nevertheless move around obstacle courses using measurements of shape?

Can you explain how we can run through a field and no fall down despite the incredibly complicated surface say a cattle field presents?

This strongly indicates that it is not merely qualia involved? That there are aspects of the experience that are qualia, fine. But that it is mere qualia, as in the example of colors, seems off the table to me.

None of which we experience indirectly. — NOS4A2

So if I see a rock in the next room through a TV screen and a camera feed then I am not seeing that rock indirectly? Then it's not entirely clear to me what you even mean by seeing something either directly or indirectly. Because that seems to me to be a prime example of seeing something indirectly.

All I know is we perceive external world objects. — NOS4A2

Yes, and we paint people and write about history. But it doesn't then follow that there is a direct connection between the painting and the woman or the writing and the war. So it doesn't follow from us perceiving external world objects that there is a direct connection between perception and those external world objects. The grammar of how we describe the intensional object of perception says nothing about the (meta)physics of perception.

Do we not experience mental phenomena then? Because to me it still sounds like you’re saying that instead of a painting you are experiencing mental phenomena, which is an experience. If you’re not experiencing an experience, then how is it you are able to view, observe, see, feel, sense mental phenomena? Upon what do mental phenomena appear and to whom do they appear to? — NOS4A2

I'm saying what I said above: that experience is a mental phenomena, that there is no direct connection between mental phenomena and external world objects, and that the qualities of mental phenomena are not properties of external world objects.

So, they experience this thing called shape differently. — Bylaw

So how is it different to colour? The structure of some external world object determines what colour we see when we look at it, but it also determines what shape we see when we look at it and what shape we feel when we touch it. Why do you project shape, but not colour, onto the external world object?

Can you explain how we can run through a field and no fall down despite the incredibly complicated surface say a cattle field presents? — Bylaw

There is a regularity in which experiences are elicited by external stimulation. Given how our brain and eyes work, we see the colour red when stimulated by light of a particular frequency, which in turn is reflected by a surface with a particular arrangement of electrons. And the same principle with shape. Through a combination of instinct and learning we are able to navigate the world using qualia as a guide.

Or, perhaps even more to the point, is there a method whereby it is possible to determine if the existence of my consciousness and the existence of the world it experiences are always necessarily codependent and interconnected, or if one can exist independently of and unconnected to the other? — charles ferraro

To test that, one would have to take a completely objective point of view, free of subjectivity, and from which one could observe the world and its subjects. But such a point of view is illogical, a point of view implies subjectivity, and subjectivity must be completely absent for the test to be effective, so it is impossible to verify it.

That is, if we assume that logic is relevant in this case. One could make the argument that given that we don’t know to what extent one’s mind constructs one’s experience, it is possible that logic is simply another result of the mind constructing our experience and so logic may actually not dictate the way the world as it truly is if there is such a world. If logic does not dictate the way the world works, then the test of the view from nowhere is possible.

But then again, one cannot know whether logic dictates the way the world as it truly is (if there is such a world) works without taking a view from nowhere. We’ve just come full circle back to the position of uncertainty we were at, and the options are the same as before. It seems then that there is a sort of loop where no matter what position you start with or which way you go, you end up at a place of uncertainty about every single possibility. So even skepticism of skepticism about the existence of an objective world is possible, and it can only be countered with more skepticism, and it goes on and on for infinity.

Using your eyes. — bongo fury

You can visualize with your eyes closed. The images don't come from your eyes, they come from your imagination.

More comprehensively, I think one would have to take (a) a completely objective point of view, free of all subjectivity, or (b) a completely subjective point of view, free of all objectivity, or (c) a completely integrative point of view combining both the objective and subjective points of view, or (d) a completely transcendent (mystical) point of view that rises above all subjective and objective points of view.

I think each of the great philosophers tried to accomplish, in one way or another, either (a), (b), (c) or (d).

In fact, it would be interesting to give reasons why a specific philosopher's system belongs in one of these categories, rather than in another.

they come from your imagination. — Marchesk

So they are fictional, like characters in a fictional story? They don't literally exist?

Good. But likewise, also, arguably, the so-called images alleged to occur when you are fully (rather than preparing or rehearsing for) using your eyes.

You can visualize with your eyes closed. The images don't come from your eyes, they come from your imagination. — Marchesk

Not everyone can do that. The inability is called aphantasia.

I don't see how our thoughts are any different to the "marks or shapes or whatever" in that they lack 'inherent' meaning. We might find meaning in them on reflection, but I don't see any evidence that the meaning is inherent. — Isaac

Thoughts just are inherently meaningful. Thinking just is meaning-making.

I don't see how our thoughts are any different to the "marks or shapes or whatever" in that they lack 'inherent' meaning. We might find meaning in them on reflection, but I don't see any evidence that the meaning is inherent. — Isaac

How can there be anything to discuss, then? You’re not saying anything, you’re just making marks that show up on a screen. I might interpret them to mean anything whatever, and you wouldn’t be able to correct that. You’re sawing off the branch on which you sit.

How can there be anything to discuss, then? You’re not saying anything, you’re just making marks that show up on a screen. I might interpret them to mean anything whatever, and you wouldn’t be able to correct that. You’re sawing off the branch on which you sit. — Wayfarer

Good point, well argued.

our thoughts do have inherent meaning
— Edward Feser
↪Wayfarer — Isaac

So I think Ed Feser's point is a perfectly clear one: that neural processes, like marks or shapes or whatever, have no inherent meaning, but that we read meaning into them. — Wayfarer

I'm lost. Odd for you to be so unclear, Wayfarer,

One of the most important insights of contemporary brain science is that the visual world is a constructed reality. When we look, what we hold in awareness is not an optical array but a mental construct, built from information in the array, which presents us with all that is of value to us in a scene.
— ibid — Wayfarer

Here's the error I pointed to yesterday. The brain constructs a model of what is seen. Ok. But then the conclusion that what is seen is a model.

When you look at the apple, your brain constructs a model of the apple. But that model is not what you see; it is you seeing.

What you see is the apple.

What you see is the apple. — Banno

I have already corrected you on this; by your own argument what we see is the apple as modeled. So are we seeing a model or not? If our seeing is a modeling then the apple, or whatever, is being modeled. Does it not follow that if something is modeled in the act of seeing, then what is seen is a model? We don't see the apple in its unmodeled state, do we?

Does it not follow that if something is modeled in the act of seeing, then what is seen is a model? — Janus

No.

I take that to mean "No,,,argument". By your own argument the apple is a model, since the act of seeing it models it. Try and wriggle out of that one.

No, it does not follow.

The "model" at point here is a distribution of probabilities in a neural net. That is the apple you see?

No, that is your seeing the apple.

I don't see how our thoughts are any different to the "marks or shapes or whatever" in that they lack 'inherent' meaning. We might find meaning in them on reflection, but I don't see any evidence that the meaning is inherent. — Isaac

Are you serious? Isn't reflection a form of thinking? So if you say that it requires reflection to find meaning in thought, then all you are really saying is that it requires thinking to find meaning in thought. If thinking can find meaning in itself, doesn't that imply that meaning is necessarily inherent in thought?

When you look at the apple, your brain constructs a model of the apple. But that model is not what you see; it is you seeing.

What you see is the apple. — Banno

Cripes, this thread is like standing before one of those distorting fun house mirrors watching reality bend and dissolve. :gasp:

Do you generally follow Searle on this? It fascinates me how many challenges seem to be built into perception/realism and indirect realism models.

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

Are idealists suggesting that matter has no inherent qualities and that these are provided by conscious creatures in the world, therefore reality is generated by mind? Would an indirect realist say there is an apple behind the appearances/qualities (a noumenal fruit, perhaps?), but it has none of the qualities humans apprehend and appreciate. Our conscious experience puts them there.

A metaphysical or ontological idealist presumably would say that both the qualities and matter itself are creations of mind - our own mind, and, presumably some other mind. Otherwise solipsism...

Where have I gone wrong?

That looks about right. Especially the "but it would still be of the apple".

Do you generally follow Searle on this? — Tom Storm

Rather, in the main, Sense and Sensibilia, by Searle's master, Austin. But the arguments can be traced back to G.E Moore and Russell. When we talk about apples we are not talking about modelled items in our minds, not about collective neural firings, not about transcendental, ineffable noumena, but about the things we grow, chop up, peel, stew, and eat. That we do so using our hands, our brains, our minds, our teeth, our words, our money - none of this renders the apple not an apple.

When you look at the apple, your brain constructs a model of the apple. But that model is not what you see; it is you seeing — Banno

The act of seeing is precisely the construction of a gestalt - not a model as such, because a model represents something. But the gestalt is the apple - as explained in this post.

A bat would have a different range of experiences with this fruit, but it would still be of the apple, right? — Tom Storm

Splendid question. To a fruit-fly, an apple is host to its eggs. If I throw an apple at an annoying bird, it's a weapon. To fruit bats and primates it is food, whereas it wouldn't necessarily register to a carnivore. Which is 'the real apple'?

Are idealists suggesting that matter has no inherent qualities and that these are provided by conscious creatures in the world, therefore reality is generated by mind? — Tom Storm

Materialists say that matter has no inherent qualities - only mass, velocity, position, etc. Qualities are what the mind brings to those raw materials to construct a gestalt which it then designates as apple (or whatever.) But materialism forgets the role of judgement in all that, because it's not present amongst the purported 'primary qualities of objects'.

I would say, reality is not generated by the mind but that everything we experience and know is generated by the mind. But we cannot see that process of construction ('vorstellung' in Schopenhauer, 'vikalpa' in Buddhism) 'from the outside', as it is the act of cognition. That's why it's a not a model as such. That's where representative realism fails, because it implies two entities - the model and the object it represents. But, 'In order to make a comparison, we must know what it is that we are comparing, namely, the model on the one hand and the object on the other. But if we already know the reality, why do we need to make a comparison? And if we don't know the reality, how can we make a comparison?' (Cribbed from a textbook quote somewhere in another thread.)

Take a moment to peruse this book - have a look at the abstracts. It's a current title, published 2021, and covers this territory, not from a philosophical, but a more scientific, pov.

To a fruit-fly, an apple is host to its eggs. If I throw an apple at an annoying bird, it's a weapon. To fruit bats and primates it is food, whereas it wouldn't necessarily register to a carnivore. Which is 'the real apple'? — Wayfarer

:lol:

All of them.

(there's that misleading word, "real", again...)