I usually see in chemical reactions then pictures pop into my mind during those moments.
Posted on 05/23/2003 3:59:51 PM PDT by unspun
:^) Yeah. Just imagine.
Personally, tp, I've come to appreciate the sensitivity of your b*llsh*t detector over the years. Maybe it's a "canary in the coal mine" kind of thing. Be well, dude -- all my best.
Let's get your Roscoe question out of the way first: Don't think much of his effort here. It is unbearably reductionist. I can't imagine thinking to be merely a succession of states, even if I try. The thinking mind seems to be a comprehending whole that can engage a variety of symbolic objects. To dissect thought into "parts" (or t-states) is to murder the thinker.
Having said that, Roscoe is right that the mind engages symbols that are not "words," in the ordinary sense of language. Playing a passage of music in my head, I'm way too busy engaging the voicings of chords, the various movements progressing in rhythmic time, the emotional color, and so forth, that I have no room for words -- or any use for them at all in this kind of thought process.
Likewise I can deal in other kinds of non-verbal symbols, such as mathematical objects -- equations, algorithms, archetypal geometrical figures, etc. Or graphic images of reality that crop up from time to time.
Which is where another bone to pick with Roscoe comes up. He seems to think that words are entirely derived, at least remotely, from sensory experience. This is nutz. The contemplation of musical ideas (in contradistinction from a musical composition actually played), mathematical objects, God Himself, are not "sensory experiences." At least they have not been so for me.
Roscoe refers to a certain "mind-clearing" that can be achieved by means of certain meditative practices, and uses this to show that thought is independent of symbolization. His argument seems to go: Even if symbols are absent, thought goes on. And then he goes "Eureka!!! Mind is clear [of words and all other symbols]! And yet thought is happening! Therefore, the thinker doesn't need symbols to think!"
Having been there, done that, all I can report is this: If you are asserting a clear mind, you have formed a thought. And your mind is no longer clear, because it's thinking about something.
If you do this meditation "right," you wind up with absolutely zero thought. The mind holds zero content. All that is "left" is a mysterious sense of completely inarticulate self-awareness. Period.
Fortunately, this is not the "normal" state, nor is it easy to achieve.
Anyhoot, I think Roscoe's got some problems with his thesis. For one thing, it seems that it's only a quick hop from "t-states" to the association of the event of a given t-state with a corresponding electrochemical event in the brain. That is, I suspect that Roscoe takes the materialist view of mind, which is to say that it is only an epiphenomenon of brain function.
Good night, dear Brother Arlen!
Geez, tp -- I remember those days! Yikes!!! Thanks for the trip down memory lane. Good night!
Reductionist things in themselves? Ironic hypocrisy.
I suppose to those who prefer credulity and knowedge with not verbally explainable source, the demand for truth seem insane.
For those who will settle for nothing short of rationally understood truth, mystic credulity is sheer folly, and is the source of every kind of evil in this world.
There is not one false or perverted idea or delusion that can be put over without evading or corrupting the truth. To accept anything less, on any grounds always results in some kind of error, seldom innocent, like the kind of delusion that convinces people it is a good idea to strap explosives to their bodie and go to some public place to blow themselves and as many others as they can to smitherines. No doubt, it is their mystic insight that convinces them. We certainly wouldn't want to dissuade them by insisting on truth.
Hank
That may be an explanation of how your mind works. It is not an explanation of how my mind, or the mind of anyone else who is fully, rationally, and cognitively awake, works.
Hank
This is not a compelling logical requirement.
It was not meant to be compelling. It's actually sacarsm.
You are assuming that only those who can explain can think.
Actually, it's the other way around. Only those who can think can explain. You can call it an assumption, if you choose, but essentially rational thought and rational explanation are the same thing. When I think rationally about something, so I can understand it, that is, obviously rational thought. When I express that same thinking to someone else, so they can understand it, that is rational explanation.
You are assuming what you wish to prove.
I wasn't trying to prove anything, only explaining my view. Those who already understand what rational thought is, may find it interesting. Those who are confused about what rational thought is, might be help to clear up their confusion. But, certainly, these few words are not meant to answer all the possible questions of those who have no idea what thinking and reason are.
Hank
I usually see in chemical reactions then pictures pop into my mind during those moments.
Still I'm insane, psychotic. Not by a broken instrument of reasoning, but by a broken instrument of perception.
That is incorrect. The percepts are never wrong. What we perceive, we perceive. If we are decieved by perception, the deception is caused by our reasoning about what we perceive. If I see a stick in water that appears "bent" because of the way water refracts the light, if I conclude the stick is indeed bent, I have made a mistake in my reasoning, because I am ignorant about the refraction of light, for example. The stick really does appear bent, and the appearance is good information (about water and the refraction of light). It's my reasoning that is faulty if I believe it is actually bent.
In your example, if a person has feelings, however sophisticated they are, the feelings do not explain their own cause. We learn a lot about our internal feelings and can usually identify the difference between a gas pain and something more serious, but not always.
The identification of interanal feelings is at the conceptual level of consicousness. If one identifies some internal feelings a snakes crawling inside them, and has even gone so far as to identify their intention, to eat their way to the heart, that is a great deal of reasoning. Someone who could reason correctly would make every attempt to carefully analyze and ensure his interpretation of the feelings was correct, before taking some kind of rash action. An xray ought to do it.
Second, you neglect value-knowledge. If I know that my personal sense pleasure is the highest and only value, then rape, drugs, stealing, killing… become logical actions ...
Good grief, man, I know you have not thought this through. Do you think people do not have a specific kind of nature, that they can do just anything, and what they do has no consequences, to their minds and to their lives?
Even if you are hedonist, which is what you call someone who believes, "personal sense pleasure is the highest and only value," (a philosophy both evil and absurd), rape, drugs, stealing, killing, could not possibly be the, "logically," correct course, because they would surely cause the opposite of what you seek, that is, pain, suffering, and fear, not pleasure.
But of course, pleasure is not the ultimate human objective. The ultimate human objective, like the objective of all living creature, is to live in whatever way their nature requires them to live successfully and to enjoy their lives. It takes all of philosophy, of course, to answer all the question here.
A concept is a subset by definition.
What definition would that be. I have never read such a definition, and it is certainly not mine. What would a concept be a subset of? (Certainly, some concepts are subsets of other concepts, but not all are.)
It abstracts something from the thing itself.
No, a concept does not actually "do" anything. It is the means of comprehending the non-contradictory identification of a class or category of existents.
The formation of concepts involves both the process of abstraction and integration.
Perhaps we would both agree, this necessary limits "knowable" reality to a subset.
No, I do not agree with this at all.
... we have a great deal of non-conceptual knowledge. Simple examples: We can, and early on do, know that the sun warms us - without knowing the word or concept for sun or warm. We can know what being cleansed is without knowing the word or concept for water. To me, the requirement of a concept for this is like saying if I use "agua" and you say "water," we're don't know the same thing. We know by direct personal experience, whether we conceptualize the experience or not. ...
One of the problems is our loose way of using language. In every day speech we use words differently, more generally, then when attempting to understand things philosophically. For example, on this thread, many people are using the word, "thinking," for anything that goes on in their heads, from imagination to dreams, just as your are using the world "know" to mean just anything one is conscious of. In every day language, that might be OK.
In a philosophical discussion, thinking usually pertains only to the use of reason, by means of concepts, to answer question, to attempt to understand things, and to make judgements and decisions. Knowledge means that which one has, by means of reason, come to understand, and includes all that one comprehends by means of concepts. Epistemology pertains only to knowledge in this sense.
For example, you said, "We ... early ... know that the sun warms us - without knowing the word or concept for sun or warm," then how do we know it. If you say, we feel it and see the sun, you are only talking about an experience. You are using the word know to mean whatever one experiences, that is, is concious of. In the philosophical sense, that is not knowledge, it is not cognitive, it is nothing more than any conscious animal does. The kind of knowledge philosophy deals with is the kind that only human beings are capable of.
So, I'd like to ask a few obviously loaded questions: Does absolute truth exist (in reality)? Can you know of one? Can you use logic to know it, i.e., prove it is an absolute truth using the tool of logic alone?
I do not know what people mean by "absolute truth." Truth is a quality. It pertains to statements or propositions. It is the quality of all statements which say something about some aspect of reality. Every statement about any apsect of reality which is correct is true. Every statement about any aspect of reality which is incorrect, is false.
If you mean by, "absolute truth," is there anything that can be said about any aspect of reality which is absolutely true, there are an infinite number of absolute truths. If you mean, "absolute truth," in any other sense, there is no such thing; it has no meaning.
As for knowing an absolute truth, not only I, but you, and almost all people know many absolute truths.
I also have difficulty knowing what other people mean when they say, "can you prove," something. Especially when they add, "using only logic." In the first place, the purpose of proof is not to settle arguments, except possible in a court of law. Otherwise, the only purpose of proof is to insure our own thinking is correct. We ought to be able to prove the methods of reason we use in coming to our own conclusions are correct, to insure what we know is true.
But most people mean by, "can you prove," such'n'such, "can you prove it to me." Well, in most cases, the answer is no, and the reasons are generally one of the following: 1. this particular thing requires years of study to understand and it cannot be "proved" to anyone not willing to make the effort to understand it, 2. it is too difficult; while the calculus is obviously a correct mathematical method for solving certain kinds of problems, it could not be proved to most people who are incapable of comprehending it, and 3. most people really do not want to understand the truth and their demand for "proof" is really a means of obfuscating or evading the truth.
Hank
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