Does a Bird Know It's Beautiful? - A Weird Argument For Theism
I've never been too interested in the various proofs and arguments for/against the existence of God, so this isn't really an argument along those lines, or an argument at all; it's more just a question.
Does a bird know that it's beautiful? This is a poetic question more than a philosophical one, but it brings up a valid philosophical line of enquiry: Is there a macrocosmic hierarchy in which beings "look down on" beings lower on the hierarchical scale and observe qualities of those beings which are invisible to those lower beings themselves? The bird doesn't "know" that it's beautiful in the way that we "know" that (and of course, there's the problem of whether beauty can be epistemically apprehended in the first place). But putting that question aside, our unique, subjective apprehension of the bird's beauty is an experience of the bird that only occurs via our human conciousness. From our human vantage point, the bird is beautiful: not just the the colors of the plumage, but the physical way the bird flits, flies, and the songs that it sings. The bird is acting on instinct; the bird doesn't control it's physical appearance the way a beautiful man or woman does; the bird doesn't sing for the pleasure of song itself; the bird has no mirror in which to observe it's own beauty, both literally and figuratively (figuratively in the sense that conciousness is a mirror in which we reflect on ourselves). The bird has none of that. But we possess a view unique to us; The very sense-experience and abstract concepts that create our apprehension of the bird as beautiful are the things that are exclusive to our human conciousness.
So now, moving up the theoretical macrocosmic hiearchy, the question becomes: Does a human person know that it's beautiful? And secondly, could there be a higher form of being that observes and apprehends a beautiful quality in us which we are incapable of seeing?
Does a bird know that it's beautiful? This is a poetic question more than a philosophical one, but it brings up a valid philosophical line of enquiry: Is there a macrocosmic hierarchy in which beings "look down on" beings lower on the hierarchical scale and observe qualities of those beings which are invisible to those lower beings themselves? The bird doesn't "know" that it's beautiful in the way that we "know" that (and of course, there's the problem of whether beauty can be epistemically apprehended in the first place). But putting that question aside, our unique, subjective apprehension of the bird's beauty is an experience of the bird that only occurs via our human conciousness. From our human vantage point, the bird is beautiful: not just the the colors of the plumage, but the physical way the bird flits, flies, and the songs that it sings. The bird is acting on instinct; the bird doesn't control it's physical appearance the way a beautiful man or woman does; the bird doesn't sing for the pleasure of song itself; the bird has no mirror in which to observe it's own beauty, both literally and figuratively (figuratively in the sense that conciousness is a mirror in which we reflect on ourselves). The bird has none of that. But we possess a view unique to us; The very sense-experience and abstract concepts that create our apprehension of the bird as beautiful are the things that are exclusive to our human conciousness.
So now, moving up the theoretical macrocosmic hiearchy, the question becomes: Does a human person know that it's beautiful? And secondly, could there be a higher form of being that observes and apprehends a beautiful quality in us which we are incapable of seeing?
Comments (128)
Knowing one is beautiful would seem to be a special accomplishment. Many people like the face they see in the mirror; its kind of disadvantageous to not like it. But to assess one's appearance as "handsome", or "beautiful" and identify the degree of loveliness requires an accurate assessment of one's appearance from the POV of others.
What we more likely know is how well our face does in the market place. That we can see -- how people respond to us, what they say to us, who shuns us, who gravitates to us, all that. And of course, all that isn't based on beauty alone.
There is a New England shape note song--or maybe the Southern Harmony tradition which speaks of the longing to see God, or if not God directly, the throne, a sight that would be infinitely pleasurable. And even more, to be in the embrace of God.
Father, I long, I faint to see
the place of thine abode.
I'd leave these earthly courts and flee
up to thy seat my God
Here I behold thy distant face,
and tis a pleasing sight
but to abide in thine embrace
is infinite delight.
I'd part with all the joys of sense,
to gaze upon thy throne.
Pleasure springs fresh forever thence
Unspeakable, unknown...
But the point I want to make, and probably didn't really make, is that "beauty" is something different for the bird than it is for us. Our very conciousness, our place within the world, is a perspective from which we see the bird in a specific way, and we see it as beautiful. Our experience of the beautiful male bird is not the same as the female's. The female, when she see's the brightly arrayed male, doesn't see beauty as such as we humans see it; she sees some sort of bright colors, and, whether because of just how bright they are, or some pheromone situation, or the male's shear force of determination, she chooses a mate. She doesn't see the male the way we do. That's my entire argument; we see an aspect of the bird which the bird is not capable of seeing.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Why can't I see my face in the mirror and decide that I'm beautiful (the word handsome is so overwrought; all people are beautiful) based purely on what I see, not on my projection of how others see me? It takes a lot to look oneself in the eye and call oneself beautiful.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Thanks for sharing it.
Do you mean a hierarchy in which certain animals that have evolved particular capacities to evaluate qualities (like beauty) in other animals that have not evolved such capacities? Apart from humans, I do think that some animals can evaluate such qualities in other animals insofar as what is "beautiful" to them might serve different evolutionary functions (e.g. avoiding or falling prey to predation).
I don't think that hierarchies are objective things, btw. They are just ways that minds organise things. So there is no intrinsic "superior/inferior" "valuable" differences in things apart from minds thinking about things in that way.
It depends on the person, since beauty is subjective.
Again, beauty is subjective. There is no objectively "beautiful quality" that exists in things apart from some mind judging qualities to be beautiful.
It could be true that someone/thing observes a quality in us that we aren't aware of and judges it as beautiful. But that judgement belongs to the mind of the observer judging that quality.
I'm not sure what a "higher form of being" means. I'd say we have evolved particular features that enable us to perform particular functions that some animals cannot. But the same is true for other animals that are able to perform particular functions that we cannot. Neither is "higher" or "lower" than the other in the sense of intrinsic "superior/inferior/value, etc."
I'd put it like this: we are capable of perceiving and appraising aspects of non-human animals that other non-human animals cannot perceive and appraise (based on our biological apparatus). But it's probably also true that some non-human animals are able to perceive and appraise aspects of humans that humans cannot perceive and appraise (e.g. infra-red perception, sonic detection, etc.).
No.
Quoting numberjohnny5
I agree, but I'm not talking about evolutionary functions.
Quoting numberjohnny5
But I'm talking about a hierarchy within which "minds thinking about things in that way" are just one level of the hierarchy. Plus the only minds thinking are human minds; no other minds are thinking, presumably.
Quoting numberjohnny5
If you re-read that section of the OP, you'll see that beauty there is metaphorical and not literal in a physical sense.
Quoting numberjohnny5
Again, you're missing the metaphor of this entire thread, which is in the title of the thread.
Quoting numberjohnny5
That's vaguely close to one aspect of what I'm asking here. But it sounds like you're just talking about people observing people. Again, if you re-read the OP, I'm using the bird as a metaphor for imaging if a similar scenario of us observing the bird applies to some higher form of being observing us.
Quoting numberjohnny5
A form of being higher than humans.
Quoting numberjohnny5
I agree, but it looks like you're thinking within a physicalist/materialist framework; I'm not. I agree that what you say here is true, but it's not an argument against the possibility of a higher form of being existing above the being of humanity; a form of being that apprehends a different view of humanity in the same way that we observe a different view of the bird.
So, I agree, in that I think the distinctively human trait is to reflect on beauty, and to wonder at it. I can’t see how birds could do that, even though I think birds are highly intelligent beings, much more intelligent than many people think. But it’s the self-awareness, the ‘being aware of being aware’ of something, which I think amplifies the sense of beauty in H. Sapiens, which I think is absent in other creatures.
But I can’t quite make the leap from there to the second paragraph. I suppose one answer might be, that the sense of being loved is in some way to ‘feel beautiful’. At a very basic level, your mother’s love for you as an infant instils a sense of self-worth in you which might, at a stretch, be a kind of beauty. (The sad testimony to this is the pathologies of infants who are raised with an absence of all maternal love.)
So I suppose, within the Christian framework, the sense of the Lord as a ‘loving father’ and indeed the sense in which the sacrament of marriage recapitulates that love, is also a source of something very life beauty.
The problem is, I can’t see how it constitutes any kind of proof.
The leap is just a simple metaphorical leap; we see a beautiful aspect of the bird which the bird cannot see; what's to say that something else sees a beautiful aspect of us that we cannot see?
Quoting Wayfarer
Love is, in a way, the next question to ask about after coming to some conclusion about this fundamental question, I think.
Quoting Wayfarer
I guess that might be true. I will say, with all honesty, that as a former Christian, I didn't consciously intend to ask this OP question with that as a possible outcome. In good faith, I started the thread because this is a metaphor that I've found to be incredibly powerful in my own thinking, so I wanted to flesh it out.
Quoting Wayfarer
Well, maybe I should change the thread title, but as I mentioned in the intro paragraph, I don't mean to argue for proof necessarily.
Ok; just responding to your comments.
In that case, I don't think that animals that are relatively dissimilar to us perceive qualities as "beautiful" apart from them being able to do so for evolutionary purposes.
I assume that other animals that are similar to us, that is, animals that share similar anatomical/biological features/apparatus (e.g. apes) can think too. By "think" there I mean rational/implicative/relational thinking, although it wouldn't be as abstract or "complex" as our thinking.
What is "beauty" in the sense that you're using it? And would you also have a view per what beauty is ontologically?
I'm confused. Let me try to clarify something of my position in case it helps further the discussion.
Any perception/appraisal is going to involve some mind (human or non-human (including something like a god)) observing some other (or some mind perceiving/appraising aspects of itself). That's necessarily the case.
In what sense "higher"?
Well, I am a physicalist. ;)
I wasn't presenting "an argument against the possibility of a higher form of being existing above the being of humanity". I still don't know what "higher" means. I don't view things as intrinsically "superior/inferior/valuable, etc.". That's all I'm saying; and it seems that you do.
Would there be a higher being higher than the higher being, btw? Would it be an infinite sequence of higher beings in that regard?
Quick tip, highlight the text you want to quote, then click "quote". That way, the people you respond to will get notifications that someone has responded. I noticed your responses because I'm watching my own thread. :-O
Quoting numberjohnny5
But how does "beauty", aesthetically speaking, obtain evolutionarily? How would Adorno respond to you, for instance?
Quoting numberjohnny5
In this particular case in this thread, beauty first refers to our perception of the bird (view the attached photo for context), and then secondarily refers to an abstract concept in which the first concept of beauty is creatively applied to a possible form of being which is higher than humanity.
As to an ontological view of beauty, I love that stuff, but at this point...it's tough ground, and a lot of the ground feels tough because of language.
I would say Divine Being is primary, and Beauty might possibly be secondary. Beauty might be the generative outgrowth of divinity. That's not very good, though. Go easy on me. Or not.
Quoting numberjohnny5
Well, I agree with your clarification. So I'm not sure why you're confused. It must be a miscommunication between us.
Quoting numberjohnny5
Higher in the sense that we are higher than the birds. Who's higher than us? No one/thing?
Quoting numberjohnny5
Bingo! :P
Quoting numberjohnny5
But I don't know what you mean by "superior/inferior/valuable". I get "superior/inferior" from my suggestion that we see something the bird does not, and maybe something/someone else sees something in us that we do not (superior/inferior here, for clarity, has no moral connotation). But I'm not sure how "valuable" plays into that.
So, I'm entertaining the possibility of a macrocosmic hierarchy in which various beings grade along the scale (slugs, birds, humans, angels??? God???), but any sense of inferior/superior is just a sense of ontological scale. If that make sense.
Quoting numberjohnny5
:-} Would there be a sweeter ice cream sweeter than the sweeter ice cream, btw?
Thanks for the tip. :)
Quoting Noble Dust
I think it's essentially a combination of acquiring anatomical features that serve us functionally in (mentally) organising and categorising things and an upshot of that functionality that allows us to obtain pleasure from such experiences.
I know next to nothing about Adorno. If you think it will help, maybe you could summarise a position he has related to this stuff?
Quoting Noble Dust
That took me a while to make sense of, and yet I'm not sure I've understood.
So "beauty" in the sense you're using it in this thread entails some entity/process/X/?? which involves
(a) perception of the bird (first concept of beauty?);
(b) a second (abstract) concept of beauty that refers to the first concept (perception), and that which then is possibly creatively applied to "a form of being which is higher than humanity".
Have I got that right?
Quoting Noble Dust
When you say stuff like "Divine Being is primary", it reminds me a bit of "The Great Chain of Being": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_chain_of_being
What makes you say "that's not very good, though"?
My response is that I would have to understand what "Divine Being" actually is? I take it it's not material and therefore immaterial?
Quoting Noble Dust
"Higher" is a quantitative term (conventionally speaking). So I'm asking in what sense "higher" are we than birds per that definition. You might be using an unconventional definition of "higher" though, so you'd need to share that with me in order for me to grasp what you're getting at.
Quoting Noble Dust
By that I'm assuming you mean "intrinsic qualities" that some things have that others do not which determines whether things are "higher" or "lower". In that sense, I'd guess some intrinsic qualities that make something "higher" than other things would include superior qualities or superior values, for example.
Ok, but I see the "scale" as subjective, fyi. We could use scales for many purposes; in other words, there is not one "true" or "correct" purpose for using/applying scales to things.
Quoting Noble Dust
It depends on the individual tasting the ice cream and the amount of properties that produce sensations/perceptions of "sweetness" for that individual. There might be a limit as to an individual's taste budes being able to make distinctions of sweetness once they taste things that are intensely sweet. One could still compose some product with whatever properties makes something sweet to an individual with an excessively large amount of those sweet properties to ensure that it's relatively one of the sweetest products to taste.
The bird is as tightly caught in the spell of its own being as we are tightly caught in the spell of our own being. A bird can't sense the beauty we see it in any more than we can sense the beauty a higher being (might) see in us.
You mean that any being cannot escape its own subjectivity? If so, I agree. For the bird to sense/perceive/evaluate anything from a perspective other than its own doesn't make sense.
Yes, but the word 'subjectivity' does not (in my opinion) encompass the totality that word 'being' is capable of expressing.
Could you say more...?
We are a unique 'mix' of form & matter, same as the bird. The bird's connection to what it is (its being), is immediate and intimate with what it is, our connection to what we are (our being) is mediated and it is rarely intimate with what we are.
We are? In my view form is identical to matter. For something/matter to exist it must have form. It doesn't make sense to me to think that matter has no form. On the other hand, you could say that particular "kinds" of matter have particular "kinds" of forms. But either way, ontologically, form and matter are not different things.
Quoting Cavacava
What is the difference between "the bird" and the bird's "being"? They sound like two distinct things in the way you're claiming.
Beginning with birds is a weird way to argue for theism, but I guess the analogy works well enough:
We are to birds as God is to us
I don't know what birds see in each other. It could be that what the bird sees is the same thing that we see--that is, the female cardinal clearly sees a red male cardinal. Some birds do, anyway. Crows are apparently able to recognize human faces and classify them as belonging to friend or foe. If they can tell us apart--as different as we are from them--then they must be able to see each other as individuals.
When I put a new male finch in the cage with the female, the male made a bee-line for the female and mounted her -- the time from the box to mating was about 1 second. Point being, the male instantly recognized the female, and visa versa, apparently.
Our identification of beauty in birds doesn't inform them of their beauty. It's a bridge too far. So, perhaps "we are to birds as God is to us" still holds, but oppositely since
God may be as distant from us as we are to birds
So, God's vision of us may do for us what we do for birds, which may be something, or nothing.
Form and matter are bound together, their mix is inexorable in the same way each separate being is inexorable bound to Being, to existence.
That doesn't really clear things up for me. What is the difference between "form" and "matter" ontologically?
Are you saying that "Being" is identical to "existence"?
What is "Being" ontologically?
They can't be differentiated on the basis of how they exist, but unlike the bird we differentiate them because the kind of beings we are.
The following from SEP:
Ah, I don't agree with Aristotle.
Not quite, beauty doesn't entail an entity in the sense of it being an entity itself, but it does require an entity in the sense that it requires an observer. But if you take the second sense, then your (a) and (b) descriptions would be right, yeah.
Quoting numberjohnny5
All I'm positing in this thread is that it's a being of a higher order than us, in the same sense that we're a being of a higher order than the bird. And yes, in my view, the higher being would not be strictly material, since we appear to be the highest order of material being.
Quoting numberjohnny5
Higher in the sense of hierarchy, not in the sense of higher number.
Quoting numberjohnny5
If a macrocosmic hierarchy does exist like I'm describing it, then it would not be subjective.
Quoting numberjohnny5
Or you could feed them pure glucose or pure fructose. The point being, the "god higher than god" problem is non-existent. Unless you're suggesting something like Tillich's God above God.
Exactly. (Y)
That's possible. But we have conscious awareness; the ability to train our minds with spiritual disciplines like meditation or prayer; we can have religious awakenings and atheistic awakenings where our conciousness apparently shifts pretty substantially. Domesticating a bird can lead to it developing a higher intelligence than the wild bird might have, but there seems to be a clear limit. That limit seems to be precisely the lack of conscious awareness. If our consciousness is something unique to h. sapiens, then whether there's a limit to the evolution of our consciousness is not so clear.
Let me put it another way: what determines whether the beings/objects on this macrocosmic hierarchy are relatively higher or lower?
Their level of development of consciousness.
But again, as I'm re-reading you here, the point that I'm making has to do with conciousness. The experience of red might be the same for the female cardinal as it is for us, or it might not, but regardless, the concept of red does not exist for the bird; the bird experiences physicality in an immediate way, unmediated by conciousness. Instinct is what drives the female to acknowledge the red male; for the bird, the color just interacts with her instinct; she's not free to overcome that instinct, or to fight against it, because she's not a consciously aware being. And that's just about the color red. When it comes to the complex apprehension of the male cardinal as a creature of beauty that we humans experience, that red color is just one variable in a fairly vast sea of variables of every kind that lead us to the conclusion that the bird is beautiful. To say that this could possibly be true for the bird as well would be nonsense, because the bird doesn't possess the level of consciousness required to apprehend things in the way that we apprehend them. That's what I'm getting at when suggesting a macrocosmic hierarchy of consciousness.
Why, because a hypothetical massive bird the size of you would kill you? So that hypothetical situation that will never exist nullifies the beauty of the bird in actuality?
Ok. Why is that particular quality/aspect the determinant of relative levels of hierarchy? Why not, say, limbs or mass, for example?
Just because (present) judgements (aesthetic or otherwise) can change doesn't mean they can't have value as (present) judgements.
Ok, so if "beauty" is not an entity but requires an observer, then what, ontologically, is "beauty" in your view? Does it have a spatiotemporal location? Does it reside within the observer? Is "beauty" a concept? If so, what is a concept ontologically?
Because it's not a physical aspect like limbs or mass. Consciousness gives birth to reason, imagination, etc; the things you're using to discuss in this thread. It's the backdrop of you're entire human experience. The bird clearly doesn't have a consciousness as developed as you because it can't reason through arguments the way you can, just as one example.
Ontologically, beauty is first an experience. The combination in the bird of color, movement, and song, cause us to experience beauty. But moving outwards from experience, the way I'm using beauty in this thread is as a fundamental aspect, an identifying characteristic, of a being. It's not the colors themselves, the movements themselves, or the songs themselves, that specifically make the bird beautiful. Even a flightless bird, a bird with a broken wing, a molting bird, or squawking crow is still experienced as beautiful. There is something intrinsic to our experience of the bird that is beautiful, regardless of the specifics of the characteristics.
I can see no reason, beyond morbidly sentimental anthropomorphism, to attribute consciousness of any degree to a bird.
If consciousness is a spectrum, then animals would have some sort of limited consciousness. I'm not sure what's sentimental about that.
Perhaps consciousness is on a spectrum, but why would you think birds have any of it? Also, if consciousness is on a spectrum, what restrains the consciousness of lower organisms. If you can know and be aware of yourself, what prevents knowledge of any thing?
Hmmm - I would say it's rare to have even two of those features "beautiful" simultaneously.
The Lark : lovely sounding bird when hovering high but one can barely see it, and it;s pretty drab anyway.
The Tiger : lovely to look at but not very graceful or nice sounding
The Penguin - great mover in water but ungainly per se and certainly not musical
etc etc
So if value is subjective, then it is "nothing"? That doesn't make sense. Or do you mean, if value is subjective then it is worth nothing, or value-less? In other words, value can only be valuable if it is "beyond" subjectivity.
Is that what you mean?
Quoting tim wood
Yes, by "ontologically" I mean what some thing/X actually (as in, in actuality) or really (as in, in reality) is.
Quoting tim wood
Yes, the "thing" has properties that satisfy whatever criterion we have in mind.
Quoting tim wood
So "beauty" is a name/label within some criterion that we assign to some appreciative feeling in relation to something. Is that right?
In other words, "beauty" is a name, and therefore...what?...a concept? A mental thing?
Quoting tim wood
I do not agree with Aristotle's "matter and form", mainly because I don't buy universals or essences as real (in terms of realism). For me, "matter" is identical to "form". In other words, "matter" is synonymous with "form".
Because they're animals that have brains. Obviously I don't know for sure if they have limited consciousness, it seems impossible to know. But what makes you assume they don't have any of it?
The question of whether birds have limited consciousness isn't a major factor of the OP. For instance, if animals have no consciousness, that doesn't effect the idea of there being a being with a higher consciousness than us. It could be possible that we're the lowest organism on the chain of consciousness.
I disagree. But it's just a subjective aesthetic judgement, I guess. Beauty is there if you're willing to see it.
Ah right. So the non-physical is what...superior to/better than the physical?
Would you say that the assertion that "consciousness/non-physicality determines relative levels of hierarchy" is subjective?
Quoting Noble Dust
I might be tempted to agree with either statement on its own, but surely not both together...
In my view the physical is generated by the non-physical. I'm not sure how one being superior to the other would obtain in any meaningful way. Consciousness isn't the basis for the hierarchy because consciousness is in some way superior to the physical world; it's just prior to the physical, in my view. Consciousness is the ocean we're swimming in.
Quoting numberjohnny5
What do you mean by subjective?
True, it's contradictory. The second statement is my view.
'Ontic' is what is, and 'Ontological' is the study of what is, its theory.
Actually I'm not sure now that they are contradictory statements. It could be that beauty is always available but it comes in a subjective form. In other words, the onus is on us to see/hear beauty. I could go with that! (will check out tigers, larks and penguins more fully and let you know..)
Yeah, that could work. It's true that beauty is subjective in the sense that it's viewed through the subjective view of the individual, which means the experience of beauty is not uniform (not objective), but it doesn't mean that an objective beauty does not exist. It's like we see parts of the beauty, but it's difficult to see the entirety of it.
I just want to clarify something: For me, "experience" is synonymous with "conscious experience". Do you agree?
Quoting Noble Dust
I'd prefer to say that the properties of a bird (which includes things like colour, movement, etc.) cause us to experience something that we feel and refer to as "beautiful".
Quoting Noble Dust
I take it you're only talking about those individuals who experience and label such birds as beautiful, since not all individuals will feel all birds are beautiful...?
Quoting Noble Dust
By "intrinsic to our experience" are you referring to something intrinsic in our minds/mental apparatus?
Hmmm it seems you are introducing the concept of overarching narrative into the procedings. Whilst I agree that a narrative can have beauty of sorts, I don't think it is an essential component to being beautiful. Parts can be beautiful per se - or at least beautiful within a constricted narrative. The mega-meta narrative bothers me.
Within the study of what there is (i.e. one's ontology), it makes sense to say something like "x is y ontologically". It's about ascertaining what some x is within one's ontology.
I see. So what determines levels of hierarchy is priority and generation? Is generation synonymous with causation there?
So if the physical generated the non-physical, would you then say that the physical would be at the top end of the hierarchy?
Quoting Noble Dust
Of the mind. "Objective" or "extra-mental" would refer to everything that is not of the mind.
I'm not sure; why is the distinction important for you?
Quoting numberjohnny5
So we don't experience beauty as something external to us, is that the distinction you're making?
Quoting numberjohnny5
As I mentioned to Jake, the fact that the experience of beauty is subjective doesn't mean there isn't an objective reality of beauty external to the experience.
Quoting numberjohnny5
No, because I don't conflate experience and mental apparatuses.
Because your "intrinsic to our experience" isn't clear to me.
Quoting Noble Dust
Yes.
Quoting Noble Dust
Which is why I've been interested in finding out what "beauty" is ontologically for you. It seems that to you beauty is both subjective and objective. Well, what is objective beauty, ontologically? Is it the actual properties of things that we perceive? So objective beauty (external-to-mind beauty) exists in the objects themselves independent of any observer? Or is it a mixture all at once between subjective and objective beauty?
Quoting Noble Dust
Note that by "mental apparatus" I don't mean some static object; rather, I mean a dynamic, mental processing structure. In other words, experience is a mental process.
It's hard to parse through, but I do think of it as both subjective and objective because that dichotomy tends to be misleading. The fact that beauty is a subjective experience and that we all have disagreements about what's beautiful is just one aspect of a unified whole; after all, many experiences of beauty are shared, even deeply personal ones. As an example, I remember my aesthetics prof reading a paper written by a student (he would ask for permission to anonymously read papers in class that he really liked). It described the student's experience of re-visiting the church he grew up in; the student was no longer a Christian. But tactile, sensual sensations of being in the same building again, combined with the nostalgia connected with all sorts of memories, caused him to feel a deep sense of beauty, despite still having no religious interest anymore. Our prof choked up and had a hard time reading through the paper; it clearly resonated with him as well, as he was also a former Christian. I was a Christian at the time, but as a former Christian now, the experience has a deeper meaning for me too, and even at the time I felt that I was experiencing the same thing as the two of them. Then, something that elicited the same feeling in me years later was this quote from the American composer Charles Ives:
"In the early morning of a Memorial Day, a boy is awaked by martial music--a village band is marching down the street--and as the strains of Reeves majestic Seventh Regiment March come nearer and nearer--he seems of a sudden translated--a moment of vivid power comes, a consciousness of material nobility--an exultant something gleaming with the possibilities of this life--an assurance that nothing is impossible, and that the whole world lies at his feet. But, as the band turns the corner, at the soldier's monument, and the march steps of the Grand Army become fainter and fainter, the boy's vision slowly vanishes-his 'world' becomes less and less probable-but the experience ever lies within him in its reality.
Later in life, the same boy hears the Sabbath morning bell ringing out from the white steeple at the 'Center,' and as it draws him to it, through the autumn fields of sumach and asters, a Gospel hymn of simple devotion comes out to him--'There's a wideness in God's mercy'--an instant suggestion of that Memorial Day morning comes--but the moment is of deeper import--there is no personal exultation--no intimate world vision--no magnified personal hope--and in their place a profound sense of spiritual truth--a sin within reach of forgiveness. And as the hymn voice dies away, there lies at his feet--not the world, but the figure of the Saviour--he sees an unfathomable courage--an immortality for the lowest--the vastness in humility, the kindness of the human heart, man's noblest strength--and he knows that God is nothing--nothing--but love!"
I was brought to tears reading this, as my prof was when reading the student's paper. And having a knowledge and understanding of Ive's music certainly helps, as it gives context to what he's describing (the quote is very clearly a personal anecdote couched in a third-person perspective). These experiences are all subjective, and yet, through the experience itself, the possibility of something objective being experienced through the lens of subjectivity becomes apparent. Your abstract reasoning won't bring you to this conclusion, so if you rely solely on that faculty, you won't arrive at the same conclusion. The experience of beauty is like mysticism, or sex, or grand cru Burgundy; you have to experience it to know.
How is that a narrative? Because it's not strictly logical? I'll take a narrative over banal logic any day.
Quoting Jake Tarragon
What is the mega-meta narrative? Why does it bother you?
It's not clear to me whether you're (a) saying that objects don't have intrinsic value, or (b) you're saying that gold has intrinsic value, and this intrinsic value we/minds value as "precious". Which in other words means there exists both instrinsic (objective) and subjective value.
Quoting tim wood
I view qualities as phenomenal properties of some x that the mind experiences. Essentially, I buy quale.
I'm not conflating "quality" with "value", btw. "Value" is the meaning-of-worth/importance/significance/etc. one assigns to something.
Quoting tim wood
You brought up Aristotle's matter and form as (probably) being different than my concept of matter and form. I intended to clarify my position to help clear things up.
Quoting tim wood
Ok, could you explain how it's a non-sequitur?
Nothing determines levels of hierarchy per se; what would be the thing that actually determines them in the first place? If I said "yes, priority and generation determine hierarchy", that would assume that priority and generation have some kind of agency in the way that we anthropomorphically think about agency. But if generation has no agency, no cause, no beginning, then generation is a process without origin, per se, through which the non-physical gives birth to the physical. So there's no determinate function; there's only generation.
Quoting numberjohnny5
No, because I'm not conflating "non-physical" with "consciousness".
Quoting numberjohnny5
What is not "of the mind"?
I meant something both unique to and inextricable from our experience.
Quoting numberjohnny5
The mental process is the hardware by which the software of experience is programmed. Per my view. And that is 100% a metaphor.
I'll tentatively say yes.
Quoting Noble Dust
Quoting Noble Dust
How are you using "subjective" and "objective"?
I believe that we (subjectively) experience extra-mental (objective) phenomena/things.
Quoting Noble Dust
That sounds like you're making the distinction between acquaintance knowledge and propositional/declarative knowledge. I agree that one cannot know a particular experience that one feels is beautiful if one does not experience it. Propositional knowledge cannot achieve this kind of aim.
No problem. I feel like philosophical discussions often get bogged down by a lack of personal experience, yet when personal experience is brought in, it's often brought in at inappropriate times, and influenced purely by emotion; there needs to be a balance that invokes all of the different human faculties; reason, emotion, intuition, imagination, etc. I was trying to use logic thus far in the discussion, and then, at that certain point, as I was re-reading your response, I felt I needed to include my personal experience. I don't say that for my own ego (for the most part), but as an example for how the balance could possibly be achieved. But yes, I'm feeling very good about myself as I write this.
Quoting numberjohnny5
It's a tough distinction for me, because, as I said, I find it to be often an erroneous distinction. But, to me, the simplest dichotomy is this: the subject is you. You, the subject are reading this. What are you reading? Are you reading a subjective set of words? Someone else is reading them too; Tim Wood, for instance. Is he reading the same words? Presumably he's reading the same words, but he's, presumably, interpreting them not exactly the same way as you are. Now, is there an objectivity to my words? There's an objectivity to what I am trying to communicate to you. But language itself is subjective, not objective. Subjectivity, then, seems hard to get away from! But have we still sufficiently out-run it? No, we haven't. When you post on this forum, you are saying something, that to you, represents an objectivity. But the paradox and the tragedy is that you can only say it subjectively.
That's what I'm wondering about.
Quoting Noble Dust
Not necessarily. Priority and generation could just refer to facts/states of affairs without agency being involved. By "determine" I mean what establishes relative levels of hierarchy. So you could say that hierarchies are mental constructs that match the facts according to priority and generation, for example. You could also say that hierachies are mental constructs that match the facts according to non-physical and physical properties/existents; four limbs relative to two; relative velocity; relative mass, etc. One point I'm trying to make is that hierarchies are mental constructs. They don't exist apart from us thinking about them.
Quoting Noble Dust
Is that an assertion you're making?
Quoting Noble Dust
Ok, but logically my question still stands sans consciousness: "if the physical generated the non-physical, would you then say that the physical would be at the top end of the hierarchy?" If levels of hierarchy is established/acknowledged in terms of priority and generation regarding some "kind" of x, then it wouldn't matter what that x was. That x could be anything, logically.
I think I can see why it's tough for you to make a clear distinction.
The way I think about the dichotomy is like this:
Subjectivity and objectivity both have location. Subjectivity occurs only in minds. Objectivity occurs everywhere else (everywhere that is not a mind).
With regards to your example, two people could be reading a set of words (a set of signs and symbols as pixels on a computer monitor, for instance). Those actual words are objective: they don't exist in the mind; ontologically they are pixels. These two people would be interpreting those pixels subjectively (i.e. in their minds).
Quoting Noble Dust
Here's where what you write becomes fuzzy or muddled to me. I don't know what you mean by "my words" there, but the words as pixels aren't part of you. They are external to you (and thus, external to your mind). The words/pixels exist objectively.
Quoting Noble Dust
Hmm. In other words, you have (subjective) intentions that you are trying to express via technological means (i.e. a computer). The way you're expressing those intentions is via pixels on a screen. The intentions aren't identical to the expression of the intentions.
Quoting Noble Dust
Just to clarify, language is a mental system of thought that can be used for communication. The expression of language via verbal sounds, non-verbal behaviour, or signs/symbols (in whatever format, e.g. paper, pixels, etc.) is objective.
Quoting Noble Dust
We can't experience anything from non-subjective/objective frames of reference. The whole idea of "experience" is necessarily subjective. That's why I wanted to clarify what you meant by "experience". Experience is conscious and thus subjective. So it's contradictory to "out-run" subjectivity as subjects.
Why would you want to out-run subjectivity anyway? What motivates you to want to do that?
Quoting Noble Dust
When I post on this forum I am expressing my intentions/views via pixels. The pixels are objective (non-mental), but the meaning assigned to the pixels by you or me is subjective.
I don't know whether you mean something different by "an objectivity" compared with "objectivity" there?
Quoting Noble Dust
I don't know why you think this is tragic.
Btw I don't think paradoxes are anything but logical/language related. They don't obtain ontologically apart from minds.
Well, you have to specify what exactly you mean by "know"? Knowing something has a multitude of different senses, and one of the things that annoys me about even this forum, is that people talk in extremely vague ways which render the discourse effectively incomprehensible - I just cannot understand what this man is trying to tell me as Borat said...
Let's take the example of playing tennis. Initially, when you learn to play tennis, or when you're trying to improve your hits, what you do is that you concentrate on some basic theoretical precepts which are conceived to get you to achieve whatever you're trying to achieve in the most effective manner possible given the tools that you have (ball, racket, etc.). You try to get your body and your muscles to act those principles as best as possible. However, this is not so easy. Because you have to learn to use different muscles that you were never aware of before, you have to learn to control and concentrate different subtle parts of your body at the same time and so on.
So the practice is always an attempt to approximate the theoretical. And in some cases - if you have a particular deformity, etc. - the practice is also an attempt to refine the theoretical to your own particularities, which is a higher level of the practice - a synthesis of the theoretical-practical if you want.
So in a sense, I know the theoretical aspects of tennis. And in another, I know to practically execute them. These are two different senses of knowledge, and I believe for example Heidegger and Aristotle both distinguish between one and the other.
Now which of this form of knowledge is prior to the other is an interesting question. I think that Heidegger would argue contrary to the rest of the tradition that the practical know-how comes before the theoretization of it.
There's also the difference between knowing that, and knowing how. I know that quarks are the basic building blocks of matter, I do not know how - to know how I'd have to understand how the concept of quarks was initially arrived at, ie. I need to practically travel the same path that those who discovered quarks did.
There are also "gradations" of knowledge. All knowledge can be recaptured to a certain extent or another. I know how to solve a Rubik's cube. A few years ago, I could solve it with my eyes closed. Now I can still solve it. But not with my eyes closed, and much slower. Why? Cause I forgot the exact steps. It's like going in a labyrinth I've been in many years ago. I may have forgotten the exact steps, but I have stored into memory a few key principles from which those steps were derived and I can both retrieve other forgotten details, and recreate those that I cannot retrieve. I may not know the entire labyrth a priori as it were, but as I travel along it, I remember more and more, and as a result I'm capable to make my way through it. I can still say I know it, though I mean something quite different now.
So 1) someone may know that they are beautiful without knowing how. 2) Someone may also be unaware that they are beautiful theoretically, but practically show a refined awareness of it.
With regards to (1) this shows a practical or intuitive understanding of beauty without being able to specify its causes. And with regards to (2) you can take the example of a woman who is insecure about her physical look on a discursive level, but on a practical level - through the way she is flirting and using her body for example - she shows extensive awareness of her beauty.
Quoting Noble Dust
Well, I think the bird is definitely conscious, in that it reacts to stimuli, and probably projects a world for itself the same way us humans project a world for ourselves. What I think you might mean is that a bird lacks the self-awareness of human beings, and the reflexivity of our thought. In other words, the bird does not think about what it is thinking. It does not think about why it is singing, why it is flying, etc.
There is also the difference between subjective consciousness and objective consciousness. The bird is objectively conscious of the prey that lies before it. But it is not subjectively conscious of its own being, including how that relates to the meta-context it finds itself in.
So a bird is not capable of, say, antinatalism, the way a human being is. A bird cannot attempt to judge the whole of its existence (or all existence as such) since its consciousness is not self-reflective as Hegel would say.
A bird's subjective consciousness is limited to the consciousness of impulses, desires, etc. but it lacks a faculty (reason) to judge those impulses, desires, etc. It lacks what Nietzsche called that debilitating faculty of man which makes him different from the blonde beasts of prey which feast and pillage the fields.
So a bird may be conscious objectively of its beauty when attracting a mate for example. If the bird sings to attract a mate, then it is conscious objectively that its singing is beautiful - it attracts the mate.
So it's not consciousness itself that is the mirror, it is self-consciousness, or better said reflective consciousness and reason which permit this mirroring to take place.
There is a sense in which both bird and man may not know of their (full) beauty - and that's in-so-far as they are unaware of how they fit into the larger picture. If you are unaware of the greater purpose, then you may not see why X Y Z happened the way they did. That's also why man's greatest happiness is knowing God.
"But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive." Genesis 50:20.
It seems that the male has a sense of what the female finds as beautiful attractive an attraction. It might be that nothing knows it’s beautiful unless it experiences something else desired by it is attracted to it.
Take the usual female teenager that doesn’t know or believe she is attractive until someone genuinely finds her attractive.
Isn’t beauty another word for attraction or attractive?
One isn’t attracted to what is perceived as ugly or abhorring. So, beauty is perception of the observer anyway. Some see gold bullions as beautiful some see righteousness as beautiful and the female bird sees what it’s attracted to as beautiful. And says so with its response to the show of the male. Because of the promise of fulfillment desired and or valued.
And beautiful being affording keen pleasure to the senses generally, especially that of hearing; delightful. In modern colloquial use the word is often applied to anything that a person likes very much, e.g. ‘beautiful pears,’ ‘she makes beautiful soup,’ ‘a beautiful ride.’
Hence the female bird is attracted finding the male beautiful, then by experience the male bird knows.
Why ought I to do that? What makes you think I haven't already paused for moments in the past to think about what value is already?
Quoting tim wood
I haven't been approaching this discussion in this way. I typically attempt to be analytical with regards to my philosophising, at least in this forum.
Quoting tim wood
I agree.
Quoting tim wood
I don't think I made my view on "qualities" clear enough. I should have emphasised the subjective aspect more with regards to my comment about "quale". Let me try to make it clearer:
There are two types of "qualities": objective qualities (extra-mental) and subjective (mental). "Objective qualities" refers to the properties of existents/objects/phenomena. (I take "qualities" or "attributes" to be synonymous with "properties".) "Subjective qualities" refers to qualia--the mind experiencing (via direct perception) the qualities of some (objective) existent/object/phenomena.
So for example, when I view a particular bird that I think is beautiful, I am experiencing the qualities/properties of that bird interacting with my sensorial/perceptual/mental apparatus as qualia. I then have a feeling and make a judgement/evaluation that that particular bird is "beautiful".
Quoting tim wood
What makes you think I am not familiar with Berkeley's dialogue, btw? (I haven't actually read the dialogue but am acquainted with its content. But that's not the point of my question.) And for what reason should I read Berkeley's dialogue? It seems that you think that I need to learn more due to lack of understanding about this particular issue we're discussing.
Quoting tim wood
Right. I was responding specifically to this "the trouble with that is that Aristotle's understanding of matter is I am pretty sure no where near yours."
I was attempting to clarify my position with regards to Aristotle's "matter and form" in order to confirm that my "understanding of matter" is different from his.
Quoting tim wood
I disagree. Colour is the interaction between the properties of some object and the (properties of the) mind via qualia.
Quoting tim wood
I don't find Berkeley's position convincing.
Quoting tim wood
All views and definitions are mental (because "meaning" is mental, in my view); one cannot not have personal opinions and definitions (although definitions can be objective in sense of observable text, for example).
Anyway, I take it you mean that I'm not agreeing with a conventional or traditional definition of "matter and form".
Why does not agreeing with a conventional or particular viewpoint not make for "productive discussion"?
It seems to come down to the fact that you're taking an analytical approach, while I'm not. I think your analysis would probably indicate that you're more correct from an analytical standpoint. But the whole concept that I presented is both aesthetic/artistic and intuitive (as well as open to analysis, as everything of course is); so the same goes for my intuitive approach; I've gone into detail about it from that angle, and you haven't responded within an intuitive approach at all, whereas I've attempted to interface with your analytical approach. My approach begins with intuition, not with analysis. Good discussion though, I'm not trying to shut it down, feel free to continue.
Well, you need to specify what you mean by "specify", right? :-} But in all seriousness, I stated at the beginning that it was a poetic concept; that should make clear what "know" means in that context.
Quoting Agustino
Yes, I agree. Self-awareness is a better term, I think. I was unsuccessfully trying to distinguish between consciousness on the one hand, shared by all beings, and self-awareness on the other, something that seems unique to us. From there, the idea that we're the highest form of self-awareness is evident without any reflection, but upon reflection, it's possible that higher forms do exist. The higher form would look down on us as we look down on the bird. Then the concept of beauty comes in, which I've gone into at length.
Does poetic mean vacuous?
When you're making music, don't you follow a method? Don't you think about some guiding principles? About how different sounds are interconnected? What effects minor and major scales create? etc.? Clearly you must. Any craft, even poetry, takes honing, which is done methodically and deliberately.
Quoting Noble Dust
Quoting Agustino
Yeah, like that.
Give me a break. (Oh, look, a metaphor within the context of common usage! Must be vacuous.)
Quoting Agustino
So do you still not understand what it means, then? I'm not sure how your questions here are related to my brief explanation of what "know" meant in the OP context.
Quoting Agustino
Cool, so we're in agreement about the basic premise of the OP, at least.
Yeah, a metaphor can certainly be vacuous, depending on the context.
Now you can have your break :P
Thanks for your vacuous contributions! :-d
You're welcome Noble (Y)
Let me ask you this: would it have made any difference if I had arrived at (more or less) the same conclusions via a more intuitive route?
I can't imagine how you could have.
Right. So it's as though my taking a specific route (analytic, in this case) towards some destination would lead me astray. Whereas maybe taking a different route (an intuitive one) would lead me somewhere more specific. Is that right?
Almost. The route that your analysis leads to is not the same route that my intuition leads to.
Or rather, the destination (instead of route, in my reply). Sorry.
Ok. So if I took an intuitive route, I would more likely arrive at the same or similar destination as you. Do you have in mind what the destination what be or look like?
Correct. Within the context of this thread, the destination would be "a view of the beauty of humanity which humans themselves cannot see, in the same way that humans see a certain beauty in birds which birds themselves cannot see."
I see. So essentially what you wanted from this thread was others to understand, agree or share similar views re beauty within a macrocosmic hierarchy, and revel or admire/appreciate being at that "destination" with you. Is that right?
No. It looks like you're missing the point of taking an intuitive approach. You seem to be assuming that only an analytical approach could warrant disagreement.
I'm happy to be corrected. What is the point of taking an intuitive approach in your view?
Btw, the reason I made that assumption was because I thought "the destination" was synonymous with a conclusion that you already had in mind prior to opening the thread. That's kind of what I meant by "destination". But maybe you meant something different.
By "qualia" I mean "what it's like to experience some phenomena", that is, the qualities of an experience. See "(1)" under "1. Uses of the Term 'Qualia'": https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qualia/#Uses
Quoting tim wood
What makes the book "red":
(1) specific properties intrinsic in the book (e.g. the molecules, atoms); (2) those specific properties actually interacting with the properties of our mental apparatus (e.g. our eyes, retina, nerve cells, etc.); (3) the changes in our mind caused by the interaction in (2) (e.g. within the occipital lobe, other brain/mental processes). We then (can also) infer "the colour red" as distinct from other colours based on experience (obviously).
With regards to this process, "qualia" is involved in (2) and (3).
Quoting tim wood
So "red" is the name we give to a particular (qualitative, i.e. "qualia") experience which involves a dynamic process involving the properties of some object that causes our minds to make specific changes.
Quoting tim wood
For example, the book is a composite of particular molecules that are dynamically and constantly interacting (i.e. constantly changing). In other words, some properties include atoms, particular sets of atoms (molecules), the way those atoms/molecules relate/interact with each other, and that dynamic interaction is constantly in motion, i.e. "changing".
Quoting tim wood
Because it doesn't make sense to me to think that existents aren't just a "bundle" of properties interacting. What would existents look/be like without properties?
Quoting tim wood
It's not as if I haven't thought about what the so-called "greatest thinkers" have claimed before disagreeing. Btw, "greatest" is subjective.
Quoting tim wood
I agree that dealing with their arguments can be productive in a variety of ways, such as understanding the historical roots of particular views, learning to argue philosophically, learning to think critically, etc.
But that's just the thing: you seem to be assuming that I am dismissing their views "out-of-hand" as if I haven't digested, researched, argued or thought about their views before. That's not the case. I am open to being challenged, to my views being inaccurate. But I'm not just going to assume the supposed "greatest thinkers" are correct just because you or others consider them as authoritatively infallible. Otherwise it seems that you're committing the argument from authority fallacy.
Suppose that beauty is pleasurable and that both man and bird feel beauty. We the beauty that we see around us, such as in nature and in the beauty in art, the bird in the joy of its song (I am not saying this is its sole purpose). We are very different beings but our behaviors seem somewhat merged in pleasure and pain.
If so then perhaps the beauty of a song bird's song may not be entirely lost on itself due to its cognitive limitations. I am inclined to believe that Nature itself is responsible for both bird and man. A bird's instincts rule what it feels and the pleasure it experiences in its own behavior, which is as important to it as it is to us.
Man's consciousness is Nature's realization of its own existence. If there is a macro-cosmic/transcendent perhaps it is Nature itself who's imminent hierarchy might be based on each separate beings degree of participation in it.
The quale of red is the knowledge of what it is like to experience red.
Consider a physicist and a robot, neither of which can see red, due to a genetic defect and a loose connection respectively. When the physicist (who knows of red) is repaired by a geneticist, she can not only detect red, but also gains knowledge of what it is like to see red. When the robot is fixed by an engineer it can detect red, but has no idea what it is like to see red.
A quale is "what it is like" knowledge. Birds are incapable of creating such knowledge, as are robots.
In what way is "bird knowledge" any different from knowledge? How do birds create this "bird knowledge"?
Quoting tim wood
Funny!
Quoting tim wood
Qualia and knowledge are intimately related.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qualia-knowledge/
Yes, I agree. As you say, this is not a case of the actual book touching one's mental apparatus; the book is not actually touching my eye. What is touching my eye are the properties of light interacting with the both the book's properties and the properties of my mental apparatus.
Quoting tim wood
By "red in-itself" do you mean noumena?
Quoting tim wood
I'm not sure whether you do know what I mean. If properties are identical to existents, then how can existents exist without properties?
Quoting tim wood
I think we have direct perception of observables (I'm a naive realist). In other words, we experience externals (i.e. objective/external-to-mind objects) directly. We can make inferences from that direct experience, and that's how we can know about the world.
I see, you claim "bird knowledge" is different from knowledge, and now demand that I defend your claim?
What is the difference between "bird knowledge" and "dog knowledge"?
Sniffability
Do you think it possible to transfer dog knowledge to a bird?
Quoting tim wood
You claimed that dog knowledge and bird knowledge are different. Why do you not attempt to defend your claim, rather than pretending yu did not make it? If you don't know what knowledge is, how can you even make such a claim?
Quoting tim wood
So, for some reason, birds cannot create "people knowledge"!
Quoting tim wood
In order to distinguish between "dog, cat, whale, otter, and every other kind of knowledge", there must be a difference between them. WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE?
No. I think all life shares the same world, but each species confronts that world in their own way, utilizing what nature has provided to it according to its own pragmatics.
So, why might it not be possible to transfer dog knowledge to a bird? If a bird can know something, then what stops it knowing anything?
I don't think dogs, birds or other creatures can conceptualize. They can think, feel, sense, associate experiences and react on that basis. I think they can share these senses, these feelings at times but knowledge in my opinion requires conceptualization, determinate concepts, without which there is no understanding, no knowledge.
How do birds "share these sensations, these feelings"?
Using "inside" and "outside" like that I think confuses things. It's rather that properties of light (that are interacting with properties of the book) are interacting with properties of one's eye/retina, which in turn cause changes in the nerves that then cause changes in the visual system, and so on. The qualia refers only to the properties of the mental apparatus processing the environment in this case. And I'd say that the sensorial, perceptual, and acquaintance knowledge experience is not identical to the propositional knowledge one can infer from the experience.
Quoting tim wood
That's not what I said, nor implied; at least, that's certainly not what I intended to say/imply. "Seeing" a tree is identical to properties of light interacting with properties of the tree interacting with one's eye and causing particular changes in one's mind. "Seeing" does not refer to anything else (for instance, the tree actually touching one's eye). Touching the tree with one's hand is another way of perceiving in which properties of the tree interact with the properties of one's hand which cause changes to one's skin, nervous system, etc. I wouldn't say that touching the tree with one's hand isn't touching the actual tree.
Quoting tim wood
As per your (1), the qualia is the experience of some objective/external phenomena (provided that the phenomena in question is not illusory like, say, a projection of any object in question). "Experience" is synonymous with "mental experience", in my view. (2) In a nutshell, as we develop, observe, and "absorb" external phenomena, our minds learn to organise/classify different phenomena into abstract categories of experience. "Qualia" allow us the "material" (i.e. the experiences) from which we make sense of reality.
Quoting tim wood
Again, see my comment above: we have direct experience of observables; it's just not in the way you think qualifies as direct experience. Let me put this another way by asking you a question: what would need to occur for you to believe we have direct experience of observables...of say, a tree?
Yes. Just to clarify, we also have a sensory apparatus that detects externals/light-as-external/etc. Perception involves the combination of sensory and mental apparatus. Knowledge is mental only.
Quoting tim wood
Yes, more or less.
Quoting tim wood
It's just employing two different "modes" of perception simultaneously: touching and seeing.
Quoting tim wood
"Seeing" and "touching" is just referring to the process of experiencing some object via two "modes" of perception.
And again, saying stuff like "what ends up in your mind is what's out there" confuses/gets wrong what's actually going on, in my view. None of the tree is ending up in your mind when you touch or see the tree. Your sensory apparatuses properties and your mind's properties is being affected by the tree's properties (when touching) and the light's properties interacting with the tree and your mind (when seeing).
Quoting tim wood
Like a mental construct of sorts?
Quoting tim wood
I take it you're a representative realist? As I've said, I'm a direct realist. In my view, we perceive observables directly. We do not perceive an image/mental construct of what is supposedly an observable. If that were the case, we wouldn't even begin to be able to verify whether our mental construct or "image" (if that's how you're using it) matches the "thing itself". Which means the representative realist holds a solipsistic position.
Quoting tim wood
What would "exactly accurate" refer to? What does it mean to have an "exactly accurate" image to a thing itself?
Quoting tim wood
The observables are the facts/states of affairs that we observe/perceive. The whole act of experiencing some object/observable is "processual", so what we are perceiving is continually being processed and changing/affecting our mental experience of some object/observable, moment by moment (as long as we're observing it, of course). Processing/experiencing a fact/observable/object is just our mental apparatus/phenomena (like qualia) interacting with external phenomena (like trees). So we don't actually create the external phenomena. Rather, our minds are causally affected by and process external phenomena via our mental apparatus.
Quoting tim wood
By "scientific" I take it you mean empirical observations in lieu of theoretical/hypothetical support?
I think we can know things empirically (in the knowledge by acquaintance sense) since I buy direct realism.
(Btw, all experience is from a perspective; there is no "view-from-nowhere" experience or knowledge of some x.)
As I suggested to ND I think it might be in their tweet.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/131491
Pets can be quite crafty, I think they learn (mimic) this from us, but I think it is more associative reasoning then conceptualized reasoning. So a is to b as b is to c rather than a implies b and b implies. c.
As an aside. It is interesting that song birds learn their song from their parents, and if they don't learn it for some reason they can still sing but they will not attract mates. Scientist indicate that their songs change over time for an entire population as a whole based on the recording scientist have made.
The difference between associative reasoning and conceptualization (I think) is similar to the "distinction between the substitution of the name of an attribute or adjunct for that of the thing meant, for example suit for business executive, or the track for horse racing" (the definition of metonymy), things that occur in proximity and are connect by that proximity. Conceptualization has to do with metaphor, a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable... how a can imply b.
Humans think by both association and implication, while animals thinking is in my opinion confined to the associations they have learnt which can lead to amazing results such as your cat's feat. Not all animals are created equal, some are smarter then others. Animals are intelligent in many ways, but they are not intelligent in the same way as humans.
In the case of animals I think the metonymic link has to do with feelings like pleasure and pain.
I say yes. We 'look down' on ourselves. As we age we become more sophisticated, more sensitive to all the different ways that humans can be beautiful. And we can look 'down' on our younger selves with a mixture of contempt and longing. As cultures we age too, and so we can look back/down in a similar way. Sometimes we can see the past of ourselves or our culture as a stronger, more beautiful kind of living. Then we strive to undo the false learning, etc., that cut us off from this stronger beauty.
*Feuerbach pays quite a bit of attention to this issue. The Incarnation is a symbolic confession for him that (the hu-)man is the God or supreme value for (the hu-)man.
I don't know Feuerbach; "the incarnation" as in the incarnation described in the Bible, or something else?
Quoting tim wood
Some people have a problem with his views because they aren't reasonable.
Quoting tim wood
Btw, I understand that Kant is not saying externals don't exist because we can't access them without our mental faculties. For Kant, the whole of idea of "noumena" presumes that objects exist ("things that appear"); and the whole idea of "phenomena" ("the appearance of things") is that those objects appear to the mind in particular ways (due to the "rules" or structure of the mind). So you cannot know "ultimate reality", but you can know a mental construct (in the form of sense data and mental faculties) regarding noumena that are perceived as phenomena.
Quoting tim wood
This distinction doesn't change the view that both practical and scientific knowledge occur via indirect realism. If we only have indirect access to externals, it follows that both practical (or common-sense) knowledge and scientific knowledge (or any knowledge at all!) are unable to access externals directly. So as practical knowledge, "the tree is a tree" is still just sense data in the same way that "the tree is a tree" is sense data via scientific means. In other words, we can only attain knowledge via perception/appearances, whether that's practical or scientific knowledge. But in that way, we can only know the appearance of noumena, and not as they "really" are. Here Kant is assuming that the appearance of things IS distinct from how things really are. I don't think he has any good reasons to support that view though.
Quoting tim wood
Yes.
Quoting tim wood
I just want to clarify what you mean by this because I'm not sure what you're saying here. I read that as "I am perceiving myself perceiving some x". If that's the case, it doesn't make sense as one can't actually perceive oneself perceiving something unless one is using a mirror. You can be aware that you're perceiving some x though.
Quoting tim wood
Again, just to clarify: seeing something is not identical to the object being seen. The former occurs in the mind, the latter is what the mind is perceiving.
Quoting tim wood
Again, I don't really see how this distinction makes a difference if you're an indirect realist, as I argued above.
Kant presumes that we perceive reality via appearances in the form of sense data (indirect realism). Plus, Kant believes that our minds make reality conform to its structure. So again, we can't begin to verify how externals are "really" like since our minds impose and construct major features of reality that are not identical to reality.
This means that we can only make sense out of the appearances of things and not the actual things that appear. We can access the phenomena as phenomena, but not without our mental faculties, which impose "rules" onto noumena and cause them to appear as phenomena.
If you buy sense data, then you cannot check to verify whether your sense data matches externals. The whole enterprise of science and empirical observation is obstructed/prevented from this position. The best you could do is make guesses about what externals are like, with no method or possibility of experiencing them directly to check whether they match your guesses.
Quoting tim wood
Bear in mind that I don't agree with indirect realism, and I don't think noumena is different than phenomena (with the proviso that the phenomena isn't illusory and thus is the noumena).
With that in mind, any object that is perceived is perceived from a particular perspective/frame of reference, and with a particular mental apparatus. There are no privileged perspectives (which is how I interpret the claim that to know the noumena, one has to perceive it from a view-from-nowhere...a privileged perspective--as the subjective, mental faculties won't do). So for instance, the tree is "really" green from Person A's perspective; and "really" a similar "kind" of green from Person B's perspective; and "really" a lighter shade of green from Person B's perspective; and "really" blue from Person C's perspective (e.g. from that perspective, maybe the lighting is different); and "really" greyish from a particular dog's perspective, and so on.
Right. What does it mean symbolically when a God becomes man?
[quote=Feuerbach]
The consciousness of the divine love, or what is the same thing, the contemplation of God as human, is the mystery of the Incarnation. The Incarnation is nothing else than the practical, material manifestation of the human nature of God. God did not become man for his own sake; the need, the want of man – a want which still exists in the religious sentiment – was the cause of the Incarnation. God became man out of mercy: thus he was in himself already a human God before he became an actual man; for human want, human misery, went to his heart. The Incarnation was a tear of the divine compassion, and hence it was only the visible advent of a Being having human feelings, and therefore essentially human.
If in the Incarnation we stop short at the fact of God becoming man, it certainly appears a surprising inexplicable, marvellous event. But the incarnate God is only the apparent manifestation of deified man; for the descent of God to man is necessarily preceded by the exaltation of man to God. Man was already in God, was already God himself, before God became man, i.e., showed himself as man.
...
That which is mysterious and incomprehensible, i.e., contradictory, in the proposition, “God is or becomes a man,” arises only from the mingling or confusion of the idea or definitions of the universal, unlimited, metaphysical being with the idea of the religious God, i.e., the conditions of the understanding, with the conditions of the heart, the emotive nature; a confusion which is the greatest hindrance to the correct knowledge of religion.
[/quote]
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/feuerbach/works/essence/ec04.htm
How do you think the knowledge that the other bird is happy gets into the bird's brain? Do you think it requires concepts of the self, other and happiness?
Quite! There is no reason to attribute qualia to birds. My argument was that birds (and all non-human animals) don't create knowledge and thus don't create qualia.
We were initially, but then it became important for me to make distinctions between other senses, for the sake of clarity.
Quoting tim wood
This seems to presume that efficient or non-deficient perception would allow the perceiver to perceive all aspects of the tree (of an x) from all perspectives as well as all perspectives throughout the history of the tree--simultaneously. This is nonsensical though. That is the view-from-nowhere; the privileged perspective that I've been criticising. The reason it's nonsense (in my ontology) is that perspectives are neccesarily perspectival i.e. from particular frames of reference. There cannot be a perspective from everywhere in all those senses. That would imply that that privileged perspective is identical to all of the properties inherent in the tree simultaneously and throughout time. This is God's eye-view. You'd need to be all the facts of that tree. Plus, since things are constantly changing (in my ontology), the properties are never "complete", but always developing/changing. So you'd have to have that "God's eye-view" until the tree changed into another material structure to accommodate your claim.
Quoting tim wood
I am saying that, barring illusionary phenomena that don't correspond with the (objective) phenomena we try to perceive, the phenomena is the noumena.
Quoting tim wood
Again, I'm not sure whether you're conflating the external-to-mind thing being perceived and the perception of it by the perceiver. What's possible is that my perception of an x is perpectival to that x (i.e. from a particular position relative to that x). It doesn't make sense to literally say that my perception of some x is identical to that x. It's a relational matter, not an identity matter.
Quoting tim wood
With regards to your two problems:
(1) As I mentioned above, it's nonsensical to believe that perception can be complete. And that's not what I'm claiming.
(2) It depends what you mean by "filtered" there; I wouldn't use "filtered" in the Kantian sense of mental faculties. I'd say our mental processing allows for particular experiences from a particular perspective relative to whatever x we're perceiving. That means that perception is necessarily biased and subjective.
Quoting tim wood
Logically, it's possible that if humans' mental apparatus is structured and functions in similar ways, that our experience of some x under particular lighting will be perceived in similar ways.
Quoting tim wood
I'm claiming that if indirect realism is true, then practical and scientific knowledge (any knowledge whatsoever) is relegated only to speculation about externals. In other words, if indirect realism is true, then any information one obtains from the external world can only ever be speculative at best.
I don't know what you mean by this sentence: "Nothing is a product of indirect realism." Indirect realism is just a theory of perception. If you believe in that theory, then you have to maintain that no knowledge/perception of externals is directly possible.
Quoting tim wood
The problem with that view is that I believe the work that we can "get done" is based on more or less accurate information about the world, whereas you'd have to maintain that your information is only speculative at best.
Quoting tim wood
That's too ambiguous a claim for me to be able to address.