I am horsed
Sometimes we say that we're cold, meaning we feel cold. Other times we say it's cold, meaning that something feels cold. This can vary from individual to individual. Three people are in the same room. One says it's hot, another that it feels cold, and a third that it's just fine. And this can vary for an individual. You got outside into the hot sun and then come back into the room, and now it feels cool when it was warm before.
This sort of perceptual relativity was one of the things that motivated the ancient skeptics. If you taste the wine and it's a "rich smoky coffee bean, blackberry and summer plums wrapped in a totally silky texture", but I taste the wine and it shows "hints of tar and asphalt and rustiness among the sturdy fruit", then who is to say that taste is a property of the wine itself? Because if taste were a property of wine, how could it vary between us? And how could we tell who is tasting it correctly?
Instead, one could adopt the language of I'm cold, and say I'm sweetened upon eating a ripe orange, or I'm reddened upon seeing a red apple. This emphasizes that the it is the perceiver who creates the feeling of temperature, taste or color, and thus we cannot say anything about the objects themselves.
There was a stoic rebuttal to this. Upon seeing a horse, it does not make any sense to say I'm horsed. We do not become the shape of the horse, nor do we assume it's biology. What this shows us is that we do know properties of things themselves. Not everything depends on the perceiver.
We have devices which measure temperature. 4 degrees might feel cold to you and average for me, but the thermometer gives us the same value. A pond freezes at 0 degrees celsius, regardless of how the water feels. And an apple rots, regardless of how it tastes. The horse also goes on being a horse.
Thus we have a means for dividing the perceiver-dependent qualities from the object-dependent ones. Now you might ask, why suppose there is any division? Don't you know this will lead to all sorts of philosophical problems we've been debating since way back then?
There is a division because human beings are not the world. You're not a horse, or a rock or the sun. And you're not another person. But you do experience the world via a body of certain kind of animal. This was also something noted by the ancient skeptics. Animal senses differ from our own.
But notice that the skeptics have to admit to knowing that animal senses differ, and that there is perceptual relativity among humans to an extent. This implies that there is a world we do know something about. And so a division is made between the experience of the individual, and the world, of which the individual is part, but can not experience exactly as it is.
This is why the subjective-objective divide exists, whatever conclusions we draw from such a division. I feel cold, you feel warm, but the thermometer says it's the same temperature. This eventually leads to a scientific understanding of temperature as the amount of energy the particles in a volume of space have. Cold and hot are only relative to absolute zero and minimum entropy, which is far beyond the range at which we can experience temperature.
And the horse has nothing to say about the taste of the wine.
This sort of perceptual relativity was one of the things that motivated the ancient skeptics. If you taste the wine and it's a "rich smoky coffee bean, blackberry and summer plums wrapped in a totally silky texture", but I taste the wine and it shows "hints of tar and asphalt and rustiness among the sturdy fruit", then who is to say that taste is a property of the wine itself? Because if taste were a property of wine, how could it vary between us? And how could we tell who is tasting it correctly?
Instead, one could adopt the language of I'm cold, and say I'm sweetened upon eating a ripe orange, or I'm reddened upon seeing a red apple. This emphasizes that the it is the perceiver who creates the feeling of temperature, taste or color, and thus we cannot say anything about the objects themselves.
There was a stoic rebuttal to this. Upon seeing a horse, it does not make any sense to say I'm horsed. We do not become the shape of the horse, nor do we assume it's biology. What this shows us is that we do know properties of things themselves. Not everything depends on the perceiver.
We have devices which measure temperature. 4 degrees might feel cold to you and average for me, but the thermometer gives us the same value. A pond freezes at 0 degrees celsius, regardless of how the water feels. And an apple rots, regardless of how it tastes. The horse also goes on being a horse.
Thus we have a means for dividing the perceiver-dependent qualities from the object-dependent ones. Now you might ask, why suppose there is any division? Don't you know this will lead to all sorts of philosophical problems we've been debating since way back then?
There is a division because human beings are not the world. You're not a horse, or a rock or the sun. And you're not another person. But you do experience the world via a body of certain kind of animal. This was also something noted by the ancient skeptics. Animal senses differ from our own.
But notice that the skeptics have to admit to knowing that animal senses differ, and that there is perceptual relativity among humans to an extent. This implies that there is a world we do know something about. And so a division is made between the experience of the individual, and the world, of which the individual is part, but can not experience exactly as it is.
This is why the subjective-objective divide exists, whatever conclusions we draw from such a division. I feel cold, you feel warm, but the thermometer says it's the same temperature. This eventually leads to a scientific understanding of temperature as the amount of energy the particles in a volume of space have. Cold and hot are only relative to absolute zero and minimum entropy, which is far beyond the range at which we can experience temperature.
And the horse has nothing to say about the taste of the wine.
Comments (92)
What's wrong with me? It's the first time in my life I wanted to voice my opinion and I was not able to. Due to lack of opinion.
But I read the OP! I am entitled, or rather, promised, by the type of webpage this is, to be able to give an opinion after reading the opening post.
I feel like I am cheated. The ground pulled out from under me. No leg to stand on. Biting into a ripe, fresh orange, only to realize I bit into thin air.
They don't differ so much that we call them different names. Dogs, horses, sharks, and lizards all have noses and eyes and nervous systems. They differ only in complexity.
Quoting Marchesk
What would be the difference in "experiencing" something exactly as it is and "experiencing" the aboutness of how something is?
Can't you "experience" your mind exactly as it is?
Quoting Marchesk
Just as I can point to the thermometer and say it is cold, I can point to your shivering body and say that you are cold. Your "subjective" notions are part of the world itself, and something you can get at directly, and then communicate to others using the objects as the medium of communication that you say we can't "experience" as they truly are. Then how is it that I'm able even understand any of the scribbles you put up on my computer screen?
Quoting Marchesk
Saying anything is a type of behavior. Saying, "the wine is good." is the same as seeing someone enjoy the wine. If the horse laps up the wine and begs for more, then that is the horse saying, "the wine is good". Body language is a type of language, or communication.
They differ in ability and range. Also, some animals have eyes that see more than three primary colors. And some senses that humans lack, such as sonar or detecting the Earth's magnetic field.
Quoting Harry Hindu
If we experienced things exactly as they are, there would be no skepticism, and we wouldn't need science. We would just know things as they are. This is the naive view people have before they're exposed to science or philosophy, or start questioning appearances.
Quoting Harry Hindu
Not always. People can feel cold without shivering. They can feel pain without jumping around and hollering. We can't always tell what someone is experiencing. Reading body language has its limits. Language also has it's limits and doesn't always tell us exactly what people feel. Sometimes they struggle to put it into words. And sometimes they don't want to tell us the truth.
Quoting Harry Hindu
You're a human being and are part of the same language community.
Quoting Harry Hindu
It's really not.
Quoting Harry Hindu
Horses probably don't deceive. But like other animals, they can be stubborn, and we don't always know why. People do deceive and can pretend to like your terrible cooking and may even beg for more, if they feel like they really need to sell it.
Or you're put on trial for a crime you may have committed. Question is, can the jury tell whether you're being truthful? How good is your lawyer? Will the judge allow the results of the lie detector test into the trial that you failed three times? Is the jury influenced by the prosecutor painting you as a misogynist, homophobic racist who hates mankind and supports anti-natalism?
Point is, we struggle to really know what other people think and experience, and we're not always sure how much they're telling us the truth. There is a division between us and others.
You can lead a horse to wine, but it might not drink it. Maybe it's not thirsty. Maybe it doesn't like the smell of the wine. Or maybe it's distracted by your body language.
Is this really the source of any confusion? If I say "I'm cold." You generally know I mean "I feel cold." If I pick up a beer or if I'm outside and say "It's cold, I generally mean the temperature of the beer or the air is below about 40 degrees F. Just because there's a lot of play about whether to use 40 degrees F or 32 degrees F, doesn't mean there's really any confusion. People in Florida may think it's cold when it's 50 degrees while people in Alaska are running around in short sleeves when it's 35.
Quoting Marchesk
I'm not sweet, the orange is. I don't feel sweet, I taste something sweet. I'm not red, the apple is. I don't feel red, I see something red. I guess I don't get the point you're trying to get across.
What's the difference between feeling cold and tasting sweet or seeing red? You have those experiences because of the kind of animal you are. The point of the ancient skeptics was that those properties couldn't be objective properties of things themselves because they vary and depend on the kind of perceivers we are.
Quoting T Clark
It means that our feeling of cold is due to the kind of bodies we have, not the temperature itself. Feeling cold isn't a property of the air or whatever object we're touching.
That's why science ends up with explanations such as temperature as energy of the particles making up the air or object, and not how we experience temperature.
Skepticism would still exist even if we experienced things as they are, for how would we know if we experience things as they are? What would it mean to experience you, or the apple, as you are?
Again, are you not experiencing your mind as it truly is?
If you can experience things as they are indirectly, what more would experiencing them as they are provide? Isnt that what perception is - indirect access to how something really is?
Skepticism only becomes an option when we notice a discrepancy between how things appear and how they are. Or when we can't tell the difference between an appearance and reality, such as during a dream.
Quoting Harry Hindu
No, our first person access is imperfect and error prone.
Quoting Harry Hindu
We don't experience things as they are, directly or indirectly. We experience them in a limited fashion, imperfectly based on the kind of senses and brains we have.
This is the paragraph where I begin to lose the plot.
I gather that the first line of the quoted paragraph is the conclusion you are arguing for. Am I reading you right here?
If so, then I'd have to say that everything that precedes your conclusion does not imply your conclusion. Maybe I'm being a bit pernickety in my reading but I don't think I'd go so far as to say the subjective-objective divide exists.
We can have a means (a method?) for dividing perceiver-dependent qualities from object-dependent ones. So we have a thermometer, as in your example, which reads the object-dependent quality whereas you or I may say the water is cold or warm depending on whether we came from a hot or cold room prior, which we would say is the perceiver-dependent quality. In one case we call those qualities which we use an instrument that reads the same for ourselves the object-dependent qualities, and in the other case we just state how we feel to designate the perceiver-dependent qualities.
I can go along with this kind of category. But I don't know how that leads to a belief in some kind of divide which exists. That strikes me as a hypostatization.
I'd just say that it's a way of talking with one another, rather than something which exists.
Yes, the feeling of cold/heat cannot be the temperature the thermometer measures because the feeling varies between individuals and even the same individual when the thermometer does not.
Quoting Moliere
I don't see how that's possible. Language doesn't make us feel cold or hot. Animals and babies feel heat. It's biological. And language doesn't make a thermometer work the way it does. That's physics.
Physics gives us an explanation which doesn't depend on feeling at all. It says temperature is the result of kinetic energy of particles.
Thus we have an appearance of heat/cold that's biologically based, and we have the temperature reading, which is physics based. The feeling didn't tell our ancestors what temperature was, only that we should avoid things that were too cold or hot for us, and that certain things happened when it was hot (fire starting) or cold enough (water freezing). But they didn't know why.
The skeptics thought we couldn't know, but the stoic retort, "I'm horsed", shows why it is possible to know.
So we can only be skeptical if we actually had access to both how they appear and how they are? But you keep saying that we never have access to how they are - only how they appear - so then why are we skeptical?
Maybe during the dream we can't tell the difference, but afterwards we can - after we experience the world and not a dream.
Sensory illusions are not our senses being wrong. They are our mind's wrong interpretations of our sensory impressions. When we understand the ALL of the causes that are behind the sensory impression, we will be able to tell the difference between what parts are about the object, the light and our visual/nervous system.
Quoting Marchesk
I have no idea what you mean here. Do you question the existence of your mind - or that something exists at all?
Quoting Marchesk
If we don't experience things directly or indirectly, then how do we experience things at all - even imperfectly? Do you experience your mind directly? Is your mind part of the world? What do you mean by "experience"?
Quoting Moliere
Quoting Marchesk
The thermometer is measuring something different than what your feeling of being cold and warm is about. The thermometer is measuring the outside temperature. We could use the thermometer to measure your temperature too. When we do, we would notice a pattern between how you feel and the difference between your temperature and the outside temperature.
If we subtract your temperature from the outside temperature and get a negative number, then you will feel cold. If we get a positive number, you will feel hot. The closer to 0, the more comfortable you will feel. So your feeling of coldness or warmness isn't JUST about the outside temperature, or JUST your temperature. It is about the relationship between the two.
Quoting Marchesk
Actually I would even doubt that. What if I'm blind, or I can't read numbers, or I can't understand how to read a thermometer? You may brush it off as me being disabled or stupid, and say that for any abled and sensible person, the thermometer gives the same value. But then why can't I just say that if you don't feel cold when I feel cold it's because you're disabled or stupid? Why do we have to agree that feeling cold is relative and not that what the thermometer says to us is relative?
I would argue that even what a thermometer says or what we call a horse is relative. And then we don't need to force a subjective-objective divide.
Someone can tell you the temperature. There's probably thermostats that read off the temperature.
Quoting leo
When you learn to read it, you will get the same value as the rest of us.
Quoting leo
Because all humans can feel cold or hot at different times.
Quoting leo
Because we can agree on the thermometer. It gives us an objective standard.
Quoting leo
Sure you can do that, if you don't mind everything being relative, and there being no facts anyone agrees on. Meanwhile, the rest of us will be disagreeing with you.
Actually, I said we do have some access to how things are because "I'm horsed" doesn't make any sense. So we can conclude that perceiving a horse has some objective properties not dependent on use perceiving it.
Quoting Harry Hindu
No, only questioning that I have perfect knowledge of my experiences or thoughts.
Quoting Harry Hindu
We don't experience things directly or indirectly as they are. We only experience them in a limited fashion as human beings.
Quoting Harry Hindu
More so than other people do, but I'm a bit leery of using the word direct in this context. I'm not experiencing the mechanisms my brain uses to produce mental states.
Quoting Harry Hindu
Subjectivity.
Sure, but it's still a sensation and not what the thermometer is measuring.
Someone can tell you it's cold or hot too, that doesn't mean you will agree.
Quoting Marchesk
What if I can't learn to read it? What you're saying boils down to: if you learn to agree with us, then you'll agree with us.
Quoting Marchesk
No, there are some people who can't feel temperature.
Quoting Marchesk
As I mentioned, some people don't agree on the thermometer.
Quoting Marchesk
You say feeling cold is relative, does that imply no one agrees that it's cold? No. Some people agree with one another.
Quoting Marchesk
There are some people who agree with me.
Consider the implications for engineering or even meeting people at a certain time and location if we can't agree on facts.
Everything is relative to the individual is insanity. We wouldn't even be able to communicate.
As I said, you believe that feeling cold is relative, does that imply that no one agrees it's cold? No. Plenty of people agree on plenty of things.
You have noticed that not everyone agrees on some things. You can go a step further and notice that there is seemingly nothing everyone agrees on, including that statement. Maybe you could kill everyone who disagrees with you and your buddies, and then you would get a world where there are things everyone agrees on.
I notice people agreeing on facts when it's practical or important to do so, and only disagreeing when they have some other belief that's in contradiction.
Nobody seriously disagrees over a thermometer.
People who are blind and don't believe what you tell them, and people who can't read a thermometer and can't learn to read one can seriously disagree with you over a thermometer and what it says.
"Nobody seriously disagrees over ..." is the kind of justification people use to impose their world view onto others. If you silence or dismiss all those who disagree, sure you'll only be left with people who agree with you. But you feel justified in silencing or dismissing them, because you are right and they are wrong, right?
Facts aren't opinions, so yes. You haven't really thought out the implications of the radical relativism you're advocating, and how it would make life impossible.
And who says what the facts are? You?
It wouldn't make life impossible, many people agree on plenty of things even when they aren't coerced to do so. I'm not even advocating that people should believe everything is relative, but that it isn't fine to coerce others to agree with us, or to dismiss them as irrelevant if they don't agree with us. In my view it's precisely that coercion that makes life harder for many, not the lack of it.
Then a common criticism is that if everything is relative then to some individuals it might be a good thing to kill people, but that's already the case, some people see it as a good thing to kill others despite the best attempts to impose it as a fact that it's a bad thing. Whereas seeing things as relative doesn't mean I want to go and kill people, I can believe other people have different points of view without believing personally that it's fine to kill people.
Another common criticism is to say that "everything is relative" is self-contradictory, but it's not because "everything is relative" is relative too since in the view of many people not everything is relative.
And again I'm not forcing anyone to agree that everything is relative, but I don't want to be forced to agree that some things are objective for everyone, because in my view that's not the case, and I don't like to see people having their views dismissed or ridiculed simply because they don't agree with the consensus.
Another possible criticism: if some individual wants to coerce others, and I believe it isn't fine to coerce others, then it seems either I let it happen or I coerce him to stop and contradict myself? But there is another way, in my view it's possible to persuade people without coercing them. Otherwise our fear of monsters makes us become the monsters.
So I don't see that view as inconsistent nor how living by that view makes life impossible, on the contrary.
People agree on what the standards are for facts, such as using a thermostat to measure temperature.
Quoting leo
I'm wondering why coercion is a topic in this discussion for you. Are you feeling coerced by participating in a discussion?
Quoting leo
Some views are ridiculous, such as the Earth is flat. It contradicts everything we know. People are free to think that way, but they're going to be criticized for holding an ignorant view.
As the saying goes, you're free to have your own opinions, but not your own facts. Meaning that people are going to call you out if you disagree on facts.
Quoting leo
Individually, you can get away with it to a point, but society needs to agree on facts so bridges can be built and meetings can take place, and that sort of thing. And if you're doing anything with other people and you decide to not agree on something as basic as temperature, you're going to have problems.
So, are you saying that you have access to your mind, it's just that you don't have a good explanation of what your mind is for?
Quoting MarcheskHow would you even know this? You would have to know that there are things about some object that we aren't getting at with our senses to say that our experience is "limited". What is it that we are missing of the apple as it is when we look at the apple?
If we can manipulate nature on such a grand scales and to actually leave our planet and land on others, then I would have to say that our access to nature is pretty good. We are aware of threats to our life's existence that other animals are oblivious to.
Quoting Marchesk
What is the difference between getting at an object as it is and getting the perception of an object as it is? What information would you be missing? How do you know that you are missing information, instead of you just misinterpreting the information?
I'm just saying that introspection is limited.
Quoting Harry Hindu
Humans didn't know this at first. Chemical composition would be one thing. The rest of the EM spectrum we don't see reflecting off or passing through the apple would be another.
Quoting Harry Hindu
It would mean experiencing everything about the object, but that's not how perception works.
Quoting Harry Hindu
Science. Or careful observation before then leading to a realization that we don't know everything about objects by just seeing or tasting them.
Why wouldn't it be obvious to anyone that what things taste like to us is a combo of the two?
Seriously, it seems to me like people would have to basically be idiots to find this difficult to sort out.
Yea and people used to agree on many facts that are considered today as fantasies. You're saying that facts are decided through consensus, you're defining facts as what people agree on, so under your definition as soon as someone disagrees with a 'fact' then it stops being a fact. Or more likely you're defining facts as what most people agree on, but then under that definition there are plenty of examples of facts that stopped being facts, and there are probably things most people agree on that you don't agree with.
Quoting Marchesk
The coercion lies for instance in this: Quoting Marchesk
Which, by the above, boils down to: you are not free to disagree with the consensus, and people are going to call you out if you do.
Quoting Marchesk
See that's precisely the kind of talk that angers me, because saying "the Earth is flat" is not inconsistent with observations, all it contradicts is people who have agreed with one another that the Earth isn't flat. Calling it an ignorant view is the ignorant view.
"The Earth is flat" cannot be falsified. Just like "The Earth is round" cannot be falsified. If you think scientific theories can be falsified, check the thread "What is a scientific attitude?". Thinking that falsification is what defines science is again an ignorant view.
That the Earth appears round from space does not imply that it is round, whatever observation you can come up with does not imply that the Earth is round, because we don't have to assume that light travels in straight lines in empty space. The usual 'proofs' that the Earth is round rely on the assumption that light travels in straight lines in space.
In a framework where the Earth is flat, observations are interpreted differently, explanations are different, theories are different, but the predictions we make can be as precise as in a framework where the Earth is round. Gravity would be modeled in a way that is not spherically symmetric. We could come up with a mathematical transformation that maps the two points of view. Switching to the point of view where the Earth is round could be seen as a mathematical change of coordinates that allows to make calculations simpler. Simpler doesn't mean more true. Occam's razor is a practical principle.
Quoting Marchesk
As I said, many people already agree on plenty of things, they build bridges and they meet. Some people don't agree that the Earth is round, which you see as a 'fact', that doesn't mean they run into problems, the only problem they have is with people who ridicule them and insult them because they dare disagree with the consensus. We could believe the Earth is flat and still make airplanes fly and send rockets into space, it's just that people who believe the Earth is flat usually don't care about making airplanes fly or sending rockets into space.
Again, when you feel cold, why don't you just say that it's cold and that people who disagree with you hold a ridiculous and ignorant view? Because you listen to people to some extent, you realize that they don't experience the same things that you do, that there are many people who don't feel the way you do regarding "feeling cold". Now if 99.9% of people felt cold when you do, and 0.01% didn't, would you still say that feeling cold varies from individual to individual, or would you say it's a 'fact' that it's cold and the few who disagree hold a ridiculous and ignorant view or are disabled in some way?
Because that's what you're doing with the other things you call 'fact', when most people agree on something and a few disagree, it's easier to ridicule them, to say that they're ignorant, hallucinating or imagining things, than to take their point of view into account. Whereas when many people disagree you can't impose your point of view as easily.
If it's limited, what is it missing? How do you know it is limited? In order to know it is limited, you'd have to know what is missing, and if you know what is missing, then you don't have a limited view, do you?
Quoting Harry Hindu
Quoting Marchesk
Then how did humans come to know chemical composition of an apple? Did our senses change? Why do we now get at the chemical composition of an apple, whereas before we could not? And if we know the apple's chemical composition, then what is missing from our perception of the apple?
Quoting Marchesk :roll: You are now talking about the light not the apple. I asked what we were missing about the apple.
Quoting Harry Hindu
Quoting MarcheskHow do you know that's not how perception works, unless you had access to what perception really is?
You keep contradicting yourself in claiming that we can never experience things as they are, yet you make all these claims about things as they are.
Experiences of objects are about those objects. We experience the objects as they are. Saying we experience something is saying that there is an aboutness - that our experiences inform us of what objects are like.
Quoting Harry Hindu
Quoting Marchesk
How does observation lead us to realize that we don't know everything about objects, if observing is what leaves out information? In order to know that information is missing, we'd have to know what information is missing, and how would we know that if not by using the very same senses that you say are flawed, or miss information?
A mind is a relationship between a body and its environment. The objects of perception aren't just about the object as it is. It is about the object AND the body. The errors come about when we think that the perception is only about the object, and not about both the body and object.
There's no point in continuing if you're going to argue for the sake of arguing.
Experiments and building theories to test. We obviously can't see the chemical composition, or at least not without an electron microscope.
Quoting Harry Hindu
The color of the apple we see is the result of visible light reflecting off the surface. But that's not the only light reflecting or passing through the apple.
Quoting Harry Hindu
I don't know what this question means. We have access to how perception works through biology.
Quoting Harry Hindu
I'm not, but you're taking my statements as if I'm saying we don't have access to anything about things, where I said the access was limited and creature based.
And not just perception. There's an error of thinking that an object is some way from a "perspectiveless perspective." There is no such thing. Our perception is just another perspective. That doesn't make it "invalid" in any manner (which is usually what people jump to at this point).
Yes, but what does that have to do with my post?
Sounds like youwere saying the object only exists from some perspective.
"Perspective" as in from some reference point or other. I'm not alluding to perception in that. As I said, "Our perception is just another perspective."
Then that sounds sort of like object oriented ontology where all objects are in relation to one another which isn't exhaustive, so no object has complete access to another. That would include humans.
I don't really know enough about object-oriented ontology, and the Heidegger it grew out of makes little sense to me, so it's difficult for me to comment on that.
From a "perspectiveless perspective" (which means considered as they are absent being perceived) objects are commonsensically considered to simply be whatever they are (even though that being is indeterminable since to determine anything about the object is to apply a perspective). Would you say that an object being whatever it is is to be "some way"?
My contention is directed at:
Quoting Marchesk
So my feeling and your feeling and the thermometer reading all exist. But calling these entities subjective or objective is a manner of organizing rather than a divide which also exists.
Language does not make us feel cold or hot. Language does not give us an explanation of what the thermometer means.
But calling our feelings subjective and the thermometer reading objective is just a manner of speaking about things which exist, rather than something which exists.
No, it doesn't refer to that. I made this explicit above. I'm using perspective in the sense of relations and properties from a particular point or frame of reference. The idea is that relations/properties are particular and unique from each point/frame of reference, and there's no way to be absent some point/frame of reference, which can include concatenations of points/frames of reference--those are just further frames of reference. It's not saying anything limited to persons, perceptions, etc. It's saying a general truism about ontology, relations, properties, situatedness. The idea has similarities to perspective in visual art.
If that were all I was saying I would have only written that.
But will you still insist on saying that things do not also exist "in some way" independently of all those "frames or points of reference"? To say that they do so exist would be to consider them from a "perspectiveless perspective" would it not?
Aren't you at all familiar with physics? Frames of reference in physics, for example, aren't referring to percipients. This isn't to suggest that I'm using the term identically to physics usage, but you should be familiar with and able to understand that usage (because it's a pretty basic idea in contemporary physics), which doesn't imply talking about a percipient.
Exactly what I was saying is exactly what I wrote out. Which is why I wrote it out just as I did. If other words would have done the job better, I would have used those other words instead.
So do you believe consciousness = mental/neurological properties + the specific frame of reference of those properties?
Yes, mental properties are from the frame of reference of being (identical to) a particular brain.
Even what physics describes is what we observe and whether that is the same as what is, or what would be in our absence, is an open question which cannot be definitively answered.
It sounds like you know less about physics than I do.
Classic Terrapin. :lol:
What it describes. Frames of reference are something it's describing. Frames of reference do not imply percipients. Yes or no, are you familiar with the concept of frames of reference?
:grin:
Well, it's ridiculous. Why would I write something in set-of-words x when set-of-words y says what I really want to say? Just say what you really want to say from the start.
That’s what I envy you for. You always have the exact words you want to use to show your thinking. I’m much more muddled.
I agree with you, however.
The concept refers to something. It doesn't refer to itself. Use/mention? Ring a bell?
"Use/ mention"? Sure: the phrase 'frame of reference' refers to the concept frame of reference. If you think a frame of reference is something other than a concept, then tell us what it is?
I think you two are talking past each other. A concept is inherently both mental and as referring to something extra mental. My justification for the belief that the idealism vs. materialism debate is confused.
No, it doesn't it doesn't refer to itself. Frames of reference are not concepts, though there is a concept of them., Why don't you look it up if you're not familiar with it?
That’s not what he said.
I am not denying that many concepts refer to sensible entities, and hence to something that may be thought of as "extra-mental". But "frame of reference" does not refer to a sensible entity.
He said the concept refers to the concept.
"sensible" is irrelevant.
No, he's disagreeing that the concept refers to something extramental. It's not clear that he even believes there is anything extramental.
We’ll see what he says.
I didn't say it refers to itself. I said the phrase refers to the concept. I am familiar enough with the concept to know that it always involves an observer (which I do understand is not necessarily conceived as a human observer).
Quoting Terrapin Station
I never said that; that's your attempt to distort what I said so that you can address a straw-man, because you cannot address what I actually said. Typical of you, by the way.
Quoting Terrapin Station
You're drowning and all you can do is wave a hand.
Okay, so you understand that it doesn't imply a percipient, right?
Quoting Terrapin Station
No, again I haven't denied that the concept is taken to refer to something extramental.
Quoting Terrapin Station
I believe I already said that it is understood to not necessarily involve a percipient. We can imagine states of affairs from perspectives in the abstract, so to speak, where the model obviously does not involve (although I would say it does "imply") a percipient, All that kind of imagining itself obviously does involve a percipient, in any case.
Okay. And you understand that physics doesn't use the terms "observer"/"observation" to (necessarily) refer to percipients, right?
Still not getting it. I would need a detailed paper to understand what you are saying.
lol
Typical disingenuous ad hominem attempt to use a strawman to gain the upper hand. It's pathetic to see you wriggling on the line like this.
Calm down. How about answering this: " And you understand that physics doesn't use the terms "observer"/"observation" to (necessarily) refer to percipients, right? "
If you know that, then why would you write "Particular frames or points of reference exist only (predominately) for humans and perhaps (and if so, much more minimally as far as we know) other percipients, do they not?" And why would you disagree with comments that they do not?
Because the fact that we can imagine or conceive frames of reference as existing independently of percipients does not entail that they actually do. What you still seem to fail to grasp is that physics is a model created by a percipient.
Is there reference absent percipients, according to you? Are there frames (in the sense of models) absent percipients?
So you were figuring that I was probably an agnostic about realism? You were just checking to confirm this?
Quoting Janus
Still having problems with the use/mention distinction.
Quoting Janus
You're not thinking that "reference" in "frame of reference" is the semantic sense of "reference" a la "sense/reference" are you?''
By the way, since we have so much problem communicating with each other and agreeing on anything, how about if we try to see if we can keep things simple enough to (a) conjointly feel there's not a communication problem, and (b) agree on at least one thing? I wonder if we could do that.
As it's used in physics in general. And again, I wrote, "This isn't to suggest that I'm using the term identically to physics usage, but you should be familiar with and able to understand that usage (because it's a pretty basic idea in contemporary physics), which doesn't imply talking about a percipient."
No, I didn't have that question in mind at all.
Quoting Terrapin Station
What a stupid thing to say, considering that I have shown that I understand the use/ mention distinction. That's the problem with trying to have a discussion with you; you make unargued assertions about the interlocutor that look as though they are intended to belittle, which makes it look like you are not capable of addressing the arguments on their own terms and in good faith.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Constantly trying to put inappropriate words in the mouth of the interlocutor, instead of addressing arguments. Why not just tell us what you think 'reference' means in this context?
Quoting Terrapin Station
The problem, as I see it, is not about agreement, but concerns your failure to argue in good faith, clarity and with a sense of charity. We don't have to agree, all we have to do is make one another aware of our presuppositions and what we think follows from them, and then ferret out any inconsistencies in one another's positions. That could have some value; what has been happening does not. Since you seem to have the same kinds of problems with all your interlocutors, bar one or two who seem to agree with your arguments (and who themselves seem to have somewhat similar problems as you do engaging others in discussion) I would have thought you would have come to see the problem with your chauvinistically dogmatic, opaque and slippery approach by now.
What we'd need to agree on is what the other person is even saying, for example. We don't do that as far as I can tell, unless you are of the opinion that I sometimes understand exactly what you're saying. Often I'm not of that opinion, however, and we'd both need to have the opinion that I understood what you're saying--otherwise, we'd not agree on this. Hence my question about how you're thinking about "reference" above for example. The question would make little sense to me if you're not thinking of it in its semantic sense, but that would be a confusion on my view, since "frame of reference" is not conventionally using "reference" in that semantic sense--hence the question. That you won't simply answer such questions and explain what you have in mind better is a big part of the problem.
Understanding what each other is saying doesn't include your belief that you understand exactly what I'm saying. In order for us to agree that we know what each other is saying, I'd have to be of the opinion that you understand what I'm saying. I'm almost never of that opinion.
In short, you basically think I'm an idiot who isn't posting in good faith, and you really don't care to understand anything I'm saying--you rather just want to argue with it. And I think that you're an idiot. I wouldn't necessarily say that you're not posting in good faith. I just think you're an idiot--as in thinking that literally you're not very intelligent, and you're incapable of understanding things that you don't already think, that haven't already been adopted by you as part of your script. And I don't have the motivation to sort through or bother with all of that when you apparently just want to argue--especially because I actually hate arguing. But you're also too arrogant to do anything other than what we've been doing, so let's continue, I guess.
If it's any solace, I think that the majority of people who regularly post here are idiots while being ridiculously arrogant. Most seem to have mental problems, too--as in, they seem as if they've received diagnoses, received treatment, etc. The arrogance comes from the fact that they're educated idiots--they know some things, in the sense of being familiar with them and being able to regurgitate them, but that's not at all the same thing as intelligence.
“I’m looking at the man in the mirror! (Oh, yeah!)
I’m asking him to change his ways! (Oh, yeah!)
And no message could’ve been any clearer!
If you want to make the world a better place,
Take a look at yourself, and make that change!”
Why don’t you tell us what “frame of reference” means?
I already noted that he thinks I'm an idiot. You might, too.
I don't regurgitate much, partially because I can't. My memory doesn't work well in that manner to enable it. But it's also partially because even the philosophers I like the most I disagree with probably as much if not more than I agree with them. So I'm not about to simply forward stuff they said most of the time. I have a lot of idiosyncratic views.
Re frames/points of reference, I've already explained it a few times. They're spatiotemporal locations, where at all spatiotemporal locations, existents, including existents at that spatiotemporal location, have properties/relations where at least some are unique relative to what the "same" properties/relations are at other spatiotemporal locations, and there's no way for properties/relations to be sans particular spatiotemporal locations, because it's not possible for spatiotemporal locations to not obtain. Properties/relations are always what they are only at particular spatiotemporal locations.
I don’t think you’re an idiot. On the contrary, I think you have a lot of original thought. I just disagree or don’t understand you a lot of the time.
:chin:
:grin:
I understand frame of reference in epistemic terms, but I don't really get how distinct things can have a phenomenal frame of reference. Brains are contiguous and electrons don't care what they are part of.
I'm not sure I understand your question. Many properties only obtain via the interactions of many parts/relations.
I'll try to explain better. I've forgotten some of the technical terminology so bare with me.
Aren't properties themselves supervenient on their underlying structure? It seems off for something that is fairly interpretive would have a phenomenal ontological frame of reference.
And even if not (properties not supervenient), it seems odd from an action philosophy perspective too in that an abstract frame of reference of being the thing in question would have physical interaction.
For example: a basin draining water would have countless frames of reference: below the basin, right side of the basin, but the frames of reference wouldn't have a physical effect on the water, in themselves. Whereas with consciousness, it obviously generates endless discussions (like this one).
So if the frame of reference is a vital part of the equation then it includes it having a physical effect.
I think I understand what you're asking better. Thanks for the added explanation.
The whole point of my view is that talking about the properties of the water in the basin, to use your example, has to be done from some reference point/reference frame (I'm not using reference frame just the same as it's used in physics, just in case someone would think that I am), and talking about it with respect to "the water itself" is just one reference point/frame out of a potential infinity of them, with it not being a preferred reference frame (since there are no objective preferences).
So yes, properties are supervenient (if you like--I think that term can introduce some confusion) on underlying structure, but the underlying structure is "everything in the reference frame." It's only "just the water" from the reference frame of only the water, which isn't a preferred reference frame. (Not that It's not-preferred compared to something else, either--again, there are no objective preferences.)
So, for example, a coin really is round from some reference frames, and it's really oblong from other reference frames.
The idea is a bit like perspective in visual art. Assuming we're trying to do something like realism (or photorealism), the properties of the items depicted will depend on the focal point of the image. From most angles, you can't draw a coin as something round, because it's not really round at that focal point, it's oblong. Or, the coin might really be as large or larger than a mountain from some focal points. That's not an illusion. It's really the way things are at that focal point. The underlying structure is everything in the reference frame, not just the coin, but the relative angle at that focal point, the lighting at that focal point, etc. And on, in, just above etc. the coin are all just different possible focal points.
Focal point, by the way, doesn't imply a sentient creature's perspective. It's simply what things are like (in particular respects that we can represent visually in this case) relative to a particular spatio-temporal points. We can illustrate this sans sentient creatures with any machine that can measure properties from particular spatio-temporal locations--like a camera, for example.