stevie wrote: ↑October 27th, 2021, 9:58 am
3017Metaphysician wrote: ↑October 27th, 2021, 9:36 am
stevie wrote: ↑October 27th, 2021, 3:52 am
3017Metaphysician wrote: ↑October 26th, 2021, 1:08 pm
stevie!
Thanks. Sorry it took so long to get back to you.
Your reply kind of reminds me of Subjective Idealism:
"Subjective idealism is a fusion of phenomenalism or empiricism, which confers special status upon the immediately perceived, with idealism, which confers special status upon the mental. Idealism denies the knowability or existence of the non-mental, while phenomenalism serves to restrict the mental to the empirical. Subjective idealism thus identifies its mental reality with the world of ordinary experience... ."
If I'm correct in that interpretation of your reply (please correct me if I'm wrong) ...
Neither do I confer "special status upon the immediately perceived" nor do I confer "special status upon the mental". However in everday life it appears to me that people tend to come to agreements easier when the topic is about publically observable phenomena that are accessible for the five senses of all humans
independent of beliefs and dissent does occur very often when the topic is about mere conceptual thought the affirmation of which seems to depend on beliefs. So across all ideologies, religions and philosophies people generally seem to confer more reliability to sense perceptions which again is the reason for the dominance of scientific knowledge in todays world.
The appropriateness of verbal expressions can be tested by everbody when these verbal expressions refer to sense perceptions but the appropriateness of verbal expressions that refer to mere conceptual thought cannot be tested unless these verbal expressions belong to the convention of a particular community of believers the hearer or reader of these expressions belongs to. Therefore every public utterance of verbal expressions that exlusively refers to mere conceptual thought doesn't make sense to me but is necessarily of speculative (mere belief) nature.
3017Metaphysician wrote: ↑October 26th, 2021, 1:08 pm
then it implies that one's own subjective truth (thoughts coming from experiences) is all that really matters. And the reason I interpreted this that way is because you are using the concepts of "fabrication of thought". And so, back to the OP, does this also lead to a similar metaphysical theory concerning your "fabrication of thought" process relative to sentient phenomena?
(The reason I ask that last question, is because you had used the concepts of "private" "feelings" "emotions" "volition" etc. which I understand those things-in-themselves to be metaphysical in nature... .)
The connotation of my use of "fabrication of thought" is 'mere construction' or 'mere synthesis' which doesn't necessarily impute falsehood but the affirmation of these seems to depend on individual beliefs.
"feelings" "emotions" "volition" is a linguistc convention to talk about phenomena that are conventionally held to be common to all humans but cannot be publically observed. So there is no metaphysical connotation.
As to your question: A theory applicable to my use of "fabrication of thought" might be one of behaviour theory or cognitive science (psychology) which deals with learning 'verbal behaviour'.
If we were trying to arrive at some sense of physical/meta-physical truth or understanding (first principles of Being), that is associated with your concepts of cognition, then you would
not be correct. The "fabrication of thought" in and of itself is not physical. Unless of course, you were able to explain and describe them as such. The/your fabrication structure , in this case, would be coming from the Will (see Voluntarism).
"physical/meta-physical truth or understanding (first principles of Being)" belongs to a universe that is alien to me (metaphorically speaking).
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3017Metaphysician wrote: ↑October 27th, 2021, 9:36 am
However, since you were able to explain/describe as a "construction" that act of cognition (the cognitive process itself) one is still left with the concept of metaphysically abstract structures to help describe your mental phenomena that you seem to be suggesting. Hence, Structuralism may/may not help you in this case:
Structuralism:
The belief that phenomena of human life are not intelligible except through their interrelations. These relations constitute a structure, and behind local variations in the surface phenomena there are constant laws of abstract structure.
Please share some clarification if you can.
When I say that a theory might be "one of behaviour theory or cognitive science (psychology) which deals with learning 'verbal behaviour'" then this refers exclusively to the way of "speaking about" and does not refer in any way to conceived "truth(s)" or a conceived "reality". Maybe this aspect of non-belief is incompatible with your metaphysical outlook that there would be always lurking some "truth" or "reality" behind what one says ...?
1. Metaphysics:
the branch of philosophy that deals with the first principles of things, including abstract concepts such as being, knowing, substance, cause, identity, time, and space.
Existentially, I will submit that we are unable to escape the dichotomy of both the physical and meta-physical constructs of mental phenomena.
2. With respect to the point about "speaking about", some argue (Deconstructionist) that the written word is secondary to the spoken word. And just like say, music theory 'itself' is secondary to the phenomenon of music 'itself' (with minor exception, the sound of music came first, then another mentally figured it out and wrote it down and created structure known as sheet music) we are left with the actual cognitive phenomena itself that drives or causes the logic of written language. And so that thing-in-itself that moves a thought forward (advances any thought at all) we can at least understand its truth to be associated with the Will, which is metaphysical. In either case, language itself is another abstract structure that is developed/created/ by conscious creatures. (Again, check out Voluntarism.)
And so all I'm saying there is that by going back to your notion of 'public v. private' we have this 'truth' about sensing our reality that seems to utlize both. It's 'private' in the sense of its subjective idealism, and it's' public' because most everyone feels their own Will/volition to be the driving force behind cognition, feeling and the expression of same.
One simple takeaway is that, if there is more to physical reality itself, that reality resides in the phenomena of consciousness and self-awareness. With respect to the OP, mental activity can only exist as a transcendent phenomena. All the while, the Structuralist might be more comfortable using the concept of 'abstract structure' to describe its existence.
Those are just some more interpretations of what is "behind what one says"...
“Concerning matter, we have been all wrong. What we have called matter is energy, whose vibration has been so lowered as to be perceptible to the senses. There is no matter.” "Spooky Action at a Distance"
― Albert Einstein