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DiscoveryJoy

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Everything posted by DiscoveryJoy

  1. I don't have a problem with not literally seeing birds, I'm confident of grasping their reality when thinking about them. The reason is that I have experienced birds in reality. Just have a hard time comparing such emotionless object-grasping like birds to the grasping of pain on the highest level. It is my understanding that according to http://www.healthcentral.com/chronic-pain/coping-403768-5_2.html there are up to ten levels of pain. How is it possible to claim to be able to conceive of levels 9 and 10, if experiencing such levels would actually require causing serious damage to yourself? How would there even be a perceptual basis on which to conceptualize? I'm a bit confused here. What are you implying about how the proper moral thinking should go? How would you form a positive-minus-negative "calculus" for decision making? Is it: "All I need to care about is whether I need to feel the empathic pain. If at best I could just swallow some magic pill every time the pain occurs, it would actually all be fine. So I actually only need to include my own empathic pain in my calculus, which is quite marginal in the long run, so it doesn't destroy the higher value kept. This calculus doesn't include the real extend to which the lesser value actually suffers, but that's not important to me." or is it: "What I should actually care about is the pain that all the time actually exists out there in the other person as such. Not just how occasionally I will have to empathize with it. I actually need to extrapolate the empathy over time to fill in the gaps. So there's a lot more to include in my calculus, which keeps it terrible in the long run, so it actually destroys the higher value kept. But I'm fairly including the extend to which the lesser value actually suffers in my calculus." ?? Would the latter case already be an example of altruism, of talking above one's own head, and of being concerned with things completely outside of one's own responsibility?
  2. The question is - put in a nutshell - which is worse: Loosing a higher value (being with a partner) for good, or a lesser value (e.g. a close family member) suffering permanently under extreme pain? A scenario was constructed in which a mutually exclusive choice has to be made among these two. Since witnessing a value suffering involves empathy, there is a perceived dilemma: Engaging in empathy at the price of seemingly loosing a clear focus on one's own values, versus cutting down on empathy at the price of seemingly loosing contact with the reality of the suffering. While discussing this, there have been attempts at getting into how empathy works, what actually constitutes real empathy, how much of it should be employed, and to what extend that is even a choice etc.
  3. Let's go deeper: What about having the urge to seek the empathy in the first place, in order to stay in touch with reality, with what's going on? If that's at the root of the problem, would that itself already be poor emotional control? Or just a natural consequence of one's chosen principles, proper under normal circumstances? That's why I call it "the dilemma of choosing empathy". If you agree with my 3 distinctions, would acting based on the knowledge of one's "poor emotional control" still leave the metaphysical value hierarchy unaffected? "It's actually a higher value, but unfortunately the circumstances are such that I can no longer keep it"?
  4. I didn't really get what you mean by the "balancing act" from the part where you introduced that term. Do you mean a view that culture itself just practically doesn't make any difference at all? Not the view that they lead to different results that should both be respected? But the view that they just are not an influencing factor, do not produce any difference in the existential result? Why not call it a view of a general insignificance or impotence of culture? Well, there is a legitimacy to that view, if you really define culture just in the "look-and-feel" sense I described. Wearing Lederhosen instead of Jeans truly makes no difference, it's just an aesthetic taste. Unless of course, you got people associating or expressing certain values with a certain aesthetics.
  5. So let's get back to the scenario in a less graphical way, because your mentioning of trauma suggests to me that you are still picturing the scenario the wrong way: The scenario is such, that there isn't even any time for trauma, the victim is being tortured in perpetuity, while you as a closely related person have to deal with it in perpetuity. So there is no "after the event" like a trauma, because there is no single "event", just ongoing torture for the rest of the victim's life. So you as the observer have to decide: Stay with the partner and deal with the emotional consequences or save the victim and loose the partner. Option 1 forces you to make another decision: Endure the empathic pain all the time as an expression of personal concern for the victim while watching yourself doing nothing against it, which makes the relationship with the partner suffer severely if even still enjoyable at all. Or mentally part with the victim and forget about him so he no longer takes your energy, which means treating him injustly, evading? Option 2 forces you to ask yourself the question: Do you need to have a bad conscience? Does your decision necessarily mean that you have treated the victim as more "valuable" to you than the partner? Or is it fair to say that the necessary empathic pain would have just been such a drain on the relationship that it could no longer have been enjoyable? Even though the victim per se is not as valuable to you as the partner, but still valuable enough for his suffering to destroy the higher value? This is why I am trying to make all those highly related remarks in the second part (just jump right into that A, B, C part) of the following post: What can be said about that? Can giving up a higher value be moral if a lesser value suffering cannot be stopped without evasion and unjust treatment of the lesser value?
  6. Well it depends on 1) for what length of time you choose to empathize and 2) whether you are the one in trouble, doesn't it? Emotions are quick? Only a few moments? Are you saying that most of the time in our lives there's nothing really to enjoy? And are you saying that if thrown and locked into cell with a 100 degree Celsius hot floor for hours, it will all be over "quickly"? Well I believe you, if the pain made you unconscious after a few moments, its so unbearable. But otherwise? You're kidding, right? ;-) I hope you agree that this example, too, deals with emotions? Emotions that arise from the pain in an instant flow, as you put it. Sorry I'm getting too graphical again. Just trying to make sure we are on the same page. I'll get to the rest later. Meanwhile I'd also be very interested in what you think about my attempts at categorizing into (A), (B) and (C) and my thoughts on those categories in my previous answer (see second part of the post):
  7. I'm not an economist, but there was a time shortly after the financial crisis where I used to follow everything by Peter Schiff, Jim Rogers etc., really thinking that they're up to something. Meanwhile I'm more sceptical about such people's ability to predict such things in the short term. In the long run, they're right of course, but in the short run, a lot of other things have the power of delaying things: Wealth is very elastic. Once you've created a certain oversupply, you can go on for decades before really paying the full price for your mistakes, never actually feeling that something is deteriorating. Just look at socialist Europe, how they can make socialism look like a recipe for success. Look at Dubai, where they just live off of stolen wealth, until one day the material resources will be used up. As Peter Schiff himself said, it takes two to Tango. China doesn't seem to have the self-confidence and/or the right system of their own - real capitalism - in order to shrug off the US. Just like other "imminent Doomsday" apostle's like LarouchePAC etc., Peter Schiff, too, seems to have a disproportionate focus on the material economy as measurable in factory output, food production, or generally, energy density. Wealth creation isn't just manufacturing and farming, it's primarily originating ideas, inventions, patents and providing services. Virtually anything that people want to buy, care about, value must be considered wealth. And economists often don't even measure all the mental energy that goes into those products. Just because e.g. the iPhone gets built in China doesn't mean they created it. Its created by brilliant minds like Steve Jobs and his successors. Add Google, Microsoft and the many tech-companies with enormous wealth creation in Silicon valley, and you get much closer to reality.
  8. I thought it's called multiculturalism. Although I don't think that most people really understand what that officially means. Usually, when we think of culture, we think of everything but abstract ideas. We think of concrete customs, aesthetics, ethnicity and the like. The look and feel of it. For example, if you think of Italian culture, you think of Pizza, you think of Pasta, you think of Opera Music, you think of predominantly European men and women with dark hair, you think of typical old Italian Roman-style houses with thick roofing tiles surrounded by Mediterranean cypresses, you think of Italian language, and on and on. I think that's why most people are just completely flabbergasted and offended when you tell them that some cultures are superior to others. You can easily come across as a racist, because we usually think of and identify a culture on the perceptual level I described. So to most people, you appear to be saying, e.g., that British Eggs and Bacon should be considered something objectively "better" than Pizza. Or that English should be objectively "better" than Italian. Hence they just brush you off as stupid. For the same reason, it is often said by most people that Americans have "no culture", "no cultural identity", just a hodgepodge of elements borrowed from "real cultures", and otherwise just "commercial stuff" from Coca Cola to Nike in a landscape dominated by public advertising and super malls. Its mostly intellectuals who really identify a culture on the abstract philosophical level of individualism versus collectivism, science versus faith, capitalism versus socialism etc. It took me a while, too, to get what certain people really mean, when they talk about the "culture" of a country. So I think its most important to get the terms straight before starting a discussion with people about culture. You could otherwise easily be talking at cross-purposes with people. So you might misidentify their thinking, just as they might do yours.
  9. What about the anti-value perception, the pain? Grasping it requires perceiving it and allowing the instant flow you describe to happen. Then comparing it against a positive value requires recreating that space in your mind. Which requires shutting down the previous negative emotion. Which requires blanking out the percept that created it, to prevent this overwhelming instant flow. Which means being left with no two things to compare any more, just one. It seems to be impossible to hold both the extreme negative and the extreme positive in consciousness simultaneously. That's where I see the conflict.
  10. Interesting. Never thought of the term of "compassionate duty". How do you draw the line between compassionate duty and a legitimate attempt at knowing the reality of the pain that someone you care about is going through? To what extend would inflicting physical pain onto oneself in order to grasp the nature of his pain, i.e. to stay in touch with that reality, be justified? And wouldn't it be an act of evasion not to make such an attempt? Why would it lead to destroying one's empathic feelings, if you're actually providing yourself with more sense data? Shouldn't it rather enhance those feelings? Yes, but the choice in the scenario is not simply between "preventing physical pain for someone you don't know or care less about" and "preventing the same pain for someone one loves". That choice would be easy. The choice in the scenario is a mutually exclusive choice between "preventing physical pain for someone you care less about" and "staying with someone you love". If you follow my answer to Eiuol, you'll see how I'm attempting to consider pain as a third category alongside "value being present" and "value being absent". Pain as kind of a negative influence in the equation. One that substracts from the value. Even more so in case of the most extreme pain.
  11. Well, first of all, what would there be left to do if she had already made the decision for me? But probably what you are asking is "Would you think that the relationship has been a lie all along then?" I have asked myself the same question already. But then I thought: Answering that would require making a judgement on her decision, considering what she had to deal with. Which again requires first knowing how I myself would have decided. Which again requires sorting out categories first. Categories in the way I'm trying to do in my most recent reply to Eioul, which you will find very relevant. So if you just say "in order to protect someone else she cared about", I'm asking myself whether it's really just "in order to protect" or whether it's "in order to prevent severe permanent pain to him which she herself wouldn't be able to ignore"? Provided, of course, it really makes sense to distinguish such categories, which you can read in my post. What I have asked myself also is: Imagine the situation was even more extreme and both were in need of being saved from exactly the same kind of suffering. But I could save only one. In this case it's much easier to say "I'll save the woman.". Because you can really compare apples to apples, i.e. "a value suffering (her)" to "a value suffering (him)", which are equal in degree in this case, so you can't decide with that. So the apples being equal, you can only move on comparing the pears to the pears, i.e. "loosing a higher value being present" (her) to "loosing a lesser value being present" (him), which are clearly different, so you are more justified in saving her than in saving him.
  12. If I try to apply the terms "affective empathy" versus "cognitive empathy" to our scenario, it seems to me that you cannot aquire the latter without the former. Just for the same reasons that abstractions are just floating abstractions without a perceptual basis in reality. If you are going to understand what permanent severe pain really means, you first need to have experienced some taste of it yourself. Only then can you be affected by someone else's emotional state of such pain. And only than can you arrive at real cognitive empathy in this field. Otherwise you' would just be trying to extrapolate from insignificant data, trying to conceive of something that our brain cannot really construct, I believe. There are limits to our imagination. Possibly because we would be causing way too much damage to our own brain if there weren't. That's how it seems to me. Hope I'm getting the terms right. Let me know, if you think I'm not. Yes, that's it in a nutshell! Interesting, that you seem to agree on a distinction between (A) a value being present, (B) a value being absent and (C) a value suffering. Do you agree then, that "a value suffering" really is a third valid category that must be substracted from a value being present? For example, let's say, you love listening to music, but due to some incurable ear-malfunctioning starting at some point in life, every time you did, the music vibrations at the same time would cause you an unbearable pain in your ear. So it's plus the music (A), but minus the pain (C), which results in a deep minus: Because first, the pain distracts you so much that you cannot even focus on the music to gain joy in it anymore, which reduces (A) to zero, resulting in (B). And second, the pain also acts as "the pain" (C), which brings the whole equation even further down into the real negative. Or would you say: "No, this is all wrong, there are really just two categories, (A) and (B). And that which you call 'a value suffering' is really just an example of (B), namely a 'value of painlessness being absent'." Would that be a better statement on the existing categories? But then, is it really proper to talk about "absence of pain" as an actual (A)-type value like this? After all, already linguistically, it doesn't denote any existant, it's just a negation of an existant. Or isn't it rather to be seen as a necessary prerequisite of value in order for us to be able to enjoy values at all? Not really a value itself at all? Not really "more important than other values", meaning you just can't even compare it to values? But if lacking, if "absence of pain" is lacking, it unfortunately acts as a pure destructor of the actual values? You say that in the long run, losing a higher value is worse. In my scenario, though, the value suffering is permanent due to the intention of the tormentor, so how do you even distinguish between "the short term" and "the long run" here? The only way of making the long run any different than the short term seems to be - as I said -, maybe after a period of mental suffering and accepting the situation, to treat the victim like a stranger for the rest of his life. You would have to do so by cutting down on emotional empathy on him and just simply learn to forget about him. If necessary, go into psychotherapy to brainwash yourself into believing he never existed and doesn't exist right now? But wouldn't this be evasion then? Or should such a reaction instead be called "a justified emergency solution"? Which brings me back to one of my previous questions, namely, if the whole question is analogous to a lifeboat scenario question, in which no answer is right or wrong, morality simply cannot be applied to such a situation?
  13. Well, I the questions in the first two paragraphs where actually meant only as an intro to check certain premises first, the concrete instance stating the problem case and possible solutions was then meant to be the main part Well if "empathy" is to be understood just on the sensual level, without the conceptual awareness of the fact that you are experiencing the pain of another conscious being, then what I mean is not just empathy, but really, as you call it, "feeling with him". How can "feeling with him" even be automatic, if it requires the conceptual level of consciousness and if the conceptual level of consciousness is non-automatic? Well, for one part, identifying the other person as a conscious being, is kinda "automatic at sight", right? I mean due to our pre-conceptions, since we have to identify the attribute of consciousness in other human beings all the time in order to survive. You cannot look at a real person and seriously believe he is not real, as in "Well, maybe let's examine this object over there, there's really nothing I actually know about it right now, could it be the case that it is conscious?". But well, in the broader sense, it is not automatic, not deterministic, since we are responsible for our pre-conceptions, right? But then again, even in the narrower sense of "automatic": Is the fact that we attribute the felt pain to something that he, the conscious being, is going through, really automatic? Because if it were automatic, wouldn't we have to feel this pain at every sight, regardless of who the victim is? Obviously we do not, as you also agree: Well, yes that's what experience says, but how does it actually work? My point is, that it seems to me we need to willfully shut down on identifying the reality of his pain first. Like we know there's something there, but we don't want to grasp it. Because we don't feel the person deserves it to be grasped or because the situation warrants that we better not grasp it. We're either blanking it out or not even letting it in in the first place. Not because it is impossible to "feel with him". In any case, we are out of touch with some part of the actual reality. In order to make room for some other aspects of the reality, namely the evaluation of the person and the situation. As for being out of touch because of evaluating the person, that's easy to digest. But as for being out of touch only because of the situation, that's still a huge problem in the long run: I think my problem is that in the conflict case I described ("brother versus partner"), it is impossible to do justice to the brother, because that would actually require you to feel with him, which would automatically entail certain actions. But in the case stated, you can't afford to take those actions, so you can't even afford to feel with him. Isn't this a conflict of virtue?
  14. Just continuing with this approach, you might tell yourself: "No, actually I haven't betrayed my values! My partner is more valuable to me than my brother! But unfortunately, I would have never been able to really enjoy that value anyway, because the pain about my brother would have killed all the joy. Not because I value him more than my partner, but because such pain - if really grasped and held in the mind in its full reality - is always stronger than anything. Nobody can enjoy pleasure in the presence of such pain. Forget about my brother, ignore his pain? You can't treat someone so close just like that! He would have been much worse off than my partner is right now. At least I've considered both as much as I can, expressing my concern for them in action. Now there's nothing left for me that will bring me ultimate happiness ever again, so I still have to die now. But I'll die in honor of having prevented loved ones from harm." But whether this is merely a rationalization I cannot tell.
  15. Hey guys, do you agree that empathy for other people is something we have to choose to engage in? That it is not automatic? And that it should be chosen for those that you care about? And if you don't do so, it automatically means you don't care about that person? Do you also agree that once you have embarked on the path of empathy in a case where you see someone under extreme suffering (like being burned alive or being physically tortured in the most ugly way) - whether friend, stranger or foe - it is impossible to maintain focus on any actual values except the need to be free from such pain? That it is psychologically impossible to empathize with the person in the scene and not feel an urge to end that suffering immediately? An urge that overrides anything else in your mind, no matter what positive values to your own life you would have to sacrifice for that? I could also ask: Do you agree that the most horrible pain is stronger than the highest pleasure, so both cannot be experienced simultaneously for weighing the pros and cons? Or I could ask: Do you agree that the only reason we can stand seeing Hitler tortured is because we don't feel any need to empathize with him? So now: What if - for some odd reason, be it like living under a dictatorship etc. - you had to make an explicit choice between being able to making love to someone or something you really enjoy most in life, or saving someone else that you are close to - maybe your parent or one of your siblings - from such extreme torture that he would otherwise have to endure for the rest of his life. To put it bluntly, your dictator has captured your close brother and says (and you have no prospect of escaping the country or winning a rebellion etc.): "You either give up any contact with your most sacred earthly pleasures and shun any contact with the opposite sex for the rest of your life, or we will physically torture your brother and physically harm him for the rest of his life, permanently, making sure he's fouled up beyond all recognition!" So it's a pure either-or choice. The reason I'm making up this scenario is not because I'm crazy, afraid it might happen, or think it is anywhere near likely to happen. But it couldn't be better suited for self-testing on values. It is not easy to really prove your values when there is no real conflict, so you have to come up with the most extreme scenario thinkable, however bizarre that may be. So unless you have any objections to the physical possibility of this scenario, please don't pester me with questions about "why would this happen". When making a decision here, the following things come to my mind: Should the amount of suffering that the brother has to endure play any role whatsoever in this decision making? Is absence of pain for someone you care about itself already a value? If yes, what would you have do to assess the situation? Wouldn't it mean you would have to try to simulate the pain in order to get some taste of what it is like? In order to achieve the maximum amount of empathy that you can still undergo without seriously harming yourself? That is, trying to put your hand on the stove for a little bit longer? Or putting the shower at maximum heat level and leave it that way until you're close to burning and run screaming out of the shower? Or hitting yourself into the balls until you almost loose conscience? Just to name a few things, and just to get an idea about what the brother would have to endure on a daily basis all the time. After all, you care about him, right, so you need to stay in the reality of his suffering. None of these simple pains like getting an injection, having a headache or a stomach ache, or stumbling and falling to the floor. Those pains are so common and known to you, you can easily expect someone to tolerate them. No! We are talking about the real pain here, and it's huge! Nothing you can easily imagine and just brush off as endurable. We're talking about the kind of pain that makes you wish to die immediately, if it doesn't stop right now! But your torturers will never grant you that wish. You cannot really know this pain because it would make your life unworthy of living. So you actually need to learn about it by experiencing it first hand as far as you have the nerves to. But then again, if it is psychologically impossible to maintain a focus on your own positive values that way, wouldn't this be the wrong approach? This would always mean, the brother wins. Or should you ask yourself the following first: How much is the other person worth to you independent of the amount of his suffering, that is, just in terms of how much his existence as a person means to you? Don't look at his suffering, don't look at his pain, just evaluate what you gain from him compared to what you gain from making love to a partner. Well in this case, the partner wins, of course. But then, assuming you choose the partner, you still have to psychologically deal with your brother anyway: With the fact of his suffering and the idea that you are restricting yourself from helping him. And in order to allow yourself the status of "I care about him, he means something to me", you really need to grasp the reality of his suffering, so you still have to empathize, and in order to empathize you have to put yourself under the aforementioned physical pain, too, in order to really get the picture. Which again would lead you to reversing your choice, the pain is so unbearable. Or committing suicide, because it's so unbearable regularly undergoing all these self-torture sessions just to stay in reality. The other option is - having chosen your partner - to psychologically treat your brother like a stranger and engage in no empathy for him for the rest of your life, to completely forget about him, pretend like he doesn't exist, in order to make the time with your partner worthwhile. Because otherwise, it would be "plus" the joy with your partner and "minus" the extreme pain you feel for your brother, which boils down to a zero sum - or rather negative sum - game. You would have to pretend like he died, even though this would mean you are doing something at least close to evading. In one sentence: You care about him, but you have to act opposite. Would this be the best thing to do? If, on the other hand, you were to choose your brother, you sure wouldn't have to deal with the pain problem and could spare yourself all your self-torture sessions. But now you have a bad conscience, because you have placed your brother above your partner. "It shouldn't have been him, it should have been my partner!", you revolt in deep shame. You have given up your highest value and most likely will contemplate suicide out of misery and due to the prospect of never being happy again. Which approach do you think is the proper one? Or would you just brush off the whole situation as one of those so-called "lifeboat situations" to which morality doesn't even apply? Also, do you think this is a perfect demonstration of why Bentham's calculus of value doesn't really work?
  16. I'm sorry, this got quite out of focus over time. I was still waiting for you to make the point of correspondence. And since you have brought the right term into play, I would like to ask it using the more restrictive term "content" instead of "percept" (You agree that it is a philosophical position to say that percepts are only content, calling this position "internalism"): Judging from this "internalistic" starting point of only content available (The only starting point that we can actually be 100% sure of): How do we know for sure that the content our consciousness gets into contact with adds nothing to the external world in terms of boundedness etc.?
  17. Well, unfortunately my reply to this was removed. But anyway, I remember reading your reply. You didn't want to apply the concept of faculty to entities that can give us percepts in the way I stated in my post. Anyway, the more important point for you to make the point of correspondence was the content VS percept distinction. From my memories about your reply I gather that - though they physically refer to the very same thing - the term "percept" takes into account its being caused by external objects stimulating senses, while the term "content" does not (although it implicitly also has to be caused by such stimulation). If you could have content without external causes, then, of course "content" and "percept" would not refer to the same thing at all, percepts would be a particular kind of content. Assuming that this is all cleared, I would like to know how you make the point of correspondence. Also bear in mind the unresolved question of hallucination. It is my understanding that hallucinations are not distinguishable from real entities to the person hallucinating. Any references on whether it is distinguishable to the person not hallucinating, after he has been in a hallucinatory state? Like you know it was a dream after you wake up? Can it be distinguised on the perceptual level alone? This is also important to know for making the point about correspondence (percepts really corresponding to real objects 1:1).
  18. You have also stated that percepts are not faculties. Aren't they that which can occur when senses and objects interact? Potentials, capacities, things that objects and senses can do when they act together? Anyway, how did you want to use the status of percepts as interaction properties, in order to answer the question of correspondence? Just reminding you of my objections:
  19. Tell me, what processes are not capacities = faculties? Ultimately, everything that can happen can happen, is a potential. So everything is a faculty?
  20. Apprehend percepts? Apprehension equals understanding equals reason equals volitional consciousness equals the conceptual level of consciousness. As opposed to the non-volitional, perceptual level of consciousness we share with animals. No apprehension in that. We just become aware of percepts passively. Whether or not we should split consciousness into non-volitional and volitional, i.e. perceptual and conceptual, is not just a separate question, but a highly crucial distinction that Hume refused to make, thereby destroying any understanding of the human mind.
  21. What's this "the percept" vs "the content of a percept" all about? The percept is the content.
  22. So a percept is not a faculty, because it is not a power or capacity, but rather something that is: An actuality? But consciousness is, because it is only a capacity? Something volitional that need not be realized? Well, there's also involitional consciousness: The perceptual level of consciousness. But then consciousness can also be a non-faculty.
  23. Don't get that. I consider the two posts you quote to be equivalent in meaning. The second quote just puts it into more colloquial terms. But both are intended to relate to the question of correspondence between percept and object. Yes, that's where I diverge. Or at least need better proof. "Only has exactly the information external reality provides". Does it really? Or is it not just that it used to have it? But when colliding with our senses, maybe new information was generated by the collision? Just like some chemical reactions can turn molecules into atoms, or put atoms together into molecules?
  24. Cannot do so in such a way that makes actions floating disconnected from entities, or make properties of the action disconnected from them? faculty = a type of property whereby certain action are produced or made possible? Really? Sounds like completely the other way round in the excerpt and all the other sources I know: faculty = a type of property produced or made possible by certain action. Really? Am I asking all that? Repeating my question you are referring to: >> If this faculty is a "property of the interaction", then what does that mean? Is it like "redness is a property of this apple, inseparable from it"? But if that's the case - if it is the case that our percepts, too, are such "properties of the interaction", then how could our consciousness observe them as "things", if they're not?" << I thought what I'm asking is: "If percepts are not things in the primary sense, but just "faculties", i.e. properties of some interaction, then how come we are aware of them as "things"?" (aware in the perceptual sense, not the conceptual sense)
  25. Errr....Youtube? I hadn't either. Until that day. Seems so, yeah. Showing that you can reduce something without eliminating the content. Evidently by recognizing it as a "faculty". What is the "evidentiary category"?
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