StrictlyLogical

Good to see you again HD.
What happens when one looks at conversation as transactional?  That in a real sense when we offer statements as true we are offering in a market of interactions something potentially of value and in a real conversation, it is in exchange with other statements.
If a sort of trader principle applies… then wouldn’t offering up something worthless (a false statement) be kind of rotten?  I’m not talking about trading with criminals but innocent citizens.  Should not your offer and your exchange be genuine rather than fraudulent?  Now, it is in your rational self interest not to be rotten for the same reason you want to be a good trader in the world… but in the moment isn’t your immediate concern with the trade going well? 
I’m not sure but I might disagree with both of you.  
Not being rotten is both rationally in your self interest AND shows your concern includes others.  In fact your immediate concern for others can be self AND other interested when you are cooperatively building something.  building wealth or knowledge according to the trader principle seems pretty much win win.
We do not need another false dichotomy here.

Wasn't that Hunter Biden Laptop thing ALL a Russian Hoax, probably linked to that Trump - Russian collusion thing (remember something about a dossier)?
I coulda sworn I heard, from cross-your heart-its-true Government Officials and Media Outlets... whom I believe unerringly, who said at the time that it was Runnian dis... mis.. cis information or something.
Yeah and don't we have a new Ministry of Truth now, can't they clear it up for us?
 
- Eager to be told what to believe and to accept it as truth -
SL
 

Jason Crawford, The Roots of Progress
https://rootsofprogress.org/

Team, Human Progress
https://www.humanprogress.org/
Two other efforts that tend to be pushing in the right general direction. Jason Crawford has familiarity with Objectivism, while Human Progress holds a more benevolent sense of life approach per my esteem. 
Neither are heath centric, though both might deal with it if it fell under their proposed umbrellas. 

And that's the bottom line. Everything else follows.

I wonder how a proper Objectivist would report on the data, but I propose the following:
It would be 100% fact based, no shred of anything for a. personal financial gain b. political gain c. institutional or political reputation or d. with the intent to cajole or persuade people to any so called desired behavior i.e. no social engineering of sentiment or action of any kind.
It would look at medical interactions in society from the individual's perspective, and individual rights, the individual's freedom, health, and very lives.  This is in many senses opposite to the so-called "public good" of public health approaches.  I.e. the data would be looked at in the sense of treating individuals, how individual people fared, their health, their freedoms, their mental well being etc. not merely the so-called health of a collective... using who knows what as statistical standards.  A herd which is "treated" and "managed" be said to be more healthy, even when enslaved, or if part of the heard are disadvantaged or sacrificed (culled) for the sake of the collective whole.  Herd mentality is not how an Objectivist would think of it or deal with it.  Sacrifice of the innocent for NO MATTER HOW MANY other individuals IS EVIL.
 
Lives saved?
I wonder if anyone has done the analysis thusly:
How many people under the age of 50, how many CHILDREN would have died or suffered irreparably educationally, physically, mentally, had nothing been done, no vaccines, no imprisonment, no mandates, no muzzling.
Then how many were affected because of the measures taken.
Then doing the same for people over the age of 50, no measures... versus measures taken.
 
I wonder whether in the end, in the pursuit of sheer numbers of "survivors", many of the young with their whole lives ahead of them have been brought low and in some cases died for no good reason.  That whole lives were sacrificed on the altar of public good in return for survivability of the very old, good numbers, and political and institutional reputation.
 
I have said it before, if you ask your doctor whether any proposed action is better for yourself (or your child) PERSONALLY, given all possible benefit and risks, and he/she hesitates or looks confused... THAT is no doctor, that is an agent of the State who has forsaken the sacred duty to treat you PERSONALLY for your benefit, for your life and health... and you should find yourself a new doctor as fast as possible.
 
You see, no matter how mundane and saccharine and academically philosophical the trolley problem seems, its purported utilitarian or arithmetical solution we now see in full.  For the herd, all that really matters are the numbers, whether one arrived at it by sacrificing innocents is beside the fact... the so-called public good has nothing to do with individuals... the greatest "number" of survivors.
  
I believe Rand solved the "trolley problem" with the idea of every person being an end in himself, which already requires no purposeful act to cause the sacrifice of anyone, much less children, who knew no better, some of whom (those so called "rare" few) died because of it.
 
Public health is inimical to individual rights and is an evil, as evil as any of the other proposed Globalist, centrally planned erosions of our freedoms, or what is left of them.
 
I am ashamed most prominent Objectivists are going along for the ride with not so much as a peep.
 
The only brave and outspoken Objectivist pushing back on the madness I can think of currently, is Alex Epstein.
 
 

I wonder how a proper Objectivist would report on the data, but I propose the following:
It would be 100% fact based, no shred of anything for a. personal financial gain b. political gain c. institutional or political reputation or d. with the intent to cajole or persuade people to any so called desired behavior i.e. no social engineering of sentiment or action of any kind.
It would look at medical interactions in society from the individual's perspective, and individual rights, the individual's freedom, health, and very lives.  This is in many senses opposite to the so-called "public good" of public health approaches.  I.e. the data would be looked at in the sense of treating individuals, how individual people fared, their health, their freedoms, their mental well being etc. not merely the so-called health of a collective... using who knows what as statistical standards.  A herd which is "treated" and "managed" be said to be more healthy, even when enslaved, or if part of the heard are disadvantaged or sacrificed (culled) for the sake of the collective whole.  Herd mentality is not how an Objectivist would think of it or deal with it.  Sacrifice of the innocent for NO MATTER HOW MANY other individuals IS EVIL.
 
Lives saved?
I wonder if anyone has done the analysis thusly:
How many people under the age of 50, how many CHILDREN would have died or suffered irreparably educationally, physically, mentally, had nothing been done, no vaccines, no imprisonment, no mandates, no muzzling.
Then how many were affected because of the measures taken.
Then doing the same for people over the age of 50, no measures... versus measures taken.
 
I wonder whether in the end, in the pursuit of sheer numbers of "survivors", many of the young with their whole lives ahead of them have been brought low and in some cases died for no good reason.  That whole lives were sacrificed on the altar of public good in return for survivability of the very old, good numbers, and political and institutional reputation.
 
I have said it before, if you ask your doctor whether any proposed action is better for yourself (or your child) PERSONALLY, given all possible benefit and risks, and he/she hesitates or looks confused... THAT is no doctor, that is an agent of the State who has forsaken the sacred duty to treat you PERSONALLY for your benefit, for your life and health... and you should find yourself a new doctor as fast as possible.
 
You see, no matter how mundane and saccharine and academically philosophical the trolley problem seems, its purported utilitarian or arithmetical solution we now see in full.  For the herd, all that really matters are the numbers, whether one arrived at it by sacrificing innocents is beside the fact... the so-called public good has nothing to do with individuals... the greatest "number" of survivors.
  
I believe Rand solved the "trolley problem" with the idea of every person being an end in himself, which already requires no purposeful act to cause the sacrifice of anyone, much less children, who knew no better, some of whom (those so called "rare" few) died because of it.
 
Public health is inimical to individual rights and is an evil, as evil as any of the other proposed Globalist, centrally planned erosions of our freedoms, or what is left of them.
 
I am ashamed most prominent Objectivists are going along for the ride with not so much as a peep.
 
The only brave and outspoken Objectivist pushing back on the madness I can think of currently, is Alex Epstein.
 
 

I wonder how a proper Objectivist would report on the data, but I propose the following:
It would be 100% fact based, no shred of anything for a. personal financial gain b. political gain c. institutional or political reputation or d. with the intent to cajole or persuade people to any so called desired behavior i.e. no social engineering of sentiment or action of any kind.
It would look at medical interactions in society from the individual's perspective, and individual rights, the individual's freedom, health, and very lives.  This is in many senses opposite to the so-called "public good" of public health approaches.  I.e. the data would be looked at in the sense of treating individuals, how individual people fared, their health, their freedoms, their mental well being etc. not merely the so-called health of a collective... using who knows what as statistical standards.  A herd which is "treated" and "managed" be said to be more healthy, even when enslaved, or if part of the heard are disadvantaged or sacrificed (culled) for the sake of the collective whole.  Herd mentality is not how an Objectivist would think of it or deal with it.  Sacrifice of the innocent for NO MATTER HOW MANY other individuals IS EVIL.
 
Lives saved?
I wonder if anyone has done the analysis thusly:
How many people under the age of 50, how many CHILDREN would have died or suffered irreparably educationally, physically, mentally, had nothing been done, no vaccines, no imprisonment, no mandates, no muzzling.
Then how many were affected because of the measures taken.
Then doing the same for people over the age of 50, no measures... versus measures taken.
 
I wonder whether in the end, in the pursuit of sheer numbers of "survivors", many of the young with their whole lives ahead of them have been brought low and in some cases died for no good reason.  That whole lives were sacrificed on the altar of public good in return for survivability of the very old, good numbers, and political and institutional reputation.
 
I have said it before, if you ask your doctor whether any proposed action is better for yourself (or your child) PERSONALLY, given all possible benefit and risks, and he/she hesitates or looks confused... THAT is no doctor, that is an agent of the State who has forsaken the sacred duty to treat you PERSONALLY for your benefit, for your life and health... and you should find yourself a new doctor as fast as possible.
 
You see, no matter how mundane and saccharine and academically philosophical the trolley problem seems, its purported utilitarian or arithmetical solution we now see in full.  For the herd, all that really matters are the numbers, whether one arrived at it by sacrificing innocents is beside the fact... the so-called public good has nothing to do with individuals... the greatest "number" of survivors.
  
I believe Rand solved the "trolley problem" with the idea of every person being an end in himself, which already requires no purposeful act to cause the sacrifice of anyone, much less children, who knew no better, some of whom (those so called "rare" few) died because of it.
 
Public health is inimical to individual rights and is an evil, as evil as any of the other proposed Globalist, centrally planned erosions of our freedoms, or what is left of them.
 
I am ashamed most prominent Objectivists are going along for the ride with not so much as a peep.
 
The only brave and outspoken Objectivist pushing back on the madness I can think of currently, is Alex Epstein.
 
 

What is behind the conspiracy of conspiracies?
Who or what conspires to cause so many seemingly normal people to distrust power, distrust government, distrust institutions and organizations?  IS there some nefarious source of the multiple allegations against so many of the trusted and established authorities of the world?  Is it because some teenage archetype of the psyche wants a bad orange man to write mean tweets?  Is it because of patriarchal racism or sexism? Is it Chinese disinformation or Russian mind control?  Why so much push back against...
what is the pushback against?  on a wide integration .. some of these things are just like the others... but what is the common thread.. what is the one in the many?  Its like they are resisting being herded.
Why wont the herd be herded?  it's almost like... they are rebelling against being herded at all?  Like they are not accepting coercion?  They want to decide for themselves and act independently of our great establishment Parents ... the Global arisen God...
 
The conspiracy behind all conspiracies is a deep sense of individual freedom...
and it just
wont
die.
 
Rationalize that.
 

What is behind the conspiracy of conspiracies?
Who or what conspires to cause so many seemingly normal people to distrust power, distrust government, distrust institutions and organizations?  IS there some nefarious source of the multiple allegations against so many of the trusted and established authorities of the world?  Is it because some teenage archetype of the psyche wants a bad orange man to write mean tweets?  Is it because of patriarchal racism or sexism? Is it Chinese disinformation or Russian mind control?  Why so much push back against...
what is the pushback against?  on a wide integration .. some of these things are just like the others... but what is the common thread.. what is the one in the many?  Its like they are resisting being herded.
Why wont the herd be herded?  it's almost like... they are rebelling against being herded at all?  Like they are not accepting coercion?  They want to decide for themselves and act independently of our great establishment Parents ... the Global arisen God...
 
The conspiracy behind all conspiracies is a deep sense of individual freedom...
and it just
wont
die.
 
Rationalize that.
 

What is behind the conspiracy of conspiracies?
Who or what conspires to cause so many seemingly normal people to distrust power, distrust government, distrust institutions and organizations?  IS there some nefarious source of the multiple allegations against so many of the trusted and established authorities of the world?  Is it because some teenage archetype of the psyche wants a bad orange man to write mean tweets?  Is it because of patriarchal racism or sexism? Is it Chinese disinformation or Russian mind control?  Why so much push back against...
what is the pushback against?  on a wide integration .. some of these things are just like the others... but what is the common thread.. what is the one in the many?  Its like they are resisting being herded.
Why wont the herd be herded?  it's almost like... they are rebelling against being herded at all?  Like they are not accepting coercion?  They want to decide for themselves and act independently of our great establishment Parents ... the Global arisen God...
 
The conspiracy behind all conspiracies is a deep sense of individual freedom...
and it just
wont
die.
 
Rationalize that.
 

Voting a straight ticket will guard against the rise of a one party rule movement ? Cuz men with vaginas will finally be safe ?
See now I feel bad associating coarse pedestrian language with such a highly intellectual think piece.

It is amazing to me how people that have studied philosophy and the nature of government can be so completely defenseless against low grade propaganda. "Safe and effective!"  "Safe and secure!"  Weak minds think alike.

I did, my son does…. my education was not trash… it was not rife with partisan political ideology.
Indoctrination is abuse.
Systematic collectivisation and neglect of the proper purpose of individual education ie knowledge and for that persons benefit, in favour of the state and statistical public welfare, is abhorrent.
Kids need to learn how to think for themselves, not to be told what to think because it serves the so called public good, the good of some misfortune collective, or the fragile planet.
 The imposition of Obedience and RightThink are like psychological blows of a billy club that permanently cripples the soul.
Ecoterrorism racism misandry dehumanizations creep into systems through indoctrination of administrative and teaching professionals at the college and career licensing levels… I know teachers too.
 
Kids need knowledge, diversity of thought, and critical logical reasoning to lead a life of learning and to be capable of independent thought … to lead their own lives in the manner and with the values of their own choosing.
 
 
 

I think there is more to "man qua man" than people who like to philosophize are willing to dive into.  There are certain rational shortcuts and superficial calculus' we like to throw at things like the trolley problem or the definition of a human (recall the story of the throwing of a plucked chicken to ridicule "featherless biped" as the definition of man).
 
IF man WERE cannibals, by nature, by flavor, by urge, by intuition, by evolution, culture, and institution, then what makes a person thrive should probably involve some cannibalism, as well as some virtues for avoiding being supper.  BUT our nature is NOT cannibalism.
Letting defenceless babies of our own nature, other individuals, other persons, other ends in themselves whose natural life includes parental or adult care, simply die for the want of it... when each and every one of us was provided... had to be provided with it ourselves... offends our very nature.  It is not simply emotional... nor outside the realm of rational... it is part of what makes  humans what we are.
No matter what kinds of rationalizations people bandy about to support dehumanization , or inhuman existence... they imagine we can be anything, but an anything is nothing in particular.
We have natures, and the order of nature is in us, we are human, and at the root ARE things like our our innate ability to respond and to care for children. 
So to be sane, to be healthy, flourishing humans... we are our children's keepers.  Parents first, family second, friends and local people, and the rest of us at large if only temporarily, until someone takes over.

I think there is more to "man qua man" than people who like to philosophize are willing to dive into.  There are certain rational shortcuts and superficial calculus' we like to throw at things like the trolley problem or the definition of a human (recall the story of the throwing of a plucked chicken to ridicule "featherless biped" as the definition of man).
 
IF man WERE cannibals, by nature, by flavor, by urge, by intuition, by evolution, culture, and institution, then what makes a person thrive should probably involve some cannibalism, as well as some virtues for avoiding being supper.  BUT our nature is NOT cannibalism.
Letting defenceless babies of our own nature, other individuals, other persons, other ends in themselves whose natural life includes parental or adult care, simply die for the want of it... when each and every one of us was provided... had to be provided with it ourselves... offends our very nature.  It is not simply emotional... nor outside the realm of rational... it is part of what makes  humans what we are.
No matter what kinds of rationalizations people bandy about to support dehumanization , or inhuman existence... they imagine we can be anything, but an anything is nothing in particular.
We have natures, and the order of nature is in us, we are human, and at the root ARE things like our our innate ability to respond and to care for children. 
So to be sane, to be healthy, flourishing humans... we are our children's keepers.  Parents first, family second, friends and local people, and the rest of us at large if only temporarily, until someone takes over.

I think there is more to "man qua man" than people who like to philosophize are willing to dive into.  There are certain rational shortcuts and superficial calculus' we like to throw at things like the trolley problem or the definition of a human (recall the story of the throwing of a plucked chicken to ridicule "featherless biped" as the definition of man).
 
IF man WERE cannibals, by nature, by flavor, by urge, by intuition, by evolution, culture, and institution, then what makes a person thrive should probably involve some cannibalism, as well as some virtues for avoiding being supper.  BUT our nature is NOT cannibalism.
Letting defenceless babies of our own nature, other individuals, other persons, other ends in themselves whose natural life includes parental or adult care, simply die for the want of it... when each and every one of us was provided... had to be provided with it ourselves... offends our very nature.  It is not simply emotional... nor outside the realm of rational... it is part of what makes  humans what we are.
No matter what kinds of rationalizations people bandy about to support dehumanization , or inhuman existence... they imagine we can be anything, but an anything is nothing in particular.
We have natures, and the order of nature is in us, we are human, and at the root ARE things like our our innate ability to respond and to care for children. 
So to be sane, to be healthy, flourishing humans... we are our children's keepers.  Parents first, family second, friends and local people, and the rest of us at large if only temporarily, until someone takes over.

I think there is more to "man qua man" than people who like to philosophize are willing to dive into.  There are certain rational shortcuts and superficial calculus' we like to throw at things like the trolley problem or the definition of a human (recall the story of the throwing of a plucked chicken to ridicule "featherless biped" as the definition of man).
 
IF man WERE cannibals, by nature, by flavor, by urge, by intuition, by evolution, culture, and institution, then what makes a person thrive should probably involve some cannibalism, as well as some virtues for avoiding being supper.  BUT our nature is NOT cannibalism.
Letting defenceless babies of our own nature, other individuals, other persons, other ends in themselves whose natural life includes parental or adult care, simply die for the want of it... when each and every one of us was provided... had to be provided with it ourselves... offends our very nature.  It is not simply emotional... nor outside the realm of rational... it is part of what makes  humans what we are.
No matter what kinds of rationalizations people bandy about to support dehumanization , or inhuman existence... they imagine we can be anything, but an anything is nothing in particular.
We have natures, and the order of nature is in us, we are human, and at the root ARE things like our our innate ability to respond and to care for children. 
So to be sane, to be healthy, flourishing humans... we are our children's keepers.  Parents first, family second, friends and local people, and the rest of us at large if only temporarily, until someone takes over.

Is a straw man hypothetical... like asking what a moral society for psychopaths or cannibals should look like. 

So quickly a discussion of politics loses all sense of principle.
 
Getting it wrong on either end violates rights of one or more humans, and the most important rights. 
Getting it right for those persons is more important than any amount of personal political posturing of any kind.

Leaving aside knowing of private experience of others and leaving aside mathematical theses that have been proven to be unprovable, can we show that, for humans, there is nothing unknowable? That is, can it be shown that there is nothing empirical that cannot be known from the “third-person” perspective? By empirical facts, I mean ones at a level not all the way down to particularities, the level above particularities that is usually aimed for in this issue. The fact that the next guest to step through the front door will lead with either the left foot or the right foot, together with the circumstance that I don’t know who will be the next guest nor which foot will lead is not the level of empirical knowledge of significance and interest, not the level of empirical knowledge of concern in our question.
We firstly should prove there are things at present unknown to us, a precondition to the question of whether there are in fact empirical things unknowable to us. That there are things presently unknown to us seems to be a point on which all interlocutors agree; so it should require no argument. I think, however, when one’s concern is having the fullest possible truth and not merely having enough to convince someone in argument concerning points of disagreement, then we should show there are things presently unknown and how we know that. Might we show that the reason no one bothers to establish this circumstance as preface to making an argument is that it is derivative from axiomatic truths that everyone mentally competent accepts even though they do not know they know them? That is, let us try for a demonstration from “Existence is Identity, and Consciousness is Identification” to “There is empirical knowledge we do not yet have.”
The concept ‘identification,’ I say, presupposes the idea that there are things we do not yet know. That there are things we do not yet know is a presupposition of the endeavor to construct an argument or make an investigation by empirical observations. So, we safely do have a sensible question if we ask if all significant empirically unknown things are knowable. Some will say that due to the indeterminacies discovered in quantum mechanics, we have a counterexample to the thesis that all unknown empirical things are knowable. As a counterexample, this is just confusion. That canonical dynamically conjugate quantities in Hamiltonian classical mechanics were found later, in the 1920’s, to take on simultaneous values jointly determinate only down to a certain minimum value not zero, as a physical fact, is part of our physical knowledge and not a counterexample to the thesis under question here: are there significant empirical fact unknowable to us. Knowing that there is no contiunuum of quantity on down to zero in amount physically occurring in instances of the quantity called action in physics (action being any quantity having the same units of measure had by angular momentum), which yields the Heisenberg Indeterminacy Principle, is a case of empirical knowing, not unknowability.
The absence of counterexample to the thesis does not mean we have shown the thesis true. So I don’t yet have a proof that all unknown significant empirical facts are knowable.
Rand’s thesis that, for all existents, part of their identity is that they stand in some external relations would seem to at least pile on support to the thesis that all unknown significant empirical facts are knowable. It does more than that.
There are things we already know of all empirical things unknown to us at present. We know that each is a particular and specific identity. We know that each is its complete identity. We know that we ourselves are also in that condition in the existence of our bodies. If we add Rand’s thesis that any existent stands in relations to existents not itself—let us say that the universe as the whole of existence stands in external relations to its parts and to its past phases—then among the components of the identity of each unknown empirical existent are its external relations. All Existents not us standing in such relations to other existents and our own bodies standing in such external relations, yields a network of relations. If our minds are able to grasp one relation between two of those existents not us, there is at least the potential of our minds to grasp all such relations. Beyond two existents not us having relations between them and to us, there are yet other relations they have to other existents not themselves and to us, and so forth, such that all told, they constitute all the part-to-part relations constituting the whole of relations within the whole of physical existence. That includes us. Our own bodily relations to some existents not our bodies connects us indirectly to all existents not our own bodies. Knowing one relation between existents not our body and their relation to our body entails a potential, given far more time than we actually have, to know all presently unknown significant empirical facts.
A counterexample is an example. An example is in relation to other existents. There can be no existents in a counterexample that are not capable of being in relations to other existents. Then there can be no significant empirical fact for counterexample to the thesis that all significant empirical facts are knowable, given Rand's external-relations thesis. Therewith, all significant empirical facts are knowable.

Boydstun
It does occur to me that there is a class of unknowables, in a particular sense of knowing, to any experiencing or knowing individual, and that is something along the lines of a “what it is like to be” of what one is not.
A third person analysis of humanity and consciousness perhaps by a machine would never know what it is like to be human, although with its word strings and sophisticated pattern recognition it might come close to imitating the words a human might say.
We cannot really every know or truly understand what it is like to be a bat.  We could try to imagine it, but our not being bats is precisely why we never can know what it is like to be one.
 
Is or can a first person experience, or any experience from a first person view .. ever be anything other than something in itself?
I think this is a unique sort of thing.

That's pretty great!  Is there a word that means "sacrificing others"?  
I did a quick google search and saw a suggestion of "utilitarian"...   But I'm certain the Utilitarian would disagree.  🙂 

How we view a system is not anything about the system and certainly nothing about a process or a property OF that system… how we view something is about us and our capacities and knowledge. 

No one word can capture all "they" mean when they say selfish.  It is a combination of a whole host of possible vices combined with appearing to act for oneself (at least superficially).  There is a misidentification of what the long term self interest is, so it is self-sabotage, misguided selfishness, shortsightedness, ignorance, idiocy?
How to sum up a simpleton's selfishness?... no easy task.
Rather than try to come up with a different word, it suffices to point out that "selfishness" in not the proper characterization and the specific instance is better described by [insert particular short term vice here].

Based on your example, can't we say that the water molecule is also an "adding up" of a "pile of" protons, neutrons and electrons, its constituent parts?
Why can't we make the case that a stuck puppet "emerges" from a pile of sticks by some sort of change/motion?
I suppose you are saying that water-ness as opposed to stick-puppet-ness is beyond an epistemological artifact, emerging from a rearrangement of protons neutron electrons or whatever the constituent entities du jour are. (I am emphasizing the constituent parts having the same properties in my examples as you were doing with the "sticks".)
The key to your argument seems to be that the stuck puppet has no new properties as opposed to water. But even a stuck puppet can't fit the hand like it's constituent stick used to.
The rearrangement of the same entities inevitably causes different properties and they can be recognized with proper context to recognize it.
Epistemologically, pictures that "emerge" can be solely a result of focus, like magnifying glass when you magnify or zoom out.
Non-epistemologically when you physically arrange dots in picture, it is beyond just focus or shifting of attention or panning or zooming. Many different pictures "emerge" depending how the dots are arranged outside of the mind.
Why not just say the resulting images are "caused" by the rearrangement? Why the added complexity?