Identifying with consciousness…

Estudia: Phi, I’ve got a question about our senses.

Philo: What is it?

Estudia: Well, you said our senses have certain forms which I take to mean the form such as seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling, etc. Then if our senses have a certain form we perceive the external world with them in a certain way. Something is red, or smells funny, or fells rough because of the form of our senses. Doesn’t this cut us off from the real world? Don’t we only perceive the world as it appears to us as humans? And as far as our thinking about what we perceive, doesn’t that depend on how our consciousness works? How can we possibly know the real truth about anything if we can’t connect with reality directly? We have to use our own minds in the way they are constructed. We can’t jump outside of our selves can we?

Philo: That argument relies on the fact that we cannot escape the limitations of our consciousness and our dependence on the senses. We can’t somehow go outside of the fact that we our human and assume some other identity that doesn’t have to use human senses, concepts, logic or a human brain. Hence you want to conclude that because our consciousness has a specific identity, a certain specific means and form of cognition it is disqualified as a faculty of cognition. In fact you could use that argument to attack any kind of consciousness because it is specific in nature as all things must be because of the law of identity. Even a “Creator” would be excluded assuming “It” had an identity — that is existed.

Estudia: Yea, isn’t that so? I mean what kind of consciousness could perceive reality then?

Philo: No, that isn’t so. Based on your argument, only a consciousness not limited by any means or manner of thinking, or any form of sensing or perceiving could know reality as it really is. You’d wind up concluding that only a zero could know reality. You’d be saying that any means of gaining knowledge makes knowledge impossible. You’re really saying that the things we perceive don’t exist because we perceive them.

Estudia: Hummmm... Maybe you’re right. Consciousness has to have identity because it is something. By the law of identity it must be limited, finite and follow certain laws, physical laws that give it its nature.

Philo: Exactly. This is implied in all we have been talking about with regard to the senses and indeed to all of epistemology. Consciousness has identity. This as you formulated is self-evident from the law of identity. So why attack it for what it is?

Estudia: But...but what about what reality? What is it really?

Philo: There is no such thing. No reality as it really is or isn’t for that matter. What you perceive with your senses is not merely as it appears. Reality is what appears to any consciousness though its means of thinking. If it were not so then you’d have to say that when you become aware of something it means that you are not really aware of it. Grasping something is in some way not grasping it. Answer me this: If we only perceive reality indirectly via our senses, then what would direct perception be?

Estudia: I guess it would have to be a grasp of reality without the benefit of any means wouldn’t it? Yes, I think I see what you are saying. Just because we have senses and a specific kind of consciousness doesn’t invalidate them. Without their specific nature, their identity, they wouldn’t be possible.

Philo: That’s right. Identity doesn’t disqualify consciousness; identity is a precondition of consciousness. All of our studies of cognition, all epistemology must proceed from this base. Everything we want to know, to have knowledge of, involves two essential elements. We have to have the object of our thinking and we have to have a means of thinking. What do we know? And how do we know it?

Estudia: What is the object of our thinking?

Philo: It is always something in reality because there isn’t anything else to know. The objects are the subject of the sciences. Things like gravity, air, water, biology, and so on. The means of knowing, the “How” of “How do we know what we know?” is what philosophers include in epistemology and it pertains to the kind of consciousness and the form of cognition.

Estudia: I’m not sure I’ve got all that, but it seems that you have refuted my original skepticism and shown that I can’t use the fact of how I know something, like by using my senses, to say that what I know is not the real deal.

Philo: And, like the mystics want to do, you can’t say that reality can’t be known because we have to use our specific, human means of cognition.

Estudia: So Objectivists again reject that what we perceive is not reality?

Philo: Yes and we hold that consciousness has identity and are proud of it.

Senses and Sensibility…

Estudia: I understand, I think, what you were advocating about the validity of the senses, but...

Philo: But what?

Estudia: Well, as humans we have certain senses that work in certain ways that we understand pretty well but maybe not completely. What about someone with different senses, or a different form of our senses... or an alien say? Wouldn’t they come up with some different axioms and laws of physics? Well, maybe not laws, but at least theories of how things work since they would perceive them so much differently?

Philo: No they wouldn’t and let me explain. The senses are just a starting point for our thinking. We detect concrete objects in reality and we call that perception. What do we do with that? Well, first we organize our perceptions by abstracting, classifying and conceptualizing. We abstract by thinking of the concept, say rocks, without thinking of a particular rock but by the general idea of rocks. I’ll get into concept formation later, but first let me answer your question. Once we use our senses to perceive, we use our minds to think about the objects we perceive on the conceptual level. This is where we make inductions, we reason from the details we observe to the general. We form theories and consider exceptions and complexities so that we build up our knowledge of reality. By this process we discover how reality works and state our knowledge in terms of laws. Everything we do, the thinking, depends on our sense organs providing us with enough awareness to be able to detect similarities and differences among objects so that we can reach the conceptual stage.

Estudia: Yes, but someone with different senses would see others qualities of objects.

Philo: No matter. The whole process of learning about reality is not affected by the method in which we become aware of it. The “form” of our sensory awareness, whatever form that is, doesn’t matter because all the abstracting, theorizing, law development, etc. is done by our thinking, not by our senses.

Estudia: Oh, right. So someone, or thing, with different senses, would first perceive things differently, but if they make observations and abstract, theorize, etc. then they will come up with they same theories of physics. We all have to perceive the same reality and should come to the same conclusions.

Philo: Exactly. Assuming there isn’t a major mistake in one’s thinking. But reality will eventual prove who’s theory is correct in such a case.

Estudia: Oh, Okay! If something is a fact and it registers or stimulates a sense organ that’s it. It’s a fact, and so we can use these by thinking about them to gain further knowledge about existence. That’s kind of neat. I mean what other choice do I have? Especially if I’m to use my mind to understand the facts of reality, I have to work with the information I can only get by using my senses.

Philo: Sounds like you “got it”.

Estudia: Yes, but that brings up another interesting question. Where is the sense perception located, in the object which stimulates the sense or in us by whatever form the sense takes? Can we perceive a difference between the object and our form of perception? What I’m trying to figure out is something like: Where is the red or the odor or whatever of some object? Is the red in us due to our “form” of perception? How we see. Or is the red in the object? This could matter I think.

Philo: You bet. If what is actually out there has some effect on light say, or emits molecules of something, then we, with our senses, perceive it by the form of that sense. That would be rods and cones in the eye being stimulated and sending a signal to our consciousness, or olfactory bulbs responding to those molecules and us in turn smelling something. We can distinguish the difference between the form of our awareness and the actual physical make up of the object.

Estudia: So that means that the form is subjective. We the subject have senses and those senses aren’t really perceiving the object but something else. It’s all in our minds then?

Philo: No, no, no mame, paleezeee. If the form of perception were simply in your mind then we couldn’t be objective. That’s true, but what’s in our minds is an effect caused by something outside. We can tell a lot about objects today that we couldn’t years ago because we have used our senses to discover the truth about the forms we perceive. Someday we may learn the most fundamental attributes of objects and it wouldn’t matter to us as philosophers because the objects will still be objective objects. We won’t be able say something is not real just because we can explain it.

Estudia: Am I confused then?

Philo: Maybe. Look, you pluck a string of your guitar and you hear a note. Say the top thickest string. It should be a nice “E” sound. Where is the sound? The string causes the air to move in waves which move our ear drums which move the bones which transmit the vibrations to the inner ear where tiny hairs are moved which makes them produce a nerve impulse dah, dah...dah and so on. It is all connected. No string no sound, no you no brain stimulation and hence no hearing. We can learn all kinds of things by studying the form that we do perceive. We can’t experience “pure” reality directly, but we can use what we do perceive to know about reality.

Estudia: So the sensory qualities exist in the objects independent of our why of perceiving them, right?

Philo: No. That’s what is known as “naive realism” in philosophy. It’s a kind of mirror theory which claims that the senses don’t give us “pure” reality, but they are a refection of that reality. The senses are held to be valid by the “naive realist” because the sensory qualities are in the objects. The qualities are not dependent on us and independent of our means of perception. But we saw that all the evidence invalidates this idea. We need the object but we also need us for any thing to happen.

Estudia: So that’s why you call your view objectivism. Or at least Ayn Rand named it that. Cool, makes sense to me. . ¡Adios, amigo!