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.
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.
posted by Rp | 9:23 PM
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