Concepts and Percepts--Are They Different? Are They Certain?

Nathan... Once again I'm going to idiotically repeat myself: I can't supply you with an adequate answer, but here are some points.

1. I respectfully submit that it is not just 'semantics' since issues revolving around free will and the validity of our ability to 'know reality as it really is' hinge on the issue. 

 

Difficult to see how your 'representationalism', which only gives the theory a more scientific sounding twist by the introduction of photons, cells, etc, differs in any way from the traditional view. (That doesn't necessarily mean, of course, that you are wrong.)
 

2. The implicit meaning of your 'direct' is, not to introduce 'hot-button' words, Kantian.  That is, on your use of the term, in order to have 'direct' perception the external object itself would have to be actually in the mind.  This is a subtle form of question begging. Besides, no one (outside of Berkeley perhaps) would assert that 'yeah that's what 'direct' means and I believe this is the way it is.'

 

3. No one (well almost) denies that perception is a causal process -- and therefore involves a chain of objects and events: the reception of photons at receptors, their conduction along neural pathways, etc. Further, as part of the causal process, we can all agree that the nature of our organs, nervous system, brains, etc (ultimately it's all one thing in a way anyway, isn't it? i.e. an individual person)  alters the original input in numerous and complex ways.  Awareness is not, to use Kelley's phrase, diaphanous.  But, I am aware of none of that.  (Though I can discover or learn about it after enough centuries of science.) Those are the means of perception. They are not that of which I am aware.

 

I would say that 'pulling my hand' is ambiguously used in your example.  Colloquially we understand what you mean when you grab the chain I'm holding and say 'I'm pulling your hand', but you are actually 'pulling a chain I'm holding, that tugs my hand when your hand tugs it'.  Of course, you have a legitimate come back of the sort, "Well if I use my hand to grab yours without the chain, it's just electric/quantum mechanical forces between nearby skin molecules attracting one another, followed by ratcheting of certain muscle proteins, etc etc.  Therefore there's really no difference. There's no meaningful sense in which I am pulling your hand apart from  the 'chain' sense".  This is another form of, what I would regard as error, of the sort described in (2).

So, unless I weaken and come back here sooner because I can't resist a good discussion, that's all for now.

 

OK. Michael I think you're wrong here, and Jeff is right.

I'll background the problem briefly. What you're saying is that everything is *physical* - concepts, consciousness, entities etc. This is known, unsuprisingly, as "physicalism". Your problem is, however, that if everything is physical, then everything is *determined*. That is, the thoughts in your brain are simply chemical and electrical reactions, all in principle, physically predictable down to the last detail. Unfortunately, this means therefore *there is no such thing as free will*. This is called *determinism*, and is one of the classic problems of philosophy.

So extreme physicalism entails extreme determinism. As Rand was a believer in free will, she could not accept determinism, and consequently had to believe consciousness was *non-physical*.

 
Incidentally, if "abstract" is the opposite of "physical", when you are "abstracting", what do you think you are doing?

 
As I had always understood it, physical referred to 'matter', and that energy was considered non-physical [or rather, non-matter] even tho matter is considered to be concentrated energy.

 

I take it back that you might be acting from a naive realist position. You're definitely not. I misspoke. But you don't seem to be instrumentalist either.
 

 
It's really a distraction to this thread, but I accept scientific theories based on their ability to predict, not on their ability to illuminate truth, per se. It seems you think representationalism and human models, because they are good predictors, illuminate the truth (as it pertains to cognition) or something like that. I guess I've slinked away from science as a means of obtaining certainty (or truth or whatever), particularly because it breeds attachment and becomes horribly unuseful. But again, this is probably a distraction, and I probably mischaracterized you earlier anyway. Sorry bout that.

 

 
one could have substance without form, but having form without substance is inconceivable--at least to me

 

 
Both are inconceivable to me. I don't understand how we could have substance without form or form without substance.

 
Nathan wrote:
 
Would anyone care to say what they think is the significance of "But Rand [is] ... asserting that ... consciousness ... is ... not reducible to any of its constituent elements.”

What does that mean? What complex entity IS "reducible to any of its constituent elements"? What is the sense of "reducible"?
  

Rand writes that "an axiomatic concept is the identification of a primary fact of reality, which cannot be analyzed, i.e., reduce to other facts or broken into component parts...It is fundamentally given and directly perceived or experienced..." (ITOE pg55). She thinks existence and consciousness are irreducible primaries. Ibid. I think she thinks any attempt to analyze them results in circularity. You can't analyze consciousness without assuming consciousness. So lots of complex entities (perhaps all but the axioms) are reducible to constituent elements. You can ask, "why is the sky blue?" or "what makes a dog a dog," but Rand would think it improper to ask "why does existence exist?" or "how do we know we're conscious?" meh. It's late, and I doubt I've done a good job answering your question. But I thought I'd put it out there for starters.