humanities.philosophy.objectivism

On Sat, 08 Mar 2008 15:49:18 -0800, Charles Bell
wrote:

>On Mar 8, 1:28 pm, Malrassic Park wrote:
>
>> wrote:
>> >On Mar 8, 2:39 am, Malrassic Park wrote:
>> .
>> >> there; however, in the context of the preceding statements it only
>> >> means that we have direct perception and direct awareness of these
>> >> integrations of sensations called percepts. That is indirect
>> >> perception of reality through percepts, not directly via perception.
>> .
>> >That is why it best to distinguish "sense-datum" from "percepts."
>> >Rand skips over the functions of the brain which are *entirely*
>> >automatic such as what happens to the signal received by the brain
>> >from the sensory organs. She begins at the point of conscious
>> >awareness -- which is after the sense-datum is processed into a
>> >percept -- this process is also *barely* volitional (i.e., still
>> >*vitrually* automatic) in that from the moment of birth the brain does
>> >this without conscious exertion when it builds its hierarchy of
>> >perceptions. It takes a newborn 3-4 years to get to the level of
>> >consciousness necessary to understand by abstraction of the percepts
>> >his brain is casting. People do not have memories before 3-4 years of
>> >age because of this low level of consciousness.
>>
>> My edition of ITOE shows that she began at the level of a chaos of
>> sensations, not at the point of conscious awareness.
>
>
>
>Although, chronologically, man's consciousness develops in three
>stages: the stage of sensations, the perceptual, the conceptual--
>epistemologically, the BASE of all of man's knowledge is the
>PERCEPTUAL stage.
>
>Sensations, as such, are not retained in man's memory, nor is man able
>to experience a pure isolated sensation. As far as can be ascertained,
>an infant's sensory experience is an undifferentiated chaos.
>Discriminated awareness begins on the level of percepts.
>
>
>
>She acknowledges the brain functioning at the sense-datum level, but
>knowledge begins at the level of the percepts.

I'm not disagreeing with you. I did not say anything about the
beginning of all knowledge. I am pointing to the importance of keeping
in mind the beginning of her analysis, which is the chaos of
sensations.

Shouldn't I take this theory literally, or is it some kind of allegory
on human nature like Plato's two horses?

>She and I have a slightly differing meaning of "consciousness" In a
>manner of speaking, a human being living *only* at the level of the
>chaos of the senses (as in an infant) can be considered conscious like
>a lower animal would be, but I rather refer to that level of
>consciousness that involves true self-awareness within the environment
>and that is something that is *developed* in early childhood on up
>until one's 20's. She uses "discriminated consciousness" as I suppose
>I might just use "consciousness."

'It may be supposed that the concept "existent" is implicit even on
the level of sensations - if and to the extent that a consciousness is
able to discriminate on that level. A sensation is a sensation of
something, as distinguished from the nothing of the preceding and
succeeding moments. A sensation does not tell man what exists, but
only that it exists.' (6)

>> The percept lies at the point of conscious awareness as a product of
>> neural activity. I disagree that a sense-datum is processed into a
>> percept for Rand because man is not able to experience "a pure
>> isolated sensation," and "sense-datum" is the singular form. The brain
>> is given a chaos of sensations, Rand leaves the details of the rest to
>> the neurologists to work out someday.
>
>Except to say that neurologically the brain must always have sense-
>datum to function beyond the level of keeping the organs going (brain-
>stem activity). Rand does not say that, but it is implied in the
>paragraphs quoted above and other parts of ITOE : the hierarchy of
>sensation on up to the conceptual. This is the major objection to
>your "universals" -- without having had percepts from the senses
>FIRST, there are no concepts.

I have *never* been an advocate of innate concepts. But we do
have innate cognitive abilities, and those abilities did not come from
the senses. Those abilities deal with the matter of the senses.
Learning how those faculties function is the secret to solving the
problem of universals. It is through their functioning that we infer
the properties of the mind itself. I say the mind has properties
because it is an existent along with every bit of its content. Those
properties are metaphysical, and they can be conceptualized. That
is the mystery uncovered by the ancient Greeks. But for whatever
reason they kept looking elsewhere for the universals when they
should have been attributed to the mind's functioning itself.

>> People do not have memories before 3-4 years of age because they
>> have forgotten them
>
> Rand says right up there in the quote provided that "senses, as such,
>are not retained in memory." Because a human being's mind at a
>perceptual level is *developed* from nil to complete over some 4
>years, only those fragments that may have created something at a
>perceptual level in those years can possibly ever be retained in
>memory. Often the "chaos" does not abate until 5 or 6 years of age in
>some people.

Maybe possibly, but you snipped the key to understanding my response:
it is only possible *if and only if* the child possesses a long-term
memory at that age. Isolated sensations cannot be retained, but
neither can perceptual material in the absence of long-term memory.
In this regard, take a gander at this webpage:
http://www.hno.harvard.edu/gazette/2002/11.07/01-memory.html

>> >Perhaps you would like to argue for the high intellect of a
>> >schizophrenic -- that John Nash was the ideal man?
.
>> Fuck that shit, it was only a very good movie about an iconoclast, not
>> idealistically driven as well as iconoclastic like The Fountainhead
>> movie.
.
>John Nash was a real mathematician along the lines that I would think
>you could admire -- all sorts of "universals" rolling around in his
>ahead. The movie was a highly sanitized version of his biography, by
>the way.

I admire the way he out-smarted his schizophrenia. I'd read about that
being done long before that movie was ever dreamt up. Believing in the
hallucinations, and responding to them, only furthers their existence.
Nash's trick was to apply common-sense to them, to the little girl in
his illusions that never got older as the years went by, the dorm
partner that never existed and who always looked exactly the same
year after year, always wearing the same clothes and hair-style.

The movie didn't pay very much attention to Nash's intellectual
accomplishments, the movie wasn't about that. It was primarily about
his psychological problems. I also admired the way the movie dragged
the audience into his hallucinations, making believers out of those
who were naive as to Nash's condition.
--
We usually go over the top w/ our new found freedoms.
Unfortunately, her 'followers' are as radical as Pat
Robertson's. Discernment goes out the window.
- A youtube poster