Types of element no doubt include sensa and percepts (do these two differ?), and processes no doubt include association and anticipation. For example, if I see a model of the Eiffel Tower in a shop window I may next recall my last visit to it, then think of the Empire State Building, then of the USA, then of Hilary Clinton, then imagine her giving an inaugural speech in the future [Ho! Ho!] and thinking about its style..
NOTE this question is only indirectly about language and is perhaps the opposite of behaviourism. And yes, it is difficult to know what someone else’s subjective world is like… What is the structure of a pet dog’s thoughts about its owner?
Who has written seriously about this?
I think your mathematical knowledge will be very useful to solve other issues...
OK -- I guess my question is just too far off the RG beaten track. Pity... JD
It has been suggested to me (outwith RG) that one answer to my question is to be found in the eminent C18 century Scottish philosopher David Hume's book "An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding", especially the early chapters called "On the origin of ideas" and "On the association of ideas". Yes.
But I believe there must be other answer texts that are more recent. Any suggestions?
Best regards
JIm
James,
The fact that we have invented words and used them and for hundred of thousand year understood each other is a testimony that we have all the same mental life and these word refer to aspect of this mental life. When I say to you: ''I see a red apple on the table in front of me''. I have no doubt that you make some sense of this sentence and that it is very much similar to the type of visual experience you have and that I have when I am in front of a table with an red apple on it. It is just common sense and doubting this basic common sense does not make any sense. So if you want to have a systematic description of our experience then open a dictionary and all these words basically systematically describe our type of experience.
Hi Louis ,,,
"We all have the same mental life" ... really? It's not just a matter of simple visual perception,. Emotions? Memories? Decision making? I have serious difficulty imagining what it is like to be, say, Donald Trump. And my own mental life changes on a 48 hour cycle (prednisolone therapy)
My question seeks an existing substantial attempted systematic ENUMERATION of TYPES of subjective mental item and process somewhat as one might attempt to enumerate the static/dynamic contents of a particular garden. (Compare Linneus?). In other words, what kinds of thing occur in the mind?! (or just X's mind?)
Surely some early non-behaviorist psychologist must have made an attempt.
Cheers
Jim
PS Most of the words in a dictionary do not , surely, describe what is in the mind. Eg "apple" refers not to a sensum but to a "real" object I/we infer to be out there in the material world. (What about Higgs Boson and such?)
PPS Like any scientist, I'm very suspicious of "common sense"....
Hi JIm,
''Most of the words in a dictionary do not , surely, describe what is in the mind. Eg "apple" refers not to a sensum but to a "real" object I/we infer to be out there in the material world.''
The word ''apple'' refers to a part of your sensorium apparatus which refers to something in the world as it appears in the sensorium and not as it is in itself. Kant 101, the undoing of the Copernitial revolution. Higgs Bosons appears in our sensorium when we built big enough instrument for amplifying traces of them that we can measured and so assimilated withing our conceptual framework which exist in our sensorium apparatus as well. Do not try to get out of your body, it is doomed to fail. Trying to be God and see the world as it is , does not work.
Louis
Hi Louis,
Actually I pretty much concur with your penultimate sentence ("Do not try to get out of your body, it is doomed to fail" -- NB I put the word apple in quotes in my last answer). But most people do seem to take the material world for granted (common sense!) AND add on other external metaphysical stuff including a choice of Gods, river spirits (my favorites) and ancestors appearing in dreams.
I still don't really have an answer to my question... I'm looking for an insightful systematic enumeration of mental phenomena as subjectively experienced. Does Kant actually provide one anywhere? Hegel? There MUST be an old fashioned psychological text...
Jim
PS By the way, what is your reaction to Gillian's Hoop as a metaphysical theory?
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Psychology