Is soft science the root of all science? Do we rely on a body of conceptual axioms for the most basic intellectual pursuits?

How can we talk of truth without implying a mind of some sort, that knows truth? And what is this mind? Is it not an object in our mind? The mind has a dream of itself.

Bear in mind that I have no mind and what you call mind, I call brain....

Can I put it another way: Brain is object, and mind is subject...

I agree. So we must use words to describe the mind. We paint a word picture of it. This word-picture plugs into questions of truth and reality.

We are forced to be psychologists to some degree if we want to play philosopher. We at least take a mental-model of the psyche for granted....

Psychi is a mental model, and as a moral form is a spiritual conception of both mind and mankind...

Hmmm. So we agree.

I don't have a psyche either, an ego, an id, super ego or a soul... Have fun with it and your divided mind...Your abstractions do not make the thing...First prove the thing...Ken you do it???

Good. We agree on that too.

Then you might agree that it is not the abstraction of reality that is real, but the reality...

I suppose I would. If I understood it.

You two must be related! It's always nice to have someone agree with you. I have noticed the thanks you two offer in relation to the posts you each have written. It se seems...............................naw; Merry Christmas to each of you.

William

I never agree with my relations. That is why I have friends. Happy Christmas.

Here is a clue: We understand reality by way of our abstractions of it, and mind, psyche, Ego, Id, Super Ego, Quepassaam ego and etc.. are abstraction that help us to understand the nature of nature...Numbers are such an abstraction, and they help you to understand...The pythagorians thought numbers the only reality because they were the measure of everything...But they are only another form of abstraction...If all reality depended upon a concept or idea to be formed of it to be real then reality would never exist beyond our sight... We presume a reality because our senses say it exists, and no action of mind can deny it... So we conceive of reality abstractly as all we cannot deny, and that is a certain being...You must see that moral concepts do not point to a verifiable existence...People who believe in God do not believe in God because they want to...They believe because they cannot deny, and then they conceive of what they believe as real, but that -only- Means it (God) is real, and yet, it is meaning, without being...If it were objectively true it is because no one would deny it...Abstractions do not make reality and they do not make it what it is...If they are true abstractions it is because they faithfully represent the subject reality...

Thanks Ken and you make a good point. Those that are the closest to is, it is more difficult for them to see us as we effort to better ourselves. The remember too much and witnessed that journey we were on to forget the worse they have seen in us. We do that because it helps us live with the worse of ourselves. Being better at who we are takes courage and most ffind making excuses much easier.

It is not a change I speak but an enhancement as we grow. If it is true in what they say about Christ as he was not such a big hit at home and it is because of that he never preached there. It was those he did not know that heard the message it is said that he said. No strings attached. His words were a gift to those who did not know him and he ask for nothing in return for he knew it was best that way, not only for him but for others too.

For those of you who have not read Du Bois's SOUL'S OF BLACK FOLK, I urge you read it if you can leave any prejudice you may have away from it. What it says as he efforts to understands the divide between the black and the white can be said of any two cultures evolved different and then suddenly together. In essence he is saying in regards to ethnic purity it is indeed difficult for anyone who recognizes a strength in another not like himself, his peers rather than to see change will effort to hold him back and keep him down so they do not feel so all alone and guilty in that; for they have become accustom to that and feel safe in that.

I, too, was that way once and did not like myself for it. So I change in effort to understand why I thought that way and was better that I did effort to understand.

Today I have a grand daughter and it is in the observance of her I am glad I did because now I see what it all means. She is part black and white and what a truly beautiful soul she is; much better than the two that created her. Wow! Her father is not present in her life and if he could only observe her as I observe her, he would regret that fact that he is not present and would indeed suffer because of it. Sad !!!

We are no different when it comes to those we are the most familiar with like a family is. As I said those who are close remember to much and since they do not effort to enhance themselves and make excuses for the errors they know themselves they have made they remind us of our trangressions so they do not lose that they think is closest to them.

So yes Ken, I understand exactly what you mean when you say what you do as it relates to relatives. I hope you do to now. Thanks for reading.

William

To say that we live in the real and not in abstractions is to speak abstractly. To speak philosophically at all is to speak abstractly. To curse abstractions, one must understand the abstraction "abstractions."
Whether an abstraction is necessary or not is a matter of taste and persuasion.
Whether one likes Freud's or Maslow's or Grandpa's conception of the mind is not the important thing. What I'm interested in is how important it is for all of us to conceive of mind, to have a conception of mind.

This has been especially important in predicting the behavior of other humans. Are they lying to us? Can we trust them? We speculate on the decision-making and deception-making device within them, their "minds." To speak of mind at all is to speak abstractly.

Why do you think primitives prized and protected their own names??? Their power to evoke the thing in nature filled them with horror... What if another should do to them as they did to nature after invoking her??? The name for us is the concept, its identity...To master concepts and abstraction is to see all with a second sight...Without knowing what we are seeing we are blind to it...And abstraction is like anything else, that it must suffer the principal of sufficient reason..If there is sufficient reason it is necessary...Schopenhaur said: Rational knowledge (wissen)is then all abstract knolwedge, -that is, the knowledge that is peculiar to the reason as distinguisihed from the understanding...(experience, practical knowledge) ...Taste and persuasion has nothing to do with it...If we must know, we will know abstractly... Let us make certain of what we know... Our abstractions are not just knowledge because we can abstract, because we can abstract the sum of our fears or faith for nothing... Rather, an abstraction is the sum of what a person knows about a given subject...The abstract cat does not catch mice, but is the knowldge that cats catch mice along with every true statement that man can make of cats...

How would you explain all the disagreement in the world, then? I've seen a thousand human beings and thousand viewpoints, however occasionally similar.

Recon, in all due respect the word "abstract" is one of those words that has little meaning to most simply because it has so many different meanings. Due to that it is difficult for many to understand the context of what you are saying here, myself included, and it is difficult to attach real meaning to it. What is mind is real, many just have a hard time defining it in such a way that most will agree with.

The mind is everything, for without it we are nothing. Many say memory and mind are the same. They are not. Life as we know it now and the 60 or 70 or 80 years that we can call on memory, is but a "parenthesis" in the all of what we were and the mind is what connects the past to the present and what is harmonious now to what we experience that was harmonious then and what we can offer of that to the now that will build a harmonious future. What is not harmonious in all that is lost in death.

Now that is my interpretation and humble it is. It makes sense to me and until a better one comes along that I can understand, I will stick with it. You, perhaps are saying the same thing? I don't know and that is why using words such as abstract are difficult for many to get meaning from.

I have seen abstract art and I think it a waste. The Geffen offering I brought to this forum is evidence of such waste as he paid $130,000,000 for a Pollard piece of nothing called "art". Damn! Yes, I will agree it is the right of the artist to offer what is their expression of what life is, but if most cannot not relate to it or understand it, what good is it? :perplexed:

William

Every perception of self interest is different...Every experience of culture, which is knowledge is different...And our forms tend to entrench us in our beliefs... They exist to resist change, and inevitably end resisting truth...