Before continuing the conversation I would like to express my sincere gratitude for your willingness to participate in a truly philisophical discussion. Thank you.
So on to the issues at hand:
“Then you ...talk about forms of which those abstracts are a cruder or incomplete embodiment. If a concrete is taken as an embodiment of an abstract, then the form would be an abstract's abstract.” - genkaus
You restated that fairly well, but I meant more. A concrete, or real, thing has both formal and substantial attributes. Form and substance cannot be found independent of each other. Nevertheless we still talk about a thing’s form or a thing’s substance.
Here is what I’m asking you to do: Consider this process in light of the premise that “every form has a substance and every substance has a form.” This means, when we generalize features to create abstractions those abstractions are themselves realized as a concrete, or real, thing. The portrait is an abstraction of the person AND it is also a concrete object made of paint on canvas. The painting has both formal and substantive aspects. To extend this example, if I now make a drawing of the painting, then the drawing is an abstraction of formal features found in the concrete painting.
"Since perceptions are all what are required to create abstracts, perceived demarcation is quite enough to classify distinct objects” - genkaus
I doubt this very much but I cannot come up with the right words to express what I'm thinking. I'd like a raincheck on that one to make sure I don't set up some kind of straw man.
"You'd need to explain it a bit better on how it is self-refuting." - genkaus, refering to my dismissal of conscious experience being produced by classical electro-chemical processes.
Because classical physics operates according to deterministic principles that themselves have no experiencial component. In this scheme consciousness is an illusion produced by brain functions. The self-refuting part is that the illusion of a subjective experience is itself a subjective experience.
“The critical difference between bottom-up and top-down approach is that the bottom-up approach is more or less self-evident...Our percepts are self-evident and the abstracts derived from them are therefore justifiable. .” - genkaus
The role of the conscious observer is also self-evident. “Cognito Ergo Sum.” We must account for both the self-evident truth that we are self-aware experiencers of reality (without giving in to Idealism) and the equally self-evident truth that concrete things are made out of something (without settling for Materialism).
"To hold that position rationally, you must first justify that it is possible to view reality that way - which would require knowledge of existence of the ideal form."
To hold a position rationally does not require one to prove that it is so against all commers. All that is required is a reasonable hypothesis. The concept of ideal form only means that there is a ultimate and universal standard that informs our proximate truths just as the idea of primal matter only means that there is a universal and fundamental ground in which the various forms can manifest themselves. While such a position is not conclusive, I find it entirely reasonable.
So on to the issues at hand:
“Then you ...talk about forms of which those abstracts are a cruder or incomplete embodiment. If a concrete is taken as an embodiment of an abstract, then the form would be an abstract's abstract.” - genkaus
You restated that fairly well, but I meant more. A concrete, or real, thing has both formal and substantial attributes. Form and substance cannot be found independent of each other. Nevertheless we still talk about a thing’s form or a thing’s substance.
Here is what I’m asking you to do: Consider this process in light of the premise that “every form has a substance and every substance has a form.” This means, when we generalize features to create abstractions those abstractions are themselves realized as a concrete, or real, thing. The portrait is an abstraction of the person AND it is also a concrete object made of paint on canvas. The painting has both formal and substantive aspects. To extend this example, if I now make a drawing of the painting, then the drawing is an abstraction of formal features found in the concrete painting.
"Since perceptions are all what are required to create abstracts, perceived demarcation is quite enough to classify distinct objects” - genkaus
I doubt this very much but I cannot come up with the right words to express what I'm thinking. I'd like a raincheck on that one to make sure I don't set up some kind of straw man.
"You'd need to explain it a bit better on how it is self-refuting." - genkaus, refering to my dismissal of conscious experience being produced by classical electro-chemical processes.
Because classical physics operates according to deterministic principles that themselves have no experiencial component. In this scheme consciousness is an illusion produced by brain functions. The self-refuting part is that the illusion of a subjective experience is itself a subjective experience.
“The critical difference between bottom-up and top-down approach is that the bottom-up approach is more or less self-evident...Our percepts are self-evident and the abstracts derived from them are therefore justifiable. .” - genkaus
The role of the conscious observer is also self-evident. “Cognito Ergo Sum.” We must account for both the self-evident truth that we are self-aware experiencers of reality (without giving in to Idealism) and the equally self-evident truth that concrete things are made out of something (without settling for Materialism).
"To hold that position rationally, you must first justify that it is possible to view reality that way - which would require knowledge of existence of the ideal form."
To hold a position rationally does not require one to prove that it is so against all commers. All that is required is a reasonable hypothesis. The concept of ideal form only means that there is a ultimate and universal standard that informs our proximate truths just as the idea of primal matter only means that there is a universal and fundamental ground in which the various forms can manifest themselves. While such a position is not conclusive, I find it entirely reasonable.
