Berkeley's Idealism

[Neo-Scholastic]

There seems to be certain ambiguity in the use of the word "form" - previously used as ideal form and now being used as equivalent of an abstract.

Yes, I’m aware of that. My intention is to bring our language and the terms we use closer to a mutual understanding of meaning. Where this occurs I will try to be clear about it.

Getting to the argument - yes, a concrete has both formal and substantial attributes, but it is only the substantial that is inherent to it. The formal attributes are the consequence of perception as abstraction of the given concrete. These two cannot be "found" independent of each other, because the very act of "finding" results in formal attribution.

In your writing you make a distinction between ‘concrete’ and ‘abstract’. For me this is a problem. It suggests that ‘concrete’ means an actual real thing as opposed to ‘abstract’ which means something that is only apparent and thus not ‘real’. Thus when I hear ‘concrete’ I think of a ‘thing’, something that exists. Whereas, you seem to use ‘concrete’ as synonymous with ‘substance’.

To my thinking the formal and the substantial are both attributes of the ‘concrete’ real thing. Confronted with a real thing, we perceive that it has a form and we also perceive that it has a substance. Form by itself does not make a thing real until fleshed out by substance. Likewise, substance by itself does not make a real thing unless it takes on a form. Even at the smallest scales of reality, we infer both s&f from the quark’s existence. I disagree with the physicist that said, “reality is just structured nothingness.” Out of nothing, nothing comes, etc.
Here I’m using the terms ‘form’ and ‘substance’ very loosely, because I see both as having relative meanings rather than absolute ones depending on scale (cosmic, everyday, microscopic, sub-atomic, etc.) Likewise, I use the terms ‘form’ and ‘abstract’ loosely as well for roughly the same reason.

…you are mistaken in that every abstraction would therefore have a concrete. That's because there is another way abstractions can be created - from preexisting abstractions. For example, from my perceptions I've got abstract concepts about my body, my arms etc. Similarly, from observing the birds, I've concepts about their wings. Now, within abstraction, I can imagine myself with wings, flying through the air, but this is an abstraction without any concrete counterpart.

Consistent with my terminology, a fantastic thought, is still a real thing, i.e. a thought. In objective reality, the thought manifests itself as a formal state in the brain’s substance. Researchers recognize this when they look at an MRI and observe the retrieval of a memory or other mental activity. The person getting the MRI has a much different view. For the person various experiences collected into the impression of their grandmother, for example. In my terminology, experiences correspond with the substance of a memory and the impression with the form of a memory. How I think these conjoin I’ll explain below.

…The example I like to use here is that of a clock … [the] arrangement of components in a particular way is capable of resulting in attributes that cannot be found in any of the components themselves. These are referred to as emergent properties.
In the clock example, the emergent property is a function. Functionalism explains the emergence of objective abilities of the brain once critical levels of order and complexity have been reached. As such, it only describes cascades of physical events, like translating electromagnetic waves into the brain states that prompt animals to react. Functionalism provides no mechanism whereby actual sensation can enter into or influence the causal chain of events. It’s a hollow victory. You get all the behaviors of being alive, but not any of its feeling.

[quote='genkaus' pid='259428' dateline='1332401734']Here we reach an irreconcilable difference. I do not consider consciousness or self-awareness to be self-evident…

Perhaps you are right about it being an irreconcilable difference. I think we’re both in good company. Respected thinkers come down on both sides of the issue. Or we might not be as far apart as would seem on first blush. Going back to our earlier posts, we came to agreement on what constitutes a fact.

Scientifically, what is observed is a fact. It requires no further proof, it is self-evident.…In layman's terms, observation identifies facts.

(emphasis mine)
In light of that agreement, I’d like to re-examine your comments about the self-evidence of self-awareness and consciousness.

It is the knowledge of your existence that is the consequence of your thought - not your existence itself. Thus, your role of a conscious self-aware being is not self-evident, but contingent.

Here I want to avoid the inherent vagueness of ‘consciousness’ and ‘self-awareness’. Each of us observes the contents of consciousness, our own subjective sensations and perceptions. Experiences themselves are facts, even if what the experiences represent are only fantasies, and are thus self-evident, not contingent.

… for this hypothesis to be reasonable, you should show that the proposed ideal form could exist - not that it does, but that it is possible.

Following up on a earlier promise: In my terminology, experiences correspond with the substance of a memory and the impression with the form of a memory. How I think these conjoin I’ll explain below.
I envision reality extending along a line from the infinite to the infinitesimal. On the infinite end of the line you have one Ideal Form, the complete form of the totality. As you move along the scale, away from the infinite toward the infinitesimal, you get various lesser forms made of compound substances. At the far end of the scale sits primal matter, the irreducible infinitesimal substance of the totality.
Since, in my view, functional descriptions of interactions at scales between the everyday and quantum level, do not support subjective experiences, I predict a finer scale of materiality that has fundamental proto-conscious properties. A pan-psychic substance such as this would conjoin with forms of subjective experience to become real things.
Now I’m ready to follow-up with the promised reply to your comment in an earlier post: "Since perceptions are all what are required to create abstracts, perceived demarcation is quite enough to classify distinct objects” – genkaus.

At the everyday scale, we recognize real things composed of everyday substances, like wood, and everyday forms, like chairs. Everyday things are recognizes by comparing them real things at the microscopic scale. I use the analogy of weights and measures. An official set of ‘true’ weights and measures serves as the basis by which all other weights and measures. All other weights and measures are considered ‘true’ only so far as they accurately reflect the properties of their official versions. Correspondences between the formal state of the brain’s substance (the official standard) allows us to recognize things at the everyday scale (various examples of the official standard). I assume that parallel processing at neural scale is sufficient to provide a demarcation point when that point of demarcation occurs at the everyday scale.

So far so good, nothing another forum member would call “woo”.

The problem I see that needs a hypothesis is this. The brain continually adapts the connections between neurons into new shapes that encode a real official standard that expands or adjusts when we are presented with an outlying example, one not already reflected in the neural model of reality. For example, from childhood we learn to identify dogs after repeated exposure to various kinds of dogs. Once that neural model has been formed (by the process I’m trying to describe) the child compares new particulars against the model. Four legs and a tail, check. Floppy ears, check. Etc. How does the brain know to adjust the model or form new categories when confronted with an outlier like a three-legged dog? I’m saying that the brain compares its neutrally encoded model with an “official standard” that exists at a different scale than the everyday, relationships (forms) encoded in larger composite substances, like a community.

This is as far as I’ve gotten with this line of inquiry respecting demarcation points, etc. From here it’s uncharted territory to me.