RE: A Conscious Universe
January 30, 2015 at 6:50 pm
(This post was last modified: January 30, 2015 at 6:53 pm by Neo-Scholastic.)
To elaborate on my brief post earlier, many of the dilemmas and paradoxes of modern ontology stem from Locke’s conflation of sensation and ideas. Sensations are subjective.
Sensation provides the raw data for the intellect. The intellect identifies the ideas from sensible bodies by disregarding all the accidental features and abstracting out the universal ideas present in all similar things. A chicken, a condor, and a one-legged kiwi, are all birds because each embodies the idea of a bird despite the accidental features of any particular bird.
Just as particulars instantiate ideas variously, ideas instantiate in individual intellects variously. The objectivity of ideas allows multiple people to recognize similar things even if the extent of their knowledge about ideas vary. For example, both the laymen and ornithologists abstract out the universal features present in all birds to know what makes a bird a bird, i.e. the idea of a bird. However the ornothologists’ knowledge of the idea will be fuller and more nuanced. Likewise everyone’s experience with circular things is unique, whereas everyone’s idea of circularity is the same.
When people think, they think using ideas. The intellect representation is of the same idea that is universally present in all particular examples. Thus various particulars, whether embodied or in the intellect, all partake of specific universal ideas.
Sensation provides the raw data for the intellect. The intellect identifies the ideas from sensible bodies by disregarding all the accidental features and abstracting out the universal ideas present in all similar things. A chicken, a condor, and a one-legged kiwi, are all birds because each embodies the idea of a bird despite the accidental features of any particular bird.
Just as particulars instantiate ideas variously, ideas instantiate in individual intellects variously. The objectivity of ideas allows multiple people to recognize similar things even if the extent of their knowledge about ideas vary. For example, both the laymen and ornithologists abstract out the universal features present in all birds to know what makes a bird a bird, i.e. the idea of a bird. However the ornothologists’ knowledge of the idea will be fuller and more nuanced. Likewise everyone’s experience with circular things is unique, whereas everyone’s idea of circularity is the same.
When people think, they think using ideas. The intellect representation is of the same idea that is universally present in all particular examples. Thus various particulars, whether embodied or in the intellect, all partake of specific universal ideas.
