[MD] Percepts and Concepts

[Ham Priday]

[Krimel, on 7/5]:

> I really don't have the patience to sort through all of your issues, Ham.
> If Dave is stuck making arguments from the 1800s yours date from
> circa 1300. More happened to change human consciousness in the
> past century than in all of history before it. Regressing to the ideas of
> centuries past will not help us move into the future.

Changes in human consciousness (perception?) may be for the better or the 
worse, but it isn't necessarily wisdom.  Certainly if we do not learn from 
the past we lessen our understanding, but I am not one who believes that 
metaphysical insight becomes outmoded by the passing of time or evolutionary 
changes in society's worldview -- even if it's called "progressive".  .

> The only subjective experiences I can have are mine. I am the ONLY
> subject from this metaphysical point of view. You are an object,
> external to me and any speculation about your internal states is no less
> external to me than speculation about the consciousness of a tree or
> an iron filing.

No disagreement there.

> The plural use of the word subject in SOM is unintelligible.

It's a dialectical inconvenience but not unintelligible, provided you have 
an ontogeny that accounts for multiplicity and diversity.  The 
sensibility/otherness dichotomy of Essentialism is one such ontogeny.

> I am not an academician but I do reject those terms as fit only for
> fantasy and fiction. Speculation without the possibility of resolution
> is just mental masturbation. Certainly philosophy includes a lot of that,
> apparently you can get a degree in it from Colorado.

> So you live in a place so befuddled by the Raygun revolution that
> you can't even raise taxes to celebrate national holidays. That is sad.
> If everyone in your town can afford HDTV's sufficient to make
> watching fireworks meaningful, I would think you could jack your
> millage rate a fraction of a percent and celebrate like real Americans.

Good point.  I suppose I should to take this matter up with our local tax 
collector.
Meantime, I'm content to celebrate life without the pyrotechnics.

--Ham