tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7518333375761044512.post2896276572782270943..comments2024-03-28T00:25:53.266-07:00Comments on A Cosmist Manifesto: First, Second, ThirdBen Goertzelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01289041122724284772noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7518333375761044512.post-10086512937290432362010-05-20T14:16:22.671-07:002010-05-20T14:16:22.671-07:00In an article on personhood theory, I referred to ...In an article on personhood theory, I referred to Neo-Kantian interpretations of mind (described by some as an "abstract-level functionalism"). At an abstract level, reflective consciousness would require what Kant called "acts of judgment" on "sensory appearances." Kant claims that, "Without sensibility no object would be given to us, and without understanding none would be thought. Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind." (Critique of Pure Reason, A 51 = B 75). However, such functions may be carried out via the same representational AND interpretive neural network activity (e.g. in transiently stable oscillations).<br /><br />On such interpretations, it seems that Peirce's "secondness" or "reaction" might be thought of as mere unpatterned interaction that also is implicitly non-reflective, while "thirdness" or "relationship" could include non-reflective patterned interaction as well as reflective patterns of interaction, including cognition. <br /> <br />I think it is important to note that even deep meditative trances are only experienced as "firstness" or "pure being" via reflective patterned relationships in the realm of "thirdness" (cognitive and non-cognitive models of reality including the self and its environment, such as the act of breathing or the act of concentrating on nothing). Non-thirdness experiences of firstness would be the absence of patterned mental relationship "experienced" (or rather "lacking experience") in deep sleep or other forms of complete unconsciousness.navel gazerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00479374367518175587noreply@blogger.com