Dilemma of beginning of time

[Logik]

Thirst is very different in that it is the brain (sensors in the hypothalamus) that measures the bloods concentration of sodium etc.. and when found as been lacking certain substances are emitted that stimulate the urge to drink.

I can experience muscles contracting in the stomach - I also experience thoughts arising stating "I am hungry!" - If this qualifies as "experiencing hunger", then, yes, sure... but you see what this experience is made of, right? Physical sensations plus thought.

You are cherry-picking. Tackle both hunger AND thirst.

hunger = touch + thought
thirst = X + thought.

What is X?

Everything you can experience is whatever is being sensed via seeing, hearing, touch, smell, taste plus thought.

We haven't yet agreed to this premise... This is literally what we are busy discussing now.

Which sense is "thirst"?

What the senses and thought have in common is that both are being experienced.

Whereas the huge difference between the senses and thought...

Strawman. You aren't answering the question I asked: How would you empirically determine the difference between "experience" and a "sensation"?

You are addressing the distinction between senses and thought.

But since you have put your foot in your mouth again. What do you call that which experiences thought?
And if thought is being experiences then is thought empirical?

Simply look at your direct experience before thought and then compare it to what thought makes of it.

And what faculty would you use to do THAT?

[AlexW]

OK... cherry picking strawman back to answer your questions:

We haven't yet agreed to this premise... This is literally what we are busy discussing now.

Which sense is "thirst"?

You know, it actually doesn't matter how many senses you think you can identify - if you think you have a specific thirst-sensor thats fine with me (I would actually place it into the touch plus thought category, just like hunger, but it doesn't really matter).
Its really only about what is being directly experienced and what is being added via thinking (and being aware of the difference)

How would you empirically determine the difference between "experience" and a "sensation"?

You are addressing the distinction between senses and thought.

If you would have read (and thought about) my answer properly I guess you might have understood, but I am happy to clarify again:
Everything you can experience is whatever is being sensed via seeing, hearing, touch, smell, taste (add your favourite new sense) plus thought.
This implies that experience (how I define it) contains all sensual perception as well as thought.

And what faculty would you use to do THAT?

I would call it awareness or consciousness (or Self) but you can use whatever word you like.

[Logik]

You know, it actually doesn't matter how many senses you think you can identify - if you think you have a specific thirst-sensor thats fine with me (I would actually place it into the touch plus thought category, just like hunger, but it doesn't really matter).
Its really only about what is being directly experienced and what is being added via thinking (and being aware of the difference)

I am perfectly OK with this, but you also said this: What the senses and thought have in common is that both are being experienced.

So thought is an experience.

What is it being experienced by?

I would call it awareness or consciousness (or Self) but you can use whatever word you like.

So consciousness experiences thought?

Therefore thought is empirical as far as consciousness is concerned?

We ended up here by you saying "Conventionally yes, sure I experience gravity when skydiving, but when really inquiring into this direct experience you will find that this is ultimately not true."

So you experience thought but don't directly experience gravity. OK!

Is your experience of thought direct or indirect?

[AlexW]

So consciousness experiences thought?

As long as we discuss this in a way that we objectify consciousness (which is really only a crux as consciousness is not a thing) you could say so, yes, but it doesn’t experience the conceptual content.
A thought is known, like sound is known, but the things/ideas thought references can not be known directly (by consciousness) they “exist” only as ideas, as concepts, they are ultimately not real.
Ultimately everything that is known/experienced directly IS consciousness itself, there really is no separate consciousness experiencing a separate thought. Thought is consciousness, but what thought seems to contain, its ideas and beliefs are pure imagination (not saying that they are not handy, but they can also be very misleading)

[Logik]

As long as we discuss this in a way that we objectify consciousness (which is really only a crux as consciousness is not a thing)

Lets not muddy the water with yet more distinctions like objective/subjective and thing/non-thing.
Lets stick to yes/no questions and see where we get to.

I would say that 'consciousness' is a concept. Do you agree?

Consciousness is that which experiences thought.

you could say so, yes, but it doesn’t experience the conceptual content.

So you are saying that thoughts and concepts are different things.

Could you give me examples of each?

Would you say 'consciousness' is a thought or a concept?

A thought is known, like sound is known, but the things/ideas thought references can not be known directly (by consciousness) they “exist” only as ideas, as concepts, they are ultimately not real.
Ultimately everything that is known/experienced directly IS consciousness itself, there really is no separate consciousness experiencing a separate thought. Thought is consciousness, but what thought seems to contain, its ideas and beliefs are pure imagination (not saying that they are not handy, but they can also be very misleading)

Now you are just muddying the water...

If something experiences thought then to that something thought is empirical.
If consciousness experiences thought then thought is empirical to consciousness.
If thought is an experience - is it a direct or an indirect experience?

You claim to be able to draw a distinction between direct and indirect experiences in your claim that "Conventionally yes, sure I experience gravity when skydiving, but when really inquiring into this direct experience you will find that this is ultimately not true."

I do not know how you have made that assertion.

[surreptitious57]

Thoughts are a sub set of consciousness : all thoughts come from consciousness but not all consciousness comes from thoughts
For sometimes consciousness will not be experiencing thought because either no thought exists or the thought is sub conscious

Consciousness is not a concept because a concept is an idea with some logical foundation and consciousness is a physical process
And the difference between a concept and a thought is that a thought does not automatically have to have any logical foundation

So concepts are a sub set of thought : all concepts are thoughts but not all thoughts are concepts

The experiencing of thought by any mind or minds is not empirical because it cannot be subject to the rigour of the scientific method
And the reason for this is that the scientific method has not developed any means that would make telepathy experimentally possible

This is why lie detectors are not admissible in court because they are very unreliable and can actually be manipulated

I am now thinking of a number between I and I00 : how would you determine using only the scientific method what that number is
You would not be able to of course and it is why it is wrong to make the claim that the experience of thought is actually empirical

Science is only concerned with observable phenomena but the mind cannot be observed in the same way that external objects can

[Logik]

I am now thinking of a number between I and I00 : how would you determine using only the scientific method what that number is
You would not be able to of course and it is why it is wrong to make the claim that the experience of thought is actually empirical

It's empirical to you.

The fact that the contents of your mind are private to me doesn't diminish that fact that your thoughts can be subjected to empiricism by you.
It simply means that I have no access to them. There's a firewall ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firewall_(physics) ) between me and your thoughts.

Yes, science mandates reproduction, but reality doesn't give a fuck what we mandate.

The fact that I can't determine that you are thirsty does not mean you are not thirsty.
It means that this question is outside the scope of science.

All science is empiricism.
All empiricism is not science.

[bahman]

Thoughts are a sub set of consciousness : all thoughts come from consciousness but not all consciousness comes from thoughts
For sometimes consciousness will not be experiencing thought because either no thought exists or the thought is sub conscious

Consciousness is not a concept because a concept is an idea with some logical foundation and consciousness is a physical process
And the difference between a concept and a thought is that a thought does not automatically have to have any logical foundation

So concepts are a sub set of thought : all concepts are thoughts but not all thoughts are concepts

The experiencing of thought by any mind or minds is not empirical because it cannot be subject to the rigour of the scientific method
And the reason for this is that the scientific method has not developed any means that would make telepathy experimentally possible

This is why lie detectors are not admissible in court because they are very unreliable and can actually be manipulated

I am now thinking of a number between I and I00 : how would you determine using only the scientific method what that number is
You would not be able to of course and it is why it is wrong to make the claim that the experience of thought is actually empirical

Science is only concerned with observable phenomena but the mind cannot be observed in the same way that external objects can

How what you said is related to OP?

[AlexW]

So you are saying that thoughts and concepts are different things.

Could you give me examples of each?

No, thoughts are always conceptual.

What I am saying is that you can experience thought, you can know the conceptual idea it contains, but you can not know/experience the thing it seems to be referring to.

Thats why I said:

You claim to be able to draw a distinction between direct and indirect experiences in your claim that "Conventionally yes, sure I experience gravity when skydiving, but when really inquiring into this direct experience you will find that this is ultimately not true."

I do not know how you have made that assertion.

When skydiving, what is known/experienced directly is a visual impression (colours moving through the visual field apparently indicating that the ground is catching up with me) as well as certain pressure (apparently from the air resisting the body moving through it).
And then I experience thought stating "I am experiencing gravity!" - I know the thought, I know the idea/concept it conveys, but I can not know where the idea/concept points to. It points to a "thing" called gravity, but as I don't have gravity sensors in my body (as far as I know) I cannot experience this thing.
Actually I can never experience a thing. I can experience/know ideas of things (=thoughts) but not the thing that is referenced - the pointer leads nowhere but again into thought. There is no direct experience of a separate thing at all - they are "thought made".
Take the thing called "apple": I experience color, certain texture, a juicy taste - I experience/know a thought "This is an apple" - but in Reality this thing, the "apple" is non-existent.

[Logik]

No, thoughts are always conceptual.

What I am saying is that you can experience thought, you can know the conceptual idea it contains.

But if you can experience thought, and thought is conceptual. Then you can experience concepts as well...

but you can not know/experience the thing it seems to be referring to.

You mean I can't imagine what chocolate cake tastes like?

Of course I can! Otherwise I wouldn't be able to tell that it is chocolate cake I am eating when I actually do it.

When skydiving, what is known/experienced directly is a visual impression (colours moving through the visual field apparently indicating that the ground is catching up with me) as well as certain pressure (apparently from the air resisting the body moving through it).
And then I experience thought stating "I am experiencing gravity!" - I know the thought, I know the idea/concept it conveys, but I can not know where the idea/concept points to. It points to a "thing" called gravity, but as I don't have gravity sensors in my body (as far as I know) I cannot experience this thing.

You don't have any thought-sensors either, but that doesn't seem to bother you?

Actually I can never experience a thing. I can experience/know ideas of things (=thoughts) but not the thing that is referenced - the pointer leads nowhere but again into thought. There is no direct experience of a separate thing at all - they are "thought made".
Take the thing called "apple": I experience color, certain texture, a juicy taste - I experience/know a thought "This is an apple" - but in Reality this thing, the "apple" is non-existent.

Blah. Your taxonomy is confusing. How do you even keep up?

When I eat an apple I don't experience experience anything about the apple.
Taste is the consequence of the apple's molecular composition interacting with my tastebuds.
Color is the consequence of light interacting with my retina.
Texture is the consequence of stimulating my tongue mechanoreceptors.

When i experience falling it's the consequence of gravity.

[AlexW]

Taste is the consequence of the apple's molecular composition interacting with my tastebuds.
Color is the consequence of light interacting with my retina.
Texture is the consequence of stimulating my tongue mechanoreceptors.

When i experience falling it's the consequence of gravity.

All this is mental deduction. What I am talking about is direct experience - there is no sign of tastebuds, retinas, mechanoreceptors or gravity in any experience. All these explanations are added at a later stage, they don't really matter, what matters is whats real, right now (not what thought might have to say about it).

You mean I can't imagine what chocolate cake tastes like?

Of course I can! Otherwise I wouldn't be able to tell that it is chocolate cake I am eating when I actually do it.

Sure you can imagine it. But when you actually taste it, the experience of taste has nothing to do with the imagination - they are two completely different experiences - one is taste the other is thought (about taste).
The recognition "this is chocolate cake" is something you have learned over time - its a pattern matching mechanism extracting certain parts of experience and labelling it "taste of cake" (via thought) - doesn't mean its the same experience

You don't have any thought-sensors either, but that doesn't seem to bother you?

You could call the brain a "thought sensor".

[Logik]

All this is mental deduction. What I am talking about is direct experience - there is no sign of tastebuds, retinas, mechanoreceptors or gravity in any experience. All these explanations are added at a later stage, they don't really matter,

But "direct experience" is also mental deduction. There is no sign of "experience" anywhere.

what matters is whats real, right now (not what thought might have to say about it).

That's just a value judgment. Why does what's "real" matter?
Also, "experience" is just what we say about what happens.

Sure you can imagine it. But when you actually taste it, the experience of taste has nothing to do with the imagination - they are two completely different experiences - one is taste the other is thought (about taste).

But they are both experiences - and that is my point.

The recognition "this is chocolate cake" is something you have learned over time - its a pattern matching mechanism extracting certain parts of experience and labelling it "taste of cake" (via thought) - doesn't mean its the same experience

Of course! Don't you think that "experience" is a pattern matching mechanism too?

All experience is information. As far as I can tell.

You could call the brain a "thought sensor".

Yes. I can and I do (not in that language, but in that concept). Which is why I can experience thoughts and gravity.

Because I can recognise consequences.

[surreptitious57]

Memorised experience that can be understood and used for future reference becomes knowledge
Experience that cannot be understood or which serves no purpose will remain as just information

[AlexW]

But "direct experience" is also mental deduction. There is no sign of "experience" anywhere.

Yes

Why does what's "real" matter?

It doesn't.

Also, "experience" is just what we say about what happens.

Yes - if you wish we can replace "experience" with "what happens"

But they are both experiences - and that is my point.

Sure - but the issue is that people believe they can experience what the concept is pointing to, which they cant.

All experience is information. As far as I can tell.

OK

Yes. I can and I do (not in that language, but in that concept). Which is why I can experience thoughts and gravity.

No, you can experience thought, but not the thing it points to.
Why: because ultimately there are no things - and yes, there is also no "experience" (in an objective way) there is simply "what is", this, "information"...
It's a bit like in a computer system: it "experiences" a flow of data, but the pictures/concepts that are pattern matched from this data are imagined/interpreted. It can't "experience" the pac-man that exist as zeros and ones in its memory banks, it only knows meaningless information - it requires an interpreter to add meaning to the zeros and ones - thought/concepts are this interpreter. Doesn't mean that ultimately the zeros and ones really have any meaning.

[Logik]

No, you can experience thought, but not the thing it points to.

This is a useless distinction.

I can experience photons (light), but not the thing that reflected them.
I can experience the chemical reaction of 'sweetness' but not the thing that triggered it.

We are all prisoners of our senses.

That isn't the question we are struggling with.

The question is: how many different sensations can you distinguish from one another?

Why: because ultimately there are no things - and yes, there is also no "experience" (in an objective way) there is simply "what is", this, "information"...
It's a bit like in a computer system: it "experiences" a flow of data, but the pictures/concepts that are pattern matched from this data are imagined/interpreted. It can't "experience" the pac-man that exist as zeros and ones in its memory banks, it only knows meaningless information - it requires an interpreter to add meaning to the zeros and ones - thought/concepts are this interpreter.

I can agree with that. Consciousness is that which decides and recognizes differences and similarities.

Differences and similarities between what? Any two notions/concepts/things/experiences.

Are experiences and thoughts the same or different? I assume they are the same. Until a useful distinction is drawn.

Doesn't mean that ultimately the zeros and ones really have any meaning.

They do have meaning!
1 means Yes.
0 means No.

Am I alive? 1!
Am I experiencing thirst? 1!
Am I experiencing heat? 1!
Am I experiencing gravity? 1!
Is the taste of this thing the same as the taste of that thing? 0!
Is consciousness the same as experience? Don't know. It may or may not be.

The hardest problem is understanding the question.