Chair
To point and say chair requires a much different kind of effort than explaining what chair means.
If one were to point at a certain physical object in reality and then simply uttered the sound visually symbolized as chair, one’s purpose for uttering that sound would be sensually known. Another would know what it is one was talking about. The other would know the meaning of and purpose for one’s creation of the sound visually symbolized as chair.
In this specific instance, one would be acting in a manner similar to the other high-functioning animals. One would simply be vocally symbolizing the physical existence of the object one’s brain is conscious of.
If, however, that object is not within the sensual range of the other’s brain, then one would need to explain why one was uttering the sound visually symbolized as chair. This requires an effort of a very different kind.
Therefore, prior to being able to explain anything, I must first explain why the audio/visual symbol explanation exists. I will begin with the audio/visual symbol know and then progress the discussion through validate and then through understand to finally end up at explanation.
Know
For others to know what you know requires that their brain is also being sensually stimulated by what its physical existence is.
Knowing is that automatically occurring sensual response between two objects when at least one of these objects is a brain. Knowing that a physical something exists cannot be avoided, controlled, influenced, or in any other way manipulated. But it can be denied.
Denial of what is known is a psychological issue and, as such, is outside the philosophical focus of this book.
Try this “knowing” test. Look at a real physical something, an object in reality. Then, without doing anything else, don’t know it. Don’t know that it actually does exist in a real physical way. It is impossible to “not-know” that a real physical something exists.
To know that a physical something exists is the first, the primary, requirement of being able to explain what it is and how it relates to the known existence of oneself.
When one says one knows something, one is saying that that something actually does physically exist and that any other person can also know it. If that something is not within the sensual range of the other’s brain, then one has the responsibility of validation.
Validate
To validate that what one is saying is rational requires that another’s brain is able to know that it does physically exist.
To validate means to be able to know. Validation is the ability of one’s brain to sensually observe that which is claimed to exist in a physically sensual way—and it is the requirement that another’s brain is able to sensually know that it does physically exist.
For example, if one were to claim, “There is a large orange orangutan riding around on a unicycle outside this room,” validating that claim as rational requires that its claimed physical existence is able to be known—that is, able to be sensually observed.
To validate that what one (or another) is saying is rational, one (or the other) must be able to go outside the room and sensually observe that which is claimed to exist there.
The requirement is that there actually is “a large orange orangutan riding around on a unicycle outside this room.” It must actually physically exist, otherwise the claim stating it does exist cannot be validated and the claim reverts to noise.
Absent the ability to validate a claim as rational, one has no option but to consider the claimant to be mistaken, is a liar, is delusional, or perhaps is a believer in the validity of that claim only because it was made by someone he or she trusts.
The ability to understand what it is that is being claimed to exist is a more fundamental and is, therefore, a more important issue.
Understand
For another to understand what one is saying requires that his or her mind is able to conceptually imagine what its physical existence would need to be if it were to be sensually known to exist.
Did you notice how our focus has changed from brain orientation to mind orientation with this last comment?
Note: It is not proper to claim that a mind is or can be sensually known to exist. This is because such a claim implies the physical existence of a real object. When we use the audio/visual symbol mind, what we are talking about is a specific type of functionality of the human brain. Importantly, no other animal has demonstrated the human brain functionality termed mind.
To this point, we have been dealing with brain consciousness. Brain consciousness requires that a brain is being physically stimulated. Brain consciousness involves sensually knowing that a physical something exists. Sensual brain knowing is a prerequisite of that same brain becoming factually conscious of what it sensually knows to exist. Evidence of factual consciousness is called an image—a brain-image.
When discussing the idea visually symbolized as understand, we must transition from brain orientation to mind orientation; that is, from brain consciousness to mind awareness. Where consciousness deals with the factual nature of brain-sensing, awareness deals with the true nature of mind-perception. In other words, we transition from the factual nature of brain-sensing through the true nature of conscious imaging to the perceptual nature of mind-understanding. We demonstrate perceptual understanding whenever we explain the true nature of that which our brain is factually conscious of.
Where brain consciousness is dependent on the factual nature of brain stimulation, resulting in that factual brain stimulation being ‘truthfully’ imaged, mind awareness is dependent on the true nature of conscious brain imagining, resulting in that true brain-image becoming perceptually identified. It is “perceptualized identity” that a mind uses to understand the absolute nature of human nature and that upon which its happy existence depends.
Where consciousness is the ability of a brain to create a true image of that which is physically stimulating it (that which it sensually knows to exist), understanding is the ability of that brain’s mind function to perceptually identify (that is, to purposefully create the identity of) whatever its brain is able to consciously create a true image of.
Where brain sensing is an objectively focused idea, brain consciousness is a factually focused idea. Where perceptual identification is an image-focused idea, rational understanding is an identity-focused idea. The point of commonality between brain and mind functions is identity. Where the objects of reality are sensed by innate brain functions, their identity is perceived by its purposeful mind functions. In other words, one’s own identity is not automatically sensed by one’s conscious brain, it is purposefully created by one’s perceptual mind.
Note that it is the objects of reality that are sensed by a brain to become the facts resulting from that brain’s physical experiences. Those facts are what consciousness converts into a true image of whatever is responsible for them. Since that brain’s images are constructed of fact, then, they are considered to be a true mental representation of that which is responsible for causing those facts to exist.
The primary function of a brain is to convert what it factually knows to exist into a true image of that which is responsible for bringing that fact into existence. The primary function of a mind is to convert the true nature of brain consciousness into the rational nature of mind-understanding.
Rational understanding cannot exist in the absence of perceptualized identity, which cannot exist in the absence of true imaging, which cannot exist in the absence of factual stimulation, which cannot exist in the absence of the absolute nature of physical reality.
Sensual knowing takes place between a brain and another physical object, whereas rational understanding takes place within that same brain’s mind function. What a brain factually senses the existence of is called an object of reality; what its mind rationally understands the existence of is called its perceptualized identity. Notice how an object’s identity does not exist in a real physical way. It exists in an abstract mental way—meaning its identity is purposefully created from what a brain factually knows to exist. It is in this way that identity is said to be objective, because it is created from the absolute nature of the physical existence of the objects of reality.
For a brain to create a true image of a real object requires that its physical nature exists within that brain in a specific kind of way, as the facts of which the true nature of its brain-image ultimately consists. For that same brain’s perceptual-mind function to identify what its brain has consciously created a true image of requires that the image exists in a specific kind of way, as the information of which its identity ultimately consists. When this is the case, that brain’s mind function is then able to abstract information from its identity and use it to construct the rational nature of the concepts upon which its intelligence depends.
The previous is saying that a concept is the epistemological concomitant of the metaphysical nature of an object. It is as if they exist as one and the same. Objects exist physically; the concepts resulting naturally from them exist rationally. Concepts cannot exist in the absence of the absolute nature of the physical objects upon which their rational nature depends.
An example: The rational nature of the audio/visual symbol chair is not the same as the physical nature of the object upon which its rational nature depends. Chair is merely the audio/visual symbol created to denote the physical existence of a specific real object. Chair is rational because it denotes physical reality. Its definition describes what it is and how one is related to it. In other words, it is the definition of the audio/visual symbol chair that is its conceptual aspect. Again, chair is not conceptual, its definition is. There are audio/visual symbols like large that are conceptual. These will be discussed later under the appropriate section.
For now, we must simply acknowledge that for others to understand what one is talking about requires that the concepts necessary for their understanding to take place must preexist in their mind. In this case: The concepts of large, orange, orangutan, riding, unicycle, outside, and room must preexist in their mind.
When this is the case, these concepts can be recalled by their mind and used to imagine (re-perceive) and thereby understand what their brain must become factually conscious of when it is taken outside the room to validate whether what one is saying is rational—whether it was constructed from what one’s brain sensually knows to be the case.
The other’s mind compares what its brain has become conscious of with that which it has imagined (re-perceived) it must sensually observe. When these agree—when the factual nature of brain consciousness agrees with the abstract nature of that which its mind has imagined—then that other’s mind has confirmed that one’s claim was rationally constructed.
Understanding the conceptual structure of intelligence is the prerequisite of one being able to use one’s intelligence to formulate a rational explanation.
Explain
For others to explain what one is talking about requires that their mind is able to think about what that requires of it.
Their mind must think about, and be able to explain, the requirement that the concepts necessary for their understanding to take place must preexist within their mind. They must be able to explain that when this is the case, then their mind is able to understand what it is one is talking about.
Their mind must think about, and be able to explain, the requirement that to validate whether what one is saying is rational, what one is claiming to be the case must actually physically be the case. They must be able to explain that when this is the case, then another’s brain can know what it is one is talking about and thereby validate one’s claim as rational.
Their mind must think about, and be able to explain, the requirement that for another to know what one knows requires their brain is also being physically stimulated by what one’s brain sensually knows is the case.
Since I will expect you, when you finish reading this book, to be able to explain God, then I must cause you to have a godly experience, or I must cause you to recall a godly experience.
The necessitated rational thinking is your responsibility.
I cannot cause you to think rationally and thereby learn how to explain God or anything else.
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