What does "external" mean?

[Kyriakos]

A philosophical question. In my view there is an issue with the following:

1) Humans grasp things either notionally or through the senses, yet both means are internal (of the specific human)
2) We have a notion of 'external', which refers to things (other people, objects, etc) which aren't part of us.

This seems to lead one to conclude that also the idea, or (alternatively) the sense, of something 'external', is itself an internal object. Ie while i view another person as not part of myself, the ability to view them as such does not seem to be based on some actual external reach of my faculties (sense or notional). Thus it would seem that the 'external' object is in reality identified as an internal object, but one with the specific meaning of 'external'.
This seems to me to be creating an infinite loop of sorts, but more importantly it would appear that there is in essence only the internal thing, yet a variation of notions which are about an internal thing can produce the effect of a notion seemingly about an external one.

Now, in reality, one logically - let alone automatically - identifies a huge number of external objects; indeed most of the objects most people deal with are identified readily as external. But my question is whether this category of external objects is merely another subset of internal objects -- and not in reference to a reality of external objects, but as a simple effect of the human mind. Ie the external is external in reality, but is internal as a notion of the thinker, and the human thinker has no access to the external itself anyway.

There is a more philosophical interest in this, for me at least: if all parts of the notion of the external are actually still internal and variations of notions of the internal, then it would seem that at some point and in some way in the human thinking you would get X becoming identified as the actual antithesis of X, and such a state would also be fundamental for the entire thinking system to sustain itself. Now at which point, and how, this happens, is an interesting issue in my view. But one has to suspect that it was caused at least partly due to a need to survive -- assuming that animism was as common in prehistory as some thinkers like to believe, at some point prehistoric humanoids would need to actually separate more drastically the realm of their own imagination with that of the dangerous beasts about to devour them.

 

[Live trash can]

I hope you forgive me I haven't read the entire post you wrote, but studying philosophy I have encountered the pair concept of externalism and internalism. I wasn't able to grasp them immediately. There is even an entire book called: Epistemology - internalism and externalism...

 

[warpus]

This seems to lead one to conclude that also the idea, or (alternatively) the sense, of something 'external', is itself an internal object. Ie while i view another person as not part of myself, the ability to view them as such does not seem to be based on some actual external reach of my faculties (sense or notional). Thus it would seem that the 'external' object is in reality identified as an internal object

Isn't this simple? You are receiving external data (i.e. light waves hitting your eyes) and build up an internal representation of what you are looking at in your brain.

But maybe I'm missing something

 

[Hrothbern]

assuming that animism was as common in prehistory as some thinkers like to believe, at some point prehistoric humanoids would need to actually separate more drastically the realm of their own imagination with that of the dangerous beasts about to devour them.

On that imagination and animism

At some point in time our brain was capable to internalise the external world by imagination.
We imagined a situation of the external world and you do things from there
Our consiousness was able to create an (internal) imagined reality differing from the actual reality at hand

My guess is that we see that reflected in old prehistoric cave paintings, where that (original) individual imagination was made tangible in a painting (with rituals ?0) transforming it to a group imagination.
A group imagination how predators or prey were killed in the past, and projecting that imagination in the future, how future kills were to be made.

Still speculative...
I think that must have been something really awesome for homo sapiens, that just started to have a primitive control over his mind by his consciousness.... that he could have an imagined other reality as well.... and share that with his group

Perhaops interesting hereby is the anekdotical story of two germans living in Namibia during WW2.
They did not want to join their fellow Germans against the English, but neither wanted to get caught by the English... and so they made the choice to flee into the deep Kalahari and live as a primitive Homo Sapiens.
In order to survive, also by hunting, they adapted to the same tactics as bushmen, camouflaging themselves, trying to crawl in the mind of the animals they had to kill.
And:
After a while their dreams were dominated by these hunting attemps.
I guess that dreaming trying to process all what they learned so far and again projecting that by imagination how to be more succesful the next hunt attempt.

Going back to prehistoric times, the old animistic hunter/gathers must most likely have dreamed a lot like that as well.... whereby for them dreams were not (we after Freud) that easy to separate from the actual and their trance like group imaginative rituals preparing for the hunt. They did not have that clear concept of consciousness like we have, Dreams... visions... group trance with a Shamaan, reality... several worlds... one big blur.
Perhaps a Shamaan someone that had a higher level of awareness moving between these worlds.

Back to topic.
I think that also we have great difficulty to separate internal from external.
Perhaps only at a nirvana enlightened moment where our consciousness has full control by serial logic.
Perhaps not even then, but only when it has been written down in a book (one purifying abstraction step further away)
So for 99.99% of the time we have the same confusion as in prehistoric times.

 

[Perfection]

Outside of your bodily orifices

 

[Kyriakos]

Isn't this simple? You are receiving external data (i.e. light waves hitting your eyes) and build up an internal representation of what you are looking at in your brain.

But maybe I'm missing something

My own issue is not with there being an external realm -- there is; well, at least in the conventional way there has to be -- but with the apparent need (due to how we operate as humans) to use internal abilities (either sensory or thought-related) to identify something as external. Thus my question is whether something caused by entirely internal ability and method, can actually be tied to something external, OR if there is no grasp of the external at all as a notion or sense, but the external is effectively a variation of the internal.
Ie my issue is not with what you said; i agree that we form a representation of the external in our mind. My issue is what this means for our notional ability, when (as i presented a bit) notions which are having to be purely internal things, seem to form a notion of a thing which by definition is set as external. Wouldn't that mean that the notion of the external is a part of the notion of the internal? Ie my question is about notions, not about there being an external and internal as things by themselves/in reality, but about notions in our mind

@Hrothbern: I think that the other way around is closer to my point, namely that the animism maybe did not actually develop from a first actual awareness of a really external (notionally external in this sense) object, but as a split from notionally internal things.
Maybe the depth of prehistory humanoid pretty much lived in a continuous dream of sorts, but imo the split happened from the inside out, not from a grasp of an outside which altered the inside. But, again, it should be clarified that i am speaking of notions, not of a reality of outside and inside (ie i too believe other people are external to myself, but the notion of external seems to be internal and a variation of the notion of the internal, thus there is an issue to be examined philosophically, imo).

 

[warpus]

My own issue is not with there being an external realm -- there is; well, at least in the conventional way there has to be -- but with the apparent need (due to how we operate as humans) to use internal abilities (either sensory or thought-related) to identify something as external. Thus my question is whether something caused by entirely internal ability and method, can actually be tied to something external, OR if there is no grasp of the external at all as a notion or sense, but the external is effectively a variation of the internal.

I honestly don't understand the problem. Let's say you are looking at an apple. It's clearly an external object, and it's clearly been reproduced in your mind given the input that your brain has received via your senses.

It exists both as an external object, as well as an internal representation of it. I don't see any contradiction or problem

 

[Kyriakos]

I honestly don't understand the problem. Let's say you are looking at an apple. It's clearly an external object, and it's clearly been reproduced in your mind given the input that your brain has received via your senses.

It exists both as an external object, as well as an internal representation of it. I don't see any contradiction or problem

Let me try to make it a little clearer (it is party my fault, but also partly the nature of the issue) :

Yes, at the level you are talking about, indeed we automatically pick up the apple as external.
But the apple, and ourselves by and large, are not what caused this to take effect; the apple is something external, and the person sensing it is a conscious observer. But that is a very high-level (as in peripheral, not core) of what is going on, while what i wrote of is about how it gets picked up as external when it is being picked up by something (the observer) which commands only notions which are formed internally. Our ideas, (eg the idea of an object, of an apple, or even the idea of external stuff in general) are by definition internal: we have notions, but those don't have to factor something outside of the mind itself, given whatever creates them (eg biology of the brain or the whole organism etc) is internal (in us). So my question is about whether it seems strange that notions that by definition are internal, leading in practice easily to the idea of something external (eg the apple) have to mean that at some point a notion which is purely internal and by extension about the internal, gets to appear to be about the external.

(sorry that this probably sounded even less clear; at least i didn't use terms like 'a priori' )

 

[Birdjaguar]

Our very idea of life is built around the idea that a living thing is separate from its environment from individual cells to whole humans. Separateness is built into our very being at every level. Cells have walls; organs have walls; creatures have skin. The notion that we are separate is fundamental. Consciousness only reinforces that notion.

 

[Hrothbern]

@Hrothbern: I think that the other way around is closer to my point, namely that the animism maybe did not actually develop from a first actual awareness of a really external (notionally external in this sense) object, but as a split from notionally internal things.
Maybe the depth of prehistory humanoid pretty much lived in a continuous dream of sorts, but imo the split happened from the inside out, not from a grasp of an outside which altered the inside. But, again, it should be clarified that i am speaking of notions, not of a reality of outside and inside (ie i too believe other people are external to myself, but the notion of external seems to be internal and a variation of the notion of the internal, thus there is an issue to be examined philosophically, imo)

agree
I guess the only criterium with that external reality... was to get internal imagination leading to evolutionary succesfull approach to the outside world... only that was relevant
all other... including the development of animism could (and guess was) more driven by internal realities.
The group trance ritual headed up by a Shamaan in that case more a process of having a kind of allignment (and also that perhaps at the minimal requirement: so not an external allignment imposeed by the group ritual on the individual, but more a shared experience of each individual's internal processes, with only shared externnal symbols).

 

[warpus]

Let me try to make it a little clearer (it is party my fault, but also partly the nature of the issue) :

Yes, at the level you are talking about, indeed we automatically pick up the apple as external.
But the apple, and ourselves by and large, are not what caused this to take effect; the apple is something external, and the person sensing it is a conscious observer. But that is a very high-level (as in peripheral, not core) of what is going on, while what i wrote of is about how it gets picked up as external when it is being picked up by something (the observer) which commands only notions which are formed internally. Our ideas, (eg the idea of an object, of an apple, or even the idea of external stuff in general) are by definition internal: we have notions, but those don't have to factor something outside of the mind itself, given whatever creates them (eg biology of the brain or the whole organism etc) is internal (in us). So my question is about whether it seems strange that notions that by definition are internal, leading in practice easily to the idea of something external (eg the apple) have to mean that at some point a notion which is purely internal and by extension about the internal, gets to appear to be about the external.

(sorry that this probably sounded even less clear; at least i didn't use terms like 'a priori' )

Are you saying that essentially there is no "internal" or "external"? Yeah, on some level that's true. I mean, a chair isn't really a "thing" per se, it's just a collection of atoms. Where is the boundary? Where is the boundary between internal and external? Is that what you're getting at?

It's interesting to think about but I still don't see any paradox or problem that needs to be solved.

 

[Kyriakos]

Are you saying that essentially there is no "internal" or "external"? Yeah, on some level that's true. I mean, a chair isn't really a "thing" per se, it's just a collection of atoms. Where is the boundary? Where is the boundary between internal and external? Is that what you're getting at?

It's interesting to think about but I still don't see any paradox or problem that needs to be solved.

I agree with that, but (my fault) it isn't what i am talking about I am certainly NOT talking about reality of external objects, let alone what material (and whether it has any fundamental and final 'atomic' element or not) constitutes them. I am talking about our (human) notions only.
Let me try again (if i fail again it was due to my fault not yours) :

The chair is identified as external. Now, it might not be different from us (if matter has qualities we currently aren't aware of, as you alluded to), but that is not the issue here. While we identify the chair as external, we have to have made use (not consciously) of some ability so as to identify it thus. Now this ability might be some mix of the senses (eg eyesight, but others would work in other cases) and the more purely mental (thoughts, ideas, notions etc). Let's assume that the chair was identified as external because we sensed it, and saw (sense) that it is outside of us. Fine up to now. BUT:
-we sensed it as something outside of us, that does explain why we had REASON to identify it as external. What it does NOT explain is HOW we had the ability to have a notion of an external in the first place, because i think it seems mostly evident that even if we had senses, and even if the chair was there, but had we not the ability to identify it as EXTERNAL, again we would have not. Ie my point is that while we can (and do) automatically identify it as external, we are not aware how that is possible. AND this brings me to the specific question in the thread:

--If one assumes that we NEED some notion of the external if we are to identify (automatically) the chair as external, and if one assumes that ANY notion is something which takes form (usually not consciously) in the mind and thus is something internal and tied to only internal other things (other notions etc), then how does it easily follow that a FULLY (or seemingly fully) internal ability and internal means and notions about only internal things, can lead to a notion of an external?

(a bit clearer now?)

The above is why my own summation (and guess; which by the way, in its more generalized form, is a known philosophical idea, and a type of so-called idealism) is that the notion of the external seems to be a type of notions of the internal. Which is a bit interesting.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Are you saying that essentially there is no "internal" or "external"? Yeah, on some level that's true. I mean, a chair isn't really a "thing" per se, it's just a collection of atoms. Where is the boundary? Where is the boundary between internal and external? Is that what you're getting at?

It's interesting to think about but I still don't see any paradox or problem that needs to be solved.

I agree. At the human level there are billions of separate/different things with internal and external points of view. At the elemental level there are about 100 different things (gold and not gold). At the quantum level maybe 12.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

 

[Kyriakos]

agree
I guess the only criterium with that external reality... was to get internal imagination leading to evolutionary succesfull approach to the outside world... only that was relevant
all other... including the development of animism could (and guess was) more driven by internal realities.
The group trance ritual headed up by a Shamaan in that case more a process of having a kind of allignment (and also that perhaps at the minimal requirement: so not an external allignment imposeed by the group ritual on the individual, but more a shared experience of each individual's internal processes, with only shared externnal symbols).

I think so too. I also am of the view that 'logic', as a particular subset of human thinking, became prominent in some part of a progression triggered by prehistoric such troubles.. At some very later point (when human thinking of this type allowed for this development) logic became examined as more of a self-serving type of thinking, but originally the vein - so to speak - or overall type of thinking termed as logical likely was another of the many types of human thinking procedures which (possibly, not sure) might include others which could have been developed at least as much (but without the benefit to live more safely/better in the prehistoric world).

To put it a bit more poetically (and to use an obscure quote by Kafka, which might not refer to this at all, but might in some degree) "Humans were forced to make discoveries".

 

[yung.carl.jung]

A philosophical question. In my view there is an issue with the following:

1) Humans grasp things either notionally or through the senses, yet both means are internal (of the specific human)
2) We have a notion of 'external', which refers to things (other people, objects, etc) which aren't part of us.

This seems to lead one to conclude that also the idea, or (alternatively) the sense, of something 'external', is itself an internal object. Ie while i view another person as not part of myself, the ability to view them as such does not seem to be based on some actual external reach of my faculties (sense or notional). Thus it would seem that the 'external' object is in reality identified as an internal object, but one with the specific meaning of 'external'.
This seems to me to be creating an infinite loop of sorts, but more importantly it would appear that there is in essence only the internal thing, yet a variation of notions which are about an internal thing can produce the effect of a notion seemingly about an external one.

Now, in reality, one logically - let alone automatically - identifies a huge number of external objects; indeed most of the objects most people deal with are identified readily as external. But my question is whether this category of external objects is merely another subset of internal objects -- and not in reference to a reality of external objects, but as a simple effect of the human mind. Ie the external is external in reality, but is internal as a notion of the thinker, and the human thinker has no access to the external itself anyway.

There is a more philosophical interest in this, for me at least: if all parts of the notion of the external are actually still internal and variations of notions of the internal, then it would seem that at some point and in some way in the human thinking you would get X becoming identified as the actual antithesis of X, and such a state would also be fundamental for the entire thinking system to sustain itself. Now at which point, and how, this happens, is an interesting issue in my view. But one has to suspect that it was caused at least partly due to a need to survive -- assuming that animism was as common in prehistory as some thinkers like to believe, at some point prehistoric humanoids would need to actually separate more drastically the realm of their own imagination with that of the dangerous beasts about to devour them.

no offense, but I think this entire post is just "Solipsism in a nutshell"

I honestly don't understand the problem. Let's say you are looking at an apple. It's clearly an external object, and it's clearly been reproduced in your mind given the input that your brain has received via your senses.

It exists both as an external object, as well as an internal representation of it. I don't see any contradiction or problem

nothing is "clear", your post is a vague summary of the scholarly consensus on internal and external representation as of anno 2018 -- our views on topics as complicated as these change radically in just a matter of decades and likely will continue to change

good example: we are now aware that many animals are capable of internal and external representation, that they can eotentially imagine themselves in a specific situation and then let that scenario play. this is rather groundbreaking stuff and people would have laughed at you had you claimed something like this a century ago.

-we sensed it as something outside of us, that does explain why we had REASON to identify it as external. What it does NOT explain is HOW we had the ability to have a notion of an external in the first place, because i think it seems mostly evident that even if we had senses, and even if the chair was there, but had we not the ability to identify it as EXTERNAL, again we would have not. Ie my point is that while we can (and do) automatically identify it as external, we are not aware how that is possible. AND this brings me to the specific question in the thread:

--If one assumes that we NEED some notion of the external if we are to identify (automatically) the chair as external, and if one assumes that ANY notion is something which takes form (usually not consciously) in the mind and thus is something internal and tied to only internal other things (other notions etc), then how does it easily follow that a FULLY (or seemingly fully) internal ability and internal means and notions about only internal things, can lead to a notion of an external?

(a bit clearer now?)

The above is why my own summation (and guess; which by the way, in its more generalized form, is a known philosophical idea, and a type of so-called idealism) is that the notion of the external seems to be a type of notions of the internal. Which is a bit interesting.

I think this is the crux of your post. It is a very wide-reaching question: How did the idea of the external itself come up and how can it be sustained when we know that really every representation is internal and we can only rely on empiricism (weak!) to "know" about the external.

 

[Birdjaguar]

--If one assumes that we NEED some notion of the external if we are to identify (automatically) the chair as external, and if one assumes that ANY notion is something which takes form (usually not consciously) in the mind and thus is something internal and tied to only internal other things (other notions etc), then how does it easily follow that a FULLY (or seemingly fully) internal ability and internal means and notions about only internal things, can lead to a notion of an external?

(a bit clearer now?)

The above is why my own summation (and guess; which by the way, in its more generalized form, is a known philosophical idea, and a type of so-called idealism) is that the notion of the external seems to be a type of notions of the internal. Which is a bit interesting.

In order to have a sense of self, we need to identify what is not self. It begins at the cellular level. Cells interact with what is outside of themselves. Mind, brain, consciousness is just a complex version of that. You are over complicating this. That is the goal of most philosophy isn't it? To make what is simple, complicated.

 

[Kyriakos]

@yung.carl.jung

^Hey, solipsism requires that (at least) one is of the view that he/she is the only person who is conscious (or even real). I am speaking of notions of external rising (it seems) from the notions of the internal. I am not claiming that external things do not exist; that is a very different issue, and for the record i would not claim they don't exist (and if they wouldn't exist i would not go about basing any such view on notions of the external in the first place ^^ )

 

[yung.carl.jung]

@yung.carl.jung

^Hey, solipsism requires that (at least) one is of the view that he/she is the only person who is conscious (or even real). I am speaking of notions of external rising (it seems) from the notions of the internal. I am not claiming that external things do not exist; that is a very different issue, and for the record i would not claim they don't exist (and if they wouldn't exist i would not go about basing any such view on notions of the external in the first place ^^ )

gotcha, I replied to your other post in an edit, that one makes the issue of the thread a lot more clear

 

[Kyriakos]

In order to have a sense of self, we need to identify what is not self. It begins at the cellular level. Cells interact with what is outside of themselves. Mind, brain, consciousness is just a complex version of that. You are over complicating this. That is the goal of most philosophy isn't it? To make what is simple, complicated.

That is the goal of philosophy only according to some american writer who drunk way too much
But, in earnest, like Warpus you are thinking that i am examining this on a different level than i am. I am not examining this on the level of whole consciousness (eg yours, or mine) reflecting on an object (eg a chair), but on the level of part of your mental world, ie your notions, being seemingly fully tied to the internal, and somehow providing a notion of an external.