How we think

This Are the concecpts for question two which get to include on my test because I only had time for one draft not two German Idealism I

2. Explain the following notion of Kant: "Thoughts without content are void; intuitions [sensations] without conceptions, blind.” How does the process of apperception lead to the creation of schemas, and why does it lead to removing the blindness so we can organize our experience and think?

know was planning to add this to fully explain Question two

The following notion of Kant: “Thoughts without content are void; intuitions [sensations] without conceptions, blind.” can be explained by stating intuition and concepts constitutes the elements of all our cognition. Categories (priori) are empty without the necessary content of intuitions, and intuitions with the necessary conditionioning of the categories would not be cognizable, they would be blind. The priori elements (categories) are the conditions which make knowing and understanding possible. In Kant description of cognitive psychology of science he describes how we could take observations (intuitions) and come up with categories or schema like mass, velocity or sulphur and put them into mathematical forms that work in predictable ways. The theories about science are predictable, and understandable by others in part because our minds.

2b. The process of apperception lead to the creation of schemas by the faculty of understanding unites sensations into schemas or the Greek word schemata). The sensations are called intuitions. It’s only through concepts that we know anything. Being conscious of the instance and the category, or schema at the same time, identifying an instance as a member of a category is called apperception. It leads to removing the blindness, so we can organize our experiences and think. The faculty of imagination allows us to put together individual experiences, we may merely perceive things (perception); but when we recognize the schema to which the experience belongs, that when we know it to “know that we know” is apperception.

Question #9

Describe William James' 5 aspects of "the stream of consciousness." Why did James think it was necessary to replace the “storehouse of ideas” metaphor of the mind with this description of mind?

From his power points:

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For Question # 10

William James was disturbed by the lack of free will in the materialistic view of mind, yet he agreed with Darwin and knew about the then-new work on the nervous system. How did he think a materialistic Darwinian process created a brain that makes adaptive choices?

Of course James was disturbed by the lack of free will in the materialistic view of the mind. James believed very strongly that his will was free. In fact as his first act of freedom, he chose to believe his will was free.

James believed that we were born with very plastic brain made of many neurons that are not yet “committed” to a specific purpose. A Jamesian process of natural selection increases allocation of neurons in the brain to useful behaviors we do a lot, and allows comparatively less space for other things. Consciousness helps this process along. It attempts to solve the problem of how Natural Selection would build a brain that has adaptive, goal-driven consciousness.

James’ theory of “The Stream of Consciousness” is a metaphor of natural selection. The Stream stands in for variability of characteristics (thoughts produced in great, largely random variety). Attention is the mechanism of selection and the end product leaves the organism more adapted to its local environment.

Present-mindedness--there are no ideas or elements, there is only moment to moment electrical impulses in the brain, that lead to a streamlike mind

"Consciousness, then, does not appear to itself chopped up in bits. Such words as chain or train does not describe it fitly as it presents itself in the first instance. It is nothing jointed; it flows. A river, or a stream are the metaphors by which it is most naturally described. In talking of it hereafter, let us call it the stream of thought, of consciousness, or of subjective life (James, 1890/1983, p. 233)

My researched answer (the bold are from his power points):

Part 1 - Describe William James' 5 aspects of "the stream of consciousness."

The 5 aspects of “The Stream of Consciousness” “The Stream of Thought”

1. All thought is owned by some personal self. Every thought tends to be a part of a personal consciousness.

Thought tends to personal form

2. All thought, as experienced by human consciousness, is constantly in flux and never static. Within each personal consciousness thought is always changing, meaning you can’t think the same thought twice.

Thought is in constant change

3. There is an ongoing continuity of thought for every thinker as it moves from one object to another. Within each personal consciousness thought is perceived as continuous.

Thought is sensibly continuous

I forget to include the to add the fourth and 5th aspect I wrote them wrote on the test

4. Thought typically deals with objects different from and independent of consciousness itself, so that two minds can experience common objects.

It always appears to deal with objects independent of itself

5. Consciousness takes an interest in particular objects, choosing to focus on them rather than other objects. Thought is interested in some parts of these objects to the exclusion of others, and welcomes or rejects/chooses from among them.

Consciousness chooses and rejects

Part 2 - Why did James think it was necessary to replace the “storehouse of ideas” metaphor of the mind with this description of mind?

James felt the need to replace the “storehouse of ideas” metaphor with "the stream of consciousness" because he did not believe in Locke’s metaphor of “the storehouse of ideas”. Locke used the word “idea” as the most basic unit of human thought and saw the memory as a “storehouse of ideas.” James did not believe “things” were stored unconsciously in the mind

Question # 10