What are concepts though? They are abstract constructs meant to represent something.
They are the direct result of sensory input.
Perception IS conception. Neither can happen without the other happening. The physical sensations are literally
nothing without the cognitive conceptual response. Yet you keep telling yourself and me that the physical sensations are "real" while the cognitive responses are "abstract constructs" (meaning not really real). And this is just plain wrong. Because the physical phenomena causing the sensations and the cognitive response caused by those sensations are not ideologically divisible. The idea of a chair doesn't "represent" a chair. it IS the chair,
in our mind. No idea, no chair. No cognitive response, no
anything.
These abstractions can be used to represent physically existing things in reality or they can refer to other, more complex abstract constructions built of multiple constructs. These more complex abstractions would be considered concepts.
There are no physically existing "things" without the ideological concept of "thingness", and of physicality, and of existence vs. non-existence.
Abstractions have no properties or characteristics in and of themselves. They are simply representations.
First, our cognitive responses are not "abstractions". They are a direct physiological response to a specific set of physical stimuli. The abstractions occur later when we seek to create labels (representations) for various categories of cognitive experiences.
"Chair" becomes a word used to designate a whole array of similar cognitive experience that we've had throughout our lives. That "chair" is an abstraction. But the one we are sitting in, not so much.
The set of what can be represented is infinite and undefined, really only limited by our capacity to imagine them. There are no rules of association in how abstract representations can be used and combined to create concepts except as defined within the boundaries and rules governing an abstract system, systems we create for organizing and using abstractions in a useful and meaningful way. Examples of such systems include mathematics and human language systems.
But what you're referring to here is meta-cognition. Not the cognitive foundation from which is springs. Once a physical impulse travels through our sensory system and into our brains, and then explodes into a cognitive conception that our brains can then generate multiple variations of to compare and contrast them for greater clarity. That is the phenomenon of "abstract" thought. But that does make all cognitive phenomena "abstract thought".
These abstractions of representation, once established/created/invented, can be encoded and stored in many physical forms to enable us to share these abstractions.
Yes, and they can be "wrong" in that they may miss-lable or miss-value or miss-appropriate complex conceptualized experiences. But this does not make them any less "real" or extant. It just means the process of abstraction went awry.
For example, our abstract references can be encoded in body movements, such as pointing, they can be encoded in sounds and verbal utterances. They can be encoded in symbol, picture, or alphabetic systems. But first and foremost, they are encoded and stored within the physical neuro-physiological systems that comprise the central nervous system of organisms that use abstract representations.
It's ALL both physical AND metaphysical. Perception IS conception. The brain IS the mind, and the mind iS the brain. They are not divisible. The chair IS the idea AND the thing we sit in.
What does it mean to say that a purely analytic abstraction is possible or occurring? Using my obnoxious primmer on abstractions above, let's explore that question.
There are no purely analytic abstractions. Every conception originates as a cognitive experience of sensory input, and can then be compared and contrasted with remembered, similar cognitive experiences. Allowing us to generate abstract idealized versions to represent these collections of similar cogitive experiences. The "chair" is now an ideal in our minds representing millions of chairs, past present and future, some personally experienced by us and many not. But we will know them when we them even for the first time because the will fit within the conceptual confines of our chair ideal.
If I have two abstract representations that point to two physically existing things in reality, the first being an African lion and the second being a golden eagle, I can, in my mind, break that abstraction into parts, creating separate abstract representations for those parts, be they head, legs, tail, etc. None of these representations has *any* physical properties or limits on association with other abstractions. They are not independently real and existent except as representations, not the actual thing or category of thing it is meant to represent.
They are ALL derived from "real" interactiona with "real" physical phenomena, including the cognitive phenomena wherein perception becomes conception. The abstract "bird" ideal does not need to have feathers to be "real" because it came from the very real experiences of our many encounters with feathered critters.
I can also add other properties to this creation if I wish, like the ability to shoot laser beams out of its eyes, make it impervious to fire, give it a sentient mind comparable to that of human beings with the added feature of telepathic communication, etc. As pure abstractions, there is no restriction on the association of abstractions unless we create some rules or a complete abstract system of boundaries, rules, etc.
You keep ignoring the basic fact that there are no "pure abstractions". The human brain just doesn't work that way. Our imaginations can only generate new configurations of what already have experienced to exist.
For the ‘Griffin’ to be an “existential possibility” in the physical world of reality,
See, this is where you keep going off the rails ... "the physical world of reality". The real world is
both physical and metaphysical. Because
perception IS conception. These are
not divisible.
The point of all of this is to say that merely making fanciful associations of abstract constructs in no way confers nor enables existential possibility as a physically existent thing,
Actually, this is precisely how we humans have managed to create a whole bunch of otherwise perpetually non-existent things. It's our unique superpower, in fact.
Why are imaginary “actual” realities a problem? They are a problem because, as pure abstractions, they are infinite and boundless as to what they can be said to be and said to contain.
But they aren't. Because we humans cannot "abstract" (imagine) anything that we have not cognitively experienced. We can only abstract (imagine) new combinations of things that we have cognitively experienced. Some of those combinations are possible to manifest, and some of them are not. I'm not seeing the "problem" here.
Once the undetectable realm is created, it can be filled with whatever entities one likes, in any number and with whatever properties or characteristics one might imagine and claim that it is all objectively “real and existent”.
That realm already exists. It's the realm of all that we have NOT experienced, and so cannot cognitively conceptualize or abstract. The only way we even know it to exist is that we keep experiencing new things, which means there are things that we have not yet encountered, to experience. But of course we don't know what they are or how many of them them there are because we have not yet encountered them.
Now, once the artificially constructed abstraction of imperceptible realms is accepted as “real”, anyone and everyone can project whatever they wish into this artificial construct, all of which are now immune from any type of evaluation or confirmation.
Yes, that's true. But I'm not seeing the problem, here. It's like standing on one side of a wall, and imaging what might be on the other. We can imagine anything we want, but all our imaginations have to work with is what we have seen and experienced on our side of the wall. And no matter what we choose to imagine about the other side, we will still be on our side of the wall.
We are all familiar with the conflicts that arise between competing artificial abstract realities that have fixed and immutable requirements for human beings. Adoption of such fixed and immutable artificial “realities” creates rigidity in society that leads to stagnation and a decreased ability to adapt to a continually changing societal environment and world.
I much prefer dynamic and progressive abstract social systems that are grounded in *actual* Reality, the objective reality independent of thought, that are entered into by mutual agreement and that have the mechanisms to adeptly and successfully adapt to the reality of continual change.
Everyone perceives/conceives their experience of existing a little differently. This is not "fixable". (Nor should it be.) We need to learn how to accept this, not how to 'fix' it.
