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T.H. Green's 1898
Original Critique - Book 1 Introduction
Paragraph 251
of

Hume's
A Treatise of Human Nature
Text

with comments by
Doug Renselle

Regular readers note that this is Doug's first critique of a critique.

Longmans Green and Co.
Page
Numbers
T.H. Green's Original Critique Introduction of Hume's AToHN Text.

Introduction has 299 total pages.
Doug's Comments.
Relevance: Doug's Review of T.H. Green's Critique Introduction of Hume's AToHN
.
See our or C¤l¤r C¤dæs.
Pages 209-210

Page 209: Paragraph 251. To have plainly admitted that it was not an impression must have compelled Hume either to discard the 'abstract idea' with which geometry deals, or to admit the possibility of ideas other than 'fainter impressions.' It is a principle on which he insists with much emphasis and repetition, that whatever 'objects,' 'impressions,' or 'ideas' are distinguishable are also separable.2 Now if there is an abstract idea of extension, it can scarcely be other than distinguishable, and consequently (according to Hume's account of the relation of idea to impression) derived from a distinguishable and therefore separable impression, It would seem then that Hume cannot escape conviction of one of two inconsistencies; either that of supposing a separate impression of extension, which yet is not of the nature of any assignable sensation; or that of supposing an abstract idea of it in the absence of any such impression. We shall find that he does not directly face either horn of the dilemma, but evades both of them. He admits that 'the ideas of space and time are no separate and distinct ideas, but merely those of the manner or order in which objects' (sc. impressions) 'exist.'3 In the fourth Book, [Doug is only aware of three 'Books' in AToHN. We shall attempt to elucidate Green's remark. Since this Introduction as a critique is just for Book 1, Green may be referring four 'Parts' of Book 1 when he writes Books 1-4.] where the equivalence of impression to feeling is more consistently carried out, the fact that what is commonly reckoned an impression is really a judgment about the 'manner of existence,' as opposed to the 'nature,' of impressions, is taken as sufficient proof that it is no impression at all; and if not an impression, therefore not an idea.4 He thus involuntarily recognized the true difference between feeling and thought, between the mere occurrence of feelings and the presentation of that occurrence by the self-conscious subject to itself; and, if only he had known what he was about in the recognition, might have anticipated Kant's distinction between the matter and form of sensation. In the Second Book, however, he will neither say explicitly that space is an impression of colour or a compound of colours—that would be to extinguish geometry; nor yet that it is impression of sense separate from that of colour—that would lay him open to the retort that he was

Page 210: virtually introducing a sixth sense; nor on the other hand will he boldly avow of it, as he afterwards doe's of body, that it is a fiction. He denies that it is a separate impression, so far as that is necessary for avoiding the challenge to specify the sense through which it is received; he distinguishes it from a mere impression of sight, when it is necessary to avoid its simple identification with colour. By speaking of it as 'the manner in which objects exist '—so long as he is not confronted with the declarations of the Fourth Book or with the question how, the objects being impressions, their order of existence can be at once that of succession in time and of co-existence in space—he gains the credit for it of being a datum of sight, yet so far distinct from colour as to be a possible 'foundation for an abstract idea,' representative also of objects not coloured at all but tangible. At the same time, if pressed with the question how it could be an impression of sight and yet not interchangeable with colour, he could put off the questioner by reminding him that he never made it a 'separate or distinct impression, but one of the manner in which objects exist.'

[Doug does not show Green's footnotes' text. We show text gap ellipses at intrapage original page boundaries. Green's use of &c. is a dual of today's etc. ]

Doug has no prior experiences with T. H. Green. Clearly Green is a dialectician. Even so he does an exceptional job of challenging Hume's 'reason.' Doug, somehow, feels kinship with Green. Maybe it's Green's hard work in attempting to assess another's work...and do it well. Green's efforts on Book 1 of AToHN are just yeoman, and that's too mild a term.

Use of language alone, especially English without quantum remediation, is enough to indict anyone of dialectism. English is a dialectical language. That makes English purely and simply bogus. Why? Dialectic is bogus! Doug - 20Dec2006.


This critique by Green, in our view, tends to agree with Bergson. Most sensory inputs are qualitative and to treat them as objectively quantitative is an error. This also jibes Bruno de Finetti's comments that much of reality appears as subjective and thus stochastic. To attempt to reify subjectives as objective, per de Finetti is an Error of human judgment.

Bergson also shows us that reality is mostly non analytic. Banesh Hoffmann agrees with his (paraphrased) "We cannot measure flux at a point." Both of those authors' works emphasize indirectly why Doug uses phase, phasicity, and phasements to describe quantum reality. Holograms are similarly flux centric and wholly compatible with phasistic lingual descriptions.


Kant: Doug has not read Kant due mainly William James', et al., complaints of Kant's obnoxious objectivism, which we refer pejoratively as Kan'tism. Green's remark here suggests to us that Kant somewhat adhered Plato. To Doug Plato's forms are simply Plato's anthropomorphism of God as Platonic. Well, Doug claims that God's ineffable essence is flux, indeed, n¤t form! How did Plato infer form? Flux interrelates as Benoit Mandelbrot found: fractally. Fractals evoke massive iterative absolute flux 'similarities,' n¤t absolute stux concrete formal identities, rather qualitative, subjective, sophist animate, everywhere~included~middle~associative, self~other~referent fluxing 'similarities.' If one accepts Doug's quantum~m¤daling of quantum~reality as quanton(n¤nactual,actual) then fractal similitude explains vast regions of similitude prominent in Nature's real~actual spectral phenomena: pressure, balance, equilibrium, modulation, sound, heat, light, x-rays, gravityings, timings, entropa, cohera, adiabaticity (at flux rates above shasb), entanglement, superposition, with quantum~apparitions of silence, darkness, emptiness, with real~n¤nactual absence of temperature, mass, energy, space, gravity and so on... Doug 19Dec2006.


Green really hits a philosophical nail on its head with this:

"...In the Second Book, however, he will neither say explicitly that space is an impression of colour or a compound of colours—that would be to extinguish geometry;..." Interestingly quantum philosophy does "extinguish geometry." How? Via quantum philosophy's claim that reality is absolute change, absolute flux. That claim, too, extinguishes 'space' as anything but an OEDCyclic phenomenon of quantum flux. Notice too, that colour is flux! Actually, all 'stuff' and phenomena in quantum reality are quantum flux! Incredibly, that quantum~phasement eliminates any need for Hume to have written AToHN anyway. Sadly our conclusion devalues Doug's efforts here except as a means of didactically juxtaposing Quantonics' QTMs to Hume's inadequate CTMs. In our view, that justifies continued effort here. Doug - 20Dec2006.


To contact Quantonics write to or call:

Doug Renselle
Quantonics, Inc.
Suite 18 #368 1950 East Greyhound Pass
Carmel, INdiana 46033-7730
USA
1-317-THOUGHT

©Quantonics, Inc., 2006-2012 Rev. 10Oct2009  PDR Created: 16Dec2006  PDR
(10Oct2009 rev - Make page current.)


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