Do mental faculties count as experiential senses too?
Since mental faculties (memory, reason, imagination, etc.) result from the brain, a physical organ, do these count as experiential faculties? It seems that their purpose in operating in the abstract, as a method of understanding reality, being able to "learn" solutions to possible problems. I would think that they would count as experiential faculties. And don't they require some input from your 5 main physical senses to operate properly?
Update:@TheSicilianSage -- Don't you have to put code into a computer initially for it to run internal processes? You have to have initial code for internal processes to work, I think. This would go along with my theory that you have to have at least some external input from the physical senses in order for the mental faculties to work properly (and I have read studies that say similar things, but IDK if its conclusive or not.)
Comments
Nothing is in the mind that wasn't first in the senses. - Aristotle
Since the time of Aristotle we know that the brain is the perceptual organ which has the function to elaborate what we experience through the five senses into abstract concepts. The mental faculties, or processes such as reasoning, imagining and memorizing do not create reality - they transform sensations and perceptions into concepts. It is this amazing capacity of our brain that makes us different from all other animals. We are conceptual beings, not merely perceptual entities.
A highly developed abstract concept is not valid - not reflecting reality - if such a concept cannot be reduced to its original sensory perception through an unbroken chain of abstractions upon abstractions, until it reaches the concrete, sensory experience, which validates its existence.
Wait wait, what proof do you have that mental faculties result from the brain? What experiment did you do to prove that? Now, if you believe it originates from the brain, that's fine. That's a legitimate belief, but there isn't any proof of that just yet. Just because you don't believe in God, doesn't mean that there aren't some other explanations that are possible. Hell, could be aliens or some wave of energy from space! My point is, don't just take things on faith. Explore and understand them before you base your questions on them.
You do understand that sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste are result of your mental faculty. It seems to me that you are taking the process, the action, the abilities of the brain and you are trying to compare this to the senses. Just like with, for example, touch. There is a caress, a burn, a cut, etc. etc. etc. Your mind has memory, reason, imagination, etc. etc. etc.. But to answer your question; I would not consider it as experimenting on a sense but can certainly do experiments on memory, reason, imagination, etc. etc. etc.
Ideally, eventually, actually ---that's my official reference answer.
Some of us operate like automatons, but the real functioning brain is highly sensory, having senses of "depth" as well as senses of pools of feeling, and layers of interpretation
The reliance on the physical faculties is for health, not mental vibrancy, making a distinction.
What you call "experiential faculties" I might call more accurately a "vertical system" that is, something isometric to perspective, you may mean that it is transceptially manifest
The 5 senses are not isometrically present, but present "as system". This is an interesting stipulation.
No not really. At least traditionally philosophically, those would not really be counted by an empiricist. It's basically your five senses.