Philosophical Speculations

AshvinP wrote: ↑Fri Sep 05, 2025 8:37 pm I mean, in terms of our first-person conscious experience, we (mostly instinctively) fire our will in certain directions and we become aware of the lawful constraints it meets through imaginative feedback. That feedback then modulates how we further fire our will, whether in thinking or physical movement. As we know, we don't consciously experience the muscles with their movement (we are asleep in our will), rather we only experience physical sensations that feedback in the moment and, when we need to encompass such sensations through time, ghostly imaginative pictures that have been 'lifted' from and take the 'shape' of those physical sensations.

As Cleric mentioned before, I think it only makes sense to speak of the muscles, organs, etc. themselves 'perceiving' will impulses at deeper subconscious scales of activity, where the functions of the outer senses and the inner organism are increasingly united.

Steiner wrote:In the particular psychic experience which Brentano denotes by the term judgment, there is added to the mere representation (which consists in the formation of an inner image) an acknowledgment or repudiation of the image. The question that arises for the psychologist is: What exactly is it, within the psyche’s experience, where through is brought about not merely the presented image “green tree”, but also the judgment “there is a green tree”? This somewhat cannot be located within the rather circumscribed area of representational activity that is assigned to ordinary consciousness. (In the second volume of my Riddles of Philosophy, in the section entitled “The World as Illusion”, I gave some account of the various epistemological ideas to which this difficulty has given rise.) We have to do with an experience that lies outside that area. The problem is to find its “where”. Where - when the human being confronts a sense-object in the act of perception - is this “somewhat” to be looked for? Not in anything he so receives in the process of perception, that the receiving can be understood through any physiological or psychological ideas that posit outer object on one side and immediate sensation on the other. When someone has the visual perception “green tree”, the fact of the judgment “there is a green tree” is not to be found in that relation between “tree” and “eye” which is viable to either physiological or psychological explication. The experience had by the psyche, which amounts to this inner fact of judgment, is an additional relation between “man” and “tree” strictly other than the bare relation between “tree” and “eye”. Yet it is only this latter relation that is fully and sharply experienced in ordinary-level consciousness. The former relation remains a dull, subconscious one, which only comes to light in its product—namely the acknowledgment of the “green tree” as an existent. In every perception that reaches the point of a “judgment” we have a double relation to objectivity.

It is only possible to gain insight into this double relation, if the prevailing fragmentary doctrine of the senses is replaced by an exhaustive one. If we take into account the whole of what is relevant in assigning the characteristics of a human sense, we shall find we must allow the name “senses” to more than is usually so labeled. That which constitutes the “eye”, for example, a “sense”, is also present when we experience the fact: another “I” is being observed, or: the thought of another human being is being recognised as such. The mistake usually made, in the face of such facts as these, is failure to maintain a certain very valid and necessary distinction. As an instance of this, people imagine that, when they hear somebody else’s words, “sense” only comes in to the extent that “hearing” as such is involved, and that all the rest is assignable to an inner, non-sensory activity. But that is not the case. In the hearing of human words and in the understanding of them as thoughts, a threefold activity is involved, and each component of this threefold activity requires separate consideration, if we mean to conceptualise in a scientifically valid way. One of these activities is “hearing”. But “hearing” per se is no more a “becoming aware of words” than “touching” is a “seeing”. And just as it is proper to distinguish the sense of “touch” from that of “sight”, so is it to distinguish the sense of “hearing” from that of “being aware of words”, and again from that of “comprehending thoughts”. A starveling psychology and a starveling epistemology both follow as consequences from the failure to sharply distinguish the “comprehending of thoughts” from the activity of thinking, and to recognise the “sense” character of the former process. The only reason for our common failure to distinguish is, that the organ of “being aware of words” and that of “comprehending thoughts” are neither of them outwardly perceptible like the ear, which is the organ of “hearing”. Actually there are “organs” for both these perceptual activities, just as, for “hearing”, there is the ear.

If, scrutinising them without omissions, one carries the findings of physiology and psychology through to their logical conclusion, one will arrive at the following view of human sensory organisation. We have to distinguish: The sense for perceiving the “I” of the other human being; the sense for comprehending thoughts; the sense for being aware of words; the sense of hearing; the sense of warmth; the sense of sight, the sense of taste; the sense of balance (the perceptual experience, that is, of oneself as being in a certain equilibrium with the outer world); the sense of movement (the perceptual experiencing of the stillness or the motion of one’s own limbs or, alternatively, of one’s own stillness or motion by contrast with the outer world); the sense of life (experience of being situated within an organism—feeling of subjective self-awareness); and the sense of touch. All these senses bear the distinguishing marks by virtue whereof we properly call “eye” and “ear” by the name of “senses”.

To ignore the validity of such distinctions is to import disorder into the whole relation between our knowledge and reality. It is to suffer the ignominious burden of ideas that cut us off from experiencing the actual. For instance, if a man calls the “eye” a “sense” and refuses to accept any “sense” for “being aware of words”, then the idea which that man forms of the “eye” remains an unreal fancy.

I am persuaded that Fritz Mauthner in his brilliant way speaks, in his linguistic works, of a “happening-sense” (Zufallssinnen) only because he has in view a too fragmentary doctrine of the senses. If it were not for that, he would detect how a “sense” inserts itself into “reality”. In practice, when a human being confronts a sensory object, it is never through one sense that he acquires an impression, but always, in addition, through at least one other of those just enumerated. The relation to one particular sense enters ordinary-level consciousness with especial sharpness; while the other remains more obtuse. But the senses also differ from one another in a further respect: some of them afford a relation to the outer world that is experienced more as external nexus; the others more one that is bound up very intimately with our own being. Senses that are most intimately bound up with our own being are (for example) the sense of equilibrium, the sense of motion, the sense of life and also of course the sense of touch. When there is perception by these senses of the outer world, it is always obscurely accompanied by experience of the percipient’s own being. You can even say that in their case a certain obtuseness of conscious percipience obtains, precisely because the element in it of external relationship is shouted down by the experience of our own being. For instance: a physical object is seen, and at the same time the sense of equilibrium furnishes an impression. What is seen is sharply perceived. This “seen” leads to representation of a physical object. The experience through the sense of equilibrium remains, qua perception, dull and obtuse; but it comes to life in the judgment: “That which is seen exists” or “There is a thing seen”. Natures are not, in reality, juxtaposed to one another in abstract mutual exclusion; they, together with their distinguishing marks, overlap and interpenetrate. Hence, in the whole gamut of the “senses” there are some that mediate relation to the outer world rather less and the experience of one’s own being rather more. These latter are sunken further into the inner life of the psyche than, for example, eye and ear; and, for that reason, their perceptual function manifests as inner psychic experience. But one must still distinguish, even in their case, the properly psychic from the perceptual element, just as in the case of, say, seeing one distinguishes the outer event or object from the inner psychic experience evoked with it.

For those who adopt the anthroposophical standpoint, there can be no shirking of refined notional distinctions of this kind. They must be capable of distinguishing “awareness of words” from hearing, in one direction; and of distinguishing, in the other, this “awareness of words” from the “understanding of words” brought about by one’s own intellection; just as ordinary consciousness distinguishes between a tree and a lump of rock. If this were less frequently ignored, it would be recognised that anthroposophy has two aspects; not only the one that people usually dub “mystical”, but also the other one, the one that conduces to investigations not less scientific than those of natural science, but in fact more scientific, since they necessitate a more refined and methodical habit of conceptualisation than even ordinary philosophy does.

From: The Case for Anthroposophy - The real Basis of Intentional Relation - GA 21 - VIII. as retrieved from The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Steiner wrote:I have already explained that the scientific way of thinking was obliged at first to cooperate in producing a certain darkening of the spirit, in support of what the Spirits of Darkness bring into human thinking, ever since 1879. In the scientific sphere this assumes a very subtle aspect. The scientifically trained thinker, or better, the scientific expert who cooperates in the general education of our age and in the formation of a world-conception, cannot help diverting man from casting a glance at the boundary-line between the physical world and the spiritual world, which exists in him. He cannot help this because science is as it is, and he does his very best (excuse this banal expression) to work in this direction by popularizing the scientific methods of thought. A future age will dawn for human thinking (it is terrible that such things are mentioned today – terrible for those who follow a particular line of thought), an age in which certain ideas will be looked upon as comical—ideas now ruling in science, which have not entered the consciousness of the masses, but influence them, because scientists (forgive me) are considered to be authorities.

I have often pointed out the following thought—even publicly in my book Riddles of the Soul: It is a current scientific idea that in the nervous system (we will limit ourselves to man, for the moment, although this can also be applied to animals) we can distinguish sensory, or sense-nerves or perceptive nerves, and motor nerves. It can be drawn schematically, by showing, for instance, that any nerve, say a nerve of touch, carries the sensation of touch to the central organ—let us suppose, to the spinal cord. The sensations from the periphery of the body reach the spinal cord. Then, from another point of the spinal cord goes out the so-called motor nerve. From there, the impulse of the will is in turn transmitted (see drawing).



In the brain this is shown in a more complicated way, as if the nerves were like telegraphic wires. The sense-impression, the impression on the skin, is led as far as the central organ: from there, an order goes out, as it were, that a movement must be carried out. A fly settles somewhere on the body—this causes a sensation; the sensation is led on to the central organ; there, the order is given to lift the hand as far as the forehead to chase away the fly. From a diagrammatic aspect, this is an idea that is generally accepted. A future age will look on this as something extraordinarily comical, for it is comical only for him who can detect this. But it is an idea that is accepted by the majority of professional scientists. Open the nearest book on the elements of science dealing with these things and you will find that today we must distinguish between sensory and motor nerves. You will find that they mention particularly the hilarious picture of the telegraphic wire—that the sensation is conducted to the central organ and that the order is given out from there for the production of a movement. This picture is still very much diffused in popularized science.

However, it is far more difficult to see through reality than through the thoughts that set up comparisons with telegraphic wires, reminding us of the most primitive kinds of ideas. Spiritual Science alone enables us to see through reality. An impulse of the will has nothing in common with physical matter. The nerves exist only to serve a single function, both those nerves we now call sensory nerves and those we call motor nerves. And whether the nerve cord is interrupted in the spinal cord or the brain, both indicate the same thing; in the brain, it is simply interrupted in a more complicated way.

This break is not there so that something from the outside world is transmitted through one half, if I may say so, to the central organ and then, after being transformed into a will by the central organ through the other half, is passed on. This interruption exists for a completely different reason. Our nervous system is interrupted in this regular way because at the very point of the interruption, reflected in an image in man, there lies the boundary line between physical and spiritual experience; it is the bodily reflection of a complicated spiritual reality. This boundary exists in man in a very remarkable way. Man enters into a relationship with the world immediately around him, and this process is connected with that part of the nerve-cord that goes as far as the interruption. But the human being, as a soul being, must also have a relationship with his own physical body. This relationship, which he has with his own physical body, is mediated by the other part. If I move a hand, prompted by an external sensory impression, then the impulse to move this hand, united by the soul with the sensory impression, is already present here, schematically represented (see diagram a). And that which is conducted along the whole sensitive nerves, along the so-called motor nerve, from a to b, is not “conducted as a sense-impression as far as c, where an order is given that gives rise to b”– no, the soul-element is already fructified when an impulse of the will takes place at a, and passes through the entire nerve-path indicated in the diagram.

It is quite out of the question that such infantile ideas should correspond to any form of reality—ideas which presuppose that the soul is to be found somewhere between the sensory and the motor nerves, where it receives an impression from the exterior world and transmits an order from there, like a telegraphic operator. This childish idea, which is met with again and again, is very strange when found in conjunction with the demand that science must at all costs avoid being anthropomorphic! Anthropomorphic lines of thought must be avoided, yet people do not realize how anthropomorphic they themselves are, when they say that an impression is received, an order sent out, etc., etc. They talk and talk and have not the slightest idea what mythological beings they conjure into their dreams about the human organism! They would realize it if they would take things seriously.

Now the question arises: Why then is the nerve-cord interrupted? It is interrupted because, if this were not so, we would not be included in the whole process. Only because the impulse, so to speak, jumps over at the point of interruption—the same impulse, if it is an impulse of will, already emanates from a—are we ourselves within the world, are we part of this impulse. If it were unified, if there weren't an interruption here, the whole thing would be a natural process, without us being part of it.

Imagine this process in a so-called reflex movement: A fly settles somewhere on your body, you chase away the fly, and the whole process never enters your consciousness fully. The entire process has its analogy, an entirely justified analogy, in the sphere of physics. Inasmuch as this process demands an explanation by means of physics, the explanation will be only a little more complicated than that of another physical process. Take a rubber ball, for instance: you press it here, and deform it. But the ball pops out again and reassumes its former shape. You press in and the ball presses out again. This is the plain physical process, a reflex movement, except that there is no organ of perception, there is nothing spiritual in the process. But if you interpolate something spiritual here (inner circle) and interrupt it here (center), then the rubber ball feels like an individual being. However, in this case the rubber ball must have a nervous system, so that it can feel both the world and itself. A nervous system always exists in order that we may feel the world in ourselves: it never exists in order to pass on a sensation along one side of the wire, and a motor impulse along the other side.

I am pointing this out because the pursuance of this subject leads us into one of the many points where natural science must be corrected before it can supply ideas that correspond approximately to the real facts. The ideas ruling today are instruments of the impulses coming from the Spirits of Darkness. The boundary line between physical and spiritual experience lies in man himself.

You see, this piece of nerve that I indicated in red really serves to place us into the physical world, so that we may have sensations in the physical world. The other piece of nerve, indicated in blue, really serves to make us feel ourselves as body. There is no essential difference whether we experience a color consciously from outside, through the nerve-cord <a c>, or whether we experience an organ, or the position of an organ, etc., from inside, through the cord <d b>; in essence, this is the same. In the one case we experience something physical is in us, i.e., enclosed within our skin. Not only that which is outside, but also what is within us, places us in the process that can be experienced as a will-process. The strength of the perception varies according to the nerve-cords that transmit it—the cord <a c>, or the cord <d b>. Indeed, a definite weakening of the intensity takes place. When an idea is linked up with a will-impulse in a, the impulse is passed on from a; when it jumps from c to d, the whole process weakens to such an extent in our consciousness or experience that we experience its continuation—for instance, the lifting of our hand—only with that slight intensity of consciousness which we possess during sleep. When we lift our hand we are again aware of the will, but in the form of a new sensation from another side. Sleep extends continually in an anatomical and physiological sense into our waking life. We are connected with the exterior physical world, but we are completely awake only with that part of our being that goes as far as the interruption of the nerves. What lies in us beyond this interruption in the nerves is wrapped in sleep, even by day. In the present stage of the evolution of the Earth this process is not yet physical; it takes place on a certain spiritual level, although it is connected to a great extent with the lower qualities of human nature. However, I have often expounded the secret that just man's “lower nature” is connected with the higher manifestations of certain spiritual beings. If we note all the places in the human being where the nerves are interrupted, and jot them down in a diagram, we obtain the boundary-line between the experiencing in the physical world and the experience that comes from a higher world. Hence I can use the following diagram: Suppose that I indicate here all the nerve-interruptions—here is the head and here is a leg. Now suppose that a so-called impression goes out from here and that the interruption of the nerve is in this place. [see p. 17 of the German .pdf] “Walking” will be the result, and the real process consists in this—that everything that we experience through the nerve here, is experienced by day in a waking way. But what we experience here as unconscious will is experienced in a sleeping way, even when we are awake. The spiritual world forms and creates directly everything that lies below the point of interruption in the nerves.

You may find these things difficult if you hear them for the first time, but they should make you aware that you cannot enter into the more intimate questions of knowledge without some difficulty.

From: Historical Necessity and Freewill - On the Functions of the Nervous System and the Threshold of the Spiritual World - GA 179 - 1. as retreived from The Rudolf Steiner Archive.

Federica wrote: ↑Sat Sep 06, 2025 2:52 pm

AshvinP wrote: ↑Fri Sep 05, 2025 8:37 pm I mean, in terms of our first-person conscious experience, we (mostly instinctively) fire our will in certain directions and we become aware of the lawful constraints it meets through imaginative feedback. That feedback then modulates how we further fire our will, whether in thinking or physical movement. As we know, we don't consciously experience the muscles with their movement (we are asleep in our will), rather we only experience physical sensations that feedback in the moment and, when we need to encompass such sensations through time, ghostly imaginative pictures that have been 'lifted' from and take the 'shape' of those physical sensations.

As Cleric mentioned before, I think it only makes sense to speak of the muscles, organs, etc. themselves 'perceiving' will impulses at deeper subconscious scales of activity, where the functions of the outer senses and the inner organism are increasingly united.

I have another view of how this feedback loop has to be seen, which may also throw light on why Steiner emphasized nerve similarity so strongly, and how this emphasis is not carelessness. (if anyone decides to reply to this post, please first read carefully).

I think that we fire our will in certain direction and become aware of its effects as movement, not on movement. Yes, we are asleep in our will, meaning we don’t consciously experience the firing of the will impulse as it materializes physically. At the moment the impulse materializes physically, we are not aware of how it condenses into physicality, tornado-like. But we absolutely do experience the nerves-muscles in movement consciously at least in part, because the nerve-muscles with their movements are themselves precisely the perceptual feedback to that will. They are not the unconscious will - which we don’t experience consciously - they are its feedback.

The tornado-like materialization of will impulses does not emerge physically at nerve-level first, but translates directly in the whole experience of physical movement. Notice that physical movement is never only one nerve-one muscle. If I lift an arm, practically half of the body is activated including the heart. Any movement involves various nerves&muscles to various degrees, including the cardiac nerves&muscles, and the outer environment is affected as well. And so movement in space happens, but it’s not that movement first happens as environmental phenomenon, and then it is perceived through sensation and ghostly pictures. Rather, movement, as it happens, already is perceptual feedback. The problem is to conceptualize 'bodily movement' as something objective, which is later consciously sensed or perceived. Rather, movement is already perception in and of itself, in the same way as, for example, hearing is. Movement/motion is a sense, it is one of the twelve senses, not a phenomena that needs to be apprehended by senses. Movement is in itself a sense experience, which involves an outer and inner aspect at the same time.
Also notice, Steiner didn’t say “let’s call them all sense nerves”. He said: “it doesn’t matter, we can call them either or”. I think this confirms that movement and sense perception really are of the same nature. Movement is something by which we sense, not something that we sense. It involves both an outer and inner experience at the same time. Also, senses never operate in isolation. That’s why it doesn’t matter, we could call the optical nerve a motor nerve if we want, because movement (a sense) also operates in any visual perception, although this is usually not very clearly grasped at conscious level.

Now, let’s imagine an abrupt arm movement to get rid of a fly. It is in a sense an unconscious movement. There is bodily will, but there is no conscious intention. Now imagine the exact same movement as, say, part of a contemporary dance choreography. The bodily will is unconscious in both cases of course. We don’t see it materializing in clear consciousness. Then, at the opposite edge, the perceptual feedback as you and Cleric intend it - ghostly imaginative pictures of inner sensations, and possibly visual sensations - is also present in both cases. Even when the heart accelerates its beats, we have such sensational feedback in similar way. But somewhere there must be a difference across the spectrum of voluntary-involuntary movement, right? What is the difference? This is the perceptual feedback about which Steiner says that its lack is what impedes us to move the arm, because the cut motor-nerves can’t perceive the arm moving (in relation to the outer environment). That means, movement perceives and is perceived at the same time. Movement is a sense, and it is perceptual feedback. If the (motor) nerves are cut, we cannot move, we cannot deploy the spiritual sense of movement. I found it helpful to read again about senses, and movement as one of the 12 senses:


...anyone still willing to call this approach "careless"?

We can still express in such a way as if the motor neurons perceive the will impulses, but now 'perception' doesn't mean that we have conscious sensations... [example/exercise] We can also appreciate how most of the time we are thrown through different scenes of the inner movie, and how our circulatory system 'perceives' this flow and actuates the physical blood differently.

AshvinP wrote: ↑Sat Sep 06, 2025 10:26 pm So, if I were to reword some of these quotes less 'carelessly', I would present something like, "In our ordinary conscious experience, the state which is generally accessible to present day natural science, it is justified to distinguish between those nerves carrying impressions from periphery to center and those transmitting impulses for movement from center to periphery, as it is supported by many physical facts. The former alone are experienced in wakefulness while the latter unfold at deeper scales of experience which we are asleep to. However, as researchers learn to grow consciously into these deeper scales, it will be discerned that the so-called motor nerves are in fact carrying out the same function for the inner bodily organism that the so-called sensory nerves are carrying out for the conscious mind. They are both a means of becoming aware of spiritual impulses and corresponding experiences, integrating new intuitions from that experience, and thereby orientating toward more encompassing intents to be fulfilled and adjusting the spirit-will accordingly."

Federica wrote: ↑Mon Sep 08, 2025 9:32 am Instead of thinking hard about the how and the why he said what he said so strongly - pointing to a crucial step of our evolution out of materialism - instead of trying to grasp it, you deem that you know better, and as a consequence of this judgment, you explain away the propositions as mere "carelessness". Well, this doesn't sit well with me. If you think there's nothing more to understand, fine, but for my part, I intend to go to the bottom of this question. I can foresee, sooner or later, you will have to renegotiate your "carelessness".

...besides trying to protect from the dominant approach of seeking all causes and effects within the domino events in the perceptual plane

...the concern is that this factual distinction between types of nerves, when lacking expanded consciousness of the deeper scales of experience, ends up serving an intellectual overlay in which it is conceived that will impulses are little more than automatic reactions to sensory impressions that run their course independently of our intuitive intents

I believe that this is the danger Steiner was trying to warn about. He practically says, “By imagining that movement originates from the motor neurons, you are turning things upside-down. Instead, your inner experience of both the sensory and the motor neurons is already part of the receding light-flow. The true cause of motion can only be understood by the pushing with will toward the unknown.” Or, as we have given that metaphor many times, the danger consists in becoming through time with our back turned toward the future.

Another example of excluding the human being is one I have mentioned on a number of occasions. It is the explanation given for the nebular hypothesis of Laplace. You take a droplet of oil, a playing card on a pin—a sewing pin will also serve—and rotate it, and droplets separate out. But nothing would separate out, and the whole small planetary system would not arise if it were not for the schoolmaster who turned the pin! Yet when people want to explain the universe they leave out the schoolmaster. Otherwise the teacher would have to say: Look, children, there a planetary system is evolving, but I am the one who turns the pin; and out there the great planetary system is evolving, and there is the great God who turns the great pin. The world could not evolve if there were not a god out there, who relatively speaking would be much bigger, as I am the little god to you here.—You see, that is what the teacher should really be saying.

AshvinP wrote: ↑Mon Sep 08, 2025 1:03 pm It's pretty clear to us why he said these things so strongly, at least a prime reason, which both Cleric and myself reiterated in the last two posts:

...besides trying to protect from the dominant approach of seeking all causes and effects within the domino events in the perceptual plane

...the concern is that this factual distinction between types of nerves, when lacking expanded consciousness of the deeper scales of experience, ends up serving an intellectual overlay in which it is conceived that will impulses are little more than automatic reactions to sensory impressions that run their course independently of our intuitive intents

Cleric wrote: ↑Sat Sep 06, 2025 7:32 am To me it is still not very clear why Steiner emphasized so strongly on their similarity (besides trying to protect from the dominant approach of seeking all causes and effects within the domino events in the perceptual plane).

Cleric wrote: ↑Thu Sep 04, 2025 8:41 pm So I think that "If the motor nerves in my arm are severed, I can’t move the hand because I can’t perceive it" is not quite correct.

Thus, I think we should be careful not to mix the two kinds of nerves, just like we don't have to take 'the heart is not a pump' in the fully literal sense. We can still express in such a way as if the motor neurons perceive the will impulses, but now 'perception' doesn't mean that we have conscious sensations. Probably, we can say that our nervous system perceives the will impulses and propagates them to the muscles, but we still need the feedback of the sensory neurons if we are to have sensations, which turns out to be critical for refining the consequent steering of the will. In that sense, I don't think we are turning things upside down by recognizing that the will impulses use the nervous system as the leverage points through which bodily movements manifest.

Federica wrote: ↑Mon Sep 08, 2025 1:41 pm

AshvinP wrote: ↑Mon Sep 08, 2025 1:03 pm It's pretty clear to us why he said these things so strongly, at least a prime reason, which both Cleric and myself reiterated in the last two posts:

...besides trying to protect from the dominant approach of seeking all causes and effects within the domino events in the perceptual plane

...the concern is that this factual distinction between types of nerves, when lacking expanded consciousness of the deeper scales of experience, ends up serving an intellectual overlay in which it is conceived that will impulses are little more than automatic reactions to sensory impressions that run their course independently of our intuitive intents

When you say that it's pretty clear to you why Steiner spoke so strongly about the unity of the nervous system, please say "it's pretty clear to me". Take entire responsibility for this pretentious statement. Do not say "it's pretty clear to us":

Cleric wrote: ↑Sat Sep 06, 2025 7:32 am To me it is still not very clear why Steiner emphasized so strongly on their similarity (besides trying to protect from the dominant approach of seeking all causes and effects within the domino events in the perceptual plane).

AshvinP wrote: ↑Mon Sep 08, 2025 2:50 pm That's why I added "at least a prime reason", which you failed to highlight in red.

What Cleric is speaking about as unclear is why Steiner seemed to indicate these things are even obvious from an external perspective, despite many physical facts emphasizing the differences between the nerves.

I am not sure why you are proceeding in such a caustic manner, Federica, like you are involved in some kind of battle to the death. Why not just engage with the substance of the ideas that I am pointing to, instead of trying to impugn my character by dissecting the words used? This is a very odd approach for someone 'intending to get to the bottom of this question'. In fact, such an approach ensures you will always stay floating on the surface of such questions.

Federica wrote: ↑Mon Sep 08, 2025 3:10 pm

AshvinP wrote: ↑Mon Sep 08, 2025 2:50 pm That's why I added "at least a prime reason", which you failed to highlight in red.

What Cleric is speaking about as unclear is why Steiner seemed to indicate these things are even obvious from an external perspective, despite many physical facts emphasizing the differences between the nerves.

I am not sure why you are proceeding in such a caustic manner, Federica, like you are involved in some kind of battle to the death. Why not just engage with the substance of the ideas that I am pointing to, instead of trying to impugn my character by dissecting the words used? This is a very odd approach for someone 'intending to get to the bottom of this question'. In fact, such an approach ensures you will always stay floating on the surface of such questions.

You will find some of the substance of the ideas in my post just above yours, if you haven't seen it.

My "caustic manner" is in proportion to your unreasonable insistence (3 successive times) to call the famous statements "careless". This explaining away not only offuscates the subtleties that need to be understood, but is also disrespectful.
By the way, adding "at least a prime reason" does not justify you to half-quote Cleric as if in agreement with your statement. A "besides" put between brackets is not a prime reason, it's a "besides" between brackets.