# To Do > [!multi-column] > > > [!bug] Overdue > > ```tasks not done (due before today) hide task count hide due date hide edit button short mode > > >[!success] Today > >```tasks not done (due on today) hide task count hide due date hide edit button short mode > # Notes > [!multi-column] > > > [!summary]- Created Today > > ```dataview > > LIST WITHOUT ID file.link > > FROM "" > > WHERE file.cday = this.file.day AND file.name != this.file.name > > SORT file.ctime ASC > > ``` > > > [!example]- Modified Today > > ```dataview > > LIST WITHOUT ID file.link > > FROM "" > > WHERE file.mday = this.file.day AND file.name != this.file.name AND file.cday != this.file.day > > SORT file.mtime ASC > > ``` ## Quick Links ```dataview LIST WITHOUT ID file.link FROM #quicklink SORT file.cday DESC ``` # [[Weight Tracker]] # [[Scratch Pad]] - https://arxiv.org/abs/2406.06608 a paper on prompting techniques ## The Specific Role of Ramsey Sentences in the Cognitive Phenomenology Argument Ramsey sentences play a crucial and multifaceted role in [[the author]]'s argument for cognitive phenomenology. Their specific functions include: 1. **Addressing the Characterization Challenge** - [[The author]] argues for the existence of irreducible cognitive phenomenology but faces [[the challenge]] of describing what this phenomenology is like. - Ramsey sentences provide a method to characterize the phenomenal aspects of cognitive states, specifically the act of making a judgment, without relying on direct introspective reports. - [[This approach]] allows [[the author]] to move beyond simply asserting the existence of cognitive phenomenology to offering a detailed account of its nature. 2. **Bridging the Gap Between Primitivism and Descriptive Adequacy** - [[The author]] acknowledges that primitive qualities (like cognitive phenomenology) resist informative characterization. - Ramsey sentences offer a way to provide a "nonreductive characterization" of cognitive phenomenology, balancing the claim of its irreducibility with [[the need]] for a substantive description. - This helps strengthen the overall argument by showing that even if cognitive phenomenology is primitive, it can still be meaningfully discussed and analyzed. 3. **Providing Evidence for Irreducibility** - By constructing a detailed Ramsey sentence for the act of making a judgment, [[the author]] demonstrates the rich and complex nature of cognitive phenomenology. - This complexity and uniqueness support the claim that cognitive phenomenology cannot be reduced to other types of phenomenology (e.g., sensory or emotional). - The specific platitudes used in the Ramsey sentence highlight phenomenal features that are distinctly cognitive, such as the "credal feeling" or the "feeling of rational compulsion." 4. **Offering a Public Language Alternative to Introspection** - [[The author]] recognizes the limitations of relying solely on private introspection to argue for cognitive phenomenology. - Ramsey sentences provide a way to articulate the phenomenal character of cognitive states in public, intersubjective language. - This moves the debate from purely subjective claims to a more objective terrain, potentially making the argument more persuasive to skeptics. 5. **Demonstrating the Structural Complexity of Cognitive Phenomenology** - [[The author]] uses a sophisticated version of Ramsey sentences, involving disjunctions of conjunctions of varying lengths. - This structure reflects the nuanced and multifaceted nature of cognitive phenomenology, showing that it's not a simple, uniform phenomenon. - The hierarchy of platitudes (most central, second circle, least central) in the Ramsey sentence demonstrates the internal structure and varying importance of different aspects of cognitive phenomenology. 6. **Providing a Framework for Further Research** - [[The author]] suggests that similar Ramsey sentences could be constructed for other cognitive activities beyond making a judgment. - This establishes a methodological framework for investigating and characterizing different types of cognitive phenomenology. - It opens up avenues for extending the argument to a broader range of cognitive states and processes. 7. **[[Addressing Potential Objections]]** - The flexible structure of the Ramsey sentence (using disjunctions) allows [[the author]] to accommodate potential inaccuracies in individual platitudes. - This preemptively addresses objections that might arise from disagreements about specific phenomenal features of cognitive states. - It allows the overall argument to remain robust even if some details of the characterization are contested. In essence, Ramsey sentences serve as a pivotal methodological tool that allows the author to move from the claim that cognitive phenomenology exists to a substantive, detailed account of what it is like. This shift from existence claims to characterization significantly strengthens the overall argument for irreducible cognitive phenomenology by providing a concrete, analyzable target for discussion and debate. ### Agentive Phenomenology and Intentional Structure In Section 3, we explored how Nguyen's concept of harmony of capacity, while illuminating for game aesthetics, has limited application to the aesthetics of design. As well as harmony of capacity, which we have argued is specific to games and says little on design, Nguyen considers a third kind of "harmony," namely, **"harmony of action,"** which he describes as the aesthetic quality arising from how well an individual's actions fit the demands of a situation. He illustrates this concept: > "When you time a jump just so in Super Mario Brothers; or when you figure out, during a rock climb, that you need to slide your hips over just enough to balance on that tiny nubbin of rock, you're experiencing more than the harmony of solution. You're experiencing your agency and action as fitting the demands of the environment." (Nguyen, p. 108) He also provides a real-world example: > "A car swerves into my lane and I react smoothly, dodging perfectly. Afterward, I am struck by the gracefulness of my own instinctive response." (Nguyen, pp. 101–102) Unlike the harmony of capacity, Nguyen believes that harmonies of action can be experienced in the real world as well as in games. If this is correct, then it seems we have found another way of explaining or cashing out the sorts of agentive aesthetic experiences that designed objects can elicit. Your car might make you experience yourself as gracefully swerving around an obstacle; my experience might be less of gracefulness and more of clumsiness or a lack of control. There is, however, a wrinkle here. While it is plausible to think that something like the harmony of action factors into both real-life and in-game interactions, it seems that experiences of fittingness will be quite different in each case. We can see this by considering the differences in actors’ agentive phenomenology. Horgan identifies several facets of agentive phenomenology: self as source, optionality, purposiveness, and means-ends teleology. For example, when someone decides to pick up a glass of water: - **Self as Source**: They experience themselves as the initiator of the action. - **Optionality**: They feel they could choose to pick up the glass or not. - **Purposiveness**: The action is done with the purpose of quenching thirst. - **Means-Ends Teleology**: Grasping the glass is a means to the end of drinking water. This illustrates how these features contribute to the phenomenology of agency. While all these aspects might differ between in-game and real-life actions, **purposiveness** and **means-ends teleology** are particularly clear cases where fittingness might differ. **Horgan's analysis of agentive phenomenology provides a framework for understanding how differences in "fittingness" between game and real-world environments are reflected in our subjective experience of agency.** He identifies several interrelated aspects of the phenomenology of agency—self as source, optionality, purposiveness, and means-ends teleology—that manifest differently depending on the complexity of the underlying intentional structure. **Means-Ends Teleology** captures our understanding of actions as steps toward achieving certain goals. In **Super Mario Brothers**, this structure is straightforward. Timing a jump to clear a pit serves the immediate goal of progressing in the game. The goals are predefined, and the chain of actions is clear and limited within the game's environment. In contrast, swerving a car to avoid an obstacle involves a complex chain of means and ends. The immediate action prevents an accident, but it also serves broader goals like ensuring personal safety, fulfilling legal responsibilities, and maintaining one's vehicle. The means-ends relationships extend into multiple layers of real-world implications. **Purposiveness** refers to experiencing actions as done for specific purposes. In games, actions serve singular, game-defined purposes—overcoming a challenge or advancing levels. In real life, actions like swerving the car serve multiple purposes simultaneously, from immediate safety to long-term well-being, reflecting a richer and more layered purposiveness. Because real-world fittingness involves a more complex structure of goals and purposes, this leads to differences in the phenomenological aspects of **means-ends teleology** and **purposiveness** between real-world and in-game experiences. In games, fittingness is immediate and confined within the game's parameters, resulting in a focused agentive experience. In real life, fittingness encompasses a wider array of goals and purposes, leading to a richer and more nuanced phenomenology of agency. Understanding how differences in "fittingness" are realized in these phenomenological aspects enhances our appreciation of design aesthetics. Well-designed objects facilitate pleasing experiences not just through their visual or tactile properties, or through momentary harmonies of action, but by enabling a deep and evolving sense of fit between our actions and the multifaceted demands of our life-world. The aesthetics of design involve experiencing our agency as fitting harmoniously within the complex web of purposes, values, and relationships that constitute our lived environment. This deeper, more contextually embedded form of aesthetic appreciation sets design apart from games and other more constrained forms of aesthetic experience. It offers a form of aesthetic engagement that can evolve and deepen over time, as users develop skills, form attachments, and discover new ways in which the designed object allows them to fit their actions to the changing demands of their environment. By recognizing that differences in the experience of "fitting the demands of the environment" are **realized in the phenomenological aspects** of means-ends teleology and purposiveness, we can better appreciate the unique aesthetic qualities that well-designed objects bring to our everyday experiences and the profound ways in which they shape and enhance our interactions with the world.