Copyright (C) 2018 Dennis Joe Darland
In understanding I have divided things into objects (including universals), ideas, and words. We have come to understand this by observing correlations between them. But that is not quite correct! We can only observe correlations between our ideas of objects, our ideas of ideas, and ideas of words. (and their relations) All of these are themselves (not necessarily simple) objects. We not only “receive” input from objects, but also can “send” output to them, e.g. we can take actions. Our human nature is such that we do not consciously infer all these correlations – that would be too overwhelming. We also unconsciously infer to other’s ideas of objects, ideas of ideas and ideas of words. The correlations are not deductive – they are highly underdetermined, but our human nature is such that we (mostly) succeed. We can only account for the success of our ideas, by taking them to correspond (mostly) to an external reality.
Also: (added later)
We remember the past, anticipate the future, and make decisions. At least we have ideas of what we take to be past and future. We also seem to make decisions, although we cannot altogether describe how.