The Metaphysics Of Thought

How paradoxical it is that the metaphysics and epistemology of mind, like those of reason, are constantly relied on throughout all aspects of life and yet so few understand them or even have the resolve to confront them.  While there are at least some things which are external to the mind and plenty more that might or at least seem to be outside the mind, there is no such thing as experience apart from consciousness.  Every thought, every emotion, every desire, every sensory perception, and every memory are all things that can only occur within a consciousness, without which there could be no perception of anything even though there would still be truths to grasp without any minds in existence (for at least logical truths exist in the absence of all other things).

Consciousness is immaterial, and thus the thoughts within it are too.  There is no way to grasp an emotion or a perception as one could grasp an organ or even a particle.  It is not self-evident that consciousness is immaterial since that logically follows from more fundamental truths, but is is self-evident that one's own consciousness exists even as it is far from verifiable how anyone's consciousness came to be.  There is no such thing as a misperception that one's thoughts and general consciousness exist because for them to be an illusion, one must already exist as a mind.  A non-existent mind cannot even doubt or deny its own existence.

Everyone can realize this although few ever seem to.  That one's own mind is directly knowable logically necessitates that the entirety of one's emotions, perceptions, and thoughts are absolutely certain for anyone who is only willing to look to the light of reason (assumptions made as a reaction to experiences are not proven, but the basic presence and nature of the thoughts and perceptions themselves are absolutely certain).  Because knowing one's own mind does not mean one can see into other minds or if other minds even exist, it simply might be easy to go without thinking about how the direct accessibility of one's thoughts does not mean that other conscious beings experience thought the same way even though they rely on and can understand all of the same logical truths about the metaphysics of consciousness.

The same truths about reason and introspection might be there for all to discover if they are only willing, but thought itself can take many forms even when people reflect on the same things.  One person might visualize something in their mind when they think of the laws of logic or of consciousness or anything else, and someone else might not.  Even if the conceptual awareness is the same, different people might think of random visualizations, personal memories, or abstract truths and concepts without any mental imagery as they all think about the same ideas.  This goes far beyond people not thinking about the same truths or concepts or not having the same personalities; the "appearance" or experience of thought itself can vary rather extensively despite everyone having the capacity to discover and savor the same  foundational truths.

The metaphysics of thought has diversity in how mental experiences manifest from person to person even though every human mind would be the same general consciousness with its own sensory perceptions, desires, will, and inevitable reliance on reason whether or not this is recognized.  That one can know the logical possibility of the same thoughts taking different forms in different minds without knowing if other minds even exist adds more nuance to the epistemological side of phenomenology.  The unverifiability of other minds still cannot stop someone from knowing and savoring the existence and contents of their own mind, with direct access to all of one's mental states being immediately before the inward gaze of each conscious being.  With reason being the ultimate foundation, as it is with all things, absolute certainty can be found in introspection.