I agree with Frege that both sense and reference are important for understanding, A=B carries a different cognitive sense from A=A, and while the reference may be the same between 'A' and 'B', the statements A=B and A=A can be pragmatically distinct due to this cognitive sense. From The Thought: A Logical Inquiry, I agree with Frege's general distinction between external objects, ideas, and thoughts. Frege's position that thoughts (propositions) exist independently of truth and time seems to provide a form of spine, or basic logic, to existence.
I am hesitant to accept Frege's notion of Thinking as the apprehension of thoughts. While Frege's account of thinking is the interaction between oneself and a thought, it does not bring the two into actual contact thus proposing a new form of interaction between the third realm of thoughts and the mind. I am not satisfied with this account of how we engage with thoughts, and while I agree with Frege that senses are not the end-all-be-all of perception, his 'non-sensible' solution seems too much like the Cartesian mind-body problem.
I wonder how much of Frege's argument of truth was influenced by his mathematical background. I also wonder what thoughts are based upon. In other words; what is upholding those thoughts as such timeless, unchangable, eternal things? Also, are our understandings and interactions with thoughts senses of thoughts rather than directly interacting with the references of thoughts?
I disagree that people can have the same conception because our internal image is made up of malleable thoughts. Even if there were perfect initial conditions between two individuals-–blind/twins-- a slight difference in choice or action would alter their thoughts and therefore their conception of the first seen object. Now it may be that they will have the same word based thoughts about the object, such as first seeing gold and conceiving it as shiny, yet their internal image of an object when conceived will be determined by past interactions and twisted by future interactions that alter and negate their meaning of shiny or their association of thoughts that describe the object.
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