…..“that which is real its existence is given; a real thing cannot not exist (necessity)”
-Mww

Is this “real thing” the object which was given to the senses? — "Bob

Yes.

So a ‘real thing’ is real because its existence is given, and a ‘fake [viz., non-real] thing’ is an existence which is not given? How, then, do you distinguish from a fake thing which is does not exist, and one which does (but of which both are not given to the senses)?

It is necessary that some thing exists, which becomes the experience of, in this case, cup.

Agreed; but you are also saying that this necessary thing that is given not only exists but is real; which implies that a thing which exists but is not given is not real.

You’re explicitly demanding neurons send the feeling of a mosquito bite, when the science legislating neural activity will only permit neurons to send quantitative electrochemical signals.

Those are the sensations, no? What, then, is a sensation?

Errrr….wha??? We don’t care what neurons do when talking about speculative transcendental architecture.

True, but the sensibility must have some pre-structured way of sensing before anything is intuited or cognized—i.e., without reason. Talking about neurons is just a nice analogy.

I think we have good reasons to believe, e.g., that electrons exist. — Bob Ross

That was never a contention; believing in a thing is very far from knowledge of it.

I think we have good reasons to know, e.g., that electrons exist.

The real and the existent are pretty much already interchangeable

Not at all under your view! The real is only a subset of existent things which are given or (perhaps) possibly given to the senses. I have no clue why we would assume that most, if not everything, can be sensed by our sensibility—viz., given to the senses.

Because you’re talking sensing, the only knowledge you’re going to get from it, if you get any at all, is empirical.
…
That’s all it’s ever meant to me. I use empirical to describe a kind of knowledge, rather than a posteriori, which prescribes its ground or source.

What else does it refer to for you?

But, then, you would have to deny any a priori knowledge; since we only know that empirically. That which is a posteriori is not the same as that which is empirical---don’t you think? E.g., I must use experience to extrapolate the a priori structure by which I experience, which is technically empirical, and yet it is not itself derived from what is given to the senses.

All knowledge starts with experience, but that does not mean all knowledge comes from experience—as Kant would say.

Even if you think the empirical is the same as what is a posteriori, then I think you still see my point: we can reason about our experience to know things which are not directly perceived.

For me it’s unjustified to call it knowledge.

What do you really know, with respect to the car itself, when somebody tells you he put your car in the garage?

I know it, because I have a true, justified belief. E.g., I just drove it into the garage, went inside, and now am being asked “is the car in the garage?” 5 seconds afterwards—yeah, I think I have a justified belief which is true (i.e., corresponds to reality).

If I take your position, then we have virtually no knowledge of anything. You don’t know you exist, that you brushed your teeth this morning (even though you remember doing it), etc. All knowledge ultimately is probabilistic and uncertain, except for maybe a small set of things (like logical axioms).

Representing objects in space is a priori; it is intuition, which isn’t knowledge.

What makes something a priori and knowledge, then? I know that “all bodies are extended” because of the way my brain represents objects a priori in space; and I know that “the shortest line between two points is the line drawn between them” because my brain <…>.

I think I may get what you are saying a bit, though. Are you noting that the act of synthesis in space that our brain does when intuiting is not itself knowledge, because there is not agent acquiring information but rather there is just a pre-structure for doing so, and that propositions that we (qua agents) know a priori because of that pre-structure (e.g., “all bodies are extended”)? I can get on board with that.

Please elaborate, as I am not following. Give me an example of where something is real but does not exist (if applicable); and where something exists but is not real (if applicable).

Banno, my position is that a blastocyst is a human being, not that it is a person. Can you please critique that instead of a straw man? I want to hear why you don't think that the blastocyst is alive, a separate alive entity than the mother, and is a member of the human species. It is really weird, to me, to say that it is not a new member of the human species.

For that which is real its existence is given; a real thing cannot not exist (necessity)

Is this “real thing” the object which was given to the senses? I am not following.

Why would it be necessary that a cup exists because we experience a cup? I don’t see the necessity you are talking about here.

Sensibility has an a priori structure for representing; sensing is entirely physiological, real physical things called organs being affected by real physical appearances, called things.

The way we sense is prestructured (e.g., neurons) in a certain way to react to stimuli; and I would consider that a priori insofar as, transcendentally, there must be some prestructured way to react to stimuli (i.e., to sense). Otherwise, you are suggesting that somehow our sensibility can sense without any physiological means of sensing.

Technically, though, the a priori structure of sensibility itself, as the faculty of empirical representation, resides in reason, insofar as the matter of sensation is transcendental.

I don’t see how it would be. Our neurons send the sensations to the brain; not vice-versa.

Or is that we are scientifically aware of second-hand representations of those objects? We don’t perceive electromotive force, re: voltage, as a real thing, but do perceive its manifestations on devices manufactured to represent it. Even getting a real shock is only our own existent physiology in conflict with a force not apprehended as such.

Ahhh, so you are a scientific anti-realist; this makes more sense now. I think we have good reasons to believe, e.g., that electrons exist.

Why not, though, just use ‘real’ and ‘existent’ interchangeably and note, instead, that not all the models and concepts we deploy to explain experience necessarily exist in reality (i.e., are not real)?

Why convolute it with an uncommon distinction between two very obvious synonyms?

If we can't sense it, can’t indicating an impossibility, how would we know it exists?

Through empirical tests with the help of self-reflective reason. That’s how we discovered, e.g., germs (even before we could see them with a microscope).

if follows that if an existence is impossible to sense, it is then contradictory to say that same existence is real

Wouldn’t it be “if it follows that if an existence is impossible to sense, it is then necessarily presupposed that it still exists because we stipulated it as an existence which is impossible to sense”?

Anything else is merely logical inference given from direct represention of an indirectly perceived, hence contingent, existence.

It seems like, for you, all that is real is perception. When the Real is usually what is perceived.

We can think things we cannot sense, which is to say we can conceive things we cannot sense, from which the logical inference for the possibility of things we cannot sense, but in its strictest relation, there is no experience, hence no empirical knowledge, of things we cannot sense.

That’s an equivocation. (1) I wasn’t asking just about empirical knowledge and (2) your using the term ‘empirical’ to only strictly refer to what is sensed—that’s not what it usually means.

I know that my car is in my garage even though no one is sensing it. For you, this is invalid knowledge.

Well….that’s just the system functioning without regard to empirical conditions.

Then, representing objects in space is a priori knowledge; which I thought you were denying because it is intuition.

Oh, I know, Bob. It’s just that this stuff is so obviously reasonable to me, yet I cannot get either inkling nor epiphany from you from its exposition. Which means I’m not presenting it well enough, or, you’re of such a mindset and/or worldview it wouldn’t matter what form the exposition takes. Nobody’s at fault, just different ingrained perspectives.

We are getting there (;

You can't prove objects exist. We take it for granted for the sake of convenience, but the proof is not established. It may sound excessively skeptical, but is nonetheless a serious issue.

Depends on what you consider a proof. If you mean a scientific or otherwise empirical verification through an experiment, then obviously no. But it can be proved by empirical evidence in all probability: I don’t have any problem with your idea that our a posteriori knowledge is probabilistic.

If not Kant himself, then his predecessors are on the right track, the world is representation (Kant, Schopenhauer), notion (Burthogge), or anticipation (Cudworth).

Those are all very, very different positions; but you said it like they are all claiming the same thing.

We can then say we have high confidence that our notions are real things in us. But as to the objects which cause these anticipations, we know very little if anything.

The very idea that objects cause these “anticipations” (or more accurately: representations) is itself subjected to your own critique; which you seem to have overlooked.

Are you conceding that you are an ableist? That quote was a consistent consequence of your own thought.

No confusion. A moderately well-educated person will understand that there is the 'domain of natural numbers' yet this is not an 'supersensible realm' in any sense other than the metaphorical. It is not some ethereal ghostly realm. Numbers and logical principles are not physically existent and yet our reason appeals to them at practically every moment to navigate and understand the world.

I thought you were taking a Platonic stance: I must have misunderstood. It sounds like, then, you believe that numbers are real a priori? Either way, they exist and are real. That's confused and muddied language to make a distinction between what is real and what exists.

To some extent, yes: Aristotle thought that we should not just eradicate the passions but, rather, cultivate them towards what is good. That isn't a real thing in Stoicism.

I was hoping that you would say something like this because I think it goes to the heart of the matter. You grant a human zygote fully developed human status but don't grant a seed fully developed plant status. Why? Because you don't care about seeds nearly as much as you care about your own species. A million seeds could be destroyed and you wouldn't bat an eye.

A nourished seed is analogous to a fertilized egg. A seed and the nourishment required, taken separately, are the egg and sperm, taken separately, respectively (in the analogy).

If I grant your view, then every single cell in my body is its own human being. Do you see how absurd that is?

A cell of a human is not the same as a human. A fertilized egg is a human being because it is the earliest stage of development of a completely separate organism of the human species. This is no different than how a nourished seed in the ground is the first stage of a continual process of development for a plant. The seed is not a plant; the water is not a plant; the oxygen is not a plant; the soil is not a plant; but seed in combination with these things produces a seed which begins to grow, and this growing seed is a plant.

If you deny this, then you have to arbitrarily define a point in the process, which has begun, to say "that's exactly where the developing seed is now a plant". That's what a pro-choice person is trying to do when they deny that human life begins at conception.

The modern version of Stoicism is "give me the strength to endure what cannot be changed and also the delusion of believing I can't really change anything, and also the wisdom to be able to find some pussy from time to time".

I am not following what you are critiquing of my comment; but I didn't suggest this "modern version" of Stoicism (which, FYI, isn't a version of Stoicism at all).

Not quite, although I appreciate the elaboration. Dogs are cloned by conjoining a dog egg with a dog cell, which is a synthetic version of egg fertilization. What you are thinking, is that somehow a dog's cell can just become a dog---that's not how that works. Even in cloning dogs, my view is the correct one: a new living dog is created upon fertilizing the egg of the surrogate mother with an artificially manipulated tissue sample from the dog that one wants to clone.

And in what sense do concepts exist?

Depends on your metaphysical views. For me, I would say concepts exist in minds; and those concept reference existent things when those things really exist. I don’t see anything problematic here nor puzzling. My concept of an apple exists in my mind, as I have formulated it, and it references something which does exist (beyond that mere concept) which is called an apple.

Numbers exist a priori.

Your response does help though, as you seem to be using a similar schema to @Mww. Perhaps Mww’s point is that the ‘real’ for him is phenomenal, and existence is noumenal (roughly speaking).

Nevertheless, the basic point remains: if concepts such as number and logical laws are included, then the scope of 'what is real' far exceeds the scope of 'what exists'.

Ehhhh, I don’t buy that. If you take a platonic account (like you did in your quote here), then numbers, e.g., exist in a supersensible realm. For plato, numbers are real and exist; and specifically are real and exist in the sense that they are abstract objects in a supersensible realm. I think trying to separate ‘real’ from ‘existent’ adds unnecessary confusion: I think you could easily convey your point by noting that these abstract objects would not exist in the universe.

Stoicism doesn't teach apathy: it teaches equanimity. That's a common misconception.

A person that is temporarily knocked out (from getting punched) can't tell us what they want us to do and a person next to them that wants to rape them while they are unconscious can: is this "unequal standing" of communication morally relevant to you?!? What you just argued is that we don't give as much moral weight to people that can't communicate with us. What about deaf and mute people? Do they have less rights?!?

Never once did I agree to that. A skin cell absolutely cannot be cloned, and then magically is a zygote. Think about how patently incoherent that is praxis: you are saying that an exact duplicate of X which is not Y is Y.

What has been your experience with stoicism, or what do you think is the issue here? Thoughts and comments welcome.

Stoicism is about eradicating suffering by detaching from things outside of one's control; and it makes a really good pragmatic philosophy for normal life. However, it is worth noting that you must self-reflect on what you should be doing with your life (rationally) and then utilize any irrational emotions you have as fuel (if applicable) to achieve it: so, technically, the best approach is not always to eradicate the pathos.

Ultimately, I would say that Stoicism is about living a life guided by rationality and reason; and to only use emotions when it suits them.

If you are struggling to implement Stoic principles in your life, then try reading (and re-reading) the meditations and implement a robust lifestyle-structure to build self-discipline and self-integrity. Then move from continence to temperance.

Nietzsche does have a good point that it is essential to the human condition to have irrational emotional responses to things; and it is seems kind of wrong to completely eradicate that. E.g., do you really NOT want to shed a tear at your mom's funeral?

So? It is uncontroversially true that a zygote is dependent on the mother to nourish it into viability. Are you suggesting that a person that is dependent on another human to survive is thereby no longer a human being---or never was?

Agreed. But what exactly are we proving? All we can prove is that there is something mind-independent. That's it. And we can only prove there is something mind independent because we have experiences that contradict what our mind wants to believe about reality. We only know that there have been contradictions and that there may continue to be contradictions. We don't know what's causing it.

I am not following how we only know through contradictions (between our experiences and reality). I can imagine perfectly fine a person who infers correctly, without contradiction, that their conscious experience is representational; and then proceeds to correctly identify that there must be a thing-in-itself which excites the senses which, in turn, begins the process to construct the conscious experience which they are having.

Where does the contradictions come into play, there?

Can you cite something we could say is knowledge that did not require any experience to gain it?

The most basic example that comes to mind is mathematical knowledge. Your brain necessarily has to already know how to perform math to construct your conscious experience; and this is why mathematical propositions, in geometry, are applicable and accurate for experience: the axioms of geometry reside a priori in our brains, and so does the standard operations of math (like addition, subtraction, etc.). Mathematical knowledge, insofar as it pertains to how our brains cognize, is independent of any possible experience.

Of course, as I noted before, our self-reflective knowledge of math is learned (usually in school).

And if you can, how is it knowledge and not a belief?

Mathematical propositions are valid in virtue of being grounded in how our brains cognize; and they are only valid for human experience. They are true, justified, beliefs about experience—not reality.

Perhaps that’s where the confusion was: the a priori knowledge we have is not knowledge about reality, but about how we cognize it.

So what is a flower apart from any observation

I would say that we merely say that there is some thing which is exciting our senses, and of which we represent as what we normally perceive as a flower.

And that's all the 'thing in itself' is. Its an unknowable outside of the mind existence.

Agreed; but that’s not a purely abstract thing, then. It is a concrete—unknown.

A skin cell can be cloned and I think you'd need to be a biologist to distinguish a skin cell from a zygote, so it's amusing that you say a skin cell is not a human.

You don't understand, without the help of a biologist, that a skin cell isn't a human being?

Whether or not you can distinguish a zygote from a skin cell is a separate and completely irrelevant point: a skin cell is not a human being. You don't need to be an expert to put that together.

I am unsure as to what exactly you are asking here: are you asking if (1) the doctor should have to wait for approval to pull the plug (in the event where the doctor needs to in order to prioritize other patients) or if (2) the parents can simply decide when to pull the plug (even if it isn't a matter of limit resources)?

Euthanasia is a topic that would be interesting to tackle: I am not sure if in every case it is immoral to kill someone out of respect for that person. It's an interesting pickle; but disanalogous to abortion: an abortion is a total disregard of that innocent life.

C’mon, Bob

I sincerely am not trying to straw man nor misrepresent your view: I just don’t get it (: .

You distinguish between the Real and the Existent; and that makes no sense to me. Traditionally, as far as I can tell, the term ‘real’ refers to the same thing as ‘existent’. If it is real, then it exists; and if it exists, then it is real. This clearly does not hold in your schema.

I’ve never denied the existence of things-in-themselves, for to do so is to question the very existence of real things, insofar as the mere appearance of any such thing to human sensibility is sufficient causality for its very existence, an absurdity into which no one has rightfully fallen.

How is this not the same thing as saying “I’ve never denied that things-in-themselves are real, for to do so is to <…>”? I don’t get it.

Do you really believe that all objects in reality are possible objects of sense for humans? — Bob Ross

Why would you not?

Two reasons:

1. Sensibility has an a priori structure for sensing; so it follows that any given sensibility may be limited such that it cannot sense a particular object; and
2. We are scientifically aware of many objects which are real (i.e., exist) but cannot be sensed by certain species. E.g., humans cannot hear certain wavelengths that dogs can, dogs and humans cannot sense the atoms that comprise a chair, etc.

I don’t understand why one would limit reality to what we or (more generally) any sensibility can sense. Don’t you agree that we have knowledge of things which we cannot sense? Do you think we can sense electrons?

Hmmmm. Might this be backwards? If, instead, you take existence as the totality of reality, there remains the possibility of existences that are not members of reality, hence not members of that which is susceptible to sensation in humans, i.e., dark energy. Quarks. And whatnot.

I think it would help if you elaborate on your distinction between the Real and the Existent; because I don’t see how quarks, e.g., are not real—just like electrons. Are you saying that anything that we can’t sense, but of which we know exists, isn’t real?!?!? Is an electron not real to you?

Ehhhh…not so sure about that. According to spatial-mathematical relations is a form of knowledge, which flies in the face of what was already given as the case, re: there is no knowledge in regard to representation in space.

Objects are already represented in space by intuition, and are called phenomena. The in order, then, for these first two, is for the possibility of empirical knowledge, or, which is the same thing, experience.

Don’t you think that cognition has to play a role in mathematically mapping and constructing objects to have particular relations to each other within our spatiotemporal (outer) experience? I don’t see how intuition could intuit all that without the faculty of understanding. E.g., to represent this particular cup with these particular dimensions on a table, the brain would have to make judgments on how to do that—no?

And a minor supplement: justified true beliefs…assuming one grants such a thing in the first place….are given as stated, but in relation to a priori principles and conceptions is close to overstepping the purview of understanding, which, as afore-mentioned, is for the behoof and use of experience alone.

What do you take a priori knowledge to be then? If you were to explain it to @Philosophim, what would you say?

You already asked this question here, and I responded here.

1. I don't believe we have souls.

2. You are conflating the adjective 'human' insofar as it relates to something being a part of a human with the noun 'human' insofar as it relates to something being a human. E.g., my human skill cell (which is a redundant way to put it btw) is not a human.

No, we don't know what it is. We don't know if its an object, if its physical, if it many things, or something beyond our imagination or comprehension. All we know is there is some 'thing', and 'thing' in only the loosest and most abstract sense. All of those words you used to describe it are words formed from physical sensations, or interpretations.

Agreed, to some extent. By physical, I do not mean material: I mean mind-independent.

Even if we could not even know that it is mind-independently existing; the thing as it is in-itself is not purely logical (in that case): we are talking about some ‘thing’ which exists—we are talking in concreto.

No, our brain does not have to know how to intuit and cognize objects in space independently of any experience it has. It has the capacity to do so.
Just like our minds have the capacity to take light and concentrate on aspects of them. We have the ability to discretely experience, but that ability is not knowledge.

Correct me here @Mww. I would say that my example was bad insofar as the intuition aspect of representation in space is non-cognitive (so there is no knowledge in that regard), but that our faculty of judgment, understanding, and cognition must formulate justified, true, beliefs in relation to the a priori principles and conceptions in order to actually represent the objects in space, according to spatial-mathematical relations.

Think of it like this. A newborn has the capacity to be able to walk one day. Does it know how to do so apart from experience? No

A newborn does not have the capacity to walk: the biological structures required are not there (e.g., muscle, bone density, etc.). Now, once it has that capacity, of course, I agree it still has to learn how to walk; but this is disanalogous.

When you speak of knowledge without experience, you must speak of a newborn

Everything described in the transcendental analytic applies to newborns. E.g., newborns know how to cognize objects in space and time, to cognize in accordance with logic, to cognize in according with math, etc.

Obviously, the newborn doesn’t have the self-reflective knowledge about it (that would be needed to solve a math problem at school).

This is the part I disagree with. A child does not know how to construct things in space. I

This is an equivocation. We are talking about the child qua its representative faculties; not its self-reflective reason.

Skimming over a couple of the other replies here, I think its the term 'thing' that's throwing people. We can rephrase a 'thing in itself' to 'the unknowable reality' Its not a 'thing' like an 'object'. Its just a logical conception that we always interpret reality, and we cannot know reality as it is uninterpreted. That's all.

Edit: I just realized there's other simple ways to explain it. The brain in the vat. An evil demon. The matrix. All of these are 'things in themselves' that we could never know. Its just the same type of argument.

True.

I didn't say that the living human being was a person during the entirety of gestation; and I've already noted that I ground rights in the nature of a being such that if their nature sets them out as a person, then they deserve rights even if they aren't currently a person.

A sperm and egg are alive: no one disputes that. The fact is, also, that a human being begins to exist upon conception of those two. A sperm is alive, but is not a human; an egg is alive but is not a human, but a fertilized egg is a human.

I am getting closer to understanding what you are saying, but I am still not quite there.

Here’s the core of our issue:

By definition the real is that which is contained in reality, and by definition reality is that of which the susceptibility to sensation is given.

I understand better now why you deny the existence of things-in-themselves: you are operating under a false understanding of what reality is. Reality is not itself the totality of that which is, at least in principle, capable of being sensed—that’s what’s called our limits of sensing reality.

Do you really believe that all objects in reality are possible objects of sense for humans? I find that obviously and patently false. There’s absolutely nothing about reality that entails that there isn’t an object which we are incapable of sensing.

If you take that reality is the totality of existence, on the contrary, then you find that things-in-themselves, as properly understood, are the things which comprise that totality.

but it's based on the assumption that a mind is not a continuous entity but a series of unrelated instances

I am not a bundle theorist; and nothing I said entails that. The mind persists as long as its underlying physical constitution is preserved through processes and storage; but this is not the same as claiming that a malfunctioning brain, which may still be a means of preserving a mind, is currently producing a person.

Personhood, as I take it, is a property that a thing has when it currently has a rational will; and this is not found in unconscious humans.

Uh, what is absurd about that? Why would dead human beings have rights?

Imagine there’s a person who just died and all their family members or loved ones are dead. A stranger wants to have sex with their corpse: if that dead person has no rights, being dead, then there is nothing, per se, immoral about having sex with their corpse. Are you willing to bite that bullet?

A response one could give is that some actions are immoral and yet don’t violate a right of someone else—e.g., torturing a pig. They would then point out that, similarly, the dead person has no rights but it would still be immoral to have sex with their corpse.

To that, I respond that it is disanalogous; for the actions which are immoral but don’t directly violate a right (of a person) can be morally permissible per accidens (e.g., having to torture a pig if it were to prevent a major societal catastrophe), whereas it is always wrong to have sex with a dead person's corpse (no differently than it is always wrong to kill an innocent person). Persons, given their nature qua rationality, marks them out as absolute objects of respect.

This is fine if we're talking about subjects where there's no disconnect between what the teleology says it's natural and what individuals usually want

That, and everything you commented, is completely anti-thetical to everything I said. When a person says that their arm is not working properly, they usually are saying it in the Aristotelian sense and not this post-humean sense that you described. Viz., they are saying something is actually wrong with their arm, and not that it is wrong hypothetically relative to their subjective tastes.

On the subject of abortion, that brings us back to the familiar question: does a fetus have a presumed interest to become a person?

Your problem is that you are thinking about this like a Humean. This question makes no sense for an Aristotelian.

But what do the biologists mean when they say life?

They mean that a new member of the human species has been created and is alive.

(2) For all series, having no 1st term implies having no nth term.

This premise is patently false, and is the denial, implicitly, that the concept of infinity is coherent. Viz., you are getting this argument to work by denying that infinity, in principle, is internally coherent.

Let's take set theory as an example: an infinite set has no first member but has a infinite amount of members such that wherever we start enumerating, n, there is a n+1, n+2, etc. and n-1, n-2, etc.

The fact that an infinite set has no last nor first element, does not mean that it does not have an nth member. There's nothing internally incoherent with the idea of an infinite series of causal events (for example).

By denying "an nth term", you are denying that an infinite set has any members.

"Life begins at conception" is an imprecise short-hand for "a human life begins at conception". Stop picking the low hanging fruits: obviously a sperm is alive and so is my skin cells---we are talking about when a human being is alive.

Yes fair enough, but I would still argue that even an unconscious mind is a mind. The neuron firings of an unconscious person don't turn into a random jumble and then spontaneously reassemble into a mind when that person wakes up. There is continuity.

What you are describing is a capacity to deploy a mind, and not having a mind. Therefore, you must agree that a knocked out human being technically isn’t a person when they are knocked out; and re-gain personhood when they re-gain consciousness.

This is not a minor point: your whole argument relied on personhood grounding rights, not the capacity to acquire personhood (because they have a fully developed brain). You are starting to morph into my view: the nature of that being sets them out as a person, because they can and will, if everything goes according to the proper biological development, develop personhood.

Also, if you go the capacity route; then you end up with the absurdity that dead human beings have no rights...just food for thought.

Ok, then what part of that biology are you calling nature

I am talking about how a healthy member of a species is supposed to develop and become. People think of “teleoglogy” as a dirty word these days, or a vacuous concept, but we use it implicitly all the time in the medical industry.

When you go into the doctor’s office and complain about your hand not acting properly, or when a child is born without an arm and you take pity on them, you are talking necessarily in teleological terms: your hand, e.g., was supposed to, according to what a healthy human hand normally does, behave such-and-such instead of so-and-so.

You have a nature which is set out by your biology which is set out by the species which you are a member of. Zebras are supposed to have stripes: a zebra which doesn’t have stripes is an abnormality—a defect.

That's interpretation, not fact.

There’s a huge consensus in biology that life begins at conception; so it’s, quite frankly, not worth my time to argue about it. Here’s a good article on it: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3211703 .

Experience is not sensations. Sensations are the raw data which is intuited, judged, and cognized into a representation which, as a result, is your experience. E.g., a ball excites your senses by "impact" of whatever it is in-itself exciting your sensibility, and then sensations of that excitation are passed to your brain to interpret...there's nothing contradictory going on here.

The thing in itself is the thing considered by reason alone. As the referenced quote says.

I guess I didn’t follow it: can you elaborate more on this?

I am thinking that we use reason to determine that there must be a thing-in-itself which is the ground for our experience of some thing; and that this is a claim in concreto about the thing as opposed to in abstracta. I think, now, you may be saying vice-versa.

Yes, and no. Limits, but not as relates to rationalism vs empiricism.

That was the whole underlying context of the CPR. Kant was addressing philosophers like Descartes, Wolf, etc. and Locke, Hume, etc. with respect to their long standing disputes about knowledge.

The limitation is proof for the impossibility of an intelligence of our kind ever cognizing the unconditioned.

So, the thing-in-itself to you is not real? The thing as it is unconditioned isn’t real?

There is a living human being that is created upon conception; so that is where it begins as a living being. After birth is not at all when it becomes a human being: that makes no sense.

This is helpful: I am also wondering if this is what @Mww is talking about. I am viewing the thing-in-itself as the thing as it really is. What is your interpretation, then, of the ding an sich?

No they are not. That's not how biology works: they are separate living beings of which one is dependent on the other.

The thing as a whole excites such that we perceive, but it isn’t the whole thing we intuit from that perception. The thing as a whole is not the same a a thing in itself.

I am still not understanding what you are claiming the thing-in-itself is: I am saying it is the thing which excites our senses. Can you put in simple terms what you think it is?

What do you think the thing-in-itself actually is, what concept is being represented by those words?

It represents an object in reality as it is in-itself—i.e., qua itself—i.e., independent of any experience of it—…

As far as that goes, what do you think the Big Picture is for CPR?

Kant is outlining the limits of reason; especially as it relates to rationalism vs. (british) empiricism.

And why, exactly, is it that the thing-in-itself ends up as one of the necessary limitations proved for this particular, albeit theoretical, method of human cognition and empirical knowledge?

Because something representational requires something which was not representational which grounds it.

And make no mistake: by his own admission, but in modern venencular, Prolegomena is “CPR For Dummies”, so if one wishes to critique the one, he must set aside the other.

Haha. I also read the CPR: I’ll try and pull some quotes sometime this week for you.

Yes, because I am a person.

That’s not how it works...at all. A ball doesn’t know what a ball is.

And? I didn't claim any brain makes a person. Some brains do though.

My point was that just because neurons are firing in a brain, that does not necessitate there is a person.

Personhood is mindhood: it is having a mind, not having a brain that could produce a mind or “house” a mind.

You are conflating a capacity for personhood with personhood.

I did not claim evolution is arbitrary. The concept of "nature" is arbitrary.

Nature is defined by evolutionary biology.

It's a scientific fact that, at conception, two cells fuse to become one, combining their genetic material.

Thereby creating a new life, which thereby begins its continual-development process until death.

??? . I can't tell if you are joking.