There is but energy in the forms of frequencies and vibrations not all of which we experience. Objects are energy forms in the way of manifested objects because that is the way we experience given energies. Our given apparent reality is a relational fact, relative only to the biology perceiving it, in other words, energy affecting biology, biology being effected, and projecting apparent reality, a biological readout, not unlike that of a calculator. — boagie

Does this mean that what exists beyond our biological sensibilities doesn't count as the part of the world? Should only the objects which are possible to be experienced by the biological senses be the world and part of the world? Is that your point? If it is so, then we might have to drop all the scientific knowledge as non-reality which belongs to not this world, but in some possible world. That would be a strange world.

"Okay but, what if you experienced nothing, but you were so traumatized by it that your brain blocked it out?" you may say.

In this case, there is no world, but you are unaware of that. Therefore, as far as you are aware, you have never experienced the world not existing, and your reason for believing in the world is justified. — Beverley

But a sceptic might say, how can I be 100% certain that my beliefs, memories and awareness are accurate? There are possibilities that the beliefs, memories and awareness could be wrong.

The mitigated sceptic would say that he is not denying the existence of the world, but he is not sure if the awareness, memories and beliefs of your perceptions could be somewhat different or wrong from what you took to be the case. He would then ask to prove that your belief, memories and awareness are 100% free from the possible illusions and errors.

And there is another issue, which the sceptic might demand you to clarify, and that is the definition of the world that you claim to believe in to exist i.e. does the world that you believe in to exist, include the whole universe with all the celestial objects such as the stars, planets, the blackholes, the galaxies, comets and also the all the micro biotic entities such as molecules of all the plants, animals, fishes in the sea etc plus all the people in the world, and the countries on the earth as well your town that you live in ... etc, or is it something totally different from all these?

Hence my characterization of an idea as part of an overarching performative context, versus some kind of abstract noumenal entity. — Pantagruel

If I pinched you, and you screamed "ouch", then your utterance of "ouch" is not the idea of "ouch". It is a motor-system response, which is the biological nature.

However, if you thought about the word "ouch", and trying to find what would be the equivalent meaning of the word in Chinese, then it would be an idea of "ouch".

are you saying we are also doing away with the editors, publishers, scholars, and reviews of the references and citations? Because those were what it took to create those books. — L'éléphant

In case of the online information such as from WiKi or ChatGPT, the editors, publishers, scholars ..etc source information can be unknown or vague. And also the quality and accuracy of the information could be a bit suspicious too.

I prefer relying on the information from the traditional printed books and articles for the clearer information of the source, editors, writers and publishers.

So, I don't understand the question. And are you also including in your question the copyrights? Is authorship also obsolete? — L'éléphant

I would think the copyrights issue will always be with us. If you wrote something, and published it, then you wouldn't want someone quoting them without acknowledging your authorship or asking for your permission to quote or use them for their uses, would you?

Yes, I can understand philosophy and history retaining their value over years. Science and math change much more. — jgill

Yes, It was my best buy from eBay last year costing around $50 including the delivery of the 8 volume TEP set.

Subjective ideas - Ideas when one thinks, imagines, recalls ...etc. The content of the subjective mental state when one thinks about something. Ideas are the elements in the propositions and judgements, but not the propositions or judgements themselves. So when one claims "The sun is bright today.", the sun, bright, today are separate ideas in one's mind, which composed the proposition.

Objective ideas - The ideas and information which exist in the public, be it known or unknown such as the number of people who have ever lived since the start of human civilisation. The number of grapes produced in Europe for the last 100 years. The total number of stars and all the celestial objects in the universe. These information / ideas do exist in the universe, but humans don't know them. They are the objective ideas.

Platonic ideas - In Plato, ideas were used to describe an object in visual perspective. Ideas are also all the universals in the world of ideas. The ideas are the real existence lasting forever, not the material objects which will soon perish.

In British empiricists like Locke, Berkeley and Hume, ideas were equivalent to perception itself. So perceiving an idea of apple meant, having an idea of apple. And also having an idea of the apple meant to be able to describe the apple linguistically.

There are different types of ideas.

1. Subjective
2. Objective
3. Platonic

We have wandered far astray the original point and this statement of yours isn't a rebuttal. If anything, it makes my point but tacks on an critical ad hominem for some reason. I'd suggest dropping it. — Pantagruel

I recall that you started the deviation by putting down "the idea idea", then claiming the word of ouch reflects the idea of ouch, which fell off the cliff of the topic. :chin: :wink:

Sounds illogical? The essence of language is the yoking together of sign and idea. The onomatopoeiac function highlights this connection where the word becomes a symbolic projection or extension of the sound. Chirp. If the word "chirp" could be uttered by a bird, it would be exactly what it is. And, presumably, it would also represent the mental state that evoked it. By your reasoning, nothing represents an idea.

Ouch. — Pantagruel

You are in deep confusion on the utterance of Ouch as a motor reaction of the verbal expression as a representation of the mental state. Your utterance of Ouch was from the motor reaction which was a pre-mental state unless it was a premeditated act.

That is not what Synthetic(Olcott) means. — PL Olcott

Then what is the formal definition of "Synthetic" in expressions? Are expressions correct here? Should they not be propositions or judgements?

But I didn't say it was the idea, I said it accurately reflected it, in the same way that (saying) the word "ouch" accurately reflects the idea of "ouch" because it is a manifestation the content of the idea (ouch). — Pantagruel

The word "ouch" reflects the idea of "ouch" sounds illogical. Words are uttered by the speaker, and it has no ability to perform reflection or consideration. They are passive entity. How does a word reflect an idea?

But what I was trying to say (before I ended up writing rather a lot about light waves!) was that if we can see images of objects, there MUST be objects/physical things around us, that are either emitting their own light, or reflecting light emitted from other objects. This would seem to prove that there are objects around us.

Hopefully this all makes sense, and I haven't over complicated things :/ — Beverley

Great post.  Thank you for your substantial post on the light and wave reflection mechanism for visual perception.  It is a good argument with no complication at all.

Yes, things exist, and we know they exist by perceptions.  As soon as we open our eyes in the mornings, the world appears to us in our sights.  

Some sceptics would demand to prove the world exists, because it might not.  They were the extreme sceptics who believed that things don't exist. the world doesn't exist, and if it did, we cannot know or prove that they exist.  Of course, their claim is wrong.  Things and the world exist.

But the academic sceptics would say that the world exists, but what are the grounds for our belief in  their existence?  or How do we justify our belief in existence?  So it is not total denial of the existence or knowledge, but attempting to find out the nature of our belief in the existence.

Do we believe in the existence of the world and objects by just visual perception alone?  Or do we need more than what we see to believe in the continued existence of the world and objects in the world?

Wouldn't that be syntactically correct? The word ouch accurately reflects the meaning of the idea ouch. The word idea...etc. — Pantagruel

Nope. Ideas can mean mental images too. And even when an idea is a word, they are different. Words would be for speaking or writing. Ideas are the contents in your thoughts. Word can mean ideas, but words are not ideas themselves.

Synthetic expressions are expressions of language that also require sense data from the sense organs. Example: "I see a cat in my living room right now". — PL Olcott

Synthetic expressions are to add new knowledge or information to the expressions, but the example expression doesn't seem to add any new information or knowledge. Because it seems just reporting your visual sense perception.

"Your cat played with a mouse in the garden this afternoon". That would be more like giving you new knowledge that cats can play with mouse (not catching attacking mouse).

Heinlein's "fair witness" merely refrains for forming conclusions based on sense data when
there is a pause in the continuity of the sense data. — PL Olcott

Heinlein's "fair witness"?? Is it a Philosophical term or idea of something? I did some google search on it, but it came up with some pop arty gibberish.

Unless and until finite strings are assigned meaning they remain meaningless gibberish. — PL Olcott

Why did you write down a meaningless gibberish?

The word idea accurately reflects the meaning of the idea idea. — Pantagruel

Why did you write the "idea" twice? "the idea idea"? Why did you do that?

I was having the idea of the tree which was cut down this summer. The tree no longer exists in the world. This afternoon I was able to have "the idea" of the tree as an image, when it was standing in the field. I cannot call the image of the tree nothing but an idea of the tree.

So, at night I open the book, and start reading it. Due to the darkness I must switch on the light before reading it. With no light on, there is no vision. It is total darkness. I cannot even see the book. It is just total darkness. When the light is on, the book is visible. I can read it. In this case, was I seeing and reading the book, or was I seeing and reading the reflected light from the book?

It is. And rational-idealism is an idea that can be virtuously circular. Materialism isn't. Metaphysical materialism is "autologically unsound." — Pantagruel

Yeah, I see what you mean. It would be like saying Experiencial Empiricism.
But here we are talking about just "Idea". It is convenient to name all the building blocks in the minds as "Ideas". If not, what else would be a proper name for it?

A tree I have cut down this summer, has gone from the sight. But I still can remember how it looked in my mind. So I can say I have the idea of the tree, which I cut down. Without the concept of Idea, I wouldn't know what I would call that mental image of the tree which has gone forever from the world.

They can't be continually updated, like Wikipedia. They cost $. — jgill

I own an Encyclopaedia of Philosophy (MacMillan) published in 1960s, and it is still very useful, readable and feel up-to-date. I don't see a need for update of them. But suppose, for the other subjects, it could be different situation with updating.

Blind people know that cats exist. — PL Olcott

Do they know how cats look like?

That cats exist is an axiom in the verbal model of the actual world. — PL Olcott

"That cats exist." is a statement, which needs verification to be true. It is only true if and only if the cats exist in the actual world of some place (in your living room, or your kitchen) at certain time duration T1 - Tn.

If you meant "Cats exist." in general terms, then it would be a tautology. The word "Cats" contain the concept "exist* as a property already.

If we use Robert Heinlein's "fair witness" standard of truth you can not be sure that a cat is in the living room the moment after you have no sense data from the sense organs confirming this. — PL Olcott

Does he disregard justified "belief" as a ground for truth?

but a die-hard materialist would consider this circular reasoning. — Pneumenon

The circular reasoning is also an idea.

this reminds me of Descartes's. "I think, therefore, I am." He uses something non-physical, such as thoughts, to prove something physical, himself. Therefore, even if he is mistaken in what he thinks he is (he may not realize that he is a brain in a vat), he cannot be mistaken in thinking that he exists, in whatever form. — Beverley

Descartes' certainty of knowledge comes from his doubting. Without doubting, no knowledge. Whenever there is a reason to doubt, don't hesitate to doubt before coming to conclusions.
It must had been a philosophical methodology for acquiring truths for him.

so we can use a non physical thing, light, to prove a physical thing, the object. — Beverley

I think, therefore I am. I am, therefore the world exists. Yes, it seems to work.

For us to see anything, light must reflect off a physical object. Even if you are in the desert and seeing a mirage, what you see is still the result of light waves being reflected off physical things, if only air particles. I think this makes sense…. — Beverley

What we are seeing is the reflected light, not the object itself, and it does give possibility of illusion with the visual perceptions. Therefore scepticism comes handy even in the practical life let alone philosophy. Yes, it does make sense.

Having never seen a actual cat one can still say that cats are animals. — PL Olcott

Can one know what cat is without ever having seen an actual cat?

The only way that you can verify that a specific event is occurring at a specific location
right now generally requires that you are seeing this event occur. — PL Olcott

Having seen the cat in the living room, I could come out of the living room, shut the door, and I can still say those statements from my memory without seeing the cat.
"A cat is in my living room right now." or "There is a cat in my living room right now."

Synthetic expressions are expressions of language that also require sense data from the sense organs. Example: "I see a cat in my living room right now". — PL Olcott

Could it be the same meaning as
"There is a cat in my living room right now." or
"A cat is in my living room right now." or
"A cat exists in my living room right now."?
Above expressions don't require sense data?

But it seems to me that the underlying motive here, whether it enters into specific discussions or not, is a discomfort with ideas because they're immaterial. And we wind up trying to pull an immaterial rabbit out of a material hat, over and over again. It mirrors the issues with the intentionality of the mental. — Pneumenon

Isn't all thoughts ideas? Even the idea of "Getting rid of ideas"?

The print book encyclopaedia are dead ducks. — jgill

Why do you believe so?

I know that the elite heads of universities are allowed to plagiarise, but I don't think us common people are given the same leeway. — RussellA

Regardless whoever they are, quoting the published original works, books, commentaries or articles, without clearly marking or adding the information of the source could be regarded as an act of plagiarism.

I agree with Corvus that you should be giving attaching paragraph numbers to your quotes. As I am using a different translation to yours, sometimes it can take me 15 minutes to find the source of your quote. — RussellA

:fire: :100: :up:

all is energy, frequencies, and vibrations, why do we assume that objects unlike color and sound really exist? — boagie

Good question. They are invisible and inaudible, because they exist beyond our bodily sensibility. However, they can be felt or measured and read by the means of the instruments.

by surmising you have the capacity to research what you don’t know, or do know but find disagreeable. And if we stick with Kantian metaphysics in its practical sense, me doing your work for you….or any of the members of the audience, however scant their number….is disrespecting myself. — Mww

It is not for me or for my understanding. I did read your posts, and also have referred to various academic publications on the topic, and already have accepted their point of view on the topic.

It was about the other people who might be reading your posts. There were a few times when I was not sure where the quotes were from, or whether you were saying something about some other things or whether you were mixing the quotes with your own writings.

I am now used to it, but the other readers might be unsure on what you are quoting and writing about with no indication where the quotes came from, and what they are about. It was just a suggestion. :)

What….use my reason to answer your reason’s questions, asked of itself?

Nahhh….I ain’t gonna do that. You’re smart enough, you got the books, use your own reason. — Mww

You seem to be missing the point. It is not a matter of intelligence, but matter of a courtesy to add the source information of your quotes. It wouldn't be just you and me using the forum, and reading your posts. There would be many others from all over the world reading your posts. Some would be the students and beginners of Philosophy who would appreciate the added information of the source from the original works of Philosophy for the quotes for their studies and readings.

I am sure also the moderators and members of this forum would like any posters to add the source information of their quotes in their quotes from all published works, be it the originals, commentaries or articles as one of their forum operating policies.

It would be also a courtesy for the late Immanuel Kant, the author of CPR to be acknowledged on the source of his writings whenever you quote them.

Well, I was born not far from Birmingham, but when I tell people this, they are usually surprised because I have lost my Brummie accent. I think I do occasionally come out with the odd local phrase or word, but I guess that has more to do with dialect. — Beverley

Oh interesting. I used to have a friend from Birmingham. He used to speak with non-identifiable English accent, but when he met his own Birmingham pals, he used to come out with his native Birmingham accent, which sounded interesting and difficult to understand.

When I lived in Greece, there were so many UK tourists and expats living there that a hybrid language developed, locally referred to as 'Gringlish'. Greek people would speak English, but keep
some Greek grammar structures, and the UK people would speak in the same way to be understood better. — Beverley

Greece would be an interesting place to live because of all the interesting ancient relics scattered in the country, and for the fact you could visit all the places where we used to read about in the History of Philosophy.

And I learnt that one of the most commonly used international words "Ok" came from the Greek "όλα καλά", meaning, "All good", which is often delivered as a question. — Beverley

I tried to learn Greek, because I thought it would help me reading the ancient Greek philosophy, but didn't quite managed to start yet. Also dabbled with the Hebrews with no visible progress, when I was reading the philosophy of Kabbalah.

What accent have you got, and what experiences of accents/languages have you had? — Beverley

My main language is Korean. I have learnt English, German and Japanese as my 2nd foreign languages. Once upon a time, many years ago, I lived in Indonesia and Singapore when I was a middle school pupil, and had a chance to learn Indonesian / Malaysian too.

Apart from Korean which is my natural language, all my 2nd languages were basic level. But when I chose to read Philosophy in English a few years ago, my English has improved quite a lot. Now my English is at a similar reading level to my Korean, and I am quite comfortable reading in English. In writing in English, I still make many grammatical mistakes, and I try to quickly revise over my writings 2-3 times before finalising.

In speaking, I don't have any particular English accent, but I am used to listening to British accents.

There’s a whole section on it. — Mww

Could you please add pages or the section numbers (if NKS CPR), and the titles in your quotes? When the quotes are just pasted with the quotation marks only without any information where they came from, it is not clear where you got the quotes from, and many times it is unclear whether if you are just quoting, or saying things from your own mind or whether if you are mixing them up.

“…. To avow an ability to solve all problems and to answer all questions would be a profession certain to convict any philosopher of extravagant boasting and self-conceit, and at once to destroy the confidence that might otherwise have been reposed in him. — Mww

Now the question is: Whether there is in transcendental philosophy any question, relating to an object presented to pure reason, which is unanswerable by this reason; — Mww

Now I maintain that, among all speculative cognition, the peculiarity of transcendental philosophy is that there is no question, — Mww

Could you please select 2 - 3 sentences from your quotes and repost them, which are your main points? There seem to be a number of paragraphs with many unclear sentences in the quotes, which make difficult to clarify in what they are actually trying to say in respect with our discussion.

And yet, the question was…what caused Kant’s awakening from his dogmatic slumbers, which he allotted to Hume specifically. — Mww

It has been clearly pointed out in this post.

Now you wish Kant to be fixing the dogmatism of the rationalists, — Mww

That is not my wish, but the officially accepted facts by the most contemporary academics, which turned out to be the same perspective of mine, so I accepted it.

but the entire reason d’etre of the Critique is aimed at the empiricists in general and Hume in particular, regarding the lack of critical examination of the capabilities and employment of pure reason herself. — Mww

I am not sure if this is true. It sounds unfamiliar, diffuse and groundless.

Why not say Kant was just as dogmatic as Hume, up until he stopped to think about how that brand of philosophy wasn’t as fulfilling as it should be. So he woke up, from being a dogmatic thinker himself, something similar to the possibility I mentioned four days ago, around the top of pg 13. — Mww

Why would anyone want to say that? I don't see a point, because it was not the case, and is irrelevant.

So now it’s a matter of figuring out just what dogmatic thinking entails, and from there, why it’s unfulfilling, and lastly, the method by which it could be fixed. — Mww

Dogmatic thinking is also the stubborn minds which refuse to change even after the clear conclusions demonstrated with all the facts, evidences and reasonable arguments.

Mitigated academic scepticism is a natural human instinct and good for understanding the world better.
— Corvus

No it isn’t. It is forced upon us, by the criticism of pure reason, for without it we are apt to credit the world for that which does not belong naturally to it, can never be found naturally in it, therefore has no business being included in our empirical understanding. — Mww

We still will keep on wondering and doubting on the world. It you understand CPR, then of course, you are likely to have the mitigated one. If not, you might have an extreme one.

This is a minor point, which no one really cares.
— Corvus

Hence, skepticism and dogmatism in those who don’t. — Mww

Dogmatism (of the rationalists = Spinoza, Wolf, Mendelssohn) was what Kant tried to fix.
You were incorrect in telling that Kant was trying to fix Hume's philosophy.

Mitigated academic scepticism is a natural human instinct and good for understanding the world better.

If that were the case, mathematics would be impossible. — Mww

This sounds like you are misunderstanding Mathematics with some empirical or religious subjects. :chin: :roll:
Mathematics and Geometry are A priori subjects, which work in the minds anyway. Kant demonstrated how these subjects work in CPR, but he wasn't deeply concerned with them at all. What Kant was deeply concerned was perception of the transcendental objects, and possibility of the knowledge and experience.

We don’t care as much for that to which pure reason deals, but moreso the mechanisms by which it functions, re: the construction of principles a priori. — Mww

Again, this is a minor point, which no one really cares. The main point is the details in my previous post.

“… Pure reason, then, never applies directly to experience, or to any sensuous object; its object is, on the contrary, the understanding, to the manifold cognition of which it gives a unity à priori by means of conceptions—a unity which may be called rational unity, and which is of a nature very different from that of the unity produced by the understanding….”

(Sigh) — Mww

Again still seems to be missing the point. The really relevant quotes are CPR A758 759 760 / B786 787 788.

My interpretation is because of the challenge Hume posed to the natural assumption that events are causally related. — Wayfarer

Thus, Kant's answer to Hume was to argue that while our knowledge is grounded against experience, the fundamental structure of knowledge relies on innate capacities of the mind. — Wayfarer

This is more like what the academic articles (e.g. Kant's debt to the British Empiricists, by Wayne Waxman 2010) saying on the issue (A Kant Dictionary by Howard Caygill 1994). Kant was not happy with the rationalist crowd such as Wolf Spinoza Mendelssohn who believed in the reason's power to perceive the existence of God, Freedom, Soul by deduction. To Kant, that was a dogmatism.

Kant read Hume, and realised that Hume's idea of reason was much narrower and limited version than the rationalists'. Kant got the idea to write CPR to criticise the power of reason, and also set the limit of the reason for its power to the degree only able to deal with what is perceived via sensibility in empirical world.

What is not visible in the sensibility, but can be thought of such as God, Immortality and Soul are in Noumena and they are object of faith and postulation of pure reason. For Kant, that was the waking up call by Hume to the dogmatic slumbers of the rationalists.