I am not promoting these views, nor rejecting them. I’m merely describing what I increasingly see and hear—what I believe many people outside the West are beginning to think and feel. — Astorre

I do not see anything like this in Vietnam. My experience in SE Asia has been more like the opposite. Western ideals are placed on a pedestal. There have been more nationalistic tendencies pushed by certain regimes here and there though (thinking of Philippines in particular), but overall I would say the eyes are still very much drawn to 'The West'.

Is the West prepared to coexist with ideological and civilizational alternatives that do not necessarily aspire to Western liberalism? — Astorre

It has to or it is not really framing the 'Western' ideal (which is not wholly 'Western' anyway). I think out of all the areas on Earth where nationalism has held sway over political dynamics, and caused all kinds of problems, Europe has seen the true damage of fast advancement; abuse inflicted on others and self; and managed to still keep in place a large enough slice of liberalism to keep its head above water.

Freedom is always under threat. Nothing new there. I do not see power shifts effecting this because I believe true power comes through the adoption of liberal ideas not the rejection of them. If India or China rises they will only maintain influence if a good slice of their thinking involves liberal ideals.

I have heard some people who have to use AI regularly in their jobs say they can feel their brain cells dying due to lack of exercise.

AI is useful. In education AI can do great things for sure, as it can assess multiple students on a one-to-one level and pick out helpful routes for particular students with particular difficulties. A teacher has limited time resources.

Using AI to help you reframe your words for this forum is 'okay' I think, but I woudl go for your own attempts first and then try to rearticulate a few times before resorting to AI top interpret what you want to say. Otherwise you may start feeling like those guys in jobs where they have to use it to keep their jobs.

Henry Allison: Takes the dual-aspect argument on and imo compellingly.
P.F Strawson makes similar comments in Bounds of Sense
Lucy Alais doesn't commit, but is heading in this direction, from what I've read (but that could turn out to be embarrassingly unhelpful)
Schulting seems to presuppose the noumena as physical
the SEP on Qualified Phenomenalism seems to also support this, or at least run over why its reasonable. — AmadeusD

I imagine out of all of these SEP might hint at such. I doubt very much any other states noumena is physical. you are jus trawling for secondary commentaries for evidence instead of presenting primary source quotes ... which makes me wonder if you have actually read COPR? Many people pose as if they have when it fact they simply did a course on it and were spoon fed information via a secondary source. Perfectly understandable as not everyone has the tiem or inclination to sift through such a dense volume.

2. Not actually possible. If Kant is so complex, and I can find several notable and respectable writers who take the position I'm putting forward, you can't make this claim. Its exactly the same as I'm objecting to above. It is a standard response which is not actually capable of being made on the writings Kant left. The interpretive process gets us here, fairly squarely. — AmadeusD

Show me in the text where Kant says noumena is physical. You cannot. End of story.

Kant's COPR is fairly complex.

If you think noumena is physical though you are completely and utterly wrong. This is not really a matter of opinion. It might be annoying to hear this, but there is nothing wrong with being wrong.

If you are still convinced your view is right then the onus is very much on you to reference and explain why, using his actual words; as the scholarly concensus on this is pretty much stacked completely against you. Note: When I say 'scholarly' I mean reputable scholarly work not amateur interpretations (which are rife with misrepresentation of Kant, due to his multifacted approach).

I think you have just shown how the terminology can spiral out of control very, very quickly when talking about the phenomenon of consciousness.

I have no answers. I am generally some breed of physicalist when it comes to some questions of consciousness and not so much for others. It depends on the framing.

If you are asking form a physicalistic perspective then the room exists when I leave. If you are asking from a phenomenological perspective the question is far more complicated.

Back to this. Was he right? — Banno

It depends on how you interpret what he was saying alongside what it appears he actually meant.

I see. Will be interesting to look into in the future and see how spandrels relate to this concept.

At a glance the above notes you provided remind me of Gleick's book 'Chaos'.

Busy on other projects atm, but sounds super intriguing. I never suffer from lack of distractions! :D

So 'absentials' appears to be an umbrella term that covers Spandrels.

Thanks for info. Might be a useful read in the future :)

Sounds a lot like spandrels? Or are biological spandrels only used descriptively in evolutionary biology?

This is a philosophy forum. If someone is saying the emperor is fully clothed when he is naked I will not just sit idle at every time.

Kant is something of a cornerstone in philosophical history so it makes sense to point out mistakes when they occur -- especially when repeated by more than one person.

As best I can tell, all Kant was trying to show was that the noumenal world is made up of objects which our bodies interpret through various sense organs and processes. That seems correct, on his explication of the human understanding. — AmadeusD

This misses the mark because he does not talk of a noumenal world in any physical sense. Anything physical is phenomenonal, not merely known through out limited 'senses' as he uses the terms 'intuitions' and 'sensibility'.

You seem to be confusing the 'noumena' with 'transcendental objects'. That is my guess.

I have explained ad nauseum above. The onus is on you to read not me. I have studied Kant more than enough -- as in read the actual text repeatedly.

I have also checked my interpretation with the modern evaluation of what he meant. Have you?

As best I can tell, all Kant was trying to show was that the noumenal world is made up of objects which our bodies interpret through various sense organs and processes. That seems correct, on his explication of the human understanding. — AmadeusD

Flat out wrong.

No. Janus. Kant said no such thing -- well technically he is so careful people often misunstand what he meant. He even says there is danger in being too precise as people misunderstand.

We wre talkign about what Kant said. I am sticking to what he said, and the mass concensus, not using weird or outdated interpretations.

They said somthing physical could be noumenal. This is flat out wrong. Noumenal cannot relate to physical in any other way than as a negative limiting concept.

This is flat out wrong.

My point is more about how it can feel like anything. I do not see how appreciation of time can happen either in a moment or across a period without some atemporal element being involved. What that means in terms of our physical understanding of the universe is rather nonsensical to us though.

a single moment — frank

It is more or less this that flumoxes me.

Is time discrete? If not, or if so, how can we have any appreciation of it?

If the ultimate nature of a physical existent is unknowable, then it is noumenal. — Janus

No.

But surely we can talk about the neumenon and conclude that it exists?
— Punshhh

No. Because:

'not existing' is a concept that we appreciate not that we do not.
— I like sushi

We understand what exists for us is all that can exist for us. We cannot know what we cannot frame within the bounds of our cognitive capacities (time and space) unless we have some other 'intuition' that is yet to be articulated.

When we 'talk about noumena' we are not talking about noumena as our faculties are framed in space and time and the concept of noumena is not -- hence it serves as a means of understanding what we can understand and how we frame the term 'exist'. Nothing is the absence of something, noumena is not even that, no words can capture it as it is not an 'it' and only represented as a limitation of our cognitive capacities. Any sense of 'beyond' is mere word play.

This is not to say it doesn’t have attributes like this, but that we don’t know what they are.
— Punshhh

We CANNOT. Therefore it is less than nothing. Nothing we can say about noumena is noumena. It is Negative only. Literally everything we can ever conceive of in existence -- abstract or otherwise -- is phenomenal. Noumena is not phenomena. This is not to say just because we lack a sense, it is to say we have no grounds for talking about non-constituent part of existence because that is nonsensical. Understanding that it is nonsensical is the establishment of noumena as a negative limiting term for what exists and what does not with res[ect to space and time.

So we can say it exists, provided we don’t define it (because that would miss the mark). Because without it, the phenomenal world wouldn’t exist and the phenomenal world exists.
— Punshhh

Everything we can talk about and speculate about exists. The point is we have no right to say 'exists' when if any such capacities to recognise such is absent.

Hopefully you get the idea that no matter how long I go on EVERYTHING I can say is noumena negatively ONLY and can NEVER be positively captured.

I think it is a good place to begin when trying to understand the kind of problems that arise in human experience including how we articulate what consciousness is and how it relates to the physical world as well as our metaphysical concepts about the world -- which are necessarily connected in some fashion.

Seems straightforward enough to me, I don’t know what all the fuss is about.

Surely we have just defined a necessary being?
— Punshhh

It is so straight forward it bends around everything!

Necessary being? I do not see how. We are not talking about any such thing, although Kant certainly doe scover such ground in his work and states we cannot say anything about any such noumena (see above).

The closest other thing I can think of that covers this kind of concept is probably Dao/Tao (the 'way'). More poetic than Kant but far less precise. If either works for you then that is probably enough. — I like sushi

There you go.

You do not wish to be corrected? Okay.

Bye

My theory is that the conception of time is related to anticipation. — frank

How can you anticipate though. That is where our reasoning breaks down.

In that case it would not be a case of there being noumenal things, but noumenal aspects of things. — Janus

No, again.

I guess strictly speaking, even if what that "something beyond" is is just a world of physical existents, it can be said that they are noumenal to us. — Janus

No.

But surely we can talk about the neumenon and conclude that it exists? — Punshhh

No. Because:

'not existing' is a concept that we appreciate not that we do not. — I like sushi

We understand what exists for us is all that can exist for us. We cannot know what we cannot frame within the bounds of our cognitive capacities (time and space) unless we have some other 'intuition' that is yet to be articulated.

When we 'talk about noumena' we are not talking about noumena as our faculties are framed in space and time and the concept of noumena is not -- hence it serves as a means of understanding what we can understand and how we frame the term 'exist'. Nothing is the absence of something, noumena is not even that, no words can capture it as it is not an 'it' and only represented as a limitation of our cognitive capacities. Any sense of 'beyond' is mere word play.

This is not to say it doesn’t have attributes like this, but that we don’t know what they are. — Punshhh

We CANNOT. Therefore it is less than nothing. Nothing we can say about noumena is noumena. It is Negative only. Literally everything we can ever conceive of in existence -- abstract or otherwise -- is phenomenal. Noumena is not phenomena. This is not to say just because we lack a sense, it is to say we have no grounds for talking about non-constituent part of existence because that is nonsensical. Understanding that it is nonsensical is the establishment of noumena as a negative limiting term for what exists and what does not with res[ect to space and time.

So we can say it exists, provided we don’t define it (because that would miss the mark). Because without it, the phenomenal world wouldn’t exist and the phenomenal world exists. — Punshhh

Everything we can talk about and speculate about exists. The point is we have no right to say 'exists' when if any such capacities to recognise such is absent.

Hopefully you get the idea that no matter how long I go on EVERYTHING I can say is noumena negatively ONLY and can NEVER be positively captured.

I think it is a good place to begin when trying to understand the kind of problems that arise in human experience including how we articulate what consciousness is and how it relates to the physical world as well as our metaphysical concepts about the world -- which are necessarily connected in some fashion.

Seems straightforward enough to me, I don’t know what all the fuss is about.

Surely we have just defined a necessary being? — Punshhh

It is so straight forward it bends around everything!

Necessary being? I do not see how. We are not talking about any such thing, although Kant certainly doe scover such ground in his work and states we cannot say anything about any such noumena (see above).

The closest other thing I can think of that covers this kind of concept is probably Dao/Tao (the 'way'). More poetic than Kant but far less precise. If either works for you then that is probably enough.

The limits of human cognition does not define or determine the limits of what exists. — Janus

It does if that is all there is we ever have access to. If something exists beyond space and time it is not a 'something'. Get it?

Kant talks about our 'intuitions' being space and time.

I can see why someone would suggest a Two Worlds scenario but this is stretching what Kant is stating too far. The Noumenal World -- so to speak -- is not a World. If we have some as yet unknown facaulty that allows for some other intuition (other than space and time) then, and only then, is talk of another World open to sensibility. That said, it woudl still be a natural and necessarily integrated part of space and time.

So noumena is in itself a phenomena referred to in reference to human existence (the only existence we know of being space and time).

A fuller appreciation of phenomenology can help frame what Kant was talking about because by taking up a phenomenological approach forces us to look at the certain limitations of cognition we are bound by. For instance, we cannot conceive of a polygon with no sides, a colour with no pigment, nor a sound with no pitch. Something similar is held in what Kant means when using the term 'noumena' and is famously framed by saying "Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind."

That’s a very simplified gloss, and not my argument. I’m not claiming that “nothing exists apart from cognition.” I’m saying that any concept of existence only makes sense within the conditions of possible experience. — Wayfarer

I would argue there is no intrinsic difference between saying one or the other. No one can speak of something outside of space and time if there is faculty of cognition possessed by humans that operates in a completely distinct sense to the faculties we possess.

A shape with no edges is not a shape at all. If there can exist something 'shape-like' beyond sapce and time it does not 'exist' in any sense we can frame and if not soley separate we can appreciate it. This is the difference between being open to discovery by us and not existing, but 'not existing' is a concept that we appreciate not that we do not.

I am curious what you think about this?

The distinction I use is fairly simple. Knowledge is stuff you know and wisdom is understanding how and when to apply such knowledge.

Everyone has knowledge of some sort, but generally speaking wisdom comes with experience. There is a reason people say someone is 'wise beyond their years'.

An uneducated person can certainly be wise. Like many things in life people have more of something than others. If someone has more wisdom then they are better able to apply what they know (no matter how specific or broad) when and where it matters.

Are you wise, or getting there? — Tom Storm

I am. Took some years to get there though. I do not think it is something that came naturally to me though and generally think I am a late bloomer.

I have never met or heard of anyone below 30 who I would call 'wise' in the broader sense. I would say I reached a point where I could call myself in my early 40's. At that point I think people generally have a reasonable grip on life and the perhaps the hormonal changes play a significant role here. That said, I did have an experience that fundamentally shifted my appreciation for life in my early 30's and changed the trajectory of my life, but one fleeting moment of unified 'wisdom' was more or less the catalyst rather than the point where I really obtained something permanent.

I fully expect once I get even older I will look back and think 'I did not quite get it when I was 45,' but I will still see myself as hitting that point of 'wisdom' by that time. Maybe it is just nothing more than a feeling of balance or something? Hard to put into words.

I can sum up my 'lived philosophy' in a very simple way.

"Expect the worst, Hope for the best"

I adopted this mindset around about the time I turned 30 and it has served me extremely well. It is a recognition of our innate optimistic biases alongside our attraction to negativity. When things do not go distasterously wrong I am pleased, but this does involve having to create rather horrific scenarios sometimes.

Think of it something like this when you wake up in the morning:

"I am not strapped to my bed with a torturer about to go to work on me for the next 24 hours. Life is GREAT! I am so lucky."

The hope for the best part is just leaning into dreaming about the impossible coming into fruitition -- then by sheer chance it might just happen! Something taken from Crowley where he says the biggest mistake any individual can make is to set achievable goals.

Everything else for me is something like the belief in creating the best version of myself I can as being the most sensible path forwards.

I cannot seem to fathom how we can appreciate time without partially transcending it.

Time is something we frame in time. It seems so inherent to the human condition that we tend to think of it as inflexible.

Even taking into account our conscious subjective appreciation of time -- a narrow window of attention -- relative to the semi-conscious and unconscious 'appreciation,' there is still something of a covering-over going on in terms of the homunculi account of time.

At the very least it seems to me that conscious subjectivity is distributed in a specular sense from multiple temporal instances. How else could anything be apprehended without having a fundamental atemporal aspect?

Even if we view consciousness ar large as a simulation -- meaning representation of -- how would it be possible to hold such appreciation of in a distilled instant? We are not photons, yet we live in a finite respect like photons, able to experience change firsthand.

I said it was a bit mad :)

As mad as it may sound the only 'reasonable' conclusion I can come to is something about consciousness is atemporal. That or it is one helluva temporal trick!

What is the difference between noumena and things in themselves according to you? — Janus

Phenomena is everything grounded in our sensibility.

Noumena is not Phenomena.

Things-in-themselves are the intuitively inpenetrable 'whereness' of Phenomena. Scare quotes to denote how it makes little sense to talk of something meaningless to space and time.

I think that is as simple as I can express Kant's view.

The subtle difference in meaning between things-in-themselves is the approach. Noumena is conceptually useful as a limitation whereas things-in-themselves helps to appreciate the aboutness of phenomena as our means of knowing the nature of existence.

A lot of this makes more sense form a phenomenological perspective (which is how I originally approached academic philosophy). Consciousness is 'of something' (the intentional), so if you follow that line of thinking further down the track you presume a grounding function.

If you have literally no interest in phenomenology then I can see how none of the above would serve any purpose nor inspire you to look further. I draw the line at people like Foucault, Deleuze and Derrida myself. If you draw it at Kant so be it. It would be a pretty boring world if we all looked at things in the same way :)

and this is still a kind of dualism for all intents and purposes. — Janus

Someone may perhaps say the same as to your position and say for all intents and purposes it is just a kind of solipsism. I would not say this -- or what you say above -- are at all charitable in terms of interpretation.

If you refuse to believe he meant noumena as a negative concept, and that things-in-themselves was used as a means of distinguishing the subtle difference between 'unknown,' unknownable' and 'nothing' that is your choice I guess.

It is absolutely skirting on the fringes of useful language and is only likley to serve you if you hold a certain view. Much like those who study Heidegger, Derrida, Deleuze and Foucault are happy to frolic in their obtuse verbosity I am not. Regardless, I find them of negative interest and can take something away from reading them.

Noumena are not things-in-themselves. You stated:

I don't hold to a two worlds conception of nature. There is only one world. As I said before I don't accept the bifurcation of nature into phenomena and noumena. — Janus

Maybe you simply mispoke and meant 'phenomena and things-in-themselves'? If so no big deal :)

I am asserting that there are people who misunderstand the difference between 'things-in-themselves' and 'noumena'. I am also asserting -- having read Kant quite thoroughly -- that it makes no sense to talk of a 'bifurcation of nature' between 'phenomena and noumena'. That is very much a gross misunderstanding, but a very common one.

There is a large variety of things which we measure, and each has a name. There is also a variety of different types of measurements. I've never heard anyone claim to be measuring matter. What type of measurement do you think that would be? — Metaphysician Undercover

Kilograms. That is how we do physics.

I think this is a very important point. "Noumena" for Kant is analogous to "matter" for Aristotle. They are strictly conceptual, not referring to any independent thing as people are inclined to believe. But "matter" is more like the limit of conception, the closest we can come to contradiction without crossing that boundary. Then many people assume these concepts to be a description of some independent feature of reality. But they are not descriptions at all, just concepts which somehow represent what cannot be described. — Metaphysician Undercover

That is a stretch too far. We can -- and do -- measure matter. For Noumena there is nothing to say anything about. The very idea of noumena (negative only) is an adumbration of a null concept.

It is fully understandable why people repeatedly misconstrue what Kant meant as it is fairly obvious and fairly obtuse at the same time.

I very much agree. — Leontiskos

It cannot think. It is just a tool.

An idiot using a hammer is still an idiot using a hammer. Destructive rather than constructive. Authority? Nope, none.

As I said before I don't accept the bifurcation of nature into phenomena and noumena. — Janus

This is a gross misunderstanding if you are referring to Kant. There is no bifurcation at all.

And yet he talks about them in a positive sense, saying that noumena cannot exist in space and time, while being unable to offer an argument for that, other than that we know space and time only via our experience of phenomena. — Janus

He is talking about Noumena negatively because we have no sense of other-than space and time. That is the point. He cannot even 'point to' noumena only flit around it as a kind of negative limitation on human 'sensibility' (which is all we have).

Edit: 'it' is not an it! Language can make something seem to be that is not possible.

I would add that I believe strongly that anything we can say is possible to be brought into existence as a 'semblanc'e of such ideas. Like a Backwards Purple Banana Hoop or any other string of nonsense.

I should add that philosophy is one area where such limitations on language should most definitely be pushed. Sometimes we push too hard. Hopefully philosophy is still rigorous enough to make some headway though.

Added to that I think that if you are speaking about something it is a contradiction to say it doesn't exist. You might say unicorns don't exist, but they do exist as imaginary creatures. Fictional characters exist as fictional characters and so on. To say there is a thing-in-itself and then to say it doesn't exist is a contradiction. — Janus

These are different things though. Kant frames Noumena as something only talked about in the negative sense (meaning we cannot comprehend any 'aboutness'). For unicorns we can visual an 'aboutness' (menaing we have a sensory frame of reference for such a creature).

When talking about ontological epistemic conditions it can serve a useful function to delineate between the unknownable and the ... well ... 'that which is not to be spoken of'. I think this is an area where mysticism shines, with talk of Tao/Dao and other similar concepts in other branches of human exploration.

Anything that can reflect on the framework that is a human being is all there is. What is ineffable can still have a semblance of existence and so the concept of Noumena or Tao/Dao is presented as a roughshod adumbration of our human limitations (through which we can only say is everything).