If you want to discuss this seriously, define madnesss properly. — apokrisis

I defined madness in the sense I was using it: living entirely in your head, completely broken off from the external world. The mad person, who walks naked on the street screaming, shouting, yelling, talking to himself, etc. lives entirely in his head, that's why he doesn't respond to any of the cues he receives from his society. I'm not sure how such people would be labelled in medical terms, but they certainly do exist.

I do agree that we live in our head - most of our life is actually in our head. Most of our synapses for example 99.99% are not connected to or affiliated with our sense organs, such as the eyes, etc. So it's clear that our brain produces a model of the world, and then navigates mostly using that model. However, there must still be a link with the world (however small) - if that link is lost, the result is madness.

You sound threatened somehow. — apokrisis

Why do you say that?

If you find my point trivial that is an indication that you have already gone mad - ie reached the end point of your philosophy. You yourself have said:

Of course, living beings can't actually ignore the world. They must live in it. But the point here is the direction of the desires — apokrisis

So presumably if human beings could actually ignore the world - by say, implanting their mind within a simulation - they should do so, as this is what their desires are ultimately aimed at. And clearly the madman does exactly this - the madman is mad because he ignores the world and lives only in his head.

But I know exactly the type of woman you're talking about who goes on endlessly on her own story... >:O >:O I experienced that and it was terrible, I almost had to call the police to escape >:O

Yes, I edited my post for some clarifications. It's not just lack of intelligence that I personally found repealing.

And I find your replies trivial. — apokrisis

It seems that you have already reached the end-point of your philosophy :P

Pretty much THE common experience, considering the number of moronic women that exist out there... Smart women are a rare find bruv ... many women I can't tolerate for two seconds, much less for more >:O The brain the size of an almond ... :s But it's not just lack of intelligence... It's lack of intelligence combined with arrogance, pettiness, and pride that is the real problem. I've met some quite dumb women who were nevertheless enjoyable to be around simply because they were interesting people, who at least had some decency and humility.

Why do you have to drag Trump into every conversation? — apokrisis

>:O

But yes I guess. — apokrisis

So you really believe madness is the telos of the human being? The fulfilment of our desire lies in madness? I think that's quite a mad philosophy.

Bald head, shaved legs — Question

:-O

Dayum man... like this...

You can come up into my ass anytime, Wossy. — Heister Eggcart

Oh dear... "Come"? In what way? >:)

Your problem is in the title. You've fallen into love, and not risen into it. — Heister Eggcart

Can you rise into love with your neighbour's wife? :-}

Whatever you do, I would suggest neither of the three plans proposed by Hanover to address the current situation >:O

You're overlooking the very act of measurement itself. Most of what you say about 'what already exists' is, I think, the subject of the criticism by Sellars in his essay 'the myth of the given'. You presume that we can compare 'models' with 'reality itself', as if you can rise totally above the act of knowing, and know what it is you don't actually know. Then, by claiming you know 'reality', you say that what we think we know is 'a model'. You're not seeing your own sleight-of-hand here. — Wayfarer

I honestly can't follow what you mean here, nor what this has to do with "The Myth of the Given"...

The thing-in-itself is of interest only to the degree that it can be rendered impotent to the mind. The goal is to transcend its material constraints so as to live in the splendid freedom of a self-made world of semiotic sign. — apokrisis

But isn't the madman the only one who lives in a self-made world of semiotic sign?

Of course, living beings can't actually ignore the world. They must live in it. But the point here is the direction of the desires. — apokrisis

So the direction of desire is towards madness and the mad is the most successful of us all? :s

There is a good reason why humans want to escape into a realm of "fiction" - and I'm including science and technology here, of course. As to the extent we can do that, we become then true "selves", the locus of a radical freedom or autonomy to make the world whatever the hell we want it to be.) — apokrisis

:s

Desires can be limited and restrained — Question

In what sense? I limit desires when I don't act on them, but not acting on them doesn't mean ceasing to have them.

You really don't like Buddhism or Stoicism...? — Question

I don't like Buddhism, but I do like Stoicism. The thing is my Stoicism is active - and not passive. Remember the Roman Stoics were all encouraged to have public lives, in the service of their communities. Seneca was the richest man in Rome. Aurelius was Emperor. Cicero was an important politician, etc. Stoicism isn't about renouncing desire, but putting desire in its proper place. For example, one still desires X, but one is conscious of whether or not X is possible at the moment, and if it's not possible, then one stops demanding it, although they don't stop desiring it.

Not really. Such people are called sages and such, get my drift? — Question

A sage isn't someone with no fantasies, but rather someone who controls their fantasies, rather than having their fantasises control them. Controlling a fantasy is keeping it as a fantasy instead of attempting to bring it into reality. Furthermore, someone without any fantasy is insane - he is mentally ill.

Usually, mental illness is put on one side of the spectrum and on the other side of the spectrum is mental health. I propose that this is an inadequate model. In truth, madness is both on the left and on the right of the spectrum. Sanity isn't the opposite of madness - it doesn't escape the mad spectrum - but it is a certain kind of insanity - the balanced position in the middle. That position is marked neither by the absence of fantasies, nor by the domination of fantasies over the person. That position is marked by the domination of the person over their fantasies.

Can you cite a reference for that? — John

https://archive.org/stream/lecturesonphilo03hegegoog#page/n351/mode/2up/search/spinoza

One of the few I remember being cited.

"Spinoza says what is, is the absolute substance, what is other than this are mere modi, to which he ascribes no affirmation, no reality" - Yours Truly, Georg Hegel :P

Let's go a little deeper here and talk about these unfulfilled desires, what do you think is the source of them? — Question

It's the nature of man's mind to desire. The mind cannot stop desiring unless it stops being a mind. Fulfilment is structured such as it can never be final.

If you want a term for it, it's called reality testing and the causes for the lack (schizophrenia) or even excess of it (autism) are complex to say the least. And quite frankly most fantasies are unrealistic and detrimental to mental health. — Question

Why do you think fantasies, in and of themselves, are detrimental to mental health? Someone with no fantasies is mentally ill I would claim.

Physics reflects the logical structure which inheres in our understanding of the "said empirical reality" — John

Right, the logical structure of OUR UNDERSTANDING is physics. The logical structure of REALITY is metaphysics - and metaphysics explains our understanding by mere fact that our understanding is also real, and thus falls under the domain of metaphysics. But our understanding can be mistaken - which is why physical theories change all the time.

But what it means for God to "inhere in every point of the world" just is "the relations between God (the infinite) and the world (the finite)' that Spinoza is attempting to explicate. — John

Yes, which is why I said not the way you put it - not in the way you mean it. But the sentence can be read correctly, with the correct meaning.

The way I see it, though, is that being the supreme rationalist, he mistakes the logic of our understanding of the world for a logic inherent in the world itself — John

Take the principle of non-contradiction. It's not a principle simply of our understanding. It's a principle of reality itself.

Actually, good ol' Schopenhauer correctly notes this about Spinoza in a passage about his philosophy in the first part of On The Fourfold Root of the Prinicple of Sufficient Reason. — John

I remember something vaguely about that, and I wrote a critique of it on the previous PF, which of the Spinoza-knowledgeable people there agreed with.

Can you provide a passage where Spinoza explicitly states that the finite is illusory? — John

The finite consists of modes right? Modes are not Substance itself, and hence are illusory - impermanent.

I have never come across that idea except in definitions of acosmism, and to be honest the idea of acosmism, regardless of whether Spinoza professes it, makes absolutely no sense to me. — John

Hegel read Spinoza as an acosmist as well. How do you square that with your own reading of Spinoza as a panentheist?

I have been re-reading the Ethics a little to refresh my memory of it, and I'm afraid I cannot agree with your interpretations at all. But it doesn't matter anyway because scholars who spend their lives disagree on interpreting Spinoza, so it's not going to be settled on PF. — John

Well I've read a vast majority of contemporary Spinoza scholars, and I think the disagreements are more in their way of conceptualising Spinoza's system, and how deep they each penetrate. But those who go the deepest subsume all the others under them. I've even read some whose works aren't even translated in English comme Le Bonheur avec Spinoza par Bruno Giuliani ;) Nadler, Negri, Curley, Hampshire, Deleuze, Yirmiyahu Yovel etc.

Fantasies are unfulfilled desires that inevitably influence conscious thought, would you say not? — Question

No, fantasies aren't unfulfilled desires at all - they are the result of desires, but they aren't themselves desires. Rather fantasies are a way of temporarily fulfilling desires. While having the fantasy of having sex with your neighbour's wife, you are actually fulfilling that desire - while the fantasy lasts - without any of the negative consequences that would actually be associated with really having sex with your neighbour's wife.

You seem to think there is a sharp divide between entertaining fantasies and behavior, that's a fantasy in of itself. — Question

No it's not a fantasy at all, only realising that what you think, doesn't necessarily have to affect how you behave. This is a big thing in the treatment of OCD - the fact you think you may have contracted germs from touching that door handle, doesn't really mean that you have contacted germs from touching it. OCD is an affection of those who cannot really separate fantasy from reality, and who blur the line between the two of them. Many mental conditions have this structure.

Yet, there is no way around the fact that fantasies to some rather large degree dictate behavior. Examples could be pornography, gambling, wishful thinking, etc. All could be considered vices resulting in rather bad behavior. — Question

All are vices because they involve mistaking fantasies for reality, just like a person suffering of OCD mistakes their fantasy of having contracted a disease from touching so and so with the reality of having contracted the said disease. As a mind becomes stronger and more wise - which generally happens with age - it becomes capable of distinguishing fantasy from reality, and not blurring the line between the two.

We've even managed to remain civil with one another!
:) — John

Well yes, you should thank yourself for that, for not making any derogatory remarks and for being respectful. I always am respectful when others are respectful :P O:)

It seems to me that we quite often talk about inappropriate consensual behaviour between teachers and students. Even when the student is an eager participant, it's still said to be wrong.

Is that something you disagree with? — Michael

It depends on the age of the student obviously. In addition to that, I would consider inappropriate as actually trying to kiss the student, or trying to have sex with them, etc. other things aren't really inappropriate.

Or would you agree that when the student isn't an adult and when the teacher is in a position of authority then this amounts to an abuse of power? — Michael

No I wouldn't say that. The distinction between adult and non-adult is fake and artificial to begin with. In addition to this, the only time when being in a position of authority matters is if this authority is used - if say, the student receives worse grades when he/she doesn't give in to the demands of the teacher.

I would be called sleazy and a pervert. I could even be labeled as a public nuisance and have trouble with the authorities. You're suggesting I slide down that slippery slope. — Question

No, that would be to act on the fantasy in the real world - trying to bring the fantasy into reality. I haven't suggested that.

Don't understand you here. — Question

A fantasy is something that occurs in thought. When you have a fantasy about, say, having sex with your neighbour's wife, you don't REALLY want to have sex with her - you only want to do it in thought. That isn't a problem. It only becomes a problem when you REALLY want to do it in reality.

No, I am the one managing it successfully. I have not made advances or compromised my dignity and self in any way. — Question

You are managing it successfully on the "reality" front, but not on the "fantasy" front. On the fantasy front you suffer because you don't realise that you can enjoy your fantasy as fantasy, without having to make it real.

I just don't believe in fantasies. Life taught me that the hard way. You seem very childish here and in your outlook in life. — Question

No - I don't pretend one should make their fantasy into a reality, or should expect their fantasy to come true. That would be being childish. Being a real man or woman would mean treating it as a fantasy - as a playful series of thoughts - not as something to actually do.

Is this a serious problem? — Michael

Only if he forced her or intimidated her, obviously. However, due to the fact that men are generally physically domineering over women - or can be - simply because they are physically stronger, I would say that likelihood is that the female student WOULD feel intimidated, and thus it would always be wrong for a male teacher to smack her ass. When the grandmother smacked my ass it wasn't a problem - because I always knew in the back of my mind that worst comes to worst I can physically dominate her and prevent her from doing something I wouldn't want her to do. But obviously the same may not be the case for the female student.

I've added more to my previous post.

However, it is cruel and unfair that she is enjoying this whole charade, while I suffer and battle with my emotions. — Question

Well you could enjoy it too if you were playful, instead of serious about it. In many ways you treat it as a reality instead of a fantasy. You don't treat it as something that occurs and has significance only in thought, you treat it as something that has future significance in the real world.

So, why is she doing this? — Question

There's many reasons why she could be doing that. Maybe she feels she's still beautiful if a much younger man is interested in her over other younger women. Maybe she has a fantasy of her own, but is more adept at managing it than you are, etc.

Is this how women are? — Question

I think it depends on the woman. Some women are more in touch with their fantasies than others. Some women are more dominating and seeking to impose their will over the will of others (this latter one I view as immoral, but alas, it exists and is actually quite frequent). Etc.

Well, it's causing distress to my reason and vanity of being a perfect stoic along with relinquishing desires as per Buddhism — Question

Well why do you have to carry in your mind the image of you being a Stoic, or a Buddhist or whatever. Just relinquish the desires - in reality - and keep them in fantasy. That's the best of both worlds. As I previously said - some things can only be enjoyed in fantasy, and would be painful in actual reality.

Personally I think fantasies are unavoidable, and in addition they can be enjoyed without causing any harm. It's when one seeks to turn fantasies into reality that problems arise - that is when the mind mistakes its fantasy to be equivalent to reality, and will inevitably suffer when it finds out that this isn't the case.

Personally I had many fantasies about friends' mothers, sisters, etc. Nothing bad about that. The brain is assessing possibilities, and getting a better grasp of the world through these hypotheticals. It's good, it's doing its work, leave it alone, there is no serious problem :P

but I've always been more interested in older women than younger ones — Question

I'm the opposite. More mature isn't better. Immature isn't good either. Innocent is the perfect match though :D

What I don't understand is why is she doing this to me? — Question

For fun! Why not? In high school I had a female teacher - grandmother age actually (her husband was dead) - who used to smack me on my ass when no one was around, and even asked me to go to the movie theatre with her once (of course I didn't). Most of these fantasies are playful in nature, and not serious anyways. It's no problem if it ain't serious, and it's kinda foolish to treat a non-serious occurrence as serious

What do you think the distinction between metaphysics and physics besides the obvious distinction between the infinite and the finite, would consist in for Spinoza? — John

Physics is what deals with empirical reality - with the series of on-going and particular causal events. Metaphysics deals with the logical structure which necessarily inheres in the said empirical reality (hence immanence), in each and every event from it.

Is he not speaking in these passages about the relations between God (the infinite) and the world (the finite)? — John

Not in the way you put it. He's speaking of God's immanence in the world - the fact that God inheres at each and every point of the world.

everything is an expression of the nature of God — John

Think of Plato. Every material thing has a form - a logical structure. That logical structure, which is infinite and perfect is an expression of the nature of God. The forms were the objects of knowledge for Plato, simply because only the forms allowed for certainty. Empirical reality couldn't be the object of knowledge, only the object of belief, because there was no certainty in empirical reality - empirical reality was contingent. But the form, contra Plato [well in the most common interpretations of Plato - there are also immanent interpretations I could suggest you some literature on it] (and as corrected by Aristotle - which is why I always claim that Spinoza is a certain kind of Aristotelian who follows on from Avicenna and Averroës), doesn't exist above and beyond the object in a separate and transcendent realm, but rather inheres within it. So yes, every existing thing has a form, and therefore is an expression of the nature of God. As Aristotle and Plato make it clear, it's the form - NOT matter - which has Being. Hence if there was something which wasn't an expression of the nature of God - ie didn't have a form - it really couldn't even exist. So everything that can exist must have a form, ie must be an expression of the nature of God QED. Furthermore, everything that exists is necessarily contingent because no particular thing can be God - no particular thing has Being because they are combinations of matter and form (and matter has no being). Hence every particular thing or state, by the necessity of its own finiteness, is contingent on the form - on God. Thus every finite thing necessarily is in becoming - the only necessity is contingency QED :-O In-so-far as one understands God, one becomes identified with God, and therefore one is eternal - by virtue of identifying with the eternal forms and not with their empirical manifestation. They are not eternal in the sense of infinite temporal duration, but in the sense of timelessness - one always exists as a possibility in God's mind - as a form. Thus there is a part of the mind which survives death, QED - or better said simply is unaffected by death, which always happens in time, but this part of the mind - the form - is timeless.

panentheism maintains a distinction between the divine and non-divine and the significance of both.[2] — John

But Spinoza does not maintain the significance of both. Only God is real, the finite is illusory. The finite isn't pure form, and hence is ultimately illusory qua finite.

:s So you think Spinoza would confuse physics and metaphysics? Even Descartes separated them, at least conceptually if not in practice... The separation of metaphysics and physics was known since the Greeks.

The translation is confusing you. I recommend Curley's...

Therefore, all things are determined from the necessity of the divine nature
not only to exist but also to exist and to act in a definite way. Thus, there is no
contingency. — John

"Therefore all things have been determined from the necessity of divine nature, not only to exist, but to exist in a certain way, and to produce effects in a certain way. Thus there is no contingency"

Spinoza is dealing with logical structure here. Fire is determined by divine nature to exist in a certain way - as fire - and to produce certain effects - burning. If it wouldn't be so, then it wouldn't be fire to begin with. Atoms are determined by divine nature to necessarily swerve and produce such a range of effects. This isn't talk about what they empirically - and hence contingently - do. Spinoza is doing metaphysics in Book I, not physics.

Okay, what I gather from this is that according to you, Deleuze, Zizek, etc. prior to Kant "error" entered from the outside, while after Kant, error is seen as internal to thought itself. There is the self as I experience it as representation, and there is the transcendental self, which I don't experience, but which makes the representational self possible. Therefore there are thoughts that affect me and influence me that I don't experience - only part of that bubbles to the surface, which I experience, some of which are actually illusions.

But again, how does this change anything? Before error entered from the outside, from something that wasn't me, that I wasn't conscious of. Now error enters supposedly from the inside, from my transcendental subjectivity - of which again I'm not conscious of. To what extent is this transcendental subjectivity anymore "inside" than the error that entered from the outside was? That's why I said that to me this seems merely as another way to conceive of the same thing that was previously conceived, and I don't see why it would be "better" to conceive of it this way (neither do I see why it would be better to conceive of it in the opposite way though... to me they are equivalent as they're saying the same thing in two different ways).

And, what does 'duration' comprise? It might seem obvious, but in order for time to exist, there has to be sense of scale. Humans conceive of time in terms of the rotation of the earth around the sun, which gives them days and years - everything is measured by us in those terms. — Wayfarer

Measuring time only becomes possible after time already exists. It's not measurement that makes time possible, but time that makes measurement possible. So no - humans don't conceive of time because of measurements or rotations... So why do they then conceive of time? Because of motion - activity - becoming. The notion of time is nothing more and nothing less than an abstraction extracted from change. Change gives the concept of time - this was so now, and it isn't so later. Without change, there is no time.

Scales are formed to allow measurement simply because there is no transcendental point where one can get outside of reality to judge it. Measurement is simply comparing one aspect of reality with another - a ruler with a desk (when measuring the desk). So the fact that measurement uses scales - and necessarily does so - proves immanentism and denies all transcendentalism as incoherent. Time for example is nothing but comparing one change (a clock ticking) with another.

But what if you perceived it from the point of view of a being that lived for a million years? Or a being that lived for an infinitesmal instant? Those scales would be vastly different to the human scale - which is real? — Wayfarer

All scales are equally real, since they map the same underlying reality. If X is equal to 3 x 30mm rulers in so and so circumstances, that is the same thing as saying X is equal to 9 x 10mm rulers in so and so circumstances - or even that X is equal to 1 x 30mm rulers if its traveling very quickly. A giant will have a ruler which is equal to 10 of mine maybe. Asking which scale is real, his or mine, is stupid though. They're both equally real.

In it, things have relationships, and scales. You can't picture it from no viewpoint, because from no viewpoint, nothing is large or small, near or far, long-lasting or ephemeral. — Wayfarer

That is just a mental model, not reality itself. Mathematical models are just that - models. And of course you can't picture it from no viewpoint - that would entail being transcendent to reality, and you're not. You're immanent.

The only reason you think the mind presupposes the world, is because you yourself know you were born into the world. — Wayfarer

Not only. I daily experience my mind being dependent on the world.

My argument is not that the world doesn't exist in the absence of any or all observers, but that whatever we can say we know about what exists, presupposes a perspective. Even if that is mathematicized, which effectively eliminates purely individual perspectives and gives a kind of 'weighted average' of all points of view, it's still an irreducibly human point of view, which is inextricably an aspect of whatever we say exists. — Wayfarer

Yes, there are only immanent explanations, not transcendent ones, thank you for finally coming to the realisation X-) Surely, conceptual knowledge presupposes that one is embedded within reality - and not transcendent to it.

It's a question of the nature of that which is 'doing the conceptualizing'; it's the reflexive impetus of the critical philosophy. — StreetlightX

Don't we also conceptualise the nature of that which is doing the conceptualising? :s That which conceptualises also conceptualises its own nature. I don't see anything revolutionary here... That we look at errors as being internally engendered by the operation of thought itself, or we look at them as being the failure of thought - that really is the same thing to me, I can see no difference there. Perhaps I just don't understand what you mean, but that's how I see it anyway...

Whereas previously, error was taken according to a model of the failure of thought, in Kant, error becomes internal to thought as such — StreetlightX

But wasn't the model of the failure of thought produced by thought itself, and hence error was still internal to thought? :s This is absolutely puzzling and incoherent, precisely because there is no difference between the two.

In other words Wayfarer - time is transcendentally real - it exists beyond perception, and beyond even sensation, which perception necessarily presupposes.

Late to chime in, but with respect to Kant, his most significant contribution, it seems to me, is the doctrine of the transcendental illusions: those illusions internally engendered by the operation of thought itself. Whereas previously, error was taken according to a model of the failure of thought, in Kant, error becomes internal to thought as such, such that one can speak of the 'legitimate' and 'illegitimate' employment of Reason. — StreetlightX

I fail to see how this is anything more than a distinction without a difference. Whether something is an error because of a transcendental illusion, or something is an error because of the failure of thought, that seems merely two different ways of conceptualising the same underlying reality...

"Everyone knows that the earth, and a fortiori the universe, existed for a long time before there were any living beings, and therefore any perceiving subjects. But according to Kant ... that is impossible." — Wayfarer

Yes I am aware that Kant thinks so, but his assumption must be questioned.

The objector has not understood the fact that time is one of the forms of sensibility. The earth as it was before there was life, is a field of empirical enquiry...; its reality is no more being denied than is the reality of perceived objects in the room in which one is sitting. — Wayfarer

How do we know that time is only a form of the sensibility? Isn't the sensibility itself within time? In fact, it seems that time itself is presupposed even to get the sensibility itself working. There can be no sensation without time - so not only is time something that structures sensation, time is also something which makes sensation itself possible.

It's not clear to me what you mean by saying that the Earth is that which appears or disappears depending on the perceiver opening or closing his eyes. I would say the same of pain – pain is that which appears or disappears depending on the firing of certain neurons. But given that it doesn't then follow from this that the pain is something that's always there, independent of perception, that only sometimes happens to be felt, it doesn't then follow from what you said that the Earth is something that's always there, independent of perception, that only sometimes happens to be seen. So there's something missing in your claim. — Michael

Yes, pain is something that is always there when there's the specific firing of certain neurons. Whether one is conscious of this pain is different, and that depends on whether a state of consciousness is present in the mind of the person experiencing pain. If I'm hit with a ball in the head and I have a concussion, while I'm knocked out it isn't that I'm not in pain, but that I don't perceive the pain - my perception has ceased, but the world goes on, unperceived. That's why when I wake up, I wake up feeling the pain.

It seems to me that you want to reduce the Earth to the mass of particles out there in space that is causally responsible for the experience of the Earth. But to me that's akin to reducing pain to the neurons in my brain that are causally responsible for the experience of pain. — Michael

The mass of the Earth in and of itself isn't sufficient to cause a perception. Perception is the result of the Earth and of your cognitive faculties together - it's two aspects of reality meeting that results in perception. But both aspects are real prior to perception.

It might be that the Earth just is the phenomenal thing and not the noumenal thing. — Michael

Right so when human beings will disappear, the Earth will disappear even though there are no perceivers left for which it can disappear right? :-} Appearing and disappearing are events of perception, they are not ontological. To say the Earth is just a phenomenal thing - just something which appears - is incoherent. The Earth is exactly THAT which appears or disappears depending on the perceiver opening or closing his eyes, etc. The Earth as that which can both appear and disappear is independent of the perceiver.

do you believe that nature would disappear if humans were wiped out? — John

The question makes little sense to my mind. Things can only disappear or appear for perceivers.

It is generally understood that there was a world long before there were humans, but of course we can only imagine that as though we were seeing it. — John

Yes, but for the world to exist it doesn't need to appear to someone. This doesn't mean the world is noumenal at all though.

So, if the Earth and its mountains, rivers, plants and animals etc. existed prior to humans, how would that not qualify as, despite our inability to imagine it as other than how we would see those things, the Earth and its creatures in themselves? — John

The world-in-itself is ultimately no different than the phenomenal world. We see the world as it is - there is no world other than the world as we perceive it. Before we existed, the world existed just as it exists now - the only difference is that now there exists someone to perceive it.

Just out of curiosity, have you read Meillassoux's After Finitude? I'm curious if you have what you think about his anti-correlationist (with regards to Kant) arguments.

I don't personally understand the distinction you're specifying or why I am equivocating - I agree with Willow's response by and large.

Now, as I understand it, there is no difference between "models we use for purposes of modelling and predicting the world" and "they are merely predictive models that tell only about how nature appears to us" since "the world" just is the term we use for "how nature appears to us", or vice versa; they are synonymous. — John

Except what if there is nothing besides nature as it appears to us? Away with the noumenon/phenomenon distinction. The noumenon doesn't exist in the sense the phenomenon exists - empirically. Hence there is no discussion of noumeonon asking what is it, bla bla - that is what you ask with regards to empirical matters.

The laws are models that tell us only about how the world appears to our senses, and including about the functions of our senses themselves vis a vis their objects. — John

I agree, but I'd say the laws are merely models which we can use to predict certain sense experiences in the world.

The salient point is that the laws are models that tell us stories about the world only as it appears to us. — John

Only if you accept a noumenon/phenomenon distinction.

It's importance lies only in the very obvious fact that we can conceive of it. — John

Well I can conceive of flying pigs too - are flying pigs therefore important? :P

The fact that we can conceive this way of something hidden from us has had incalculable effects on human social, historical, religious and creative development. — John

Why do you say this?

it unfolds creatively — John

I agree to this.

or uncreatively — John

I don't agree to this, and I think this is Spinoza's point with regards to absolute necessity - existence necessarily is creative.

When it comes to ideas, though, do you not think there is a (more or less inexorable) logic inherent in the ways in which they develop historically? — John

I think every age re-appropriates the truth for itself, and hence re-appropriates it under terms that are usually somewhat different than the terms used by the previous age - the symbolisms change. But it is one and the same truth - we aren't more developed today (not speaking of technologically now, but in terms of philosophical knowledge), than we were 2000 years ago. Our knowledge can always be complete. Indeed, Spinoza makes this point in one of his letters, can't remember which, in which he says that there could be another philosophy different from his and yet saying the same thing. Concepts and symbols change, but what those concepts and symbols point to remains the same. What they point to is generally muddled up in every age - for example in our age reductive materialism is a giant confusion, just as dualism was a giant confusion in the time of Descartes.

Think about learning something. When you learn something - say the Theorem of Pythagoras - it is not sufficient to recite what it is to have learned it. Neither is it sufficient to apply it to particular cases to have learnt it. What you have to do is that you have to give an account for it - that account is your own - it's your own appropriation of the truth, that's where your creativity comes in. You may give a different account of it, and explain it differently than I do - because you have appropriated it differently. Teaching it to others - that's usually what shows that you have learned it yourself.

I mean, we are speaking about the history of ideas here, as it has been canonized, we are not concerning ourselves with the immense complexity of actual historical contingencies. — John

A large share of canonized history has to do with what works happened to survive, and with what works happened to be emphasised or available for political and social reasons at different times.

We are always dealing with the "broad brush" in either case, because the arbitrary details are so many and and so irrelevant to the whole, and hence uninteresting. — John

I don't think history can form a whole - history is always perennially incomplete, simply because it always repeats itself, but fails to close itself - nothing is stable and everything is contingent, and hence truth cannot reign supreme through time, and it must be obscured at points, and then show itself once again, and so forth. All we're doing is rediscovering the same old truth anew - we cannot discover anything new - but we must certainly rediscover it anew, because it is only by rediscovering anew - by appropriating - that we can learn.

There is an overall plan, and the way in which the garden is constructed will probably never I insofar as it is a complex garden) turn out exactly to plan. — John

A plan is a model of the garden, so yes, the real garden is always different than the model - the model never approximates it perfectly. The model is useful at achieving certain particular things at the neglect of others (these are the things that people happen to be interested in because of whatever purposes they have) - for example the model allows one to predict how much earth has to be removed, how much fill needs to be placed and where, what trees/flowers/arrangements are to be placed, where they will be placed, in what quantities, what irrigation/watering system if any the garden will use, etc. . But it obscures a lot of other things which are part of reality - how big will this individual tree exactly be? How many leaves will it have? (etc. - these questions are not addressed by the model - indeed they cannot be addressed - because they are not of interest).

The Spinozistic conception of God is that there is no overall plan. — John

With regards to history yes - if there was some plan, then where would be the place for creativity? Creativity is precisely that which goes unplanned. There's other things which also play a role - such that the truth is one, and always available at each point in time. So there cannot be a plan, because where would it be going? History by being history (and thus in-time) is bound to go up and down, sometime closer to that truth (which is always available) and sometimes further away.

The Christian conception of God is very definitely that there is an overall plan; so the two are incompatible; they contradict one another. Now I am not a believing Christian, I have only been labouring this point because you have identified yourself as such, and yet claim to hold to a Spinozistic conception of God, and I am trying to understand how you resolve the contradiction. — John

Then I will clearly not interpret the Revelation and the Christian story as a story occuring in history - it is a spiritual truth, which is always and at all ages accessible. We're not empirically headed towards the Kingdom of God on Earth - that I disagree with. Like Voegelin, I think that's just immanentizing the eschaton.

Determinism, in the sense of Laplace's Demon — John

But that isn't just determinism, that is already pre-determinism and fatalism.

I believe is the way that Spinoza conceived of it. Descartes also conceived of nature this way, and Spinoza was very much influenced by Descartes. He studied him very closely and departed form his philosophy, for sure, but I cannot see how his departure has any bearing on the question of determinism. — John

Spinoza is a Cartesian <=> a wolf in the sheep's clothes. Spinoza, due to Descartes tremendous success, took over his terminology just like one would take the wine bottles of a popular brand, and then placed his own wine inside. He de-constructed Cartesianism from the inside, and returned to the old Scholasticism of old - of people like Avicenna and Averroës.

IN fact it was the way that Descartes conceived res cogitans, as being different from, and not dependent upon, and even prior to, res extensa, that allowed for genuine freedom. — John

But according to Spinoza res extensa and res cogitans aren't dependent on one another either - that's what them being parallel entails. There is no causality between each other.

Spinoza say every being and event, every detail of everything that happens is an absolutely necessary unfolding of Deus sive natura. — John

Yes - everything necessarily happens, but this particular thing doesn't necessarily happen. The former is a statement of metaphysics and logic, the latter a statement of what is actually the case in the world.

Think of Laplace's Demon; according to Laplace the demon, by knowing the position, momentum and direction of every particle could calculate precisely all future events. Now in this thought experiment all future events are precisely and rigidly determined by present conditions (there is thus not necessarily any God in this picture, but there is a Nature; which amounts to the same thing). How is this different than saying that future events are always predetermined by present conditions. — John

Right, it's not. That's why Laplace was really advocating pre-determinism.

What is the difference that makes a difference between this understanding of determinism and pre-determinism; and what is the difference between this and Spinoza? — John

The difference is that in pre-determinism knowing the conditions at time X is sufficient to predict the conditions at time Y while in determinism the conditions at time Y are an effect of the conditions at time X (which is their cause), but they cannot be predicted or known - they are necessarily contingent. Epicurus has this idea through the swerve of the atom - the atom swerves - indeed it NECESSARILY swerves. God cannot but create this contingent (and hence creative) empirical reality - reality cannot be uncreative. It is determined that the atom swerves, and the swerve itself is, empirically, contingent.

We feel free because we don't know what all the forces are determining our actions. For us our actions are thus not rigidly determined; not pre-determined; but this is so only on account of our ignorance. — John

The knowledge you refer to doesn't exist though. Reality is necessarily creative. Spinoza doesn't deny contingency, he places it in its right place - below necessity. Contingency is logically and metaphysically grounded in the necessity of God. Indeed Spinoza would have quite a false philosophy - as would everyone else - if they deny aspects of reality, such as either necessity or contingency.

And yet we do not hold the lightning morally responsible if it kills someone. — John

Lightning gets all of its powers from a source external to it, and the powers confer it no capacity of self-determination. Humans - by virtue of the rational part of the mind - are able to restrain their passions - humans are self-reflective, their powers reflect back on themselves and can alter themselves. Imagine this by analogy to the body. If the heart does something its not supposed to - such as go into atrial fibrillation - the brain initiates certain processes which generally cause the process to become self-limiting. Who determined you to stop yourself from so and so? You have - through a different part of yourself. But all of that is nevertheless determined.

So humans are morally responsible simply because humans have the capacity or power of self-determination by this reflexivity that I have described. There is no reflexivity in the lightning strike.

If persons can only act according to their natures in the same way that spiders, snakes, tigers and lightning do, then we can be no more justified in holding a person morally responsible for his or her actions than we can hold a spider, snake, tiger or lightning morally responsible. — John

The nature of persons is self-reflective - the natures of spiders isn't (largely speaking - also there's no point of judging spiders. When we hold people morally responsible, it's always with the intent of judging them). There are cases when outside forces destroy or severely limit this capacity for reflexivity though - in such cases people are no longer held to be morally responsible, or at least they are held to be less morally responsible. For example, in many countries it is illegal to shoot an intruder in your house with a gun and kill him, if he attacks you with a knife (say). And yet someone could end up shooting them accidentally in the head (instead of in the foot) out of being overwhelmed by fear - their action will still remain immoral and they will still be judged, but a lesser sentence will be given than to the man who intentionally shot in the head the intruder in his home even though the intruder made no sign or intention of wanting to hurt them.