I quite like miniature dissertations. Thanks.

Which reduces to….the specified existence is outside human experience and judgement, but the claim is not. — Mww

Exactly! The question is, though, do we merely imagine that we know what we are talking about with such projections?

So, yes, I think we can project the concept, but not in that context; we invoke the category of necessity in the former, but possibility in the latter. — Mww

So it seems that Kant could have said that the empirical world, time and space and all, possibly exist outside of human experience and judgement, whereas they necessarily exist within that context?

If I were to go all nit-picky, on ya, quibble-y even, I’d bring to your attention that no experience is spatial. They are temporal, as you said. Experience is of representations of objects in space, but not of space itself, which can never be represented in us. — Mww

I think we do perceive dimension, or degrees of separation, which just is space, so it seems I disagree here.

It's good when someone actually engages with their interlocutors, and so I've enjoyed our conversation too, as usual.

That such acts do have a physical cause is understood by neuroscience. I don't subscribe to the "spooky" libertarian, absolutist notion of free will, because it entails dualism, and I see insoluble problems with that model.

:up:

Too much emphasis on causation for my taste. A better epitome of a metaphysical principle would be the conservation laws. The causal relations between billiard balls, or instance, are an expression of conservation of momentum. — Banno

Not sure how that limits causation.
There are alternatives to causation, the conservation laws being a case in point. — Banno

This argument is getting more convoluted. You seem to think that causation involves only conservation of energy. If this is not the case, then I stand corrected. But my impression of your post previously is that you think only the conservation law is the proper example of causation.

All conservation is conservation of mass? That doesn't seem right. — Banno

Yes it is right, or conservation of energy, if you will. But optics is not one of those because it involves light -- and light is massless. So optics does not belong in conservation of energy, yet it is used as example of causation. In other words, it's not just conservation law, but other processes, too, support causation. That's it. That is our point of contention.

Might leave this. I can't make sense of whatever it is you are trying to get at.

For anyone else, I am simply pointing to the many problems with causation. See Causation in Physics (SEP) for further problems.

interesting article, thank you

You could see it as another milestone in the gradual erosion of faith in reason. After all reason and causation are you would think intimately linked. I think I’ll start a thread on it.

do we merely imagine that we know what we are talking about with such projections? — Janus

Ha!!! Saturn isn’t even thought about absent its rings, but there was a time when it didn’t have any. And I seriously doubt quarks are actually colored. One can possibly experience that which he imagines, but he can never simply imagine that which he has experienced.

If imagination as a faculty has the power attributed to it in theory, it occurs that one always imagines that which eventually he comes to know. But with respect to the projection of existence you’re asking about, though, there are serious contradictions if we deny the existence of the world before human experience, which at least allows us to project that it did, but the fact remains, we cannot possibly know the fact of it in the same fashion by which we know apodeitically that stupid-ass tree has three branches.
————

Kant could have said that the empirical world, time and space and all, possibly exist outside of human experience and judgement, whereas they necessarily exist within that context? — Janus

He does say that. Then demonstrates how it is impossible, iff a certain set of conditions are in fact the case. If they aren’t, well…..time for another demonstration of a different kind, and we find ourselves faced with stuff like logical positivism, OLP and quantum mechanics, in which case…..errr, you know…..we imagine we know what we’re talking about.
———-

Experience is of representations of objects in space, but not of space itself, which can never be represented in us.
— Mww

I think we do perceive dimension, or degrees of separation, which just is space, so it seems I disagree here. — Janus

Maybe, but you’re talking perception and I’m talking experience. Yours is on the one end of the cognitive spectrum, as means, mine is on the other, as ends. Nevertheless, I’d say we think dimension and degrees of separation, which are just representations for the appearance of one object’s relation to an observer, or objects in relation to each other, and for which we couldn’t represent at all if those objects weren’t to be found somewhere other than in the very system which is thinking about them.

Yes, we do perceive degrees of separation…this is closer than that, this is adjacent to that. This is of the same time as that. This is this now but was that before. But, what, in the most basic, primal way possible, makes all that, make sense to us? Gotta start somewhere, right?

But with respect to the projection of existence you’re asking about, though, there are serious contradictions if we deny the existence of the world before human experience, which at least allows us to project that it did, but the fact remains, we cannot possibly know the fact of it in the same fashion by which we know apodeitically that stupid-ass tree has three branches. — Mww

For me the way around such contradictions would be to say that if we had been around a hundred and fifty million years ago we would have seen the dinosaurs. The question about what the world would be like without any percipients in it seems unanswerable, even incoherent,

As to the tree, if you ask me how I know it has three branches, I can just point to the tree and say "How many branches do you see?". (By the way, that's a pretty pathetic example of a tree. and maybe that's what you were referring to with your "stupid-ass". But if you asked me to demonstrate that the tree has a stupid ass, I am completely at a loss).

He does say that. Then demonstrates how it is impossible, iff a certain set of conditions are in fact the case. If they aren’t, well…..time for another demonstration of a different kind, and we find ourselves faced with stuff like logical positivism, OLP and quantum mechanics, in which case…..errr, you know…..we imagine we know what we’re talking about. — Mww

I don't know about QM but LP and OLP certainly imagine that they know what they're talking about; but then they don't talk about anything much out of the ordinary, so they are liable to put you to sleep. I'm not convinced anyone knows what QM is talking about, or even whether it is talking at all.

With the "degrees of separation" thing I actually had in mind the simple fact that objects appear extended to us, and saying that to my way of thinking extension just is spatiality. Of course the negative spaces between objects is just as important as the objects themselves, and is often, or even mostly, filled with other objects.

Again I submit a passage from Paul Davie's book about the sense in which time itself is a projection of the observing mind, to wit:

The problem of including the observer in our description of physical reality arises most insistently when it comes to the subject of quantum cosmology - the application of quantum mechanics to the universe as a whole - because, by definition, 'the universe' must include any observers. Andrei Linde has given a deep reason for why observers enter into quantum cosmology in a fundamental way. It has to do with the nature of time. The passage of time is not absolute; it always involves a change of one physical system relative to another, for example, how many times the hands of the clock go around relative to the rotation of the Earth. When it comes to the Universe as a whole, time loses its meaning, for there is nothing else relative to which the universe may be said to change. This 'vanishing' of time for the entire universe becomes very explicit in quantum cosmology, where the time variable simply drops out of the quantum description. It may readily be restored by considering the Universe to be separated into two subsystems: an observer with a clock, and the rest of the Universe. So the observer plays an absolutely crucial role in this respect. Linde expresses it graphically: 'thus we see that without introducing an observer, we have a dead universe, which does not evolve in time', and, 'we are together, the Universe and us. The moment you say the Universe exists without any observers, I cannot make any sense out of that. I cannot imagine a consistent theory of everything that ignores consciousness...in the absence of observers, our universe is dead'. — Paul Davies, The Goldilocks Enigma: Why is the Universe Just Right for Life, p 271

I submit that this supports the Kantian assertion that 'time is one of the forms of our sensibility', rather than something that exists objectively and independently of any observer. Which is not to deny the empirical fact that there was a time before human beings existed, as Kant was also an empirical realist.

I submit that this supports the Kantian assertion that 'time is one of the forms of our sensibility', rather than something that exists objectively and independently of any observer. Which is not to deny the empirical fact that there was a time before human beings existed, as Kant was also an empirical realist. — Wayfarer

It depends on what you mean by 'time'. If it is taken to mean the subjective sense of duration, or the conception of past present and future, then of course it cannot exist independently of subjects by definition. Beyond that, how would we know?

What could it then mean to say that there was a time before human beings existed? Are you able to say?

:fire:

Well, sir, what non-trivial (non-epiphenomenal) difference does Kantian 'subjective time' (and/or 'subjective space') make against the background of the "empirical realism" of spatiotemporality (e.g. Einsteinian relativity of simultaneity)?

It depends on what you mean by 'time'. If it is taken to mean the subjective sense of duration, or the conception of past present and future, then of course it cannot exist independently of subjects by definition. Beyond that, how would we know? — Janus

It's not a trivial matter. There was a time before humans existed, as is well attested by empirical science. But the entire framework within which empirical science depends is first and foremost noetic or intellectual. 'From a phenomenological perspective, in everyday life, we see the objects of our experience such as physical objects, other people, and even ideas as simply real and straightforwardly existent. In other words, they are “just there.” We don’t question their existence; we view them as facts.

When we leave our house in the morning, we take the objects we see around us as simply real, factual things—this tree, neighboring buildings, cars, etcetera. This attitude or perspective, which is usually unrecognized as a perspective, Edmund Husserl terms the “natural attitude” or the “natural theoretical attitude.”

When Husserl uses the word “natural” to describe this attitude, he doesn’t mean that it is “good” (or bad), he means simply that this way of seeing reflects an “everyday” or “ordinary” way of being-in-the-world. When I see the world within this natural attitude, I am solely aware of what is factually present to me. My surrounding world, viewed naturally, is the familiar world, the domain of my everyday life. Why is this a problem?

From a phenomenological perspective, this naturalizing attitude conceals a profound naïveté. Husserl claimed that “being” can never be collapsed entirely into being in the empirical world: any instance of actual being, he argued, is necessarily encountered upon a horizon that encompasses facticity but is larger than facticity. Indeed, the very sense of facts of consciousness as such, from a phenomenological perspective, depends on a wider horizon of consciousness that usually remains unexamined. Any individual object, Husserl wrote:

“Is not merely an individual object as such, a ‘This here,’ an object never repeatable; as qualified ‘in itself‘ thus and so, it has its own specific character, its stock of essential predictables which must belong to it … if other, secondary, relative determinations can belong to it.”

that is the constant theme of this debate. What is called 'the natural attitude' is the default and anything that questions it is fiercely resisted, as can be seen.

It's not a trivial matter. There was a time before humans existed, as is well attested by empirical science. But the entire framework within which empirical science depends is first and foremost noetic or intellectual. 'From a phenomenological perspective, in everyday life, we see the objects of our experience such as physical objects, other people, and even ideas as simply real and straightforwardly existent. In other words, they are “just there.” We don’t question their existence; we view them as facts. — Wayfarer

Are they not facts of human experience? I mean, what else could they be? On the other hand I'm finding it difficult to see how "a time before humans existed? could be a fact of human experience. It is an inference to the best explanation for the discoveries of the paleontologists. You haven't answered the critical question as to what you mean by time, that I posed for you earlier.

You seem to be unaware or to have forgotten that I have read Husserl (and Heidegger) (although quite a few years ago now) and am reasonably familiar with their ideas, so I don't understand what purpose you think there could be in going over old ground as though I am a novice and as though we haven't covered it countless times.

The "natural attitude", the naive belief that there is an external world which we look out onto through our eyes, as though they are windows, is the attitude which he thought must be bracketed in order to go "to the things themselves" meaning to investigate just how they are as experienced.

We've been over this so many times, and yet you don't seem to realize I am well aware of the central arguments of phenomenology. I keep acknowledging that I think the empirical world, as conceived, and to some extent as experienced, is a collective representation, so I fail to see what purpose you think there might be in lecturing me about ideas which I am probably more familiar with than you are.

The essence of it is simply that the world, as we experience and understand it, cannot justifiably be said to exist independently of us. Right, we already have that down (and have for a very long time) so... what's next? What further conclusions are you going to justifiably derive from that epistemological/ phenomenological fact about the human condition?

You respond directly and on its own terms to so little that I write in these conversations that I am left wondering whether you even read what I say to you.

I tried to give as direct an answer as possible to this question:

What could it then mean to say that there was a time before human beings existed? Are you able to say? — Janus

I said that it is a matter of empirical fact. But in a philosophical sense, taking the empirical facts as the last word constitutes the 'naivete' that the passage about Husserl refers to.

Of course I am not going to pretend to be able to explain time. Many minds much greater than mine have attempted that. I am simply pointing out that it has an inextricably subjective element, and not in a trivial sense.

I keep acknowledging that I think the empirical world, as conceived, and to some extent as experienced, is a collective representation, so I fail to see what purpose you think there might be in lecturing me about ideas which I am probably more familiar with than you are. — Janus

That is at odds with many of the objections you raise, but then, maybe it's just for the sake of argument.

I said earlier in this thread, my main aim is to argue that humans are intrinsic to the universe, not an accidental byproduct.. That remains the case. In earlier times that would be an assumed implication of religious mythology, now it has to be established on the basis of philosophy.

I said that it is a matter of empirical fact. — Wayfarer

But it's not an empirical fact. Emprical facts are observables. So, what is it?

I'm not asking you to explain time, I'm asking you what you mean by time if you are positing it as something different than the subjective experience of duration, and the subjective understanding of time as 'past, present, future'.

It is obvious that there was not such a time prior to human life. So, I am asking you what you mean by saying that there was a time prior to humans.

That is at odds with many of the objections you raise, but then, maybe it's just for the sake of argument. — Wayfarer

If you think I have contradicted myself then quote some examples. I mean what I say and I do not say anything "just for the sake of argument". Of course you can disagree with what I say, but you need to present actual arguments for your disagreement, that directly address whatever arguments or claims I am making. Have you considered the possibility that you have misunderstood?

And yet again this response of yours is not a response to anything I've actually said, but is just another expression of your own attitudes, kind of an aside. You seem to be incapable of imagining that someone might be aware of all the "facts' you are and yet disagree with you; you always seem to jump to the conclusion that they must have misunderstood.

I said earlier in this thread, my main aim is to argue that humans are intrinsic to the universe, not an accidental byproduct.. That remains the case. In earlier times that would be an assumed implication of religious mythology, now it has to be established on the basis of philosophy. — Wayfarer

Philosophy cannot definitively establish anything. You should know that. Humans are intrinsic to the universe as it is experienced and understood by humans, we know that because it is tautologically true. It is not a religious question either since religions cannot establish objective facts, and "humans are intrinsic to the universe", if taken to mean something beyond that above-mentioned tautology, is a purportedly objective fact. How could such a thing ever be definitively established if not by science? (And scientific theories are not facts in any case, no matter how little reason we might think we have to doubt them).

That said you also need to explain clearly what you mean by saying that humans are intrinsic to the universe, and then provide a cogent argument for why we should believe that.

That said you [@Wayfarer] also need to explain clearly what you mean by saying that humans are intrinsic to the universe, and then provide a cogent argument for why we should believe that. — Janus

:yikes:

:lol:

I am simply pointing to the many problems with causation. — Banno

Then what are they?

I am simply pointing to the many problems with causation. — Banno

Then what are they? — L'éléphant

It's hard to imagine, since all our explanations are given either in terms of causes or reasons. Might be problems just regarding some parts of physics.

I don't have a problem with causation as used in perception and other physical phenomena we observe. But one of the most famous rational/empirical skepticism came from Hume, or unfortunately, it came from Hume. And then it just cemented the idea that there's a problem with causation.

Logical empiricism tries to argue against the necessary connection we humans make, as ordinary observers, about things in the world. I say this is the wrong way to argue against the validity of causation. Ordinary observation never claims a necessary connection, only ordinary hypothesis. It's not like the sunrise or sunset is a type of probabilistic event. lol. Ten things must come unhinge first before the sunrise and the sunset is no longer the case.

I said that it is a matter of empirical fact.
— Wayfarer

But it's not an empirical fact. Emprical facts are observables. So, what is it? — Janus

I am saying that the fact there was a time before humans existed is an empirical fact supported by the fossil record and an abundance of geological and paleontological data which can be observed. Iis that not so?

I'm not asking you to explain time, I'm asking you what you mean by time if you are positing it as something different than the subjective experience of duration, and the subjective understanding of time as 'past, present, future'.

It is obvious that there was not such a time prior to human life. So, I am asking you what you mean by saying that there was a time prior to humans. — Janus

There was a time prior to humans, but time itself is not completely objective - it is in some fundamental sense dependent on the observer. That is what I had hoped to convey with the quotation from Paul Davies, who says that the passage of time is reliant on there being an observer, and that if the state of the universe is described in the equations of quantum cosmology, then time simply 'drops out'. This 'observer dependency' is what ultimately underminees physicalism, as physicalism presumes that the objects of physics are real independently of any mind. It is also at the basis of the overall 'observer problem' in physics generally.

And the reason I said that this can be related to Kant is because of this passage:

I understand by the transcendental idealism of all appearances the doctrine that they are all together to be regarded as mere representations and not things in themselves, and accordingly that space and time are only sensible forms of our intuition, but not determinations given for themselves or conditions of objects as things in themselves. To this idealism is opposed transcendental realism, which regards space and time as something given in themselves (independent of our sensiblity). The transcendental realist therefore represents outer appearances (if their reality is conceded) as things in themselves, which would exist independently of us and our sensibility and thus would also be outside us according to pure concepts of the understanding. (CPR, A369)

The transcendental idealist, on the contrary, can be an empirical realist, hence, as he is called, a dualist, i.e., he can concede the existence of matter without going beyond mere self-consciousness and assuming something more than the certainty of representations in me, hence the cogito ergo sum. For because he allows this matter and even its inner possibility to be valid only for appearance– which, separated from our sensibility, is nothing –matter for him is only a species of representations (intuition), which are call external, not as if they related to objects that are external in themselves but because they relate perceptions to space, where all things are external to one another, but that space itself is in us. (A370)

I would have hoped that, given the challenging nature of the issue that this is about as clear as it can be made. If that will not suffice, then I won't press it any further. (I'm also intrigued that Kant appears to concede dualism in that passage.)

I don't kid you. Check out Wayfarer's non-response to this . :smirk:

The relativity of simultaneity is not at issue in this discussion.

Another non sequitur. :clap:

The question about what the world would be like without any percipients in it seems unanswerable, even incoherent, — Janus

Agreed. Who what ask? Inferences as to what it might have been like without them, abound, now that there are percipients that do ask.

…..to my way of thinking extension just is spatiality. — Janus

That’s fine. Spatiality is merely another form of the conception of space, which we already have. Extension is spatiality and extended in space say the same thing. But do either of them tell us anything about space?
——-

With the "degrees of separation" thing I actually had in mind the simple fact that objects appear extended to us….. — Janus

As long as appears in “objects appear extended” means objects are presented to us as being extended. Or, objects make their appearance to our senses by being extended. And not…objects look to us like they are extended. Only in this distinction does ’s A369 quote make sense, and indeed the conception of spatial extension itself, re: “… outer appearances (if their reality is conceded)…”.

Not to take sides, but the question in this…..

What could it then mean to say that there was a time before human beings existed?
— Janus

I said that it is a matter of empirical fact. — Wayfarer

….is not supported by the answer, unless time is to be considered an empirical matter, a contradiction. A time before humans existed certainly has meaning, but the meaning is logical, in the form of inference to a self-sustaining series of regressive successions, which are not themselves matters of empirical fact, and that only possible insofar as there happen to be humans with the ability to think in terms of mere relations.
———-

given the challenging nature of the issue — Wayfarer

Yeah, about that. Humans: invent stuff to explain other stuff, but can’t explain the stuff they invent to explain that other stuff. They say that stuff is only possible for us if this stuff comes first, but can’t say how this stuff came first.

And that’s only the half of it, fercryin’outloud!!! On top of all that, they demand certain knowledge of that stuff, but predicate that very certainty on stuff the certainty of which is completely different in kind and measure than belongs to that which they want to know about!!!!

It’s what makes philosophy so much fun: finding out who’s got the most reasonable explanation for, and means for preventing, the nonsense we inevitably bring upon ourselves.
———

I'm also intrigued that Kant appears to concede dualism in that passage — Wayfarer

I’m intrigued as to why he said for the record he is a dualist in A, but sorta misplaced it in B. Maybe he figured he didn’t need to say it twice….dunno. But it is conspicuous in its absence.

I am saying that the fact there was a time before humans existed is an empirical fact supported by the fossil record and an abundance of geological and paleontological data which can be observed. Iis that not so? — Wayfarer

I would agree that it is generally considered to be a fact, but I think that, strictly speaking, it is an inference to the best explanation for fossils.

I wanted you to address the meaning of the claim. To repeat my question, we cannot mean that there was time, in the human subjective sense, prior to humans, so what do we mean when we say there was time prior to humans?

There was a time prior to humans, but time itself is not completely objective - it is in some fundamental sense dependent on the observer. That is what I had hoped to convey with the quotation from Paul Davies, who says that the passage of time is reliant on there being an observer, and that if the state of the universe is described in the equations of quantum cosmology, then time simply 'drops out'. This 'observer dependency' is what ultimately undermines physicalism, as physicalism presumes that the objects of physics are real independently of any mind. It is also at the basis of the overall 'observer problem' in physics generally. — Wayfarer

So, the above doesn't answer the question as to how there could be time prior to humans if time is observer-dependent and there were no suitable observers back then? We can't even say there was a "back then" because that presupposes time.

I understand the idea that time is irrelevant to QM, but how can you consistently argue that QM tells us anything about the observer-independent universe if QM itself is observer-dependent? I don't see how you can justify claiming that there is no observer-independent universe from the fact (if it is a fact) that QM is observer dependent either. As far as I know it is not by any means uncontroversial that it must be a conscious subject that collapses the wave function.

I would have hoped that, given the challenging nature of the issue that this is about as clear as it can be made. If that will not suffice, then I won't press it any further. (I'm also intrigued that Kant appears to concede dualism in that passage.) — Wayfarer

I don't read that as Kant conceding dualism, but as saying that we only know that matter is "valid for appearance" meaning that we don't know if it has any existence beyond that (or what it could even mean to say it does). There is of course the basic dualistic character of Kant's philosophy in the sense of phenomena/ noumena or for us/ in itself, but that just reflects the ineliminably dualistic nature of all our thinking, and in no way entails substance dualism.