If we can discuss the differences between the two different cups we each see without the other seeing the other's respective cup, we are speaking only of our respective phenomenal state without access to the other's cup. — Hanover

Yes, and hence you are talking about two different things.

OF course it is open for us to take the daring path that you reject: to talk about these being two images of the very same cup.

But that would be to talk about what you choose to call the noumenal, which you insist we cannot talk about.

In humans, knowledge is not of things but of representations of things. I think obviously. — Mww

Is it so obvious, though? This is one way of thinking about the situation, to be sure, but is it the best way? To imagine is to represent, to make a picture is to represent. to think reflexively about or to re-member something is to represent. So perhaps it is difficult for us to imagine, think about, picture or re-member how we perceive things without it appearing to us to be a process of representation.

For example, religious peple have been arguing about who has the right idea of God or The Truth. They even went to war with eachother for precisely this reason (such as the 30 year war). They have killed "heretics", maimed children, tortured women, burned towns and villages, and so on.

And all this on account of their belief as to what the right properties are of an entity that is ultimately unknowable. Clearly, these people have something at stake here. — baker

The question was as to what stake people could have in something that is completely unknowable; which implies also something that is thought, acknowledged, to be unknowable. The stakes of the religious people you are referring to here are those of people who imagine they know the nature of the unknowable, or that someone has known and revealed the nature of the unknowable and so they at least have faith that it is thus and so; so their stakes are not in something that is acknowledged to be completely unknowable.

Is this not a violation of the beetle in the box thought experiment: — Hanover

SO you really haven't understood the beetle , either.

The beetle would be to pretend that there was an unsharable mental object - perhaps, for example, an unsharable perception of something - that could somehow play a role in a language game.

Yep.

But that would be to talk about what you choose to call the noumenal, which you insist we cannot talk about. — Banno

No. That would require that we talk about our respective phenomenal states.

Failure to commit. You want to talk about red plastic cups without committing to there being red plastic cups - isn't that right?

The beetle would be to pretend that there was an unsharable mental object - perhaps, for example, an unsharable perception of something - that could somehow play a role in a language game. — Banno

Not "perhaps" That's the exact point.

Pain is the beetle, yet we talk of pain, never sharing our pain with one another.

When I say "I am in pain" how do you know what I mean if there is no pain we both can look at, but are limited to our phenomenal states?

If we can do this with pain, we can with cups?

Failure to commit. You want to talk about red plastic cups without committing to there being red plastic cups - isn't that right? — Banno

No. You so miss the point here. When we were talking of the image on our screen, not the cup. I was talking about the image on my screen, you of yours. How do we know they're the same image?

Substitute "screen" for phenomenal state, and you have the same answer.

When I say "I am in pain" how do you know what I mean if there is no pain we both can look at, but are limited to our phenomenal states? — Hanover

Yes, you are right that your unshared phenomena drop out of the discussion, and what we can talk about is the shared world.

But that's my point; the beetle argument counts against our talking about the unshared mental phenomena you want to make central.

You are shooting yourself in the foot here.

How do we know they're the same image? — Hanover

The images on the screen are not the same. But they might be images of the same cup. Which is exactly what you cannot claim, since for you there is no cup.

Yes, you are right that your unshared phenomena drop out of the discussion, and what we can talk about is the shared world.

But that's my point; the beetle argument counts against our talking about the unshared mental phenomena you want to make central.

You are shooting yourself in the foot here. — Banno

They are all shared phenomenona. Pain, cups, flowers, the whole lot. If pain can be an shared without there being pains out there to measure against so can cups

The images on the screen are not the same. But they might be images of the same cup. Which is exactly what you cannot claim, since for you there is no cup. — Banno

Why must the image be of something real to be seen? We can't compare my randomly created image againstyour by discussing them online without submitting the images to one another?

They are all shared phenomenona. Pain, cups, flowers, the whole lot. If pain can be an shared without there being pains out there to measure against so can cups — Hanover

They are shared phenomena? SO now you are saying that my perception-of-cup is shared with you? That you and I both feel the pain in my back?

This conversation teeters on insanity.

Why must the image be of something real to be seen? — Hanover

Why address this to me? It's not something I've claimed.

They are shared phenomena? SO now you are saying that my perception-of-cup is shared with you? That you and I both feel the pain in my back?

This conversation teeters on insanity. — Banno

So you've read my comments as suggesting that the sensory input required to illicit pain is conversation about pain?

This conversation isn't insane, it's just nonsensical interpretation. Interesting, though, how representations of reality are often muddled by differing ways we process.

Here's the problem we were addressing: you claim that there are phenomena before each of us that are sufficiently similar that we can have a discussion about them, but that we can say nothing at all about what causes those phenomena - that we can talk about images of red cups, but not about red cups.

This conversation isn't insane, — Hanover

I'm not convinced.

Here's the problem we were addressing: you claim that there are phenomena before each of us that are sufficiently similar that we can have a discussion about them, but that we can say nothing at all about what causes those phenomena - that we can talk about images of red cups, but not about red cups. — Banno

I've claimed the noumenal causative of the phenomenal. You're arguing against Kant, not me.

I've claimed the noumenal causative of the phenomenal. — Hanover

So there is a thing that causes us to have congruent sensations of plastic cups but is not a plastic cup. Failure to commit.

You're arguing against Kant, not me.

Tell someone who cares.The notion of the noumenal, and its various misunderstandings, are amongst the worst ideas ever had.

In humans, knowledge is not of things but of representations of things. I think obviously.
— Mww

Is it so obvious, though? This is one way of thinking about the situation, to be sure, but is it the best way? — Janus

Best is irrelevant if it’s the only. I hear of other system methodologies, but I don’t understand them well enough to qualify their respective values. Enactivism, or some such? Dunno.

There shouldn’t be any problem with the fact that what the brain works with, is not the same as what perception works with, whatever that difference is called.

Apart from representational models another simple way of framing perception is saying that we see objects as they are revealed to us via reflected light. We can also feel objects via the skin. In that way of thinking the objects are presented, or made present, to the body via the senses. Of course we don't know the objects of the senses exhaustively, because the way we know them is only one of many possible variations on the themes of seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling and feeling that could be given to different perceptual setups. There may even be others we cannot imagine.

I agree that even beyond that range of possible ways of perceiving objects there is for us the merely logical idea of what the object could be in itself. But I'm not sure that is a coherent idea, because to be something is to manifest some attributes, and what kind of attribute could be beyond any possibility of being perceived or known?

Or what import could it have, beyond a desire to open the way for some imagined transcendent religious possibility? That would not be perceiving or knowing though, but merely faith. And I would argue that we don't need the idea of the noumenon to sustain religious faith in any case,because what we do perceive is already mystery enough, and we already know that profoundly altered states of consciousness are possible. Those altered states have nothing to do with "something" absolutely unknowable

That's my take anyhow..

Tell someone who cares.The notion of the noumenal, and its various misunderstandings, are amongst the worst ideas ever had. — Banno

The noumenal certainly doesn't seem very helpful but have you ever heard any of Kant's jokes?

"There was once a young merchant who was sailing on his ship from India to Europe. He had his entire fortune on board. Due to a terrible storm, he was forced to throw all of his merchandise overboard. He was so upset that, that very night, his wig turned gray." Critique of the Power of Judgment (1790)

Perhaps the wig was identical to its representation.

So there is a thing that causes us to have congruent sensations of plastic cups but is not a plastic cup. — Banno

The properties experienced of the object are subjectively imposed. An object absent its properties is not describable. While that might not make you happy, it's the way the world works.

You're arguing against Kant, not me.
Tell someone who cares.The notion of the noumenal, and its various misunderstandings, are amongst the worst ideas ever had — Banno

The point that you don't care is irrelevant. My point was you weren't arguing against what I said, but what Kant said. Your declaration against Kant is relevant only to the extent someone was awaiting your final conclusory opinion about him relevant.

The noumenal certainly doesn't seem very helpful but have you ever heard any of Kant's jokes? — Tom Storm

There's a very small audience for such jokes, right?

The properties experienced of the object are subjectively imposed. — Hanover

We do not impose those properties; they are imposed upon us, like it or not.

We do not impose those properties; they are imposed upon us, like it or not. — Janus

I've acknowledged it's causative, but there other ways to evoke phenomenal states other than perceptual input, like chemicals, electrodes in the brain, tumors, mental dysfunction.

There's a very small audience for such jokes, right? — Hanover

I really hope so.

The properties experienced of the object are subjectively imposed. — Hanover

You "subjectively" render the cup red? ? The red of the cup is not in any way caused by the cup, but proceeds entirely from your mind? And it is some sort of coincidence that we also see the red?

No. The red of the cup is an interaction between each of our minds and the cup. The cup has a say in the issue.

But further, saying that we impose the properties of the experience seems to directly deny what you claimed earlier: that the noumenal is causative of the phenomenal. made the same point.

You want your cup and to eat it

I've acknowledged it's causative, but there other ways to evoke phenomenal states other than perceptual input, like chemicals, electrodes in the brain, tumors, mental dysfunction. — Hanover

Those are also imposed on us though, aren't they?

But further, saying that we impose the properties of the experience seems to directly deny what you claimed earlier: that the noumenal is causative of the phenomenal. — Banno

Unless the claim is that the self-in-itself is part of the noumenal. :wink: But....
if the noumenal cannot have parts, then the self-in-itself must be the whole of the noumenal which means....solipsism.

I really hope so. — Tom Storm

Perhaps Kant's tiny repertoire of jokes was the cause of the stereotypical notion of German humour.