No, I disagree, Mww. Implicit truth is still truth. The Axiom of Identity is utterly proven, a priori, by the conception of all Objects.

You cannot even conceive of Matter that is not governed by Causality; and you keep saying there are alternatives to Evolution, but I doubt that, as it is an extraordinary process that takes billions of years. Nor has anyone offered an alternative to modifying animal behavior except through the pain/pleasure mechanism.

And while mankind has considered the possibility of a Creator, no one can explain how that Creator operates if not through material cause and effect in a dimensional universe, nor how that Creator was created, whereas if we simply admit that Consciousnesses are unalterably paired to Evolutionary Environments, we have a complete Thought Experiment that is proven by the Fossil Record.

So I say again, Consciousness proves the existence of a Material Universe.

We are part of the world of course. But it doesn't seem that the world depends on us, on our perceiving it, in order to exist. Of course to exist in the form in which we (uniquely) perceive, it does depend on us, but even there we also depend on it, or at least that seems most plausible.

I agree that we might think that ultimately, or primordially, experience is prior to the subject-object distinction; but there we would be feigning to dip into the pre-cognitive ocean of being, and I think we can only hint at that, because all we can propositionally say remains firmly in the cognitive realm of subjects and objects.

So, I meant to say that we are affected pre-cognitively, and that 'affect' in this sense signifies some process prior to perception whereby our senses collaborate with the world (as part of, or not separate from, the world, of course) to give rise to sensory phenomena and the conscious and unconscious affects (or responses) we experience in respect of those. — Janus

Ok, so let’s not worry so much about making propositions, then. Let’s understand language as a logical structuring of qualitative ideas relative to affect. Let’s recognise this relativity even in our relation to propositions, rather than taking them on face value, as if subjects and objects exist unaffected. Because only pre-cognitive language structures such as traditional Chinese ideograms exist free from affect. Word concepts do not.

FWIW, I don’t believe this relativity is impossible to navigate, just complex and uncertain. But then, so is life, if we’re honest.

The other logical possibility is that consciousness is uncreated. — Janus

:up:

The Axiom of Identity is utterly proven, a priori, by the conception of all Objects. — Michael Sol

Categorical error. The axiom of Identity is derived a priori. That which is analytic, such as the axiom of identity in the form A = A, is a self-evident truth, a tautology, which informs of nothing but itself. No conception can be connected to another without a mediating condition, and since A = A incorporates only a singular conception, no synthesis with conceptions of objects is at all possible.

Synthetic principles, on the other hand, in which one conception is connected with another, can only sustain the extant truth of axioms. It is quite absurd to render a proof for that which is already apodeitically certain.

With respect to consciousness, an entirely irreducible metaphysical conception, and certainly having no necessary empirical antecedents, is an axiom of Identity insofar as consciousness can never identify with anything but itself, but it is, as well, an a priori synthetic principle derived from pure reason alone, insofar as consciousness as a priori conception, has schema subsumed under it, or, which is the same thing, has conceptions contained in it.
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You cannot even conceive of Matter that is not governed by Causality — Michael Sol

True enough. Now all that’s required is to prove consciousness is conceived as matter, in order for causality to govern it. Here met with an aberration, in that causality itself is an entirely metaphysical conception. Ever gone to Home Depot to perused the shelves for some quantity of causality?

Disagree as you wish, but metaphysical entities cannot be empirically proven. Only other metaphysical entities can validate metaphysical entities, and not a single one of them can ever be proved in the same manner as falling trees can be proven to wreck your house.

Tom, one could ask: How precisely does Kant's thing-in-itself differ from Berkeley's (actually Locke's) substance, or matter? That "something, I know not what " underlying sense impressions.

I submit that they do not really differ at all because, bottom line, each can be characterized best as a "NOTHING," as that which, in principle, could never be perceived by human beings.

For what else would one be left with to perceive but a "NOTHING" if one could eliminate all empirical and transcendental characteristics from the object?

To still insist that something perceivable remains would be sheer nonsense.

Notice how the tactics used by Fichte to discredit the legitimacy of Kant's conception of the thing-in-itself (see Fichte's The Vocation of Man) are nearly identical to the tactics used by Berkeley to discredit the legitimacy of Locke's conception of substance, or matter (see Berkeley's A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge & Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous).

Certainly, as Kant claimed, the transcendental forms of intuition and the transcendental categories of the understanding without sensations are empty and the sensations without the transcendental forms of intuition and the transcendental categories of the understanding are blind.

But the purported thing-in-itself, being transcendent to both the sensory and the transcendental, is NOTHING from the framework of human consciousness.

But the purported thing-in-itself, being transcendent to both the sensory and the transcendental, is NOTHING from the framework of human consciousness. — charles ferraro

I hear what you are saying about nothing, but what's it all mean, what's your conclusion?

Mww:

You said:


Categorical error. The axiom of Identity is derived a priori. That which is analytic, such as the axiom of identity in the form A = A, is a self-evident truth, a tautology, which informs of nothing but itself. No conception can be connected to another without a mediating condition, and since A = A incorporates only a singular conception, no synthesis with conceptions of objects is at all possible.

I think you are misreading Kant. The Axiom is derived a priori, from one's a priori concept of Bodies' and as a foundational Truth for Consciousnesses, it is Fundamental.

You said:

True enough. Now all that’s required is to prove consciousness is conceived as matter, in order for causality to govern it. Here met with an aberration, in that causality itself is an entirely metaphysical conception. Ever gone to Home Depot to perused the shelves for some quantity of causality?

Disagree as you wish, but metaphysical entities cannot be empirically proven. Only other metaphysical entities can validate metaphysical entities, and not a single one of them can ever be proved in the same manner as falling trees can be proven to wreck your house.

Consciousnesses are unfailingly the product of Evolution in a Material Universe. We have a complete a priori theory in Evolution, and in General Relativity, and since no one has ever provided an alternative theory to those of causal matter cycles and evolution, we have no reason at all to believe that there are any alternatives.

If a Consciousness infallibly denotes evolution in a Material Universe, then the Physical is the Metaphysical.

And you ask me to prove Matter can be a Consciousness? What? Who are all these Zombies then?

Everyone keeps saying it doesn't have to be that way, we've got alternatives to material reality here somewhere, I know we do. Except guys like George Ellis and Alan Coley and the like...

I think you are misreading Kant. — Michael Sol

I’m more than happy to be corrected.

Direct references from relevant texts mandatory, of course.

Kant's epistemology never really explains satisfactorily where sensations come from before they are synthesized by the transcendental forms of intuition and the transcendental categories of the understanding.

To say that the transcendent thing-in-itself, or the transcendent noumenon, are the original sources of pre-synthesized sensations (that they stimulate sensations), is basically no different than saying that the pre-synthesized sensations are caused by NOTHING.

Ultimately, Kant's epistemology lacks explanatory power. I conclude that it fails.

I think the problem with idealism in general is that it is an incomplete model - there's a reason it hasn't reemerged (yet) as the default setting for our thinking and it isn't just down to the conspiratorial machinations of physicalism and the plot to disregard true knowledge...

Tom. I don't think there are any deliberate conspiratorial machinations or plots at work here or in any other grand materialist or idealist epistemological systems. I just think all epistemic theories are destined to have contradictions and shortcomings inherent in them by their grandiose natures and aspirations.

I have been sincerely trying to do that on each occasion. It seems you're not understanding what I'm trying to convey. I think you're approaching it from the natural attitude (beginning from 'From a phenomenological perspective....') — Wayfarer

No, I'm not approaching from "the natural attitude". Your attempt to dismiss what I have said, without addressing it on it's own terms, by labeling it as coming from "the natural attitude" is facile, and shows your lack of ability to participate in open discussion in good faith. When you are ready to address what I say on its own terms, then come back to me. Until then I am done trying to engage with you.

Now you're speaking my language. — Wayfarer

No, I'm merely expressing a logical possibility. I know that for you it is an article of faith; personally I don't have an opinion either way. As I've tried to explain to you, considering consciousness as prior is a methodological approach in phenomenology, and considering the physical as prior is a methodological approach in science. Neither need to be adopted as beliefs in order to practice the respective disciplines, they are merely methodological starting assumptions.

I was merely pointing out that consciousness being uncreated is a logical possibility; i.e. that there is no contradiction involved in the idea.

Ok, so let’s not worry so much about making propositions, then. Let’s understand language as a logical structuring of qualitative ideas relative to affect. Let’s recognise this relativity even in our relation to propositions, rather than taking them on face value, as if subjects and objects exist unaffected. — Possibility

You seem to be saying that we should recognize that true and false propositions are so only contextually, not absolutely. If that is what you are saying, then I heartily agree.

FWIW, I don’t believe this relativity is impossible to navigate, just complex and uncertain. But then, so is life, if we’re honest. — Possibility

:100:

Sheer genius......space and time are both incontestably infinite, and no empirical knowledge is at all possible of objects with infinite properties, so investigating the possibility of empirical knowledge necessarily begins by removing that which prevents it. — Mww

Agreed. So, do you think any knowledge of objects with infinite properties is possible at all, or are we confined to examining the logical implications (the a priori) if any? The other possibility that has been imagined is gnosis, or perhaps something less bold, like Spinoza's "intellectual intuition" or seeing "sub specie aeternitatis" (under the aspect of eternity).

Correct. In Kant, transcendental merely indicates that which is given from a priori pure reason alone, having many conceptions subsumed under it. — Mww

I agree with that summation.

Tom. I don't think there are any deliberate conspiratorial machinations or plots at work here or in any other grand materialist or idealist epistemological systems — charles ferraro

I agree, I was just satirizing one of the views out there.

do you think any knowledge of objects with infinite properties is possible at all..... — Janus

Personally, I don’t think objects with infinite properties are even possible. Given that an object is the sum of its parts describable by properties, then an object of infinite parts is immediately impossible because the sum of them is impossible. It follows that knowledge of impossible objects is itself impossible. But then....how do we know the objects we experience don’t have properties we can’t describe? And, if we don’t know how many of those there may be, we don’t know there aren’t an infinite series of them.

......or are we confined to examining the logical implications (the a priori) — Janus

That, if anything, I think. If the infinite is a logical premise, then it seems only logical conclusions can be possible from it.

Leave it to a human, to wish to know everything, and then come up with something, all by himself, he can’t know anything about. Sometimes I think we got away from throwing rocks at each other, by sheer accident.

the problem with idealism in general is that it is an incomplete model — Tom Storm

“....For pure speculative reason has this peculiarity, that, in choosing the various objects of thought, it is able to define the limits of its own faculties, and even to give a complete enumeration of the possible modes of proposing problems to itself, and thus to sketch out the entire system of metaphysics...”

Idealism in general...perhaps. This particular idealism, according to its author, is at least a logically complete model of a human cognitive system.

“....common logic presents me with a complete and systematic catalogue of all the simple operations of reason...”

That which arises from itself must be complete, and exchanging the completeness of that, for the language used to represent it, explains why the books that tells us about it, are hundreds of pages long.

“...Hence, too, metaphysics has this singular advantage—an advantage which falls to the lot of no other science which has to do with objects—that, if once it is conducted into the sure path of science, it can then take in the whole sphere of its cognitions, and can thus complete its work, and leave it for the use of posterity, as a capital which can never receive fresh accessions. For metaphysics has to deal only with principles and with the limitations of its own employment as determined by these principles. To this perfection it is, therefore, bound, as the fundamental science, to attain...”

It isn’t a question of being a complete model, but rather, whether it is accepted as such. So it is that either the model is complete but wrong insofar as it begins from the wrong path, or it is incomplete insofar as it disregards that which doesn’t belong to it, but should.

As are sensations disregarded, as having nothing whatsoever to do with metaphysics proper, and a logical model for it, other than their mere physical presence for its initiation.

Schopenhauer’s criticism is abysmally inept as well, with respect to Kant’s neglect of his cherished principle of sufficient reason, in that the metaphysical principles of pure reason have to do with principles of universality and absolute necessity, which, when logically given, are themselves immediately sufficient for that which follows from them.

It isn’t a question of being a complete model, but rather, whether it is accepted as such. So it is that either the model is complete but wrong insofar as it begins from the wrong path, or it is incomplete insofar as it disregards that which doesn’t belong to it, but should. — Mww

Food for thought. It's certainly not my subject, so I defer to your reading on this. It seems to me that there are a number of things that remain unclear or incomplete (certainly to me) - the nature of the noumenal world for one (which by definition is unknowable but is this an acceptable position?) and it seems to me the nature of Big Mind not well understood in Kant or Schopenhauer. Does that make sense?

remain unclear or incomplete.... - the nature of the noumenal world for one (which by definition is unknowable but is this an acceptable position?) — Tom Storm

It is unknowable, and that position is acceptable, iff considered by Kant’s standards. To say the way Kant talks about it is misleading or wrong is fine, but to show how it is those, requires a different set of standards.

It is still the case, though, that in Kant, there is no noumenal world, from a human perspective, so to even talk about in connection with him, is technically inappropriate.

It is unknowable, and that position is acceptable, — Mww

I hear you. I sometimes wonder how we can know if something is unknowable in perpetuity?

Personally, I don’t think objects with infinite properties are even possible. Given that an object is the sum of its parts describable by properties, then an object of infinite parts is immediately impossible because the sum of them is impossible. It follows that knowledge of impossible objects is itself impossible. But then....how do we know the objects we experience don’t have properties we can’t describe? And, if we don’t know how many of those there may be, we don’t know there aren’t an infinite series of them. — Mww

This reminds me of Spinoza, who understood God/Nature as being one substance possessing infinite attributes of which only two "extensa" and "cogitans" are accessible to us. Since encountering the idea, I always wondered whether "inifinite attributes" should be interpreted as " infinitely many attributes" or "attributes which are infinite", that is, attrbutes which are not finite or in other words, not determinable.

Leave it to a human, to wish to know everything, and then come up with something, all by himself, he can’t know anything about. Sometimes I think we got away from throwing rocks at each other, by sheer accident. — Mww

Haha. Yes, what's the alternative? God did it, I guess.

Your attempt to dismiss what I have said, without addressing it on it's own terms, by labeling it as coming from "the natural attitude" is facile, and shows your lack of ability to participate in open discussion in good faith. — Janus

But when you say this:

We are part of the world of course. But it doesn't seem that the world depends on us, on our perceiving it, in order to exist. Of course to exist in the form in which we (uniquely) perceive, it does depend on us, but even there we also depend on it, or at least that seems most plausible. — Janus

you're speaking from the natural attitude. It's the taken-for-grantedness of the separate reality of the world which we generally start from. It's natural to do that. Hence the description.

"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."

And there's an element of that in what you're writing. It's insufficiently radical, if you like. That's all I'm saying. This is *not* my taking shots or trying to belittle you or score points, which is how you seem to be interpreting it, or even my trying to dismiss what you're saying. I'm trying to show what I think is the issue, but you say that this always comes across as if I'm equivocating, changing the subject, not addressing the question, or not speaking on your terms. So probably, we're talking past each other, and I ought to cease and desist.

But when you say this:

We are part of the world of course. But it doesn't seem that the world depends on us, on our perceiving it, in order to exist. Of course to exist in the form in which we (uniquely) perceive, it does depend on us, but even there we also depend on it, or at least that seems most plausible. — Janus


you're speaking from the natural attitude. It's the taken-for-grantedness of the separate reality of the world which we generally start from. — Wayfarer

No, it's not correct to say that I'm speaking from the natural attitude. If you think I am then you are misunderstanding what I'm saying. I don't say that the world doesn't depend on us; I say that it seems, according to our experience, that the world doesn't depend on us. And then I make the distinction between the world considered as it is "in itself", and the world as it is known by us, the latter of which, insofar as it is represented by our ideas, obviously does depend on us, by definition.

But then we can further question what "depends on us" really means. Do we create ourselves? Do we "depend (only) on us" in the final analysis? If it were so, then we should automatically understand everything about us, and the world of our experience that depends on us.

If we and our experience do not depend exclusively on us, then there must be "something" which sustains our being and experience and that does not depend on us or our experience at all. The salient question is as to what that something is. I say that since it is outside our realm of experience and control it is unknowable; which means that if we want to commit to some view about it, that view will be based on faith, not reason or observation.

:up:

I say that since it is outside our realm of experience and control it is unknowable; which means that if we want to commit to some view about it, that view will be based on faith, not reason or observation. — Janus

I think this is where Jacques Maritain locates the intuition of being. 'is a perception direct and immediate …. It is a very simple sight, superior to any discursive reasoning or demonstration [… of] a reality which it touches and which takes hold of it; (Preface to Metaphysics, 1934 [1939: 50–51]). Maritain believed that this escaped Kant, so I won't pursue it further here, but I see some common ground between that, and the Buddhist prajna (see God, Zen and the Intuition of Being.)

I agree that such intuition as a sign of truth is an imaginable possibility. Whether or not we place our faith in such intuitions as revelatory is just that...faith, though. I also acknowledge that if such intuitions are powerful enough they may well dispel all doubt for the intuiter. But then that is a personal matter... "between oneself and God", as the saying goes..and those kinds of intuitions, however profound they may seem, cannot be expected to possess, or ever gain, inter-subjective currency. That is my considered view on it, anyway, for what it's worth.

I think most would agree with you, but I also think it's because of the cultural context, which makes it impossible to see it any way other than faith. Either it's scientifically demonstrable or logically necessary, or else a matter of faith.

I don't think seeing it that way is a matter of cultural context, but of phenomenological clarity; of getting our categories straight.

That said I would change "scientifically demonstrable" to 'empirically demonstrable'. The other point is that there is nothing wrong with having faith; we all do it one way or the other, since the scientific worldview as a metaphysical position is itself not empirically demonstrable, however plausible it might seem.

And logic actually tells us nothing about what is really the case it just tells us what form things must be in in order to be the case. I would also add in there "phenomenologically demonstrable". since even though phenomenological truths are not strictly empirically verifiable, they are I think obvious to anyone with an open mind who is willing to reflect on the ways in which we experience.

how we can know if something is unknowable in perpetuity? — Tom Storm

I think, once again, that this can only be a logical claim, which would stand insofar as if something is impossible to know, it will be unknowable for all time. Stuff like....can we know of an effect that has no cause, can we know a conception that does not immediately include its own negation....weird stuff like that, predicated merely on the kind of intellect in play.

On the other hand, and maybe even weirder, is “Rumsfeld’s Ditty”, which implies that of which we don’t know we don’t know, is already unknowable in any time. Technically, though, this reflects on the Kantian category of possibility, which states that a thing must be possible in order to be known, so if there is a thing for which we don’t know the possibility, that is exactly the thing for which there can never be any knowledge.

But still, to think any object is to presuppose its possibility, insofar as it is impossible to think an impossible object. Or, which is the same thing, to think an impossible object is a contradiction. It follows that an unknowable object is an impossible object, but we cannot think an impossible object, so how in the HELL did we ever come up with asking if we can know of something the thought of which can never happen?

Hence, the critique of pure reason. Humans do this kinda stuff all the time, but there's no answers in the doing, or, the answers are in conflict with the questions, rather than satisfying them.

“....Now the transcendental (subjective) reality at least of the pure conceptions of reason rests upon the fact that we are led to such ideas by a necessary procedure of reason. There must therefore be syllogisms which contain no empirical premisses, and by means of which we conclude from something that we do know, to something of which we do not even possess a conception, to which we, nevertheless, by an unavoidable illusion, ascribe objective reality. Such arguments are, as regards their result, rather to be termed sophisms than syllogisms, although indeed, as regards their origin, they are very well entitled to the latter name, inasmuch as they are not fictions or accidental products of reason, but are necessitated by its very nature. They are sophisms, not of men, but of pure reason herself, from which the Wisest cannot free himself. After long labour he may be able to guard against the error, but he can never be thoroughly rid of the illusion which continually mocks and misleads him....”

It’s fun to think about human thinking, but it’s soooooo much more fun, to think about how hay-wire it can go.