A perspective is not a passive observation from a certain vantage, it is the creation of something new from
a certain vantage . Any ‘observation’ alters not just what it relates to, but also that which is doing the observing. — Joshs
Try to remove the human temporal perspective, so that there's no "now". Y — Metaphysician Undercover
But my question also included ideas of localized interactions. Whitehead proposed atomic "occasions" of experiences. That still seems odd to me. I mean it's as good a conjecture as any, but doesn't really get beyond being conjecture. — schopenhauer1
He knows that to have an idea at all in mind is to have logic in play already. One can't imagine a logic-free "world". — Constance
Right but what is a view without sentience? Besides using Wittgenstein to just say, "This is nonsense!" is there any other good responses here? — schopenhauer1
Nonlocal (i.e. infinite).What is a non-perspective world? — schopenhauer1
Insofar as effability is perspectival, "a non-perspective world" is ineffable.In what way can we talk of it intelligibly?
Noise (i.e. randomness).What does that even mean when there’s no perspective?
I think "metaphysics" as such consists in creating and using conceptual tools / criteria in order to deflate – render transparent to reason – 'cultural-experiential perspectives' on whatever there is. This is done by either (A) positing one map to define (determine the totality of) the territory (i.e. "idealism") and to function as the foundation of all other maps (e.g. "platonism") or (B) negating every map which does not correspond with – cannot be used for navigating – the territory and thereby populating the set of all corresponding – navigable – maps of the territory which are inherent to the territory (e.g. "irrealism" ... "actualism").We get a view from nowhere. Here is true metaphysics. What then exists in the view from nowhere?
Do you think a universe can persist if there is no observer/perspective? I know we can't imagine that world, but I guess my bigger question is, "what" is being outside perspective?
If you say, there is no "being" outside perspective, that is indeed Idealism and Schopenhauer would get on board with that. But, let's say you weren't an Idealist. Is there any other way to answer this? — schopenhauer1
'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.'
Schopenhauer's defence of Kant on this score was [that] the objector has not understood to the very bottom the Kantian demonstration that time is one of the forms of our sensibility. The earth, say, as it was before there was life, is a field of empirical enquiry in which we have come to know a great deal; its reality is no more being denied than is the reality of perceived objects in the same room.
The point is, the whole of the empirical world in space and time is the creation of our understanding, which apprehends all the objects of empirical knowledge within it as being in some part of that space and at some part of that time: and this is as true of the earth before there was life as it is of the pen I am now holding a few inches in front of my face and seeing slightly out of focus as it moves across the paper.
This, incidentally, illustrates a difficulty in the way of understanding which transcendental idealism has permanently to contend with: the assumptions of 'the inborn realism which arises from the original disposition of the intellect' enter unawares into the way in which the statements of transcendental idealism are understood.
Such realistic assumptions so pervade our normal use of concepts that the claims of transcendental idealism disclose their own non-absurdity only after difficult consideration, whereas criticisms of them at first appear cogent which on examination are seen to rest on confusion. We have to raise almost impossibly deep levels of presupposition in our own thinking and imagination to the level of self-consciousness before we are able to achieve a critical awareness of all our realistic assumptions, and thus achieve an understanding of transcendental idealism which is untainted by them. This, of course, is one of the explanations for the almost unfathomably deep counterintuitiveness of transcendental idealism, and also for the general notion of 'depth' with which people associate Kantian and post-Kantian philosophy. Something akin to it is the reason for much of the prolonged, self-disciplined meditation involved in a number of Eastern religious practices. — Bryan Magee, Schopenhauer's Philosophy, p106
Young children experience emotions, but they have to learn what they are, what they mean, what they are called. — T Clark
But both existence and non-existence are conceptual constructions. The idea of non-existence is just as dependent on the constructive activities of the mind as the idea of existence. And what exists outside that constructive activity of the mind, we will never know, because that is what gives meaning to the term ‘it exists’. Nothing has any meaning outside that matrix of meaning-construction. — Wayfarer
Not that ‘before’ we came along that it didn’t exist, but that the manner of its existence is unintelligible apart from the perspective brought to it by the observer. We can’t get ‘outside’ that perspective, even if we try and see the world as if there’s no observer. (Sorry for the length of this post.) — Wayfarer
I agree, but this is a hard idea to keep hold of. If I stop paying attention, it slips away again. — T Clark
That is , any facet of a world taken as what it is ‘in itself’ implies not only a relation with an environment to define what ‘it’ is, but a relation that produces it uniquely , and only in that moment, and only from ‘its’ perspective in that moment — Joshs
I don’t think they have to learn what they mean in a fundamental sense. What they mean is inherent in their very expression as emotions. An emotion is a kind of appraisal of one’s situation, whether one has a word label for the emotion or not. — Joshs
If you say, there is no "being" outside perspective, that is indeed Idealism and Schopenhauer would get on board with that. But, let's say you weren't an Idealist. Is there any other way to answer this? — schopenhauer1
Yes, a priori, this kind of conjecturing must be projections and imaginations. We can still try to "describe" it. Like if I say, "What do you think a dog's perspective is like" and you say, "It has a lot to do with smells, patterns of reward, belly rubs, and such" I can still meaningfully gain some insight into this from my limited human perspective without actually "being" a dog myself. Of course, I am never going to have the POV of a dog, but it can be discussed like anything else.
I'm just saying not to use Witty to weaponize any inquiry on metaphysical or epistemological conjectures. Sometimes it's more about how to view a subject matter, not necessarily getting at "it" directly. We all know that there is a contradiction in thinking about non-perspective, but the dialogue surrounding such ideas is not thus a non-starter, it's just keeping in mind that it can only be conjecture. — schopenhauer1
Metaphysics is a tool. If it works, it's valid. — T Clark
I agree with this except for "invalid." — T Clark
My point is that if metaphysics is taken to be the attempt to arrive at a definitive answer as to the nature of absolute reality, then it is not, and cannot be, adequate to the task. — Janus
And Kant was simply doing metaphysics under the guise of epistemology. — Jackson
If metaphysics is taken to be the science of the Real (where "real" is understood to be what is independent of human experience) then Kant was not doing metaphysics. His aim was to establish what characteristics all possible human experience and judgement must have. — Janus
I don't define metaphysics as the science of the real. — Jackson
It is just a topic in philosophy about what we think the totality of the world is. — Jackson
I've read a lot of Kant and I find him boring and pedantic. — Jackson
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