Yep. Do you think that a vicious circularity?

I wondered how you got on with the second chapter. Beauty as a chemical reaction.

I laughed at his use of a Wittgenstein quote (p. 19 of paperback). I don't think he read it the way I would...

Needs its own thread.

the Buddha seemed to be a practical empiricist instead of a theoretical metaphysicist — Gnomon

But nothing like empiricism as generally understood. Buddhism is maybe more like what William James had in mind with 'radical empiricism'. James believed that reality is not just a collection of objects and events that exist independently of human perception, but rather a constantly evolving process that is shaped by our experiences. The entire domain of experience, whether subjective or objective, constitute the understanding of being. He argued that we should approach our experiences with an open mind and a willingness to learn rather than dogmas, religious, philosophical or scientific.

The point about Kant's antinomies is their grounding in his observation that we ask questions we can't know the answers to, as a consequence of our ability to reason. That's the sense in which they're comparable to the Buddha's 'unanswered questions'. You can waste a lot of time wondering, but the reality of existence is a pressing matter and not captured by speculative wondering. Not that it's something that I myself don't do.

Needs its own thread. — Banno

There is one.

That was a ways back. I don't recall participating.

we ask questions we can't know the answers to... — Wayfarer

Which is fine, so long as we don't pretend to have those answers...

The cognitive scientist Donald Hoffman uses evolutionary game theory to show that our perceptions of an independent reality must be illusions. — Gnomon

Just to be sure, you do see that it does not follow from this that there is no "independent reality"?

…every idea contains the seeds of its own negation, — Janus

Then presumably there is an idea that negates "every idea contains the seeds of its own negation"...? — Banno

An idea is a “problematic conception”, a singular representation of the understanding, for which the intuition of an object belonging to it is impossible, or, the representation of an object inferred as belonging to it, does not relate, re: the idea is unintelligible.
(E.g., truth, justice, up)
(re: solid time)

A proposition is a subject/copula/object synthetic judgement, necessarily containing a plurality of conceptions in a relation to each other, and is for that, a cognition.
(E.g., idea/contains/seed)

To contain the seed of its own negation merely indicates the principle of complementarity intrinsic to the dualistic nature of human intelligence, insofar as the complement for any such problematic conception, is given immediately in the thought of the original, the complement, being immediately given, requires no thought at all, insofar as its representation is precisely whatever the original’s is not.
(E.g., fiction, corruption, down)

The negation of a proposition, on the other hand, is never given immediately by the construction of the original, but is itself a different judgement predicated on different conceptions, or different modalities of the same categorical conception, all of which, without exception, must be cognized as such.
(E.g., idea/contains/words; idea/does not contain/seed)

To posit the notion that an idea contains the seeds of the negation of a proposition, is a gross misunderstanding of the constructs of theoretical a priori human reason, to which the conflict properly belongs, by the insinuation of analytic language philosophy, to which it doesn’t.

Yeah. I'm reading that. Not so impressed.
There's a trend for engineers and physicist to move in to philosophy. What I've noticed is that they at first suppose that they have the answer to an age-old philosophical issue; they present this to the community, and are taken aback that it is not just accepted. Often, what happens is that they have only a superficial grasp of the issue, and so are not seeing the full breadth of the issue.
I'll have more to say when I finish Hoffman. — Banno

Don't take the title of the book too literally. It was intended to be provocative. Hoffman said that he began as a "naive realist". But after years of research into perception & conception, he has evolved to a more nuanced philosophical view of reality --- a virtual reality. He's another pragmatic scientist, who was forced by the direction of the data to "move into philosophy" : Ontology & Epistemology. So back to the question of this thread : is it a bad thing for serious scientists to dabble in "trivial" philosophy? Is philosophy the underachieving poor relation of science?

The video linked below might "impress" you more than the book. A writer can present his views in a logical linear manner. But, when challenged man-to-man & face-to-face, a "superficial grasp of the issue" might begin to unravel to reveal kinks in the logic. Michael Shermer is a science-defending skeptic by trade, and few people can go toe-to-toe with him and come out with their dignity intact. :smile:

SKEPTIC interview with Hoffman :
https://www.skeptic.com/michael-shermer-show/donald-hoffman-case-against-reality-why-evolution-hid-truth-from-our-eyes/

"take it seriously, but not literally"

The point about Kant's antinomies is their grounding in his observation that we ask questions we can't know the answers to, as a consequence of our ability to reason. That's the sense in which they're comparable to the Buddha's 'unanswered questions'. You can waste a lot of time wondering, but the reality of existence is a pressing matter and not captured by speculative wondering. Not that it's something that I myself don't do. — Wayfarer

The point of this thread is to ask the question : Is it a sin for a professional astronomer to speculate on a cosmological view from god's perspective? Or is it a waste of brain-power for a philosopher to engage in imaginary Ontological & Epistemological exploration? Are we chasing the elusive butterfly of love? :smile:

Just to be sure, you do see that it does not follow from this that there is no "independent reality"? — Banno

I'll defer to Hoffman to answer that question from a better-informed position. In the video linked above, he addresses the conundrum : "does the moon exist when we're not looking"? As a "naive realist" though, I assume -- without sensory evidence -- that the moon continues to exist apart from my sensory experience of it. But I can't prove it. :joke:

PS__Is the world within a Virtual Reality headset an "independent reality"?

He addresses this at some point. The main point, if I recall, is that he is arguing for not-P. One does not need to prove P to prove not-P, he only needs to show that the view he is attacking is very unlikely to be accurate. Following Dennett, he also takes natural selection to be a basic ontological heuristic suggested by parsimony, Ockham's Razor, rather than something unique to evolutionary biology.

IMO this is a big miss, because natural selection also applies to all physical systems, and I think there is a lot we can learn about the world by looking at how a tendency towards greater entropy causes selection effects to shape the surviving systems we see around us. (Whitehead talks about this in The Function of Reason to better effect).

In any event, I don't think the defense of our sense of logic and reasoning abilities is particularly strong (it takes up all of a few sentences despite being crucial). The rationality of the world, and our belief that we can apprehend it, has to be posterior to any empirical theories; I don't think he addresses this adequately.

EZPZ, just claim time is illusory and that the universe is an eternal object, then one up Hume and claim cause isn't just reducible to something simpler to understand, but non-existent. Wala! You've solved the cause problem.

Tegmark's own theory does this.

I just have a hard time figuring out how people who see themselves as dedicated empiricists also reconcile themselves to the non-existence of change, but it apparently can be done.

You might be interested in Black Hole Cosmology, which does propose a cause of the Big Bang. Our universe is just what a Black Hole singularity looks like on the inside. Black holes we observe are the births of other universes. Natural selection implies that universes that produce more black holes are selected for over time, and this is even more true if the parent universe somehow passed traits on to its offspring. This can in turn address the "fine tuning" argument to some degree. It just so happens that the values for many constants that support life happen to be the same ones likely to generate black holes, of which we have tons.

There is some interesting evidence to support this theory, but it is for the moment unfalsifiable and not directly discernible from theories where the Big Bang is unique.

I pointed out that this is no more than saying that we can put a negation in front of any proposition. It's grammar masquerading as profundity. — Banno

I haven't suggested it is profound. Grammar reflects our thinking, which is dualistic; and that is basic. But it is simplistic to suggest that it is merely a matter of grammar.

Kant's antinomies are based on metaphysical speculations. It's not merely a grammatical matter; the grammar reflects what is imaginable. Any speculative idea may be true or false, or at least so we might think. Scientific theories themselves are never proven; they can, and often do, turn out to be wrong. — Janus

is utterly hollow. You keep saying nothing of consequence, as if it were relevant. — Banno

What I said there asserts or implies that:
Philosophers have been speculating about the nature of the universe for millenia, about, for example, whether it is infinite or finite, eternal or of limited duration, created or not, designed or not, and so on.
This is an exercise of the imagination, considering what is possible, speculation constrained by a dualistic logic.
Our grammar merely reflects this.
We have no way of determining whether even the best theories of science reflect some objective, mind-independent reality.
Scientific theories are never proven, etc...

All you can come up with is to attempt to dismiss what I've said as "utterly hollow", "nothing of consequence", "irrelevant". Yet the topic is Kant's Antinomies. Why are you here if it is of no interest to you? All you ever seem to do is whinge about the poor quality of threads on here and yet you are here more and make more posts than just about anyone else. It just looks kind of sad and hypocritical to be honest.

So it just looks like you don't even have any counter-assertions, let alone counter arguments. This is not engaging in discussion in good faith on your part.

You want to claim that Kantian thinking is "not useful" not merely to you, but per se, and this attitude is nothing if not tediously dogmatic. Who are you to decide what is useful for others?

I'm happy to be done with you.

'It' has sure done a lot of 'appearing' to you for something which is other than it appears. — Isaac

Do you think that it follows from the the fact that something appears that the something is as it appears. If so, do you have an argument for that or is it merely a matter of faith?

An idea is a “problematic conception”, a singular representation of the understanding, for which the intuition of an object belonging to it is impossible, or, the representation of an object inferred as belonging to it, does not relate, re: the idea is unintelligible. — Mww

I don't understand what this says.

A proposition is a subject/copula/object synthetic judgement, necessarily containing a plurality of conceptions in a relation to each other, and is for that, a cognition. — Mww

While there is no one definition of a proposition, it at the least can be represented by a statement with a truth value. Not all propositions have the structure subject/copula/object, nor are all propositions synthetic, and while a proposition my be judged true or false, it does not follow that a proposition is a judgement. You might argue that claiming a proposition to be true or to be false involves a judgement, but that's not the same as a proposition's being a judgement.

To contain the seed of its own negation merely indicates the principle of complementarity intrinsic to the dualistic nature of human intelligence, insofar as the complement for any such problematic conception, is given immediately in the thought of the original, the complement, being immediately given, requires no thought at all, insofar as its representation is precisely whatever the original’s is not. — Mww

I can't see that this says anything but what I already pointed out - that it is a simple fact of grammar (or logic, if you prefer) that any proposition can be negated.

The negation of a proposition, on the other hand, is never given immediately by the construction of the original, but is itself a different judgement predicated on different conceptions, or different modalities of the same categorical conception, all of which, without exception, must be cognized as such. — Mww

This appears to be a constipated way of saying that one might judge either a proposition or its negation to be true. Yep. Of course the negation of a proposition is given "immediately by the construction of the original" (sic.), simply by understanding negation. If you can propose (write, accept, believe, posit, suggest, guess, demand, command...) P, then you can propose ~P.

To posit the notion that an idea contains the seeds of the negation of a proposition, is a gross misunderstanding of the constructs of theoretical a priori human reason, to which the conflict properly belongs, by the insinuation of analytic language philosophy, to which it doesn’t. — Mww

I can't decide if this is agreeing or disagreeing with what I said.

I understand that you are a fan of Kant. Perhaps what you are setting out here makes sense in Kantian terms, but for me it remains very unclear. Most especially, and as we have discussed previously, I think that logic and philosophy of language have moved on considerably over the last two hundred years, especially with the advent of formal logic.

I'm old-school. I'm not going to watch a two-hour video. I'll read the book. But thanks anyway.

A writer can present his views in a logical linear manner. But, when challenged man-to-man & face-to-face, a "superficial grasp of the issue" might begin to unravel to reveal kinks in the logic. — Gnomon

I like logical and linear. It seems to me that a "superficial grasp of the issue" is more likely from a video than from a book. An interesting difference in opinion.

So back to the question of this thread : is it a bad thing for serious scientists to dabble in "trivial" philosophy? Is philosophy the underachieving poor relation of science? — Gnomon

Philosophy is difficult. Hopefully the "dabbler" will begin to see this. But more often, they fail to grasp the breadth or depth of the issues involved.

As a "naive realist"... — Gnomon

Not sure form the context whether it is Hoffman, you or both who were "Naive realists". The term is problematic, with those who claim the title often using it in a different way to those who reject it. There's thread after thread after thread on that topic in this forum alone.

You're full of shit, Banno. — Janus

And yet you come back for more.

Cheers. I'm done. — Banno

I came back to give you one last chance to come up with something other than shit.

Do you think that it follows from the the fact that something appears that the something is as it appears. — Janus

Yes. I think that's what 'something' means. It refers to the linguistic/cultural object we're collectively constructing. So 'it' is all about appearance. We theorise (when we do cognitive science, not in day-to-day life) that an external (external to the system concerned) state constrains the parameters that object can take. We theorise this largely to explain the consistency of reaction we get when interacting with these objects.

But whilst the parameters of a 'tree' might be constrained by external states, none of those external states can be said to be the tree 'as it really is' because the tree is a social construction. It 'really is' how it is constructed to be. It 'really' has branches and leaves because we made it that way and how we make it is how it 'really' is.

One cannot, with consistency, declare the category 'spider' to contain all creatures with eight legs and then also claim there's some 'real' grouping 'spider' whose properties we're only guessing at. We just christened the group 'spiders' and in doing so we determined it's properties.

Likewise with trees, and cups, and numbers, and 'external states', and 'noumena', and 'things-as-they-really-are', and...

It 'really' has branches and leaves because we made it that way and how we make it is how it 'really' is. — Isaac

It still is something completely different to a termite, a forester, and a koala. And none of them are mistaken.

One cannot, with consistency, declare the category 'spider' to contain all creatures with eight legs and then also claim there's some 'real' grouping 'spider' whose properties we're only guessing at. We just christened the group 'spiders' and in doing so we determined it's properties. — Isaac

:grin: Yep!

A Platonist riddle:

'A man (not a man)
throws a stone (not a stone)
At a bird (not a bird)
in a tree (not a tree)'

What is it a description of?

Pumice is a stone.

kudos for knowing

I don't understand what this says. — Banno

No problem, examples notwithstanding. That understanding is required nonetheless, in order for the argument following from it to hold. Basically all it says is an idea carries its own negation, a proposition carries its own negation, but an idea cannot carry the negation of a proposition, as you implied.
————-

I think that logic and philosophy of language have moved on considerably over the last two hundred years — Banno

No doubt, those being some of what we as humans do.

But one thing hasn’t, not one iota, that being how we do what we do.

An insult to our intelligence, I say, to move on from an inquiry into how we think, for no other reason than a satisfactory proof for it is inaccessible….a euphemism for ‘well geewhiz, it’s just too hard fur lil’ ol’ me to bother with’…..yet substitute an inquiry into how we speak, for which a satisfactory proof is not even required.

Or….how to dumb-down while attempting to maintain a respectable face.

It still is something completely different to a termite, a forester, and a koala. And none of them are mistaken. — Wayfarer

Define 'completely' different. As opposed to what other type of difference? We determine what a thing is in our naming practices. We theorise that the astonishing degree of consistency in our interactions with that thing are because the properties we assign to it are constrained in some way by external states, but nothing in these external states is 'the tree' - not 'as-it-is', nor 'in-itself', nor 'really', nor any other weird euphemism, because 'the tree' is the thing we named thus.

Anything else is why we named it, not the thing we named.

So yes, there are differences. If we hypothesised external states as an homogeneous soup it would be hard to explain how we end up identifying such an incredibly consistent set of boundaries, but they're not the 'real' boundaries, nor the 'boundaries-as-they-are-in-themselves', they're an hypothesis to explain cognition. Something contained squarely in the textbooks of cognitive science.

Cheers. It remains that much of your post could not be understood, and what could be understood was, as argued, wrong.

We can continue to trade insults if you like: what you say is at least the evidence for what you think, and if what you say is incomprehensible or incoherent, that does not bode well for what you think.

You would have us enquire into how we thinking with scant reference to how we say it, as if philosophy could leave logic behind. But language is the tool of the philosopher, and we ought at least understand something of how it works, and seek to use it well.

Yes. I think that's what 'something' means. It refers to the linguistic/cultural object we're collectively constructing. So 'it' is all about appearance. We theorise (when we do cognitive science, not in day-to-day life) that an external (external to the system concerned) state constrains the parameters that object can take. We theorise this largely to explain the consistency of reaction we get when interacting with these objects. — Isaac

All you are doing here is stipulating a particular way of talking about things. As you say we theorize that there is something, some configuration of particles or energy or whatever, more or less invariant which gives rise to human perceptions of a particular tree. The characteristics of the tree we perceive are the result of our bodily interactions with whatever it is that appears as the tree. We cannot but think that it has some kind of existence beyond those characteristics, or the characteristics of any other percipients' perception, and we refer to that as the tree in itself. The tree as it is in itself as opposed to the tree as it appears to us is a voherent logical distinction, and really says nothing whatsoever about whether the tree in itself is the same as it appears to us.

Of course this is just a diferent way of thinking and talking about it than your preferred way, but neither way is priveleged in the sense of presenting any matter of fact; they are simply two different ways of thinking.

But language is the tool of the philosopher, and we ought at least understand something of how it works, and seek to use it well. — Banno

And thinking is the tool of the human being…….

Ellipsis can be an eloquent tool, when use, for instance, to point to what can be shown but not said.

When folk try to put words in the place of what is being indicated, trouble ensues.

And although you have well-argued, and may be right, that this was what Kant was doing, others have taken his ideas as if they were arguments, or sometimes facts, not indications.

anyway, I've said that I do not understand whatever point it it you wish to make, and you seem uninterested in clarifying your account, so...

Not at all sure what the lesson was there.

Ellipsis can be an eloquent tool….. — Banno

Ehhhh….I trusted you not to have any trouble putting the proper words in place of the dots.

….you seem uninterested in clarifying your account…. — Banno

No one asked for it.

No one asked for it. — Mww

:meh: then I'll leave you to your games.