I agree we can't image the different senses, but can't we imagine that they might have an entirely different dimensionality to inhabit? In a sense as 'off limits' to us as noumena. — Tom Storm

Yes, I don't see why not.

Indeed. One gets the feeling that at some point we just have to use inadequate terms to give an impression of what is meant because there simply isn't the vocabulary or conceptual framework to explore it. We are stuck with 'us' to speak of 'them'... — Tom Storm

Yes, exactly...limited beings that we are... :fire:

Evidence of what? Evidence for the claim that the world outside our heads is not what we experience? Well, it's really not to the point. But since you asked, the world "outside" of one's head, how is it that is actually get into the head? I'm saying it doesn't because there is no way to even conceive of this. Therein lies the evidence: one way of justifying a denial that P to be true, to show that P is nonsense. — Astrophel

Not really. As to not to the point you don't really seem to have one but that's neither here nor there. Also it doesn't really "get into your head" so much as you are able to experience and act in it if you are conscious and active. It's actually really easy to conceive of it but you are making this hard than it needs to be IMO.

Keep in mind that if your belief that the world is what you see rests with "things working" then your claim would rest with pragmatics. Then you would have to show how pragmatics reveals the way the world is. That is, if S knows P, and to know is to be able to use for some purpose, then knowing is mere pragmatics, but what one knows IS the pragmatics and not the world

Generally science takes a stronger view than this, affirming the nitro's independent existence apart from the pragmatics we experience. But this, again has to be explained. I think it nonsense. — Astrophel

Science itself is a form of pragmaticism to a degree. It's focus is on testable and observable phenomenon and then it tries to generate explanations about what's going on. Granted it won't ever be complete but it's efficacy so far seems good to me.

As far as anyone knows it does reveal the way the world is given what it has done so far.

I can understand this. But a pragmatist like yourself should have an epistemology, just so your claims can be useful philosophically. Reread the things you object to, and consider the simple thesis that philosophy's pursuit of truth is REALLY an affective endeavor. So looking for truth as a propositional affair that only looks to facts is going to lead only to other facts and these the same. It is not about a quest for information about meaning. It never has been. This is the historical error that has made philosophy so intractable.
It has historically been the purview of religion to deal with value/aesthetics/ethics (the same thing in essence), and philosophy has been about analytic arguments at the basic level. I hold that philosophy IS the only authentic religion. — Astrophel

Philosophy's pursuit might be rooted in emotion but I fail to see how that changes anything. From where I stand no claim is useful philosophically because, in my experience, you can argue anything about anything and end up nowhere. If your claim can't apply to reality or affect my life in any capacity then it's kinda worthless. Otherwise we're just naval gazing, which is fine if it's just you. I also think you're just being deliberately obtuse as you aren't making yourself clear nor are you getting to any point from what I see.

Not just a form of cognition, but cognition itself. After all, how do you know modus ponens is right? How do you know objects can move themselves? The world of our understanding rests entirely on intuition.

Talk about brains: perhaps hard to see this, but brains are supposed to generate experience, and thereby give a reductive account of what experience "really" is. This is what I infer from your thoughts. but how is it one knows the brain is there to be this generative source? Why, it is through the phenomenon of the brain which the brain generates.

You DO see the issue here, yes? — Astrophel

Incorrect, the world of our understanding doesn't rest on intuition, not even close. We simply take a few things as a given and work from there. I already explained that intuition isn't good as science shows the universe doesn't work according to it. If anything I'd wager it resets on experimentation, we try things and see what works.

I know objects can move themselves if I see they have a way to propel themselves without the need of some outside force to move them.

There is no reductive account of what experience "really is" it's simply experience. Neurons and signals and all that stuff firing and processing sensory data. We know the brain does this as we have a ton of evidence to back it, and so far nothing to the contrary. Your last part is just nonsense. The brain is just there, the phenomenon doesn't generate it.

There is no issue here you just want there to be one.

Again, this all just reads like someone who wants reality to be something other than it actually is.

If knowledge is without meaning then how are you writing this and expecting others to communicate? How do you even know there are others to communicate with?

I think it's as I said before, you're kinda searching for something similar to Descartes except he had to invent god to get out of his funk. But life doesn't work like that, nothing can be definitively known beyond all doubt, it just doesn't exist. Still total certainty was always a myth anyway and we never needed it before. — Darkneos

Yes it can, this is literally the easiest thing ever. Descartes doubted it first off, well not really but many do. The pain can be doubted, and I have read some interesting Eastern Philosophy that alleges similarly as well. Though I can't honestly attest to that.

Then again there was that monk who set himself on fire and then just sat there...

See above: How do you know objects cannot move themselves? — Astrophel

Experience. That's about it. If an object like a chair moved on it's own I'd have to consider something like ghosts since most non-living things don't tend to move on their own.

Ultimately all we got to go on is experience and our interpretation of it. You can philosophize all you want but if it doesn't stand up to the test of experience then IMO it's little more than hot air.

To me, this is a bit confusing, Alkis Piskas. I doubt we disagree, in the end. — Astrophel

Indeed, his part looks somewhat confusing. My saying "this is wrong" ddid not refer to your definition but to the rejection of mine, which you rejected with a "No, no". And I also said that "your definition is acceptable too."
OK, let';s pass over this.

Pls explain how "the words "justified" and "true" are incompatible with "I think." — Astrophel

But I just did! I said that the expression "I think that" can be replaced by "I believe that", which indicates a simple belief, not a "justified" or "true" one.

[Re "'True' and 'possible' are incompatible"]Only if you think something that is true cancels it being possible — Astrophel

But I explained that too, and I gave you an example. Besides, saying "something that is true cancels it being possible" is almost the same thing. This what "incompatible" means: impossible to exist together, simultanesously and in harmony, without conflict.

It is true that I had chicken for dinner. Are you saying it is therefore not possible that I had chicken form dinner? — Astrophel

No, this is not what I'm saying at all. Saying "not possible" (negative) changes the whole logical structure. I said that if something is said to be true "it cannot be also possible". Please read back what I said.

I have the impression that what we are doing is straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel. And this can go ad infinitum.

I don't consider this as a constructive, fruitful or even meaningful discussion ...

The cow has been grazing for years, say, and it looks up a sees what memory informs her to be 'good eating over there" but not conceptualized, obviously. She moves over there. To me, this bears the mark of reason's conditional proposition. — Astrophel

For me, it is self-contradictory. Reason’s conditional proposition just is conceptualized. If there is no conceptualization, there is no mark of reason, in humans. To speak of any other cognizance or possible cognizance, is anthropomorphic and thereby “….exhibition of pitiful sophisms quite beneath the dignity of philosophy…”
————

In the world, what authorizes logic, so to speak, is some kind of a posteriori presence…. — Astrophel

In the world, what validates logic is some kind of a posteriori presence.

metaphysics needs to be conceived as an essential part of our existence — Astrophel

Metaphysics needs to be understood as an essential part of our kind of intelligence. Existence is necessarily presupposed, but metaphysics has no part in it.

….this presence itself stands beyond classification. I hold that presence is metaphysics… — Astrophel

Self-contradictory. Presence beyond classification is contradicted by being classified as metaphysics.

It is wrong to think of rationality in terms of the abstract "authoritative" logic it produces — Astrophel

Backwards: logic produces rationality, under the auspices of a particular speculative metaphysical theory, insofar as the human cognitive system is itself a self-sustaining tripartite logical system, manifesting as rational or irrational thought, pursuant to the proper or improper use of its authoritative grounding principles.

If it is the case rationality produces abstract authoritative logic, and it is wrong to think in terms of it, what is there left to think of rationality in terms of?

Logic is actually "of a piece" with affectivity, and the open ended nature of this is not the impossibility and foolishness of reason grasping beyond its means, but a desire that seeks consummation. — Astrophel

I personally have no use for the conception of “affectivity” with respect to a priori methodological predicates, and even less use for the notion that the open-endedness of logic, is a desire. The subject is that which desires. If logic desires, can it also want? Can it need? Can logic possess an interest? Logic is merely a cognitive method in itself, and to associate an aesthetic condition to it merely weakens its place as ground of the system to which it belongs.
————

The idea here was that when reason is set upon something to "understand" it, it tends to produce something of its own abstract utility, a conclusion qua conclusion, which is simply a logical function. — Astrophel

Reason is not set upon something to understand, even if it does produce a conclusion qua conclusion, which is certainly a logical function. Hence the notion that the human cognitive system, in and of itself, is inherently logical.

The conclusion qua conclusion reason sets itself upon, resides in the relation of the abstract utility of understanding in its synthesis of conceptions, to the series of such synthetic conjunctions in judgement, such that the one does not conflict with the other, or, to show that they do. In this way alone, is it therefore possible to learn about a thing only once a posteriori rather than upon each occassion of is perception, or to think by means of the construction of conceptions not influenced by phenomena, re: mathematical objects and fundamental grounding principles.
————-

Do I have that right? — Janus

As far as what you said, yes. Or close enough. But what you said doesn’t properly address the unity of apperception, which was itself misrepresented in what you were responding to. The transcendental unity of apperception is a principle and nothing more, by means of which human understanding as an independent faculty, is even theoretically possible.

“….. The first pure cognition of understanding, then, upon which is founded all its other exercise, and which is at the same time perfectly independent of all conditions of mere sensuous intuition, is the principle of the original synthetical unity of apperception…..”

In addition, that the understanding has the capacity to think objects on its own accord yet without being conditioned by the categories, which are noumena, understanding does not think the synthetical unity of apperception as an object so unconditioned, hence there is nothing whatsoever noumenal about it.

As an aside, transcendental the conception, reduces ultimately to the possibility of a priori cognitions. That which is transcendental, then, is that from which anything purely a priori follows, or is derivable. Transcendental this or transcendental that merely indicates a logical function of understanding in conceptions, and reason in subsuming conceptions under principles.

The why of this, is found in the necessity for accounting for how it is possible to come up with stuff never to be found in Nature originated by Nature. It is an irrefutable observation this is done by humans generally, and always has been, but no account for it had even been given from the perspective of the very same intelligence that is actually doing it. Attributing to the supersensible (pre-Enlightenment theologians) or denying completely (Renaissance/Enlightenment empiricists) the validity of pure a priori cognitions the ground and origin of which resides in the cognitive power of the thinking subject himself, met its demise in 1781. At long last. But not that we’re any the better off for it.

As I listen to music I "know" implicitly the many contexts that are there — Astrophel

I think I know what it is to know. — Astrophel

Why is it, and what does it mean, that know is given two significations here? What do the scare quotes in the one but missing from the other, indicate?

The pain perhaps not, but is this any more convincing of a material reality than Dr Johnson attempting to refute Berkeley by kicking a stone? — Tom Storm

Or Moore's Here is one hand, or Diogenes against Zeno?

One has to draw a distinction between something like being "appeared to redly" and aesthetics/value judgments. Judgment itself is a contingent matter because language is historical and pragmatic, and these do not provide the basis for the strong ontological claim sought here, I mean the discovery of the Real that is entirely non arbitrary.
This is absolute, this non arbitrary phenomenon, and it is aesthetic/value dimension of our existence. The Really Really? It is the aesthetic/ethical: precisely what philosophy has always been making such pains to ignore!
It is a quasi-Cartesian argument, if interested.

does this not suggest that the laws of physics are a reflection of how we process reality, not reality as it is in itself (the ineffable noumena). And does it follow from this that hypothetical sophisticated aliens who do not utilize human cognition might have developed an entirely different and efficacious alternative to our physics? — Tom Storm

Great question. I suspect (as weird as it sounds) that Kant was saying that Newtonian physics is built in to the automatic human interpretation of otherwise obscure Reality (something actually beyond time and space.) It is only in the frozenness or unchangeability of the Form of our cognition that Newton escapes Hume ( and later Popper.)

But why should our cognition's form be fixed ?

About the aliens: How would Kant understand our understanding of their physics ? Would it necessarily be counterintuitive or false for us ? Despite its effectiveness ?

Not really. As to not to the point you don't really seem to have one but that's neither here nor there. Also it doesn't really "get into your head" so much as you are able to experience and act in it if you are conscious and active. It's actually really easy to conceive of it but you are making this hard than it needs to be IMO. — Darkneos

Well, this just says you haven't a clue. A bit like the Christian who insists through Jesus redemption arrives, but when asked how defers to faith.

If knowledge is justified true belief, and I am sure it is just this, and you believe "ability to experience" yields a justification, then show this. It is NOT that I am denying that we do have knowledge of the world AT ALL! It is rather that when you take this question seriously, you are forced to reconstrue everything everything you believe vis a vis basic questions.

Science itself is a form of pragmaticism to a degree. It's focus is on testable and observable phenomenon and then it tries to generate explanations about what's going on. Granted it won't ever be complete but it's efficacy so far seems good to me.

As far as anyone knows it does reveal the way the world is given what it has done so far. — Darkneos

Anyone, that is, who does not think about serious philosophy. If scientists never tried to understand the fossil record, we would not at all have a concept in place about geologic eras and their subcategories. This is what happens when one chooses not to think.

Philosophy's pursuit might be rooted in emotion but I fail to see how that changes anything. From where I stand no claim is useful philosophically because, in my experience, you can argue anything about anything and end up nowhere. If your claim can't apply to reality or affect my life in any capacity then it's kinda worthless. Otherwise we're just naval gazing, which is fine if it's just you. I also think you're just being deliberately obtuse as you aren't making yourself clear nor are you getting to any point from what I see. — Darkneos

No Darneos; you have it all wrong. This is because you haven't "read" your way into the discussion about the structure of consciousness. It is the only way into a philosophy of existence.

You should at least be curious as to the epistemic relation between a brain and a world. I mean, to have no analytic inquiry about this at all behind you, yet to come out swinging as you do....curious, and then some.

Incorrect, the world of our understanding doesn't rest on intuition, not even close. We simply take a few things as a given and work from there. I already explained that intuition isn't good as science shows the universe doesn't work according to it. If anything I'd wager it resets on experimentation, we try things and see what works.

I know objects can move themselves if I see they have a way to propel themselves without the need of some outside force to move them.

There is no reductive account of what experience "really is" it's simply experience. Neurons and signals and all that stuff firing and processing sensory data. We know the brain does this as we have a ton of evidence to back it, and so far nothing to the contrary. Your last part is just nonsense. The brain is just there, the phenomenon doesn't generate it.

There is no issue here you just want there to be one.

Again, this all just reads like someone who wants reality to be something other than it actually is. — Darkneos

Causality is apodictic. Try imagining its contradiction.

The brain: but there is the brain and there is fence post. How does this work, exactly, or even vaguely, such that the former knows the latter. You take a philosopher like Quine, one of my favorites because he was an explicit naturalist in the Deweyan tradition, yet so revered in analytic philosophy, and you find nothing but frustration when it comes to accounting for how it is that causality, which he takes as foundational in explaining the world, produces meaning; and this has to be taken as priority: when you THINK at all, you are not IN meaning, but ARE meaning.
But such questions that apply to this kind of thinking have to begin with curiosity. One has to be motivated by seeing the deficit in human understanding at the basic level. If you don't see this, you really have no motivation, and end up in the back of the class sleeping.

Question: why take this class at all?

But I just did! I said that the expression "I think that" can be replaced by "I believe that", which indicates a simple belief, not a "justified" or "true" one. — Alkis Piskas

I can't imagine a simple belief without justification, even if it is wrong. I mean, I truly can't conceive of this. Knowledge is supposed to take belief to a notch higher, for confirmation that P is true has to be established. This IS the trickiest part, for one has to pry loose from justification the independence of P, and this, I argue, can't be done: every attempt to affirm P constitutes an inclusion of the justificatory evidence that affirms it. The issue that haunts the whole affair is, "How do you know?"

But belief without justification? I don't see it.

But I explained that too, and I gave you an example. Besides, saying "something that is true cancels it being possible" is almost the same thing. This what "incompatible" means: impossible to exist together, simultanesously and in harmony, without conflict. — Alkis Piskas

Yes, but I am having trouble understanding this cancelation.

No, this is not what I'm saying at all. Saying "not possible" (negative) changes the whole logical structure. I said that if something is said to be true "it cannot be also possible". Please read back what I said.

I have the impression that what we are doing is straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel. And this can go ad infinitum.

I don't consider this as a constructive, fruitful or even meaningful discussion ... — Alkis Piskas

Well then, I'll assume the fault is mine. Apologies.

Well, this just says you haven't a clue. A bit like the Christian who insists through Jesus redemption arrives, but when asked how defers to faith.

If knowledge is justified true belief, and I am sure it is just this, and you believe "ability to experience" yields a justification, then show this. It is NOT that I am denying that we do have knowledge of the world AT ALL! It is rather that when you take this question seriously, you are forced to reconstrue everything everything you believe vis a vis basic questions. — Astrophel

I have "taken this question seriously" but what it come down to is all I have is experience and experimentation through experience. If that's not good enough then it sounds like a you problem. You say you're not denying knowledge o the world at all but honestly your posts say otherwise.

Anyone, that is, who does not think about serious philosophy. If scientists never tried to understand the fossil record, we would not at all have a concept in place about geologic eras and their subcategories. This is what happens when one chooses not to think. — Astrophel

Understanding the fossil record has nothing to do with philosophy bud, that's all science. Dating techniques, looking at positions in the rock layers, stuff like that. Again you're just making this harder than it needs to be. "serious philosophy" just sounds like you stroking your own ego.

No Darneos; you have it all wrong. This is because you haven't "read" your way into the discussion about the structure of consciousness. It is the only way into a philosophy of existence.

You should at least be curious as to the epistemic relation between a brain and a world. I mean, to have no analytic inquiry about this at all behind you, yet to come out swinging as you do....curious, and then some. — Astrophel

The "Structure of consciousness", at this point I'm really starting to have major doubts about you (as if the primordial origin wasn't enough). The only philosophy of existence that is worth a damn IMO is ethics or how to live. As to the relation of the brain and the world, brain constructs a best guess of reality based on the input of the senses, that's what the evidence shows.

Stuff like the Evil Demon, simulation, etc are nice games to play but they are useless to think about because they don't impact your life.

You're not really curious about this stuff, I think you're just looking to appear "smart" by asking "the big questions". I used to be like that. But after much experience I realized that a lot of the "important questions" of philosophy didn't really matter that much.

Causality is apodictic. Try imagining its contradiction.

The brain: but there is the brain and there is fence post. How does this work, exactly, or even vaguely, such that the former knows the latter. You take a philosopher like Quine, one of my favorites because he was an explicit naturalist in the Deweyan tradition, yet so revered in analytic philosophy, and you find nothing but frustration when it comes to accounting for how it is that causality, which he takes as foundational in explaining the world, produces meaning; and this has to be taken as priority: when you THINK at all, you are not IN meaning, but ARE meaning.
But such questions that apply to this kind of thinking have to begin with curiosity. One has to be motivated by seeing the deficit in human understanding at the basic level. If you don't see this, you really have no motivation, and end up in the back of the class sleeping.

Question: why take this class at all? — Astrophel

Weird that you say that about causality considering Hume made an interesting point against it. We assume causality according to him.

Again this just sounds like more ego stroking, I asked a while ago what the point is to any of this and you haven't given anything. You're all over the place, writing more than you need to, and deliberately being unclear in your communications (other posters are able to do it but you choose not to). This just sounds to me like you want to be special or unique for wrestling with such things.

I wouldn't say causality produces meaning, we do. It's actually a feature of our brains, we are meaning making machines. It's called pareidolia, it's how you can see a smiley face as a face even though it ain't really a face.

Not really sure what you mean by IN meaning or ARE meaning, it's just meaning. But then again heaven forbid you make yourself clear or explain yourself. My guess is that you are IN meaning when you think, you aren't meaning.

I mean it is obvious to everyone that we are limited in our ability to understand and know things around us. That all we will ever get is a close enough or good enough understanding of things, because you don't know what you don't know. I find it odd that someone so versed in philosophy doesn't understand that there are some problems that have no solution. Like the problem of solipsism, there is no way to get outside of your perspective so whether there is a world outside or not you'll never know and there's nothing you can do about it. Or Descartes about what can be known for certain, and you can't truly know if you're being deceived or not. There is a great degree of faith that comes with living after all.

And most people seem to do just fine knowing there won't be total certainty, because life goes on.

Curiosity is fine and all that but it does have to have a goal in mind and at times you have to be able to recognize when you simply can't. So far people have asked you what the point of all this is and as far as anyone can tell there doesn't seem to be one. It just goes in circles.

Great question. I suspect (as weird as it sounds) that Kant was saying that Newtonian physics is built in to the automatic human interpretation of otherwise obscure Reality (something actually beyond time and space.) It is only in the frozenness or unchangeability of the Form of our cognition that Newton escapes Hume ( and later Popper.) — plaque flag

Kant said a lot of things but that doesn't make them right. Classical physics was just a model that works at the macro level of things but fails when it gets to the Quantum Physics. It's a "good enough" method for day to day but not for understanding reality, at least according to the physicists I've talked to.

As I listen to music I "know" implicitly the many contexts that are there
— Astrophel

I think I know what it is to know.
— Astrophel


Why is it, and what does it mean, that know is given two significations here? What do the scare quotes in the one but missing from the other, indicate? — Mww

When I listen to music, the knowledge is implcit, like when you walk down the street it is impliciit that the pavement will yield to your step and so on. You don't think about this, but you do know it in a justificatory way: a long history of walking down the street, the basic physics of physicality, and so forth informs the occasion.
When I say I think I know what it is to know, I am making a statement of a knowledge claim explicitly, not referring to things implicit. Knowing is a field of interest, like botany or knitting. I think I know what this is at the basic level.

I can't imagine a simple belief without justification — Astrophel

If you can't imagine a simple belief without justification, meaning that a belief is always justified, then why the distinction "justified belief"? It has no meaning. It's just a pleonasm.

Knowledge is supposed to take belief to a notch higher — Astrophel

Exactly. So knowledge is different than just a belief. Which is what I have been telling you

The issue that haunts the whole affair is, "How do you know?" — Astrophel

Where does this come from? It's a question out of the blue. How people come to know things is a whole new chapter.

Yes, but I am having trouble understanding this cancelation. — Astrophel

I gave you a simple example. Maybe two. I can't do more than that.

Well then, I'll assume the fault is mine. Apologies. — Astrophel

I don't think that the fault is yours. So no need to apologise. It's quite a common phenomenon, when there's a clasj between two different views that an impasse is created and/or a discussion gets stagnated.

I have "taken this question seriously" but what it come down to is all I have is experience and experimentation through experience. If that's not good enough then it sounds like a you problem. You say you're not denying knowledge o the world at all but honestly your posts say otherwise. — Darkneos

when you say you have taken it seriously, then what is it, exactly, taken seriously: who have you read and what do you think about what they said. Your refutation sound more like exasperations. But I don't find any real claims. Pls let loose your insights.

Understanding the fossil record has nothing to do with philosophy bud, that's all science. Dating techniques, looking at positions in the rock layers, stuff like that. Again you're just making this harder than it needs to be. "serious philosophy" just sounds like you stroking your own ego. — Darkneos

No, you miss the point: knowledge of anything requires inquiry into that thing. You don't inquire philosophically, therefore you don't understand its issues.

It is not about ego. It is about basic reading. You need to do this, then your anxieties on this will disappear.

The "Structure of consciousness", at this point I'm really starting to have major doubts about you (as if the primordial origin wasn't enough). The only philosophy of existence that is worth a damn IMO is ethics or how to live. As to the relation of the brain and the world, brain constructs a best guess of reality based on the input of the senses, that's what the evidence shows. — Darkneos

Yes, ethics. But how to live depends not simply on setting up a system for personal behavior: such a system needs a grounding in the understanding. Christians have a system, time honored and useful. But it comes with a metaphysics that is confused and dangerous. Philosophy is the tool to discover where things go wrong and how they might be reviewed and revised.
You likely have similar problems in the basic justifications of how to live, and I say this because you seem to be admitting that such a review is useless. Fundamentalists of all stripes think just like this, embracing foolishness, then reifying it in the public consensus.

Stuff like the Evil Demon, simulation, etc are nice games to play but they are useless to think about because they don't impact your life. — Darkneos

They certainly do impact your life if you want to understand things beyond what "people say". Descartes' evil demon is just to demonstrate a point, like Schrodinger's cat. Not just a game, but an illustrative game.

You're not really curious about this stuff, I think you're just looking to appear "smart" by asking "the big questions". I used to be like that. But after much experience I realized that a lot of the "important questions" of philosophy didn't really matter that much. — Darkneos

But that is just tough talk. Much experience doing what? Reading philosophy? Or just living? Reminds me of Thoreau who tested the wisdom of age by interrogating old people, only to find their years of experience was never a source of wisdom. Just disappointing bad thinking.

Again this just sounds like more ego stroking, I asked a while ago what the point is to any of this and you haven't given anything. You're all over the place, writing more than you need to, and deliberately being unclear in your communications (other posters are able to do it but you choose not to). This just sounds to me like you want to be special or unique for wrestling with such things. — Darkneos

Sorry you don't like my writing. It does belong to a different thematically oriented tradition. One has to read about this to see it. I put it out there unapologetically because this is a philosophy club, and as I see it, continental philosophy is what philosophy really is about. You've read Hume?? You should understand then that philosophical language can be tedious. Spinoza? Leibniz? And yet, no patience for talk about the structures of consciousness. This is just crazy.

I wouldn't say causality produces meaning, we do. It's actually a feature of our brains, we are meaning making machines. It's called pareidolia, it's how you can see a smiley face as a face even though it ain't really a face.

Not really sure what you mean by IN meaning or ARE meaning, it's just meaning. But then again heaven forbid you make yourself clear or explain yourself. My guess is that you are IN meaning when you think, you aren't meaning. — Darkneos

It is an important distinction: to be IN an environment implies that this environment is somehow outside or apart from one. I am saying, onw is not IN an environment like this in discussing experiential structure: Rather, one IS the the very structure one analyzes. It is a turning toward one's own existence for discovery, for, after all, the issue here is the relation between ME an that fence post, so what I AM and the distinctions that descriptively rise up when I try to make sense of something like "I experience a fence post" call for a sharp division between us. But is there such a thing? Does the traditional analysis of S knows P make any sense at all when it comes to identifying and releasing P from the justificatory conditions of believing P?

THIS is a very big question to philosophy. The fence post is "over there", granted; but my knowing is over here, on my side of the epistemic fence. What can possibly account for this? A fascinating question.

I mean it is obvious to everyone that we are limited in our ability to understand and know things around us. That all we will ever get is a close enough or good enough understanding of things, because you don't know what you don't know. I find it odd that someone so versed in philosophy doesn't understand that there are some problems that have no solution. Like the problem of solipsism, there is no way to get outside of your perspective so whether there is a world outside or not you'll never know and there's nothing you can do about it. Or Descartes about what can be known for certain, and you can't truly know if you're being deceived or not. There is a great degree of faith that comes with living after all.

And most people seem to do just fine knowing there won't be total certainty, because life goes on.

Curiosity is fine and all that but it does have to have a goal in mind and at times you have to be able to recognize when you simply can't. So far people have asked you what the point of all this is and as far as anyone can tell there doesn't seem to be one. It just goes in circles. — Darkneos

Well, speaking of circles, there is Heidegger, who I quoted earlier from his Origin of the Work or Art. A great passage where he puts the ideas succinctly:

But how are we to be certain that we are indeed basing such an examination on art
works if we do not know beforehand what art is? And the nature of art can no more be
arrived at by a derivation from higher concepts than by a collection of characteristics
of actual art works. For such a derivation, too, already has in view the characteristics
that must suffice to establish that what we take in advance to be an art work is one in
fact. But selecting works from among given objects, and deriving concepts from principles, are equally impossible here, and where these procedures are practiced they are a
self-deception.
Thus we are compelled to follow the circle. This is neither a makeshift nor a defect.
To enter upon this path is the strength of thought, to continue on it is the feast of
thought, assuming that thinking is a craft. Not only is the main step from work to art a
circle like the step from art to work, but every separate step that we attempt circles in
this circle.

Heidegger believes that truth is "made" but the engagement of pursuing truth is an openness that has extraordinary VALUE, and I emphasize this because in this value is the true foundation of human cognition, which is one way to put what I have been arguing. The circle is hermeneutics. The disclosure within this is momentous. This is my position. Observe the value/aesthetic/ethical dimension of our existence, and do not simply register this as a premise, but realize this is "the place" inquiry truly seeks!

A very strong philosophical position. I am saying that Truth is really an endeavor of affectivity. We divide knowledge into categorical parts to pragmatically address our essentially problematic confrontation with the world, but this has led to the current illusion that truth is statistical, logical, rational, while affect is altogether unwelcome in describing truth (indeed, emotion has historically been willfully ignored). This is patently wrong.

As to certainty: this is not nonsense. But only if you are interested.

No, you miss the point: knowledge of anything requires inquiry into that thing. You don't inquire philosophically, therefore you don't understand its issues.

It is not about ego. It is about basic reading. You need to do this, then your anxieties on this will disappear. — Astrophel

Not really, I can understand the issues of philosophy without looking deeply into it.

I have no anxieties around this but it sure seems like you do. For me philosophy is a nice hobby at times but I don’t get too worked up.

Yes, ethics. But how to live depends not simply on setting up a system for personal behavior: such a system needs a grounding in the understanding. Christians have a system, time honored and useful. But it comes with a metaphysics that is confused and dangerous. Philosophy is the tool to discover where things go wrong and how they might be reviewed and revised.
You likely have similar problems in the basic justifications of how to live, and I say this because you seem to be admitting that such a review is useless. Fundamentalists of all stripes think just like this, embracing foolishness, then reifying it in the public consensus. — Astrophel

Not really. Ethics just needs a system for personal behavior, that’s about it. It’s useful to know why but eventually you hit a dead end there.

Philosophy isn’t a tool to discover where things go wrong though. If anything it just ties things up and prevents meaningful action a lot of the time.

I don’t need a justification for living. It’s just as simple as wanting to.

Again you’re painting a lot on here which just reaffirms my position that you’re just stroking your ego here.

They certainly do impact your life if you want to understand things beyond what "people say". Descartes' evil demon is just to demonstrate a point, like Schrodinger's cat. Not just a game, but an illustrative game. — Astrophel

Not really.

It is an important distinction: to be IN an environment implies that this environment is somehow outside or apart from one. I am saying, onw is not IN an environment like this in discussing experiential structure: Rather, one IS the the very structure one analyzes. It is a turning toward one's own existence for discovery, for, after all, the issue here is the relation between ME an that fence post, so what I AM and the distinctions that descriptively rise up when I try to make sense of something like "I experience a fence post" call for a sharp division between us. But is there such a thing? Does the traditional analysis of S knows P make any sense at all when it comes to identifying and releasing P from the justificatory conditions of believing P?

THIS is a very big question to philosophy. The fence post is "over there", granted; but my knowing is over here, on my side of the epistemic fence. What can possibly account for this? A fascinating question. — Astrophel

Not really, being in something doesn’t imply you are outside or apart from it, you’re just making things up.

Also can’t it be both? Why is it either or? It’s not fascinating question though, more ego stroking. And might I add no point either.

Heidegger believes that truth is "made" but the engagement of pursuing truth is an openness that has extraordinary VALUE, and I emphasize this because in this value is the true foundation of human cognition, which is one way to put what I have been arguing. The circle is hermeneutics. The disclosure within this is momentous. This is my position. Observe the value/aesthetic/ethical dimension of our existence, and do not simply register this as a premise, but realize this is "the place" inquiry truly seeks!

A very strong philosophical position. I am saying that Truth is really an endeavor of affectivity. We divide knowledge into categorical parts to pragmatically address our essentially problematic confrontation with the world, but this has led to the current illusion that truth is statistical, logical, rational, while affect is altogether unwelcome in describing truth (indeed, emotion has historically been willfully ignored). This is patently wrong.

As to certainty: this is not nonsense. But only if you are interested. — Astrophel

Yeah philosophers believe a lot of things, doesn’t make it true. Some truth is made and some isn’t. In the case of art it’s what we say it is, simple as. But this isn’t the foundation of human cognition. Also your place is literally nothing but an empty void. When it comes to subjective stuff like that (values, aesthetics, etc) inquiry leads nowhere. Things just are. Why do we like what we like? We just do. Why do I value this? I just do.

Truth isn’t a measure of feelings. It just is. It’s why I regard science so well. No matter how you define or describe it it just works. There is no why, it just is. Truth is statistical and logical and it’s something that bugs people like you because you want the world to be something other than it is. But it’s telling how philosophy is stuck on the same issues for hundreds of years while science advances on. Maybe, just maybe, philosophy isn’t a tool for finding truth, because a lot of it just seems like opinions to me.

Emotion hasn’t been ignored across history, it’s just not used to measure the truth of something (well if it’s subjective like how something makes you feel or if you like something then yeah). Because as research shows us, emotion is often wrong about reality (especially since our evolutionary programming runs against modern issues).

And certainty is nonsense regardless of what you think.

Ok. Thanks.

But why should our cognition's form be fixed ? — plaque flag

Interesting. What do you have in mind - evolution or deliberate transformation?

About the aliens: How would Kant understand our understanding of their physics ? Would it necessarily be counterintuitive or false for us ? Despite its effectiveness ? — plaque flag

In my sketch here I am imagining that we (Kant and us) would not be able to assess the effectiveness of the physics on the basis that we have no frame of reference for it. This is just one of those preposterous hypotheticals which is of limited application. :wink:

And certainty is nonsense regardless of what you think. — Darkneos

Yes, Darkneos, I am familiar with the philosophy of "Bah Humbug!"

Interesting. What do you have in mind - evolution or deliberate transformation? — Tom Storm

So far, it looks to me like both biological evolution (slow) and relatively deliberate moral/conceptual evolution (fast).

But technological evolution remakes the physical world, and we are at the point of modifying our own genetics, making biological 'evolution' fast. AI may be an all-purpose accelerant.

In my sketch here I am imagining that we (Kant and us) would not be able to assess the effectiveness of the physics on the basis that we have no frame of reference for it. This is just one of those preposterous hypotheticals which is of limited application. — Tom Storm

:up:

All that comes to mind is that old chestnut about sufficiently advanced technology looking like magic.

:up:

Kant said a lot of things but that doesn't make them right. Classical physics was just a model that works at the macro level of things but fails when it gets to the Quantum Physics. It's a "good enough" method for day to day but not for understanding reality, at least according to the physicists I've talked to. — Darkneos

Yes, that sounds right. I don't want to pick on Kant too much, because for his time he was a great genius. According to Popper and others, Newton was just a towering figure. Instruments were not precise enough to find fault with his physics. It was if the source code for the matrix had been discovered, a great triumph for species. Small wonder that Kant wanted to secure this treasure against Hume from being falsifiable. Synthetic apriori truth is tall order indeed.

I've read Beiser on that period of German philosophy, and Kant had his critics from the beginning. He's never ceased having his critics. I suppose one becomes a great name in philosophy more by being interesting than by being right. He's almost a contradiction, a supermetaphysical antimetaphysician.

Yes, that sounds right. I don't want to pick on Kant too much, because for his time he was a great genius. According to Popper and others, Newton was just a towering figure. Instruments were not precise enough to find fault with his physics. It was if the source code for the matrix had been discovered, a great triumph for species. Small wonder that Kant wanted to secure this treasure against Hume from being falsifiable. Synthetic apriori truth is tall order indeed. — plaque flag

Oh no I'm not saying he's an idiot, sorry if that's how it came across.

It's just that it's hard sometimes to realize how far our understanding of the world has come since then, especially neuroscience and other fields. They worked with what they knew at the time so I wonder what they would say with what we know now.

Yes, Darkneos, I am familiar with the philosophy of "Bah Humbug!" — Astrophel

Say what you will but certainty is more a myth humans tell themselves because of anxiety.

Synthetic apriori truth is tall order indeed. — plaque flag

Never been refuted, only ignored.

Say what you will but certainty is more a myth humans tell themselves because of anxiety. — Darkneos

But the matter turns to the notorious good and bad of ethics. Is it at all possible to deny a lighted match on living flesh is "bad"?

But the matter turns to the notorious good and bad of ethics. Is it at all possible to deny a lighted match on living flesh is "bad"? — Astrophel

Given human history yes it is very possible to deny that is bad.

Given human history yes it is very possible to deny that is bad. — Darkneos

The pain is ahistorically bad. It cannot be mitigated for what it is, only how for how it stands against competing interests, and such things are, of course, variable among cultures. But the child, say, who suffers for the greater good, does not thereby suffer differently.