I apologize: I missed that. Nevermind then.

So I decide to build my own set of rules and values, this is my first attempt and I will need your help, so where should I begin? What question should I make?

Good luck, my friend! Ethics is an interesting topic indeed.

If I could do it over again, then this is what I would advise my younger self (in this order):

1. What is the concept of ‘good’? What does that refer to?

2. What would a kind of ‘good’ that is objective be (in principle)?

3. Are there any such objective goods? Viz., is there anything that is objectively good?

4. If there are no objective goods, then what would a non-objective good be like (in principle)?

5. What is morality? What is that the study of?

6. What kinds of goods, be it objective or non-objective, would be morally relevant?

7. How should one behave in such a manner as to abide by what is morally good?

8. How should we, as a society, pragmatically setup our institutions to best establish and preserve what is morally good?

My biggest advice is: don’t skip steps. It is really enticing and easy to skip steps, but it will ruin your ethical theory. Most people want to start with the cool and interesting thought experiments: don’t do that—build your way up.

I don't think it is just veiled theology: if there is no free will, then there is no moral responsibility at all. You can't blame people for murdering, raping, etc. if they don't have the right kind, sufficient degree, or basic free will: even if they do not have the ability to have done otherwise.

1. Everything in nature is either determined or random
2. Free will is neither determined nor random
C. Free will does not exist.

P2 is the most controversial premise. I don't see why free will is incompatible with causal determinism. As a compatibilist, I believe in a form of sourcehood freedom such that one has free will if they have the ability act in accordance with their own will (i.e., to act voluntarily); and one has free choice if they have the ability to reach a decision through rational deliberations (i.e., to choose through reason).

The special aspect of a human brain that makes it capable of free will and choice, is that it has the ability to will against it's nature in accordance with its own conative dispositions and to reach a conclusion through the principles of reason. We do not think via the laws of nature, and we do not will necessarily according to natural appetites.

I’m not interested in what is not; I wouldn’t say reason is not grounded in the brain. I work with what I know, and how reason is a product of the brain, while being a deduction logically consistent with experience, cannot itself be an experience

But you were denying this before. So to clarify: you do, in fact, believe that the brain is the ontological grounding for reason?

which is to say, whatever the brain is doing is not contained in my internal analysis of my own intelligence. I already opined as much, in that the human subject in general does not think in terms of natural law.

I agree that we do not think in terms of natural law; because we think in terms of the laws of reason. This doesn’t negate the fact that the brain is ontologically what facilitates that reasoning.

And is found here the inconsistency regarding the notion and subsequent application of transcendent law, that which even if the idea of which is thought without self-contradiction, can give no weight to the possibility of empirical knowledge, the attempt in doing so is where the contradiction arises

What do you mean?

How can natural relations, cognized in accordance with empirical conditions, be transcendent?

It is a map of the territory. We use math, e.g., to model laws which do not pertain to way we cognize (e.g., law of gravity). You would have to deny this.

I disagree one presupposes the other,

That A and !A cannot both be true presupposes that A = A.

So if I claim the LNC just does pertain to how we cognize objects, I have no need of admitting any such possibility?

That is exactly why you would be admitting such a possibility; because you are restricting LNC to only what we experience as opposed to what exists in reality. Therefore, if LNC only applies to our understanding of reality, then it plainly follows that it is at least logically and actually possible for an object in reality, independently of our understanding of it, to both be and not be identical to itself. That is absurd.

.I’d posit that the brain is the organ necessary for all human intellectual functionality, but it is in no way clear how it is responsible for all by which its subjective condition occurs

But it seems to fit the data well, right? The alternatives are much less plausible. The brain seems to be the external representation of whatever ‘thing’ is doing the cognizing. That seems pretty clear (to me).

I appreciate your response! Philosophy of mind is an intriguing topic indeed. The problem I am facing is that I think you are absolutely right to point out that physicalism, and methodological naturalism, have not and probably will not sufficiently explain consciousness (in the strict sense of the word) but you seemed to focus on the wrong points. Awareness is easily explained through the brain and its processes (i.e., seeing, hearing, moving, thinking, intending, etc.); however, consciousness is not insofar as we mean qualia. Chalmers rightly pointed this out: we can explain, e.g., intentionality just fine through brain processes; but where the issue is lies in the fact that there is something it is like to be us and that there is a qualitative experience which we subjectively have. E.g., that our brains can cognize colors based off of wavelengths and cones does not entail any sort of adequate explanation why, on top of deciphering those colors, the brain creates a qualitative experience such that there is something it is like to be one having it. This is what I was anticipating you would use as your objection, and not that we cannot explain these things neurobiologically (like intentionality). Even if we could not explain intentionality now, it is, in principle, plausible that we will in the future in naturalistic terms; but what, in principle, cannot be is qualia. There is no way to explain why there is a subjective, qualitative experience on top of our brains being aware of and judging reality.

By themselves they are simply meaningless patterns of electrochemical activity. Yet our thoughts do have inherent meaning

This is just a misunderstanding of how the brain works: it is like a super-computer. By analogy, think of an AI that intends to pick of a banana because a human asked it to. According to Feser, that was not intentional, then, because the physical and software activity is “meaningless”.

As soon as one tries to step outside of such thoughts [i.e. by describing them in terms of neurological activities], one loses contact with their true content

Of course, when one describes physically anything at all one loses some of the meaning; because words and concepts cannot grasp 100% what was experienced. I am failing to see why that is a big deal.

The long and short is, though we know that a functioning brain is a necessary condition for reason, this doesn't establish that reason is meaningfully a product of the brain. It might be something that having a good brain enables us to recognise - but we recognise it, because it was already the case.

Even if I grant that we can’t ever explain through methodological naturalism how or why a brain has qualia, wouldn’t the idea that it is produced by the brain fit the data better?

I want to hear what alternative theory you have for what is facilitating our ability to reason, intend, etc. ; It would have to be some sort of dualism or idealism. If you go the idealist route, then I don’t see how the brain isn’t the external representation of the thing which is facilitating it—even if that be in-itself an immaterial mind. If you go the dualist route, then I have no clue how one would explain how the brain and the “whatever is” (perhaps a mind) interacts with each other.

By positing the mind, or what not, as separate (but perhaps inextricably related to) the brain you seem to create more conceptual problems for yourself.

@Mww

The connection between goodness and rightness is as follows: if X is good, then one ought to behave in such a manner so that X is the case.

The problem, I think, in your OP is that you fail to recognize three things about ethical contemplation: (1) goodness is not necessarily about behavior, (2) goodness is largely contextual, and (3) rightness can be pragmatic.

Viz.,:

1) Goodness is just about what ought to be—not what one ought to do. E.g., it is good not to get cancer, independently of what is the right thing for a person to be doing. Your OP presupposes that goodness is just connected to rightness.

2) Goodness is contextual, even if one believes in some sort of absolutism (e.g., platonism, divine law, etc.): what is good, i.e., in X ceteris paribus may not be good given more factors.

3) What is right, which is about good behavior (and not what is good simpliciter), has an ideal and pragmatic element to it. Viz., just because I should do X in a perfect world does not entail that I should do it in the real world right now. E.g., in a perfect world, I shouldn’t eat other animals, but that doesn’t mean that it is impermissible to eat them given the circumstances that I need to them to survive and the fact that they are not persons.

For example, most people would agree that selling all your worldly possessions and donating the money to charity is something that would be good

I don’t believe that most ethicists would agree with this; because it entails that is good to be purely selfless, which disrespectful to oneself. Why would it be good to give someone all your food, and then starve to death?

They certainly would agree that one should donate their excess of goods to charity, all else being equal, or that duty may require a person to be purely selfless (like a soldier sacrificing their life for another); but not that it is good to just donate everything, all else being equal, to charity.

However, if it were good to donate everything to charity, then it plainly follows that one should be doing it; but this is all else being equal: it may be the case that it is good ceteris paribus but not good given <…>….e.g., if you need to feed your family, then it is not good to donate your food to charity, but if we are analyzing the mere donation to charity all else being then it is a good act. Your OP has conflated all the possible contexts into one.

However, that doesn't mean that one is obligated to do so

Rightness and wrongness are the primitive properties of moral (i.e., behavioral) discourse; and are not to be conflated with obligatoriness. Permissibility (and its negation), ommissibility (and its negation), and obligatoriness (and its negation) are complex properties built off of the former properties.

Just because it is good to do X, which does entail that one should be doing X ceteris paribus, it does not follow that one is obligated to do X. That is, just because, e.g., I should do X it does not follow that I am required to do X.

Has your position been that transcendent has to do with that by which laws are determinable, as transcending the experience required to enounce the objective validity of those laws?

I am saying, viz., that there are laws which exist that constrain and regulate the ontological groundings of those transcendental principles, judgments, conceptions, etc.; and these laws are, then, transcendent because they are do not pertain to way we cognize reality but rather how reality is in-itself.

The brain (…) has no part to play in the tenets of such process.
—Mww

Interesting. What, then, is responsible for it? A soul? — Bob Ross

Reason.

That isn’t an answer to my question: I agree that reason is epistemically responsible; but what is ontologically if not the brain?

You would have to posit some sort of soul or immaterial mind, I would imagine, to go the route that you are—i.e., reason is not grounded in the brain. For me, the brain is clearly the organ responsible for facilitating reason.

There are natural relations, represented by laws the conceptions of which are empirical.

These are transcendent, no?

These are the most fundamental, but not of Nature but of pure reason. Where is Nature in A = A?

Because of this:

Identical to itself makes no sense to me. Best I can do, is say that for any given thing, it cannot simultaneously both be whatever it is and not be whatever it is.

The law of non-contradiction, which you noted here, as it relates to external objects presupposes the law of identity; and doesn’t just pertain to just how we cognize objects. Otherwise, you are admitting the actual possibility of an object that exists in reality which is not identical to itself….or/and identical and not identical to itself…etc.

Maybe present some theory-specific examples of transcendent laws?

I can only give a priori representations of them—in the sense that we cannot understand reality other than by using our own modes of cognizing it—but examples would be:

F = MA
A = A
!(A && !A)
F = G([m<1> * m<2>] / r ^ 2)
!(1 > 2)


Really anything that describes a necessary relation between things as it were in reality in-itself as opposed to rules by which our brains cognize it.

The brain, on the other hand, even if it is the mechanism by which metaphysical processes are possible, has no part to play in the tenets of such process.

Interesting. What, then, is responsible for it? A soul?

Humans do not think in terms of natural law. The certain number of phosphate ions required, at a certain activation potential, as neurotransmitters across certain cleft divisions, in some certain network or another, never registers in the cognition, “black”-“‘57”-“DeSoto”.

Sure, but it seems like, there are natural laws; would be my point here. The most fundamental would be logical laws; I mean, do you think an object as it were in-itself can be and not be identical to itself?

No problem at all! I look forward to our next conversation :smile: .

Experience is cognition by means of conjoined perceptions; consciousness is a natural human condition, represented as the totality of representations. Sometimes called a faculty, but it doesn’t have faculty-like function, so….not so much in T.I..

I didn’t follow this: that still sounds like they are the exact same thing…

This is a kind of categorical error, in that when talking of the brain, the discourse is scientific, in which representation has no place, but when talking of representation, the discourse is philosophical, in which the brain has no place.

They are two sides of the same coin. This makes it sound like neuroscience is a philosophical field of study….

Nothing untoward with the fact the brain is necessary for every facet of human intelligence, but there remains whether or not it is sufficient for it. Until there comes empirical knowledge of the brain’s rational functionality, best not involve it in our metaphysical speculations.

What do you mean? We’ve already determined that the brain is responsible for cognizing reality into the ‘experience’ that you have.

Immanent has to do with empirical cognitions, hence experience; transcendental has to do with a priori cognitions, hence possible experience. Transcendent, then, has do to with neither the one nor the other, hence no experience whatsoever.

Ah, I see. What I am saying is that the transcendental argument—viz., the argument from the given consciousness for the necessity of something else—demonstrates that beyond all cognition there truly are laws.

Law means it works 100% as laid out without fail. If there was 1 fail out of billions of events, then it is not a law. It then is a rule.

Not quite. What you described is not the nature of a law but, rather, how we pragmatically determine what we think is a law.

Is any law transcendent? In what sense?

In the sense that it pertains to reality in-itself as opposed to the way we cognize it.

All laws are the product of human reasoning

No laws which pertain to reality as it were in-itself are the product of human reasoning. Our understanding of them is a product of human reasoning.

They say that the weather changes has been much more unpredictable recent times, so it is harder to predict the weather effects. And there are the other natural phenomenon such as volcano eruptions, hurricanes and earth quakes etc. You cannot predict the date, time and location of these phenomenon, and how they would unfold themselves on the earth by some law.

In principle you can. Just because it is hard, does not negate science.

This sounds circular. You are deciding something through reason but you also deploy principle reason? It sounds ambiguous and tautology.

This is an incoherent thought: do you think it is circular, or tautological? It can’t be both. Either way, it is neither: reason has an a priori structure, which contains principles and laws, of which one is using when thinking. It is impossible to think without deploying, e.g., the law of non-contradiction.

Many believe that human reasoning is just a nature for its survival. Deployment of principles reason? Is it not natural capacity which evolved for thousands of years via the history of human survival, civilization and evolution?

Principles of reason are a part of the faculty of reason; so this makes no sense and is a false dichotomy.

What do you mean by this? Could you elaborate more on the detail and ground for the statement?

I meant like laws in science, such as F = MA, and formal laws, such as A = A. These laws are estimations of laws which exist independently of our thinking of them.

Does everyone's brain then all works exactly the same way to each other when confronted an event?

If you are stipulated that they have the exact same brain, their brains have had the exact same experiences, and they both experience the same event at the same time, place, etc.; then, yes; but this is just to say that they are the exact same being (and that there really isn’t two people)….

If you just mean to ask if two people with, e.g., different brains interpret the same events the same; then no.

. There are certainly observable and provable regularities in reality. However, there are also huge part of its operation which are random and chaos

The OP is not arguing that reality has to be completely ordered; so that is a mute point. Further, like the OP mentioned, without any laws then it is all chaos—and there would be no observable regularities.

the weather changes

Change is not per se an example of randomness: the weather changing changes according to natural laws.

some part of human behavior and psychology

Human behavior is not regulated completely by natural, transcendent laws; but certainly is (at least partially) regulated by transcendental ones. E.g., one cannot decide to do something through reason without deploying principles reason (no matter how poorly deployed it may be).

The brain, however, is constrained by natural laws.

some of the principles in QM

Sure. We have evidence to support that there is randomness in reality—how does that negate the OP?

So it is that in Kant, transcendent relates to experience, not consciousness

What’s the difference between the two in your view?

Besides, and I’m surprised you’d do such a thing….you can’t use the word being defined, in the definition of it. I get nothing of any value from transcendent being defined as that which transcends.

The definition was not circular—e.g., the property of goodness is the property of being good. If you just mean that it is vague, then sure: I can rewrite it. Instead, I would say that that which is transcendent is that which is beyond our experience of reality as opposed to that experience or the preconditions for constructing such an experience.

For instance, when you say, “that by which the brain cognizes reality is transcendental”, is the inconsistency wherein it is reason alone that cognizes anything at all transcendentally, the brain being merely some unknown material something necessary for our intelligence in general.

This seems like a technicality though: the brain is the representation of what is ontologically “responsible” for reason.

Not that I don’t admire your proclivity for stepping outside the lines. It’s just that you’re asking me to upset some rather well stabilized applecarts, but without commensurate benefit.

:smile:

In Kant, transcendent is juxtapositional to immanent, with respect to experience, whereas transcendental merely indicates the mode in which reason constructs and employs pure a priori cognitions

And what is “immanent”? What you defined as “transcendental” here is the exact same as how I defined it, no? I am not seeing any differences here.

Which is possible iff the relevant definitions are inconsistent with each other.

I didn’t follow this: what do you mean?

And there hasn’t yet been mention in the thesis, of principles, under which the transcendent laws would have to be subsumed.

I was thinking of natural laws which exist in reality as it were in-itself: what they would exactly be and why they are there are separate questions (in my mind).

I presume the OP is not talking about the Kantian transcendental law.

The OP is about a law which pertains to reality as it were in-itself—i.e., a transcendent law. A transcendental law would be a strict rule of conformity for how things are cognized.

Define transcendent.

By “transcendent”, I mean that which completely transcends consciousness; whereas “transcendental”, I mean that which transcends but pertains solely to the way consciousness is constructed. Wouldn’t you say that is Kant’s standard distinction?

And transcendent cannot be defined as that by which the brain cognizes reality into a coherent whole, without sufficient justification that pure transcendental reason hasn’t already provided the ground for exactly that.

I would say that by which the brain cognizes reality is transcendental; and that which is sensed, whatever it be, independently of that sensing, is transcendent.

I am not sure what you mean by a transcendent law. What do you mean by transcendent reality?

Admittedly, “transcendent reality” is a double positive; but a transcendent law is a law—viz., a rule of conformance with strict necessity—that is in reality as it were in-itself (“transcendent”).

I am just noting the difference between that which is transcendent and that which is transcendental, as a general dichotomy: the difference between what completely transcends consciousness and what transcends consciousness but pertains to how that consciousness is constructed.

The wordings of the OP title "the existence of transcendent laws" sounds ambiguous and unintelligible.
All laws are from human reasoning be it induction or deduction. Some laws are from the cultural customs and ethical principles.

The justification for a law is not to be conflated with the law itself. A transcendent law, as opposed to a transcendental law, is just making a Kantian distinction between laws which reside a priori and those which are about transcendent reality.

A priori is the way human reasoning functions and possibility of some abstract concepts. It is not about the laws.

Eh, I don’t by that at all. There are, e.g., a priori laws of logic, natural laws (e.g., law of causality), etc.

All laws are nonexistent until found by reasoning and established as laws. For the ancient folks with little or no scientific, philosophical and mathematical knowledge, everything was myth. There was no laws. Therefore there are no such things called "transcendent laws".

So? There are people who don’t believe that germs exist: does that have any bearing on a scientific conversation on germ theory?

How can non-relational transcendent laws ever be determinable by a method necessarily predicated on relations? If the method is relational, mustn’t the model constructed by that method, be relational?

Exactly.

What’s the difference, in this thesis, between consciousness, and consciousness (of reality)?

Ah, just that the former is more generic, and encompasses fabrications (like hallucinations).

Do transcendent laws only precondition the latter, and if so, why not the former as well?

Transcendent laws condition reality (viz., the universe), and, so, also conditioned whatever our faculties are which are cognizing it.

Dunno why I need a law that preconditions the possibility of my consciousness of reality.

Because your brain couldn’t cognize reality into a coherent whole which is accurate enough for survival if there were no transcendent laws.

Well, in relation to Schopenhauer, the problem goes away because objects are ideas

I don't see how this resolves anything: whatever 'thing', more loosely put, is being cognized is cognized as an idea; but Schopenhauer thinks that there's only one 'thing', and it is one will. How is that one will, assuming it even exists, being cognized according to rules if it has itself no rules governing it? This seems to reduce into a form of ontological idealism, where one has to posit a universal mind that is uniquely different from other minds which has the power to just powerfully dream up reality.

Not unless there is a metaphysical necessity – (transcendental) reason – 'why there is anything at all'.

If there is something that is metaphysically necessary, then not everything is contingent; which negates your original point, no? Are you just contending that whatever is necessary is NOT a law?

Only "X is ultimately necessary" (i e. absolute) precipates an infinite regrees of "whys" (or "laws").

That’s what I understand metaphysical necessity to be. I am not following.

I think fundamental physics overwhelmingly suggests, though does/can not prove, that Order is (only) a phase-transition of Disorder such that the more cogent, self-consistent conception of thi

Oh, I see what you mean. Ok, let’s break this down (assuming I understood you correctly): the standard laws of Nature, which we observe, are, under your view, contingent; and more ontologically fundamental than those laws is some sort of disorder. That is an interesting hypothesis, but how can proper laws originate out of things that behave “unlawfully”?

Since we have to speak in terms of our a priori means of mapping reality, my example would be the law of non-contradiction—which is presupposed in every natural law every posited—and it seems very implausible that this sort of formal law—or, more accurately, whatever law this model maps onto—could originate out of pure chaos. I think we can even demonstrate this in principle as false, by way of a thought experiment. Imagine that there’s no order at all to anything. This would entail that there are NO OBJECTS—for an ‘object’ can only refer to something with some sort of formal bounds in concreto (and not just in abstracta or semantically)—and NOT JUST no relations between objects. If there are no formal rules to anything, then there are no composition, no identity, no relation, etc….there’s, to wit, nothing but one ‘thing’.

Therefore, you would not be able to posit, if your view is granted, that there are these objects and laws which arise out of such a “pure chaos”; because there cannot be any formal demarcation in a completely unified existence.

I've been reading from Schopenhauer again.

Yeah, S has a wildly different metaphysics to K even though he builds off of K. For S, causality is the only feature of our faculty of understanding—no reason, no principles, no categories, etc.—and I have no clue why that would be the case.

Likewise, as pointed out in the OP, I think it is possible to note that there must be relations, laws, between objects (which would include some form or forms of causality) even if it is not the same as the law of causality which is a priori. No?

, with Schopenhauer’s insistence on the irrational and blind nature of Will

Yeah, the problem I have is that, among other things, he reduces the real world to a giant unity blob of will. This doesn’t really make sense: how would the brain be able to cognize something which has no laws of relations between things—let alone cognize something that is a complete unity. How is there even distinctions between things if everything is one thing? Of course, there aren’t; and that’s why Schopenhauer compares the universal will to one of those lanterns that has one light which produces many shadows from all sides.

How is it that the order of nature so readily lends itself to mathematical analysis and prediction? That sure seems neither blind nor irrational to me.

Exactly. All S does is strip away the a priori modes of cognizing reality and assumes that the negation of those must be true (e.g., no space and time → absolute unity, no rationality → irrationality, etc.). It doesn’t make sense.

If the nonexistence of nature, like the nonexistence of a sunny day, is a non-contradiction, then nature, like a sunny day, is contingent

I don’t think the universe is necessarily contingent, if by ‘nature’ that is what you are referring to, and it doesn’t help to cite a disanalogous example. Why should one accept that there aren’t brute existences?

To me, it seems more plausible that some “stuff”—whether that be laws, forms, principles, objects, etc.—just is that way because it is (with no sufficient reason for why).

Therefore, if nature as a whole, as well as each of its constituents, is contingent (NB: nature could be otherwise =/= "anything" within nature could happen), then its "laws", or inherent regularities-relations, are 'necessarily contingent', no?

I don’t see why that would be the case: a basic contingency relation of objects does not necessitate that the formal rules of relations between them are contingent—although they may be. If I were to grant your point here, then, it seems like reality would have to have, assuming there are laws, an infinite regress of them—no?

Also, contra Kantianism, isn't 'the human brain-body adaptively interacting with its environment' (i.e. embodied agency) – an emergent constituent of nature – the necessary precognition for 'the human mind' (i.e. grammar, experience, judgment)?

I didn’t follow this part. Of course, the human biology evolves, if that is what you mean.

What if we stumble upon something that is inherently random,
…
If something effects us that is totally random, we just either "win" by sheer luck or we are extremely unlucky. No use of looking there for a pattern, shit happens.

If reality is completely random, then we would not expect our experience, even if it is fabricated into a coherent series, to be useful for survival; which it clearly is.

Sure, if, ceteris paribus, there was one random bit of reality that we experienced along with non-random bits of reality, then our brain would most likely fabricate that part—transcendentally seeking causality—but this still admits of some proper laws.

Isn't this a tautology? If humans and animals make models of the surrounding World rationally or by logic, then naturally the only models we make are these rational and logical models

No, a tautology is when something is necessarily true as a matter of definition (such that its truth-table would be true all the way down). Material implication, of which what you noted above is an instance, is not tautological. Moreover, what I was saying is that if we can only cognize reality relative to those a priori preconditions, then it follows that what the proper law is can only be modeled semi-accurately with such.

It is also worth mentioning that it is entirely possible for a normal human to experience only in time given a drug, as it is apodictically true that our inner sense is in time along.

The real refutation, I think, of your whole position, notwithstanding my earlier critiques, is that a drug merely inhibits the way that the brain is prestructured to cognize; but it would need, quite plausibly, the ability to actually modify the physical pre-structure to cause a human to hallucinate in a manner that is with other pure forms. Just food for thought.

That isn't my view. Please, please, PLEASE stop putting views in my words that simply aren't there.

I am not meaning to imply that you agree with what I am saying: I am giving the logical consequences of your position, which you seem to be failing to see (which is fine). If there are moments where I am presenting it as if it is something you are affirming (as opposed to should be affirming to make your view internally coherent and logically consistent), then please call me out: that is unacceptable.

The problem I am having is that I don’t think you are conceding that either a (1) being experiences in some forms (which are a prior) or (2) they are not experiencing at all, when this seems plainly true to me.

For example:

I get how it could represent things as a jumble and highly inaccurately. — Bob Ross

Then you understand how the concepts of space and time being absent would cause this?

And:

By my lights, if one is affirming that a baby has experience — Bob Ross

I....didn't....affirm this? I actively gave the potential that a baby has no experience.

If the baby has a jumbled experience that is highly inaccurate, then the baby is experiencing in some pure forms, as noted above, AND IF you are affirming that the baby is not experiencing in space and time, THEN IT LOGICALLY FOLLOWS that the baby is experiencing in other pure forms than space and time.

E.g., saying that the baby may not have any experience does not address this issue that I am noting IF you affirm that it is having a jumbled experience (which you certainly have claimed that before in our conversation). Saying that you presented the option that the baby has no experience at all is completely irrelevant to my addressal of your presented option that they experience in an incoherent manner.

Likewise, if you are accepting, as you mentioned in the first quote above, that the baby does indeed experience but that it is the absence of space and time which makes it so jumbled, then you must concede that the baby is experiencing it so jumbled in SOME OTHER pure forms than space and time; OR DENY IN THE FIRST PLACE that the baby has any experience at all. You cannot have the cake and eat it too (; .

I have said quite clearly that it's open to us to posit babies don't experience.

It is completely unclear that you mean by “experience” in light of the PZ thought experiment. I already went in depth into the difference between awareness and experience; so I feel no need to delve into it deeper without your elaboration first.

But to be extremely clear: It would be utterly insane to assert babies could 'behave' without any access to data on which they could base behaviour. I just assert they don't 'know' about it, because no experience to speak of (this raises a similar issue as with some other concepts as to when or how that experience, eventually, arises and as noted earlier, I have no good answer to that).

I need to ask for clarification on what you mean by “experience”: are you talking about qualia? Are you talking about awareness? Does experience require self-knowledge or sufficent self-reflective faculties under your view? It doesn’t for mine. E.g., the fact a squirrel doesn’t know that it is eating an acorn doesn’t mean it isn’t experiencing it….so why would a baby not experience, as noted in the bolded part of your quote, because it has no knowledge of it?

The underlined portion in your quote seems to imply that you do believe that babies have “experience” in the sense of awareness, to some degree.

It isn't a cop out. IT is the fact of hte matter. If there is a possible 'experience' outside time and space, there are no ways within time and space to convey it.

It’s not that it is impossible to properly convey with language that makes it a cop out: it is that you are just blanketly asserting that, on the basis of ineffibility, that people have experienced in pure forms other than space and time, which is seems plausibly impossible since the drugs only interfere with the already prestructured ways that the brain experiences (and so a drug doesn’t plausibly have the ability to introduce new pure forms of sensibility to the mix), without giving a shred of real evidence. Surely you can appreciate why I cannot contend with your claim here, given its lack of transparency. There’s got to be some inaccurate but adequate way of proving that the brain is capable of experiencing in other pure forms...or we shouldn’t take it seriously unless we ourselves have had such an experience.

The 'forms' are whatever they are.

The problem I have is that you can’t explain it even to yourself, so how do you know you weren’t experiencing in space and time but in an incoherent way? How did you rule out, e.g., that the incoherence was with the objects as related in space and time to you, and as cut out incoherently in sections, rather than you experiencing without space and time?

This is the danger of ineffibility, although it is a valid concept, because people just use it as a god of the gaps. Look, I can tell you that my experience of something, of anything, cannot be put accurately into words; and this is because the words erode some of the emotional and phenomenal baggage of the experience itself. Sure, to a being that were to somehow have a language which 1:1 mapped what they experienced in perfect detail, that lost no meaning whatsoever in such a conversion, it may be really hard to convey the point to them; but I can give examples which at least make sense to me. E.g., the wonder and awe I got from seeing the Grand Canyon is clearly not contained perfectly in my description of “I was struck with wonder and awe amidst the Grand Canyon” because it doesn’t describe the feeling perfectly and only a person who experienced something similarly to that degree of awe and wonderment will be able to map that properly to the experience I had.

I am not seeing any analogous kind of example on your part, and no real responses to why you find the alternative possibilities implausible (like the incoherence being in how the brain is presenting the objects within space and time, or like how the higher-order brain functions [such as separating the self from the other] may be inhibited by the drugs without inhibiting the pure forms of sensibility). Without responses, there’s nothing more I can say.

Really appreciate your time and effort on this exchange, Bob. Thank you!

Of course, and you too AmadeusD!

I think something worth mentioning, is that incest is not per se immoral because of the incredible odds of causing severe harm to a potential, conceived child (therefrom)—as incest does not necessitate a relationship where the parties involved can get pregnant (e.g., gay men, infertile women, etc.)—but, rather, it is because, generally speaking, it is not in the Telos of a human to marry and have sexual relations with their own kin.

My duties to, and roles towards, my, e.g., sisters are plausibly such that I should not be having sexual relations with them; when taken from the Aristotelian position.

Americans can (correctly) argue that they haven't been defeated on the battlefield in fixed battle. But the truth is that they have lost wars, there is no credible denial about this. That Afghanistan is an Islamic Emirate today, just shows how the Global War on Terror was lost. Just like the fact that there is no South Vietnam anymore.

I think America underestimated the tactical advantages of their enemy fighting on home turf, with all-or-nothing mentality, and with gorilla-terror tactics; and, as you mentioned, the perception from the US public also plays a huge role.

the Americans left their past ally on it's own because of the unpopularity of the war (perceived or real), with the result that Afghanistan collapsed even quicker than South Vietnam

Not to mention, Biden left billions of dollars of military-grade resources in Afghanistan for the Taliban :roll: . It can’t get anymore embarrassing for the US than that.

The war in Ukraine is talked as a "forever war" that ought to be quickly halted. Marco Rubio, the incoming secretary of state, sees the war as stalemate that has to be ended and we all know Trump's campaign promise to end the war immediately

I think the US people generally don’t want to spend billions of taxpayers dollars on foreign wars when they have so many problems at home that could be fixed with that money. I do not support sending any aid to Israel nor Ukraine: we need to fix our country first.

For Trump to say that he's in good relation with both Zelensky and Putin is very difficult to understand.

Trump says he is in good standing with everyone—he likes to embellish.

Yet when people have the wrongful idea that the conflict is a forever war (that happened because of NATO enlargement) and thus has to be ended with US withdrawal,

Perhaps I am misunderstanding, but the US doesn’t actually have any military presence in Ukraine: all we have been doing is funding them. Let them fund their own battles—they aren’t a part of NATO.

The inability for Americans to see how this weakens their own alliance is quite telling.

The US doesn’t have a formal alliance with Ukraine. I would completely agree with you if they were a part of NATO. If Russia hits a NATO country, then they are going to get their shit rocked. Russia can’t even take over Ukraine: imagine what would happen if the US got truly involved.

Well, I am just not following what exactly about an under-developed, human brain would allow it to cognize with different forms of sensibility: I get how it could represent things as a jumble and highly inaccurately.

By my lights, if one is affirming that a baby has experience but not immediately with the forms of space and time, then that entails necessarily that it takes different forms—otherwise, then, the baby is not experiencing, which was affirmed to begin with. This is a point that I am not sure you agree with, but there would have to be something about how an under-developed brain, in the sense of a baby’s, that makes it represent in different forms: for there has to be forms to the sensibility of the any being that has representative faculties.

This is where it gets interesting because, and of which I cannot tell if you have realized that, the baby’s brain having different forms of sensibility, which it would have to if it experiences (to any degree—even if it be incoherent) and not in space and time, does not itself entail any sort of inaccuracy nor incoherency in its representation; but that was the original point you were trying to make. Then, the claim that a baby experiences but not in space and time because their experience is too incoherent becomes a mute point; because it is not the fact that it is too incoherent that makes the baby uncapable of having those two pure forms. Thusly, you would have to explain NOT why the baby’s incoherent experience renders outside of time and space but, rather, why we should believe that a baby’s brain is too underdeveloped to render objects in space and time but it does have the capacity to render it in different pure forms of sensibility.

In short, you would seem to need to argue that the baby just doesn’t have pure forms of sensibility—no? At that point, though, the baby has no experience. Which, again, we can be certain that is false: babies react to some degree to their environment.

Schizophrenic people experience in space and time: the disorder is that they experience things which are not there in space and time. — Bob Ross

This is a claim which i reject, wholesale. as arrogance

Nothing about Schizophrenia entails that the brain is defective in such a way as to intuit objects in other pure forms than space and time. There is no shred of evidence to support that. We give them medication to get rid of their temporal and spatial hallucinations.

PZs are impossible — Bob Ross

You think. I don't. Many don't. You make many claims about htings that aren't known, rather than claiming positions. I get that's your position. Fine. Not mine. I respect your position.

That’s why I granted to the position, but left in the footnote that I don’t think it is possible. Of course, when someone brings up a highly controversial example, then I have to note my position on it; but of course I will entertain the hypothetical despite that.

Without qualia, that's nonsensical to me. There is no experience. Plain and simple.

So this is getting into philosophy of mind, and I am not sure how deep we want to go down that rabbit whole. Traditionally, those who accept qualia note a “hard problem of consciousness” which revolves, by necessity, around the idea that awareness and experience are not equivalent to each other (although, perhaps, they will use different terms sometimes to express it). Awareness is the bare ability to gather information about your environment; whereas, experience is a qualitative, subjective ‘having’ of that gathered and interpreted information. E.g., the brain is aware that this block is the color green because it interpreted the light that reflected off of it as green, but the (qualitative) experience, of which there is something to be you experiencing it, is over-and-beyond that bare awareness that it is green. This is, traditionally, the hard problem in a nutshell: why is there something it is like to be the subject having the awareness, of which is qualitative and subjective, instead of just the bare awareness of it? It doesn’t seem like, prima facie, e.g., there needs to be an actual qualitative experience of the green block of which there is something it is like to be me experiencing it for my brain to be aware that it is green (as interpreted by the wavelengths). It seems like my brain is more than aware of its environment without having a ‘me’ which subjectively experiences it.

So, there would be no experience in the case that a baby were a PZ, but that baby would still be, to some degree, aware; and this distinction has not surfaced in your view yet (as we have discussed it).

This is why I put my disagreement with the possibility of PZs as a footnote (;

I've been over why you are asking for something impossible. If i am right (that I have had an experience which transcends time or space) it would not be possible to elaborate. Ineffability is a key concept in this discussion. Unless you wholesale reject that notion, please respect this since you have asked.

I understand that to a certain degree; but it’s the ultimate cop-out. I can’t contend with your view that they are experiencing somehow with different pure forms of sensibility if you just blanketly assert it.

"The more the subject experiences such characteristics of mystical experience as unity (with all of existence), noetic quality (knowingness and a sense of reality), sacredness,transcendence of time and space, ineffability, sense of awe, etc., the richer may be the rewards. In summary, not only do psychedelic substances sometimes bring therapeutic benefit, but there is definite evidence that such benefit depends upon the discernible richness of the experience’s ‘mystical’ qualities."

Ok, good: this helps. Let’s break it down.

1. Unity is the concept of everything in question as one: this is inherently spatial. A person that experiences no ego, which is sometimes called “ego death”, e.g., thereby experiencing a complete unity with their experience IS NOT thereby experiencing in some form which is non-spatial. Unity of experience is just everything which is presented in space, or in time, or both, as being identical to everything else presented. So this doesn’t demonstrate your point.

2. Noetic quality does not demonstrate your point for obvious reasons.

3. Sacredness: same.

4. Transcendence of time and space: I am assuming this is the heavy-hitter, huh? (: I would need to hear what evidence you have for this, and how it works. I have a feeling you are just going to say you can’t describe it; but what forms are the experience in when not in space and time (on drugs)?

5. Ineffability. This is related to your point insofar as our words can never, in meaning, be reduced down to what they reference (about reality); but you have to be able to explain what those forms are, which are not space and time, that these people are experiencing things in for us to have any serious conversation; and it should be possible, with inadequate diction, if they really aren’t just confused.

And, for me, he's entirely wrong and bares on no explanation for how that could possibly be the case.

If by “how”, you mean ontologically how it would work; then that is an irrelevant question. If by “how”, you mean why it is a necessary precondition for possibility of human experience; then that is elaborated in depth in the Critique.

is that babies do not have a 'coherent' experience at birth

I agree, and never disagree with this: my point is that the (sufficiently) incoherent experience is still in space and time. One can have a spatiotemporal experience which the aftermath of the one’s brain butchering how to represent objects properly.

As they learn concepts of space and time
…
And, for me, he's entirely wrong and bares on no explanation for how that could possibly be the case.

Ok, then, by your own critique, how does a baby’s brain learn to represent objects in space and time?

Schizophrenic people have a similar problem

Schizophrenic people experience in space and time: the disorder is that they experience things which are not there in space and time.

They may not even have an experience, at birth

They have to, though—that’s my point. Babies cry afterbirth when they are hungry: that entails, to some degree, that they have an experience.

so it is an experience akin to some higher dimensional being — Bob Ross

Or, get this Bob – lower.

True, but it wouldn’t be human experience anything like all experience human’s have ever had that they had introspective access to—can we agree on that?

Think of philosophical zombies

PZs are impossible; but if I were to grant their possible existence for a second, then I would note that:

Newborns may be just that, in terms of behaviour.

Then, a newborn does experience—just not in terms of qualia. That non-qualia experience would still be in the forms of space and time.

Millions of people have. I'll give a couple of examples of discussions in the lit on this:

Neither of those links you sent described an experience a human had that didn’t take the forms of space and time: those articles are about the life-altering nature of psychedelics. I want to hear a specific example from you to gauge better what you are saying.

Look Amadeus, I am not denying that psychedelics can make one experience things weirdly: I’ve had them before. I had a trip so bad that I literally perceived layers to my consciousness, periodically lost the concept of time, and lost most motor function. I think you are confusing, with all due respect, concepts qua self-reflective reason with transcendental reason. When, e.g., I was presented pure blankness that seemed, at the time, outside of time; it was still temporal: I just lacked the ability to properly analyze the situation and, quite frankly, lacked the words to properly describe it. People can perceive time differently, and this can be affected by drugs; but the brain is still hallucinating, if it presents anything to the conscious experience, in the forms of space and time.

I remember what it is like to perceive being beyond time; and I was not beyond time, or else I would not have any memory of it—for my memory assumes at least the form of time when recalling.

Generally we do not believe that everyone has legal standing (locus standi).

I think moral and legal standing are different: the latter is a practical attempt at justice for the community, whereas the former can surpass that sphere of jurisdiction. To deny this, by my lights, is to accept that nothing immoral is happening, e.g., when a citizen of another country violently attacks a citizen of another (for there is no notion of justice qua morality in this sphere of discourse since it lands outside of the purview of both societies to a sufficient extent).

Perhaps the solution is to say that both authorities of each society would congregate to resolve the matter, as opposed to the lower institutions (e.g., police) imposing justice; but, then, what of the, e.g., indigenous member of the tribe, which does not have a sufficiently powerful community to advocate on their behalf, or the non-citizen? Are they chopped liver? If there is not such distinction, mentioned above, then I think so.

Similarly, it is the duty of the judge to punish the perpetrator and avenge the victim, not the common person.

This is true if we are careful to denote this duty as legal duty—not moral duty. E.g., I do not have a legal duty to save my daughter from a burning building but I certainly have a moral duty to do so.

Usually, when we note that a person doesn’t have “duty” to enact justice for another; we tend to be saying that as a pragmatic rule of thumb for two reasons: the first being that it tends to be handled more appropriately by those that are of an institution designed to handle it (e.g., police, first responders, etc.), and secondly because imposing that justice usually has sufficiently negative consequences to the avenger that we would not blame them for avoiding avenging or stopping the attack in the first place.

However, I do think it is commonly accepted that if the negative consequences are sufficiently trivial, that it is immoral to do nothing. For example, the man that watched this women get kidnapped while she screamed for help technically doesn’t have a legal duty to intervene; but we all think he should have (morally speaking, as that is a part of a man’s moral duty and role in society to be a protector).

Do we have a duty in justice to right wrongs happening on the other side of the world?

The problem I have with this line of thinking is that, in principle, we can wipe our hands clean when we avoid doing just things because they are outside of our jurisdiction—jurisdiction is just a pragmatic notion to enact justice.

Likewise, the issue with thinking solely in terms of jurisdiction, in the sense Aquinas noted in your quote, is demonstrated sufficiently in the quote itself:

And since the child is subject to the power of the parent, and the slave to the power of his master, a parent can lawfully strike his child, and a master his slave that instruction may be enforced by correction

People who think in terms of solely jurisdiction have the same susceptibility as denotoligists: avoiding the right thing to do because it doesn’t follow the strict rules laid out for people to follow by people.

We are not justified in going to nuclear war with North Korea, assuming both sides have working nukes, to save the people there. The nation firstly has a duty to its own citizens, and not other citizens of other nations.

Well, in virtue of what do we have a duty to prevent immorality?

Justice—no?

Do we have a duty to perpetrators?

What do you mean?

Do we have a duty to victims?

Yes. To punish the perpetrator and avenge the victim(s).

Do we have a duty to "friends"?

Yes.

Do we have a duty to strangers?

Yes. Do you not believe that you have any duty to be just to strangers?

Do we have a duty to strangers on the other side of the world?

Does being just ultimately depend on where the injustice is happening? Sure, circumstances matter, but, in principle, it doesn’t matter.

If there were no negative consequences then we would be justified. But even something as simple as resource allocation is a negative consequence, so there will always be negative consequences.

Agreed.

I would say that cultures interact in much the same way individuals do. In both cases there are things like exchange, mutual cooperation, conflict, argument, persuasion, and coercion.

True. What I would be saying, analogously, is that we have taken the "you-do-you while I-do-me" principle too far: if your friend decides to go out and rape someone, then you have a duty to forceably impose your values on them insofar as they shouldn't be doing that. Similarly, a society has a duty to take over or at least subjugate another society to their values when the latter gets too immoral.

Anti-imperialism is a very limited justification in the first place. But the disorderedness of a society is not in itself a sufficient reason for intervention. Should we intervene in North Korea out of compassion? Perhaps, but perhaps not. Compassion can be a motive, but it is seldom a sufficient condition for action.

Even if the negative consequences were very low (or non-existent), are you saying that the West would not be justified in taking over North Korea by force?

I agree that coercion should be the last resort, but it seems to be a resort; and seems to be a valid resort to stop societal structures that are really immoral; and this entails some version of imperialism, even if it is a much weaker version than the standard ones historically.

Actual mattering is objective; hypothetically mattering is subjective. What you are noting is that something can "actual matter" to a person subjectively; but if we parse that what that really means is that it hypothetically matters and this particular person is affirming the antecedent. E.g., just because someone thinks cars matter does not entail that "cars matter" is true, but it does entail that "if one cares about cares, then cars matter; and this person cares about cars, so cars matter to them".

Actual mattering is when someone matters independently of our desires or beliefs about it.

Oh, haha. I thought you were disagreeing. Nevermind.

That 'space and time' are innate is somewhat implausible to me. These seem to be arguments that would need to come down to some supernatural conclusion. Which, you'll note, Kant does.

Kant does not argue for space and time being a prior as a matter of being supernatural—quite the contrary.

. They have no experience of difference

The fact that they move at all towards or away from things annihilates this hypothesis in concreto; but, in abstracta, it makes no sense to posit that the brain doesn’t develop accurate to a certain prestructure which represents in a specific way. When, then, does the human brain develop enough to construct an experience in space and time? The brain doesn’t fully develop until adulthood.

Let me ask for clarification: are you saying that a baby does not experience in space and time despite lacking the thinking power know that they are experiencing in space and time? — Bob Ross

This is a really quite confused way of approaching a clarification imo

This is exactly why I asked it, because Kant is not talking about what you are talking about: thinking and cognizing are not the same thing. Viz., self-reflective reason is different than transcendental reason—you are conflating them as one ‘faculty of reason’.

Here’s the pinnacle of your confusion (with no disrespect meant):

The baby probably doesn't have a concept of experience

This solidifies to me that you are, in fact, thinking of self-reflective concepts as opposed to transcendental concepts. The baby still experiences, and this you do not contend against (I would imagine), but yet it doesn’t have the self-reflective thinking capacities to understand that—that’s no problem for Kant. Kant is noting that we have concepts built into our brain for cognizing objects—not for thinking about our experience of them.

The baby lack's the thinking power to apprehend those concepts at all to begin with

Correct. But this has nothing to do with the Critique: Kant is noting that, irregardless of that, the baby’s brain is pre-structured to represent objects within space and time which constitute the baby’s experience of the world; and the baby, to your point, of course, does not have the thinking power to understand that its conscious experience is in space and time—this takes time to learn.

Babies don't have reason. SO, unless that, to you, removes humanity, then i simply reject, wholesale your entire conjecture here.

You are, by-at-large, correct that they don’t have “reason” because by “reason” you mean self-reflective reason—viz., the ability to think about one’s conscious experience. Kant means “reason” in the sense of our brain’s cognition for cognizing reality into a coherent experience. This was one complaint that Schopenhauer had of Kant’s semantics, as it led to confusion for people, and S actually advocated to call Kant’s idea of “reason” as “the understanding” and to use “reason” in your sense of the term.

In the baby's perception, this also seems inarguable. Not quite sure what the pushback on this is. If you have an intellect that doesn't correctly order your spatiotemporal categories, you do not cease to be human or cease to experience.

You are not arguing that the brain doesn’t order the objects properly in space and time: you are arguing that the baby’s brain has a super-human power to cognize in different forms of sensibility—viz., to experience objects ordered in some other forms than space and time.

You are saying that the baby that is trying to eat that toy block, that doesn’t really know what it is, isn’t experiencing that toy block with any extension nor in any temporal succession—so it is an experience akin to some higher dimensional being. Imagine being able to experience things outside of time….that’s what you are saying a baby can do.

bare experience, unorganised and automatically responded to.

What does that mean? What would objects look like unorganized outside of space and time?

Take mushrooms my guy. Space and time are not as hard-and-fast as you seem to think, in human experience.

What you experience on psychedelics is still in space and time—if you have experienced hallucinations that did not take those forms, then I would be interested to hear you elaborate on it specifically.

But that is besides the point: the babies conscious experience is still in space and time. They just don't understand that yet in thought. Thinking and cognizing are not the same thing.

Yes, but the thing is @AmadeusD is arguing that the baby that tries to put a square object in a round hold is not experiencing that square object and round hole spatiotemporally; viz., the square object doesn't have extension nor is it placed in succession within that baby's consciousness. Arguably, what, then, would a square, which is a spatial concept, be in a consciousness that doesn't represent it in space?!??