If you read my post again, it would be clear what the concept of moral good is from Aristotle. Good is a quality or property of actions which brings happiness to all parties involved.

You misunderstand me: the concept of good refers to whatever 'good' means, not what or how one can predicate something to have it. Viz., the concept of value does not refer to what may be valuable. One must first understand, explicitly, what 'value' even means, not just as a word but as a concept, to determine what has it.

That bringing happiness is good is a predication of goodness; and not a definition of what is good. You are putting the cart before the horse: the OP person needs to start at the basics.

I caught that too.

No worries, and fair enough. You are right that the concept of ‘evil’ does arise out of religious ideologies, being closely connected to ‘sin’, but I don’t think we have to use it that way.

My understanding being: one 'likes' not suffering, suffering is virtually in de facto agreement by everyone to be unethical, ergo, the relationship between human ethics and what the subject of the whole matter's preferences are (what is liked, what is disliked, the fact inflicting suffering is unethical, etc.) is not without noting

I agree that most people would agree that suffering is bad, but this doesn’t provide the necessary connection to show that it is actually bad. E.g., if everyone thinks that red blocks are bad and blue blocks are good, then does that thereby make it so? Of course not: that’s just inter-subjective agreement.

What you would have to do, if you are a moral realist, in order to do proper ethics, is demonstrate how suffering is bad by way of explicating what badness is, how to assess something as bad or good, and apply that to suffering.

For example, I would say that Moore was right that the concept of good and bad are absolutely primitive and simple—like being, value, time, space, etc.—as opposed to derivative and complex concepts—like a car, a cat, a bat, etc.—and thusly are knowable through only pure intuition. I would say that the concept of good—which can only be described inaccurately through synonyms, analogies, metaphors, etc.—refers to that which should be; that which should be sought after; that which is best (or better); etc.

As a neo-aristotelian, I would say that objective goods, which are just ‘goods’ in their proper sense (as opposed to moral anti-realist concepts of it), and “bads” arise out of the teleology of things as relativistic to how the thing was supposed to be (as demonstrated by its Telos). E.g., a good farmer, a good human, a good clock, a good bubonic plague, a good lion, etc. These are not hypothetical goods nor are they non-objective—e.g., a good farmer is not hypothetically good at farming nor are they good at farming only because one wants them to be nor are they good at farming only because one thinks they are: they are, in fact, good at farming.

Suffering is generally bad, then, because it represents a (living) being not living up to their Telos properly (either voluntarily or by force) as suffering is normally the bodies way of telling itself what it is designed to do is not happening (and, on the contrary, what anti-thetical to it is happening). However, I would note that suffering simpliciter is not bad, because suffering is required in order to properly fulfill one’s duties, roles, and (utlimately) Telos.

I am not advocating that you need to agree with me on my analysis of what is good here; but I merely advocate that you do the same with respect to your theory. Otherwise, you are prone to many mistakes by venturing in muddied waters.

You could say it's Beyond Good and Evil, yea.

Then, you are not giving them a starting point for investigating ethics: you are giving them a Nietschien, moral anti-realist, position to explore.

The OP has a starting place. He or she is an atheist.

Sure: I don’t see your point. They were asking where to begin to understand what is good: being an atheist doesn’t preclude moral realism.

I was talking about the concept of good, and of which one must have an understanding of before they can accurately assess what can be predicated to have it. This is a classic mistake that Moore rightly points out: ethics starts not with what is good, but what goodness even refers to---whereas, most people do it in the opposite order (or merely engage in the latter).

How can one determine what is good without understanding what it would mean for something to be good in the first place? Isn't that putting the cart before the horse?

Agreed. I was just noting that people find this very compelling, hence why (I would argue) most people find libertarianism appealing and are confused what compatibilism even is.

Good is whatever is conducive to the arrow's path toward your vision. Evil is whatever makes the arrow deviate down some other path

That's just another way of saying there is no actual goodness and badness; because you defined it as whatever suits a person's own non-objective dispositions. My biggest complaint is not that you are siding with moral anti-realism, but that the OP wants to know where to start and this makes them think, if they accepted it, that they should collapse ethics into pyschology. They need to explore, first, what goodness even is: not go on a psychological quest.

This is also why, as a side note, I call moral anti-realism only ethics insofar as it is its negation.

Begin at looking what brings happiness.

Why would they do that? They need to first understanding what it means for something to be good, then explore what is good. You are having them skip vital steps here.

(PS: the Nichomachean and Eudemian Ethics are good reads indeed: no disagreement there).

Good doesn’t have a definition, but if you think you can build your own set of rules, you must already have an idea of what good will be.

This sounds like a Moorean intuition of goodness, am I right? (:

I would start with: which good - personal or social?
Social good is whatever contributes to the well-being of the community.

This seems to put the OP in a box that isn’t needed though: why start with personal and social goods? Why not start with what it would mean for something to be good in the first place?

Personal good is whatever contributes the individual's continued survival, welfare and happiness.

So it is good, then, for me to kill an innocent person to ensure my survival? That would be a “personal good”?

So it is good, then, for me to avoid my duties to my children because it makes me happier?

Social good is whatever contributes to the well-being of the community.

So it is good for society, then, to torture one person in order to ensure its own survival?

These definitions don’t accurately reflect what either an individual nor social good would be.

Philosophers tend to avoid use of (or for that matter, even belief in) the word and its prescriptive concept of "evil" over more objective and easily defined concepts such as "socially-destructive" and "willfully inhumane and unethical".

No, they absolutely do not. All ethicists talk fundamentally in terms of what is good, bad, immoral, moral, etc. What you seemed to do here, is migrate the discussion immediately in favor of moral anti-realism; when the OP is asking more generically about ethics.

What, assuming you are like most people, would you not like done to you, and why?

What you described here is pyschology, not ethics. What one likes doesn’t matter when one is trying to decipher what the concept of good is: either there such a think as ‘being good’ or there isn’t—who cares if you like it? Even in the case of moral anti-realism, their concepts of good are themselves objective (albeit they refer to something non-objective).

If by "veiled theology" you mean that a person might ad hoc rationalize their belief in (traditional) theism with libertarianism (in order to provide a solution to the problem of evil), then that is of course possible. How often does that happen? I am not sure. I think a far more common ad hoc rationalization for libertarianism is moral responsibility, not a justification for theism itself. I think most people intuit that they cannot hold people morally responsible for their decisions if that person did not have the ability to have done otherwise; and so it becomes more like a companions in guilt style argument.

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.