The only property that is changing between you and your wife and everything else is location. That's it. Your wife is still a human being. None of that changes when you change your spatial location. — Harry Hindu

Of course. I was talking about whether reference points are inherent in the world absent minds or not.

This is incoherent. If there is an external world that our experience isnt about, then what does it mean for our experiences to be caused by the external world? — Harry Hindu

Perception is about the things causing the perception. One doesn’t directly apprehend the thing in itself. One perceives things. A lot is lost in perception (for example, do you perceive atoms when looking at a chair?), and the mind constructs a “story” about the object that is perceived but not directly apprehended.

A relationship between two or more reference points can change if just one reference point changes and not the other. So it seems to me that there could still be constants in reality even though appearances change. — Harry Hindu

Consider this. Everything is in constant motion. I suppose that my wife sitting on the couch and me sitting in the recliner are both at rest relative to each other, but we are flying through space on this planet. If I get up and go into the kitchen, then my reference point relative to everything else in the house is constantly changing as long as I’m moving. When I stop in the kitchen, I’m at a different reference point to my wife. One always has to pick a particular reference point on an or in an object (such as in the house) in order to perceive or conceptualize what is moving and what isn’t. Conceptualization requires a mind, as does perception. Hence, speaking about reference points as things in nature is tricky. Are they inherent in nature, or are they inherent in minds?

Exactly. If the properties of the orange change, then how can we keep calling it an orange? It seems to me that it would be a different object at different reference points of what TP says is accurate. — Harry Hindu

Yup.

Color will change if the orange is moving at particular velocities, for example--it can be blue or red-shifted, and it will change as the environment — Terrapin Station

Oranges do not emit light like galaxies do. There would be no blue or red shift.

Yes, yes, yes, and yes.

The common objection to this is to say something like, "Well, at the surface of the orange, the texture is such and such"--but that's a different reference point. (And this is just my point--the properties will be different at different reference points.) — Terrapin Station

The properties of the orange do not change at different reference points. The perception of the orange changes at different reference points.

There are so many reasons why even good people can end up supporting bad ideas, not doing due diligence, — Coben

In the US these days it has a lot to do with the near death of investigative reporting and taking news releases from the government (not inherently bad but run by neo-cons for the most part as you said) as news itself.

In other words, a la Kant, if there were no minds it would be incoherent to have spatio-temporal reference points. Is that a good reading of Kant, @Mww?

That's not a reason to suppose that there's no real extension/extensional relations or motion/change. — Terrapin Station

I guess. The way I interpret Kant is that the spatio-temporal reference points you were talking about as real things of nature only exist in minds.

Bubble gum cherry apple? — praxis

Whatever narcissism and a pathological need for recognition tastes like. I think it tastes like ham, personally. He tasted like ham. Some people taste like bitter herbs like S. Some people taste saccharine sweet like Together Turtle. Ilya tasted like ham.

As I already said, I said nothing about ultimate reality. And the point of my experience remark is that what we mean by reality is what we experience. — Dfpolis

What exactly then is your position re Kant about what is inherent to the mind as laid out in Critique of Pure Reason? Is space and time at least partially constructed in the mind? Or are space and time inherent to the physical world ONLY?

I don't want to get into the issues re "explanations" again. — Terrapin Station

Ok. That’s the tough work. Has anyone explained that in this thread? If so, I missed it.

Personally, I don't think that Kant explains anything, by the way. — Terrapin Station

Kant doesn’t explain how theories are created. His is a metaphysical claim about what is inherent to mind and what is inherent to that which presents itself to the mind.

You have to invoke theory and make theoretical commitments in addition to your experiences, your perceptions, to arrive at idealism or representationalism. — Terrapin Station

But you understand that transcendental idealism a la Kant is more than just idealism a la Berkeley or @leo? And how do you personally explain how theoretical knowledge is created?

That's all correct. To finish the above, it's knowable, for one, from perception, which isn't theoretical. But in cases where perception isn't possible, sure, then we have to do something theoretical. — Terrapin Station

Good. Glad that’s cleared up.

@Dfpolis@Mww@Harry Hindu@Michael@leo

Does anyone here really understand one another? Are we using words differently or are there really differences in metaphysics and epistemic and ontological matters? I think we all know how perception works. At least most of us do.

I think @Terrapin Station is saying that there is a real way something IS from a particular spatial temporal reference point, and how that thing is from that particular point is knowable by thinking about a theoretical model of that reference point in relation to the object. That doesn’t require a perceiver but a thought grounded in theory. Theory comes about from experience from perceiving and about thinking about the objects of perception, which have an actual way they are from a spatial temporal reference point. Is that right?

That doesn’t however explain how the brain and mind construct these theories. It doesn’t say what is inherent to the mind and what is inherent to the objects themselves, which is what Kant explains.

Does this clear up some confusion or am I confused?

It’s strange, no?

It may be hard to solve right now, it being so private, but a great penultimate step would be to surround it by localizing it to the brain. — PoeticUniverse

That seems like common sense, but I’m not sure that that would necessarily be metaphysically coherent with the rest of human knowledge. It remains to be seen. It’s not just up to science, in my view, it’s also up to philosophers to come up with a coherent TOE.

Yes. It was sarcasm. I’m not always good at sarcasm. It seemed like it was an unnecessary point.

:clap:

Anyway, I've enjoyed conversing with you, someone who seems to actually have an open mind — Janus

Likewise.

That makes sense, but if you posit mind as something independent of "the four forces of nature" or whatever then you are moving towards dualism. Or if you posit the four forces of nature as being fundamentally mental then you move towards transcendental idealism. And if you posit the four fundamental forces of nature as being fundamentally physical, then you are moving towards materialism, physicalism and realism. — Janus

I haven’t made up my mind on the hard problem. I don’t think there is an easy solution. It’s unknown.

I think Kant would call himself a transcendental idealist and an empirical realist. Is this your view @Mww?

The quantum vacuum is real. How we perceive it (if only through our instruments) is partly projected from reality (the four forces of nature) and partly constructed in the mind. Something is certainly lost in the act of perceiving (that’s why we misperceive all the time). The mind constructs what isn’t directly apprehended. Make sense?

that is how it seems to be often interpreted by those on these forums I have encountered who identify themselves as transcendental idealists. — Janus

They’re just plain wrong.

My understanding is that transcendental idealism does function as the invisible partner of empirical realism; which I interpret as saying that we are all subject to the same noumenal conditions, whatever they are, which explains why we all perceive the same world, objects and so on.

But transcendental idealism may carry the connotation that the fundamental reality is mind (although Kant would never say that, because that would be tantamount to Berkeleyism, which he was at pains to distance himself from) and that is how it seems to be often interpreted by those on these forums I have encountered who identify themselves as transcendental idealists. — Janus

I agree with all of this. The mind doesn’t just construct time, space, and frames of reference, but also draws borders and delineates objects, so that we don’t directly apprehend reality. We perceive an independent reality that is most likely at least somewhat different than than how we construct it in our minds. There is truth to materialism. There is truth to idealism, but not Berkeley’s conception of idealism.

I first said “directly perceive” but I think “directly apprehend” is more accurate.

The idealism part is that time, space, and points or frames of reference are mental constructs. We do not directly apprehend these things. We create them in our minds.

It's usually defined as the idea that objects exist independently of us. We know, or at least have every reason to believe, that there is something independent of our perceptual experience itself,some existential set of conditions, that gives rise to our perception of a world of objects, selves, thoughts, emotions and so on.

The light bouncing off objects is within our perceptual experience. If we project that out as the transcendental conditions that give rise to perception then we have committed to some form of realism. — Janus

Yeah, I’m a transcendental idealist which includes realism, I think?

Not saying you’re wrong, just wondering how projection would work, as you see it.

Six of one, half dozen of the other, when it’s all said and done. — Mww

:grin: I think we philosophers just confuse ourselves with our different uses of language.

Why don’t we just say reality appears to us, rather than projecting itself? — Mww

That’s fine with me, too. Tomaytoe. Tomahtoe.

I guess I don’t really understand what Dfpolis means exactly by “projection.” I assumed he meant something like electromagnetic fields and the like, he being a physicist and all.

You presume realism here when you say that. Not saying it's wrong, just pointing that out. — Janus

I don’t know what realism is.

My point being that space and time are just as much a projection from without as a mental construct? Oh, wait. Now I’m not sure. Maybe I’m still Kantian after all!

Of course that’s my take on Dfpolis’s theory. He might not have meant that at all.

It’s projection from without and reception from within, while the mind makes sense of this bombardment through mental constructs, drawing borders between percepts. Thank you @TogetherTurtle

:razz: :razz: :wink:

can experience the reality of electrical shock in the dark. — Mww

That’s an electric field projected from certain objects. Duh!

Thought I was dumb, huh?

Such as?

The eyes receive the light radiated or projected off of objects. The ears receive sound waves that moving and colliding objects create through the air. The nose receives compounds in the air, etc. Consciousness draws distinctions between different percepts by creating distinct objects, projecting borders onto reality from a mental construct, creating a visual field. Sounds are a kind of given phenomenal experience, but direction of where the sound is coming from can be determined by which ear the sound waves hit first. Smell is picking up projections from objects’ vapors so to speak, etc.

Don’t mind me.....I’m just sittin’ here wonderin’.....what mechanism does reality use to project itself? — Mww

Light?

They are intimate bedfellows, and I don’t see how it could ever be otherwise. — Virgo Avalytikh

That’s also a good point that I don’t immediately have a retort to.