Existent/thing: in humans, that which is, or possibly is, an affect upon the senses.

Hey back.

Yeah, we been around this block a few times, or one like it, over the years. Been fun too, for the most part, despite our dissimilar grounding presuppositions.

…..thereby legitimizes the death of the “meaning is use” nonsense,
— Mww

SO what kind of nonsense are you going to replace it with? — Ludwig V

HA!!! Hopefully that of somewhat less nonsense?

A concept is the meaning of a word. The meaning of a word is its use in propositions.
— Mww

I can't make sense of this. — Ludwig V

That part attributed to me, isn’t mine. Or isn’t mine in conjunction with what came before it. I’d like to deny I ever said it, but….crap, I forget stuff so easy these days. If you would be so kind, refresh me? Or, retract the attribution?
————-

….method always antecedes product.
— Mww

H'm. What precedes method? — Ludwig V

Intellectual capacity? For what it’s worth, metaphysics treats intellectual capacity in humans as a necessary condition, so with respect to formulation of methods regarding the possibility of empirical knowledge, such condition is reason.
—————

I think there's more to language than making good the deficiencies of images. — Ludwig V

Except there cannot be any. If an image is the precursor to all that follows, what is there to say there was something missing in it? When you perceive a thing, your perception is complete, to the extent that whatever your thoughts on that thing, they relate exactly what that which was given by the image. Which is why it is said the image just is the thought.

Now, there are errors possible in the system as a whole, just not here and now, at this time and procedural place of the method, insofar as we are at “thought”, which is a process we like to call understanding, but not yet at “rational thought”, which is the logical quality of the process, which we like to call judgement. And “we” intended as literary license, donchaknow.

This makes sense, in juxtaposition to the adage “a picture’s worth a thousand words”, in that it is possible an image cannot be sufficiently represented by words, simply because we don’t have a word or words to represent the sum of the conceptions contained in it. So it is that there is more to imagery than making good the deficiencies of language.

….isn't a painting (generally) a non-linguistic representation…. — wonderer1

I’d answer that the fact an object is named, makes explicit, e.g., a “painting”, has already represented a thought, or more likely an aggregate of them, without regard to the subject of it.

I’m guessing the inference should be that the Magritte is relevant to what I said. I’m just not sure which relevance, affirmation or negation, I would be looking for.

Little help??

The concepts we have are revealed (better, expressed) in our use of language - i.e. in verbal behaviour. — Ludwig V

Of course; not one of my contentions. Expression is objectified representation of conceptions, but not necessarily of rational thought, which is a certain form of representation of its own, re: propositional. All that says nothing about the origin of our conceptions, which has nothing whatsoever to do with the expression of them, but is always presupposed by it, and thereby legitimizes the death of the “meaning is use” nonsense, insofar as it is quite obviously the case we all, at one time or another and I wager more often than not, conceptualize….think rationally….without ever expressing even a part of it via “verbal behavior”.

Why do you assume that only vocal behaviour is linguistic? — Ludwig V

Where did I say or hint at that? All representation of thought in humans is linguistic, whether vocal or otherwise. It is thought itself, that is not, in that humans think in images, THAT being my major metaphysical contention from which all else follows.

Ever considered how hard it is to express an image? Why else would there even be a language, other than to both satisfy the necessity to express, and overcome the impossibility of expressing in mere imagery? And there’s evolution for ya, writ large.
————-

Nonetheless, both theory in general and logic in particulate depend on, and grew from, our way of life (if you believe Wittgenstein, and I do)….. — Ludwig V

……and I do not, not that it matters. In general, theory and logic depend on an intellect capable of constructing them. That to which each is directed, the relations in the former or the truths in the latter, may depend on our way of life, but method always antecedes product.

Right; got it. — Vera Mont

Yeaahhhhhno, you don’t. Not this time anyway.

Dogs (I'll stick to the concrete example, if I may) have concepts, but not language. — Ludwig V

A rather bold statement, is it not? Dogs, and other lesser animals sufficiently equipped with vocalizing physiology, seem to communicate with each other, albeit quite simply, which carries the implication of a merely instinctive simple skill. But it does not follow such skill necessarily involves conceptions, and, if conceptions as such are considered as abstract metaphysical objects, it becomes then a question of whether those lesser animals engage in metaphysical pursuits. And we end up kicking that can down a very VERY long road.

Their concepts are shown in their (non-verbal) actions - as are ours, if you recognize meaning as use. — Ludwig V

I do not so recognize. That which grounds the act of a dog howling and maybe even nipping your foot upon you stepping on his, has no more meaning than an altogether empirical measure of his relative well-being, which most of us are inclined to grant, rather than inviting non-empirical conceptual cause/effect relations he must form pursuant to his intellectual capacity, which some of us are not.
—————

….how would it ever be concluded lesser animals exhibit congruent reason?
— Mww

How it's normally done is: choose a dictionary definition of 'reason', rather than a philosophical stance. — Vera Mont

Nahhhh….I’m not doing that. Reason is already defined by whichever philosophical stance incorporates it, either by what it is, and/or by what it does.

There’s no need for experiment: there is only that reason as a human thinks of it, and thereby there is only that reason as belongs to intelligence of his kind. While it is justifiable to grant the possibility that lesser animals have a fundamental ground for their own intelligence, it must remain impossible to ascertain whether, and susceptible to palpable contradiction to merely assume, that ground in the lesser is in any way discernible by the higher. And with that, the notion of discursive rational thought, the construction of pure a priori logical relations as contained, theoretically, in the human intellect, falls by the wayside in those lesser, indiscernible, intellects.

Burthogge - “An Essay Upon Reason…. — Manuel

Interesting indeed. Thanks for it, “….and the Nature of Spirits” notwithstanding.

Hmmm……

Given the irreducible condition of human reason, re: the propensity for inquiring after impossible results, how would it ever be concluded lesser animals exhibit congruent reason? Not so much that lesser animals, e.g., inquire of infinite things, but rather, that they construct a conception antecedent to the inquiry, hence establishing its possibility.

Given that human reason is the only reason possible for a human to examine, insofar as such reason must be self-reflective necessarily, under what possible conditions would lesser animals be determinable as possessing it, or anything like it, insofar as the self-reflective necessity, is impossible?

Pretty silly, methinks: dog says to himself….humans don’t even know how their own rationality works, but they wonder nonetheless whether I have any. Best they are equipped to affirm is, they have an intelligence of their own, and for them to grant we dogs have an intelligence of our own, is at least not susceptible to such idle speculations, should one of them inquire why we don’t climb mountains just because one of them happens to be there, and we can. You know…..in between burying bones, destroying sofa cushions and whatnot.

(Sigh)

I think there's quite a lot of work both with you and Wayfarer to tease out "discovered" vs "constructed". — Ludwig V

Oh absolutely. Along with a whole bunch of mutually agreed presuppositions.

Still, in affirming what you say, it doesn’t make any difference to anything (important). Although, we would certainly be dealing with details.

I’m very much in the ‘discovered’ camp, although once we have the intelligence to discover, with it comes the ability to construct…. — Wayfarer

I’m putting myself in the ‘discovered’ camp regarding constructions, but for understanding, rather than logic. Hence, insofar as discovery may be by mere accident, with intelligence comes the ability to construct a relation of conceptions to such discoveries, which is cognition.

Whether or not conceptions belong to each other, is the purview of logic, which are constructs in accordance with principles obtained from the faculty of reason, and must be considered an intrinsic manifestation of the human intellect alone, hence, with respect to logic itself, I’m putting myself in the ‘constructed’ camp.

Gets pretty lonely over here sometimes, I must say. But that’s fine; I can turn “Dazed and Confused” up to eleven and nobody throws stuff at me.

On “what is the real nature of truth”:

“…. The old question with which people sought to push logicians into a corner, so that they must either have recourse to pitiful sophisms or confess their ignorance, and consequently the vanity of their whole art, is this: “What is truth?” The definition of the word truth, to wit, “the accordance of the cognition with its object,” is presupposed in the question; but we desire to be told, in the answer to it, what is the universal and secure criterion of the truth of every cognition?…”

Too bad folks couldn’t differentiate between that which may be true, and the “real nature of truth”, by whichever there is that may be true, is determinable as being so.
—————

One of the most enduring debates in philosophy (…) raises a fundamental question: is truth unique and universal (objectivism), or does it vary depending on perspectives and contexts (relativism)? — Cadet John Kervensley

First, it should be asked, what is the topic of the debate, by which the fundamental question whether truth is universal or relative, is raised?

Second, if the most enduring debate in philosophy isn’t about anything other than whether truth itself, as a stand-alone irreducible a priori logical condition, is universal or relative, then what could possibly ground the debate, insofar as the mere occurrence of the debate itself, presupposes the definition of its subject, and thereby the answer to the question, is already given?
————-

Is truth unique and universal, is a contradiction: if it is unique it cannot be universal, and if it is universal it cannot be unique.

If truth is relativistic, in that it depends on perspectives and contexts, such dependence is redundant, insofar as a perspective is a context, and conversely, a context is a perspective.

Under the supposition “truth is the accordance with a cognition with its object”, it is the case that truth….not that which is true, but that stand-alone a priori condition by which things are determinable as being true, is neither unique/universal, nor does it depend on context or perspective.

All of which gets flushed, unceremoniously, in the metaphysical crapper, if the definition of truth, as given, is denied. Cool part is….immediately upon denial, the definition sustains itself, albeit, in the negative.

Two cents; no more, no less.

I take it the issue bores you. — frank

How I tell left from right kinda does, but looking into the philosophical problem of what it means to be left or right, or the origin of the conceptions themselves, is interesting enough.

Dissimilar orientation: left is over here, right is over there. That’s how I tell one from the other.
— Mww

Are you laying something like an x-y axis over your visual field? — frank

From a non-philosophical perspective, I suppose something like that suffices. For any plurality of things, there is a necessary spatial relation inhering in all of them amongst themselves (the x-y axis notion), which is irrelevant with respect to a single thing, even though all quantitative conditions whatsoever, including singulars, necessarily relate to that which observes them (the visual field notion).

But you’re asking how do we tell left from right, in conjunction with an overlooked philosophical problem. That problem has nothing to do with reference frames represented by x-y coordinates in visual fields, which is merely a constructed explanatory device to enable us to tell left from right, but says nothing at all about what Kant 1768 calls “the inner ground”, re: the presupposition that
apprehension of relative spatial distinctions is given as intrinsic to human intelligence and is necessarily antecedent to the conceptual representation used to distinguish congruent or incongruent things.

But it is pretty clear this sort of philosophical problem doesn’t have much bearing on life in general, especially nowadays, when all the aforementioned philosophical proofs/claims/argumnts are laid waste.

If you’re interested, see https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Rogerio-Severo/publication/229153077_Three_Remarks_on_the_Interpretation_of_Kant_on_Incongruent_Counterparts/links/0912f5100284fc9f99000000/Three-Remarks-on-the-Interpretation-of-Kant-on-Incongruent-Counterparts.pdf

…..people have difficulty detecting philosophical problems…. — frank

….which presupposes there is one. Well, shucks, Mr. Bill, seeing as we’re all human, of course there is one. But which one is at issue here? It certainly can’t be as simple as telling one’s left from his right hand. Left is over here, right is over there and n’er the twain shall meet. What’s the big deal?

“….his (Kant’s) basic argument in the 1768 essay is that Leibniz’s view does not enable one to distinguish between a left handed glove and a right handed glove….”

That’s the basic philosophical problem, circa1768, and I’ll wager people have difficulty detecting it, because they haven’t a clue as to what the ground of the basic philosophical problem actually was, insofar as it requires knowing what Leibniz’s view was.

Leibniz 1679 and Wolff 1716 maintained similarity and equality as necessary and sufficient conditions for the congruency of things, re: enclosable in the same limits. Pre-Critical Kant maintained similarity and equality may be necessary but are not in themselves sufficient, in that orientation is also required to entail congruent counterparts. It follows that incongruent counterparts are those entailing similarity and equality of constituent structure but of dissimilar orientation.

Dissimilar orientation: left is over here, right is over there. That’s how I tell one from the other. Which is quite an empty consolation, altogether haphazard, which highlights the REAL philosophical problem: how to get from the absolute space implied by the equality/similarity conditions for the congruency of things, to the apprehension of spatial relations in and of themselves, irrespective of things in spaces, yet serves to “prove” the implications of “Leibniz's theorem” wrong?

Anyway….Kant’s 1768 proof was itself falsified by the Möbius strip and the Klein bottle, even though he himself had given up on it by 1770’s PhD dissertation and his Critical-era 1786 Metaphysics of Natural Science, in which was deconstructed the Newtonian notion of absolute space, and with it, by extension, the Leibniz/Wolff conditions.

As my ol’ buddy Paul Harvey used to say, now you know the rrresssssst of the story.

Objects (…) must have a way of being, independent of us, in virtue of which they exist independently of us. — Manuel

I see a green tree. — Manuel

What is wrong here? — Manuel

The entire raison d’etre of the first Critique, is to prove those two statements are contradictory.

I think your interpretation of Kant would be called a "deflationary" one? — Manuel

I’m ok with that, if “deflationary” means getting to the bottom of why those two statements are contradictory.

I thought context might help. Or not.

You may know Kant considers the “I” that thinks to be the ground of consciousness, just meant to provide that “….all my representations belong to me alone….”, such that there’s no chance for “…a varied and many-sided self as there are representations….”.

I bring this up because a distinction is required between the understanding that thinks, which is the same as taking for granted it can consider objects as things in themselves, and the “I” that thinks. Conceptions belong to understanding, they arise through spontaneity with respect to phenomena, and they also arise spontaneously even without the synthesis with phenomena, hence the intelligible object, and this is what it means for the understanding to think, the spontaneity of conceptions.

The “I”, on the other hand, that thinks, indicates only the synthesis of representations in consciousness, which means the conceptions represented are already given, which means understanding has already thought. This makes sense when we say, “I understand”, which makes explicit “I” as the transcendental ego representing the self, is not the same as the faculty of understanding, which is merely a logical functionary.

Here, too, when he says, “I can think whatever I please provided only that I do not contradict myself…”, it happens that when understanding considers the objects it thinks as intelligible existences, understanding is contradicting itself, by trying to apply a category, existence, to that which isn’t even available for it to be applied to, insofar as such availability requires sensibility, not mere thought.

Another way to think about it…..time. When we say, it just popped into my head, we’re talking about a sheer instant, that time when there was no considered object, and the next when there was. At that point of “there was”, there is no other cognitive constituency at work, there just hasn’t been any time for it.

Ok, so now let it be given the human cognitive system doesn’t stop working, there are no blank spots while conscious and otherwise naturally functional. So we got this time of a considered object, and if the system keeps on rolling along as it should, it will do what it supposed to do, which is to form a cognition of the thing it just took for granted as a considered object. So now let it also be given that the means for cognizing anything at all has certain requirements, and one of these requirements is synthesis of representations…..and we find there just aren’t any representations present in the system to be synthesized, at the time understanding merely considers an object in itself.

Kant speaks about "things in themselves" and these are the ground of appearances. We do not know how this grounding relation works….. — Manuel

.

The things-in-themselves are not the ground of appearances; if they were they would not be “in-themselves”. Things are the ground of appearances, hence the grounding relation of appearances is known to us. Cause and effect: for every sensation as effect there is necessarily a thing which appears, sufficient as a cause of it.

…..only that it must be so, otherwise objects would relations all the way down, and that's incoherent for us. — Manuel

Objects are relations all the way down, insofar as they remain intelligible for us. Given from the principle of cause and effect, it is only incoherent for us when we look for one of those without the other connected to it. So…don’t look there.
————

On the other hand, Kant speaks of noumena. — Manuel

Yes, he speaks of it, but only from pure understanding’s perspective….

“….the understanding (…) takes for granted that an object considered as a thing in itself must be capable of being thought (…) and is thereby led to hold the perfectly undetermined conception of an intelligible existence (…) for a determinate conception of an existence, which we can cognize in some way or other by means of the understanding….”

….this isn’t to say understanding is in the act of thinking an object, but is comparable to what we would simple call something “just popped into my mind”. This cannot be the ding an sich from which are given the things that appear to sensibility, it is a thing in itself because it comes to understanding as a singular whole thought. Obviously, if something (in or as itself) pops into your mind, it must be capable of being in your mind (in or as itself), which is the same as it must be capable of being a thought (in or as itself). So whatever happens to pop into your mind is at that exact point, being nothing more a perfectly undetermined conception which exists nowhere but in your own intelligence, but it is there, which kinda suckers understanding into thinking it can do something constructive with it. But….as we all know….understanding can’t cognize a damn thing on its own. So it is that understanding takes for granted it can think objects, which it can, and can do something with them, which it cannot. Those things are the intelligible existences, the undetermined conceptions, called ……waaaiiiitt for itttttttt…..noumena.

Positive or negative noumena don’t matter; each is noumena as far as understanding is concerned, and since understanding is the problem-child here, the exposition of its flawed or illegitimate functionality is paramount. Besides, positive or negative noumena have to do with intuition anyway, in which either there is a kind of it we don’t have, re: that kind which can develop its representations given merely intelligible existences, or, there is that kind we do have, re: that kind which develops its representations only because there are real existences.

These are my impressions and I might have misread many things myself.

You will not bait me..... — Manuel

I wouldn’t dare such a thing.

Thanks, and hopefully I got it right enough. I got ’s attention, so…..we’ll see.

I look forward to it, and the opportunity to be shown how something in what I wrote can be understood at least differently, and perhaps better.

I am under the impression that Kant believed thing in itself or noumena was required for phenomena to appear. — Gregory

No need to remind you the tread subject is Hoffman. With that out of the way, and admitting I know very little of Hoffman’s philosophy, I’ll just say this:

….Kant’s thought is the thing-in-itself was required for the things that appear;
….the thing of the thing-in-itself just is the thing that appears;
….phenomena are not that which appears, but are intuitive representations of things that appear.

….noumena are never even in the conversation, they do nothing, are nothing, and cannot ever be anything, to us. They were never meant to be the same, never meant to be understood as similar or identical, as the thing-in-itself, but were only ever to be treated in the same way, re: as some complete, whole yet entirely unknowable something, by the cognitive system from which they both arise.

…..Kant says things-in-themselves are real existent objects (Bxx), but never once says noumena are anything more than “…a thing which must be cogitated not as an object of sense, but solely through the pure understanding….” (B310).

Gottlob Schulze was wrong.

What comes to mind for me is that the argument of the Third Meditation could, or may HAVE been, used by Kant in defense of noumena's existence. The thing-in-itself lives in twilight but it has to be there…. — Gregory

Half-agreed, yes. Meditations 3, #14 and #15 forward a good, albeit generic, rendition of the subsequently infamous transcendental ding an sich. But it remains to be said, that has nothing whatsoever to do with the even more infamous transcendental noumena, for which, within Descartes’ notion of ideas and their relations to existent objects, and Kant’s of understanding and its relation to conceptions, there never was nor ever could be, any existence whatsoever.

Kant defended noumena as a valid conception in us, but that is not to defend the existence of any noumenal things for us. And for Kant, such existence cannot be defended, insofar as to do so contradicts the criteria by which existence of things is given.

Now, to be fair, he did say noumenal things cannot be said to be impossible, so maybe that can be considered a quasi-defense for an existence which was, for all intents and purposes, a mere conception. But to grant such existence in concreto destroys transcendental philosophy itself, which just might be why some folks go through the motions of attempting to prove it.

….God must exist. — Gregory

Yes, insofar as substance is that which requires nothing for its existence (F. P., #51), of which there is but one, re: God, hence all substance to humans then being that which depends on nothing for its existence in us, but still nonetheless requires dependence on God in order to even be in us in the first place.

But we cannot know of substance merely from its existential dependence, which I take you to mean by your “archetypes would be empty”, but only from an irreducible attribute by which at least the presence of a substance is known. He goes on to say “thought” is the irreducible attribute by which “mind” substance is known, extension the irreducible attribute that makes “thing” substance known (ibid, #53).

I favor this argument, or at least the ideas it provokes, insofar as it serves as the fundamental ground of subsequent transcendental idealist methodology, by which mind/body dualism in general became the established standard for epistemological metaphysics, and the ontology relative to existential dependence of substances being God, is logically negated within that standard, without contradicting its establishment.
(“Logically negated” here indicating not that it is impossible for God to be a causal condition of substance, but only that such causality is not necessarily the case. From here is developed the notion of pure practical reason, which in Kant is conditioned by freedom, and from THERE, is developed Fichte’s notion of freedom attributable over a much wider scale than mere thought, or substance of mind. And that development, finds no favor in me.)

Oh. Its Passions of the Soul, 1649. Maybe a liberty taken by a translator, that labels it as passions of the mind?

Have it your way.
————

Are you saying the self is a substance or not? — Gregory

Not. The schema of substance is the permanence of the real in time, and it is only by it that the succession and/or coexistence of phenomena can be determined. On the other hand, while it is possible to think “self”, it is not and can never be phenomenon, and merely represents the permanence of the unchangeable in all our conceptions, rather than the relation in time of those, to each other, which is called cognition.

Descartes went to relatively great lengths to describe what kind of substance “mind” was, initial premise being, matter is definitely substance so if mind is very different from the matter of the body, it must be that mind a very different substance**. Those who came later made it clear that if substance is this it cannot be that, and while ol’ Rene was close enough in what “mind” does, he never quite let it be known how it does what it does, which, obviously, relates precisely to what it is, or at the very least, to what it is conceived as being.
(** F.P., 1., #51- 64, 1644)

It seems to me consciousness is not a quality — AmadeusD

Never said it was; qualitative measure belongs to or describes the state of the subject, and represents not that he is conscious of uniting all his representations under one conception, but that the unity is possible in him. In effect, in Kant, consciousness is the precursor to the synthesis of conceptions in a judgement; in order for that synthesis to be possible, there must be that by which synthesis itself is possible, and that resides in the self, as opposed to judgement which belongs to understanding, as unity between the self and all representations of which the self is conscious. And it is quality not quantity, because the number of representations is irrelevant with respect to the “conjunction” of any one of them with any other, hence the self’s consciousness of it, which just is the quality of his state.

Or not. Take your pick.

However, if you think Kant coukd have refuted Fichte, it would be interesting to see how. — Gregory

I didn’t say anything about refutation; I said I could argue one against the other, which is easy because they go in different directions from a common transcendental origin.

I’m not a fan of emergent consciousness. It is enough, that consciousness is nothing more than the qualitative state of the human subject. Parsimony: be as simple as possible without being so simple further explanation invites self-contradiction.

Here is my commentary….. — Gregory

….and quite well done, I must say. I don’t feel it is my place to argue your position, even while I wouldn’t have any problem at all arguing Kant against Fichte. Which isn’t that big a deal; each successor wants more from his own philosophy than on whomever’s it is based, and a third-party arbiter can pick out the differences.

He wanted to establish a very fact upon which all philosophy could be based. Was this just the cogito? — Gregory

Kant, positing the “I” that thinks as a transcendental idea, contradicts himself by attempting to make the cogito a fact; thus, it must remain a mere logically necessary condition in a speculative metaphysical philosophy.

Do you think Fichte was successful in making the cogito a fact?

….the metaphysical foundations of science has him constructing nature from intelligence…. — Gregory

He constructs an understanding of Nature in accordance with a specific kind of intelligence. I don’t understand that project as “constructing” intelligibility, when such must already be given in order for an intelligence of any kind to fathom anything at all from that to which it is directed.

There has to be something "out there" that wasn't phenomenal or spiritual from which intelligence can bounce its intuitions off of. — Gregory

Agree, and from that arises the notion that, no matter what that something out there happens to be, its intelligibility must given in order for a judgement to be determinable with respect to it. If a thing is intelligible in us as this or that thing, its intelligibility as becoming this or that must already inhere in the thing as a condition of it. That it is a thing is conditioned by its extension in space; that it is this or that thing is conditioned by its intelligibility.

The "I" posits itself. Why? For the reason that it can. It's a strange loop. — Gregory

Yeah, I suppose. “Strange loop” a euphemism for the intrinsic circularity of pure reason herself, insofar as it is necessarily the clandestine use of reason by which reason becomes comprehensible enough to express as a speculative intellectual system. That there is that which thinks, is itself a thought.

Thanks for bringing up Fichte in juxtaposition to Kant, but I still don’t see the constructing of intelligibility in either of them. Not that there it isn’t there, just that I’m not familiar with it as such.

The other problem is that of the "construction" of intelligibility…. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yeah, I suppose that’s my problem here: the idea of “constructing” intelligibility, that intelligibility is something constructed. I find nothing to suggest Kant’s philosophy, or, indeed anyone else’s, is about that, and in particular following from it, this notion of constructing the intelligibility of things.

What's to say all minds don't construct radically different worlds? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Nothing at all; sometimes a mind does create….determine….a radically different world. Subsequently, if enough other minds come to the same judgement, that radically different world comes to be. Like….stop using leeches in medicine; let’s wipe out indigenous cultures in order to satisfy some conceived greater need.

But we are supposedly constructing all that understanding? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Understanding is a merely speculative faculty of human intelligence, which is itself that which constructs. The use of personal pronouns helps to facilitate whatever conversations arise from intelligence, but intelligence in and of itself, in its natural activity, has no use for them.

….what is contained in the construction cannot be said to be present in what it is constructed from. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Correct. From a philosophical point of view, human intelligence is a speculative procedural system, in that the end (that which is contained in the construction, re: experience/knowledge) is not present in the means, or, that which the ends are constructed from (phenomenal and conceptual representations).
————-

The problem comes up only when it is assumed that it is impossible to see the world as it "really is," because such knowledge would require "knowing the world without a mind." — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes, such an assumption would be more than a problem; it would be an irrational venture into absurdity. Thankfully, no one of sufficient reason has ever been guilty of it.

It remains conclusive, that is impossible to see….sense, intuit, comprehend, cognize, judge, experience….the world as it really is, but not because of the absence of a mind, but merely because that which does all that stuff, re: theoretical reason, is not part of what that stuff is done to, re: existential Nature.
————

how exactly do you check that experience corresponds to what is outside experience? — Count Timothy von Icarus

That isn’t how it works. The checking, which is not the construction but presupposes it necessarily, is done by the congruency of one experience with another antecedent to it.

Fun stuff, donchathink?

The idea of "constructing" seems unobjectionable if it is kept in mind that the intelligibility of things is not being constructed out of the unintelligible, but of course the exact opposite is true for Kant's usage. — Count Timothy von Icarus

So the idea of construction in Kant’s usage becomes objectionable because the intelligibility of things is constructed out of the unintelligible?

Is it your intention that your readers should understand you to mean Kantian speculative metaphysics in general, and transcendental idealism in particular, is unintelligible, thereby making his idea of “constructing” objectionable, insofar as Kant’s idea of constructing is predicated on both of those philosophies?

Can possibilities really be reduced to zero?
— Mww

I take it what it means is that prior to measurement there is the superposition described in terms of the wave function but the moment a measurement is registered then all possibilities other than the one describing that specific outcome are now zero. — Wayfarer

Ahhh…yes, got it. (Kinda figured that’s what you meant): All OTHER possibilities reduce to zero. If all possibilities reduce to zero there is no outcome, hence nothing to describe, which is a contradiction to the act of measurement.
————-

It's clearly descended from Kantian philosophy. — Wayfarer

Agreed, clearly. But still, just as I favor probability over possibility, so too I favor determined over created. To say we create, especially with respect to that which is regulated by empirical principles, suggests more power in us than we possess.

I think the implications take the theory a satisfying distance away from Kantianism. — Bodhy

(2017)
“….Implications: Our results contribute to an understanding of the world in which neither objects nor spacetime are observer-independent….”

(1787)
“….It is therefore from the human point of view only that we can speak of space, extended objects, etc. If we depart from the subjective condition, under which alone we can obtain external intuition, or, in other words, by means of which we are affected by objects, the representation of space has no meaning whatsoever.…”


“…. in general, (…) space is not a form which belongs as a property to things; but that objects in space are quite unknown to us, and what we call outward objects**, are nothing else but mere representations of our sensibility, whose form is space, but whose real correlate, the thing in itself, is not known by means of these representations, nor ever can be, but respecting which, in experience, no inquiry is ever made.…”
(**re: immediately aforementioned objects in space)
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Now, granting that cherry-picking in general is beneath the dignity of proper philosophy, a valid counterargument is still possible for any given stated position. So it is that a “satisfying distance” proposed by one, can be judged as no meaningful distance at all, judged by another.

If you’d said the means by which Hoffman, et al arrives at the conclusions supporting their theory is a satisfying distance from Kantianism, you’d have been quite right.

Just sayin’, and of no particular import.

Yep. Even if the permanent substance of an object remains, the experience of it, which for us is the same as knowledge about it, in separate times and conditions, is merely possible.

Simply put, the permanence of substance can never justify the permanence of knowledge. From which follows as a matter of logical necessity…..that I put some thing someplace at a time is not in itself sufficient for my knowledge of it at any other time.
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Added later…..cuz I’m old and sometimes forget what I meant to do:

Can possibilities really be reduced to zero? Seems like that would be the same as there being zero possibilities, which kinda makes experimental results rather suspicious.

It is the observation that reduces all the possibilities to zero…. — Wayfarer

To….one?

Philosophy 101 — Wayfarer

Indeed. If that were not the case, it might actually be impossible to explain how we make mistakes, insofar as given that we did in fact all see…..sense, understand, cognize, experience, and whatnot…..the external world as it really is, there shouldn’t even be any.

……most idealists would say there is an objective world. — Tom Storm

Dunno about most, but the ones that write books I own just say there are objects, the rest is either given through inference, or superfluous.

Isn't the key issue what is the nature of the world we have access to and think we know? — Tom Storm

KEY issue? I don’t think the nature of the world is key; it is the nature of particular things, that is, insofar as they are the constituency of our empirical knowledge. And I should hope no one thinks he knows the world, it being just some general concept used to denote the containment of all things, the nature of which, other than the schemata subsumed under it, is irrelevant to us.

If you meant that consciousness is an 'unifying' activity, in a sense yes, I agree. — boundless

I didn’t mean that; I said consciousness is a capacity, understood, in accordance with a particular methodological system, as a necessary condition of intelligent agency. That being given, it can be deduced consciousness doesn’t unify; it is that under which unity occurs.

Not claiming a truth here, only a logic validated in a theoretical procedure.

….it is notoriously difficult to define what is most immediate to us — boundless

Odd, innit. That with which we are most familiar….our own inner workings, whatever they may be…. is the very thing we know the least about.

With respect to specificity, I rather think, assuming an interest in such matters despite the absence of sufficient empirical facts from the scientific method proper, little remains but to fall back on logical constructions, the certainty, hence the explanatory value, of which is our own responsibility.