Yes! Please! What kinds of cat-petting experiences are clearly conscious and which unconscious? Let's play... — bongo fury

If you are petting a cat right now, that's clearly a conscious experience. If you remember petting a cat, that memory is also a conscious experience, which may or may not be based on another conscious experience. If you remember dreaming about petting a cat, that's a conscious experience that may or may not be based on another conscious experience, or possibly on some form of unconscious experience, if dreams are actually experience, which I think is dubious.

Trump urged the Ukrainian president to work with Guilliani , who was being facilitated by the US State Dept. in his efforts — NOS4A2

Last I checked, Guiliani was a private individual and Trump's lawyer. Whatever the position of the US State Dept. (part of the executive branch), his investigation is a private matter.

Then tell me, which branch of the government has the most power in the field of international relations? — NOS4A2

The executive. Under the doctrine of separation of powers, it is not supposed to use this power to assume judicial functions

The point about 'neuroscience' is that it tends to deflate 'thinking' as an epiphenomenon of 'neural activity'. We resent this, of course, but we cannot argue with some of the empirical research on which it is based. And it is that empiricism which sets it apart from other iconoclastic movements. — fresco

People do argue with it, though. Where do you take the certainty that they must all be wrong from?

I would have thought it constitutive (or required) for being "very clear what we refer to". For being able to show examples of what we do and don't refer to. Which would be explaining and defining it, I would have thought. Ideally, as I say, finding a dividing line between what we do and don't refer to by the term.

Or, failing that, but still usefully, finding a common ground of clear cases and clear non-cases, and working from there. — bongo fury

The problem is that conscious experience is so basic that there is no way to give examples. If I gave you an example, like petting a cat, that example would only exist within your conscious experience. Everything I could refer to would be a conscious experience.

But if what I suggest is of no interest to you, I would be curious anyway to know how you reconcile the two claims. — bongo fury

I don't see how these claims require reconciliation. Is an explanation using language constitutive for knowing what something is?

We might all know when we are thinking, but it doesn't follow that we know what thoughts are. Similarly, we know when we are digesting food, but that does not entail that we understand the process of digestion. — Janus

But thinking is the process of thinking. We don't know where the thoughts we experience as our thoughts ultimately come from, but we do know what a thought is, when we have one, and how one thought leads to another etc.

The claim that 'thought is not a behavior' implies that 'being animate' is not a necessary condition for thought. 'Thought involves 'brain activity' with or without overt bodily movement. In fact from the pov of 'embodied cognition' (Varela et al) both brain and body are both essential tor 'thought'.
The alternative is to advocate dualism. — fresco

This all seems to presuppose materialism, that is that thought is a product of brain and body. But it's also possible that brains and bodies are representations of thought that only exist in specific kinds of thoughts. The actual substrate of thoughts might be something entirely different.

I disagree. We 'know' what 'a behavior X' is, if we understand the function of X, and the essential components of X which contribute to that function. I suggest this is not the case for 'thought'. — fresco

Thought is not a behaviour. Do you claim that you do not know what thoughts are? Your requirements for "knowing" seem to presuppose materialism, in that everything has a "function" and "components".

It seems to me prudent to want to investigate the possible corruption of the US government — NOS4A2

I don't know if this is a thing where you live, but the US Constitution establishes the "separation of powers" as a core principle. You might want to read up on that.

Again, you miss the point. What we call 'conscious experience' tends to be a nebulous hotchpotch involving language, images, and sense data. In our culture we distinguish it from 'dreams' and 'hallucinations', and neuroscience throws some light on the bases for those distinctions. The phrase 'gives rise to' is as premature as the question 'what gives rise to disease' asked in medieval times, since the concept of 'disease' was as nebulous then, as 'conscious experience' is now.

Now there are some, including myself, who are tempted by the conundrum, 'how can thinking think about itself ?', but that assumes we know, what both 'thought' and 'knowing' mean. Neurophilosophy throws those questions back at us. — fresco

I don't think there is anything nebulous about "conscious experience". It's very clear what we refer to when we use that term. It's just difficlut to explain or define it using language. The same is true for "thought". We all know what thoughts are, it's just difficult to define using language. It's not that consciousness or thoughts are nebulous. It's the language talking about them that is nebulous.

"Knowing" might be different, because knowing is indeed a bit of a nebulous thing, floating around with "belief" and "guesses". But it's important not to confuse nebulous language with nebulous subjects.

Really? The 'powerful lineages' are easy to hold to account in Christian/religious cultures? — Isaac

I did not say that.

So now it's become an actual legal document we're supposedly referring to. — Isaac

I did not say that either.

You do realise this whole discussion started with a claim that there was no barrier to inhumane treatment in non-Christian cultures, now we're talking about the fact that there was no written legal document. — Isaac

No, I don't realize that. Rather, it looks to me it's you, and only you, who keeps insisting that this is what we all must mean, for whatever reason. Despite being told numerous times that this is not what I am saying, you still keep strawmanning me.

That's a far cry from what you started out saying. — Isaac

What I started out saying was this:

Well not necessarily only christian social philosophy, but in general most ideas of inalienable rights and equality are, at least historically, connected to religious ideas. Religious law was the first real check on arbitrary use of power.

Note that I said "historically connected", which was meant to specify that this was not necessarily how things had to happen, or that a similar system could not have happened any other way. Only that, historically, this is how it did happen.

Correct.
As explained here, empathy is what establishes what is moral and what is immoral. — Galuchat

In what sense can empathy be said to be objective?

Events are as much fact as objects are.
The holocaust is an example of what was an immoral fact. — Galuchat

If it's an immoral fact, then there must be some facts that are moral and some that are immoral. That is, immorality needs to be established in addition to the facts. Therefore, it's not sufficient to just establish the factual nature of an event to establish immorality.

Given that establishing what is and is not a fact is all that empirical science is capable of, what other objective science do we apply?

I would think that we look for an objective standard in order to justify applying that standard to others. — JosephS

Is this because we use "objective" to mean an impartial or fair assessment? Objectivity as the absence of undue personal bias? But that applies to people and the way they make assessments/decisions. It doesn't seem to apply to a body of rules.

We can say empirical science is objective insofar as it describes the relations between objects. It allows us to make accurate predictions, which is only possible if it at least describes the relations between phenomena objectively, which here means as they really are

But I don't think many people suppose there is a moral object floating around somewhere that we can describe.

Right, well in that case you'd need some evidence that in the famously egalitarian hunter-gatherer tribes, the 'chief' regularly abuses his/her power for arbitrary reasons. — Isaac

It's not really possible to argue based on how "regular" an "abuse" of power is, because all tribal societies already have religion. So we cannot make comparisons. What we can say is that, obviously, tribes have no judiciary. Conflict resolution is personal in tribal societies. That means that more powerful lineages are more difficult to hold accountable.

What we can also do is compare the trajectories societies took towards modernity and compare them. If we do that, we notice that regions with a strong religious establishment also have a tradition of secular rule that is, at least in theory, subordinate to a religious authority. In China, such a subordination never existed. This corresponds with a notion of "rule of law" in modern society, which again is much weaker in China.

If you want to dismiss this idea, fine. I am not going to be able to give you convincing evidence, because I am no anthropologist, and these are just things I remember from books I read, that seemed convincing to me.

What you wrote doesn't even pertain to the first 200,000 years of human culture, so no, it is not evidence of the 'almost always' correlation you're claiming. — Isaac

Right, but in those first 200.000 years, there was, so far as we know, no such thing as a declaration of universal human rights.

I don't understand what point you're making here. Your argument is that there can be arbitrary abuse of power. In an egalitarian society (one on which power is distributed equally), who is it that the abuse of power is forcing? — Isaac

Tribal societies are relatively egalitarian. But there are nevertheless more powerful and less powerful lineages and groups in a tribe.

But I don't really want to make an argument about the functioning of tribal society. What I am saying is that it seems to me that religious authority was an important ingredient for the development of western individualism.

What there could be interpreted any other way than to suggest that people could do any action 'use of force' etc in the absence of religious laws? — Isaac

Now I get it. I was referring not to individual use of force, but use of force by the tribal community, the chief, the king, the state etc. Something we might call "political power". I wasn't referring to just any and all behaviour. Sorry if that wasn't clear.

What I read when I take a step back is three people furiously back-peddling from blatantly lazy colonialist ideas about the 'backward natives' by gradually refining their arguments to increasingly specific correlations. What started off as suggesting that people could arbitrarily apply power before religion, has now become "well, tribes don't have a written bill of rights like we do". — Isaac

In that case, your condescending attitude is impairing your reading comprehension.

That's not evidence, it's stuff you reckon. evidence is the theory of experts in the field based on empirical study. — Isaac

Evidence is whatever the state of affairs is. Theories are based on evidence, they are not themselves evidence. The statements of experts are likewise evidence. Are you claiming that what I wrote is factually wrong?

How do you marry 'egalitarian society' with one in which the strong have no checks as to the arbitrary application of force over the weak? — Isaac

Egalitarian refers to the relative distribution of power and resources. Not to the limits on the application of said power and resources.

Your claim is that moral law is necessarily contained within religious law. — Isaac

No, it's not. You're welcome to provide evidence for this claim, if you have it.

There are now three people in this thread who you misrepresent. I suggest you take a step back and look at what was actually written.

You should have some evidence for this to hand. — Isaac

I just gave you a bunch of evidence. What's wrong with that?

Theories by actual experts (I know, unpopular round here) as to how Hunter-Gatherers maintained their egalitarian societies broadly fall into three camps. Richard Lee's and Christopher Boehm's concept of 'reverse dominance' where the majority act in unison to diminish even the slightest air of superiority a single individual might have, and thereby socially 'nipping dominance in the bud'. Then there's Peter Gray's Ideas about childhood freedom to play allowing a greater social exploration, or Elizabeth Thomas's ideas about the effect of indulgent parenting providing emotional support missing in later cultures. None mention religion even once. — Isaac

Interesting, but I did not argue that religion was necessary to "maintain an egalitarian hunter-gatherer society". I was talking about how, historically, religious rules are the precursors of modern inalienable rights.

But this requires that we ascribe to eliminative materialism, which is a metaphysical position that requires justification.

This is the bit I'm asking you for evidence for. That such rules are usually religious. — Isaac

I am not an anthropologist. But you can probably look at every culture on earth and find strong, usually conceptually unalterable, social rules based on religion. Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, Judaism, the ancestor worship of China or various Micronesian tribes. All these contain such social rules. Is that somehow not evidence?

If you want to say that this correlation does not amount to causation, you need to show examples of secular unalterable rules forming.

You said "Religious law was the first real check on arbitrary use of power" ie, before religious law there was arbitrary use of power, after it less . That's moral development. — Isaac

It is social and political development. I think calling it "moral development" implies something about the people living in a system that is not warranted.

It's the same argument that justifies missionaries going into tribal areas and wiping out their culture (and more often than not their actual population with foreign disease) but I suppose that's nothing to worry about too much if they were all backward savages anyway. — Isaac

I think it's hard to argue that there are different levels of social, political and economic development around the world. Stating this does not necessarily imply a value judgement. Modern tribal societies are not somehow stuck in the past. But they are more "basal" in that they did not develop more complex forms of social, political and economic systems.

If someone thinks that justifies wiping out their cultures, that is a problem with their moral development.

I'll ask you the same as I asked Wayfarer then. What evidence are you basing this assertion on?

You said "most ideas of inalienable rights and equality are, at least historically, connected to religious ideas. Religious law was the first real check on arbitrary use of power." So provide me with the anthropological evidence you're using to suggest that there is frequent abuse of power and no equality in tribal societies, or that where you find these sentiments, they are enforced by religion. — Isaac

Tribal societies are relatively egalitarian, and don't have large concentrations of power. There isn't much power to coerce that could be abused. Tribal societies also all already have religion. But since there is no judiciary and no other strong checks on "executive" power, what power there is can be arbitrarily applied, unless there are strong social rules against this. And such rules are usually religious. I am not aware of any secular structure of such rules in a tribal society.

You can compare China, India and Europe and see that of the three, China has the least organized religion. It also has no history of a "higher order" of law until contact with western civilization. Chinese "legalism" held that power rests only in the emperor, with no external limits. As a result, China's early states were extremely powerful and totalitarian.

Meanwhile, in both Europe and India, a strong religious establishment forced local rulers to compromise. Failure to compromise with religious authorities could mean a loss of legitimacy, as the investiture controversy illustrates. This lays the groundwork for the power of rulers to be limited in principle. And the effects are still visible when we compare the political situation in China, India and Europe.

It is clearly associated with the Christian doctrine that Christ died for all mankind. — Wayfarer

But correlation is not causation. There are other factors unique to western Europe.

Previous cultures had no such ideal, society was rigidly stratified. — Wayfarer

The stratification of society differed throughout history. In general, more complex societies tended to be more stratified. Basal Tribal societies are relatively egalitarian. I find it difficult to see much difference in the stratification until premodern times.

The whole concept of human rights as developed in liberal political philosophy was unarguably a product of the Christian west; other cultures don’t necessarily share it, the PRC doesn’t have such a concept to this day. — Wayfarer

The PRC is not the best comparison though, because the social and religious history of China is very different not just from that of Europe. The specifics of European feudalism and the strength of the Catholic Church also played a role in making western Europe significantly more individualistic than the rest of the world.

To make the 'moral development' argument is to implicitly condone the idea that those less 'well-developed' are less moral. — Isaac

When did I ever speak about development?

The only alternative is to include in your definition of 'religious law' any and all tribal spiritual beliefs — Isaac

That was indeed the point.

which basically reduces to the original position of ethical naturalism you raised the point in opposition to - that all humans have a moral sense simply by virtue of being human. — Isaac

Obviously all humans have a "moral sense", or else morals wouldn't ever form. The point was that religious rules were an important step in regulating society. This is especially true for ideas like inalienable human rights, since this implies an absolute limit to the use of force. Historically, such limits to power were almost always religious.

The racism comes from the creation of a 'club' based on a white-western model. Graciously 'allowing' other cultures into that club on the sole basis that they're similar does nothing to diminish the extent to which the myth of the brutal savage is used to justify the systematic extinction of tribal cultures. — Isaac

Ok, but this seems completely unrelated to anything I wrote.

I think it is obvious that an external world exists. I don't think that Kant's proof or Moore's proof or any other proof has been persuasive so far and so I'm preparing a paper for a philosophy journal on a new proof of the external world. — Ron Cram

So it seems obvious, but at the same time eludes strict proof. It seems to me like Hume's scepticism is thereby validated.

Hume was not the first to bring up the problem of induction. Due to his view that the external world is not provable, Hume greatly overstates the problem of induction. Can you think of anything Hume wrote that is both original and valuable? — Ron Cram

It's difficult to vouch for the originality of anything in philosophy. Hume's ideas were original enough to contemporaries to influence later philosophies. His scepticism is valuable to get people to rethink things that seem obvious, particularly people who are new to philosophy, since Hume is relatively easy to read. I also think his realization that certain basic concepts, like causality, can not be gleaned by observation is important.

Where do you people get this kind of bullshit from. Have you done any kind of historical or anthropological research at all before spewing this covertly racist bile?

The white-western man comes to save the fuzxy-wuzzies from their barbaric savagery...please! — Isaac

What does this have to do with racism? Religious law was important in all societies around the globe. The specific paths it took from there differed.

Christianity does have a message of universal equality that is absent from, say, Hinduism. It's difficult to say how operative this message was at any point in history, since there are so many factors influencing social norms.

When you put a regular man at the top of all the resources, the absolute nature of power corrupts absolutely. — PhilCF

And philosophers are not regular men?

Ask 1000 people off the street if they want war... you'll get 999 NOs - and yet we live in a Democracy. — PhilCF

This is a nice fiction, but it's not true. Wars have been fought with a broad majority supporting them. People are not categorically opposed to violence.

His idea that our observations are just in our mind and that we cannot know if objects external to our mind exist or if they exist when we are not looking at them is completely irrational and leads to absurdities. — Ron Cram

So, if you think it's absurd that our observations are just in our minds, where do you think they are?

That there is an observer in all our observations that we need to consider is the major epistemological advance that Hume's philosophy caused. He at least reintroduced the problem of induction.

I'm trying to understand is whether we can say 'thou shalt not kill' is 'good' because in the environments we're familiar with those groups that failed to adopt this precept were outcompeted and either withered or went extinct. — JosephS

Sure, we can say that, but we'd be applying the very specific definition of "good" you have just outlined. We need to first define "good" before we can answer the question of what then fulfills these criteria.

Can this sense of 'good' as correlative of group success (within certain environments) be the basis for an 'objective' moral good? — JosephS

It would be an objective measure, at the least. The problem is how we get from an objective descriptive fact to an objective normative rule.

Honestly the search for "objectivity" in moral philosophy is kinda weird. What would it even mean for some moral rule to be "objective"?

The essay says that ‘everyone accepts’ that individuals are entitled to humane treatment - but I think it originates with Christian social philosophy. — Wayfarer

Well not necessarily only christian social philosophy, but in general most ideas of inalienable rights and equality are, at least historically, connected to religious ideas. Religious law was the first real check on arbitrary use of power.

No, but we are responsible for preventing harm to others by said human beings if we can do so, even if it requires lying to them. This trumps any categorical imperative, because preventing harm is more important than holding to a principle. — Marchesk

According to the principle that preventing harm is the most important thing. But, as you note, we can disagree about how important different principles are. This isn't the thread for a discussion of deontology vs consequentialism though.

Consent being binding for a later version of yourself that is then unable to form a legally binding will is not unusual. You can make binding preparations for your care while you are still of sound mind, and these will stay in effect.

The question is then whether or not active euthanasia warrants special consideration. It's already common practice for patients to make arrangements for passive euthanasia, like turning off life-saving machinery. So what really ends up making the difference can only be the active part. But, if we allow active euthanasia in general, why does it matter whether the patient is unconscious, conscious but compliant, or conscious and not compliant?

Presumably, the person wishing for euthanasia did so precisely to avoid becoming the demented self that was ultimately killed.

How does that work? An earlier publication referencing a later publication? — Michael

Who knows. Those were legal commentaries, so a lot of different authors work on them, and they get overhauled every couple of years. It's possible there was originally a source, but someone dropped it, thinking it was superfluous since all other commentaries said the same thing, so why not quote them. It's also possible someone just completely misunderstood the one article that was actually cited and everyone else just copied the outcome, citing each other.

EU has only tolerated a pro-integration federalist discourse and paints anything else as "nationalist". — ssu

The thing is, there has been, and still is, very little substantive criticism of the EU. Much of what is touted as "criticism" is, in fact, either nationalism or straight up lies. A sizeable portion of the people who voted for Brexit probably have nationalistic ideas. Just like a lot of the people who voted for Trump do agree with his stances on race, gender and nationalism.

The truth about the EU is that a lot of it's faults, like the power of the commission and the relative lack of democratic legitimacy, exist because they work in favour of the national governments. They give those governments the power to push through unpopular legislation, with the added benefit of being able to later blame the EU and lament it's faults.

How do you view this? If a democracy is supposed to have the goal of establishing justice, where does it go wrong? — frank

If we look at the working of the judiciary specifically, I don't think whether or not verdicts are just is strongly connected to democracy as such. It's more a question of the self-image and self-policing of the judiciary.

If we look at legislative question, I think the answer is broadly that a democracy is always in tension with non-democratic sources of power. If you think about it, militaries technically have the ability to impose their will on the civilian government pretty much everywhere. That they don't exercise this power is mostly down to, again, self-image. Most generals in, say, the US military wouldn't dream of launching a military coup, and they know that if they did, they cannot rely on their officers and soldiers following orders.

Comparable "taboos" don't exist with regards to economic power, so the holders of economic power are much less constrained in using it for their benefit. Democracies nevertheless have the advantage that it is much harder to ignore the interests in of the population at large compared to other systems. Even the most despotic ruler will be overthrown eventually, but being able to vote means the government needs to be a lot more sensitive to public opinion. If the population has a strong sense solidarity, this means that all interests will end up being somewhat protected.

So you're probably right about this not being the place to re-hash the moral relativism argument, but the above is the interesting part with regard to this thread. Why are you drawing a limit to rationality? Whatever it is (which I obviously don't agree with) that you think rationality can use to determine values, why does it suddenly go away when determining something like the above. — Isaac

What I mean is more like "grey areas". Rationality doesn't go away, but there is a difference between those rules that are necessary for "just" society and those rules which can be decided either way. Essentially, there are two layers of normative questions: There are personal morals, which affect every single decision, though it's not necessarily always possible to compute the answer. And then there is social morals, or law, which only compirses those rules which are indispensable to protect people's ability to follow their personal morals.

If so, then how are you judging where rationality becomes too imprecise. I always considered rationality to be best in precise situations and worse when applied to too large a scale (too many factors to be reasonably considered). You seem to be saying the opposite? That when it comes to really broad matters like human rights we can rationally determine the way forward, but for something precise like the relative value of risk to life vs loss of property, its becomes useless. — Isaac

Not exactly, but I realize I am not being terribly clear hear, and I may also be contradicting myself occaisonally. These are rough ideas that I have that I need to think about, or discuss, more. You are right that "large scale" problems are more difficult to think through, but they also allow more abstraction. It's relatively easy to argue that we should respect all beings who appear to be sentient in a way comparable to humans. We don't need to bother with the peculiarities of the beings, since reciprocal respect seems the best approach either way.

But when we get to more peculiar questions like what this means for the distribution of wealth an resources, it gets a lot more complicated, and our argumentative chains get longer and longer. This may be related to whether or not you approach this topic "top down" or "bottom up", that is whether you start with a social or an individualistic approach.

So by what measure are they correct then, if not democratic agreement? — Isaac

Reason, for example. I see that this is not your position, but you're certainly aware that plenty of philosophers argued that there are truths about law, morality etc.

I don't think this is the thread to go into detail on that argument though.

I'm not seeing the difference at all. If we were to agree on the relative value of the competing harms (say loss of money vs risk to life) then it would absolutely be an empirical matter to determine which strategy yielded the most gain in one for the least loss in the other. — Isaac

But we'd still need a value judgement to determine how much loss of money equals how much risk to life.

I personally don't agree that we can rationally work out the relative values, but that's the bit you seem sure we can, so I'm failing to see why it isn't just a matter of empirical fact which strategy is best from there on. — Isaac

Well, I believe that human minds are similar enough to work some things out rationally. I don't believe that rationality is precise enough to offer answers to all legal value judgements, at least not given current cognitive capacities.

And there are questions which seem to have no connection to rationality at all, like which side of the road to drive on. Questions of organisation, essentially.

I think you're seeing justice as the purpose of government (or at least part of the purpose?) That's a fascinating perspective and it's a little alien to me. Like Lincoln, I think injustice is just part of life. He believed that democracy is a tool to nurture a kind of awakening to human potential. — frank

I think you could call it "Justice", yes. The purpose of the government is to create a "state of justice", which allows individuals to practice their freedom, which could also be described as awakening their potential.

But my background is in law, which might bias my thinking.

What I am thinking of when I refer to principles is things like the rule of law, fundamental human, political and social rights. Those are things that are not subject to negotiation.

On the other hand, while we may all agree that we should make automobile traffic as safe as possible, there is a point at which the costs of additional safety will outweigh the benefits. Where exactly that point is cannot be practically determined by argument alone. It's a question that should be decided by vote.

In a so-called democracy, the option exists to invent new laws that will make the survival of society itself, impossible. — alcontali

That option exists in every government that is run by people. Historically, plenty of societies made decisions that ended up being severely detrimental to them. The vast majority of those were not democracies.

If it is some sort of goal we reach toward, why should we be reaching for it?

If it's merely a tool (I think it is), what truly is the goal? — frank

Can your question be reformulated as: Is democracy a tool to arrive at correct/rational/just laws or are correct/rational/just laws those laws which have been passed by a democracy?

I think It's both. For general principles, democracy is a tool to establish those principles as best as posisble. The correct principles being determined by philosophy/rationality. But, when we get to the details of exactly how to implement these principles, democracy is an end in and of itself, as it is up to the people being governed to decide these details.

So if I am slave to my instincts, I am less free than if I am a slave to my other considerations, which have nothing to do with the embetterment of society as an end? — god must be atheist

Yes.

Because they are not imposed by ME, I am just a medium via which Kant influences me to self-impose restrictions. Without Kant, I would be void of the self-imposed restrictions suggested by Kant, which satisfy Kantian parameters. — god must be atheist

That's absurd though. Kant is not some deity brainwashing you through time and space. If you read Kant's arguments, you either find them convincing or you don't. If you find them convincing, it's you who makes that assessment, and you who decides to apply Kant's system.

You can act against conditioned response. But you can't act against natural instincts. — god must be atheist

I used instinct as a shorthand. I am not sure Kant uses the word. What is meant is resisting said conditioned responses, among other things, in favour of a deliberative process which Kant calls rationality.

When saying why can't object A and B occupy the same space at the same time, I meant why can't object A occupy the space occupied by B at the same time. — elucid

It's a fundamental physical law so far as we know. You might as well ask why the speed of light is not a different number. If particles could occupy the same space, the forces acting on them would probably pull them all together, and there'd be no universes, just a black hole.

They can, just not at the same time. That only applies to fundamental particles though, of course you can still
e.g. be in a house.

Kant is a bit like the bible. Many people misunderstand him, in so many different ways, that a person who happens upon his philosophy will learn nothing of what Kant was trying to say. — god must be atheist

I find Kant relatively easy to understand. He repeats his main points a lot, in different ways. Maybe it helps to speak German. Or maybe I'm deluded about my understanding.

But restrictions take away freedom. I restrict my behaviour to those of a set of behaviour which is accepted by Kantian standards. Restrction. I don't become freer. — god must be atheist

Kant explicitly argues otherwise though. Self-imposed restrictions do make your freer. Because if you don't impose restrictions on yourself, you're a slave to your instincts.

Using the search function is hard. And also, you have this really unique spin on the topic, and you really want people to respond.