There's a world of difference between habituated responses, which any creatures exhibit, and reasoned inference, which are the sole prerogative of h. sapiens. — Wayfarer

There sure is, you're correct.

Just pointing out that Hume was very much an innatist, contrary to popular belief. But his innate mechanisms are very weak, compared to Kant, or even Descartes.

Sure.

Everything ultimately emerges from our minds. The hard thing is to determine what is innate at birth and how to best phrase and understand these factors.

For Kant, relativity.

Kant spoke of "space" and "time" as forms of sensible intuition, because he thoughts these were absolute.

Now we know they're not. We should speak of "spacetime".

Hmmm.

It looks to me as if it were a sub component of perception. So yes.

Of course, Hume and Kant were heavily influenced by Newton, but now we may have to take into account the new physics, if it be relevant to the discussion, which is not always clear.

With Kant, you frequently get a good deal of technical jargon, which, to my mind, is not always needed - it can tend to obscure his point, or at least makes it much more likely that someone will not read him properly.

So let's grant what Kant argued, that causality is something through which we interpret the world. Fine. Makes good sense. Hume said something similar but called it an "animal instinct", this is the reason why we believe in causality. Nevertheless, it is true that the mechanisms by which Kant and Hume spoke of causality were quite different.

Ok. The issue is, as I see it, that the problem is not solved. How are we guaranteed that future experience will necessarily be like past experience? That we attribute cause to the world because it is a part of the way we view the world, does not solve the problem.

Thanks for the source, I'll add it to my to read-shortly reading list.

I can't even keep up. It's way too much.

I mean, IF this war is over, we should breathe a BIG sigh of relief. Cause' this can turn from very ugly to apocalyptical at any moment. It's hard to comprehend - or be scared through all of it either - one shuts down otherwise.

But yes, extremely dangerous. Stupid (and criminal) from Russia, the West ain't helping much either.

Oh. You are going to enjoy talking here.

A lot of disagreement. Some pretty wild.

Ah.

I argue that Kant does not solve the problem of causation, nor that of object constancy. I think it makes sense to say that causation is something we bring to the world, but we cannot be sure future experience will be the same as past experience. Nor do we know if causation applies to the object themselves, absent us.

You think he does?

Hey man. Nice to be able to talk about something fascinating.

I haven't read the OP in detail, will do so later, but I'd like to see what you make of my argument.

I've been reading the actual Hume and some very, very good commentary on him. He's intoxicated me, can't believe it took me so long to read. Obviously he has errors that cannot be fixed given the theory he works with.

But I've been thinking a bit about Kant's response to Hume. I mean, I think Kant takes the logical step in creating all these categories. But I don't think they solve the issue of causation, nor do I think they solve the issue of the perceived consistency of external object.

In other words, Kant created a space in which to do metaphysics, I agree. But I do think that many of the problems Hume's point out are really, really hard. Maybe insoluble.

I understand the appeal, but don't see the necessity.

@Mods

If you think this goes against the rules, in terms of reviving an old thread, please delete. If not, I'd like to share something here.

Here's a very good discussion w/ Chomsky on philosophy, were he explain very clearly all the confusions which arose here, in my opinion:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNXqAaF_cxU

I mean if people actually read Locke and Hume, instead of reading about them, they'd find a lot of material on these things, of the highest quality.

But, putting that aside, the important thing here is the destination, not so much the journey, and I agree, these are very big problems. I think that perhaps physics does show promise of being about the world and not limited to an idea only. The other special sciences are different in crucial respects.

But I don't think there's a way to get out of our "ideas", any more than it's possible to get out of bodies to look at whatever exists absent us.

I don't know anymore. I've been broken on this topic.

Well we would be us judging ourselves, so it would make sense to be impressed with what we know. Which, I admit, is quite a bit. For an "evolved" ape, it's very impressive.

But there's no reason to believe that we have all the faculties needed to know everything. That would be almost religious, God-ish thinking, imo.

We are natural beings, with limitations, as all are creatures in nature. It has to be the case.

If we had no limits, we wouldn't have any scope. Thus we wouldn't be able to do any inquiries.

]

Pretty much. All we have in the end is speculation.



Why shouldn't it? Strictly speaking, nature holds no secret. We just don't have the necessary equipment (brain/mind) to pierce through all the layers it may have.

Well, correct. I think math helps us discover some of the abstract structural characteristics of the universe. But it doesn't apply well to things well beyond it's scope in physics (biological beings).

I think the inner nature of nature (pardon the redundancy) will remain a secret, beyond our understanding. But, that's idiosyncratic.

What's curious here is why we even have the capacity to do physics at all, and also why the universe seems to be "built" in such a way that math can see into her secrets.

It doesn't make sense in terms of a survival purpose.

You have to try to isolate whatever a "mind" is. But we don't even know what it is.

So, no, I highly doubt it.

What you say is true.

And of course, this is a reaction to Russia's war. But I'm not sure it's a smart move. This war has been a really bad mistake (crime) on Putin's behalf.

Everything he wanted to avoid got magnified times twenty, so to speak.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/4/14/russia-warns-of-nuclear-deployment-if-sweden-finland-join-nato

Russia warns of nuclear deployment if Sweden, Finland join NATO

Thanks for the clarification. I had just woken up, so I was slower than I usually am. :sweat:

Sure, what you say here makes sense. And indeed, a and b turned out to be wrong. It's another issue, altogether more complex, if at the time (the 1980's) the people in power really believed that the Sandinistas were a threat.

It looks to me like the Domino Theory is correct in fact, hence why Vietnam was destroyed.

But I suspect that, it's not always cynicism, that is, I think people in power really do feel a threat.

Facts.

And if the little country they take interest in cannot be in any way a threat, then it's the hypothetical argument of another great power using that little country. — ssu

Could you rephrase this, I'm not following.

I do agree with your first statement, prior to this. That's commonly part of imperial dogma, they do need to justify what they're doing.

I'm no commie, I'll say that, but these China accusations are pretty wild. You REALLY gotta buy the "Western POV", hook, line and sinker

Human rights and NATO! Is that a joke? Because Turkey is a prime example of human rights.

The purpose of NATO was to contain the Soviet Union. Why is it still around if the Soviet Union fell a long time ago?

It was completely obsolete and Europe should by now have it's own military (a real one), not reliant on the US.

Let's keep it that way. China's system is evil and repressive. The more enemies it has the better. — RogueAI

Are we trying to understand the world or are we subjecting it to Disneyfication?

If that's true, why didn't NATO accept Russia as a member back in 2000?

Contain China? Where? They're going to some areas in the South China Sea, but are surrounded by countries with fire power.

Well, if you overlook the fact that the US stole half of Mexico. It's not as if "San Francisco", "San Diego" or "El Paso" are English names, afer all.

Yeah, Cuba and Russia have a history, which could have destroyed the world. The US (correctly), did not want nuclear weapons in Cuba.

Well, Obama and Trump weren't too nice to Mexico, incidentally.

All I'm saying, is something that I think should not be controversial: no big power would want a hostile military nation on its border. Some countries are forced into this situation, like China with Taiwan, or India with Pakistan.

But it's not as if any of these countries would be say "great, let's have our enemies living next to us."

I mean, the US went to war in Iraq for WMD's (that's what they stated) and that country is not even close to US borders. Not to mention the sanction on Iran, also extremely far away from the US.

What Russia is doing is still awful and criminal, they shouldn't have done it, the punch is coming back with interest added. But from a "realpolitik" perspective, it makes sense.

What's scary is a nuclear war.

What Russia is doing is criminal, no doubt at all about it.

But if they're cornered without being offered a decent way "out", is very dangerous, regardless of what one may think of the situation.

https://www.ft.com/content/dc70777f-05d9-4e44-8217-30f448e2b64f

Finland to decide within ‘weeks’ whether to join Nato

This is scary. It makes sense. But damn, what a mess.

Yeah. No.

That's for another thread.

That's a good diversion.

Ask Cuba, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, in fact all of South America.

What does that have to do with anything? Like at all?

Clearly the US, but that's immaterial to this.

They can have a crap army, it doesn't matter. North Korea's apparently is pretty crap. They don't get invaded.

Wouldn't want a hostile military nation living next to me, no. Obviously.

What?

Oh, then let Russia put a base in Mexico in Canada, no problem.

Well. They could. They've surprised me before with this war.

However, they have been warned about the use of chemical weapons. I don't think many people want to rush to WWIII, but who knows?

Hard to believe she's still taken seriously. I mean, I prefer Deepak Chopra, literally.

Stuck up *****.

Sorry. Had to get that out of my system.

I mean, there should be people around that remember the Cuban Missile Crisis, not just Chomsky.

But it's also cheap votes. It's disgusting. But - nothing new.

I mean, I know the initial shock of this war has blown over - for those of us not in it in real time - but it's far from clear we are out of the woods yet.

Took them long enough to say this. They've been really trying to make it seem as if there's almost no chance this can happen here, or a very low chance.

I think it's higher.

But yes, you are correct, these are people that should be taken seriously.

Well. Maybe. But they surely must have heard that NATO will intervene if they use chemical weapons, or at least, this is what they've stated.

The point is that time is against them (Russia), so either they do something big quickly, or it will get very ugly for them.

I'm surprised that Russia is allowing for other countries to send arms to Ukraine.