Noumenon

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AlexW
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Re: Noumenon

Post by AlexW »

raw_thought wrote: Fri Sep 04, 2020 8:52 pm I am asking why did Kant and others think it is timeless?
First define "timeless".
As I see it, time is nothing but a measurement of change - we count little movements/vibrations - then we say that approx. 9 billion oscillations of the Caesium133 atom equal 1 second and then we extrapolate from there...
As such, time is not fundamental - if anything is fundamental to the reality as we perceive it, then it is change/movement.

As such, your questions should be: Why is Kant's Noumenon changeless, why doesn't it move?

My answer to that would be:
All movement is only relative. As soon as relativity is left behind all movement ceases (because you just lost your reference point).
Kant's Noumenon is not a thing, it is as such not contained in the world of the relative. It is without borders/limits (=infinite) and as such encompasses "all". The result is: Noumenon cannot move (where would it go? it cannot move anywhere where it not already is).
Veritas Aequitas
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Re: Noumenon

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

raw_thought wrote: Thu Sep 03, 2020 7:37 pm Can anyone explain why Kant's Noumenon is considered timeless and spaceless? We can debate later if the Noumenon is real or not.
The concept of Kant's noumenon is never intended nor to be considered timeless and spaceless.

Kant's Critique of Pure Reason is presented in various distinct phases to facilitate easier understanding.

Kant began his Critique of Pure Reason with the knowledge of objects.
However in consideration of objects one can be caught in a state of infinite regression when the question of the substance of the object is raised.
Question like how can something appeared without 'that which appears" but it lead only to turtles all the way [???].

So to confine the discussion of object to the empirical [first phase] and to avoid the stretch to infinite regression, Kant introduced the TEMPORARY concept of the noumenon to assume [pretend] there is a substance to all objects.
The concept is merely a limiting concept and nothing of substance [space, time, real or unreal] should be speculated on it.
Kant wrote:The Concept of a Noumenon is thus a merely limiting Concept, the Function of which is to curb the pretensions of Sensibility; and it is therefore only of negative employment. B311
The concept of the noumenon can be represented as [???].
In the subsequent phase the [???] is deemed a thing-in-itself.
In the final state the [???] is merely an idea and illusion.

The danger is when the [???] is reified as a thing, it will naturally lead it to be a God which is actually an illusion that cannot be proven to be real but such a reified illusion can lead to real terrible evil and violence as in the case of Islam and various negatives in other cases of theism.

This natural drive to reify the illusory as in theism is very psychological and the solution to all evil and problems associated with such reification should also be psychological.
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Re: Noumenon

Post by raw_thought »

Thank you. You have given me much to think about. However, my idea of timelessness is different.
"“Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. For us believing physicists the distinction between past, present, and future only has the meaning of an illusion, though a persistent one."
Einstein FROM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michele_Besso
In other words a block universe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativit ... multaneity
Kind of like what is described in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slaughterhouse-Five
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Re: Noumenon

Post by attofishpi »

raw_thought wrote: Thu Sep 10, 2020 12:12 am Thank you. You have given me much to think about. However, my idea of timelessness is different.
"“Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. For us believing physicists the distinction between past, present, and future only has the meaning of an illusion, though a persistent one."
Einstein FROM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michele_Besso
In other words a block universe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativit ... multaneity
Kind of like what is described in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slaughterhouse-Five
Thanks for introducing me to a concept I hadn't heard of.

Without events there is NO time. Not at an electron spinning, a photon emitting -> TIME reversed EMIT

AlexW pretty much nailed it for me, although he left out the point that events are also occurring in ones brain matter, hence something that is timeless, is indeed unknowable and to perceive space requires time.
Atla
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Re: Noumenon

Post by Atla »

raw_thought wrote: Thu Sep 03, 2020 7:37 pm Can anyone explain why Kant's Noumenon is considered timeless and spaceless? We can debate later if the Noumenon is real or not.
My guess would be that back then, the only conceptions of space and time were absolute space and absolute time. Like there was this 'absolute, universal container of space' where everything was happening in. And there was this 'absolute, universal, one-directional flow of time', everything that was happening was equally subject to it. This was Newton's era.

This is how we naturally experience life, and even today, to the vast majority of people, this is how things 'are'.
But Kant showed that these are a priori cognitive features, they are ways how our experience is constructed, 'illusory' if you want. Actually you can even get rid of these in deep meditation, or with severe brain damage etc.

So that was the first twist. What Kant couldn't really have known were the further twists that came later. Physics has consistenly shown that when we reify the noumenon, then everything in the universe seems to behave according to some kind of space and time anyway. And Einstein showed that these two features are actually one and the same, and it's all relativistic.

Then came the latest twist, the quantum revolution which showed that this spacetime can be ignored in a sense, and we were again back to a very real possibility that though relativistically, Einsteinian spacetime applies, the universe as a whole is however spaceless and timeless, instantaneous. So in the most fundamental sense, Kant's intuition still is correct. In other words, it's always the 'Eternal Present'.
Last edited by Atla on Fri Sep 11, 2020 8:00 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Noumenon

Post by Dontaskme »

raw_thought wrote: Thu Sep 03, 2020 7:37 pm Can anyone explain why Kant's Noumenon is considered timeless and spaceless? We can debate later if the Noumenon is real or not.
The concepts timeless and spaceless are synonymous with the consciousness that knows them.

All known concepts are movements aka appearances inseparable from the unmoving changeless timeless spaceless consciousness that knows them.

For example: when you wave your arms up and down the space around your body allows this movement, the movement is instantly known In relation to that which never moves aka the consciousness that knows movement. The unmoved mover exist instantaneously as one unitary action, as the concept aka the moving arms are inseparable from the space in which they are moving, in fact the objects in space are made out of the same space they are appearing in.

This knowing of a movement action would not be possible without unmoving consciousness. Therefore all movement is an illusion, in relation to the absolute noumena that is consciousness which never moves, for everything is inseparable from the space in which it appears, which is everywhere at once.
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Re: Noumenon

Post by raw_thought »

"Without events there is NO time. Not at an electron spinning, a photon emitting "
Its not there is no time, its that it does not pass or move. Time is the 4th dimension. The other three are height, depth and width. Time does not pass or move and neither does height.
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Re: Noumenon

Post by raw_thought »

If time moved , how fast does it move? Seconds per what?
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Re: Noumenon

Post by raw_thought »

Einstein destroyed the idea that "now" is a dot that moves on a time line from past to future.
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Re: Noumenon

Post by attofishpi »

raw_thought wrote: Fri Sep 11, 2020 11:16 pm
attofishpi wrote: "Without events there is NO time. Not at an electron spinning, a photon emitting "
Its not there is no time, its that it does not pass or move. Time is the 4th dimension. The other three are height, depth and width. Time does not pass or move and neither does height.
I'm glad you understand 3 of the dimensions. Time is a man made construct that measures a number of events to make up what we call seconds\minutes\etc.. and while you are correct in that it doesn't move, it does pass into the past.
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Re: Noumenon

Post by raw_thought »

Time does not pass according to Einstein. BTW Yes, we measure time with conventions ( inches, feet ) just as we measure time with conventions ( minutes, seconds etc ).
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Re: Noumenon

Post by raw_thought »

I found this very interesting article . https://www.thelemistas.org/en/MSS/Bjor ... AsNeumenon
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Re: Noumenon

Post by raw_thought »

"it does pass into the past"
What do you mean by that? If you are saying that the present moves into the past that contradicts Einstein. How fast does it move?
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Re: Noumenon

Post by raw_thought »

This explains Einstein's idea better than I. https://plus.maths.org/content/what-block-time
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Re: Noumenon

Post by raw_thought »

One way to visualize Einstein's idea is to eliminate one dimension ( lets say height ) now we have width, length and time. Visualize a solid block with those dimensions. If we turn the block, width can become length. If we have a velocity , length can become time. That is why E=MC2.
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