Kant

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Skepdick
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Re: Kant

Post by Skepdick »

uwot wrote: Thu Sep 19, 2019 11:27 am
Skepdick wrote: Thu Sep 19, 2019 11:11 amYou claimed that claim X is made by dualists.
I pointed out that claim X is also made by monists.
What claim is that?
This one...
uwot wrote: Thu Sep 19, 2019 11:27 am if you contend that there are such things as heads, with thoughts and images inside, you are a dualist.
I imagine if "all theories are undetermined" and you are as committed to agnosticism as you pretend to be then I would've expected you to say "if you contend that there are such things as heads, with thoughts and images inside, you are a dualist OR a monist, but I don't know how to determine which one".

And yet, you discarded the monism-hypothesis and determined the dualism-hypothesis despite your claimed underdetermination.

To a true agnostic/non-determinist "I don't know" means "I assign equal likelihood to ALL hypotheses".

Beyond Hypotheses non fingo, non-determinism means "I can't choose a hypothesis between two equivalent ones."
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Sculptor
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Re: Kant

Post by Sculptor »

Veritas Aequitas wrote: Thu Sep 19, 2019 5:25 am My point is, the "thing-in-itself" is a transcendental illusion generated in the real minds of the majority [theists and others] living in a real world.

Empirical illusions are not real and we can know them when they are explained to us, e.g. bent-stick in water, curved parallel lines, snake-rope in the shade, etc.
Transcendental illusions [thing-in-itself] are mental-logical-illusions that are triggered subliminally deep in the mind.
No, no, no.
The phenomena are things as perceived.

But this is distinct from the Noumena, which are the things are they truly are; NOT shit in your head, but stuff that the senses can't get to - or not without aid. The things "Ding an sich", are as they are not perceptible to the senses; as they are NOT obtainable by the senses.

If this thread is about Kant, at least get your facts straight.
Skepdick
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Re: Kant

Post by Skepdick »

Sculptor wrote: Thu Sep 19, 2019 12:43 pm The phenomena are things as perceived.

But this is distinct from the Noumena, which are the things are they truly are;
*sigh* are your childhood memories phenomena or noumena? Is perception itself a noumenon or a phenomenon?

Your innate desire to categorize stuff is clashing with your innate desire to avoid contradictions.

Categories Cause errors. Categories ARE errors. Deal with it.
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Sculptor
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Re: Kant

Post by Sculptor »

Skepdick wrote: Thu Sep 19, 2019 12:45 pm
Sculptor wrote: Thu Sep 19, 2019 12:43 pm The phenomena are things as perceived.

But this is distinct from the Noumena, which are the things are they truly are;
*sigh* are your childhood memories phenomena or noumena? Is perception itself a noumenon or a phenomenon?

Your innate desire to categorize stuff is clashing with your innate desire to avoid contradictions.

Categories Cause errors. Categories ARE errors. Deal with it.
You are not making a case here. Not at all.

Noumena and phenomena definitions are a means to understand epistemological problems, not your personal psychological problems.
Why don't you ask a psychiatrist?
Memories , amongst other things, are recordings of phenomena. There is no contradiction.

BTW. If categories are errors, then no one can "deal with it" since there would be no "dealing" and no "it".
You have just painted yourself into a corner. But you can't see it because a corner is a sub category of the whole floor, and neither exist.
Skepdick
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Re: Kant

Post by Skepdick »

Sculptor wrote: Thu Sep 19, 2019 1:12 pm Noumena and phenomena definitions are a means to understand epistemological problems, not your personal psychological problems.
Let me get this straight. You are necessarily claiming that epistemology e.g "knowing" is NOT a psychological phenomenon?
You are necessarily claiming that epistemic phenomena and psychological phenomena are disjoint e.g distinct.

Very well - I will gladly hang you with your own insistence on disjoint sets.
Sculptor wrote: Thu Sep 19, 2019 1:12 pm Memories , amongst other things, are recordings of phenomena. There is no contradiction.
But memories do exist ontologically. Right? If they didn't - you wouldn't remember anything. Right? Memories (before being recalled or remembered) have an ontological existence.

Then I ask you the ONTOLOGICAL question: "Are memories noumena?" and I expect you to answer "Yes".
And then I ask you the EPISTEMIC question: "Are the CONTENTS of your memories noumena or phenomena?" and at this point - any answer brings your house of cards crashing down.

If you answer "Noumena" then you are claiming that the CONTENTS of your memories are impossible to know.
And if you answer "Phenomena" then you admit to knowing a noumenon, which contradicts Kant's axiom.
Sculptor wrote: Thu Sep 19, 2019 1:12 pm BTW. If categories are errors, then no one can "deal with it" since there would be no "dealing" and no "it".
You have just painted yourself into a corner. But you can't see it because a corner is a sub category of the whole floor, and neither exist.
It's only a corner if you believe it is. I don't care if I contradict myself.

You are an idiot for denying contradicting yourself.

I don't exist. Look! Nothing happened. I am still here not-existing. Contradictions are only scary to idiot philosophers.
uwot
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Re: Kant

Post by uwot »

Skepdick wrote: Thu Sep 19, 2019 11:51 amIf there is a conceivable way to falsify the Theory of Everything, then it's not the Theory of Everything. Is it?
Skepdick, you don't understand what falsification means.
Skepdick wrote: Thu Sep 19, 2019 11:51 amIf it's unfalsifiable then General Relativity is unscientific.
Nor do you understand the difference between the ontological claims of GR as opposed to the epistemological claims.
Skepdick wrote: Thu Sep 19, 2019 11:51 amTo a scientific epistemology not wrong is useless.
That is just silly.
Skepdick wrote: Thu Sep 19, 2019 11:51 amTherefore you are claiming that useless could be right.
Yep. No problem with that.
Skepdick wrote: Thu Sep 19, 2019 11:51 amWhich is precisely my argument. Between truth and utility - which do you prefer?
That's a false dichotomy.
Skepdick wrote: Thu Sep 19, 2019 11:51 am
uwot wrote: Thu Sep 19, 2019 11:25 am The fact that we cannot know whether a particular theory will be falsified is precisely why they are all underdetermined.
Then how would we determine that it's a theory of EVERYTHING?
Because it's a theory. It is subject to the problem of induction and is therefore underdetermined, but that does not stop it being a theory of everything.
Skepdick wrote: Thu Sep 19, 2019 11:51 am
uwot wrote: Thu Sep 19, 2019 11:25 am The epistemic criterion of falsification will remain useful for reasons you so far haven't grasped. Falsification is not the demand that a theory be wrong, it is simply the insistence that at least one experiment can be devised, if only in theory, that could prove it wrong.
I grasp those reasons very well. What you don't grasp is that Truth and Utility are opposing goals.

A True Right and Correct theory that explains everything has zero utility.
That is just bollocks.
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Re: Kant

Post by Skepdick »

uwot wrote: Thu Sep 19, 2019 3:29 pm Skepdick, you don't understand what falsification means.
I beg to differ. Any empirical fact which disagrees with the theoretical predictions of your model.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability

Call it falsification. Call it model error. Potato, potatoh.
uwot wrote: Thu Sep 19, 2019 3:29 pm Nor do you understand the difference between the ontological claims of GR as opposed to the epistemological claims.
Ooooh! You are claiming that there is a difference? I hope it's testable and falsifiable (so you can explain it to me).

It is astonishing to see how many philosophical disputes collapse into insignificance the moment you subject them to this simple test of tracing a concrete consequence. There can be no difference anywhere that doesn’t make a difference elsewhere – no difference in abstract truth that doesn’t express itself in a difference in concrete fact and in conduct consequent upon that fact, imposed on somebody, somehow, somewhere, and somewhen. The whole function of philosophy ought to be to find out what definite difference it will make to you and me, at definite instants of our life, if this world-formula or that world-formula be the true one. -- William James

As any anti-foundationalist would argue, all ontological claims not REALLY ontological. It's just what we SAY about them, but if we were to be honest about it - we don't have One True Ontology. We have a bunch of ontologies at various levels of abstraction.

The spacetime 'ontology' is the one we use at large scales of abstraction e.g cosmic scale.
The QFT 'ontology' is the one we use at small scales of abstraction e.g quantum scale.
uwot wrote: Thu Sep 19, 2019 3:29 pm That's a false dichotomy.
That's a fallacy fallacy. I didn't claim that "truth" and "utility" are disjoint. In fact - in my epistemology, the two words are synonymous.

But if you are accusing me of a dichotomy, I can only assume you are projecting your dichotomized conception of those words onto me.
uwot wrote: Thu Sep 19, 2019 3:29 pm Because it's a theory. It is subject to the problem of induction and is therefore underdetermined, but that does not stop it being a theory of everything.
Of course it stops it from being a TOE. The E in TOE stands for EVERYTHING. So a TOE must account for and explain EVERYTHING.
To explain EVERYTHING would be to obliterate any and all explanatory gaps. Including time. When you explain time the "problem of induction" disappears.

It seems to me you are using the word "EVERYTHING" to mean something other than, you know. EVERYTHING.
uwot wrote: Thu Sep 19, 2019 3:29 pm That is just bollocks.
Well, it's not. But you are just a philosopher. I am an actual epistemologist and I happen to have a conceptual grasp on T-symmetry and reversible computing. If quantum information cannot be destroyed, then all quantum computations are (IN THEORY) reversible. In this paradigm the a priori/a posteriori distinction doesn't exist except as a an arbitrary choice.

If you aren't going to explain the phenomenon of time, you are equivocating "EVERYTHING" in Theory of Everything.

I guess we could call it the Theory of Everything (except time).
Atla
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Re: Kant

Post by Atla »

Veritas Aequitas wrote: Thu Sep 19, 2019 5:25 am
Atla wrote: Thu Sep 19, 2019 4:49 am
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Thu Sep 19, 2019 3:13 am But the thing-in-itself reified as God cannot be real because Kant had proven it is impossible to be real, i.e. a transcendental illusion, thus there is no way to test and justify God is real. It is a non-starter.
Only if 'thing-in-itself' doesn't refer to the 'real world'.
Not sure of your point.

My point is, the "thing-in-itself" is a transcendental illusion generated in the real minds of the majority [theists and others] living in a real world.

Empirical illusions are not real and we can know them when they are explained to us, e.g. bent-stick in water, curved parallel lines, snake-rope in the shade, etc.
Transcendental illusions [thing-in-itself] are mental-logical-illusions that are triggered subliminally deep in the mind.

After a very long winded argument, Kant reduced the thing-in-itself into only 3 main ones, i.e.
  • 1. God -Absolute
    2. a soul that survives physical death
    3. The WHOLE Universe.
You know what, we probably use 'real' in a completely different sense.

To me, you appear to be saying that the "whole universe" can't possibly exist. So do over 99% of cosmologists, physicists etc. suffer from an illusion triggered deep in the mind?

On second thought, you seem to use almost every crucial word differently.
Last edited by Atla on Thu Sep 19, 2019 7:26 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Atla
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Re: Kant

Post by Atla »

uwot wrote: Thu Sep 19, 2019 7:49 am Really? Which of these is wrong?

We know that thought exists.
Only things we know to be true are real.
Therefore only thought is real.

We know that thought exists.
Thoughts require thinkers.
Therefore thinkers exist.

We know that thought exists.
Everything that exists has some physical presence.
Therefore thoughts are physical.

The first premise is the same in each case. It is sound, because if it can be stated, it is necessarily true. The three second premises, in some version held by idealists, dualists and materialists respectively, are theory laden. You can make a coherent story out of any of those conclusions. What people do, is fall into the trap of believing that a coherent story is a true story. In other words they believe they have found some sound second premise, because the story based on it makes sense. It's a circular argument. Some such people, you for example, then make claims that anything not consistent with their coherent story, is therefore wrong. It should be obvious that doesn't follow.
Blablabla blablablabla
I told you 2457823465823468523485723789 times that I'm a nondualist and don't subscribe to refuted dualistic philosophies like idealism/materialism/dualism.
Skepdick
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Re: Kant

Post by Skepdick »

uwot wrote: Thu Sep 19, 2019 7:49 am Really? Which of these is wrong?

....

Everything that exists has some physical presence.
Therefore thoughts are physical.
Therefore ∀Things is_physical?(Thing) ⇔ exists?(Thing)

Least you were intending to draw distinctions between physical existence and non-physical existence I can't fathom why you would create a new word which means the exact same thing as the old word.

Even more strange, to me is that you invented the word "exists" in the first place.

iff ∀Things exists?(Thing) ⇔ True

Least you were intending to draw distinctions between "existing things" and "non-existing" things, the word "exists" is useless too.
Last edited by Skepdick on Thu Sep 19, 2019 5:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.
uwot
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Re: Kant

Post by uwot »

Skepdick wrote: Thu Sep 19, 2019 3:39 pm
uwot wrote: Thu Sep 19, 2019 3:29 pm Skepdick, you don't understand what falsification means.
I beg to differ. Any empirical observation which disagrees with theoretical prediction.
QED. That is not what falsifiability means.
Skepdick wrote: Thu Sep 19, 2019 3:39 pm
uwot wrote: Thu Sep 19, 2019 3:29 pm Nor do you understand the difference between the ontological claims of GR as opposed to the epistemological claims.
Ooooh! You are claiming that there is a difference? I hope it's testable and falsifiable (so you can explain it to me).
The ontological claim is that there is a substance dubbed 'spacetime', and that matter and energy warp this substance. GR does not suggest any mechanism for how that happens, and we have no direct means of detecting spacetime; so it's unfalsifiable. The epistemological claim is that the field equations describe the behaviour of matter and energy, which can be tested, and any testable prediction is exposed to potential falsification.
Eodnhoj7
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Re: Kant

Post by Eodnhoj7 »

Sculptor wrote: Wed Sep 18, 2019 8:03 pm
Eodnhoj7 wrote: Wed Sep 18, 2019 6:06 pm
Atla wrote: Sat Sep 14, 2019 7:21 pm Phenomena = appearances, and noumena = things-in-themselves, so far so good (if I understood correctly).

But did he understand that technically and objectively, all phenomena are noumena (the noumena in the human head)? So some of the noumenon is directly 'knowable'.
He failed to address whether "a posteriori" is actually "a priori" in itself as "a posteriori" is a classification of the senses...it broke down phenomenonon into a dualistic nature without producing a necessary grounds as to what this assumptive nature is...

His foundations are empty...
Distinctions as to a priori and a posteriori predate Kant by millennia and remain natural, obvious and foundational to all epistemology; as useful today as it was to Plato.
Usefull for what? Where is "distinction" itself made? Is it "a priori" or "a posteriori"...pick either one and we are left with a loop. Your "usefulfellness" is subject to the same critique of distinction as it is merely a process of distinction that is self refuting and contradicting given a long enough timeline.
Skepdick
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Re: Kant

Post by Skepdick »

uwot wrote: Thu Sep 19, 2019 5:40 pm QED. That is not what falsifiability means.
Lol. It seems to me you didn't finish that sentence? I think what you were trying to say was "That is not what falsifiability means TO ME.", least you are claiming that 'falsifiability' is an objective phenomenon (which, by the way is a defensible claim in a Bayesian epistemology which happens to be my epistemic position).

Alas, explain it to me then. It sounds to me as if you are confusing completeness with falsification where one paradigm has broader domain of applicability.

I guess I have an idea how to test this empirically. Would you say that General Relativity falsified Newton's law of universal gravitation?

In my epistemology the answer to the question above is "No", however I expect you to answer "Yes". And if you do so, my suspicion of your confusion would be confirmed.
uwot wrote: Thu Sep 19, 2019 5:40 pm The ontological claim is that there is a substance dubbed 'spacetime', and that matter and energy warp this substance. GR does not suggest any mechanism for how that happens, and we have no direct means of detecting spacetime; so it's unfalsifiable.
The epistemological claim is that the field equations describe the behaviour of matter and energy, which can be tested, and any testable prediction is exposed to potential falsification.
Great! Looks like you are agreeing with me on the consequences (or lack thereof).

From an epistemic view-point all ontological claims are bullshit. Good thing I am only an epistemologist and have no ontological tendencies. Which is on-par for my intuitionistic tendencies.

From page 18:
When an intuitionist makes a deduction, introducing and discharging a hypothesis, he implicitly reifies a hypothetical situation, projecting it onto an abstract ontology.
You could call me an anti-realist, anti-foundationalist, or an extreme constructivist and I wouldn't object (too loudly).

Irrespective of the label you choose, do we have agreement on this? Ontology is bullshit.
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Sculptor
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Re: Kant

Post by Sculptor »

Eodnhoj7 wrote: Thu Sep 19, 2019 5:41 pm
Sculptor wrote: Wed Sep 18, 2019 8:03 pm
Eodnhoj7 wrote: Wed Sep 18, 2019 6:06 pm

He failed to address whether "a posteriori" is actually "a priori" in itself as "a posteriori" is a classification of the senses...it broke down phenomenonon into a dualistic nature without producing a necessary grounds as to what this assumptive nature is...

His foundations are empty...
Distinctions as to a priori and a posteriori predate Kant by millennia and remain natural, obvious and foundational to all epistemology; as useful today as it was to Plato.
Usefull for what? Where is "distinction" itself made? Is it "a priori" or "a posteriori"...pick either one and we are left with a loop.
Nope.
The distinction is made with reason. I realise that you have to have some to understand the distinction, but most people do not have much problem with it.
I feel sorry that you are in some kind of mental loop.
Have you considered psychiatry?
Skepdick
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Re: Kant

Post by Skepdick »

Sculptor wrote: Thu Sep 19, 2019 6:23 pm Nope.
The distinction is made with reason. I realise that you have to have some to understand the distinction, but most people do not have much problem with it.
I feel sorry that you are in some kind of mental loop.
Have you considered psychiatry?
Have you considered that if time is indeed an illusion, and if the theories which demonstrate time as emergent from quantum entanglement hold, then (epistemically speaking) you are the one who actually needs help?

Science only ever made two promises. Prediction and control. If science gives us control over time, prediction loses its utility, and the "a priori"/"a posteriori" distinctions become meaningless.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causal_loop
Last edited by Skepdick on Thu Sep 19, 2019 6:33 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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