The in-it-self thing cannot exist

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Age
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Re: The in-it-self thing cannot exist

Post by Age »

Belinda wrote: Fri Aug 19, 2022 12:45 pm
bobmax wrote: Fri Aug 19, 2022 5:55 am
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Fri Aug 19, 2022 4:31 am Btw, you are not likely to agree - to Kant the Father of thing-in-itself is God which cannot be real and thus is illusory.
If the in-it-self doesn't exist, you in-yourself don't exist.

Your existence is illusory.

The Father of the in-it-self thing, therefore your Father, is the father of that which does not exist, including you.

You appear to exist only because of what you are not.
And what makes you exist, in turn owes its existence to something other than itself.
In a continuous reference until we reach the in-it-self thing that cannot exist.

If you truly admit the non-existence of the in-it-self thing, the whole castle collapses, and you with it.

However, you have a Father.
That doesn't exist, because it is.

And you are that.
The self is a construct. What is not and cannot be a construct is experience. Take way all constructs including pronouns and what remains is experience.
But what is 'it', which is experiencing?
Age
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Re: The in-it-self thing cannot exist

Post by Age »

bobmax wrote: Fri Aug 19, 2022 1:25 pm
Sculptor wrote: Fri Aug 19, 2022 11:14 am
bobmax wrote: Thu Aug 18, 2022 11:25 am The in-it-self thing cannot exist.

Because there exists only that which owes its very existence to something other than itself.
You have zero justification for saying that. And its not even wrong; since the thing-in-itself does not even imply complete independence. Regardless then of what you say, you are off beam on two accounts.
I did not understand your criticism.

The existence of a thing derives from something other than that thing.

Could you give me an example of the opposite?
I'm curious.
The 'Universe'.
Belinda
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Re: The in-it-self thing cannot exist

Post by Belinda »

bobmax wrote: Fri Aug 19, 2022 2:39 pm
Belinda wrote: Fri Aug 19, 2022 12:45 pm The self is a construct. What is not and cannot be a construct is experience. Take way all constructs including pronouns and what remains is experience.
Yes, but what is the experience alone without any construct?
Can it still be "something"?
No. Experience is not a thing. A construct is experience, because if a construct were not experience
it would not exist. There is nothing that's not experience.
Belinda
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Re: The in-it-self thing cannot exist

Post by Belinda »

Age wrote: Fri Aug 19, 2022 11:47 pm
Belinda wrote: Fri Aug 19, 2022 12:45 pm
bobmax wrote: Fri Aug 19, 2022 5:55 am

If the in-it-self doesn't exist, you in-yourself don't exist.

Your existence is illusory.

The Father of the in-it-self thing, therefore your Father, is the father of that which does not exist, including you.

You appear to exist only because of what you are not.
And what makes you exist, in turn owes its existence to something other than itself.
In a continuous reference until we reach the in-it-self thing that cannot exist.

If you truly admit the non-existence of the in-it-self thing, the whole castle collapses, and you with it.

However, you have a Father.
That doesn't exist, because it is.

And you are that.
The self is a construct. What is not and cannot be a construct is experience. Take way all constructs including pronouns and what remains is experience.
But what is 'it', which is experiencing?
Like experience includes experiencing arms, or legs, so experience includes experiencing self. There is no subject of experience.
Age
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Re: The in-it-self thing cannot exist

Post by Age »

Belinda wrote: Sat Aug 20, 2022 12:03 am
Age wrote: Fri Aug 19, 2022 11:47 pm
Belinda wrote: Fri Aug 19, 2022 12:45 pm
The self is a construct. What is not and cannot be a construct is experience. Take way all constructs including pronouns and what remains is experience.
But what is 'it', which is experiencing?
Like experience includes experiencing arms, or legs, so experience includes experiencing self. There is no subject of experience.
I am not sure how I could ask my question more simply.

How about; What is the 'thing', which experiences?

You made the claim that at the most fundamental level there remains 'experience', but, to me, there obviously has to be some 'thing', which experiences. So, if we take away all constructs, including 'experience', itself, then what is 'it' that is 'experiencing'?
Veritas Aequitas
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Re: The in-it-self thing cannot exist

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

bobmax wrote: Fri Aug 19, 2022 7:04 am
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Fri Aug 19, 2022 6:21 am OTOH., my empirical-I [the thinking-I] exists as real and can be verified and justified within myself, others and science.
You verify and justify your existence based on the existence of something other than you.
Which in turn...

With your empirical self you fall back into the thing itself.

Exit the loop!

Where even Kant was spinning ...
Your first statement is not rational.
There is no you-in-itself to base my empirical self on.

What I am relying upon are the empirical evidences that supports the existence of my self as an empirical self and not as a self-in-itself or me-in-itself.

Note Hume's Philosophy of the Self,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hume#The_'self'
Empiricist philosophers, such as Hume and Berkeley, favoured the bundle theory of personal identity.[97]
In this theory, "the mind itself, far from being an independent power, is simply 'a bundle of perceptions' without unity or cohesive quality".[98]
The self is nothing but a bundle of experiences linked by the relations of causation and resemblance; or, more accurately, the empirically warranted idea of the self is just the idea of such a bundle. According to Hume:[70]
  • For my part, when I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never can catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe any thing but the perception. When my perceptions are removed for any time, as by sound sleep; so long I am insensible of myself, and may truly be said not to exist.

    — A Treatise of Human Nature, Book I.iv, section 6
If there is no empirical evidence to verify and justify the existence of a person's self [e.g. a corpse], there is no self-in-itself [claimed as an independent soul].
Veritas Aequitas
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Re: The in-it-self thing cannot exist

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

Belinda wrote: Fri Aug 19, 2022 12:40 pm Sculptor wrote:
The phrase "thing in itself" is used to indicate the limits of perception such that any thing has qualities beyond which our limited perception allows. There no implication of complete independence from other things, and these connections could well be outside the limits of perception too.
to indicate the limits of perception such that any thing has qualities beyond which our limited perception allows. There no implication of complete independence from other things, and these connections could well be outside the limits of perception too.
The phrase "thing in itself" is used to indicate the limits of perception. Yes, but also to indicate there are things in themselves. That perception is limited is not a reason to believe things in themselves exist.
Re Kant, it is the 'noumenon' as thing-in-itself that is used "temporarily" to indicate the limits of perception [re phenomena].

As such, the above does imply there is still the 'thing-in-itself' to be considered.
But upon deeper philosophical consideration, the 'thing-in-itself' is illusory i.e. a psychological derivative and is not a real thing at all.

Note Russell's No Man's Land as an analogy;
All definite knowledge – so I should contend – belongs to science; all dogma as to what surpasses definite knowledge belongs to theology.
But between theology and science there is a No Man’s Land, exposed to attack from both sides; and this No Man’s Land is philosophy.
At the limit & boundary of the No Man’s Land on the Science side is what Kant would place the noumenon which is assumed logically [not really] from the real phenomena.
Meanwhile theists and the likes take their necessary desperate big leap of faith and jumped across the No Man's Land to reify the noumenon as a 'real' thing-in-itself, i.e. the dogmatic God, the independent soul, etc.

While Russell merely generalize, Kant provided a very detailed argument of how theists reify the noumenon as a 'real' thing-in-itself when it is merely an illusion emerging as a psychological derivative serving therapeutic purposes only.
bobmax
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Re: The in-it-self thing cannot exist

Post by bobmax »

Sculptor wrote: Fri Aug 19, 2022 11:22 pm Do you really think the world came into existence when you were born??
Really???
Yeah we can close it there. It's pointless bantering with a solipsist.
What does my birth have to do with it?
The questioning of the thing in itself necessarily questions my very existence as well.
I don't exist as a thing in itself.

You confuse being with existing.
And this is a problem.

So you don't grasp the question that Kant shows, but doesn't solve!
And in fact you don't even grasp how the ethical aspect is central to Kant.

Everything is ethical!
You don't see it because for you being coincides with existing.

While Kant, in his confused but sincere effort, questions precisely that existence is being.
bobmax
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Re: The in-it-self thing cannot exist

Post by bobmax »

Belinda wrote: Fri Aug 19, 2022 11:58 pm
bobmax wrote: Fri Aug 19, 2022 2:39 pm but what is the experience alone without any construct?
Can it still be "something"?
No. Experience is not a thing. A construct is experience, because if a construct were not experience
it would not exist. There is nothing that's not experience.
Do you agree that if everything is experience then what only matters is love?
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Sculptor
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Re: The in-it-self thing cannot exist

Post by Sculptor »

bobmax wrote: Sat Aug 20, 2022 5:17 am
Sculptor wrote: Fri Aug 19, 2022 11:22 pm Do you really think the world came into existence when you were born??
Really???
Yeah we can close it there. It's pointless bantering with a solipsist.
What does my birth have to do with it?
The questioning of the thing in itself necessarily questions my very existence as well.
I don't exist as a thing in itself.

You confuse being with existing.
And this is a problem.
Possibly the stupidest thing I have read this week

So you don't grasp the question that Kant shows, but doesn't solve!
And in fact you don't even grasp how the ethical aspect is central to Kant.

Everything is ethical!
You don't see it because for you being coincides with existing.

While Kant, in his confused but sincere effort, questions precisely that existence is being.
1) You know nothing about Kant, and do not know the meaning of ding an sich.
2) nothing exists according to you without a distinction.
3) SInce nothing was distinguishable before you came into being, then the whole world must have started when you did.
4) Now you are saying that, you do not exist.

Great - I can ignore you
Belinda
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Re: The in-it-self thing cannot exist

Post by Belinda »

bobmax wrote: Sat Aug 20, 2022 5:29 am
Belinda wrote: Fri Aug 19, 2022 11:58 pm
bobmax wrote: Fri Aug 19, 2022 2:39 pm but what is the experience alone without any construct?
Can it still be "something"?
No. Experience is not a thing. A construct is experience, because if a construct were not experience
it would not exist. There is nothing that's not experience.
Do you agree that if everything is experience then what only matters is love?
Yes, but ' love ' as usually understood is a sentiment. I'd rather say what matters is caring about what is not self. Self is not a whole self unless it cares.
bobmax
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Re: The in-it-self thing cannot exist

Post by bobmax »

Belinda wrote: Sat Aug 20, 2022 11:46 am
bobmax wrote: Sat Aug 20, 2022 5:29 am Do you agree that if everything is experience then what only matters is love?
Yes, but ' love ' as usually understood is a sentiment. I'd rather say what matters is caring about what is not self. Self is not a whole self unless it cares.
Yes, it is not a sentiment.
It is not something I feel, as part of me.
Instead, it is something that imposes itself apart from me.

When it is there I am no longer there.
It is compassion that envelops everything, even myself as if it understood me as I have never understood myself.

And it is also capable of manifesting itself with no object to turn to.
It is enough in itself.
Belinda
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Re: The in-it-self thing cannot exist

Post by Belinda »

bobmax wrote: Sat Aug 20, 2022 11:32 pm
Belinda wrote: Sat Aug 20, 2022 11:46 am
bobmax wrote: Sat Aug 20, 2022 5:29 am Do you agree that if everything is experience then what only matters is love?
Yes, but ' love ' as usually understood is a sentiment. I'd rather say what matters is caring about what is not self. Self is not a whole self unless it cares.
Yes, it is not a sentiment.
It is not something I feel, as part of me.
Instead, it is something that imposes itself apart from me.

When it is there I am no longer there.
It is compassion that envelops everything, even myself as if it understood me as I have never understood myself.

And it is also capable of manifesting itself with no object to turn to.
It is enough in itself.
Well said.
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