Kant's Transcendental Idealism

Discuss any topics related to metaphysics (the philosophical study of the principles of reality) or epistemology (the philosophical study of knowledge) in this forum.
User avatar
The Beast
Posts: 1403
Joined: July 7th, 2013, 10:32 pm

Re: Kant's Transcendental Idealism

Post by The Beast »

Awake and dreaming are cognitive skills informing healthy/mostly populations. There are obvious differences in the reasoning of abnormal functions. These differences could be the result of impairments in other basic cognitive skills as in particular attention and selective attention. The assessments of the cognitive skills start with psychophysiological measurements such as the tracking of eye movement or to reason an event of ischemia of “normal” brain tissue due to an imbalanced oxygen distribution. The question is whether it is an attribution bias or a physiological dissociation. In the attribution bias we could consider central processes () that govern reasoning about the mental states of others to predict and manipulate behavior. The physiological dissociation is demonstrated in a TOM of which there is no/little empirical evidence as to its evolutive significance if not correlated with periods of ischemia or a negative result (disease). However, IMO there are exceptions as in long periods of stress (war or similar) when connectomes might create the dreamer/awake narratives. “Like in a dream” or “Don Quijote”. It seems to be a coping mechanism that is restored/or not once the subject overcomes it. The strangest things…some subjects under the influence of psychedelic drugs imagined dreamed scenarios with predatory aliens/extraterrestrials. In Kantian metaphysics war demons are considered nonsense and ontologically speaking, it is a forbidden boundary. However, lucid dreaming is found to have respiratory behaviors of cortical origin consistent with chemistries (enzymes) that are oxygen dependent. In a simple opinion there is a separation of cognitive skills in a chemical boundary that is oxygen dependent. The boundary spectrum might take over the entire cognitive range becoming an unknown homogenous cognitive function (Jung’s shadow) at the extreme and episodic in all other cases of “blurring” The rhythm of reality is helped by fresh air and a steady good diet.
User avatar
Sy Borg
Site Admin
Posts: 14997
Joined: December 16th, 2013, 9:05 pm

Re: Kant's Transcendental Idealism

Post by Sy Borg »

psycho wrote: April 22nd, 2023, 8:37 pm
Sy Borg wrote: April 22nd, 2023, 7:55 pm
psycho wrote: April 22nd, 2023, 6:39 pm
Sy Borg wrote: April 8th, 2023, 8:49 pm
Yes, it's a subtle point. To the person falling into a black hole, time passes as usual (?) but to the observer they stop in space and become ever more red and faint. Still, if wee think of that which changes time - acceleration - then perhaps a change in the rate of time passing would be felt as G-forces?



If reality is quantised, as it is believed to be at either quantum or Planck scales, then perhaps the continuity is more of an impression than an actuality?
We cannot notice changes in the rhythm of the passage of time because we are included in those changes in rhythm.

I do not agree that the quantization of reality implies the quantization of the passage of time. It would imply that something exists intermittently. I still don't see the reason to consider such a thing.
I would think that kind of inconsistency is fairly typical for entities at quantum scales. Planck scales may be either weirder. Also, I think it would not be a matter of intermittently not existing but intermittently not progressing in time - at the most infinitesimal of scales. Think of how a movie seems continuous but is actually made up of rapid frames.
The reality changes continuously.

Thus, the elements of reality would have intermittent states: Change -> Stable -> Change -> Stable...

But we could not distinguish the "Stable" states because we are part of the rhythm of reality.

The "Stable" part is irrelevant in the analysis if it is not possible to distinguish it. If the stable part lasted a million years, it wouldn't make any difference to us.
I agree the point is moot, theoretical, at least with today's technical capabilities.
Gertie
Posts: 2181
Joined: January 7th, 2015, 7:09 am

Re: Kant's Transcendental Idealism

Post by Gertie »

psycho wrote: April 22nd, 2023, 7:13 pm
Pattern-chaser wrote: April 9th, 2023, 7:47 am
psycho wrote: April 8th, 2023, 5:46 pm I have the impression that the correspondence between the original phenomenon and its perception is quite faithful to the phenomenon.
Our efficiency as agents is remarkable.
I think we all have such impressions. They only reflect, after all, what reality appears to be, so why wouldn't we suspect that what we perceive might be so? But we have no justification; our confidence rests on a 'faith position', yes? And so does our "remarkable" "efficiency as agents"?

I find uncertainty is always a good, grounding, position to begin thinking about something. "Do we really know that, or do we just hope we know it?" is one of my favourite questions to ask myself. At worst, it reminds me that certainty is rare; at best, it sets me on the right path, toward (apparent) understanding.
What are the chances that each one of us is an effective agent in reality (using only the information we gather from it) and that despite that, reality does not have a very good correspondence with that information?
I think that's a strong argument for us having some type of connection with ontological reality.

Physicalism gives us an incredibly broad and detailed model of reality which is both coherent and predictive - based on third person human falsifiability. That's pretty compelling, and not to be sniffed at.

There are some significant buts tho.

If you go by effectiveness alone, an ant is an effective navigator of reality too, using the information it gathers from it. But if an ant was capable of describing the nature of that reality, it would likely be very different to my description. The ant and I are both limited and flawed subjects with a specific first person pov, with our own particular types of experiential knowing kits, ways of representing the world. All ants might come up with a similar sensory model, and all humans, dogs, and bats might roughly agree with members of their own species. But have radically different models.

So can our big complex thinky human brains, aided by our instruments and ability to compare notes with each other, claim to have roughly the right model? A very accurate model, maybe one which just needs a few gaps and rough edges nailing down? Maybe. Or maybe on the continuum of an ant's subjective pov to reality, humans with all our advantages are barely further along a massive divide. Just looking through a different set of contortions. Evolution itself says we, like ants, are 'designed' for utility rather than reality detecting, there's a difference.

Scepticism asks us to go back to epistemological basics. Are time and space even real, do material objects exist, does anything but my own conscious experience exist - How can we know?

If the answer is other humans I compare notes with agree, those other humans might be just aspects of my experience. Or if they exist in their own right 'out there' in the world, their limitations and flaws in the way they represent reality in the form of conscious experience will be similar to mine, which puts a question mark over third person falsifiability, which science relies on. Human third person falsifiability does eliminate human flaws and limitations. And our instruments are designed by us to be comprehensible to us. Science tells us we're limited and flawed observers and thinkers who create representations of reality, rather than having direct epistemological access to it, the way we have access to the experiential model we each create.

So how about reason, logic and causation? If the job of our senses is to model the stuff of the world, we also have an experiential toolkit which models how that world of stuff works, and put the picture together, in order to make a coherent whole and usefully navigate the world. Reason and logic claim things can't be any other way, but surely they're part of the model-making process too. Human concepts of reason, logic and causation ultimately arise from the way we humans experience our model of the world to work. Like our senses construct a physical model of the stuff of the world.


Against that scepticism - the breadth, detail, coherence and predictability of our physicalist model is genuinely compelling. Reason and logic seem to us as ultimately reliable in the face of our flaws and limitations, it feels inconceivable they themselves are flawed.

So... how do we know how sceptical we should be about our ability to know ontological reality? Kant has his formula, but how do we test that any more than we can test physicalism, idealism or solipsism?
User avatar
The Beast
Posts: 1403
Joined: July 7th, 2013, 10:32 pm

Re: Kant's Transcendental Idealism

Post by The Beast »

If we must get away from the wave/particle duality then the four functions of experience are fundamental: sensing, feeling, thinking, intuition which is not the starting point of many physicalists subscribing to the Copenhagen interpretation. No wonder all the push-back in the use of equations not leading to a self-consistent picture of reality. “Let’s just call human reality the assertion of sensing and feeling denied by the thinking” (paraphrasing). As far as intuition, the first axiom IMO is: it exists and as far as making sensing and feeling congruous with thinking, it is the attempt of the philosophies of language: objects are descriptions using dialectics in some methodology leaving metaphysics to the intuition. In Jung’s phenomenology there is a clear path to incorporate the elements of the unconscious/intuition to an overall picture of reality…and belief. A more complete phenomenology of the self.
User avatar
Pattern-chaser
Premium Member
Posts: 8268
Joined: September 22nd, 2019, 5:17 am
Favorite Philosopher: Cratylus
Location: England

Re: Kant's Transcendental Idealism

Post by Pattern-chaser »

Sy Borg wrote: April 22nd, 2023, 5:29 pm Not a big fan of Occam's Razor, are you? Like any other animal, I prefer to take reality at face value. I see no reason to add extra speculative layers on to what is already apparent. Here is our Earth, created and energised by its star, and this planet's geology has complexified to the point that we call it biology. Then evolution over deep time, now us. And we are famously in the process of creating that which will supersede H. sapiens as the dominant beings on the surface of this planet (which I personally think will be a blend of human and AI rather than just AI).

Isn't all that beautiful and weird enough for you without rendering it esoteric?
😃 It seems I can always rely on you to come up with a perspective I haven't discovered myself. And a perspective without value is (IME and IMO) a rare thing indeed, so thank you. 👍🙂



Occam's Razor? An invented rule of thumb, useful only when we need to reach a decision when we have insufficient information to do so with confidence. I'm not really a fan, but not an adversary either. It has its uses, as a worthwhile guessing-tool.



Taking reality at face value is always tempting; it's so easy and convenient, don't you think? Comfortable and reassuring, too. 😉 But have you considered — no, of course you haven't, because you take reality at face value 😉 — that the Earth may not be flat? 😋

Is it my view that is over-complicated, or is it that your view is simplistic*?



The world, in all its wonder and poetic uncertainty, is indubitably "beautiful and weird enough" for me. But the way you write might suggest that it is just too exciting for you, that you prefer a quiet and peaceful life, devoid of inquiry or curiosity. Fair enough; it takes all sorts to make a world, as 'they' say. 😋





* — making something complicated seem simple by ignoring important parts of it [Cambridge Dictionary of British English]
Last edited by Pattern-chaser on April 23rd, 2023, 11:16 am, edited 2 times in total.
Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"
User avatar
Pattern-chaser
Premium Member
Posts: 8268
Joined: September 22nd, 2019, 5:17 am
Favorite Philosopher: Cratylus
Location: England

Re: Kant's Transcendental Idealism

Post by Pattern-chaser »

Sy Borg wrote: April 22nd, 2023, 7:55 pm Think of how a movie seems continuous but is actually made up of rapid frames.


Interesting. It just occurred to me that yes, the film seems continuous, but the apparent dynamic, changing, movement is the illusion. An illusion fabricated from static pictures. There is no actual movement, only the impression or implication of it. And yet we easily see a continuous, moving, portrayal. What's really fascinating is that our senses are presented with an ordered sequence of 2D static (unchanging) images, and transforms them, creating a singular 4D and continuously-changing stream where there was no such thing. 🤔😮😃

Who would've thought that something that appears to be moving could be a static illusion? And who could even suspect that something apparent might not be what it seems? 😂 ... Am I dreaming I'm a butterfly, or am I a butterfly dreaming I'm an old and decrepit hippy with a lifelong love of philosophy? 😋
Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"
User avatar
psycho
Posts: 132
Joined: January 23rd, 2021, 5:33 pm

Re: Kant's Transcendental Idealism

Post by psycho »

Gertie wrote: April 23rd, 2023, 4:21 am
psycho wrote: April 22nd, 2023, 7:13 pm
Pattern-chaser wrote: April 9th, 2023, 7:47 am
psycho wrote: April 8th, 2023, 5:46 pm I have the impression that the correspondence between the original phenomenon and its perception is quite faithful to the phenomenon.
Our efficiency as agents is remarkable.
I think we all have such impressions. They only reflect, after all, what reality appears to be, so why wouldn't we suspect that what we perceive might be so? But we have no justification; our confidence rests on a 'faith position', yes? And so does our "remarkable" "efficiency as agents"?

I find uncertainty is always a good, grounding, position to begin thinking about something. "Do we really know that, or do we just hope we know it?" is one of my favourite questions to ask myself. At worst, it reminds me that certainty is rare; at best, it sets me on the right path, toward (apparent) understanding.
What are the chances that each one of us is an effective agent in reality (using only the information we gather from it) and that despite that, reality does not have a very good correspondence with that information?
I think that's a strong argument for us having some type of connection with ontological reality.

Physicalism gives us an incredibly broad and detailed model of reality which is both coherent and predictive - based on third person human falsifiability. That's pretty compelling, and not to be sniffed at.

There are some significant buts tho.

If you go by effectiveness alone, an ant is an effective navigator of reality too, using the information it gathers from it. But if an ant was capable of describing the nature of that reality, it would likely be very different to my description. The ant and I are both limited and flawed subjects with a specific first person pov, with our own particular types of experiential knowing kits, ways of representing the world. All ants might come up with a similar sensory model, and all humans, dogs, and bats might roughly agree with members of their own species. But have radically different models.

So can our big complex thinky human brains, aided by our instruments and ability to compare notes with each other, claim to have roughly the right model? A very accurate model, maybe one which just needs a few gaps and rough edges nailing down? Maybe. Or maybe on the continuum of an ant's subjective pov to reality, humans with all our advantages are barely further along a massive divide. Just looking through a different set of contortions. Evolution itself says we, like ants, are 'designed' for utility rather than reality detecting, there's a difference.

Scepticism asks us to go back to epistemological basics. Are time and space even real, do material objects exist, does anything but my own conscious experience exist - How can we know?

If the answer is other humans I compare notes with agree, those other humans might be just aspects of my experience. Or if they exist in their own right 'out there' in the world, their limitations and flaws in the way they represent reality in the form of conscious experience will be similar to mine, which puts a question mark over third person falsifiability, which science relies on. Human third person falsifiability does eliminate human flaws and limitations. And our instruments are designed by us to be comprehensible to us. Science tells us we're limited and flawed observers and thinkers who create representations of reality, rather than having direct epistemological access to it, the way we have access to the experiential model we each create.

So how about reason, logic and causation? If the job of our senses is to model the stuff of the world, we also have an experiential toolkit which models how that world of stuff works, and put the picture together, in order to make a coherent whole and usefully navigate the world. Reason and logic claim things can't be any other way, but surely they're part of the model-making process too. Human concepts of reason, logic and causation ultimately arise from the way we humans experience our model of the world to work. Like our senses construct a physical model of the stuff of the world.


Against that scepticism - the breadth, detail, coherence and predictability of our physicalist model is genuinely compelling. Reason and logic seem to us as ultimately reliable in the face of our flaws and limitations, it feels inconceivable they themselves are flawed.

So... how do we know how sceptical we should be about our ability to know ontological reality? Kant has his formula, but how do we test that any more than we can test physicalism, idealism or solipsism?
The fact that the ant is not capable of describing reality does not imply that the information that the ant collects from reality does not have a very good correspondence with that reality.

Imagine that I build my model of reality with the most advanced representation that 3D graphics technology allows. That a gorilla builds it with Wolfstein 3D type graphics (the game). That a dog does it with pixelated graphics like Donkey Kong. That a lizard does it with painted cardboard cutouts. And that an insect uses stick figures.
All these scenarios do not imply that each of these cases does not have a correspondence with reality.

When you look at an animation with stick figures it is very clear to you what reality it represents. A simplified version of reality is not a contradictory version of that reality.

Yeah. We (our species) can say that the model of reality that we jointly construct is very very very close to the reality underlying that model.

The utility will be seriously affected if the model does not have the best correspondence. A difference between reality and our representation does not mean that the difference hides or distorts some aspect of reality. A case of this type is color. The existence of the color red (non-existent in reality and false in principle) facilitated our survival without subverting what happens outside of our mind.

Skepticism is the attitude of assuming that there is a reality accessible to knowledge.

The other humans exist. There is no way to create a model (none) that does not include the existence of other beings of the same species.
Knowledge (result of the interaction between humans and their particular reality) is a matter of probability.

In my opinion, it is the assumption that absolute truths can be possessed (impossible) that confuses this issue (the nature of knowledge).

Science does not say that we are failed observers. That is a misinterpretation. Any scientific model of reality will always have only a rough match to the reality underlying the information used for that model. Considering that we fail results from the erroneous assumption that it is possible to find absolute knowledge and that if this does not happen, we fail.

What is remarkable is our effectiveness in understanding reality within a scenario with those rules of the game.

To suppose that it is possible to have direct epistemological access to reality is a wild fantasy. Should the chair be physically contained in your brain for you to know it?


Reason, logic and causality are the set of rules that we manage to distill from reality. It's a work in progress. A very good but incomplete tool. It is very important to distinguish that, to the extent that we know more about reality, these tools must be adequate and expanded. Quantum entanglement was not part of reason, logic, or causation a couple of hundred years ago.

Paradoxically, the logical thing to do is to consider that logic is not complete. Not that it is faulty.

We must continue using the tool that has been most useful to us. Probability.

Idealism and solipsism do not hold up under any interpretation. They are dead roads and a negative charge if you try to understand our reality. A waste of time that confuses points that are otherwise clearer.

Interesting conversation.
User avatar
Sy Borg
Site Admin
Posts: 14997
Joined: December 16th, 2013, 9:05 pm

Re: Kant's Transcendental Idealism

Post by Sy Borg »

Pattern-chaser wrote: April 23rd, 2023, 11:14 am
Sy Borg wrote: April 22nd, 2023, 7:55 pm Think of how a movie seems continuous but is actually made up of rapid frames.


Interesting. It just occurred to me that yes, the film seems continuous, but the apparent dynamic, changing, movement is the illusion. An illusion fabricated from static pictures. There is no actual movement, only the impression or implication of it. And yet we easily see a continuous, moving, portrayal. What's really fascinating is that our senses are presented with an ordered sequence of 2D static (unchanging) images, and transforms them, creating a singular 4D and continuously-changing stream where there was no such thing. 🤔😮😃

Who would've thought that something that appears to be moving could be a static illusion? And who could even suspect that something apparent might not be what it seems? 😂 ... Am I dreaming I'm a butterfly, or am I a butterfly dreaming I'm an old and decrepit hippy with a lifelong love of philosophy? 😋
I would say "nice try" but it isn't. Clearly continuity is not an illusion, it's a particular perspective, of which there can validly be multiple. Just as seeing ourselves as one thing rather than squillions of tiny atoms is not an illusion.
User avatar
Pattern-chaser
Premium Member
Posts: 8268
Joined: September 22nd, 2019, 5:17 am
Favorite Philosopher: Cratylus
Location: England

Re: Kant's Transcendental Idealism

Post by Pattern-chaser »

Sy Borg wrote: April 22nd, 2023, 7:55 pm Think of how a movie seems continuous but is actually made up of rapid frames.
Pattern-chaser wrote: April 23rd, 2023, 11:14 am Interesting. It just occurred to me that yes, the film seems continuous, but the apparent dynamic, changing, movement is the illusion. An illusion fabricated from static pictures. There is no actual movement, only the impression or implication of it. And yet we easily see a continuous, moving, portrayal. What's really fascinating is that our senses are presented with an ordered sequence of 2D static (unchanging) images, and transforms them, creating a singular 4D and continuously-changing stream where there was no such thing. 🤔😮😃

Who would've thought that something that appears to be moving could be a static illusion? And who could even suspect that something apparent might not be what it seems? 😂 ... Am I dreaming I'm a butterfly, or am I a butterfly dreaming I'm an old and decrepit hippy with a lifelong love of philosophy? 😋
Sy Borg wrote: April 23rd, 2023, 4:32 pm I would say "nice try" but it isn't. Clearly continuity is not an illusion, it's a particular perspective, of which there can validly be multiple. Just as seeing ourselves as one thing rather than squillions of tiny atoms is not an illusion.
"Continuity", the continuous-seeming movie picture, is an illusion. The actuality is a sequence of static images; the illusion is of one, dynamic, stream. But the bit that I found comment worthy is that, from the raw material of static images, a dynamic, moving, picture is seemingly created. Movement from stasis. More (scientifically) formal: we seemingly add a time dimension to that which previously didn't have one.
Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"
User avatar
thrasymachus
Posts: 520
Joined: March 7th, 2020, 11:21 am

Re: Kant's Transcendental Idealism

Post by thrasymachus »

Gertie wrote:

1 Either my conscious experience is all that exists, in which case ontology and epistemology (or noumena and phenomena) are indeed identical, or my conscious experience represents a real world I'm interacting with. I can't know which is true.
An odd premise: this is not either/or. Keep in mind that your consciousness IS the real world in that it is there, has being, as do other things and consciousnesses. But you witness these other from your conditioning consciousness. We all say this, physicalists and phenomenologists alike.
2. If I make the assumption that my conscious experience represents my interaction with the world, then I've accepted an ontological world exists which I'm part of (part of in the sense that I'm not the entirety of the world).

3. My experience of the world is as a subject with a specific pov, not a perfect and unlimited omniscient pov.

4. Therefore my conscious experiential representation of the world (the epistemological way I know it), is not identical with the ontological world.

Conclusion - Epistemology and ontology are different. Or solipsism is true.


Do you agree with this much? If so, in what sense specifically can't we separate them? If not, what's your argument?
There is a reason Heidegger gave a conversation like this entirely new vocabulary, which is that the whole affair is confused and conflicted. Very hard to talk about this using your constructions of things. You need to simplify and attend only to what is there, in the horizon of what is given, so to speak. Encountering a tea cup is certainly encountering something that is not me. Period. It is other than me, and foolish to say otherwise. Now, what is this other? It is something constituted, not a singular other. This kind of singularity we associate with just the kind of thing Heidegger wants to be rid of, call it substance or the logos or reality. Heidegger argued against Husserl who argued that the transcendental ego was foundational. Heidegger replaced all of these with hermeneutics. The tea cup is a "taking as" of something in the world, meaning when I am in the presence of a tea cup, this "presence" is an interpretative event of that "other" over there I am looking at. All that IS, IS by virtue of an interpretative event that takes things, as he says, AS something, a particle of language embedded in a proposition that is embedded in a vast array of possible contexts, which itself is an open system of meanings.

The attempt to nail down ontology in the traditional way, as some overarching, non propositional and non interpretative existence-simpliciter is, for Heidegger, just bad metaphysics. That is not what we get when we analyze foundational meanings. You are a subject whose understanding is entangled with the world and THIS is ontology. You cannot talk about what is beyond entanglements, for to speak at all IS being entangled.

Heidegger is absolutely right on this. But, I claim, he gets things wrong (I claim this with the help, of course, of others). E.g., ethics and value. This is a sticky wicket, for one has to inquire into that structure of being-in-the-world and asks if it is right to dismiss all that is there as reducible to an interpretative ontology. This issue really gets down to the wire on what existence IS. It has to be approached apophatically: all that can be analyzed in terms of hermeneutics (interpretation) is what Heidegger says must exhaustively encompass meaningful talk about being, and this would be with a lower case 'b'. There is no reasonable talk about big 'B' Being.

One has to get very simple: is pain and pleasure, suffering and bliss, and all of that kind of thing just what language and its pragmatics (pairing Heidegger with Dewey, Rorty et al) is saying? Is it true that as I behold a beautiful day, I am engaged in nothing that goes beyond what language can speak? I say, of course, no. The existence of pain or pleasure is palpably there as a genesis of Being with a big 'B', as a kind of metavalue qualia; the "good" of this Haagen dazs is not a language phenomenon exclusively for the understanding, as once the language, the states of affairs, as Wittgenstein called it, is reductively removed (apophatically, you might say) there is the residuum of the Real ('B' eing, that is): the Good (with a big 'G') of the experience.

Note how this doesn't work with standard notions of qualia. The color yellow or the sound of traffic, QUA yellow and traffic sound, once the interpretative context is removed, there is no residuum of Being, no radical thereness (Sartre called this radical contingency. See his Nausea and the Chestnut tree encounter. What Sartre failed to see was that this "superfluity" of reality is Value). Absent of value, "Being" is just "being".

Epistemology and ontology certainly are inseparable. It is nonsense to speak of one without the other. If I know, I know P; if P, I must know P. This certainly doesn't mean that in science, or in our daily lives, there are no things when perceptual systems are vacated. Rather, it means that at the level of basic questions, ontology, this generalization about "what is known" is grounded OUR existence.
User avatar
Sy Borg
Site Admin
Posts: 14997
Joined: December 16th, 2013, 9:05 pm

Re: Kant's Transcendental Idealism

Post by Sy Borg »

Pattern-chaser wrote: April 24th, 2023, 10:07 am
Sy Borg wrote: April 22nd, 2023, 7:55 pm Think of how a movie seems continuous but is actually made up of rapid frames.
Pattern-chaser wrote: April 23rd, 2023, 11:14 am Interesting. It just occurred to me that yes, the film seems continuous, but the apparent dynamic, changing, movement is the illusion. An illusion fabricated from static pictures. There is no actual movement, only the impression or implication of it. And yet we easily see a continuous, moving, portrayal. What's really fascinating is that our senses are presented with an ordered sequence of 2D static (unchanging) images, and transforms them, creating a singular 4D and continuously-changing stream where there was no such thing. 🤔😮😃

Who would've thought that something that appears to be moving could be a static illusion? And who could even suspect that something apparent might not be what it seems? 😂 ... Am I dreaming I'm a butterfly, or am I a butterfly dreaming I'm an old and decrepit hippy with a lifelong love of philosophy? 😋
Sy Borg wrote: April 23rd, 2023, 4:32 pm I would say "nice try" but it isn't. Clearly continuity is not an illusion, it's a particular perspective, of which there can validly be multiple. Just as seeing ourselves as one thing rather than squillions of tiny atoms is not an illusion.
"Continuity", the continuous-seeming movie picture, is an illusion. The actuality is a sequence of static images; the illusion is of one, dynamic, stream. But the bit that I found comment worthy is that, from the raw material of static images, a dynamic, moving, picture is seemingly created. Movement from stasis. More (scientifically) formal: we seemingly add a time dimension to that which previously didn't have one.
I appreciate that philosophy buffs tend to declare just about everything to be an "illusion", but I don't buy that postmodern approach. If you call the continuous passing of time "an illusion" then you declare all of reality an illusion, rendering the world "illusion" meaningless.

I also think time always existed. Events are still happening in vacuum energy of ostensibly empty space, just that there's no known natural clock with which to measure the temporal qualities of the quantum foam.
Belindi
Moderator
Posts: 6105
Joined: September 11th, 2016, 2:11 pm

Re: Kant's Transcendental Idealism

Post by Belindi »

Sy Borg wrote: April 24th, 2023, 8:05 pm
Pattern-chaser wrote: April 24th, 2023, 10:07 am
Sy Borg wrote: April 22nd, 2023, 7:55 pm Think of how a movie seems continuous but is actually made up of rapid frames.
Pattern-chaser wrote: April 23rd, 2023, 11:14 am Interesting. It just occurred to me that yes, the film seems continuous, but the apparent dynamic, changing, movement is the illusion. An illusion fabricated from static pictures. There is no actual movement, only the impression or implication of it. And yet we easily see a continuous, moving, portrayal. What's really fascinating is that our senses are presented with an ordered sequence of 2D static (unchanging) images, and transforms them, creating a singular 4D and continuously-changing stream where there was no such thing. 🤔😮😃

Who would've thought that something that appears to be moving could be a static illusion? And who could even suspect that something apparent might not be what it seems? 😂 ... Am I dreaming I'm a butterfly, or am I a butterfly dreaming I'm an old and decrepit hippy with a lifelong love of philosophy? 😋
Sy Borg wrote: April 23rd, 2023, 4:32 pm I would say "nice try" but it isn't. Clearly continuity is not an illusion, it's a particular perspective, of which there can validly be multiple. Just as seeing ourselves as one thing rather than squillions of tiny atoms is not an illusion.
"Continuity", the continuous-seeming movie picture, is an illusion. The actuality is a sequence of static images; the illusion is of one, dynamic, stream. But the bit that I found comment worthy is that, from the raw material of static images, a dynamic, moving, picture is seemingly created. Movement from stasis. More (scientifically) formal: we seemingly add a time dimension to that which previously didn't have one.
I appreciate that philosophy buffs tend to declare just about everything to be an "illusion", but I don't buy that postmodern approach. If you call the continuous passing of time "an illusion" then you declare all of reality an illusion, rendering the world "illusion" meaningless.

I also think time always existed. Events are still happening in vacuum energy of ostensibly empty space, just that there's no known natural clock with which to measure the temporal qualities of the quantum foam.
There is no particular natural clock because there is nothing that is not subjectively a clock. 'Time' means rate of change and also change itself.

Despite that for each individual change is subjective and relative, change is not illusory.
User avatar
Sy Borg
Site Admin
Posts: 14997
Joined: December 16th, 2013, 9:05 pm

Re: Kant's Transcendental Idealism

Post by Sy Borg »

Belindi wrote: April 25th, 2023, 4:28 am
Sy Borg wrote: April 24th, 2023, 8:05 pm
Pattern-chaser wrote: April 24th, 2023, 10:07 am
Sy Borg wrote: April 22nd, 2023, 7:55 pm Think of how a movie seems continuous but is actually made up of rapid frames.
Pattern-chaser wrote: April 23rd, 2023, 11:14 am Interesting. It just occurred to me that yes, the film seems continuous, but the apparent dynamic, changing, movement is the illusion. An illusion fabricated from static pictures. There is no actual movement, only the impression or implication of it. And yet we easily see a continuous, moving, portrayal. What's really fascinating is that our senses are presented with an ordered sequence of 2D static (unchanging) images, and transforms them, creating a singular 4D and continuously-changing stream where there was no such thing. 🤔😮😃

Who would've thought that something that appears to be moving could be a static illusion? And who could even suspect that something apparent might not be what it seems? 😂 ... Am I dreaming I'm a butterfly, or am I a butterfly dreaming I'm an old and decrepit hippy with a lifelong love of philosophy? 😋
Sy Borg wrote: April 23rd, 2023, 4:32 pm I would say "nice try" but it isn't. Clearly continuity is not an illusion, it's a particular perspective, of which there can validly be multiple. Just as seeing ourselves as one thing rather than squillions of tiny atoms is not an illusion.
"Continuity", the continuous-seeming movie picture, is an illusion. The actuality is a sequence of static images; the illusion is of one, dynamic, stream. But the bit that I found comment worthy is that, from the raw material of static images, a dynamic, moving, picture is seemingly created. Movement from stasis. More (scientifically) formal: we seemingly add a time dimension to that which previously didn't have one.
I appreciate that philosophy buffs tend to declare just about everything to be an "illusion", but I don't buy that postmodern approach. If you call the continuous passing of time "an illusion" then you declare all of reality an illusion, rendering the world "illusion" meaningless.

I also think time always existed. Events are still happening in vacuum energy of ostensibly empty space, just that there's no known natural clock with which to measure the temporal qualities of the quantum foam.
There is no particular natural clock because there is nothing that is not subjectively a clock. 'Time' means rate of change and also change itself.

Despite that for each individual change is subjective and relative, change is not illusory.
Yes, that's more or less how I see it. Everything always changes (unless at absolute zero, and nothing known quite reaches that temperature) so time always exists, whether or not regular "clocks" exist, eg. rotations or beta decay, with which to measure time.
User avatar
Pattern-chaser
Premium Member
Posts: 8268
Joined: September 22nd, 2019, 5:17 am
Favorite Philosopher: Cratylus
Location: England

Re: Kant's Transcendental Idealism

Post by Pattern-chaser »

Pattern-chaser wrote: April 24th, 2023, 10:07 am "Continuity", the continuous-seeming movie picture, is an illusion. The actuality is a sequence of static images; the illusion is of one, dynamic, stream. But the bit that I found comment worthy is that, from the raw material of static images, a dynamic, moving, picture is seemingly created. Movement from stasis. More (scientifically) formal: we seemingly add a time dimension to that which previously didn't have one.
Sy Borg wrote: April 24th, 2023, 8:05 pm I appreciate that philosophy buffs tend to declare just about everything to be an "illusion", but I don't buy that postmodern approach. If you call the continuous passing of time "an illusion" then you declare all of reality an illusion, rendering the world "illusion" meaningless.
No, I am not referring to "the continuous passing of time" as an illusion.

The (non-illusory) actuality is a sequence of static (i.e. timeless, in that sense) images.
The illusion is of a moving image. I.e. the image has been imbued with time, and thereby with (illusory) movement.

This is not critical, or world-shattering. I just find it fascinating to view things using the perspective I have described. I think we all knew that TV and movies offer an illusion of movement. But how many of us realised that the production of those illusions involves attempting to 'restore' that time into the mix, when it had previously been removed by capturing static images?



I think there is a connection here with modern digital-to-analogue and analogue-to-digital conversions... 😯🤔 But maybe not so clear a connection to Kant or Transcendental Idealism. 😊
Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"
User avatar
The Beast
Posts: 1403
Joined: July 7th, 2013, 10:32 pm

Re: Kant's Transcendental Idealism

Post by The Beast »

Are we in a frame or in a movie? Reality is a collection of frames that are perceived as a movie. {reality: reality is a frame} Is this is true then there is a distance/time between frames that is non-reality for if it was all reality then frames are false. It is a Russell paradox with predicates. Kant’s transcendental dialectics vs Frege’s mathematics. The paradox arises in both.
Post Reply

Return to “Epistemology and Metaphysics”

2023/2024 Philosophy Books of the Month

Entanglement - Quantum and Otherwise

Entanglement - Quantum and Otherwise
by John K Danenbarger
January 2023

Mark Victor Hansen, Relentless: Wisdom Behind the Incomparable Chicken Soup for the Soul

Mark Victor Hansen, Relentless: Wisdom Behind the Incomparable Chicken Soup for the Soul
by Mitzi Perdue
February 2023

Rediscovering the Wisdom of Human Nature: How Civilization Destroys Happiness

Rediscovering the Wisdom of Human Nature: How Civilization Destroys Happiness
by Chet Shupe
March 2023

The Unfakeable Code®

The Unfakeable Code®
by Tony Jeton Selimi
April 2023

The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are

The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are
by Alan Watts
May 2023

Killing Abel

Killing Abel
by Michael Tieman
June 2023

Reconfigurement: Reconfiguring Your Life at Any Stage and Planning Ahead

Reconfigurement: Reconfiguring Your Life at Any Stage and Planning Ahead
by E. Alan Fleischauer
July 2023

First Survivor: The Impossible Childhood Cancer Breakthrough

First Survivor: The Impossible Childhood Cancer Breakthrough
by Mark Unger
August 2023

Predictably Irrational

Predictably Irrational
by Dan Ariely
September 2023

Artwords

Artwords
by Beatriz M. Robles
November 2023

Fireproof Happiness: Extinguishing Anxiety & Igniting Hope

Fireproof Happiness: Extinguishing Anxiety & Igniting Hope
by Dr. Randy Ross
December 2023

Beyond the Golden Door: Seeing the American Dream Through an Immigrant's Eyes

Beyond the Golden Door: Seeing the American Dream Through an Immigrant's Eyes
by Ali Master
February 2024

2022 Philosophy Books of the Month

Emotional Intelligence At Work

Emotional Intelligence At Work
by Richard M Contino & Penelope J Holt
January 2022

Free Will, Do You Have It?

Free Will, Do You Have It?
by Albertus Kral
February 2022

My Enemy in Vietnam

My Enemy in Vietnam
by Billy Springer
March 2022

2X2 on the Ark

2X2 on the Ark
by Mary J Giuffra, PhD
April 2022

The Maestro Monologue

The Maestro Monologue
by Rob White
May 2022

What Makes America Great

What Makes America Great
by Bob Dowell
June 2022

The Truth Is Beyond Belief!

The Truth Is Beyond Belief!
by Jerry Durr
July 2022

Living in Color

Living in Color
by Mike Murphy
August 2022 (tentative)

The Not So Great American Novel

The Not So Great American Novel
by James E Doucette
September 2022

Mary Jane Whiteley Coggeshall, Hicksite Quaker, Iowa/National Suffragette And Her Speeches

Mary Jane Whiteley Coggeshall, Hicksite Quaker, Iowa/National Suffragette And Her Speeches
by John N. (Jake) Ferris
October 2022

In It Together: The Beautiful Struggle Uniting Us All

In It Together: The Beautiful Struggle Uniting Us All
by Eckhart Aurelius Hughes
November 2022

The Smartest Person in the Room: The Root Cause and New Solution for Cybersecurity

The Smartest Person in the Room
by Christian Espinosa
December 2022

2021 Philosophy Books of the Month

The Biblical Clock: The Untold Secrets Linking the Universe and Humanity with God's Plan

The Biblical Clock
by Daniel Friedmann
March 2021

Wilderness Cry: A Scientific and Philosophical Approach to Understanding God and the Universe

Wilderness Cry
by Dr. Hilary L Hunt M.D.
April 2021

Fear Not, Dream Big, & Execute: Tools To Spark Your Dream And Ignite Your Follow-Through

Fear Not, Dream Big, & Execute
by Jeff Meyer
May 2021

Surviving the Business of Healthcare: Knowledge is Power

Surviving the Business of Healthcare
by Barbara Galutia Regis M.S. PA-C
June 2021

Winning the War on Cancer: The Epic Journey Towards a Natural Cure

Winning the War on Cancer
by Sylvie Beljanski
July 2021

Defining Moments of a Free Man from a Black Stream

Defining Moments of a Free Man from a Black Stream
by Dr Frank L Douglas
August 2021

If Life Stinks, Get Your Head Outta Your Buts

If Life Stinks, Get Your Head Outta Your Buts
by Mark L. Wdowiak
September 2021

The Preppers Medical Handbook

The Preppers Medical Handbook
by Dr. William W Forgey M.D.
October 2021

Natural Relief for Anxiety and Stress: A Practical Guide

Natural Relief for Anxiety and Stress
by Dr. Gustavo Kinrys, MD
November 2021

Dream For Peace: An Ambassador Memoir

Dream For Peace
by Dr. Ghoulem Berrah
December 2021