Kant's Transcendental Idealism

[Pattern-chaser]

How do you know you are not hallucinating now? If you can't tell, as per the above quote, then the point you make is moot.

Is it? I offered just one of many observations of uncertainty in our world, our 'reality'. We casually assume that we can tell the difference, but can we? I think we're kidding ourselves, and we can't. Just my opinion, of course. I can't offer conclusive arguments or evidence; there are none; this is just how it seems to me...

Well, I know for sure that I am not hallucinating right now, with 100% confidence.

Then I must bow to your certainty, that I do not share.

N.B. I am using "hallucination" is a wide and general manner, referring to any difference that might exist between that which I understand or perceive, and that which is. I hope this is not leading to misunderstanding between us here.

I am also 100% sure that I am, in reality, typing this reply to you.

Descartes would be so jealous!

Likewise, I was not hallucinating the peak experiences. While there is zero uncertainty for me, you will understandably be uncertain because you cannot be sure that I am sane or credible. In this sense, we are alone in life, because our experiences are exclusive, inaccessible to others. We link our reported subjective perceptions together to create culture and science, but these are shallow links that merely skim and aggregate the truths from the surface of individuals, with the depths of each person's experience being exclusively their own, and thus subject to doubt by others.

I agree with what you say ... except that I extend the uncertainty you mention to myself as well. How could I not? According to my own understanding, I see you telling yourself that you are certain, without the slightest shred of evidence in confirmation. Assumptions, suppositions and guesses, yes. We all have them. But certainty???

[Sy Borg]

We can question the bleeding obvious until the cows come home but reality has a way of making its presence felt. For instance, say you feel a strong need to go to the toilet. Are you going to dilly dilly around and doubt it? No, you're going to go to the room and do your business ASAP. You can be 100% sure that you needed to eliminate waste, so why doubt everything else?

Even if, say, our perceptions of time and space are inside out, and all spheres are actually negatively curved saddle shapes and time runs backwards, one can still be 100% sure to be typing, crapping or having peak experiences.

I wouldn't worry about Descartes thought. The man thought that other animals couldn't feel anything and that their apparent pain gestures were just reflex actions. He was, seemingly, far more sure about this than his own damn existence, given that he publicly cut screaming mammals up in public to prove the point. Where was his caution about belief, then?

So, yes, I am 100% rock solid certain that our experiences are true insofar as simians can be sure of anything. This whole "life is an illusion/delusion" is a tired and unconvincing trope IMO. I think Kant was simply pointing out that our senses and perceptions are limited. Ultimately, each species has its own limits, its own way of filtering the complex, interwoven fields and more solid entities of reality to maximal evolutionary advantage.

The more tools allow humans to learn more about reality, the more our everyday perception of existence have been confirmed - despite reports to the contrary, ie. journalists focusing on areas where science exposes the limits of intuition, which makes for good infotainment clickbait.

[Belindi]

I think we know hallucinations by their incoherence. This however is not to claim that hallucinations are not real. Every experience is real because there is no reality that transcends the experiences of living creatures.

[Sculptor1]

We can question the bleeding obvious until the cows come home but reality has a way of making its presence felt. For instance, say you feel a strong need to go to the toilet. Are you going to dilly dilly around and doubt it? No, you're going to go to the room and do your business ASAP. You can be 100% sure that you needed to eliminate waste, so why doubt everything else?

Even if, say, our perceptions of time and space are inside out, and all spheres are actually negatively curved saddle shapes and time runs backwards, one can still be 100% sure to be typing, crapping or having peak experiences.

Endogenous sensation are the easiest to accept. But even they can be confused.
People can feel like a piss, but be unable to do it, or not have any wee.
Same confusion with excrement too. Other endogenous senses are temperature, hunger, direction. All can lead you astray
There are dozens of senses beyond the Aristotelian Five, and all of them, including the five can give false readings.

I wouldn't worry about Descartes thought. The man thought that other animals couldn't feel anything and that their apparent pain gestures were just reflex actions. He was, seemingly, far more sure about this than his own damn existence, given that he publicly cut screaming mammals up in public to prove the point. Where was his caution about belief, then?

So, yes, I am 100% rock solid certain that our experiences are true insofar as simians can be sure of anything.

Yes but they are primarily facts about the state of our bodies, and it is only through evolved luck and flaw that the sensations represent the reality of the world.
For example; when we feel hunger it - there is not a force of nature called hunger. In fact the feeling is one or more or factors such as blood sugar and the state of the balance between Glucagon and insulin, and between Ghrelin and Leptin.
Let me ask you. Does it feel like high insulin and low Leptin? No . The sensation is DIFFERENT from the reality.
You ca repeat this thought experiment with all senses, and all of them reveal the simply fact that what you sense in not what reality insists it it.
All sensations are bound up with their utility, and physicality of the sense organs.

This whole "life is an illusion/delusion" is a tired and unconvincing trope IMO.

Um, but it is fact 100% true.

I think Kant was simply pointing out that our senses and perceptions are limited. Ultimately, each species has its own limits, its own way of filtering the complex, interwoven fields and more solid entities of reality to maximal evolutionary advantage.

It is more than just limits. The sense of a thing is qualitatively different from the object of perception the "thing-in-itself".
This understanding is not an impediment. It enhances our understanding.

As Kant explains:
We are perfectly justified in maintaining that only what is within ourselves can be immediately and directly perceived, and that only my own existence can be the object of a mere perception. Thus the existence of a real object outside me can never be given immediately and directly in perception, but can only be added in thought to the perception, which is a modification of the internal sense, and thus inferred as its external cause … . In the true sense of the word, therefore, I can never perceive external things, but I can only infer their existence from my own internal perception, regarding the perception as an effect of something external that must be the proximate cause —Critique of Pure Reason, A367 f.

[Belindi]

Sculptor wrote:

The sense of a thing is qualitatively different from the object of perception the "thing-in-itself".
This understanding is not an impediment. It enhances our understanding.

But there is no thing in itself. Unless you are talking eternity all percepts and concepts pertain to perceiving or conceptualising subjects.

A pain exists or existed despite that there is or was no pain in itself.
A dream exists or existed despite there is or was no dream in itself.

[Pattern-chaser]

We can question the bleeding obvious until the cows come home but reality has a way of making its presence felt. For instance, say you feel a strong need to go to the toilet. Are you going to dilly dilly around and doubt it? No, you're going to go to the room and do your business ASAP. You can be 100% sure that you needed to eliminate waste, so why doubt everything else?

Even if, say, our perceptions of time and space are inside out, and all spheres are actually negatively curved saddle shapes and time runs backwards, one can still be 100% sure to be typing, crapping or having peak experiences.

I wouldn't worry about Descartes thought. The man thought that other animals couldn't feel anything and that their apparent pain gestures were just reflex actions. He was, seemingly, far more sure about this than his own damn existence, given that he publicly cut screaming mammals up in public to prove the point. Where was his caution about belief, then?

So, yes, I am 100% rock solid certain that our experiences are true insofar as simians can be sure of anything. This whole "life is an illusion/delusion" is a tired and unconvincing trope IMO. I think Kant was simply pointing out that our senses and perceptions are limited. Ultimately, each species has its own limits, its own way of filtering the complex, interwoven fields and more solid entities of reality to maximal evolutionary advantage.

The more tools allow humans to learn more about reality, the more our everyday perception of existence have been confirmed - despite reports to the contrary, ie. journalists focusing on areas where science exposes the limits of intuition, which makes for good infotainment clickbait.

It is easy — child's play — to assert certainty. It is somewhat more challenging to demonstrate it. You assert here "100%" certainty of various things, but there are a myriad of reasons why this might not be so, ranging from your being a brain-in-a-vat through to rather more mundane possibilities. I just ordered a Michael Frayn book from the retailer named after a river, called "The Human Touch". I believe it touches on topics such as this sub-discussion. The following is a quote from a review of the book:

The physical Universe is a meaningless jumble, filled with uncertainties and unpredictabilities, governed by chance and often random events. Like actors in a Greek tragedy, we are driven to find order and meaning. We develop language, we name things, we try to analyse our own consciousness and ‘I-ness’, we wrestle to rationalize the decisions we make, we create categories of truth and falsehood, we invent ideas of causality and logic, and we propose laws of nature — but all these attempts at order are ultimately doomed to result in ambiguity.

There's (a lot) more, but you get the gist.

Yes, we assume most or all of the things you mention, we have little choice, in practice, but 100% certainty? No, I don't think that's possible. And I don't think you can demonstrate its truth, beyond simple assertion.

[Pattern-chaser]

I think we know hallucinations by their incoherence.

And yet, when we're dreaming, we don't know or realise that we're dreaming...?

Later, when we've 'woken up', perhaps, but not while we're actually dreaming.

[Sy Borg]

We can question the bleeding obvious until the cows come home but reality has a way of making its presence felt. For instance, say you feel a strong need to go to the toilet. Are you going to dilly dilly around and doubt it? No, you're going to go to the room and do your business ASAP. You can be 100% sure that you needed to eliminate waste, so why doubt everything else?

Even if, say, our perceptions of time and space are inside out, and all spheres are actually negatively curved saddle shapes and time runs backwards, one can still be 100% sure to be typing, crapping or having peak experiences.

I wouldn't worry about Descartes thought. The man thought that other animals couldn't feel anything and that their apparent pain gestures were just reflex actions. He was, seemingly, far more sure about this than his own damn existence, given that he publicly cut screaming mammals up in public to prove the point. Where was his caution about belief, then?

So, yes, I am 100% rock solid certain that our experiences are true insofar as simians can be sure of anything. This whole "life is an illusion/delusion" is a tired and unconvincing trope IMO. I think Kant was simply pointing out that our senses and perceptions are limited. Ultimately, each species has its own limits, its own way of filtering the complex, interwoven fields and more solid entities of reality to maximal evolutionary advantage.

The more tools allow humans to learn more about reality, the more our everyday perception of existence have been confirmed - despite reports to the contrary, ie. journalists focusing on areas where science exposes the limits of intuition, which makes for good infotainment clickbait.

It is easy — child's play — to assert certainty. It is somewhat more challenging to demonstrate it. You assert here "100%" certainty of various things, but there are a myriad of reasons why this might not be so, ranging from your being a brain-in-a-vat through to rather more mundane possibilities. I just ordered a Michael Frayn book from the retailer named after a river, called "The Human Touch". I believe it touches on topics such as this sub-discussion. The following is a quote from a review of the book:

The physical Universe is a meaningless jumble, filled with uncertainties and unpredictabilities, governed by chance and often random events. Like actors in a Greek tragedy, we are driven to find order and meaning. We develop language, we name things, we try to analyse our own consciousness and ‘I-ness’, we wrestle to rationalize the decisions we make, we create categories of truth and falsehood, we invent ideas of causality and logic, and we propose laws of nature — but all these attempts at order are ultimately doomed to result in ambiguity.

There's (a lot) more, but you get the gist.

Yes, we assume most or all of the things you mention, we have little choice, in practice, but 100% certainty? No, I don't think that's possible. And I don't think you can demonstrate its truth, beyond simple assertion.

I don't need to demonstrate of prove my reality to others any more than they need prove their realities to me. That's just communication, not experience.

The brain in a vat idea is an unconvincing thought experiment, making clear just how dumb geniuses in science can be when they mistake their models for actuality. Brains in a vat cannot work IMO because consciousness is not generated by the brain but is a whole body phenomenon. A brain in a vat would be closer to ChatGPT than to a flesh and blood human.

Sure, it's possible everyone is completely wrong about the nature of reality due to a intrinsic inability of any life form to discern anything even close to actual reality. If so, it doesn't matter because no one can ever have any idea about it. However, it seems to me that human senses and tools will always incompletely perceive reality as per Kant, but they are not miles wrong. '

Rather, it seems that human perception compared with reality is to comparing a sketch with a photo. Generally on the right track, but lacking in detail.

[Belindi]

I think we know hallucinations by their incoherence.

And yet, when we're dreaming, we don't know or realise that we're dreaming...?

Later, when we've 'woken up', perhaps, but not while we're actually dreaming.

You remind me that our modern culture glorifies waking awareness to an extent that was not so before the age of enlightenment roughly 1685- 1815 and more markedly before the general Renaissance of ancient Greek reason.
I admit I was not being evaluatively objective about hallucinations, or dreaming awareness for that matter.

Within the scope of recorded history and anthropology, and certainly within the scope of archeological speculations, hallucinations and dreams were once accorded much higher epistemic status than is now generally the case.

[Pattern-chaser]

[...]

Yes, we assume most or all of the things you mention, we have little choice, in practice, but 100% certainty? No, I don't think that's possible. And I don't think you can demonstrate its truth, beyond simple assertion.

I don't need to demonstrate of prove my reality to others any more than they need prove their realities to me. That's just communication, not experience.

Interesting. You have knowledge enough to assert the "100% certainty" of X, Y and Z, but you don't need to demonstrate that your ideas have any merit at all. It would be more convincing if you were "100% certain" of the source of your certainty, and its justification. As it is, I see nothing except assertion.

The brain in a vat idea is an unconvincing thought experiment, making clear just how dumb geniuses in science can be when they mistake their models for actuality.

Straw-man — I'm not aware that anyone has ever asserted that their model is a model of "actuality". The whole point of these chains of thought is that we don't know which model, if any, is correct. We don't even know if one model is more likely than another. So I suggest that the one thing the "dumb geniuses" do not do is to assert the actuality of their model, or of any model.

Also, the brain-in-a-vat scenario exists well outside the purview of science, in the sin-bin of metaphysics.

Brains in a vat cannot work IMO because consciousness is not generated by the brain but is a whole body phenomenon.

The brain-in-a-vat scenario is a thought experiment, not a suggestion for a practical biology experiment. It is assumed that the brain receives identical input to what it would in a real human body, in the real world.

Sure, it's possible everyone is completely wrong about the nature of reality due to an intrinsic inability of any life form to discern anything even close to actual reality. If so, it doesn't matter because no one can ever have any idea about it.

And yet we speculate. Curiosity of the cat-killing kind, perhaps, but we can't seem to help ourselves. The fascinating questions of metaphysics have occupied us for millennia, even though we know that we can't and won't reach any justifiable conclusions. So it seems that, to us humans, it does matter.

[Gertie]

We can question the bleeding obvious until the cows come home but reality has a way of making its presence felt. For instance, say you feel a strong need to go to the toilet. Are you going to dilly dilly around and doubt it? No, you're going to go to the room and do your business ASAP. You can be 100% sure that you needed to eliminate waste, so why doubt everything else?

Even if, say, our perceptions of time and space are inside out, and all spheres are actually negatively curved saddle shapes and time runs backwards, one can still be 100% sure to be typing, crapping or having peak experiences.

I wouldn't worry about Descartes thought. The man thought that other animals couldn't feel anything and that their apparent pain gestures were just reflex actions. He was, seemingly, far more sure about this than his own damn existence, given that he publicly cut screaming mammals up in public to prove the point. Where was his caution about belief, then?

So, yes, I am 100% rock solid certain that our experiences are true insofar as simians can be sure of anything. This whole "life is an illusion/delusion" is a tired and unconvincing trope IMO. I think Kant was simply pointing out that our senses and perceptions are limited. Ultimately, each species has its own limits, its own way of filtering the complex, interwoven fields and more solid entities of reality to maximal evolutionary advantage.

The more tools allow humans to learn more about reality, the more our everyday perception of existence have been confirmed - despite reports to the contrary, ie. journalists focusing on areas where science exposes the limits of intuition, which makes for good infotainment clickbait.

It is easy — child's play — to assert certainty. It is somewhat more challenging to demonstrate it. You assert here "100%" certainty of various things, but there are a myriad of reasons why this might not be so, ranging from your being a brain-in-a-vat through to rather more mundane possibilities. I just ordered a Michael Frayn book from the retailer named after a river, called "The Human Touch". I believe it touches on topics such as this sub-discussion. The following is a quote from a review of the book:

The physical Universe is a meaningless jumble, filled with uncertainties and unpredictabilities, governed by chance and often random events. Like actors in a Greek tragedy, we are driven to find order and meaning. We develop language, we name things, we try to analyse our own consciousness and ‘I-ness’, we wrestle to rationalize the decisions we make, we create categories of truth and falsehood, we invent ideas of causality and logic, and we propose laws of nature — but all these attempts at order are ultimately doomed to result in ambiguity.

There's (a lot) more, but you get the gist.

Yes, we assume most or all of the things you mention, we have little choice, in practice, but 100% certainty? No, I don't think that's possible. And I don't think you can demonstrate its truth, beyond simple assertion.

I don't need to demonstrate of prove my reality to others any more than they need prove their realities to me. That's just communication, not experience.

The brain in a vat idea is an unconvincing thought experiment, making clear just how dumb geniuses in science can be when they mistake their models for actuality. Brains in a vat cannot work IMO because consciousness is not generated by the brain but is a whole body phenomenon. A brain in a vat would be closer to ChatGPT than to a flesh and blood human.

Sure, it's possible everyone is completely wrong about the nature of reality due to a intrinsic inability of any life form to discern anything even close to actual reality. If so, it doesn't matter because no one can ever have any idea about it. However, it seems to me that human senses and tools will always incompletely perceive reality as per Kant, but they are not miles wrong. '

Rather, it seems that human perception compared with reality is to comparing a sketch with a photo. Generally on the right track, but lacking in detail.

Ultimately there's no way of knowing that what we humans observe and the theories we derive from our observations are anything like the ultimate reality.

But what the resulting physicalist model has going for it is incredible scope and minute detail, coherence and comprehensibility, and predictive power. That adds up to a strong case for saying it's getting something right. Nothing else touches it. But it doesn't mean the actuality isn't beyond our wildest imagination either. The model itself tells us we are flawed and limited knowers of reality, which is kind of mind-blowing when you think about it.

[Sy Borg]

I don't need to demonstrate of prove my reality to others any more than they need prove their realities to me. That's just communication, not experience.

The brain in a vat idea is an unconvincing thought experiment, making clear just how dumb geniuses in science can be when they mistake their models for actuality. Brains in a vat cannot work IMO because consciousness is not generated by the brain but is a whole body phenomenon. A brain in a vat would be closer to ChatGPT than to a flesh and blood human.

Sure, it's possible everyone is completely wrong about the nature of reality due to a intrinsic inability of any life form to discern anything even close to actual reality. If so, it doesn't matter because no one can ever have any idea about it. However, it seems to me that human senses and tools will always incompletely perceive reality as per Kant, but they are not miles wrong. '

Rather, it seems that human perception compared with reality is to comparing a sketch with a photo. Generally on the right track, but lacking in detail.

Ultimately there's no way of knowing that what we humans observe and the theories we derive from our observations are anything like the ultimate reality.

But what the resulting physicalist model has going for it is incredible scope and minute detail, coherence and comprehensibility, and predictive power. That adds up to a strong case for saying it's getting something right. Nothing else touches it. But it doesn't mean the actuality isn't beyond our wildest imagination either. The model itself tells us we are flawed and limited knowers of reality, which is kind of mind-blowing when you think about it.

Yes, science's predictive power makes clear that its findings are at least somewhat indicative of its correctness. Situations where science and animal intuition tend to be a popular staple of science journalism but, for the most part, what we intuit and what science predicts are usually pretty close.

[Pattern-chaser]

Ultimately there's no way of knowing that what we humans observe and the theories we derive from our observations are anything like the ultimate reality.

But what the resulting physicalist model has going for it is incredible scope and minute detail, coherence and comprehensibility, and predictive power. That adds up to a strong case for saying it's getting something right. Nothing else touches it. But it doesn't mean the actuality isn't beyond our wildest imagination either. The model itself tells us we are flawed and limited knowers of reality, which is kind of mind-blowing when you think about it.

Yes, science's predictive power makes clear that its findings are at least somewhat indicative of its correctness.

"Correctness", or 'function'? I can see function, "detail, coherence and comprehensibility, and predictive power." But correctness is asserted here without justification. Why not say what we mean — say 'function', or something close — instead of claiming more than our arguments can deliver, perhaps to artificially (and unjustifiably) 'enhance' the claimed correctness of our outpourings?

And yes, I agree, that this is turning into a semantic discussion. What words mean, and therefrom, which words to employ. It seems important, philosophically, and significant too (to me), rather than mere pedantry. I hope I have the balance right...?

[Sy Borg]

Ultimately there's no way of knowing that what we humans observe and the theories we derive from our observations are anything like the ultimate reality.

But what the resulting physicalist model has going for it is incredible scope and minute detail, coherence and comprehensibility, and predictive power. That adds up to a strong case for saying it's getting something right. Nothing else touches it. But it doesn't mean the actuality isn't beyond our wildest imagination either. The model itself tells us we are flawed and limited knowers of reality, which is kind of mind-blowing when you think about it.

Yes, science's predictive power makes clear that its findings are at least somewhat indicative of its correctness.

"Correctness", or 'function'? I can see function, "detail, coherence and comprehensibility, and predictive power." But correctness is asserted here without justification. Why not say what we mean — say 'function', or something close — instead of claiming more than our arguments can deliver, perhaps to artificially (and unjustifiably) 'enhance' the claimed correctness of our outpourings?

Your claim that the efficacy of scientific theories may not stem from (relatively) accurate perception of reality is be a far greater supposition than the alternative. You figure that a theory's functionality may be unrelated, or tenuously related, to its accuracy as a representation of reality, but the evidence points very much the other way.

[Pattern-chaser]

Ultimately there's no way of knowing that what we humans observe and the theories we derive from our observations are anything like the ultimate reality.

But what the resulting physicalist model has going for it is incredible scope and minute detail, coherence and comprehensibility, and predictive power. That adds up to a strong case for saying it's getting something right. Nothing else touches it. But it doesn't mean the actuality isn't beyond our wildest imagination either. The model itself tells us we are flawed and limited knowers of reality, which is kind of mind-blowing when you think about it.

Yes, science's predictive power makes clear that its findings are at least somewhat indicative of its correctness.

"Correctness" is asserted here without justification. Why not say what we mean — say 'function', or something close?

Your claim that the efficacy of scientific theories may not stem from (relatively) accurate perception of reality is a far greater supposition than the alternative. You figure that a theory's functionality may be unrelated, or tenuously related, to its accuracy as a representation of reality, but the evidence points very much the other way.

I made/make no claim concerning "the efficacy of scientific theories". The context here is Gertie's words, above, and they concern matters metaphysical, quite outside the purview of science. In that metaphysical context, the "correctness" of science's findings is not justifiable. I don't mean unjustified — although that is also the case — I mean unjustifiable. There are no satisfactory premises that lead to the conclusion of correctness.

Also, it seems appropriate to repeat a question I have asked you before. Here, you refer to 'X' being "a far greater supposition than the alternative". My question is, what means have you employed to determine the relative probabilities involved here? [Hint: there are no such means. ]

Finally, you refer to "the evidence", but there is none. This lack is my justification for writing, above, that "There are no satisfactory premises that lead to the conclusion of correctness".