On The Contrast Between Appearance And Reality

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kennethamy
 
Reply Wed 24 Feb, 2010 08:04 pm
@Scottydamion,
Scottydamion;132115 wrote:
I suggest you look back at his last post. The concept of time itself may just be a useful construct, that is the point. So our ideas about cause and effect concerning past events may be incomplete or just another useful construct. If the construct of time deteriorates as science progresses, then all hell breaks loose as far as the cause of the universe. Giving idealists just as much say as anyone else on the matter, with common sense out the window.


I'll worry about it after you have shown that "time itself may just be a useful construct". In the meantime, it is not just commonsense that the Moon is older than people. Indeed, what makes you think it is commonsense at all?
 
Reconstructo
 
Reply Wed 24 Feb, 2010 08:06 pm
@Pythagorean,
Truth and Motive

George felt pretty smart. He knew all that there was worth knowing. Or so he thought. But Bobby came along and suggested some errors in his reasoning. George found it more comfortable to believe that Bobby was full of hot air. He didn't really listen to Bobby, because this threatened to interrupt his self-satisfaction.

We are all George sometimes. We have to push against the inner George to learn.
 
jeeprs
 
Reply Wed 24 Feb, 2010 08:08 pm
@Scottydamion,
Scottydamion;132105 wrote:
To help the image of the great Flying Spaghetti Monster (may he shower me with his noodly appendages) I must explain that the idea was invented to help stop a school board from teaching creationism as science. It simply pointed out that "divine intervention" is by definition supernatural or metaphysical and therefore belongs nowhere in the science classroom.


Hey thanks. I never knew that. I thought from my experience on the Dawkins forum that it was a general form of ridicule directed at anything faintly metaphysical.

I still reckon that many current scientific speculations, such as the Many Worlds interpretation of QM, and the Multiverse theory of cosmology, are no more scientific than anything in Plato, and considerably less elegant.
 
kennethamy
 
Reply Wed 24 Feb, 2010 08:14 pm
@Reconstructo,
Reconstructo;132124 wrote:
George felt pretty smart. He knew all that there was worth knowing. Or so he thought. But Bobby came along and suggested some errors in his reasoning. George found it more comfortable to believe that Bobby was full of hot air. He didn't really listen to George, because this threatened to interrupt his self-satisfaction.


Yes, people are fallible, and they should always mix a "tincture of skepticism" into their beliefs. But that does not mean that some beliefs are not true, and even clearly true. I might be wrong, but then again, I might be right too. And I might have excellent reasons to think I am right. What should I do then: Not think I am right because I might be wrong?
 
Reconstructo
 
Reply Wed 24 Feb, 2010 08:18 pm
@Pythagorean,
I think the point that is being missed here is that the moon as we conceive it, as an object in a web of causality, is largely the creation of our mental faculties.

Hypothesis are justified largely by their ability to predict. One does not predict the past. One can apply a justified hypothesis backward, but one should not forget that one is driving in reverse. As Hegel knew, time is impossible without concepts. The present is eternal (that is timeless) unless the past subsists as memory/concept and the future exists as a project(ion). Both past and future are concepts existing in the present. Human time is conceptual, lingual. Time is made of logos or discourse.

It's all too easy to mis-take useful concepts for "mind-independent reality" -- which is itself a concept, and a paradoxical concept at that. Kant was smart enough to use the word noumenon.

Quote:

"What our understanding acquires through this concept of a noumenon, is a negative extension; that is to say, understanding is not limited through sensibility; on the contrary, it itself limits sensibility by applying the term noumena to things in themselves (things not regarded as appearances). But in so doing it at the same time sets limits to itself, recognising that it cannot know these noumena through any of the categories, and that it must therefore think them only under the title of an unknown something".[24
 
Scottydamion
 
Reply Wed 24 Feb, 2010 08:21 pm
@kennethamy,
kennethamy;132130 wrote:
Yes, people are fallible, and they should always mix a "tincture of skepticism" into their beliefs. But that does not mean that some beliefs are not true, and even clearly true. I might be wrong, but then again, I might be right too. And I might have excellent reasons to think I am right. What should I do then: Not think I am right because I might be wrong?


To me that should be dubbed the "middle man" cop-out...

It seems like you just defended your position by saying you can't truly defend your position, but you definitely think you have good reasons for it.

The reason I kept bringing up science is because I think it is a point we can agree on, that these ideas are not just made up for the pleasure of thinking them, that there is at least some grounding in observation. So I think you should look up modern ideas of time starting with relativity if you want to see where we might find common ground, even if we still disagree.

---------- Post added 02-24-2010 at 08:25 PM ----------

jeeprs;132125 wrote:
Hey thanks. I never knew that. I thought from my experience on the Dawkins forum that it was a general form of ridicule directed at anything faintly metaphysical.

I still reckon that many current scientific speculations, such as the Many Worlds interpretation of QM, and the Multiverse theory of cosmology, are no more scientific than anything in Plato, and considerably less elegant.


I am sure FSM is used to ridicule the metaphysical, but I consider such use as blasphemy against its original purpose, as ignorance of why metaphysics is separate from science.

I would agree except that current theories used the scientific method in numerical order, lol.
 
jeeprs
 
Reply Wed 24 Feb, 2010 08:28 pm
@Pythagorean,
It is deja vue all over again. We hit this point in the debate many times on the Forum. As well we might, because it really is a question with huge implications. But the point raised above is a very good one - because the outlook of 'scientific realism' has now been undermined by discoveries in science. Einstein fretted over this for the last 50 years of his life, but he never really solved it.
 
Scottydamion
 
Reply Wed 24 Feb, 2010 08:32 pm
@kennethamy,
kennethamy;132122 wrote:
I'll worry about it after you have shown that "time itself may just be a useful construct". In the meantime, it is not just commonsense that the Moon is older than people. Indeed, what makes you think it is commonsense at all?


You need not worry about it unless you are truly interested, but it is important in understanding where some of these arguments are coming from. They reach beyond a limited human view of such concepts and tackle the world on much larger and smaller scales, revealing new information to consider.

By common sense I mean intuitive. The theory of relativity is in no way intuitive, but it is a correct view of the concept of time. Our intuitive concept of time is a useful approximation that has no need to account for time at mind boggling speeds.
 
kennethamy
 
Reply Wed 24 Feb, 2010 08:33 pm
@Reconstructo,
Reconstructo;132132 wrote:
I think the point that is being missed here is that the moon as we conceive it, as an object in a web of causality, is largely the creation of our mental faculties.

Hypothesis are justified largely by their ability to predict. One does not predict the past. One can apply a justified hypothesis backward, but one should not forget that one is driving in reverse. As Hegel knew, time is impossible without concepts. The present is eternal (that is timeless) unless the past subsists as memory/concept and the future exists as a project(ion). Both past and future are concepts existing in the present. Human time is conceptual, lingual. Time is made of logos or discourse.

We are all too quick to take useful concepts for "mind-independent" reality -- which is itself a concept, and a paradoxical concept.


First of all, if there is a mind-independent reality, it is not a concept. The concept of a mind-independent reality is a concept. You continually confuse concepts with what they are concepts of. Second of all, you keep saying it is a paradoxical concept, but you never explain what is supposed to be paradoxical about it. Of course, even if it is a paradoxical concept, so what. Zeno thought that the concept of motion was paradoxical too. And, in the Pirates of Penzance it was paradoxical that someone who was 28 had only 7 birthdays. He was born on a leap year. See, the paradox was cleared up.

I think the point that is being missed here is that the moon as we conceive it, as an object in a web of causality, is largely the creation of our mental faculties

If that means (as I think it does) that our concept of the Moon is largely a creation of our mental faculties, then I would go further and say it was entirely a creation of our mental faculties. But then, of course, there is the Moon, and the Moon is not at all a creation of our mental faculties.

It really doesn't matter how you say it, you should not confuse the concept of the Moon with the Moon.

---------- Post added 02-24-2010 at 09:34 PM ----------

Scottydamion;132143 wrote:
You need not worry about it unless you are truly interested, but it is important in understanding where some of these arguments are coming from. They reach beyond a limited human view of such concepts and tackle the world on much larger and smaller scales, revealing new information to consider.

By common sense I mean intuitive. The theory of relativity is in no way intuitive, but it is a correct view of the concept of time. Our intuitive concept of time is a useful approximation that has no need to account for time at mind boggling speeds.


But it is not intuitive that the Moon is older than people. That had to be discovered. I agree (of course) with the rest of what you say. But I never have held that what is commonsense must be true.
 
Reconstructo
 
Reply Wed 24 Feb, 2010 08:40 pm
@kennethamy,
kennethamy;132144 wrote:
First of all, if there is a mind-independent reality, it is not a concept. The concept of a mind-independent reality is a concept. You continually confuse concepts with what they are concepts of.

Have you or anyone you know experience mind-independent reality? No. You have experience that concept of such, and nothing else. Honestly, I think you're the one that's confused here. Mind-independent-reality is only a concept, not a possible human experience. Thus the paradox.
 
kennethamy
 
Reply Wed 24 Feb, 2010 08:49 pm
@Reconstructo,
Reconstructo;132149 wrote:
Have you or anyone you know experience mind-independent reality? No. You have experience that concept of such, and nothing else. Honestly, I think you're the one that's confused here. Mind-independent-reality is only a concept, not a possible human experience. Thus the paradox.


I have seen the Moon. Haven't you? And, the Moon is a piece of mind-independent reality. So, I have experienced mind-independent reality. QED. Of course, my experience is not mind-independent, but what I have experienced is. It obviously does not follow that what I experience is not my experience of it. Although that is one of the many idealist fallacies. My experience of seeing my left shoe is not my left shoe.

Mind-independent-reality is only a concept

Don't you mean to say that there is only the concept of mind-independent reality, but no mind-independent reality? If there is mind-independent reality, then it isn't only a concept as you say it is. In fact, it is not a concept at all. It is what the concept of mind-independent reality is the concept of. See how tricky this is? And, if that is what you are saying, then, of course, you are begging the question, since exactly that is at issue; whether there is mind-independent reality.

Logic is sooo useful, isn't it?
 
Reconstructo
 
Reply Wed 24 Feb, 2010 08:56 pm
@kennethamy,
kennethamy;132144 wrote:

If that means (as I think it does) that our concept of the Moon is largely a creation of our mental faculties, then I would go further and say it was entirely a creation of our mental faculties. But then, of course, there is the Moon, and the Moon is not at all a creation of our mental faculties.

What you don't seem to understand, as far as my point goes, is that the moon is only ever experienced conceptually. Substance is arguably transcendental, as is unity. You are applying the concepts of pure reason to something that is not experience. You are projecting substance, unity, and causality beyond your experience.

---------- Post added 02-24-2010 at 10:07 PM ----------

kennethamy;132153 wrote:
I have seen the Moon. Haven't you? And, the Moon is a piece of mind-independent reality.


You say "I have seen the moon." Yes, you have seen the moon. And I have seen the moon. And this moon is an organization of qualia.

---------- Post added 02-24-2010 at 10:08 PM ----------

kennethamy;132153 wrote:
My experience of seeing my left shoe is not my left shoe.

Your experience of your left shoe is the only left shoe you've got.
 
MMP2506
 
Reply Wed 24 Feb, 2010 09:09 pm
@kennethamy,
kennethamy;132153 wrote:
I have seen the Moon. Haven't you? And, the Moon is a piece of mind-independent reality. So, I have experienced mind-independent reality. QED. Of course, my experience is not mind-independent, but what I have experienced is. It obviously does not follow that what I experience is not my experience of it. Although that is one of the many idealist fallacies. My experience of seeing my left shoe is not my left shoe.

Mind-independent-reality is only a concept

Don't you mean to say that there is only the concept of mind-independent reality, but no mind-independent reality? If there is mind-independent reality, then it isn't only a concept as you say it is. In fact, it is not a concept at all. It is what the concept of mind-independent reality is the concept of. See how tricky this is? And, if that is what you are saying, then, of course, you are begging the question, since exactly that is at issue; whether there is mind-independent reality.

Logic is sooo useful, isn't it?


I find it hard to grasp how your experience of the moon is mind-independent due to the fact that it is precisely your mind that is required to experience it.

Without some sort of mind there would be no experience of anything.
 
Reconstructo
 
Reply Wed 24 Feb, 2010 09:15 pm
@kennethamy,
kennethamy;132153 wrote:

Don't you mean to say that there is only the concept of mind-independent reality, but no mind-independent reality?


I'm saying that "mind-independent reality," when carefully considered, is as absurd as a "round square." It's about as likely as waking up dead.

---------- Post added 02-24-2010 at 10:16 PM ----------

MMP2506;132167 wrote:
I find it hard to grasp how your experience of the moon is mind-independent due to the fact that it is precisely your mind that is required to experience it.

Without some sort of mind there would be no experience of anything.


Exactly! The moon is experienced as a concept that organizes qualia. This concept is placed in a nexus of causality, etc. In everyday life, we talk about things and forget that things are impossible without concepts. A thing is substance and unity. Substance is dependent upon causality. Minus concept, the world is who knows what? But it's nothing human.
 
Scottydamion
 
Reply Wed 24 Feb, 2010 09:33 pm
@kennethamy,
kennethamy;132144 wrote:
But it is not intuitive that the Moon is older than people. That had to be discovered. I agree (of course) with the rest of what you say. But I never have held that what is commonsense must be true.


Yes that is a good point, but that ties the concepts of time and independent existence together. Would you agree that the idea of the moon as mind-independent is "intuitive", or perhaps I should qualify: intuitive to the layman?

Perhaps a more correct statement would be that it is intuitive that the "Moon is at least as old as my means of determining its age"? The phrase is not important to what I'm trying to say, because I am tackling the idea of the Moon being mind-independent and the idea of time separately. If either time or the mind-independence of the Moon are found to be incorrect, then it is not obvious that the moon is older than people, even though it is obvious to someone educated in radiometric dating, evolution, the fossil record, etc...

I think we have come to agree. I am using so many "if...then..."s that I don't see any reason to continue the rodeo. Hopefully with further study I will be able to better answer the ifs I have presented, or with future scientific research into the concept of time. However I do think you should do a quick read of the theory of relativity, because it will help you see where the starting point for all of these questions come from. Looking up the concept of time past the event horizon of a blackhole would also help show some of the paradoxes presented to our intuitive idea of time.
 
jeeprs
 
Reply Wed 24 Feb, 2010 09:34 pm
@Pythagorean,
But you can't go too far in either direction. There is actually a nexus of the thing seen, the seer, and the act of seeing. Tilt too far in one direction, and you have materialism, too far in the the other and you have solipsism. (I think...)
 
MMP2506
 
Reply Wed 24 Feb, 2010 09:59 pm
@Reconstructo,
Reconstructo;132173 wrote:
I'm saying that "mind-independent reality," when carefully considered, is as absurd as a "round square." It's about as likely as waking up dead.

---------- Post added 02-24-2010 at 10:16 PM ----------



Exactly! The moon is experienced as a concept that organizes qualia. This concept is placed in a nexus of causality, etc. In everyday life, we talk about things and forget that things are impossible without concepts. A thing is substance and unity. Substance is dependent upon causality. Minus concept, the world is who knows what? But it's nothing human.


Right, without concept there would be no world, just one big chunk of matter floating through an empty vacuum of nothingness. Conceptualization/consciousness, is what constitutes world.

This doesn't mean that reality is only dependent upon our own mind and we can slip into solipsism. I think that is where people have trouble with this perspective. Even reality as we experience is greatly impacted by other minds.
 
Scottydamion
 
Reply Wed 24 Feb, 2010 10:00 pm
@jeeprs,
jeeprs;132182 wrote:
But you can't go too far in either direction. There is actually a nexus of the thing seen, the seer, and the act of seeing. Tilt too far in one direction, and you have materialism, too far in the the other and you have solipsism. (I think...)


But doesn't this just go back to justification? Kenneth's points on experience not being the thing experienced are also important. It comes down to which is more justified in my opinion, and I will always be a certain breed of materialist (probably a representational realist of sorts) in that respect. I see Reconstructo's ideas about concepts being the means of experience but this in itself does not seem to mean to be justification for solipsism or idealism, though I will never be a dogmatic materialist.
 
MMP2506
 
Reply Wed 24 Feb, 2010 10:12 pm
@Scottydamion,
Scottydamion;132187 wrote:
But doesn't this just go back to justification? Kenneth's points on experience not being the thing experienced are also important. It comes down to which is more justified in my opinion, and I will always be a certain breed of materialist (probably a representational realist of sorts) in that respect. I see Reconstructo's ideas about concepts being the means of experience but this in itself does not seem to mean to be justification for solipsism or idealism, though I will never be a dogmatic materialist.


What entails justification? Must something be proved empirically to be considered true?
 
Scottydamion
 
Reply Wed 24 Feb, 2010 10:41 pm
@MMP2506,
MMP2506;132191 wrote:
What entails justification? Must something be proved empirically to be considered true?


It would depend on the "something" being considered, but I at least consider the scientific method to be extendable to the formation of other beliefs, and that is why I consider myself a materialist, I see too much of a comparison between the mind and the complete nervous system. Ockham's Razor would have me form the simplest explanation. I could be wrong, but based on the way I form my thoughts I have no practical reason to have serious doubts, although I think entertaining doubts is an important lead in to what beliefs should be formed.

When it comes down to brass tax I am relying on my intuitions, but I feel confident that I have examined a wide range of thoughts on the issue and will remain open minded to those trains of thought even though I am essentially relying on my education, formal and informal, to justify my position. The important thing to preserve is that my position can change as new information is discovered or presented to me.
 
 

 
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