Which reduces to….the specified existence is outside human experience and judgement, but the claim is not. — Mww
So, yes, I think we can project the concept, but not in that context; we invoke the category of necessity in the former, but possibility in the latter. — Mww
If I were to go all nit-picky, on ya, quibble-y even, I’d bring to your attention that no experience is spatial. They are temporal, as you said. Experience is of representations of objects in space, but not of space itself, which can never be represented in us. — Mww
This argument is getting more convoluted. You seem to think that causation involves only conservation of energy. If this is not the case, then I stand corrected. But my impression of your post previously is that you think only the conservation law is the proper example of causation.Too much emphasis on causation for my taste. A better epitome of a metaphysical principle would be the conservation laws. The causal relations between billiard balls, or instance, are an expression of conservation of momentum. — Banno
Not sure how that limits causation.
There are alternatives to causation, the conservation laws being a case in point. — Banno
Yes it is right, or conservation of energy, if you will. But optics is not one of those because it involves light -- and light is massless. So optics does not belong in conservation of energy, yet it is used as example of causation. In other words, it's not just conservation law, but other processes, too, support causation. That's it. That is our point of contention.All conservation is conservation of mass? That doesn't seem right. — Banno
do we merely imagine that we know what we are talking about with such projections? — Janus
Kant could have said that the empirical world, time and space and all, possibly exist outside of human experience and judgement, whereas they necessarily exist within that context? — Janus
Experience is of representations of objects in space, but not of space itself, which can never be represented in us.
— Mww
I think we do perceive dimension, or degrees of separation, which just is space, so it seems I disagree here. — Janus
But with respect to the projection of existence you’re asking about, though, there are serious contradictions if we deny the existence of the world before human experience, which at least allows us to project that it did, but the fact remains, we cannot possibly know the fact of it in the same fashion by which we know apodeitically that stupid-ass tree has three branches. — Mww
He does say that. Then demonstrates how it is impossible, iff a certain set of conditions are in fact the case. If they aren’t, well…..time for another demonstration of a different kind, and we find ourselves faced with stuff like logical positivism, OLP and quantum mechanics, in which case…..errr, you know…..we imagine we know what we’re talking about. — Mww
The problem of including the observer in our description of physical reality arises most insistently when it comes to the subject of quantum cosmology - the application of quantum mechanics to the universe as a whole - because, by definition, 'the universe' must include any observers. Andrei Linde has given a deep reason for why observers enter into quantum cosmology in a fundamental way. It has to do with the nature of time. The passage of time is not absolute; it always involves a change of one physical system relative to another, for example, how many times the hands of the clock go around relative to the rotation of the Earth. When it comes to the Universe as a whole, time loses its meaning, for there is nothing else relative to which the universe may be said to change. This 'vanishing' of time for the entire universe becomes very explicit in quantum cosmology, where the time variable simply drops out of the quantum description. It may readily be restored by considering the Universe to be separated into two subsystems: an observer with a clock, and the rest of the Universe. So the observer plays an absolutely crucial role in this respect. Linde expresses it graphically: 'thus we see that without introducing an observer, we have a dead universe, which does not evolve in time', and, 'we are together, the Universe and us. The moment you say the Universe exists without any observers, I cannot make any sense out of that. I cannot imagine a consistent theory of everything that ignores consciousness...in the absence of observers, our universe is dead'. — Paul Davies, The Goldilocks Enigma: Why is the Universe Just Right for Life, p 271
I submit that this supports the Kantian assertion that 'time is one of the forms of our sensibility', rather than something that exists objectively and independently of any observer. Which is not to deny the empirical fact that there was a time before human beings existed, as Kant was also an empirical realist. — Wayfarer
It depends on what you mean by 'time'. If it is taken to mean the subjective sense of duration, or the conception of past present and future, then of course it cannot exist independently of subjects by definition. Beyond that, how would we know? — Janus
It's not a trivial matter. There was a time before humans existed, as is well attested by empirical science. But the entire framework within which empirical science depends is first and foremost noetic or intellectual. 'From a phenomenological perspective, in everyday life, we see the objects of our experience such as physical objects, other people, and even ideas as simply real and straightforwardly existent. In other words, they are “just there.” We don’t question their existence; we view them as facts. — Wayfarer
What could it then mean to say that there was a time before human beings existed? Are you able to say? — Janus
I keep acknowledging that I think the empirical world, as conceived, and to some extent as experienced, is a collective representation, so I fail to see what purpose you think there might be in lecturing me about ideas which I am probably more familiar with than you are. — Janus
I said that it is a matter of empirical fact. — Wayfarer
That is at odds with many of the objections you raise, but then, maybe it's just for the sake of argument. — Wayfarer
I said earlier in this thread, my main aim is to argue that humans are intrinsic to the universe, not an accidental byproduct.. That remains the case. In earlier times that would be an assumed implication of religious mythology, now it has to be established on the basis of philosophy. — Wayfarer
Then what are they?I am simply pointing to the many problems with causation. — Banno
I am simply pointing to the many problems with causation. — Banno
Then what are they? — L'éléphant
I said that it is a matter of empirical fact.
— Wayfarer
But it's not an empirical fact. Emprical facts are observables. So, what is it? — Janus
I'm not asking you to explain time, I'm asking you what you mean by time if you are positing it as something different than the subjective experience of duration, and the subjective understanding of time as 'past, present, future'.
It is obvious that there was not such a time prior to human life. So, I am asking you what you mean by saying that there was a time prior to humans. — Janus
I understand by the transcendental idealism of all appearances the doctrine that they are all together to be regarded as mere representations and not things in themselves, and accordingly that space and time are only sensible forms of our intuition, but not determinations given for themselves or conditions of objects as things in themselves. To this idealism is opposed transcendental realism, which regards space and time as something given in themselves (independent of our sensiblity). The transcendental realist therefore represents outer appearances (if their reality is conceded) as things in themselves, which would exist independently of us and our sensibility and thus would also be outside us according to pure concepts of the understanding. (CPR, A369)
The transcendental idealist, on the contrary, can be an empirical realist, hence, as he is called, a dualist, i.e., he can concede the existence of matter without going beyond mere self-consciousness and assuming something more than the certainty of representations in me, hence the cogito ergo sum. For because he allows this matter and even its inner possibility to be valid only for appearance– which, separated from our sensibility, is nothing –matter for him is only a species of representations (intuition), which are call external, not as if they related to objects that are external in themselves but because they relate perceptions to space, where all things are external to one another, but that space itself is in us. (A370)
The question about what the world would be like without any percipients in it seems unanswerable, even incoherent, — Janus
…..to my way of thinking extension just is spatiality. — Janus
With the "degrees of separation" thing I actually had in mind the simple fact that objects appear extended to us….. — Janus
What could it then mean to say that there was a time before human beings existed?
— Janus
I said that it is a matter of empirical fact. — Wayfarer
given the challenging nature of the issue — Wayfarer
I'm also intrigued that Kant appears to concede dualism in that passage — Wayfarer
I am saying that the fact there was a time before humans existed is an empirical fact supported by the fossil record and an abundance of geological and paleontological data which can be observed. Iis that not so? — Wayfarer
There was a time prior to humans, but time itself is not completely objective - it is in some fundamental sense dependent on the observer. That is what I had hoped to convey with the quotation from Paul Davies, who says that the passage of time is reliant on there being an observer, and that if the state of the universe is described in the equations of quantum cosmology, then time simply 'drops out'. This 'observer dependency' is what ultimately undermines physicalism, as physicalism presumes that the objects of physics are real independently of any mind. It is also at the basis of the overall 'observer problem' in physics generally. — Wayfarer
I would have hoped that, given the challenging nature of the issue that this is about as clear as it can be made. If that will not suffice, then I won't press it any further. (I'm also intrigued that Kant appears to concede dualism in that passage.) — Wayfarer
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