You are just repeating what I had already said...that the thought that mind and body could be completely independent of one another is absurd...while apparently imagining that you are somehow disagreeing.

I think that's probably right, but I didn't want to assume so, because I really haven't looked into it much. So, it might take a year of our time for the cosmonaut to raise his coffee cup to his lips. :cool:

Watch them on TV. — Banno

Good point (how did I miss that?), but the video data from them would presumably be slowed down too relative to us. So the question then is whether their physical movements would would look slowed down to us or look normal. I can't answer that.

If someone were traveling close to the speed of light relative to me, special relativity says their physical processes would appear slowed down from my frame — movements, reactions, even neural activity. That part makes sense when thinking about observable behavior. — RogueAI

Their physical processes cannot be observed from my frame until they return. Then I would see that their physical processes had been much slower than mine as evidenced by their relative youthfulness― assuming, that is, the correctness of the theory.

The other question as to the speed of their mental processes could not possibly be established other than, if at all, by asking them. Also, the idea that their mental processes "movements, reactions, even neural activity" could be slowed down relative to Earthers, while their mental processes could remain the same speed as the Earthers' just seems absurd.

If their mental processes remained the same while their physical processes (although seeming normal to them) were slowed down, then presumably, as I said already, their mental processes would seem speeded up to them. That just seems impossible. So, I think that question is really a non-question.

So I have been addressing the question and your claim that I am adding an unhelpful complication seems completely unfounded.

Nothing has a traveling speed. Speed is relative to something else. Every object is stationary in its own frame. Earth is traveling at near c relative to the object I mentioned in my prior post, and yet you don't experience time running slow, which would be a violation of the first premise of relativity, and also a violation of the premises (whatever they are) of an absolutist interpretation such as LET. — noAxioms

Unless I am mistaken, the theory says that if you traveled at the speed of light to some distant star and then returned, those on Earth would have aged much more than you. In that scenario Earth is the stationary, "normal" frame and the starship the one at great speed relative to it.

So what does that leave? If the mind is totally external to the universe (BiV for instance, several forms of 'souls', etc), the mind is external to the universe, and works more like a moving spotlight in that which it experiences. — noAxioms

It is merely a conceptual matter. If traveling at speed close to c slows down bodily processes relative to those who remain on Earth and mind were completely independent of matter then presumably the slowing down would not apply to the mental processes. It is a ridiculous conversation anyway because mental processes cannot be independent of bodily processes. Also no one has ever, or probably ever will be able to, do the experiment.

Again, the ship is always stationary in its own frame, and while inertial, it is the Earth inhabitants that age more slowly. The reason it works out is because the ship is not always inertial, so it takes a shorter path (intervals as integrated along all the relevant worldlines) through spacetime than does Earth. — noAxioms

It is very simple―do you believe that if someone could travel in a vessel at near light speeds and returned to earth in say twenty years that they would have aged more or less than those on Earth? I believe the standard view is that the traveler would have aged much less.

Now, "suffering due to pain" seems clear. But what about the other two? What does even mean "suffering due to formations"? — boundless

It seems obvious to me―it means suffering due to negative thought complexes or patterns.

“Mendicants, this transmigration has no known beginning. No first point is found of sentient beings roaming and transmigrating, shrouded by ignorance and fettered by craving. When you see someone in a sorry state, in distress, you should conclude: ‘In all this long time, we too have undergone the same thing.’ Why is that? This transmigration has no known beginning. … This is quite enough for you to become disillusioned, dispassionate, and freed regarding all conditions.” — SN 15.11, bhikkhu Sujato translation

This notion of transmigration could be consistent with the idea that Atman is Brahman. That it is Brahman who is endlessly transmigrating and suffering in many different forms, without retaining the idea that Atman (in the sense of a personal soul or even karmic accumulations) is in any kind of (even illusory) personal sense reincarnating.

Yes, I tend to agree with you that without the belief in rebirth long-term practice is difficult to maintain and one might become convinced of one or all these things. — boundless

Why should belief in rebirth be motivating in a context that denies personal rebirth? Or even in the Vedantic context where reincarnation of the personal soul (which however is seen as ultimately an illusion) and where it is in any case exceedingly uncommon to remember past lives, and hence establish any continuity of self? Why would attaining peace of mind, acceptance of death and the ability to die a good death not be more motivating?

Apparently you misread what I wrote. I had in mind the commonly imagined scifi scenario, where you are traveling at close to the speed of light and all processes. including bodily processes, are slowed down such that you are aging much more slowly than those who remain on Earth.

I was attempting to point to the absurdity of thinking that the bodily processes could be slowed down while the mental processes continued at the "normal" speed, which is also to point to the absurdity of thinking that the mental processes could be independence of the bodily. It would save wasted time if people read more carefully.

I think the sort of dualism you suggest here is incompatible with relativity theory, which blatantly says that you can't tell if you're 'moving fast'. For instance, relativity says that if you fall into a large black hole, you cannot tell when you've crossed the event horizon. What you're suggesting is more like the experience of your body stopping as all physical processes come to a halt as the EH is approached. This would falsify all of 20th century physics, requiring a 3rd interpretation. Not even the absolutists predict that experience, regardless of one's philosophy of mind. — noAxioms

I agree, but based my reply on an assumption of mental states being in sync with (if not just being) neural states. If they're two different things that got out of sync, there would be a test for absolute motion. Your arms would be hard to move. You'd not be able to understand speech. You'd probably die if your mental states are in any way involved in life support, like say choosing to eat. — noAxioms

Yes, I agree that dualism is unsupportable. If we were traveling at speed close to c, aging of our bodies and all its physical processes would, according to the theory, greatly slow down. If our minds were independent of, and unaffected by, physical processes, and proceeding at their "normal" rate, then our subjective experience of mental processes would, presumably, seem vastly speeded up, which seems absurd.

I’m trying to understand how (or whether) relativity meaningfully applies to subjective mental events like imagined music, not just external physical actions. — RogueAI

If mental processes are independent of neural processes then they ought to be unaffected by the relativity of velocities. If they are not independent of neural states then they ought to be affected. Under the affect of psychedelics time dilation is a common experience, but that is an altering of the subjective sense of time.

Suppose I could somehow observe their inner mental activity directly. — RogueAI

The idea of someone observing someone else's subjective sense of time makes no sense.

I'm not sure what you are saying. Are you responding to my disagreement with "the rational is the real"? Are you pointing out that it could be true on some definitions of the terms?

In my opinion, this is a classic view, but it doesn't fully take into account all economic factors. For example, the explosive growth of the US stock market and the rise in stock indices, as well as real estate, over the past five years wasn't due to a sudden shortage of stocks or real estate. It's simply that a huge amount of dollars were printed, and the excess ended up there. — Astorre

You've changed the subject. You were talking about printing money to give to those who had lost jobs due to technology so they could remain as consumers buying, presumably, consumer items including food clothes, cleaning products and less essential items. I thought you were claiming this would cause inflation―"if you give everyone a million dollars then a loaf of bread will cost a million dollars"―and I pointed out that this would be the case only if products (the loaf of bread in this example) were scarce.

3. How will a market economy cope with this challenge? After all, if we simply start handing out money to people simply for living, inflation will instantly reduce this money to nothing. Prices will simply rise. For example, if tomorrow everyone had one million dollars, then a loaf of bread would cost a million dollars. — Astorre

Inflation will only result if there is insufficient product to meet demand.

He certainly does not treat the things in themselves as a mysterious region behind the veil of appearance: — Paine

Right, and I agree; I think such an idea can be nothing more than that, an idea. Where I don't agree with Hegel is in his thought that actuality is ideal; that is I don't agree with "the Rational is the Real".

Good luck with your writing project; such things are more important than wasting time on here in argy bargy land. For me it is nothing more than a diversion―interesting at times, and at other times frustrating and a source of distraction.

What does knowing something exhaustively mean? Does it mean there are degrees of knowing something? Any examples? — Corvus

It just means we don't know everything about anything. There is always more to know about things and different ways to know them than those which are possible for us...due to the existence of different scales and perceptual systems.

What is your stance on the issue? — Corvus

I tend to favour seeing process, relation as ontologically fundamental rather than thing or substance being fundamental. So, things are processes, not ultimate entities or substances. So, I would say we know things―we are inextricably related to things, and those things are inextricably related to other things, and other things know them in ways that we don't. So, we don't know anything exhaustively. I think it is inapt to say we don't know anything about things in themselves, because the idea of a thing in itself is nothing more than an abstraction.

Of course, I'm highly sympathetic to Levin's neoplatonism, but that critic seemed to have some pretty good points to make about whether his ideas really are able to be validated empirically. — Wayfarer

It's a thorny question. What does "validated" mean? If it means verified, then the point seems moot since it is well-accepted in philosophy of science that no theory can be verified. Also, by 'neoplatonism' I presume you are not referencing Plotinus, but just mean 'a new form of platonism'?

I take Levin to be conjecturing that inherent within matter itself is a "space" of possible, potential forms, and a kind of inherent instinctive intelligence and agency that is capable of, to use Whitehead's terminology, "creative advance" whereby novel forms "ingress". The idea is that both living and non-living matter is "organic" or "self-organizing", yet not with any antecedent "purpose" or transcendent mind at work. It certainly seems right to me that there is no strictly mechanical explanation for the mysteries of morphogenesis.

Anyway Levin seems to me to be concerned not with positing metaphysical theories, but only in using his conjectures to guide what to look for in his experimental work. His concern is with the science itself.

A great poem! Wallace Stevens has long been one of my favorites.

We could like to try to figure out what the nature of time could be in more understandable and realistic manner from our own material world we live in. — Corvus

We can only figure out what the nature of time is in the context of how time appears to be to us. It doesn't follow that there is no time independent of us and our figuring.

So, we can either take the illegitimate leap and firmly declare that there just is no time apart form us, or we can allow that time has, or at least may have its own existence―an existence we can only surmise from our own experience, or if we don't allow that our experience shows anything at all bout the 'in itself' nature of time, then on that assumption we must accept that the 'ultimate' nature of time is unknowable.

Why should I accept this interpretation? Hegel does not, to my knowledge, use the term "noumena" in this way. — Paine

Judging from my own study of Hegel (admittedly many a year ago now) he rejects the idea of noumena and the "in itself" altogether. "The Rational is the Real". Nietzsche also rejected the idea of the ding an sich, but for a very different reason―he also rejected the dialectic method as a way to knowledge.

Cheers, I think I already read that review on Medium. If it was the same one I found it a bit carping―I don't think Levin is concerned with promoting dogma―his statements suggest to me that his idea of a platonic morpho-space is a conjecture that guides him in what to look for in his research. If there is some kind of intelligence, or problem-solving ability in living matter and even in non-living matter, then it doesn't really matter where it comes from or where it "resides". In fact the questions as to where it comes from or resides may be senseless―because unanswerable. Such abilities, if they can be demonstrated experimentally, may simply be in the nature of matter―with any further explanation being impossible. It's like the question 'Why is there anything"―it is not so much to be answered as it is to engender a sense of mystery and awe―an inspiring feeling to enhance the creative spirit.

Edit: I had a look and it was the same review I read previously―I recognized the "cover" image.

explore different paths to meaning without this having an adverse effect on their ability to earn a living. — baker

Many people find their meaning in earning a living―that is, in their profession.

But we'll have to (return to a traditional mindset) or we'll be miserable. — baker

You are speaking, and can speak, only for yourself.

the physical is not merely mechanical and mindless as has been assumed by the scientific orthodoxy. — Janus


My point exactly! — Wayfarer

Actually on second thought "scientific orthodoxy" seems a bit strong. "Popular image of the scientific view" seems more apt. What individual scientists believe would not be so easy to discover. Also science has done very well with mechanical models so the methodology is useful, even though it comes up against limits in some areas.

Evidence and models are again appeals to empiricism, don’t you see? Not all philosophical analyses can be expressed in those terms.

As for whether there is a ‘crisis of meaning’ I think it’s axiomatic, but I wouldn’t want try and persuade those who don’t agree.

As it is the basic argument of this thread has a clear provenance in the sources quoted. — Wayfarer

It is scientific evidence which is motivating Levin's work, and he constantly says that mere speculation won't do for definitive views. On the other hand we all have our own inventive beliefs about the nature of things. The difference between you and me seems to be that I don't take my own intuitive convictions to be reasons for anyone else to believe as I do.

When you say you think the crisis of meaning is axiomatic I think you misuse the term. What is axiomatic is what is self-evident to anyone, and that others disagree shows that the belief in a meaning crisis is not axiomatic. Also the belief in the meaning crisis is a conclusion you have reached on the basis of what you take to be evidence and is hence a conclusion, not an axiom.

What you claim as a "provenance" is just a compendium of others' intuitive convictions that trot out regularly apparently because you find them copacetic, chosen simply because they align with your intutions. Why would you expect that to count as convincing evidence to the unbiased?

I added a bit more to my post as you were responding.

I take this to imply that the hidden purpose of my argument is to 'restore the ancient order'- harking back to some supposed 'higher knowledge' which was imposed on the masses by the aristocracy and the Church ('political elites'.) This is the way you often intepret my posts, and I can sort of understand why. After all the so-called 'perennialists' who invoke the 'wisdom traditions' are often political reactionaries. So this kind of analysis can easily be associated with them. But, not my intent. I think I'm fully cognizant of the way that the knowledge we have now prevents any kind of return to a traditionalist mindset. — Wayfarer

I don't think I'm specifically implying that you want to return to the "aegis of tutelage" (Hegel) that both Kant and Hegel were concerned to throw off. It's more that you seem to deplore modernity, see it as a step backwards somehow. So, for me the question becomes 'Specifically what are you proposing then?".

You say we cannot return to a traditional mindset, and of course I would agree that we cannot, but would add that even if we could it would not be desirable.

This has obviously been hugely beneficial in many ways - in that sense, I'm very much a progressive liberal. But at the same time, it has its shadow. And the shadow is precisely the sense of being cast adrift in a meaningless cosmos, the children of chance and necessity, with only our own wits and purposes set against the 'appalling vastnesses of space' (Pascal). That's nearer to what I mean by the 'predicament of modernity'. The resulting idea that 'the universe is meaningless' is very much the product of that mindset. It comes directly from the 'Cartesian Division' that was mapped out in the OP. And yet, it remains a kind of cultural default for much of the secular intelligentsia. — Wayfarer

For me your "shadow"―that we are cast adrift in a meaningless cosmos―is one way of interpreting the situation, but I find it overly totalizing. Many, if not most, people are not concerned with metaphysical questions, and I don't believe they are generally oppressed by a sense of meaninglessness, not nearly as oppressed as they would have been by the fears imposed on them by the church. They find their meanings within their close relationships and families, entertainment, hobbies and sports, and I don't see that as being a negative. It only appears shallow if you assume there is some deep purpose that is being neglected.

So, I think the so-called "meaning crisis" is overblown. You say yourself the attitude that the cosmos has no overarching purpose is a default for the "secular intelligentsia". That may be so, but do you think they are on the whole oppressed by that attitude or depressed by it? I would say not. Some may be, to be sure. Coming to terms with the reality of inevitable death is a challenge for anyone who dwells upon it. I believe we have an instinctive resistance to the idea of ceasing to exist―it unsettles us. If we are going to live with that awareness we each have to find our own way of coming to terms with it.

So I am reacting against the physicalist view, yes. The view that what is real, are the entities describable in terms of physics, and that life and mind are products of, or emerge from, that. If you see the way the division or duality was set up in the first place, then you can see how it is a picture based on an abstraction. That is what this thread is about. — Wayfarer

I don't believe that life is necessarily disenchanted by the idea that we are physical, that is mortal, beings. And I don't think that idea is the same as to say that we are exhaustively describable in terms of physics―the latter idea is for me patently absurd. I don't believe that even biology can be exhaustively understood in terms of physics―they are very different disciplines with very different aims.

I don't think the idea that life and mind emerged from the physical is necessarily self-contradictory, incoherent or absurd, but it is seeming, in light of Levin's experiments, to be inadequate to explain what is observed about morphogenesis for example.

I think some kind of panpsychism or panexperientialism might be the best presupposition to start with―that the physical is not merely mechanical and mindless as has been assumed by the scientific orthodoxy. The problem, though, is always going to be finding clear evidence for such a thing, and being able to develop a clear model of just what might be going on. Perhaps it is simply not humanity's lot to be able to achieve a clear and comprehensive understanding of the nature of nature.

On the other hand there is no reason not to exercise our imaginations and explore such ideas.

Well, they're spelled out in the two italicized paragraphs above. What I'm arguing is that physicalism in its modern form, arose as a consequence of the Galilean and Cartesian divisions between mind and matter, between primary and secondary qualities, and so on. This thesis has been explored in detail in those sources I provided, amongst many others (i.e. Whitehead's 'bifurcation of nature'.) So if you think that is overall mistaken, then how so? — Wayfarer

I'm not sure which italicized passages you are referring to. I don't disagree that Galileo's distinction between primary and secondary qualities and Descartes' position of mental and physical substances helped to cement dualistic thinking. However I think the provenance of the distinction between mind and matter has a much more ancient provenance and is in fact the natural "folk" default that came on the heels of philosophical analysis itself, which is, like language, inherently dualistic when it attempts to be propostional, to predicate.

I see it as also being due to the fact that we can successfully model natural processes mechanistically (up to a point) and that such modeling has been tremendously useful. Of course it doesn't follow that nature is mechanical or dualistic. Organism does not equal mechanism, even if it can be successfully and usefully modeled that way. Such modeling is going to be inevitably inadequate to the reality. "The map is not the territory".

I think the dualism arguably goes back at least to Plato, and to the polemic between Parmenides and Heraclitus. The notion of an ideal world of perfect forms set against this "inferior" material world. As Whitehead said 'Philosophy is a series of footnotes to Plato". Whitehead sought to stand Plato on his head as Marx is cited as saying he was doing with Hegel. Actually Marx claimed he was standing Hegel on his feet, and I think that is what Whitehead was doing with Plato―dispelling the fallacy of misplaced concreteness involved in reifying the forms.

The only reason I have said that some of your posts are 'positivist', is when they clearly are. Not all the time, but also not infrequently. — Wayfarer

You accuse me of positivism when I distinguish between those claims which are amenable to testing, to empirical evidence or logical demonstration, from those claims which are not. Unlike the positivists, I have never said that non-testable speculative claims are incoherent or meaningless.

Whether or not I would agree with the the quoted passage defining positivism depends on what is meant by "genuine knowledge". Much of our knowledge is know-how, knowledge by acquaintance or participation, and is hence not strictly propositional or testable.

I have never said that such knowledge is not genuine, I have only claimed that it is not propositional, or at least cannot always be couched in propositional terms (and I think it's worth adding that not everything which can be couched in propositional terms is testable in any case).

I have also said many times that I don't think scientific theories (as distinct from simple empirical observations) are ever demonstrably or definitively knowable to be true―which means they are defeasible and held only provisionally. So, again I am not, like the positivists, a verificationist or a proponent of scientism.

You need to understand that the search for meaning is not a script or a dogma. It is not about returning to some imagined pre-modern utopia at all. Every time this is discussed, that is what you assume that I'm talking about, hence your mistaken depiction of me as a 'proselytizing dogmatist'. — Wayfarer

You need to understand that the search for meaning is far more open today than it has been in the past. The "predicament" which is the really just the human condition, and which you simplistically claim is the predicament of modernity is equally the opportunity of modernity. You present a tendentious monolithic view of the history of ideas, and that is what I criticize―your doctrinaire mindset; your claims that, for example physicalism can be dismissed on the basis that it is self-contradictory.

You fail to realize it is self-contradictory only on the the assumptions, the strictures, that you place on it. I'm not defending physicalism―I am not a committed physicalist myself, in fact I'm not really an adherent of any metaphysical ism. The closest I would come would be pluralism. The irony is that you speak about what can coherently be said about, for example, existence in a kind of positivist vein, and then accuse others who don't agree with your dogmatic strictures of being positivists.

This is a good example of the metaphysics of presence, where awareness is treated as our discovery of what was already there. — Joshs

The spotlight analogy can be read as local, attentional awareness of what was already there in global consciousness. Like when you are driving, you are implicitly aware of the road, other cars, trees, people or animals―basically the immediate, but fast changing road adjacent nevironment. Something might catch your attention and make you explicitly aware of what you were previously only implicitly aware. That's the flashlight or spotlight analogy for me―making the implicit explicit.

That's very funny if not a little sad!

Here it is: from my perspective, by saying “Exactly”, you’ve eliminated the very plurality in views you’ve asked me to imagine. — Mww

Yes, as if making sense for somebody is not ever attempting to make him (or her) believe...

I don't find much to disagree with there so I'll just comment on this:

*I could go on at length about how a culture, particularly a historic culture, where everyone believes something without question. Is very different to what we experience in our disparate culture. Magic does happen, religious narratives do come to life. I witnessed such myself in India. — Punshhh

There is certainly a power to collective belief.

Making sense for somebody, isn’t the attempt to make him believe… — Mww

…just like that. — Mww

Exactly. Imagine if there were no plurality of views.

Thanks, I can make sense of what you say there. I'm radically open to entertaining different perspectives, and I'm not wedded to any of them, or even really to being overly concerned whether they are correct or not. It's more a case that some resonate and others not so much. We're just a bunch of ignorant monkeys, after all...or at least that's one perspective.

Hmmm…..the in-itself is purely conceptual, as a mere notion of the understanding, thus not real, so of the two choices, and in conjunction with conceptions being merely representations, I’m forced to go with imaginary. But every conception is representation of a thought, so while to conceive/imagine/think is always mind-dependent, we can further imagine such mind-dependent in-itself conceptions as representing a real mind-independent thing, by qualifying the conditions the conception is supposed to satisfy. This is what he meant by the thought of something being not at all contradictory. — Mww

I'll try another way of looking at this and see if it makes sense to you. I am going to kind of repeat what I already said. So, you say "the in itself is purely conceptual"―I'm going to modify that in line with the "use/ mention" distinction. Accordingly we would then have "'the in itself' is purely conceptual". So, the idea 'the in itself' is undoubtedly purely conceptual. What does the idea refer to? Well, it refers to the in itself of course.

So, I posed the question as to whether the in itself is imaginary or real. You say you are forced to go with imaginary, but then you go on to say that we (you) can further imagine that the mind-dependent conception of the in itself could represent a real mind-independent thing, by qualifying the conditions the conception is supposed to satisfy. This would seem to mean, to me at least, that we can equally think of the in itself as imaginary or real, while acknowledging that we cannot be at all certain whether it is imaginary or real, and if real, just what it is.

So, then I would say the inference to the best explanation, given that the in itself is thought to give rise to the for-us, and since the for-us is real, would be that the in itself is real, but can be real for us only to the extent of what our senses reveal of it, and as to the rest it can only be imagined, and is hence in that regard, for us ideal.

I agree with the rest of what you say in that post, I'm just not sure whether you will agree with the above.

You're talking nonsense just like Corvus is. I see no substantial difference between the two phrases. Why does one appear dogmatic, and the other not dogmatic to you? Are you that sensitive to the qualification of "nothing but"? — Metaphysician Undercover

The first statement says that space and time are relevant to or operative in some domain, which doesn't rule out that they are also relevant to or operative in other domains. The second says they are relevant to and operative in only one domain. If you cannot see the difference in meaning between the two statements then I don't know what else to say.

Yes, this tension could label Kant as dogmatic on noumena: he is meant to remain entirely agnostic, yet he slips into asserting what the noumenon cannot be, which, in effect, are claims about the thing-in-itself. Is this just one those performative contradictions many theories seem to generate? — Tom Storm

Any attempt to explicate just how things are does seem to generate inconsistencies, paradoxes, antinomies and I guess these could all be seen as performative contradictions. It seems to be inherent in every dialectical argument to conjure the spectre of its negation.

"Space and time are the pure forms of intution"―not dogmatic.
"Space and time are nothing but the pure forms of intution"―dogmatic.

This is some good stuff, I must say. Well-thought, well-written.

Two relatively minor counterarguments, if I may:

One, at the beginning, where you relate the in-itself to mind-independence. No conception can be mind-independent, and any thinking with respect to a mere concept, is itself conceptual, hence likewise must not be mind-independent.

“…. The concept of a thing that is not to be thought of as an object of the senses but rather as a thing in itself (solely through a pure understanding), is not at all contradictory…” (A255/B310)

The text designates the thing-in-itself as a conception, so….. — Mww

Thanks. It seems to me that the thought of the in itself is the thought of that which is human mind-independent. Yet, as you say, the thought of the in itself cannot be human mind-independent. Is the in itself purely imaginary or is it real? If it is purely imaginary, then it would be human mind-dependent, if it is real then it would be human mind-independent. Did anything exist prior to humans ? If yes, then it was human mind-independent.

So, it seems you are right that Kant is not inconsistent if he counts the in itself as merely conceptual.

I think correctly placed, the logic adhering to the “in-itself” says, that because there are things that appear, there must be things in themselves from which the things that appear are given.

It is in this way the perceiver is relieved from being in any way necessary causality for the things that appear, which immediately falsifies the proposition we create our own reality, and as an offshoot of that he can say he doesn’t care where a thing comes from or how it got to be as it is, but only cares about how he is to know it, the possibility of which is the primary consideration of the CPR thesis anyway. — Mww

Right, that's very clear―Kant is only concerned with how we can know and know about that which is experienced (and that which may possibly be experienced). Would you say the refusal to infer from experience the nature of the in itself (while acknowledging that it cannot be certainly known) is motivated by the practical reason of making room for faith?

:up:

It’s as if Kant doesn’t want to be a full-blown idealist and therefore argues that there must be things-in-themselves that are unknowable, the product of our senses and cognitive apparatus. — Tom Storm

I'd say the producer, not the product, of our senses and cognitive apparatus seems more apt.

Once we start saying, of the in itself, that “it exists,” “it is independent,” “it has properties,” we have already introduced the very conceptual determinations that the notion of the in-itself was supposed to suspend. — Wayfarer

I don't see how you can escape the contradiction if you say

the “in itself” is what lies beyond our conceptual and sensory reach. — Wayfarer

which is exactly to say that the in itself is human mind-independent.

Also, when you say "the in-itself is...whatever", you have posited it as something (not some thing of course) to which some predicate or even no predicate at all may be attached, and this devolves into incoherence because it makes the appearance of saying something while actually saying nothing at all.

You say I think Kant is dogmatic, and I do because Kant, having said we can say nothing about the in itself, inconsistently and illegitimately denies that the in itself is temporal, spatial or differentiated in any way, which is the same as to say it is either nothing at all or amorphous. He would be right to say that we cannot be sure as to what the spatiotemporal status of the in itself else, and that by very definition.

So I get that it can rightly be said that the in itself cannot be known to be spatial, temporal or differentiated in the ways that we understand from our experience inasmuch as we have defined it as being beyond experience, but it does stretch credibility to think that something which is either utterly amorphous or else nothing at all could give rise to the world of phenomena. Kant posits it simply on the logical grounds that if there are appearances then there must be something which appears.

The idea also depends on accepting that the in itself is completely inaccessible to us, but if it gives rise to the world of differentiated spatiotemporal phenomena, if phenomena depend upon it, then by definition we do have access to it, even if we do not have exhaustive access to it. On the other hand if it has nothing at all to do with sense experience then it is completely irrelevant and as good as nothing at all.

In any case, lack of certainty does not preclude reasoned speculation about the in itself, particularly if it is accepted that the phenomenal world of experience is dependent on the in itself. And note, you objected to the "it", but the "it" is already couched within the in itself. Much of what you say seems to come down to the attempt to play policeman to what we are allowed, not merely to claim or speculate, but to say coherently at all, and I do find that approach dogmatic. One persons' incoherence may be another's coherence.

I'm the first to admit that our understanding is limited by language, given its inherently dualistic nature. On the other hand our understanding is also facilitated by language. Our experience itself is, pre-linguistically, non-dual, and that experience plays a powerful part in our intuitive synthetic assessments of how things are. If we try to drill down strictly in analysis, we are always going to strike paradoxes, antinomies and aporia. So, I think a more playful, allusive kind of language is called for, free of the excessive concern with knowing whether we are strictly correct or not. Seek insight, not certainty.

Thanks for your great effort. There is a lot there and I'm running out of time today so I will read through and if I have time select bits that seem to warrant comment or need clarification.

….the fact noumena represents things that cannot be cognize says nothing about the things that can, and noumena cannot because they lack intuition, they lack intuition because there is nothing given to sensibility relating noumena to the pure forms of intuition, space and time;
….that which can be cognized, then, does have associated intuition, which then requires an exposition for the possibility of intuition;
….for the possibility of intuition is the necessity of an external object given to the senses, which is called a undetermined object of empirical intuition (A20/B34), or, an appearance in the sense of being presented to, as opposed to looking-like. Appearing to, not appearing as; — Mww

This seems to capture what I was alluding to. Noumena cannot be cognized, whereas things in themselves can be cognized, only not as they are in themselves. That said Noumena" suggests plurality. The term "thing in itself" has an ambiguity about it―it could refer to the thing which appears to us and is represented as a phenomenon or it could refer to the perceptually unknowable "whole" which Schopenhauer posits as the singular noumenon. Since the unknowable whole cannot be cognized, then it seems it might count as noumenal.

That's all I've time for now. (it is 8.29AM here in Australia).

PS: I realized I left a bracket off the quote from you which means you probably were not alerted to my response. I just edited this a little, and I think I have no more to say at the moment. If you want to respond I will be interested to read.
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What I mean is this: the “in itself” is what lies beyond our conceptual and sensory reach. It is not just unknown in practice; it is unknowable in principle insofar as any determination already brings the mind’s discriminations to bear. Even to say “it exists independently” is already to ascribe an ontological predicate to what is supposed to lie beyond all predication. — Wayfarer

You contradict yourself―you say "the in itself is what lies beyond our conceptual and sensory reach", which is the very definition of human mind-independence. Then you say we cannot predicate its independence. Make up your mind. Is there an itself? If there is it is utterly independent of our perceptions and consciousness.

If there isn't then the commonality of experience, the shared world cannot be explained, and we would be left with a mere inexplicable phenomenalism or else some form of realism that allows us epistemological access to ontically mind-independent reality. You need to be consistent in your thinking or else you are really saying nothing.

I’m not saying that anyone should believe it, or that I believe it. But that we should at least acknowledge that it was believed by all the adherents of these religions movements and is depicted en masse in their iconography and teachings. And was accepted as true by the whole population prior to the Cartesian divide. — Punshhh

I don't think this assessment is accurate if the Ancient Greeks philosophers are taken into account.

All I’m saying is that if we are going to consider transcendence, we have to somehow translate what is revealed to people during revelation into something amenable to philosophical discourse. That there is no other way. It is rather like Kant’s neumenon. Philosophy accepts the neumenon into discursive discourse, why not transcendence? It’s rather like a positive form of neumenon. — Punshhh

Perhaps, but 'revelation' is a loaded term―I prefer 'altered states' or 'non-ordinary states'. Kant's noumenon is specifically defined as that of which no experience at all is possible. The question about revelation is as to whether what is revealed is the same as what is articulated. The question is whether adequate discursive articulation is possible. I tend to think not. In fact I think the same about ordinary states―they are made to seem ordinary by the assumption that our talk in terms of identities adequately characterizes them, captures their nature.

For Husserl and the other thinkers I mentioned there are no thing-in-themselves. Not just because humans or animals must be present for them to be perceived, but because a world seen in itself, apart from humans or animals, is a temporal flux of qualitative change with respect to itself. — Joshs

I agree―we identify things as determinate things, as being this or that. On the other hand I think there is structure in the temporal flux or field of differential intensities that is the determinator, that enables the reliable appearance of a shared world for both humans and animals. If not all would be anarchic chaos, and no discourse at all possible.

Spinoza, yes. Hegel and Whitehead, no. For the latter two the idea of mathematical truths that are utterly independent of history, world, relation, or realization is not just false, it is philosophically incoherent. — Joshs

I'm not going to argue about Hegel, as he is complicated and variously interpreted, including as having links with the Hermetic Tradition, but I think you need to look closer at Whitehead. In his ontology there are actual occasions, more or less evanescent events that make up the spatiotemporal flux that constitutes reality, and there are eternal objects―atemporal potentials that are "ingressed" (a Whiteheadian term that Levin has adopted) in the actual occasions. Basically the actualization of eternal potentials. Mathematical objects, or better, patterns, and forms, including ontic forms.

Whitehead stands Plato on his head as Marx did with Hegel―or perhaps better, stood Plato on his feet (as Marx said he did with Hegel), in that he denied that actual reality is the dim, imperfect copy of eternal forms, but their actualization, without which they would be effectively nothing at all. The eternal objects together constitute the totality of possibility, which is of course, numerically speaking, far greater than actuality, but greater only in that sense.

But there are bodhistvas galore and people who achieve a realisation of Nirvana, who are enlightened. — Punshhh

Are there? How do you know?

There is reincarnation, although modern commentators seem to contort this into something that isn’t the transmigration of souls, but the transmission of some kind of common being, or essence which is undefined. — Punshhh

Again, how do you know there is reincarnation?

Yes, but they are allegorical of transfigured, God like beings inhabiting a heavenly realm. — Punshhh

Yes, of course they are allegorical―I was only pointing out that all our supposedly transcendent imagery really derives from what we have seen in this world.

It’s time we accepted that all this religious activity, iconography and religious practices are shouting from the roof tops that there is a heavenly world, a Nirvana underlaying our known world, that is primary to it and that our world is a pale reflection of this reality. — Punshhh

I don't see any reason to believe that. That said, I don't deny that others might feel they have reasons to believe it. For me the idea that our world is a pale reflection of some other reality is unsupportable, since this world and our experiences in it and of it are all we know.

Or in other words to believe religious doctrine. It is an exercise in the blind leading the blind, in the absence of revelation. — Punshhh

This makes no sense to me. There are many religious doctrines, incompatible with one another, and I have no desire to be led by the blind.

Interesting. Here is where phenomenology (and hermeneutics, enactivism, poststructuralism and the later Wittgenstein) differs. The claim there is no such thing as a non-relational quality. Furthermore, a quality is an event, a change of relation. — Joshs

Sure, there is a sense in which it can be said that the quality of roundness or mass is a mere potential unless it interacts with something, is felt. But that doesn't change the fact that objects that have mass and are round may exist without ever having been perceived by any human or even animal. A round rock might be dislodged by water or wind and roll down a hill in a remote place that has never been visited by humans, or even animals.

No, it shows that there is enough similarity between the ways that each of us construct pattens of sense-making out of the flux that we can create abstractive idealizations that we call empirical objectivity. — Joshs

This seems incorrect to me. Sure, the ways in which we see things are mediated by our sensory systems, but it is the ways things are seen, not what is seen that is mediated. If everybody sees a cube on the left and a sphere on the right that cannot be explained by the similarity of the human visual system alone.

Levin buys into a mathematical platonism that goes back to Leibnitz and ignores all the thinking since Kant that this OP is drawing from. He assumes arbitrary mathematical truths in themselves which are utterly non-relational and then wants to integrate these pure ‘non-physical’ truths with evolutionary processes.

Like pi, e, and many other remarkable constants, forms emerge from mathematics in ways that cannot be explained by any kind of history or properties of the physical world – they would be this way even if the physical world was entirely different. — Joshs

Levin is merely speculating at this stage, and his thinking is more in line with Spinoza, Hegel and Whitehead than with Leibniz. He is a scientist, so maybe he doesn't labour under an academic assumption that insight is to be found only in the mainstream, or that there is a progressive line of academic authority in philosophy.

Levin is about testing explanatory hypotheses for phenomena which cannot be explained in terms of mechanical causation or evolution and thinking rather in terms of final and formal causes, ideas which, as you no doubt know, go back to Aristotle.

I think there is something to be made of the idea. For example, the table is somehow more than the sum of its parts. — Ludwig V

Sure, a very different sense of 'transcendence' that the one I was addressing.