[3] Can we see a suitable portion of the world as it is described truly?
...
Answer: [3] ... reject [4] and [5] for the same reasons as [1] — bongo fury

:up:

So if there aren't any creatures about, there isn't a way things are? — Daemon

There is. But we can only describe it from a human point-of-view. That is, we start from what we observe. Our theories of the universe (along with the rules of logic and mathematics) don't emerge in a vacuum.

A concrete object is what any human being knows. If you take a billionaire from New York and a priest from New Guinea, they have the same understanding of concrete objects that everyone else has! What we call reality is what presents itself to human beings. — Rafaella Leon

Exactly.

This is one of Kant’s mistakes, he thinks that all of these are limitations of our knowledge, that we cannot know things in themselves, however, I assert that what I’m talking about is things in themselves! — Rafaella Leon

Yes. And as you suggest above, you're talking about those things from a human point-of-view (yours). You're not asserting a Platonic (or idealized) point-of-view.

If you take a billionaire from New York and a priest from New Guinea, they have the same understanding of concrete objects that everyone else has! — Rafaella Leon

Three men looking at a large paddock. One is cattle farmer, he's assessing it for the quality of the feed, whether there's water on it, how many head it will support. One is a geologist, he's looking at the rock formations to determine whether there are likely to be any valuable minerals underneath it. The third is a property developer, he's looking at access roads, zoning of the sorrounding area, whether sub-division is allowed and if so what the rules are.

It's the same paddock, but they're all seeing different things. Furthermore, depending on which of them ends up buying it, the outcomes will be wildly divergent.

Another anecdote I learned in anthropology (or, it might have been cognitive science). An anthropologist drove a pygmy chief up on top of a mountain, where you could see down to the plains beneath. On the plains, as is typical in Africa, there were herds of animals visible. The chief kept squatting down and reaching out in front of him to touch the ground. He did this for some time. After a while, and much translation, it became apparent that the chief was trying to pick up the animals. This is because he was from a rainforest tribe and had never seen a sweeping view before. He didn't have any conception of the scale on which he was seeing those animals, so he thought they were small creatures only an arms-length distant.

Besides, Kant is wrong. I know this, because I’m a naive realist!

Besides, Kant is wrong. I know this, because I’m a naive realist! — Wayfarer

Right, and you never saw an optical illusion or perceived something wrongly in your entire life so you are confident in the total accuracy of your senses. Likewise, your judgement is pure of any error and of any subjectivity, ya kna? So when you look around here and see a bunch of jokers who never cared to think, it’s not just your opinion... it’s the Philosophy Forum AS IT IS. :-)

Hey don’t knock the Forum. We’re all just kicking ideas around.

Sorry, it’s the way I see it, therefore that’s how it is...

:lol:

When I put on my glasses, the world is well focussed, but when I put them off, the world is all blurry. Funny how the world is...

I often say the whole point of philosophy is learning to look at your spectacles, instead of, or as well as, only looking through them.

Excellent. And also improving your spectacles, hopefully.

I often say the whole point of philosophy is learning to look at your spectacles, instead of, or as well as, only looking through them. — Wayfarer

Yes, yes, yes and yes.

Most philosophy takes place on the level of the content of thought, this idea vs. that idea. While there's a place for this, it seems a more powerful form of analysis to examine the nature of thought, that which all ideas are made of.

While we can learn something about say, Christianity, by comparing it to Marxism, Buddhism or some other ideology.... We can learn about EVERY philosophy by shifting our focus to the nature of thought, it's properties, how it works etc.

As example, we could observe how Christianity, a religion supposedly about bringing people together in peace, has subdivided in to hundreds of competing factions, sometimes with murderous results. If we stay on the level of the content of thought we might conclude that this problem arises from some flaw in Christian ideology.

But if we back up a bit and take a wider view we can see that every ideology ever invented inevitably subdivides in to competing internal factions. From this observation we can see that the process of division arises from a deeper level than the content of particular ideologies, but rather from the medium of thought which all ideologies are made of. This insight has profound practical implications...

Imagine I propose that Hippyheadism is the one true way which can unite humanity and bring peace etc. If we understand that Hippyheadism is made of thought, and thought is the source of division, we will know this claim can't be true. If we understand the divisive nature of thought itself, we will know right at the start that it will only be a matter of time before there are Leftist Hippyheadists and Rightist Hippyheadists who will begin yelling at each other.

The content of thought is just a symptom, a product of the nature of thought. So, as Wayfarer suggests, a most productive way of proceeding is to examine one's spectacles.

To illustrate, imagine that you have been wearing tinted sunglasses since birth (you were a really cool jazz musician baby). :-) If you didn't understand the tinted nature of your glasses you would understandably conclude that all of reality is tint colored.

This is the human condition. We don't grasp the divisive nature of our spectacles (thought) and so see division everywhere we look, and take it for granted that the division we perceive is real.

↪Daemon
There are things we don't know that we don't know, therefore we don't know anything. — Banno

My interest was initially piqued by Andrew M's suggestion that we can see the world as it is, and his subsequent acknowledgement that colour-blind people can't see the world as it is.

Andrew then added something about "standards", Platonic or Idealised standards, versus creature specific standards.

I guess "Idealised" is the same thing as "the world as it is ("in itself").

The tetrachromats are interesting because it means all men and most women are colour-blind. So if you've ever wondered what it's like to be colour-blind, now you know. Fascinatingly, it seems that tetrachromat women themselves often don't realise that they can see colours the rest of us can't, and it isn't tested for routinely, it wasn't known about at all until recently. The robin's ability to see magnetic fields is interesting because it seems so bloody unlikely and it's like a superpower.

I realise these are capacities that we know are inaccessible to the rest of us, but they give us something to talk about, and they provide a pointer towards other capacities we don't know about at all (after all, we only just found out about these ones, and there was no guarantee of that).

There are things we don't know that we don't know, and they are part of the world as it is, so we don't know the world as it is.

?

ya kna — Olivier5

Where did you get that pronunciation from Olivier?

Where did you get that pronunciation from Olivier? — Daemon

New York. It’s meant as a parody of a smart ass talking.

reality is exactly what we perceive......

Agreed.

......“Ah, but it is always incomplete”.....

Correct. We never perceive everything possible to perceive.

.......tell me the idea of ​​a complete reality that can be presentable to anyone. You cannot.....

Correct. The idea of a complete reality is given by itself, but that the object given by the idea is therefore presentable in its entirety, does not follow from its mere conception.

........showing itself only in certain aspects is proper to all reality, that is the structure of reality.....

Ehhhh.....error of equivocation: for reality to show itself implies intention, which cannot belong to entities having no conception of purpose. Negating the error then leaves the structure of reality undefined.

......Things that present themselves in all their aspects at the same time only exist ideally.....

That which is ideal does have all its aspects present in itself simultaneously, but cannot be a thing that presents itself as existing. The two familiar ideal conceptions, complete in themselves, are space and time, which do not exist in themselves but are merely sound logical conclusions.

.....the ideal cube that you draw on the paper shows six sides.....

No, it does not. It is possible to illustrate a three dimensional object on a two dimensional plane, but an ideal can never be a mere illustrated replica of an object in general.

.......So only this non-existent cube has six sides at the same time.....

No it does not. It is first a contradiction, insofar as non-existence has no extent in space nor duration in time, and second, cutting of the paper makes explicit the third dimension is in the construction of the cube, not the drawing of it.

.......That aspect of the cube that I perceive is the aspect that the cube can show me. It cannot show that same aspect of itself to an earthworm.....

Categorical errors of relation and modality: it is absurd to suppose an object common to differing perceptive physiologies or cognitive sophistication, changes itself in accordance with the system examining it. It is pathologically stupid to then suppose any one cognitive system has the apodeictic means to relate itself to another system diametrically opposed to it. It follows that, e.g, claiming an earthworm sees a cube, is unintelligible (relation), from which follows the claim that the cube presents itself, is empty (modality).

.....Only a human being can see this. Another animal will see it in yet another way.....

To see “this” or to see “it (this) in a different way” is a strictly human qualitative distinction, which suggests it is the capacities of the receiver of the impression, rather than the source of the impression, which generally determines various effects from common cause, but without any sense at all, of what the effects actually are. To claim an earthworm does not perceive as we perceive, is tautologically true, for the simple reason its negation is impossible. Hence, expositions on it are superfluous.

.......This is one of Kant’s mistakes, he thinks that all of these are limitations of our knowledge — Rafaella Leon

Nothing you’ve said is sufficient to prove a mistake. Not to say there isn’t one, but nothing this comment is in response to, serves the purpose of demonstrating it.

If we call "knowledge" only the set of data and relationships that a man carries with him and has at his disposal at a given moment in his existence, knowledge will not only be drastically limited, but formless and fluctuating. That is why we include in this notion the broadest set of information recorded and disseminated in his social environment, without which he could do little by his own resources.

But this set of records, in turn, implies the existence of the physical environment, that is, not only of the materials where these records are printed, but also of the world of “objects” to which they refer and with which they relate in somehow.

The notion of “knowledge” as the content of human memory and consciousness becomes totally unfeasible if we do not admit that knowledge, in the form of registration, also exists outside of them. Furthermore, we cannot admit that there are only man-made records, since any material that can serve as a board where these records are inscribed can only serve this role precisely because, in its nature and intrinsic form, it brings its own records, suitable for this purpose: you cannot write in water or produce a musical note by blowing on a compact rock. Registration is any trait that specifies and singularizes any entity.

To perceive the real world is to perceive possibilities, tensions, expectations. The concept of materialism itself cannot be enunciated without self-contradiction, it cannot even be thought of as a hypothesis. You think there is a material world, and, as we have a brain, we invent things other than the material world, but all that we invent is exactly the presence of the material world. If reduced to its “material” properties, the world could not even be material. Because what you call material is just an abstract selection of certain properties out of the countless ones that you perceive and that you hypothetically call materials, but that are not perceived separately. They are never perceived separately. All the knowledge that we can acquire from Epistemology and Theory of Knowledge must be obtained through the analysis of real perception, through the analysis of real knowledge, and not through artificial hypotheses. Real knowledge is that which is obtained in real experience, in actual experience and not in hypothetical experience.

↪Daemon
There are aspects of the world that are inaccessible, but none of those are non-relational. It's just that we don't possess the right properties to enter into relation with those inaccessible aspects. There are no non-relational aspects in other words; if something were entirely non-relational it would be nothing at all. — Janus

Thank you.

So do you think aspects can enter into relations with other aspects, let's say an asteroid hits another asteroid?

Where did you get that pronunciation from Olivier? — Daemon

New York. It’s meant as a parody of a smart ass talking. — Olivier5

The local dialect where I come from, Tyneside, North East England, is certainly among the most extreme accents of British English, and we say "ya kna" to mean "you know".

The dialect and accent is called "Geordie". You can hear a Geordie joke here: https://www.hawaii.edu/satocenter/langnet/assets/geordie.rm and read a translation here: https://www.hawaii.edu/satocenter/langnet/sounds/geordsound.html The joke includes somebody saying "ya kna".

Besides, Kant is wrong. I know this, because I’m a naive realist! — Wayfarer

Naive realists tend to be rather dogmatic about their perceptions.

Ha ha. They say it in New Yorker too... ya kna?

There are things we don't know that we don't know, and they are part of the world as it is, so we don't know the world as it is. — Daemon

IOW we don't know everything about the world if there are things we don't know. Or universe, really, presumably. Or are you asserting we know nothing about the world?

The first seems pretty much a given. If we don't know everything - that is, there are things we don't know - then we don't know everything.

The second would contradict itself it seems to me. Since we are a part of the world, and you are making a claim about us, you seem to know something about the world.

The tetrachromats are interesting because it means all men and most women are colour-blind. So if you've ever wondered what it's like to be colour-blind, now you know. — Daemon

The question is, by what standard? By normal standards, we are not color-blind. By tetrachromat standards we are.

Similarly consider a six-foot basketball player. Are they tall? By normal standards, they are. By basketball standards they are not.

And by giraffe standards, nobody is tall. But that's not a useful standard for human beings.

Similarly, if seeing the world requires perceiving every possible difference, then that standard has no use for human beings. We would all be blind. Or, as Plato put it, imprisoned in a cave.

Andrew then added something about "standards", Platonic or Idealised standards, versus creature specific standards.

I guess "Idealised" is the same thing as "the world as it is ("in itself"). — Daemon

That sums up the philosophical dispute. Is "the world as it is" that which human beings ordinarily perceive when not mistaken (i.e., per a human standard)? Or is it an ideal that transcends human perception?

Haha, thanks Andrew. :smile:

So do you think aspects can enter into relations with other aspects, let's say an asteroid hits another asteroid? — Daemon

Sure, but they would not be non-relational aspects. I was saying that I think the notion of a non-relational aspect of the world is incoherent.

That sums up the philosophical dispute. Is "the world as it is" that which human beings ordinarily perceive when not mistaken (i.e., per a human standard)? Or is it an ideal that transcends human perception? — Andrew M

Thanks Andrew.

Perhaps the words are being used in a technical sense but I feel there's something jarring about "ideal" and "transcends" here.

Could we say that the meaning of "the world as it is" depends on the context? The world has perceptible and imperceptible aspects, and on a day to day basis we usually want to talk about the world we perceive.

I was saying that I think the notion of a non-relational aspect of the world is incoherent. — Janus

How do you identify what is entering into relation with what? Those two asteroids are where they are because of Jupiter's gravitational effect, Jupiter is where it is because of the sun, and the Milky Way galaxy.

Does "everything is relational" get us anywhere?

How do you identify what is entering into relation with what? Those two asteroids are where they are because of Jupiter's gravitational effect, Jupiter is where it is because of the sun, and the Milky Way galaxy.

Does "everything is relational" get us anywhere? — Daemon

Science deals with what enters into relation with what and how. And science itself grows out of our relation with things.

Everything is relational is a truism, to be sure; but it is one which often seems to be forgotten. So, there is no non-relational reality, and inaccessible relational aspects are hidden from us only because we lack the properties that would be required to access them.

[I've decided to make this a new topic.]