No, not at all. Your example does the same as mine, but the 'biological method' is different. If you simply cannot remember who you are - look down and go "whos legs are these?" you're not the owner of those legs. In this case, I just don't have a name for hwo you are - your psychology has only just now come into existence. Name yourself!
This isn't particularly difficult to grasp, I don't think. It just gives us the extremely uncomfortable conclusion that (for example) in a situation of teletransportation, you die. You don't come to in place 2. You simply die. Someone new, with your same memories, exists in place 2. For some, that is comforting. As long as someone who will be you continues to drive toward your goals and desires, all is well. For me, its terrifying.

Now, that runs counter to most intuitions about identity, for sure. But that is likely irrelevant. As regards Ship of Theseus, no. I am expressly avoiding that question. The body is not that relevant - it just a way of testing the conclusion as against the opposite (i.e "oh! Those are my legs" would indicate no change in psychological continuity in the Jane example).

I think no. Despite Leontisko's protestations (which don't seem to go further than that description) it is clearly hte case that a Christian must accept Christian doctrine. The name "Christ-ian" infers this is, at the base, the doctrine of hte Christ myth. If you do not accept the Christ myth, you're something else related to Christian. But clearly, if you reject the basis for the description of the sect, you're not in it.

That might seem reductive, but the concept of doctrine is pretty reductive, and it behooves me to avoid hte ridiculousness of sectarianism and just make a call, from my view.

This is hte crux; good stuff.

When you wake up, would you think "where is my mind?". Surely not. Would you look down - see two legs and think "where are my legs"?

Are the ones you now have Jane's legs? Then you're still you. Are they your legs? Then you're Jane.

I am interested in what Aristotle thought about this and whether he took part. — I like sushi

Then my suggestion wasn't for you, was it friend? :)

but this doe snot define the purpose of the mysteries. — I like sushi

It may have been the entire purpose, form and execution of the Mysteries (though, not to box-tick drug taking). That's what explorations like Muraresku's are trying to sort through.

I have strong reasons to believe it would be a waste of time reading that. I have heard him before and cannot imagine sifting through a couple of hundred pages is worthy of my time in the hope of finding one nugget of information. — I like sushi

I can't but assume you really aren't coming into much contact with the substance of the work. Which is not Hancock's, btw.That's not meant to be disparaging - this is most people's position having not engaged particularly well. If any of your reasons have anything to do with racism, you should probably just stop and actually read his work - or admit you just don't know? Usually the way.

If you have any interest in Hancock's psychedelic work, Supernatural is probably the single-best-researched book o the topic which isn't specialised (i.e written by a worker, or focussed on one particular pet project). This coming from someone who has worked in academic psychedelic labs and lectured at several universities on the topic.

By all means, tell me if he mentions Aristotle at all? — I like sushi

Yes. But it sounds like you're not particularly apt to accept something from this writer. Which is fair.

So, something cannot correspond, from reality, to, one-to-one, your perception: that wouldn’t make sense. — Bob Ross

I understand, and I'm not quite suggesting this (though, it seems far more reasonable than pretending there isn't one at all). To reiterate something from an earlier take, there is no good reason to think that which excites our perceptions is significantly different from them. The fidelity between people's perceptions tends toward this, as does "objective measurement" to the degree that that is actually going on LOL.

(1) there are a priori preconditions by which your brain cognizes and (2) your brain is cognizing multiple objects, from those sensations, into one coherent stream of consciousness. — Bob Ross

So say's Kant's system. Am well aware of this position. But I don't think that's necessarily the case. The idea of a priori concepts is a baffling one, if you're not going to invoke like genetic memory or whatever. This isn't decisive for me, but I think this, coupled with the above, are points, again, at which for me Kant is left seriously wanting.

If by this you just meant that there must be something exciting your senses in order for your brain to have the material required to represent (i.e., the sensations), then you are absolutely right. — Bob Ross

To make this a speculative proposition: That "something" must be (in the sense of, it would be required) sufficiently similar in form, function and aesthetic to your perceptions to cause them absent any notable aberration in perception (this leans on the above two objections, I suppose, and I take that they are all speculative, and work together).

How? The idea of a coffee is inherently spatiotemporal, logical, mathematical, conceptual, etc. All of that is a priori. — Bob Ross

I don't think so, no. And even if it were, you need to explain to me how the thing which causes coffee is not coffee (albeit, having never been named as such - but that's clearly not what's at issue here). If it's not coffee... well. I'm sure it's quite clear why this a rocky road to go down. And perhaps why philosophies like Kant's don't make it further than universities... No one relates to this nonsense.

I am not following the critique here: a thing-in-itself represents something real—it represent “that”. It doesn’t represent nothing. — Bob Ross

If there is 'nothing out there' corresponding to your perception (which you have very expressly positied) then, no. It isn't anything. It represents nothing but a gap in the knowledge of hte perceiver. Maybe that was hte intention, but it butters no bread as far as I can see.

Ok, I was misunderstanding what you mean by “disconnect”. — Bob Ross

Fair enough - I'll try to be clearer (generally, not going to restate).

It would be, then, under my view that there is “connect” between the object which excited the senses and the phenomena of it insofar as the former is required for the latter but is not knowable, in terms of its properties, from the latter. — Bob Ross

I agree. Which, to the degree I can make heads or tails of it, is precluded by the above issue of correspondence.

You would have to experience the world as it were independently of your experience of it to verify how accurate your perceptions are — Bob Ross

Apodictically, yes.

All you can know, is that when you strip out the way your brain is pre-structured to experience, then there’s nothing intelligible left. — Bob Ross

This is yours, and Kant's view. I'm unsure it's mine, but it also does not defeat what I'm putting forward here.

what do you have left? — Bob Ross

The coffee. Quite blatantly.

That may be your opinion. Not mine. I disclaim that Graham is a personal friend, and has been for quite some time. That said, yeah - pretending that his name is somehow an indication of quality is erroneous at best, prejudiced at worst.

after Mackie, I'm going to say asking anyone to defend their values is a joke.

Cool.

The thing-in-itself, in terms of what it represents, is not a figment of reason’s imagination—it’s a real thing out there. — Bob Ross

Yeah see, this is, on it's face, a totally contradictory set of claims. It represents nothing, unless there is a real thing to which you are referring. In which case, it represents that. It can't really cut both ways. This is one of my personal gripes with the CRP that makes it come apart in some of its most important aspects. This reply would go to a couple of your further paras too.

In the first, you were denying that there is a medium by which we experience — Bob Ross

False. If that's what you got, I cannot, on review, see how.

For Kant, of course there is: it is the way we sense and cognize that provides that disconnect. — Bob Ross

This would clearly provide a connection. And it certainly does for Kant.

for two different external objects per external object — Bob Ross

No. I did not say this, or imply it. I was very clearly speaking about hte 'object of perception' in contrast to whatever caused that perception. I am saying that seeing a true disconnect (i.e "it is not out there" as you put it) is unparsimonious speculation that I find pretty unfortunate.

If you agree that the something which excited your senses cannot be known from the perception intuited and cognized from the sensations of it — Bob Ross

I don't really. That's just the way the thing-in-itself has been spoken about over time. I don't think this was the intention, necessarily, though it is where Kant left it. I also think it's wrong. But that's not an argument about CRP or it's contents. Just that I think this.

then it plainly follows that what you are calling ‘coffee’ only holds intelligibility insofar as it is phenomena and not noumena — Bob Ross

No. And i gave the specific reason for this 'no'. Unless you accept a total disconnect between the thing-in-itself and hte perception (i.e you speculate that empirically, they are simply not the same thing - not that we can't know this, but that it is the case that they are not hte same thing) then there is simply no reason whatsoever to assume the object which causes perceptions would be significantly different to the perception. I see nothing to support that contention, other than saying "its beyond our knowledge, and so it (depending on which of your posts I take as your position) it doesn't exist" or ".. it is something other than that which you have perceived". Neither of these is tenable, to me.

a priori modes of cognizing reality — Bob Ross

Which may in fact simply be informations from objects "out there". See how weak this contention is?

When you work backwards from your experience of the coffee to whatever excited your senses to have that experience of it, you end up with a perfectly unknowable ‘thing-in-itself’. That’s how it should be. — Bob Ross

I think you're perhaps not quite understanding what's being said here. No one is working backwards. One is stepping back. There is no directionality. That's kind of the basis for what I'm saying. There is no hierarchy of the primacy of either our perception of the object, or hte object and this is all Kant can really give us. And I accept that. We can't possibly put one before the other without either dismissing our experience, or pretending it is caused by literally nothing. I know you're not saying those things, which is why I posit you're not quite groking me - which is probably my fault. But I note you've made a moral call here. There is no 'should'. There is discussion. LOL.

Then, you must demonstrate how any phenomenal property of the coffee is a property of the coffee-in-itself — Bob Ross

No. No I don't.

the very concept of a ‘coffee’ is only distinguishable from the generic ‘thing’ insofar as it is already conditioned by the a priori means of cognizing it — Bob Ross

I thikn you're nearly getting it, now. Weirdly, you seem to be claiming the opposite of hte clear inference from this assertion. Namely, that the two objects must be inextricably linked. Given the mode of perception, there is literally no reason to think the object would be significantly different to the perception. Pretend you couldn't possibly know, all you want. That creates no reason to assume, in ignorance, that there's any major disconnect.

That’s why Kant never says “coffee-in-itself” or anything similar, but always ‘thing-in-itself’: it has to be that generic. — Bob Ross

I did cover this, in noting he would never use the term 'thing' other than to describe to generic concept of "a thing". Generic. This does nothing for either side of the conflict, in my view. That's just something Kant did to avoid going beyond hte bounds of knowledge. Unfortunately, to my mind, he absolutely failed in guarding against over-extension by making claims about the thing in itself (some, you've reiterated well here).

As is this:

The Immortality Key

Unfortunately, he gets mystical about it, instead of anthropological. But the synthesis is good. Appreciate you linking your review of your proferring too!

Latino sexism maybe. — frank

This is hte kind of comment that gets a scoff and a 'piss off' from me, sorry mate.

Seriously Michael, for someone intelligent (it seems), this ridiculousness of this post is utterly perplexing.

Looking forward to coming back to this thread in four years and magically, the US will be fine.

The Road To Eleusis

If anyone wants to delve.

Zygotes spontaneously abort constantly. For this reason, it would be pure stupidity to care about them in a way that informs ones morals. Weep, fools!

That’s literally the whole project of the CPR: you just denied the whole book here (: . — Bob Ross

I'm not sure that's the case. As best I can tell, on multiple readings and having traversed probably half a million words in analysis (I include lectures here) the point of the book was the distinction after Hume, as between a priori concepts and empirical objects with regard to reason to avoid error in reasoning as between the two incongruous sets of 'things' (though, i definitely transgress Kant here as he would never call an a priori concept a 'thing' other than the general concept of same). That's in the title, the introduction and the entire body of the text and as best i can tell, the conclusions in the Method (the Method, specifically, is where my take derives from). There is nothing in the CRP that gives me any reason to think Kant saw anything more than a logical (i.e non-empirical, which is how your take has been framed) gap between the thing-in-itself and the experience of same (akin to the induction issue). He, in parts (though, I'm not apt to quote them so grain of salt), notes that we can't have experience of anything, without the thing. And so, being unable to know the thing does not present a barrier to us understanding that the thing is out there in a form that (possibly) we wouldn't recognize. But it might be exactly hte same, on Kant's assertions too. We just dont know. At very best, this is neutral as to claiming that 'coffee' isn't out there (though, some uses of descriptive language would ensure that it isn't, because we have never known it and named it coffee).

Ok, now you are affirming the CPR (: — Bob Ross

Reading that quote (of mine, that you used) in conjunction with the above, I can't see how the two are opposed. They both reiterate the same contention, which, I content, is in line with the CRP as a whole.

I wasn’t claiming that. Are you implying that’s what I was saying in the quote you had of my explanation of the coffee cup? — Bob Ross

It certainly sounds like it. You have expressed said the coffee isn't out there. Meaning, something else is causing you to have a cup of coffee (in terms of causation, not like it forces you to drink coffee lol).

The coffee which you perceive is the cognized version of the sensations of a thing-in-itself; whatever it may have been in-itself — Bob Ross

It was coffee. BUt then you go on to say...

There isn’t a coffee out there, and a coffee-in-itself which corresponds to it. The coffee which you perceive isn’t out there in the real world: it is a perception you have of something. — Bob Ross

That 'something' is coffee on both ways to read my take. 1. The object is simply the one we perceive, despite never being able to describe how that's the case; or
2. A different object, which is transitively coffee, has a strict tendency to cause us to perceive what we, in sensation, call coffee.

I have just dropped coffee from my menu, however.

This doesn't make much sense, and I have no idea what you're getting at.

Anyone paying any attention to the temperature of the USA over the last 12 months would have seen this coming a mile off. As i did. Perhaps be less pedantic.

Ah that's a shame. Ah well - hope he enjoys himself out there.

The coffee which you perceive is the cognized version of the sensations of a thing-in-itself; whatever it may have been in-itself. There isn’t a coffee out there, and a coffee-in-itself which corresponds to it. The coffee which you perceive isn’t out there in the real world: it is a perception you have of something. — Bob Ross

The problem I, and it seems plenty of other very intelligent people, have with this conception of both Kant's intention, and the (relatively) plain reading of the concepts is that there is no foundation for expecting a disconnect of this kind between experience and that which causes the experience. We simply have no reason to reduce our description to "something". The experience couldn't be without that which 'triggered' it within us, within the bounds of our a priori concepts. We can easily still use the term "coffee" and just accept we can't know it's properties beyond it's tendency to elicit the experience of itself within the bounds of our a priori conceptual schema. Otherwise, we're saying things cause us to experience other things in some pretty direct fashion. That seems both wrong and possible illogical to me at least in the sense that it's pure speculation and unparsimonious. We have no other way to cite the causes of experience, so why are we being all esoteric and indie about it?

A surprisingly sane thread. Nice one Bob! Particularly at this time.

All i can really say is, hehehe. This was the obvious outcome. It seemed clear to me at least a year out. I very much hope Mikie is getting the help he needs right now. Hands across America.

family. *vin diesel voice*.

Having experience, then being able to focus and divide that experience into 'experiences' is innate. — Philosophim

This is what I was trying to get at, but there's no real explanation for why this is the case other than 'it's required for what we take to be experience'. However, some mental experiences (usually drug-induced) can counter this potential. The mind, either without, or unaware of, the body, may not need these a prioris to 'experience' something like timeless space for instance.

Though, you addressed your response to Bob, so i'm unsure exactly the intent.

I think this can be fairly easily sorted out with a question:

Is your position that a Zygote and an Adult Human are the same thing?

This seems, to me, akin to someone who does not know the difference between a fly and a human. Your experience doesn't matter if you're trying to reason your way to a position.

Given the above, I'm unsure you're even having a 'moral' conversation if that's the case.

For sure - OP is entirely wrong. Using the dumb colloquial version for sure.

It's been read.

Really good point worth distilling here - you cannot have thoughts without separation of objects/concepts/abstractions. This requires a spatial aspect not deduced frmo the objects/concepts/abstractions. Very good.

It's about who is more competent than whom in a specific area of expertise which may or may not have anything to do with intelligence, e.g. humor and grammar. — T Clark

Which, contra your previous comments, the "DK effect" as described in your proferrings presents a valuable, discreet metric along which to deply the DK epithet. I work in a highly-specialised area, within a highly-specialised area. Plenty of people in the former group (the wider speciality) believe they are apt to perform in the more-specialised area I am working in. They, by and large, are not, and they have not done the work to understand this fact. The effect this has on them is palpable, obvious, apparent and extremely difficult to work with.

This is a plain-reading of the DK effect in action. I see no issue. It is meaningful, identifiable and quite specific.

So it’s messy. — Fire Ologist

I agree with this, and I think this is why this particular debate always ends up coming down to a 'gut feeling', such as that contains any meaning.

An adult organism is constantly changing too. So if we want to say an adult human Is a “thing”, and then say it constantly changes, tomorrow morning we have a new “thing” too according to you. — Fire Ologist

I'm only in partial agreement here. An adult organism is always changing, but with the exception of something like surgical removal or addition, it's form does not change. We do not expect an adult human to become another form. We do with younger humans - even toddlers. Proportions change drastically in those first 10 years, and then function changes drastically in the next four or five. Once that's relatively settled by roughly 25, we do not expect any more significant changes. Nay, we couldn't expect any that are not aberrations. I think this is important and supports my distinction.

So “thing” becomes a meaningless term. There are no things anywhere ever anymore. — Fire Ologist

This seems, sorry to say, a totally unreasonable strawman. It doesn't actually address the use of 'thing' anyway. It addresses it's application to a changeable entity.

we can integrate constant change with its permanent subject of that change. — Fire Ologist

In my view, it's not 'we can'. It is the case. There's nothing further.

Now when a sperm fertilizes an egg, we can say the constantly changing sperm is a thing that, once joined with the egg, ceases to be a thing, and the egg and sperm together start the motions and changes of a new thing. — Fire Ologist

We certainly could. But, if you want to do this, you need also take on board some other very, VERY important aspects of gestation that would provide a new 'thing'. And that also supports both my view above, and that we can have various ideas of what a 'person' or 'human being' comes into existence. The gut feeling determinant remains.

A human zygote isn’t a different thing than a human adult - it’s what a human being is when it is first conceived like the adult is what a human being is when it is grown. — Fire Ologist

I would posit this as the most important, clear, contradiction in your thinking.

If they are not 'different thing's then they cannot be alternate states of 'one another', let's say. They would be the same thing. There is a difference, which you acknowledge here.

Doesn't this perhaps go to the point made by Banno earlier that religion or essentialism are influencing such views? — Tom Storm

The preceding line attests to my assent :P This is me using Banno's point in a way I think is slightly less pedantic, and more effective (to me, personally, anyhow).

I am pro-choice on the grounds that I care about women, I don't care about fetuses other than in respect of the woman carrying it (..any given..). Fetuses, on my view, cannot suffer in a way remotely morally relevant.

Btw, if pro-choice advocates don’t believe that human zygotes, blastocysts, and fetuses are human what species do they think they are? — praxis

I don't think anyone worth speaking to could deny this. Yet, Banno's flimsy point beats it.

No reasonable person could read all three beings as morally hte same, without doing some loop-de-loops which rest on embarrassment, basically.

This is an indication of why the nature of time is of the utmost importance to moral philosophy, but both you and AmadeusD refused to accept this fact. — Metaphysician Undercover

Whatever you're talking about has nothing to do with me. This is not a position i hold/deny/have had much thought about.

Since you've mentioned it, I agree. No f-ing clue how anything else came across. The problem with what you're saying is that its an empirical aspect of any given moral decision and cannot be a guiding, formal aspect of moral thinking in the abstract.

Still, you're not wrong. The literal stretch of time in which one can weigh up options bears heavy on any moral decisions (that are adequately considered, anyway).

I think what's trying (imo, quite badly) to do is point out that your argument (i.e how you would assess the question yourself) is inapt for much of a pregnancy.

I realise it's likely you will side with the mother regardless, But i think that's what he wants you to admit.

If the idea that is that, stepping back, in the round, the mother takes moral priority, does this include up to the anticipated date of birth? Timothy nearly got there, point out a human is also a clump of cells.

But there is obviously also a difference between a blastocyst and a fetus. But also, a fetus and a baby. Which means what to your version of the argument? The reason most want an 'essentialist' account of personhood is to demarcate at which point a 'clump of cells' gets moral priority (you may bite the bullet of late-term abortion. I don't, so this isn't obvious to me). This is because we don't make decisions 'in the round' or 'stepping back'. We make them on the actual facts (i.e how far along is this fetus at hte time the abortion has been proposed).

then you need a very robust "theory of error" to explain how it's the case that thousands of skilled philosophers think otherwise, — J

Not at all. Their output makes vaguely more sense - which is not enough to shift the burden on to me. They provide no access to clarity - it's usually fairly pained interpolation, from what I see. Trying to rescue nonsense. If my response to those philosophers is the same (and aligns with basic psychosocial habits, imported into this field) as my response to the fundamental writings, then I need explain nought, but that this(being the above psychosocial habits mentioned) explains it (for me, obviously). A lot of people thought Mein Kampf was a great book.

I'd also point out that there are the same number, if not more philosophers, on the side of perhaps not taking Continentals that seriously, for the reasons I've given. I'm unsure that rejection of a modern turn on a millennia old practice requires much explanation, beyond "Well, you're doing something else, now".

I believe I've missed a joke.

Neither of these apply to your title. You're welcome.

hat I've learned from this conversation: — ucarr

Is, unfortunately, that flowery language intended to refer to proper concepts and ideas, lacking wholly in substance, will be argued for ad infinitum in the face of clear evidence of hte above. Politeness apparently does not help in this endeavour, nor does direct application of rationality and reason. Trying to figure out someone's ideas when their language is purposefully ambiguous, contradictory and deceptive is probably a waste of time.

That's not true, at all. Men creating a zygote tethers them to a legal requirement that can be absolutely life-destroying for a man who did not intend the zygote to be created.
I don't think they should be off the hook, to be clear, but this is wrong.

The etymology of 'agnostic' leads directly to the definition i gave "Not-knowledge". A-gnostic. I hear what you're saying, but these are attempts to use language to get past the problems I'm putting forward. You can disagree with these definitions, if you want to, and go on the merry-go-round a few more times. And I'm not even knocking that - but you want to make an argument. So let's get to it...

to knowing about reality. — Hallucinogen

to not knowing. It's not a commitment anymore than thinking you could know is. And that's, essentially, present in all other takes (deism, theism, atheism). So, can't really argue with the premise, but the idea that this somehow weakens the position is not right on my view.

s such, defining agnostic in that way makes it unlike how agnostic is used in the broader sense, to not have a commitment to some belief. — Hallucinogen

This is how Atheism is used in the 'broader sense'. This is quite well-established by the multitude of arguments about it between the leading theists and atheists from the late 90s to today. 'misuse' of the words, according to those who adopt them, is the central problem in discussions of this sort. I am trying my best to avoid the ambiguity you find to be helpful here. I realise several pages of several threads have gone over this in the last year, and I stand by my takes with full confidence there. The words need to be clear, and there is a clear, non-overlapping way to use them without ambiguity. The etymology would lend itself to those uses.

What I was asking you is — Hallucinogen

I answered what you asked. What you've said here is just a slightly more elaborate version of hte same question. Your conception of 'theism' is wrong, on my account, and doesn't capture what 'theism' represents. It would also capture deism. So, if hte entity you're talking about is something more akin to the 'New Age' conceptions - "the force of love", "the creative power of hte universe" etc... It is, definitionally, eternal and all-powerful, but is not at all theistic. So, there's no contradiction here that I'm able to ascertain.

An omnipotent and eternal non-contingent entity is either inherently theistic or not, why would it be unlikely that an atheist would believe in such? — Hallucinogen

The bold doesn't bear on the non-bold here, at all, in any way. The reason an atheist is hardly taken to believe in a deistic God (of some kind - make it super-vague if that helps) is that an atheist is far more likely to be thinking rationally and wanting evidence instead of settling for an inference in comparison to a theist, or deist who (as I understand) must be making a rather large leap to their conclusion, no matter how far rationality got them. And that's all that can support deistic or theistic beliefs, imo (well, I say inference - I do also mean 'inference from intuition' or something similar - one's deeply-felt passions can infer something is hte case, but only infer on no other evidence).

Unfortunately, I am always left with a really sour taste upon being handed anything that comes with a 'you have to wait until you click with it' type of disclaimer.
I find the relatively standard Continentals, all, plus Haabermas, who have been mentioned in the last page, not only unclear in terms of writing (i find that fairly easy to get through) but totally unclear as to what's actually being posited or 'argued for' in a lot of cases. Hegel being a pretty notable exception, I mainly just conclude that most of his more fundamental ideas are rubbish.

Maybe i've not given it enough time - but it seems to me that "You just don't get it yet" is the underlying notion here, which also tends to come when you don't like th same music as someone else :P