That's not a bad way to put it actually.

It does sound strange though to say, "I thought I saw a ghost, but I actually saw some strange lights in human form."

But still, good way to frame it.

True, there is that tendency among people who wish to maintain that they are uniquely unique, in this experiential respect.

I'd only quibble that I think all of us have had at one time or another a "special experience", which is beyond normal experience. But that doesn't make one gifted or transcendent. I suppose what would be strange is to live an entire life and to have never had a particularly strange or powerful experience.

It doesn't serve to prove anything.

What, sunk cost fallacy for people who have become accustomed to believe in such things and now see evidence showing them they are wrong? In that case, I agree with you.

What about cases in which you don't have a person who believes strongly either for or against ghosts or spirits, but has a strong experience of them, would that be sunk cost too?

I know empirical evidence would be helpful here, I'm just thinking out loud

That follows in as much as in a culture where the idea of ghosts and spirts are accepted as real and are culturally important, you're going to see way more of them.

Reminds me of people who have religious visions of saints or of gods. People generally have visions of the saints and gods that are part of their own culture. I'd be more convinced if Mary appeared to people in Punjab. Or if a Hindu deity appeared to a Southern Baptist in Georgia. — Tom Storm

That's true and it would be pretty strong evidence if we saw Jesus figures consistently appear in Buddhists temples, or the other way around.

These tend to be kind of, without meaning to demean the term, more primitive experiences quite literally. People tend to experience the kind of stuff they are inundated with while growing up.

What's curios to me is that many people, not all, could be put in such a state of mind given specific circumstances, say, being in a cult or being constantly barraged with people saying and believing in these things. But what accounts for this?

Is it just that we experience things to some extent due to cultural circumstances?

One would have to see if such claims would happen to most scientists. Probably not. It's a puzzling topic...

That's pretty much the issue, one can't say that what a person experiences is false, for they experienced it. Of course the ontology of such a situation is not going to be settled by a personal experience.



Then you fall under the category of people who believe in ghosts. They would be real to you, but this would not serve to establish them as existing in the world, right.

Now you have to establish, if your belief in ghosts is naturalistic, that is caused by something in nature. Or is it supernatural, which complicates the picture considerably.



I did not know that. Huh. It's an interesting fact.

I was merely propelled to start a topic about this because I was reading a novel about 17th century England, in which people had to wrestle with the new science, and old superstitions.

But as a child, I do remember having slight "ghostly" experiences, which just completely disappeared once I learned more about how the world works.

I don't disagree.

What I do want to explore is the belief in such a state of mind and how it is that otherwise rational people could fall into believing this, as has happened to most people, at least when they were children.



And as stated, I don't see much hard in believing what you do. Of course, one thing is a belief another thing is reality. This does not mean I am dismissing what you belief in, but it is curious to see how our beliefs entangle with our perception of reality.

told me that he believed in haunted minds, not haunted houses. I am inclined to accept this explanation. We sometimes see and hear things as a consequence of our sense making gone wrong - we are stimulated, prompted and primed by so many things. Heightened emotion often provides the catalyst. The people I have known who have seen ghosts on a regular basis, all tended to have anxiety related issues, often well hidden. — Tom Storm

I like that phrase of "haunted minds", there is something to that. It makes sense that part of the issue is when we misinterpret sense data into seeing something that is not literally there. But given that such things were universal, say, in the Middle Ages, then it seems to me as if we are inclined to interpret such data consistently in a specific way, such as seeing ghosts or spirits as opposed to unicorns, in terms if repeated experiences.

As for anxiety, that's probably a part of it, but there has to be another element to this.

I think many of us are attracted to stories of ghosts and other occult phenomena because they are exciting, they lift us out of the mundane and promise us that in our increasingly technocratic world, a form of romanticism and mystery can still be found. — Tom Storm

They can be exciting. Though one should point out that there's plenty of excitement to be found in the natural world. Alas, this latter point does not apply to everybody.



If you can say more about this, it would be interesting to hear about this.

IMO, such beliefs (i.e. literal projections) are delusional. :sparkle: — 180 Proof

Quite often, absolutely.



That's interesting, yes, there is a strong connection between an old historical event, often a murder or some other horrible situation and a belief in such things.

For instance, last I heard the house in which JonBenet Ramsey was killed has not be sold in a very long time. I don't think anyone has seen anything, but it makes sense why people have not bought such property.

It's a kind of superstition, but it makes some sense in such cases.

An Instance of the Fingerpost by Iain Pears

Superstition goes hand in hand with ignorance, and because our age is wildly ignorant there is a high potential for superstition. For example, suppose Elon Musk said, "If you wave your iPhone in three big circles above your head after turning it on, the scrambling of the gyroscope will make it harder for political activists who are not in your contact list to send you unsolicited messages." People would instantly start doing this, and would probably soon swear by the practice. Why? Because we have no freaking idea how an iPhone works. Our scientific culture is faith-based, premised on arguments from authority. As Arthur Clarke said, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." — Leontiskos

There's a lot to unpack in that, and I think there's very much legitimate issues pertaining to the politization of science, which was off the wall with Covic.

It's a bit strong to say out scientific culture is faith-based, maybe some parts of it are quite encased in certain ways of thinking, say, expecting that evo-devo will explain everything about human behavior, or that if we continue making AI even better, we will reach AGI, etc., these have adherents who verge on "superstition", but there are many exceptions too.

On the other hand, you are quite right to point out that people like Musk have a cult following, such that anything he says is considered gospel. Heck, his "predictions" on what "Neuralink" will be able to do are laughable.

I agree that there is a very clear sense in which, at bottom, we do not know how iPhones work. I would be even stronger in your last sentence, virtually every phenomenon in nature is a kind of magic, as I see it. The reason we no longer see it that way is because we have become used to it and thus take it granted.

Certainly, newborns experience the world as baffling to them, because it is.

I specifically had in mind people like Krauss or Dawkins, or worse yet Dennett or the Churchlands, who are just off the wall. It is this strain in thinking, which I regard as kind of "superstitious" - the belief that science will allow to understand everything eventually. It's crazy to me to think this, for obvious reasons.

I think we can readily split sociological forms of superstitious behavior from psychological superstitious/magical thinking behavior. — schopenhauer1

That sounds like a very sensible distinction.

I think it has to be a component of "magical thinking". That is to say, there has to be a component of "Is this going to change reality in some way". One of the things that have changed over time, is that previously we might wholeheartedly just go along with the magical-thinking. — schopenhauer1

Well, not that you have mentioned this, but let's put prayer to the side and take a common observation: most cultures do not condone say, mishandling a human body or not offering some sort of something in a kind of ritual (for a recently deceased person) and this does have a bit of magical thinking.

The issue becomes obscure when we do things such as celebrate Christmas or some other holiday. Is this superstition or is it mere ritual? And what would be the difference?

That is to say, we might know X behavior is "irrational" but we still believe its effects on reality. — schopenhauer1

In some ways, yes, agreed.

Very much so. And perhaps and argument can be given that we are quite superstitious today, we simply aren't aware of it or we have modified ancient beliefs into our modern outlook. For instance, some aspects of "scientism" are very much of the same caliber as believing in ghosts.

Not to mention the way we often treat presidents or nations. Quite a few other things.

It is more sophisticated, there may be less amount of it on the whole, but I think it's part of our nature.

I don't recall him making that distinction either. Though I do find his mystical stuff to verge on something close to such a distinction, but my interpretation may be wrong.

Yes. According to the Tractatus ethics and aesthetics don't quite fit seem to fit into what "is the case", but he apparently considers them the most important thing of all, are at least, way up the list.

I do not know why he does not say anything about sensations. — Fooloso4

It's a good point and I wonder what he could have said about the topic during his early views.

My main issue here is that he lets go of too much in the Investigations. I don't believe that transcendental philosophy, can be eliminated through proper language use.

Now, if someone wants to say that the distinction between say, a dogmatist and a skeptic is mostly a "verbal" issue, then that's already found in Hume.

Btw, I found the book online, the relevant chapter is 14, starting on p. 310 (which is p.318 in the pdf):

https://www.docdroid.net/ER9hZXg/computer-science-homework-cs206a-pdf#page=318

Yeah, the ladder is used in different context, but it's the same metaphor.

I'm not saying that Schopenhauer is being specifically original in many of his ideas, but you find all these aspects together in Schopenhauer.

To be fair, you can find almost everything in Plato though. Whitehead had a point.

It is here that we can see the difference. What is the case, the facts of the world, are independent of my representation of them. — Fooloso4

In a certain sense yes, in another sense, the stated facts about the world amount to extremely little in comparison to "what we cannot talk" about. Is this noumena? Or ethics? Or sensations? The Manifest image?

That's left open for us to explore.

Wittgenstein's claim that logic is transcendental.
Wittgenstein's "pure realism" vs. phenomenal and noumenal distinction.
The role of representation.
Will vs. independence of facts. — Fooloso4

I don't remember off the top of my head exactly what was Wittgenstein took from Schopenhauer, but it has the flavor.

For instance, the metaphor of reading his book is like climbing a ladder and then kicking it down was taken directly from Schopenhauer who says the same thing.

His last part of the Tractatus, the mystical side, certainly echoes Schopenhauer's views about art, wherein we catch glimpses of a pure idea, but such experiences are very poorly explained in propositional form.

Not how the world is, but that it is, is what's mystical, reminds me of Schopenhauer's claim about the riddle of the world.

As for differences, plenty. Schopenhauer does not deal with the sophisticated logic Wittgenstein dealt with, nor did he particularly care about the nature of language, or reference.

As for representation, I don't know exactly how it fits in, nevertheless, Schopenhauer begins his book by saying "The world is my representation.", Wittgenstein says "The world is everything that is the case." There may be something to that.

As for will, I don't remember Wittgenstein dealing with this in his early work. For more specifics, you might want to see Magee's book.

As far as I can recall, I think it was Bryan Magee's book on Schopenhauer, specifically the chapter on Schopenhauer's influence, talk about this.

The early Wittgenstein was a Schopenhauerian. He then abandoned transcendental views by the time of the Investigations, which though his best-known work, and while having good stuff in it, is also in some respects, a step down form the Tractatus.

I know it's probably a minority view, but, I prefer his earlier stuff. Better yet if he combined some aspects of the former into the latter.

The issue here is connected with a kind of phrasing of the topic.

One thing is to say there are things which exist, independent of us, thus they are being or "existents." And this should be readily granted, unless one is an extreme version of a Berkeleyan idealist.

I think this becomes thorny when we specifically start to speak of extra-mental terms in mental terms, such as how can a rock exist absent our perception (and conception) of them? I don't think we have a clue. We are using foreign notions here.

It's the latter formulation which causes problems, as we attempt to use our concepts and apply them in a way that doesn't work.

But the topic of their needing to be something that exists in order to sustain consciousness, shouldn't be controversial.

But these topics are part of the bread and butter in philosophy.

:cheer:

Indeed.

Great quote. :cheer:

"And I have no cause for complaint on the grounds that God has not given me a greater power of
understanding or the natural light which God gave me is no greater than it is; for it in the nature of a finite intellect to lack understanding of many things, and it is in the nature of a created intellect to be finite. Indeed, I have reason to give thanks to him who has never owed me anything for the great bounty that he has shown me, rather than thinking myself deprived or robbed of any gifts he did not bestow."

- Descartes

Can a computer think? Locke points out:

"..since we know not wherein thinking consists..."

Or Russell:

"I do not know whether dogs can think, or what thinking is, or whether human beings can think. "

Or maybe even Turing himself:

"If the meaning of the words "machine" and "think" are to be found by examining how they are
commonly used it is difficult to escape the conclusion that the meaning and the answer to the question, "Can machines think?" is to be sought in a statistical survey such as a Gallup poll. But this is absurd."

Italics mine.

Or Wittgenstein:

"We only say of a human being and what is like one that it thinks. We also say it of dolls and no doubt of spirits too."

There are several more. It's a small problem, but perhaps we should clear up what this "thinking" is for us, before we attribute them to other things.

The High Road to Pyrrhonism by Richard H. Popkin

It should also have the capability to bridge the divide between the simplest and the most complex sorts of meaningful human experience. It should be readily amenable to an evolutionary timeline. Where there has never been human thought and belief, there could have never been meaningful human experience. — creativesoul

Maybe I'm already starting the hair-splitting process, but, what kind of experience would you think as counting as a "meaningful human experience"? Is the idea something like, from appreciating the blue of the sky on a cloudless morning to talking about the big bang with some friend? Is it that broad? I have no problem with this, just don't want to misinterpret something basic.

So, I still maintain that at conception there is no meaningful human experience. The biological machinery at that time is grossly underdeveloped and as a result is insufficient for drawing meaningful correlations between different things. Although, I think it undeniable that correlations are drawn in utero. If all meaningful human experience consists of correlations being drawn between different things, and all experience is meaningful to the individual, then meaningful experience is limited to and/or enabled by the biological machinery providing the means. Practicing this helps eschew anthropomorphism, which has run amok. — creativesoul

I think this is factual. It is as you describe it here, we do have innate biological dispositions, that can only be "awoken" or activated when the organism reaches sufficient maturity to use the concept/idea/thought adequately.

Of course, one issue here, is that I don't know if we can make much sense of "meaningful human experiences" in biological terms, that do justice to the depth of relevant experience. There is an inevitable clash between our manifest and scientific image of the world, at certain levels, which seem to me to be unsolvable.

Isreal and Bibi react. Then think about tomorrow. 'The distant future' is not on their minds.

And note, IDF cannot surely beat the movement called Hamas, but present military units of Hamas the can take out or degrade to a point that they can say to the Israeli public that Hamas isn't a threat. And that's it. That's the objective. Same is for Hezbollah they have a huge stockpile of rockets, so the issue is to destroy the existing capability. Those physical rockets and present leadership and present fighters. And with the October 7th attack having a similar effect of the 9/11 attacks, this logic can easily prevail. Why not? It's an opportunity. — ssu

For the time being. There are elements with the government that are tired of Bibi, but sadly, many of the alternatives to him are even worse, which is hard to comprehend.

It risks escalating into an even bigger war this time, I don't believe that, once this is over, whenever it is, Israel will ever be the same again, nor will Gaza. I see the logic you are presenting, similar to what many in the government are presenting, but it has its drawbacks too, most notably civilian losses for Israel.

Hence for Israel to deal with Hezbollah now is an opportunity. It's not when things are calm. — ssu

Well, a lot can happen, but my feeling is, even if they go to war with Hezbollah, which they may very well do, Israel is no longer guaranteed long stretches of peace, that is, they won't be able to avoid significant large wars, if they do not give up some land. So this is a band-aid for a missing arm, only more troubles for everybody.

Naturally "Genocide Joe" is against this. Yet it will be harder and harder for the US to keep this stance when it's already fighting it's war against Hezbollah in Iraq! — ssu

What Biden is doing is crazy, given how the polls with young voters are showing.

You may very well be right. But it's a big risk, is all I'm saying.

The one thing we can say with significant confidence is that Bibi wants to stay in power for as long as possible. That does add strength to the claim that he will expand the war with Hezbollah to a full-scale war.

By the same token, Bibi's state of mind may not be the best course to follow into Israel's actions.

One thing which I did find interesting - I cannot recall were I saw it - is that this time, the IDF has not bombed Beirut's main airport. Every time they've launched a huge war against Lebanon, the airport is always destroyed. Not this, at least, not now.

Hezbollah has significantly expanded and upgraded its missile capacity, which is why it is suggested that the Israelis are reluctant, despite the rhetoric, of going all in with Lebanon.

Regardless, Israel would pulverize Lebanon in such an event, no doubt, but they will also receive significant damage as well.

I don't see how they can beat Hezbollah, if they can't beat Hamas. And then what? A defeat against Hamas and Hezbollah?

If things are, trivially they exist. If something exists, it has to have a way of existing, for if a thing had no way of existing, obviously it couldn't exist.

For things to have a way of existing, they must follow certain patterns or habits or uniformities. This is the way they are able to exist.

But to ask why the way of existing is the way it is, doesn't have an answer. One can say, but I can imagine other ways of existing that are not the ones we have. Perfect. But those imagined other ways would have to have their certain patterns, habits or uniformities. That is how we are able to say something exists.

So, I think the answer to this is, that nature must follow "laws", or nature would not exist. Beyond that, the question loses clarity in terms of being able to say anything about it at all.

- You think those Israelis living close to Lebanon are happy to just come home and wait for the tens of thousands of Hezbollah rockets to be fired at them at some time? — ssu

The fire will stop once the Gaza operation stops, Hezbollah has been very clear about this.

- Second of all, when Israel is already in a war. Why not try to kill two flies at the same time? You are already running around with the flyswatter and not minding your peaceful doings, so why not? — ssu

But they couldn't "swat the fly" in 2006, when they only focused on Lebanon. How could they do so now, when they are in a worse condition, militarily speaking?

I agree that Netanyahu wants to keep this going as long as he can, but, the question is how long will they have before economic and international pressure continues to pile on and make this even worse for them?

For the first time, illegal settlements are being sanctioned by the West, this is due to the conditions on Gaza. It's something the West can do to give Israel some minimal pushback, given that Biden is unwilling to call this whole thing off.

:shade:

It's all good. More flavor the merrier! :victory:

yeah, I’m talkin’ to YOU, Arthur!!! — Mww

:angry:

It's an embarrassment, Biden could end this with a phone call, he refuses to do so.

No of course not. It's been far from peaceful, but it's also been (relatively) contained for a long time.

The issue then is, can the Israeli economy, and the Israeli's themselves (the citizens) be able to sustain an in-depth fight with Hezbollah?

Last time it did not go Israel's way, despite the heavy losses for Lebanon.

If they can't beat Hamas - which they can't. How can they beat Hezbollah?

Of course, they could start the full scale war in a week or whenever, that can happen for sure. But it will hurt them, and war fatigue is a thing, especially for a small country like them. This Gaza situation is much, much longer than what they usually take for "wars" (this is no war, it's a total massacre).

Man, this asinine, devilish, death spectacle is interminable, and Netanyahu wants it so, that he may stay in power.

But at this specific point, I would guess - without evidence, which can be dismissed without evidence - that there won't be a wider fight with Hezbollah.

I think it would have happened by now. But who knows? And Biden is still not phoning Netanyahu to tell him this is over. Gross.

Maybe consider making an announcement in General or something, not everyone will go to the Shout Box and see that specific post. Which will save you repetition 25 times over.

Close. External objects stimulate something in us that cause an idea to arise, but the idea has no resemblance to the external object at all, only a kind of causal connection. That's pretty radical, I think.

Yes, what Kant says about objects being spatial and temporal is unique to his formulation and very profound.

Hume's conclusions about causality are also pretty Copernican, I think. And Locke formulated the "hard problem" 400 years ago, so...

There are several Copernican ideas, some people have a larger amount of them (Kant has more than Descartes, in general) than others.

Basically, new additions and unique formulations of similar ideas. But that's merely how I see it.

Yeah, give me a minute, I have my damn quotations in paperback, makes it very hard to give quotes without typing too much.

"Hence you will have reasons to conclude that there is no need to suppose that something material passes from objects to our eyes to make us see colors and light, or even that there is something in the objects, which resembles the ideas or sensations that we have of them. In just the same way, when a blind man feels bodies, nothing has to issue from the bodies and pass along his stick to his hand: and the resistance or movement of the bodies, which is the sole cause of the sensations he has of them, is nothing like the idea he forms of them."

In this case, objects stimulate an innate mechanism which leads us to form an idea of the world. Notice that the objects just stimulated the blind man with the stick, but his ideas were inside the whole time. Similar observations apply when Descartes mentions the following:

"But then if I look out of the window and see men crossing the square, as I just happen to have done, I normally say that I see the men themselves, just as I say that I see the wax. Yet do I see any more than hats and coats which could conceal automatons? I judge that they are men. And so something which I thought I was seeing with my eyes is in fact grasped solely by the faculty of judgement which is in my mind."

Leibniz, on the other hand, replying to Locke, points out:

"The reason why there is no name for the murder of an old man is that such a name would be of little use... ideas do not depend upon names [words with definitions, in this context] ... If a... writer did invent a name for that crime and devoted a chapter to 'Gerontophony', showing what we owe to the old and how monstrous it is to treat them ungently, he would not thereby be giving us a new idea."

We already know the meanings of words, prior to definitions.

Incidentally, I believe that Kant's ideas on a priori judgments is somewhat like this. He says that we can gain knowledge without an empirical component just by thinking something out, but I believe in all cases, some minimal external stimulus is needed to get the mind going, otherwise, not much will arise.

Do you think his predecessors had a system as complete as the three Citique’s entail? — Mww

Not at all.

He is one the great figures in philosophy no doubt, all I question is his own evaluation of his total uniqueness.

His completeness and exactitude in trying to build a systematic philosophical system has no parallels that I can think of.

And I am refusing to read Hegel. :)

It depends on how you think about the systems of other figures, for Kant his system was radically new, for Cudworth, it was quite old (going back to Protagoras, Parmenides, and others).

Attempting to be concrete, Plotinus seems to me to be doing a (in some respects) rudimentary analysis based on a very similar idea, though his specific formulation includes different "categories".

Or Locke, he was already creating a basis within which we can think about nature differently, say primary qualities as opposed to secondary ones, one of them belonging to objects, the other not.

Kant's formulation, as quoted by you, applies more (it seems to me) to, say, certain aspects of systems of metaphysics, such as Leibniz, or Plato. Hume didn't really have an explicit metaphysics, which Kant said led him to crash on the shores of skepticism. To an extent, but Hume was not as radically skeptic as he is assumed to be.

Kant's explicit formulation of "synthetic a priori" judgements is probably his most novel formulation. And also making things in themselves different from phenomena, but in this latter respect, that idea was not entirely new, but arguably better articulated by him. His repeated emphasis on the range of human knowledge is excellent, but, found in Locke in a different formulation.

Kant points out that aspects of the phenomenon are known to us prior to experience with the world. He lays out clear and persuasive arguments for this. What you do next with that information is up to you. — frank

As does Descartes, Leibniz and Cudworth. What Kant added with more clearness, it seems to me, was his clarity in identifying things in themselves and contrasting these with phenomena, and specifically his mentioning of synthetic a-priori judgements, how we can expand innate knowledge absent experience.

Ah, good to see they have added a bit of his epistemology in the SEP. I will continue to propagandize him.

The notion of things-themselves is particularly interesting. Is it the One (the simplest possible thing, beyond thought), as Plotinus says? Is it mere dust and atoms, as Cudworth intimates? Are we in contact with it through the will, as Schopenhauer insists?

It's not clear it's even an object, in any traditional reading of that word. I suspect the best we can do here is to find a conception which is the simplest and attempt to proceed from that.

The idea that science cannot study something elemental or basic, can be counterintuitive or nonsense for some.

I also enjoy pre-Kantians very much! At the moment I'm especially interested in Leibniz, who is definitely one of the "bad guys" in CPR and a huge influence. There seems to be some connection between Cudworth (which I haven't read at all) and Leibniz, so it is going to be very interesting to find out something about this as well. These people worked as little in vacuum as we do, but the literary practices were much more liberate, at least compared to academic philosophy of today. — Olento

Excellent! :)

Kant has a very interesting take on Leibniz metaphysics in the Amphiboly appendix in the Critique.

Yes, Leibniz mentions Cudworth to Locke near the beginning of the latters New Essays, because Cudworth's daughter was very close to Locke - they had a brotherly/sisterly relation.

Sure, I tend to find - with notable exceptions - that the classics offer just so much more value than contemporary stuff, which has become so academic, abstract and technical that is loses virtually any "popular appeal".

Most people can read Descartes or Berkley.

To my understanding Locke thought that we cannot represent the corpuscular microstructure of objects, but there's at least some sort of correspondence to the perceived secondary qualities. Nothing prevents us in principle to penetrate deeper and deeper to corpuscular microstructures, and thus learn about the reality with scientific method. So yes, in a way the ultimate structure is unreachable and "noumenon", but it is conceptually different kind of noumena from Kant's, in my interpretation. And yes, my knowledge of Locke is thin and based on entry level text books. — Olento

It was mine too, until I read pre-Kantians, from Descartes to Hume, they are significantly richer than as they are usually presented. Part of the reason I have a slight "push-back" feeling to Kant, despite genuinely admiring him, is that once I did read the classics, I found them to be supremely rich.

Even though a case can be made that Kant was "superior" to them in overall specific argument structure, such claims are very much exaggerated. I find certain discussions in Descartes, Locke and Hume, more substantial than in Kant, in certain areas, not in others.

Cudworth, who was pointed out to me by Chomsky, says the same things Kant says, without the sophisticated theoretical construction, and his ideas on innateness, are profound, unsurpassed even, so far as classics go.

In fact, Locke says that no matter how deep we go into micro-structures, we will never discover how secondary qualities arise, he very explicit on this. I could give some quotes, I have my Essay heavily annotated and highlighted, but alas, it is in paperback, and it would take too long, unless you specifically request it, I'll put it aside.

So in my interpretation Kant says that also the corpuscular microstructure (if there's such a thing for Kant - this is not clear in CPR) is also part of phenomenal world. We don't know if we ever reach the ultimate atomic structure of substances, and we don't even know if there is such a thing in the first place. Noumena for Kant is something totally outside all of this. (So I'm here following the metaphysical interpretation, I guess). Outside our representations, which include both primary and secondary qualities, there's nothing for us. For God, maybe. — Olento

Yes, I think that interpretation of Kant is correct, and his argument about this is very sound, our scientific knowledge is of phenomena.

As for us not knowing if we reach these ultimate structures in the phenomenal world, here we have to look at current physics, and I think we discover that we cannot reach this, because our theories on what is (phenomenally) ultimate, is not settled.

As I understand him, Kant, influenced by Allais' interpretation, says that things in themselves, are the grounds of appearance, but we don't know how this grounding relation works, it will remain incomprehensible for us. In this sense, things in themselves are a step removed from Locke's "substance", because for Kant, even primary qualities are phenomena, and Kant is right to say so.

We need to take into account how general relativity would modify Kant, because Kant was a Newtonian, and this is not pointed out enough. Sure, he gives very good arguments as to why space and time are the a priori conditions of our sensibilities, but it is no coincidence that he chose these specific notions, because Newton thought space and time were absolute. Kant doesn't mention Newton (or barely mentions him from what I can recall) because by that time, virtually everybody took Newton for granted.

Now we know that Newton is not exactly right. And this has to modify Kant to a limited extent.

In any case, the idea of "things in themselves" remains very valuable regardless of our current theory in physics, I think it is a necessary postulate them, to make sense of the world. So, in that respect, his emphasis on the distinction between phenomenon and noumenon is extraordinarily important.

Politeness is almost always a most excellent virtue, for there can be disagreement without animosity, which, in the best case, leads to mutual learning.

I think the image is somewhat more complex than what you ascribe to Locke. While one can say, in some sense, that he is a "realist", that is, yes, he does think there is an "objective world" out there, he only thinks that some of its properties come about due to sensations, caused by primary qualities, secondary qualities do not belong to "external object", and primary qualities do not render them intelligible.

But when we examine objects in more depth, and consider what "substance" these objects are made of, Locke says:

"So that if any one will examine himself concerning his notion of pure substance in general, he will find he has no other idea of it at all, but only a supposition of he knows not what support of such qualities which are capable of producing simple ideas in us; which qualities are commonly called accidents. If any one should be asked, what is the subject wherein colour or weight inheres, he would have nothing to say, but the solid extended parts; and if he were demanded, what is it that solidity and extension adhere in, he would not be in a much better case than the Indian before mentioned who, saying that the world was supported by a great elephant, was asked what the elephant rested on; to which his answer was- a great tortoise: but being again pressed to know what gave support to the broad-backed tortoise, replied- something, he knew not what... [we] pretend to know, and talk of, is what... [we] ... have no distinct idea of at all, and so are perfectly ignorant of it, and in the dark. "

There is just a pure Gold mine in Locke's discussion On Our Complex Ideas of Substances.

Apologies for the length of the quote, but brevity is not his strong suite, and cutting these sentences down is difficult, because they are so good.

I can see very clear connections with the noumenon here, only that this concept encompasses primary qualities to. So, it is a difference of degrees, not of kind.

Quite true, science investigates phenomena, not noumena (in a negative or positive sense). But this does not at all reduce the value of scientific theories, nor importantly, as you say, render them an less "real", which turns out to be a very problematic term.

But it is not thereby a more profound investigation of reality so much as a shift or turn with the goal of putting knowledge in order—simultaneously criticizing rationalists by rejecting most metaphysics (we cannot know anything except in reference to objects of experience) and defending knowledge against empiricist sceptics by establishing a solid foundation for science (we can know things objectively). — Jamal

Yes, I agree that it more than anything an emphasis on the shift in perspective, more so that a entirely new mode of investigation. Funnily enough, I am re-reading the CPR for the third time, and although it has many merits, I do have one problem with Kant:

I do not think the way he presents his thought, as being "Copernican" or so radically new, to be, neither as new as he presents, nor as radical as he claims it to be. One clearly sees very strong anticipations of the noumena in Locke's discussion on "substance".

Cudworth, virtually entirely unknown explains Kant's philosophy 100 years before Kant published the CPR, when he says (among many other quotes):

"The essences of light and colours (said Scaliger) are as dark to the understanding, as they themselves are open to the sight.” Nay, undoubtedly so long as we consider these things no otherwise than sense represents them, that is, as really existing in the objects without us, they are and must needs be eternally unintelligible. Now when all men naturally inquire what these things are, what is light, and what are colours, the meaning hereof is nothing else but this, that men would fain know or comprehend them by something of their own which is native and domestic, not foreign to them, some active exertion or anticipation of their own minds…"

And much else which is richer in ideas, but not in theory, to Kant.

Plotinus too, is also a massive anticipation, also very rich on his own. (End rant.)

Regardless, the emphasis on the form of the investigation is very useful and impressive, because we still are unable to get out of our heads, the "common sense" picture of the world, no matter how hard we try.

Noumena are interesting to explore conceptually, but science won't reveal them, even if must postulate something like them to make sense of the world.