Kant And the Transcendental Unity of Apperception: Philosophy Forums

Philosophy Forums » Philosophy of Science » Science » Kant And the Transcendental Unity of Apperception » Kant And the Transcendental Unity of Apperception

Kant And the Transcendental Unity of Apperception

Page: 1 2 3 4

Kant And the Transcendental Unity of Apperception

Morrandir
Ich habe mich aufgehoben

Usergroup: Members
Joined: May 19, 2004
Location: The Finnest Land

Total Topics: 53
Total Posts: 2968

Posted 07/14/05 - 10:46 PM:	#31
Maurice wrote: Time is given by change of the object. I do not agree, yet it is not relevant for Kant. Whether you see change as "causing" time or time "causing" change, it does not matter, because Kant is simply saying that the phenomenon we see as time is a necessary condition for an object to exist to us. If for no other reason, because our thinking takes time. But about the disagreement, let us put it this way: (1) Can you think of time without change? (2) Can you think of change without time? Now most agree that the first one is possible. In fact, there are many theories about this and some analogies. One is of particular interest, and I will explain it very briefly. Think of the universe as cut into three pieces. In the first one everyone freezes every two years, in the second every three years and in the third every five years. Now the denizens of each of these regions can see when the others freeze, apparently, and can also deduce how often they freeze as well as hear it from the others. Now every 235 = 30 years have, they all will freeze and they know this. They do not see any change, but in fact perceive a contuation of time, but they know they have been freezed, and they have. In this it should be completely thinkable that time goes on for a year without any change. The second one is not. It is completely unfathomable what change without time could mean. If this is correct, it means that time is necessary for change, but change is not necessary for that which we call time: time is NOT change, but change is something the time entails and causes. Objects conform to time, not the other way around. Again, this still has nothing to do with Kant. It is measured in relation to other things. If there is only one object in space. And it does not change, does it have a time? For Kant, as time is only there where a conscious being is, the question is basically nonsensical (if the one object is not conscious, who is the one doing the judging here? Is there a universe to begin with in that case?). In the above analysis, however, it does have time. Note that time is also possibility: it is possible that there will be another object in an hour, but in your view it would be not, because there should be some sort of change as a relation between two objects that would carry the one object through the hour until the other object appears - but there is none. I am wondering if Kant said anything revolutionary, totally out of the ordinary that no one knows. Two things. First think of your question in this way: Everyone today knows that time and space are relative, so did Einstein say anythign revolutionary, totally out of the ordinary that no one knows? (Kant came up with this some 150 years ago before those theories you just explained were discovered) Second, Kant cannot be directly compared to empirical sciences. Kant is not an empirical psychologists (those theories you explained are empirical psychology - this is the way our brain functions), but a theoretical philosopher (here). He is not saying that the brain works this way, but the whole universe works this way for us because our cognition works this way. There are many philosophical connotations in Kant's theory that do not exist in the psychologists' theory. Kant's theory is not compatible with empirical realism, or normally is not thought to be, but the psychologists' theory is. Hope that explains it a bit. ~M~
Philosophy is disciplined bewilderment. A mathematician is a person who thinks that if there are supposed to be three people in a room, but five come out, then two more must enter the room in order for it to be empty. http://www.beyondappearances.com

Maurice
banned

Usergroup: Members
Joined: May 19, 2005

Total Topics: 4
Total Posts: 43

Posted 07/15/05 - 07:32 PM:	#32
Hope that explains it a bit. it helped alot. I enjoyed reading it. (1) Can you think of time without change? (2) Can you think of change without time? For me, time is change. In this it should be completely thinkable that time goes on for a year without any change. hehe, but their brain is changing. thoughts are changing, the changes in thoughts means time. what is a second, but a movement of the second hand in your wrist watch. Kant is a smart man, I admire him for the contributes he has made. what in your opinion is the greatest discovery Kant made?

HamishMacSporran
Professor

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Jan 03, 2005

Total Topics: 15
Total Posts: 855

Posted 07/16/05 - 04:15 AM:	#33
Morrandir wrote: Think of the universe as cut into three pieces. In the first one everyone freezes every two years, in the second every three years and in the third every five years. Now the denizens of each of these regions can see when the others freeze, apparently, and can also deduce how often they freeze as well as hear it from the others. Now every 235 = 30 years have, they all will freeze and they know this. They do not see any change, but in fact perceive a contuation of time, but they know they have been freezed, and they have. In this it should be completely thinkable that time goes on for a year without any change. Einstein said that time is what a clock measures. In his analysis we get rid of the idea of the time, as a single measure which applies to all of space. What we are left with is the time interval between two events measured along some path. We imagine a clock travelling along the path and the time interval is that measured by the clock. When there are multiple paths between two events, as there usually are, we can have multiple results for the time interval between two events. This seems to me an explicit equation of time with change. In your example we can introduce a coordinate t for which nothing changes every 30 units. This is only a coordinate, however, time is still what a clock measures and this varies from region to region, and path to path.

Morrandir
Ich habe mich aufgehoben

Usergroup: Members
Joined: May 19, 2004
Location: The Finnest Land

Total Topics: 53
Total Posts: 2968

Posted 07/17/05 - 02:28 PM:	#34
HamishMacSporran wrote: Einstein said that time is what a clock measures. In his analysis we get rid of the idea of the time, as a single measure which applies to all of space. What we are left with is the time interval between two events measured along some path. We imagine a clock travelling along the path and the time interval is that measured by the clock. When there are multiple paths between two events, as there usually are, we can have multiple results for the time interval between two events. Kant's analysis of time and space is not a physical one. What physics considers time to be is not relevant for Kant - his analysis precedes the physical analysis, which always analyses something that already is. For modern physics progression of time is pretty much the direction of entropy, because entropy is how time manifests itself - or so the thought goes. But Kant is not measuring time, he is analysing what time is, not how it is measured or how it appears. In fact, time could appear as an apple for all that Kant cares - the important idea is that the phenomenon we perceive as time (change, or what the clock measures, or the direction of entropy or whatever) is a necessary condition for anything to become an appearance to us. You can say "change is a necessary condition for anything to become an appearance to us", or "that which the clock measures is a necessary condition for something to become an appearance to us", it simply does not matter. This seems to me an explicit equation of time with change. Time is measured through change, yes. We cannot measure time if there is no change, but does that mean that time makes change possible or that time is change? We cannot measure space without a measuring stick either, but that does not mean that the measuring stick is the space. Space is what a measuring stick measures - this says only that space is something which is measured by a measuring stick. Yet should it not be asked: what makes change possible? Something cannot change without time, this I believe we all can agree to. If it could be shown that time cannot be without change, then we would agree that they are equivalent (through set theory, for one). But can time be without change? Time cannot be measured without change, this is most probably true, because there is nothing that would point the result of the measurement, and indeed the knowledge of the measurement is dependent on some change in our brain, and in the thing that measures, because it must register that change. But from the fact that time cannot be measured without change it does not follow that time cannot be without change - in fact, it could as well say that measuring cannot be done without change! What I see Einstein doing is getting rid of single time for all things. That is, there is no The Time, but simply times. Time is a relative notion, yet there is something that is absolute here - for how else could there be a measurable relation between time in two frameworks. Einstein's theory is absolutistic in many senses. (Does not mean that it would be that for time, of course). He is saying: there is no sense in asking "how much did this take time?" without specifying "to whom?" Yet this does not mean that there is no sense to be made of time in general. Not anymore than there would be no sense to be made of time in general in a city where there were three clocks and each going at a different speed showing different times with different time-intervals. In your example we can introduce a coordinate t for which nothing changes every 30 units. This is only a coordinate, however, time is still what a clock measures and this varies from region to region, and path to path. The question is about whether there can be an "empty time", so to speak. It is about finding out whether any sense can be made of situation where the time makes change possible, yet no change happens. This is of course a purely theoretical question, because no one could be present to perceive this sort of time, or measure it. Yet it seems that in the example we must either abandon logic or accept an empty time. (This is actually analogical to the old problem about empty space: if there is emptiness between two objects, there is nothing between two objects and the objects are together - this can either be true, or it can be considered false on the basis that emptiness is not nothingness, that empty space, a vacuum, is still space. In our example we have no change between the years 30 and 31, yet we still have the year, as a vacuum-for-a-time, so to speak.) Of course, it could be argued many ways, and one is to say that no such freeze is possible. Yet we can comprehend that such a freeze would happen, and if it could, then we could also comprehend an empty time, and thus time would precede change. So, again, time without change is comprehensible, but change without time is not: they are not theoretically speaking equivalent. Whether they are physically is not a problem for Kant, because this is all Kant needs to say that "one necessary condition for an object to appear to us is that it appears in time". That change cannot happen without time is enough for Kant to take his step in the Deduction that time is also a necessary condition for our self-consciousness, because if there was no time, no synthesis of perceptions could happen, because synthesis is activity, activity demands change and change demands time. Maurice wrote: hehe, but their brain is changing. thoughts are changing, the changes in thoughts means time. There are no brains changing in the example. Either you accept that through logic there is a one year freeze that no one perceives, or you ditch logic and claim that the freezes do not happen when no one is seeing them (does sound like Berkeley to me! ) Changes in thoughts mean time, because change demands time, and therefore whenever there is change, there is also time. Yet the example shows that time without change is conceivable, so time is not change. This is analogical to the following: whenever you see a human you see a mammal (humans are mammals), but it is not so that everytime you see a mammal you see a human (some mammals are not humans), therefore humans and mammals are different things. Now consider: whenever there is change there is time, but there can be time without change (in the example), and therefore time is simply not change. what is a second, but a movement of the second hand in your wrist watch. There is actually a good definition for a second through cesium-atom. My watch's second might not be a second. In any case, a second is what measures time, and clock is what measures time. It does not mean that time is that-which-measures-it. That is, time is not my clock. Kant is a smart man, I admire him for the contributes he has made. what in your opinion is the greatest discovery Kant made? His turn from metaphysics to epistemology. It revolutionarised philosophy in a most profound way. ~M~
Philosophy is disciplined bewilderment. A mathematician is a person who thinks that if there are supposed to be three people in a room, but five come out, then two more must enter the room in order for it to be empty. http://www.beyondappearances.com

Maurice
banned

Usergroup: Members
Joined: May 19, 2005

Total Topics: 4
Total Posts: 43

Posted 07/17/05 - 05:09 PM:	#35
Now consider: whenever there is change there is time, but there can be time without change (in the example), and therefore time is simply not change. imagine two things, me and you. you got frozen, but I am still moving. there is no change in you but there is change in me. time (change) is relative. if I got frozen and the world is still changing, there is still time. but if I got frozen and the world is also frozen, is there time?

Morrandir
Ich habe mich aufgehoben

Usergroup: Members
Joined: May 19, 2004
Location: The Finnest Land

Total Topics: 53
Total Posts: 2968

Posted 07/20/05 - 11:37 PM:	#36
Sorry it took me so long to reply to this. I had to leave while reading this earlier, and I forgot it. HamishMacSporran wrote: It seems that the fundamental thing under discussion is Kant's discussion of how the understanding organises experience into a whole. We are able to say "i think" of our experiences. Not only do we do this within each instant, Kant argues we do this across time, uniting temporally separated instants. I am not sure this is how it is. We do not really do things "across time". Kant's faculty of imagination creates both future and the past: the past experiences it brings forth through memory, future it brings forth by some other means (probably the same part of the cognition is responsible for the belief in induction - that is, basically, about the need to continue a perceived series, to form a continuum). So Kant is not saying that our cognition spans through time - instead, our cognition lives in the present, the past being gone and the future being yet to come. What he is saying, though, is that we must have some means to recognize ourselves at different times as being the same self at different times. This demands an active recognition of self by the cognition. In fact, I think this is in total agreement with your example. But let us return to that later. First of all, I dont understand how this could work. I assume you are reading Kant in a way where the cognition actually spans to past and to future? Well, I would not agree to that either - any more than there being a vast space would mean that our cognition was spread on it like butter. What if the unity of experience is an illusion created in the following way. I have a qualm with the word "illusion" . I do not mostly understand what it means. Illusion is about something seeming to be like something else, but not being that. Yet my sensation that my friend betrayed me is real and no illusion, even if he did not. The word is thrown around too easily. And here too, I find myself in agreement with you (and Kant would too, I believe), but have a problem with the word "illusion". It is as much an illusion as consciousness itself is an illusion. Memories are illusions in the same sense, because they are not really here, even though they seem. And for this exact reason, I think this is no illusion, but a mode of perception or understanding. Within each instant, there is an experience (via memory) of past experience. These past experiences are themselves transcendent, outside our grasp, within the present instant. Nowhere does Kant say that time travel is possible, so he would have to agree with you. Experience may be unified within each instant, but instants are separated. Kant is not speaking of metaphysics, but of epistemology. It is enough that we recognize these experiences forming a continuum - it does not really matter if they do not. In the light of quantum physics it may well be that no continuum exists, but quantums of time, so to speak. But that does not matter - what matters is that each separate moment is again and again recognized as being the separate moments of the same conciousness. The quantum time would be so small that a human cognition could not ever recognize itself as not being a continuum. Much like you do not recognize the movie as being merely separate pictures instead of a continuum. Representation of past experiences, via memory, creates the impression of a single unified whole across time. We may naively believe we have access to the past-experience-in-itself as a result of the memory-phenomena, just as we may naively believe we have access to the thing-in-itself as a result of the sense-phenomena. Yes, but Kant is not having those sort of naïve beliefs. Not here, anyhow This is an example of exactly the sort of temporally disjointed self which supports the idea that the unity of experience is an illusion created by memory. I think Kant's explanation has a much harder time accounting for this. If you still think that, you will have to elaborate, because I think this is more like a proof for Kant's system than an argument against it. The disability to fully remember causes the disability of recognizing oneself as oneself - thus heavily impairing one's unity of consciousness. It does not destroy it, because some ability to form a continuum does exist. If the person lost memories alltogether, he would not be a person at all, so Kant would say. And I think modern psychology agrees with Kant here - as it does in most things, even if it does not know it ~M~
Philosophy is disciplined bewilderment. A mathematician is a person who thinks that if there are supposed to be three people in a room, but five come out, then two more must enter the room in order for it to be empty. http://www.beyondappearances.com

HamishMacSporran
Professor

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Jan 03, 2005

Total Topics: 15
Total Posts: 855

Posted 07/21/05 - 02:31 AM:	#37
Sounds like I have indeed been misreading Kant. Thanks.

Page: 1 2 3 4

Sorry, you don't have permission to post. Log in, or register if you haven't yet.