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Animae
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Posted 08/03/08 - 01:53 PM:
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Hello fellow thinkers,

I can’t seem to remember specifically when I got interested in philosophy; I guess the interest simply developed over time. And since I have started to read some books this year, I have been more and more drawn into it. Those uncanny moments when I read something that seems impossibly similar to previous thoughts I have had about the subject never ceases to amaze me. But that does of course not come near that feeling when a solution is not learned but realized!

Anyway, the thing that got me to read was Atlas Shrugged, which slowly led me in into Objectivism, a phase that passed rather quickly. Such brilliant promises that philosophy has, unfortunately it seem to fall short of everything that it set out to do. Still it was an interesting experience to get to pick it apart, I’m only disappointed that it was so damn easy.

I’ve also had an encounter with some of Kant’s ideas a couple of years ago (read a bit on Wikipedia) and I was absolutely fascinated by some of his ideas. I did of course not have much of a grasp of his ideas back then (I saw his ideas mostly as problems back then, with the unknowable reality and all that) but as time passed I have come to realize what absolutely inconceivable opportunities his ideas can offer. If Kant’s theory of transcendental idealism is right then we will be able to do amazing things once we acquire the tools to change ourselves (as early as the end of this century perhaps?).
I’m particularly interested in the mind body problem, since as a problem it has several unusual properties. First of all the mind body problem is not exclusive to a discipline but rather spread out across many different subjects giving the opportunity to attack the problem from many different angles. This certainly makes it an interesting and perhaps altogether more difficult and complex (that’s a good thing right?). It also seems that the solution of the mind body problem will have big implications both in science and philosophy.
Another problem of philosophy that I have thought a bit about (but unfortunately not advanced much in my thoughts) is the problem of values that I see looming in a distant future, for example what happens when we come to a point where everything we desire is essentially “free”? And what about when we get the technology to change our bodies?—we could fill ourselves with happiness that far surpass what our current nervous system is capable of. Will values still be possible?

Now I have to admit that I am a complete beginner at philosophy but I look forward to learn more—new problems to appreciate and perhaps some solutions, if I manage to get a good grasp of things. Hopefully people will have a bit of patience with me as I ask weird questions (that's what people tell me smiling face ).
And this is of course a perfect opportunity to sharpen my intellectual tools and get my ideas exposed to criticism.
Paul
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Posted 08/03/08 - 05:52 PM:
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Animae wrote:
If Kant’s theory of transcendental idealism is right then we will be able to do amazing things once we acquire the tools to change ourselves


It's sounds like you're misreading Kant into some sort of new agey psuedophilosopher, which really offends me as a Kantian. Kant could not be more clear about the fact that you cannot know or experience the transcendental -- that would violate logic. It therefore cannot possibly do any amazing things. It's a conceptual scheme to avoid creating the false problems philosophers often create which the common person laughs off, that's all.

It also seems that the solution of the mind body problem will have big implications both in science and philosophy.

Again, if you understood a word of Kant, you wouldn't say that. Transcendental idealism solves the mind-body "problem" in a way that necessarily cannot have any impact on science whatsoever. The brain is just the phenomenal representation of what is in itself a mind (though for Kant it's important to note that you can't even experience your own mind in itself, thought is just a different method of perception).
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Posted 08/04/08 - 10:44 AM:
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Thanks for the reply Paul

Paul wrote:
It's sounds like you're misreading Kant into some sort of new agey psuedophilosopher, which really offends me as a Kantian. Kant could not be more clear about the fact that you cannot know or experience the transcendental -- that would violate logic. It therefore cannot possibly do any amazing things. It's a conceptual scheme to avoid creating the false problems philosophers often create which the common person laughs off, that's all.


Perhaps I could have been a bit clearer with what I wrote; I wanted to keep it brief, but maybe I should have been more careful.
By “amazing things” I wasn’t thinking about knowing reality in itself, but rather acquiring a new perspective on reality by altering our pure intuitions (I think this is the correct term). To take a simple and perfectly clear (IMO) example, we can think about how we experience space, as 3 dimensional. Now, it seems to me that it would be conceivable—by altering our (biological) nature a certain extent—to allow us experience 4 or perhaps even more dimensions.
Now, the sort of phenomena that would result from such a new perspective is certainly inconceivable to us as we are right now (as it lies outside of the realm of our experience) but I can imagine that it would be quite useful (I’m certain mathematicians would appreciate such a perspective)
By “tools to change ourselves” I was thinking about biological (and possibly other) modifications. I’m certain that altering the structure of our brain would have quite an impact on the way we experience things.
If there is any reason that the pure intuitions could not be altered (i.e. if it would be impossible to establish an empirical science on what makes these intuitions possible) then I would certainly like to hear it, because at the moment I don’t see any reason why it would be so.

Paul wrote:
Again, if you understood a word of Kant, you wouldn't say that. Transcendental idealism solves the mind-body "problem" in a way that necessarily cannot have any impact on science whatsoever. The brain is just the phenomenal representation of what is in itself a mind (though for Kant it's important to note that you can't even experience your own mind in itself, thought is just a different method of perception).


I think I see what you mean, and again the fault is all mine, I should have been clearer. By mind body problem, I was thinking more in the lines of the problem of consciousness. I should have kept in mind that these are in fact two different problems.
If I understand Kant’s ideas correctly, then surely it does leave a place for the mind/body (in the same kind of way that say, dualism does) that materialism currently does not leave room for (but might in the future). But just like dualism, it doesn’t explain how consciousness can arise (and neither should it of course!). A scientific theory of consciousness (it seems reasonable to assume it to be possible) will without doubt have a great impact on both scientific and philosophical ideas, perhaps it might even be compatible with transcendental idealism (should obviously be expected if transcendental idealism is correct) or more interestingly, it might be impossible to establish such a science in such a way that it is compatible with materialism.

Sorry about being so careless, I’m more used to consider these kinds of things in my mind where only I have to understand the meaning of words. Hopefully I’m not completely incomprehensible…

Oh and since you seem well read on these things perhaps you can suggest which translation of the critique of pure reason to get. So far I’ve only read the prolegomena translated by James Ellington and it seemed like a decent translation, but I want to make sure to get the best one for the critique, as I’ve heard that the quality of translations of Kant’s works isn’t exactly consistent.
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Posted 08/04/08 - 08:49 PM:
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Animae wrote:
By “amazing things” I wasn’t thinking about knowing reality in itself, but rather acquiring a new perspective on reality by altering our pure intuitions (I think this is the correct term). To take a simple and perfectly clear (IMO) example, we can think about how we experience space, as 3 dimensional. Now, it seems to me that it would be conceivable—by altering our (biological) nature a certain extent—to allow us experience 4 or perhaps even more dimensions.


You can't experience things that don't exist, except by dreaming or acid trips. There are only four macroscopic dimensions (three space, one time) and you have to be around the plank length to "experience" the debatable number of extra dimensions of string theory.

You can eliminate a dimension very easily. Wear an eye patch, and you're only experiencing the world in two spatial dimensions. You can still easily deduce the existence of a third dimension despite your lack of depth perception, though. In the same way, the existence of a fourth spatial dimension would be evident in some way if we were merely blind to it.

Transcendental idealism was ahead of its time in noting that the four dimensions are transcendentally indistinguishable with space and time only separated for observer points. Special relativity extracted the physical implications from that more than a century ago though, nothing new is coming from it. In no way did Kant believe in extra macroscopic dimensions waiting to be discovered (or at least he didn't write a lot about it, and I'll be astonished to discover that he did).

If there is any reason that the pure intuitions could not be altered (i.e. if it would be impossible to establish an empirical science on what makes these intuitions possible) then I would certainly like to hear it, because at the moment I don’t see any reason why it would be so.

Space and time are the forms of intuition... they're not a part of thought (thought is noumenal), they're a precondition to it. It's best understood through relativity. When you define an observer in the world, that splits the world-relative-to-the-observer into space and time, with the absolute past, absolute future and absolute elsewhere as carved out by the speed of light. It's not the mind of the observer doing the splitting, it's the definition of the observer. The subject-object split, if you will.

I’m certain that altering the structure of our brain would have quite an impact on the way we experience things.

Of course, but we've had perception-altering drugs for eons now. Experiencing things in ways that aren't representative of the actual relations of things in the world is counterproductive. Finding new accurate ways to collect and represent sense data just means we'll all have x-ray vision, bat sonar sense, and that smell-taste combo thing cats do. Which sounds fun, but it has nothing at all to do with Kant.

By mind body problem, I was thinking more in the lines of the problem of consciousness. I should have kept in mind that these are in fact two different problems.

I don't consider them as separate problems really... at least they're extremely closely tied. In my view they're both pseudoproblems stemming from the same mistake.

If I understand Kant’s ideas correctly, then surely it does leave a place for the mind/body (in the same kind of way that say, dualism does) that materialism currently does not leave room for (but might in the future).

It's not dualists vs. materialists. It's dualists vs. monists, and monists split against each other as physicalists (materialists are long dead because physics isn't materialist anymore), [Berklean] idealists and neutral monists. Kant's transcendental idealism is a type of neutral monism.

If you want to talk about consciousness in Kantian terms, look at the transcendental unity of apperception -- or what Wittgenstein more eloqeuntly dubs the microcosm or metaphysical self. Consciousness is basically a collection, a perspective. It's empty backdrop on which experience plays out.

Kant is a methodological solipsist, meaning he starts from the solipsistic world (Wittgenstein's microcosm) and works from there to deduce the objective and the transcendental (Wittgenstein's macrocosm). As opposed to the behaviorists and externalists who start with the world and try to work the self into it. Methodological solipsism makes consciousness the least problematic thing of all things... it's not whether we're conscious that we need to worry about, it's whether anything exists beyond our consciousness. We never directly experience anything but our own consciousness -- you can only directly experience yourself, everything you experience is only a part of yourself which you interpret as a representation of something supposed to be beyond you.

The "problem" of consciousness arises only from the opposite approach, the physicalist who's so transfixed by the film (the representations of the so-called external world) that he wants to reduce the room and the projector and the seat and himself into products of the screen. (Okay, that was a pretty deeply flawed analogy, but hopefully you get the point.)

Kant's own barely-intelligable wording:
From Kant, Critique of Pure Reason:
Even the inner and sensible intuition of our mind (as object of consciousness) which is represented as being determined by the succession of different states in time, is not the self proper, as it exists in itself -- that is, is not the transcendental subject -- but only an appearance that has been given to the sensibility of this, to us unknown, being.

Neither the transcendental object which underlies outer appearances nor that which underlies inner intuition, is in itself either matter or a thinking being, but a ground (to us unknown) of the appearances which supply to us the empirical concept of the former as well as of the latter mode of existence.


A scientific theory of consciousness (it seems reasonable to assume it to be possible) will without doubt have a great impact on both scientific and philosophical ideas

It's important to mention that while the transcendental unity of apperception is essentially contentless, and is a stand-in for consciousness, the patterns of thoughts in the noumenal realm are also required in order to be conscious. Essentially, consciousness is split into two parts: the point of observation (which a rock could be said to have as much as a human), and the thoughts being observed.

A scientific theory of consciousness will be an analysis of the interactive feedback patterns of the brain. It will discuss the firings of neurons and so on. When published, many people will object that it has missed the point somehow and will turn to the qualia argument that dualists so often use against physicalists. Qualia is essentially a perspective switch -- c-fibers firing is different from pain because one is third person and the other is first person. The c-fibers firing is a good representation of pain, but doesn't replace pain... in the same way, the scientific explanation of consciousness will be a good representation but will be from a third person perspective. For Kant, no problem... the phenomenal and noumenal representations of a conscious being (a microcosm in the macrocosm) will naturally differ, but will have a consistency of internal relationships.

I could ramble forever, but then I wouldn't get any work done, so here's 150 pages I wrote on the subject in 2004: http://www.philosophyforums.com/beyonddescription.pdf

Oh and since you seem well read on these things perhaps you can suggest which translation of the critique of pure reason to get.

I read the Norman Kemp Smith version. No translation will make Kant into an eloquent writer though... the discussions in the Kant class I took were a lot better than the reading. It's just a starting point though, Kant's ideas should spur you to complete them on your own. Not that you'll derive his 12 categories (which I look on with some suspicion anyhow), but you can get the general "Copernican revolution" which by itself is powerful enough to eliminate a lot of the problems of philosophy.

Edited by Paul on 08/04/08 - 09:32 PM
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Posted 08/05/08 - 12:34 PM:
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And if that's not enough, here's a slightly longer piece by Adrian Piper

(Which I might read one day or three.)

The observer is the observed. J Krishnamurti

"Philosophy, to the Philistine, is an evolutionary process, watched over by some sort of brisk dynamic Providence, and culminating in the supreme insight of modern thought." John Cowper Powys
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Posted 08/05/08 - 12:36 PM:
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Paul wrote:

You can't experience things that don't exist, except by dreaming or acid trips. There are only four macroscopic dimensions (three space, one time) and you have to be around the plank length to "experience" the debatable number of extra dimensions of string theory.

You can eliminate a dimension very easily. Wear an eye patch, and you're only experiencing the world in two spatial dimensions. You can still easily deduce the existence of a third dimension despite your lack of depth perception, though. In the same way, the existence of a fourth spatial dimension would be evident in some way if we were merely blind to it.


I’m quite convinced that there are limits to the non existing things that can be experienced in dreams (and other experiences), such that the experiences must always conform to the structure of our senses. New colors, or more dimensions (among other things) seem strictly forbidden, but perhaps there is evidence of the contrary.
While it is true that the “information” that is given to us with an eye patch could be completely depicted as a two-dimensional representation, this is not the way it is actually perceived. The objects are still projected in “phenomenal space” even though there is a loss of detail (I might not be able to tell the precise distance to objects as usual). For example computer games (the 3-dimentional kind) are experienced as they are actually in three dimensions, despite the fact that the image displayed is completely flat!
Our experience of dimensions does not require eyesight, as a blind person is still able to navigate 3-dimentional environments. The only case I could imagine that someone would be unable to experience dimensions altogether, is if they were completely isolated from external stimulus (from birth). And even in that case, I’m not certain.

Paul wrote:

Transcendental idealism was ahead of its time in noting that the four dimensions are transcendentally indistinguishable with space and time only separated for observer points. Special relativity extracted the physical implications from that more than a century ago though, nothing new is coming from it. In no way did Kant believe in extra macroscopic dimensions waiting to be discovered (or at least he didn't write a lot about it, and I'll be astonished to discover that he did).


That’s interesting, forgive me if I’m misunderstanding anything here, but I thought that the point of Kant’s Copernican revolution was to “reverse” epistemology so that what was once thought as really out there (outside our experience, like time and space) was not really out there, but instead what made our experiences possible. Kind of: things are not red because they have such a property, but because our senses are structured in such a way that these “things in themselves” appear to us in such a fashion. In the same vein, time and space are not actual things, but instead the way that representations make themselves apparent to us. Under this perspective there are no dimensions to find “out there” as they aren’t out there in the first place! (I know my explanation is crude, I still find this concept difficult to explain despite toying with it for a while).
If this is not what Kant’s ideas are about, I must indeed have misunderstood them quite a bit!


It’s interesting that you mention relativity, as I happen to have a book on the table just next to me written by Kantian scholar Ernst Cassirer, called Einstein’s theory of relativity—Haven’t read it yet though, as I thought that it might be better to read the critique first. Physics and philosophy usually makes an interesting mix.

Paul wrote:

Of course, but we've had perception-altering drugs for eons now. Experiencing things in ways that aren't representative of the actual relations of things in the world is counterproductive. Finding new accurate ways to collect and represent sense data just means we'll all have x-ray vision, bat sonar sense, and that smell-taste combo thing cats do. Which sounds fun, but it has nothing at all to do with Kant.


What do you mean by representation there? What does Kant actually mean with the word representation? Is it a representation in the kind of sense that a map represents a territory, or is it meant in a different sense? Because the kind of representation that a map has still keeps the same structure—or medium perhaps is a better word—that the territory has. When I think of mental representations of an external object, I think of these representations as a completely independent (i.e. an entirely different medium). Perhaps I should use another word than representation.
This perspective on the nature of mental representations comes from some things I read about neurology, but it might be equivalent to what Kant means when he talks about representations.

Paul wrote:

It's not dualists vs. materialists. It's dualists vs. monists, and monists split against each other as physicalists (materialists are long dead because physics isn't materialist anymore), [Berklean] idealists and neutral monists. Kant's transcendental idealism is a type of neutral monism.


You are of course right about this, perhaps I should avoid to use the term “materialism”.

Paul wrote:

If you want to talk about consciousness in Kantian terms, look at the transcendental unity of apperception -- or what Wittgenstein more eloqeuntly dubs the microcosm or metaphysical self. Consciousness is basically a collection, a perspective. It's empty backdrop on which experience plays out.

Kant is a methodological solipsist, meaning he starts from the solipsistic world (Wittgenstein's microcosm) and works from there to deduce the objective and the transcendental (Wittgenstein's macrocosm). As opposed to the behaviorists and externalists who start with the world and try to work the self into it. Methodological solipsism makes consciousness the least problematic thing of all things... it's not whether we're conscious that we need to worry about, it's whether anything exists beyond our consciousness. We never directly experience anything but our own consciousness -- you can only directly experience yourself, everything you experience is only a part of yourself which you interpret as a representation of something supposed to be beyond you.

The "problem" of consciousness arises only from the opposite approach, the physicalist who's so transfixed by the film (the representations of the so-called external world) that he wants to reduce the room and the projector and the seat and himself into products of the screen. (Okay, that was a pretty deeply flawed analogy, but hopefully you get the point.)


But still despite the fact that I agree with you that there is essentially no problem to consider something that has both mind and body (the whole 2 side thing) and I agree with you that we do not experience anything outside our consciousness, I still think that there is a genuine problem when thinking about how thing can be conscious. If I for example knock two stones together, I would not say that they where “aware” of hitting each other. Likewise, when I would be much surprised if my computer was actually aware of what I am typing. The problem could perhaps be regarded as entirely scientific, but there is today no know method (not even in theory) to know whenever something is conscious or not (well except being that thing).
Are human beings (other than myself) conscious? Are dogs conscious? What about computers, can they be conscious? What about a computer, a camera and a mirror? Or a thermostat?
In my opinion, it’s not a very good idea to simply say that everything with an “internal model” is conscious, but neither is the other extreme sensible, namely that we all are zombies.
There is quite a bit of confusion about the subject though, especially when zombies and qualia get in the game.


Oh and thanks for recommending a translation!
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