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The thing as it may be in itself

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The thing as it may be in itself

Paul
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Posted 10/27/02 - 04:07 AM:	#11
Originally posted by Brad Why should we believe consciousness is real? Ever read Tolstoy? Ever read Patanjali? He'd argue that the fact that thoughts are observed/experienced proves there must be something which is aware of those thoughts. There's a scene going on, a bunch of thoughts parading by, so for this to be apparant there has to be a witness to the scene. Consciousness is the witness, the awareness. Or for yet another metaphor, the consciousness is the light from a flashlight which has been turned on to illuminate a dark room. The basic nature of the argument is that where there's an object there's neccesarily a subject. Observed requires observer, witnessed requires witness. Thoughts are objects, observed, witnessed... from this, the consciousness is deduced as existing despite the fact that the consciousness is not aware of itself. (That would be an infinite regress if it were.) Not to say I'm fully convinced but it's not a bad argument. But this'd all go better on the "Multiplicity of the Universal Self" thread. Originally posted by wraith The atheists believe in that matter creates consciousness and the believer in a God/s believe that consciousness creates matter. Gross oversimplification. I'm an atheist but I wouldn't say matter creates consciousness... I'd say they're different angles at attempting to describe the same thing. (If you want to describe how human consciousness came about causally you'll have to give an evolutionary and matter-oriented description since there's no way to describe the other angle, but I presume you're not talking about historical accounts.) Matter is a systematic breakdown of perceptions, consciousness is a unification of awareness, reality itself is simply the texture of experiencing things, the totality of experience with both subject and object. (That's reality for the self, of course, I mean. Reality for other 'areas' of the objective world is likely to be somewhat difference, but of a continuious background nature.) Trancendental idealists believe that consciousness (such as it is -- perhaps not the attributes you want to give it) is part of the nature of things and matter is a perceptual interpretation/representation of this nature of things. Also there are people who would say consciousness can never be created beacuse it's a sort of univeral property, the background of all things. Also, not all religious people are George Berkeley. I'm sure many would be happy to say god creates matter.
"We used to think that if we knew one, we knew two, because one and one are two. We are finding that we must learn a great deal more about 'and'." - Arthur Eddington

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Posted 10/27/02 - 09:34 PM:	#12
There is a transcendent reality, Kant seems very clear about this. There are transcendental objects as well, they just aren't of the same nature as the empirical and so they're not known. Things can exist which are unknowable. The existence can be derived through what is knowable -- this knowledge related to things in themselves is what Kant calls transcendental knowledge, and Kant does think we can have transcendental knowledge. It's only transcendent knowledge he denies -- essentially, we cannot know what it's like to be the thing (putting it in terms Nagel might like). I totally agree with this. Which is why I was confused by your earlier assertion that Kant did not think there were transcendental objects. I see that we were confused about the nature of them, and I believe we are in agreement on what defines them. If I define things in themselves as those objects which, as you say, would be the only things left if subjects were to disappear, they are necessarily external from the consciousness. However, I don?t believe they are external in any sense that is defined by space or time. Rather, they are transcendentally separate. And as such, are unknowable in any sense. This is what leads me to say that Kant believes in a sort of unknowable aether. For although the transcendent reality exists, you cannot define any object or any qualities of it, nor even that any individuated object exists. When I spoke of knowledge of things in and of themselves being knowable, it is the empirical thing which we know, but not the thing as it is in itself. I think we?re pretty much in agreement throughout. But I admit, I certainly muddled my terms.

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Posted 10/28/02 - 12:10 AM:	#13
Originally posted by Brad Why should we believe consciousness is real? Ever read Tolstoy? To me, to say that the consciousness is an illusion doesnt make sense. I have not read Tolstoy. What did he/she say?

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Posted 10/28/02 - 12:20 AM:	#14
Originally posted by Paul Gross oversimplification. I'm an atheist but I wouldn't say matter creates consciousness... I'd say they're different angles at attempting to describe the same thing. (If you want to describe how human consciousness came about causally you'll have to give an evolutionary and matter-oriented description since there's no way to describe the other angle, but I presume you're not talking about historical accounts.) Matter is a systematic breakdown of perceptions, consciousness is a unification of awareness, reality itself is simply the texture of experiencing things, the totality of experience with both subject and object. (That's reality for the self, of course, I mean. Reality for other 'areas' of the objective world is likely to be somewhat difference, but of a continuious background nature.) Trancendental idealists believe that consciousness (such as it is -- perhaps not the attributes you want to give it) is part of the nature of things and matter is a perceptual interpretation/representation of this nature of things. Also there are people who would say consciousness can never be created beacuse it's a sort of univeral property, the background of all things. Also, not all religious people are George Berkeley. I'm sure many would be happy to say god creates matter. Actually, it's that simple I dont understand how an atheist can claim anything else than matter creating consciousness. I believe that all consciousness originated from a progenitor solipsist. Ultimately, the Higher Power (God/Goddess) generates the universe. ie creates matter

Paul
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Posted 10/28/02 - 01:40 AM:	#15
Originally posted by Interlocutor I totally agree with this. Which is why I was confused by your earlier assertion that Kant did not think there were transcendental objects. I see that we were confused about the nature of them, and I believe we are in agreement on what defines them. I think you're referring to this: "Excepting perhaps the case of conscious things, there's no objective criteria to demarcate one object from another, and Kant surely knows this. Kant doesn't think there are transcendental objects." My 2nd sentence there was probably phrased wrongly... frankly I'm not quite sure what I meant, but it'd be closer if I used transcendent instead of transcendental. But my point was that from the objective perspective nothing demarcates objects, it's the subjective that demarcates them. If you recall how the ancient Eliadic philosophers argued that all is one and there are no objects, that's the idea... since space doesn't exist objectively, it's hard to talk about objects objectively. So, I'd say there's always a relational sense involved when talking about an object -- it's the appearances that motivate the idea of a separateness of objects. So to talk about a transcendent chair wouldn't really be proper, because demarcation of the chair can only be done with the empirical chair. (The exception, as I mentioned before, is that consciousness seems to separate off objective things from other parts of the objective in a way. So perhaps you can properly talk about a mind as a trancendent object, but there's no reason to think we can do the same for a chair... it's not like the chair is only aware of itself and not of the non-chair things around it, the chair doesn't have an in-built sense of where it starts and ends.) I suppose it's a little crazy to talk about the objective world not having objects , but that's how it goes... most of the time we use the word "objective" we really mean something of a more relational sense anyhow. If I define things in themselves as those objects which, as you say, would be the only things left if subjects were to disappear, they are necessarily external from the consciousness. However, I don?t believe they are external in any sense that is defined by space or time. Rather, they are transcendentally separate. And as such, are unknowable in any sense. This is what leads me to say that Kant believes in a sort of unknowable aether. For although the transcendent reality exists, you cannot define any object or any qualities of it, nor even that any individuated object exists. I seem to agree with you but I just don't like the term "aether". Aether implies to me something which fills in empty spaces in the universe (a favored theory of 19th century physics), while transcendent reality is just the nature of what is the universe. Also you said "if there are in fact things in themselves beyond those modes which our senses draw upon", while this is not questionable for Kant. Kant's would say our senses have to be drawing on something and so there must be a world out there, and that's the transcendent even though we only know the representation. Our possession of the representation presupposes that there's something to represent. He doesn't think idealism is coherent position. "The thing as it may be in itself" shouldn't be taken as questioning if there is a thing in itself. It's not the "may or may not be" sense of "may be"... it's not "maybe". It means something more along the lines of "the thing in whatever odd unknown sense it exists when it's in itself". And I know you probably agree on all that but I'd rather beat up on the way you phrased it anyway, sorry.
"We used to think that if we knew one, we knew two, because one and one are two. We are finding that we must learn a great deal more about 'and'." - Arthur Eddington

Paul
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Posted 10/28/02 - 01:49 AM:	#16
Originally posted by wraith Actually, it's that simple I dont understand how an atheist can claim anything else than matter creating consciousness. I, the atheist, simply say that you're talking nonsense by suggesting that there should be something "creating" consciousness. Transcendently, consciousness simply exists, and we have no reason to talk about something "creating" it. You can represent consciousness (access consciousness that is) in terms of matter in the brain, but that's just a representation. No one would say that a representation of something causes the actual thing. The empirical world doesn't cause the trancendent, nor strictly speaking can we say the trancendent causes the empirical (due both to lack of causality in the trancendent and the fact that the empirical conceptions are simply in a part of the trancendent called mind), even though it's true that you can remove the empirical without losing the trancendent but not the other way around. (I think it would work to say that the empirical is a subset.) Matter doesn't exist except as a conception in minds. Therefore it obviously doesn't create anything. This is a Kant thread, that's a Kantian position... Kant clearly doesn't think that his transcendent reality requires a god (even though he's religious, and even though he argues that god is needed for ethics). Presupposition of matter would be much more likely to require a god, because you have all this bulky stuff in such organized patterns so it must've come from somewhere. With the Kantian perspective, however, the complicated patterns and substance are a feature of the relation of the mind to the world rather than something external to the mind. Thus the universe is metaphysically simplistic, we can't say anymore that the universe in itself requires all sorts of metaphysical work like causality, space, time, matter and the like, and so there's nothing much for a god to do. Therefore I'd argue that a religious person would do much better to argue that matter creates consciousness than an atheist, because matter being there before consciousness could be a place for god to step in.
"We used to think that if we knew one, we knew two, because one and one are two. We are finding that we must learn a great deal more about 'and'." - Arthur Eddington

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Posted 10/28/02 - 12:19 PM:	#17
Paul...Beat up on my terminology all you want. I deserved it on this one. Yeah, I wasn't using "aether" so much to refer to a spatial, temporal reality, but more as the general unknown. But as you say, "Our possession of the representation presupposes that there's something to represent." To me this is misleading. To be perfectly honest, I don't see how anyone can prove, with absolute objective certainty, that there is a reality which is other than the perceiving subject, or its perceptions. I know that Kant's purpose was to ensure that truth and cause and effect were knowable and discernable. But since I took the Kant seminar in college, I have either lost track of his proof, or come to some other understanding. And now I can't figure out which. Presupposing that there is something to represent seems to first presume that representations are what we define them to be. That is, that they are sensual perceptions. Further, that presumption presupposes that the senses are means of knowing empirical objects. So it seems that denying any necessary link to the unknown world, or the reality of cause and effect, and simply saying that we only have experiential knowledge that these things exist, is not enough. Kants entire argument depends on a priori knowing. Without that, the rest of his system collapses. But Hegel takes it a step further, and approaches it from a different angle. He believed that the dialectic of the self was the necessary proof for the existence of the other. And I've got to agree. Kant ties himself up in knots sometimes with his unity of apperception and modes of sensibility. Whereas I favor a much simpler approach - the examination of the Logic of being. I think it is a much more difficult approach to grasp at first, but once you do, there's nothing simpler.

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Posted 10/28/02 - 11:54 PM:	#18
Kant's argument is a little convoluted, but he basically says he can prove the external world based on empirical apperception (self awareness -- access consciousness, if you like) and time. Boiling down a long argument: I am aware of myself as determined in time. To be aware of passage of time requires something permanent in perception to measure the change of time against. This permanence can't be my own permanence, since my permanence is logically presupposed by self-awareness rather than perceived in it. So, the option left over is that it's something outside of me. The conclusion: The fact that I have a sense of myself in time requires the existence of actual things that I perceive as outside of me. Note, of course, that this argument depends on Kant's theory of time. Time is something we create, and the fact that we're able to create time requires that we have references of a sort. The second analogy (cause and effect) also goes most of the way with subject/object distinction. What's going on seems to be a sort of merging of subject and object to allow us to say there are objects... which, since it's a thesis about existence of empirical objects, seems valid. Getting from there to things in themselves is something Kant addresses before he starts, but with even more confusing arguments. (I'll see if I can find the spot later.) The only way we can have phenomena is if there's noumena which can combine with the nature of the mind to create that relation which we call phenomena. Empirical objects are objects given to us by the external world even though they're representations. (Even if you're a brain in a vat there's something external causing your ideas of objects -- namely the mad scientist's machines, which act as a sensory organ of a type that's not particularly useful.) If you try to say otherwise, what other possible application you could have for a term like "external world"? Since you have a term, you must have some idea of a use for it... if you deny that an external world is possible, you just need to change your definition. And it's also worth noting that the words subject and object require each other, you can't deny that there are objects while asserting that there's a subject. So in a way perhaps you can make a linguistic thesis out of it? My own vague intuition on this matter, independent of Kant: The mind, necessarily, is part of the world. We can observe that there's constant change in the mind. The idea of change presupposes interaction -- something must be stimulating the change, change cannot happen without cause. There must be something separate from me -- which I'll therefore label "the outside world" -- to be the cause of my changing experience. It's basically an empiricist intuition that thought cannot occur without experience, with an addition noting that if there's experience there has to be something out there to cause experience. Even Berkeley seems to realize this in a way, since he brings in God as the cause of the experiences. (Without God, Berkeley would have no explanation for what causes ideas -- certainly he doesn't want to say they're innate.) The idea of an empirical world where we can form an idea of passage of time, but where that empirical world has no external causes, is something I think is somehow incoherent. The solipsist position doesn't hold, it can't explain why self-experience is so full of change. Perhaps the charge I'm leveling against the solipsist is metaphysical complexity... I don't believe the universe in itself can be supposed to have so many complicated metaphysical preconditions, because if it did you'd have to resort to some sort of creator god setting things up (and of course the infinite regress of gods creating each other). I'll have to read Hegel sometime.
"We used to think that if we knew one, we knew two, because one and one are two. We are finding that we must learn a great deal more about 'and'." - Arthur Eddington

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Posted 10/29/02 - 12:22 AM:	#19
Originally posted by Paul I, the atheist, simply say that you're talking nonsense by suggesting that there should be something "creating" consciousness. Transcendently, consciousness simply exists, and we have no reason to talk about something "creating" it. You can represent consciousness (access consciousness that is) in terms of matter in the brain, but that's just a representation. No one would say that a representation of something causes the actual thing. The empirical world doesn't cause the trancendent, nor strictly speaking can we say the trancendent causes the empirical (due both to lack of causality in the trancendent and the fact that the empirical conceptions are simply in a part of the trancendent called mind), even though it's true that you can remove the empirical without losing the trancendent but not the other way around. (I think it would work to say that the empirical is a subset.) You sound more like a deist than an atheist. Consciousness either creates matter or it is the other way around. It has to be, otherwise how would you claim their existence? Your above post suggests that consciousness creates matter (not necessarily my consciousness, at least not at this point in time, but a more aware a more evolved consciousness ie God) By definition, if you hold this belief then you are not an atheist Matter doesn't exist except as a conception in minds. Therefore it obviously doesn't create anything. again, youre asserting that consciousness creates matter Kant clearly doesn't think that his transcendent reality requires a god He sounds like a Buddist. Regardless of which, how does he account for this other reality? Is it made of matter or is a consciousness generating it? How else can it exist? we can't say anymore that the universe in itself requires all sorts of metaphysical work like causality, space, time, matter and the like, and so there's nothing much for a god to do. If a consciousness (God) is generating this universe, then he/she has to be on "the ball" at all times. Otherwise, this universe would not function. Therefore I'd argue that a religious person would do much better to argue that matter creates consciousness than an atheist, because matter being there before consciousness could be a place for god to step in. Actually, this is suited for the atheist. When you say "matter being there before consciousness could be a place for god to step in" what youre really saying is that matter creates consciousness. ie my consciousness is the product of my brain state. There is no such thing as a "soul" through this belief. Which is in direct opposition to what a deist/theist is saying....

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Posted 10/29/02 - 01:31 AM:	#20
Originally posted by wraith You sound more like a deist than an atheist. Consciousness either creates matter or it is the other way around. It has to be, otherwise how would you claim their existence? Your above post suggests that consciousness creates matter (not necessarily my consciousness, at least not at this point in time, but a more aware a more evolved consciousness ie God) By definition, if you hold this belief then you are not an atheist Stating "matter doesn't exist" implies that consciousness creates matter? Eh? Nothing really creates matter, I was very clear about that, because there's no such thing as matter except in your imagination. Your mind is not capable of creating any external reality, it can only take perceptions and run them through its various processes to create concepts, concepts which can be said to have a certain sort of connection -- but definitely not identity -- with external causes. I reject any possibility of a god or of anything "supernatural", and that makes me an atheist. The universe is entirely natural -- it's just not what you'd think it is if you're a naive realist believing that your perceptions have external "substantial" reality in the sense that you imagine them in. Consciousness is nothing special. The background texture consciousness (usually called sentience) is everywhere, just as much for a rock as for a person. The type of consciousness that matters (usually called access consciousness) is the pattern which the previous type is formed into in the localized area. We usually understand this by brain patterns, but the actual substance of it is simply the monistic background. again, youre asserting that consciousness creates matter No. Since you're new here obviously you haven't read my many posts on the nature of mind, so I guess that's why you're leaping to that conclusion. I agree with the position of physicist Arthur Eddington, which you can read here: http://forums.philosophyforums.com/read.php?TID=428 (My only significant disagreement with Eddinton is how he uses the term "spiritual" so commonly... but he does define spiritual in other spots so that in a way that isn't theistic, just an atypical usage of the word.) As Eddington explains, the so called substantiality drops away and with it goes the mind-brain problem -- and very importantly, monism proves victorious over dualism. Note how it leaves the mind to a functionalist interpretation -- and it's also important to note that Kant is considered a functionalist about the mind. Also see http://forums.philosophyforums.com/read.php?TID=581 He sounds like a Buddist. Regardless of which, how does he account for this other reality? Is it made of matter or is a consciousness generating it? How else can it exist? I'd say he's closer to the Samkhya or Yoga traditions than to Buddhism, but as this thread was originally about he does have a very significant difference of opinion on things in themselves compared to someone like Patanjali. Kant would be quite frustrated with your question because he's already answered it. In coming up the the system he's already shown that matter is only empirical -- matter is an aspect of the relation between your mind and the actual world. What you call "this other reality" is the only reality, really, when you get right down to it... matter is just a conceptual representation of it which has gone though many alterations in both perception and the mind. Your thinking seems to be stuck in the rut of approaching from the traditional direction, which is so much into experience that it treats the experience as more real than the experiencer. This is a very mistaken approach, which is why Kant calls his reversed approach his "Copernican revolution". If a consciousness (God) is generating this universe, then he/she has to be on "the ball" at all times. Otherwise, this universe would not function. Sorry, Bishop Berkeley, but it ain't that way -- Berkeley has to resort to god because he literally has only minds in the universe, nothing in between them, no causes of perception. I say that minds are only a very tiny part of the natural universe... a mind is simply an odd pattern in the universe that has the strange situation of having some sense of representation of other things within it and having interactive abilities within itself which we call thought (which can be described in terms of neural networks, even though the actual instantiation in reality is simply thought itself). The real universe simply exists (and it's a very simplistic thing), and your empirical universe is the relation of the patterns of your mind to it (again, best understood through the physical lingo of brain-talk, but which in itself is just itself). All the complexity arises from your position as a relation to other parts of the universe. Actually, this is suited for the atheist. When you say "matter being there before consciousness could be a place for god to step in" what youre really saying is that matter creates consciousness. ie my consciousness is the product of my brain state. There is no such thing as a "soul" through this belief. Which is in direct opposition to what a deist/theist is saying.... Of course there's no such thing as soul. Soul is the ghost in the machine, dualistic nonsense. Someone who rejects the mind, however, plays right into the hand of religion by handing over something which many people see as obvious... this rejection of an interpretation of reality encourages a dualistic reaction, and dualism fuels religion. I take the mind and show it properly as an entirely natural thing and eliminate the dualistic nonsense that lets people imagine a physical/non-physical reality split from which they can find a use for god. Read Bertrand Russell. His position isn't quite the same, but it is neutral monism, which is essentially my position except that I note that self-experience is the only sample we have of what sort of consistence the monistic background may be made of. (But clearly Russell is right that the universe is not mental, because we need to have patterns going on which we call thoughts before we'd want to call something mental. This only happens is localized areas known as minds.) And Russell, of course, is strongly atheistic as well. I do think Kant would say much of the same things, as he makes it clear he doesn't believe god to be presupposed by his system, but I'm really not sure how far Kant explored it.
"We used to think that if we knew one, we knew two, because one and one are two. We are finding that we must learn a great deal more about 'and'." - Arthur Eddington

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