Origenes: “The Emergence of Emergentism: A Play for Two Actors”

_{kairosfocus

December 8, 2022

Intelligent Design}

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The stage is in darkness, with sombre mood music, then light rises . . .

Origenes, 226 in the Pregnancy thread:

<<Two desperate naturalists in a room.

A: “I feel completely desperate. There is no way we will ever be able to explain life and consciousness.”
B: “I feel the exact same way. The main issue is that we have nothing to work with. All we have is mindless particles in the void obeying mindless regularities. Starting from that, how can we possibly explain life, not to mention personhood, freedom, and rationality? There is simply no way forward.”
A: “Exactly right. Sometimes I feel like such a loser. The other day I heard that current science cannot even explain liquidity.”
B: “What did you just say?”

**POOF**>>

THE END.

Comments

Seversky @102
And, given how little we understand about the origins of life and the nature of consciousness, how do we know that rational, self-aware life-forms such as ourselves are not determined? How do we know that we are not just a necessary consequence of the outworking of natural laws and processes? And, if so, how is that a problem?
The problem is this: if physical determinism is true, then all of our conclusions are, at best, only accidentally true because they are produced by forces that leave rationality to the side. Some beliefs we hold might accidentally be true, but we could never know it. Even if we were allowed the freedom to check them we could not do so because our conclusions would not be brought about by reasoned investigation; it would be “merely fortuitous” or a “happy circumstance” if some turned out to be true. Under physical determinism, the necessary and sufficient causes of someone drawing a conclusion have nothing to do with rationality or reasons, and therefore whatever reasons I think I have for a conclusion are unnecessary, given that I would have drawn the same conclusion without them. And even my reasons (or my awareness of reasons) are unnecessary since they do not explain my conclusion or belief. Summing up, the problem is ***the total destruction of rationality***. A far more serious problem than the one that is wittingly described in the Stanford entry on causal determinism:
... what is at stake in determinism: our fears about our own status as free agents in the world. In Laplace’s story, a sufficiently bright demon who knew how things stood in the world 100 years before my birth could predict every action, every emotion, every belief in the course of my life. Were she then to watch me live through it, she might smile condescendingly, as one who watches a marionette dance to the tugs of strings that it knows nothing about. We can’t stand the thought that we are (in some sense) marionettes.
Origenes_{December 24, 2022
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A Compatibilistic Response to the Consequence Argument.
1.) If determinism is true, then all our actions and thoughts are consequences of events and laws of nature in the remote past before we were born. 2.) We have no control over circumstances that existed in the remote past before we were born, nor do we have any control over the laws of nature. 3.) If A causes B, and we have no control over A, and A is sufficient for B, then we have no control over B. Therefore 4.) If determinism is true, then we have no control over our own actions and thoughts.
Compatibilism is the enigmatic view that determinism and free will can both be true. Slagle notes that compatibilism is “a common position among philosophers.” According to the compatibilist, it does not follow that we do not control our actions and thoughts. Nozik puts it thus:
“No one has ever announced that, because determinism is true thermostats do not control the temperature” [Nozik, 81]
IOW according to the compatibilist, it is coherent to say that we do control our actions and thoughts, just like it is coherent to say that a thermostat controls the temperature. So, according to compatibilism, from ...
... the fact that the cause and effect chain can be traced back to processes that precede that thermostat’s changing the temperature—and even that precede the thermostat’s existence, or the invention of thermostats—it does not follow that the thermostat is not controlling the temperature. [Slagle]”
Compatibilism does not make any sense to me but it is widely held. Perhaps someone can explain. - - - - Merry Christmas everyone.Origenes_{December 24, 2022
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Sev, nope. The particular context of Laplace's demons is the time direction insensitivity and utter determinism of a Newtonian, material world of atoms and bodies ruled by F = 0 => a = 0, F = dP/dt and F12 + F21 = 0. In that context of a material metaphysics with a deterministic equation set, once a single time point's parameters and position momentum values are precisely fixed, the structure of the model dynamics set its prior and successive trajectory to all time. But, a world that is not like that, one in which we are not merely pre programmed computing substrates with associated sensors and actuators, a world in which we can actually reason . . . as is a subtext for your own argument to have any cogency . . . is a world of self moved agency not deterministic utter irrationality. And, you were in the general neighbourhood when it was pointed out that God being at the north pole of spacetime so that he is aware of the span of actual events is not equivalent to predetermination like Laplace's demon. Indeed, I suspect part of the context that lends plausibility for some, is the same Newtonian clockwork cosmos vision. Which was never viable and has been shattered by the rise of statistical thermodynamics, quantum theory and relativity. our contingency is of course just a recognition that we are not utterly autonomous, we cannot leap off a high cliff, flap our arms and fly away at will. But we can freely and responsibly argue and type up objections, even fallacy riddled ones. KFkairosfocus_{December 24, 2022
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We are all, whether we like it or not, determined to some degree. For example, We are each just the latest link in a chain of procreation stretching back through the histories of our families to be lost in the mists of times past. We had no choice over when and where we were born or who our parents were. We had no choice over our genetic inheritance. We had no choice over what influenced our parents or more distant ancestors. We had no choice over what influenced us before we were aware of being influenced. For all the talk of free will, we are inescapably contingent beings and any account of free will must embrace that understanding. And, given how little we understand about the origins of life and the nature of consciousness, how do we know that rational, self-aware life-forms such as ourselves are not determined? How do we know that we are not just a necessary consequence of the outworking of natural laws and processes? And, if so, how is that a problem?Seversky_{December 24, 2022
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Kairosfocus/100
… for such an intellect nothing would be uncertain and the future just like the past would be present before its eyes. —?Pierre Simon Laplace, A Philosophical Essay on Probabilities
Exactly so, An omniscient being who demonstrated foreknowledge of the future would mean that the future is already determined and exists to be known. We might, like Peter, try to deny it but we cannot avoid it.Seversky_{December 24, 2022
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Origenes, here is a sampler of the attitude, from de Laplace:
We may regard the present state of the universe as the effect of its past and the cause of its future. An intellect [--> often, Laplace's Demon] which at a certain moment would know all forces that set nature in motion, and all positions of all items of which nature is composed, if this intellect were also vast enough to submit these data to analysis, it would embrace in a single formula the movements of the greatest bodies of the universe and those of the tiniest atom; for such an intellect nothing would be uncertain and the future just like the past would be present before its eyes. —?Pierre Simon Laplace, A Philosophical Essay on Probabilities
That is the mindset, here presented by a leading and enduringly famous Mathematician-Physicist. Of course, my reply is, the absurd result implies major things are left out of the reckoning. KFkairosfocus_{December 24, 2022
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Determinism and understanding. For me, to clearly see that determinism is incompatible with rationality I had to realize that, under determinism, my understanding of things was no longer mine. At first, determinism didn’t seem completely absurd to me, because I labored under the false idea that determinism only applied to my reasoning, but that my understanding of things was (somehow) still under my control. I subconsciously made an illogical distinction between ‘reasoning’ and ‘understanding’. It was only at the moment that I realized that determinism entails that something beyond my control, causes me to ‘understand’ things …. it became completely clear to me how utterly incompatible determinism and rationality are. Because, if I understand things, not because I understand them, but because I’m “told” that I “understand” them, then I understand nothing and no rationality in me is to be found.Origenes_{December 24, 2022
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KF @ 97
A missing factor is the hold of Newton’s laws of mechanics, extended to a whole view of the world at that time. Some were convinced of global mechanical necessity to the point of, the first moment of the cosmos determines all else since to mathematical precision. This made belief in freedom difficult to sustain. That is what Kant faced.
It is very difficult for me to accept that Kant and his contemporaries did not reject determinism out of hand. Very difficult. I am very serious when I say that I truly do not get it.
This of course cries out for the self moved rational soul as a first requisite of even doing philosophy, but to those locked into a system, that seems little more than a clever verbal trick.
A collective blindness of some sort?
To those caught up in the evolutionary materialist web, the same seems so today. The rot runs deep, and it is hard for many to take courage of logic and recognise that determinisms destroy any basis for even the reasoning that gets to determinism.
Determinism absolutely destroys rationality. Once you’ve seen it, you cannot unsee it, and it becomes a totally uncomplicated evident thing. Perhaps, that is my problem here.Origenes_{December 24, 2022
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Origenes, I also reply here. A missing factor is the hold of Newton’s laws of mechanics, extended to a whole view of the world at that time. Some were convinced of global mechanical necessity to the point of, the first moment of the cosmos determines all else since to mathematical precision.This made belief in freedom difficult to sustain. That is what Kant faced. This of course cries out for the self moved rational soul as a first requisite of even doing philosophy, but to those locked into a system, that seems little more than a clever verbal trick. To those caught up in the evolutionary materialist web, the same seems so today. The rot runs deep, and it is hard for many to take courage of logic and recognise that determinisms destroy any basis for even the reasoning that gets to determinism.kairosfocus_{December 24, 2022
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PM1 @91
Kant takes it for granted that the best science is Newtonian mechanics, which is fully deterministic. So if Newtonian mechanics were absolutely true — true about how the world in itself really is — there’s no free will, and probably no personal immortality and probably no God …
It is clear as day that determinism does not allow for a person who is in control of his actions and thoughts and is, therefore, utterly incompatible with any rational inquiry, including science. The fully deterministic materialism of Kant’s days should have received nothing but ridicule as a metaphysical hypothesis.
Kant wants to construct a barrier between science and metaphysics in order to prevent physics (the best science of his day) from leading to naturalism (no God, no free will, no soul).
Determinism is utterly absurd and unacceptable. It cannot be taken seriously. Did Kant not know this? 1.) If determinism is true, then all our actions and thoughts are consequences of events and laws of nature in the remote past before we were born. 2.) We have no control over circumstances that existed in the remote past before we were born, nor do we have any control over the laws of nature. 3.) If A causes B, and we have no control over A, and A is sufficient for B, then we have no control over B. Therefore 4.) If determinism is true, then we have no control over our own actions and thoughts. – – – – Kant needed 50 books to erect some half-baked barrier against determinism, while it took me just 4 lines to completely demolish it ….Origenes_{December 24, 2022
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Sandy: It’s called Maths what is learnt on 5 grade and also on postdoctoral studies. Different levels of the same Maths. Clearly you've never taken graduate level mathematics!!!JVL_{December 24, 2022
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PM1, 80:
Kant thinks that any claim to definitive knowledge about things in themselves will necessarily take reason beyond its own proper limits. His argument for this position turns on the following idea: for any claim about what things in themselves are, we can always entertain the negation of that claim. But we cannot decide which of the two — the assertion or its negation — is true.
In steps: >>Kant thinks that any claim to definitive knowledge about things in themselves will necessarily take reason beyond its own proper limits.>> 1: Things in themselves, i.e. reality, is readily recognised as the actual state of affairs that obtains, aka what is the case; truth accurately describes such, and knowledge is a state of warranted, credible access to truth. 2: This assertion by Kant is intended to be accurate to the state of affairs, and is meant to be objective, warranted, credibly and reliably true. Further, as is ever so common of worldview level assertions, it is self referential as a statement and again as an utterance of a man. 3: As implied objective knowledge, this sets out to delimit rational inquiry and as a case of rational inquiry it delimits itself, on its face. That is, this too is precisely a case of what it asserts " will necessarily take reason beyond its own proper limits." 4: Thus, it is self referentially self defeating and unreliable. We can set it aside and what depends on it in chains of reasoning. 5: Of course, those who assert things like this will be seen to point the finger at others, oh you are trying to talk beyond the bounds, about things in themselves, you cannot do that to try to defeat this you must confine yourself to the world of appearances. To which reach for power over freedom to think, the right answer is, sez who. 6: The kantian programme is self defeating. Instead we acknowledge the possibility of and struggle against error, but that is already a point of certain, undeniable truth and knowledge beyond the bound. Error exists. Josiah Royce and Elton Trueblood et al have put their finger on an archimedean point. 7: We must existentially struggle with it but its known presence shatters the shackles of all schemes that would separate us from knowledge of and reasoning regarding what is the actual case, reality. >>His argument for this position turns on the following idea: for any claim about what things in themselves are, we can always entertain the negation of that claim.>> 8: Indeed, let E = error exists. Then, ~ E means, it is error to assert E. But the attempted denial implies E and we see that E is not only a fact of experience but an undeniable, self evident and certain truth. Which, is a category that is non empty as we find an instance. So, the reduced square of opposition does not apply. (And I like the revised understanding of the classic square at SEP https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/square/ .) >> But we cannot decide which of the two — the assertion or its negation — is true. >> 9: On the contrary, we have on the table a case of undeniable truth that is self evident and known to certainty. The claim you report fails. KFkairosfocus_{December 23, 2022
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More emerging emergence? Goal oriented. Nothing emerges from anything without information. Nothing emerges and survives without perfect functionality.relatd_{December 23, 2022
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@89 Yes, I accept Brooks's reading of Kant as a philosopher of cognitive science, and that his contributions to cognitive science are largely detachable from larger project to which they belong (reconciling Newtonian physics with Lutheran piety).PyrrhoManiac1_{December 23, 2022
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@84 Kant's starting-point is not the Cartesian skeptical question "how can know that the external world exists?" Kant accepts that the external world exists -- that's what physics is all about! But he wants to build a barrier between science and metaphysics. And the problems with his position lie in whether he's entitled to the assumptions he needs to make in order to do that. More specifically, Kant takes it for granted that the best science is Newtonian mechanics, which is fully deterministic. So if Newtonian mechanics were absolutely true -- true about how the world in itself really is -- there's no free will, and probably no personal immortality and probably no God in a transcendent personal sense, the sort of Being who reveals Himself. Kant wants to construct a barrier between science and metaphysics in order to prevent physics (the best science of his day) from leading to naturalism (no God, no free will, no soul).
Kant posits the hypothesis that each one of us contributes to one’s experience in such a radical way, that we are all permanently disconnected from the outer world, assuming that there is an outer world at all. And perhaps that’s not exactly what he is saying.
That's not what he's saying. He doesn't think that your mind constructs your experiences and my mind constructs my experiences. Rather, he thinks that he can describe the mind as such, what it is for something to be a mind at all, which is the same in all of us and which therefore constructs all our experiences. That's why all of us can understand that there are physical objects that obey laws of physics, that exist in space and in time, and that are governed by cause and effect. (That's also why all of us know ourselves and each other to be self-conscious rational agents with infinite moral worth and deserving of respect and dignity. ) Kant does not doubt that we can know "the outer world," if by that you mean the physical world -- the world of spatial objects with physical properties, things that don't disappear when no one is looking at them. Kant accepts the reality of space and of time and the sciences of the spatio-temporal world. What he denies is that anyone can know the absolute truth of the world. He thinks that for every doctrine of what is absolutely true, there is another doctrine that is incompatible with it, and with us having no way to decide between them. So, is Kant a skeptic? He would certainly deny it. He would say that his entire project is to show us to how to avoid Hume's skepticism. But one might think that in doing so, Kant nevertheless concedes too much to Hume.
To know for certain that the mind is distorting all experience requires a transcendent standpoint that offers an undistorted view of the mind and its experiences.
I agree. And that's often how Kant is interpreted. But I don't think it's the right reading. I read Kant as saying (as I said above) if we adopt the hypothesis that the mind always contributes to the world as we experience it, then we can construct a barrier between science and metaphysics, and that would allow us to end the conflict of reason against itself, and especially the conflict between naturalism and theism.
Kant is unclear about his position—a bad sign.
He's a terribly bad writer, for sure.
To be frank, his dark mission does not interest me. I am a searcher for truth, in fact, I demand it, and I have neither the patience nor the interest for any witling skeptical self-referential effort to have me convinced that I can never get there. So, I am out.
It's certainly true that Kant would not endorse a search for ultimate, absolute truth. He thinks that's impossible for beings like us, because we cannot step outside of our own minds. While I have tried to make his views seem plausible and unpack some of the reasoning behind them, I'm quite happy to admit that I'm not a Kantian. I think that there are cracks and fissures deep in the edifice, far below the surface we haven't begun to scratch. (Also, not that anyone asked, but my favorite philosophers are John Dewey and Richard Rorty -- so if you know anything about them, you'll be able to guess that I read Kant as one of my favorite enemies!)PyrrhoManiac1_{December 23, 2022
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Jerry But to obsess over personal experiences as the only access to this truth and it may be significantly different from person to person is nonsense.
There are many levels of truth. It's called Maths what is learnt on 5 grade and also on postdoctoral studies. Different levels of the same Maths. Same thing with the Truth. If you stay 30 years on a cave eating once per week praying continuously will have access to a much different truth than if you watch Netflix ,eat from McDonald and stay all day long on tiktok, twitter,UD,etc.Sandy_{December 23, 2022
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https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-mind/ @ PM1, a reasonable précis of Kant on consciousness?Alan Fox_{December 23, 2022
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There is only one truth and everyone knows part of this truth. We are somehow able to make it through this world, sometimes quite easily. How does this happen if one does not have access to a lot of this truth? What we understand is based not only on our experiences but on the experiences of millions like us and on logic. It is also based on instruments that detect aspects of the truth which are consistent from person to person. These instruments are getting better and better. Now as we all know, there is always more truth to learn. But to obsess over personal experiences as the only access to this truth and it may be significantly different from person to person is nonsense. We live in a world where experiences are constantly verified or sometimes contradicted by things outside of us. We adjust and get better and move on. That is how a baby learns and we continue to learn. We read, we see, we hear, we feel, we compare everything to what others read, feel, see and hear. All get us somewhat closer to the truth. We are beings that are constantly assessing this world to learn more truths. That is what science and logic are about. That we will never know all the truth is so obvious that it must be by design. But yet we probe and observe. To somehow believe our experiences are significantly different from others is absurd. We adjust our beliefs on many things based on what others believe but these are constantly tested against reality. Reality will always keep us in line. We are here and we have survived. But always learning. Science and our daily experiences will tell us much but it can never tell us everything. For that we have to search elsewhere.jerry_{December 23, 2022
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I am going to self-contradict here by writing another post about Kant … The broader point that’s been made in this thread is that hyper-skepticism is self-refuting. In order to ground his hyper-skepticism, the hyper-skeptic must hold some belief that he is not permitted to hold by his own ‘philosophy.’ Now, is Kant a hyper-skeptic?
PM1@: Kant’s point is that if all we can know is what we can experience, and if all of our experience depends in part on what the mind contributes to that experience, then we cannot know what the world is like “in itself,” independent of the mind’s contribution.
According to PM1, Kant says: If one’s mind distorts one’s experience of a thing, and if one can know a thing only by one’s experience, then we can never attain certain knowledge about a thing. I agree. The conclusion follows logically from the premises. However, if Kant claims that this horror scenario is actually the case and that his premises are true, then he claims to have certain knowledge that he cannot have. Then he makes a self-refuting hyper-skeptical claim. If the mind distorts one’s experience of all things and experience is the only source of knowledge about things, then one cannot know for certain that the mind is distorting things. To know for certain that the mind is distorting all experience requires a transcendent standpoint that offers an undistorted view of the mind and its experiences. Suppose my mind distorts my experience by having colors mixed up. Objects that are in reality green, I see as red, and objects that are in reality red I see as being green. It might actually be the case that my experience of green coincides with how other people experience red and vice versa. The point I am trying to make is that I have no way of knowing. To know this requires a transcendent standpoint, which I (and Immanuel Kant) have no access to. Summing up: Sandy is right, Kant kan't make a truth claim or he be self-refuting. :)Origenes_{December 23, 2022
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:) Kant kan't . Self-refuting is the middle name of Kant.Sandy_{December 22, 2022
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@84 /Clarification/ I was referring to the effort by E. Kant when I wrote "... witling skeptical self-referential effort ...".Origenes_{December 22, 2022
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PM1 @
Kant’s point is that if all we can know is what we can experience, and if all of our experience depends in part on what the mind contributes to that experience, then we cannot know what the world is like “in itself,” independent of the mind’s contribution.
So, Kant posits the hypothesis that each one of us contributes to one’s experience in such a radical way, that we are all permanently disconnected from the outer world, assuming that there is an outer world at all. And perhaps that's not exactly what he is saying. Kant is unclear about his position—a bad sign. To be frank, his dark mission does not interest me. I am a searcher for truth, in fact, I demand it, and I have neither the patience nor the interest for any witling skeptical self-referential effort to have me convinced that I can never get there. So, I am out. - - - p.s. I do not agree with your interpretation of cogito, perhaps for another day.Origenes_{December 22, 2022
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@81
So, according to Kant, we can never know for sure how things really are. Correct?
If by "how things really are" we mean "how things are in themselves, completely separate from everything that the mind contributes to experience", then yes. Because that's the key: what we experience as the world depends on what the mind contributes to that experience. If we had very different sensory organs, we would experience the world in really different ways. And if we had really different concepts, again, we would experience the world in really different ways. Kant's point is that if all we can know is what we can experience, and if all of our experience depends in part on what the mind contributes to that experience, then we cannot know what the world is like "in itself," independent of the mind's contribution.
John: “I agree with your point. Indeed we can never be absolutely certain about my existence. However I, on my own, can. I, and only me, am absolutely certain of my existence. I can know how I am in myself, so to speak.” Kant: “Ok, bring it.” John: “Here goes: cogito ergo sum.”
Kant wouldn't deny that we are immediately and indubitably aware of our own self-consciousness. He just doesn't think that it follows that therefore we can know that we exist as souls, really distinct from our bodies, and capable of persisting after the death of the body.PyrrhoManiac1_{December 22, 2022
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A conversation with Immanuel Kant: John: "Good afternoon. I exist.” Kant: “You are permitted to hold that belief mister, but, I have to point out that, in principle, we can never be really sure that ….” Charles: **I do not exist. Sorry, to interrupt. I am just a figment of the imagination of Mr.Kant here.** Kant: “You are both permitted to hold your beliefs, but, and please let me finish my point here guys because this is incredibly deep and important, we can never ever be really sure that …” John: “I agree with your point. Indeed we can never be absolutely certain about my existence. However I, on my own, can. I, and only I, am absolutely certain of my existence. You cannot, but I can know how I am in myself, so to speak.” Kant: “Ok, bring it.” John: “Here goes: cogito ergo sum.”Origenes_{December 22, 2022
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PM1
The most he [Kant] could say is, “it is possible that appearances and things in themselves coincide, but we can never know for sure that they do.”
So, according to Kant, we can never know for sure how things really are. Correct?Origenes_{December 22, 2022
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@79
Is Kant saying here that how things appear to be in themselves to us, cannot possibly coincide with how things are in themselves in reality? That there must necessarily be a difference between ‘how things appear to us’ and ‘how things really are’?
Briefly: no. Here's why. Kant thinks that any claim to definitive knowledge about things in themselves will necessarily take reason beyond its own proper limits. His argument for this position turns on the following idea: for any claim about what things in themselves are, we can always entertain the negation of that claim. But we cannot decide which of the two -- the assertion or its negation -- is true. A Christian may say, in full candor and sincerity, that a transcendent personal God exists, that we have libertarian freedom, and that an aspect of our personal identity survives the death of the body. And theologians and philosophers have lots of sophisticated arguments for those doctrines. At the same time, consider the ideas of Benedict Spinoza. (Spinoza was certainly the most sophisticated naturalism of Kant's time, and it has only slightly been improved upon since.) Spinoza reasons that God cannot be distinct from Nature, that everything we do must conform to the same laws of physics that govern everything else in the physical world, and that nothing that makes us unique from one another can survive the death of the body. (All this Spinoza logically deduces from the very concept of "substance" and what it must mean to say that God is absolutely, infinitely powerful.) So here we have two logically coherent, wholly a priori metaphysical systems, that make utterly opposed claims about what things in themselves are like. Since they are both logically coherent, reason cannot choose between them. Since they are a priori, experience cannot choose between them. What we should do, Kant thinks, is simply avoid making all claims about what things are like in themselves: we should say nothing about their properties, qualities, whether they are physical, mental, both, neither. (This does result in a very serious problem, though, since Kant also suggests that things in themselves are the causes of our sensations -- in which case the category of causation must apply to things in themselves. Many philosophers over the centuries have taken this as the thin end of the wedge that they use to destroy the entire Kantian system.) But, given Kant's official agnosticism about things in themselves, he couldn't say "yes, we can know for sure that appearances and things in themselves cannot be the same" (which is what you were asking, I think). The most he could say is, "it is possible that appearances and things in themselves coincide, but we can never know for sure that they do." In other words, Kant's official agnosticism about things in themselves means that he can't say that things in themselves lack spatial and temporal structures. But he doesn't need to go that far: all he needs to say is that since we cannot know that they do have spatial and temporal structure, we are rationally permitted to believe that they don't. And that's enough for Kant to then say that we are rationally permitted to believe that things in themselves are not causally determined. And it matters that things in themselves are not causally determined because we are also things in themselves. That is, there is a self as we appear to ourselves, or how we experience ourselves -- and that could be fully determined. But we are also permitted to think of ourselves as undetermined, or as having free will. In other words, we cannot know that we have free will, but we also cannot know that we don't have free will, so we are rationally permitted to believe that we do. (Elsewhere Kant argues that morality requires that are rationally obligated to believe that we have free will. It also requires that we believe in God and believe in personal immortality.) Does that address your concern?PyrrhoManiac1_{December 22, 2022
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PM1 @78 Before we proceed, I would like to have clarity about the following: To be clear, is it Kant’s position that we must be wrong about how things are in themselves? I am asking because that is how I understand him when he writes:
We have therefore wanted to say that all our intuition is nothing but the representation of appearance; that the things that we intuit are not in themselves what we intuit them to be, nor are their relations so constituted in themselves as they appear to us; …
Is Kant saying here that how things appear to be in themselves to us, cannot possibly coincide with how things are in themselves in reality? That there must necessarily be a difference between ‘how things appear to us’ and ‘how things really are’?Origenes_{December 21, 2022
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@73
How can he possibly know this for sure? In order to know this for sure, he must have some transcendent position from which he can clearly see ‘how things appear’ and ‘how things really are.’ However, according to his own theory, whatever he believes reality to be he must be mistaken about it.
This is a really good question, and one that's been much debated over the centuries. I know Kant fairly well, and I can say something about this. But I wouldn't say that I'm entirely convinced by the Kantian view, myself. You're right that Kant's distinction between "phenomena" and "noumena" (his terms for the world as we experience it and how it really is in itself) must rest on some privileged position from which that distinction can be conceptualized. So now we can ask: what is that position, and what justifies it? Kant insists that his method is transcendental philosophy. This consists of (1) taking the most high-altitude, most fully general description of the world as we experience it and (2) inquiring into what kinds of cognitive capacities and incapacities that the mind must have in order for us to experience the world and ourselves as we manifestly do. From this extremely high-altitude position, Kant observes two things: 1. Some concepts can be subsumed under more general concepts, the way that "spaniel" is subsumed under "dog," and "dog" under "mammal", etc. But some concepts aren't subsumed under any others. These concepts are categories and include concepts as such "substance", "cause", "necessity", "relation" etc. We cannot think without using at least one of the categories, and usually more than one. (There are twelve in all. More on this later!!) 2. Everything that we can perceive, remember, or imagine involves space (for physical things) and time (for physical and for mental things). We see something as having specific qualities and properties, but also as over there, seeing it now or as remembering it (now) as having been behind that other thing in the past. That is, we experience the world (and ourselves) in terms of spatial relations and temporal successions. Even the mind's own experience of itself is necessarily temporal, though non-spatial -- we experience a temporal order to our thoughts, memories, feelings, desires, and hopes. ("I was thinking of nice it would be to go for a walk, then realized how cold it would be.") So, here's the question: what justifies Kant's position that we cannot know whether noumena (things in themselves) are spatial and/or temporal? Now, I'm going to say something kind of wild and maybe bizarre, but I think it's the most sympathetic way of reading Kant's project: Kant introduces this claim as a hypothesis. He's not saying "here's how it is, folks". He's saying, "what if this were the case?" OK, fine (one might say): but what justifies that hypothesis? Here we need to take a step back and think about Kant's entire project. He wants (he tells us in the introduction to the second edition of the Critique of Pure Reason) to turn metaphysics into a science. This means (he thinks) making an experiment in metaphysics and seeing how well it works. His "metaphysical hypothesis" is: all that we know a priori of things is what we ourselves contribute to our experience of them. Now, how we are we to determine if this work? What are the success conditions? Again, he tells us: the hypothesis is a success if it ends the conflict of reason against itself. What is this conflict? It is the fact that we are confronted with many different metaphysical systems, all of which are a priori (and so we cannot appeal to experience in order to decide between them) and all of which are internally consistent (and so we cannot appeal to logic to decide between them) and yet they are incompatible -- they cannot all be true. Kant claims that if all we can a priori of objects is what we contribute to our experience of them, and therefore can know nothing a priori of things in themselves, then we can put an end to the conflict of reason against itself. And we can do that by showing that while mechanistic physics is exhaustively true of the world as we experience it, we are nevertheless permitted to believe that God exists, that the soul is immortal, and that the will is free. Hence we are permitted to deny atheism, determinism, and fatalism. This ends the conflict of reason against itself, because it concedes that naturalism (as we would call it today) is true, but only for the world as we experience it, while also establishing that we are rationally entitled to affirm the core beliefs of Christian doctrine. (Elsewhere Kant gives a different argument for why we are obligated to believe in God, personal immortality, and free will.)
Kant speaks with absolute certainty about all of us and I am wondering why it is that Kant thinks that he knows other people so well. Somehow he knows for certain that we all have the same way of perceiving. He knows for certain that the same limits ”pertain to every human being”, but do “not necessarily pertain to every being”.
This is a really good question! Kant certainly does not want to be doing anything like empirical psychology or anthropology, so it might seem that he's making claims about what is universally and necessarily true about all human minds based on his own case. But I don't think it's quite that bad: he is taking on board, and taking for granted, not just his own experiences but also what people generally tend to experience, as evident from everyday interactions with them but also (and especially) the sciences and mathematics.
How does Kant know all that for a fact? Why is Kant so certain that no one can possibly perceive how things are in themselves? Did he check? Is he a mind reader of some sort? And if someone would be able to see things how they are in themselves, would Kant be able to confirm such? Why is how the other is ‘in himself’ not just as unknowable to Kant as the way objects in themselves are?
I think that if someone were to claim that he knows what things in themselves are, he would say, "demonstrate this knowledge, and convince me." That's the attitude he took towards the mystic Swedenborg in Dreams of a Spirit-Seer.PyrrhoManiac1_{December 21, 2022
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Ba77, Two concepts are at work here. The suppression and distortion of the truth, and the promotion of evolution to manipulate the public mind. 1) There are things that are true and will always be true. This includes human behavior as it applies to individuals and societies. There are healthy behaviors and unhealthy behaviors. The healthy behaviors include human cooperation in small groups and the larger society. Certain groups I call Total Strangers want to distort the perception of how humans should behave in the present. And they want to suppress good and healthy examples of human behavior on TV, in movies and the internet. They also promote addiction. To drugs, to alcohol and other addictive behaviors. Of course, this is bad for individuals and society at large. We should resist addictive behaviors. 2) Evolution is not just pseudo-science, it is a force for promoting atheism. For promoting the idea that random events led to human beings. That is wrong and harmful to authentic human identity. To knowing who we really are. We were created by God. Our bodies were designed in all their complexity. We are far too complex to be explained by the discredited theory of evolution. The interactions within cells are far too complex, along with the instructions that regulate their function. We must realize this. You are not an accident. God who made all things, all life, made you.relatd_{December 20, 2022
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As to differentiating which beliefs we may have are true and which beliefs are false, it is interesting to note that Darwin's theory itself undercuts our ability to differentiate between true beliefs and false beliefs. In short, as Nancy Pearcey explains "Evolutionary epistemology commits suicide.," and "if Darwin’s theory is true, then it is not true."
Why Evolutionary Theory Cannot Survive Itself - Nancy Pearcey - March 8, 2015 Excerpt: A major way to test a philosophy or worldview is to ask: Is it logically consistent? Internal contradictions are fatal to any worldview because contradictory statements are necessarily false. “This circle is square” is contradictory, so it has to be false. An especially damaging form of contradiction is self-referential absurdity — which means a theory sets up a definition of truth that it itself fails to meet. Therefore it refutes itself…. An example of self-referential absurdity is a theory called evolutionary epistemology, a naturalistic approach that applies evolution to the process of knowing. The theory proposes that the human mind is a product of natural selection. The implication is that the ideas in our minds were selected for their survival value, not for their truth-value. But what if we apply that theory to itself? Then it, too, was selected for survival, not truth — which discredits its own claim to truth. Evolutionary epistemology commits suicide. Astonishingly, many prominent thinkers have embraced the theory without detecting the logical contradiction. Philosopher John Gray writes, “If Darwin’s theory of natural selection is true,… the human mind serves evolutionary success, not truth.” What is the contradiction in that statement? Gray has essentially said, if Darwin’s theory is true, then it “serves evolutionary success, not truth.” In other words, if Darwin’s theory is true, then it is not true.”,,, Of course, the sheer pressure to survive is likely to produce some correct ideas. A zebra that thinks lions are friendly will not live long. But false ideas may be useful for survival. Evolutionists admit as much: Eric Baum says, “Sometimes you are more likely to survive and propagate if you believe a falsehood than if you believe the truth.” Steven Pinker writes, “Our brains were shaped for fitness, not for truth. Sometimes the truth is adaptive, but sometimes it is not.” The upshot is that survival is no guarantee of truth. If survival is the only standard, we can never know which ideas are true and which are adaptive but false. To make the dilemma even more puzzling, evolutionists tell us that natural selection has produced all sorts of false concepts in the human mind. Many evolutionary materialists maintain that free will is an illusion, consciousness is an illusion, even our sense of self is an illusion — and that all these false ideas were selected for their survival value. So how can we know whether the theory of evolution itself is one of those false ideas? The theory undercuts itself.,,, Darwin’s Selective Skepticism People are sometimes under the impression that Darwin himself recognized the problem. They typically cite Darwin’s famous “horrid doubt” passage where he questions whether the human mind can be trustworthy if it is a product of evolution: “With me, the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man’s mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy.” But, of course, Darwin’s theory itself was a “conviction of man’s mind.” So why should it be “at all trustworthy”? Surprisingly, however, Darwin never confronted this internal contradiction in his theory. Why not? Because he expressed his “horrid doubt” selectively — only when considering the case for a Creator. From time to time, Darwin admitted that he still found the idea of God persuasive. He once confessed his “inward conviction … that the Universe is not the result of chance.” It was in the next sentence that he expressed his “horrid doubt.” So the “conviction” he mistrusted was his lingering conviction that the universe is not the result of chance. In another passage Darwin admitted, “I feel compelled to look to a First Cause having an intelligent mind in some degree analogous to that of man.” Again, however, he immediately veered off into skepticism: “But then arises the doubt — can the mind of man, which has, as I fully believe, been developed from a mind as low as that possessed by the lowest animal, be trusted when it draws such grand conclusions?” That is, can it be trusted when it draws “grand conclusions” about a First Cause? Perhaps the concept of God is merely an instinct programmed into us by natural selection, Darwin added, like a monkey’s “instinctive fear and hatred of a snake.” In short, it was on occasions when Darwin’s mind led him to a theistic conclusion that he dismissed the mind as untrustworthy. He failed to recognize that, to be logically consistent, he needed to apply the same skepticism to his own theory. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/03/why_evolutionar094171.html
Or more succinctly
!. Darwinian evolution selects beliefs for survival value, not truth value. 2. If beliefs are selected for survival value not truth value, we cannot know which beliefs that we have are true and which beliefs are false. 3. Darwinian evolution is a belief. 4. Thus, as a belief, we cannot know whether Darwinian evolution is true or false. 5. Yet, we know that, if Darwin's theory is true, we cannot differentiate between true beliefs and false beliefs. And we know that that is, none-the-less, a true belief for us to hold. 6. Therefore, Darwinian evolution is false. i.e. We can have beliefs that we can know to be true. Or Nancy Pearcey even more succinctly put it, "if Darwin’s theory is true, then it is not true.”
Of note: Postmodern philosophy, which is the bastard child of Darwin's theory, denies the existence of objective truth altogether.
“postmodernism is highly skeptical of explanations which claim to be valid for all groups, cultures, traditions, or races, and instead focuses on the relative truths of each person.” https://www.pbs.org/faithandreason/gengloss/postm-body.html
In the following article Nancy Pearcey explains the link between Darwinism and postmodern pragmatism
How Darwinism Dumbs Us Down – Nancy Pearcey Excerpt: To understand how Darwinism undercuts the very concept of rationality, we can think back to the late nineteenth century when the theory first arrived on American shores. Almost immediately, it was welcomed by a group of thinkers who began to work out its implications far beyond science. They realized that Darwinism implies a broader philosophy of naturalism (i.e., that nature is all that exists, and that natural causes are adequate to explain all phenomena). Thus they began applying a naturalistic worldview across the board—in philosophy, psychology, the law, education, and the arts. At the foundation of these efforts, however, was a naturalistic approach to knowledge itself (epistemology). The logic went like this: If humans are products of Darwinian natural selection, that obviously includes the human brain—which in turn means all our beliefs and values are products of evolutionary forces: Ideas arise in the human brain by chance, just like Darwin’s chance variations in nature; and the ones that stick around to become firm beliefs and convictions are those that give an advantage in the struggle for survival. This view of knowledge came to be called pragmatism (truth is what works) or instrumentalism (ideas are merely tools for survival). Darwinian Logic One of the leading pragmatists was John Dewey, who had a greater influence on educational theory in America than anyone else in the 20th century. Dewey rejected the idea that there is a transcendent element in human nature, typically defined in terms of mind or soul or spirit, capable of knowing a transcendent truth or moral order. Instead he treated humans as mere organisms adapting to challenges in the environment. In his educational theory, learning is just another form of adaptation—a kind of mental natural selection. Ideas evolve as tools for survival, no different from the evolution of the lion’s teeth or the eagle’s claws. In a famous essay called “The Influence of Darwin on Philosophy,” Dewey said Darwinism leads to a “new logic to apply to mind and morals and life.” In this new evolutionary logic, ideas are not judged by a transcendent standard of Truth, but by how they work in getting us what we want. Ideas do not “reflect reality” but only serve human interests. To emphasize how revolutionary this was, up until this time the dominant theory of knowledge or epistemology was based on the biblical doctrine of the image of God. Confidence in the reliability of human knowledge derived from the conviction that finite human reason reflects (to some degree at least) an infinite divine Reason. Since the same God who created the universe also created our minds, we can be confident that our mental capacities reflect the structure of the universe. In The Mind of God and the Works of Man, Edward Craig shows that even as Western thinkers began to move away from orthodox Christian theology, in their philosophy most of them still retained the conception that our minds reflect an Absolute Mind as the basis for trust in human cognition. The pragmatists were among the first, however, to face squarely the implications of naturalistic evolution. If evolutionary forces produced the mind, they said, then all are beliefs and convictions are nothing but mental survival strategies, to be judged in terms of their practical success in human conduct. William James liked to say that truth is the “cash value” of an idea: If it pays off, then we call it true. Pragmatism Today This Darwinian logic continues to shape American thought more than we might imagine.,, Postmodern Campuses These results of pragmatism are quite postmodern, so it comes as no surprise to learn that the prominent postmodernist Richard Rorty calls himself a neo-pragmatism. Rorty argues that postmodernism is simply the logical outcome of pragmatism, and explains why. According to the traditional, common-sense approach to knowledge, our ideas are true when the represent or correspond to reality. But according to Darwinian epistemology, ideas are nothing but tools that have evolved to help us control and manipulate the environment. As Rorty puts it, our theories “have no more of a representational relation to an intrinsic nature of things than does the anteater’s snout or the bowerbird’s skill at weaving” (Truth and Progress). Thus we evaluate an idea the same way that natural selection preserves the snout or the weaving instinct—not by asking how well it represents objective reality but only how well it works. I once presented this progression from Darwinism to postmodern pragmatism at a Christian college, when a man in the audience raised his hand: “I have only one question. These guys who think all our ideas and beliefs evolved . . . do they think their own ideas evolved?” The audience broke into delighted applause, because of course he had captured the key fallacy of the Darwinian approach to knowledge. If all ideas are products of evolution, and thus not really true but only useful for survival, then evolution itself is not true either–and why should the rest of us pay any attention to it? Indeed, the theory undercuts itself. For if evolution is true, then it is not true, but only useful. This kind of internal contradiction is fatal, for a theory that asserts something and denies it at the same time is simply nonsense. In short, naturalistic evolution is self-refuting. Clash of Worldviews The media paints the evolution controversy in terms of science versus religion. But it is much more accurate to say it is worldview versus worldview, philosophy versus philosophy. Making this point levels the playing field and opens the door to serious dialogue.,,, https://www.namb.net/apologetics/resource/how-darwinism-dumbs-us-down/
As Nancy Pearcey also touched upon, Darwin's theory denies "the idea that there is a transcendent element in human nature, typically defined in terms of mind or soul or spirit, capable of knowing a transcendent truth or moral order.",,, Thus to sum up thus far, Darwin’s theory denies that we can know objective truth, whilst Darwinism’s bastard philosophical child of postmodernism ends up denying the existence of objective truth altogether. And putting all that together, the primary reason why Darwinism, in the end, ends up denying the existence of objective truth altogether, and driving itself into catastrophic epistemological failure, is simply because objective truth is profoundly immaterial in its foundational essence. For instance, mathematics itself, such as 2+2=4, which is obviously objectively true for all people, and not just relatively true to only individual people, is profoundly immaterial in its foundational nature. How much does 2+2+4 weigh? How fast does 2+2=4 go? Is 2+2+4 closer to Miami or Seattle? etc.. Such questions are nonsense because, obviously, the objective truth of 2+2+4 is profoundly immaterial, and we grasp its truthfulness via our immaterial minds. It simply could not be otherwise. Alfred Wallace himself, co-discover of Natural Selection, considered our ability to do math to be proof, in and of itself, that we have souls.
"Nothing in evolution can account for the soul of man. The difference between man and the other animals is unbridgeable. Mathematics is alone sufficient to prove in man the possession of a faculty unexistent in other creatures. Then you have music and the artistic faculty. No, the soul was a separate creation." - Alfred Russel Wallace. - 1910 interview
Moreover, since our own immaterial minds came into being and are therefore contingent, and are not eternally existent, and yet we can discover eternal, and objective, mathematical truths with our immaterial minds, such as 2+2=4, then it necessarily follows that “there must exist an eternal mind in which these eternal (mathematical) truths reside.”
11. The Argument from Truth This argument is closely related to the argument from consciousness. It comes mainly from Augustine. 1. Our limited minds can discover eternal truths about being. 2. Truth properly resides in a mind. 3. But the human mind is not eternal. 4. Therefore there must exist an eternal mind in which these truths reside. https://www.peterkreeft.com/topics-more/20_arguments-gods-existence.htm#11
And please note that this argument for our immaterial minds, and for God, from the existence of mathematics is perfectly consistent with what we now know to be true about mathematics from Godel’s incompleteness theorem. Namely, that mathematics itself has a contingent existence and does not, in and of itself, have a necessary existence, i.e. "Math (can) not play the role of God as infinite and autonomous.”
Taking God Out of the Equation – Biblical Worldview – by Ron Tagliapietra – January 1, 2012 Excerpt: Kurt Gödel (1906–1978) proved that no logical systems (if they include the counting numbers) can have all three of the following properties. 1. Validity … all conclusions are reached by valid reasoning. 2. Consistency … no conclusions contradict any other conclusions. 3. Completeness … all statements made in the system are either true or false. The details filled a book, but the basic concept was simple and elegant. He (Godel) summed it up this way: “Anything you can draw a circle around cannot explain itself without referring to something outside the circle—something you have to assume but cannot prove.” For this reason, his proof is also called the Incompleteness Theorem. Kurt Gödel had dropped a bomb on the foundations of mathematics. Math could not play the role of God as infinite and autonomous. It was shocking, though, that logic could prove that mathematics could not be its own ultimate foundation. Christians should not have been surprised. The first two conditions are true about math: it is valid and consistent. But only God fulfills the third condition. Only He is complete and therefore self-dependent (autonomous). God alone is “all in all” (1 Corinthians 15:28), “the beginning and the end” (Revelation 22:13). God is the ultimate authority (Hebrews 6:13), and in Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (Colossians 2:3). http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v7/n1/equation
Verse and Quote
John 14:6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. “If you were to take Mohammed out of Islam, and Buddha out of Buddhism, and Confucius out of Confucianism you would still have a faith system that was relatively in tact. However, taking Christ out of Christianity sinks the whole faith completely. This is because Jesus centred the faith on himself. He said, “This is what it means to have eternal life: to know God the Father and Jesus Christ whom the Father sent” (John 17:3). “I am the light of the world” (John 8:12). Buddha, before dying, said in effect, “I am still seeking for the truth.” Mohammed said in effect, “I point you to the truth.” Jesus said, “I am the truth.” Jesus claimed to not only give the truth, but to be the very personal embodiment of it.” http://commonground.co.za/?resources=is-jesus-the-only-way-to-god
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