Ender

I called it a diversion befitting the circumstances - i was outlining an essay for my philosophical studies at the time, so wasting time playing at advocating Kant was most definitely a diversion!

The whole point was to stop you from attempting to illegitimately distill the concept of "temporality" from causality and remain coherent.

with that empiricial formula of knowledge you restrict yourself to skepticism on issues of the self, external world, and God. Once you echo the Lockean slogan that the mind is tabula rasa, numerous philosophical incongruities arise.

Then you are claiming that there are no synthetic a priori, that time and space are either a priori or empirical concepts derivable from experience. Could you elaborate on your allusions of "reflextes or instincts?"

Er... emaciated strawman. Kant would agree with you that for knowledge to be viable, both the sensibility and the understanding must function. By the way, Kant proposed a model of human understanding, but let's play with your cat example. The cat maintains a certain form of intuition, that it already presupposes spatial and temporality before accessing its other sources of information- hearing, tasting, smelling, feeling. Time and space remain consistently a presupposition for the kitten's sensibility. That analogy fails as well. Furthermore, nowhere does kant endorse an innate capacity for rationalism, precisely because he formulated a means how the transcendental ego ascertains knowledge through synthetic a priori forms of intuition/understanding. You are making the fundamental assertion that experience conditions the mind, whereas Kant would disagree and point out that the self supplys the form, not the source of sense data, which is "given" to the self.

This only argues against rationalism - that experience is the source of knowledge, not reason- not Kantian transcendental idealism. Kant struck a balance between rationalism and empiricism by curbing the pretentions of reason as well as maintaining rationalistic answers to the problem of empiricism. Kantian scholars do detect a very subtle loyalty to empiricism running throughout his first Critique.

Then why continue and presume that vision is primary, that it is basic and ignore possible presuppositions i.e. forms of intuition. In order to have a sensible experience the mind must impose certain forms of intuition upon reality in order to render it intelligible.

~Theothanatologist~

(((edited for Humean slips)))

[ December 26, 2001: Message edited by: Ender the Theothanatologist ]</p>

Albert Cipriani

Datheron:


People act as if they think. Ergo, I believe that people (with the exception of Datheron) think. But since all of us "fail to explain why this is so or how this is so" we must agree with Datheron that human thinking is "an unfounded assertion."

Just when I thought it was unsafe to think that we think, Datheron saves the day with his explanation of exactly why and how it is that we think:


Your ignoratio elenchi explains everything... er almost everything. For doesn't it beg the question of WHAT causes the neurons to fire?

Oh, electric-chemical energy I hear you say. But HOW does the brain obtain this energy? Oh, from the food you eat you say. And what might that be just recently. A cucumber?

So, to sum up thinking is neurons firing which is chemical energy which most recently in your case was a cucumber. Ergo, your definition of thought is a cucumber.

Now you're making sense! Even tho I don't believe in relativism, I'll make an exception in your case: your thoughts are cucumbers. Thank you for sharing that. – Insincerely, Albert the Traditional Catholic

[ December 27, 2001: Message edited by: Albert Cipriani ]</p>

MalignantPrion

About non-existence, does "There is nothing" equate to "There isn't anything"? The first proposition seems to claim that something exists, namely nothing; the second is the negation of anything that exists.

Curious and curiouser.

Albert Cipriani

Dear Ender,
You assert:


A belief in God (as the Catholic Church teaches) along with an understanding of self and the external world can all be arrived at rationally. It is within the powers of our mind to infer these things without what you or Kant calls "synthetic a priori knowledge or intuition."

To illustrate. If you’ve ever worked with a large format camera, you would know that all lenses produce an upside-down reversed image. Our eyes are no different. An infant's brain requires about six months to reverse and right-side-up the images it sees. This process is reversible. I infer from this that our brain is smart enough to learn up from down and right from left despite nothing but contradictory sensory input.

By reflex or instinct I simply mean that we, of all animals, are born with the least number of pre-programmed response mechanisms. Hunger evokes the sucking mechanism, loud noises evoke fear mechanism, hand contact evokes the gripping mechanism, faces evoke smiles, pain evokes crying. That's about it. Everything else must be learned, including how to tell time!

You say:


No. Experiments have shown that it is no assertion of mine to state as a bald-faced fact that experience conditions the mind.

Ask yourself why when those kids are rescued from closets, they never learn how to talk tho they have no auditory or speech impairments. It is because the brain's susceptibility for language is age dependent. The ages of 1 to 3 are critical. If you spend those formative years in a closet, your brain will never develop the pathways it needs to understand language.

You ask,


I do not presume vision is primary. I presume nothing. Rather, I assert as fact that sensory inputs wire our brains. No sensory inputs = no brain.

To presuppose intuition as I understand you and Kant to mean it violates Occam's Razor, is un-elegant, and explains nothing. It's axiomatic thinking which, even if it were true, is boring. That’s reason enough to reject it. For the Creator's creation, reflecting as it must Himself, is infinitely more complex, nuanced, and poetic than that. – Cheers, Albert the Traditional Catholic

[ December 27, 2001: Message edited by: Albert Cipriani ]

[ December 27, 2001: Message edited by: Albert Cipriani ]</p>

Datheron

Albert,

Instead of quoting two sentences from my full response, why don't you try to answer it in full? Especially on the part where I point out the fallacy in the analogy:

But what you're mainly objecting to is the fact that one cannot justify an axiomic principle. Now, you could try to justify your God as axiomic as well - except that by your rationalization (where you give no reason that your worldview is superior to other worldviews, but only as an alternative) - you cannot have your concept to be axiomic as well and have any argument that is convincing.

As for your response, once again you are equivocating our two situations at hand. We are both seeking explanations as to why certain things are; however, while we are seeking such an explanation for the brain's functions, our search for the property-less of God entails an additional criteria of proving God's existence. In other words, you're relying on this to prove God's existence, whereas I do not need to rely on discovering the origins of my thoughts to prove that I indeed think (empirically, of course). I can easily claim that "I do not know" how neurons are fired, and we would still have the capacity to think - for you to do that to God, however, renders your proof useless.

So, keep working with 'em cucumbers.

Ender

Albert, when will you ever do me the honor of addressing my entire answers, instead of extracting tiny sentences in order to quibble away with frivolous strawmen? The pattern is as follows: You make a ludicrous claim (causality is possible w/o temporality) and i asked whether you were serious, then you drop this and continue to make even more absurd claims about empiricism, and i respond with a "chronologically correct" philosophical answer, and you further mischaracterized the position of transcendental idealism with non sequitors and red herrings. When will you break this repetitive pattern and actually defend your initial assertions? Onto the latest nonsequiturs, strawmen and red herrings courtesy of one Albert!

Here you're quickly dropping your empiricism loyalties for a comfortable fideistic one that posits faith before reasoning, if i read you right. In order to validate an empirical outlook that mantains a belief in god, you ought be able to show me the simple impression, sensory data, or empirical proof that is God. You'll very quickly realize that "God" in any form or shape is actually a complex idea, an amalgam of various simple ideas that correspond to simple impressions.

Feel free to define "powers of the mind" that do not include conditions that presuppose time and space. Methinks you are biting off far more than you can chew with this all too gratuitious assertion!

Assuming the brain is "smart enough" to learn directions is an endorsement of kantian "forms of intuition."


Telling time has very little in common with the presupposition of Time itself as an intuition, a certain formula of human sensibility that arranges empirical data accordingly to spatio-temporality in order to make it intelligible. If you disagree, then an experience without space and time is intelligible, and you have not proven Kant incorrect so far.

Then you will need to study science a bit more and distill yourself of that admittedly naive endorsement of gutter empiricism because our senses do limit how the world is ascertained by the mind. FYI, Kant's influence is not limited to philosophy; actually his Critique has sent shockwaves throughout the scientific community because he made the distinction between nature in a formal sense (as the first internal principle of the possibility for any thing) and nature in a material sense (as the notion of any thing as the object of man's senses) have had their unmistakable influence upon 19th and 20th century European science. Kant's Critique had effectively demolished the naive world of science and limited it to a world of mere surface and appearance. Once science attempted to satiate the urge of reason, it could only issue fraudulent "antinomies!" On the other hand, Kant's greatest contribution to modern man’s tremendous confidence in his own scientific powers is the declaration that scientific and mathematical laws are not distillations of  consistencies seen in an “external” reality, but merely products of the mind’s own ordering of our sense experience.

I am not arguing that the sensory world does not affect the mind, but that the mind already has certain forms of sensibility that arranges the stream of impressions into intelligibility. Not that the mind dictates everything, since that's gross idealism, but that there is a pre-existing framework that delineates the miasma of constant impressions of information. In order for any human being to manipulate the stream of sensory data into an orderly fashion, his mind ought to be capable of conditioning and streamline these individual impressions into a possible experience.

Albert, i'm sorry but that's so blatantly incorrect since you are confusing the brain with the mind- an all too common mistake. The last sentence is also false, since the brain does not completely depend upon sensory input in order to exist.

How?

Non-sequitur.

Oh it's a nifty patch that Kant annoited as a solution to Hume's empiricism that bottomed out in skepticism. While i disagree with his synthetic a priori, taken in context of empiricism, it's a legitimate advance in philosophy.

Kant's a lousy writer, granted.

A better reason to reject it is to refute Kant's fundamental philosophy that rests upon the synthetic a priori.

Of course, a flesh-n-blood thinker can never compare to a figment of the imagination, a reflection of one's highest ideals distorted by one's psychological desires.
~Salud, Ender the theothanatologist

Albert Cipriani

Datheron,

Wrong. I've repeatedly stated in this forum that God cannot be proved. Rather, His existence can be rationally inferred. The difference between a proof and an inference is the difference between the fact of Homo Sapiens and my waning belief that you are capable of demonstrating membership in that august community.

That God must not have properties is a rational necessity of there being a God, not, as you say,
an additional criteria of proving God's existence.

You restate your misstatement:

Let's see if I've got this straight.
1) Thinking is a property of Datheron.
2) But Datheron doesn't need to describe how or why (let alone "if"!) Datheron thinks in order to persist in his belief that Datheron thinks.
3) Yet Dahteron won't extend this same presumptive courtesy to me. For in your last post you told me that I couldn't believe in a property of God (that He has no properties) because I "fail to explain why this is so or how this is so."

Such a double standard. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. I certainly am. Angry and Angrier, Albert the Traditional Catholic

Datheron

Albert,

So - what exactly are you saying? You are, in fact, beginning to strengthen my belief that you have nothing underneath that obscure poetry and those petty insults...as such, a vague reference to the difference between inference and proof coupled with a questioning query on my intelligence and ability to formulate a coherent argument isn't exactly the epitome of logic nor reasoning. Furthermore, even if the wording was not precise or perhaps misleading, one can easily infer the intended meaning and argue from that; using that misguided term (in your opinion - and let me say that your vocabulary, from experience, has hardly been the norm) as the focus of your post is hardly commending, insightful, nor particular intelligent. So, please do yourself and your reputation a favor and clean up the mess that I have quoted above, as to foster a true environment for discussion and debate.

Apparently, you still do not understand what I'm saying. Fine...allow me to simplify it more as to remove the so-called "double standard":


1) Thinking is a human property
2) I cannot explain where this property comes from


Contrasted with


1) Having no properties is a "property" of God
2) You cannot explain how this is so


If you had read my previous section and post like I asked, perhaps you would have fathomed the message that I tried to bring across: with such a parallel analogy, what you have at stake is much higher than what I have by explaining the phonomenon. The existence of thought can be proven (or perhaps inferred, hm?) by empirical evidence alone - "I think therefore I am". The inference of the existence of God hinges upon the fact that you explain how God is propertyless, and using this as an a priori assumption to further derive God's plausibility is in itself circular reasoning.

Albert Cipriani

Dear Ender,
On a personal note, you are one of my favorites here. Tho we are on opposite sides, I see you more as a resource than an opponent. So I am motivated not to piss you off and apologize now in advance if I inadvertently do so.

My background is journalism. So it's second nature for me excise the heart of a story. That's what I've done when quoting you, which you object to as "extracting tiny sentences." If brevity is the soul of wit, I've done you no harm. What's personally important for me, tho, is that you perceive no malevolent intent by (to borrow from Hamlet again) the method of my madness.

For the record, I do not posit "faith before reasoning." That’s the cart before the horse.

You argue:


See how much more of you Im quoting?! My answer is much much shorter. One word, in fact: BEING.

We can only talk non-sensibly about what Being means (And I am fully willing to do this.) but ultimately it cannot mean… no more than, for example, color can taste. Being can only be experienced. Being is "the simple impression, sensory data, or empirical proof that is God" you asked for. It is the one utterly simple thing, so simple that science must pass over it in silence.

You said:


OK. If by this you mean to quibble about our gray matter existing physically as opposed to functionally I will agree with you. By not having a brain, I meant probably what you mean by mind, i.e., a functioning brain.

A thought experiment is in order for clarification. Imagine someone in a perfectly efficient sensory depravation chamber, one that could mask even the physiological processes of eating and breathing. Imagine that this person's memory was completely erased. Question,: would that person exist?

My answer is, physically yes, functionally no. That person would be likened to another person's corpse: it exists physically, just not functionally.

If you disagree, please explain the basis whereby such a sensory-deprived person could conceive of a thought. I can't imagine what that basis of thought could be. Because I cannot, I contradict your statement: the mind COMPLETELY DEPENDS upon sensory in order to exist.

I'm still mulling Kant. Cheers, Albert the Traditional Catholic

Ender

I didn?t know I had competition for "Albert's favorite infidel" title. Who are those impostors, pretenders to the throne? There's no apology needed but a common courtesy - one that demands both parties to exhaust all possible avenues in the conversation.

That?s not a problem- that you "excise" the heart of a story, since that's pretty much similar to what students of philosophy do as well. but I'm complaining that you do not address my answers to your assertions and move on as if the matter is closed and is consequently left hanging in the air. That is what I found distasteful as opposed to the whittling of the fat from my comments.

I don't know how you arrived at your faith, but putting the cart before the horse is most definitely at the crux of all religious beliefs, as well as any other beliefs that are essentially a projection of one's own psychological outlook. Most believers gained their beliefs during early childhood, and by the process of socialization, they continue to hold them. The common reason why people hold religious beliefs stem from a fear of death coupled with the desire for immortality. Ergo, the roots of religious beliefs are founded upon human sentiments and all "theological" inferences, rationalizations, and such are mere psychological expressions of the believer/subject.

I take it you are attempting at negative theology, which is as old as the hills and was Heraclitus' thing back in the 500 BC?s. I think this is a wonderful tool to explain the inexplicable, but if you are trying to tell me that the empirical proof of God is ineffability, then you're just contradicting yourself. While the doctrine of ineffability transcends and trumps gutter empiricism in attempting to satiate the demands of reason, it also severs any possible, empirical proof. If you are a honest empiricist, then you'll stick to the empirical test of ideas- if there is no impression in experience, then the idea is worthless. If you cannot provide a single sensory impression of a supernatural being, then the idea of God cannot pass the empirical test. You could argue that god has certain attributes by falling back on the ontological proof, but you cannot demonstrate how you know that this entity/being/deity possesses these attributes because there are no such individual sense impressions of each attributes. In empiricism, man?s knowledge does not extend beyond his experience. Since there are no such empirical proofs of divine attributes, the logical conclusion becomes apparent.

The person would exist, most definitely, because he is not dependent upon others to conceive of his existence. however, I presume that this was not the thrust behind your question, that you meant whether the person could continue living w/o sensory impressions- I can resort to poor examples like people in a comatose state- that the involuntary part of the brain continues to function w/o all and any sensory input from the "external world," that the body will most certainly keep on churning enzymes and protein without a working consciousness.

And here lies your definition of a "person" - whether his functionality is consistent with that of a society of persons at large. Unfortunately, this is a misdirection and does not support your objection to the Kantian forms of intuition- because each and every sensation presupposes spatial and temporality, which formulates a possible experience.

when I think of a person with a disability, i.e. blind and deaf- their options of thinking are limited to heightened sense of touch, which establishes a certain equilibrium with their environment. But your example of a completely disabled person would not be able to formulate a possible language, which by extension alludes to thinking. And your final sentence doesn?t contradict my earlier one. A contradiction of my statement would be simply this: "the brain completely depends upon sensory input in order to exist."

all this only goes to show that Kant's philosophy isn't as easily digestible as empiricism for the modern scholar conditioned by prevalent materialism. Happy New Year!

~Speaker 4 the Death of God~

((edited to quell UBB gremlins))

[ January 02, 2002: Message edited by: Ender the Theothanatologist ]</p>