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My theoretical framework

I started this thread as an experiment. The wording was chosen on purpose.

Very bad form, BDZ!

Deliberately muddying the waters and attempting to fool others -- or make fools of them -- is not a contribution to the forum, in my arrogant opinion.
 
<snip>

I started this thread as an experiment. The wording was chosen on purpose. Ichneumonwasp warned me against this, but I wanted simply to see how far people in this forum is influenced by posts that are a direct assault to what most (skeptics) believe.

This has been difficult, as expected. It is not nice at all to come to a forum and being bombarded with angry words coming from people that seriously believe you are an idiot. But still, I have learned a lot on how to express some ideas, and about how deeply biased we all are.

<snip>

:D

Thanks for taking the heat Bodhi, in the course of this thread I have had to use some nearly atrophied brain-musculature...

See you around....
 
That's why I use "stuff", sure it doesn't sound as hifalutin as something like "noumena" but I think it helps you (who doesn't exist) keep your feet (nasty assumed dualistic language creeping in) on the ground (stuff).

That was freakin' brilliant. I love it. Are we allowed to nominate administrator's posts or is that unconscionable sucking up?
 
Very bad form, BDZ!

Deliberately muddying the waters and attempting to fool others -- or make fools of them -- is not a contribution to the forum, in my arrogant opinion.

Not so much as bad form in my opinion as not executed very well.

quixotecoyote's examples were, by far, more effective at illustrating the point.
 
Very bad form, BDZ!

Deliberately muddying the waters and attempting to fool others -- or make fools of them -- is not a contribution to the forum, in my arrogant opinion.

Just to echo Darat, and to be fair, he repeatedly stated that this is what he was doing. He gave fair warning to all, so I don't think it was necessarily all that bad form.

Now, how about those cervezas?
 
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I started this thread as an experiment. The wording was chosen on purpose. Ichneumonwasp warned me against this, but I wanted simply to see how far people in this forum is influenced by posts that are a direct assault to what most (skeptics) believe.

You came and made a sensible epistemological argument into an absurd ontological one and you're surprised that people disagreed?

If you were arguing things you did not believe to be true just to get a reaction, then you are a troll.

I agree that discussing things on the Internet is hardly the most productive of fora, but it becomes even less productive if you set out to make absurd and unsupportable statement. It seems that you're aggrieved that when you made woo-ish statement ("There are no objects"), people called you on it. Maybe you've learned your lesson?

You responded to my posts with smilies, with belittling remarks about crayons and with smug statements about my comprehension. I find it rather shocking that you were surprised this prompted a response in kind. If you troll, expect to be treated appropriately.

This has been difficult, as expected. It is not nice at all to come to a forum and being bombarded with angry words coming from people that seriously believe you are an idiot. But still, I have learned a lot on how to express some ideas, and about how deeply biased we all are.

Biased? You just said you deliberately set out to start a ruck. Why are you surprised that a ruck ensued? That has nothing to do with bias and everything to do with the arrogance of your entire position. It seems from this post that you deliberately set out to show how clever you are. Guess what? I'm not sure you succeeded.

I don't believe any of us are idiots, of course, we all share this love for knowledge and love to argue. But when language cant explain (specially accounting the forum limitations I just cited), there is a point in which no more arguing is required. People have made up their minds.

Not at all. Had you actually been able to explain how your "framework" accounted for intersubjectivity, I'd have been all ears. Had you been able to explain what gives rise to noumena, then I'd have been all ears. That I did not change my opinion of your silly ideas is not because of my dogmatism; rather, it was because your ideas were untenable.

I have never said most of the things some of you seriously believe I have said. What I did said is in the different contexts and it is obviously difficult to understand. If this is a problem of my inability to express myself, or a problem of some of you because of the problems I just cited, its irrelevant.

Yes, you did. And if you're casting aspersions on my "ability to understand" again, I'd caution you that perhaps the problem is closer to home.

My point is. I'm done. I just want something to be CLEAR I'm a realist in the sense that I believe that what is real is real without us.


What is reality made of, if not matter? This is the entire problem with the ontological argument you made in the OP, and you still have not answered it.


I believe that our phenomenal world (consciousness, subjectivity) is an illusion based on elements from reality (the noumena I have been talking about). I believe that it is irrelevant if we call that reality "material" or "noumenal".

Matter and noumena are not equivalent. Matter is prior to the noumenon. The noumenon is a mental construct; matter is prior to consciousness.

Such are my believes and if you don't share them its fine. Believe whatever you want and be happy.

What an arrogant way to end an arrogant thread. So you know better and we're all stupid to see it?

If you could actually address the gaping holes in your argument (intersubjectivity, the materiality of the brain itself and the underlying nature of the reality giving rise to the noumenal experience), then we'd give you an easier ride. That you have not addressed these holes is not our fault. It is not our fault that your case is unlear, your "framework" is incoherent and your beliefs unsteady.

You have summarily failed to make any kind of convincing case at all. That we remain unconvinced is not because we are dogmatic. It is because we are rational.


 
What is reality made of, if not matter?
Matter is prior to the noumenon...
The noumenon is a mental construct...

If that suits you. Its ok. But noumena is:
an object as it is in itself independent of the mind, as opposed to a phenomenon. Also called thing-in-itself.

Maybe this clear things up.. a bit at least.
 
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If that suits you. Its ok.


Do you have a response do these questions, or not? They're really important, and they undermine your argument. Your framework does not account for them.

Do you disagree that matter is prior to the noumenon? Wasp and Pheadrus seemed to want to give you the benefit of the doubt and say that you didn't. This is what we all mean when we said you weren't being clear.
 
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I think you posted it before I edited it. I believe our (main) disagreement is because your concept of "noumena" is different than mine (which is the traditional one BTW).
 
I think you posted it before I edited it. I believe our (main) disagreement is because your concept of "noumena" is different than mine (which is the traditional one BTW).

I think you've misunderstood. The noumena is the object of cognition. From the same Wikipedia article you quoted, "The etymology of the word derives from the Greek nooúmenon (thought-of) and ultimately reflects nous (mind)."

Noumena is an object of mind, not the other way around. Maybe this is where our disagreement arises?

Also: "Kant's writings show points of difference between noumena and things-themselves. For instance, he regards things-in-themselves as existing:
"...though we cannot know these objects as things in themselves, we must yet be in a position at least to think them as things in themselves; otherwise we should be landed in the absurd conclusion that there can be appearance without anything that appears." [12]
..but is much more doubtful about noumena:
"But in that case a noumenon is not for our understanding a special [kind of] object, namely, an intelligible object; the [sort of] understanding to which it might belong is itself a problem. For we cannot in the least represent to ourselves the possibility of an understanding which should know its object, not discursively through categories, but intuitively in a non-sensible intuition". [13]"

As I read Kant, the noumenon is the object in the world in the mind; the material object is prior to this noumeal construction. To repeat - "otherwise we should be landed in the absurd conclusion that there can be appearance without anything that appears."
 
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The Stephen Plamquist article linked from Wikipedia makes a similar case (and far better than I can) - http://www.hkbu.edu.hk/~ppp/ksp1/KSP6A.html

" Let us now look more closely at some of these positions, beginning with Allison's. His assertion that the noumenon 'has a basis in transcendental reflection' [A10:55], though in a sense true, is misleading. Of course, all the basic elements in each of Kant's systems are transcen*den*tal in the broad sense that the entire Critical philosophy adopts the Transcendental Perspective [see II.4 and III.4]. In the narrower sense, Kant's discussion of the transcendental set of object-terms does form the basis for his discussion of the noumenon [cf. 56-8]; neverthe*less, 'noumenon' itself is an empirical object-term, so its function is more closely related to empirical reflection. Kant himself explicitly denies that we possess 'a transcendental perspective' from which we can view 'the noumenon as an object' [Kt1:313].

"That Allison himself does not fully appreciate the empirical status of the noumenon is evident at several points in his discussion. For instance, in a rather obscure passage [A10:58] he quotes from Kt1:A253 as evidence of Kant's intent to distinguish between the noumenon and the transcendental object; yet he then plays down the importance of this distinction. After hinting at Kant's recognition, even in the first edition, of the correspondence between the transcendental object and the negative noumenon, he passes this off as insignificant, claiming that 'the noumenon in the negative sense is not really a noumenon' [A10:59-60]. His failure to grasp the perspectival character of this distinction leads him to regard the first edition version of the chapter on Phenomena and Noumena as more adequate than the second. By contrast, I have argued in note VI.23 that the second edition is indeed an improvement for just the reason Allison overlooks: the positive-negative noumenon distinction allows for a clearer explanation of the difference between the object as viewed from the transcendental and empirical perspectives. Even the passage Allison quotes [Kt1:A253] emphasizes that 'the transcendental object ... cannot be entitled the noumenon', because the former is related to 'appearance in general' (via the transcendental perspective), so 'I know nothing of what it is in itself', whereas the latter would require such knowledge (via the empirical perspective)."

The object in the world is not the same thing as the noumena. That's why Kant creates the separate term in the first place. An if you look at the etymology (from nous, meaning 'mind'), it seems even clearer that the noumena is an object of cognition and not a "real" object.

In any case, for your framework to account for inter-subjectivity, you need to account for the objects in the world. Materialism does this, because it posits that objects are material. How does your philosophy?
 
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I don't think Kant used the word neumenon to refer to an 'object in the mind' -- after all that is what a phenomenon is. But I'm no expert on stuff like this.

The neumenon is the transcendental stuff underlying what we perceive as objects in the world. At least that has always been my understanding of how he used the word. He was an idealist as I recall. To suggest that matter precedes the neumenon is to cast him as a pure materialist. I'm not so sure that he would accept that characterization if we were to dig him up and reanimate him.

But really, getting down to brass tacks and dealing with the real issues and forgetting the semantics, just jettison that word. The underlying point is that whatever is really out there we cannot know with absolute certainty. What we experience as matter is to some degree a construction in our minds, though I think it undeniable that there is something out there. Whatever we want to call it.
 
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The old cliché about the ‘map not being the territory’ seems so much clearer in a purely notional framework. However, the distinction seems so much more blurred in reality; the map seems to be intermingled with the territory, mostly separated in a notional way. …or in the way I like to put it: ‘the menu is not the meal’, unless you eat the menu.

Bodhi, I also think you’re arguing from an odd position. You claim there’s a separation between the phenomenal and the outside, without knowing what’s actually outside or inside, people have asked you to clarify why you think there’s a separation, and in what way; no convincing answer has been provided. How do you know there’s a separation?

BDZ seems to be arguing that the territory is not the territory.
 
BDZ, I think your "problem with forum discussions" post is very pertinent to the responses you got to the OP.
Your clarification later was a lot better received, as the oppurtunity for misinterpretation was reduced. (But, still there as always)

I know you realize what i am about to say; When people disagree it does not necessarily involve any emotion, or lack of respect. I hope you see this is the case with my discussions with you. I am more interesting in trying to understand where you are coming from, so that i can contrast this position with my own, once it is fully understood. (same goes for any discussion i have)
 
Hi BDZ,

Might I ask you....do you find that discussing these things so vigorously lessens the identification with the ideas and concepts you express? I'm interested.

Nick
 
Just to echo Darat, and to be fair, he repeatedly stated that this is what he was doing. He gave fair warning to all, so I don't think it was necessarily all that bad form.

Now, how about those cervezas?

My fault, then. I admit, I glossed over a lot of the discussion that appeared tangential to the points I was interested in or appeared to be sniping and reaction to sniping -- at least, sniping that wasn't mine -- so my apologies.

As for those cervezas, if you can make it out here to my neck of the woods I'll take you over to La Hacienda for some authentic Mexican food and beer colder than your ex-wife's heart.
 

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