What's stopping us from seeing the truth?

[SpheresOfBalance]

All discourse is, is simply communication. This is what I mean to say when I site those that try and use vocabulary to impress. I care more about getting an idea across. I could care less as to impressing people with my knowledge of vocabulary, this is not an English language vocabulary forum, so I don’t try and improve it. It doesn’t matter; it’s just so much superfluous crap. For me, here, easy to understand pointed commentary is all any serious philosopher should impart.

Discourse [n. dis-kawrs, -kohrs, dis-kawrs, -kohrs; v. dis-kawrs, -kohrs] noun, verb, -coursed, -cours•ing.
noun
1. communication of thought by words; talk; conversation: earnest and intelligent discourse.
2. a formal discussion of a subject in speech or writing, as a dissertation, treatise, sermon, etc.
3. Linguistics . any unit of connected speech or writing longer than a sentence.

verb (used without object)
4. to communicate thoughts orally; talk; converse.
5. to treat of a subject formally in speech or writing.

verb (used with object)
6. to utter or give forth (musical sounds).

Synonyms
1. discussion, colloquy, dialogue, chat, parley.

Kant’s ‘a priori,’ as far as I’m concerned, is not saying anything of importance, because all knowledge originated from experience (a posteriori). It is then passed on to each of us via teaching (a posteriori), which is assumed to be based upon experience, and as such requires our ‘belief.’ In a court of law, in the US at least, it would be considered hearsay, which is inadmissible (not to be considered as viable). But we believe our teachers anyway.

Once I had a high school Science teacher, quite seriously, say that if one spun clockwise and got dizzy that they could spin counterclockwise and get un-dizzy. So I put it to the test, ensuring that I spun at a relative consistent rate and duration in both directions and of course they did not cancel each other. The cochlea does not work that way!

Kant’s a priori and a posteriori:

a priori proposition: a proposition whose justification does not rely upon experience (observation).

a posteriori proposition: a proposition whose justification does rely upon experience (observation).


So as far as I’m concerned:

A posteriori (experience) -> published (book) -> learned (memorized {even if associated with prior learning}) ≠ a priori (That, that does not rely upon experience). Thus a priori is a falsehood; is absurd! It says absolutely nothing of the one that memorizes the originally a posteriori data except that at the moment of being told they have faith in the teacher and that after the fact they are a recording device of varying accuracy.

Very Important: DO NOT SCROLL DOWN the large WHITESPACE has a PURPOSE!

Consider the following then close your eyes while continuing to consider what it means. Ensure that you have your hand on your mouse so you can scroll down while your eyes are closed while still considering its meaning. After you think you know what it means, with your eyes still closed scroll down and then open them to reveal the answer.
Here is what you must consider:

YETAPONTER ZU HOUN DERTURPENYASSER












































YETAPONTER ZU HOUN DERTURPENYASSER = knowledge is always observed experience.

You have just observed (experienced) the answer of it’s meaning, which could not have been known otherwise. From day one we are taught everything that we know (a posteriori) and our minds are capable of extrapolating solution from the plethora of stored data which gives the illusion of a priori. Now if I correlated each group of letters on the left of the equation with those groups on the right, you would be able to use that a posteriori data to aid in the translation of future ideas written in this language, and if you buy into Kant, you would believe it to be a priori, when in fact it’s not. You can call it that, but it's meaning is insignificant, otherwise explain the significance.

I submit that observation/experience is the totality of input from all your sensors.

P.S. If you basically knew what it meant prior to opening your eyes, it's only due to the context that lead up to the experiment, which is also the extrapolation of previous a posteriori data.

[lancek4]

Yes. I think you just reiterated much of what I said - in everyday language. Yes.

The point, then, is exemplified in you (opposite to me - as you requested). Your explanations prove the end run of my point.

Becuase discourse contradicts itself , which does come to the 'actual common sense' as absurd (actually nonsensical) , the only thing left to do is what Satre is typically understood as meaning: revolt against it.

And the only way to do this is to once again assert the absolute possibilty oif the Object. Which is a reactuon based in fear of the Truth - denial, which is what happens when the absurd is come upon (modern phychology).

[Bill Wiltrack]

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Good post.


Great example of using the medium.


Well done.




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[charon]

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Actually nothing, is there? The truth, what's actually there, is in front of us. There's nothing to stop us seeing it if we want to.

[lancek4]

I might add SOb, that to say there is no a priori knoweldge as you defend a few posts ago is based upon knowledge that you learned as to your 'tabla rasa'. And so it is a priori.

But you have not sificiently eliminated how the 'actuality' (our def) of geometry cannot be a priori. By our definition of actual, you/we are positing an a priori situation of the object. If you say that all of our knowledge is a posteriori then you have confirmed the contradiction I assert, by your varying approaches in argument depending on the proposition you rebut

If you do not follow my reasoning here: if our knowledge has a potential for distortion, and we cannot know if what we presently assert is Ab truth is correspondant with the actual AT, then to assert an actual AbT is dependant upon your postulated a posterior knowledge that all humanity has. How is this possible? If all knowledge is a posteriori then how can we know of a priori ? How can there be a knowable a priori through a posteriori knowledge ?

It would seem that this would amount to the 'otological argument' for the existance of God. (If I have the term correct) which is: because we can have a concept of something that is greatest, and because this concept must be not the greatest by virtue of our imperfect human conception, then there must be a greater power by which we posit our greatest concept. (Or something along those lines): because we have a concept there must be something which informs us what that concept is.

Is this your proposition?

[charon]

What's stopping us from seeing the truth?

Nothing. The truth is what's actually happening, what we actually do, say, think, and so on. Can't we see that?

[Barbara Brooks]

Lance4,

"In other words: time and space are the only 'things' which exist a priori analytically, that have no object with which knowledge must reconcile; they exist 'prior' to any necessary correspondant object or knowledge, but are complicit with knowledge's existing."


I don't believe you.

BB

[lancek4]

Lance4,

"In other words: time and space are the only 'things' which exist a priori analytically, that have no object with which knowledge must reconcile; they exist 'prior' to any necessary correspondant object or knowledge, but are complicit with knowledge's existing."


I don't believe you.

BB

I was paraphrasing Kant

[Godfree]

Who's truth ,??
who chooses the group that chooses what is true ,,??
and who gave them the right to choose ,??
are you saying there is ONE truth ,???
that there is the real world , just one world ,
but many interpretations of what that is ,??
I'm an Atheist , my truth is certainly different to a christians ,
What is stopping us from seeing the truth ,
thousands of years of being tortured and killed , if we didn't see their truth ,
the failure of the world to agree on what that truth is .
the continual ignorance being taught by religion .

The truth is not religion ,!!!
get rid of religion and we will be a lot closer to the truth .

[Barbara Brooks]

Lance4,

I think you need to explain who really said it, you or Kant? Then if Kant said it where did he say and what reference did he say this to say time is not relavative?

BB

[lancek4]

Lance4,

I think you need to explain who really said it, you or Kant? Then if Kant said it where did he say and what reference did he say this to say time is not relavative?

BB

"Critique of Pure Reason".
I don't think he said anything about relativity. He said that knowledge of the object is of the subject. Perhaps go over the last few posts here cuz I already explained some things there.

Kant is attempting to find relieve metaphysics from its arbitrarity.

[SpheresOfBalance]

I think most people muddle things together as one thing, They loose track of distinctions.

To me 'ALL' Truth is the only thing that is a priori (valid independent of observation), as it's absolute (exists without our knowledge).

Knowledge is only the, truth that's known, as such it is always a posteriori because it is dependent upon ones awareness.

If there is an inbound asteroid that shall collide with planet earth thus killing everything, it is an a priori truth which is absolute. Once man "A" see's it through a telescope it is now 'knowledge,' for the first time and only unto him, which is a posteriori (validity dependent on observation). Man "B" and all the rest of our 7 Billion have no knowledge, so for them it is still an a priori truth, which is absolute. Until it is broadcast on the radios and televisions at which time to those that believe they are not listening to H. G. Wells, it has become belief and nothing more, that is based upon Man "A's" a posteriori 'knowledge' of the a priori absolute truth, for them the fact of the asteroid careening towards earth is not truly 'knowledge;' they only 'know' that they've been told via the radio and television, as the skeptics believe that they've been listening to H. G. Wells, and in denial they unknowingly scoff at the a priori truth as they do not truly know of the asteroid, only the broadcast. As it impacts and destroys, all the a priori absolute truth comes to fruition, but at that point there is no a posteriori knowledge as there is no one left to know.

[lancek4]

Yes, sob, the frame which you delineate above would be 'synthetical'. It is, what I call, an 'arena' of knowledge which allows for Truth-value (ethics). This arena can be called 'mythological', and qualified by what I call 'faith'. Faith makes true. Faith is the complicity of the individual in its mythology.

I feel I should remind that I do not see phiosphy as a way to discern a method for how to deal with life. It is simply an endeavor for truth.
And this is so much to point to the times in our discussions when I say I understand you or agree with you, because I Do live a life. But while I do have analytical-practical intellectual ability and I use such problem solving skills in my life and that this 'method' of mine could be called philosophy,, 'philosophy', as an endeavor for truth, 'doubts' my experience as if it were a 'contolled' (lol) experiment. But this does not mean I am neurotic (lol)

[Barbara Brooks]

Kant gives two expositions of space and time: metaphysical and transcendental. The metaphysical expositions of space and time are concerned with clarifying how those intuitions are known independently of experience I

Kant's thesis concerning the transcendental ideality of space and time limits appearances to the forms of sensibility—indeed, they form the limits within which these appearances can count as sensible; and it necessarily implies that the thing-in-itself is neither limited by them nor can it take the form of an appearance within us apart from the bounds of sensibility (A48-49/B66). Yet the thing-in-itself is held by Kant to be the cause of that which appears, and this is where the paradox of Kantian critique resides: while we are prohibited from absolute knowledge of the thing-in-itself, we can impute to it a cause beyond ourselves as a source of representations within us.

Kant's view of space and time reject both the space and time of Aristotelian physics and the space and time of Newtonian physics. In the twentieth century, about a century after the publication of the Critique of Pure Reason, Albert Einstein would introduce a new concept of space and time with the Theory of Relativity. Space and time are no longer space and time but space-time. According to Bertrand Russell, "... That is, from a philosophical and imaginative point of view, perhaps the most important of all the novelties that Einstein introduced." On the other hand, some people would readily assume that Einstein's findings in Physics support the Kantian view of space and time. However, Russell is clear that it is misleading to believe that Einstein's space-time in any way resembles

KANT REGARDED SPACE AND TIME AS A SENSUOUS INTUITION

[SpheresOfBalance]

Yes, sob, the frame which you delineate above would be 'synthetical'. It is, what I call, an 'arena' of knowledge which allows for Truth-value (ethics). This arena can be called 'mythological', and qualified by what I call 'faith'. Faith makes true. Faith is the complicity of the individual in its mythology.

I feel I should remind that I do not see phiosphy as a way to discern a method for how to deal with life. It is simply an endeavor for truth.

It is not synthetic, it is not mythological, it is in fact the truth as to how things work from the human perspective which is what we are! You can assert that there is something more or less but it is that assertion, that is the synthesis, the mythology, steeped in possible truths which is in fact illusory and nothing more than untruths.

Just because one can postulate that there might be more, doesn't necessarily mean that there is, and it does not necessarily negate that which is.