Philosophy Now Forum

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sat Sep 28, 2019 8:24 am

Atla wrote: ↑Sat Sep 28, 2019 8:06 am You still seem to make the same mistake. You claim that there is no such thing as a 'noumenal God'. And we agree that the noumenon is unknowable.

But to claim that a noumenal God is impossible, you have to know the noumenon first!

You are the one who is mistaken.
I had anticipated that.

Note this;

• |<-Sensibility ->N||<-Tit Reason ->|

Tit = Thing-in-itself
Note the noumenon 'N' is sitting on the fringe boundary of sensibility. The noumenon is a limit thus cannot cross over to Reason.

Read my point above again.
I stated there is no such thing as a noumenal God because the noumenal is confined only to sensibility. So there is no noumenal God to be known in the sensible sense.

The thing-in-itself is from the field of reason which generate the illusion of a God-in-itself.
One can think of such an illusion but it is impossible to be real.
Note what is real is only confined to sensibility + understanding.
Because God-in-itself is has nothing to do with "Sensibility + Understanding", it is impossible for God to be real.

Atla wrote: ↑Sat Sep 28, 2019 8:33 am You are still making the same mistake. You assume that God has nothing to do with "Sensibility + Understanding", but to make that claim, you have to know the noumenon first!

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sat Sep 28, 2019 8:45 am

Atla wrote: ↑Sat Sep 28, 2019 8:33 am You are still making the same mistake. You assume that God has nothing to do with "Sensibility + Understanding", but to make that claim, you have to know the noumenon first!

You are trying to outdo Kant without understanding him thoroughly?

I did not assume, it is Kant who demonstrated that God has nothing to do with "Sensibility + Understanding", note the quote re B397 above [edited after you posted].

I stated clearly, the idea of God cannot arise within Sensibility at all.
The idea of God arise out of an illusion and is a trick of the mind.
It is like seeing a bent-stick illusion in a glass of water and insisting the bent-stick is real. In this case this is an empirical illusion. In the case of God, it a transcendental illusion from transcendental ideas.

Note to get to this point entails a long tough complicated journey -seriously. Intellectually, it is like climbing Mt. Everest a few times.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sat Sep 28, 2019 8:45 am I stated clearly, the idea of God cannot arise within Sensibility at all.
The idea of God arise out of an illusion and is a trick of the mind.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sat Sep 28, 2019 8:45 am Note to get to this point entails a long tough complicated journey -seriously. Intellectually, it is like climbing Mt. Everest a few times.

Atla wrote: ↑Sat Sep 28, 2019 8:33 am [... ...]

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sat Sep 28, 2019 8:45 am I stated clearly, the idea of God cannot arise within Sensibility at all.
The idea of God arise out of an illusion and is a trick of the mind.

seeds wrote: ↑Sat Sep 28, 2019 10:20 pm

Atla wrote: ↑Sat Sep 28, 2019 8:33 am [... ...]

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sat Sep 28, 2019 8:45 am I stated clearly, the idea of God cannot arise within Sensibility at all.
The idea of God arise out of an illusion and is a trick of the mind.

In a way you are correct, Veritas, human “ideas” (visualizations, concepts) of God are most certainly illusions.

• Many philosophers have considered ideas to be a fundamental ontological category of being.
  
  Plato in Ancient Greece was one of the earliest philosophers to provide a detailed discussion of ideas and of the thinking process (in Plato's Greek the word idea carries a rather different sense from our modern English term).
  Plato argued in dialogues such as the Phaedo, Symposium, Republic, and Timaeus that there is a realm of ideas or forms (eidei), which exist independently of anyone who may have thoughts on these ideas, and it is the ideas which distinguish mere opinion from knowledge, for unlike material things which are transient and liable to contrary properties, ideas are unchanging and nothing but just what they are.
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idea#Plato

However, as I pointed out in your thread where you initiated this “God is impossible to be real” campaign,...

...I suggest that the main psychological impetus that drives humans to believe in the existence of a God (and thus, create those illusions) is based on the absolute absurdity in thinking that the unfathomable order of the universe is a product of chance.

Therefore, the ultimate source of the fundamental belief in something extremely intelligent being responsible for the creation of the universe, is nothing more than a simple default to plain old common sense.

Furthermore, if we consider the possibility that a Berkeleyan form of idealism or, perhaps, Panentheism might be true, then the entire universe (which includes our bodies and brains) is formed from the living fabric of God’s very being.

In which case, it is conceivable that many humans can intuitively sense the presence of the divine within everything – hence another possible form of impetus that could drive humans toward the God hypothesis.
_______

• 1. What is real is confined to sensibility + understanding.
  2. God is an transcendental idea [from Reason] that is beyond sensibility + understanding.
  3. Therefore God is impossible to be real.

• There will therefore be Syllogisms [Reason -logic] which contain no Empirical premisses [sensibility],
  and by means of which we conclude from something which we know to something else of which we have no Concept [sensibility],
  and to which, owing to an inevitable Illusion, we yet ascribe Objective Reality [real].
  B397

• These conclusions are, then, rather to be called pseudo-Rational 2 than Rational, although in view of their Origin they may well lay claim to the latter title, since they are not fictitious and have not arisen fortuitously, but have sprung from the very Nature of Reason.
  They [transcendental illusions] are sophistications not of men but of Pure Reason itself. Even the wisest of men cannot free himself from them. After long effort he perhaps succeeds in guarding himself against actual error; but he will never be able to free himself from the Illusion, which unceasingly mocks and torments him.
  B397

Atla wrote: ↑Sat Sep 28, 2019 8:55 am

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sat Sep 28, 2019 8:45 am

Atla wrote: ↑Sat Sep 28, 2019 8:33 am You are still making the same mistake. You assume that God has nothing to do with "Sensibility + Understanding", but to make that claim, you have to know the noumenon first!

You are trying to outdo Kant without understanding him thoroughly?

I did not assume, it is Kant who demonstrated that God has nothing to do with "Sensibility + Understanding", note the quote re B397 above [edited after you posted].

I stated clearly, the idea of God cannot arise within Sensibility at all.
The idea of God arise out of an illusion and is a trick of the mind.
It is like seeing a bent-stick illusion in a glass of water and insisting the bent-stick is real. In this case this is an empirical illusion. In the case of God, it a transcendental illusion from transcendental ideas.

Note to get to this point entails a long tough complicated journey -seriously. Intellectually, it is like climbing Mt. Everest a few times.

Either you don't understand Kant thoroughly, or you do, but we have already outdone him long ago. I'm trying to figure out which one.

You are still making the same mistake. Yes, the idea of God probably cannot be derived from sensibility, those who claim otherwise are probably hallucinating. (And/or some rogue personality-fragment, like with attofishpi, DAM, Age etc.)
But even that doesn't mean that God is impossible to be real, because maybe after all everything you experience (all your sensibilities) could be orchestrated by some sort of God.

To claim that this is impossible, is to claim that you know the entirety of the noumenal world.

• 1. What is real is confined to sensibility + understanding.
  2. God is an transcendental idea [from Reason] that is beyond sensibility + understanding.
  3. Therefore God is impossible to be real.

• These conclusions [transcendental ideas, illusions] are, then, rather to be called pseudo-Rational 2 than Rational, although in view of their Origin they may well lay claim to the latter title, since they are not fictitious and have not arisen fortuitously, but have sprung from the very Nature of Reason.

• These conclusions are, then, rather to be called pseudo-Rational 2 than Rational, although in view of their Origin they may well lay claim to the latter title, since they are not fictitious and have not arisen fortuitously, but have sprung from the very Nature of Reason.

• 1. Sensibility + Understanding = empirical-noumenal world.
  2. Reason via own nature = World of Transcendental ideas.

• It was thus that Plato left the World of the Senses [sensibility], as setting too narrow Limits to 2 the Understanding, and ventured out beyond it on the wings of the Ideas, in the empty Space of the Pure Understanding.
  B9

• WE have now not merely explored the territory of Pure Understanding, and carefully surveyed every part of it, but have also measured its extent, and assigned to everything in it its rightful place.
  This domain is an island, enclosed by Nature itself within unalterable Limits.
  It is the land of Truth -- enchanting name! -- surrounded by a wide and stormy ocean, the native home of Illusion, where many a fog bank and many a swiftly melting iceberg give the deceptive Appearance of farther shores, deluding the adventurous seafarer ever anew with empty hopes, and engaging him in enterprises which he can never abandon and yet is unable to carry to completion.
  A236 B295

• Before we venture on this sea [stormy ocean of illusions], to explore it in all directions and to obtain assurance whether there be any Ground for such hopes, it will be well to begin by casting a glance upon the map of the land [sensibility and understanding] which we are about to leave, and to enquire,
  first, whether we cannot in any case be satisfied with what it contains are not, indeed, under compulsion to be satisfied, inasmuch as there may be no other territory upon which we can settle; and,
  secondly, by what title we possess even this domain, and can consider ourselves as secured against all opposing claims.

• He [Plato] did not observe that with all his efforts he made no advance meeting no resistance that might, as it were, serve as a support upon which he could take a stand, to which he could apply his powers, and so set his Understanding in motion.
  
  It is, indeed, the common fate of Human Reason to complete its Speculative Structures as speedily as may be, and only afterwards to enquire whether the foundations are reliable.
  
  All sorts of excuses will then be appealed to, in order to reassure us of their solidity, or rather indeed 3 to enable us to dispense altogether with so late and so dangerous an enquiry.
  B9

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sun Sep 29, 2019 3:53 am You don't get it.
I understand it is not easy.

Note this argument I posted above;

• 1. What is real is confined to sensibility + understanding.
  2. God is an transcendental idea [from Reason] that is beyond sensibility + understanding.
  3. Therefore God is impossible to be real.

The above premises contain elements which are tips of icebergs.
What is critical here is you cannot conflate and equivocate things in the field of sensibility [empirical things] with things of Reason, i.e.

• These conclusions [transcendental ideas, illusions] are, then, rather to be called pseudo-Rational 2 than Rational, although in view of their Origin they may well lay claim to the latter title, since they are not fictitious and have not arisen fortuitously, but have sprung from the very Nature of Reason.

These transcendental ideas P2 sprung from the very Nature of Reason, i.e. along and has nothing to do with Sensibility + Understanding.

The realm of Sensibility + Understanding = real empirical things + noumenom [as a limit].
This how empirical things are derived from experiences.
Humans perceived things of all shapes, e.g. roundish ones.
From such observation and using understanding, the empirical concept of circle is abstracted with its various defined qualities.
In this case we can verify and know empirical circles existing as real.

However we have a faculty of Reason which can think of PERFECT CIRCLES.
But the point while a Perfect circle as extrapolated from empirical circles, they are impossible to exists as real. There can NEVER be any absolute PERFECT Circles in the empirical world of sensibility + understanding.
Show me where can you find a perfect_circle-in-itself?
The argument is related to Plato's ideas, forms and universals as real things that are independent of humans.
Thus a PERFECT circle can be thought of but cannot be really real in the empirical world.
The Perfect Circle is the noumenal circle which a limit to what is a circle.
This is the principle of the Noumenon that is applicable all sensible and empirical things.

The idea of God arise independently from the faculty of PURE REASON based on its VERY own nature;

• These conclusions are, then, rather to be called pseudo-Rational 2 than Rational, although in view of their Origin they may well lay claim to the latter title, since they are not fictitious and have not arisen fortuitously, but have sprung from the very Nature of Reason.

Thus the transcendental idea of God cannot be related to the noumenal at all.

You keep insisting and is driven by the existential crisis to conflate and equivocate the noumenal with God.

Note this;

• 1. Sensibility + Understanding = empirical-noumenal world.
  2. Reason via own nature = World of Transcendental ideas.

You cannot conflate and equivocate 1 with 2.
Kant has provided argument and justification for that in the CPR.

Here is a clue where Kant critiqued Plato; in [] =mine;

• It was thus that Plato left the World of the Senses [sensibility], as setting too narrow Limits to 2 the Understanding, and ventured out beyond it on the wings of the Ideas, in the empty Space of the Pure Understanding.
  B9

When Plato left the World of Senses where "sensibility + understanding = reality" Plato is venturing into the unreal world of pure reason, i.e. Ideas but yet ignorantly insist these Ideas [actually illusions] are real.

What you are doing is the same as Plato, i.e.
When you think of the idea of God, you have left the world of reality and ventured into the realm of unreality [illusion], but you still insist what you thought of may be real.
No! as justified, once you have entered into the realm of the transcendental ideas, there is NOTHING that is possible to be real.

Here is another clue from Kant [read it carefully];

• WE have now not merely explored the territory of Pure Understanding, and carefully surveyed every part of it, but have also measured its extent, and assigned to everything in it its rightful place.
  This domain is an island, enclosed by Nature itself within unalterable Limits.
  It is the land of Truth -- enchanting name! -- surrounded by a wide and stormy ocean, the native home of Illusion, where many a fog bank and many a swiftly melting iceberg give the deceptive Appearance of farther shores, deluding the adventurous seafarer ever anew with empty hopes, and engaging him in enterprises which he can never abandon and yet is unable to carry to completion.
  A236 B295

As with the above you have left the land of truth [sensibility + understanding] and ventured into the a wide and stormy ocean, the native home of Illusion.
But you are ignorant of where you are and insist [can never abandon] the transcendental ideas you think [illusory] is real.

Kant advised;

• Before we venture on this sea [stormy ocean of illusions], to explore it in all directions and to obtain assurance whether there be any Ground for such hopes, it will be well to begin by casting a glance upon the map of the land [sensibility and understanding] which we are about to leave, and to enquire,
  first, whether we cannot in any case be satisfied with what it contains are not, indeed, under compulsion to be satisfied, inasmuch as there may be no other territory upon which we can settle; and,
  secondly, by what title we possess even this domain, and can consider ourselves as secured against all opposing claims.

This is the beginning of the section where Kant explained how the mind is duped into insisting transcendental ideas [illusions] are real or possibly real.

Atla wrote: ↑Sun Sep 29, 2019 4:37 am You are the one who just doesn't get it.

A Platonic, absolutely-perfect-in-every-way, transcendental-idea God probably cannot be real in the noumenon (unless infinite magic that escapes human understanding).

However, some not-absolutely-perfect-God, that may or may not even resemble the above, COULD be real in the noumenon. The point is that we can not know.

Now tell me which part of this simple point escapes your understanding?

• 1. What is real is confined to sensibility + understanding.
  2. God is an transcendental idea [from Reason] that is beyond sensibility + understanding.
  3. Therefore God is impossible to be real.

However, some not-absolutely-perfect-God, that may or may not even resemble the above, COULD be real in the noumenon. The point is that we can not know.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sun Sep 29, 2019 5:23 am

Atla wrote: ↑Sun Sep 29, 2019 4:37 am You are the one who just doesn't get it.

A Platonic, absolutely-perfect-in-every-way, transcendental-idea God probably cannot be real in the noumenon (unless infinite magic that escapes human understanding).

However, some not-absolutely-perfect-God, that may or may not even resemble the above, COULD be real in the noumenon. The point is that we can not know.

Now tell me which part of this simple point escapes your understanding?

Note my argument,

• 1. What is real is confined to sensibility + understanding.
  2. God is an transcendental idea [from Reason] that is beyond sensibility + understanding.
  3. Therefore God is impossible to be real.

I have stated many times before;
if you insist your definition of god is confined to 'sensibility + understanding' but not noumenal then such a god is possible to exist as real.
If someone insist their god is a bearded man in the sky, then such a god is a possibility to be real because all the variables stated are within the confine of sensibility + understanding.
But who in our modern world with a right mind would make such a ridiculous claim and even IF we grant it as possible to be real, the chance of it being real is 0.0000000... ∞1%, given there cannot be certain in the empirical world but wisdom wise it is as good as impossible.

The above claim was before man explored the sky.
If someone still insist and claim their god is a bearded man, dog, human-liked alien' matrix-programmer in a location 100 billion light years away, then yes, such a god is still a possibility to be real as long as all the variables are confined within 'sensibility + understanding.'
But again the chance of the above being real is 0.0000000...0∞1%.
The ultimate test is to bring the empirical related evidence to conform it is real.

But if god is claimed to be of 'sensibility + understanding' but noumenal, e.g. a perfect circle, then such a noumenal god is impossible to be real because it is not a thing/object/entity, but merely a limiting concept, e.g. 'no' 'not' are limiting concepts and have no basis as a thing/object/entity.
See this "Does a Perfect Circle Exist as Real"
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=27513

However with serious counters against the existence of a real god, the best theologians has long abandoned a god that is related to 'sensibility + understanding' e.g. that bearded man in the sky.
What the best theologians is claiming [ignorantly] is the indisputable absolute ontological God existing as real.
However Kant has exposed their ignorance by justifying the ontological God [a transcendental] is illusory and impossible to be real within 'sensibility + understanding.'

Thus;

However, some not-absolutely-perfect-God, that may or may not even resemble the above, COULD be real in the noumenon. The point is that we can not know.

Yes, some not-absolutely-perfect-God if defined within 'sensibility + understanding' could possible be real BUT subject to production of the real evidence for confirmation. However the idea of such a god is stupid with 0.0000000...0∞1% to be real.
This is the stance that Richard Dawkins took because he assumed an empirical related god, thus it is 1/7 possible for him.

However if God is insisted upon the noumenal sense [e.g. perfect man, perfect circle, square, absolute pure water, and the likes], then by default it cannot be real at all.

Atla wrote: ↑Sun Sep 29, 2019 5:30 am Okay you have finally conceded that God is possible to be real, just unlikely (as far as we can tell). Now was that so hard?

And 'noumenal sense' has nothing to do with 'perfection'.

• 1. A god is possible to be real if defined within 'sensibility and understanding'.
  
  2. A God is impossible to be real if construed or reified from a transcendental idea.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sun Sep 29, 2019 5:39 am The noumenal sense covers the idea of absolute perfection within sensibility and understanding.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sun Sep 29, 2019 5:39 am

Atla wrote: ↑Sun Sep 29, 2019 5:30 am Okay you have finally conceded that God is possible to be real, just unlikely (as far as we can tell). Now was that so hard?

And 'noumenal sense' has nothing to do with 'perfection'.

Nope!

The above statement must be clearly qualified.

• 1. A god is possible to be real if defined within 'sensibility and understanding'.
  
  2. A God is impossible to be real if construed or reified from a transcendental idea.

Since this OP is about Kant, point 1 is irrelevant beside it is a very stupid claim.
Such a stupid claim is not mentioned in the Critique of Reason at all.
If you have average competence in Philosophy, you would not accept it all at.
Richard Dawkins do not have a philosophical background, thus his 1/7 probability reservations but even then he insisted it is absurd ultimately.