Philosophy Now Forum

seeds wrote: ↑Fri Nov 15, 2024 11:25 pmRef:

seeds wrote: ↑Fri Nov 15, 2024 11:25 pm

ChatGpt wrote:"He [Kant] does not claim that noumena do not exist; rather, he emphasizes that if they do, they cannot be objects of human knowledge."

To which I try to clarify with the argument that because Kant had absolutely no knowledge of the strangeness of reality that would be revealed via the discovery of quantum physics more than a century after his death,...

...more specifically, because he knew nothing of the "real existence" of the noumenal-like status of the ghostly objects (Heisenberg) that occupy what the physicists call "non-local" reality,...

...he therefore was in no position to make an informed judgement on whether or not humans could at least confidently infer that such noumenal-like objects* do indeed exist.

VA to ChatGpt wrote:My comments to the above is:
It does not matter that Kant did not know of modern QM discovered 200 years after his death.
Kant's principle is: whatever is discovered by Science is always conditioned by a human-based framework and system [Copernican Revolution].
Therefore whatever science will discover in the future, will never be able to confirmed the existence of any speculation that is non-human-based, i.e. an absolutely mind-independent entity such as God.
To Kant, the idea of God is merely a thought only, if reified is an illusion and never be conflated with what is discoverable by science which is conditional the human conditions.

ChatGpt wrote:Your comments effectively address the interlocutor’s point, but they can be strengthened with further clarification of Kant’s principles and how they apply to modern scientific discoveries, such as quantum mechanics (QM). Here’s a structured response to your interlocutor’s counterargument:

Response to the Interlocutor:

Kant’s Framework on Knowledge and the Noumenon:
Kant’s philosophy establishes that all human knowledge is mediated by the conditions of human cognition—our sensory faculties and the categories of the understanding.
The noumenon (thing-in-itself) is a boundary concept, not an object that can be known or inferred through empirical means, including the discoveries of science. For Kant, any claim about the noumenon as real or existing in a constitutive sense would violate his principle that “concepts without intuition are empty.”

Kant’s Copernican Revolution and the Human Framework:
Kant’s Copernican Revolution asserts that knowledge is not about discovering a mind-independent reality “out there.” Instead, the objects of knowledge conform to the human cognitive apparatus.
Modern science, including QM, operates within this same framework. The discoveries of QM—such as non-locality and the probabilistic nature of particles—are described in terms that are inherently conditioned by human concepts and mathematical models. These are part of the phenomenal realm (appearances), not the noumenal realm.

The Relevance of Quantum Mechanics to Kant’s Philosophy:
While QM reveals profound insights about the nature of reality, these insights pertain to phenomena as they appear to us, interpreted through the mathematical and conceptual framework of physics.
QM does not provide direct access to the noumenon or a mind-independent reality. Even "ghostly objects" like wavefunctions or non-local phenomena are described within a human-constructed scientific framework, governed by human-intelligible laws and theories.
Therefore, QM discoveries cannot be equated with the noumenon in Kant’s sense. They remain phenomena—albeit phenomena that challenge classical intuitions.

Kant on God as a Regulative Idea:
The idea of God, for Kant, is a thought-only concept, a regulative ideal used in practical reason (ethics) but devoid of constitutive reality. It is not an object discoverable or confirmable by science, which deals exclusively with empirical phenomena.
Reifying God or the noumenon as a scientifically knowable entity misunderstands both Kant’s philosophy and the limits of science.

Addressing the Counterargument:
Your interlocutor suggests that QM’s revelations might allow humans to “confidently infer” the existence of noumenal-like objects. However:
Such inferences would still be based on phenomena and scientific models that conform to human cognitive conditions, as per Kant’s framework.
Inference about the noumenon would still be speculative and outside the bounds of possible human knowledge, as Kant defined it.
Kant’s principles remain valid regardless of QM’s discoveries because the epistemic structure of human knowledge remains unchanged. Science, no matter how advanced, cannot breach the phenomenal-noumenal distinction.

Key Takeaway for the Interlocutor:
Kant’s philosophy is not invalidated by modern physics.
Instead, it emphasizes that scientific discoveries, no matter how profound, are always confined to the domain of phenomena—realities as they appear to us within the framework of human cognition.
The noumenon, including the idea of God, is not an object of knowledge or discovery but a boundary concept that serves specific practical and regulative purposes.
To treat the noumenon as something that could be confirmed through scientific discoveries conflates phenomena—conditioned by human cognitive structures—with an unconditioned reality that lies entirely outside the scope of human cognition. Kant explicitly cautions against such reification, as it leads to what he calls a transcendental illusion.

ChatGpt wrote: Kant on God as a Regulative Idea:
The idea of God, for Kant, is a thought-only concept, a regulative ideal used in practical reason (ethics) but devoid of constitutive reality.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sat Nov 16, 2024 4:03 am

seeds wrote: ↑Fri Nov 15, 2024 11:25 pmRef:

seeds wrote: ↑Fri Nov 15, 2024 11:25 pm

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Fri Nov 15, 2024 4:19 am You have led ChatGpt into a strawman with this:

I didn't "lead" ChatGPT anywhere. No, I simply corrected its misquoting of something I stated earlier.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Fri Nov 15, 2024 4:19 am First your logic does not follow because 'you think it is a "near" perfect analogy.
Even it is a perfect analogy, it remains an analogy, so you still have to prove "superpositioned electron" is exactly what termed as a noumenon.

What else other than analogies (and guesses) can we use to describe something that is fundamentally "unknowable" to us?

I contend that the conditions of the "superpositioned electron" pretty much align with all of the criteria necessary to be deemed a "real" noumenon, in that its true status (its "thing-in-itself-ness") is literally unknowable and inaccessible to our senses and can only be apprehended via the intellect and intuition, yet it is obviously "real" and exists.

I furthermore contend that if Kant had been aware of the strangeness (the "non-locality") of the quantum realm (as was discussed with ChatGPT who agreed with me), then perhaps he would have seen the logic in what I am suggesting and...

"...might have had reason to reconsider the strict boundary he drew between the phenomenal and noumenal worlds..." -- ChatGPT

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Fri Nov 15, 2024 4:19 am The noumenon [illusory] is supposed to be absolutely human/mind independent and thus cannot be conflated with whatever is concluded from the scientific FS as the gold standard.

Therefore, whatever is concluded within the science-physics FS [e.g. "superpositioned electron"] is impossible to the noumenon as Kant intended it to be, i.e. as a useful illusion to be used regulatively only and never claimed as any thing substantially constitutive.

I seriously suggest you pose my exact response to ChatGpt and ask for its comment, don't run away from this.

I'm not going to torture ChatGPT's algorithms by offering it your confused and biased "exact response."

No, instead I cut right to the chase of your claims and asked the same question to both Copilot and ChatGPT (bolding and changes in font size by me and ChatGPT)...

Me (to Copilot):
Did Kant, in any of his writings, absolutely insist that the noumenon is nothing more than pure "illusion" and utterly impossible to be something real, albeit unknowable?

Copilot:
Immanuel Kant did not describe noumena (things in themselves) as pure illusions. Instead, he argued that noumena are indeed real but are fundamentally unknowable through human sensory experience and cognitive faculties. In Kant's philosophy, noumena represent the reality that exists independently of our perception, while phenomena are the representations of those realities as we perceive them.

Me (to ChatGPT):
Did Kant, in any of his writings, absolutely insist that the noumenon is nothing more than pure "illusion" and utterly impossible to be something real, albeit unknowable?

ChatGPT:
Immanuel Kant did not insist that the noumenon is merely an "illusion" or that it is utterly impossible for it to be something real. Instead, Kant's position is more nuanced. He introduces the concept of the noumenon in the context of his critical philosophy, particularly in Critique of Pure Reason. Kant uses the term "noumenon" to refer to the "thing-in-itself" (Ding an sich), the reality that exists independently of our sensory experience and cognition.

Key Points on Kant's View of the Noumenon:

1. Noumenon as a Limiting Concept:

• Kant describes the noumenon as a Grenzbegriff (boundary concept), which marks the limits of human cognition. It refers to what exists beyond the reach of our senses and the categories of the understanding.
  
  We can think of the noumenon, but we cannot have knowledge of it because knowledge for Kant requires sensory input combined with conceptual processing. The noumenon is beyond the scope of human perception and therefore unknowable.

2. Not an Illusion:

Kant does not consider the noumenon to be an "illusion." For Kant, illusions involve a misrepresentation or distortion of sensory appearances, whereas the noumenon represents what lies beyond sensory experience. It is not an object of mistaken perception but a necessary concept to understand the limits of knowledge.

3. Possibility of the Noumenon’s Reality:

• Kant leaves open the possibility that the noumenon might correspond to a real, independent reality. However, since humans can only experience phenomena (the world as it appears to us through our senses and mental structures), the noumenon remains inaccessible and unknowable to us.
  
  He does not claim that noumena do not exist; rather, he emphasizes that if they do, they cannot be objects of human knowledge.

4. Practical Role of the Noumenon:

• While the noumenon cannot be known theoretically, it plays an important role in Kant’s moral philosophy. In the realm of practical reason, the noumenon aligns with ideas like freedom, morality, and the soul—concepts that guide human action and give meaning to ethical deliberations.

In summary, Kant does not equate the noumenon with pure illusion or deny its possible reality. Instead, he insists on the limits of human cognition: while the noumenon might be real, it is unknowable to us, and we must restrict our claims of knowledge to the realm of phenomena.

The bottom line is that based on your obvious misinterpretation of Kant's vision of the noumenal realm, it is you who keeps attempting to "lead" the AIs away from what they already know to be the more accurate and more widely accepted general consensus regarding Kant's definition of a noumenon.

ChatGPT stated the following...

"He [Kant] does not claim that noumena do not exist; rather, he emphasizes that if they do, they cannot be objects of human knowledge."

To which I try to clarify with the argument that because Kant had absolutely no knowledge of the strangeness of reality that would be revealed via the discovery of quantum physics more than a century after his death,...

...more specifically, because he knew nothing of the "real existence" of the noumenal-like status of the ghostly objects (Heisenberg) that occupy what the physicists call "non-local" reality,...

...he therefore was in no position to make an informed judgement on whether or not humans could at least confidently infer that such noumenal-like objects* do indeed exist.

*(It's probably a misnomer to call noumena "objects," but I guess we do it for lack of something better.)
_______

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sat Nov 16, 2024 4:03 am My discussion with ChatGpt on the above.

VA to ChatGpt wrote:My comments to the above is:
It does not matter that Kant did not know of modern QM discovered 200 years after his death.
Kant's principle is: whatever is discovered by Science is always conditioned by a human-based framework and system [Copernican Revolution].
Therefore whatever science will discover in the future, will never be able to confirmed the existence of any speculation that is non-human-based, i.e. an absolutely mind-independent entity such as God.
To Kant, the idea of God is merely a thought only, if reified is an illusion and never be conflated with what is discoverable by science which is conditional the human conditions.

seeds wrote: ↑Sat Nov 16, 2024 4:47 am

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sat Nov 16, 2024 4:03 am

seeds wrote: ↑Fri Nov 15, 2024 11:25 pmRef:

If you're going to start a new thread in order to avoid addressing the numerous points I made in the post that this new thread stems from,...

...then I'm going to transfer that original post over here so that the one or two unfortunate souls who are dumb enough to waste their time reading this new thread will know what's really going on here.

seeds wrote: ↑Sat Nov 16, 2024 5:00 am _______

Furthermore, how dare you accuse me of creating a strawman in order to mislead ChatGPT, while you have the unmitigated gall to feed it (ChatGPT) this...

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sat Nov 16, 2024 4:03 am My discussion with ChatGpt on the above.

VA to ChatGpt wrote:My comments to the above is:
It does not matter that Kant did not know of modern QM discovered 200 years after his death.
Kant's principle is: whatever is discovered by Science is always conditioned by a human-based framework and system [Copernican Revolution].
Therefore whatever science will discover in the future, will never be able to confirmed the existence of any speculation that is non-human-based, i.e. an absolutely mind-independent entity such as God.
To Kant, the idea of God is merely a thought only, if reified is an illusion and never be conflated with what is discoverable by science which is conditional the human conditions.

...which introduces "God" into the argument, of which I made no mention of.

Man, you are really something, VA.
_______

Atla wrote: ↑Sat Nov 16, 2024 4:33 am

ChatGpt wrote: Kant on God as a Regulative Idea:
The idea of God, for Kant, is a thought-only concept, a regulative ideal used in practical reason (ethics) but devoid of constitutive reality.

Considering that the whole point of your logic-less philosophy is to destroy Islam, would it make a big enough difference if Muslims viewed Allah and his commands as just a regulative idea?

Consider that Kantian quasi-solipsists can go crazy much easier than p-realists. There are no "real" other people to keep them in check, there is no "real" external world to keep them in check, these have always been the more serious regulative ideas.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sat Nov 16, 2024 5:23 am

Atla wrote: ↑Sat Nov 16, 2024 4:33 am

ChatGpt wrote: Kant on God as a Regulative Idea:
The idea of God, for Kant, is a thought-only concept, a regulative ideal used in practical reason (ethics) but devoid of constitutive reality.

Considering that the whole point of your logic-less philosophy is to destroy Islam, would it make a big enough difference if Muslims viewed Allah and his commands as just a regulative idea?

Consider that Kantian quasi-solipsists can go crazy much easier than p-realists. There are no "real" other people to keep them in check, there is no "real" external world to keep them in check, these have always been the more serious regulative ideas.

Hey! ignorant philosophical gnat.

Kant asserts there is a real relative mind-independent empirical external world out there, at best in a regulative basis but never real as in a constitutive basis [absolute mind independence] as claimed by philosophical realists, indirect realists and the like.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sat Nov 16, 2024 5:35 am To the dogmatic Philosophical Realists:

My point is you [philosophical realist] will not go anywhere with a discussion on Kant if you have not read and understood Kant's thoroughly. You can discuss Kant but need to be humble with loads of reservations even with ChatGpt's response to you personally.

Your resistant to the real truth [noumenon is an illusion] is driven by the OP Terror Management Theory [TMT],
viewtopic.php?t=43101
because if you give up your reified-illusion-as-real, it will trigger terrors within your psyche, thus you cannot and 'must' not give up your belief [illusory].
I don't foresee you will be able to give up your crutch else all your bones will break into pieces when you fall.
The only solution for you is to dogmatically cling to your belief which is illusory, but nevertheless is optimal given your current psychological state; but at least be mindful of your condition and remain humble.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sat Nov 16, 2024 5:08 am

seeds wrote: ↑Sat Nov 16, 2024 5:00 am _______

Furthermore, how dare you accuse me of creating a strawman in order to mislead ChatGPT, while you have the unmitigated gall to feed it (ChatGPT) this...

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sat Nov 16, 2024 4:03 am My discussion with ChatGpt on the above.

...which introduces "God" into the argument, of which I made no mention of.

Man, you are really something, VA.
_______

That is your original 'intention' in relation to the noumenon and thing-in-itself with your claim of God. This intention of yours is true, thus not a strawman.
ChatGpt admitted it gave an inaccurate interpretations of Kant in its response to you, and thereupon argued based on the error which is literally a strawman.

"...the conditions of the "superpositioned electron" pretty much align with all of the criteria necessary to be deemed a "real" noumenon, in that its true status (its "thing-in-itself-ness") is literally unknowable and inaccessible to our senses and can only be apprehended via the intellect and intuition, yet it is obviously "real" and exists..."

seeds wrote: ↑Sat Nov 16, 2024 5:46 am

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sat Nov 16, 2024 5:08 am

seeds wrote: ↑Sat Nov 16, 2024 5:00 am _______

Furthermore, how dare you accuse me of creating a strawman in order to mislead ChatGPT, while you have the unmitigated gall to feed it (ChatGPT) this...

...which introduces "God" into the argument, of which I made no mention of.

Man, you are really something, VA.
_______

That is your original 'intention' in relation to the noumenon and thing-in-itself with your claim of God. This intention of yours is true, thus not a strawman.
ChatGpt admitted it gave an inaccurate interpretations of Kant in its response to you, and thereupon argued based on the error which is literally a strawman.

Kant, who placed great value on honesty, must be spinning in his grave knowing that he is being represented in this forum by such an utterly dishonest person such as you.

My whole post was dedicated to demonstrating how...

"...the conditions of the "superpositioned electron" pretty much align with all of the criteria necessary to be deemed a "real" noumenon, in that its true status (its "thing-in-itself-ness") is literally unknowable and inaccessible to our senses and can only be apprehended via the intellect and intuition, yet it is obviously "real" and exists..."

Nowhere in that extensive post did I make any reference to "God" as being the type of noumenon I was trying to prove exists.

So, it was you who presented a genuine strawman to ChatGPT in your dishonest attempt to get the AI to see things your way.

You have no integrity, VA.
_______

Atla the KG wrote:Is it fair to say that Kant's noumenon is by definition 100% unknowable, however most forms of p-realism today aren't concerned with the 100% unknowable? Summary only.

Yes, that's fair. Kant's noumenon is defined as the "thing-in-itself," entirely beyond human cognition, making it 100% unknowable. In contrast, most forms of philosophical realism today (e.g., scientific realism or structural realism) focus on aspects of reality that are accessible, at least indirectly, through observation, theory, or inference, rather than entirely unknowable entities.