“All bodies, together with the space in which they are, must be considered nothing but mere representations in us, and exist nowhere but in our thoughts.” -Immanuel Kant “Even if we could bring our intuition to the highest degree of clearness, we should not thereby come any nearer to the constitution of objects in themselves. We should still know only our mode of intuition, that is, our sensibility. We should, indeed, know it completely, but always only under the conditions of space and time - conditions which are originally inherent in the subject. What the objects may be in themselves would never become known to us even through the most enlightened knowledge of that which is alone given us, namely, their appearance.” -Immanuel Kant
Kant insisted that, if space and time exist independent of us, then we have access to space and time eo ipso a posteriori-meaning that geometry and mathematics, which each presuppose the pure intuitions of space and time, lose their apodeictic status. Hence, for Kant, insofar as we desire to uphold the apodeictic status of geometry and mathematics, space and time must be agreed to be a priori.
>> Do you think time exists independently of us or is it a framework our minds impose upon the world? It seems more useful to me to err on the assumption that time elapses independently of us. I assume the sun rises and sets over the horizon whether we're there to experience it or not. At least any other interpretation seems very trippy to me and not very useful. >> Is a rainbow a real thing or is it simply how light interacts with our perception? I'm a bit confused by the wording. The actual refraction of light through the atmosphere is a real thing, and something perceivable by anything capable of sensing light. Yet we also lack the ability to perceive the full spectrum of it, e.g. We can't detect the infrared and ultraviolet components. Special equipment can detect and capture such light, however, along with certain animals. >> Could that person that blind person ever understand what color is? Not in terms of the visual sensations in the same way we can't visually detect or understand IR or UV light. Yet we can understand their presence through others and special equipment. >> Do you find it frustrating or comforting that we can never truly know or never fully know the world as it is, and why? It would be wonderful if we had a wider variety of sensory inputs, but I always figured one medium of knowledge can be translated to another and we can develop tools and techniques for the translation: similar to translating one human language to another. There's some loss in information, but we can get the gist of it, in the same way a deaf person can still understand what people are communicating through written text and sign language. >> [On lying] Would you follow Kant's rule or make an exception? Make an exception. I see any sufficiently complex system of ethics as requiring priorities/weights to resolve conflicts. My priority to protect my loved ones supersedes my priority to always tell the truth, as my need to rest supersedes my need to eat when hungry if I'm only slightly hungry but thoroughly exhausted. >> Case for Kantian ethics vs. utilitarian. I had that dialogue with myself ages ago but will spare readers of it. I reject both now. I value ethics aligned with evolutionary survival which does tend to arrive at similar principles like don't lie, don't steal, don't kill, be fruitful and multiply, but in a consequentialist perspective of seeing such behaviors as well-adapted for cooperative survival in a generalized consequentialist way -- and always with weighted priorities to allow conflict resolution. >> Do you agree with Kant that morality should be based on universal rules? Somewhat. I think basic rules are simple and easy to teach to the masses. "Never act with malevolent intent" is something easy enough to teach to a child, for example, and highly beneficial since malevolent intent almost always produces counter-productive results. Yet it seems oversimplified to only rely on rules without relying on consequences as well. Meanwhile, we should never grow overconfident in our ability to predict precise consequences, since that yields too high a probability of error. A meteorologist should be able to predict the general region over which a hurricane will be hit and share his generalized predictions, but not the exact neighborhoods. The latter might risk an error where the people in neighborhoods that are actually hit failed to take the proper safety measures because the meteorologist failed to make the correct prediction.
“All bodies, together with the space in which they are, must be considered nothing but mere representations in us, and exist nowhere but in our thoughts.” -Immanuel Kant
“Even if we could bring our intuition to the highest degree of clearness, we should not thereby come any nearer to the constitution of objects in themselves. We should still know only our mode of intuition, that is, our sensibility. We should, indeed, know it completely, but always only under the conditions of space and time - conditions which are originally inherent in the subject. What the objects may be in themselves would never become known to us even through the most enlightened knowledge of that which is alone given us, namely, their appearance.” -Immanuel Kant
Kant insisted that, if space and time exist independent of us, then we have access to space and time eo ipso a posteriori-meaning that geometry and mathematics, which each presuppose the pure intuitions of space and time, lose their apodeictic status. Hence, for Kant, insofar as we desire to uphold the apodeictic status of geometry and mathematics, space and time must be agreed to be a priori.
>> Do you think time exists independently of us or is it a framework our minds impose upon the world?
It seems more useful to me to err on the assumption that time elapses independently of us. I assume the sun rises and sets over the horizon whether we're there to experience it or not. At least any other interpretation seems very trippy to me and not very useful.
>> Is a rainbow a real thing or is it simply how light interacts with our perception?
I'm a bit confused by the wording. The actual refraction of light through the atmosphere is a real thing, and something perceivable by anything capable of sensing light. Yet we also lack the ability to perceive the full spectrum of it, e.g. We can't detect the infrared and ultraviolet components. Special equipment can detect and capture such light, however, along with certain animals.
>> Could that person that blind person ever understand what color is?
Not in terms of the visual sensations in the same way we can't visually detect or understand IR or UV light. Yet we can understand their presence through others and special equipment.
>> Do you find it frustrating or comforting that we can never truly know or never fully know the world as it is, and why?
It would be wonderful if we had a wider variety of sensory inputs, but I always figured one medium of knowledge can be translated to another and we can develop tools and techniques for the translation: similar to translating one human language to another. There's some loss in information, but we can get the gist of it, in the same way a deaf person can still understand what people are communicating through written text and sign language.
>> [On lying] Would you follow Kant's rule or make an exception?
Make an exception. I see any sufficiently complex system of ethics as requiring priorities/weights to resolve conflicts. My priority to protect my loved ones supersedes my priority to always tell the truth, as my need to rest supersedes my need to eat when hungry if I'm only slightly hungry but thoroughly exhausted.
>> Case for Kantian ethics vs. utilitarian.
I had that dialogue with myself ages ago but will spare readers of it. I reject both now. I value ethics aligned with evolutionary survival which does tend to arrive at similar principles like don't lie, don't steal, don't kill, be fruitful and multiply, but in a consequentialist perspective of seeing such behaviors as well-adapted for cooperative survival in a generalized consequentialist way -- and always with weighted priorities to allow conflict resolution.
>> Do you agree with Kant that morality should be based on universal rules?
Somewhat. I think basic rules are simple and easy to teach to the masses. "Never act with malevolent intent" is something easy enough to teach to a child, for example, and highly beneficial since malevolent intent almost always produces counter-productive results. Yet it seems oversimplified to only rely on rules without relying on consequences as well.
Meanwhile, we should never grow overconfident in our ability to predict precise consequences, since that yields too high a probability of error. A meteorologist should be able to predict the general region over which a hurricane will be hit and share his generalized predictions, but not the exact neighborhoods. The latter might risk an error where the people in neighborhoods that are actually hit failed to take the proper safety measures because the meteorologist failed to make the correct prediction.