On Sat, 14 Dec 2024 13:15:58 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

> On 14/12/2024 10:40, D wrote:
>> It is a nice feeling that I was able to give them a good start with
>> their IT careers.
>
> My company was never able to pay the people what they were worth, but
> yes, I have great hopes that some of the people we employed went on to
> better [paid] things, with my small help

Sometimes there is a u-turn. One programmer went on to a well paid
position in Seattle. All was well until the dotcom fiasco caused the
company to restructure. That's when he returned.

On Sat, 14 Dec 2024 11:13:08 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

> I always drive home and don't tell them

In theory someone has to come to the desk to pick you up before you're
released. I played by the rules and a friend came to get me. He drove me a
block to where I'd left my car.

I used Uber for the macular hole repair. The protocol requires you to
spend three days face down. I'd had it done to the other eye previously
and decided spending time at a motel in town was better. I could walk
around on the footpaths, albeit staring at my toes rather than the
scenery, and have access to several fast food places. It worked well.

On 14/12/2024 18:02, D wrote:
>
>
> On Sat, 14 Dec 2024, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>
>> On 14/12/2024 10:54, D wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> On Fri, 13 Dec 2024, rbowman wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Fri, 13 Dec 2024 10:42:22 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Copplestone hated Kant and schopenhauer
>>>>
>>>> I've got to hunt down his volume on the Germans. I never read that
>>>> one. In
>>>> general Anglo-American and Continental philosophy go in separate
>>>> directions. I feel more comfortable with the continentals.
>>>
>>> For me, to exagerate a bit, anglo-american seems more technical and
>>> dry, while continentals (incontinentals) seem more like poetry, or
>>> chicken soup for the soul.
>>
>> Yes. . To the extent that you have the Kierkegaard...couldn't get
>> beyond chapter one...
>
> I thought about looking into Kierkegaard after reading some Karl
> Jaspers, but haven't gotten around to it yet.

I am not sure it was worth buying the book frankly.

Enormous quantities of philosophy can safely be ignored by most people
and a fair chunk by everybody.

An awful lot is trying to keep Christianity alive against the onslaught
of rational materialism.

--
"I guess a rattlesnake ain't risponsible fer bein' a rattlesnake, but ah
puts mah heel on um jess the same if'n I catches him around mah chillun".

On Sat, 14 Dec 2024, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

> On 14/12/2024 10:57, D wrote:
>>
>>
>> On Fri, 13 Dec 2024, rbowman wrote:
>>
>>> On Fri, 13 Dec 2024 11:13:50 +0100, D wrote:
>>>
>>>> Zeno? Well, it does sound you made quite an attack on the first book out
>>>> of 12!  My least favourite part of that series is the middle ages and
>>>> the christian philosophers and theologians. For some reason, very, very
>>>> uninteresting to me. But greek, yes, rome, yes, then nothing, up until
>>>> the enlightenment, when things start to become interesting again.
>>>
>>> I'd have to look at the ordering but I think that's where my interest
>>> petered out. I liked the Nominalists. Confirmation bias, I guess. My
>>> natural setting regards Platonic realism as a major wrong turn in thought.
>>>
>>
>> Amen! The nominalists were (are) the Donald Trump of metaphysicists!
>
> Nominalism is a crude form of transcendental idealism in that it clearly
> separates the term, from the reality it describes.
>
> Which as you say, is not Platonic realism.
>
> The problem with Plato is that his realism was really idealism, in that he
> regarded the ideas as more fundamental than things.
>
> As I said, Kant really drew everything together to produce the hybrid model
> in which the world - whether you think of it as material or not - was to be
> distinguished absolutely from our *conception *of it....

What is your opinion on the transcendental error?

The Transcendental Error: One significant flaw in Kant’s thinking is what
has been termed the “transcendental error.” This refers to Kant’s tendency
to conflate the limits of human cognition with the nature of reality
itself. According to critics like Peter Strawson, while Kant correctly
seeks to explore what we can understand about our experiences, he
mistakenly concludes that these limits are imposed by our cognitive
faculties on a reality that could be structured differently. This leads to
an incoherent position where one cannot meaningfully consider a reality
devoid of these structures because such a consideration relies on the very
cognitive faculties that Kant claims impose those structures. Thus, this
misunderstanding undermines the objective status of knowledge and reality.

In The Bounds of Sense, P. F. Strawson suggests a reading of Kant's first
Critique that, once accepted, forces rejection of most of the original
arguments, including transcendental idealism. Strawson contends that, had
Kant followed out the implications of all that he said, he would have seen
that there were many self-contradictions implicit in the whole.[12]: 403 

Strawson views the analytic argument of the transcendental deduction as
the most valuable idea in the text, and regards transcendental idealism as
an unavoidable error in Kant's greatly productive system. In Strawson's
traditional reading (also favored in the work of Paul Guyer and Rae
Langton), the Kantian term phenomena (literally, things that can be
seen—from Greek: phainomenon, "observable") refers to the world of
appearances, or the world of "things" sensed.[13]: 99–101  They are tagged
as "phenomena" to remind the reader that humans confuse these derivative
appearances with whatever may be the forever unavailable "things in
themselves" behind our perceptions. The necessary preconditions of
experience, the components that humans bring to their apprehending of the
world, the forms of perception such as space and time, are what make a
priori judgments possible, but all of this process of comprehending what
lies fundamental to human experience fails to bring anyone beyond the
inherent limits of human sensibility. Kant's system requires the existence
of noumena to prevent a rejection of external reality altogether, and it
is this concept (senseless objects of which we can have no real
understanding) to which Strawson objects in his book.

> The middle ages were restrictive in terms of Christianity, but Jewish
> mysticism and philosophy flourished, as did the philosophy and science of the
> Persians. Before that became subsumed by Islam and vanished.
>
> The study of what people *thought* was real, through the ages, is a
> fascinating history that isn't really covered by any discipline. Myths and
> Magics, religions and gods, forces and demiurges. And then to Materialism and
> Laws of Nature.

A cross section of the history of ideas and philosophy of science maybe?
It is very interesting!

> "Maps of consciousness" as Ralph Metzner put it.
>
>

On Sat, 14 Dec 2024 19:02:23 +0100, D wrote:

> I thought about looking into Kierkegaard after reading some Karl
> Jaspers,
> but haven't gotten around to it yet.

Another golden oldie. Existentialism was the cool thing in my youth and
Jaspers was often thrown into that bag along with Buber, Tillich, Sartre,
Camus and the rest of the usual suspects. Most of it either went over my
head or under my feet, I'm not sure which. The offshoots like the theater
of the absurd were absurd. Sitting through 'The Bald Soprano' was a once
in a lifetime experience, I hope.

On 14/12/2024 18:40, D wrote:
>
>
> On Sat, 14 Dec 2024, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>
>> On 14/12/2024 10:57, D wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> On Fri, 13 Dec 2024, rbowman wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Fri, 13 Dec 2024 11:13:50 +0100, D wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Zeno? Well, it does sound you made quite an attack on the first
>>>>> book out
>>>>> of 12!  My least favourite part of that series is the middle ages and
>>>>> the christian philosophers and theologians. For some reason, very,
>>>>> very
>>>>> uninteresting to me. But greek, yes, rome, yes, then nothing, up until
>>>>> the enlightenment, when things start to become interesting again.
>>>>
>>>> I'd have to look at the ordering but I think that's where my interest
>>>> petered out. I liked the Nominalists. Confirmation bias, I guess. My
>>>> natural setting regards Platonic realism as a major wrong turn in
>>>> thought.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Amen! The nominalists were (are) the Donald Trump of metaphysicists!
>>
>> Nominalism is a crude form of transcendental idealism in that it
>> clearly separates the term, from the reality it describes.
>>
>> Which as you say, is not Platonic realism.
>>
>> The problem with Plato is that his realism was really idealism, in
>> that he regarded the ideas as more fundamental than things.
>>
>> As I said, Kant really drew everything together to produce the hybrid
>> model in which the world - whether you think of it as material or not
>> - was to be distinguished absolutely from our *conception *of it....
>
> What is your opinion on the transcendental error?
>
> The Transcendental Error: One significant flaw in Kant’s thinking is
> what has been termed the “transcendental error.” This refers to Kant’s
> tendency to conflate the limits of human cognition with the nature of
> reality itself.

I never thought that at all. He was in fact completely distinct in his
thinking between 'the world in itself' and 'the world of our
perceptions., as being utterly different - though related.

Many materialist simply cannot understand it - to them the world is what
they think it is and see it as, and therefore Kant is simply nonsense.

>According to critics like Peter Strawson, while Kant
> correctly seeks to explore what we can understand about our experiences,
> he mistakenly concludes that these limits are imposed by our cognitive
> faculties on a reality that could be structured differently.

That is exactly right, and to my certain knowledge it can be: Because
Strawson cant do it doesn't mean it cant be done.

> This leads
> to an incoherent position where one cannot meaningfully consider a
> reality devoid of these structures because such a consideration relies
> on the very cognitive faculties that Kant claims impose those
> structures. Thus, this misunderstanding undermines the objective status
> of knowledge and reality.

Of course., That is the whole point. The knowledge and reality we have
is entirely relative to or world view - the end results of the
*reification* of 'whatever the fuck the external world really is' by the
mind into a world view that encompasses the very nature of way we
consider to be real.

Strawson seems to be a Beleiver. He wants there to be a simple objective
reality that we can grasp. Kant says 'its there, but we cannot grasp
it: It has to go through our processes of categorisation before it is
intelligible to us'.

>
> In The Bounds of Sense, P. F. Strawson suggests a reading of Kant's
> first Critique that, once accepted, forces rejection of most of the
> original arguments, including transcendental idealism. Strawson contends
> that, had Kant followed out the implications of all that he said, he
> would have seen that there were many self-contradictions implicit in the
> whole.[12]: 403 

Well strawspn seems to be a bit of a dick. We remember Kant and
Schopenhaer, not Strawson.
Schopenhauer corrected Kant a bit, which was good. Chiefly he saw the
implication of 'the world in itself' more clearly and pointed out that
'things in themselves' was in fact wrong, because the idea of plurality
and division was again something that happened in the mind, not
necessarily in the world.

>
> Strawson views the analytic argument of the transcendental deduction as
> the most valuable idea in the text, and regards transcendental idealism
> as an unavoidable error in Kant's greatly productive system.

Not sure what transcendental deduction was. Oh. The argument that says
transcendental idealism is in fact what we really do.

I get the feeling Strawson isn't the brightest bulb in the box. To me
one follows inevitably from the other. They are aspects of the same view.

> In
> Strawson's traditional reading (also favored in the work of Paul Guyer
> and Rae Langton), the Kantian term phenomena (literally, things that can
> be seen—from Greek: phainomenon, "observable") refers to the world of
> appearances, or the world of "things" sensed.[13]: 99–101  They are
> tagged as "phenomena" to remind the reader that humans confuse these
> derivative appearances with whatever may be the forever unavailable
> "things in themselves" behind our perceptions.

Exactly so, Or, post Schopenhauer, the 'thing in itself' - experience of
something utterly beyond comprehension that we chunk into things and
events in space time linked by causality. And out of that process pops
the world of phenomena - the 'material world' as I use the term, as an
emergent property of the process itself.

That is, the real data is elsewhere - we create structures that point to
it and call that the real world.

> The necessary
> preconditions of experience, the components that humans bring to their
> apprehending of the world, the forms of perception such as space and
> time, are what make a priori judgments possible, but all of this process
> of comprehending what lies fundamental to human experience fails to
> bring anyone beyond the inherent limits of human sensibility.

Sounds right to me. To go further you need special techniques, to
glimpse the world and indeed consciousness from a special place. Then it
becomes clear.
If you cant conceive of or arrive at that space or place, then it's all
nonsense.
I suspect Strawson simply can't.

> Kant's
> system requires the existence of noumena to prevent a rejection of
> external reality altogether, and it is this concept (senseless objects
> of which we can have no real understanding) to which Strawson objects in
> his book.
>
Well there ya go. If you are creating a real metaphysical system you end
up with awkward bits that many people don't like.

Strawson presumably didn't like quantum physics either :-)

I shuffled this all around in my head and came to various conclusions
and people said 'you sound like Schopenhauer' and a friend who is a
philosophy professor threw Kant at me and he was right. I had arrived in
the same ballpark as Kant. And more so Schopenhauer, at least in the
context of the best model of what 'external reality' was.

But I disagreed with both of them on the moral and life choice
conclusions they drew, as far as I can remember.

The 'problem' of transcendental idealism is it must needs introduce an
element that is anathema to materialist and realist alike , and that is
the necessary postulating of an independent entity that takes 'whatever
is the case' - the 'world-in-itself' - the 'noumenal world' and turns
it into [maps it, performs a 'transform' on it] the 'phenomenal world'
that everybody casually takes as 'real'.

And that entity is the person's mind, consciousness, or soul etc etc.
In fact the material world ,as we commonly understand it, moves around
in the TI model to become the emergent cross-product of the
world-in-itself *as interpreted by*' the 'consciousness'* .. which has
to be independent or you get recursive paradoxes. You can't have the
mind creating a material reality which has the mind as an emergent
property of that material reality, It's unstable! Worse, it is
dangerously insane and people who cant break out of that can go insane.
Cognitive dissonance protects us from having that thought.

Dyed in the wool materialists don't want consciousness and choice to be
independent. They have already decided to make them emergent properties
of *matter*, and so they think Kant is a cunt, trying possibly to
reintroduce the supernatural by the back door.

On 14/12/2024 18:43, rbowman wrote:
> On Sat, 14 Dec 2024 19:02:23 +0100, D wrote:
>
>> I thought about looking into Kierkegaard after reading some Karl
>> Jaspers,
>> but haven't gotten around to it yet.
>
> Another golden oldie. Existentialism was the cool thing in my youth and
> Jaspers was often thrown into that bag along with Buber, Tillich, Sartre,
> Camus and the rest of the usual suspects.

Oh. Complete cunts the lot of them. Should have been hanged at birth.

They all started from assumptions they didn't even know they had as far
as I can remember,

Most of it either went over my
> head or under my feet, I'm not sure which. The offshoots like the theater
> of the absurd were absurd. Sitting through 'The Bald Soprano' was a once
> in a lifetime experience, I hope.

ArtStudents™ all...

--
"Women actually are capable of being far more than the feminists will
let them."

On Sat, 14 Dec 2024, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

> On 14/12/2024 18:02, D wrote:
>>
>>
>> On Sat, 14 Dec 2024, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>>
>>> On 14/12/2024 10:54, D wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Fri, 13 Dec 2024, rbowman wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> On Fri, 13 Dec 2024 10:42:22 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Copplestone hated Kant and schopenhauer
>>>>>
>>>>> I've got to hunt down his volume on the Germans. I never read that one.
>>>>> In
>>>>> general Anglo-American and Continental philosophy go in separate
>>>>> directions. I feel more comfortable with the continentals.
>>>>
>>>> For me, to exagerate a bit, anglo-american seems more technical and dry,
>>>> while continentals (incontinentals) seem more like poetry, or chicken
>>>> soup for the soul.
>>>
>>> Yes. . To the extent that you have the Kierkegaard...couldn't get beyond
>>> chapter one...
>>
>> I thought about looking into Kierkegaard after reading some Karl Jaspers,
>> but haven't gotten around to it yet.
>
> I am not sure it was worth buying the book frankly.

That's the advantage with a lot of philosophy, it's old enough to have no
copyright. ;)

> Enormous quantities of philosophy can safely be ignored by most people and a
> fair chunk by everybody.

Ahh... but I do have an academic degree in philosophy, so I'm naturally
interested in it. =)

> An awful lot is trying to keep Christianity alive against the onslaught of
> rational materialism.

This is a very fascinating area for me. Where spirituality crashes into
the scientific worldview. William James tried to solve the equation á la
pragmatism. It's one possible answer in my opinion, although I don't quite
see how it would avoid impostor syndrome in some people (like me). ;)

On Sat, 14 Dec 2024, rbowman wrote:

> On Sat, 14 Dec 2024 19:02:23 +0100, D wrote:
>
>> I thought about looking into Kierkegaard after reading some Karl
>> Jaspers,
>> but haven't gotten around to it yet.
>
> Another golden oldie. Existentialism was the cool thing in my youth and
> Jaspers was often thrown into that bag along with Buber, Tillich, Sartre,
> Camus and the rest of the usual suspects. Most of it either went over my

Well, at least philosophy was the cool thing in your youth. In my youth it
was completely gone. ;)

Sartre and the french are completely incomprehensible to me, and just
word-diarrhea if you ask me. So I always found existentialists not very
impressive. Then I found Jaspers and he did have some interesting
thoughts. A lot of it does read more like inspirational poetry, but there
are some things there that I appreciate. So I usually find philosophers by
looking at who they were inspired by. So in Jaspers there's some
Nietzsche, and some Kierkegaard, and since I like Nietzsche, I figured the
dane might be next on the list. Alternatively, move up a generation and
see how is/was inspired by Jaspers.

> head or under my feet, I'm not sure which. The offshoots like the theater
> of the absurd were absurd. Sitting through 'The Bald Soprano' was a once
> in a lifetime experience, I hope.
>

On Sat, 14 Dec 2024 19:59:49 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

> ArtStudents™ all...

Definitely. Keeping with the times the oldest technological institute in
the US was trying to reinvent itself as a university and wanted to broaden
the horizons of STEM philistines so they would bring speakers and
performances on campus.

Long after I graduated they completely jumped the shark.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Experimental_Media_and_Performing_Arts_Center

That would be fine but their rating slipped from the top 3 to somewhere in
the middle of the pack. They're putting a lot of emphasis on a degree
program in video gaming and hope to revitalize the local economy with
gaming companies.

I'm not much of a gamer but I do realize the industry rakes in money like
porn sites so maybe they're on to something. At least the DEI president
who was once the highest paid private school president is gone. They
didn't get their money's worth. She checked off the black and female boxes
but afaik she wasn't a lesbian.

Alumni association emails go directly to the junk folder.

On Sat, 14 Dec 2024 23:05:48 +0100, D wrote:

> Alternatively, move up a generation and
> see how is/was inspired by Jaspers.

Jaspers was sort of a dead end and his work on psychopathology may have
had more of an impact than his philosophy. He was Arendt's thesis advisor
and did have some influence on her.

Postwar German philosophy was a food fight with a lot of personalities
involved. The Frankfurt School captured a lot of attention.

On Sun, 15 Dec 2024, rbowman wrote:

> On Sat, 14 Dec 2024 23:05:48 +0100, D wrote:
>
>> Alternatively, move up a generation and
>> see how is/was inspired by Jaspers.
>
> Jaspers was sort of a dead end and his work on psychopathology may have
> had more of an impact than his philosophy. He was Arendt's thesis advisor
> and did have some influence on her.
>
> Postwar German philosophy was a food fight with a lot of personalities
> involved. The Frankfurt School captured a lot of attention.
>

Oh, that's sad. Nothing more to add to his conversation then. =/

On Sun, 15 Dec 2024, rbowman wrote:

> On Sat, 14 Dec 2024 19:59:49 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>
>> ArtStudents™ all...
>
> Definitely. Keeping with the times the oldest technological institute in
> the US was trying to reinvent itself as a university and wanted to broaden
> the horizons of STEM philistines so they would bring speakers and
> performances on campus.
>
> Long after I graduated they completely jumped the shark.
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
> Experimental_Media_and_Performing_Arts_Center
>
> That would be fine but their rating slipped from the top 3 to somewhere in
> the middle of the pack. They're putting a lot of emphasis on a degree
> program in video gaming and hope to revitalize the local economy with
> gaming companies.
>
> I'm not much of a gamer but I do realize the industry rakes in money like
> porn sites so maybe they're on to something. At least the DEI president
> who was once the highest paid private school president is gone. They
> didn't get their money's worth. She checked off the black and female boxes
> but afaik she wasn't a lesbian.
>
> Alumni association emails go directly to the junk folder.

My old alma mater kicked out a student for being anti-immigration. His
crime was to discuss it with a classmate and supporting it with facts.

I think there was a small uprising and he was allowed back eventually. But
there was never any apology.

To add insult to injury, they closed down the alumni email addresses,
because they thought it was too expensive (they are a microsoft exchange
customer, and probably have moved the students to "ze cloud" and were
fearing a huge price increase if they had to move the old alumni exchange
people to the cloud.

Needless to say, no alumni mails even reach me any longer. ;)

On Sat, 14 Dec 2024, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

>> What is your opinion on the transcendental error?
>>
>> The Transcendental Error: One significant flaw in Kant’s thinking is what
>> has been termed the “transcendental error.” This refers to Kant’s tendency
>> to conflate the limits of human cognition with the nature of reality
>> itself.
>
> I never thought that at all. He was in fact completely distinct in his
> thinking between 'the world in itself' and 'the world of our perceptions., as
> being utterly different - though related.
>
> Many materialist simply cannot understand it - to them the world is what they
> think it is and see it as, and therefore Kant is simply nonsense.

Yes, I think we've established that this is why we keep talking past each
other on this subject. Were you at one point in the materialist camp, and
then you reached enlightenment, or did you always feel that the
materialist camp was unsatisfactory, and after Kant everything sort of
clicked into place for you?

>> According to critics like Peter Strawson, while Kant correctly seeks to
>> explore what we can understand about our experiences, he mistakenly
>> concludes that these limits are imposed by our cognitive faculties on a
>> reality that could be structured differently.
>
> That is exactly right, and to my certain knowledge it can be: Because
> Strawson cant do it doesn't mean it cant be done.

This is true. I was curious about what you would say about Strawsons
argument.

> Strawson seems to be a Beleiver. He wants there to be a simple objective
> reality that we can grasp. Kant says 'its there, but we cannot grasp it: It
> has to go through our processes of categorisation before it is intelligible
> to us'.

I think the point is that, if we can never grasp it, we can never say it
is or anything about it, and I think that is why he argues it collapses
into idealism, or potentially, solipsism.

>> Kant's system requires the existence of noumena to prevent a rejection of
>> external reality altogether, and it is this concept (senseless objects of
>> which we can have no real understanding) to which Strawson objects in his
>> book.
>>
> Well there ya go. If you are creating a real metaphysical system you end up
> with awkward bits that many people don't like.
>
> Strawson presumably didn't like quantum physics either :-)

This is another very interesting topic. Which interpretation is true, is anyone
of them true? Or should we adopt the stance and "shut up and calculate"?

> I shuffled this all around in my head and came to various conclusions and
> people said 'you sound like Schopenhauer' and a friend who is a philosophy
> professor threw Kant at me and he was right. I had arrived in the same
> ballpark as Kant. And more so Schopenhauer, at least in the context of the
> best model of what 'external reality' was.
>
> But I disagreed with both of them on the moral and life choice conclusions
> they drew, as far as I can remember.
>
> The 'problem' of transcendental idealism is it must needs introduce an
> element that is anathema to materialist and realist alike , and that is the
> necessary postulating of an independent entity that takes 'whatever is the
> case' - the 'world-in-itself' - the 'noumenal world' and turns it into [maps
> it, performs a 'transform' on it] the 'phenomenal world' that everybody
> casually takes as 'real'.

I think this is the fundamental disagreement and what Strawson feels is the
fundamental error that collapses it into idealism.

> Dyed in the wool materialists don't want consciousness and choice to be
> independent. They have already decided to make them emergent properties of
> *matter*, and so they think Kant is a cunt, trying possibly to reintroduce
> the supernatural by the back door.

This makes a lot of sense to me.

> My own thought is that right or wrong, the answers that that model gives,
> solve a huge amount of subjectivity in the human experience.

Each answer has its own pros and cons. Since it's philosophy, there is always
the risk that the conversation will still be going on in a 1000 years. ;)

Thank you for your comments and explanation. I think I understand you better
now, and where the key-disagreement is.

>> A cross section of the history of ideas and philosophy of science maybe? It
>> is very interesting!
>>
> I spent many years looking at religions, magical systems, cults and so on.
> And the paranormal and unexplained 'weird shit'. It is even more peppered
> with total bullshit than philosophy, but it does give a clue as to how weird
> some peoples minds are.

This is the truth! It seems to me that "magic" has collapsed into pop-psychology
in our current day and age. I am very interested in the subject, from that
angle. I think magic dovetails nicely with the philosophy of Feyerabend and
perhaps you can add a pinch of pragmatism as well. At least that seems to be the
justification I get when talking to "occultists" and wiccans.

> And now and again I glimpsed something that might have made sense, if it
> hadn't been reported by complete idiots who couldn't think clearly.
>
> Some one said once I should invent a new religion. I did a test. I invented
> the Church of the Yo-yo. Believe in the Yo-yo and be saved. I had a great
> little electric yo-yo . Mesmerising. Some twit from the 'children of God'
> even believed me.
>
> I stopped there. I don't lust for power over peoples minds, and their purses.
>
> Funnily enough, I was very familiar with UFO cults and the like and the 'men
> in black meme' and when the film came out I was super amused when one of my
> employees insisted in explaining what 'men in black' were.
>
> I didn't think admitting I probably knew ten times more than they did was
> consistent with running an orderly business.

Maybe you stopped too soon? If not, you would have had a nice old age, with many
young women to support you! ;)

On 15/12/2024 11:11, D wrote:
>
>
> On Sat, 14 Dec 2024, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>

>> Many materialist simply cannot understand it - to them the world is
>> what they think it is and see it as, and therefore Kant is simply
>> nonsense.
>
> Yes, I think we've established that this is why we keep talking past
> each other on this subject. Were you at one point in the materialist
> camp, and then you reached enlightenment, or did you always feel that
> the materialist camp was unsatisfactory, and after Kant everything sort
> of clicked into place for you?
>

I was firmly in the materialist camp. Id been taught science and that
was the way I understood the world.

Having to reluctantly dump that model in the face of the evidence was
very hard.

>>> According to critics like Peter Strawson, while Kant correctly seeks
>>> to explore what we can understand about our experiences, he
>>> mistakenly concludes that these limits are imposed by our cognitive
>>> faculties on a reality that could be structured differently.
>>
>> That is exactly right, and to my certain knowledge it can be: Because
>> Strawson cant do it doesn't mean it cant be done.
>
> This is true. I was curious about what you would say about Strawsons
> argument.
>
Id never seen it before, but it was very comprehensible once I looked up
the meaning of some of t he terms he is using.
He4 sort of buys part of the argument but rejects the conclusions mainly
on the grounds as far as I can tell that it doesn't get him where he
wants to go.

Which seems to me to be the certainty of the materialist's credo.

He wants to know 'what's really there' and Kant says 'we cant ever know
that'

>> Strawson seems to be a Beleiver. He wants there to be a simple
>> objective reality that we can grasp. Kant says 'its there, but we
>> cannot grasp it: It has to go through our processes of categorisation
>> before it is intelligible to us'.
>
> I think the point is that, if we can never grasp it, we can never say it
> is or anything about it, and I think that is why he argues it collapses
> into idealism, or potentially, solipsism.

That is his mistake. He is unable to grasps the difference between
'realism-materialness, Idealism and Transcendental Idealism, which is a
hybrid

To put it it a bastardised mathematical notation materialism is:

P,C=f(R) - what we Perceive is ONLY a function of what's really there.
Ans so is consciousness.

Whereas Idealism is :

P,R=f(C) - What we Perceive as Reality is simply an emergent property
of Consciousness or Mind.

Transcendental Idealism rearranges the equation so that

P=f(C,R) - What we perceive is a function of what's 'really there' there
AND of the means by which we transform it into a reality we can deal with.

He (Strawson) doesn't appreciate that while the set of possible Rs is
infinite, so is the set of impossible Rs.

And in the end it is not the business of humanity to attempt to
comprehend something that is completely beyond them. Our job is to map
it into something we *can* understand.

"Me Tarzan, you Jane. Banana tree that way==>"

Once you appreciate that everyday reality is a *transform* or a *map* of
'what's really there' you cannot cling to a single value of 'the Truth',
That is the purpose of Enlightenment, to make the point that reality
as we experience it is not what's really there, but a transform of it -
a map of it into co-ordinates that we fined easy to handle. Space time
matter etc.

And furthermore, that we have a choice as to how we interpret it.

Which is what science is really doing.

>
>>> Kant's system requires the existence of noumena to prevent a
>>> rejection of external reality altogether, and it is this concept
>>> (senseless objects of which we can have no real understanding) to
>>> which Strawson objects in his book.
>>>
>> Well there ya go. If you are creating a real metaphysical system you
>> end up with awkward bits that many people don't like.
>>
>> Strawson presumably didn't like quantum physics either :-)
>
> This is another very interesting topic. Which interpretation is true, is
> anyone
> of them true? Or should we adopt the stance and "shut up and calculate"?
>

Ah. I think my understanding of Enlightenment and metaphysics is that
none of them are true. They are all models, Some better, some worse.

You move through a mental model of what you *think* is there, never
encountering directly what *is* there. Or at least that is a meta-model
of metaphysics itself that works.
That is, we have genuine choices in what metaphysics we adopt.
Although we don't know that, and its very hard to change.

Realist/materialists - I never know wh9ch term is the best - are looking
for a model which covers all cases.

But as Korzybski says "The map, is not the territory"

Some people don't care about the terrain, they just want a map that
shows the bars. And the roads connecting them

To them the terrain simply does not exist. They only see the bars, and
the roads.

her people want maps showing the mountains. They climb up and say 'look,
the world is not only roads leading to bars' but the others say 'who
cares?' 'not on my map'

....

>> The 'problem' of transcendental idealism is it must needs introduce an
>> element that is anathema to materialist and realist alike , and that
>> is the necessary postulating of  an independent entity that takes
>> 'whatever is the case' - the 'world-in-itself'  - the 'noumenal world'
>> and turns it into [maps it, performs a 'transform' on it]  the
>> 'phenomenal world' that everybody casually takes as 'real'.
>
> I think this is the fundamental disagreement and what Strawson feels is the
> fundamental error that collapses it into idealism.
>
I dunno.
Strawson is like Penrose. He starts off examining things like
consciousness, and then collapses back into his old materialist world
view that matter is real, consciousness is an emergent property of it
and thereby fails to come to a satisfactory conclusion.

>> Dyed in the wool materialists don't want consciousness and choice to
>> be independent. They have already decided to make them emergent
>> properties of *matter*, and so they think Kant is a cunt, trying
>> possibly to reintroduce the supernatural by the back door.
>
> This makes a lot of sense to me.
>
I had to be dragged kicking and screaming to that point of view too.

>> My own thought is that right or wrong, the  answers that that model
>> gives, solve a huge amount of subjectivity in the human experience.
>
> Each answer has its own pros and cons. Since it's philosophy, there is
> always the risk that the conversation will still be going on in a 1000
> years. ;)
>
My understanding is that TI is like realism and idealism simply another
model.
An imperfect attempt to draw a more detailed map.

HOWEVER it does rearrange a lot of quantum physics into an entirely new
framework

> Thank you for your comments and explanation. I think I understand you
> better
> now, and where the key-disagreement is.
>

Ultimately there is no real disagreement, in that in your world view you
places things in a certain pattern. The transcendental deduction
invalidates that pattern perhaps, but you - and Strawson do not want to
take the leap to the logical conclusion because it is profoundly
uncomfortable and deeply humiliating.

As a species, we don't know jack shit about anything.
We stumble by on half truths, and the only Truth is the enlightenment of
knowing that to be the case.

We discover we have metaphysical choices that are life changing.,
Religious conversion perhaps - but we have no idea why we ought to make
those choices.

And sometime, we prefer to stay exactly where we were. Chopping wood,
fetching water.

>>> A cross section of the history of ideas and philosophy of science
>>> maybe? It is very interesting!
>>>
>> I spent many years looking at religions, magical systems, cults and so
>> on. And the paranormal and unexplained 'weird shit'. It is even more
>> peppered with total bullshit than philosophy, but it does give a clue
>> as to how  weird some peoples minds are.
>
> This is the truth! It seems to me that "magic" has collapsed into
> pop-psychology

It always was.

Yesterdays black magicians are today's politicians, marketing
executives and creatives. Weaving spells to enslave you, take your
money, and control your behaviour.
E.g. Critical race theory is a *spell*. It modifies the individuals
metaphysics so that all they can see is race and conflict, and all they
think they ought to feel is rage.

On Sun, 15 Dec 2024, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

> On 15/12/2024 11:11, D wrote:
>>
>>
>> On Sat, 14 Dec 2024, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>>
>
>>> Many materialist simply cannot understand it - to them the world is what
>>> they think it is and see it as, and therefore Kant is simply nonsense.
>>
>> Yes, I think we've established that this is why we keep talking past each
>> other on this subject. Were you at one point in the materialist camp, and
>> then you reached enlightenment, or did you always feel that the materialist
>> camp was unsatisfactory, and after Kant everything sort of clicked into
>> place for you?
>>
>
> I was firmly in the materialist camp. Id been taught science and that was the
> way I understood the world.
>
> Having to reluctantly dump that model in the face of the evidence was very
> hard.

What made you have to dump it?

>>>> According to critics like Peter Strawson, while Kant correctly seeks to
>>>> explore what we can understand about our experiences, he mistakenly
>>>> concludes that these limits are imposed by our cognitive faculties on a
>>>> reality that could be structured differently.
>>>
>>> That is exactly right, and to my certain knowledge it can be: Because
>>> Strawson cant do it doesn't mean it cant be done.
>>
>> This is true. I was curious about what you would say about Strawsons
>> argument.
>>
> Id never seen it before, but it was very comprehensible once I looked up the
> meaning of some of t he terms he is using.
> He4 sort of buys part of the argument but rejects the conclusions mainly on
> the grounds as far as I can tell that it doesn't get him where he wants to
> go.
>
> Which seems to me to be the certainty of the materialist's credo.
>
> He wants to know 'what's really there' and Kant says 'we cant ever know that'

I find myself in the position where I am a materialist, but, due to the finitude
of our brains, the speed of light, and other contraints, I find it unlikely that
we'll ever be able to know everything.

Since I'm also instrumentalist leaning, and a fan of empiricism, I fully admit
(and believe) that we can only infer what's inside a black hole, or what various
interpretations of quantum physics might or might not lead to, but we'll never
know for sure.

That, does however not exclude (for me) that we live in a material universe. I
think our limitations are due to the fact that we are material beings, living in
a material universe, and accepting those limitations are perfectly fine with me.

>>> Strawson seems to be a Beleiver. He wants there to be a simple objective
>>> reality that we can grasp. Kant says 'its there, but we cannot grasp it:
>>> It has to go through our processes of categorisation before it is
>>> intelligible to us'.
>>
>> I think the point is that, if we can never grasp it, we can never say it is
>> or anything about it, and I think that is why he argues it collapses into
>> idealism, or potentially, solipsism.
>
> That is his mistake. He is unable to grasps the difference between
> 'realism-materialness, Idealism and Transcendental Idealism, which is a
> hybrid
>
> To put it it a bastardised mathematical notation materialism is:
>
> P,C=f(R) - what we Perceive is ONLY a function of what's really there. Ans so
> is consciousness.
>
> Whereas Idealism is :
>
> P,R=f(C) - What we Perceive as Reality is simply an emergent property of
> Consciousness or Mind.

I think we've been over this, and I do reside soundly on Strawsons side when it
comes to the transcendent error.

I don't want to be rude, but I feel as if we are just regurgitating, so I'll
happily explore how come you "switched sides", and what prompted you to do it.
But when it comes to the arguments, we are at an impasse.

>> Thank you for your comments and explanation. I think I understand you better
>> now, and where the key-disagreement is.
>>
>
> Ultimately there is no real disagreement, in that in your world view you
> places things in a certain pattern. The transcendental deduction invalidates
> that pattern perhaps, but you - and Strawson do not want to take the leap to
> the logical conclusion because it is profoundly uncomfortable and deeply
> humiliating.

This is about the nature of reality, so there can be no humiliation. As stated
above, I think that Strawson does take TI to its logical conclusion which is
idealism, which is a dead end. You disagree. I have not been able to persuade
you, and you have not been able to persuade me.

There has not been a "meeting of minds" and enlightenment! This is sad!

> As a species, we don't know jack shit about anything.

I think this is a little bit dramatic, given the enormous progress of science,
improvement in quality of life, and general happiness. This is in fact a strong
proof of the materialist world view. ;)

Jokes aside, I understand that this is not what you mean.

> We discover we have metaphysical choices that are life changing., Religious
> conversion perhaps - but we have no idea why we ought to make those choices.

Happiness? Can there be anything else? I place meaning as something that
contributes to my happiness, and not happiness as a byproduct of meaning.

>> This is the truth! It seems to me that "magic" has collapsed into
>> pop-psychology
>
> It always was.
>
> Yesterdays black magicians are today's politicians, marketing executives and
> creatives. Weaving spells to enslave you, take your money, and control your
> behaviour.

I flipped through a book by Ramsey Dukes a week or two ago, and he makes the
exact same point. Maybe you read it? Maybe you are him?

>> At least that seems to be the justification I get when talking to
>> "occultists" and wiccans.
>
> I gave up on them both., They didn't understand what they were doing.

I think it is about hope, and them wanting there to be something more than the
material world. A sort of spiritual longing, and consolation (magic) they cannot
get in any other way.

> I remember popping into a little bookshop in my local town and meeting a girl
> who used to run an occult bookshop in London. I said hi and she said 'who
> sent you?'

Reminds me of politicial zealots! Run!

> I mean look at Putin. Classic psychopath in a society ruled by fellow
....
> He needs to be put down like a rabid dog.

This is the correct statement! I fear europe is repeating the same mistakes they
did with Hitler. The sooner he can be taken out, the better. I am surprised that
Ukraine has not started an assasination market and put a billion dollar in prize
money on his head. Maybe that would motivate someone in his inner circle?

> Nietzsche says 'be strong' I say 'fuck that, I want some peace'. I will be
> more or less invisible instead. :-)

Well, I think you exemplify what Nietzsche means with being strong. That does
not exclude moving to nature and wanting some peace. ;)

> But realism doesn't allow for this subjectivity. A realist believes in the
> truth of his ideas. That is supremely dangerous.

Of course it does! A realist must be clear about what can be known and what
cannot be known. What is objective, and what is subjective. I find it an
excellent tool for dividing up what can be known from what cannot be known, and
that brings clarity.

> The idealist magician believes his ideas form other peoples reality.
> Equally dangerous.

This is called mental illness. ;)

>> Maybe you stopped too soon? If not, you would have had a nice old age, with
>> many young women to support you! ;)
>
> Christ! One was bad enough. No support whatsoever. The only thing I agree
> with Nietzsche on is that 'all women's problems are solved by pregnancy'

Did you ever have children?

> The Zulu says 'women are strange cattle'
>
> They are dominated by hormones - more so than even men are. And they can
> sublimate them but never eliminate them.

This is the truth! I often explain why women do not make good leaders (on
average) and it comes down to hormones, being more empathetic, being less
psycho. Psycho men will gladly trample on others, and has no problem sacrificing
the few for the many. Women, by their brain structures and hormones have a much
harder time doing this. That means men have a natural advantage.

Some women master this, but they are likelier to get burned out, since they are
fighting against their biological setup.

It is funny to watch the smoke coming out of militant feminists ears! =D

> The current pretence is that we are all free and enlightened, but no, we are
> not. We are, just underneath, animals trying to mate, in a blind sort of
> urge.

On 2024-11-21, Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
> On Thu, 21 Nov 2024 02:20:58 -0500, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:
>
>> On 11/20/24 10:46 AM, Rich wrote:
>>>
>>> If JS or Perl are your yardstick for "never liked" you must never have
>>> attempted to write an AutoHotKey script to automate something on a
>>> windows machine.
>>
>> Tried a hotkey daemon once, DOS-era, but eventually bought one writ
>> by better programmers. Automated Winders ... again a real pain in the
>> ass.
>
> GUIs were never designed to be automated. Which is why trying to do so is
> fiddly, fragile and just plain unreliable.
>
>> DOS was better at that.
>
> Command line, of course -- naturally better for automation purposes.
> Though the DOS one was a pitiful toy reimplementation of what was, and
> still is, available on *nix systems.
BeOS and Haiku with the Hey command disagree.