Kant's Transcendental Idealism and Flux

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1

Based on this page alone, I suspect that the roots of the idea that “There are no things that are changing, there is just changing” can be found in Kant.

The following is my attempt to reconstruct Kant’s argument. He never stated the second premise, as far as I can tell, so I had to guess it.

  1. A map of reality ( “appearance”, “representation” ) is not the same thing as reality ( “thing-in-itself”. )

  2. The truth value of a map of reality is determined by the extent to which the map of reality is the same thing as reality itself. If it’s the same thing as reality itself, then it’s completely true.

  3. Therefore, no map of reality is completely true.

Kant made the correct observation that the entirety of our conscious experience, which includes things such as 2D images that we see with our eyes together with our sense of being in 3D space surrounded by 3D objects, is merely a representation of reality and not reality itself.

But at the same, he seems to have subscribed to a theory of truth, one that was perhaps unknown at that time, without stating it. According to it, a map of reality is said to be true to the extent that it is the same thing as reality. Thus, if a map of reality is not the same thing as reality itself, it follows that it isn’t completely true; instead, it is only more or less close to being true, depending on how similar it is to it.

This theory of truth looks like a corrupt version of the standard correspondence theory of truth. It goes without saying that I don’t accept it, which is why I can’t accept the conclusion.

What does it actually mean to say that a map of reality is true?

It certainly does not mean that it is the same thing as reality itself or that it is a different but physically identical thing to it.

Instead, what it means is that the mapped portion of reality ( e.g. Trump’s hair ) can be represented by the description of that portion of reality ( e.g. blonde ) as specified by the rules of the language used to construct the said map ( e.g. English language. )

This may sound a bit complicated, so I’ll try to provide a simpler example.

To observe something means to map that something. A map is made out of symbols, so in order to construct a map, you need to have a bunch of symbols that you can use. A bunch of symbols together with a bunch of rules as to how these symbols can be used is called language. Thus, in order to create a map of reality, any kind of map of reality, you need language. You can’t observe anything without first having some sort of language. There is an infinite number of languages one can pick from. As such, there is an infinite number of different ways one and the same portion of reality can be mapped.

The 2D images that we see with our own eyes, for example, are constructed by our brains using an intrapersonal language – a language used to facilitate communication between different parts of one’s brain – that we may call visual language. They are made out of colored dots that are akin to words. Each colored dot has a concept attached to it that determines how that dot ought to be used, i.e. what kind of things it can be used for and what kind of things it can’t. For example, the so-called blue dots have a concept attached to it that restricts their usage to representing effects that are produced by light that has wavelength between 450nm and 495nm. If your retina is hit by a light that has wavelength between 450nm and 495nm, and you represent that with a blue dot, your representation is completely true. It doesn’t matter if the actual wavelength is 454nm or 458nm. In both cases, your representation is completely true. That’s what the term “completely true” means. On the other hand, if the wavelength is outside of that range, e.g. if it’s 300nm, and you use the blue dot to represent it, you’ll end up with a false map of reality. That’s really all there is to it. The fact that our visual map is not the same thing as reality itself, and the fact that it isn’t completely identical to it ( it does not even look like it ), is irrelevant.

Once this 2D map is created, the brain immediately proceeds to creating a 3D map of space. Whereas the 2D map is a visual map of the effect the light had on our retina, the 3D map attempts to map the world around us. We don’t just see a bunch of colored dots – in fact, we often overlook those, many times proven by optical illusions, e.g. checker shadow illusion – we also, and we mostly, see three-dimensional physical objects that are a certain distance away from us. This process is a bit more complicated, involving a degree of probabilistic reasoning based on previously built 2D and 3D maps, as well as considerably more complicated intrapersonal language ( “ontology” ) of 3D concepts.

Here, we are often caught saying things such as “Ball X was green at point in time t” to mean “The ball was such at point in time t that, if a trichromat observed the ball at that point in time t in certain way and under certain conditions, his brain would have built a 2D map consisting of a lot of green little dots in certain places.” People often argue whether color is subjective or objective. In reality, it depends on the concept of color we’re talking about. There is a subjective concept of color ( e.g. the color of colored dots ) but there is also an objective one ( e.g. the color of physical objects such as balls. )

We can’t help but describe external reality in terms of how it would affect us in various circumstances but that does not mean our representations are necessarily wrong.

2

what about the transcendental deduction of the categories

3

You can’t make the definition of truth really difficult,
then turn around and demand things to be true.

4

the part about needing language i mean think about this right…what is a language? its a sequence of symbols that either distinguish or identify objects with one another…roughly speaking. so what’s the underlying thing that’s happening there? this are either the same, or they’re different. a thing is either x or not x. fundamentally, its just a way of labeling categories. but the categories are there before you label them…if you transcendentally deduct them at least. so i mean there’s that.

5

but you can at least try

6

i always thought of kants main thing as being settling the debate between the rationalists and the empiricists without pissing either side off. he’s like yo…we perceive all this shit so i mean there is some empiricism happening so we can’t just throw all that out because i mean there is clearly some informational content in our perceptions but also like hey…perceiving at all at the very least requires something like dumping these perceptions into categories so like it cant just be a blank slate because you know…there are categories there on the slate.

7

There can be, and there are, things out there ( “things-in-themselves” ) that can be put in human categories, but these human categories are linguistic constructs, they aren’t “out there” if by “out there” you mean “outside of language”. A language is made out of symbols, each symbol having certain meaning. The meaning of a symbol is determined by the concept attached to it. A concept is basically a set of rules as to how the symbol it is attached to ought to be used in practice, i.e. what kind of things you can represent with it and what kind of things you can’t. For example, in English language, the word “human” has a concept attached to it that says we can’t use that word to represent things such as this but that we can use it to represent things such as this, this and this. These rules are human inventions and conventions that are guided by utility, i.e. what’s usefu.

The reason I started this thread is because there is a number of people on this forum ( e.g. Lorikeet ) and elsewhere who think that our maps of reality can never capture the external world meaning that the external world is forever unknowable, indescribable, incomprehensible, etc. Kant appears to have taught the same. In fact, he might have been the first among the popular philosophers whose work has been preserved who has said so. The original post of this thread is an attempt to show where he might have made the mistake.

8

Another possibility is that Kant equivocated the term “different”.

The statement “My perception of a tree is different from the tree itself” can be interpreted in two different ways:

  1. My perception of a tree and the tree itself are two separate things.

  2. My perception of a tree is not an accurate representation of the tree itself.

The first interpretation is true, the second is not necessarily so. However, via equivocation, one can be led to accept that the second interpretation is true as well, leading to “Every map of reality is necessarily false” and “The tree itself cannot be known”.

9

So really, the tree and it”s varied representations conjure the idea that has been around for time immemorial, how can the meaning of the idea of what a tree is, any different from representations as different to the degree where plants are included into the category of what a tree is-which look more like trees other than what they look like.

10

If the object of your perception is indeed a tree, you are not perceiving the interpretation of a tree, you are perceiving the tree itself. Even if what you’re looking at is not a tree, but something else, you’re most likely attempting to perceive the world outside of your head, and in that case, you’re still not perceiving your own perception, or interpretation, of the world.

There is a difference between your perception ( “appearance” ) and the object of your perception ( “thing-in-itself”. ) A perception is a map, a representation, of some portion of reality, expressed in certain language, that is either true or false. The object of perception, on the other hand, refers to the portion of reality the perception is trying to represent. When you try to perceive something, you’re trying to perceive the object of your perception, you’re not trying to perceive the perception itself.

What you can do, instead, is you can say, the way Kant did, that no perception of reality is completely true, i.e. that no perception corresponds perfectly to its object of perception. But you’d have a very hard time proving that. Arguments in favor of that position tend to be fallacious. I’ve presented two in this thread.

11

Ergo, the personsona as representative this flow of variable images , in it’s self, aware of this process, is more authentic then any presumed alter /ego, set up as if by dividing by osmosis, into parts presumed to be unrecognizable familiar, if not similar.

That is the correlate with the other, as a pre conductive noumena.

Conditional reason for flight into metaphysics, prejoritively speaking.

Just to clear a hurdle;

“In his Critique of Pure Reason, Immanuel Kant discusses what makes up identity. He suggests that identity comes from self-consciousness and that self-consciousness arises from a combination of ideas that a person calls their own. This combination of ideas arises as a result of understanding how things are related”

12

A mental image of a tree cannot exist without a mind.
But a tree can exist without a mind.

A sound cannot exist without a mind.
But a tree falling and creating sound waves can exist without a mind.

All of this is established by the language that we’re using.

The term “mental image” is defined in such a way that it can only be used to represent things that exist within minds. As such, if there are no minds, there are no things that we can call mental images.

The term “tree” is defined in such a way that it can only be used to represent things that exist outside of minds. As such, if there are no minds, it does not follow that there are no things we can call trees.

We can’t use the term “tree” to represent a mental image of a tree. But we can use a mental image of a tree to represent a tree.

We describe reality in terms of how it would affect us under different conditions.

When we say “The apple was green at point in time t”, we’re saying that, if the conditions at that point in time t were such and such, the portion of space we’re talking about would have affected us in such and such way.

For example, if we were standing sufficiently close to the apple at that point in time t, and if we were looking at it, and if the lightning was adequate, and if we were conscious and if our brain was working correctly, we would have been affected in a way that would have made us construct a 2D image that consisted of green dots.

The idea that color is merely a property of our perceptions was born out of confusion. The argument was that, because different people can see one and the same object in different ways, it follows that color is not a property of things-in-themselves, i.e. objects of our perception, but merely a property of our perceptions. But that does not follow at all.

In reality, color is a property of both physical objects ( such as apples, cars, etc ) and mental objects ( such as visual perceptions. )

13

But there is a line to this that relates to this argument that is double sided, in between. the configuration and the confirmation of the image and the object, that confirms this.

Namely the theis I am bold to forward the the two are really bounded by an unseen hypothetical third, raising this third into the realm where hyperspace and linear time, are reducible into each other.

The diminishing temporal sequence has profound effect on sensation, that is the mental faculty by which the tree can say that the image of it becomes existent, when as the temporal sequence between the natural object’s dynamic movement in time generates the responsive co occurances of the mind’s evolution.

The cosmos develops in relatively increasing rate of change, for really, the span of temporal change corresponding to the change of spatial change nears the absolute instant, in fact the two apparently converge into the absolute, but here is the phenomenal block expressly signified by the modern age:

Existence preceded essence.

If so, there must be an a-priori condition of existence which appears conflicted with the ages’ old assumption which was presented by Cogito Ergo Sum; inferring the reductive change in consciousness of what is represented from the original presentation.

Going to stop this but do you see where I am going with this?

14

Magnus A, if the whole universe can’t exist without a mind to sustain it…. neither can a tree.

15

Tree is a category with specific traits - patterns.

How do we perceive a particular tree within a first of the same kind, represented as ‘one tree’ or ‘a tree, or named ‘tree A’’.
We distinguish it - discriminate - using differences in space/time and detail - e.g., a particular configuration of branches.
The particular tree relative to other trees in space/time.

We hold it in memory, so that if we return to the tree after years, we still re-congize it.

What are we referring to?
Tree as an idea?
No…
Tree as a continuum becoming to an category/idea.

As we perceive Tree A, is in not static…it is a dynamic sum of patterns, sharing an intent - will.
We may not perceive the minutia of changes, interactions, processes occurring on a micro-level, or inconspicuously but they are never ending.
The trees interactions may be so slow that my human senses and mental processes cannot - being faster - cannot process them.

If the tree is struck by lightning and there is no living organism with hearing…does it make a ‘sound’?
It exists and interacts with its environment - the atmosphere - creating waves, i.e., effects, which could be perceived and interpreted as sound, but if there is no ear, there is no sound…just as there is no image of the tree as it appears to humans and similar organisms that have evolved specific ways of interpreting patterns.
Its colours, sounds, shapes, smells, are all interrelations of a unity of energies with particular rhythms, sequences, frequencies…perceived in the context of a specific organic sensory organ.

16

I think I agree with you… but I honestly can’t tell.

You put it in a very peculiar way, you said our representations are not NECESSARILY wrong.
But I think that all depends on what you mean by wrong…

If you were to say “the sun comes up in the east and sets in the west” it gives the impression that the sun is moving around the earth… is that wrong?
It’s clearly correct in terms of explaining what it is you can expect to experience as a human on earth… as in that’s what you’ll see so maybe it’s only correct from a human point of view.
But that’s not at all what you can expect to see from space… so it’s not even accurate in terms of human perception… so how is it true?

The color of someone’s hair even if stated a specific bandwidth of EM radiation is also odd… bandwidth of EM radiation is not something we are sensitive enough to experience in that kind of detail. There’s a whole spectrum of EMR which most of us would only see as “blond” and be incapable of distinguishing. More than that what does “hair” even mean? Were medieval people incapable of answering that question because they did not have a theory of atoms and gluons and electromagnetic force and the rest of physics, chemistry and biology? It’s certainly essential to how we define “hair” now… nevermind if we were to define color as EMR

I would pose to you that the critique stands… reality is not easily mapped, and even when it is, when is a map ever “good enough”?
There is a solution though, and I think you were getting at it… in the form of pragmatism.

Think about how we teach kids language… we point to an object and say “apple” or “dada” or something until they associate the sound with the object and sometimes they get it wrong… they will call and orange “apple” and then we correct them until they get it right. So is the thing that’s perceived an “apple” as defined by herbologists? or is “apple” just a sound associated with a thing that’s perceived, whatever it may be?

From the word jump our language and maps of reality are utility driven, they are “true” if they guide us “true”. If the thing you want to eat is recognized by the sound “apple”, you must learn to call it “apple” so that when you ask your parent for the thing you want, you get the thing you want. If your parents are french you must learn to make a different sound and so on…

Our maps exist to serve a purpose and it’s very simple… to help us navigate to where we’re going.
If they guide us “true”… then they are good maps… however much or little they may capture reality.

In summary… we’re not really describing reality, we’re describing how to navigate reality.
We’re rendering expectations that will more often than not match what we experience… whatever reality is beyond what we can experience… well, that’s forever obscured to us.

17

In response to Mad Man P:

Kant didn’t say that reality isn’t easily mapped. He said that it is unknowable. The reason he said that is because he realized that there is a distinction between our maps of reality and reality itself. He thought that, because our maps of reality are not reality itself, it follows that reality itself is unknowable. And if something is unknowable, it means that whatever you say about it is false; no map of it can ever be anything other than false.

Pragmatists confuse truth with utility. They say that what is true is what is useful. It’s easy to see that they are wrong. All you have to do is understand what these words mean. Truth is a proposition that is true. A true proposition is one that accurately describes the portion of reality it is describing. An accurate description of some portion of reality is a symbol that, according to the language to which it belongs, can be used to represent the said portion of reality. Utility refers to usefulness. A thing – whether it’s a proposition or something else – is said to be useful if and only if it helps us attain our goals. There are many propositions that are true but that are nonetheless useless.

You’re saying that statements such as “That object is an apple” are not describing physical objects but how to attain our goals. But is that really true? “If you want to be healthy, you should eat apples” would be an example of a statement describing how to attain a goal. The former is not a statement of that kind. Sure, such statements can be used to figure out how to navigate space but that does not mean they are how-to descriptions.

Ultimately, what’s important is for people to properly understand the meaning of a statement before they proceed to assess its truth value. If they fail to do so, then everything they do afterwards would be a waste of time and effort. If you want to determine whether or not the statement “The sun comes up in the east and sets in the west” is true, you have to understand what the statement is saying first. Fail to do that and you’ll be assessing the truth value of a different statement.

18

i think the whole reason that the noumenal stuff is even in the mix isn’t that kant wanted to prove that it was but that he knew he couldn’t prove that it wasn’t. uncertainty being pervasive and what not. slap a little bit of that bertrand russell supervenience on it and it’ll be fine. it is theoretically possible to quantify all the brain states but not so to dispense every argument that there’s still a soul, so you give up, you let em have the soul, but you demand a 1:1 correlation between brain states and soul states and then you just stop talking about what the soul is doing in any terms other than the ones you use to talk about what the brain is doing. so many of those kinds of distinctions in this stuff and they get people stuck thinking about the wrong aspects of things.

19

The more I read what people have to say about what they think Kant was saying, the more I feel really sorry for him.

20

this could be summed up in terms of digital vs analog in one sense. who really cares if there isn’t a tree in your brain but instead a reaction to light reflecting from a tree? we listen to music that comes from a speaker and we know it’s a guitar anyway, even when there is no guitar present in the room. it seems like we are doing a lot of arbitrary distinction drawing here to get around what appear to be basic, moorean facts. when you look at a tree of course you see a tree. is it possible that there is some argument that invites uncertainty to that reality? sure…are there times when those arguments can be properly ignored? absolutely. breaking down the function of sight and then declaring that you aren’t seeing a tree but instead something else is just goofy. here’s why kant thinks you cant see the thing in itself…in a nutshell…

perception is a physical process that has some definition. definitions include some things and exclude other things. (invisible light spectrums, inaudible pitches etc). so we know that there are some things that we cannot perceive…therefore…uncertainty. but we want to construct a complete ontology because who wants an incomplete ontology/system??? so we have to account for that somehow…so ladies and gentlemen…i present to you…the think in itself. (sorry but you cant see it and you never will be able to).