From what I understand a noumenon is a reality that transends experiance and rational knowledge. To steal this type of example from a previous post if I see a table from the top as a square, and another person sees it from an angle as a rhombus, the table cannot be both a rhombus and square, so there’s something that makes it a table and not both a square table and a rhombus table. Maybe I’m getting what a noumenon is all wrong, but how can we know it exists?
Is a noumenon a result of our inability to perceive everything at once? or are we as human unable to comprehend a noumenon?
kant’s noumenon seems familiar to plato’s form, is there any relation?
I know a little about Kant, but my word should definitely not be taken as the last word on the subject. Even the most learned Kant scholars admit that most of his work is mystifying.
First, it’s not really proper to talk of a noumenon; Kant always refers to it as the noumenon or noumena. The noumenon is the entirety of the world that is outside the bounds of human perception or experience. It is disinguished from the phenomenon, or the world as we perceive it.
All of the things we perceive in the phenomenon correspond to our own innate ways of seeing the world around us. The human mind perceives things in terms of time and space, for instance–anything outside of time and space would be considered noumenon, and therefore totally inaccessible to us.
I don’t think Kant meant to imply that the noumenon is anything mystical, like Plato’s forms. He just means that noumenal reality is something humans can’t perceive or think about at all. There’s no way that pretending to talk about the noumenon can yield any true knowledge. All of our talk about God, for instance, is at best a sort of analogical guess-work, since we can’t have real knowledge about something that exists outside of space and time.
"Although we cannot conceive of such an object, Kant argues, there is no way of showing that such an object does not exist. Therefore, Kant says, metaphysics must not try to talk about what exists, but instead about what is perceived, and how it is perceived.
This insight allows Kant to set up a distinction between phenomena and noumena - phenomena being that which can be experienced, and noumena being things that are beyond the possibility of experience - things in themselves. Nothing can be truely experienced or else you would experience the noumena itself. The phenomena is only the representation of the object/noumena that a person recieves through their sensibilities. The phenomena is a representation of an object not the object itself, nothing more. Kant then discussed and expanded on the faculties of experience we have, and thus was able to come up with a system of metaphysics that applied to the world as we perceive it."
no, plato’s form and kant’s noumena are totally different things…
forms are metaphysical in an extra worldly sense…
noumena are simply that which underlies the phenomena…
Lost in Kant’s Noumena? Hey, you and me both, pal.
I’d like to add to SW’s comments and provide a fairly easy way to understand more about this.
Kant believed that there are two kinds of truth which can exist. The first kind of truth is called an analytical truth. This is a truth, or structure, that is necessary for there to be any experience at all. Two such types of this truth, for Kant, are time and space. One truth formula which displays these necessary ‘a priori,’ meaning prior to experience, time and space structures of experience is mathematics. One plus one equals two, and will always equal two if the time and space parameters remain constant, which he insisted(QM says otherwise). Empirical concepts have a necessary extension in time and space and therefore they are bound to these a priori conditions. But an analytical truth cannot be experienced, it is infered rationally, as one cannot experience time or space, only the objects subject to those parameters. The analytical truths are in the noumenal realm.
The second kind is a synthetic judgement, and experienced truth. These are contingent empirical judgements. Contingent because the empirical world is constantly changing. An example would be: it is snowing in Raleigh right now. This is true but not true, because a moment later things aren’t exactly the same way they were when I made the statement ‘it is snowing.’ The only absolute truth about this event is the noumenal a priori conditions which allow it to snow. There is no absolute truth in the statement ‘it is snowing’ or in the statement ‘it is not snowing’ if those are empirical truths. The phenomenal world changes so that the grey area between ‘snowing’ and ‘not snowing’ is so vanishingly small its width is no different than zero. Synthetic truths are approximations and subject to fallacy. Analytical, or rational truths, are absolute under all circumstances.
Kant’s metaphysics were based on Newtonian physics, I think. Relativity and QM came along and pulled the rug out from under it all, though some philosophers argue that still, Kant’s metaphysics is complimented by these new sciences. I, personally, don’t see how.
What threatens Kant’s metaphysics here, I believe, is rooted in the uncertainty principle. Time and space are not constant, accordingly, absolute a priori structures and forms are not possible empirically, though some say that Kant’s metaphysics don’t come collapsing down because of this. That the analytical truths remain in tact even after the superpositions of space and time are observed. Ironically, this is all the more complimentary to the idealistic aspects of the noumena and the rational, though I don’t know if other Kantians would agree with my interpretation.
By the simple fact that particles do not yet exist at a point until they are observed places a great importance on the mind and not the world. [hint…hint]
So basically, he says the noumenal truths are forces outside of direct observation, patterns of nature, essentially. These patterns can only be guessed at by observing their ramifications, i.e. phenomena, what you can experience.
Here I start getting a bit confused. Didn’t he just say that absolute concepts of nature can only be guessed at and not observed? It seems to me that it would make more sense to state that “so far 1 + 1 has always equaled 2, but there could be more to the pattern that we don’t know about and therefore, it could just randomly start equaling 3.”
Not that I would ever commit heresy to the almighty Quantum but, I’ve been wondering, how exactly is observation defined? If someone else observes it, is it there for you? I would guess the answer is no. But if the person tells you isn’t it just like observing it? If the things location effects you in any way, isn’t it just like observing it? So, to define observation as anything but existence, you’d have to say that when something moves, it could literally have NO effect on something else in reality. I can live with that.
And then there’s that whole thing about the cat in the box, and when you open the box, the cat dies, so you never know if it was alive in the first place when you try to observe it. This means the cat has two pasts because from the information that exists, or exists to you, there are two things that could have led to it. So this means that there can be realities that would lead to the same exact conclusion as another reality. I can definitely live with that. (especially since it’s just an extension on the previous property)
But both of these things seem to me to be consistent with Kant’s properties about inferring things from observation and statement that these observations will never yield just one result. (quite probably infinite ones every time)
So what am I not getting?
(I think my disconnect lies somewhere in the ‘a priori’ bit)
(If my comprehension of quantum seems superficial that’s because it is)
That’s about it. The problem I see with the concept of the noumena is that upon trying to define it, it slips away in a constant regression. For instance, we couldn’t even really call it a ‘force’ could we? That would be something ‘in the world’ and it couldn’t be an analytical truth. The noumena is supposed to be unobservable. Any evidence of it must be a representation and therefore not an example. Also, Hume showed that ‘patterns’ in nature are not designedly necessary. ‘Is’ does not imply ‘ought,’ and because the sun has risen countless times in the past is not proof that there is an a priori necessary law which permits the possibility of that happening. This idea can be expanded upon to encompass mathematics as well. An object which can be accounted as ‘one’ is only the result of a set of contingent conditions that have allowed a mass of atoms to conform into a solid and sensible object, and an organic body with physiological sensory organs to percieve that object. None of this is necessary if we stay strict to Hume’s contentions. How then could we prove that a set of universal a priori laws existed when if the only evidence we have for symmetry in the universe is the existence of some contingent physical laws which aren’t necessary themselves? I am rather confused.
Yes and no. (and here is where I start to not make sense) There are absolute ‘a priori’ rules or ‘structures’ that exist in order for there to be a quantification of objects in the world. Mathematics is originally a phenomenological function without a purpose. Only when mathematics is translated to represent etymological or symbolic objects, such as word values and numbers, does it have a purpose. Without this, the number isn’t even a word or a digit. It is just a process that evolves from a conscious differentiation of objects in a profile. "That-ness’ represents one distinct set of neuron firing combinations in a comparison to another. You know that ‘that tree’ is not ‘that other tree’ because the physical data you recorded in your mind when in the presence of one tree or the other became a closed set and now exists to represent a recording of the world as quantifiable. It isn’t that ‘that tree’ is any different or separate from ‘that other tree,’ as they are both only extensions in a field of particles, but that through your conscious apprehension of the world you have fixed upon it a necessary spatio-temporal organization of ‘thing-ness’ which is an absolute structure for experience.
No, I don’t think there will ever be a case where one and one equal three. I don’t waste time with the linguisitic application of numbers, they can be confusing. What I will insist is that ‘that-ness’ is never only an individual thing, and that ‘all-ness’ is never more than an individual thing. What!?
I’m not going to even try to answer that. I haven’t a clue. All I notice in the question is that the term ‘observation’ is a verb which indicates a subject performing an action, also that there must be an ‘observed’ which suggests that the ‘observer’ is distinct from the observed. I can’t resist, all I know for sure here is that there is some being and a consciousness. I feel like if these two items were the same there wouldn’t be the possibility of the question in the first place.
I’m not sure what implications Schrodinger’s cat would have on any Kantian theory. As I understand the thought experiment, it involves a paradox.
Correct me if I’m wrong.
One atom of cecium has a fifty percent chance of disintegrating before one complete rotation or occilation. If it does disintegrate, it will disolve a trigger switch which will fire a gun at a cat in a box.
Now, at a quantum level there is a moment in time where the atom is both integrated and disintegrated. When in space/time does it begin to disintegrate if its rotation creates the space/time coordinates itself? That is, the particle activity that composes the atom is indeterminate itself, and without being observed the particles exist in all places at all times. Upon observing them they are plotted into a system of time/space coordinates. If we ignore the macrostructure of the atom and just consider its components, we will see that the time and space frames we apply to observing the atom are actually created in the observation itself. There is no moment where the atom starts to disintegrate or continues to stay integrated without it being observed, there is no ‘time’ at this moment, the particles that compose the atoms are in all possible states until they are seen as an atomic structure by being observed, so the cat, at a quantum level, is both dead and alive simultaneously until the box is opened.
The paradox being:
“There is no way in hell that cat is both dead and alive, dude.”- Observer
"Oh yes there is, ‘dude.’ - Cosmic Quantum Engineer
That part I get, just used the wrong word with the force. . .
You’re already losing me, who is this Hume fellow, and what is he talking about?
Ok, this part I think I get.
That’s nice to know. So. . . Hume.
I THINK I might just understand this part. Ok, here goes nothing.
From what you said so far, I’m starting to think that the term ‘a priory’ refers to some type of original condition from which all other existence has occurred. If these conditions were to be known, and all other existence since then, the noumenon would be deduced.
(I must be way off, but I had to put it out there.)
Ok, I like the exploration into the essence of mathematical thought, but it doesn’t really pertain to the Kant stuff, does it?
It might be simpler to say (on this narrow point) that !+!=2 is not a statement about a property of nature – certainly not in the same way “it’s raining in Raleigh” is. It’s a statement about a property of mathematics – i.e., about the properties of a logical and symbolic system.
We particularly like this property of mathematics because it corresponds in ways we are interested in with properties of nature, so it’s a useful tool – but that doesn’t make mathematical relationships the same as phenomenological relationships.
It might be simpler to say (on this narrow point) that !+!=2 is not a statement about a property of nature – certainly not in the same way “it’s raining in Raleigh” is. It’s a statement about a property of mathematics – i.e., about the properties of a logical and symbolic system.
We particularly like this property of mathematics because it corresponds in ways we are interested in with properties of nature, so it’s a useful tool – but that doesn’t make mathematical relationships the same as phenomenological relationships.
tch, tch, “Observation” is a noun in that question (as indeed the suffix requires it to be)
I have to point out we are not really talking about QuantumMechanics any more – we are talking about the Copenhagen interpretation of QM – and That Way Lies the Anthopic Principle.
I’m sorry sir. I was thinking that the observation requires an observer, making ‘observation’ an act and not a thing. Much like the necessary act of ‘vacating’ in order to be on a vacation.
To de Trop – I can’t tell what you are asking information about – the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics or the Anthropic Principle.
Both are at least moderately well known, so anything I might say here could only be the barest gloss on subjects spread around the internet.
Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics was Neils Bohr’s (IIRC) way of relating the equations of QM to the real world. This interpretation has become widely accepted among physicists. I think of it as a metaphysical framework so that you can talk about Quantum Mechanics in natural languages instead of mathematics – but it is metaphysics, not physics. The equations say things like: the wave function collapses under these conditions x, y, z, and has discontinuous determinate values (very rough approximation). Bohr’s interpretation says “the electron does not exist between the states at which it can be observed.” Highly reductionist, but it saves having to deal with problems intractable for physics – such as: why are there limiting conditions on observation. That’s both an up side and a down side. Another down side is that it discourages investigation into the nature of the mathematical system that generates the equations.
The Anthropic Principle is, again very roughly stated, a cosmological principle that the universe only exists when there is a mind to observe it, and that, therefore, the human mind creates the external universe. The relationship to QM is probably too obvious to elaborate, so I won’t.
I am aware of the Anthropic principle, as well as the ramifications of QM in light of modern science and physics. My concern was whether or not I missed an interpretation of QM that was ground breaking enough to get aquainted with and learn something new. Sadly, the ‘Copenhagen’ interpretation is all too familiar to me.
In fact, I don’t see how so many interpretations can come out of what remains the common features of QM. When watching these particles, the eyes shouldn’t make a difference in the interpretation. I guess many different camps use the theory differently, though the theory is the same.
The interpretation isn’t part of the equations, so you can superimpose any interpretive framework you like on the equations, each having a more or less good fit – and none of them has any particular “truth-authority.” They are just interpretive frameworks and the test is not, are they in any sense true, but do they work to let you manipulate the equations in a meaningful manner.
None of the statements made about quantum mechanics findings is anything more than interpretation and has less to do with the equations than with the interpretive framework.
I think the way you nuanced your statement is very apt.
I thought you probably did already understand the material I put out; it was mainly for the benefit of those unknown others to whom the subject might be esoteric.
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