This is a philosophy 101 test!

[Teancum]

On 6/28/2021 at 3:12 PM, mfbukowski said:

Good!! Communication established!

I joined the church BECAUSE of the philosophy- don't worry about human foibles and people who live with ideas a few hundred years old, it's not their fault!  Their thoughts are fossils from the past, but we live in a time of secular religion and to include the secularists we need to build bridges to secularism yet with theism as our base, AND THIS WAY OF SEEING PROVIDES THAT.

They have their truth for their community and we have ours, and there is no logical reason to pick one above the other EXCEPT for our experiences, and how they differ.

So try seeking experience in your "gut" and see them as valid as any other "gut" feeling you have, like falling in love, picking a political party, etc.

Religion is not about facts, it's about the gut.

God lives in your heart, and it's ok to see it that way, it is fully "logical" to render science to scientists and religion to God!

And be nice to the fossils, diamonds are pretty old too!  It's not their fault.

 

Ok.  But if what you are trying to explain is not understood by almost anyone what practical application does it have?  If those who lead the church don't teach truth confirmation is such an ambiguous and esoteric way what good is it? My bet is hardy ay members of the LDS Church who "know" the various fundamentals of a testimony-God lives, Jesus is the Christ, JS was a prophet, BoM is true, current prophet is God's prophet today-approach religious truth this way or perceive it this way. As noted I could  feel happy in a community of believers that are open to various "truth" experiences.  It seems it would be open to skeptic like me as well and one that could be open about it.

 

Also what if my experience tells me that the LDS Church is not what it claims and that maybe there is no God. Is that valid? It conflicts with your experienced truth does it not?

[CV75]

22 hours ago, MosiahFree said:

"Experience is the sum total of what it is to be conscious- it is one's stream of awareness of their interactions with the environment" is a keeper, I think that is the perfect first sentence. I think if you lead with something like this and follow it up with some carefully selected examples of what experience is, followed by some carefully selected examples of what experience isn't, and I think you'll have an intuitive and easy to understand opening paragraph. 

and @mfbukowskiI think there needs to be room for awareness and interaction we have while not conscious (such as dreaming, which can be affected by the internal and external environments; perhaps cognition during other stages of sleep), unless they only count if we remember them while conscious.

[mfbukowski]

3 minutes ago, CV75 said:

and @mfbukowskiI think there needs to be room for awareness and interaction we have while not conscious (such as dreaming, which can be affected by the internal and external environments; perhaps cognition during other stages of sleep), unless they only count if we remember them while conscious.

Yes, I wanted to slip that in as well. Good catch, thanks!

[mfbukowski]

4 hours ago, Teancum said:

Ok.  But if what you are trying to explain is not understood by almost anyone what practical application does it have?  If those who lead the church don't teach truth confirmation is such an ambiguous and esoteric way what good is it? My bet is hardy ay members of the LDS Church who "know" the various fundamentals of a testimony-God lives, Jesus is the Christ, JS was a prophet, BoM is true, current prophet is God's prophet today-approach religious truth this way or perceive it this way. As noted I could  feel happy in a community of believers that are open to various "truth" experiences.  It seems it would be open to skeptic like me as well and one that could be open about it.

 

Also what if my experience tells me that the LDS Church is not what it claims and that maybe there is no God. Is that valid? It conflicts with your experienced truth does it not?

Yes, different paradigms can differ.

That's what science is about right?

Which is the best lifestyle for YOU is the question.

And "validity" is in the eye of the community of believers.  Peer review.

Would you go to an AA meeting and denounce AA?

Same thing. That is called "rude" and not accepted in the peer review community of any theory I am familiar with! 

Try seeing it that way, maybe.

 

 

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, mfbukowski said:

Is that valid? It conflicts with your experienced truth does it not?

Not sure what "valid" means in this context. Everyone has doubts occasionally that they look at and decide what they think. And the word is not valid or true, but "justifiable".  And in its context, it is that.

You have to decide what works for you, but for my tithing money, there is nothing better 

Peace in my heart and a God who is a Perfect Human, who wants me to grow up and be like Him? 

How can ANYONE come up with a paradigm better than that?

Sure there are fundies also, but who's perfect?  We all have grumpy folks we love anyway.. 

But trust me!  Kick back and don't worry about the naysayers, just love them and talk ONLY to THE BOSS.

 

 

 

[Teancum]

21 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Yes, different paradigms can differ.

That's what science is about right?

Which is the best lifestyle for YOU is the question.

And "validity" is in the eye of the community of believers.  Peer review.

Would you go to an AA meeting and denounce AA?

Same thing. That is called "rude" and not accepted in the peer review community of any theory I am familiar with! 

Try seeing it that way, maybe.

 

 

I am not looking to be in a community and denounce the beliefs.  But being able to ask tough questions and discuss them would be nice.

[Teancum]

On 6/30/2021 at 1:36 PM, mfbukowski said:

   Maybe if you scan this article by President Kimball- clearly NOT a philosopher and yet a very well educated and wise man, and in my opinion, inspired by experiences of the Human Ideal- God- you will understand the milieu if you do not already.

https://www.lds.org/ensign/1978/09/absolute-truth?lang=eng

For LDS readers that is a good thing in that we can have our cake and eat it too in a sense because we can have "eternal truth" - a priori truth- that still is based on practical (pragmatic) experience.  And really my use of philosophy is to justify beliefs philosophically, not to use one particular outlook or movement IN philosophy in a doctrinaire way.

 

I thought his comments about learning how to understand the things from God was fine. But not the part where he is absolute about his absolutes that conflict with other's absolutes. See this is the problem with this approach.

[mfbukowski]

47 minutes ago, Teancum said:

I am not looking to be in a community and denounce the beliefs.  But being able to ask tough questions and discuss them would be nice.

Yes but note that if you accept this "new" way of seeing truth, you will probably be the only one in the room who does, unless perhaps you are in Provo. Even there it would be a one in a thousand chance.  Think about Kevin C- I am pretty sure that relativism as the most advanced way to understand this stuff is NEVER brought up in Sunday school.

Yet my position is fully in line with church Doctrine, once you understand it.

Explaining it is the problem, as it is here.

[mfbukowski]

59 minutes ago, Teancum said:

 

I thought his comments about learning how to understand the things from God was fine. But not the part where he is absolute about his absolutes that conflict with other's absolutes. See this is the problem with this approach.

No it's not, I will have to get into it

Lost a post answering this

[mfbukowski]

10 hours ago, Teancum said:

I thought his comments about learning how to understand the things from God was fine. But not the part where he is absolute about his absolutes that conflict with other's absolutes. See this is the problem with this approach.

OK for some reason the board is not allowing me to make long posts- so I am pasting in something from 2016- about Pres Kimball's talk which I referenced above.

Hope it helps

I apoligize- it is long and rambling and are just notes- but I wanted to post some kind of answer to you and right now I cannot trust the board to work properly

 

 

 

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Thursday, January 7, 2016

Absolute Truth, President Kimball and Alma

Recently someone emailed me asking about how one could reconcile my view of truth with an article by President Kimball about "Absolute Truth".  That article by President Kimball can be found here:https://www.lds.org/ensign/1978/09/absolute-truth?lang=eng

The Rorty video referenced is wonderful because it absolutely packs so much into a few minutes. Every single word and phrase is packed with meaning.

It can be found here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzynRPP9XkY

I also here I make some reference to "Alma" - this can be found in the Book of Mormon, Alma 32. I intend to eventually integrate this blog with another discussion I had with this individual about Alma's "theory of truth"  One must speak carefully and watch closely exactly what is being said and analyze the logic of each and every sentence.

To say that "truth is relative to a context" does NOT mean that there is no truth, or that "truth is relative" or "there are no absolute truths"  To say that "truth" is undefinable does not mean that there is no truth or that it is unintelligible.  Watch that Rorty video again- the fact that we cannot define "true" does not mean we do not know how to use it in a sentence.  It does not mean that "truth" is not a useful concept.

Truth is a property of sentences- not "reality".  

There are no "true" chairs or tables, only true or false sentences. The sentence A=A is always absolutely true.  It is a statement of identity.  It is a definition that a thing is itself.  The rules of logic will always be regarded as "true" because they are the very rules by which thought proceeds.  We cannot imagine that "A" and "Not A" can both be "true"- our brains cannot comprehend such an idea.  In a sense that could be seen as an "absolute" truth- because it always works.  We cannot think without the principle of identity.  It is true "by definition" what we MEAN by A is A.  Language and all communication requires naming and the idea that names do not change every few seconds, that what we mean by A could become B.  We don't imagine that black becomes white and up suddenly gets defined by the word "down".  Unintelligible.

Also as Pres Kimball says, and the scriptures say, truth is contexual within its "sphere".  He repeatedly says that statements about God are not speaking about science.  So that is one way of understanding a pragmatic way of looking at "truth" (this is not a full definition- but a working model- a hypothesis- a paradigm- a way of looking at the concept for a specific purpose)  One might say the "truth is what works" for a precise purpose.

In science, purposes change all the time.  The Kimball article points that out well.  Newton's "laws" become replaced by Einstein etc.  What worked before is now replaced by something that works better.

The purpose of statements about science is to make things and understand what can be said about the regularities of nature and our observations of it.  You turn the key on the car, and science can detail each reaction started by that spark and what makes the car move.

But science does not tell us anything about right and wrong, about significance or about importance. Science cannot tell us that murder is wrong, or how to be fulfilled as a human being.  It cannot tell us whom to marry  or how to repent, why to repent, or how to love our enemy or indeed why we even should. It does not tell us where we came from and where we are going- and yet we all need that kind of meaning in our lives. Science gives us bare facts which work for a while and then get changed as we learn better ways of doing things.

But what about what gives our lives meaning?   What kind of statements give our lives meaning, and tell us what is right and wrong and why?  What statements codify what we KNOW in our hearts is "true" like the golden rule?

 

It is self-evident that it is wrong to kill babies, but how do we know that?  How do people all over the world and in all civilizations know that?  They may differ in their definition of what constitutes a "baby".

 

Remember now, we are speaking about philosophy- we are not speaking as Mormons.  We are looking for secular ways to define "absolute truth" and ways we can think about a theory of truth which would at once be "pragmatic" and yet account for "absolute truth".   That viewpoint is essential to making it "philosophy" instead of "testimony" and the purpose for that is to be able to allow people with a philosophical bent to say "Hmmm- I guess that's reasonable" and allow them to investigate the gospel further.

 

So are there statements we can make about giving our lives significance which never change- which would allow people from all civilizations to see a pragmatic reason to understand principles which never change which give our lives significance?

 

I think there are.  All civilizations need peace.  All civilizations need to be based on families due to simple biology.  Our babies have huge heads and are born helpless and require the care of two or more individuals to raise them until they can be old enough to survive on their own.  So on a mere survival basis, humanity needs families just to survive.

Humanity needs rules for a civilized society.  Without rules, there is chaos.  If we all decided to drive 60 mph down a sidewalk on the left side of the street, people would die.  That is not good for society.  We need peace and calm and therefore rules.  We LDS know that commandments actually GIVE us freedom and are not "restrictions" on our freedom.  We are free of drug addiction, free of getting murdered over an adulterous relationship, etc etc.  No drunk driving etc.   But how do we define that pragmatically?   There are rules like the "golden rule" which ALWAYS WORK in a civilization.  the very existence of civilization itself requires that we regard each other as we would want to be regarded.  There must be equality before the law. etc etc.

And I have discussed the idea of the Kantian synthetic a priori- the idea that there are some “absolutes” that derive from experience.  That means that in a way, even absolute truth CAN come from experience: they ARE absolute truths !

 

So there are principles which always WORK in human ethics in any possible civilized society for it to be called "civilized"

 

The first century apocryphal work "The Didache" speaks of the "Way of Life" and the "Way of Death" and says that essentially follow the commandments leads to "life" and not following them leads to "death"

 

I think that is a philosophical principle we can sink our teeth into- it is an early pragmatic ethics.  Fornication leads to unwed mothers, absent fathers, no family and confused children.  No, it is not "death" but it is a less than optimal life style.

 

What other ideas can we think of which never change which will always "work" -  be pragmatically true- and assist in our happiness?  Remember we are thinking secularly here- what could we tell a humanist which they would relate to?

Forgiving others.  Civilization requires it. If we do something wrong, try make it better and never do it again.  Repentance. Become "more civilized" every day. Become the most "perfect" human we can.  "Be all you can be" is a slogan used in military recruitment but it is awfully close to "Fill the measure of your creation and have joy therein".

 

And we need an Ideal Being upon which to model ourselves.  What are all the best characteristics of humanity we should emulate?  One might see that as something in the direction of a "pragmatic god"

 

Rorty himself has said that he could worship a God who was a "Friend" of mankind instead of an abstract spirit filling space.  Rorty the atheist said that he could worship a human superman who was the friend of mankind- a kind of super human being.

 

Know where we can find anything like that model? 

 

Now let's go back to the Alma stuff- what does it say is "real"?  That which is full of goodness and light.  Clearly he was not talking about chairs and tables there- he was talking about what ideas make us understand the significance of our lives better.

 

So now let's get back to the president Kimball talk.  Let's "translate" it into secular pragmatism and see how close we can get to President Kimball.

 

"This true way of life is not a matter of opinion. There are absolute truths and relative truths. "

He is talking about the truth of a WAY OF LIFE.  What does that mean? He is looking for exactly what we were discussing- statements about a lifestyle which never change.  He calls those "absolute truth".

 

In this context, no problem so far.  They are true and they are unchanging for all civilizations.

 

"There are many ideas advanced to the world that have been changed to meet the needs of the truth as it has been discovered. There are relative truths, and there are also absolute truths which are the same yesterday, today, and forever—never changing. These absolute truths are not altered by the opinions of men. "

Yes we agree scientific truth changes.  What is pragmatically true for civilization does not, because people are people and have the same needs universally. 

 

"We learn about these absolute truths by being taught by the Spirit. These truths are “independent” in their spiritual sphere and are to be discovered spiritually, though they may be confirmed by experience and intellect. (See D&C 93:30.) The great prophet Jacob said that “the Spirit speaketh the truth. … Wherefore, it speaketh of things as they really are, and of things as they really will be.” (Jacob 4:13.) We need to be taught in order to understand life and who we really are."

 

We learn what works for civilized man by looking within to what we all need for peaceful survival. These spiritual truths are in their own independent sphere from scientific beliefs, and can be experienced directly through spiritual experience.

Things as they are as things as we experience them- along with what feelings and impressions we have in our heart. William James grounds the validity of these feelings in a religious context.

 

Both James and Rorty and many many other philosophers find that statements about the existence of God are justified by personal experience of the kind here mentioned by Pres. Kimball.

 

"If men are really humble, they will realize that they discover, but do not create, truth.”

 

“The Gods organized the earth of materials at hand, over which they had control and power. This truth is absolute. A million educated folk might speculate and determine in their minds that the earth came into being by chance. The truth remains. The earth was made by the Gods as was the watch by the watchmaker. Opinions do not change that."

What is truth?  Statements that work.  Can we discover statements which work as opposed to creating them?  I am not sure.  I think frankly he is speaking here of sectarian philosophy, but I do not expect him to be trained in philosophy.

I think the next paragraph may conflict with the first.  If we are in any way like the Gods, gods create truth from matter unorganized.  We also create organization intellectually.  Perhaps there are semantic problems here, perhaps not.  I do not expect prophets to be infallible on philosophical matters since it is so specialized.  I think the problem here is words, the difference between "discover" and "create".  Columbus "discovered" America, but from a pragmatic standpoint he might as well have "created" it.  What was unknown in a world of contexts- European Contexts- suddenly became a universe of possibilities which were not there before.  Is that creation of the possibilities or their discovery?  Semantic issue.

Suppose there is a real estate developer named Jones who builds an office building and calls it “The Jones Tower.   Did he "discover" it?  No, he caused it to be organized. He gave the order for others to go and organize matter unorganized.  Is the statement "Jones created the Jones Tower" true or false?  Is that an "Absolute Truth"?  When I get to the other side, I would love to sit down with President Kimball and discuss that. But for now I see it as a semantic issue.   “God organized the world”-  if we postulate from the beginning that there WAS a “Being” who organized the world, we would call that Being “God”.   So if one postulates that there WAS such a being- within the context of believers- it becomes trivial to say that God organized the world- because whoever DID organize it is called “GOD”.   It’s true by definition.  So for those who accept that concept, it is legitimately an absolute truth like A=A.

 

 

"Experience in one field does not automatically create expertise in another field. Expertise in religion comes from personal righteousness and from revelation. The Lord told the Prophet Joseph Smith: “All truth is independent in that sphere in which God has placed it.” (D&C 93:30.) A geologist who has discovered truths about the structure of the earth may be oblivious to the truths God has given us about the eternal nature of the family."

 

Truth is contextual and changes between fields. So now how can there be "absolute truth"?  Well we know I am just making a point- we have answered that.  Is there a conflict there between those statements?

 

I am not going to go paragraph by paragraph.  The church takes no position officially on evolution and there are many ways to square evolution and the gospel so I will not go there either- though he does not mention that specifically.  Different sphere with different purposes.

 

"This church of Jesus Christ (nicknamed Mormon) is the “only true and living church” that is fully recognized with the authority to perform for him, and the only one with a total and comprehensive and true program which will carry men to powers unbelievable and to realms incredible.

 

This is an absolute truth. It cannot be disproved. It is as true as the near-spherical shape of the earth, and as gravity; as true as the shining of the sun—as positive as the truth that we live. Most of the world disbelieves it; ministers attempt to disprove it; intellectuals think to rationalize it out of existence; but when all the people of the world are dead, and the ministers and priests are ashes, and the highly trained are mouldering in their graves, the truth will go forward—the Church will continue triumphant and the gospel will still be true."

Within the sphere of Mormonism of course this is an absolute truth.  One might say that Mormonism fulfills the requirements of a fully civilized church better than any other possible model.  As an ideology it works best at creating what we call a "Zion society" which is a kind of utopia ruled by an Ideal Perfect Human at its head.

 

Again remember we are speaking here assuming the persona of secularists, not as faithful members.

 

"The Lord has defined truth as being a “knowledge of things as they are, and as they were, and as they are to come.” (D&C 93:24.) God’s existence is a reality. Immortality is a reality. These realities will not go away simply because we have different opinions about them. These realities will not be dissolved just because some have doubts about them."

 

We covered this in the Alma stuff.  What are "things as they are?"  The way we experience them- not some verbal model of what we experience.  What is "reality" in a spiritual context?  Remember Alma says "goodness and light"  God's existence can be directly experienced, and it is goodness and light.  In other words, it is "knowledge of things as they are" and "real".  It all fits!

 

 

Edited July 3, 2021 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

On 7/1/2021 at 8:21 AM, Teancum said:

Ok.  But if what you are trying to explain is not understood by almost anyone what practical application does it have? 

I believe this is like talking about relativity to a group of folks who are stuck in Newtonianism.

Some day they will notice everyone else is on the internet and they will be discovering the telegraph.

If we want to actually be relevant in the next hundred years,  we had better learn it fast.  We are ridiculous to secularists, and yet they have "religious" views - secular religions- as well based on similar philosophies and see their religious conclusions as "true" based on their own internal compass

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

 

'

Edited July 3, 2021 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

On 7/1/2021 at 10:48 AM, CV75 said:

and @mfbukowskiI think there needs to be room for awareness and interaction we have while not conscious (such as dreaming, which can be affected by the internal and external environments; perhaps cognition during other stages of sleep), unless they only count if we remember them while conscious.

Quote

"Experience is the sum total of what it is to be conscious- it is one's stream of awareness of their interactions with their own mental states and the environment"

How does that work?

 

Edited July 3, 2021 by mfbukowski

[CV75]

9 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

How does that work?

I don't know, but if we forget an experience (dreams, EtOH blackouts, hypnosis, various physical/psychological survival mechanisms, etc.), I think it would still affect our interpretation of past, present and future experience, and related memories, perceptions and anticipations as much as those we remember. Also (from an earlier linked article), we have some 55 senses, most operating while we are unconscious.

Edited July 3, 2021 by CV75

[mfbukowski]

2 hours ago, CV75 said:

I don't know, but if we forget an experience (dreams, EtOH blackouts, hypnosis, various physical/psychological survival mechanisms, etc.), I think it would still affect our interpretation of past, present and future experience, and related memories, perceptions and anticipations as much as those we remember. Also (from an earlier linked article), we have some 55 senses, most operating while we are unconscious.

Yes but that is more about psychology than philosophy I think. The unconscious I think can be grouped as one of the filters of the senses.  Inputs and outputs!

I am  not conscious of how alleged "photons" become "red" either.

[CV75]

21 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

Yes but that is more about psychology than philosophy I think. The unconscious I think can be grouped as one of the filters of the senses.  Inputs and outputs!

I am  not conscious of how alleged "photons" become "red" either.

...whether you are conscious or not!

[OGHoosier]

13 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

If we want to actually be relevant in the next hundred years,  we had better learn it fast.  We are ridiculous to secularists, and yet they have "religious" views - secular religions- as well based on similar philosophies and see their religious conclusions as "true" based on their own internal compass

I've recently started comparing the oft-used and overly-broad category "religious experience" with "rational experience" because in my experience rationality is not some disembodied collection of constants but a feeling. When I try to hold two contradictory ideas, I get a feeling that feels like immense pressure on my brain. Being wrong, being illogical has a feel to it and that's how I identify it. I'm convinced that Hume was onto something when he talked about rationality being more about justification of what we already feel to be true. Rationality is deeply bound up with what we would call "feelings" or "sensations"...or in other words, experience. 

Which is uncomfortable for those who maintain the Cartesian distinction between rationality and emotion, between sense and sensibility, but these days the phrase "Descartes was wrong" seems almost axiomatic. 

[mfbukowski]

4 hours ago, OGHoosier said:

I've recently started comparing the oft-used and overly-broad category "religious experience" with "rational experience" because in my experience rationality is not some disembodied collection of constants but a feeling. When I try to hold two contradictory ideas, I get a feeling that feels like immense pressure on my brain. Being wrong, being illogical has a feel to it and that's how I identify it. I'm convinced that Hume was onto something when he talked about rationality being more about justification of what we already feel to be true. Rationality is deeply bound up with what we would call "feelings" or "sensations"...or in other words, experience. 

Which is uncomfortable for those who maintain the Cartesian distinction between rationality and emotion, between sense and sensibility, but these days the phrase "Descartes was wrong" seems almost axiomatic. 

Yes this is exactly it.

I "feel" inconsistency - "There's something wrong here"... it's almost like a "sniff test"- something rotten in Denmark

To split rationality from emotion, one must do the impossible- stop being Human!   Cannot be done!

And so the idea of the Perfect HUMAN must not be a transcendent cloud of Reason, abstract and disconnected, but a Human Father

THIS is the genius of Mormonism as a paradigm, I can't imagine a better story to live by.

I may also become a Perfect Human?  Be all I can be? Even though I am now a nematode?

Yep, sign me up on THAT program!

Being as perfect as I can be gives me motivation, a goal, in short something to live for, a purpose in life!

It's not about castles in the sky, it's for right here and now too.

The principle of human perfection as a goal is as much secular as religious and why Mormonism  IS humanism! 

It can be both a secular and a religious path, and is why we must go after secularists as well.

Edit: I use the term "Mormonism" for the paradigm, to look at the philosophical paradigm.  It becomes an exercise in analysis of how the paradigm works.

On the other hand, I have a firm testimony of The Church of JCLDS.

To me, as one cannot separate emotions from reason, I cannot separate my spiritual experiences from the rational paradigm. 

It is exactly like the Wittgensteinian rabbit/duck example. 

Edited July 3, 2021 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

On 6/28/2021 at 1:13 PM, MosiahFree said:

A possible example has to do with mathematics. What mfbukowski lays out is basically a definition of experience that includes mathematical reasoning, which looks like he is saying that mathematics is an empirical venture. Staking out such a position leaves you open to serious objections and one has to weigh their options on what exactly the kind of conflicts they want to get embroiled in.    
 

I would like to review this point and one other to see if I "messed up" or didn't, and I appreciate you calling out the possible error.   I want to get this stuff right!

I derived my view on math from Kant- through what I believed was avery solid argument.

 

The second point was the issue Dewey brought up, which I would also like to re-visit after this one.

But after re-reading your point, I want to make it clear that I would say that I do not think what I meant to say was that "experience includes mathematical reasoning" exactly, but more that without experience, in a world of pure reason, there would be no pragmatic use for math.  Maybe a crude way of saying it would be that we need to experience "objects" before we need the idea of such a concept as "1-2-3-4" etc.   Geometry I think would be pointless unless one experienced figures in real space- a real "triangle" area in a field , say ,in which your sheep grazed for example.  How much land is in that area- because you have agreed to buy the same amount of land as your neighbor has in his rectangular field?  

Without that need in the "real world" of experience, there would be no need for worrying about a "triangle" in your transcendent world of reason in which objects do not even exist!

Anyway This is what I think Kant's position was, and I am simply making up my version of that - but ultimately the issue here is whether or not "absolute truth" has a connection to experience.   I think it does, and I think that Kant's synthetic a priori solves the problem

Quote

The central thesis of Kant's account of the uniqueness of mathematical reasoning is his claim that mathematical cognition derives from the “construction” of its concepts: “to construct a concept means to exhibit a priori the intuition corresponding to it” (A713/B741) (Friedman 1992, Friedman 2010). For example, while the concept <triangle> can be discursively defined as a rectilinear figure contained by three straight lines (as is done in Euclid's Elements), the concept is constructed, in Kant's technical sense of the term, only when such a definition is paired with a corresponding intuition, that is, with a singular and immediately evident representation of a three sided figure. Kant argues that when one so renders a triangle for the purposes of performing the auxiliary constructive steps necessary for geometric proof, one does so a priori, whether the triangle is produced on paper or only in the imagination. This is because in neither case does the object displayed borrow its pattern from any experience (A713/B741). Moreover, one can derive universal truths about all triangles from such a singular display of an individual triangle since the particular determinations of the displayed object, e.g., the magnitude of its sides and angles, are “entirely indifferent” to the ability of the rendered triangle to exhibit the general concept <triangle> (A714/B742). Kant's account must thus be defended against the commonly held position that universal truths cannot be derived from reasoning that depends on particular representations. (Relatedly, the less than perfectly straight sides of an empirically rendered triangle are likewise “indifferent” and so such an empirical intuition is considered adequate for geometric proof. This raises questions about how one can be sure that an intuition adequately displays the content of a concept, the relation between pure and empirical intuition, and, in particular, which of the intuitively displayed features can safely be ignored (Friedman 2010, Friedman 2012).)

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-mathematics/

[mfbukowski]

On 7/3/2021 at 11:04 AM, OGHoosier said:

I've recently started comparing the oft-used and overly-broad category "religious experience" with "rational experience" because in my experience rationality is not some disembodied collection of constants but a feeling. When I try to hold two contradictory ideas, I get a feeling that feels like immense pressure on my brain. Being wrong, being illogical has a feel to it and that's how I identify it. I'm convinced that Hume was onto something when he talked about rationality being more about justification of what we already feel to be true. Rationality is deeply bound up with what we would call "feelings" or "sensations"...or in other words, experience. 

Which is uncomfortable for those who maintain the Cartesian distinction between rationality and emotion, between sense and sensibility, but these days the phrase "Descartes was wrong" seems almost axiomatic. 

Thinking about it- I don't think I need to have unsynthesized experiences in my paradigm.

Even immediate sudden experiences and surprise are interpreted instantly- one instantly knows if a sound is threatening or potentially so, even before a verbal response can be synthesized.   I learned that this July 4!

I jumped a few times at the sound of a firecracker at an unexpected moment but never felt "threatened".   On the other hand, when a gun goes off in an unexpected moment- I am instantly aware that that particular sound (they ARE different) I am instantly threatened.   So even in a nanosecond we have in many cases analyzed the input and reacted properly.   Of course that does not imply that one is infalllible.

[mfbukowski]

On 7/3/2021 at 10:04 AM, CV75 said:

...whether you are conscious or not!

Yes exactly!