Yes..people assign 'reality' without there is a real value for it! It is a sort of unverified judgement/human manner Example: "The pencil is ‘in reality’ straight, it appears bent because of refraction." Value: Real: straight, illusionary: bent “The ice cube is ‘in reality’ fluid, it appears solid because of the temperature below zero.” Value: Real: fluid, illusionary: solid??? No way? It is really cold now hence it is solid! As conclusion: Half of the pencil is NOW in the water it IS really bent!
@Yen: now sid_16 will quote some imbecile who wrote a 10k pages essay peer-reviewed by other 10k imbeciles (strength in numbers, eh?) on the fact that water is dry, that's why you have ice. Then he'll quote another imbecile aka "a physicist" who will try to prove using cat DNA extracted from mouse feces the pencil you see is wrong simple because you have your eyes open. P.S. of course, the mouse had private sessions with Darwin...on how to scratch a pussy @sid_16: 'cause you into scientist role-playing so much, do the pencil experiment and ask a 5 year old what he sees. The answer will simply amaze you.
I take the replies serious, anyway a little bit fun is fine. I would like to know when somebody is posting a huge essay if that is fully reflecting ones own point of view or if it is posted for discussion. I sometimes have a problem with it....it appears 'dry'....without a practical context to one's own life experience...
Still missing the point: Kant's contradiction in Ding an Sich... Still noone read Fichte and Hegel, never mind anyone else..
For the love of God...not Hegel...not again... Kant, Hegel, Fichte...poor insane men... but today they are revered. I'm sure that Plato, Aristotle and Marcus Aurelius would put this guys to clean the latrines and the stables after hearing their "philosophy". Indeed, George Carlin was right when he said: the planet is fine, the people are f*cked up.
How did you come to this conclusion? Is Kant's contradiction in Das Ding an sich and later Hegel's additions and Fichte reflecting exactly YOUR concerns about the matter? Can you comprehend them by your practical life experiences? Or do you 'just' respect their works in an academical way? I mean being German I can read them in my native and would have direct access to the originals. ..as said I mostly read what people link out of curiosity, but I have problems with dry stuff, especially when it concerns 'perception' which is actually a practical matter.
If you say "FTLoG", then Hegel is THE target, Soccy... You know NATHINK!!! Yen, don't be lazy, go back to the texts, m8 - and enjoy!!! (You can not "practically" perceive without categories etc. etc.)
@gorski: FTLoG was just a very polite way of saying "for f*ck sake. Please, stop quoting this wankers. Hegel went bonkers. Not to mention the other two...poor prats...
Yup.... its as simple as that. I read the first critique almost 50 years ago, and I am still puzzled, why everyone keeps ignoring what it says....
As you can find in Kant, causality is something that is in our head. We cannot perceive anything that is not in time, in space and is not connected by causality. Which also makes it very obvious that we get a problem with Quantum Phyiscs (and a few other things). If cpousality has anything to do, with reality outside us, we have no way of knowing. But it gets worse: We have what we perceive as reality. And as long as we do not forget that this is OUR reality, everything is fine. Once you start thinking that others have the same reality, or what has always been very popular in politics, that everyone ought to have the same reality, usually one's own because "my" opinion is the true one, that is when the problem starts. Looking at the question straight, we might admit, that there is absolutely no evidence at all that there is anything, let alone a reality, outside of us. Scientists get paid for hammering the rest of us with the idea that we can KNOW the outside, so they come up with great names, like God Particle, Black Hole. Just two days ago they found a truly massive "Black Hole" where according to the theory nothing like that could possibly be... Physics is no help, and it was truly a great act from Heisenberg to admit this, if you read the story you will remembered it freaked out the physics establishment. You want to see Phyics? Listen to, or read Richard Feynman....
Kant INVENTED the Ding an sich, because he knew nothing about what the Buddha had said more than 200 years earlier. If there is no Ding an sich behing what we perceive, than positivists like him have a problem. Point is: We just sinply do not know, we cannot know. In case you misunderstand me, Buddha was not a fart a better. He invented another excuse, re-birth, because having alife without any meaning, being not for a eternity. living for 80 years and then once more being not, for another eternity is a hard thought to bear. Especially if you wasted your life like a microbe pro-creating in a darwinian sense. But Buddha had figured out out something different, even worse. At least he was the first one to talk about loudly. The real bad news is, that there is no ego, no self. Once you go all the way in meditation you can realize this. It may freak you out and you may not like it, but there is no way to change back. On the other hand the question "Is Reality an Illusion ?", especially calling it a "Serious Discussion", becomes another great joke of existence. Trust me on this one, it is really funny!
Now THAT is funny! Someone using the name of Socrates calling Kant a wanker.... You just made my day....
The blue bit is even the point! First a short remark: You avoided to answer my question if Kant, or Hegel's criticism etc. is conform to YOUR life experiences in this regard. There is a process within the entire chain of perception which lets reality become to the own reality. Das Ding an sich remains EVER indeterminable by thought. Because das Ding an sich becomes das Ding as it appears to me according to my perspective! It is so to say not an sich (alone) anymore, but one's perceived Ding as it appears/is determined/categorized. Therefore it plays no role from which relative reality I make a statement about the topic. I can read Kant, Hegel by doing that I get familiar with a part of their reality/perspective on the matter. But to relate to 'the reality' I/they cannot trapped by my own/their perspective. That is a rejection of the truth claim of Philosophy (but it doesn't matter who it actually makes). It is reasoned by individual perspective/categorizing of the reality by thoughts. Short: It is IMHO actually already 'enough' to know that a thought reality becomes the own reality and that a change of perspective also means a change of the own reality. This 'change' indicates its illusionary character. Hegel could not overcome his own reality. Hence reading him would leave 'the reality' alone. Anyway I think I'll read when I get more time...no problem.
You said it yourself: Kant was an idiot. Plain and simple. "Wanker" is a British slang for idiot. Kant in his immense stupidity invented crap on top of other idiots crap and he thought it was legit. Just like other wankers in history, like Freud. So, yes, I call Kant, Descartes, Freud, Hegel, wankers. 99.99% of "modern philosophers" are plain insane men. It is very interesting that no "respectable" philosopher today quotes Carl Jung, who, IMHO, read what Buddha's followers put on paper. I said it once, I'll say it again: Spirit is eternal, which creates the Mental, which gives birth to Material. The only Reality is the Spirit. Mental and Material are illusory because they are ever-changing, while the Spirit...just is. This is what Buddha had figured out. This is what Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, Marcus Aurelius, Hypatia and others like them had figured out. The funny thing is that the Spirit can be "perceived" only through Meditation and only through Meditation. Trying to find it through physics is pure madness, just look at quantum physics: still physicists can't explain the duality of the light as particle and wave at the same time, but yet, they vomit preposterous idiotic theories about birth of the universe. Why is that? Well, the answer is very simple: lack of education or a deficient education, like the one today, that conveniently forgets to teach the fragile human about responsibilities of his/her own actions. I'm not talking about getting a job, paying bills and other trivial and useless actions, but about responsibilities about his/her own thoughts, words and actions. Unfortunately this is convenient left out thus the misery of "modern-man" society. Beware of your thoughts, they become your words. Beware of your words, they become your actions. Beware of your actions, they become your habits. Beware of your habits, they become your character. Beware of your character, it becomes your destiny.
Just simple without bashing on those: Das Ding an Sich becomes das Ding für mich (for me), this happens to any individual(perception) thus any intellectual claim of Philosophy on Das Ding an sich (the Reality) is rejected by the own means...sorry. Solution: To practically examine the process of perception=meditation.
My goodness: this is what is known as anti-intellectualism, pure and simple, when people are bragging about their ignorance, Soccy, heheheee.... And no, I am not calling you names, as you are (trying) with Kant - for this is indeed laughable - you're just embarrassing yourself badly! FFS, the man changed the S-O paradigm and hence Kantian Copernican Revolution in Philosophy ( http://www.iep.utm.edu/kantmeta/ ) - and come again, how exactly is Humanity indebted to you? Psssttt: Carl Jung was a.... ahem... Never saw you as a heavy-duty conservative... Don't get me wrong, you may well be a stand-up guy, a good person - but in this... Oychhh... Give yourself a break, you're straining badly, discovering hot water all over again, and still struggling with ABC... Yen, I avoided nothing - indeed, you "missed the whole football", as it were... Now, this is THE point: all this has nothing to do with anyone's personal "experience", for it is universal, for as long as we are Human! And you being a scientist - you really shouldn't miss something as big and as important as that, regardless of your amateurish knowledge of Philosophy... Seriously, get your thinking hats on, guys...
I read this entire thread and I feel like: [webm]https://i.imgur.com/ydYrxJA.webm[/webm] sr, for OT ....