Reality is 100% direct

[Someone here]

In this video some neuroscience experts claim that we don't have access to the real world as it is . "The thing in itself " as Kant calls it . We don't have access to that. But only our senses that give us a distorted filtered perception of reality behind the scenes.  This is completely foolish and precisely backwards .

All these first person experiences (colors.. Sounds.. Smells.. Etc) are NOT secondary to some underlying explanatory models that you imagine underneath them (photons light.. Frequency or math equation etc) these are just explanatory tools to help navigate the experience and create technology etc. But they are not the reality. The reality is the so called naked perception exactly as it is. And it's not other than exactly what it appears to be. 

[Vibroverse]

26 minutes ago, Someone here said:

In this video some neuroscience experts claim that we don't have access to the real world as it is . "The thing in itself " as Kant calls it . We don't have access to that. But only our senses that give us a distorted filtered perception of reality behind the scenes.  This is completely foolish and precisely backwards .

All these first person experiences (colors.. Sounds.. Smells.. Etc) are NOT secondary to some underlying explanatory models that you imagine underneath them (photons light.. Frequency or math equation etc) these are just explanatory tools to help navigate the experience and create technology etc. But they are not the reality. The reality is the so called naked perception exactly as it is. And it's not other than exactly what it appears to be. 

I think both the phenomena and noumena are of the same nature, there is no real distinction between them, in my opinion. And, to be honest, I don't really understand what Kant means by noumena, the thing in itself. Does he simply mean that our senses might be fooling us, is it really that simple? 

However, there is a problem in this when he says that there might be something else that is at the noumena level, because even with the reference to it as being "something", it becomes the part of the phenomena. I think Hegel also was aware of this problem, so he also said that there is no difference between noumena and phenomena. 

He says that what we should study is the direct experience of the phenomenal level of being, and, I think, he would perhaps say that, if we could talk with him today, that if we will talk about a "noumena" at all, then it would be consciousness. 

 

Edited September 12, 2022 by Vibroverse

[Someone here]

12 minutes ago, Vibroverse said:

I think both the phenomena and noumena are of the same nature, there is no real distinction between them, in my opinion. And, to be honest, I don't really understand what Kant means by noumena, the thing in itself. Does he simply mean that our senses might be fooling us, is it really that simple? 

However, there is a problem in this when he says that there might be something else that is at the noumena level, because even with the reference to it as being "something", it becomes the part of the phenomena. I think Hegel also was aware of this problem, so he also said that there is no difference between noumena and phenomena. 

He says that what we should study is the direct experience of the phenomenal level of being, and, I think, he would perhaps say that, if we could talk with him today, that if we will talk about a "noumena" at all, then it would be consciousness. 

 

The “thing in itself” is the actual existence/appearance of the object. I mean, how the object really is in reality as opposed to the phenomenon (the representation of the appearance of an object).

As Kant himself says, a rose is taken/perceived as an object with the idea of a red colored flower. So, in empirical sense, a rose is a flower with red color property. But Kant says, the redness of a rose is the mere representation of the flower. We can’t know the actual appearance of a rose (thing in itself) but only the properties we perceive from our empirical senses (phenomenon).

He claimed that things in itself are there, but impossible to be seen. Then, we come and we “decode” those things filtering them through the limits of our senses 

Let’s say there was a frog sitting in front of you. Your senses can tell you that it’s a certain size, cool, wet, green, wiggling, etc. But those are just the qualities that your senses (deceptively, according to Kant) tell you, they are not the thing itself. Kant said that the thing itself (as opposed to sensory information about it) is completely unavailable to us since there is no “direct” way to know anything about it at all.

Since you can’t know anything about it, the best you can say is “My faulty senses tell me X, Y, and Z, but what do they know? All I have is this subjective and probably wrong set of sensory data about it, I have nothing of the thing in itself.

But it's easy to prove kant wrong:;

How does Kant know that there are people, or senses, or frogs, or anything else on his theory? He knows nothing about them according to Kant himself, so who bother listening to him further?

[Vibroverse]

6 minutes ago, Someone here said:

The “thing in itself” is the actual existence/appearance of the object. I mean, how the object really is in reality as opposed to the phenomenon (the representation of the appearance of an object).

As Kant himself says, a rose is taken/perceived as an object with the idea of a red colored flower. So, in empirical sense, a rose is a flower with red color property. But Kant says, the redness of a rose is the mere representation of the flower. We can’t know the actual appearance of a rose (thing in itself) but only the properties we perceive from our empirical senses (phenomenon).

He claimed that things in itself are there, but impossible to be seen. Then, we come and we “decode” those things filtering them through the limits of our senses 

Let’s say there was a frog sitting in front of you. Your senses can tell you that it’s a certain size, cool, wet, green, wiggling, etc. But those are just the qualities that your senses (deceptively, according to Kant) tell you, they are not the thing itself. Kant said that the thing itself (as opposed to sensory information about it) is completely unavailable to us since there is no “direct” way to know anything about it at all.

Since you can’t know anything about it, the best you can say is “My faulty senses tell me X, Y, and Z, but what do they know? All I have is this subjective and probably wrong set of sensory data about it, I have nothing of the thing in itself.

But it's easy to prove kant wrong:;

How does Kant know that there are people, or senses, or frogs, or anything else on his theory? He knows nothing about them according to Kant himself, so who bother listening to him further?

Yeah, Hegel's criticism to him also is pretty simple. He says that "if you say that we cannot know anything about the thing in itself, then how do you even know there is such a thing as the thing in itself, for that would be something that you would know about the thing in itself that it exists?". But, at the same time, I still think that there can be something to what Kant says about the existence of the thing in itself, even if we cannot even know whether it exists or not, or it is just my interpretation of him, like his, in a sense, influence on me, I don't know. That's another topic for now. 

Edited September 12, 2022 by Vibroverse

[Jannes]

57 minutes ago, Someone here said:

In this video some neuroscience experts claim that we don't have access to the real world as it is . "The thing in itself " as Kant calls it . We don't have access to that. But only our senses that give us a distorted filtered perception of reality behind the scenes.  This is completely foolish and precisely backwards .

All these first person experiences (colors.. Sounds.. Smells.. Etc) are NOT secondary to some underlying explanatory models that you imagine underneath them (photons light.. Frequency or math equation etc) these are just explanatory tools to help navigate the experience and create technology etc. But they are not the reality. The reality is the so called naked perception exactly as it is. And it's not other than exactly what it appears to be. 

Exactly!

Direct experience is first order truth, concept is second order truth. Rationalist value second order truth more then first order truth so they mix it up.

[Someone here]

15 minutes ago, Vibroverse said:

Yeah, Hegel's criticism to him also is pretty simple. He says that "if you say that we cannot know anything about the thing in itself, then how do you even know there is such a thing as the thing in itself, for that would be something that you would know about the thing in itself that it exists?". But, at the same time, I still think that there can be something to what Kant says about the existence of the thing in itself, even if we cannot even know whether it exists or not, or it is just my interpretation of him, like his, in a sense, influence on me, I don't know. That's another topic for now. 

Yes .it's a huge contradiction in kant's philosophy.  How come this "thing in itself " be unacceable for us and yet it is said to exist ? Then how did you know that it exists if you have no direct experience of it??? Pure contradiction. 

[Vibroverse]

2 minutes ago, Jannes said:

Exactly!

Direct experience is first order truth, concept is second order truth. Rationalist value second order truth more then first order truth so they mix it up.

But they do it for they are looking for the ground of being, to unite the experience in a ground, so their effort also is understandable. 

[Vibroverse]

2 minutes ago, Someone here said:

Yes .it's a huge contradiction in kant's philosophy.  How come this "thing in itself " be unacceable for us and yet it is said to exist ? Then how did you know that it exists if you have no direct experience of it??? Pure contradiction. 

I agree with you, in a sense, but, I think, it also is impossible to be a pure empiricist, for we have the nature of conceptualizing our experience. 

[Jannes]

34 minutes ago, Vibroverse said:

I think both the phenomena and noumena are of the same nature, there is no real distinction between them, in my opinion.
 

Thoughts are also a direct experience just their meaning second order truth. Do you mean that?

34 minutes ago, Vibroverse said:

And, to be honest, I don't really understand what Kant means by noumena, the thing in itself. Does he simply mean that our senses might be fooling us, is it really that simple? 

Yes. Imagine an apple. I see the different from you because maybe I see slightly different colors because of my biology and somebody else might see it in higher resolution because he has better eyesight and a bat might see it in waves and an eagle also completely different. So there infinitely many ways to see that one object. Kant says that there is potentially one objective way on what the Apple actually is but no subject can ever access that. But of course that’s all just concept and not directly provable. 

34 minutes ago, Vibroverse said:

He says that what we should study is the direct experience of the phenomenal level of being, and, I think, he would perhaps say that, if we could talk with him today, that if we will talk about a "noumena" at all, then it would be consciousness. 

We have no choice, we can only access noumena. I believe Kant says that we should at least keep in mind that noumena isn’t objectively true and shouldn’t be fooled by it. Haven’t read Hegel yet. 

[Jannes]

6 minutes ago, Someone here said:

Yes .it's a huge contradiction in kant's philosophy.  How come this "thing in itself " be unacceable for us and yet it is said to exist ? Then how did you know that it exists if you have no direct experience of it??? Pure contradiction. 

I am not sure if Kant says that it has to exist or if we merely says that it can potentially exist. 

6 minutes ago, Vibroverse said:

But they do it for they are looking for the ground of being, to unite the experience in a ground, so their effort also is understandable. 

Yep exactly. 

[Vibroverse]

@Jannes Hmm, that makes sense. But I still don't understand that the thing in itself means, in the sense that, for instance, let's continue with that apple example. Let's say that, some day, we discovered the reality of the apple, then it would be the new way we are experiencing it. Then Kant, perhaps, might say that it, then, still is not the thing in itself. 

Then it feels to me like Kant is talking about the mere existence of that apple as a nonphysical concept, for any physical concept we can discover about it would be in the realm of appearance. But the concept of an apple, if that's what he means, also is a part of the experience. 

The problem with that mode of thinking, I guess, is the attempt to think of physical and mental realms as two different ontological levels of existence, but that might be an arbitrary differentiation, and maybe it was what Kant was trying to merge. 

I mean, there is a conceptual level of being and a physical level of being, like, for instance, the word apple is not the same as the object that it is referring to, but that concept, in a sense, is the ground of our understanding of the apple. 

I mean, let's try to say it in a different way, there clearly is something to the apple that makes it apple, but we know it through our experience of it. It might even be the sheer existence of the apple, but it still is something that grounds it as the apple. 

But, yeah, it might also, very well, be phonemena all the way down, like, in the neuroscience example, we can say that it is the brain interpreting some chemicals etc to appear to us as the apple, but then, that image of the brain interpreting some chemicals etc would also be part of the phenomenal experience that we are having. 

That's, then, kinda is like saying that God must exist, for everything has a cause, but then, what is the cause of God? I mean, it can be an eternal chain of causality all the way down, or, like, it can be, in that sense, an eternal chain of phenomena all the way down. 

Then, in that sense, what is the "thing in itself", if it exists, other than another thing? It again would be a part of the mental or physical experience. And, I don't know if Kant talking about something else, I have a view of what Kant actually might have been trying to talk about, but that might be my speculation. 

And that is, I feel like, perhaps, Kant was trying to talk about the pure self when he was talking about the thing in itself, or again, as I said, maybe it is what I myself would mean by that term. And I'd do it, because the self is that which knows and it itself can never be known, for the knowing of it would again be an activity of it. 

It exists, but you can never know it as an objective experience, in a sense, like, Descartes talks about the idea of the self. You cannot experience the self for it is the experiencer itself, therefore you know that it exists, but it is not something that you can ever experience, for experiencing itself is happening "via" it. 

I would call consciousness the true "thing in itself" in that sense. I, in that sense, agree with God that we cannot know what the true nature of something is, but I think it is because there probably is no true nature of something, for there is no such thing as "something", other than the experience of it. 

But, also, weirdly, when we refer to something, we are referring to something in itself that cannot be known, for it, perhaps, by definition that which cannot be known, and that definition itself, perhaps, is what makes it "it". 

Dude, this probably has been so fucking complicated, so I hope I could have been able to express, at least to a tiny extent, what I tried to mean, but I wanna talk about it more soon, with a clearer mind, haha. 

 

Edited September 12, 2022 by Vibroverse

[AtheisticNonduality]

The "thing in itself" is an intellectual abstraction, but if we were to make sense of what he was talking about experientially, we could say the phenomenal part of reality is Everything (sensations) and the noumenal part of reality is Emptiness (the Void). Forms thought of as forms say nothing about formlessness whatsoever, hence why people can't access what is outside of Everything (ie. Nothing- / Void-ness)---discounting "mysticism" of course.

[BipolarGrowth]

There’s no such thing as “thing itself.” It’s pretty basic for us here to understand, but to the average contemporary illusory self structure, it’s mind blowing. 
 

As always, I’ll say my favorite pointer and line — it’s JUST THIS. Not God. Not awareness. Not self. Not other. Not etc., etc. JUST MFING THIS. The end ?❤️?

Edited September 12, 2022 by BipolarGrowth

[Vibroverse]

6 minutes ago, AtheisticNonduality said:

The "thing in itself" is an intellectual abstraction, but if we were to make sense of what he was talking about experientially, we could say the phenomenal part of reality is Everything (sensations) and the noumenal part of reality is Emptiness (the Void). Forms thought of as forms say nothing about formlessness whatsoever, hence why people can't access what is outside of Everything (ie. Nothing- / Void-ness)---discounting "mysticism" of course.

@Jannes

 

[Vibroverse]

8 minutes ago, AtheisticNonduality said:

The "thing in itself" is an intellectual abstraction, but if we were to make sense of what he was talking about experientially, we could say the phenomenal part of reality is Everything (sensations) and the noumenal part of reality is Emptiness (the Void). Forms thought of as forms say nothing about formlessness whatsoever, hence why people can't access what is outside of Everything (ie. Nothing- / Void-ness)---discounting "mysticism" of course.

Yes, that's how I also am thinking of the idea of the thing in itself, that it is existence itself, so we cannot know anything about the existence itself for it is "nothing". But we experience how that "nothing" manifests itself, and know it through the forms that it has become. 

Reality makes itself known to us by becoming form, but again, can it be forms all the way down? Can the "thing itself" be it being forms all the way down? Because, after all, what are objects referring to something other than other objects anyways? 

I mean reality might be like a structure referring to another structure referring to another structure, ad infinitum, for what would "that which is the ultimate" be another structure that is referring to another structure, if you know what I mean. 

I think, then, the thing in itself, perhaps, is there being no the thing in itself, but the never ending relations between the different levels, perhaps, of the thing in itself. This is a frickin mindfuck. 

[Jannes]

1 minute ago, Vibroverse said:

@Jannes Hmm, that makes sense. But I still don't understand that the thing in itself means, in the sense that, for instance, let's continue with that apple example. Let's say that, some day, we discovered the reality of the apple, then it would be the new way we are experiencing it. Then Kant, perhaps, might say that it, then, still is not the thing in itself. 
 

Kant would probably say that that would never happen because the subject doesn’t have access to the objective reality. 

1 minute ago, Vibroverse said:

Then it feels to me like Kant is talking about the mere existence of that apple as a nonphysical concept, for any physical concept we can discover about it would be in the realm of appearance. But the concept of an apple, if that's what he means, also is a part of the experience. 
 

hmm do you want to say that in this logic it’s basically pointless to try to get closer to the thing in itself because no matter what you come up with, as soon as you have it, it’s part of your experience and so it’s impossible to be the thing in itself?

I mean there a different levels of being wrong probably, so could try to be as little wrong as you can although you can never be right.

1 minute ago, Vibroverse said:

The problem with that mode of thinking, I guess, is the attempt to think of physical and mental realms as two different ontological levels of existence, but that might be an arbitrary differentiation, and maybe it was what Kant was trying to merge. 

I mean, there is a conceptual level of being and a physical level of being, like, for instance, the word apple is not the same as the object that it is referring to, but that concept, in a sense, is the ground of our understanding of the apple. 
 

The body soul dualism. It’s a big question in philosophy how you could merge the physical world with the mental world. Nobody succeeded in it. 
In spirituality the physical world is a concept and an experience in the mental world. So there is only the mental world. 

1 minute ago, Vibroverse said:

I mean, let's try to say it in a different way, there clearly is something to the apple that makes it apple, but we know it through our experience of it. It might even be the sheer existence of the apple, but it still is something that grounds it as the apple. 

But, yeah, it might also, very well, be phonemena all the way down, like, in the neuroscience example, we can say that it is the brain interpreting some chemicals etc to appear to us as the apple, but then, that image of the brain interpreting some chemicals etc would also be part of the phenomenal experience that we are having. 

That's, then, kinda is like saying that God must exist, for everything has a cause, but then, what is the cause of God? I mean, it can be an eternal chain of causality all the way down, or, like, it can be, in that sense, an eternal chain of phenomena all the way down. 

Then, in that sense, what is the "thing in itself", if it exists, other than another thing? It again would be a part of the mental or physical experience. And, I don't know if Kant talking about something else, I have a view of what Kant actually might have been trying to talk about, but that might be my speculation. 

And that is, I feel like, perhaps, Kant was trying to talk about the pure self when he was talking about the thing in itself, or again, as I said, maybe it is what I myself would mean by that term. And I'd do it, because the self is that which knows and it itself can never be known, for the knowing of it would again be an activity of it. 

It exists, but you can never know it as an objective experience, in a sense, like, Descartes talks about the idea of the self. You cannot experience the self for it is the experiencer itself, therefore you know that it exists, but it is not something that you can ever experience, for experiencing itself is happening "via" it. 
 

Do you mean the self referring problem? Alan Watts says it in this way, you can’t burn fire with fire, you can’t hear your own ears, you can’t taste your own tongue and you can’t touch the tip of this finger with the tip of this finger.

1 minute ago, Vibroverse said:

I would call consciousness the true "thing in itself" in that sense. I, in that sense, agree with God that we cannot know what the true nature of something is, but I think it is because there probably is no true nature of something, for there is no such thing as "something", other than the experience of it. 
 

yeah like what is an apple without somebody experiencing it. Is the Apple even existing then? In first order truth no, in second order truth yes.

 

1 minute ago, Vibroverse said:

Dude, this probably has been so fucking complicated, so I hope I could have been able to express, at least to a tiny extent, what I tried to mean, but I wanna talk about it more soon, with a clear mind, haha. 

 

Yeah I am tired now ?

[Jannes]

16 minutes ago, BipolarGrowth said:

There’s no such thing as “thing itself.” It’s pretty basic for us here to understand, but to the average contemporary illusory self structure, it’s mind blowing. 
 

As always, I’ll say my favorite pointer and line — it’s JUST THIS. Not God. Not awareness. Not self. Not other. Not etc., etc. JUST MFING THIS. The end ?❤️?

Yeah from a spiritual point of view this is all mental masturbation. But sharpening the concept of an "objective world“ can have its practical uses. Science isnt right but science helps you live in a cauchy place. 

Edited September 12, 2022 by Jannes

[Jannes]

26 minutes ago, AtheisticNonduality said:

The "thing in itself" is an intellectual abstraction, but if we were to make sense of what he was talking about experientially, we could say the phenomenal part of reality is Everything (sensations) and the noumenal part of reality is Emptiness (the Void). Forms thought of as forms say nothing about formlessness whatsoever, hence why people can't access what is outside of Everything (ie. Nothing- / Void-ness)---discounting "mysticism" of course.

I don’t think Kant was much of a mystic, he was a hardcore rationalist. So nothingness as the noumenal part of something probably wouldn’t be his first idea. But it’s an interesting idea.

[BipolarGrowth]

@Jannes of course. I totally agree. Relative perspectives should still be understood well and integrated. 

[Leo Gura]

12 hours ago, Someone here said:

The reality is the so called naked perception exactly as it is. And it's not other than exactly what it appears to be. 

Of course.

Everything you see is Absolute Truth.

Edited September 13, 2022 by Leo Gura