The Mind-Created World

I still don't get it.

You seem to be saying that the process would go on forever

Do you recognize two very distinct meanings of "object"?

Since the physical object of empirical knowledge is demonstrably a faulty concept, produced by the deceptive nature of the senses…

Do you classify knowing the good as impossible?

Something that interests me is knowledge acquired through the witnessing of events.

I can remember and visualise clearly, in memory, events that happened 30 years ago. In which I witnessed something unexplainable, something which defies credulity and which has broad ranging implications for how I think about the world and reality. And yet at the time, it was just something I noticed, experienced, for a split second. Something that happened so quickly and was over before I could react. I could have just carried on, walked past and not given it another thought.

But my enquiring mind and curiosity latched onto it instantly and it is still with me now as though it happened yesterday.

Yeah, my fault, being facetious. I’m just having trouble understanding how anyone could feel physical pain from a “faulty idea”. You said objects were, or might be, just faulty ideas, a hammer, being an object represented by that conception, would fit the bill.

In the search for accurate representation, if not for the LNC, what other way is there to judge the relation between the object we perceive and the object we think? If logic doesn’t end the search, insofar all relations are determinable by it, it stands to reason the search for a relation wouldn’t end. But it always does, either in the affirmation or negation thereof, so the logic would seem to be working.

There’s that faulty idea thing again.

Furthermore, empirical knowledge is not of a physical object, but the representation of it, and the senses have nothing to do with representations, being merely the occasion for the possibility of them.

Yes. The good isn’t something to know; it is something to feel. That by which one feels anything is reducible to an aesthetic judgement, that by which he knows something is reducible to a discursive judgement. The formal ground of the one is pure practical reason, of the other is pure theoretical reason.

Last but not least, that by which one merely comprehends the possibility of knowledge, is pure speculative reason, upon which is constructed the transcendental philosophy of German Enlightenment idealism.

I find it very interesting how different people will remember the very same event in completely different ways. So you might say, something incredulous happened, but someone else in the same area might just notice a mundane occurrence.

However, sciences like chemistry and physics, prove to us that reality is actually completely different from this conception/perception representation.

Activity is not at all as we represent it, as picking up objects called a hammer and nails, and hitting one object with another. That's a vastly oversimplified representation of what is actually going on, and really a faulty representation.

The LNC does not apply to the good of intention.

This is why goods are often said to be subjective….

Even the same person will sometimes have conflicting goals.

Science demonstrates very clearly, that the conceptual structure based in objects of substance, physical objects, moving and interacting in space, is insufficient, and cannot adequately represent the reality of activity.

we need to start all over, from the bottom up, with something more reasonable as the foundation.

Please accept this as reality, instead of referring to mundane experiences in an attempt to make fun of the reality of the situation.

The category of "speculative reason" is completely unnecessary, created and referred to, as a distraction.

Consider the difference between your representation, of three distinct colours, and my representation of two distinct colours producing the appearance of a third, through mixing. The problem with yours is that it produces the need for two distinct boundaries, one between present and past, and one between present and future. This is what is required to isolate the present as distinct, and the only true "substance". That, I see as an unnecessary complication, actually producing three distinct substances. You class the two, future and past together, as other than being. But this is incorrect, because the difference between future and past disallows them from being classed together. The problem with mine is that it produces the need for skepticism and doubt concerning our "experience of the present". There is an appearance that the present is distinct, and separate from the past and future, as the substance of being, but that appearance is misleading. Which do you think i more logically consistent with your own conscious being, yours or mine?

Except that the reality demonstrated by the sciences is only demonstrable from the very same system of conception/perception representation, as the common Everydayman reality not the least concerned with the scientific version at all.

Activity is exactly as we represent it to ourselves, give appearances in compliance with our particular physiology alone. The fact it is a vastly oversimplified representation doesn’t make it false; it merely makes it incomplete, and that merely from perspective, iff given by a deeper scale of investigation. The point being, the completion of the representation, determined from such deeper scale, wouldn’t be a necessary addendum to our experience, insofar as knowing e.g., the distinct molecular composition of different kinds of forks, does nothing whatsoever for disturbing the already established activity of getting food to the mouth using one. Contingent with respect to future experience, certainly, for deeper-scale investigations make things like penicillin possible. Such is science, not as opposed but in juxtaposition, to metaphysics.

Of course. On the one hand, good things for me are not necessarily good things for you, hence each good of a thing is a subjective judgement. On the other hand, any of my judgements regarding what is good, insofar as they all arise in me alone, can hardly be termed subjective, in that there is nothing to which they relate except my own determinability. The good in such case, reverts to relative degrees of a necessarily presupposed good, rather than different forms of good itself. Such condition is the same for both of us, granting the commonality of our respective human inclinations and intellectual attitudes.

Insufficient….for what?

If the past and future are constituents of the present, then the present is not something pure, but something that does not participate in ousia or substance.

Your position fails, i think, when it demands precision, since you are seeking to differentiate between past, present and future by treating them as substances.

You know, when a method fails in its capacity to reach the desired end, it demonstrates its own faultiness.

A tree produces a seed in order to produce another tree. If you just look at the seed and say "oh that's not a tree, obviously it failed let's destroy this tree" one quickly notices an error in judgement. Belief systems call this arrogance or pride. Society calls this impatience and prudence. Science calls this just being wrong. Remember that.

I don't see the relevance. If the seed fails in producing a tree it demonstrates its own faultiness.

Thanks for that description.

This isn't elementary school.

For example; I have come to realise that extremely inprobable events and coincidences happen all the time.

Secondly; for this event to happen, there was a collective action between all the people involved. So in a sense the crowd, including myself and the small chap, were acting as one cohesive organism. Which might suggest that we act as one organism more often than we might expect.

Thirdly; there was some kind of calling, need, requirement for the two of us to see each other and have our interaction***. I have had numerous encounters with people which involved exchanging of glances, as intense, or meaningful as this, indeed even more so. So have come to view such interactions as a window to the soul, or something like that.

Fourthly; and this point involves another encounter at the same event, aswell. The realisation that brief meetings between particular people can have a meaning, or significance, way beyond what we might expect. And that some kind of group communion is going on within populations.

Possibility extends through such a vast array of features of a vast array of activities, far beyond the capacity of the most imaginative minds.

This "coincidence" acts to "amplify possibility". When the whole, as a group, does something unexpected, the effect of amplified possibility is realized. We observe this, "the effects of amplified possibility" every time a being makes an act which we designate as freely chosen.

This implies that within the "non-conscious relation between all the different parts", there is some form of what you call "group communion", which is some form of recognition of the underlying meaning or significance, and this acts to cause the amplification of possibility which is required for the individuals to act together as a whole, in a way which is non-deterministic.

For such a being, the experience of such an unusual event is very rare, perhaps once in the lifetime, or only for 1 in 10 people in their lifetime. What I’m saying, is that infact it happens more than we know, even regularly, but we either don’t see it, couldn’t appreciate the relevance, are conditioned to screen it out etc. essentially we are blind to it, except in certain very narrow circumstances determined by our life, heritage and conditioning.
For the mystic, or seer, this is fertile ground for exploration and contemplation.

For example; I have come to realise that extremely inprobable events and coincidences happen all the time.

So basically, you come to an accommodation with yourself, once this is established and settled, with no conflict, or any issues.

So this, I think would be the most difficult part, the initial accommodation. That is where the logical trick I requested would be required. Maybe Wayfarer's example of the scarab beetle is such a trick. The trick is not really logical, but something which goes beyond logic, something which demonstrates the vast field of meaning which is not enveloped by logic

One reaches an accommodation with one’s self, such that there is no question, or possibility of a breaking of the bond, or trust between you.

The task is to unify this in a way that is true to yourself.

It seems that the inner me has some tendencies which the outer me has difficulty accommodating for, social anxiety for example. The outer me therefore, has created a bunch of defence mechanisms to fend off what the inner me is telling it. The outer me has set up ways to effectively block the influence of the inner me, because the outer me wants something different from what the inner me can provide for.

I had something similar with intense shyness from a young age. But it didn’t develop into something problematic and through considerable effort during my formative years I was able to overcome it.

There is a sense that our weaknesses are actually our strengths, because we have unique experience and ability to live with these. So being able to see this as a strength rather than a failing helps one to face it, work through it and live with it. Even use it to our advantage. Also we have the opportunity to shape our lifestyles to make it easier to live without these issues normally arising. The thing with following a mystical life, it is entirely personal and doesn’t require, necessarily, dealing with the outside world, and you can shape your lifestyle to suit.

Secondly and this is quite a neat trick, (this is the simplified version). You basically offer yourself up freely to any entity who is gooder than yourself. This necessarily requires one to be sufficiently good yourself that you would happily give yourself up someone equally, or more good than yourself. Once this level of goodness and conviction is reached, you can do a deal with yourself. You will offer access to yourself on the condition that your alter ego becomes at least as good as yourself. With the selling point being that, such a deal would enable progress and greater access. And of course your alter ego would naturally offer access to itself for yourself, because the result would only be gooder, or at least the same level of good. Then both party’s can become gooder and gooder in a partnership of mutual benefit.
I realise that this might be a non starter, but it works well for me. Although I do have a back up association with the deity Kali*, via an association and practice with a Guru and Ashram offering devotional worship to the goddess Kali**.

Many of the objections to Kant, as they played out in his lifetime and afterwards, concern his treatment of the "object" as a product of what we do.

I admit the entire argument. Time is certainly something real/
namely the real form of inner intuition. It therefore has subjective real-
ity in regard to inner experience, i.e., I really have the representation of
time and of my determinations in it. It is therefore to be regarded re-
ally not as object but as the way of representing myself as object But
if I or another being could intuit myself without this condition of sen-
sibility, then these very determinations, which we now represent to our-
selves as alterations, would yield us a cognition in which the represen-
tation of time and thus also of alteration would not occur at all. Its
empirical reality therefore remains as a condition of all our experiences.

The passage you quote puts it in a nutshell; All instances of "objectivity" are also moments in consciousness.

Is your question about "object" such that you remove yourself as a peer capable of reviewing the text?

I just want to know what “object” gives me that object doesn’t. What do the marks give to object that object doesn’t already have?

The aim of this essay is to make the case for a type of philosophical idealism, which posits mind as foundational to the nature of existence. Idealism is usually distinguished from physicalism — the view that the physical is fundamental — and the related philosophical naturalism, the view that only natural laws and forces, as depicted in the natural sciences, account for the universe.

While I wouldn’t ever advocate the consumption of illegal substances I have no doubt that this particular class of substances do indeed open the doors of perception (insights which are of course impossible to communicate or even really remember on a conscious level).

As for the paranormal, I’m an open-minded sceptic.

But the most significant aspect was the awakening to the indescribable beauty of life itself, plants and trees seeming to possess a kind of luminous aliveness and perfection, and the sense that this sense of heightened awareness was reality itself.

that fall from grace is blamed on the serpent of Science, the "most cunning of all beasts". The snake-eyes of objectivity have given us wise apes mastery over the garden of nature, which we have raped & pillaged to gratify our own material desires.

Glattfelder seems to believe that humanity was better-off before science penetrated the "mystical veil" of reality

physicists almost unanimously ignore the philosophical implications of their work. As such, most scientists have unknowingly adopted an implicit metaphysical belief, rendering the universe inherently random and meaningless, implying a sense of cosmic nihilism.

Me too! Glattfelder has a favorite term to describe the ambiguities & uncertainties of paranormal phenomena : Postmodern*1

Well, Aristotle puts a lot of emphasis on the being in front of you is what actually exists. We have different ideas about how that is possible, but the first thing is the encounter with such beings.

So, that is germane to the issue at hand.

(See Dan Brown’s new book,
‘The Secret of Secrets’
For a similar investigation)

I began reading Dan Brown's new novel.

But their (ancestral) life is vivid in the expression of character and disposition of particular individuals. That view does not mesh well with the vision of souls being their own thing but also conscripted to the "material" world.

Hope you read that poetry above, it is really very good. I understand a lot more about Alfred North Whitehead just having read it.

I began reading Dan Brown's new novel. — Gnomon
Wow! You're on the ball; it only came out about a week ago. Has much about consciousness coming in from the outside.

Let us start from the evolutionary side. It is now empirically clear that Darwinian evolutionary theory contained a very great error in its identification of the unit of survival under natural selection. The unit which was believed to be crucial and around which the theory was set up was either the breeding individual or the family line or the subspecies or some similar homogeneous set of conspecifics. Now I suggest that the last hundred years have demonstrated empirically that if an organism or aggregate of organisms sets to work with a focus on its own survival and thinks that is the way to select its adaptive moves, its "progress" ends up with a destroyed environment. If the organism ends up destroying its environment, it has in fact destroyed itself. And we may very easily see this process carried to its ultimate reductio ad absurdum in the next twenty years. The unit of survival is not the breeding organism, or the family line, or the society.

The old unit has already been partly corrected by the population geneticists. They have insisted that the evolutionary unit is, in fact, not homogeneous. A wild population of any species consists always of individuals whose genetic constitution varies widely. In other words, potentiality and readiness for change is already built into the survival unit. The heterogeneity of the wild population is already one-half of that trial-and-error system which is necessary for dealing with environment.

The artificially homogenized populations of man's domestic animals and plants are scarcely fit for survival.

And today a further correction of the unit is necessary. The flexible environment must also be included along with the flexible organism because, as I have already said, the organism which destroys its environment destroys itself. The unit of survival is a flexible organism-in-its-environment.

The unit of survival is a flexible organism-in-its-environment.

I submit that it is incompatible with the Gerson view of Platonism.

If you say, the world is created by your mind, I feel your world is likely to be very much in illusion. A perceived world sounds more accurate.

The mind-created world, as I understand the OP, has no external cause and is a monism where everything that exists has mental properties.

I acnowledge that the word 'created' might be a poor choice of words in the context.

In Plotinus, the soul animates matter as far as it can. The source is a power that can only go so far because matter is never completely mastered by form. The origin of that soul is from before our birth. Plotinus has also said he has visited that realm through contemplation.

My argument is that a person may misjudge what one is perceiving, and this does not imply that the person perceives nothing. That was to counter your claim that if a person is not perceiving objects one is perceiving nothing. It may be the case that the person judges oneself to be perceiving objects, but is not perceiving objects, yet still is perceiving.

Yes. They are perceiving something. Things are objects. That fact we can't know what/which (and similar questions) doesn't change that part of the position. (and, as above, Kant knows this too).

but if "objects" doesn't fulfill the criteria for what the person is actually perceiving,

What are the criteria?

I'm just not very good at this. Wondering about any specifics.

The fact remains, Kant's system *does not work* unless there is an assumption that something causes our sensations.

It therefore has subjective real-
ity in regard to inner experience, i.e., I really have the representation of
time and of my determinations in it. It is therefore to be regarded re-
ally not as object but as the way of representing myself as object But
if I or another being could intuit myself without this condition of sen-
sibility, then these very determinations, which we now represent to our-
selves as alterations, would yield us a cognition in which the represen-
tation of time and thus also of alteration would not occur at all. Its
empirical reality therefore remains as a condition of all our experiences.

Perhaps I'm not grasping this, but if someone is perceiving "something" then that is "objects" broadly (and in the way i suggest it be used here - I'm not suggesting there are (or that we could know that there are) actual, physical objects beyond the senses). These could simply be that which is required as an assumption for hte perception to obtain. I content roughly that

The "physical objects" we experience in our sensations and judgements are representations made possible through combinations of our intuitions of space and time.

What are the criteria?

If these representations are false, it may be the case that the person is not actually perceiving objects, despite believing oneself to be perceiving objects.

but if "objects" doesn't fulfill the criteria for what the person is actually perceiving,
— Metaphysician Undercover

What are the criteria?
— Patterner

I would say that the single most important criterion for "object" is temporal extension.

That error comes up a lot in Aristotle. Perhaps you could point out where that happens with Kant.

Can you give an example of something a person is actually perceiving that fits not have temporal extension?

Can you give an example of something a person is actually perceiving that does [I](edited to correct stupid autocorrect)[/I] not have temporal extension?
— Patterner

Any activity I suppose. At each moment it is new and different, therefore there is no temporal extension of any specific thing.

Perhaps. But is it likely that someone who thinks they are perceiving an object is actually viewing an activity?

?Gnomon
In Western metaphysics, ‘creation’ has a specific status, reserved for the Creator (‘creature’ meaning ‘created being’). It is of course used more broadly nowadays, for all manner of creative work, but it still retains some overtones, in the philosophical context. But I’m not going to retroactively update it. Besides, ‘mind-constructed world’ just doesn’t have a ring to it.

Deciding what is a mistake in Kant is more difficult. We don't have the object of representation in hand to compare with another supposed object in the unexperienced bush.

But later, he's saying we must pre-suppose them (despite, not being able to know them).

Deciding what is a mistake in Kant is more difficult. We don't have the object of representation in hand to compare with another supposed object in the unexperienced bush.

Instead of insisting that there must be real independent objects, because we perceive objects, as Amadeus seemed to be doing, we ought to accept the possibility of mistake.

Perhaps I'm not grasping this, but if someone is perceiving "something" then that is "objects" broadly (and in the way i suggest it be used here - I'm not suggesting there are (or that we could know that there are) actual, physical objects beyond the senses). These could simply be that which is required as an assumption for hte perception to obtain. I content roughly that.

It's hard to disagree with that. But if we accept that possibility, should we not, by the same token, accept the possibility that there is no mistake. We could then ask which of those possibilities is actually the case. Or even question the framing of the question.

"Difficult" is a very mild description for this situation. It suggests that you think that "representation" is not really an inappropriate concept to apply here. But you also (seem to) accept that there is no real evidence for such an object "in the unexperienced bush". So I'm rather puzzled what to make of this.

The synthetic unity of con-
sciousness is therefore an objective condition of all cognition, not
merely something I myself need in order to cognize an object but
rather something under which every intuition must stand [b]in order to
become an object for me[/b], since in any other way, and without this
synthesis, the manifold would not be united in one consciousness.

The pure concepts of the understanding are free from this limitation
and extend to objects of intuition in general, whether the latter be sim-
ilar to our own or not, as long as it is sensible and not intellectual. But
this further extension of concepts beyond our sensible intuition does
not get us anywhere. For they are then merely empty concepts of ob-
jects, through which we cannot even judge whether the latter are pos-
sible or not - mere forms of thought without objective reality - since
we have available no intuition to which the synthetic unity of apper-
ception, which they alone contain, could be applied, and that could thus
determine an object. Our sensible and empirical intuition alone can
provide them with sense and significance.

Thus if one assumes an object of a non-sensible intuition as given,
one can certainly represent it through all of the predicates that already
lie in the presupposition that [b]nothing belonging to sensible intuition
pertains to it[/b]: thus it is not extended, or in space, that its duration is
not a time, that no alteration (sequence of determinations in time) is to
be encountered in it, etc. But it is not yet a genuine cognition if I merely
indicate what the intuition of the object' is not, without being able to
say what is then contained in it; for then I have not represented the pos-
sibility of an object for my pure concept of the understanding at all,
since I cannot give any intuition that would correspond to it, but could
only say that ours is not valid for it. But what is most important here is
that not even a single category could be applied to such a thing, e.g., the
concept of a substance, i.e., that of something that could exist as a sub
ject but never as a mere predicate; for I would not even know whether
there could be anything that corresponded to this determination of
thought if empirical intuition did not give me the case for its applica-
tion. But more of this in the sequel.

In the transcendental synthesis of the manifold of representations in
general, on the contrary, hence in the synthetic original unity of apper-
ception, I am conscious of myself not as I appear to myself, nor as I am
in myself, but only that I am. This representation is a thinking, not
an intuiting. Now since for the cognition of ourselves, in addition to
the action of thinking that brings the manifold of every possible intu-
ition to the unity of apperception, a determinate sort of intuition,
through which this manifold is given, is also required, my own existence
is not indeed appearance (let alone mere illusion), but the determina-
tion of my existence* can only occur in correspondence with the form
of inner sense, according to the particular way in which the manifold
that I combine is given in inner intuition, and I therefore have [b]no cog-
nition[/b] of myself as I am, but only as I appear to myself. The con-
sciousness of oneself is therefore far from being a cognition of oneself,
regardless of all the categories that constitute the thinking of an [b]object
in general[/b] through combination of the manifold in an apperception.

the different types of mistakes which are possible.

Suppose that we consider words as an example of a representation.

I figure a representation happens when what is given through sensible intuition becomes an object one can have knowledge about:

Hence let us once try whether we do not
get farther with the problems of metaphysics by assuming that the ob-
jects must conform to our cognition, which would agree better with the
requested possibility of an a priori cognition of them, which is to estab
lish something about objects before they are given to us. This would
be just like the first thoughts of Copernicus, who, when he did not
make good progress in the explanation of the celestial motions if he as-
sumed that the entire celestial host revolves around the observer, tried
to see if he might not have greater success if he made the observer re
volve and left the stars at rest. Now in metaphysics we can try in a sim-
ilar way regarding the intuition of objects. If intuition has to conform
to the constitution of the objects, then I do not see how we can know
anything of them a priori; but if the object (as an object of the senses)
conforms to the constitution of our faculty of intuition, then I can very
well represent this possibility to myself. Yet because I cannot stop with
these intuitions, if they are to become cognitions, but must refer them
as representations to something as their object and determine this object
through them, I can assume either that the concepts through which
I bring about this determination also conform to the objects, and then
I am once again in the same difficulty about how I could know anything
about them a priori, or else I assume that the objects, or what is the same
thing, the experience in which alone they can be cognized (as given ob-
jects) conforms to those concepts, in which case I immediately see an
easier way out of the difficulty, since experience itself is a kind of cog-
nition requiring the understanding, whose rule I have to presuppose in
myself before any object is given to me, hence a priori, which rule is ex-
pressed in concepts a priori, to which all objects of experience must
therefore necessarily conform, and with which they must agree. As for
objects insofar as they are thought merely through reason, and neces-
sarily at that, but that (at least as reason thinks them) cannot be given
in experience at all - the attempt to think them (for they must be capa-
ble of being thought) will provide a splendid touchstone of what we as-
sume as the altered method of our way of thinking, namely that we can
cognize of things a priori only what we ourselves have put into them.*

That's quite a tall order. But still, if they can all be determined as mistakes, it follows that there must be a truth of the matter, beyond appearances.

So now I need to know what kind of relationship you think there is between the representation and what it is a representation of.

I don't think so. First, i didn't say anything about how mistake would be determined, only that we ought to believe it is possible. Then, when we look at the primary feature of determining mistakes, mistake is commonly a matter of not producing the desired result. This doesn't imply truth or lack of truth.

I think there is a relationship of mastery, like a tool masters the circumstances it is applied to, to produce the desired end. The representation (symbol) is a tool, the living being uses it, and this tool assists the being in survival, as well as making use of its environment toward its ends, and perhaps some other things, dependent on intention.

Kant's terminology is intimidating. I think the way Kant speaks in the Preface to the Second Edition is a good outline to his intentions and what he means by experience, intuition, and cognition:

The proof that is demanded must therefore establish that we have experience and not merely imagination of outer things, which cannot be accomplished unless one can prove that even our inner experience, undoubted by Descartes, is possible only under the presupposition of outer experience.

If intuition has to conform
to the constitution of the objects, then I do not see how we can know anything of them a priori

I always thought it was the user who mastered the circumstances by using the tool.

But isn't there a case for describing the tool as adjusted to or fitting in with the relevant circumstances. A carpenter's saw is good for cutting wood. For metal, you need a hacksaw. Hammers for nails (appropriate in some circumstances). Screwdrivers or spanners in others. Certainly, the enterprise is to adjust circumstances in certain ways; but one needs to recognize what can be changed and what can't.

The need for the a priori is to explain why we are built that way. The need becomes necessary by the "altered method of our way of thinking." Otherwise:

If intuition has to conform
to the constitution of the objects, then I do not see how we can know anything of them a priori
— CPR, Bxvi

The analogy with Copernicus is to demonstrate how mutually exclusive the two standpoints are.

In the sequel therefore we will understand by a priori cognitions not those that occur independently of this or that experience, but rather those that occur absolutely independently of all experience. Opposed to them are empirical cognitions, or those that are possible only a posteriori, i.e., through experience. Among a priori cognitions, however, those are called pure with which nothing empirical is intermixed. Thus, e.g., the proposition "Every alteration has its cause" is an a priori proposition, only not pure, since alteration is a concept that can be drawn only from experience.

Experience is prior in time to knowledge but the possibility for experience is prior as a condition.

In the sequel therefore we will understand by a priori cognitions not those that occur independently of this or that experience, but rather those that occur absolutely independently of all experience.

That our judgement is, to some extent, a result of our nature established before our particular experiences is not, by itself, an observation given through experience. Kant calls that part thinking about what occurs "independent of all experience."

You are putting a lot of theories in my mouth. I am not trying to defend what Kant said but clarify what I heard he was saying. Neither was I trying to defend what Aristotle said.

I am guessing that Kant introducing a new standpoint is neither here nor there from your standpoint.

The analogy with Copernicus is to demonstrate how mutually exclusive the two standpoints are.

How some of us went from this location to reading "things-in-themselves" as "mind independent" is a long and winding road through perilous terrain.

We don't know anything of objects or phenomena in general a priori—in terms of what commonalities we can know about all objects without actually consulting particular objects in real time, we must reflect on their general characteristics as perceived. That is we must reflect on prior experience of phenomena in order to see what they all have in common.

Experience is prior in time to knowledge but the possibility for experience is prior as a condition.

In the Preface, objects of experience are either made present to us through an intuition that has to "conform to the constitution of the objects" or by means of our processes of reason.

Bxvii:I am once again in the same difficulty about how I could know anything about them (sc. objects) a priori, or else I assume that the objects, or what is the same thing, the experience in which alone they can be cognized (as given objects) conforms to those concepts, in which case I immediately see an easier way out of the difficulty, since experience itself is a kind of cognition requiring the understanding, whose rule I have to presuppose in myself before any object is given to me, hence a
priori, which rule is expressed in concepts a priori, to which all objects of experience must therefore necessarily conform, and with which they must agree.

Perhaps, but I think it is the tool, as the means to the end, which actually overcomes the circumstances. It is more proper to say that the means is what brings success rather than the will. If it was just the will, you could will yourself to success. Instead, success is highly dependent on the tool employed.

"Mistakes in producing or choosing the symbol to be used as a representation". That would be a mistake of trying to use the wrong tool. We were talking about the different types of mistakes which are possible, and whether each type could be recognized.

I don't know whether a complete catalogue of possible mistakes is possible. Perhaps it is.

And that's just the nature of what a mistake is, something which eludes judgement.

Idealism (I mean material idealism) is the theory that declares the existence of objects in space outside us to be either merely doubtful and indemonstrable, or else false and impossible; the former is the problematic idealism of Descartes, who declares only one empirical assertion (assertio), namely I am, to be indubitable; the latter is thedogmatic idealism of Berkeley, who declares space, together with all the things to which it is attached as an inseparable condition, to be something that is impossible in itself, and who therefore also declares things in space to be merely imaginary. Dogmatic idealism is unavoidable if
one regards space as a property that is to pertain to the things in themselves; for then it, along with everything for which it serves as a condition, is a non-entity.

The mere, but empirically determined, consciousness of my own existence proves the existence of objects in space outside me

I, represented through inner sense in time, and objects in space outside me, are indeed specifically a wholly distinct appearances, but they are not thereby thought of as different things. The transcendental object that grounds both outer appearances and inner intuition is neither matter nor a thinking being in itself, but rather an unknown ground of those appearances that supply us with our empirical concepts of the former as well as the latter.

If, therefore, as the present critique obviously requires of us, we remain true to the rule established earlier not to press our questions beyond that with which possible experience and its object can supply us, then it will not occur to us to seek information about what the objects of our senses may be in themselves, i.e., apart from any relation to the senses. But if a psychologist takes appearances for things in themselves, then as a materialist he may take up matter into his doctrine, or as a spiritualist he may take up merely thinking beings (namely, according to the form of our inner sense) as the single and sole thing existing in itself, or as a dualist he may take up both; yet through misunderstanding he will always be confined to sophistical reasonings about the way in which that which is no thing in itself, but only the appearance of a thing in general, might exist in itself.

"Required as an assumption" implies that the assumption is a necessary aspect. That is why the sensation is commonly called a representation. It is assumed to represent something.

If these representations are false

You describe these objects as "actual, physical objects beyond the senses".

I'm not suggesting there are (or that we could know that there are) actual, physical objects beyond the senses)

When you say that actual physical objects are an assumption or presupposition, you seem to leave open the possibility that that assumption is wrong - or at least that a different assumption or pre-supposition may also result in a not incoherent alternative conceptual structure.

On the one hand, we know that they exist. On the other hand, we know, and can know, nothing whatever about them.

You describe these objects as "actual, physical objects beyond the senses".

Berkeley is, in fact, mentioned by name at the beginning of the Refutation of Idealism:

One question is how far outside of myself have I gotten if it is my intuition of space and time that allows for the possibility for the experience.

Berkeley, who declares space, together with all the things to which it is attached as an inseparable condition, to be something that is impossible in itself, and who therefore also declares things in space to be merely imaginary. Dogmatic idealism is unavoidable if
one regards space as a property that is to pertain to the things in themselves; for then it, along with everything for which it serves as a condition, is a non-entity.

The mere, but empirically determined, consciousness of my own existence proves the existence of objects in space outside me

I, represented through inner sense in time, and objects in space outside me, are indeed specifically a wholly distinct appearances, but they are not thereby thought of as different things. The transcendental object that grounds both outer appearances and inner intuition is neither matter nor a thinking being in itself, but rather an unknown ground of those appearances that supply us with our empirical concepts of the former as well as the latter.

If, therefore, as the present critique obviously requires of us, we remain true to the rule established earlier not to press our questions beyond that with which possible experience and its object can supply us, then it will not occur to us to seek information about what the objects of our senses may be in themselves, i.e., apart from any relation to the senses.

But if a psychologist takes appearances for things in themselves, then as a materialist he may take up matter into his doctrine, or as a spiritualist he may take up merely thinking beings (namely, according to the form of our inner sense) as the single and sole thing existing in itself, or as a dualist he may take up both; yet through misunderstanding he will always be confined to sophistical reasonings about the way in which that which is no thing in itself, but only the appearance of a thing in general, might exist in itself.

The dictum of all genuine idealists from the Eleatic school to Bishop Berkeley, is contained in this formula: "All cognition through the senses and experience is nothing but sheer illusion, and only, in the ideas of the pure understanding and reason there is truth."

The principle that throughout dominates and determines my Idealism, is on the contrary: "All cognition of things merely from pure understanding or pure reason is nothing but sheer
illusion, and only in experience is there truth."

But this is directly contrary to idealism proper. How came I then to use this expression for quite an opposite purpose, and how came my reviewer to see it everywhere?

The solution of this difficulty rests on something that could have been very easily understood from the general bearing of the work, if the reader had only desired to do so. Space and time, together with all that they contain, are not things nor qualities in themselves, but belong merely to the appearances of the latter: up to this point I am one in confession with the above idealists. But these, and amongst them more particularly Berkeley, regarded space as a mere empirical presentation that, like the phenomenon it contains, is only known to us by means of experience or perception, together with its determinations. I, on the contrary, prove in the first place, that space (and also time, which Berkeley did not consider) and all its determinations a priori, can be known by us, because, no less than time, it inheres in our sensibility as a pure form before all perception or experience and makes all intuition of the same, and therefore all its phenomena, possible. It follows from this, that as truth rests on universal and necessary laws as its criteria, experience, according to Berkeley, can have no criteria of truth, because its phenomena (according to him) have nothing a priori at their foundation; whence it follows, that they are nothing but sheer illusion; whereas with us, space and time (in conjunction with the pure conceptions of the understanding) prescribe their law to all possible experience a priori, and at the same time afford the certain criterion for distinguishing truth from illusion therein.

Thinking about this, it seems that Kant's (and Berkeley's) conception of space seems to be that it is something that exists as a vessel or a medium in which objects have their existence. I don't see that. The existence of objects in space and space itself are not two separate discoveries. Each depends on the other, conceptually speaking.

In the sequel therefore we will understand by a priori cognitions not those that occur independently of this or that experience, but rather those that occur absolutely independently of all experience. Opposed to them are empirical cognitions, or those that are possible only a posteriori, i.e., through experience. Among a priori cognitions, however, those are called pure with which nothing empirical is intermixed. Thus, e.g., the proposition "Every alteration has its cause" is an a priori proposition, only not pure, since alteration is a concept that can be drawn only from experience.

ibid.:whereas with us, space and time (in conjunction with the pure conceptions of the understanding) prescribe their law to all possible experience a priori, and at the same time afford the certain criterion for distinguishing truth from illusion therein

….painting a specific appearance.

It seems I've been headed off. But I still need to ask how appearances can be appearances of things-in-themselves and things-in-themselves be completely unknown.

The transcendental object that grounds both outer appearances and inner intuition is neither matter nor a thinking being in itself, but rather an unknown ground of those appearances that supply us with our empirical concepts of the former as well as the latter.

The principle that throughout dominates and determines my Idealism, is on the contrary: "All cognition of things merely from pure understanding or pure reason is nothing but sheer
illusion, and only in experience is there truth."

I, represented through inner sense in time, and objects in space outside me, are indeed specifically a wholly distinct appearances

I meant to say that taking intuition of space and time as a process of my perception raises the question of how "objective" it is. That ties into Kant's beef with Berkeley who treats space as an experienced phenomenon. Kant argues that it is, rather, an a priori condition for sensibility:

The principle that throughout dominates and determines my Idealism, is on the contrary: "All cognition of things merely from pure understanding or pure reason is nothing but sheer illusion, and only in experience is there truth."

Space and time, together with all that they contain, are not things nor qualities in themselves, but belong merely to the appearances of the latter: up to this point I am one in confession with the above idealists. But these, and amongst them more particularly Berkeley, regarded space as a mere empirical presentation that, like the phenomenon it contains, is only known to us by means of experience or perception, together with its determinations. I, on the contrary, prove in the first place, that space (and also time, which Berkeley did not consider) and all its determinations a priori, can be known by us, because, no less than time, it inheres in our sensibility as a pure form before all perception or experience and makes all intuition of the same, and therefore all its phenomena, possible. It follows from this, that as truth rests on universal and necessary laws as its criteria, experience, according to Berkeley, can have no criteria of truth, because its phenomena (according to him) have nothing a priori at their foundation; whence it follows, that they are nothing but sheer illusion; whereas with us, space and time (in conjunction with the pure conceptions of the understanding) prescribe their law to all possible experience a priori, and at the same time afford the certain criterion for distinguishing truth from illusion therein.

I, too, am learning from this discussion.

I will try to respond to some other of your comments but need to get back to painting a specific appearance.

The mere, but empirically determined, consciousness of my own existence proves the existence of objects in space outside me

tacitly supports Descartes’ sum while not being quite so supportive of the “problematic” idealism explicit in the cogito ergo… part

Space and time are big issues in philosophy, and I'm not an expert. But I do agree that we do not experience space as a phenomenon. I wouldn't say that it is a condition for sensibility, but rather a principle of interpretation of the phenomena.
I'm afraid, though, that I simply have no grasp of what he means by saying that it is an intuition. Is it something like a brute fact?

All the thinkers Kant responded to had different ways of framing what is intuition, phenomena, ideas, logic, and categories. They were arguing within a set of parameters. The problems we have looking in from outside is that we cannot share that set without problems of translation.

The two-aspects reading attempts to interpret Kant’s transcendental idealism in a way that enables it to be defended against at least some of these objections. On this view, transcendental idealism does not distinguish between two classes of objects but rather between two different aspects of one and the same class of objects. For this reason it is also called the one-world interpretation, since it holds that there is only one world in Kant’s ontology, and that at least some objects in that world have two different aspects: one aspect that appears to us, and another aspect that does not appear to us. That is, appearances are aspects of the same objects that also exist in themselves. So, on this reading, appearances are not mental representations, and transcendental idealism is not a form of phenomenalism.

A42/B59–60:What may be the case with objects in themselves and abstracted from all this receptivity of our sensibility remains entirely unknown to us.

ibid:In some sense, human beings experience only appearances, not things in themselves.

Understanding is, generally speaking, the faculty of cognitions. These consist in the determinate relation of given representations to an object." An object, however, is that in the concept of which the manifold of a given intuition is united. Now, however, all unification of representations requires unity of consciousness in the synthesis of them. Consequently the unity of consciousness is that which alone constitutes the relation of representations to an object, thus their objective validity, and consequently is that which makes them into cognitions and on which even the possibility of the understanding rests.

The first pure cognition of the understanding, therefore, on which the whole of the rest of its use is grounded, and that is at the same time also entirely independent from all conditions of sensible intuition, is the principle of the original synthetic unity of apperception. Thus the mere form of outer sensible intuition, space, is not yet cognition at all; it only gives the manifold of intuition a priori for a possible cognition. But in order to cognize something in space, e.g., a line, I must draw it, and thus synthetically bring about a determinate combination of the given manifold, so that the unity of this action is at the same time the unity of consciousness (in the concept of a line) and thereby is an object (a determinate space) first cognized. The synthetic unity of consciousness is therefore an objective condition of all cognition, not merely something I myself need in order to cognize an object but rather something under which every intuition must stand in order to become an object for me, since in any other way, and without this synthesis, the manifold would not be united in one consciousness.

All that is perceived must exist, but it does not follow that only the perceived exists. Because it is absurd to claim only the perceived exists, insofar as subsequent discoveries become impossible, we are entitled to ask….for that thing eventually perceived, in what state was that thing before it was perceived?

On other words, the Critique does teach the twofold aspect, but not of the object. It is the two-fold aspect of the human intellectual system as laid out in transcendental philosophy. It is by means of that system that an object is treated as an appearance in accordance with sensibility on the one hand, or, an object is treated as a ding an sich on the other, in accordance with pure speculative reason.

We cannot think any object except through categories; we cannot cognize any object that is thought except through intuitions that correspond to those concepts. Now all our intuitions are sensible, and this cognition, so far as its object is given, is empirical. Empirical cognition,
however, is experience. Consequently no a priori cognition is possible for us except solely of objects of possible experience.* But this cognition, which is limited merely to objects of experience, is not on that account all borrowed from experience; rather, with regard to the pure intuitions as well as the pure concepts of the understanding, there are elements of cognition that are to be encountered in us a priori. Now there are only two ways in which a necessary agreement of experience with the concepts of its objects can be thought: either the experience makes these concepts possible or these concepts make the experience possible. The first is not the case with the categories (nor with pure sensible intuition; for they are a priori concepts, hence independent of experience (the assertion of an empirical origin would be a sort of generatio aequivoca [spontaneously generated]. Consequently only the second way remains (as it were a system of the epigenesis48 of pure reason): namely that the categories contain the grounds of the possibility of all experience in general from the side of the understanding. But more about how they make experience possible, and which principles of its possibility they yield in their application to appearances, will be taught in the following chapter on the transcendental use of the power of judgment.

From the footnote at the asterisk:

* So that one may not prematurely take issue with the worrisome and disadvantageous consequences of this proposition, I will only mention that the categories are not restricted in thinking by the conditions of our sensible intuition, but have an unbounded field, and only the cognition of objects that we think, the determination of the object, requires intuition; in the absence of the latter, the thought of the object can still have its true and useful consequences for the use of the subject's reason, which, however, cannot be expounded here, for it is not always directed to the determination of the object, thus to cognition, but rather also to that of the subject and its willing.

Hence let us once try whether we do not get farther with the problems of metaphysics by assuming that the objects must conform to our cognition, which would agree better with the requested possibility of an a priori cognition of them, which is to establish something about objects before they are given to us.

His (sc. Aristotle's) primary investigation of mind occurs in two chapters of De Anima, both of which are richly suggestive, but neither of which admits of easy or uncontroversial exposition. In De Anima iii 4 and 5, Aristotle approaches the nature of thinking by once again deploying a hylomorphic analysis, given in terms of form reception. Just as perception involves the reception of a sensible form by a suitably qualified sensory faculty, so thinking involves the reception of an intelligible form by a suitably qualified intellectual faculty (De Anima iii 4, 429a13–18). According to this model, thinking consists in a mind’s becoming enformed by some object of thought, so that actual thinking occurs whenever some suitably prepared mind is “made like” its object by being affected by it.

In other words, the Critique does teach the twofold aspect, but not of the object. It is the two-fold aspect of the human intellectual system as laid out in transcendental philosophy. It is by means of that system that an object is treated as an appearance in accordance with sensibility on the one hand, or, an object is treated as a ding an sich on the other, in accordance with pure speculative reason.

We can also ask what manner of existence they could have for other percipients or absent any percipients at all

….the conditions described at B132 to B138 are observed….

….what determines whether a given object is treated in accordance with sensibility or in accordance with pure speculative reason.

That’s what I get out of it, anyway. Loosely speaking.

Put the question this way, what determines whether a given object is treated in accordance with sensibility or in accordance with pure speculative reason

Now there are only two ways in which a necessary agreement of experience with the concepts of its objects can be thought: either the experience makes these concepts possible or these concepts make the experience possible.

The conditions of sensible intuition, which bring with them their own distinctions, he [Leibniz] did not regard as original; for sensibility was only a confused kind of representation for him, and not a special source of representations; for him appearance was the representation of the thing in itself, although distinguished from cognition through the understanding in its logical form, since with its customary lack of analysis the former draws a certain mixture of subsidiary representations into the concept of the thing, from which the understanding knows how to abstract. In a word, intellectualized the appearances, just as Locke totally sensitivized the concepts of understanding in accordance with his system of noogony (if I am permitted this expression), i.e., interpreted them as nothing but empirical or abstracted concepts of reflection. Instead of seeking two entirely different sources of representation in the understanding and the sensibility, which could judge about things with objective validity only in conjunction, each of these great men holds on only to one of them, which in his opinion is immediately related to things in themselves, while the other does nothing but confuse or order the representations of the first.

ibid B344:The concept of the noumenon is therefore not the concept of an object, but rather the problem, unavoidably connected with the limitation of our sensibility, of whether there may not be objects entirely exempt from the intuition of our sensibility, a question that can only be given the indeterminate answer that since sensible intuition does not pertain to all things without distinction room remains for more and other objects; they cannot therefore be absolutely denied, but in the absence of a determinate concept (for which no category is serviceable) they also cannot be asserted as objects for our understanding.

I will pursue my Buddha nature by not commenting on the SEP article.

The receptivity of perception in Aristotle can be seen as a parallel to that of the intuition of sensibility.
Yes. But there's a vast difference in the "mechanism". Aristotle's mind is, so far as I can see, almost entirely passive. Quite unlike Kant's - I guess that's his great contribution.

Paine;1016969:But where Kant directly rebukes Aristotle is over his use of logic at A268/B324.

[quote]On this is grounded the logical topics of Aristotle, which schoolteachers and orators could use in order to hunt up certain titles of thinking to find that which best fits their current matter and rationalize or garrulously chatter about it with an appearance of thoroughness

The principle that throughout dominates and determines my Idealism, is on the contrary: "All cognition of things merely from pure understanding or pure reason is nothing but sheer illusion, and only in experience is there truth.

Instead of seeking two entirely different sources of representation in the understanding and the sensibility, which could judge about things with objective validity only in conjunction, each of these great men holds on only to one of them, which in his opinion is immediately related to things in themselves, while the other does nothing but confuse or order the representations of the first.

I'm bit preoccupied with his concept of the a priori.

Aristotle, Metaphysics, 1028a34, translated by CDC Reevey:Now things are said to be primary in many ways. Nonetheless, substance is primary in all of them—in account, in knowledge, and in time. For of the various things that are predicated none is separable, but only this. And in account too it is primary, since in the account of each thing its account is necessarily present as a component.

What is primary is what is sought throughout Aristotle.

Kant's terms can be said to move across the background of their Aristotelian versions.

I need to get more chores off the honey do list first.

Kant's terms can be said to move across the background of their Aristotelian versions.
— Paine
I didn't know that. It isn't a surprise, though.

I am surprised by your lack of surprise. The shared use of terms by the two authors is clearly evident in comparisons of their texts. That includes the term 'experience', that invokes what is called empria by Aristotle which led to the word "empirical."

It is off topic to this OP, but I often wonder about self-identified schools of thought and the range of vocabulary shared amongst different views represented through them. I won't try to talk about that in this thread.

"mind" is not what it seems to itself

Consider this article a précis of 'the world-creates/embodies minds' ...

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/newsplus/new-way-to-map-the-unique-brain-organization-of-individuals/

It is interesting that "mind" can seem to itself to be something that it is not. Unlike a sphere drawn on paper which does not seem to itself to be a 3-D sphere, or a map which does not seem to itself to be the actual terrain.