Arguing against the validity of reason - D'Souza - Kant

[JoeRedskin]

Originally Posted by RedskinRat

Dude, slow down, we're talking about people's comparative perception of reality not Quarg from the planet Xgrnarglth 7's existence being ended by a homer from Kemp (Go Dodgers!).

No. The article discusses, critiques and compares perceptual reality v. actual reality. As I understand it, the point of the article is to refute D'Souza's claim that it is impossible for humans to understand actual reality due to our limited senses. Instead, all we have is perceptual reality. The author counters: "Of course we can understand actual reality. Otherwise, Kemp couldn't hit the ball." The author acknowledges that Kemp and the first basemen may perceive the reality of the ball differently and, through "naive realism", each may erroneously assert that their point of view is actual reality. Acknowledging naive realism to be a false reality, the author then asserts that humans can appropriately use our senses, get past naive realism, and discover actual reality. As a further, example, the author uses sonar to demonstrate the lack of limitations asserted by D'Souza. I agree with the author to a point. Where we differ is the author's failure to account for the unfortunately vaporized Quarg.

I juxtaposed Quarg's Death and Kemp's Homer to demonstrate that, at any point in time, actual reality- not perceived reality or reality as asserted through naive realism - consists of infinite causes and effects. It is this infiniteness that is reality and which we, as finite beings, cannot and never will be able to fully understand. Actual reality consists of both Quarg's Death and Kemp's Homer I would humbly suggest that we will never be able to explain why they both occurred yesterday at 3:12 p.m.

[By the way, I did not assert that Kemp's homer caused Quarg to be vaporized, only that both events occurred. They may or may not have had some linked causaulity beyond their mutual occurrence - that, however, really wasn't the point of referencing the poor and unfortunate pile of spacedust formerly known as Quarg].

We can, and have, expanded on the limitations of our 5 senses and invented things, such as sonar, in order to perceive things that would otherwise be imperceivable to us. We have gained knowledge into the sub-atomic world which creates questions as to whether there is any thing "solid" in universe. We improved our "vision" so that we can see further than and on more levels into space only to find that it is even more vast and varied than we had imagined.

Obviously, these expansions on our ability to perceive nature have, in turn, given us a deeper understanding of the actual reality of the Universe. At the same time, our advanced perceptions have also raised deeper and more complex questions to explore about that reality. Ultimately, we are limited beings and, until and unless we acheive omniscience, a complete understanding of actual reality is denied to us. Every reality asserted as true and based on something short of omniscience is just a form of "naive realism". Through science, exploration and reasoned analysis, it may be a well informed naive realism with some good actual reality mixed in, but naive realism nonetheless.

It seems to me that D'Souza says "Because we are limited to perceptual reality, we can never grasp any aspect of actual reality". That's just dumb and is faulty for all the reasons stated in the article. At the same time, the author's implicit assertion that "Because we can grasp some aspects of actual reality, we are - or will be - able to grasp all aspects of the actual reality" is equally faulty and does not logically follow. The author's assertion is, essentially, the age old cry of hubris "We can be as God".

Quarg is dead and Kemp hit a homer - and then came 3:13 p.m.

Originally Posted by RedskinRat

I prefer 'random' to 'accidental'. The human brain is predisposed to look for patterns in life in order to make sense of disorder hence the eagerness for most to embrace organized religions, superstition and such. There are a lot of articles on the topic that are fascinating but I'm too lazy to link to them.

Random/accidental, potatoe/patoto. I (and others) believe a pattern exists and that it did not "just happen". Further, I do not doubt that the human brain is predisposed to look for patterns. The human brain is also hard-wired with certain "fight or flight" tendencies. Part of our development as individuals and as a species, however, has been to identify what are our instinctual responses (individually & corporately), to understand the purpose of those instinctual responses, and to determine when (or if) the instinctual responses are the correct response to a given situation. The mere fact, however, that a tendency exists as a built-in instinctual response does not automatically mean that the response is invalid to a given situation. Thus, the fact that we instinctually perceive patterns does not necessarily mean the patterns perceived are merely a product of instinct and nothing more.