Now Emmanuel Kant asserts that we can't have certain knowledge as the mind produces "sense data" which restrains our minds to a certain conceptual limit. Meaning, we can only grasp what is in our capacity of understanding for we see something uniquely to our own mind and filter it through our own thoughts.
In relation to this we can only understand things in terms of time and space. But what about abstract ideas such as the term never. Is there such thing as never in reality. You can't measure measure "never" through space and time as there is no prescribed time for the term never. Never won't ever happen, so it's unobtainable.
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ReplyDeleteIn Sartre's Being and Nothingness, he discusses the idea of negation and nothingness in detail. He claims that negation can only exist in being. That is in relation to being; ie. "there are no bananas here." There is not nothing here, just no bananas.
ReplyDeleteThe idea of nothing is of a lack of being, a lack that we cannot comprehend, except in relation to being. In fact, I beleive that the idea of nothing helps to prove Kant's ideas. Nothing is what we cannot comprehend. Comprhension is to realise something through space and time. There can be no such thing as nothing because nothing by definition is "no thing."
I am going to have to argue against you here, Mitchell.
ReplyDeleteI don't believe nothing is a lack of comprehension because I can know bananas exist, but just because they are not there at a specific time, doesn't mean I can't understand that.
It's as simple as Moore's 'I have a hand' theory. If it is there, it exists. If it's not, it may just not be present at that moment in time. We fight so hard to prove that time and space are creating barriers but as such, we're just putting those same limits to ourselves, stopping us from moving beyond what we supposedly can't 'comprehend'.
I don't think it has anything to do with that. It's more what we accept as a reality. If we choose to question everything, then nothing could mean we don't exist at all and Descartes then had some basis to his theory; for then we ourselves equivocate to nothing.
As Mitchell said, nothing by definition is no thing, but then we must define the type of thing we pose to not exist. Moore talks about 'things which are to be met with in space' (shadows), and 'things with are presented in space' (after images). It is proposed that a banana exists, therefore follows that it is met with in space. It is a thing which exists outside of us but may not currently be present in our immediate reality. Things which are presented with in space are inside our minds, and do still exists in a space. Just like the concept of never. Just because we cannot see something does not mean it does not exist. Other people cannot ever see the same after images as us, but that does not mean that his / her after images do not exist in his/ her own space. Never does not have a set time, but it does not, not have a set time either. And something may become met with or presented in space at some time or another.
ReplyDeleteThere is no ascertainable truth to the concept of never, so we cannot ever say it is not obtainable.
(I hope this makes some logical sense).
The concept of never is incredibly abstract, as much so as the one of infinity. Despite us not being able to physically grasp the subjects, I do believe that they are possible. For example, I myself will never fly. I do not have wings and at this point in time, they have not invented a way for human beings to fly. Sure, there are airplanes and hang gliders and bungee cords, but none of which are truly “flying”. It is comparable to when someone is in a boat: is that really swimming?
ReplyDeleteThe misconception about a lot of subjects (thank you Kant) is that our black box will only process what we can understand (or understand at the time). It is our natural instinct to only understand what we can touch, when coincidentally, we cannot understand never, but a lot of us can understand religion.
When Kant developed his theory of the black box, I don’t think he created it to limit us from concepts, but rather, to consider how we can to our conclusions and how they are filtered through our biased minds.
I think that we could go on about this forever, depicting and analyzing, until we turn into Descartes and forget who we are.
ReplyDeleteHowever, if you say "There are no bananas on this tree", that is exactly what it means. I highly doubt that someone is going to argue with that and say "Actually there is more than just bananas, there are also coconuts, they're just not here and not now".