What do you think substance is?

[onesteptwostep]

What do you think matter is? Do you think they're things that actually exist and take up actual physical space, or do you think matter is something that's only a in a sense our perception of 'things' that 'are' and not physically existing?

What proofs of substance do you think can work?

Here are some of what past philosophers have said about substance::

Spoiler

Descartes: an entity which exists in such a way that it needs no other entity in order to exist, which to him meant a god of somesort. But to have things that actually exist from this substance, there needs to be an extension from this substance, which are mind and body, or physicality, thus his Cartesian dualism. To him, Descartes, substance existed and basically their extensions were an emanation from God.

Spoiler

Spinoza: Spinoza on the other hand didn't believe that there were extensions from God, but rather, that all things, both mind and body were of one substance, and that thus having one substance, which to Jewish philosopher meant also God, believed that all things were an outpouring of God, thus making him a pantheist. He's also a monist in the sense that substance consists of only one thing, contrasted with Descartes's dualism of the mental and physical. Spinoza however believed that there were an infinite number of attributes, or these extensions (as I understand Spinoza).

Spoiler

Leibniz: Also another monist, believed that all things were created by something called Monads. He believed that there were an infinite number of substances and that God was transcendent over these Monads, and that God had ordained a pre-established harmony for the workings of these Monads, meaning that even if they didn't have any connection with each other in a sort of a deterministic, natural law way, they were pre-established by God to work together. In a sense Leibniz was a deterministic, though he believed freedom was just us going along with the flow of the pre-established order, thus in a cognitive dissonance way he thought true freedom was going along with God's plans.

Spoiler

Berkeley: Also believed that substances existed, but only as spiritual things, as we have no way of knowing where actual things existed or not, because the material cannot prove whether the material exists, because to prove material exists one needs something supernatural, or beyond the natural, to prove the system of the natural, just as you need something that's not water to prove what water is. Berkeley however is not a monist like Spinoza, but believed that there was an mental and spiritual split/dualism.

Spoiler

Those who believed substances don't exist at all: Hume, who thought that since they cannot be proved by the senses/impressions, cannot exist. According to wiki Nietzsche, Heidegger, Foucault and Deleuze also didn't believe in substances because they believed that they were leftovers of Platonic idealism.

Spoiler

For me personally, I think substances do have to exist because science up to now has been splitting the atom in an indefinite fashion (the thing which isn't supposed to be able to be split, in the Greek sense of the word). If we were to split the atom at the moment we would have protons, elections and neutrons, but when we smash protons together we get the matter that's found in the Standard Model. Here we have quarks and leptons and bosons- but my question is this: if we had an infinite amount of energy to smash even the smallest of these subatomic elements together, wouldn't we be left with even smaller subatomic particles? Thus, my reasoning is that with enough energy there would have to be a split of these 'elements' to the infinith degrees, making it theoretically impossible to find 'the particle' which constitutes all matter. Thus, if you're following my logic, there would be some rationale in believing that there's a substance that exists which is not in a sense physical but something that's non-physical, like the spiritual or the mental, not just the physical.

What do you think? I've searched on youtube for good videos on substances but I've found none so far, so sorry if this doesn't really make sense. I'll try my best to clarify things if anyone has questions.

 

[QuickTwist]

I think there is substance, but I think it's much of a duality between it existing and it not existing.

I think what actually exists is what we can think of as Evil and what doesn't actually exist, in other words, what we cannot characterize, as the will of God.

I think a fissure is all there really is for something to exist. It's the forthcoming of what isn't that is what is. I don't think quantifying existence with anything concrete will really get us anywhere because I believe as you do that you can always get smaller and smaller with getting more and more that is less and less.

 

[onesteptwostep]

Thats a very gnostic understanding of what a substance is, that all matter things are evil and that the immaterial is considered good. The early church fathers were opposed to that exact type of dualism, the church fathers on the other hand preached that all things created were good and that it had become fallen due to the original sin. This only takes in consideration of moral evil however, not natural evils such as earthquakes and tsunamis and stuff.

And no thats exactly my point, that if things get smaller and smaler with enough energy, and theres an infinite regression of it, wouldn't it be impossible to find what that constitutes all matter? I think of it as an asymtope that comes closer and closer to zero but never reaching it, the all constituting material substance.

 

[QuickTwist]

Thats a very gnostic understanding of what a substance is, that all matter things are evil and that the immaterial is considered good. The early church fathers were opposed to that exact type of dualism, the church fathers on the other hand preached that all things created were good and that it had become fallen due to the original sin. This only takes in consideration of moral evil however, not natural evils such as earthquakes and tsunamis and stuff.

And no thats exactly my point, that if things get smaller and smaler with enough energy, and theres an infinite regression of it, wouldn't it be impossible to find what that constitutes all matter? I think of it as an asymtope that comes closer and closer to zero but never reaching it, the all constituting material substance.

I guess what I am saying is that the material is what is the flesh and the immaterial is what comes from the spirit.

There's always going to be stuff in the absence of stuff.

 

[Artsu Tharaz]

I guess what I am saying is that the material is what is the flesh and the immaterial is what comes from the spirit.

There's always going to be stuff in the absence of stuff.

In Zoroastrianism, there's this idea:

Ahura Mazda is depicted in the Zoroastrian scriptures as a kind of trinity: "Praise to thee, Ahura Mazda, threefold before other creations." From Ahura Mazda came a duality: the twin spirits of Spenta Mainyu (the Holy or Bountiful Spirit) and Angra Mainyu (the Destructive or Opposing Spirit). The twin spirits are popularly thought of as good and evil, but rather they are two principles that represent all the opposites of life. In her lecture on "Zoroastrianism," Annie Besant has this to say of them:

Good and evil may be said to only come into existence when man in his evolution develops the power of knowledge and of choice; the original duality is not of good and evil, but is of spirit and matter, of reality and non-reality, of light and darkness, of construction and destruction, the two poles between which the universe is woven and without which no universe can be. . . . There are two names again that give us the clue to the secret, the "increaser" and the "destroyer," the one from whom the life is ever pouring forth, and the other the material side which belongs to form, and which is ever breaking up in order that life may go on into higher expression.

https://www.theosophical.org/public...-zoroastrianism-history-beliefs-and-practices

Relevant for understanding the historical underpinnings of the division.

 

[Kakariki]

Do you think they're things that actually exist and take up actual physical space, or do you think matter is something that's only a in a sense our perception of 'things' that 'are' and not physically existing?

The way this sentence is framed seems to suppose an opposition between realism and empirical idealism. What does physical space mean? I assume space as it is defined in physics. But physics tells us nothing about space as it “actually” is. Or, only from a highly restrictive standpoint.

Space and time can, in physics, only be defined from the standpoint of an observer. If one were to accept the “physical universe” only, then one can’t talk about the universe existing independently of an observer.

If we're talking about a material object, then we must precisely define for what observer, otherwise statements about it have no meaning. Its spatial dimensions depend on the velocity of the observer. Likewise, time is relative amongst observers, and can't be defined regardless of an observer.

In the list about what philosophers have said about substance, I missed Locke. Locke makes, in my opinion, most sense when he talks about substance. Especially because I share his confusion about this vague concept when he discusses it. Yet, I agree with (almost) every word he says.

Hence, when we talk or think of any particular sort of corporeal substances, as horse, stone, &c., though the idea we have of either of them be but the complication or collection of those several simple ideas of sensible qualities, which we used to find united in the thing called horse or stone ; yet, because we cannot conceive how they should subsist alone, nor one in another, we suppose them existing in and supported by some common subject ; which support we denote by the name substance, though it be certain we have no clear or distinct idea of that thing we suppose a support.

I say, our specific ideas of substances are nothing else but a collection of a certain number of simple ideas, considered as united in one thing.

Kant maintained that we need the notion of substance in order to make judgements of universal validity. The last quote of Locke suggests the same.

Schopenhauer’s criticism of the concept “substance” is also worth noting.

Substance is an exceedingly superfluous concept, because its only true content lies already in the concept of matter, besides which it contains only a great void, which can be filled up by nothing but the illicitly introduced species immaterial substance ; and, indeed, it was solely for the purpose of containing this that it was framed. Accordingly, the concept substance must be entirely rejected, and the concept matter every where put in its place.

 

[Pizzabeak]

Kant merely tried to prove Newton, a physicist, right about what space is. I reiterate, philosophy has always been idiots and losers whining about their own misfortune. You may as well be an Fi centered poet.

It's obvious that, in writing, subservise transfer of information can occur (propaganda, Nazi era technology).

Science, such as physics, provides hard data for interpretation, literally, there's no wild speculation on what things could be in the system. That's for the individual to make his own use of them to submit papers for peer review. No one is going to interpret all that.

So you have "feelings", what are those, in relation to space?

Kant also said breaking promises are bad, then. If you do it, why can't everyone else?

Remember the one where "it's way more insane than you could possibly imagine"? Why, in your ego driven vanity, would you have the audacity to think you're "smart" enough to solve or interpret it, let alone anything.

There's like a threshold amount of repeatedly demonstrating something in order for the lesson to be learned and ingrained in an organism's head and memory tasks able to be performed. So it's all moral dilemma from information gathered.

"Everything is one"? Just because some things can't be known (Godel's incompleteness theorems), doesn't mean you the person is stupid. It doesn't mean you just wait for someone to say or something, then do the opposite because you can "see what's missing". So it doesn't mean you can "improve" upon the underlying science and laws residing under reality. That's just the way the universe is.

It's your own fault for being unable to interpret stuff. Instead, you miss the point even further. You're basically looking to all you can to try and understand but can't in your frustration. My advice: read more. Because I know. And the answers are clearly there in some book, somewhere.

 

[QuickTwist]

I guess what I am saying is that the material is what is the flesh and the immaterial is what comes from the spirit.

There's always going to be stuff in the absence of stuff.

In Zoroastrianism, there's this idea:

Ahura Mazda is depicted in the Zoroastrian scriptures as a kind of trinity: "Praise to thee, Ahura Mazda, threefold before other creations." From Ahura Mazda came a duality: the twin spirits of Spenta Mainyu (the Holy or Bountiful Spirit) and Angra Mainyu (the Destructive or Opposing Spirit). The twin spirits are popularly thought of as good and evil, but rather they are two principles that represent all the opposites of life. In her lecture on "Zoroastrianism," Annie Besant has this to say of them:

Good and evil may be said to only come into existence when man in his evolution develops the power of knowledge and of choice; the original duality is not of good and evil, but is of spirit and matter, of reality and non-reality, of light and darkness, of construction and destruction, the two poles between which the universe is woven and without which no universe can be. . . . There are two names again that give us the clue to the secret, the "increaser" and the "destroyer," the one from whom the life is ever pouring forth, and the other the material side which belongs to form, and which is ever breaking up in order that life may go on into higher expression.

https://www.theosophical.org/public...-zoroastrianism-history-beliefs-and-practices

Relevant for understanding the historical underpinnings of the division.

You know, I really wonder how these types of views make it to the off hand mainstream sometimes...

 

[onesteptwostep]

In the list about what philosophers have said about substance, I missed Locke. Locke makes, in my opinion, most sense when he talks about substance. Especially because I share his confusion about this vague concept when he discusses it. Yet, I agree with (almost) every word he says.

Hence, when we talk or think of any particular sort of corporeal substances, as horse, stone, &c., though the idea we have of either of them be but the complication or collection of those several simple ideas of sensible qualities, which we used to find united in the thing called horse or stone ; yet, because we cannot conceive how they should subsist alone, nor one in another, we suppose them existing in and supported by some common subject ; which support we denote by the name substance, though it be certain we have no clear or distinct idea of that thing we suppose a support.

I say, our specific ideas of substances are nothing else but a collection of a certain number of simple ideas, considered as united in one thing.

Hmm yes I missed Locke but there isn't much use in trying to spell out his views on substance because he can't and doesn't define what they are. I mean that's why Hume thought that the whole thing was bullocks, like what Schopenhauer thought.

 

[onesteptwostep]

Kant merely tried to prove Newton, a physicist, right about what space is. I reiterate, philosophy has always been idiots and losers whining about their own misfortune. You may as well be an Fi centered poet.

It's obvious that, in writing, subservise transfer of information can occur (propaganda, Nazi era technology).

Science, such as physics, provides hard data for interpretation, literally, there's no wild speculation on what things could be in the system. That's for the individual to make his own use of them to submit papers for peer review. No one is going to interpret all that.

So you have "feelings", what are those, in relation to space?

Kant also said breaking promises are bad, then. If you do it, why can't everyone else?

Remember the one where "it's way more insane than you could possibly imagine"? Why, in your ego driven vanity, would you have the audacity to think you're "smart" enough to solve or interpret it, let alone anything.

There's like a threshold amount of repeatedly demonstrating something in order for the lesson to be learned and ingrained in an organism's head and memory tasks able to be performed. So it's all moral dilemma from information gathered.

"Everything is one"? Just because some things can't be known (Godel's incompleteness theorems), doesn't mean you the person is stupid. It doesn't mean you just wait for someone to say or something, then do the opposite because you can "see what's missing". So it doesn't mean you can "improve" upon the underlying science and laws residing under reality. That's just the way the universe is.

It's your own fault for being unable to interpret stuff. Instead, you miss the point even further. You're basically looking to all you can to try and understand but can't in your frustration. My advice: read more. Because I know. And the answers are clearly there in some book, somewhere.

I'm going to be blunt, are you being snide here? Or is this comment for another person.

 

[Pizzabeak]

Descartes just said you have to doubt stuff in order to gain any true knowledge.

Locke is simply the whole Star Trek transporter thing, where that, as a person sheds his or her skin cells every seven years or so, it means they could not actually be the same person embodiment anymore. Yet there's no way of demonstrating this, you can't point out what correlates with what unique substances in an experiment using science. It isn't that a philosophical inquiry inspires science, science is itself then philosophy just asks why, or how rather, it concludes what it does. If that alone doesn't make your mind run wild with science, then I don't know what does.

 

[onesteptwostep]

I am the confuzzles.

Are you high?

 

[Pizzabeak]

Kant merely tried to prove Newton, a physicist, right about what space is. I reiterate, philosophy has always been idiots and losers whining about their own misfortune. You may as well be an Fi centered poet.

It's obvious that, in writing, subservise transfer of information can occur (propaganda, Nazi era technology).

Science, such as physics, provides hard data for interpretation, literally, there's no wild speculation on what things could be in the system. That's for the individual to make his own use of them to submit papers for peer review. No one is going to interpret all that.

So you have "feelings", what are those, in relation to space?

Kant also said breaking promises are bad, then. If you do it, why can't everyone else?

Remember the one where "it's way more insane than you could possibly imagine"? Why, in your ego driven vanity, would you have the audacity to think you're "smart" enough to solve or interpret it, let alone anything.

There's like a threshold amount of repeatedly demonstrating something in order for the lesson to be learned and ingrained in an organism's head and memory tasks able to be performed. So it's all moral dilemma from information gathered.

"Everything is one"? Just because some things can't be known (Godel's incompleteness theorems), doesn't mean you the person is stupid. It doesn't mean you just wait for someone to say or something, then do the opposite because you can "see what's missing". So it doesn't mean you can "improve" upon the underlying science and laws residing under reality. That's just the way the universe is.

It's your own fault for being unable to interpret stuff. Instead, you miss the point even further. You're basically looking to all you can to try and understand but can't in your frustration. My advice: read more. Because I know. And the answers are clearly there in some book, somewhere.

I'm going to be blunt, are you being snide here? Or is this comment for another person.

Right back at ya

 

[onesteptwostep]

I haven't gotten high since.. when was that.. like almost 7 years ago haha.

 

[The Grey Man]

Most people mean matter when they say substance, but when Leibniz says substance, he does not mean matter. He is referring to the mind.

Leibniz and, indeed, all of the philosophers that you mentioned inherited the concept of a duality between substance and accident from the medieval scholastics, who themselves borrowed it from the Ancient Greeks. Christian theologians—most prominently Saint Thomas Aquinas—used the Aristotelian terms substance and accident to refer to something insofar as it has properties, and to something insofar as it is a property of something else, respectively. For example: Socrates is a man, therefore manhood is an accident of Socrates and Socrates is a substance in relation to manhood.

As you noted, Leibniz is among the so-called monists, who think that there is not only a multiplicity of relative substances, but an absolute substance of which all other things are accidents, what Kant would later call the thing-in-itself. The thing-in-itself can be conceived of as, in analogical terms, the foundation-stone upon which the entire edifice of the world rests; just as the foundation-stone supports the many stones that compose the building and is supported by none of them in return, so many things are of the thing-in-itself, but the thing-in-itself of nothing. It is the ex nihilo, the origin from which the entire world of multiplicity extends.

According to Leibniz, the thing-in-itself is a simple substance that incorporates a multiplicity; in other words, he identifies the duality between the thing-in-itself and its accidents with that between the unity of a whole and its reciprocally individuated parts. More precisely, he identifies the thing-in-itself as the mind; the unity is self-knowledge, its parts the multiplicity of interrelated things that make up the natural world, i.e. matter.

Whereas all material things are characterized by their reciprocal relations to each other, the mind is characterized by the complex formed by these relations; what is to material things those laws their mutual conformity to which is their individuating principle is itself the individuating principle of the mind, which is therefore not bound to these laws, but transcends them. This anticipates Kant's work in distinguishing between transcendental or a priori knowledge (self-knowledge) and empirical or a posteriori knowledge (knowledge of nature), which led to his distinction between the noumenal character of a thing (the thing insofar as it is substantial, simple, not bound to natural laws) and its phenomenal character (the thing insofar as it is accidental, complex, bound to natural laws).

This is all pure genius. In my opinion, Leibniz is the second-greatest of all the philosophers whom you mentioned in your original post after Spinoza, with whom I'm less familiar (a condition I intend to rectify shortly).

 

[The Grey Man]

I feel I should mention that for all of Leibniz's greatness, he does skirt around a proverbial elephant in the room, namely suffering. He identifies the mind's dual faculties of appetition (will; want; desire; suffering) and perception (representation of reciprocally individuated things) and speaks of the harmony between final causes and efficient causes (if only so-called moral realists had listened to him instead of droning on about their meaningless 'ought'), but it fell to Schopenhauer to give the moral aspect of the world a proper treatment.

 

[Kakariki]

there isn't much use in trying to spell out his views on substance because he can't and doesn't define what they are.

Locke’s unclear reflections on substance are nevertheless in what I believe to be the right direction. He recognizes that we need the concept “substance” in order to explain how sensible qualities are connected, but that the concept itself is empty.

It’s therefore fascinating to see how all positivists, who can accept neither non-mental things nor synthetic a priori knowledge, struggle to clarify the permanency of groups of sense-impressions.

If at different times we meet with two groups of sense-
impressions which differ very little from each other, we
term them the same object or individual, and in practical
life the test of identity is sameness in sense-impressions.
The individuality of an object consists for us in the same-
ness of the great majority of our sense-impressions at two
instants of time.

The considerations of this section upon what we are
to understand by an individual thing are more important
than they may appear to the reader at first sight. Are
we forced to assume a shadowy " thing-in-itself " behind
a group of sense-impressions in order to account for the
permanency of objects, their existence as individuals ?

Such unknowables do not
assist us in grasping why groups of sense-impressions
remain more or less permanently linked together. Our
experience is that they are so linked, and their association
is at the present, and may ever remain, as mysterious as
is now the process by which the impresses of past sense-
impressions are involuntarily linked together in the brain.

Kant’s treatment of this concept, which had tormented philosophers so much, leads to a totally new form of philosophy. Kant had recognized that Locke was right to assert that substance is necessary to determine an object – and wisely viewed Hume’s skepticism as what it was.

Because substance is necessary for thinking it must be a priori, and therefore the things-in-themselves are not substantive. That substance is a thing-in-itself is taken for granted by most philosophers, even after the publication of the Critique of Pure Reason, even with the fame of his work, everywhere, and also in the opening post.

 

[gilliatt]

Substance: what it is, what kind of thing, "what"? A living organism, the substance first are afterwards. Was it alive before. Well, the substance may not change, a man can move to a different place, become small to large, but substance does not change, not from being alive to not being alive. A human being is substance, that particular substance, not like a rock. This human, coming to life, are we assuming the substance beforehand was not alive? We cannot assume the substance, a coming to life, its always alive. That would be substantial change!

 

[computerhxr]

What do you think matter is? Do you think they're things that actually exist and take up actual physical space, or do you think matter is something that's only a in a sense our perception of 'things' that 'are' and not physically existing?

I think that it is a matter of perspective. Things exist only as a measure of force and observation of force.

Singularity can not exist without duality, an observer to perceive its existence. Duality manifests trinity. This is a never ending expansion.

There are paradigm shifts as you scale up or down. We are trying to quantify reality from different perspectives.

The Pythagorean's use triangles, in Classical Calculus, we use limits, or Quantum-Calculus, without limits. These are simply different modalities in an attempt to rationalize, or quantify the irrational nature of existence. We measure rates of change relative to a point of origin. Basically, we are either digitalizing, or smoothing out the curve to measure the universe.

Substance is the masculine form of feminine energy. A division between the rational and irrational mind. A persistent illusion bound together by strings of concious intent.

I prefer to view things as balls of light, or as fluids. It depends on your perspective, abstract or granular. Adjusting the lense brings focus, manifest tangiable from the intangiable.

 

[sushi]

is this one of those aether threads?

 

[Kakariki]

@The Grey Man

Interesting to read your thoughts about Leibniz as philosopher. The views which you express here and in the thread "The needs of the many do not outweigh the needs of the few" remind me of Schrödinger in his My View of the World.

As far as I can understand Leibniz’s doctrine of monads, he tried to base that broadly shared character of our experience on a pre-established harmony (that is, an essential similarity laid down right from the start) in the course of events taking place in all the monads, which do not, for the rest, have any influence on each other of any kind; ‘monads have no windows’, to use the expression which has become current. Various monads—human, animal, and the one and only divine one—differ only according to the degree of confusion or clarity with which the self-same series of events is enacted in them. I would not have referred to this suggestion (the naïveté of which, so far as offering an explanation of anything is concerned, almost surpasses that of materialism) if I had not come across a very remarkable observation made upon it by Friedrich Theodor Vischer. He writes, in so many words: ‘… for there is but one monad, mind, which is in all things; monad has no plural. True, Leibniz stopped short of the splendid consequences of his idea, since, in sharp contradiction with the very concept of the monad as a conscious (spiritual) unity he postulated a plurality of monads side by side, like so many dead things, with no communication between them—but what does that matter to us?’ The words occur in a criticism of an analysis of various works, including Goethe’s Faust, by H. Düntzer (Cologne, 1836).

‘There is but one monad.’ Then what does the whole monadology turn into?—the philosophy of the Vedanta (or perhaps the more recent but certainly independent one of Parmenides). Briefly stated, it is the view that all of us living beings belong together in as much as we are all in reality sides or aspects of one being, which may perhaps in western terminology be called God while in the Upanishads its name is Brahman. A comparison used in Hinduism is of the many almost identical images which a many-faceted diamond makes of some one object such as the sun.

 

[The Grey Man]

@Kakariki Vischer expresses exactly what I had in mind both when I described the ideas of Leibniz here and when I criticized utilitarianism in that other thread! Leibniz postulated a plurality of monads side-by-side, but since each monad is a unity of self-consciousness (perception; representation), they cannot be represented together in a common space; because monads "have no windows", they can look only 'inwardly', not 'outwardly'. Thus, according to Leibniz's own principle of the identity of indiscernibles, we must admit that there is but one monad, as does Vischer.

‘There is but one monad.’ Then what does the whole monadology turn into?—the philosophy of the Vedanta (or perhaps the more recent but certainly independent one of Parmenides). Briefly stated, it is the view that all of us living beings belong together in as much as we are all in reality sides or aspects of one being, which may perhaps in western terminology be called God while in the Upanishads its name is Brahman. A comparison used in Hinduism is of the many almost identical images which a many-faceted diamond makes of some one object such as the sun.

This acts as a segue into the opening words of Theologia Germanica:

St. Paul saith, “When that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away." Now mark what is “that which is perfect,” and “that which is in part.”

“That which is perfect” is a Being, who hath comprehended and included all things in Himself and His own Substance, and without whom, and beside whom, there is no true Substance, and in whom all things have their Substance. For He is the Substance of all things, and is in Himself unchangeable and immoveable, and changeth and moveth all things else. But “that which is in part,” or the Imperfect, is that which hath its source in, or springeth from the Perfect; just as a brightness or a visible appearance floweth out from the sun or a candle, and appeareth to be somewhat, this or that. And it is called a creature; and of all these “things which are in part,” none is the Perfect. So also the Perfect is none of the things which are in part. The things which are in part can be apprehended, known, and expressed; but the Perfect cannot be apprehended, known, or expressed by any creature as creature. Therefore we do not give a name to the Perfect, for it is none of these. The creature as creature cannot know nor apprehend it, name nor conceive it.

From Schrödinger's brief exposition and the text just quoted, it's clear that Kant didn't invent transcendental idealism, though perhaps he stated it more intricately than any who had come before in his characteristically baroque manner. Throughout history we see instances of the doctrine that we are all the same 'Substance', which is unchangeable, immoveable, and without number ("there is but one monad, mind") though it appears to itself as a multiplicity of mobile, ever-changing objects (matter). We are all the same "I", the same will; there is no righteous war of "me" against "them", only a tragic conflict between "me" and "me". The failure to get what one wants is not so evil as the want itself.

Spoiler

All that in Adam fell and died, was raised again and made alive in Christ, and all that rose up and was made alive in Adam, fell and died in Christ. But what was that? I answer, true obedience and disobedience. But what is true obedience? I answer, that a man should so stand free, being quit of himself, that is, of his I, and Me, and Self, and Mine, and the like, that in all things, he should no more seek or regard himself, than if he did not exist, and should take as little account of himself as if he were not, and another had done all his works. Likewise he should count all the creatures for nothing. What is there then, which is, and which we may count for somewhat? I answer, nothing but that which we may call God. Behold! this is very obedience in the truth, and thus it will be in a blessed eternity. There nothing is sought nor thought of, nor loved, but the one thing only.

Hereby we may mark what disobedience is: to wit, that a man maketh some account of himself, and thinketh that he is, and knoweth, and can do somewhat, and seeketh himself and his own ends in the things around him, and hath regard to and loveth himself, and the like. Man is created for true obedience, and is bound of right to render it to God. And this obedience fell and died in Adam, and rose again and lived in Christ. Yea, Christ’s human nature was so utterly bereft of Self, and apart from all creatures, as no man’s ever was, and was nothing else but “a house and habitation of God.” Neither of that in Him which belonged to God, nor of that which was a living human nature and a habitation of God, did He, as man, claim anything for His own. His human nature did not even take unto itself the Godhead, whose dwelling it was, nor anything that this same Godhead willed, or did or left undone in Him, nor yet anything of all that His human nature did or suffered; but in Christ’s human nature there was no claiming of anything, nor seeking nor desire, saving that what was due might be rendered to the Godhead, and He did not call this very desire His own. Of this matter no more can be said, or written here, for it is unspeakable, and was never yet and never will be fully uttered; for it can neither be spoken nor written but by Him who is and knows its ground; that is, God Himself, who can do all things well.

 

[QuickTwist]

@Kakariki Vischer expresses exactly what I had in mind both when I described the ideas of Leibniz here and when I criticized utilitarianism in that other thread! Leibniz postulated a plurality of monads side-by-side, but since each monad is a unity of self-consciousness (perception; representation), they cannot be represented together in a common space; because monads "have no windows", they can look only 'inwardly', not 'outwardly'. Thus, according to Leibniz's own principle of the identity of indiscernibles, we must admit that there is but one monad, as does Vischer.

‘There is but one monad.’ Then what does the whole monadology turn into?—the philosophy of the Vedanta (or perhaps the more recent but certainly independent one of Parmenides). Briefly stated, it is the view that all of us living beings belong together in as much as we are all in reality sides or aspects of one being, which may perhaps in western terminology be called God while in the Upanishads its name is Brahman. A comparison used in Hinduism is of the many almost identical images which a many-faceted diamond makes of some one object such as the sun.

This acts as a segue into the opening words of Theologia Germanica:

St. Paul saith, “When that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away." Now mark what is “that which is perfect,” and “that which is in part.”

“That which is perfect” is a Being, who hath comprehended and included all things in Himself and His own Substance, and without whom, and beside whom, there is no true Substance, and in whom all things have their Substance. For He is the Substance of all things, and is in Himself unchangeable and immoveable, and changeth and moveth all things else. But “that which is in part,” or the Imperfect, is that which hath its source in, or springeth from the Perfect; just as a brightness or a visible appearance floweth out from the sun or a candle, and appeareth to be somewhat, this or that. And it is called a creature; and of all these “things which are in part,” none is the Perfect. So also the Perfect is none of the things which are in part. The things which are in part can be apprehended, known, and expressed; but the Perfect cannot be apprehended, known, or expressed by any creature as creature. Therefore we do not give a name to the Perfect, for it is none of these. The creature as creature cannot know nor apprehend it, name nor conceive it.

From Schrödinger's brief exposition and the text just quoted, it's clear that Kant didn't invent transcendental idealism, though perhaps he stated it more intricately than any who had come before in his characteristically baroque manner. Throughout history we see instances of the doctrine that we are all the same 'Substance', which is unchangeable, immoveable, and without number ("there is but one monad, mind") though it appears to itself as a multiplicity of mobile, ever-changing objects (matter). We are all the same "I", the same will; there is no righteous war of "me" against "them", only a tragic conflict between "me" and "me". The failure to get what one wants is not so evil as the want itself.

Spoiler

All that in Adam fell and died, was raised again and made alive in Christ, and all that rose up and was made alive in Adam, fell and died in Christ. But what was that? I answer, true obedience and disobedience. But what is true obedience? I answer, that a man should so stand free, being quit of himself, that is, of his I, and Me, and Self, and Mine, and the like, that in all things, he should no more seek or regard himself, than if he did not exist, and should take as little account of himself as if he were not, and another had done all his works. Likewise he should count all the creatures for nothing. What is there then, which is, and which we may count for somewhat? I answer, nothing but that which we may call God. Behold! this is very obedience in the truth, and thus it will be in a blessed eternity. There nothing is sought nor thought of, nor loved, but the one thing only.

Hereby we may mark what disobedience is: to wit, that a man maketh some account of himself, and thinketh that he is, and knoweth, and can do somewhat, and seeketh himself and his own ends in the things around him, and hath regard to and loveth himself, and the like. Man is created for true obedience, and is bound of right to render it to God. And this obedience fell and died in Adam, and rose again and lived in Christ. Yea, Christ’s human nature was so utterly bereft of Self, and apart from all creatures, as no man’s ever was, and was nothing else but “a house and habitation of God.” Neither of that in Him which belonged to God, nor of that which was a living human nature and a habitation of God, did He, as man, claim anything for His own. His human nature did not even take unto itself the Godhead, whose dwelling it was, nor anything that this same Godhead willed, or did or left undone in Him, nor yet anything of all that His human nature did or suffered; but in Christ’s human nature there was no claiming of anything, nor seeking nor desire, saving that what was due might be rendered to the Godhead, and He did not call this very desire His own. Of this matter no more can be said, or written here, for it is unspeakable, and was never yet and never will be fully uttered; for it can neither be spoken nor written but by Him who is and knows its ground; that is, God Himself, who can do all things well.

Since the object cannot know the subject, the subject cannot know the object, hence, the subject cannot truly know the subject.

 

[onesteptwostep]

What do you think matter is? Do you think they're things that actually exist and take up actual physical space, or do you think matter is something that's only a in a sense our perception of 'things' that 'are' and not physically existing?

I think that it is a matter of perspective. Things exist only as a measure of force and observation of force.

Singularity can not exist without duality, an observer to perceive its existence. Duality manifests trinity. This is a never ending expansion.

There are paradigm shifts as you scale up or down. We are trying to quantify reality from different perspectives.

The Pythagorean's use triangles, in Classical Calculus, we use limits, or Quantum-Calculus, without limits. These are simply different modalities in an attempt to rationalize, or quantify the irrational nature of existence. We measure rates of change relative to a point of origin. Basically, we are either digitalizing, or smoothing out the curve to measure the universe.

Substance is the masculine form of feminine energy. A division between the rational and irrational mind. A persistent illusion bound together by strings of concious intent.

I prefer to view things as balls of light, or as fluids. It depends on your perspective, abstract or granular. Adjusting the lense brings focus, manifest tangiable from the intangiable.

Literally have no idea what angle you're coming on at from.

 

[computerhxr]

Literally have no idea what angle you're coming on at from.

Me either. I just like pretending like I know things.

 

[onesteptwostep]

Ill give you creativity points though!

 

[DoIMustHaveAnUsername?]

No foundation. No substance.

 

[sushi]

form and substance seems inseparable, you cannot have one without the other.

form+ stuff--> substance

the inner quality or nature that makes a thing= a thing.

the closest thing in comparison to substance is water and energy, because of their flow and nature.

 

[sushi]

i would catergorize this as a material science cross philosophy problem

the property and make up of everything. there are alot of things that are non-matter form which could still potentially exist.

what is form made of, what is substance made of, how would both be defined.

 

[sushi]

a thing is probably composed of the following element:

form, quality, building blocks/made of, and essence

substance is a thing, so it probably composed of the following stuff

form and quality is basically what gives something an core identiy, wood is wood because it has form and quality.

a thing's essence is hard to define, it is probably the essentital nature, ingredients, and properties of a thing that cant be removed or changed.

 

[sushi]

what is the form of substance?
what is the quality/properties of substance
what is the substance made of (building blocks)
what is the essence of substance?

 

[sushi]

the form and nature --> quality and substance

to understand the quality and substacne, one must first break apart its form and nature

form and nature is a better replacement form and substance

 

[sushi]

so is substance beyond material and energy
or is substance same is material and energy

is the substance different from and beyond material and energy (or material and form) , or is same as material and energy.

if substance has no material and energy, what is it.