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Article 7506 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: lcarr@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (lincoln carr)
Subject: Re: Human vs. Machine
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Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1992 15:36:59 GMT
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In article <1992Nov2.171938.604@cine88.cineca.it> avl0@cine88.cineca.it writes:

>I wont to point out a subconscious vice of scientists making science,
>and I'm conviced that prof. Minsky did not wont state wath I'll
>confute. But, I repeat, it's something of subconscious.
>
>It's wrong that "only in Quantum physics [...] DNA [...]  retains its
>(precise) configuration". It's in the Reality of the world that
>molecules are stable! Scienze describe that reality following a
>mathematical analogy, but can not pretend that Math, which describe,
>is the basis of described things.
>It must be stressed that it's a ridicolous and unfair presumption to
>state that "if we suppress the subject [...] all the natur, all the
>relations between objects, in space and time,and even space and time
>them selves would disappear, and as phenomena, can not exist in them
>selves bu just in us. [...] We do not know but our way of perceiving
>them, which is our peculiar way, and it is not necessary that is
>shared by every being, even if it is shared by every human beings"
>(I. Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, II, 8. I hope that Mr Kant
>pardons me for the translation).
>
>There's not so much difference between this position and the
>creationist one which states that the world was created some
>thousands of years ago, fossils included, with the first man: no men,
>no world! But fossils are there and, as how was yet pointed out,
>they witness the existence of world millions of years ago.
>The Reality does exist, existed and, probably, will exist with and
>without Man.
>
>Summarizing I wont state that: we know by modeling, bu we do know
>some aspects of the Reality, even if by analogy; the Reality does
>exist but exceeds our knowledge.
>

I'm afraid that you've misunderstood Kant on this point.  If you took
him in the context of his work, I don't think that you would have a
disagreement with him.  Kant's point in the passage that you quote is
that human beings only have knowledge of phenomena, and very little or
no knowledge of noumena.  Both of these terms are used very
technically here and I would encourage you to look them up in a
philsophical dictionary.  Kant believes, as you do, that there are
definitely noumena, but that the phenomena that we perceive, even unto
space and time themselves, may have little or no correlation to them,
the noumena.  A noumenon, for those unfamiliar with the term, is
something "in itself" or "in ultimate reality independent of an
observer" while a phenomenon is something within the realm of human
experience, is that which is perceivable.  


-- 
Lincoln R. Carr, Computer Scientist-Philosopher    lcarr@silver.ucs.indiana.edu
"Treat all rational autonomous moral agents, whether in the form of yourself
or another, never as means solely, but always as ends in themselves."
                  Immanuel Kant, from "Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals"


