Re: Joy of this, Joy of that

On Sat, 7 Dec 2024, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

On 06/12/2024 17:12, D wrote:

If you postulate something which can never be known, it is kind of useless. It goes the same way as god, or a postulated first mover etc.

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And yet that is what people do all the time. In fact it is the necessary foundation of thinking.

I disagree.

All metaphysics - and we all use it, whether we understand that we do or not -  is to assume the framework for our understanding, and use it not because it is demonstrably true, but because it *works* for us.

I agree. But the key here is that it works, as in, it creates a tangible effect. Das ding an sich, is useless, doesn't have any effect. I can postulate a phlarg, no effect, in any way, useless.
I can postulate time, I can measure it, it helps me, it is not something, that is forever beyond knowledge since it is something that interacts with the world. I have no beef with that. But phlargs, and dings an sich, that in no way affect that world, is just garbage.
In terms of god, go ahead, if the effect is that it makes you feel better. Again, a pragmatic effect in the real world.
So therefore, metaphysics doesn't really exist, except as thought forms to make us feel better (if we need that), in which case it's just a bunch of nice stories.

We don't  and can't *know* that time and space exist - at least in the way we understand them, but they do *work* for us, the way we understand them.

I know that space exists, and I know that time exists. But I think we're hitting our old battle ground, but, that this time I think it is about definitions and usage of terms, and not actually about content. Based on the previous post I think we are not as far apart as it might seem.