The common belief of creationists and evolutionists

Creationism and evolution theory share the same conception of objects- that objects are the source of their own nature or identity. This is also known as transcendental realism, a term first coined by Kant. Ultimately this is a form of animism where all objects are human familiars, with the humanly-conceived properties that we identify them by.So, my conjecture is this: If creationists and evolutionists are both animists (or transcendental realists) then is there a third, non-animist force or approach to creation that can by-pass the creationist-evolutionist polemic altogether?I contend that there is now, and has been for some time, such a non-animist or transcendentally ideal proposal, and that it dissolves the difficulties inherent in the creation debate and many more besides. In this new proposal objects are not the source of their own appearance or nature, but can only be identified through a framework of enabling conditions. For example, transcendental realism says that the the brain and the nose cause the sense of smell. Transcendental idealism says that the sense of smell identifies the nose and the brain. Here, the sense of smell is the necessary, enabling condition for the identification of a nose and brain.(It is worth noting that both sides in the animist belief system - creationists and evolutionists, have their difficulties. God can only be omniscient and omnipotent in an animistic or transcendentally real conceived universe. And for the scientists, animism is prevalent in nearly all studies. Notably, in neuroscience it finds its strongest supporters where the brain is supposed to be a source of knowledge of mental properties, yet cannot be identified as a brain without them. )Edited by John Jones, : grammarEdited by John Jones, : No reason given.Edited by John Jones, : replacing 'with' for 'by.

I don't think many on either side of the debate would identify themselves as transcendental realists, so a thread urging transcendental realists to consider transcendental idealism wouldn't make much sense.Could you rewrite your thread proposal to describe the advantages of transcendental idealism without assuming that the antagonists in the creation/evolution debate are transcendental realists?

Transcendental realists "treat outer [and/or inner] objects as things in themselves" (Kant, Critique, A378), or as absolutes. Transcendental realism is a belief that is held by most philosophers, old and new (Kant and Wittgenstein excluded), the Church and Science. The belief in transcendental realism is a belief that underpins both materialism and the belief in God.Arguments between Church and Science over what objects are in the world is a consequence of their shared belief in transcendental realism: as all transcendentally real objects provide their own identity, then God and blind, material Nature are simply like other objects - existing, hence hideable, or hidden, found, or waiting to be discovered.On the other hand, under the umbrella of transcendental idealism (TrI), the same objects cannot be identified from their mooted existence. Rather, it is an identifying condition or framework that constructs or identifies the limits of objects. For example, a bouquet identifies a set of flowers, not vice versa. Note the distinction here between "identifying framework" and existential or ontological framework. For objects, the latter is dependent on the former in TrI, but not in TrR.On this (TrI) reading, creationists can give up their non-religious belief in a transcendentally real idea of an absolute, real, existing "first event" or creation. Instead, they can replace this transcendentally real "first event" or spatiotemporal ontological cause with the idea of "creation" as the ground or identifying condition of spatio-temporality itself and its objects. Thus they are not commited to saying what objects are in the world, only that if there ARE objects in the world then it is only through a ground or identifying condition.And here they would meet eye to eye with the evolutionist, provided the evolutionist also, in turn, gave up their transcendental realism. The evolutionist supposes that there are no natural designs, merely assemblages that appear as designs; for example, a fish's eye is said to be not a design but a natural, random, object.But even for the randomly produced object, identity is prior to existence. It is not possible to identify this "fish's eye" at all, without some identifying condition. Only in transcendental realism does the eye supposedly identify itself: this is the evolutionist's assumption that must be dropped. Instead, the eye must be understood as having an identifying condition (we may call it a design, whatever its source, Man or God).Questions about what objects are in the world now appear to be secondary to the question "what is the source of their identifying condition". But that is another transcendentally real venture, a venture that i) treats an identifying condition as if it were another, transcendentally real, object, and ii) treats objects as if they necessarilly, absolutely exist through an identifying condition.An example is in order. Entertainment may provide the identifying condition for a TV, but a moth's identifying condition may only manifest an attractive light; while the TV itself, as a transcendentally real object that identifies ITSELF, exists absolutely, though such existence is nullified by its absence of an identifying, transcendentally ideal, condition. The absence of such a condition makes the transcendentally real TV indistinguishable from the carpet it stands on; not so for the transcendentally ideal TV.Summarising, by adopting transcendental idealism both creationist and evolutionist can argue for design as an identifying condition for objects, without conflict (TrI and TrR are exhaustive and mutually exclusive). This can easily be assimilated to the idea of creation, whether the creation is of the entire world, or of Dawkin's fish's eye.Edited by John Jones, : grammarEdited by John Jones, : grammar

Hi John Jones,You are again assigning positions to the antagonists that I don't think either side would recognize. I've been involved in the creation/evolution debate for a long time, and I have never seen anyone on either side describe their position in anything even remotely resembling the terms you use here.Let me try to restate your proposition in lay terms. You're claiming that both creationists and evolutionists think that reality is real, and that they could resolve their differences by adopting the belief that our minds define what is real. Is that correct?

First, how do I go about finding my posts, and is there a tree view?
--------I've been around, and I know this is a hard topic, initially. It finds its best expression, I think, in Henry Allison's books on Kant. While some or most of this may not make sense, I think that enough of it will get through to provide food for thought and further investigation. It certainly isn't a topic that can be left out of the creation debate. Here we go:The scientist, and the creationist, both think that the first event is real and absolute because it identifies itself. So, because it identifies itself for us then we can search for it and find out as much as we can about it. That's how the creationists and the scientists operate: they go out and find evidence for things that identify themselves, in their own favourite way. But whatever way they go about looking for evidence, their project is still a transcendentally real project or view. This is a mistake, I argue. See example at bottom of post.The alternative, transcendentally ideal view, is that there is no first event, or any object, that identifies itself, as it is in the very nature of objects that they are "identifieds" rather than "existents", for their existence is not a defining condition for their possibility.This does not mean that objects like first events are in the mind or subjective, which is another transcendentally real view.so I contend that the creationist and the scientist should not be concerned with what exists, but with what is identified, and this changes with the identifying conditions.For example, a bouquet identifies a set of flowers, but by searching the flowers for the bouquet the bouquet disappears. Thus the bouquet neither exists nor does not exist, but is an identiying condition for a particular set of flowers. This is a transcendentally ideal view that I have been arguing for.Edited by John Jones, : grammarEdited by John Jones, : grammar 2

If you click on your name you'll get a list of all the threads in which you've participated, including a link to your most recent message in each thread. If you hover over any link you should get a hover box that tells you what that link does, so explore around by hovering a bit.Once you're viewing one of your own messages you can click on the "John Jones Posts Only" link to get a list of all your messages in that thread.Can you put your topic proposal in terms that others can more easily understand? What does the term transcendental mean, and can you employ another term, because why there's any significant distinction between philosophical idealism and transcendental idealism isn't clear to me? Can you find a way to make it clear what it means that an event "identifies itself"? Can you find a more easily understood term than "identifying conditions"? Can you rewrite paragraphs like this so they do not read like gobbledygook: And this: Sites like this attract a fair number of people who cannot express themselves in ways that can be understood by your average speaker of English. Usually this is because their thinking is muddled and their ideas are nonsense, and/or because they have a poor command of English, and we resist promoting their threads and try to discourage their participation. Because of these concerns we need to be confident that the promoted thread would productively and constructively discuss your topic, instead of just behind an extended effort into trying to figure out what it is you're saying.

Yes, I'm OK with that. I'll rewrite it. See what you think.