Because ChatGPT is so widely read it is useful for massive synthesis and integration of ideas. So here appears to be the deal East vs West on how does Unenlightenment happen. Everyone agrees that knowledge begins with experience. So far enlightened. Unenlightenment exists in knowledge. Everyone actually agrees. So can you can think your way to enlightenment? Well if your knowledge remains based on experience yes you can. The problem though is people don't tend to think very precisely. In particular Kant assumes consciousness is a whole (Unity of Apperception) and slaps "synthetic" on this. He *thinks*, like with space, it is not empirical but something that emerges from experience. And that is where he trips: he *thinks* this, it does not come from experience. His actual experience at this point is a thought, but he slips away from experience into that thought and the thought of "synthetic a priori". Not noticing the difference he enters unenlightenment. (Ironic given that he was an "Enlightenment" thinker. A quick look at the Greeks ought to flag some hubris here.) Now if he notes that "unity of apperception" is just a thought and not empirical then he remains enlightened. Now at the limits here even Hinduism gets it wrong. Somehow Upanishad Hinduism argues that the World and the Self are both separate and the same (Tat Tvam Asi). While based on experience it doesn't quite get there because there is no experience of the world or the self: these are unenlightened thoughts like Kant. To fix in print that they are the same is to miss this. So as long we stay strictly in experience nothing can go wrong, and as long as we note what thoughts stray from experience we also cannot go wrong. In fact everyone agrees just with varying levels of scrutiny.
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I don't know why Kant didn't think of the following. There is a fundamental problem with the concept of "unity." To have unity implies disunity because if X,Y,Z form a unity you are saying by definition there is an A which is not part of the unity. If there is no A and X,Y,Z is "all" you have then you have a contradiction because to see that {X,Y,Z} is everything is to make a new thing A = {X,Y,Z}. Then you get Russel's famous paradox "the set of all things that don't contain themselves". This all reached a zenith in 1933 with Godel who proved that unity is impossible. Specifically for Kant the "unity of apperception" implies there are other apperceptions. ChatGPT confirms that Kant never addressed this 😮 You can't go inventing unities without pursuing the implications. Everyone is aware of this implication: how am I not conscious of what you are conscious of? We kind of get used to it and don't think about the massive problem here. Well if we think about it we see the problem lies in this idea of a "unity" of "my" consciousness. Remove this phantom and all is good again. There is no "my" and "your" unity of consciousness and so no boundary to run up against. But it means dropping this "my" unity, or at least seeing it as just a thought (or narrative) overlay. This is all achievable in thought just through logic! You can get here by another thought (which is actually not useful but is perhaps a dangerous starting point) "am I conscious" or "is consciousness of me." In self-consciousness this forms an apparent loop. But look in a mirror: is anyone "really" looking back? No this is a thought they are looking back, no one is actually looking back: that is a reflection of you and you are doing the looking! Well are you? IF you think that is you in the mirror, don't you also think this is also you doing the looking on this side of the mirror. It is all thoughts! So no one is conscious, we are conscious of and think about our self. It is not the one who is conscious. But danger here is positing a "consciousness" as an entity which easily becomes a thought of unity again. Which all generates Godel like paradoxes if we try to push into unity again. Anyway point is this is all simple logic, so why did Kant miss it?
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