A Case for Analytic Idealism
I have been studying different accounts of the mind-body problem (e.g., substance dualism, property dualism, physicalism, idealism, etc.) and, although I was ontologically agnostic, am now leaning towards analytical idealism. I would like to give a brief case and elaboration on the view I find attractive and hear everyone's opinions thereon.
As a disclaimer, I find the only contending views reductive physicalism and analytic idealism, and consequently I am going to just focus on those two for now for the sake of brevity (but please feel free to invoke others as you deem fit in your responses).
By analytic idealism, I take it to be that reality is fundamentally (ontologically) one mind which has dissociated parts (like bernardo kastrup's view). Thusly, I do find that there really is a sun (for example): it just as a 'sun-in-itself' is not like the sun which appears on my "dashboard" of conscious experience--instead, I think the most parsimonious explanation is that it is fundamentally mentality instead of physicality (in contradistinction to an indirect realists position). Instead of trying to fit the territory (which is qualitative) in the map (which is quantitative), like I would argue reductive physicalism tries and fails to do, I think the best methodological approach is reduction to mind.
Physicalism's conflation of the territory with the map is exposed (I would say) in the hard problem of consciousness whereof there is always an conceptual, explanatory gap between mechanical awareness and qualitative experience; and this forces either the physicalist to (1) explain the emergence of mind obscurely and wholly inadequately by appeal to other successful reductive accounts of nature, (2) try to use a different methodological approach other than reductionism, or (3) attempt to explain away qualitative experience as illusory. To me, these resolutions (to the hard problem) are epistemically costly when starting with the mind and reducing everything thereto explains everything adequately.
Now, sometimes I do hear physicalists rightly point out that an analytical idealist is not actually providing an explanation to consciousness at all but, rather, simply positing it as fundamental without a detailed account of mind (i.e., of how it works) which, to them, is more epistemically costly than obscurely explaining mind in terms of emergence from the brain. To that, I disagree as, although certain aspects of mind may never be fully understood, there are many problems in idealistic accounts of the world that are soft problems (as opposed to hard problems) and I don't see the soft problem of how exactly the mind completely works as more epistemically costly as positing a hard problem to explain it.
Likewise, sometimes I hear that it is expected that we would not be able to explain the mind by the reductive physicalist method because if we were emergent from a brain our minds would be the bedrock of our investigations (phenomenally); but, again, I think it is much more epistemically costly to posit this hard problem as expected over simply re-thinking our metaphysical theory and positing mind, being the bedrock phenomenally, as actually (ontologically) the bedrock.
In terms of science, I think that science proper is the acquiring of how entities relate to each other and not what they fundamentally are; and, thusly, I think there are many metaphysical theories that are or can be made compatible with scientific knowledge: to me, it isn't that impressive for one's metaphysics to align with scientific knowledge but, rather, one should be holistically determining the best metaphysical theory based off of parsimony, explanatory power, internal coherence, external coherence, reliability, intellectual seemings, etc. Furthermore, some scientific theories, which aim to explain the scientific laws (which I would argue is science proper), do so by appeal (I would argue) to a metaphysical theory of which is typically whatever the mainstream metaphysics is at the time: thusly scientific theories which are not themselves simply an explanation by appeal to another relation of entities are entrenched in reductive physicalistic metaphysics.
What are your guys' thoughts?
As a disclaimer, I find the only contending views reductive physicalism and analytic idealism, and consequently I am going to just focus on those two for now for the sake of brevity (but please feel free to invoke others as you deem fit in your responses).
By analytic idealism, I take it to be that reality is fundamentally (ontologically) one mind which has dissociated parts (like bernardo kastrup's view). Thusly, I do find that there really is a sun (for example): it just as a 'sun-in-itself' is not like the sun which appears on my "dashboard" of conscious experience--instead, I think the most parsimonious explanation is that it is fundamentally mentality instead of physicality (in contradistinction to an indirect realists position). Instead of trying to fit the territory (which is qualitative) in the map (which is quantitative), like I would argue reductive physicalism tries and fails to do, I think the best methodological approach is reduction to mind.
Physicalism's conflation of the territory with the map is exposed (I would say) in the hard problem of consciousness whereof there is always an conceptual, explanatory gap between mechanical awareness and qualitative experience; and this forces either the physicalist to (1) explain the emergence of mind obscurely and wholly inadequately by appeal to other successful reductive accounts of nature, (2) try to use a different methodological approach other than reductionism, or (3) attempt to explain away qualitative experience as illusory. To me, these resolutions (to the hard problem) are epistemically costly when starting with the mind and reducing everything thereto explains everything adequately.
Now, sometimes I do hear physicalists rightly point out that an analytical idealist is not actually providing an explanation to consciousness at all but, rather, simply positing it as fundamental without a detailed account of mind (i.e., of how it works) which, to them, is more epistemically costly than obscurely explaining mind in terms of emergence from the brain. To that, I disagree as, although certain aspects of mind may never be fully understood, there are many problems in idealistic accounts of the world that are soft problems (as opposed to hard problems) and I don't see the soft problem of how exactly the mind completely works as more epistemically costly as positing a hard problem to explain it.
Likewise, sometimes I hear that it is expected that we would not be able to explain the mind by the reductive physicalist method because if we were emergent from a brain our minds would be the bedrock of our investigations (phenomenally); but, again, I think it is much more epistemically costly to posit this hard problem as expected over simply re-thinking our metaphysical theory and positing mind, being the bedrock phenomenally, as actually (ontologically) the bedrock.
In terms of science, I think that science proper is the acquiring of how entities relate to each other and not what they fundamentally are; and, thusly, I think there are many metaphysical theories that are or can be made compatible with scientific knowledge: to me, it isn't that impressive for one's metaphysics to align with scientific knowledge but, rather, one should be holistically determining the best metaphysical theory based off of parsimony, explanatory power, internal coherence, external coherence, reliability, intellectual seemings, etc. Furthermore, some scientific theories, which aim to explain the scientific laws (which I would argue is science proper), do so by appeal (I would argue) to a metaphysical theory of which is typically whatever the mainstream metaphysics is at the time: thusly scientific theories which are not themselves simply an explanation by appeal to another relation of entities are entrenched in reductive physicalistic metaphysics.
What are your guys' thoughts?
Comments (665)
Quoting Bob Ross
I did a brief look into Katrup, but I want to see where you're coming from. First, what is your definition of reality? How does the statement above differ from stating that the mind is simply an interpreter of reality?
Quoting Bob Ross
I'm not sure this fully expresses the hard problem. So there is no question that mechanical processes of the brain cause qualitative experiences. As our understanding of the brain grows, we will be able to map this out clearer. This is the easy problem. The hard problem is that we cannot ourselves know what it is like for another being to experience that qualitative experience.
For example, imagine that we are able to build a biological brain and monitor every section of it exactly. We've learned that a particular string of responses equates to the brain being happy. But do we know what its like to be that brain experiencing happiness? No. Another crude way of describing the hard problem is the act of trying to objectively experience another thing's subjective experience. We can only experience our own mind, we cannot experience another's. This is a problem whether you take a physical or mental view of the world.
So I'm not sure the three points you mention are accurate assessments of the way cognitive scientists view the brain. Of course, I'm not sure what you mean by "physicalism" either. I'm assuming we're speaking about the idea that everything is essentially reduced to matter and energy, so please correct me on this where necessary.
If the nature of reality is essentially experiential does this mean that prior to experiential animals there was no reality or is this a teleological claim or has there always been something that is capable of experiencing?
Given our limited experience how can we move beyond our experience to something prior to it? Kastrup claims:
What do we know of subjectivity beyond the personal and interpersonal?
The claim is made that:
Is it? In what way is this claim an explanation? Does it merely assert the very thing it is to explain?
Isn't it the modern scientific paradigm that everything is relative to something else? Even the core of spacetime functions on relative terms. So can someone even claim that something is something in itself? Everything in the universe has some connection to each other, energy transfers, everything is entropic. There are no notions that something that is just what it is, separate from everything else. How we define certain things mostly comes down to language and intuitively find definitions as logical hard points. I.e a chair isn't a chair until enough sticks are put on a plate and something is attached to support our backs. But even so, we just utilize parts in a specific structure so that its holistic definition change whenever we move over a hard point in definition. How we define these definitions mostly emerge out of culture through time and our intuitions of definitions become hard coded in culture, society and language naturally through our collective requirement of easy communication. It is emerging from our natural need to make communication effective.
Quoting Philosophim
This is essentially Mary in the black and white room.
Quoting Bob Ross
My position is that our consciousness emerged from a simple evolutionary origin of adaptability. To be highly adaptable, you need to be able to evaluate your own strategies, so our self-awareness became an emergent effect out of this process. I'm also working on an idea that our cognition is nothing more than a predictive system, that every aspect and experience that we have is only functioning through a system of our unconsciousness trying to predict reality around in order to adapt and navigate through it. I have not fully worked through every part of this so it is nothing more than speculation, but essentially, what I'm exploring is a concept in which cognition and consciousness isn't at all that complex, only that our emerging experience of an extremely complex prediction system makes us believe or have an illusion of identity or a notion of a self. That in reality, our consciousness is only a system that acts through prediction models constantly tested against a stream of sensory input data.
I still have some nuts and bolts to figure out with this in order to incorporate all aspects of human consciousness and cognition, but the basics of it function well with theories of how consciousness, self-awareness and cognitions evolved.
Of course, I'm mostly reacting to parts in your text, I haven't fully gotten a grasp on a holistic understanding of your text. But in essence I think that the notion in science that everything relates to everything else is fundamental for the universe, maybe even beyond, and that specific definitions of objects core definition of being are made-up by us to be able to communicate better about reality. I then think that our mind, consciousness and cognition needs to be viewed as an emergent phenomena based on an analysis of its original evolutionary function and how our advanced form of experience and self-awareness are emergent factors out of these fundamental evolutionary functions.
Otherwise we attribute something to our consciousness that seem more like what we like our mind to be, rather than what it is and how it relates to our formation process as a species.
It is one method of answering the hard problem without going into granularity. One little grain of sand, or one little atom is conscious sounds odd. But plenum of experience with which things are manifestations becomes more interesting. Sounds like neo-Schopenhauerian metaphysics.
I like Kastrup and I think he says interesting things, but he is knocking on an open door. First of all, very few people actually believe in "materialism" meaning, that very few people think that all we are bits of matter that can be reduced to tiny particles and that emotions are just chemicals.
They can say that, but if a loved one dies, we can ask them why they are crying over chemicals, and we'll see how much they really believe in this stuff.
Secondly, actual intelligible materialism, that is when materialism actually had a distinct meaning, was back in the time of Descartes up to Newton, that materialism postulated that the universe was a grand machine, like a master clock, made by the best imaginable artisan, God.
But mental properties couldn't be explained by these mechanical properties, ergo dualism. But then Newton came along and showed that the world does not follow our notion of machines, and intelligible, defensible "materialism" collapsed, as Newton himself expressed, in his famous "It is inconceivable..." quote.
Lastly, we know so little about personal identity and how it actually works, that it just makes no sense to say objects in the universe are "disassociated complexes" of a universal mind.
If we don't have a clear notion of identity conditions for ourselves (see the gender debate, or DID personality disorder, which Kastrup frequently cites, the latter which is extremely difficult to manage, and not well understood at all), what sense does it make to say that objects in the universe are disassociated?
It's an interesting perspective, but it's missing extremely important historical elements which render this kind of idealism incoherent.
Good to see you again Philosophim!
I really appreciate your response! As a disclaimer, I am still working through my metaphysics so I am just as curious as you to see how well Analytic Idealism holds up to scrutiny!
By reality I am abstracting the entirety of existence under an abstract entity. I view it kind of like speaking of being as substances which are abstracted entities of kinds of existences (e.g., substance dualism is two kinds of being where monism says there is only one): similarly, I abstract the sum total of existence into reality. Reality is being (including all types one may believe in).
It just depends on what you are referring to by interpreter. I would say that, instead of mind being the emergent property of a mind-independent brains interpretation of a mind-independent world, mind is what fundamental is and perception is the representation of it (i.e., of mental events).
For sake of clarity, take the dream analogy. When I have a vivid dream, I assume the identity of a character within that dream (which usually mirrors myself from the non-dream world). Even though I am not aware of it while the dream is occurring, my perception as that character is the perspective of a relation of ideas within my mind (because my mind is ultimately responsible for the whole thing). When I wake up, I realize instantly that I was not that character (but rather simply seemed to be that character when I dreaming) for I was the mind generating the dream and my character was representing it from their perspective.
My dream character was indeed representing the world around it which was outside of its control, but the world was the relation of ideas within a larger mind than the character itself. In that sense, the character is interpreting the world; but it isnt interpreting a mind-independent world.
I disagree. For example, lets say that you are holding and seeing a green pen. A neuroscience (and biologist) can absolutely account for how your brain knows that the pen is green (i.e., the reflection of wavelengths in sunlight in relation to what the object absorbs and the interpretation of it by the brain), but they cannot account for the qualitative experience of the green pen.
In the more abstract, a neuroscience can account for mechanical awareness (i.e., how brain functions can account for how a mind-independent being can come to understand and interpret its environment) but not qualitative experience (i.e., why there is something to be like a subject).
There is absolutely no reason why you should be having a qualitative experience of the green pen even granted the brain functions that interpret it as green.
As far as I understand it (and correct where I am wrong), we can only (by the reductive physicalist methodology) understand better how brain functions correlate to qualitative experience, but not how it could possibly be responsible for it.
To me, this implies that the hard problem is not how to account for ones qualitative experience, but how other people have qualitative experience and I think this is wrong. The hard problem is that the reductive physicalist method cannot account for qualitative experience at all.
To me, this is no different than the green pen analogy: the fact that a certain string of responses correlates with a person qualitatively experiencing happiness does not explain nor suggest that one can reduce the latter to the former.
I dont think so. It is that reductive physicalism cannot account for why there is something to be like a subject, which includes ones own qualitative experience.
By physicalism, I mean most generally the view that reality can be reduced to a mind-independent substance (regardless of whether one is an indirect or direct realist about it).
I am honestly not sure if every physicalist would agree with that, but that is definitely a position that I would qualify as physicalism (and is very prominent).
Bob
Hello Fooloso4,
I appreciate your response!
Under analytical idealism, the entirety of reality is fundamentally mind and is thusly conscious: not just animals. Animals are conscious beings that are higher evolved, dissociated alters, of the universal mind (or mind-at-large). So, to answer your question, there was a reality before any animals (as science suggests).
I am not sure I am completely following, but we can infer that the most reasonable explanation for the data of experience is that there was a world before we opened our own eyes. It is very epistemically costly to be a solipsist if that is what you are referring to.
A lot. I can reasonably infer that I was born and before that my mother and father existed (for example). It would be special pleading for me to think that everyone else is a philosophical zombie but yet I am somehow special (even though I can be categorized as just like them and I have conscious experience).
It is the best metaphysical theory I have heard (so far) for what reality fundamentally is. It isnt supposed to explain the hard problem because there isnt one from an idealistic perspective, it posits that we should reduce everything fundamentally to mind and claims that we can do so while adequately fitting the data of experience.
Bob
Hello Chistoffer,
I appreciate your response!
I believe that is essentially the case when it comes down the micro-micro level (i.e., quantum mechanics). However, the idea that entities behave or relate to each other relatively to observation (or what have you) does not say anything about what they fundamentally are nor what substance they are of.
The idea that there is an actual space-time fabric is predicated on the physicalist metaphysical notion that there is a mind-independent world (and no wonder Einstein, being a realist, tried to explain his field equations within that metaphysical schema). Science proper in relation to spacetime is not that there actually is such but rather that space and time behave differently (in accordance with Einsteins field equations) than we originally intuited. For a realist though, they will probably be committed (metaphysically) to there actually being a space-time fabric.
There has to be at least one thing-in-itself of which you-as-yourself are representing in your conscious experience, unless you would like to argue that somehow you are both the thing-in-itself and the you-as-yourself (i.e. solipsism).
Everthing in phenonimal experience is connected to each other: but what is your mind fundamentally representing to you (as that is the thing in itself or things in themselves)?
The idea is to question what exists sans your particular experience. If you died, how do things exist in-themselves? Do they at all? That is the question. Perhaps, for you, the thing-in-itself is a giant blur of everything, but that is still a thing-in-itself.
Very interesting. Your view, as far as I understand it, still has then the hard problem of consciousness: how does that emergence actually happen? How is it even possible to account for it under such a reductive method? I dont think you can.
Correct me if I am wrong, but it sounds like you may be an existence monist? Even if that is the case, then the entire universe (reality) would be the thing-in-itself. Theres always at least one thing-in-itself as something has to be posited as fundamental and eternal, even in the case of an infinite regression.
I dont think it is possible to account for consciousness in this manner because no matter how well we uncover how consciousness relates to bodily functions it fundamentally does not explain consciousness itself.
Bob
I would like to clarify that analytic idealism is not a form of pansychism: I do not hold that reality is fundamentally matter that has consciousness but rather that everything is in consciousness (i.e., one universal mind). Pansychism and the like still have the exact same hard problem of consciousness, as there is not possible explanation for how the little grain of sand or atom is became conscious itself.
It absolutely is (;
Bob
Hello Manuel,
I appreciate your response!
That is why I distinguish physicalism from materialism: the former is more generally the notion that everything is ultimately reducible to something mind-independent (i.e., a physical substance) whereas the latter is a more archaic view that everything is made up of smaller, elementary particles. Either way, both have the hard problem of consciousness.
I found that substance dualism, likewise, fails to explain reality as well as analytical idealism because of the hard problem of interaction.
Firstly, objects in general, under analytical idealism, are not disassociated complexes: only other conscious beings are. The cup I am holding exists only nominally distinctly from the chair I am sitting on: they both do not have distinct boundaries like disassociated minds.
Secondly, I agree with you that DID is still a very newly researched psychological disorder, and that is why Kastrup notes it as a working hypothesis to solve to soft problem of decomposition.
Bob
Yes I understand that. Hence I said:
Quoting schopenhauer1
I don't see it as an answer but as a bald assertion without sufficient evidence.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Things are manifestations of experience? Experience of what? Experience? Mind? It is evident that things that have mind have experience but it is not evident that what they experience is mind or experience and not things.
So if I understand this correctly, reality is the total abstraction of an observer. Isn't this just solipsism? Because this seems to run into the problem of multiple beings each having a separate, and often times conflicting representation of reality. An observer also often times assumes an entity apart from reality. If the observer is doing the abstracting, what is the observer? Is that also an abstraction of itself? In which case, what is it?
The competition in your case is the idea that there is a world separate from our abstractions. This notion of reality solves many of the problems that a solipsism-like view has. For example, if I abstract that I can fly, but fall and shatter half of my body, while I am in the hospital I have to find an explanation for why my abstraction failed.
In the case of reality as being separate, the answer is clearly that one's interpretation of what would happen in reality was incorrect. How does your world view handle this example?
-Philosophim
Quoting Bob Ross
We may be saying the same thing here in different ways. They cannot understand what it is like to experience a green pen from your point of view. But take brain surgery. Generally operations are done while the subject is awake. They'll stimulate a section of the brain and ask what the subject is feeling. The subject, us, knows what its like to have a qualitative state from a mechanical brain stimulation in that region of the brain. So for us, we have a direct experience from the electrical stimulus and suddenly hearing a dog bark.
The reason we cannot learn from one patient and apply it to others is because we don't know what the other person is objectively feeling beyond what they tell us. We could stimulate the same brain region in another patient and they tell us they hear a cat meowing. We don't know the pitch, or if it sounds like the dog bark of the other patient. This is where we run into the hard problem. How do we objectively handle personal qualitative experience when it is impossible to know if we can replicate it on ourselves? Is what I call green your qualitative green when you see the waves that represent green? So far this seems impossible.
Quoting Bob Ross
This is an often times misinterpreted understanding of the hard problem. No, we know you're going to see green when a green wavelength hits your eyes and the proper signals go to your brain. The fact that everything you experience is from your brain is not questioned in neuroscience at this point, only philosophy.
The question is, how do you qualitatively experience it? What is it like to be a fire for example? You know what makes a fire, but you don't know what its like to be a fire. That's the hard problem. We could say, "But do we know the full underlying quantum process that makes that particular fire?" No. Just because we don't understand all the mechanics to the exact degree in a system does not invalidate the overlaying mechanics that we do understand about that system. Do we understand exactly how your brain states create your qualitative experience? No. Do we know that the brain is the source of your qualitative experiences? Yes, through years of scientific study.
Quoting Bob Ross
To sum it up, it is not that reductive physicalist method cannot account for qualitative experiences being linked to the physical brain, it is that a physicalist method cannot account for what it is like to be the thing experiencing that qualitative experience, because it is purely in the realm of the subject having the experience. We cannot objectively know through the mechanics of stimulating the brain what it is like to have the experience of that brain, as we can never be that other brain.
In my opinion, consciousness is being best handled by neuroscience, and is outside the pure realm of philosophy at this point. Check out brain surgeries, or the case of the color blind painter who had brain damage that removed his ability to ever see or imagine color again. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerebral_achromatopsia
Yes
Quoting Fooloso4
Yes, other experiences look like things.
Quoting Fooloso4
It isn't evident that everything is made of a couple dozen whizzing particles, but here we are. We do know experience exists though.
Does science suggest that there was mind experiencing itself experiencing? Or that there is something experienced that is not experience? That there is a difference between experience and what is experienced?
Quoting Bob Ross
There is a logical leap from our being experiential to the universe being experiential. We have no experience of the experience of the universe or of it being experiential. It seems to be a form of anthropomorphism. The ancient assumption of like to like. Microcosm and macrocosm.
The universe is like us. We have mind, therefore the universe has mind. We have experience therefore the universe has experience.
Quoting Bob Ross
This is still within the world of human experience.
Quoting Bob Ross
It is the best because the best theory must be reductive? That there must be a single something that is fundamental? That we are left with either something mental or physical?
Quoting Bob Ross
See my comment above regarding experience. We have no experience of something fundamental. That there must be something fundamental is merely an assumption that rests fundamentally on our desire that the universe to be intelligible to us. And so we give it limits, a starting point, a terminus, to fit our limits.
Can you explain how that works?
Quoting schopenhauer1
We have, however, made considerable progress in explaining things physically. The claim that things are experience (esse est percipi?) does not explain anything. Where do we go from there? How do we distinguish between experiences? Is the dream of getting hit by a train as real as getting hit by a train? Will the dream train get me where I need to go?
:100: :up:
Yes, it seems to me that 'panpsychist' arguments (e.g. analytical idealism) consist of appeal to ignorance / incredulity, hasty generalization and compositional fallacies.
Quoting Fooloso4
:fire:
Quoting Fooloso4
:fire:
I wasn't under the impression that the hard problem was specifically about our inability to experience the experiences of another, but rather a question of how can conscious experience be explained in terms of physical interactions at all.
Anyway, I don't see the inability to experience the experiences of another as providing any difficulty for physicalism. Supposing my experiences arise from the physical operation of my brain, it seems unsurprising to me that the only experiences available to me to have are those that arise from the physical operation of my brain, and not those of another brain.
So could you elaborate on why you think that an inability to experience the experiences of another would pose a hard problem for physicalism?
Quoting Fooloso4
Kastrup would say that our perception is simply representing the world as if it was a certain way. The physical world is representation, not the thing itself.
He doesn't think we are compound beings, but rather unified entity that is disassociated over different interacting timelines in parallel, or something like that.
I'm not saying I agree with this necessarily. I just said in my initial response that it was a way around the hard problem without having the problem that every object is individually conscious but rather everything is unitary and instances are a manifestation of this. Then I recognized the Schopenhauerian aspect of this.
I think that's a good point. Kastrup seems to be influenced by Schopenhauer and it seems that he has taken the notion or will and the world as representation of will, changed some terms and added some speculative insights from QM and psychology. Notably, the idea that people are dissociated alters of Mind at Large (will) with metacognitive capacities which Mind at Large does not have. Mind at large being a blind and striving instinctive consciousness - sounds familiar...
Its not that conscious experience can't be explained in terms of physical interactions, its the qualitative experience itself. Qualitative experience is subjective. Therefore it cannot be objectively captured in a physical model. Think of it like this: We know how a computer works within all physical laws. If a computer one day becomes sentient, will we ever be able to objectively know what its like to be that subjective sentient computer? Not with physical laws. We can know its sentient. We can even map out why its sentient. But we can never know what its like to be that sentient system.
My answer to you asking the question* would be that it is not the chemicals, but the loss of the chemicals being arranged grandma-ishly that I am mourning, because I really liked the effect of the chemicals being arranged grandma-ishly.
Neurons being interconnected as they are in a living brain, and the interactive processes occurring as they do between the neurons of a living brain, results in events that don't happen when those interactive processes within that network of neurons is no longer occurring.
It isn't surprising that you don't get physicalism, if you haven't considered the subject charitably. However, I suspect you will have difficulty providing objections that would be found perplexing by people who have held a physicalist perspective for a long time, unless or until you do extend more charity on the matter.
*Given that I am posting on a philosophy forum and not currently deeply mourning someone recently deceased. In the actual case where I was asked in the midst of crying about the loss of a loved one, my answer would undoubtedly be more like, "Jeesh, why are you being such an asshole?"
:up: Yep agreed. Both theories kind of lack the "why" to it though. Why this kind of architecture and not another kind? Why would a unitary thing be so complicated? This points to a sort of contingency to things that points away from monism or unitary being.
I don't have much substantive to offer here, but I wanted to compliment you on a well written and clear OP. You obviously put a lot of thought and effort into it.
:cool: :up:
Quoting Tom Storm
Schopenhauer had a quasi-Platonic idea of Forms that Will emanated and animated, but this just begs the question of whence these Forms, and why? It was a bit circular. Yes we know the world is individuated by time/space, and the Forms (which can be glimpsed through art?), are but templates the Will uses.. But then why is there an internal time/space, why is there a Platonic Form, and why how are these interacting with Will? Is Will the internal time/space, is Will outside this? Both, and then how do Forms fit in as some sort of objective thing outside mental states? The only diagram that sort of lays it out is the diagram on this old website, but still doesn't really answer my questions.
Right. Knowing all the details of what is physically going on in a system (brain) is a different matter from having the experiences resulting from the processes which are occurring in that system.
But why should we find that even surprising on physicalism, let alone a hard problem? We don't say to ourselves, "I have full knowledge of how that car works, so why don't I find myself running down the road at 55 MPH from time to time?"
Good questions. I suspect will must be outside it if it is the foundation of all things including forms. But it's unclear. Are you sympathetic to the Kantian notion that space and time are part of the human cognitive apparatus and allow us to make sense of our experience, but not an aspect of the noumenal world?
Its a hard problem because we cannot currently objectively describe experiences. Pain for example. Perhaps we see a brain fluctuation that denotes pain, but we don't know the degree of that pain. What does their pain feel like versus another person's pain? Two people may be having nearly identical brain responses in our measurements, but one may be screaming in agony while the other acts pleasant. If we could objectively ascertain the subjective experience through objective means alone, we could tailor pain medication to the individual more easily.
The hard problem has nothing to do with whether consciousness resides in the brain. Its about creating an objective measurement for subjective experience. Its extremely hard, and perhaps impossible.
I'm sympathetic, but not necessarily in agreement :wink:.
The problem I see with Schop with this is the architecture doesn't line up...
Will ||
Forms || Outside Time/Space
What is thus "mental states" then? This "unknown knower" Subject? Ok... Why is that in there? Where is this time/space/causality (PSR) coming from? It's an illusion? Whence this illusion?
It just seems oddly shoehorned in.
The Noumena is supposed to be Will, the Phenomena is I guess the Representation which encompasses ... The Subject (mental states?), The Forms (the content of mental states?), and Time/Space/Causality (and the fourfold root of the PSR that stems from this. It's just too many things comprising the Representation, seemingly arbitrarily.
And why is this the way Will chooses to individuate itself?
That's the million dollar question. Nicely framed.
Would you consider yourself an idealist?
Ok, I would say that from my physicalist perspective I would expect reaching such a goal to be impossible. However, I don't see such a goal being unreachable as posing a logical problem for my perspective.
Anyway, I am undoubtedly most accustomed to encountering "the hard problem" being brought up, as an attempt to disprove reductive physicalism (often accompanied by suggestions that panpsychism is more reasonable), and I haven't been reading here long enough to have good intuitions* about where individual people are coming from. So I hope you will forgive me projecting my biases while I get to know you all.
My neural networks are insufficiently trained. ;-)
I would say that the physical world is represented. It is not the thing itself, but both what is represented and experience are of something.
Is the assumption that there is something that is experienced and something that is represented mistaken?
Suppose "representation" is the "thing in itself" (just as the tip of an iceberg is also an iceberg) ...
:up: Agree. I am also a Kastrup reader. Overall, as I'm opposed like him to reductive materialism, I'm generally in agreement with him. My criticism of his philosophy is perhaps an over-reliance on metaphors - the 'dissociated alter' and 'the dashboard' to name a couple. At the same time, I think he's an important voice. He is building up an impressive bibliography and does an excellent job in many debates and forums.
My overall philosophical orientation is to emphasise the primacy of experience and that knowledge is a constructive and synthesising activity, which absorbs experiences and perceptions and synthesises them into the gestalt of subjective experience. Empiricists likewise stress the primacy of experience - Berkeley was an empirical idealist - but I adopt the Kantian principle of there being innate categories and functionalities of the mind which are not simply given but which the mind brings to experience.
Quoting schopenhauer1
'Prior to' - ontologically prior. Not 'outside' as in 'located somewhere else'.
Quoting Fooloso4
Hope you don't mind my chipping in. What's at issue here, is the sense in which the physical world has an inherent reality outside our experience, knowledge and perception of it. From a realist point of view, that it exists independently of us is so obvious as to seem hardly worth stating. But consider the role of the observing mind in arriving at this understanding.
The problem with your argument is that it assumes you can get outside your understanding of the world to see it as it truly is, without any observer. Then you imagine on the one side, your representation, and on the other, the object being represented. What that neglects is the role of the observing intelligence in synthesising experience to form a whole - a gestalt, in fact - which is then the subject of your judgement. Absent that synthesising capability, there is nothing to pass judgement about. So you can't literally get outside your representation. You can't in any sense imagine a world from no viewpoint. Perspective is essential, and perspective is what the observer brings.
You might object (as did Einstein) 'surely the moon continues to exist when there is nobody to perceive it'. Bishop Berkeley, and Bernardo Kastrup, get around this difficulty by positing God and a Mind-At-Large, respectively, which ensures the continuous existence of the moon, even the absence of observers. However I have a rather more radical view than that (and here part company with Kastrup.) It is that all we know of existence whether of a specific thing, or the Universe at large is the product of our cognitive and intellectual capacity, the activity of the powerful hominid forebrain which sets us apart from other species. All that processing power generates our world, and thats what empirical reality consists of. After all, the definition of empirical is based on, concerned with, or verifiable by observation or experience. So, asking of the Universe How does it exist outside of, or apart from, our observation or experience of it? is an unanswerable question. It's not as if it really ceases to exist when not observed, or really comes into existence when it is observed. To exist is to be 'inside' this relational subject-object dynamic[sup]1[/sup].
Because of scientific realism, we assume that the world exists independently of your or any mind. But that's only true as a methodological assumption, not as a metaphysical axiom. This is something that has become increasingly evident in 20th century science and philosophy, mainly as a consequence of the observer problem in physics. Science has had to acknowledge the role of the observer, whether via the 'Copenhagen interpretation' or in Wheeler's 'participatory universe' model or in QBism. (Kastrup addresses all this, by the way, he is thoroughly conversant with modern physics and was employed at CERN at some point.)
I suspect that is probably a controversial analysis, but that's my take on it.
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1. 'By and large, Kaccayana, this world is supported by a polarity, that of existence and non-existence. But when one sees the origination of the world as it actually is with right discernment, "non-existence" with reference to the world does not occur to one. When one sees the cessation of the world as it actually is with right discernment, "existence" with reference to the world does not occur to one'. ~ the Buddha, Kacc?yanagotta Sutta
Hello Philosophim,
No. The concept of reality is the sum total of existence (i.e., of being), just like how substance is the concept of a type of being. I am not saying that something is real simply by being abstracted by a human being (or something like that). Abstracts are prominently associated with our ability to reason, which has nothing directly to do with what exists.
Good question: no. Solipsism is the idea that everything is in my mind, whereas analytical idealism is the idea that both our minds are in a universal mind.
There is no doubt that we have different experiences because we are different minds (i.e., different disassociated alters), but that doesnt mean we arent a part of the same mind-at-large fundamentally.
I didnt quite follow this part: could you elaborate? Reality isnt an abstraction: our understanding of reality by application of reason (i.e., our concepts of reality) are abstractions.
This isnt unique to a solipsist view (although analytic idealism is not solipsism regardless): our abstractions is our cognizing of what exists and it isnt necessarily accurate all the time. Truth, I would say, is a relationship between thinking (cognizing) and being (reality) whereof something is true if our concept corresponds to what it is referencing in reality. This can include concepts referencing other concepts as well.
They cannot explain why anyone experiences the color green. A strong correlation between a brain function and the qualitative experience of greeness does not entail that the latter was produced by the former.
I think, and correct me if I am wrong, what you refer to by the hard problem of consciousness is how we account for the uniqueness of each persons experience: but I would say it is a much deeper problem than that. Just because they can stimulate something in brain that affects the conscious experiencer does not entail nor is proof that consciousness is reducible to the brain.
Again, this is just to acknowledge that conscious states are correlated with brain states: this does not prove that conscious states are brain states.
I agree with you on this, because I think most neuroscientists are physicalists and they are not acquainted with nor interested in the philosophical side of it, and really the only thing they are proving is a strong correlation between consciousness and brain statesnot that the brain produces consciousness.
Did you mean to be on fire? There is nothing to be like a fire: it isnt a subject. Or are you saying it is a subject?
I absolutely agree, but a system not accounting for something it can theoretically account for is a soft problem, whereas a hard problem is in theory unprovable from the system. I think that the latter is the case with consciousness with respect to physicalism. Just to clarify, I am not claiming that we simply cant explain it now, I am saying the reductive physicalist method fails in theory to be able to explain it.
Again, them being linked is not under dispute: it is whether the brain is producing the qualitative experience and, thusly, whether reductive physicalism can account for it under its methodological approach. I agree that brain states are heavily correlated with conscious states; however, this is accounted for in analytic idealism by postulating that the brain state is an extrinsic representation of mental states (including the aspects of consciousness that bubble up to the ego: to our immediate awareness).
I agree here: I am claiming that physicalism cannot account for what it is like to be a subject.
This is also true for our own brain + mental states (if we were to experiment on them): we would never come closer, under physicalism, to proving mental states are derived from brain states.
I dont deny that we can manipulate conscious states by affecting brain states, this is also expected under analytic idealism.
Bob
Hello Fooloso4,
No; and neither does analytical idealism. The universal mind is not something we can personify: the cognition, deliberation, and meta-consciousness that we (as humans) have are a product of evolution and are not something the universal mind has.
The universal mind is not experiencing itself directly like we experience the world but, arguably under Kastrups view, it is experiencing itself via us (as we are alters of that mind).
Science only tells us how things behave, not what they fundamentally are.
This would be true if my argument was that the universe is mind simply because we are mind: it is not. The argument is that we cannot account for consciousness by the reductive physicalist method and we can explain the exact same data with idealism, so that is our best metaphysical theory. I am not simply assuming the world out there is mind because I am mind: that is a bad argument.
What do you mean? My point is that we use reason to infer, based off of experience, things which are not a part of our experience (and this is perfectly valid).
Analytical idealism is not the best theory simply because it is a reductive methodololgical approach; however, yes, reductionism is the best means of explanation (regardless of whether one is a physicalist or idealist): explanations are fundamentally the reduction of a phenomenon (an effect) to other effects (or potential abstractions). If you dont agree with that methodological approach, then you cant be a physicalist either.
There is nothing in reality that necessitates substance monism; however, the best theories are the ones that use occams razor: otherwise, theories explode into triviality.
I am not a full blown empiricist: it sounds like you might be. I think we can know things without directly experiencing them.
Bob
Hello 180 Proof,
Analytical Idealism is not a form of pansychism. Furthermore, could you please elaborate on why you think such?
Bob
Hello Wayfarer,
I appreciate your response!
Very interesting: what would those categories be exactly?
Bob
I appreciate your response!
Thank you! I really appreciate that. I am still thinking over my metaphysics and so I am interested to hear everyone's opinions on it.
Bob
Quoting Bob Ross
Explain why you have not just contradicted yourself, Bob. Thanks.
Not to step on s toes, but to give a quicker answer
Mathematical:
Of Quantity: unity, plurality, totality;
Of Quality: reality, negation, limitation;
Dynamical:
Of Relations: subsistence/inference, causality/dependence, community/reciprocity;
Of Modality: possibility, necessity, existence.
Fair warning: merely knowing what they are by name doesnt tell you of the required presuppositions for their function.
Quoting Bob Ross
But thats a very good start, insofar as certainly the Kantian, and in some respects, Aristotelian, categories are the reduction of all conditions for function of the human intellect regarding real physical objects, pursuant to a particular speculative metaphysical theory.
Keyword: theory.
This is why I asked about the "something" that has always been capable of observing.
If it is true that we cannot get outside our understanding of the world, then this extends to our understanding of a disembodied observer.
Quoting Bob Ross
I've heard something similar to this before. Its sort of a "God observer of reality" idea (does not necessitate a God). I've seen this type of thought as the idea that if we could have an observer that could observe and comprehend reality, that would be the true understanding of reality.
I don't necessarily have a problem with that idea, but I have a problem with saying the God observer is reality itself. Isn't reality itself the substance the God observer observes, while the entire rational interpretation of it all can be known about that substance? Even if that is not what you are saying explicitly, this is a competitive theory with the idea that the observation is in fact reality.
I'm going to repost your intro and now dive a bit deeper now that I've asked a few questions.
Quoting Bob Ross
If I understand what you're going for here, its the idea that the "sun-in-itself" only has identity because of rational beings. Let us imagine a child who looks at a picture and see a sun in a sky. If the child has never been told that there is a sun and a sky, would the child necessarily see the sun and sky as separate? We identify it as separate, and so it is. But without a rational being doing the identifying, would the concept of the sun and the sky exist? Would there really be a separation, or would it just be a blend of atoms?
Taken one step less drastic, its like the air we breath. Its a combination of nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide, and other gases. But since we cannot easily observe this, its simply, "Air". Its like the sun in the sky, except we do not see the sun as separate from the sky just like we don't, while breathing, see the nitrogen as separate from the oxygen.
If I have this right, this still does not eliminate the sun as an existence if an observer did not exist. An observer is necessary for there to be an identity; for "the sun" to be known. But the substance of existence would still be. I can very much agree to this, but this seems to me to be "known reality" while the idea of reality as "what exists" still exists whether a rational observer identifies it as such.
Quoting Bob Ross
Perhaps our vocabulary is slightly different, but I believe you agree with this concept from your original post. If "being" is reality, why not just call it "being" instead of reality? In which case, why not simplify it to state that reality is what exists regardless of our observations, or our being, while what we know about reality is a combination of our rational identifications that aren't contradicted by what exists? What problems does your vocabulary and outlook solve that my above statement does not? How can your vocabulary and outlook solve all of the problems that would arise by removing the idea that reality exists independently of an observer?
Quoting Bob Ross
Bob, I'm fairly certain that neuroscience does explain why you experience the color green. There are certain areas of the brain that generate colors. Read the link about Cerebral achromatopsia I posted.
"Cerebral achromatopsia is a type of color-blindness caused by damage to the cerebral cortex of the brain, rather than abnormalities in the cells of the eye's retina. It is often confused with congenital achromatopsia but underlying physiological deficits of the disorders are completely distinct. A similar, but distinct, deficit called color agnosia exists in which a person has intact color perception (as measured by a matching task) but has deficits in color recognition, such as knowing which color they are looking at."
We clearly know that the brain is what allows us to produce color. The above is a provable statement, with several ways of proving it wrong. For example, if the areas of the brain associated on the cerebral cortex were damaged but a person could still see color. Yet this isn't the case. It is incontrovertible in neuroscience that the brain is the source of consciousness. Only philosophers are arguing otherwise at this point, and to my mind, not doing a very good job of it.
What neuroscience cannot explain is what its like to be a brain that "sees" the color green. We know they see green, but it is impossible for US to see that green the brain is experiencing, because we are not that brain. This is why I used the fire analogy earlier. We know that fire is caused by oxygen combusting. It is a physical process that can be described clearly. But we cannot know what it is like to BE that flame. Why do I say it this way?
Because once you realize the brain is the source of consciousness, you realize that matter can have consciousness if combined in the correct way. This is not philosophy, but known fact. You are your brain, and a your brain is matter and energy. Can a fire have consciousness? Unlikely considering how we have identified consciousness. But we can't observe what its like to be those molecules in the fire can we? Is fire simply the sun and the sky together, or are we missing an identity and there are more identities we could put if we could observe it more carefully?
And that's the hard problem that physicalism cannot solve. We can identify and know all of the mechanics behind what make a result, like the brain resulting in consciousness. Mechanics = outcome.
But we cannot experience what it like to be outcome from the viewpoint of the outcome itself. We cannot say, "According to the brain monitoring we've done, you are experiencing 20 microns of pain." Its currently impossible. We can say, "We see you are experiencing pain from your brain scan, how do you feel?" Then we have to take the experiencers subjective answer.
And in this way, that is the experiencers "observed reality" to lead back into your idea. We can't use physicalism to identify it. The only one who has that observed reality, is the observer themselves. Without the observer, pain as a sensation, a personal experience, could not exist. We could monitor a brain and see all the mechanical functions that result in pain, but we cannot measure the experience itself. This is like the idea of there being "zombies", or people who have the mechanical brains that should indicate they feel a certain way, but we can't really measure exactly what they're feeling. What if a person has the mechanical combination for pain, but their feeling isn't at all like what we would feel? What if there is a brain that has the mechanical function of denoting consciousness, but it doesn't feel to them the consciousness that you or I feel?
In sum so I avoid repeating myself, the hard problem is that physicalism cannot objectively identify and quantify a personal subjective experience of matter and energy. Can matter and energy have consciousness if combined in the correct way? Absolutely. Is the brain the source of consciousness? Unquestioningly. Can we objectively describe the sensation of experiencing the color green? It seems impossible at this point in time.
Quoting Bob Ross
This is also expected under physicalism and direct evidence for why physicalism can prove that the brain is the source of consciousness. I'm usually open to different view points, but on this one Bob, its a hard fact that the brain is the source of consciousness. You'll need to show something in neuroscience that would disprove this to me. If we cannot agree on this fundamental issue, then we'll just have to agree to disagree. We can continue the conversation at your observer level, but I will respectfully bow out on the hard problem if that is your decision.
Wonderful thinking as always!
Absolutely: let me explain. Pansychism, in the literature, although the word etymologically means "all" + "soul", is reserved prominently for a family of metaphysical views which claim that matter is fundamental but that matter is conscious, whereas analytic idealism is the view that mind (i.e., consciousness) is fundamental: the former is the claim that everything has consciousness and the latter is that everything is in consciousness--which is a vital distinction. That is why I said it is not a form of pansychism.
I don't remember the exact context of the first quote of me from you, but when I said everything "is fundamentally mind and is thusly conscious", I was referring to the idea that everything is in a mind-at-large and not that everything has consciousness.
The reason this distinction is vital (i.e., between having vs. being in consciousness) is because pansychism has two issues that analytical idealism does not: the hard problem of consciousness (viz., how did those tiny bits or entities of matter become conscious?) and the compositional problem (viz., how can tiny conscious bits or entities of matter compose a much large and more complex subject like ourselves?). Ultimately I think that these problems render pansychism epistemically costly to hold (and that is why I am not a panpsychist).
If by pansychism, you were just referring to its etymological meaning (i.e., all + soul), then technically this would be a form of pansychism (so I apologize if I misunderstood you)--but I have been and would like to keep to the formal, traditional usages of the terms to reduce confusion.
With that being said, please let me know if you think I am still contradicting myself and I would love to hear that fallacies you think analytic idealism is committing.
Bob
Hello Mww,
I appreciate your response!
I am familiar with what Kant said were the categories, but I have never understood the proof for it. I don't see how those categories are function that produce objects as opposed to being meaning an aspect of our cognition (in the modern sense of the word). Could you elaborate on why one should believe that these categories are what our minds use as functions to produce phenomenal experience?
Bob
The fact that we cannot now explain consciousness does not mean that there is not a physical explanation. This is an old story in the history of science. There have been naysayers at every step in the development of science who have argued that something cannot be done prior to it being done. Neuroscience is a relatively new science. This looks like nothing more than a sophisticated version of God of the gaps.
Quoting Bob Ross
According to the Standard Model of Particle Physics there are fundamental or elementary particles of matter.
Quoting Bob Ross
You are assuming that there is mind, but what do we know of mind that is not based on our mind? You are arguing that our consciousness cannot be explained unless consciousness is fundamental and irreducible.
Quoting Bob Ross
Based off of our experience you infer that reality is essentially experiential. Like from like. Put differently, based off the human mind you infer that there is mind itself.
Quoting Bob Ross
Your claim was:
Quoting Bob Ross
Quoting Bob Ross
The best theories do not misuse Occam's razor. Monism is not better than dualism or pluralism simply because it seems simpler to have one thing rather than many. Unless the theory can explain the whole of reality in terms of this one thing then Occam's razor does not apply.
It may be that sooner or later we run up against the limits of human knowledge. It may be that the deeper we dig the more there is to find. This is not trivial.
Quoting Bob Ross
The claim that:
is not something we can experience but it is also not something we know. Whether it is something that can be known is questionable.
Hello Philosophim,
Wonderful analysis as usually! As I think that the root of our dispute is the hard problem of consciousness, I am going to briefly elaborate on the other portions of your reply (for now) so as to focus on the hard problem. If, at any point, you feel as though the conversation pertaining thereto is circling around or hitting a brick wall, then we can absolutely just agree to disagree; however, I think as of now that we have much more in common than we both may think and I do think we are both slightly speaking over one another (although not on purpose of course). There is still much to explicate on the topic.
I want to clarify that this view is not a form of Berkleian idealism, where to be is to perceive or to be perceived. I do not hold that the universal mind is observing the world in the sense that we are. Instead, it is a lower grade of consciousness. Our, as humans, evolved consciousness is capable of things which the universal mind is not (e.g., cognitive deliberation, motive deliberation, meta-consciousness, etc.). In other words, I dont think that the tree that I am seeing exists in the (or close to the) manner that I am perceiving it nor that it exists in that manner independently of perception due to a God-observer. The tree that I phenomenally see is perception-dependent, but the tree-in-itself still exists independently of perception: it is a part of the ideas within the universal mind. Think of it this way: if no one is looking at the tree, then it does not continue to exist in the manner that we perceive it, but it continues to exist in the sense that it is an idea in the universal mind that if we were to go perceive it we would expect to see the same tree (because our ability to perceive will represent the ideas the same manner it did before).
It is kind of like a video game in the sense that the game world (whatever it may be) is a representation of 0s and 1s. If the character moves to view a tree in that game, then they should expect to see the same representation (i.e., the tree), but that tree doesnt ontologically exist: it is a representation of 0s and 1s. So, although the game analogy isnt equivalent to our experience, under analytic idealism, the tree we perceive is just a representation within our perception-dashboard and the true essence of the tree is ideas (information).
This is a fair critique of berkelian idealism (where God is keeping the tree existing by continually perceiving it). The substance of reality under analytic idealism is mentality and the universal mind is fundamentally the one existing brute fact, and we are derivatives thereof (i.e., priority monism).
You actually went a step deeper than I was intending for the original post. I was just attempting to mention that the tree (or sun) doesnt exist as what we perceive it (just like how the tree in the video game exists truly as 0s and 1s). But you are nevertheless correct that, under analytic idealism, the distinction between non-conscious entities is nominal. So I agree with you there.
Also, I really like the air example! That is really good for explaining that situation.
This is correct. The idea is that the sun (just like the sun in a video game) doesnt exist in-itself (even though I only think it nominally is distinguishable from other non-conscious things, I like to use in-itself still just to keep it simple) as what is perceived by conscious beings that are capable of perception.
This is the vital distinction between analytical (i.e., objective) idealism and subjective idealism and why I am not the latter.
You could. I was using them interchangeably.
Because what we observe is also real (i.e., a part of reality). When I imagine a unicorn, that unicorn exists as an imaginary unicorn. My concept of a car exists in my mind and is thusly a part of reality: humans and other conscious beings are a part of reality.
If one simply calls what is real what is perception-independent (or something similar) than (I would say) it fails under more in depth scrutiny. For example, one cannot evaluate the concept of concepts as true (even in the case that it references what a concept is correctly) because it doesnt correspond to something outside of perceptive-experience (which is what you would be calling reality).
Ok, now for the hard problem of consciousness. Firstly, I really appreciate you sharing neuroscience with me, but I dont think that is what is under dispute here. Lets see if we can find some common ground.
Science (proper) tells us how things relate and not what they fundamentally are. The latter is actually metaphysics. All neuroscience is engaged in understanding how conscious experience relates to brain states and does not in-itself have anything to do with what conscious experience nor brain states fundamentally are (ontologically). Thusly, there are two claims I think you are accepting: (1) that neuroscience proves that brain states are strongly (maybe even incessantly) correlated with mental states and (2) that that suggests that metaphysically the former is the latter. I accept #1, but not #2: so our dispute is not about the science but rather the metaphysical implications of the science. To me, thusly, I agree with many claims you make because they are geared towards #1: such as the neuroscience you quoted.
However, you havent provided an argument for why you think that the fact that conscious states are heavily correlated with brain states (which is a scientific fact) suggests or implies that the latter is reducible to the former. Why do you think that?
Another key distinction I think needs to be made to provide clarity is that there is a difference between explaining mechanical awareness and qualitative experience. The former is how a mechanical (or otherwise consciousness-independent) organism can acquire information about its environment, whereas the latter is the qualitative experience that a subject has. Some of the claims you are making are really not a hard problem for physicalism at all (as you rightly point out) but this is because you are providing explanations of the former and not the latter. The hard problem pertains to how a consciousness-independent organism produces the latter, not how it has the former.
For example, when you say that we see the color green because of the light wavelengths and its interpretation by the brain to be green, that explains how the brain acquired knowledge of the greeness of the object (in the sense that it is reflected those wavelengths) and not why you have a qualitative experience of greeness. According to that account, we have not reason to expect that a qualitative experience of greeness would be produced: that is what you would have to explain to solve the hard problem.
Now, you could argue that we see strong correlations between the brain acquiring the knowledge of the greeness and the subject qualitatively experiencing the greeness to claim an inference that the latter is really reducible to the former, but, right now, I am just trying to explicate that the brain acquiring the knowledge of a color is distinct from a subject qualitatively experiencing that color; and, inherently, the account that you gave (i.e., the wavelengths being interpreted by the brain) only implies that the brain knows it is green, but not why would or how the brain generate an extra qualitative experience of it. This is a subtle but incredibly important distinction to make when discussing the hard problem: otherwise we begin to talk passed each other.
Further, I would anticipate that your response (although correct me if I am wrong) is that the strong correlations (e.g., the fact that every time the brain state has acquired the knowledge of the greeness we also subjectively experience the greeness) suggests that the mental state is truly the brain state (or states): this is where are dispute really lies.
I think that the only way one can account for consciousness in that manner is by obscurely noting it as produced by the brain (in light of strong correlations between the two) but never actually being able to account for its productions (i.e., how it actually happens). The reason I would say this is impossible to account for in physicalism (as opposed to being a soft problem) is because fundamentally the physicalist can only try to explain it by reduction to some brain state (or states) of which they are always only (at best) strong correlations between the two: the brain states themselves can never, due to them being brain states, account for how the qualitative is being produced by the quantitative. For example, if a person claims that this mental state X is strongly correlated to this brain state Y, there is still the valid conceptual question of how did Y produce X? The physicalist then has to explain this either (1) by another appeal to the same relationship (i.e., because Y is correlated with Z) of which the same conceptual question applies (i.e., how did Z and Y produce X?) or (2) by positing that because strong correlation entails or implies causation of which it equally applies, and is thusly not unique to physicalism, to an idealistic account of it (i.e., an idealist can accept that claim and hold that the brain states are extrinsic representationsor caused--by the mental states).
I am going to stop there to allow you to respond.
I look forward to hearing from you,
Bob
I'm agnostic. However, I am weary of the hidden dualisms, Cartesian theaters, and homunculus fallacies found in most reductionist materialism / physicalism models.
I used to read neuroscience thinking I was reading metaphysics on things like mind. That is not the case. I was reading results from a methodology for other physical happenings. One of my themes is the notion of "minutia-mongering". Many people think if they just mine the world for more minutia they will find the hidden secrets. As if adding more physical understanding is peeling back to a core that is to be revealed, with just that much more technical information from scientific investigation.
Believe me, I would rather the "Hard Problem" be solved in some mundane technical fashion. But it might be one of those things that actually cannot. I don't want there to be fantastic "Mind is everything", or panpsychism, or proto-panpsychism, or any cluster of that which puts experiential / mind prior to material, but I am willing to entertain it because it answers the question better than the other. However, that doesn't mean it is accurately accounting for reality either.
Being that the only verification for justification we know of is empirical methods, this wouldn't be amenable to getting to the metaphysical heart of the matter (no pun intended). Rather, we may have to be content with theories that have a semblance of a ring of truth to it, based on parsimony. So, that being said, I am willing to entertain ideas like "experiential-first", "mathematics-first", "process-first" models, that turn the traditional, "Mind from matter" on its head as it is looking for novel ways to approach the problem that bypass the aforementioned hidden dualism/Cartesian theater/ homunculus fallacy problems. However, bypassing doesn't necessarily entail solving anything. It is just a clever, and interesting alternative that is worth consideration.
So the problem with Kastrup is the problem I have with Schopenhauer's metaphysics. Why is there so much involved in this "illusion" of the representation (physical) from the monistic Mind? I don't know. Why should it be so complex if it is some sort of unity? Even if it is unity individuated into an "alter" of disassociated parts, why should these parts be the complexity that it is?
This to me, leads to not just disassociation of a unity, but an assemblage of separate contingencies. That is to say, it seems too convenient for a monistic "mind-substance" to just so happen to be also this astonishingly complex physical illusion. Why would it take on this complexity rather than simply being a simple physical aspect? You can ask, "Why not?" but then we must ask, why even have the monism then? The monism simplifies one problem, the combination problem, but then creates a new one of why division in such complicated physical ways. The complicated physical ways is the known. The idea of a monistic mind is the theory. Let's take the known seriously at least, and take that where it leads us, to perhaps a plurality.
I guess I can try to counter-argue this point and say, time is the main factor of why we think of plurality. If everything started as a unity (singularity), then time makes it seem as if things are not a singularity. So the multiplicity is not a multiplicity in at least one point in time (the singularity). But then why is that point in time the only one we are focusing on? Not sure, maybe someone like @Bob Ross wants to chime in.
Again, I was reiterating Schopenhauer and Kastrup's theory. But yeah, the idea of representation itself has to be accounted for, so in a way it "is" the tip of an iceberg. However, if what you mean is that physical reality just extends into some non-empirical depth, sure. I know you are a Spinoza fan, and that makes sense with his often characterized "neutral monism" of modes etc.
Yeah. It is ontologically not mediated by time and space.
Unless the human cognitive system is granted as being representational and inherently logical, re: relational, nothing anybody says in support of the categories will be deemed theoretically plausible, much less acceptable.
Unless the human cognitive system is granted as dualistic, whereby the phenomenal part of the system by which objects are given through perception has no cognitive power, the categories are meaningless, for they apply to nothing else whatsoever, but are contained in the other part that has cognitive power, the power of logical thought. So it is that the categories arent what produces phenomenal experience, which is a conceptual redundancy anyway, insofar as there is no experience, re: empirical knowledge of objects, that isnt phenomenal in origin. The system as a whole produces, not just any single aspect of it.
The categories represent the necessary fundamental conditions by which the object perceived represented as a phenomenon, relates to the object thought represented as a conception. They determine, not how the object is to be understood, but that it can be understood at all. Without that underlaying criteria, that which is perceived cannot be conceptually represented hence will never make it past the mere sensing of it. Its not that we wont know what the object is, but that there is no way to understand that it is anything at all.
To have no understanding at all, irrespective of its certainty, is contradictory, insofar as any object given to the senses absolutely must be something to which a conception may or may not relate. This is in fact the case, in that sensations given from perceptions are themselves impossible to deny. And if the sensation is undeniable, it leaves it for something to be done with it, cant just stop being something. Like sensory information traveling down a nerve and never making it to the brain. Just doesnt happen, all else being equal. The appeasement of the contradiction, allowing the cognitive operation to continue, is sufficient warrant for justification of the function of the categories.
So .one should believe all that iff it makes sense to him. If it doesnt, he wont.
Hello Bob,
What struck me immediately was that the OP presupposes that the purportedly "'Hard Problem' of Consciousness" refers to an actual problem, particularly for reductive physicalism. I think that that presupposition is based upon an ambiguous inadequate idea... regarding exactly what counts as being a problem. If there is no problem to begin with, then the entire exercise is moot.
Consciousness is emergent. As such, it is - as we know it - the result of millions of years of evolutionary progression. There is no "aha!" point or moment in time that can be pointed at, and then it can be said "here it is!". There is no magical combination or point in evolutionary progression that consciousness suddenly appears, resides, or has emerged as we know it. That's not how it works.
The reductive physicalist can identify and thoroughly explain how all sorts of 'the parts' commonly associated with conscious subjective experience work physically(See Dennett's Quining Qualia). The opponent will simply state that the hard problem hasn't been solved, or say "that's the easy problems"... Yada, yada, yada.
It's akin to the physicalist pouring hundreds of thousands of grains of sand onto the floor and pointing at the result, while the opponent says... that's not enough to count as a pile of sand.
I understand this point, but how is this semantically different from just saying that reality is independent of observers? A tree is going to be what it is no matter if we observe it or not. Why introduce mind and mentality? Mind and mentality imply an observer, which always leads to the question of, "Then what is the observer?" You have an outside entity which needs explaining. Is it also just a mentality? If a mentality can have a mentality, what does the word even mean at that point? If being is reality, then all of reality is being. I think I just need a better definition of "mentality" and "mental".
Quoting Bob Ross
I agree, but this isn't any different from a physical reality based model. Reality exists independently of what is observed. This allows us to short circuit the "Are you observing what you are observing?" issue that can come up otherwise. No one can observe you observing, yet you are part of reality. You do not need to meta observe your own observation, or have a God observer observing you. Your observation itself is also part of reality. I feel this model is much clearer while still conveying the essence of what you're trying to prove.
I suppose this really asks us to break down what "physical" means, as its only been implicit. "Physical" essentially means there is an existence independent from our observation. As noted, this eliminates infinite meta self-observation. You exist as a physical being. Despite your lack of observing yourself, you still exist physically in the world. Your mind does not float, it is located within your body. Try extending it outside of yourself. Try thinking in a location outside of the room you are in. You can't. It follows the physical rules of reality despite our best wishes.
Quoting Bob Ross
So in here, yes, a concept of concepts is also real. We do not need to have a concept of "concepts of concepts" to make it real. We only need a concept of "concept of concepts" if we wish to observe a "concept of concepts". What is real is not perception-independent. What is real is what exists, and does not need to be perceived to exist.
Quoting Bob Ross
I am not sure I agree with this assessment. Science uses falsification to test hypotheses by trying to break them. When they cannot be broken, what is left is considered scientific fact. This does in fact describe what certain things fundamentally are.
Consciousness emanating from the brain is not merely a correlation, its is a causation. It is provable with a hypothesis that can be falsified. We can experience the color green because of our brains. How could this be falsified? Destroying the brain and still seeing green. Destroying certain parts of the brain and still seeing green. There is a physical claim that can be falsified, and so far in science, it has not. Therefore at this point, it is scientific fact that consciousness comes from the brain. It is scientific fact that matter can be conscious if organized in a particular way. Whatever your conscious experience, there is a physical brain state that produces that. All of this is falsifiable, but has not been show to be false.
It is a common mistake to believe that the hard problem is claiming physicalism cannot link brain states and consciousness together. It clearly does already. Just think about drugs, anasthesia, etc. If we could not accurately link the physical brain to particular conscious states, the science of all of the above would be incorrect. Yet its not.
What I am open to is seeing if you can prove that physicalism cannot link the brain and consciousness together. If you can come up with a falsifiable theory that it cannot, I can think about it and see if you are correct. But claiming that this is the hard problem when physicalism has zero problem doing this is just an incorrect understanding of modern day neuroscience. It's getting to the point where I'm starting to feel like "the hard problem" is as often mistaken as quantum physics! People seem to hear a vague surface level explanation, or people who want there to be more than just our brain misinterpret the hard problem to be something its not.
Quoting Bob Ross
Not to belabor the point, but this is an example of this misunderstanding. The answer a physicalist gives is, "Because our attempts to disprove this claim have all failed". Neuroscience does not assert a theory that we are to buy into. It asserts a theory that we cannot buy out of.
So we are back to my original question:
Quoting Fooloso4
In response you said:
Quoting Bob Ross
But now it seems that in order for there to be experience there must be us or something like us. If so, then prior in time to such animals the nature of reality could not have been experiential. There was nothing capable of experiencing.
In order for Kastrup's assertion to qualify for a theory of reality it must explain how animals like us, capable of experiencing, came to be in a universe like ours full of things to be experienced.
I wonder if that aha point is the appearance of the very first living organism.
I see. You're advocating immaterialism (which entails solipsism), not (just) panpsychism.
We can form no meaningful idea of what exists in the absence of the order that the mind brings to reality.
[quote=Charles Pinter, Mind and the Cosmic Order; https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-50083-2]Imagine that all life has vanished from the universe, but everything else is undisturbed. Matter is scattered about in space in the same way as it is now, there is sunlight, there are stars, planets and galaxiesbut all of it is unseen. There is no human or animal eye to cast a glance at objects, hence nothing is discerned, recognized or even noticed. Objects in the unobserved universe have no shape, color or individual appearance, because shape and appearance are created by minds. Nor do they have features, because features correspond to categories of animal sensation. This is the way the early universe was before the emergence of lifeand the way the present universe is outside the view of any observer.[/quote]
Quoting Fooloso4
There is an implicit endorsement of scientific realism in this. Analytic idealism is not a realist philosophy in that sense.
So a starlight, for example, from distant galaxies (or the CMB) that predates by millions (or billions) of years the human species it's capability of "mind" is not a "meaningful idea" or a "real" (mind-invariant) referent?
No, it's not. It's not anything, until it is cognised. It's not non-existent, but it's also not existent - it has a kind of latent or unmanifest reality. There's a subjective element in all cognition which synthesises and contextualises the stimuli we're receiving - starlight included - and combines it into the world. That activity is what gives rise to the subjective unity of experience - which is 'the world'. That is the sense in which nothing is ultimately mind-independent, although for practical purposes, it can be treated as if it is. Hence as I said - mind-independence is a methodological assumption, not a metaphysical axiom. In actual fact, reality is not something we're outside of, or apart from - it has an inextricable subjective foundation, which we're not consciously aware of - transcendental in the Kantian sense.
I agree, but I don't think it follows that:
Quoting Charles Pinter, Mind and the Cosmic Order
A stone carried along in a river will either continue on downstream or get stuck if it bumps up against some other object or objects depending on its shape.
Quoting Wayfarer
But that does not answer the question.
And which stone would that be? 'Oh, it doesn't matter - any stone.' But 'any stone' is an abstraction - and abstraction is still dependent on the matrix of conceptual thought.
Quoting Tom Storm
Constructivism (I've learned) is an approach in science and philosophy that emphasizes the role of the mind in the construction of knowledge and the interpretation of data - hence the name! I don't think it is synonymous with idealism and so I'm not sure if 'idealism' is really what I'm arguing for - although I do notice that Kastrup has published articles in Constructivist Foundations.
So is this "transcendental" conception of 'mind-dependence' also mind-dependent? :chin:
//with that I'll bow out for now, don't want to hog @Bob Ross's thread.//
Hello Fooloso4,
It is true that an unsolved problem which can be theoretically solved under a metaphysical theory is not to say that it cannot be solved eventually (by that theory); however, those are called soft problems. I am not merely claiming that physicalism hasnt explained mentality but, rather, that it cant. That is the hard problem of consciousness.
That is a metaphysical claim (specifically a physicalist claim), not science proper (i.e., physics in the tradition, Aristotelian sense). Nowadays, due to the age of enlightenment and modernism, we tend to smuggle metaphysics into science without batting an eye.
I am arguing qualities, which are expressions of ideas, is reality and not the quantitative maps that we produce to better navigate existence. I am not assuming a mind: if mind cannot be reduced to something mind-independent, then the only other option is that whatever affects (my and our) mind(s) is mind. If mind is irreducible to matter and I were to postulate that reality isnt fundamentally mind, then I either have to concede substance dualism or the hard problem of consciousness re-emerges full force. In the case of the former, it has the hard problem of interaction which renders it more epistemically costly than simply positing reality as mind.
Physicalism is us using our experience to infer that reality is nothing like our experience. I am not following what the critique is here. We use experience to try to infer what reality fundamentally is.
Again, I am not simply claiming there is a universal mind because we are minds: it is due to a careful consideration of the possible metaphysical theories and finding it the most parismonous. To claim that fundamentally all is mind simply because we are mind is a bad argument for idealism.
I apologize: I slightly misspoke. You are right that monism is only more parsimonious if it it accounts for the same data which I failed to mention earlier. However, monism is better because it does account for everything more parsimoniously. For example, substance dualism is indefensible compared to physicalism and idealism. In order to account for the world, it has to overly complicate its explanation (to try and account for the hard problem of interaction). These other theories (which are not monist) are extremely epistemically costly.
Are you essentially arguing for ontological agnosticism?
What do you mean by experience? If you mean perception, then no: the universal mind does not perceive anything and it has no self-knowledge. The universal mind is not something we can personify.
Through the natural process of evolution as disassociated alters.
Bob
Hello schopenhauer1,
I totally understand your concerns here: they perfectly valid. My response would be to note that analytic idealism is meant to explain the empirical data better than other theories, and so it seems empirically that the mind is natural in the sense that it is a lower grade of mind (than our evolved ones) which is following a rigid pattern of excitation. Why is it doing that? I have no clue. Analytic idealism has its fair share of soft problems.
This is because of evolution. Kastrup is a staunch empiricist, and so he explains the develop of alters in terms of standard biological evolution: the lower grades of conscious beings slowly develop more complexity over time in its environment. The only difference (in comparison to physicalism) is that Kastrup views those beings (which are evolving and have evolved biologically) as in essence mind and not matter (i.e., alters and not mind-independent organisms).
Although you didnt explicitly state this, I would like to clarify that the mind-at-large doesnt choose in the sense of having deliberate, cognitive decisions: it is, according to Kastrup, following a natural process. Kastrup claims that originally the mind-at-large was in harmony until something disrupted the process and formulated an alter: the first life (other than that universal mind). How did that happen? I have no clue. Again, analytic idealism has its soft problems for sure.
I agree: we should always be open minded to other metaphysical accounts of the world. I just dont see what need we have to posit substance pluralism. It also comes with hard problems (like interaction) whereas your critique of idealism is a soft problem.
Honestly, the principium individuationis aspect of schopenhauerian metaphysics still leaves my mouth sour: I find it utterly obscure how eternity converts to temporality. So, unfortunately, I am still thinking through that part and cant give a good answer yet. However, what I can say is that I think all metaphysical theories run into this problem: fundamentally something has to be eternal (even if it is the infinite regress itself) and thusly there is this problem of explaining how eternity relates to temporality. Perhaps positing time itself as eternal would help resolve the issue: I am not sure yet.
Bob
Hello Mww,
Thank you for the elaboration!
Bob
Hello creativesoul,
I appreciate your response!
I agree that if the hard problem isnt actually a hard problem then there physicalism would be a much more appealing metaphysical account than I would currently consider it.
I disagree. I think that physicalism cannot account for consciousness. There is a conceptual gap in reductive physicalism between mechanical awareness and qualitative experience. For example, the physicalist can account for how a brain can acquire knowledge of its environment (e.g., how a brain acquires the knowledge of greeness) but not why one has a subjective experience of it which goes beyond and above the mere brain-knowledge of it (e.g., not how one qualitatively experiences the greeness: there is not reason for that to happen under a physicalist account of the world).
The hard problem of consciousness is not where exactly, in evolution, one particular organism (or a group) acquired consciousness but, rather, how one can even account for consciousness (even theoretically) within a physicalist metaphysics.
I would agree with you that if consciousness did arise via evolution, then there wouldnt be an exact aha! moment, just like how there is not exact aha! moment of when one species transitions into another.
I disagree.
That is a mischaracterization of what the hard problem is. It is not what exact species it arose in (or something like that): it is the claim that in principle consciousness is not explanable via the reductive physicalist method.
Bob
Hello Philosophim,
You would have to define what you mean by observer: I dont use that terminology. I would say that the tree exists as a part of ideas in the universal mind and is thusly perception-independent, where perception is an ability that only animals (including humans) have: the ability to take in sensations and represent that to itself (as a perception).
Although I know you disagree, if the hard problem of conscious exists, then it is more parsimonious to posit that the strong correlation between mental states and brain states is that the latter (not the former) is an extrinsic representation of (is produced by) the former. In that case, we still have to account for why there is a objective reality which goes beyond my particular mind and thusly there must be a universal mind (as if it isnt mind, then we have the hard problem all over again).
I didnt follow this chain of reasoning: perhaps if you explain what you mean by observer then it will become clear to me.
I agree, this is just a tautology.
Mentality is the sum total of qualitative experienceof activity in the mind (e.g., ideas, thoughts, emotions, feeling, sight, colors, etc.). Although I know you are a physicalist, forget that for a second. Just from introspection, birth the idea of raising your right arm and watch it rise. The idea to raise the right arm was prima facea mental, not physical (although you may ultimately argue it is reducible to something physical). Look at a green pen, that pen is prima facea within your qualitative, conscious experience: it is a greeness (and a pen) which you subjectively experience. You are experiencing as a mind (even in physicalist worldview): everything you experience is within mind. Of course, a physicalist will abstract that that mind is reducible to something non-mind (i.e., a brain).
No. Physical within physicalist metaphysics refers to something mind-independent: something quantitative. Again, maybe by observer you are meaning mind, but then you will have to explicate what you exactly for me to determine if I agree or not. Further, the idea that there is an existence independent of our observation is just the definition of an objective world: not physicalism. Analytic idealism makes the exact same claim. I think that the tree exists independent of our perception as well (as I would imagine you would agree with that too). This isnt unique to physicalism.
The universal mind does not have meta-consciousness: it doesnt have self-knowledge.
I think, and correct me if I am wrong, now you may be referring to the colloquial usage of the term physical (i.e., something with solidity, shape, size...material): this isnt what it means in physicalism metaphysicsit is mind-independent. In the colloquial usage of the term (explicated above), I would agree that my experience is of a physical world; however, I am not a physical body but rather, under analytic idealism, my body is an extrinsic representation of my mind. To better understand this, recall the tree in the game analogy: the tree doesnt exist fundamentally how it gets perceived and so, under analytic idealism, the tree in our perception is just a representation of the tree (which is fundamentally information: ideas in a mind). Likewise, this includes our bodies no differently than the tree: my body, my organs, my brain, etc. is my mind representing itself to itself and it doesnt, just like the tree, exist fundamentally how it is perceived.
This doesnt apply to my view (I dont think) because I agree that the body and mind are inextricably linked: because they are two sides of the same coin. So, of course, I would not expect my mind to somehow float outside my body in space. My body is just in extrinsic representation of myself (as a mind) within my perception.
I am a bit confused here. If what is real is what exists independently of what we perceive to exist, then isnt it perception-independent?
Maybe we are saying the same thing two different ways.
Not quite. Scientific facts are observations of reality: there are also laws and theories. Laws and facts are science proper (as far as I am concerned) as it is the attempt to understand how things relate and not in the business of metaphysics (e.g., ontology). Scientific theories can be either (1) metaphysical claims, (2) an explanation in terms of another relation, or (3) both.
The problem with your idea of falsification for the claim that mental states are brain states is that metaphysics cant work with the same criteria that science usesand I can demonstrate this with your example:
This criteria of falsification for mental states being brain states (that you postulated here) applies to a whole range of metaphysical theories: not just physicalism. For example, I can, as analytic idealism, claim that the mental states are producing the brain states and the way by which you can falsify it is to destroy a brain and prove that they are still seeing green (as that would disprove that the link between mental and physical states). Under idealism, just as much as physicalism, it is expected that there is a strong correlation between mental states and brain states. Since we can posit the same falsification criteria that you just posited to try and back physicalism, there must be some other criteria that you are using to determine that physicalism is better than idealism (for they both can be falsified in that exact same manner).
I dont see how your criteria uniquely applies to the metaphysical theory of physicalism.
I was never disputing that brain states cannot be linked to mental states nor that that is the hard problem of consciousness. Physicalism cannot account for qualitative experience: understanding scientifically how brain states are linked to mental states (and vice-versa) does not entail any metaphysical view whatsoever. Science and physicalism are two entirely different things.
Again, both idealism and physicalism expect links between the brain the mental events. Proving that there is not such correlation between the two would equally disprove analytic idealism.
I think you might be conflating metaphysics with physics: neuroscience is science, not physicalism. Metaphysics can only use falsifiability as a negative concept (i.e., that it can disprove some metaphysical theories) and not a positive one (i.e., not being falsified does not prove a metaphysical theory correct).
Bob
Hello 180 Proof,
As I already elaborated, it isnt a form of pansychism (unless you want to clarify that you mean a vague, superficial etymological definition that goes against the literature).
No it does not entail solipsism.
Bob
Well, Bob, this is how I see it:
[quote=immaterialism, ergo solipsism]If one only "knows" ideas because there are only ideas, and if ideas are properties of minds, and if each mind is an idea, then all minds are properties of each mind or, in effect, one mind. QED.[/quote]
This is just like pixels in a hologram each of which containing all of the information that constitutes the hologram (à la Leibniz's monads).
When did consciousness first appear?
Bob, I confess you've lost me at this point. Try as I can, I can't relate to the terminology used here and any attempt to grasp it just doesn't make sense to me. I feel like we have a fundamental difference in understanding that perhaps isn't all that far off from one another, but at the same time, somehow is.
One statement that I think we both agree on in layman's terms is that the perception of a 'thing' is real in itself, and that the perception cannot exist without the perceiver. But we seem to have a disagreement on how that happens. I say that the perception of a thing is done completely through the matter and energy of the brain, which is the scientific consensus. You believe this to be the hard problem, which to my knowledge, is not it. You also have ideas about falsification and science that I do not agree with, which again I think has been explored and is at this moment an irreconsilable difference.
As I noted early on, if we diverge here I do not believe I can adequately contribute to the conversation any longer. My line of thinking is too different from yours for us to be able to discus what you want to address. That being said, a wonderful commitment to your thread, and I respect the attempt! Best of thoughts in fielding the remaining discussions, I will likely be reading your other replies to see if I can understand your side better.
If it is true that physicalism (physics, chemistry, biology since all testable explanations are physical explanations) can't explain consciousness then it is not a hard problem but an impossible problem. It then follows that it is not a problem at all.
Or the question then becomes 'is there any alternative to a physical explanation'? and of course the answer would be 'no' since the so-called hard problem specifically calls for a causal, IE physical, explanation.
Much ado about nothing...?
Quoting Philosophim
This is the crux of the issue. Realism presumes 'the world' (or object of perception) to be real, irrespective of whether it is perceived or not. Idealism, on the other hand, takes issue with this apparently-obvious fact. George Berkeley, for example, said explicitly 'esse est percipe' - to be is to be perceived. His argument is nevertheless categorised as empiricist, because it is based on the observation that the existence of physical objects cannot be proven independently of, or outside of, the perception of them (where 'perception' includes seeing, touching, instrumental analysis, etc). He maintained that we only have direct access to our own perceptions and cannot perceive anything beyond those - that when we see the object, our seeing of it consists in 'the experience of the object'. It is therefore unwarranted to assume the existence of material objects outside perception.
It is well known that many people think Berkeley's philosophy absurd. There is an historical anecdote featuring the famous writer, Samuel Johnson:
This is now immortalised as the 'argumentum ad lapidem', meaning 'argument from the stone', and is said to be fallacious, on the grounds that kicking a stone does not actually address the theory. It rather asserts a conclusion incompatible with the theory and then demonstrates the conclusion without discussing the real claims of the argument. After all, the stone and the sensation of striking your foot against it are, likewise, perceptions and impressions of color, hardness, time and place, and the like. In this sense, Berkeley's argument is not too distant in spirit from Descartes' argument that in all of our perceptions, we might be mislead by an evil daemon. (Updated and annotated translations of Berkeley can be found here - and one thing you will learn if you look at them, is that Berkeley was no slouch when it came to dealing with objections to his philosophy. He was a very clever polemicist.)
So - the point I'm getting at is that the instinctive sense that the object is real whether or not anyone perceives it, is precisely the point at issue in idealist arguments - hard as that may be to accept.
I'd say the opposite, quantum-level interactions have lower relational interactions, and sometimes objects are quantum entangled and essentially behave the same. General relativity acts on larger scales and due to that, everything exists in a relational bond to every other object forming a causality of entropy.
What they fundamentally are is just a separation of molecular structures. Some bonds of matter fuse together better than others and therefore we have chemical elements that can further bond together depending on the situation. An object in space is just an object that has a different molecular structure than the air or space around it. That an object then gets a definition by us, like a chair is chair, a moon is a moon, or iron is iron, is just language and our mind's way of categorizing reality in order to communicate and create a mental model of our surroundings.
What fundamental thing or substance is it that you mean isn't defined?
Quoting Bob Ross
Every prediction Einstein made has been verified in a number of different ways, so what does that tell about a mind-independent world? If everything was just within our minds, we wouldn't have verifications that rely on input data separate from how humans input data. A "field" is just something that has a mathematical value at each point in space, case point, the magnetic field. And with the recent verification of gravitational waves, we have verified spacetime as a field more clearly than previously.
What is it that you are trying to convey?
Quoting Bob Ross
Yes, there's a difference between how we experience things and how things really are. If you just take our visual representation of the world around us, it only sees a small portion of the spectrum. If we were to see the entire spectrum of light, we would witness a sensory overload of events happening all around us, from infrared to ultraviolet, to radiowaves and cosmic radiation. It is probably the reason why animals have only evolved to see certain parts of the spectrum because to see everything would have no practical application in nature.
We are a limited species in our perception, in order to let us function better for the existence we have.
Quoting Bob Ross
Our mind does not represent anything accurately. This is why in science we rely on data that fits together in logic and math rather than just looking at something and concluding it to be something specific. We can, however, verify something as being constant to a vast variety of minds by a simple process: Have a room that only has a table and a red apple on it. Let a hundred people go in one at a time, then go out and describe what they observed in the room. Summarize these hundreds of observations into statistics and you can conclude a collective representation of subjective observations, i.e the sum of a hundred minds observing the same thing.
Even then, it is still just human minds interpreting the apple. We don't see the infrared, the cosmic particles flowing through the apple etc. But we know have concluded what we as a species observed.
We can also scan the room using different types of measurements that register data that are outside of our perception. If that data correlates with our collective statistics of observations, then we can crosscheck the differences in our perception to that of other known sensors' reactions inside the room.
But even with all that data collected and formed into the best type of observation we have, both by us and our expanded tools, we are still forming a categorization based on a crosscheck with our memories. We have learned what a room is, what a table is, and what an apple is and use that to verify what we observe either in perception or with external tools. These things aren't much different from language, how we categorize an apple as "an apple". Such categorizations aren't just language-based, but we have the same in our inner representation of an apple, the sum of memories of "an apple" is constantly referenced to our perception of something or a current internal representation of an apple (maybe the memory of the apple in the room, or in this case our ability to visualize that apple in that room through this text).
All of such objects are interpreted in relation to other objects around them and that's how we categorize objects.
In reality, however, these objects are not anything in themselves, outside of our interpretation of reality these objects blend together and are just formations of accumulations of matter through entropic processes. We see a chair and interpret it as such, but the chair itself is just an accumulation of carbon molecules and other molecular structures that sticks together in a bond that dissolves into its surrounding space so slowly that our perception of time makes us observe the chair as solid and still. In reality, its half-life will eventually dissolve it into space, making it into high entropy dust.
If reality could observe itself, it would just experience everything as if it looked like a fluid, with accumulated parts in different places, some denser than others.
All of this is of course a vastly simplified description of perception and reality. The core of it is that our perception is a very limited representation of actual reality, but what we can perceive isn't stranger than a camera able to capture light into a specific value structure that represents a snapshot of how light particles bounced around in the moment of registration. How our minds interpret that isn't stranger than a computer program crosschecking statistics against a reference archive that has been formed by previous snapshots.
In essence, our minds function identically to how these new AI systems do. Not in self-awareness, but in their core functions of crosschecking data input against stored data.
Quoting Bob Ross
That sounds more like a dissonance between accepting that blur of reality and our minds desperately trying to categorize reality. This categorization in our cognition that helps us navigate reality through time also makes it hard for us to conceptualize past it and think in purely abstract ways. Because it is hard coded into our ability to function properly.
It may be that some mental disorders tamper with this core function of cognition and makes us unable to function. We could interpret H.P Lovecraft's cosmic horror in this way when people in his stories come to a higher level of understanding of reality they go absolutely insane.
I think that arguments that try to distinguish reality from our perception in a "do a tree fall in the woods if no one is observing it" way, is rather an error from how our minds functions. That our perception relies on an internal categorization of reality and that to fully understand it we instead require imagination based on understanding scientific data. Otherwise, we get caught in an internal conceptualizing loop.
Quoting Bob Ross
I would argue that it happens in the same way as any other complex system going hyper-complex as a holistic system.
Think of an ecosystem. The specific species, plants, and animals within this system are extremely complex organisms in themselves. Even the most basic bacterial system at a microscopic part of this system can have millions of complex bonds and interactions. Scientists have simulated such bacterial spaces perfectly with super-computers, which tells you just how complex such systems are even when we describe them as "simple" in relative terms. Now, take this small bacterial system and go larger, observe how it relates to its surroundings. Now you have a complex bacterial system that has exponentially become more complex just by zooming out and looking at its closest relation and bonds to other parts around it, and we might have only zoomed out to a square centimeter around it.
Now zoom out to observe the entire ecosystem. The hyper-complexity of it is so vast that we have no possible way to conceptualize it all in all that complexity. We witness it in simplified ways and observe the emergent properties of this system, how large pools of animals, plants, water, and geography ebb and flow through it.
This is how we observe our perception and cognition as well. We see the entire ecosystem and observe it in simplified ways in the form of emergent movements and behaviors. We cannot conceptualize or see the hyper-complexity and therefore we have trouble concluding "how it formed". But just as an ecosystem forms by these ebbs and flows, finding an equilibrium in which they function as a balanced system in relation to reality, so does our cognition. The emergent aspects of cognition take on the form of such simple things as our ability to see and interpret visual sensory data into a representation of reality, but the underlying complexity of both registering that visual data and interpreting it is within a hyper-complex system.
It is simply that emergent consequences form when a complex system reaches hyper-complexity. We see it in every complex system in the universe and since our brain and body is part of this universe we are part of this complexity reaching hyper-complexity. An animal brain is extremely complex, but when that complexity reaches a certain level, the hyper-complexity starts to form emergent abilities.
The key here is that instead of looking inwards to try to understand these emergent properties, we need to observe other places where complexity exists and see such behaviors over time. If we agree that there aren't any religious and supernatural aspects of reality, then we are part of nature/reality and we function the same as all other organic matter around us.
Quoting Bob Ross
I don't think so. What I'm describing is how reality fits together and how we perceive the separation between objects as just part of our cognition's way of making us able to navigate reality. The universe could be an infinite loop or it could be part of a larger system of inflating bubbles of universes. The problem with speaking of concepts outside our universe is that if spacetime and our laws of physics are different there, we have less ability to describe them in a way we can conceptualize. I.e we need to conceptualize through pure abstraction that still holds on to how scientific data predicts back to before the big bang. It means that we need to let go even more of our mind's way of categorizing reality and embrace abstract perspectives, while still keeping us rooted to the data that we have.
It might be that we need to go absolutely insane while still being sane in order to conceptualize it correctly. Even this sentence referring to it as "it" is less abstract than it needs to be and we may have problems even communicating about these concepts since our language is part of the same categorizing principles as the rest of our cognition.
Quoting Bob Ross
In relation to what I wrote above, our consciousness is a hyper-complex ecosystem that is self-aware of being such and this self-awareness is part of the emerging abilities out of this system. But just as an ecosystem, if we were able to trace back how each microscopic complex component function in itself and describe all of the exponential potential connections, relations, and bonds to other components, we would be able to observe just how consciousness works and why the emergent abilities formed and how. But just as an ecosystem, we know a lot about it, and we can even predict and experiment on parts of it with certain results... but forming a perfect holistic view of the entire system with its exponential relations and bonds might be such a colossal undertaking that we need a computer the size of the universe to be able to do it in perfect detail.
I think that the key is that researchers aren't primarily studying the holistic aspect of our brain/body, we look too heavily into detailed parts of us trying to find consciousness when consciousness might only exist with all parts as a whole. Just like when we look at a video on our phones and we experience the result of the holistic system of a phone that cannot be taken apart and still be able to show that video in the way that we experience it, it is the sum of it that produces the ability, not some part, or a few parts, but the whole system, the holistic entity.
Us trying to decode consciousness is akin to an alien trying to decode how an iPhone works. They observe it playing a video and they are going through a deconstruct of all its parts, but they cannot find where the sum of it is, because the sum requires every part to function in relations and bonds to each other. Where a phone could be able to be deconstructed in that way, due to its binary simplicity, our consciousness isn't a binary system, and as such the hyper-complexity is a far greater challenge to be decoded.
This is exactly why dualism is called for. All is not one mind. My mind is separate from yours, as your ideas are separate from mine. So we need to assume a medium of separation, which is commonly called "matter". Matter does not exist within the mind because if it did the boundary between your mind and my mind would be dissolved and we would be one mind. Therefore matter is necessarily external to mind.
Since this is the defining feature of matter, that it is the boundary, divisor, or medium between individual minds, and it therefore cannot be within any mind, it is necessary to conclude that the mind is immaterial. Furthermore, since matter is necessarily outside the mind, it constitutes that part of reality which is unintelligible to us. Therefore to dismiss dualism is to allow in principle, that matter is within the mind, thereby creating the illusion that the unintelligible is intelligible. So allowing matter into the mind is to allow contradiction to penetrate (dialectical materialism for example). This act of denying dualism, which is to allow this principle, matter, into the mind, is to cultivate confusion and self-deception.
So .anything I said find a place in your analytic idealism?
Yes, property dualism (or reflexive monism) but not unparsimonious substance dualism.
:fire:
It is merely a claim. It is not a theoretical or metaphysical issue, but an actual practical one. Your metaphysical assumptions are an impediment.
Quoting Bob Ross
This is nonsense. First, Aristotle's physics rests on its own metaphysical assumptions. Second, if you want to hamstring science by requiring it to adhere to the authority of Aristotle, you are too late. If Aristotle were alive today his physics would look quite different.
Quoting Bob Ross
So, first you fault science for smuggling in metaphysics and then appeal to metaphysical theories. The fact of the matter is that advances being made in neuroscience do not get tangled up in metaphysical questions of substance monism, dualism, pluralism.
Quoting Bob Ross
No. I am arguing that the claim that the universe is experiential in essence is, as I said, not something we experience or know. Speculative ontology is not something I take seriously beyond its limited entertainment value.
We can be more specific. We meet on the bank of the Concord River where Thoreau hunted for rocks for his collection. We find two stones, formed millions of years ago, one smooth and round, the other rough and jagged. We place them in the river and watch. The smooth stone will be carried along by the current, the jagged one will catch and snag. Although we observe what happens, it does not follow that the stones do not have a shape unless observed. It is because of their shape that one is carried along and the other snags.
Thank you Wayfarer, it is kind of you to attempt to clarify. Also, a fun story! I am well aware of this general idea, the problem is it is plainly false. I don't want to argue here and derails Bob Ross's fine thread, but in general such challenges to accepted theory are fun to consider when first entering philosophy, but are eventually solved.
Quoting Wayfarer
Its not that its hard to accept, its just wrong. When such arguments are examined in depth on their own merit, and not merely through the lens of challenging the status quo, a whole host of conflicts, ill defined vocabulary, and issues come up that collapse the idea in on itself completely. As such, I cannot consider any such argument on its terms without it clearly demonstrating a strong and unambiguous vocabulary and logic.
Glad to hear names like Kastrup coming up in this medium!
It's the first time since about two years ago when I joined TPF ...
Now, you have touched quite a few subjects, concepts/notions and areas in your description of your topic. So I would llike to know where does "What are your thoughts" refer to. From a few replies I read from other people, they don't seem to have such a "problem". But I have! :smile:
This is not true that idealism has been 'solved' or refuted generally. There are quite a few people of scientific bent, of whom Bernardo Kastrup is one, who have made detailed arguments for philosophical idealism, which have not been refuted.
When discussing these matters, just be aware that your physicalist views are not supported by philosophical argument, but are simply expressions of your 'gut feel' as to what can and can't be true. Incredulity is not itself an argument.
Quoting Fooloso4
The example you're giving takes 'the objective' as independently real - independently, that is, of any judgement or perception on our part, and imputes self-evidence to it. The basic argument remains: look, these stones are far older than our minds, how can you say they don't exist independently of our perception of them? They were around millions of years before anyone perceived them.
But idealism does not necessarily call the empirical reality of objects into question. It's not saying that the world is only 'in the mind' (although certainly Berkeley can be interpreted as saying that, which is why, in the second edition of the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant added a section distinguishing his philosophy from what he called the 'problematic idealism' of Berkeley.)
What idealism, analytic or transcendental, is drawing attention to, is that the mind creates the framework within which our judgements about the stone (or any object) are meaningful. Schopenhauer, for example, published an early book, On Vision and Colors, which is his analysis, based on the neuroscience of his day, of how the brain synthesises visual data to generate color cognition. The basic outlines of what he said have been abundantly confirmed by later science. Cognitive and evolutionary psychology have revealed that conscious perception, while subjectively appearing to exist as a steady continuum, is actually composed of a heirarchical matrix of interacting cellular transactions, commencing at the most basic level with the parasympathetic system which controls ones respiration, digestion, and so on, up through various levels to culminate in that specifically human ability of rational thought (and beyond, although this is beyond the scope of current science and a matter of controversy.)
Consciousness plays the central role in co-ordinating these diverse activities so as to give rise to the sense of continuity which we call ourselves and also the coherence and reality of the world of appearance. Yet it is important to realise that the naïve sense in which we understand ourselves and the objects of our perception to exist is dependent upon the constructive activities of our consciousness, most of which are unknown to us. We have no more knowledge of them than we do of cell division or of our hair growing or our food digesting.
When we perceive something - large, small, alive or inanimate, local or remote - there is a considerable amount of work involved in creating the object from the raw material of perception. Your eyes receive the lightwaves reflected or emanated from it, your mind synthesises the image with regards to all of the other stimuli impacting your senses at that moment acknowledging it or ignoring it depending on how busy you are; your memory will then compare it to other objects you have seen, from whence you will recall its name, and perhaps know something about it ('star', 'tree', 'frog', etc - this is the process of 'apperception').
And you will do all of this without you even noticing that you are doing it; it is largely unconscious.
In other words, your consciousness is not the passive recipient of sensory objects which exist irrespective of your perception of them. Instead, your consciousness is an active agent which constructs experiential reality - partially on the basis of sensory input, but also on the basis of a huge number of unconscious processes, including memories, intentions and cultural frameworks. This is how we arrive at what Schopenhauer designates as 'vorstellung', variously translated as 'representation' or 'idea'. And that is what reality consists of. It includes the object, but it is not in itself an object. As Schopenhauer says in the first paragraph of WWI, discerning this fact is the beginning of philosophical wisdom.
Quoting Christoffer
Their remains no scientific account of which neural systems are able to generate the subjective unity of experience. See The Subjective Unity of Perception in a paper on the Neural Binding Problem. He notes that the problem posed by David Chalmers in his paper Facing Up to the Hard Problem of Concsiousness, remains 'intractable'.
This is a very rich and fascinating subject to me. It seems to me that phenomenology appreciates this approach. There's a salient quote by Dan Zahavi:
The stone either moves along with the current or not. This happens whether we observe it or not. Whether or not it happens depends on its shape. In another example:
According to the NIH
We are able to describe this shape based on observation, but the shape is independent of observation and judgment.
In the quote you referred to, I was speaking more about our ability to conceptualize something that might be outside of reality as we know it and unable to be conceptualized or communicated about in a way that enables us to understand it.
I addressed consciousness and our subjective experience here:
Quoting Christoffer
Which is more about how our subjective experience, perception, and cognition might be emergent factors that we can never find because they're emergent out of the whole body/mind configuration. The hyper-complexity of the sum of us is so complex that these emergent parts seem almost magical, but in comparison with an ecosystem, we can observe emergent things because of such hyper-complexity.
The point is, we cannot find "us" inside of us. We are the holistic summary of what we are. Take away parts of me and I will remain, but at a certain point, I am no more, and crossing that border may not be so clear cut.
You haven't addressed the argument, but I have a sense that nothing further can be added.
Which is pretty what the Phaedo and other ancient sources imply in the analogy of 'the soul as the harmony of parts'.
On the contrary, sir for example, (my preferred "scientific account") Being No One (or its non-technical synopsis The Ego Tunnel) by the neuroscientist, philosopher & (afaik) practicing Buddhist Thomas Metzinger. I'm sure I've cited him and his works many times in our exchanges over the years, but apparently you're still incorrigibly stuck on your 'idealist' dogma. :sparkle:
Incidentally, there is a Mah?y?na Buddhist school called Vijñ?vada or Yog?c?ra, which is often compared to Western idealist philosophy, although with some caveats.
Quoting Wikipedia
And that in my post, which you describe as 'incorrigibly idealistic':
Quoting Wayfarer
(There's a video lecture from Metzinger here, which I will find time for later. Interesting that this was filmed at a Krishnamurti Foundation conference.)
You are incorrect Wayfarer. Idealism, in the sense that there is no proof of something outside of our perception, has been refuted. My views are 100% supported by both philosophical, empirical, and scientific evidence. It is not about incredulity or gut feeling. This is not the thread for it, but if you wish to create a Bernardo Kastrup thread to prove your point, I'll join you there.
Citations, please. (A lot rides on the meaning of 'outside' in this statement!)
Quoting Philosophim
On the contrary:
Quoting Bob Ross
Quoting Wayfarer
But the paper I linked to shows that science can't identify which neural mechanism provides for what we experience as a subjective unity. It acknowledges that while there are plausible accounts for the 'stable world illusion', it goes on to say:
Capiche?
I am addressing this claim:
Quoting Charles Pinter, Mind and the Cosmic Order
That is simply not true. It is trivially obvious unless observed we cannot know or say what that shape is, but shape is intrinsic to stones and the COVID virus and countless other things. We observe that things fit together based on their shape, or move as they do because of their shape, or interact with other things because of their shape, but if they didn't the world would be nothing like it is. You might object that we could not know or say that anything is if not perceived, but this gets things backwards. There would be nothing to perceive if nothing existed.
:100:
Chalmer's language was more directed to reductive models. We don't know what is 'physical' but we can make models based upon what is observed. So, it is only a problem if it is interesting that consciousness has properties that other phenomena do not, as explored through scientific models.
Another passage from that book might help to amplify the point. He refers to Gestalts, having previously discussed how the mind instinctively grasps objects as meaningful wholes, or gestalts.
Imagine putting three pennies on the table in a triangular pattern, as suggested below:
[quote=Pinter, Charles. Mind and the Cosmic Order (pp. 43-44). Springer International Publishing. Kindle Edition] In perception, the threesome of pennies has its own identity, separate from that of the individual coins: For instance, the threesome has a triangular appearance in our eyes. Does the threesome exist as a separate unit in the mind-independent world? Are there three things in the world (namely the three coins) or are there four things (the individual coins and the threesome-of-coins)? This is not an easy or trivial question, for it depends on what you understand by "existing". If existence is limited to the material, then you have only three things, because no new material is added when the threesome is formed. However, if reality were limited to what is material, there would be no such things as structure or form, because they neither add to, nor take away from matter. The threesome of coins is a separate reality for us because it has a separate quality in perception. What is there in the mind-independent world to make it something separate? What is there in the material world to make any Gestalt group of objects exist on its own merits, over and above the individual objects in it? There are groups of objects that come together naturally. Think of a table: It has five parts, namely a horizontal top and four legs. However, the table has a proper function which is only achieved by the whole. The same idea applies to living animals, which have numerous organs that work together and jointly make the animal. What distinguishes these examples is that the composite object depends functionally on its parts. It exists only as a dynamic combination of its components. There are many other systems of objects in the world that interact naturally, and by their interaction form cohesive groups. For instance, the planets revolve around the sun and interact gravitationally, thus forming a planetary system. However, material systems which belong together because they function as a unit are few and far between. In contrast with functionally related groups of things, there are innumerable random groups of objects which are nothing more than chance combinations, without purpose. Hypothetically, every collection of objects could be separated out of its background and assigned an identity as a group, in which case everything would be a Gestalt. If that were the case, the very notion of Gestalt would be meaningless. This shows that a Gestalt is more than an arbitrary joining together of objects. There must be a reason, a purpose, for bringing particular things together and taking them to form a coherent whole. But in the mind-independent universe, there are no such things as reasons and purposes. We are led to conclude that it requires a living subject to mentally extract a dynamic group of objects from a background in which it is deeply embedded, and make it stand out as something existing.[/quote]
The form this takes is not something intrinsic to the objects, but is inferred by the mind. The larger argument is that consciousness continuously structures experience this way - as the quote about Thomas Metzinger says:
Your argument is similar to the 'argumentum ad lapidem' of Samuel Johnson based on the instinctive assumption of the independent reality of objects of perception.
Hello 180 Proof,
I appreciate your elaboration: let me try to understand it better and respond hopefully adequately.
Although I may be misunderstanding you, one, under analytic idealism, does not only know ideas: it is that ontologically reality is fundamentally ideas. Our entire phenomenal experience is not directly ideas but, rather, the representation of them (e.g., I can know of a tree which is a representation of ideas, however the representation is different phenomenally from the ideas which are represented). There is a dashboard and that which the dashboard represents, so to speak. Perhaps you quoted knows to denote something in particular?
Our minds (as alters) are not ideas under analytic idealism: non-minds are. Thusly, there is only a nominal distinction between non-mind objects in phenomenal experience, but there is a concrete distinction between minds.
According to analytic idealism (or at least Kastrups version) is that the we are disassociated alters of a universal mind. We are concretely distinct as there is a disassociated barrier between (obviously not in a strict spatial sense) us: we are fundamentally made up of the universal mind and are a part of it (as alters).
Are you saying that, under the conditions you set, each mind in relation to the other is really just a property of the other (and thusly really just illusory or what not)?
Although, in light of what I stated previously about those conditions you set, I dont think I would accept (assuming I am even remotely representing your argument correctly) the consequent simply because I dont accept the antecedent (as minds are not ideas, etc.); however, I grant that is seems as though the inference (if one accepts the antecedent) holds.
I would like to just clarify that solipsism is not just the view that there is one mind but rather that it is ones mind. It is not the idea that we are separate, distinct minds (as alters) which are comprised fundamentally of one mind. If that were the case, then solipsism loses literally every argument and conclusion thats ever been leveraged in its name.
Bob
Hello Philosophim,
Absolutely no worries my friend! I can relate to the conceptual bubbles between physicalist and idealist metaphysics (regardless of which is right), as I it made no sense to me initially either (since I was thinking of it in light of physicalist metaphysics, and that doesnt transfer nicely for considering idealism). If you ever think of anything would like to say, then please always feel free to message me! I always enjoy our conversations.
Agreed.
Bob
Hello Janus,
A hard problem in philosophy of mind is an irreconcilable problem for the metaphysical theory in question, whereas a soft problem is a reconcilable (but not yet solved) problem. A hard problem is still a problem (even though it cant be solved): it just means that is a much more damaging problem to the metaphysical theory (when compared to soft problems). It means more epistemic cost for holding it.
Yes there is an alternative explanation (in fact, there are many): idealist will argue that the brain states are extrinsic representations of the mental states. Substance dualism argues they are two independent things. Physicalists argue that the mental state is an intrinsic (or extrinsic depending on how one wants to view there qualia) representation of brain states. The hard problem is only a hard problem for physicalists, and different views (like idealism and substance dualism) attempt to provide a metaphysical theory that be rid us of the problem.
Bob
"Reductive models" are models constructed in terms of causal relations as I understand it. It is not a matter of "knowing" what is physical but of stipulating; what is physical is what we can either directly observe or observe the effects of.
I agree that it is only a problem if the naively apparent properties of consciousness that might make it seem non-physical (according to the above criteria) are thought to be significant in some ontological way, or, as you say, "interesting".
Hello Christoffer,
Firstly, I wanted to thank you for the wonderful post! I can tell you put a lot of thought and effort into it: I respect that and am grateful! With that being said, let me try to respond as adequately as I can.
I agreed with you until this point. This is where metaphysics (I would argue comes in), because you are not merely claiming that science demonstrates that such behave as though there is a separation of molecular structures but that, in fact, they are such (which would entail that they are mind-independent). Idealism partially entails (I would say) scientific anti-realism (or at least quasi-anti-realism): there may really be the molecular structures phenomenally (viz., that we would expect to experience them if we could use a powerful enough measuring tool, which is still consciousness-dependent) but they do not exist noumenally (viz., there isnt those molecular structures in the thing-in-itself): they are extrinsic representations of mentality.
This is why sometimes you will here Kastrups analytic idealism called a form of non-dualism, because he holds that matter still exists, but it is the representation of mentality (and so the latter is actually fundamental). We still expect to see an atom if we could zoom in that far, but it is just another extrinsic representation on our dashboard of experience like the tree outside. So, I think an idealist is committed to at least a weaker interpretation of science, whereas physicalism typically has a stronger realist position that the atom we infer exists mind-independently.
My point was that science is not in the business of ontology: it only tells us how things relate better. In other words, it gives a great map, but speaks nothing of the territory. Now, metaphysics is concerned with what exists ontologically (e.g., is everything a part of a physical substance? Mental substance? Both? Neither? Etc.). Physicalists, for example, are typically going to disagree with my science gives a map not the territory claim because they metaphysically claim a very strong scientific realism (but this takes nothing away that there claim is metaphysical and not scientific, this is why neuroscientists can do their job without thinking twice about the hard problem of consciousness: it has nothing to do with their job intrinsically).
Einsteins field equations, which pertain to the map of reality, have been empirically verified. On top of that, einstein posited a scientific theory that the best explanation is that there really is a space-time fabric. This is now a claim about the territory, and is going to utterly depend on ones metaphysical commitments whether they agree with Einstein on that point or not. The fact that the field equations give us more precise, quantified predictions of the behavior of objects phenomenally does not tell us that he is right about his metaphysics (although one can certainly make that metaphysical stand with Einstein if they want).
Hopefully, the above provides some clarification. The idea of whether there actually is a space-time fabric (which would be mind-independent) is a totally different claim than the field equations (which are laws, not a theory) that have been verified. Yes, one may metaphysically believe that the best explanation is that there is really is a space-time fabric: but that is metaphysics not the physics involved (where the latter is supplementing the former).
I completely agree, and I agree with the paragraph before that one (I just wanted to save some space).
I wouldnt say it is completely inaccurate, I would just say that it isnt 100% accurate. Under analytic idealism, the information is fairly accurate, but the representations obviously arent the real things (as they are ideas).
Although I think you are coming at it from the angle of physicalism (which is fine), I still agree with you that objects are only nominally distinct (however, I would not include our bodies in that, which I would imagine you might).
Maybe I am misunderstanding you, but wouldnt you say that the tree does still fall however the tree and its falling does not exist in the manner that we perceive it? To me it is incorrect to think that the information pertaining to the tree falling is perception-dependent: there is something that is objectively being represented by the tree falling even if it is just swarms of particles or what not: would you agree?
I am failing to see the conceptual loop you refer to: could you elaborate?
To me, I dont think you actually explained. Dont get me wrong, I think you did a fantastic job of elaborating on your view: but I dont think it solved the problem.
I think you still have the problem of explaining qualitative experience, and so far (although correct me if I am wrong) you seem to have just obscurely noted that it essentially occurs the same as all of evolution (or organic processes): simplicity turns into hyper-complexity over billions if not trillions of years. This doesnt explain how a brain produces consciousness, and I would add reducing it to physical phenomenon always has an explanatory gap between mechanical awarenss and qualitative experience.
My problem is that we can know that we cant reduce mental states to brain states, so this kind of traditional naturalistic reductionism doesnt work.
I agree in the sense that we are a part of one natural world, but not that we are ontologically comprised of matter: matter is the extrinsic representation, on our dashboard, of mentality (under idealism).
To me, this is just an obscure explanation to try to account for the irreconcilable problem of consciousness for physicalism. Could you elaborate perhaps in more detail about how that process would work?
Bob
Hello Mww,
To be honest, I still cant say confidently that I see how those are the categories of ones mind (in the sense that it produces phenomenal experience). I can get on board with the idea that our minds produce the representations according to space and time (as the pure forms of experience)(but not as completely a priori certain how they are going to behave), but I am not entirely convinced of how exactly minds produce phenomena. So I am not against it, but I would need more information on the proofs for how it works. I read Kant and I didnt think he really did a good job of arguing for the categories.
Bob
Hello Fooloso4,
I am unsure as to what you mean here: could you please elaborate? The hard problem of consciousness is absolutely a metaphysical problem, as it pertains solely to metaphysics and has nothing to do with science.
What assumptions?
Science proper tells us how things relate (i.e., it gives a map), it does not do ontology (i.e., tells the territory). I only brought up Aristotle not to import his entire philosophy but rather to give reference to the old, traditional sense of what physics means (which is now called science). I am not importing his philosophy by noting that.
Philosophy of mind is metaphysics, which is what we are discussing right now. We are not discussing science (although it can come up as a supplement). Metaphysics is not physics. Yes, science should not be in the business of ontology: so I do think it is a fault if a scientist tries to smuggle in metaphysics into their job.
Correct, because science isnt metaphysics. The hard problem is consciousness is a metaphysical issue for a metaphysical theory called physicalism. Neuroscience (and science in general) is not synonymous with physicalism: the latter is a metaphysical theory, the former is physics (in the traditional sense of the term: science).
What counts as speculative ontology? To you, is that all of ontology? Are there any aspects that you would consider valid?
Do you consider metaphysics valid at all?
Firstly, again, we dont experience that the world is physical either: we infer it from the data as allegedly the best general account of the territory. So theres nothing wrong (I would say) with inferring things based off of experience. Also, this is what is done in many areas of science and every day life (e.g., I havent seen bacteria, but I infer from my experience that there are germs).
Secondly, I am claiming we can know that the best general account the territory is idealism: it sounds like you dont think that claim is substantiated. I can go into further detail about it if you would like, but essentially it is a collective argument that idealism explains the data most parsimoniously without losing explanatory power (that is generally offered to physicalism).
Bob
Hello Alkis Piskas,
I appreciate your response!
I suspect most people on this forum are physicalists or at least not idealists (;
Any thoughts you may have pertaining to this subject. Please feel free to share them! I enjoy hearing everyones perspectives.
Are you referring to the hard problem of consciousness? If so (or honestly even if not), I would love to hear your thoughts!
Bob
Btw, I'm not going to "explain" anything science related to you especially re: cognitive science given your repeatedly demonstrated misunderstandings of modern natural science as somehow, you quixotically believe, corroborate your idealist-mystical (i.e. supernaturalist) worldview. I dispute your claims with actual facts or sound arguments when I can and let our disagreements stand for others to interpret.
Could you put the "hard problem" in question form please? The question needs to have an acceptable answer, by my lights. So, if you could formulate a question that has a potential/possible answer that you would find satisfactory, it would be super helpful. I want to make sure we're on the same page.
If there are many minds and many mental states, and they are not connected with one another, then how to explain the unarguable fact that we experience the same things in the same environments? I don't deny that the way we perceive things is peculiar to humans because our brains and perceptual organs are constituted in the same ways, and in ways more or less similar to animals. But other animals, judging from their behavior, perceive the same things we do in the same locations that we do, which suggests that there are real structures there, which are independent of being perceived. Have you ever witnessed a bird trying to land on the branch of a tree that you could not see?
The hard problem is only a problem for physicalists if they presume that consciousness is not physical, and/ or that the emergence of consciousness in certain kinds of complex physical structures is impossible. The subjective "feel" of conscious experience is not available to third person observation, so it is not the business of science to explain it. Why should we think that everything whatsoever can be explained in terms of physical models?
The philosophical issue is not scientific per se. Analytical idealism is not anti-scientific. It's anti-materialist.
Much appreciated Bob, the same extends your way. You are a credit to these forums and it is always a pleasure thinking with you!
Don't forget to kick a rock too.
Your post is a metaphorical rock kick at me. If you feel I am wrong, start a new thread demonstrating that what I have stated is refuted, is not. I'll discuss with you there.
It's an interesting paper, with lots to consider, but settled science, it ain't.
What's that? :roll:
"Shape", or as having a "shape", or being "shaped", is how we represent things. The "shape", in appearance, as an image, or phenomenon, is itself a representation, a sense representation. The shape, or sense representation is then further understood by the mind through the application of geometrical figures.
Obviously, the supposed independent object is nothing like the representation or "shape" of the sense image, as high powered microscopes have revealed to us. And so, we have the obvious further problem of what is the real "shape" of the object. Is it the shape derived from the image of directly seeing? Is it the shape seen under a high powered microscope? Or is it a indescribable shape like quantum physics shows us?
So, we have all sorts of different "shapes" to choose from, for description of the very same supposed independent object, depending on one\s spatial-temporal perspective. Since all these various shapes are valid, right down to and including the non-descript shape of quantum physics, we ought to conclude that there is really no specifiable "shape" which is intrinsic to the proposed independent object.
By Aristotle's law of identity the "form" that the thing has, which is proper to the the thing itself, as its true identity, is separate and distinct from the "form" which we assign to the thing. The form we assign to the thing is its "shape", which is supported by geometric figures. The form which the thing really has, as its true identity, proper and unique to itself only, is a type of actuality which we cannot apprehend through sensation and spatial "shapes".
In my view :
Subjective Idealism and solipsism aren't ideas, but a tautological understanding that the meaning of all propositions is ultimately reducible to whatever is perceived or thought in the first-person at the end of the day.
Naturalism isn't an idea, but an understanding that the meaning of inter-subjectively valid propositions, such as those concerning the properties of natural kinds, cannot be identified with particular thoughts and experiences of the first person. For this reason, scientific naturalists talk about meaning in terms of potential experiences through the use of conditionals, counterfactual analysis , and perspectivally invariant abstract properties.
But this shouldn't be taken to imply that naturalism discounts experience as being it's semantic foundation - after all, naturalists pride themselves for judging the validity and soundness of their theories in terms of empirical evidence. And every naturalist must determine for themselves how they should privately cognize the inter-subjective propositions expressed by their fellow community. The assumption that naturalists can relate to their subject matter implicitly appeals to the existence of semantic "bridging" rules for converting the inter-subjective representations of naturalistic language into phenomenal first-person understanding.
So i don't consider Naturalism and solipsism or idealism to be incompatible per-se. I see them as comprising different semantic aspects of thought and language. Nonetheless, their logics are radically different, lending to the false impression of conflict.
E.g "Being is perception" is an unavoidable tautology of non-representational idealism that is necessarily appealed to whenever an observer interprets a physical proposition in terms of his personal experiences (regardless of whether he self-identifies as an idealist) .
On the other hand, "perception is representation" is an unavoidable tautology of naturalism for universalising intersubjective semantics in an abstract fashion that isn't dependent upon the perceptual judgements of any particular observer.
Taken together, "Being is Perception" and "Perception is Representation" don't necessarily imply that "Being is Representation", as is often naively assumed by materialists, if one understands these principles as referring to different and non-overlapping aspects of semantics.
Quoting Bob Ross
Kastrup attempts to answer this through 2 similar metaphors in Why Materialism is Baloney : The Whirlpool and The Membrane.
Quoting Bob Ross
To do that, our whole language and logic should go through a transformation and even then it can not give an account of reality all the way.
So a metaphysical theory can never be wholly because of the nature of "theory".
The way our mind works is materialistic which means dualistic and it can only explain something within space-time meanwhile the fundamental reality must be beyond space-time /or spaceless-timeless.
It is not coincidence that in all traditional metaphysics you see the theme: The truth that is spoken is no longer the truth.
I am certain about that. I have conducted a Yes/No poll on "Does thinking take place in the humanbrain?" and 80% answered "Yes". About the same time, I launched a discussion "You are not your body!" and had the same kind of response. I never tried again, of course to raise such issues! :smile:
Quoting Bob Ross
I see. OK. As a first response, I find "analytic idealism" very interesting and quite plausible as a theory. But I don't agree with Kastrup on a couple of important points and I also find a few "wholes", i.e. important things that are missing from his theory or theories. I had tried a lot to find answers about them but I couldn't. E.g. he talks so much about "in consciousness" and I have never found a piece of information about what he thinks/believes consciousness is. No description at all. Then, he maintains that the "self" is an illusion. But then he connects it to the "ego", i.e. the "constructed self", which of course is an illusion. But then I have never heard from him describe what the individual himself, as a unit of awareness, i.e. the "I" or "YOU", stripped from any additives, is. This is certainly not an illusion!
These things are very important and they must be always expressed and clarified. Major Eastern philosophers and Western philosophers based on Eastern philosophy, always do that. With axamples and repetitions and everything. Sometimes to an annoying point! :smile: But are never left with question marks. The are very practical. And you can apply what they say immediately in life. You can have the experience of what is being said. You are not left with your mind full of concepts and no actual reality, knowledge.
See, the hunderds of "-isms" we have in Western philosophy clearly show that. They are all at the level of the mind, of concepts. And "analytic idealism" is one of them. As all the other kinds of idealism, physicalism, dualism, and so on and so on.
So, at a conscptual level, I like "analytic idealism" more than other system, esp. because of the term "analytic" which alludes to logic, reasoning, and ssystems analysis in general. (BTW, in my computer programming profession, I have worked also as a "software analyst"! :grin:)
Quoting Bob Ross
No. This is a topic by itself. And a huge one! :smile:
(I have expressed my views on this subject in here a few moths ago ...)
Agreed, but with respect to the case at hand, the form of the perceived, but as yet undetermined, object, is not the same as the shape of it, which is its extension in space and belongs to the object alone.
-
On Pinter: objects in an unobserved universe have no shape.
For we as humans, an object, whether observed or not, to have no shape makes explicit there is no extension in a space for it, which presupposes the unobserved universe is not itself a space, an inference for which there is no logical justification.
That experience is sufficient to grant us the authority to say what an observed object is, we are not thereby authorized to conceptualize what the unobserved is not.
-
Omnibus-ing can be fun.
On the unity of subjective experience:
Lets do some real science. Lets hook up a nifty machine, expressly constructed to measure neural correlates relating perception of your favorite breakfast meal and the pleasure you get from it, to a material manifestation. What you should see is a graph or an oscope pattern, so big or modulated or whatever for this degree of taste, lesser or something else for that degree.
Oh but wait a New York (CityUniversity) minute .neural correlates are on the nano-scale, but the probes attached to the machine are mini-scale. Dammit, thats just not gonna work, youll wreck the very neurons youre trying to get a measurement from. Ahhh so just quantum-ize the probes, insert them into this pathway, then that pathway, or better yet, insert a whole boatload of em in all sorts of pathways just to find out which one actually reads out as bittersweet, but slightly overcooked.
But first, solve or disregard the observer problem whereby merely inserting the probes disrupts the influence of the natural components on each other .
Well, crap on a cracker, Mr. Bill. Theres no scope ever possible to build that will read out as bittersweet but slightly overcooked, but only as representing 140 phosphorous ions across a 56pm cleft under 12nv activation potential.
And there ya go. Your love of scrambled eggs is nothing but 140 ions, etc, on this probe, too much pepper on that probe, put only this much jelly on the toast on still another, and so on, and on and on.
If you find that uncomfortable, and who wouldnt with all those probes, lets use dyes of different colors then all you have to do is suffer the needles. Now youre see red dye where bittersweet is and blue dye where overcooked is, and youve got your breakfast experience in multicolored science. Yea. Wonderful.
Screw it. Magnetic imaging? Ultrasonic vibration? Some new and unproven futuristic space-age gizmo? Wont make one whit of difference. For any scientific methodology, youll get nothing but what that method gives you, but it will never ever give you what you give yourself.
To quote my ol AM radio (remember AM radio? Anybody?) buddy Paul Harvey, and now you know the REESSSSSTTTT of the story.
(Sigh)
He argued only enough to suit the overall purpose. All he needed to do in justifying a systemic conclusion (the possibility for human empirical knowledge), is demonstrate the necessity of a certain set of antecedent conditions. Its just a simple if this then that logical construct.
Speculative metaphysics writ large.
And the counter-argument is that because things are different they interact in different ways. We can observe this and describe this but these interactions occur whether we identify them or not.
Quoting Wayfarer
The pattern formed by three pennies is different than an object with three spikes that latches on to the three receptors of another object. So, yes, we make connections but it does not follow that things do not have structure and are not connected to other things based on their structures. Structural biology is a good example. At various levels living organisms have structure. Consciousness can identify these structures but consciousness does not make them. If they did not have these structures there would not be living organisms.
The question of why and how biological functions give rise to experience has everything to do with science! Blocking such inquiry because it does not fit your metaphysical assumptions is the metaphysical, that is, conceptual problem.
Quoting Bob Ross
Start with the title of this thread.
Quoting Bob Ross
Metaphysical questions are raised in the philosophy of mind, but if your metaphysics excludes scientific inquiry then it is a dead end. It is embodied minds that we must deal with, and so science is not merely a "supplement". It is fundamental to the inquiry. We do not have to take a stand on physicalism. We do not have to decide whether or not mental states are physical states, but we should not exclude the physical organism out of some metaphysical conviction.
Quoting Bob Ross
The question of being is a philosophical question, but that does not mean that science, which deals with actual beings, is excluded from ontological inquiry. Although the term had yet to be invented, Aristotle is a good example of how one does not exclude the other but form a whole.
Quoting Bob Ross
Right, we don't experience that the world is physical, our experience includes things that are physical.
Quoting Bob Ross
How is the data transmitted to us if not physically?
:up:
Do you think the mind is a product of such physical interactions?
I am not able to give a full blown theory of mind, but will say that I think there is more to it than just physical interactions.
I have a reference which is originally from an essay about Buddhist philosophy but which provides, I think, a useful summary of the background of the debate between idealism and materialism (with some comments added in parentheses).
[quote=Dan Lusthaus; http://www.acmuller.net/yogacara/articles/intro.html] The Term 'Idealism'
The term "Idealism" came into vogue roughly during the time of Kant (though it was used earlier by others, such as Leibniz) to label one of two trends that had emerged in reaction to Cartesian philosophy. Descartes had argued that there were two basic yet separate substances in the universe: Extension (the material world of things in space) and Thought (the world of mind and ideas). Subsequently opposing camps took one or the other substance as their metaphysical foundation, treating one as the primary substance while reducing the other to derivative status. Materialists argued that only matter was ultimately real, so that thought and consciousness derived from physical entities (chemistry, brain states, etc.). Idealists countered that the mind and its ideas were ultimately real, and that the physical world derived from mind (e.g., the mind of God, Berkeley's esse est percipi, or from ideal prototypes, etc.). Materialists gravitated toward mechanical, physical explanations for why and how things existed, while Idealists tended to look for purposes - moral as well as rational - to explain existence. Idealism meant "idea-ism," frequently in the sense Plato's notion of "ideas" (eidos) was understood at the time, namely ideal types that transcended the physical, sensory world and provided the form (eidos) that gave matter meaning and purpose. As materialism, buttressed by advances in materialistic science, gained wider acceptance, those inclined toward spiritual and theological aims turned increasingly toward idealism as a countermeasure. Before long there were many types of materialism and idealism.
Idealism, in its broadest sense, came to encompass everything that was not materialism, which included so many different types of positions that the term lost any hope of univocality. Most forms of theistic and theological thought were, by this definition, types of idealism, even if they accepted matter as real, since they also asserted something as more real than matter, either as the creator of matter (in monotheism) or as the reality behind matter (in pantheism). Extreme empiricists who only accepted their own experience and sensations as real were also idealists (Berkeley being a notable example). Thus the term "idealism" united monotheists, pantheists and atheists. At one extreme were various forms of metaphysical idealism which posited a mind (or minds) as the only ultimate reality. The physical world was either an unreal illusion or not as real as the mind that created it. To avoid solipsism (which is a subjectivized version of metaphysical idealism) metaphysical idealists posited an overarching mind that envisions and creates the universe. (This is the 'mind-at-large' posited by Bernardo Kastrup.)
A more limited type of idealism is epistemological idealism, which argues that since knowledge of the world only exists in the mental realm, we cannot know actual physical objects as they truly are, but only as they appear in our mental representations of them. (This is near to how I (Wayfarer) understand it.) Epistemological idealists could be ontological materialists, accepting that matter exists substantially; they could even accept that mental states derived at least in part from material processes. What they denied was that matter could be known in itself directly, without the mediation of mental representations. Though unknowable in itself, matter's existence and properties could be known through inference based on certain consistencies in the way material things are represented in perception.
Transcendental idealism contends that not only matter but also the self remains transcendental in an act of cognition. Kant and Husserl, who were both transcendental idealists, defined "transcendental" as "that which constitutes experience but is not itself given in experience." A mundane example would be the eye, which is the condition for seeing even though the eye does not see itself (a philosophical axiom of the Upanisads. This is also the reasoning behind the argument about the 'blind spot' of science). By applying vision, and drawing inferences from it, one can come to know the role eyes play in seeing, even though one never sees one's own eyes. Similarly, things in themselves and the transcendental self could be known if the proper methods were applied for uncovering the conditions that constitute experience, even though such conditions do not themselves appear in experience.
Even here, where epistemological issues are at the forefront, it is actually ontological concerns, viz. the ontological status of self and objects, that is really at stake. Western philosophy rarely escapes that ontological tilt. Those who accepted that both the self and its objects were unknowable except through reason, and that such reason(s) was their cause and purpose for existing - thus epistemologically and ontologically grounding everything in the mind and its ideas - were labeled Absolute Idealists (e.g., Schelling, Hegel, Bradley), since only such ideas are absolute while all else is relative to them.[/quote]
(The essay then goes on to differentiate Western and Indian philosophy, which is based more on epistemology, but which is not directly relevant to the above.)
Hello Creativesoul,
Fair enough my friend! To formulate the question in a manner to avoid any anticipated misunderstandings, I would like to clarify some terminology first (that will to utilized therein). Otherwise, I find that physicalists and idealists tend to both talk passed each other with vague questions (e.g., physicalism cant account for awareness, physicalism cant account for why I see the color red, etc.). Without proper explication of the terms, it isnt self apparent (at least to me) that there is is a hard problem being expressed (in a question form).
For intents and purposes hereon, I will deploy a distinction between mechanical awareness (or awareness for short) and qualitative experience (or experience for short): the former is an account of how a mechanical (or otherwise mind-independent: consciousness-independent) being can acquire information of its environment that ultimately allow it to navigate (e.g., mimicking the brain, we can reverse engineer AIs that are increasingly becoming aware in this sense, as they can interpret their surroundings), whereas the latter is how a conscious being has qualitative, subjective experience of its surroundings (e.g., subjectively experiencing redness, feeling pain, hearing sounds, seeing objects, etc.).
With a lot of the discussion on the hard problem, the same sentence, depending on if the person is targeting contextually awareness or experience, can be interpreting as expressing a soft problem, solved problem, or the actual hard problem. For example, the question how does one see greeness? could be interpreted two ways: how does one acquire the information of the greeness? or how does one qualitatively experience greeness?. A physicalist can explain easily how a brain mechanically interprets the world to acquire the information that such and such is green, but this doesnt explain in-itself why a subject also qualitatively experiences the greeness: the qualia is an over an beyond, unexpected, phenomena when viewed from a physicalists metaphysical perspective. So, it is incredibly important not to get hung up on how physicalism accounts for awareness, because even if there is an aspect that we dont fully understand yet, it is theoretically possible for one to explain it someday under physicalism: not so much for experience.
Now, to get to the question you asked for: can physicalism possibly account for qualia under its reductive physicalist methodological approach without appeal to an obscurity?. That is essentially the question that expresses the hard problem of consciousness. If one answers not, then it is a hard problem; however, if they answer yes, then it is a soft problem.
Bob
Hello Janus,
If I am understanding you correctly, then I would answer that they are connected in the sense that they are perceiving the same objective world: it just isnt fundamentally a physical world.
Firstly, I agree that all conscious beings capable of perception are perceiving the same world, even in the case that they can only perceive it as well as their faculties allow them.
Secondly, from an analytic idealist perspective, the fact that our perceptions converge on an objective world does not entail that the objective world in-itself (of which we are representing on our perceptions) is physical. Instead, it is argued that it is mental.
Think of it this way: think of a video game. In the video game, lets say theres a tree that the character can view if they go walk over to it. This tree is objectively there in the video game, and the character should expect for other characters, all else being equal, to see the tree where it is if they were to go view it. He would likewise expect that the tree will still be there, all else being equal, if nothing changes when it takes a stroll and re-visits it later. Likewise, he would expect the lower perceptive creatures, like his pet dog, to also have a perception of that tree. However, that character would be gravely mistaken to think that the tree thereby exists in-itself like he is visualizing it as, in fact, it is actually a bunch of 0s and 1s on the hard drive of the computer. The information about the tree is being represented in the tree that the character sees, but it doesnt exist as the tall brown and green thing that he perceives in virtue of that. Likewise, if we posit that the video game has been coded to mimick real life, then it would also be true that the more capable a creature (in the game) is to perceiving, the more accurate, in terms of the information, will be represented. Thusly, it may be the case that that the tree is has green leaves, and that is objectively coded into the source code in 0s and 1s, but the color blind character, having not the ability to represent color, will mis-sight of its green leaves.
Perhaps you are referring to property dualism (i.e., irreductive physicalism)? Personally, I dont think it is a valid position in itself and thusly would argue that it either dissolved into substance dualism or reductive physicalism. In the case of the former, it has the hard problem of interaction; in the case of the latter, it has the hard problem of consciousness.
I agree that science will not explain, nor is it its business to, but a reductive physicalism is required, by their own view, to expect neuroscience to explain it one day.
I think that this is exactly why science is about creating a map (i.e., quantifying the qualitative), and says nothing about the territory.
Bob
Hello Sime,
I appreciate your response!
I had a hard time understanding what you were conveying, as I think we just use terminology differently, so let me ask some questions pertaining thereto.
By idea, I was meaning it in the colloquial sense of the term. Technically, those are metaphysical theories. One is a sub-type of idealism that does not hold there is an objective reality but, rather, that all that exists is to perceive or to be perceived (e.g., the tree doesnt exist other than an image within your perception). The other is the theory that all that exists is ones own mind, or, epistemically speaking, one can only know the existence of their own mind.
I dont see how this is an accurate representation of what the two theories purport, but, again, I dont think I fully followed what you mean by them being tautological understanding. Could you elaborate more?
Just to clarify, again, I was using idea in the colloquial sense and not idealist sense.
I dont agree with this (assuming I am understanding you correctly): naturalism is the view that either everything can only be explained by reduction to natural properties (i.e., methodological naturalism) or that natural properties is all that exists (i.e., ontological naturalism). The latter can be interpreted as strictly a materialist or physicalist metaphysical worldview, or more loosely as simply any metaphysical view that holds properties in the world as naturalistic (such as potentially analytic idealism).
Why would it be the understanding [of] the meaning of inter-subjectively valid propositions?--and why would it be anything that holds there is an objective world (cannot be identified with particular thoughts and experiences of the first person)? Supernaturalism also meets that criteria as far as I am understanding you currently (but correct me if I am misunderstanding).
I agree with you here.
I dont see how this is true. For example, both physicalists and analytic idealists hold that being is more than perception. No one inevitably speaking in terms of their experiences forcing being to be perception. Why would that be the case?
It just depends on how you are using the terms. For me, regardless of naturalism, it is (essentially) a tautology because they are synonymous.
Could you elaborate on this? I did not understand this part.
To me, this is logically invalid. You are arguing for using a proposition X has both X and another proposition Y (i.e., that perception refers to two different semantical meanings in the different statements you made), which is against the rules of formal logic because then one cannot formulate anything with it coherently. Thusly, to me, you are arguing that:
(X == Y) [being is perception] && (Y == Z) [perception is representation] && (Z != X) [representation is not being]
Which has a logical contradiction in it. I get that you wouldnt hold the words perception and perception in your sentences as equivalent, but this just doesnt make any sense to me to argue that. Why would one use the same word differently in the same argument? Doesnt that make the argument harder to convey?
Bob
Hello TheMadMan,
I agree that metaphysics is meant as an good general theory, and not absolute truth.
I dont think our mind works materialistic: I think that the modernist era has produced a predominant metaphysical view in favor of materialism. Also, why would our mind working materialistically entail duality? Are you saying materialism entails irreductive materialism?
I agree. It is hard to explain eternity with our temporal nature for sure.
Do you mean that metaphysical theories evolve? Or that they dont give absolute truth?
Bob
Hello Alkis Piskas,
Thank you for sharing your thoughts!
I see: are you an idealist?
This is fair: idealisms weak point prima facea is that it doesnt give an incredibly detailed depiction of consciousness, which it is positing as fundamental. However, the important thing to note is that it is being posited as fundamental and thusly necessary. Every metaphysical must stop its explanation at something which is metaphysically necessary, and for idealism it is mind. So theres going to be a bit of obscurity in how it works not only because we have been living in a physicalist world so long that we havent bother to try and look for explanations in mind but also because we are trying to understand the bedrock of reality (which is certainly much harder to understand than entities within phenomenal experience).
With that being said, I can elaborate on his distinction between being in consciousness and having consciousness: the latter is when a being exists fundamentally as matter and has the property of consciousness (i.e., qualia), whereas the former is when the being is within fundamentally conscious activity (i.e., me and you has alters in one universal mind that it having conscious activity in a primal sense).
I dont think Kastrup claims to know exactly how all of consciousness works, but I think he would say that consciousness is, at its base, mental events interacting with each other (like how when you vividly dream the entire world is representation from your dream characters perspective of the environment that is within your real mind that is dreaming). We, like your dream character in a vivid dream you may have, are perceiving what that mental activity (in the mind) looks like from our perspective: it is our faculties representing as best it can that mentality.
Likewise, he stresses that consciousness proper, under analytic idealism, is not to be confused with physicalist usages of the term consciousness: the latter is just an emergent add-on to the organism (as it is the surface of awareness as a subject), whereas the former is the entirety of the organism. Under analytic idealism, consciousness can be attributed to the entirety of your being, including your organic processes that you dont directly control, and the aspects that are within your every day-to-day experience is what bubble up to the tip of the iceberg: your ego (in the psychological sense of the term). Under analytic idealism, the involuntary processes of your stomach, for example, when viewed from our perception, is the extrinsic representation of mental processes that are attributed largely to your mind as a conscious being (albeit can be manipulated or altered by external influences). Physicalism doesnt use the term the same way at all as idealism.
I agree. I am also not convinced that the entirety of myself is an illusion, but can get on board with the ego being an illusion. I would say that we, as dissociated alters (or perhaps more vaguely dream characters), are concretely separate from each other and are not illusions. We are concretely separate from others and the universal mind in the sense that two whirlpools in the same body of water are distinct but yet made of the same water.
The disassociated boundary (or dream character boundary if you like) is conscious experience. Unlike non-conscious objects, it is very clear (in a non-arbitrary way) where my conscious experience ends and yours begins if we were to touch hands. There is no illusion here.
I think, to be fair, Kastrup is more claiming it is an illusion in the sense that the whirlpool thinks it is concretely distinct but, in fact, when it dies down will reassimilate into the body of water: our minds (as dream characters or disassociated alters) are distinct but when they die off reassimilate into the universal mind. To me, this just means that we reassimilate into nature, which is what I would expect and not that we are illusions.
Bob
Hello Mww,
I am just hesitant to say that our minds interpret the mentality in hypothetical judgments. I am not saying it is wrong, I just dont see what the proof is of that. Could you elaborate on the proof?
Bob
Hello Fooloso4,
What you described here is a purported soft problem of consciousness, which would, indeed, be expected (under physicalism) to be explained eventually (or at least possibly) by science. However, the hard problem is metaphysics proper. A scientist does not decipher in their job that there is a hard problem of consciousness (i.e., that there is a conceptual explanatory gap between mechanical awarenss and qualitative experience): on the contrary, the moment that dawns on them they are engaged in metaphysics and not science. Science is about empirically testing things to better understand behaviors of those things, metaphysics is about understanding that which lies beyond the possibility of all experience (but yet still meaningfully pertains to reality). In this case, the hard problem is only ever postulated by application of pure reason: not any empirical tests.
I think you may have misunderstood what I was saying: it is not that science isnt a consideration when coming up with ones metaphysics (on the contrary, empirical adequacy is important for any metaphysical theory to be taken seriously); but, rather, it is only a negative criteria: one can only negate certain metaphysical theories with scientific facts, whereas the vast majority or perfectly coherent with science yet are directly incompatible with each other (e.g., physicalism and idealism). This is why I referred to science as a supplement in metaphysics: ones metaphysics should adhere to scienctific knowledge, but that doesnt prove the theory--one also needs to consider parsimony, intellectual seemings, internal/external coherence, logical consistency, explanatory power, etc.
I dont see how you can claim I am both excluding scientific inquiry (in my metaphysics) and considering it a valid supplement. By supplementation, I mean that it strengthens the metaphysical theory (but does not prove it) to be empirically adequate.
If you are a strong scientific realist (viz., you think that science produces true results of what entities fundamentally exist), then I understand why you would claim this. However, I deny this. Just like trees, I hold that atoms are a nominal distinction and they do not exist in the underlying ontological structure of reality but, rather, they are extrinsic representations of fundamentally mentality. Science tells us that we should expect this to behave as though there are atoms and, I would go so far as to say, that there are phenomenally atoms, but not that there are noumenally atoms.
By physical, I was not referring to the colloquial usage of the term (i.e., something with solidity, shape, size, etc.) but, rather, what it means in relation to physicalism: something that is mind-independent. In the sense as it is used for physicalism, it is an abstract inference and does not exist within our experience.
Think of a vivid dream you have had, there is nothing physically being transmitted while you are flying in the sky (in your dream) or walking the dream world streets: it is mental events occurring from your mind and they are still occurring. The brain activity measurable when you are dreaming is simply the extrinsic representation of that mental process. Same thing with the objective world, being in a universal mind.
Bob
I'll put it this way: there can be matter without mind but not mind without matter.
In Chalmers own words, from "The Hard Problem of Consciousness":
Quoting Bob Ross
This example works against your claim. If I am anesthetized I do not dream. Signals in the nervous system are blocked.
But then, one of the factors that has undermined materialism in the 20th Century is that science has not really been able to arrive at a definitive account of matter. And that furthermore, the attempt to do so opened the whole can of worms that is quantum theory and its related 'observer problem'. As is well known, even early in the last century James Jeans and Arthur Eddington interpreted these discoveries as more supportive of the primacy of mind - you know, 'the stuff of the world is mind-stuff', and 'the world seems more like a great mind than a great machine'. Werner Heisenberg argued that the implications of quantum physics were more suggestive of Plato than Democritus. And so on. As I said, a can of worms, although Bernardo Kastrup has quite a bit to say on it - see his Physics is pointing inexorably towards mind (which incidentally takes a shot at the much touted 'information realism')
As having "extension in space" is simply how we represent objects, conceptually. "Space" is conceptual, or intuitive, as a tool of representation, it really has no place outside of the mind. What is out there, is surely not "space" as we conceive of "space". So unless we say that the object only exists within the mind, like space only exists within the mind, then we cannot truthfully sat that "space belongs to the object".
So, you agree there is a mind-independent world, you just don't agree that it is physical? I have no argument with that since the definition of 'physical' derives from how things appear to us: tangible and measurable.
I think Kant's claim that we don't know what things are in themselves stands, and if physicality is an attribute of things as they are sensorially perceived, then imputing that to things as they are unperceived would seem to be a category error.
Saying that things are fundamentally mental is an example of the same kind of category error, because 'mental' is a term denoting how certain phenomena: thoughts, feelings, volitions and so on, seem to us. That is to say they seem to be different than the objects of the senses in that they seem intangible and are not measurable.
Quoting Bob Ross
The subjective 'feels' of experience cannot be explained by science and it is hard to see how science could explain exhaustively how neural processes can give rise to those subjective feels, since the former are third person observable processes and the latter are not; meaning that the former can be reductively modeled in a mechanical or causal way, and the latter cannot, which makes it seem as though there will always be am unbridgeable explanatory gap. I have never heard a convincing argument that this gap can somehow be crossed by an explanation that holds together on both sides of it, so to speak. It seems to me an issue of basic incommensurability.
That it would be, to summarize, a category error to class the in-itself as either physical or mental entails, I think, that we have good reason to eschew any form of ontological dualism. So, I see monism, the idea that there are not ontologically different categories of being or substance, as the most rational conclusion to hold to.
Thank you Bob for this extensive and very informative reply! :up:
Quoting Bob Ross
I'm certainly not a materialist. However I cannot call myself an "idealist" either. Besides, there are different kinds of "idealism"! And even then I cannot identify or confine myself with(in) any of them.
See what happens, here ... My reality, my view of the world --as I have often expressed in here and elsewhere-- is mainly based on experiencing and reasoning. But then, these may be considered in conflict: one belongs to "empiricism" and the other to "rationalism", which are considered if not opposite, different philosophies! So, if you find a philosophical term that combines both these two kinds of philosphical views, I would be much obliged! :grin:
(That was indeed a long answer to an apparently simple question! :grin:)
Quoting Bob Ross
:up: Thanks for this. It explains a lot. I thought it was only a "local", personal phenomenon. :grin:
Quoting Bob Ross
Nice. See, I don't know these things. I have never studied or talked extensively about "idealism", or any "ism" for that matter. I was never interested. But it is alsways good to know.
However, Eastern philosophers, as well as Western ones who have borrowed elements from Eastern philosophy, as I have already mentioned, talk a lot about metaphysical subjects but they almost always offer a detailed description of as well as examples for them. Which means that metaphysics have not necessary to be only theoretical or exclusively just a mental endeavor.
Quoting Bob Ross
Nicely put. Yet, "obscurity" and lack of explanation for me means lack of real undestanding. And this holds for both physical and non-physical things. I always refer to Einstein her, who said "If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough. I'm very positive in this.
Quoting Bob Ross
Yes, I know that. Yet, it does not explain what "consciousness" is. This was my point.
Quoting Bob Ross
That's fair. I don't think that anyone can know exactly how consciousness works. But there are a few I know that have descibed this quite well and in a plausible way.
The difficulty maybe lies mainly on the fact that "Consciousness can only be experienced" as I often say. And I base this on my extensive knowledge about the mind and how it works as well as my experiencing of awareness. (Still, I can safely say, as general description, that consciousness is perception. I believe that this says a lot.)
Yet, onece more, the Eastern traditional philosophy has a lot more to say on the subject. And, from what I know, all descriptions are based on personal experience --or better, "experiencing", as I say-- and what these experiences have revealed to some wise individuals. But this of course is far from our scientific world, for which "experience" means nothing.
Quoting Bob Ross
Interesting view.
Quoting Bob Ross
Certainly not. As I say, to explain what Science considers "consciouness", is that it is talking about bodily consciouness, i.e., based on senses, with anesthesiologists being the experts on the subject. :grin:
Quoting Bob Ross
Right.
Quoting Bob Ross
I'm glad to hear that! :smile:
Quoting Bob Ross
Nice! :up:
Quoting Bob Ross
Nice!
***
That's a great and fruitful exchange, Bob!
Quoting Fooloso4
I've thought some more about this. The same principle applies to all phenomenal experiences whatever. Stones move, mountains form, things get taken from the fridge. Philosophical idealism plainly has to be able to account for the fact that things appear to exist in our absence and without our knowledge. The basis of the idealist argument is all such phenomena still occur within experience - including the objective evidence of the age or location of the object. If you show the same things to to me, then they will also appear in my experience, and I can validate what they are along with any number of people (although not necessarily with other kinds of intelligences, which I'll leave aside). That is inter-subjective agreement, and a highly effective heuristic.
Now the philosophical problem is that you can't therefore say with absolute certainty that there is something beyond that experience, beyond the phenomena, which is the source of, and independent of, your experience of it. Materialism accounts for that, by saying that there is something called matter that is the cause of all these experiences, that exists independently . But what matter is, as distinct from what it appears to be, is the point at issue! If we break anything down - the stone or whatever - the we see the fragments it breaks into, but these too appear within experience. We can assume that all those things exist outside experience - when nobody is looking - but it will only ever be an assumption drawn from experience. This, as one of the sources I noted above mentions, can also be regarded as a strict form of empiricism (namely, phenomenalism, of which Berkeley is an example.)
But as we're talking about the real existence of material objects, then plainly the arbiter of that claim must be physics. And that is precisely where the assumption of an independently-existing domain of real objects has been challenged (torpedoed, many would say). Why was Albert Einstein obliged to ask Abraham Pais, 'does the moon continue to exist when nobody's looking at it?' Of course, he believed it did and it was a kind of rhetorical question - but what compelled him to have to ask it? (There's a very big story behind that.)
Quoting TheMadMan
Would make for a very sparsely populated philosophy forum, however.
This is worth a watch. At 6:30 he addresses the pre-existence of the Universe.
By materialistic I don't mean the materialism worldview.
By materialistic I mean the mind obeys space-time.
The thinking mind works in time through space albeit at a subtler level than gross matter.
This functioning of the mind in space-time entails duality since non-duality is beyond spacetime.
If you have noticed, scientists, artists, religious people tend to report that in the moment of their greatest creativity the mind "stops functioning" and something else, a muse, a spirit, god, the universe etc. works through them.
Of course this is poetic and all but for me it suggest that consciousness (in humans) can work in two ways: 1. the duality of mind (spacetime) and 2. the non-duality of non-mind (spacetime-less).
Quoting Bob Ross
I mean that you simply cannot express it fully since systems of thought will always be limited.
And yes in different periods of human history it has to adapt and evolve to make sense.
[i]Philosophy is like being in a dark room and looking for a black cat.
Metaphysics is like being in a dark room and looking for a black cat that isn't there.
Theology is like being in a dark room and looking for a black cat that isn't there, and shouting "I found it!"
Science is like being in a dark room looking for a black cat while using a flashlight.
Social Science is like being in a dark room suspecting from the beginning that there is a black cat somewhere, and emerging from the room with scratches on the forearm as vindication.[/i]
So you describe two distinct categories, the physical/mental and the independent, then you conclude monism. That doesn't make any sense. How can you claim these two distinct categories, and the ensuing category mistakes you refer to, then conclude no ontologically different categories (monism)?
There isnt a proof, per se, only an internal affirmative logical consistency.
Yes, I could elaborate on the rationality justifying the categories, but to do so is a foray into the seriously transcendental, which may be a different idealism then is represented in the theme of your thread. And even if it isnt that different, the categories are a few magnitudes of depth below whats been presented in your thesis so far.
-
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Not really. Having extension in space is that by which objects are sensed and represented intuitively as phenomena. Objects represented conceptually is that by which they are thought. Technically, albeit theory-specific, re: intrinsic human cognitive duality, having successions in time is how we represent objects conceptually, space not being a condition for conceptual representation.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Correct. Extension belongs to an object, space does not. Shape, then, just is the kind or degree of extension it possesses.
There is a difference between a stone or mountain and phenomenal experience.
Quoting Wayfarer
By definition the phenomena occur within experience.
Quoting Wayfarer
The things shown and their appearance in your experience are not the same. The phenomenal experience is of the thing shown.
Distance between Moon and Earth is in our heads...? :chin:
Intelligence and consciousness are not the same.
Suppose it gets to the point where there is general agreement that AI has become conscious. This would weaken rather than strengthen the case for idealism.
How is that agreement going to come about? I don't think it will happen. There will be panpsychists arguing with eliminative materialists arguing with computationalists, etc. Thre's a consensus now, because we're all pretty much built the same way and we can point to a lot of neural correlates (even thought I think that's mistaking causation with correlation, but nevermind). How is that going to apply to machines? Are scientists going to point to lines of code and say, "this is where the computer's conscious experience of vision happens"?
Start by banning the philosophers.
Seriously, general agreement, if and when it occurs, might be along the same lines as has occurred with animal consciousness. There are some who still deny that a dog, for example, is conscious, but they are now in the minority.
Yeah, but again, that's because animals have sophisticated brains like us. That all goes out the window with machines.
take the time to watch Andrei Linde, above.
Quoting Fooloso4
How do you differentiate between the thing shown and the thing as it is in itself?
It is a logical or phenomenological distinction.
I differential, as you did, between the thing I show to you and what will also appear in your experience. I can hold that thing and bring it to you, but cannot hold what appears in your experience.
If I were an auto salesperson, what would I make of this in my everyday experience? Would it make a difference were I to be a mathematician?
But the object is what appears in experience - what you and I see, touch, hold, carry, and so on. Hence it is designated a 'phenomenal object' existing in both your experience and mine. The question is the sense in which the object exists apart from or outside of that. I think what you're wanting to say is that the object persists in the absence of any observer, which is what I am saying is a presumption. How do you differentiate between the object as it is in itself, and as it appears to us? That is the question.
Without appeal to obscurity, reductive physicalist approaches can account for qualia at least as well as any other position. I would argue better than, especially if obscurity is unacceptable.
There's a need for you to elaborate on exactly what counts as qualia, for that is precisely what any approach is supposed to be taking account of. So, it seems we need to set out a bare minimum criterion for exactly what counts as qualia, such that if some candidate or other satisfies the criterion, then it counts as qualia.
The position you're working from and/or arguing in favor of presupposes that there is a distinction between biological machinery doing it's job and so-called 'subjective' experience.
I'm also quite unsure of the invocation of 'mechanical awareness', in terms of AI or something akin. I've not likened experience to that, nor would I. It's a red herring. Unnecessary distraction.
Exactly what qualia are you and other proponents of the hard problem saying that reductive physicalism cannot account for?
Cannot be done. Noumena are untenable. In order to know that what appears is not the way things are(the thing in itself), one must have access to both what appears and the thing in itself in order to perform comparative analysis, and determine that the one is not the other. Given that Noumena, by definition, are what we do not have access to... there can be no comparison. No way to know.
:100:
:up:
But space is conceptual. We do not sense space we think it. It might be the way that we make sense of, or understand our sensations as sensations of objects with spatial extension, and space between them, but space really is not part of the sensation.
I believe the issue here is the nature of objects. It may be the case that space is required for the conception of "objects", as a principle of individuation, which is necessary to separate one object from another, but we do not actually sense objects. Objects as well as space are conceptual. We do not sense anything which is object, like we do sense taste, smell, colour, sound, etc., Object is something created by the mind, conceptually, and so is space.
So I think it is only from this misunderstanding, the idea that we sense objects, that the idea that space is required for sensation is derived. So all these ideas, "object|", extension", and "space", are all conceptual, and not at all sensed, because none of them is proper to any particular sense, they are proper to the mind, as apprehended by the mind rather than the senses.
Quoting jorndoe
If you know the distance between here and earth, it's in your head. I don't, so it's not in my head. Of course distance is something in human heads, it's a value, something measured. There is no value without the measurement.
:lol:
as per the quote provided by Tom Storm:
[quote=Dan Zahavi (quoting Hillary Putham); https://www.sartreonline.com/Internalism.pdf]Ultimately, what we call reality is so deeply suffused with mind- and language-dependent structures that it is altogether impossible to make a neat distinction between those parts of our beliefs that reflect the world in itself and those parts of our beliefs that simply express our conceptual contribution. The very idea that our cognition should be nothing but a re-presentation of something mind-independent consequently has to be abandoned.[/quote]
Zahavi is a phenomenologist, and this, (along with 'enactivism' and 'embodied cognition') brings home the fundamental importance of the subject as subject - not as an object of analysis by biological or neurological sciences, but as a subject who brings a perspective to the world. By contrast, many forns of naturalism presumes that 'the world' exists just as it is, whether observed or not, outside of any perspective (which, I think, is Sellars myth of the given). That is the conceit of naturalism, with it's appeal to common sense and the implicit reliance on what 'everyone knows must be true'.
in other words, secondary and primary qualities, respectively. :up:
[quote=Thomas Nagel, Mind and Cosmos, Pp35-36]The modern mind-body problem arose out of the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century, as a direct result of the concept of objective physical reality that drove that revolution. Galileo and Descartes made the crucial conceptual division by proposing that physical science should provide a mathematically precise quantitative description of an external reality extended in space and time, a description limited to spatiotemporal primary qualities such as shape, size, and motion, and to laws governing the relations among them. Subjective appearances, on the other hand -- how this physical world appears to human perception -- were assigned to the mind, and the secondary qualities like color, sound, and smell were to be analyzed relationally, in terms of the power of physical things, acting on the senses, to produce those appearances in the minds of observers. It was essential to leave out or subtract subjective appearances and the human mind -- as well as human intentions and purposes -- from the physical world in order to permit this powerful but austere spatiotemporal conception of objective physical reality to develop. [/quote]
which in turn gave rise to the 'Cartesian anxiety'
Richard J. Bernstein coined the term in his 1983 book Beyond Objectivism and Relativism: Science, Hermeneutics, and Praxis.
Phenomenology seeks to remedy this condition by returning attention to the primacy of being - the reality of lived experience - *not* as something to analyse through science or metaphysics but through attention to 'what is - dasein.
(Things are falling into place ..)
Here I am presented with thinking deep enough to be appreciated, but at the same time, fraught with inconsistencies, prejudicial as they may be. Rather than have our dialectical histories repeat themselves, Im just going to say thanks, and let it go.
Then there are also natural things which are more difficult to separate out and move around, like minerals, copper, gold, lead, etc.. These seem to adhere within natural objects, yet we can separate them out, and give them objective existence on their own, as a separate object made of a particular element, or mineral. Bu now the description changes slightly, as the object is said to be "made of" that mineral
Both of these instances of providing for real objects, with independent existence, consist of a process of dividing our surroundings, the environment, to create the reality of objects through this act of division. This division has two aspects, theory and practise, and the two are consistent and compatible in the proper method of science.
Beyond this, there are properties, attributes, which do not seem to be able to be separated in this way. These are what are proper to sensation, taste, smell, colour, etc.. We can say a lot about these properties, even distinguish them from each other as types, but we cannot properly separate them in the environment, and move them around as objects. So these we do not assign full objective existence to. These properties, if we talk about them as objects, are better classified as imaginary, fictional objects, because we cannot seem to be able to give them proper independent existence in practise.
The expression, "sell the sizzle not the steak" comes to mind. Another is about men and big or fancy cars and compensating. Of course it depends on the customer but appearance sells.
Quoting jgill
Maybe. Mathematicians talk about beauty, elegance, and simplicity, but although they are attracted to these things what is decisive is whether things "add up".
No. What appears in experience is not the object but the object as it appears.
Quoting Wayfarer
How it appears to me might be different from how it appears to you. How it appears might be different under different conditions. Are we talking about the same object or different objects when there is a difference in appearance?
I'd suggest "proper independent existence" is itself a fiction.
I agree(?) that the way our perceptual systems are apt to chunk stuff, and even sequences of events, into things tends to lead to misconceptions, but in many cases I would be more inclined to call 'things' being discussed "simplistic but epistemically pragmatic abstractions" rather than fictions.
Thoughts?
Thats the whole point - you can't get outside the appearance to see it as it 'truly is'. But it's a more subtle question that whether an object really exists or is 'only in the mind'. My view is that it really exists, but that the very notion of existence always implies an observer for whom it exists, in line with the 'Copenhagen interpretation' of physics (and with Schopenhauer's philosophy). And that furthermore, the observer is not, as it were, in the frame.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Quoting wonderer1
[quote=Pinter, Charles. Mind and the Cosmic Order (p92);https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-50083-2] The mind-independent world is not naturally divided into individual parts: At the most fundamental level, we can say that external reality is a continuous flow of ongoing cosmic process. Consequently, facts or events in the sense of individual happenings do not exist in the universe at large. When you speak of a fact or event, you mean something bounded that has been lifted out of the flow of continuous activity. Since a fact must be very precisely extruded from the background, this requires that the observer who lifts it out have a purposea motive for undertaking to extract this one particular thing. In a universe without an observer having a purpose, you cannot have facts. As you may judge from this, a fact is something far more complex than it appears to be at first sight. In order for a fact to exist, it must be preceded by a segmentation of the world into separate things, and requires a brain that is able to extract it from the background in which it is immersed.[/quote]
Hey Janus.
It is a foundational unprovable assumption/premiss, resting its laurels on terminological consistency(coherence) and/or 'logical' possibility alone(scarequotes intentional).
Indeed, there are all sorts of things that could be said to follow from it, if accompanied by some other premisses, but - by my lights anyway - 'logical' possibility alone does not warrant belief, and untenability is completely unacceptable.
Sounds like an interesting book.
Something that occurs to me in respect of this argument: when people say they're 'sceptics' in this day and age, you can bet your boots they generally mean 'scientific sceptics', i.e. they will question anything for which there isn't or may not be scientific evidence. Yet 'scientific scepticism' generally starts with the firm belief that the 'sensory domain' (a.k.a. 'the natural realm') is inherently real. They're never sceptical about the obvious reality of the sensory domain in a manner that is very different to ancient scepticism, which would call the reality of the sensible world into question. I think that's because the juggernaut of modern Western culture has demolished all the alternatives. The world of the ancients had another dimension - nowadays politely described as 'mythological' - which embodied a dimension of depth. Whereas, as one of the Vienna Circle positivists put it, 'in science there are no depths - there's surface everywhere' ~ Rudolf Carnap.
I see skepticism as something needing a degree of balance, and think there is a tendency for some philosophers (or philosophy fans) to go off the skeptical deep end.
For me personally, I've studied too much about sensation and perception, and neuroscience more generally, to be naive about the degree to which we can grasp reality as it truly is. On the other hand, as an electrical engineer, it seems rather ludicrous to think that we are having a discussion via the internet, yet there is no external reality.
Idealism seems to me an example of philosophy poisoning.
Hello Foolos4,
I didnt find anything I disagree with in the quote from Chalmers you made: was there something in it you thought is a problem for my view?
Firstly, it was an analogy to demonstrate that, under idealism, the transmission is fundamentally immaterial (i.e., mental) and not physical. The physical transmission is the extrinsic representation of the mental.
Secondly, anesthesia causing you to not dream and the signals in the nervous system being blocking thereby is expected under idealism too (and definitely doesnt go against the theory). Anesthesia, like everything else, is fundamentally mental under idealism, and the outward expression of the mental idea of anesthesia disrupting your mind (mentally) is the blocking of signals in the nervous system (which can be observed empirically when someone is under anesthesia). The idea behind the analogy was not to take it so far as to say that you must dream for mental transmissions to occur but, rather, that in the same manner that your mind (even under physicalism) produces conscious experience during sleep via immaterial ideas so is it the case with reality.
Bob
Hello Janus,
Good question: no. I agree that there is a reality which transcends your and my mind (i.e., our experience as conscious beings), but that reality is not fundamentally mind-independent.
Likewise, since I deny that reality is made up of mind-independent things, I also hold that it is not physical (because physical entails, in the formal sense of the term, mind-independence).
You may be using the colloquial sense of the term physical (i.e., objects with solidity, size, shape, etc. within our experience): I dont deny that kind of physicality. I deny the physicalists idea of physical: mind-independent objects (or parts more generally speaking).
I disagree: I think schopenhauer finished Kants project by correcting this error of Kants. Being self-conscious, we are uniquely able to acquire the thing-in-itself: mind (i.e., what schopenhauer called will). We can understand the reality has two sides: mind (subject) and object. They are not completely separate but, rather, two sides of the same coin. When I will for my arm to raise, it manifests in conscious experience as an potential infinite chain of causality. The chain, according to schopenhauer, is not the complete explanation of what happened but it is all we have access to when it comes to every aspect of reality other than ourselves. We only see the world from both of its sides within our own introspective conscious experience: otherwise, Kant would be correct in that we would have no clue what the thing-in-itself is.
I think this would follow if Kant were correct in saying that we never come to understand the noumenabut we can. The mental activity is outwardly expressed as physicality. When I am sad, the extrinsic representation of that is tears and, if one were to biologically test me, certain hormonal secretions.
I agree with this part. However, the idea with analytic idealism is that the mental events are expressed as physical events but yet the former do not cause the latter (in the sense of the typical physical causation).
What problem do you have with positing the physical as an outward expression of the mental?
Bob
It's not nearly so black-and-white. It's not a question of whether things exist or don't exist, or whether they're all 'in the mind' (and if so who's mind). It's much more subtle than that. The reality is a continuum that includes both object and subject.
We're very much conditioned to be oriented with respect to the objective domain - the process of 'objectification'. It's woven into the fabric of the culture. If you read some of the idealist philosophers - Berkeley and Schopenhauer, for example - you will see they are quite sane and sober individuals.
Hello Alkis Piskas,
I am not sure I am familiar with a term that means a hybrid view of rationalism and empiricism; but, then again, I would need you to explain further what you mean by those terms to give a more precise answer.
For example, I do know that many modern-day empiricists do hold that there is a priori knowledge.
Could you give an example of such a detailed description of consciousness?
There is always going to be some obscurities in any metaphysical theories one takes: metaphysics is about trying to maximize explanatory power while minimizing the explanatory parts. It isnt even apparent that we will one day be able to definitively understand the entirety of reality.
In terms of Einstein, I would think that what he meant was that one should be able to articulate their position concisely and precisely to opponents, which is what you have to do for little children or else it goes straight past there heads. It doesnt violate his principle to explain to a child that we dont know: it is clear and simple what it means for one to not know. On the contrary, Einstein is referring to (I would think) sophistry and rhetoric that can convolute and even mask bad positions as somewhat feasible.
If by explain what consciousness is you are asking how it works, then only via empirical inquiry will we find out. If by that question you are asking for a deeper ontology, then that will not be afforded in analytic idealism because the universal mind (i.e., consciousness) is posited as metaphysical necessary. Every metaphysical theory has to have a bedrock (i.e., something that is unexplainable) and for objective idealism it is mind. For physicalism, it is some sort of elementary particle or quantum field or what have you. There is no way to account for reality completely without hitting a rock bottom.
Could you give an example?
Interesting. For analytic idealism, consciousness is not synonymous with perception. Perception is used to denote conscious beings that have evolved to have the faculties to represent its environment to itself (viz., to take in sensations/input and generate an understanding of the causal order and such). Consciousness is a broader term (under analytic idealism) that includes all mind-operative mental processes. The universal mind, for instance, does not perceive: it is more fundamental, primitive willing which operates blind of itself and others. Think of it like the difference between plants, which will on a basis of very basic stimulus responses, vs. a complex animal (like a dog): the plant is perceiving anything but yet, under analytic idealism, is conscious.
Bob
Hello TheMadMan,
I see.
Although I am not sure I entirely understood your post yet, let me try to adequately respond.
Although I am not entirely sold on this part, Analytic Idealism would posit that our minds are alters of a universal mind, and space and time only emerge as a production of perceptive conscious beings. In terms of analytic idealism, the world around you that you are perceiving is fundamentally the unfolding in space and time (which are synthetic but arguably not a priori in the sense schopenhauer exactly meant it) of eternal platonic ideas. Although space and time do not behave necessarily as we would intuit from normal every day-to-day experience, they are also within the eternal ideas as we are, as evolved emergent perceptive and self-conscious beings, a part of those eternal ideas.
Honestly, I am not entirely sold on this part yet, but that would be the response.
In every metaphysical theory, I find there is the problem of accounting for the inevitable eternal somehow continually converting into something temporaland I dont know how to account for it adequately under any theory.
Are you saying that the mind can switch (so to speak) between two modes of existence or perceptive capabilities?
I agree.
Bob
Hello Mww,
I just mean what is the case for it? What do you mean by it being an internal affirmative logical consistency? I dont think it is necessarily the case that the mind fundamentally uses if conditionals (for example) to produce perceptive experience (although it might).
I would prefer if you did elaborate on it, so I can understand the argument for those categories better!
Bob
Hello creativesoul,
I disagree: it cant account for it at all. The fact that the brain interprets the world mechanically in this manner and that those processes have a causal (or correlative) relationship with mental states doesnt account for the mental states themselves at all. Under reductive physicalism, we should expect no qualia: just philosophical zombies. Under idealism, we should expect no philosophical zombies but rather rich, conscious subjects.
Could you please elaborate? How so?
Qualia is subjective, qualitative, and conscious experience (e.g., the subjective feeling of pain, subjective seeing redness, subjective touching of a book, etc.). The bare minimum criteria is that the event is a mental, subjective, and conscious experience.
Its not so much that there is such a distinction in actuality but, rather, that the reductive physicalist account on explains biological machinery and doesnt account for the subjectivity. I, as an idealis, can happily grant that, since mental events are primal, there is no biological machinery doing something completely separately from subjective experience (however, under physicalism, all we get is an explanation of the biological machinery).
I am not sure I followed this part: could you please elaborate? How is mechanical awareness a red herring?
My point was that reductive physicalism expects and explains the world in a manner that only expects and explains mechanical awareness (akin to a future AI or something as a mere analogy) and not qualitative experience. It is utterly shocking under a physicalist view that we are conscious.
Maybe I am misunderstanding you, but my claim is not that they cant account for a particular subgroup of qualia but, rather, all of it. Not a single mental event is explained as actually produced by brain states nor could it be explained in that reductive physicalist manner. All they can do is point to another correlation (or causation) between mental and physical states which doesnt further progress the physicalistic explanation of qualia.
Bob
Quoting Bob Ross
Quoting creativesoul
Quoting Bob Ross
Well, as above shows nicely, you've just contradicted yourself. I'm not sure what you're claiming. Perhaps it's better to take this slowly. Our respective positions are very different, and that seems to be on a foundational/fundamental level. Right now, I'm just wanting to ensure that I am aiming at the right target, so to speak. So, I ask...
Exactly what qualia are you and other proponents of the hard problem saying that reductive physicalism cannot account for?
The process of objectification goes deeper than cultural conditioning. It is a function of how our brains work:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=aircAruvnKk
Hello creativesoul,
Where is the contradiction in the quotes of mine you mentioned? They both claim that physicalism cannot account for qualia.
I am claiming that reductive physicalism cannot account, under its reductive physicalist approach, for qualitative experience (e.g., subjective feeling, subjective sense of touch, etc.) other than by obscurely saying it somehow produces it.
Taking it slow sounds good to me! My answer was:
Did you find this to be an unsatisfactory answer? To try to say it in other words, reductive physicalism cannot account for qualia, not just any particular aspect of qualia. To me, it is like you are asking which red trucks can they not explain? and I am answering all red trucks. Are you asking what a red truck is? (essentially). Because qualia is subjective, qualitative experience (e.g., subjective feeling, subjective touch, etc.). It is the conscious mental experience that you have every day and every waking moment of your life.
Bob
Of course. The Charles Pinter book incorporates a great deal of neuroscience, as do Donald Hoffman's books challenging scientific realism, and which are generally said to support a kind of philosophical idealism or constructivism. On the other hand, I think philosophy should provide the ability to explore the matter directly without needing to rely on neuroscientific research. After all, Socrates was recommended to 'know thyself' by the Oracle of Delphi, and I don't know if his endeavours were hampered by the absence of modern neuroscience.
Another thing to bear in mind are the discoveries of neuroplasticity and how neural configurations can be changed 'top-down' so to speak. Neuroplasticity has shown that mental activity influences brain structure, that engaging in specific mental activities, such as learning a new skill or practicing a particular cognitive task, can lead to structural changes in the brain. For example, studies have shown that individuals who learn to juggle experience an increase in gray matter volume in areas involved in motor control. Another fascinating study showed that subjects who learned to practice piano in their minds (i.e. no actual piano!) showed neurological changes similar to those who practiced with a piano (ref).
I suppose cultural conditioning might also affect neural configurations and not necessarily in a good way. After all hardly a week goes by without stories of epidemics of depression and anxiety in teens caused by exposure to social media. It's quite possible that many cultural memes that are held by many people are neither grounded in reality nor beneficial.
What is the conscious mental experience that I have every day and every waking moment of my life?
Exactly what qualia are you referring to?
Is obscurity allowed now?
Quoting Bob Ross
This is the crux of the issue for me. I am unconvinced by Schopenhauer's (and Kastrup's derivative) claims that we know the "in-itself" on the basis of some kind of postulated intellectual intuition; this cannot be knowledge but is just a feeling. Maybe that feeling is even correct, but how could we ever know? Of course, if that feeling is certain enough, then doubts would become irrelevant to the one who feels certain, but that feeling could only be relevant for those who might experience such certainty; it remains discursively useless, since the certainty cannot be demonstrated empirically or logically, which means that despite the fact that there might be such certainty, it could still be mistaken.
Another significant problem I have with the idea is that there is a huge body of consistent and coherent scientific evidence that tells us there we many cosmological events long before there were any minds. In order to accept the view that mind is fundamental I would need to discount all that evidence.
Quoting creativesoul
OK, I don't see it that way: I think that the attributes of things that can be revealed in perception could not be exhaustive of what they are unless some form of idealism were true, and idealism seems very implausible to me. So, it's as I said a logical or conceptual distinction between things as they are perceived and things as they are in themselves, but I don't see the idea that things have their own existence independently of perception as being a mere logical possibility.
Here is what I said, and your response:
Quoting Bob Ross
How does what I say differ from the hard problem as described by Chalmers? He concludes:
If experience arises from a physical basis, then the question of why and how biological function gives rise to experience, is the hard problem. If, as Chalmers says, physical processing give rise to a rich inner life then how and why that should be, then I would not have thought it necessary to state the obvious, science deals with the physical, with biological function.
Now you might think that science will not yield an answer, but that does not mean investigating the problem scientifically is not an investigation of the hard problem.
Quoting Bob Ross
The physical transmission is not an extrinsic representation, it is the medium through which data is transmitted.
Quoting Bob Ross
If the signals in the nervous system are blocked that shows that the transmission of data is physical.
Quoting Bob Ross
This makes no sense. An anesthesiologist uses drugs not something mental. She does not rely on hypnosis.
Quoting Bob Ross
Again, it is specific drugs that cause anesthesia. Drugs are not the outward expression of the mental. These drugs affect awareness, they disrupt the mind.
I don't think so. The issue here is that Kastrup would agree that conscious creatures emerged 'later' and the cosmological events or the 'reality' we have detected which predate life, like consciousness, is simply what mind looks like when viewed from a different perspective. We know it as 'physical'. In other words, inanimate objects and process are all aspects of consciousness, so there is no contradiction inherent in a notion of pre-life.
I'm a physicalist but I am open to 'steel manning' the idealist position as well as I can and trying to understand the model as best as I can.
My understanding of the narrative Kastrup presents is that all we know and can detect is consciousness as seen through a different perspective (across a dissociative divide). At the heart of this there is a Mind at Large - striving, instinctive, and not metacognitive. Conscious creatures emerged as dissociated alters from this great mind and have evolved. So evolution for Kastrup is a real thing, but it isn't physical - it manifests as physical to us and leaves its fossils and detritus, much as we have memories about our own past.
So we need to accept quite a narrative for all this to make sense to us. And critical to this idealist position it seems is Mind at Large or cosmic consciousness which provides the foundation for this account.
The question we can ask of this scenario is why did a great mind splinter off and develop dissociated alters over time (as we understand time) is consciousness engaged in an act of getting to know itself? What is the significance of our metacognition in this narrative?
Can you provide additional reasoning for why you think "philosophy should provide the ability to explore the matter directly without needing to rely on neuroscientific research." After all, Socrates was a rather enigmatic figure who is said to have said:
"For I was conscious that I knew practically nothing..." (Plato, Apology 22d, translated by Harold North Fowler, 1966). [c/p from wikipedia]
Furthermore, neuroscience points to us being much too complex to know ourselves in a comprehensive sense.
I'm not sure what point you are trying to make here.
Certainly cultural conditioning affects neural configurations in what we would judge to be good and bad ways. However, fMRI doesn't have nearly the spatial resolution required to be able to measure the changes, except in cases of relatively extreme repetition (like the 'piano practice'). So I don't expect neuroscientists to be able to detect the neurological results of exposure to a meme via fMRI anytime soon. At this point in time it would take more invasive technologies and some degree of luck to detect such subtle changes without causing brain damage.
The issue I tried to point to was the difference between an object and a property. We tend to differentiate between a thing and a property of the thing. So for example, the colour red is a property. If we make "red" itself into an object (an intelligible object), what I called an imaginary or fictional object, then we ought to recognized the difference between this type of object, and the thing which we say is red.
The importance of individuation, and how we individuate, is I think key to understanding the so-called wave function collapse of quantum physics. We approach the microscopic from a perspective derived from our experience with the macro. From the macro scale, we understand the continuity of physical existence through principles of mass and inertia, these are the properties of assumed "objects". So these concepts, "object", "mass", "inertia", are all tied together under our experience of temporal continuity, and they form the grounding or substance for "continuity".
But when the physicists go to the micro scale, the principles for temporal continuity are based in energy rather than mass, and there are conversion principles. The temporal continuity is then expressed as a wave function. However, to take a measurement of that continuous existence of energy, which is expressed as the wave function, we employ the principles of mass and inertia, meaning that the energy must be converted through the principles, to be represented as a thing, a particle. We could call it a sort of interaction problem. There is an immaterial realm of wave existence, grasped only by the mind. And, there is also the material objects which we have come to know through our senses which we have become very familiar with. There is a certain incommensurability, as the principles do not quite jive. I would say that we ought to take heed of our past experience, and recognize that we need to be vey skeptical of knowledge derived from sensation.
:up:
Quoting Wayfarer
Heideggerian phenomenology in other words, privileging secondary qualities over primary qualities by conflating epistemology with ontology. Anthropocentric antirealism (contra Mediocrity Principle) aka "idealism". :zip:
The issue I have is that our understanding of mind comes from our human experience of "minding", or to put it another way our understanding of consciousness derives from the experience of awareness (or the awareness of experience). and what it feels like and intuitively seems to mean to be conscious. So, the idea of "what mind looks like" seems incoherent to me.
Schopenhauer is easier to swallow because he speaks of a blind will or striving (an idea I believe he got from Spinoza's "conatus") and this makes more sense to me than the idea of universal mind, since we do see what appears to be striving in the natural world, most particularly in the realms of flora and fauna.
Why should even "inanimate" matter not appear as striving, if it is fundamentally energetic? But a blind, striving will cannot explain how it is that we all see the same things in the world around us, unless the will generates real structures that are continually being formed and broken down by real forces. But this would just be a physicalist view, not an idealist one.
The idea of a universal mind is the idea of a container that holds things as constant thoughts that manifest as the objects of the senses, and look the same to us, because of this activity of the "mind at large", and this would be more than a mere "blind will".
The question then is, if this "mind" is not metacogntiive. is it at least cognitive? Is it aware of us and does it have a plan for us. It all seems too nebulous and far out to me to be taken seriously as anything more than a wishful fantasy. There is only one more wishful step up to a Giod that cares about us.
Quoting Janus
Well, I can only answer that here we are trying to project human understanding, our cognitive apparatus upon a highly complex account that requires a lot of text to describe. Since I am not Kastrup, I can only suggest reading him. I don't think you are right about it being a physicalist view - the entire point is it looks like physicalism to us but is mind when viewed from a particular perspective - us. I see no reason why consciousness, if that's all there is (as even the Hindu's believe) would not also appear to us as inanimate objects.
Quoting Janus
These are the very same questions Kastrup poses and I don't think he has answered them. He'd be the first to say that his ontology raises matters for which he has no current account. I am not deep enough into him to respond fluently on this.
I think Mind at Large is a small 'g' god surrogate and occupies a similar foundational space and is the guarantor of being. It doesn't have a plan, however, since it has no metacognition. The idea is there is only mind and from this, all being emanates in various forms - creatures and objects. Object permanence comes via Mind at Large.
The 'mediocracy principle' only exists in the minds of those who propose it.
Quoting Tom Storm
[quote="Dhivan Thomas Jones - The Universe is Waking Up; https://thebuddhistcentre.com/westernbuddhistreview/universe-waking#:~:text=Nagel%E2%80%99s%20starting%20point" ] Nagels starting point (in Mind and Cosmos) is not simply that he finds materialism partial or unconvincing, but that he himself has a metaphysical view or vision of reality that just cannot be accommodated within materialism. This vision is that the appearance of conscious beings in the universe is somehow what it is all for; that Each of our lives is a part of the lengthy process of the universe gradually waking up and becoming aware of itself. [/quote]
The reason that I'm not a physicalist is that matter does not act. It is only acted upon. (Interesting etymological fact: the word 'matter' is derived from the same root as 'mother'.) The laws of physics, which for moderns occupy the role once accorded to 'the inexorable laws of fate' (according to Whitehead) can in no way account for the origin or significance of life (which is why eliminative materialism, for instance, has such an absurdly truncated view of the nature of being).
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
:chin:
Because philosophy, the 'love of wisdom', or better still 'love~wisdom' ought not to have to rely on the findings of contingent science. Certainly, any philosophy has to be able to deal with empirical discoveries, and certainly the background worldview of the ancients was hardly scientifically informed by today's standards - but if you consider the main subjects of interest in the Platonic dialogues, many of them - the nature of love, of justice, of wisdom, of courage - are hardly affected by that.
Quoting RogueAI
Yes, but not just your mind and your thought.
Action = energy = matter. Wtf, sir. :sweat:
Newtonian laws & conservation laws typical 'dualist', I guess you've never heard of those. :roll:
I'll leave discussion of Plato's dialogs to people better informed than I.
However, I'd suggest some study of evolutionary psychology and game theory *might* disabuse you of the belief that understanding of the nature of love, justice, wisdom, and courage are hardly affected by knowledge of science.
Anyway, I'm letting myself get too absorbed with discussions on the forum. So I'm going to try to resist getting too sucked into this one.
Thanks for the discussion.
I will explain. The idea that life can be explained with reference only to the laws of physics is physicalism, right? Newtonian laws being an example of 'laws of physics'. So to oppose physicalism, is to argue that life cannot be so derived. The quotation provided is from Ernst Mayr, whom I believe is an authority in the field of biology, disputing physicalist reductionism, saying that organisms are fundamentally (I would say, ontologically) different to non-living matter. It's tangential to the OP, but not completely.
Sure, they contribute to it, they might re-frame it. But I think as a matter of principle that philosophy demands a kind of insight that relies on qualities of character and reason, not on contingent facts. // oh, and you're welcome. //
Wrong. :lol:
Quoting 180 Proof
My bad, I didn't really clarify my terminology. So let me try to adapt it to analytic idealism and then some.
Quoting Bob Ross
So I'll use the word mind for localized and dissociated universal mind. And Formless Mind for the "part" of the Universal Mind which is not manifested in spacetime as a measurable form.
So we have the Universal Mind, the Formless Mind and then the localized mind.
Of course this distinction is only for usefulness of explaining and there is no spatial or temporal separation between the three.
Why do I say that our human localized mind obeys to the laws of spacetime?
Simply because the Formless Mind to manifest itself into spacetime it needs matter, in this case a brain and a body, it is "pulled down" to the world of form, which is an excitation of the Formless.
In a human being, the Formless is in a relationship with the form and thus it is subject to different laws, laws of spacetime. The Formless does not lose its nature but it becomes limited by the form.
Enter:
Quoting Bob Ross
In a sense, but lets clarify.
As I understand it, the human being is mostly subject to the laws of spacetime.
One is born in a body which is conditioned for millions of years of evolution.
One is conditioned by his/her specific genes and then conditioned by society.
That's why it is right to say that humans are social animals but I simply wouldn't end it there.
So far a human being is just a complicated machine.
For some reason humans are born with the potential to realize that Formless Mind which is the original source of his/her consciousness.
So as I see it humans have two options:
1. Live under the rule of the localized mind which obeys laws of spacetime like a machine
2. Realize the Formless Mind in oneself and become subject to new different laws.
If you are familiar with traditional metaphysics and religious texts this may sound familiar.
i.e the no-mind of zen, the anatman of Buddha, the divine double, the nous etc.
These traditions always have called for man to shift their attention from option 1 and live option 2.
Ultimately that is the point of meditation in "negative" religions, or surrender in "positive" religions.
Quoting Bob Ross
Yes and there is a chance that it cannot be done, at least objectively.
Right. Agree. And not incompatible with:
Quoting Bob Ross
Although I will also observe that yours is not a physicalist account of physicalism.
That statement doesn't make any sense.
Consider this ...
Your thoughts?
Thank you for your readiness! But I don't think we should get involved in such a quest. Not worthwhile.
Quoting Bob Ross
I can give you a few references. However, I don't know what you actually expect from this. If you are not involved in the Eastern philosophy, I don't know if what I can refer you to will make much sense or even be useful to you.
They are all refering mainly to experiencing. So, you must not expect scientific facts or even views, although scientific approaches can be applied to some cases.
Also, it is mportant to note that none of the views on consciousness find me totally in aggreement. Maybe I'm closest to Sarvapriyananda's description ("consciousness lighting up experiences".)
So, I have created the following list, prompted by your request! :smile:
Eastern philosophy:
Swami Sarvapriyananda | Consciousness The Ultimate Reality
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3cuMEBYm_g
Swami Sarvapriyananda on 'CONSCIOUS EXPERIENCE'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01fWVdfIUPs
Life and consciousness The Ved?ntic view
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4802748/
What is Samkhya?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awFdSi_VD5c
The Monistic Idealism of A. Goswami - A Theosophical Appraisal
(Sections "Materialism and idealism" and "Wave-function collapse")
http://davidpratt.info/goswami.htm
Western philosophy with Eastern elements:
Mind, Matter, and Life: Fritjof Capra
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFERd65UCh8
Earth Talk: Fritjof Capra - The Systems View of Life
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=If2Fw0z6uxY
Non-duality and the Nature of Consciousness (Rupert Spira)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRUgkSJZ-8M
Destined to Evolve Our Consciousness (Eckhart Tolle)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2gtEjtXCTo
Quoting Bob Ross
This is indeed so.
Quoting Bob Ross
This is plausible too.
Quoting Bob Ross
Exactly. This is what I'm saying.
Quoting Bob Ross
See my first reply.
Quoting Bob Ross
I didn't say that consciousness is synonymous with perception. They are two totally different kinds of things. What I mean is that consciousness is strongly connected to perception, in the sense that it is a state and abiity to preceive things outside us (environment) as well as inside us (thoughts, emotions, etc.)
But consciousness is not limited to perception. I would mention that if I knew you would scrutinize my statement! :grin:
Quoting Bob Ross
OK, but consciousness a characteristic of all life: Living organisms as well as plants.
Quoting Bob Ross
All this is fine. But the "universal mind" is only a concept for me: I have no experience of it.
Quoting Bob Ross
Certainly. Each form of life has a different level of consciousness, or better, it is consious on a different level, depending on its complexity as an organism, as you say.
The source of activity in "actual existence" is a deep ontological question. We can get a glimpse of it through introspection, and understanding the will, or what is describing as "blind striving". But Janus' account is a little off the mark, because this "will" can never be truly blind because it would then just be a cause of action which would be completely random, and unintelligible in an absolute sense. What we do find (or I find) through introspection is that the inclinations of the will are not totally accessible to the conscious mind. This is what gives the will the appearance of being "blind", and these origins of activity as being somewhat unintelligible. We are driven by many features from the subconscious (or unconscious) level of our physical living bodies, and the conscious mind does not have access to that source of activity.
Likewise, when we look externally with our senses we observe the activity of things, and our sensations do not have access to the true cause of these activities. This leaves the cause, or origin of activity as completely out of reach of empirical science. The application of numbers leaves us baffled because we allow "infinite" to be incorporated into the axioms and this implies no end (or beginning), leaving the origins as necessarily unintelligible.
So, we have two approaches toward the origin (cause) of activity, inward and outward, and neither one provides us with what we need to be able to understand it. Furthermore, the approach provided by looking inward, toward the will, becomes completely incompatible with the approach of empirical sciences which is looking outward with the senses, as we delve deeper and deeper. What this suggests to me is that we do not have an adequate understanding of the relationship between space and time.
Conventional representations of space do not provide the means for distinguishing the outward direction from the inward direction. We make a three dimensional object, like a sphere, and we model motion in space, relative to that proposed object, as the same, whether the motion is inside or outside this object. If the object is imaginary, fictional, just a plotting of points, like a reference frame, there is nothing real to substantiate a difference between inside and outside of the object. But when we take a real object, with molecular structure, there is a real, substantial difference between inside and outside due to the existence of mass, and the known forces which are associated with it. However, we (physicists), with our advanced principles, still represent forces in the Newtonian way of two massive objects having an effect on each other from the outside inward, a "collision". So for example, physicists cannot model the interaction of two objects as there being an intrinsic source of activity within each object, and these two internally sourced activities interacting, with each other, because they do not have an adequate spatial-temporal representation to allow for internally sourced activities. Activity coming from inside appears counterintuitive to the materialist perspective because it does not conform to a three dimensional model of space, so it must come from "nowhere", or just spontaneously (magically) appear at a random point in space.
And yet you quote Pinter making a claim about the mind-independent world
Quoting Pinter, Charles. Mind and the Cosmic Order (p92)
Quoting Wayfarer
The very notion of anything at all implies something having a notion. But existence is not the notion of existence. As you say, the object really exists.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Hm? :brow: Well, if you ask how far away the Moon is, someone might variously say "No clue", "Between 200,000 and 300,000 miles", "The average distance between Earth's and the Moon's centers of gravity is about 360,000 km, increasing about 4 cm a year, and Earth's rotation slowing down accordingly", (translated) Hipparchus said about 400,000 km, ... Maybe no one will respond, doesn't really matter much. It's beliefs + justifications. None of which has any particular bearing on the Moon being distanced, and that getting there is no walk in the park. Whatever distance is discovered, not invented, and not existentially dependent on whatever human discoverers' heads. :shrug:
Do you have a link for that?
No, he didnt correct the error; there wasnt one to correct. It is impossible to know what things are in themselves, iff the human cognitive system is representational, which they both accepted as the case, and that necessarily. All S did was take that which is impossible to not know .the will .and call it the thing-in-itself, a philosophical blunder for which there is no legitimate excuse.
Lets do some science. For any transformation of energy there is loss. It follows that for whatever mode of energy incorporated in the mode of reception by the sensory organs, that transforms into another form of energy in the peripheral nervous system, there is a loss in the original form. Therefore, whatever information is represented in the secondary form cannot be identical to whatever information was contained in the original. If that information in the secondary energy represents that which ends as knowledge, and that secondary information is not identical to the original information due to energy loss, it is impossible such knowledge can be of the original energy source.
So it seems metaphysics already proposed in its domain what physics subsequently obtained in its own.
Quoting Bob Ross
Context aside, insofar as there is no pertinent connection, it remains Kant could not have said noumena could not be understood, after having himself conceived a version of them. In Kant, understanding is the origin of conceptions, noumena are conceptions, or rather, noumena is a conception of a general class of conceptions, therefore noumena in general must be understandable, for otherwise the conception itself would be impossible. He made the apodeitic systemically conditioned argument that noumena could never be represented in the intuitive faculty of human cognitive system, therefore no noumenal objects could be an experience for us. Which is not entitlement to say there are no noumenal objects, but only that those systems predicated on a intuitive/discursive systemic methodology are not equipped to know what one would entail.
-
Quoting Bob Ross
Be it granted it is impossible to know what an object is, if for it there is only a single intuition or a single conception. Many things are round, but to cognize any one thing, it must be more than just round. For however many representations there are by which an object becomes an experience, all those representations must be united into a single cognition. The categories are those primitive conceptions, not by which they are but by which representations of objects can be united such that a cognition is possible. This and this and this make up the cognition of that, but there still must be that which facilitates that this and this and this can be connected without conflicting with each other.
The categories can be thought of as regulatory principles, in that the cognition of objects depends on a logical system adhering to something that both makes the cognition possible and at the same time, alleviates contradictions in them. For instance, it is not enough to know it is possible to experience that which exists, but something must make it apodeitically certain it is impossible to experience that which does not exist, even if non-existence itself holds no contradiction insofar as it is merely a complementary conception.
The real attraction justifying the categories, is the human ability to construct its own real existences from abstract conceptions, re: numbers, letters, and so on, which would be utterly impossible if, like Hume, the denial of pure a priori conceptions, as logically invalid or altogether rationally impossible, were the case. It is tacitly inconceivable how we could invent mathematical objects if we didnt already have the pure a priori conception of quantity contained in our understanding. There would be no moral philosophy predicated exclusively on abstract conceptions, justified post hoc by empirical behaviors.
Anyway .basic rendition of the what they are, but not so much the how they work, which would take a hellava lot more than a couple paragraphs and more than a couple presuppositions.
Fast times at Ridgemont High, or, you gotta be a complete stoner to comprehend this stuff??? Not to be taken as a confession, I swear.
No object without subject. Thats my final offer. :wink:
Pinter goes on to make the case that without subjects, there are no facts. Facts are not self-existent, they are dependent on being singled out from the background. Besides, the word exist means to be apart, to be this as distinct from that. My view is that any meaningful notion of what exists always implicitly includes the subject, but as the subject is not apparent in objective analysis, then it is overlooked. That is something that is brought out by phenomenology. I think it has something to do with Heideggers forgetfulness of being, but as Im not a Heidegger scholar, I wont labour that point. (Its also the point of the Aeon essay The Blind Spot of Science.)
Behind all this, there's the deep and difficult subject of the distinction between the objective and the transcendent, but I don't have the scholarly chops to expound on that, either. So I'll bow out for now.
I spent a lot of time on his blog a while ago trying to nail down the story he is presenting to us.
I'm not sure I have the precise reference, but this is a start -
https://www.bernardokastrup.com/2012/07/meaningful-evolution.html
And each subject 'appears to itself' a secondary quality presupposing that it is fundamentally also an object.
Nor do I. My mistake for not being clear enough. What I meant was that Noumena is a conception that rests upon logical possibility alone and is untenable for the reasons previously given.
Some things are not existentially dependent upon us. Some things are. Some things are existentially dependent on us for their emergence, but their persistence is not.
:brow:
Does that question even have an answer? It seems clear to me that it does not! Watching a sunset is not like anything. To quite the contrary, each viewing is different. One could watch the sun set as many times as one likes, and each time it will be different. Likewise, each day, each moment, of one's so called 'subjective experience' is different from all the other days and moments as well.
Hence, it is the question itself that is problematic in that it is not a well formulated question to begin with. There is no sensible meaningful answer to it.
But each time it will involve (at the very least) watching and a sun. I agree that each experience is somewhat different, but so is each time we take a piss or eat a curry. But in each instance, there are elements that clearly distinguish taking a piss from eating a curry (unless there is beer involved). What is it like? This is a question that elicits a rich source of experiential data from people, the answers are meaningful, but the question probably doesn't elicit specific, verifiable data.
So, what is it like to watch a sunset?
Quoting Tom Storm
For instance, if you were involved in counselling or supporting people to recover from trauma (as I am) or a series of other similar activities, then the question 'what is it like' can be of immense significance in assisting people to navigate their experiences and identity.
I think the idea of noumena is derived from the pretty much universal belief that the objects of perception are independently existent, coupled with the realization that naive realism is, on analysis, untenable. What follows is the realization that we know objects of the senses only as they appear to us.
A good observation when considering that Kant wanted to secure the logic of causality in the face of the skepticism of Hume.
I take Kant to be a realist; phenomena are real for us and noumena can only be ideal, in that we can only have ideas about their nature, whereas we perceive the phenomenal aspects of noumena that appear in the interactions with us we call "perception".
So in that sense noumena and phenomena can be understood to be the same thing seen under the two different aspects: in-themselves and as-they-appear.
I remember reading somewhere that there are two schools of thought among Kant scholars: the dual world theorists and the dual aspect theorists.
So, I don't think of the ideas of noumena and in-itself as add-ons, but as qualifications marking the limits of knowledge.
An add-on would consist in making claims about what the noumena or things-in-themselves are, as Plato and Schopenhauer do.
Maybe @Mww can shed more light.
Quoting Janus
:up:
I'm in the dual-aspect school (à la Spinoza).
Me too.
If your point is that such questions(what is it like to..) can be used in common parlance to generate meaningful discussion, then sure, I agree. If your point is that the question can be used to help people come to acceptable terms with past events, then again... sure, I would agree. That's beside the point I was making about the general thrust of the thread...
The context here, in this thread, is whether or not such questions support the charge that idealism is superior to reductive physicalist approaches when it comes to taking adequate account of human experience. The charge was made by the OP that reductive physicalist approaches cannot account for qualia without appealing to obscurity whereas idealist approaches presumably can. I was pointing out that idealist approaches are more obscure than reductive physicalist approaches when it comes to explaining experience.
The typical question posited to bring the so-called hard problem into consideration regarding the inadequacy of explanatory power inherent to reductive physicalist approaches is often one that begins with "what is it like to..."
I was pointing out that such questions are not indicative of any shortcomings of reductive physicalist approaches, but rather serve to muddy the waters and distract(add obscurity) because they are not well formulated questions to begin with.
The entire enterprise of qualia is fraught with ambiguity, obscurity, and untenability compounded by simile and metaphor. It makes for poorly done philosophy.
Quoting creativesoul
Which I think overstates the case, for reasons I have spelt out. But it was a small point. And you're right the qualia debate is banal. Personally I have no idea what it's like to be me let alone you, or a fucking bat!
Yeah, you're right. On its face, it's false. I second guessed the wording when writing that, but wrote it anyway.
Exactly. It's not 'like' anything else... which is the point.
:up:
An object and a fact are two different things. No facts without subjects because facts are propositions. Objects are not.
If, as you claim, we can't get outside the appearance then what is the basis of the assumption that there are no discreet entities? When a meteor hits the earth one thing impacts the other.
Yup. It is my understanding that Kant posits the Noumena precisely as a negative limit for human knowledge. I take the general gist of it to be something like... we can know that we cannot know anything about noumena aside from that they are not equivalent to phenomena.
But that line of reasoning is untenable. There is no way to compare noumena and phenomena in order to determine that the one is not the other.
So, as you said earlier, it's purely a conceptual or logical distinction. I think "conceptual" fits better, but that's just me being pedantic about what counts as being logical. Hence, the earlier scare-quotes around the term...
Hello creativesoul,
It is the subjective perceptions that collectively makeup your life. It is your feelings (e.g., feeling pain), tastes (e.g., the sourness of the apple you bit into), hearing (e.g., hearing a piano playing), sight (e.g., seeing a tree), smells (e.g., smelling the stench of a rotten apple), thoughts (e.g., thinking about the tree of which you see), and imagination (e.g., picturing a pink elephant eating a mango).
Every waking moment you are immersed in a rich qualitative experience.
Qualia refers to the unique perceptive experience that is generated by your senses (and obviously the idealist and physicalist are going to disagree about what those senses ontologically areviz., mind-independent organs vs. mind-dependent faculties of a soul).
When you look at a tree, that is a qualitative experience you are having which is a perception generated by your senses of input from reality.
Obscurity about what? I do not deny that every metaphysical theory has its obscurities. My point was that the hard problem can only be accounted for by an obscurity, and since it is a hard problem it makes it very epistemically costly to hold the theory (I would argue). Whereas, a theory that, for example, cannot give currently a complete and accurate account of something that is possibly explainable under the theory (e.g., like how a certain drug completely affects brain activity under physicalism) is an obscurity (now) but only of a soft problem (and thusly not as bad as a hard problem).
Bob
Hello Janus,
I see. Let me try to clarify a bit.
The idea is not that we know of the thing-in-itself from an intellectual seeming (i.e., intuition) but rather that, because we are self-conscious, we have the unique ability to understand empirically (from introspection) that the mental is manifested as something physical. It is an introspective, empirical claim: it is not a claim that we somehow intellectual grasp that it is the case (although maybe perhaps our empirical observation of it as an outward expression is an intellectual seeming).
Perhaps I misunderstood you, as intellectual seemings are not feelings. If you were saying schopenhauer was basing the aforementioned claim on a feeling, then I think the previous clarification I made (above) clears that up: it is an introspective, empirical claim.
If by mind you are referring to the idealistic sense of the word (i.e., an immaterial, conscious, and thinkingin the sense of mental activity and not complex cognitive deliberationsubject), then there are no such scientific evidence. None of it suggests that there were cosmological events prior to a mind but, rather, that there were such events prior to organic minds. In other words, the analytic idealist agrees that there was a world prior to you, me, or any other animal and plant: this doesnt contradict the view at all. If you think there is compelling scientific evidence that there was absolutely not conscious activity prior to organisms/animals/plants, then please share! I just dont see any.
Also, I should mention that the term mind in a physicalistic sense entails that there were organisms which existed without minds (because the mind is an emergent property of the brain that comes with higher life form complexity). Is that what you are referring to?
Bob
Hello Fooloso4,
I apologize: I didnt understand what you were asking.
I didnt really have a problem with what Chalmers was saying because I was interpreting his formulation of the hard problem as from the presumption that the physical does produce the mental, and he was noting that this makes no sense (which I agree with: if the physical does produce the mental, then we should expect us all to be philosophical zombies). I also agree with him that the consensus amongst most people is physicalism (and I would say scientists tend to be physicalists).
However, my point with your quote was that it asserts the presumption (which arguably Chalmers is making too) as true (that physicality produces mentality); while I was interpreting Chalmers in the sense that he is formulating the puzzling fact of qualia for physicalist accounts of the world, which only exists if you presume physicalism.
With your claim (that you quoted as well), I was pointing out that you were claiming (if I didnt misunderstand you) that science can eventually come to understand how the biological functions give rise to experience (because you were saying science is the rightful investigator of the hard problem whereas I was saying it is squarely within metaphysics), which implies that the so called hard problem is actually a soft problem (as science can only account for how that works if it is possible to explain it scientifically, and the idea behind calling it a hard problem is that we know it is impossible to do so). I am not sure how Chalmers defines a hard problem.
If you agree that it is a hard problem, then I think you should also agree that science cant help solve it. Otherwise, it is a soft problem. For me, that is a matter of definition: perhaps you semantically disagree?
Likewise, your claim was presuming physicalism at the start. You cant claim that biological functions product or give rise to experience without being committed already to physicalism: the metaphysical claim comes before, in this case, the claim that science is the rightful investigator of consciousness (since you are presuming, in the question at least, that biological functions produce mental events).
This is sort of correct but I would like to clarify: a hard problem is a purported irreconcilable problem in the theory, whereas a soft problem is a purported reconcilable problem. Chalmers, as I understood the quote, is just formulating it a bit like a suspicion rather than a true hard problem: I could see how his wording makes it seem like the hard problem is something that could be reconciled someday; but I disagree if that is what he is implying. I agree with the questions he is raising against physicalism though.
You are right that the hard problem of consciousness is fundamentally asking why and how biological function gives rise to experience? but I would say that the idea behind calling it a hard problem is that there cannot be an account of it. It is a brick wall that the theory has hit.
It sounds like you may be saying it is a hard problem only in the sense that it is going to be very difficult to solve: is that correct?
I can agree that someone could think that doing neuroscience, for example, was an investigation into resolving the hard problembut once they realize that it is impossible to understand it via science then they realize that it is squarely a dispute within metaphysics (which was my original claim). In other words, it is only an investigation insofar as we are ignorant on how to investigate it.
In terms of analytic idealism, the physical transmission, which is a phenomena, is a medium through which data is transmitted, and metaphysically it really is the extrinsic representation of mentality (of immaterial ideas). They are two sides of the same coin: analytic idealism is a form of epistemic dualism.
I disagree. If the physical is an extrinsic representation of the mental, then the inhaling of anesthesia and your brains neural network firing less (or what have you) is simply an extrinsic representation of mental events. If you hooked up a brain scanner to a person that is knocked out on anesthesia and see certain neural activity (or the lack thereof), then you could explain it as it either being your minds perceptive representation of the mental events or as brain interpreting there physical body and then producing a qualitative experience of it that you fundamentally witness consciously. These are the competing views.
Just like how the ingestion of a drug and the side effects thereof in a video game is merely a representation of 0s and 1s, so would analytic idealism postulate that the ingestion of a drug and its side effects in the world is simply a representation (as what is fundamental is the ideas: analogous to the 0s and 1s so to speak).
From an analytic idealists perspective, you are essentially arguing that simply because the character in the video game passed out and when measured by a brain scanner by another character they see reduced brain activity (or neural activity or what have you) that thusly the character must be fundamentally the physical (in the colloquial sense of the term) stuff that the doctor character in the video game can biologically examine; but, in actuality, the character is the representation of 0s and 1s. My point here is just that I think you are conflating the dashboard of experience with the thing-in-itself: it does not follow that what is truly happening is physical stuff (in a colloquial or even formal sense of the term) simply because we experience it as tangible within our dashboard of experience.
Again. The video game doctor can likewise appeal that the other character (that is knocked out from anesthesia) was disrupted by the inhaling of the drug: does that mean that the character fundamentally exists as that physical stuff? No. That character is the representation, in the case of a video game, of 0s and 1s.
Bob
Hello TheMadMan,
I believe I followed: essentially the eternal and formless mind is expressed within the forms of space and time, correct? If so, then I think you are essentially saying exactly what schopenhauer was trying to get at with his eternal formless will, which is the expression of platonic ideas from our perspective within space and time (i.e., the formless being forced to the form of space and time expresses grades of platonic ideas).
This is where I stop following: how does one realize the formless mind? To me, we are stuck with the two pure forms of experience: space and time. How could one transcend them?
Bob
Hello Alkis Piskas,
Thank you! I will take a look!
I apologize: I wasnt trying to scrutinize your view but, rather, provide clarification in relation to analytic idealism.
Correct, and this is why I just wanted to clarify perception vs consciousness. A plant is conscious but does not perceive anything.
I agree. But I want to elaborate that other people and plants beings conscious is also a concept in that same sense (that we dont experience it). I dont find this to be a problem: we can know things without experiencing them.
Bob
Hello Mww,
Thank you for the elaboration! Space and time is the aspect of every theory that I find unsatisfying (and so I am still working through how to metaphysically account for them); so let me pick your brain a little bit.
I find there to be a conceptual error here of Kants (and maybe perhaps Schopenhauer to) of the minds ontological status.
If we have no access to the things-in-themselves because our experience is just the expression of them in space and time which is produced by our minds, then our minds must be a thing-in-itself. If our minds are not a thing-in-itself, then they are not outside space and time, but to produce space and time they would have to be outside of it: therefore, if they arent a thing-in-itself, then our minds do not produce space and time.
If our minds are a thing-in-itself, then it does not hold that we cannot infer past the forms space and time; and, in that case, mind is fundamental. So, to me, Kant cant claim that we cannot know the thing-in-itself on grounds of the mind producing space and time, because that entails that the mind is a thing-in-itself which is producing representations of other things-in-themselves via the forms space and time. The only way to reconcile this (by my lights) is for Kant to claim that our minds have no ontological status eitherbut, then, the mind cannot be producing space and time. What would your response to that be?
Sometimes I hear people saying that Kant was only talking about something epistemic about minds as opposed to ontological, but I dont see how that works either. If the forms of representation are space and time, then that thereby (by my lights) admits the mind as having ontological status.
I think the difference is that Schopenhauer rightly pointed out that ideas are what are represented in the physical, and we can know this through introspection: that is the contribution I think Schopenhauer made; however, those ideas which are being represented are also within time (just not space until they are represented physically), but they originate from nowhere. The constant flow of ideas which are represented physically, that each of us have access to through introspection, quite literally are a series (in time) of somethingand this is where our introspective access ends. What we can know from this is that the physical is a representation of the mentalbut where and what are the ideas that are temporally being enacted into physical representations? Schopenhauer posits that the best metaphysical explanation is that each idea is a part of a will and that will is outside of time and space. Perhaps you would claim that we cant know what is the cause of those series of ideasit is just beyond our knowledge.
I dont think this counters Schopenhauers point: no one was claiming that we have a exact, mirrored knowledge of the thing-in-itself. We are organisms that produce perceptions which are filtered representations of our environment. Schopenhauer, rather, was arguing that the best metaphysical explanation for the unknown-origined ideas, which are being represented in physical terms, is that they are an eternal, unified will (which is the thing-in-itself).
Going back to the problem with positing space and time are synthetic a priori (of a mind) while also claiming we have no knowledge of things-in-themselves, I find that Kants view is incompatible with reasonable, parsimonious metaphysical explanations of scientific knowledge. For example, we have ample empirical knowledge to back that the most parsimonious explanation of our bodies is that it takes in senses from our environment and represents it to ourselves. We are impacted by other bodies, rocks, etc. and we represent that to ourselves; but, with Kants view, we are forced to claim that we cannot infer that there is an natural environment, that we are impacted by other bodies, etc. because we cannot know anything about the things-in-themselves. If we cant know anything about things-in-themselves, then our observed impact of other bodies on our own is merely more representations that cannot be used to infer anything beyond them. All we can know is that, transcendentally, they are representing something--but no more than that. To me, we can reasonably infer things about the things-in-themselves.
To me, as far as I am understanding the categories and noumena, they are beyond space and time (being a priori and some synthetic of minds); but then the mind is a thing-in-itself, is it not? It seems as though Kant is trying to argue we can transcendentally come to understand how our mind represented things, and that includes the two pure forms of intuition, but yet that is exactly the concession that we can infer, based off of experience, at least certain aspects of at least one thing-in-itself: our mind. Again, if our mind doesnt ontologically exist, then it cant be producing space and time to represent things to itself.
Wouldnt these categories have to be beyond space and time, since they are also a part of how the mind synthetically represents objects within space and time?
To me, I think there is a neo-Kantian view that physicalists could hold whereof the mind, being an emergent property of the brain, is producing a representation of time and space that exists beyond their mind (in the mind-independent world) and that would have categories in the brain.
Again, I appreciate the elaboration and look forward to your response!
Bob
Just because there are minor differences does not mean something can't be like something else. Our experiences of sunsets are very similar to each other, so that we can say "watching this sunset is not at all like eating a peach, but it is similar to all the other sunset's I've seen." If someone says that eating rattlesnake is like eating chicken, I know what the experience of eating a rattlesnake will be like.
This is nonsense. Of course you know what it's like to be you. If physicalists have to make this sort of move to salvage their position, they've lost. It's not convincing to anyone.
Thanks for the invite, but I wouldnt know where to start. I dont agree with 90% of whats said herein regarding any of the three Critiques, not so much because of the general lack of intelligence but because of the failure to hold with the intended perspective on the one hand, and putting on much stock in secondary literature on the other.
Anyway, for starters I guess, regarding CPR, it behooves one to get it, that there are 26 pages concerning the world that is perceived, and 285 pages dedicated to a thesis on what the human intellect does with it, and by association, what it does with everything. It follows that referencing Kant is an automatic limitation to reason (the noun) and reason alone, the world in general and your neighbor in particular can get the hell outta the way; they are irrelevant. And bothersome.
It very well may be separate metaphysics attribute to things-in-themselves and noumena a knowledgeable reality of their own, but in Kant, having given only 26 pages to objective reality, the implication is that nothing about them has any significance. Yeah, theres a world. Of course there is. So what. Still, that we dont have any legitimate reason to care about them doesnt reflect on how the conceptions of them came about, which gets us back to the 285 pages.
Ever onward. Buried as a footnote in the preface to the second edition, which is obviously the very beginning, is the statement that I can think whatever I want provided only that I dont contradict myself. Many MANY pages later, at the beginning of the 285 page second part, is the statement, understanding is the faculty of thought.
Now we have understanding can think whatever it wants provided only that it doesnt contradict itself, which implies understanding can think objects of its own all by itself, which it does, and they are represented as conceptions. Then the theory goes on to say understanding has no use for conceptions except to judge by means of them. OK, so we got a conception .but what is there to judge? Merely thinking a conception is all well and good but an exercise in futility if no judgement is facilitated by it. So at this point noumena is a conception understanding thinks but cant do anything with.
The problem manifests in the fact the impossible cannot be conceived, which just means the conception represented as noumena cannot be impossible, but that does not mean there is a thing that can be related to it, something on which to formulate a judgement. The theory has already stipulated, with respect to things, the only relation permissible to conceptions are intuitions, represented as phenomena. All intuitions are sensible, therefore if there is a noumenal thing to relate to the object understanding thinks, it must be sensible, therefore a phenomenon.
Therein lay the logical contradiction, insofar as if noumena are only objects understanding thinks they cannot be sensible objects perception receives because if they were, theyd be phenomena which means they could not be objects only thought by the understanding. But noumena are valid conceptions, understanding is nonetheless entitled to think them, in that they do not contradict other conceptions, so it must be the case that it just isnt possible to know whether there are noumenal objects or not, but if there are they are not sensible by us.
But none if that is really important. So what understanding can do this thing, but get nothing out of it, from which arises a methodological contradiction. Abominable waste of transcendental effort. But like that French guy says in The Matrix (imitates bourgeois Merovingian accent) .theres always a reason. For want of not bludgeoning the uninterested, the reason is found in the categories, in short, because for that which the understanding thinks, whether in the attempt to solve the worlds problems or just from twiddling its imaginary thumbs cuz its bored itself into a stupor, the categories have no effect. What Kant has done, by assigning particular jobs to particular faculties in a systemic methodology, is sustain internal logical consistency. Sure, understanding can do all this fancy shit, but, given a certain set of conditions, heres what can be known, heres why it can be known, anything else is junk so dont go there.
The book on logic is formidable, and might be clearer if not for the prolonged discourse attempting to clarify it. For me anyway, half a century into it, I like to think Im getting close.
"For clarity, the alternative hypothesis I mentioned in the video is this: There are phenomena in physics suggestive that the universe is, at a fundamental level, unified; in the sense that any event can potentially influence any other event across time and space limitations, at a quantum level. The phenomenon of quantum entanglement, when taken together with the Big Bang theory, is suggestive of this possibility. Some interpretations of quantum mechanics suggest the same, like David Bohm's Implicate Order. So it is not completely unreasonable to imagine that there could be some form of non-local feedback from the results of natural selection back into the probability envelops governing the quantum-level processes from which genetic mutations arise. After all, those mutations are probabilistic processes at a molecular level, governed by quantum wave functions."
But that's not his hypothesis (or he's being disingenous). Kastrup's hypothesis is idealism. Idealism claims that this is all the dream of a cosmic mind/god. Mutations, entanglement, physics, the universe, the Big Bang, etc., none of it is real. It's all just elements of the dream.
I know. And thanks for the clarification.
Quoting Bob Ross
Yet, it does!
"Plants perceive the stimuli of the environment (rain, wind, cold, heat, attacks from herbivores or pathogens, and so on) and remember for a sufficiently long period, not these stimuli as such but rather the type of reaction they should have. This capacity is a precious asset enabling plants to produce a response adapted to all these stimuli and their fluctuations. If a plant perceives a stimulus to which it has previously been subjected, its response will be stronger."
(Sensory properties, memory and communication in the plant world)
Quoting Bob Ross
That's why I like to connect consciousness with perception. Because we can know that the another person or a dog, etc. are conscious too --besides ourselves, who can experience consciousness directly-- by observing their reactions to stimuli, communicating with them, etc. If they react, it means that they can perceive and therefore they are conscious entities.
Quoting Bob Ross
Certainly.
I am simply saying that we should not deny the possibility. It is not a question of the "rightful investigator of the hard problem".
Quoting Bob Ross
The term is Chalmer's neologism. I posted two statements of it above. The second in his own words.
Quoting Bob Ross
You are defining "a" hard problem as one that is beyond the reach of science. By your definition science can't solve it. But this is question begging. Scientists are working on the problem of consciousness and felt experience, and the extent to which they are successful cannot be determined by the boundaries you set between science and metaphysics.
Your argument amounts to saying that if the hard problem is solved then it is not a hard problem.
Quoting Bob Ross
One need not be committed to any metaphysical claim, whether it is physicalism or something else. An investigation of consciousness in biological organism should begin with biological organisms.
Quoting Bob Ross
It is obviously true that Impairment to biological function impacts mental events. Since it is experience in biological organisms that is at issue those organisms is a reasonable place to start.
Quoting Bob Ross,
This again is question begging, it assumes as established the very thing in question.
Quoting Bob Ross
It is not. The physical transmission makes phenomena possible.
Quoting Bob Ross
The physical in this case is the living organism. A living organism is not an extrinsic representation of the mental. We can, however, mentally represent a living organism. That representation takes place within a living organism.
Quoting Bob Ross
Is the brain scanner an extrinsic representation of the mental? Why is it necessary? It if, and the person knocked out are extrinsic representation of the mental then the mental or Mind should have direct access.
Quoting Bob Ross
The ingestion of a drug is not the ingestion of a representation. If that were the case, the pharmaceutical industry would be out of business. The effects "in the world" are not the same as effects in a video game.
Quoting Bob Ross
It is not simply that we have an experience but that physical stuff has a physical effect. When a plant dies from lack of water or a fish from lack of oxygen, that is a physical event not a mental representation.
Quoting Bob Ross
This might be reverent if the world and everything in it, including us, is a digital simulation.
Quoting Bob Ross
The character fundamentally exists as a character in a video game. There would be no video game without the physical stuff that makes it possible. The game itself is real in a sense that the characters in the game are not. In the same way, a book is real in a sense that the characters in the book are not. Story characters, whether in videos or books do not have the same physical constraints on them that you (if you are not just the character in someone else's story) or I (I am not) have.
Hello Alkis Piskas,
I am unsure as to whether the fact that plants retain memories, to some extent, qualifies them as perceptive. If that does qualify them, then it is a very low degree of perception. Either way, that is interesting: thank you for sharing!
The idea is that, although we cant infer that everything is a part of a universal mind by directly experiencing it like a dog (for it isnt, by its nature, a member of reality but, rather, fundamentally reality itself), we can infer that it exists because otherwise we have no ability to explain the mental: we have the hard problem of consciousness. We posit that the most parsimonious explanation for what reality fundamentally is is mentality because positing it is mind-independent leads to an irreconcilable dilemma.
My point is that we infer there is a universal mind just like we infer there are other conscious animals: we dont directly experience either one. The fact that an animal (or even another human) behaves as though they are conscious doesnt in itself count as directly experiencing other conscious beings.
Bob
Hello Fooloso4,
I fear as though we may be slightly speaking past each other, so I am going to try and slow things down.
When I claim that reductive physicalism has a hard problem of consciousness, I am claiming that it is impossible for that metaphysical theory to explain consciousness: I am not claiming that we merely havent yet. Thusly, I am claiming that it is impossible for science to decipher how brain states produce mental states. Let me explain why I think that, but first let me clarify one more thing.
You say that I am question begging because my definition merely precludes scientific investigation. I want to clarify that I am not doing that: my definition of a hard problem is that it is irreconcilable under the view in questionthere is nothing question begging about that. I am then, on top of using that definition, claiming that the problem of consciousness for reductive physicalism is a hard problem in the sense that I defined it. There is nothing question begging about that because I am not saying that the definition is the proof of it being a hard problem. Now let me explain why I think there is a hard problem of consciousness for reductive physicalism (and it is not merely a soft problem of consciousness).
Reductive physicalism is a methodological approach that explains something in terms of reducing it to other physical entities (e.g., my computer works by using electricity as its power, CPU to process information, hard drive to store information, GPU to render graphical content, etc. of which the computer is explained in terms of reduction to its physical parts), so in order to explain consciousness on this view one has to reduce mental states to brain states. So far so good.
Now, lets abstract out what this kind of explanation of consciousness would look like. One would have to try to explain it in terms of consciousness is [set of biological functions] because [set of biological functions] impact consciousness in [this way] (where you can input whatever biological functions and impact you would like in for the brackets); but, no matter what biological functions one gives as the set and what impact those functions have on conscious activity, the conceptual question is still open-ended: why do those biological functions give rise to consciousness? This sort of explanation never explains consciousness: not even in principle. It doesnt matter how air-tight of an analysis neuroscientists can give some day about the impact of brain states on conscious states: the question of how brain states give rise to mental states is forever open-ended under that sort of explanation. This is why I can, by abstraction, understand that neuroscience will never account for how consciousness is produced.
This isnt just they may someday account for it even though I cant fathom how kind of argument: the abstracted form of the explanation, under reductive physicalism, offers no explanation.
What are your thoughts?
Bob
I didn't say this as a physicalist but as someone trying to make sense of 'what it's like to be.' Maybe you can explain what it means as I am unable to access an experience that coherently matches the statement.
Does he use this dream metaphor, I must have missed this?
To be fair he doesn't say 'it is not real' he says it is not what we think it is. All reality is mind and those mutations, the universe, entanglement, etc - are aspects of how mind presents itself when viewed through the dissociative divide - through our perspective as 'alters' of Mind-at-Large. It's an elaborate narrative and you'd need to read his detailed account to make better sense of it. At this point I don't have enough interest to do this.
Right, you have said that several times. But that is not something you know.
Quoting Bob Ross
Right. You are claiming that we can never provide a physical explanation. But again, that is just an assertion, and it is not evidently true. [
quote="Bob Ross;811138"] ... my definition of a hard problem is that it is irreconcilable under the view in question[/quote]
There you go. Based on your definition. But creating a definition and then rejection something because it contradicts your definition does not hold water.
The Hard Problem is a term of art. It has a specific meaning as defined by Chalmers and is used as defined. Calling something "a hard problem", stipulating it is irreconcilable with physicalism, is your problem, not the accepted meaning of the hard problem.
Quoting Bob Ross
The brain is part of an organism. Physicalism need not be reductive physicalism. The recognition that a living organism can be conscious, is not reductive. To look at an organism as a whole is not reductive physicalism. To claim that consciousness must come from elsewhere because a physical explanation must be reductive is misguided.
Quoting Bob Ross
It is not that biological functions impact consciousness but that it creates consciousness.
Quoting Bob Ross
We don't know. But we do know that some living organisms are conscious and we do not know of consciousness elsewhere, so it makes perfect sense to look at conscious organisms. To ignore these physical organisms because you reject reductive physicalism is willful blindness.
:100: :fire:
But I know that my perception of the tree is not the tree, right? My perceptions are constituted by phenomena: sights, sounds, tactile sensations and so on, but the tree is not merely a sight, or a sound (say wind in the leaves) or a tactile sensation (say the feel of its bark) or the sum of those. Can I not be said to know that without knowing what the tree is as it is in its unperceived status?
Quoting Mww
Quoting Mww
I agree that, by definition, the ideas of the noumena and the things-in-themselves are useless, but I think the fact that we can, indeed must, think them as the limits of knowledge, has great significance for understanding the situation we find ourselves in.
Does that mean it is nothing but an amorphous mass of nothing? :lol:
I can see absolutely no reason to think that individuation relies on conscious observers.
Exactly!
Quoting Janus
Charles Pinter makes his case very well. Try and imagine the Universe from the perspective of a rock. That might provide a hint.
Daniel Dennett is Chalmers foil. He puts it like this:
[quote=Daniel Dennett, The Fantasy of First-Person Science]In Consciousness Explained, I described a method, heterophenomenology, which was explicitly designed to be 'the neutral path leading from objective physical science and its insistence on the third-person point of view, to a method of phenomenological description that can (in principle) do justice to the most private and ineffable subjective experiences, while never abandoning the methodological principles of science.[/quote]
The objection to Dennett remains that no third-person account of even something as simple as pain can do justice to the actual feeling of pain, because no amount of analysis of the firing of nerve fibres, no matter how scientifically accurate, actually constitutes the feeling of pain (what it is like to be in pain). This is why, for example, John Searle parodied Dennetts book as Consciousness Explained Away.
Hello Fooloso4,
I outlined an argument for why I do know this. I am unsure as to why you said this: it is unproductive.
I already addressed this in the previous post:
Bob Ross:
So, why did you make the same claim again despite me clarifying that I am not making that claim?
I clarified exactly what I meant by the terms. If you semantically disagree, then forget those terms. I am claiming that reductive physicalism cannot account for consciousness. It isnt productive for us to bicker about the terms. I express that claim as the hard problem of consciousness, you clearly dont but, most importantly, this doesnt matter for all intents and purposes of the substance of the debate.
This is true and that is why I specifically used the term reductive physicalism. I do not think that irreductive physicalism is a valid position (as it either dissolves into reductive physicalism or becomes a closeted substance dualism). I can elaborate on that if you would like.
Correct, but the claim that the living organism is fundamentally a mind-independent organism is to reduce consciousness thereto.
If one cannot account for consciousness with a reductive physicalist approach, then the only other option is that it is not emergent. The proof that it is emergent rides on the idea that it can be reduced to brain states.
As I said before (in the proof), the only way to argue that it creates consciousness (without just making it up) is to argue in the form of consciousness is [set of biological functions] because [set of biological functions] impact consciousness in [this way]. You are assuming it creates consciousness even though this form of argument cannot prove it.
The only way you can prove that consciousness is produced by the brain is by the reductive physicalist method. So if you cant prove it with reductive physicalism, then you have no reason to believe it.
Bob
You seem to be wrong here jorndoe. Miles, km, etc., all those terms you used to express the distance refer to something invented, not discovered. It seems you have this backward, distance is invented not discovered.
I can't even begin to imagine a rock having a perspective, but I can imagine a rock existing without there being any conscious observer of it. Of course, it would not look like a rock, feel like a rock and so on without some sentient creature to see it and feel it. Kant acknowledged that things exist in themselves, but of course that existence is not in terms of perceptual categories. Individuation is not a perceptual category, or at least not primarily a perceptual category. It's also worth noting that individuation does not entail separation.
? backwards
Distance to the Moon doesn't begin to exist because someone makes an estimate, rather it can be estimated because it exists.
So you say, but where are the premises which prove this?
The distance between here and the moon is indeterminate until it's measured. This means that there is no fixed value. The variance in the numbers you gave are evidence of this. And that there is such a thing as "the distance", is just an assumption prior to the measurement. This assumption motivates the measurement, and the measurement produces the value. But this does not imply that the value existed before the measurement. Prior to measurement there was just an assumption.
This is really no different from the issue of uncertainty in quantum physics. That the particle has a position prior to being located is just an assumption. This inspires the act of measurement which fixes the position. But the fact that the measurement fixes the particle's position, does not imply that the particle had a position prior to being measured. Likewise, if the measurement of the distance between here and the moon fixes the distance, this does not imply that the distance existed before the act of measurement.
Really? You can imagine a rock without imagining yourself observing it?
Is this another way of saying that it's not measured until it's measured? Or does "indeterminate" carry some meaning here unrelated to measurement?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
With respect to the distance "itself", as it were, it is indeterminate before measurement; with respect to those who will measure, but haven't yet, there is an assumption that the distance is measurable, that it can be determined. Is this a way of saying that scientists, unless they are foolish indeed, ought to agree that values they have not determined are values they have not yet determined? Or is there more to this assumption?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
If by "distance" you mean a value, the result of a measurement, indeed it won't exist until it exists. Or do you mean that the spatial separation of the earth from the moon doesn't exist until someone thinks it does? Something must underwrite the assumption that "it" can be measured; its existence of that "it" to be measured would do nicely.
I would give some thought, though, to exactly how this rock-imagining stuff works. Go slow. Is it like a regular picture of a rock but with a caption that says, "No on is looking at this"? There's something interesting here, don't rush past it.
You make a good point, and perhaps "imagining" is not the right word; certainly not if the term is equated with "visualizing". So, there's a difference between 'I can imagine (in the sense of 'visualize') a rock existing that I am not perceiving' and " I can imagine that a rock exists when no one is looking at it', because in the former case I could be thought to be relying on the visually perceptible attributes of a rock in order to imagine it existing unperceived, which one might say would constitute a performative contradiction.
So, perhaps a better way of saying it would be 'I can, without contradiction or inconsistency, think that rocks exist when no one is looking at them'.
Yeah, but I'm not sure we can just switch from visualizing to something vague like "conceiving" and declare the problem solved. I think it was Hume who noted that to conceive of something is to conceive of it existing -- which cuts both ways: on the one hand, there's no "and existing" step, which either means existence is not a real predicate (which Hume says in almost so many words), or it means it's already baked in, i.e., it's at the very least part of how we think things. Maybe it even means that words like "existing" are names for our habits of thought more than anything else. (Hume, again, will end up saying almost exactly this, and he finds the idea horrifying.)
All that's about the rock's existence, I guess. I don't know if Hume's exactly right but I think he's on the trail of something, as he usually is. There's some connection between thinking and the object of thought's existence, and the various isms offer an account of what that connection is.
So you're thinking rocks, and thinking them existing, whether that's another step or not, and you're also thinking no one observing these rocks. Various ways to do this, I guess: you could conceive persons (or technological proxies for them, cameras and stuff, whatever), and they just happen not to observe some particular rocks, and the rocks continue peacefully existing undisturbed by not being noticed. Or you could strengthen this scenario: rather than just happening not to observe these rocks, though they could, you could make it impossible, make some particular rocks unobservable, even with technology. Simplest way to do that is conceive rocks in the distant past before what we take to be people had evolved. The only strengthening left would be to imagine there just aren't any persons, anywhere in the universe, and never will be. --- That's something more or less like the whole range.
Pointless though, right? I mean, to conceive the absence of persons to observe, you have to conceive them so you know what to keep out of your desired conception. You may claim to be able to conceive a universe without people, but you'll only get to what you call that conception by conceiving people and conceiving them absent. I don't see any way around that.
Does it matter? The idea is that the content of this conception is still person-free, even if your own mind isn't. But it's not blindingly obvious anymore what "conception" means; it's clear that even to define the pure person-free conception, you not only need the person conception as well, you need them to be constellated in a particular way.
I'll stop now noting that how these conceptions are related is particularly interesting because it runs through absence. Not perfectly obvious how dealing with that is going to work, but it makes a fitting third to go along with thought and existence.
I agree that to imagine something is to imagine it existing. Of course, it doesn't follow that the imagined thing necessarily actually exists. So, when Tolkien imagined the story Lord of the Rings he imagined every scene and event as existing, because it would make no sense whatever to say he imagined them and also simultaneously imagined them not existing.
It doesn't seem to me that when I imagine something where there are no persons, that I have to simultaneously imagine persons as being not present. When I imagine, for example, a planet in a far distant galaxy I just have an image of a planet. However, in this case I am visualizing a planet, which means I am relying on perceptible attributes in order to do that. And this is different to thinking that there could be a planet in a distant galaxy that has never been or ever will be seen by humans or any other percipient entities.
I think it's interesting that you introduce absence, because we can also imagine the non-existence of things, or to put it perhaps more coherently, we can imagine (or think) that something we know to exist might not exist. I'm not sure we can visualize absence, although I can visualize an empty room, for example, but that then would be imagining a phenomenal room, not a noumenal one.
I think it's stronger than that: I think you're imagining it as you or at least a creature a lot like you would see it, the attributes perceptible by us and those like us, and so on. When you visualize this, you visualize it from a certain vantage-point, yes? You can't visualize at all without picking the spot where the eye of the observer is situated.
Now if you do that but then add, "Only there's no observer at that spot," I think that just misrepresents the conception, which clearly has
Quoting Janus
This is a thing we can say, but it remains to be seen what we mean by this. I think the conception here is still of the sort of thing we or critters like us might experience, it just happens that none of us do. And that means it's still all tangled up with us, and what is a possible experience for us. Which is fine, right? What else is there to talk about? We can pass by what isn't a possible experience for us, but we should at least be clear that we're still always in the picture in one sense or another. --- That's much vaguer than I'd like, but I'm just about done for the night. Saying what those senses are and aren't is exactly what we're about here.
Quoting Janus
Good! If you hadn't said this, I was going to ask what your model for conceiving absence is, so you beat me to it. This bag used to have apples in it, now it doesn't, that sort of thing.
Think it'll work for conceiving unobserved rocks?
I think everything you have said there is consistent with what I have said, in that I have acknowledged from the start that visualizing something is going to rely on perceptible attributes, and as you noted, which I hadn't, also viewpoint.
The further point was that although I obviously cannot visualize a rock as it is without any perceptible attributes or from no viewpoint, I can imagine that such things could exist under those conditions, in fact it is more difficult to imagine that they cease to exist when not being perceived.
But the caveat here is that the kind of existence they have is unimaginable to us, we can only imagine that they do not have the kind of existence they have as perceived phenomena, so it is an apophatic kind of imagining, or again, perhaps 'conceiving' might be the better term.
This kind of stiff is very hard to talk about coherently.
It does - it feels intuitive, but it leaves many questions open, which need not even arise.
Quoting Bob Ross
If objects are not disassociated complexes, then that's much more sensible. And yes, these objects don't have a natural separation point in which we can say this is a cup and this other thing is a table, on which the cup rests on, there's no reason why we can't take both things to be a single object.
Quoting Bob Ross
It's the eternal problem of the one and the many. Are we ourselves in reality separate beings or are we one being, that perceives itself as many? The latter option is not so trivial to get rid of...
Still basing a large part of one's philosophy on DID is risky and one should be cautious in relying on it too much. Maybe when more is learned, it could be sensible to use, or it could end up being a false avenue.
You can pick the cup up and take it away from the table, though. That said, nothing is ever completely separate from its environment.
I would say that Kastrup would argue that Magee does not go far enough. For Kastrup all that is is mentation and for him mind at large is necessary because it allows - as Kastrup says 'for my car to remain extant in my garage when I go inside.' Mind at large allows for object permanence. I think in this way Kastrup is closer to Bishop Berkeley. Abstract from Kastrup's The Universe in Consciousness, 2018
The question here concerns whether realism and idealism are truth-apt synthetic propositions, with each representing competing theories that describe different and incompatible possible worlds, or whether they are analytic tautologies that are referring to different aspects of the logic of language and are merely talking past one another. Notably, realists and idealists each consider their stances to be irrefutable parts of commonsense, and are concerned with understanding the semantics of language in opposite directions from opposite starting points.
Quoting Bob Ross
If your "analytic" idealism abandons "esse is percipi" how does it differ from representational realism?
Berkeley's subjective idealism was already "analytic" in the sense that he postulated that observation and conception is tautologically equivalent to existence. Many philosophers misunderstand this principle.
For example, they take the principle to imply that unobserved items disappear from existence. But this doesn't follow from the principle, for according to the principle it isn't false that unobserved objects exist, but nonsensical.
What Berkeley's principle is actually saying, is rather trivial ; that only what is observed or conceived can be thought or talked about. If a realist asserts that "unperceived objects such as quarks exist", Berkeley wouldn't contradict the content of the assertion but remind the realist that his use of "unperceived" requires elaboration until it refers to something thought or perceived, for the assertion to become sensical.
Ok. What do you see as his concept of the minds ontological status, and what was the error you found in it?
Quoting Bob Ross
Oh. That. Ok. What ontological status does the mind have then? You just mean it is a real thing? But it isnt real in the sense it can be measured, so you must have a different sense for an ontological status the mind could hold. Which is fine, perhaps even called for in analytic idealism.
Quoting Bob Ross
Arent you just doing with the mind what Schopenhauer did with the will? If not, then awful close to it, seems like. Again, good enough, I suppose, but I cant really comment on it.
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Quoting Bob Ross
Using your vocabulary for dialectical consistency, the mind doesnt warrant an ontological status if it doesnt produce space and time. I think it more the case the mind recognizes that all things are separate from each other and no thing can be more than one thing at once. Two things can be at once but two things cannot be in the same place at once. It recognizes things can change place but no thing can change place instantly. You say the mind produces space and time; I say there is that which are necessary conditions for the explanation of objects relation to us and to each other, and these reside in that faculty which forms those relations.
Your way, re: the production of space and time, requires the production of two infinites, with all the irregularities found therein. My way needs no infinites, but only those spaces and times which condition the perception, or possible perception, of an object, followed by the experience or possible experience thereof. Lots cleaner and simpler. Or as the mathematicians are wont to say ..much more elegant.
So no, the mind does not produce space and time, it conceives apodeitic conditions as explanatory devices. Therefore, it is possible the mind has no warrant for ontological status.
Quoting Bob Ross
FYI, he wrote the precursor essays that would eventually become tectonic plate theory, nebular theory, tidal retardation of axial velocity theory, a refutation of Newtonian absolute space and time, all grounded by the Metaphysical Principles of Natural Science, 1786, which includes a chapter on the first dedicated modern exposition of what would eventually become phenomenology. I rather think his view just IS a metaphysical explanation of scientific knowledge, so you might mean his view is incompatible with someone elses.
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Quoting Bob Ross
Again, FYI in CPR, mind is the subject of a proposition 176 times, reason is the subject over 1300 times, in ~800 pages total. Mind can be merely a convenient placeholder, signifying nothing more than the terminus of infinite regress hence omitted generally without detriment to a metaphysical theories of the human condition, but reason cannot, insofar as reason actually belongs to every human and without which he is just an animal. If were going to reify an abstract, lets reify that which a human can be proved to possess, rather than that which he could conceivably do without.
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Quoting Bob Ross
Kant proves that the impossibility of denying the existence of my own body is sufficient to prove the existence of the external world. The reverse establishes the truth, in that without an external world conditioned on space and time, there is no apodeictic certainty for my own body, the denial of which is blatantly contradictory. As such, the inference of an external world is not necessary, for its reality is certain. It follows that that by which we are impacted and that from which representations are given and empirical knowledge is possible, is not the thing-in-itself, which is the ground of his empirical realism doctrine from the beginning.
Exactly right. In other words, whatever the situation, guard against the illusions inevitably contained in the understanding of it. But I hold a rather low opinion of the human species in general, so, there is that.
It is not the analysis of the firing of nerve fibers but the actual firing of nerve fibers through stimulus that could cause a third person to report feeling pain.
Essentially yes, I am saying that it's not measured until it's measured. But the important thing is the meaning here, and the implication it has on those who believe otherwise. "Distance" is relative, and therefore a value which must be determined through the application of principles, implying measurement. So it is impossible that "the distance" between here and there has any existence prior to being measured.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
The assumption that there is an existential distance which can be measured is the false and misleading assumption. The better assumption would be that the distance is produced, or created by the measurement. The truth of this is demonstrated by the fact that different measuring techniques will produce a different measurement (as indicated by jorndoe's post), and each will be a valid measurement by the principles of the technique. The assumed "distance" is really as much a feature of the measurement as it is a feature of the reality or "itself" of the thing measured. Therefore the assumption that there is a distance "itself" is a false assumption, because "distance" requires an interaction between the "itself" and the subject's measurement..
So, it is more than just a matter of what you say here, that "values they have not determined are values they have not yet determined", it is a matter of a faulty way of looking at values. A "value" is something subjective, its existence is dependent on a subject, or a multitude of subjects in the case of intersubjectivity. To assume that the value "itself" exists prior to being determined by the subject, and is "discovered by measurement" (as in jorndoe's expression "Whatever distance is discovered, not invented, and not existentially dependent on whatever human discoverers' heads.") is a faulty misleading assumption. And, that this assumption is misleading becomes very evident in quantum physics.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
This just brings the problem to a deeper level. Since it is true that the value, which comprises "the distance" is subjective, and it's existence is dependent on the subject, then we must further consider the supposed real thing, the "itself" which is supposedly represented by that term "distance". This you call "spatial separation". Now, what was previously a simple problem of the reality of measurement becomes a very complex problem. "Space" is conceptual, and it is a concept we use to represent separation between individual objects, as well as the extension of objects in volume, along with the changes and movements of objects. All of these are relative, and turn out to be subjective values just like "distance". And so the existence of individual objects, and the separation between these, and all those related concepts are equally dependent on the subject, as that which produces the separation in conception.
Furthermore, the way that "an object" is determined by the subject, as "one", is the foundation for quantitative values, which accordingly are subjective. Now, to produce objectivity in quantitative values we must proceed even deeper, so we look to order instead of quantity to ground the numbers. But the problem just gets more difficult.
Quoting jorndoe
"Wrong" is a matter of being outside the boundaries of convention. Conventions are subjective in the sense of intersubjective.
I prefer to talk about "universal consiousness" rather than "universal mind".
I believe that some individuals have experienced it and are experiencing it. Maybe myself I will be able too, some day, if I consider all the sudden realizations and experiences I have had in my life. However, I don't much mind about it.
Quoting Bob Ross
In order to infer its existence we must use one or the other worldview, theory, system, etc. Their multiplicity only indicates how hard --for me, impossible-- this is. And somewhere here enters the HPC that you mentioned.
BTW, how can we infer that "universal mind" exists? Can you present a specific agrumentation to support it?
Quoting Bob Ross
Right. But also positing that it is mind-dependent leads to an impasse. That's why I maintain that only experience can lead to such knowledge.
Quoting Bob Ross
Well, I think I explained the difference. (Well, for me at least, it is very obvious. And I'm sure you can see that from what I have said so far on the subject.)
Not obvious how you would even justify the "they" here...
So the upshot is that when you conceive of these unobserved rocks, you conceive of something unobserved which you can only say is not like what we usually think of as "rocks", not even in the sense of existing as we think rocks do.
So why do you call this something-or-other you're conceiving "unobserved rocks"?
Quoting Janus
Something like this then: when I imagine a rock existing unobserved, I imagine a rock and then conceptually remove things like color and other perceptible attributes, until I can only say that right there, where we would observe rocks if we were observing, there is something about which we can say nothing, except that it's still there when we're not looking.
(1) Measurements that have not been done have not been done.
(2) Distances are created not discovered.
Certainly yes, if you start from (2), you can derive (1). But (1) is a tautology, so you can get it from anything.
The question is whether the truism (1) provides any support for (2).
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
This is an actual argument for your position, so you need to spell it out. How do various techniques for determining a distance differ, what principles are involved, and how are they valid with respect only to their own principles not each other?
Looking back, I see that you take this variation as evidence:
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
The other side would like various techniques to give the same answer, or, in the case of estimates, roughly the same answer -- which means: the same, but only to a certain degree.
(Funny, @Wayfarer used to make exactly the opposite argument, that because the content of a statement can be translated from one language to another -- as we might convert from imperial to metric, say -- this content must be somehow transcendent or whatever.)
You can and you can also pick up the table with cup on top of it or you can pick the table apart, say by breaking one of its legs. Or you can sit on the table and use it as a chair, say someone who has never seen a table, might use it that way.
Quoting May 27, 2023
Quoting May 28, 2023
Getting someone to realize that they do not know something they think they know can be very productive.
Quoting Bob Ross
You have it backwards, it is not that physicalism dissolves into reductive physicalism but that the analysis of a complex involves an understanding of its parts as they function in terms of the whole. By analogy, you cannot understand how an engine works by taking it apart. A pile of parts is not an engine. Taking it apart in only a part of the process whose goal is to understand the whole.
Complaining about a valid metaphysical position is kibitzing. Insisting on a metaphysical position when trying to understand a biological organism is counterproductive. Fortunately, most working in this field are unconcerned with such issues.
Quoting Bob Ross
Physicalism is not a rejection of mind. To the contrary, it seeks to understand mind in terms of the organisms that have minds, without assuming that mind comes from somewhere other than the organism.
Quoting Bob Ross
A misunderstanding of physicalism is not proof. Brain states are only part of the story. But of course the brain is an important part of the story. It is not clear what you think a brain state is.
Quoting Bob Ross
Consciousness is not a set of biological functions. I think this mistake is the source of your claims about brain states. Consciousness has content, it is of something, and that something is the biological functions that are the conditions for consciousness.
Quoting Bob Ross
If by proof you mean argument, such proofs are beside the point. But then again, if you think the problem of consciousness is a metaphysical problem, then your only recourse is to rely on argument.
Quoting Bob Ross
I would counter by saying you can't prove it by metaphysical argument, but you think you have. Back to the top of this post.
Hello Manuel,
I see. Kastrups Analytic Idealism would postulate that we are truly one mind but we only have phenomenal access to our own mentally because the universal mind has DID.
This is fair. I think even without postulating DID we can infer that everything is most feasibly mind, but then we have to leave the soft problem of decomposition open-ended for now. To me, I gravitate towards naturalistic explanations (as I dont find it appealing to just say God creates our souls or something), so I would still argue that our minds are separate but that separation from the universal mind is a natural process (whatever that process may be). I can say that the extrinsic representation of that process is evolution + procreation, but there isnt a complete account of the underlying mental processes nor how the first life form was created. I would say that the first life form is going to be best account for by abiogenesis because that is what it will look like from the phenomenal side of things but metaphysically it will be the first separation of a mind from the universal mind.
Bob
Hello Sime,
perception, under analytic idealism, is an evolved faculty of higher conscious life forms: it is the ability for a life form to represent to itself the outer world. Firstly, the most parsimonious explanation of the world around us (and the observed regularities) is that there was a world prior to perceptive-organisms. Not only do not all organisms and life forms, especially the lower forms, perceive but likewise they havent always existed in reality either. For Berkeley, the world prior to perceptive beings is not real: it is just something God is projecting onto your dashboard of experience. To me, that is an incredibly unparsimonious explanation.
Likewise, according to berkeley, because there is no world beyond perceptions, objects (within perception) dont have definite sizes: God is projecting different sizes for the same objects depending on what angle and distance you are viewing them. This has to be the case if one goes the subjective idealist route, whereas objective idealists (which I would count analytic idealism in this group) posit that we are all within a universal mind and thusly there are definite sizes to objects: we just, as higher evolved life forms, perceive it differently depending on how we observe them. I find this to be a better explanation and much more parsimonious.
Objective idealists think that there really is a tree but it is fundamentally ideas that are being represented on your dashboard of perception, whereas subjective idealists claim there is not tree (and not ideas corresponding to it outside of perception other than Gods projection of it onto them).
Yes, but the perceptive world around you is completely synthetic under his view and I dont see how that coheres with modern science.
It is much more parsimonious to claim that our perceptive screens are representations of something real, but in terms of analytic idealism it is a representation of ideas and not mind-independent objects. Perhaps this view is a form of representational realism, I am not sure.
To me, this is just false. I dont need to perceive other people being conscious directly to know that they are conscious. I dont need to perceive that other people see the world in a colorblind, black-and-white manner to acquire the knowledge that they are really perceiving it that way. Perhaps you might counter that the principle pertains to someone perceiving it and in that case I still thinks it is false.
The best explanation for people getting sick is germs, regardless of if anyone has ever perceived germs. The best explanation for why the atomic bomb worked is that there are atoms. The best explanation of organisms is that they represent an external reality to themselves: they acquire knowledge of it and that is their perceptions.
Now, where I can get on board with this, and maybe this is what you were conveying, is that it doesnt follow that an atom, as a physical mind-independent entity, exists as a part of the underlying ontology of reality simply because we should expect to perceive it if we zoom in far enough within the dashboard of our perception. The difference between Berkeley and Kastrup, for example, is that the former claims the atom doesnt correspond to anything outside of ones perception while the latter claims that it corresponds to ideas in a universal mind (of which our perceptions are representing). For Kastrup, we are not immortal souls that have ideas impressed on us by God but rather we are in God.
Bob
Hello Mww,
But under Kantianism the mind is producing space and time (being synthetic a priori), is it not? Perhaps you have a neo-kantian view, but I am talking about Kants original argument.
For your position, are you saying that the mind doesnt produce space and time? Rather, it just has a priori logic that is required for one to represent to the world around them to themselves?
That is very interesting: thank you for sharing!
The same argument, by my lights, still applies whether you invoke reason or mind: either there is a unified subject that is producing a representation of the world to itself or there isnt. If Kant is right in that we represent the world in space and time and that there isnt a space and time beyond that, then, by my lights, he cant also claim that we cant understand the noumena because that unified subject, in order to produce space and time (i.e., synthetic a priori pure forms of intuition), must be outside of those synthetic apriori forms. I am not following what your response is to that argument, could you elaborate more please?
Correct me if I am wrong, but it sounds like Kant is arguing that there is an external world that is impressed onto our senses but that is not the thing-in-itself. But, then, I ask: doesnt that concede that the minds synthetic a priori pure forms of intuition isnt the only origin of space and time? If we are admitting that the world is external to our mind and that it operates likewise in space and time, then space and time are not purely synthetic. What you say to that?
To me, when I read CPR, it sounded like he was claiming anything beyond the two pure forms of intuition is the noumena (i.e., the things-in-themselves) and the only way that works is under epistemic solipsism (viz., if the phenomenal world around me is just a representation under space and time that are synthetic of my mind, then I cannot know anything about an external world beyond my mind because it lies outside of space and time).
Likewise, if space and time are truly synthetic of my mind, then how do I even know that my mind is representing anything beyond its self? Likewise, the other option is that my mind doesnt exist and the thing-in-itself is the only thing that does.
I dont think my view requires two actualized infinite spaces and time: the space and time produced by minds (which is only what is required for perception) is a representation of the ideas of space and time within the universal mind. I think within Kants view space and time are not a representation of anything (being synthetic a priori).
Bob
Hello Alkis Piskas,
There is an external world that my mind is representing: either that world is mind-dependent or mind-independent. If it is the latter, then I cannot account for myself as a conscious being. Therefore, the most parsimonious account of the data of experience (being that the latter cant even account for experience) is that it is mind-dependent. Now, either the mind-dependent world is only my mind or it has other minds: the former is special pleading that somehow I am the only non-philosophical zombie when other people clearly exhibit the same symptoms of being conscious, so I say the best explanation is the latter. Now, either these minds are ontologically primitive or they a part of a universal mind: the former doesnt cohere with empirical knowledge as it is clear that organisms are born and die within the world, so I would say the best explanation is that they are a part of one universal mind. (also, side note, if one posits that the minds are ontologically primitive then they also have to account for how they experience the same objective world which they obviously do).
That would be the short proof.
Bob
Hello Fooloso4,
I dont see how this helps your case that physicalism doesnt dissolve into reductive physicalism. The pile of parts of an engine does explain the weakly emergent property (or properties) of a running engine. The explanation is to reduce the weakly emergent properties to the its parts: this isnt to say that when we have a pile of parts that we know what weakly emergent properties will arise given it being assembled but, rather, that we can account for those weakly emergent properties by reductive analysis of the parts and how they relate to each other. So, yes, physicalism dissolves into reductive physicalism.
I dont have a problem with being ontologically agnostic when performing science. Nevertheless, we can know that the reductive physicalists position doesnt work and so we shouldnt expect science to prove it.
Reductive physicalism is the idea, most generally, that the mind exists but is weakly emergent from the brain. Irreductive physicalism makes the nonsensical claim that it is strongly emergent. I am not claiming that reductive physicalists say there are no minds but rather that it can be explained by reducing it to a combination of mind-independent parts.
By brain state I referring to any state that the brain may be in (e.g., neural firings, wavelength resonance in terms of sleeping vs. awake, etc.). One can just use the term mind-independent organic part where I say brain state if you would like to keep it more abstract. Most people agree that if reductive physicalism is true then that the mind-independent organic parts is brain states that produce the mental states.
If consciousness cant be reduced as a weakly emergent property to a set of biological functions, then you will have to posit that it is a part of a different substance than physicality.
You didnt counter my argument except maybe in the previous quote (of you made above). If consciousness isnt a set of biological functions, then you cant claim it is a part of a physical substance. Are you suggesting that there is a different methodological approach that proves things are mind-independent without using reductive explanation (which is what we use for explaining everything)?
Bob
Right, (2) is an ontological principle while (1) is epistemological. (2) is not derived from (1), and you might question whether (1) provides "any" support for (2).
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Yes, it was jorndoe who provided the evidence of variation, so it is better to ask jorndoe about that.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
This is a faulty principle in ontology. Differing by degree implies "similar" means at least two, or a multitude, with differences. And this is completely different from "same", which means one thing, by the law of identity. "Similar" and "same" have very distinct meaning in ontology, and this is a distinction which needs to be respected for adequate understanding.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
I think Wayfarer and I disagree on this matter. I do not believe in Platonism in the sense of a transcendent realm of "numbers". I think that since the numeral "2" for example, has a different meaning in different contexts, and different interpretation by different people sometimes within the same context, we cannot say that there is one thing, an object which is the number two symbolized by the numeral. And this is how all concepts and ideas are, the symbols which represent them have different meaning in different contexts, so "a concept" is actually flexible in that sense.
Some argue that this is a difference which does not make a difference, but I argue that in ontology that would be contradiction. That this difference does not make a difference, may be the case in some pragmatic epistemologies, but since the person notices it as a difference, it cannot be truthfully held that the difference doesn't make a difference. The fact that the person notices the difference implies that it already has made a difference.
And, as explained above, it is a very important difference ontologically because it is the difference between two different objects which are similar, and one object which is the same as itself, by the law of identity. So to say that two distinct objects are similar enough, that we can call them the same, instead of similar, is to introduce a meaning of "same" which is inconsistent with the law of identity, thereby creating ambiguity in that word, and the opportunity for equivocation.
The law of identity is the means by which Aristotle separated true "objects", having a material existence, complete with accidentals which inhere within, from the supposed "intelligible objects" which are abstractions that exclude accidentals. The abstraction, as a supposed object has no true identity as "an object", by the law of identity.
Quoting jorndoe
As I said, wrong is a matter of convention. So long as there is a convention which constitutes "right", then being inconsistent with this is to get it wrong. That there is right and wrong has nothing to do with whether or not there is actually an independent "thing" called "the distance", which is being measured. That there is a "right", and consequently multiple possibilities of wrongness, only implies that there is an accepted convention. In the case of something like moral principles, there is inconsistencies between various conventions, therefore a number of incompatible "rightnesses". I think you'll also find this in high level mathematics where one can choose from competing axioms, incompatible rightnesses depending on the axiomatic system chosen.
How about a (I hope) non-mathematical example: stars and planets, for instance, are both celestial bodies, and they behave similarly as massive objects (gravitation and all that), but they are structurally quite different, have quite different life stories, and so on. Given how astronomers define these terms, their application to a given celestial object is correct or incorrect. (The "evening star" is in fact a planet, etc.)
We are not, under most circumstances, compelled by nature to distinguish stars from planets, but the distinction is there to be captured in our terminology, should we choose to. Nature supports making this distinction, enables it. For comparison, the "morning star" and the "evening star" turn out to be the same object. Nature supports both using two names, since the times of day Venus rises are distinguishable, and using just the one, picking out a unique body in our solar system.
Im saying it doesnt, taken from Kants original text. Apparently were at odds over interpretations, which is certainly nothing new. Be that as it may, the second edition introduction states a priori cognitions are contained in the intellect, of even the philosophically unsophisticated. Now for the mind to produce them in order to be contained in the intellect, is for you to say but not Kant himself.
But nevertheless, benefit of the doubt: where does the notion that space and time are synthetic a priori come from? Synthetic a priori does not stand alone, insofar as they indicate the kind and source of cognitions or judgements, which space and time are not. Synthetic/analytic has to do with logic, hence subsumed under reason, but space and time have to do with empirical objects hence subsumed under intuition. While all experience is synthetic, space and time are not experiences. And while space and time are representations a priori, they are not synthetic. I guess I dont see how youve come up with the notion, is all.
He says that there are two pure forms of sensuous intuition, as principles of knowledge à priori, namely, space and time. Now this stipulates that there are synthetic a priori principles of knowledge, but that is not to say space and time are themselves synthetic a priori. Which, pardon me for saying, doesnt make sense for its incompleteness. Synthetic a priori ..what?
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Quoting Bob Ross
Not wrong; he is arguing that. Whatever other origins there are for space and time are irrelevant to any system that conceives its own. Human intelligence originates them this way, its the only intelligence we know about so that kind of origin is all we need. Could our intelligence originate space and time in a different way? Maybe, dunno. Has anyone tried? At any rate, wed best not get bogged down by mere names. Whatever best answers our questions, right?
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Quoting Bob Ross
I say I dont agree the mind operates likewise to the external world. The mind operates conditioned by time, but not space.
I say I understand the pure ideality of space and time, but dont understand what you mean by qualifying them with synthetic.
Quoting Bob Ross
Noumena are not things-in-themselves. The latter are real spatial-temporal existences, the existence of the former is only possible for an intelligence unlike our own.
If by beyond the two pure forms of intuition you mean not conditioned by them, then it is the case noumena are beyond them. Still, anything not conditioned by space and time is utterly unintelligible to us, therefore we are not authorized to say that which is beyond them, are noumena.
Quoting Bob Ross
Again with your vocabulary, the mind is not outside time, is conditioned by it. We can validate this iff it is the case all thoughts are singular and successive, which presupposes a temporal conditioning.
As for knowing anything about the world beyond the mind ..how can anything at all be known beyond the mind, if the mind is absolutely necessary and sufficient for all knowledge. Phenomena are of course necessary, but not sufficient, in that mere perception and representation in phenomena does not give any knowledge at all.
Quoting Bob Ross
You said the mind produces, and in common vernacular to produce is to actualize, I should think.
Quoting Bob Ross
Its stated as representing an infinite given quantity. Space does not represent any property of objects as things in themselves, nor does it represent them in their relations to each other; in other words, space does not represent to us any determination of objects such as attaches to the objects themselves. Time, on the other hand, represents coexistences or successions.
Great talk; Im liking it, so .thanks.
The point is that reduction is only a part of the process. You cannot understand an engine if you do not understand the parts. That is the reductive part. But you can't understand an engine at that point. The parts have to fit and operate together. You have to look at the functional whole. That is the non-reductive part of the process.
Let's look at this from a different perspective:
Your argument eliminating the physical cuts both ways.
If the mental cannot be explained in terms of the physical then the physical cannot be explained in terms of the mental.
The hard problem in reverse.
That the meaning could be separated from the symbolic form, on the basis that the same number can be represented in many symbolic forms.
But the point of the hard problem of consciousness argument is precisely that no amount of objective analysis can capture the first-person experience. And that can be acknowledged without denying that scientific analysis is indispensable for medical purposes, in understanding drugs to alleviate pain.
Quoting Fooloso4
You might ponder, then, what it is that eliminative materialism seeks to eliminate. Speaking of the organic molecule Daniel Dennett says An impersonal, unreflective, robotic, mindless little scrap of molecular machinery is the ultimate basis of all the agency, and hence meaning, and hence consciousness, in the universe.
I'd love to be able to disagree with you about that.
Yes, I am aware of the claim. The third person report is first person.
[Added: a joke that fell flat. The person's report is first person, but third person to the investigators.]
Quoting Wayfarer
I'll leave it to them to tell you what they are eliminating and why.
Quoting Wayfarer
My great, great, great ... grandthing. We keep a picture of it in a prominent place.
This is, of course, a poetic simplification, but it is a provocative way of stating his physicalist stance.
It refers to whatever it is, apart from the human, that gives rise to observed rocks. Exactly like this:
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
That's right, but from a human perspective a table is a table, and a cup is a cup. A table is a table even if there are no cups on it and a cup is a cup regardless of whether it's on a table. On the other hand, if you smash the cup it ceases to be a functioning cup and likewise with the table if you start removing its legs.
I never intended to argue against nature providing support for our conceptualizations. The point was that distance is not the type of thing which has independent existence. In fact, in the discussion on distance I said there are two aspects to distance.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
So, unlike jorndoe who seems to think that "distance" refers to some independent thing, I would say that the word "distance" refers to a specific type of interaction which we have with whatever it that is independent. So there is no real truth or falsity (in the sense of correspondence) with respect to distance, only conventional ways of acting and speaking, norms.
Hmmm.
Given how we talk about distance, you're either using words the conventional way when you compare the distance from the earth to the sun and the distance from the earth to the moon, or you're not. Saying the former is "bigger", not the latter, is how we use the word "bigger". So there is a piece of a sort of "true by convention" account here.
Now you've granted that nature supports and enables our conceptualizations, and in this case using the word in the normal way is choosing that word instead of "smaller" only if the sun is further from here than the moon. The norm for usage of the word "bigger" requires something like this, else no one could understand and follow the norm.
(Quine tried to convince us many decades ago that trying to separate the empirical and the conventional elements of a statement was a fool's game.)
For "bigger" to be meaningful at all, there must be things (I'm speaking loosely and generally here) that are stably different sizes. If nature supports us coming up with a bigger / smaller pair of concepts, it's because they can be consistently applied to things that are what we choose to call "bigger" and "smaller" when compared to each other.
Do we disagree?
Hello Mww,
I really appreciate your elaboration, as it appears I may not have understood Kant as well as I originally thought I did. Let me pick your brain a bit more.
Firstly, let me clarify what I thought the terminology was, and you tell me what you think.
By synthetic, I took it to mean that something is added which wasnt previously there. For example, the judgment of all bodies are heavy is synthetic if one is defining body in a way that doesnt itself immediately contain heaviness.
By analytic, I took it to mean the coming to understand something which is already there. For example, the judgment of all bodies have extension is analytic if one defines body in a manner that immediately includes the concept of extension.
By a priori, I took it to mean that which is necessary for the possibility of experience; and by a posteriori that which is derived from experience.
By space and time being synthetic a priori, I was taking it that Kant was arguing that space and time are necessary for the possibility of experience and that they are produced by our faculty of representation (which I guess I may have inferred was our minds that had that faculty). Is that an improper usage of the terminology?
Honestly, I probably just misused the terms then. I only found one search result for that term and it was:
It has been a while since I read the book admittedly.
Interesting: wouldnt Kant be thereby claiming that we have a unified faculty called reason and intuition which then, to me, would have to be outside of space and time? No?
I would interpret this as you saying that space and time are necessary preconditions for the possibility of experience but not that they add anything new to experiences. In that case, where does space and time originate in? Would you say that they arent productions of our mind?
I didnt quite follow this part: so you are saying that the pure forms of sensuous intution are a part of the mind, or no? And that entails that there are ways we come to know the world (synthetic a priori principles of knowledge) but arent those principles in our mind? Wouldnt that entail that space and time are also?
To me, this sounds like you are saying that space and time are conceived by minds, but you are calling it a system or intelligence. How is your claim different from saying our minds conceive space and time?
I mean that our minds are adding something which isnt a part of the objects that are impressed on our senses, namely the pure forms of intuition.
Interesting, I thought the phenomena vs. noumena distinction was the same as representations vs. things-in-themselves: are they not?
If a thing-in-itself is a real spatial-temporal existence, then wouldnt we have access to things-in-themselves (just not directly)(but just not noumena) because Kant agrees that we can know about things within the empirical, external world. For example, wouldnt another organism be a thing-in-itself that is being represented phenomenally within ones perception, and we can infer how accurately we are representing that other spatial-temporal organism.
I thought noumena were purely negative conceptions and are that which is beyond space and time, and I also thought things-in-themselves were the same as noumena.
Would it be fair to say that space and time are not something our minds produce (and not even as the pure forms of intuition) but rather our conscious-perceptive forms of intuition (i.e., of experience) are objective (i.e., only in the sense of being beyond our subject minds) and our minds are within time (but arguably not space)?
Because we can infer what most reasonably is the case. If it were the case that we cant infer anything beyond ones mind, then I wouldnt even be able to claim your mind exists (nor that you are conscious).
I think empirically we can infer things sufficiently even though they are phenomena. I can learn to explain most parsimoneously other people as conscious beings even though I have no direct access to that knowledge experientially (for example).
Correct. But I was thinking that the mind produces only the space and time which it requires to perceive whatever it is that is within view so to speak. Although I would expect to find infinite space as I zoom into my perception, I dont see an infinite space all at once per se.
But then isnt space something our mind is introducing into experience, which doesnt pertain to things-in-themselves, which would mean that it is synthetic?
Likewise my friend!
Bob
But why choose the word "rocks" if you're not attributing to it any rock properties? Why not "balloons" or "elegies"?
Is it like this: You start with rocks as observed and conceptualized by us, then peel off our conceptualizations leaving only a something that, on the occasion this something was observed, gave rise to our rock-conceiving, and then for the last step you just subtract the observation itself, leaving only the something that, were it observed, we would say was rocks.
The thing is, without observation, how do you know what conception it would give rise to in us and critters like us? How do you know it would be rocks? And if you don't know it would, why say there's a something we would call rocks if we observed it?
The whole procedure feels somehow disingenuous. (I don't mean this as a point about your character, you understand.) We're still talking about rocks, but we're embarrassed about it, so we kinda half-heartedly pretend we're not. "Something that when we observe it gives rise to the conception rock" -- we already have a word for that, and it's "rock". (Or "Stein", whatever.)
Roughly, I'm not convinced you've made any progress toward removing us from your conceptions.
But convention does not make truth, it makes "right". It may turn out later that the convention needs to be changed, like in the case of the planet named Pluto.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
The "norm" only requires that we all perceive things in a similar way. This does not imply that we perceive things as they are. We see the sun as rising and setting for example, and years ago the convention was that the sun went around the earth. We all perceived in a similar way, the sun rising and setting, and this convention was supported by that similarity in perception. Then it turned out that the convention needed to be changed. The fact though, is that in that time when convention held that the sun went around the earth every day, this is what was "right", or "correct". And, if someone tried to argue that the earth was actually spinning instead, this person was wrong, or incorrect, as not obeying the convention.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
No, that's not true. There is no need for things, that's the point Descartes made. All that is required is that we have similar perceptions, and we identify parts of these similar perceptions as things. And, for "bigger" to be meaningful it is required that there is consistency in the similarity between our perceptions. This allows for what is sometimes called intersubjectivity.
So let's move beyond Descartes form of extreme skepticism, and allow that there is something external, and independent, which is real. We have perceptions, and there is some degree of consistency between us. The consistency reinforces the idea that there is something external, independent, and real. Furthermore, our activities, and interactions demonstrate decisively, that there is something real which separates me from you. Now, we can inquire about "things". What do you suppose separates a thing from its environment, to justify us calling it "a thing", as a unit, an entity, individual, or one, a whole?
Some would argue that it is not at all possible to remove us from our conceptions. be that as it may, I see two justifications for using "rocks": First, when I see an x (any familiar object) in a particular location, and remark on it, I have never experienced anyone else saying "no, that's not an x, it's a y", so I think it's safe to conclude that whatever thing is there existing independently of us, it reliably gives rise to perceptions of an x. Second, the only thing in question now is whether there is anything there existing independently which gives rise to perceptions of a rock, and since the idea that there must be seems to be inescapable, I think the term 'rock in itself' to be distinguished from 'rock for us' is justified.
Except you seem to have forgotten that we were talking about unobserved rocks.
If you want to describe such a thing as having a "propensity" to produce rock conceptions, or an unrealized potential to, then you're still just saying it's a rock, using new words. And that means you still have to justify categorizing something unobserved. (Besides. if it's unobserved, you don't know anything about its propensities or potentials either.)
I think that just kicks the can down the road. I don't know why talk about "us" and the similarity of "our perceptions" should be countenanced when talk of other things is not.
Same for the treatment of convention you build on top of this:
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
That makes conventions sound every bit as solid and consistent as any rock or table.
Of course I am "still just saying it's a rock", but I see a valid conceptual distinction between the rock as it is perceived and the rock as it is in itself; beyond that I have no idea what you are trying to get at, unfortunately.
Ah. That's rather different.
This all began with you defending the mind-independence of objects by saying that you could readily imagine an object that's unobserved. I questioned whether you could actually do that, and still do.
As a step toward an object being unobserved, we did at least pretend to pass through stripping an object of whatever observation "adds" to it; if that's even coherent, it ought to be part of the answer for what something not observed at all is like. It's just that even in "un-observing" something we've observed, all we can do is play with exactly the same categories as when we observe it, only we pretend not to be applying them -- or at least not some of them. We leave the spatial location of the something untouched, for instance, and it remains individuated just as it was when we observed it, and so on.
And the case is even worse with something not only not being observed at the moment, but never observed, perhaps impossible to observe.
I wouldn't say "we leave the spatial location of the something untouched, for instance, and it remains individuated just as it was when we observed it, and so on". The most I would say is that whatever that existence is, it reliably gives rise to the spatiotemporal in-common perception of individuated objects.
Cases of objects of commonly observed kinds that are not being observed at the moment, or that are never observed (because they are, fro example, in distant galaxies, I don't see as having different statuses. Objects impossible in principle to observe are not the kinds of objects I was addressing, so they would have a different status. But then if they are impossible to observe, then how could we ever know they exist at all?
I understand that.
Quoting Janus
Where we began was existence:
Quoting Janus
So your intention was to say that the existence of the rock is an attribute of it that is not dependent on being observed.
(Around here was where I mentioned Hume's suggestion that we seem only to think things as existing, which leaves open a question about whether existence is merely, as it were, an element of how we conceive things.)
Your idea then was never really to talk about unobserved objects, except incidentally, but to know which parts of our conception of an object we observe are down to us, and which aren't. And the existence of the object is not down to us, you say, so it's one of the properties we can still safely attribute to unobserved objects.
Quoting Janus
But now here you have this free-floating attribute, existence, that isn't an attribute of anything, because the only sort of thing it can be an attribute of is apparently too contaminated by our conceptions.
Even a phrase like "whatever that existence is" doesn't work, because it's got a demonstrative in it. What existence are you referring to? You must be pointing at it, and you point at it just by saying it gives rise to all the conceptions you count as only for us. So we're right back where we started. You're still in a very roundabout way just saying "rock" while denying that you are.
My point is still that you're trying to bracket the "observedness" of the object, while depending on it completely to say anything at all, which means you haven't really bracketed it at all.
:up:
Quoting Wayfarer
In other words, a map (analysis ~ respresentation) is not informationally equivalent to its territory (experience) because a territory (experience) is
computationally irreducible (otherwise it would be a map (analysis ~ representation)). There's no "hard problem", just a typical idealist / antirealist category error.
@Bob Ross
No. I'm not saying existence is an attribute, but something cannot have real attributes if it doesn't exist. I'm saying that the existence of a thing might not depend on it being observed, and that that is the common, you might even say default, attitude to things.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
I have no idea what the difference between thinking of things as existing and seeming to think of things as existing could be. I know I can think of things as existing, but I don't know if you can; you seem to doubt it, so maybe we have different conceptual capacities.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
I wouldn't call existence a property but yes, I would safely say we can think of unobserved objects as existing, albeit not in any naive realist sense.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Of course the observedness of objects is essential to being aware of them, but I disagree that I haven't bracketed that when I say that I think they exist despite being observed, because that is the very meaning of what is being said. If you don't interpret it that way, then fine, that's your prerogative, but I have to say it makes no sense to me. I still have no idea what point you are attempting to make. Do you not think things exist when not being observed?
This seems to be going nowhere so perhaps we should leave it there.
Wow! This is indeed quite a specific argumentation! :smile: But it's too comlex. I should maybe ask for a "simple" instead of a "specific" argumentation.
Anyway, I will have to assume that by mind-(in)dependent you mean that the existence of the physical universe (matter and energy) is in/dependent of/on our mind. (I don't know though if you mean that exactly.)
Then you say, "If it is the latter, then I cannot account for myself as a conscious being." Does this means that you cannot consider yourself as a conscious being? If so, I can't see why. I can't find the connection. In fact, mind-(in)dependence is not a factor, or a prerequisite for (the existence of) individual consciousness, which may exist in either case.
I don't know if the above are based on a correct interpretaion of your posit ...
Maybe if you simplify the whole argumentation, using simple terms --i.e. not concepts that require clarification/interpretation (like mind-(in)dependece)-- I could follow it better.
E.g. my posit that "Consiousness is a characteristic of all life" is a simple and straight statement that does not need interpetation. It can be expanded and supported of course, but always in simple terms, arguments and examples. This makes it easy for someone to argued upon and refute it.
BTW, for me, examples act as arguments, even better. Their use is the best way to clarify statements. Unfortunately, very few people use them as part of their argumentations.
I just thought ... Why don't you start by giving a definition or description of "universal mind"? This might also work as a posit for its existence!
Anyone?
I'd flip that, perhaps - where in the perspective is the objective data? Answer: who can say?
Outside? I thought perspective came from inside us.
Dramatic language. I don't disagree but what does this leave us with? Obviously the best we can do is develop tentative, fallibilistic accounts and theories that often work in the world pragmatically. I don't think this says we can use philosophy or spirituality to transcend the perspectival trap we appear to be in, or is this your proposed way out of the bottle?
Where in the data .is perspective. Inside us, outside the data.
Q: What did Heidegger mean by 'the forgetfulness of being'?
ChatGPT: Martin Heidegger, a 20th-century German philosopher, used the term "the forgetfulness of being" (Seinsvergessenheit in German) to describe a fundamental problem in Western philosophy and culture. Heidegger believed that throughout history, there has been a tendency to overlook or forget the true nature of "being" and its significance for human existence.
According to Heidegger, "being" refers to the basic mode of existence shared by all entities, including humans. It is not simply a passive attribute but encompasses the active process of existing and making meaning of the world (hence "being" is a verb). He argued that Western thought has traditionally focused on individual entities (things) and their characteristics, rather than investigating the broader question of being itself.
In the philosophical tradition, Heidegger saw a shift in focus from the ancient Greeks' understanding of being as a fundamental concern to an objectively-oriented approach. This shift was was accentuated with the advent of modernity and the rise of scientific thinking. He believed that modern philosophy and science emphasized a calculative and instrumental view of reality, reducing entities to mere objects to be manipulated and controlled (and thereby forgetting the nature of being altogether. You listening, Dan?)
Heidegger argued that this forgetfulness of being resulted in a loss of our authentic relationship to the world-and-self. Instead of recognizing our deep-rooted relatedness to the world, we treat it as a collection of resources to be exploited for our purposes. We become alienated from our own being and fail to appreciate the meaningfulness of existence. (We see everything from an ego-logical point of view.)
Heidegger proposed a phenomenological approach that encourages engagement with the world and critical awareness of our own being-in-the-world, rather than treating everything as mere objects of study. By reflecting on existence and the way we relate to the world, we can strive to recover a more authentic and meaningful mode of being.
But wouldn't it be naive to think we have access to data that is unmediated or raw? Or are you saying that the raw material is like noumena - there is something there but we don't see it as it is.
I don't deny that conventions are solid as rock. But human beings easily break rocks, so the metaphor rings hollow.
Hey Janus!
I think, and I could be wrong, that Srap was attempting to help you experience the untenability of the thing in itself.
Hmmm... but you explicitly forbid physicalist accounts from appealing to obscurity???
:yikes:
I'm struggling to make much sense of your taxonomy. It seems you're lumping thought, belief, perception, imagination, olfactory, visual, tactile, auditory, gustatory, and all sorts of things into the category of subjective experience. Then using more than one name or label to reference the set of things as well as individual elements within the group...
"Perception", "qualia", and "experience" are all terms you've employed at times as synonymous with each other, and other times as something else... something more specific and different...
Feathers and all...
If rattlesnake tastes like chicken, then you may know what one tastes like. The experience of eating the rattlesnake is more than just the gustatory aspect... is it not?
This is comparing the tree and your 'perception' of the tree. I thought we were discussing Noumena and phenomena. If the tree is a proxy for Noumena, and your perception of the tree is a proxy for phenomena, then you've just conflated Noumena and phenomena.
The tree appears to you, and as such is part of the phenomenal realm. The tree - in and of itself - is the noumenal.
You've added the notion of your perception into the mix equating it to phenomena, while equating the tree to Noumena.
Sure, you can draw a distinction between your perception of the tree and the tree. I'm just saying that that distinction is notably different than the one between Noumena and phenomena, and you do not need Noumena to do that.
Before getting into all that, youre promoting analytic idealism, which is interesting in itself. The problem is that attempting to understanding Kantian idealism may very well negate your promotion. We get into this deep enough, you may find your idealism was Kantian all along, or, if it most certainly was not, then why query a form of idealism which is, for present intents and purposes, irrelevant. And even if questions regarding Kantian idealism are merely a matter of your own personal interest, satisfying that interest isnt necessarily to support your thesis. In short, its possible youre wasting your own time.
Your thread, your call.
Hello Fooloso4,
I think you are forgetting or misunderstanding that the parts themselves dont completely constitute the reductive explanation. When one explains an engine, they do so by reducing it to its parts and the relation between them when put together properly. Once one explains that, they have thereby reduced the engine to the specific relational constitution of its parts. I think you are more thinking of it in terms of the parts on their own and the relations between them as non-reductive, but that isnt true. The relations between the parts that constitute the engine is weakly emergent from the parts (in that particular arrangement that produces them) and the engine itself is the weakly emergent from the relations and the parts: none of this is non-reductive. For an explanation to be non-reductive, it entails that one cannot reduce the thing to its parts and relation of those parts to one another.
With the engine, it is 100% a reductive explanation because once I explain to you the parts and how they relate to eachother there is nothing more that needs to be explained about the engine. If it were strongly emergent, then there would be something extra that is unexplained.
There is a symmetry breaker between the two accounts: one posits mind is in mind, whereas the other posits non-mind has mind. The former is a soft problem, the latter a hard problem.
In other words, the physical not being able to explain the mental doesnt entail that the mental cannot explain the physical as mind-dependent and only in the sense of the colloquial usage of the term (i.e., an object within conscious experience with solidity, size, shape, etc ). Most idealists do not deny that there are physical things, but they mean it in the sense of tangible objects within experience. Physicalists do not mean it this way: they mean that there are actual mind-independent objects beyond the tangible objects within your conscious experience.
Bob
Hello Alkis Piskas,
I mean that it is independent of any mind, not just ours.
I mean that if the world is mind-independent, then there is a hard problem of consciousness, which I take to be a hard problem in the sense of being irreconcilable as opposed to merely a difficult problem for physicalists to solve.
In other words, physicalism cannot account for what I would consider the realist part of existence for human beings: their conscious, qualitative experience. The only other feasible option is to posit mind as fundamental to account for it.
I agree, but, unfortunately, I am not that great at examples and analogiesbut I can try. When you look at a green pen, your immediate experience of it is within your conscious experience. You feel and see the qualities of the pen, which make up the pen from your direct conscious experience, which your mind is representing to you as the green pen. Under physicalism, they can explain how your brain comes to understand the pen as green (e.g., the pen absorbs all the colors within the light that hits it other than green, which it reflects, and that light goes into your eyes and, in turn, your brain interprets as green). However, they cannot account for why you had a qualitative experience of a green penof the greeness, for example. There is no reason for you to likewise have an experience of a qualitative green pen.
An immaterial subject in which mental processes occur and of which the entirety of reality is whithin.
Bob
Hello CreativeSoul,
Fair enough, let me try to elaborate on those terms.
From an analytic idealists perspective, ones organs that correspond to those senses you listed (e.g., auditory, gustatory, olfactory, etc.) are extrinsic representations of those senses of the immaterial mind within your perception (and others perceptions). I am not saying that your senses exist only within your subjective experience, because subjective experience is synonymous, in the case of humans, with perception and your senses are not contingent on your perception to exist (however their extrinsic, physical representations do depend on perceptions).
By experience, mean it in the most general and primitive sense: knowledge of something as a subject. In terms of analytic idealism, experience is a spectrum of grades. I mean the same thing by subjective experience and consciousness.
By your or my subjective experience, I mean the perceptions you have (which are qualitative and represent the external world around you), as we are higher experiential life forms.
By meta-consciousness or meta-subjective experience, I mean the ability of a mind to have self- knowledge (i.e., knowledge of itself: experience specifically in relation to its experience and identity).
beliefs are behavioral attitudes towards a proposition.
imagination is the minds ability to conjure up images which are not direct representations of the world around it (e.g., picturing a unicorn in my head right now).
thoughts are the minds ability to utilize its faculty called reason to generate concepts and derive conclusions about the world around it and its own imagination. Arguably, I would count this faculty as also a sense since it inputs the perceptions and creates concepts of them, which is the same general form of all other senses (i.e., input ? representation).
I understand that prima facie it seems hypocritical, but let me clarify. I am fine with soft problems having obscurities in their explanations but not hard problems. That is the difference.
Bob
Hello Mww,
I am not afraid of being wrong. I would rather understand everyones perspectives even if it negates my own.
Analytic idealism is neo-schopenhaurian, so it should be somewhat neo-Kantian. I dont think diving into Kantianism is going to necessarily negate the view; although it certainly might.
The goal of this discussion board is not to just convince everyone of analytic idealism but rather to share thoughts and test the theory. If Kantianism is going to test it, then lets do it.
Learning is never a waste of time.
In short, I would much appreciate it if we kept discussing it, as I am interested in your take from a Kantian perspective. If you would like, I can DM you instead? I dont mind it being in this thread, but I will leave it up to what you are most comfortable with.
Bob
So, according to the position you're putting forth...
Organs are extrinsic representations of senses within one's perception. Senses are not existentially contingent on perception. However, the organs are existentially contingent upon one's perception.
Yeah...
I'm sorry, but that just looks like a word salad, to put it mildly.
As if one's organs do not exist without subjective qualitative experience. Seems to me to be the wrong way around. The experience, particularly the depth and breadth of human experience, is existentially dependent upon the biological machinery.
Is that the acceptable standard for all accounting practices, or just some of them?
Are you claiming that the position you're arguing in favor of successfully accounts for the hard problem without obscurities?
Oh... and you're equivocating terms to an extent I've not witnessed in quite some time. Particularly the term "perception(s)". In addition, it seems there's a fair amount of anthropomorphism going on as well.
I'm afraid I simply do not have the time to make all this explicit. So, I'll just have to leave it all as bare assertion, but not for the lack of empirical evidence throughout the thread. Rather, due to the lack of time and personal priorities...
:meh:
This was my first reply here. The reader can read through the thread and judge for themselves how true it rings...
An engine is not an assemblage of found parts. The parts are designed and manufactured as parts of a whole. Even something as simple as a bolt cannot be understood in isolation, without it being a part of a whole.
A biological entity is not put together out of parts. It can be separated into parts but unlike the engine those parts did not exist prior to the living being.
Quoting Bob Ross
They are not emergent. Once again, parts are parts of some whole. The relation of parts is inherent in the design of the parts. They are designed with their function and purpose in mind.
Quoting Bob Ross
Of course there is more that needs to be explained! What is it for? What does it do? What is its purpose? The engine itself is a part of some larger whole. Not only must the parts of the engine function but the engine itself must function. There must be an energy source that is not part of the engine. The engine must convert this energy into a useful form to be used by the larger whole of which the engine is a part.
Quoting Bob Ross
Either a)there are physical things that we are aware of within experience or b) there are no physical things without experience. Either a) you are a substance dualist or b) you are a monist. If b) then you cannot sidestep an explanation of how mental stuff gives rise to physical things.
Quoting Bob Ross
Idealists mean there are physically-independent minds. Given the central importance of conscious experience in your account, what do you make of the fact that we have no conscious experience of disembodied minds?
There will be some differences, but it's still just putting chunks of meat in your mouth and chewing. Is it your contention that the experience will be similar to Mary seeing color for the first time?
Eating venison is like eating escargo... by that standard of "what it's like"...
Mary's room is based upon the all too common inadequate academic notions of thought, belief, knowledge, and perception. It presupposes that it is possible to know everything there is to know about seeing color without ever having seen it. That is a false presupposition.
Do venison and escargo taste anything like each other?
They're both putting meat in your mouth and chewing...
It seems remarkable to me that this is not more readily understood.
I think it targets certain positions that share that presupposition...
If the experience of eating rattlesnake only includes the taste, then sure, you'll know quite a bit of what eating a rattlesnake will be like, if you already know what chicken tastes like.
I'm pointing out that the experience of eating a rattlesnake includes so much more than just the taste, and that all those other elements are not like eating chicken. Furthermore, there are all sorts of completely different experiences, all of which include eating chicken. Those are not like one another either, despite the fact that they could all be labeled as "eating chicken".
Which includes our mind, doesn't, it? I didn't say only our mind. So what I said is correct.
BTW, what other mind do you have ... in mind, besides ours, that is more advanced and more complex and on which the p.u. could can be dependent on?
Quoting Bob Ross
But "I cannot account for myself as" is the same as "I cannot consider myself as" that I said. So I corectely interpreted that too, didn't I?
What I mean, in these two cases, is that you seem to try to reject my interpretation of your statemnts as incorrect, with no real reason. This only creates unnecessary "traffic" in our discussion and prolongs it without reason to maybe lead to an impass.
You are now attributing our inablily to "account for ourselves as conscious beings" to the hard problem of consciousness. But HPC does not say of imply that we should doubt about our consciousness or that we are conscious beings. It is a problem of "mechanics", a problem of scientific explanation, proof, etc. Not of its existence!
For godssake, doubting about the existence of our consciousness and consciousness in general, would put at stake if not invalidate the whole evolution of philosophy! It would also invalidate us as human beings as well as all life!
Bob, I asked for a simpler description or argumentation if possible, not more complicated!
Is it a matter of opinion?
Hume agonizes over this; he can find no good reason to think objects persist, and yet he finds that he does believe so. It's a sort of prejudice; nature, he suggests, has taken the decision out of his hands, as a matter too important to leave to stumbling human reason.
Quoting Janus
Just so.
If this is all true, what are we to make of it? What do we do with this, as philosophers?
You could say belief in objects is a sort of quirk of human psychology, unsupported by reason, and that the only intellectually honest, and rational, position to hold is some sort of idealism.
That was an option for Hume, who had the example of Berkeley before him, and of course we have our choice of idealisms.
I think there may be an alternative, and thought we might begin to see the shape of it if we looked closely at the interplay of thought, object, existence, and absence in one of the things people typically say in these discussions, namely
Quoting Janus
I admit, I was ignoring the chitchat about Kant you followed that with, because I find just this simple innocent claim terribly interesting.
But you're right, the discussion's gone nowhere.
Hello creativesoul,
How is any of that word salad? Can you give an example?
By organ, I am referring to the physical, biological, functional part of the body. The physical, under analytic idealism, is a representation within perceptions: spatiality isnt an attribute of things-in-themselves. So, yes, the organs are perceptive-dependent because they are, by definition, something physical pertaining to your physical body. Likewise, yes, the senses can be viewed two different ways due to the duality of representation and mentality: the senses in terms of the physical representation of them, and the sense in the immaterial faculties of the mind. I would like to remind you that under analytic idealism the world can be known two different and equal waysi.e., epistemic dualism.
It isnt that the senses can persist when the biological organs are clearly not working...no no no: the dysfunctional or completely dead organ is an extrinsic representation of the dead sense. You as an organism is the extrinsic representation, within your dashboard of experience and within our dashboards of experience, of your mind. So it isnt that I am saying there are two completely separable parts (e.g., the organ and sense) but, rather, that the organ is the representation within our perception of the sense. They are interlinked so to speak.
I dont follow.
There is no hard problem of consciousness under analytic idealism: that only happens of one is a physicalist. Positing mind comes from mind is not a hard problem, but positing mind comes from the brain is.
I am equivocating perception with what?
This just sounds like the classic counter-argument of the world doesnt have to be like our minds but, again, that isnt what I am arguing.
Absolutely no worries my friend!
Bob
Hello Fooloso4,
Correct. This doesnt negate the fact that one can explain the whole by reduction to its parts and the relationship between those parts in their proper arrangement.
Correct. Again, this doesnt negate my point: if one is fundamentally claiming that the mind is a part (or group of parts) of a physical body which emerges due to the specific relationship between those parts, then they are thereby claiming that the mind is reducible to the body.
The purpose is irrelevant for all intents and purposes here. We can likewise take a natural example with no human purpose embedded into it: take a tornado. A tornado is explained by the reduction of it to its parts (e.g., wind, dust, etc.). Now wind, dust, etc. on their own do not completely account for a tornado: the other component is how they are arranged (e.g., cold and warm wind colliding causing spiralling rotations, etc.). The fact that the parts on their own do not completely account for the tornado does not mean that we arent still claiming that the tornado is weakly emergent from the parts in a specific arrangement. Same thing is true for everything else, including engines.
Firstly, for all intents and purposes right now, I am strictly talking about how something works when I am talking about explanations (although I do think all explanations are reductive, but that is going to derail the conversation). Physicalism is arguing that it can explain (in terms of the how it works) a mind in terms of the physical biological brain.
This explanation is different, but still reductive. We reduce the for to the purpose bestow onto it by the person utilizing it or perhaps the person who created it (depending). This isnt irreductive.
When I explain the relations of the parts and the parts themselves, I am thereby explaining what it does. It may not be as clear to you what it does until you watch it work, but theoretically you can figure out what it will do just by understanding the parts and the relationship the parts have to each other when the engine would be on (even if you never witness an engine on). This is only possible because it is an reductive explanation.
This is the same question as what it is for.
That is a false dilemma. As an analytic idealist, I accept both A and B. If you want to make it a true dilemma, then it would have to be:
A) There are physical things without our experience which somewhat (or completely) correspond to the physical things within our experience; or
B) There are no physical things without experience.
Your version of #A doesnt actually claim there are mind-independent physical things, it just asserts that we experience physical things within our conscious lives: virtually no idealist is going to disagree with that.
This is true, and I am a monist; and, yes, I agree that I cannot sidestep the problem of how the mental stuff gives rise to physical things within conscious experience. It is a soft problem, though, because it is reconcilable in the view; whereas the hard problem of consciousness is a hard problem because physicalism is provably unable to solve it even theoretically.
I am not even sure what it would mean to say that one experienced a disembodied mind: I am not claiming that we have evidence of minds existing that have no bodies except for the universal mind. With the universal mind, we do have introspective experience of this.
When you have a vivid dream, lets say you find yourself consciously experiencing walking through a park (all within a mere vivid dream while you are asleep), you falsely associate your identity with the character (of which usually resembled yourself from reality) and consciously experience the dream world from their perspective. From their perspective, the beautiful nature they are walking through (i.e., you are walking through as the conscious experiencer of the vivid dream) appears to be distinct from themselves; however, once you wake up you realize that your mind was responsible for it all: the trees, the walking path, the fellows people you conversed with, etc. were ideas in your mind and your mind as the character perceiving it in the dream was an illusion. Your mind, as the producer of the dream, did not have a body in it. I think an analogous situation is true of reality itself: we are within the universal mind but we perceive it from our own perspectives. However, I am not claiming that there are minds other than the universal mind that can be empirically proven to exist without bodiesI havent seen any evidence of that.
Bob
Hello Alkis Piskas,
You said:
Which implies (unless I am misunderstanding) that you think that my term mind-independence refers to an existence of the physical universe that is independent of our mind. I am clarifying that that is false: I dont count something that is independent of our minds, but yet still dependent on another non-human mind. If that was what you were saying, then I apologize as I didnt understand that from it.
I am not sure it can be called more advanced and complex, but the universal mind is what I was thinking of.
I am not trying to disagree with what you are saying: I am just clarifying where I think it needs to be clarified. No, I cannot account for myself as is not the same sentence (essentially) as I cannot consider myself as. I was not saying that people should question whether they are conscious but, rather, the fact that they cannot account for it (i.e., explain it) under physicalism. I agree with you that we should be fairly incredibly certain that we are conscious.
Just a side note, some physicalist do deny that we have qualia: the subjectively unique experience part; however you are right that they do not doubt that we are conscious.
Agreed.
Sorry, I am not sure how to simplify it down further!
Bob
I initially thought that the need for a mind-at-large made Kastrup similar to Berkeley, for whom all consciousness exists in the mind of God. Like Berkeley, Kastrup requires some way to explain object permanence and refute solipsism. Kastrup explains the differences in his blog (August 13, 2015).
Mind-at-large is critical to Kastrup's position. I wonder how we can arrive at a reasonable belief that this entity is all there is and that we are all expressions of it?
There is a factual difference between 'data' and 'information'. 'Data is an individual unit that contains raw materials which do not carry any specific meaning. Information is a group of data that collectively carries a logical meaning.' In regards to the question of the role of the observer, the observer interprets the data in order to derive information. (There's a lot of discussion about 'information' as kind of the raw material of being nowadays, but in my view information does not exist as any kind of raw material, as it is always the product of interpretation.)
Quoting Mww
Would that be so bad? Kastrup, who is the main advocate for analytical idealism, says of Schopenhauer 'I recognized in it [WWR] numerous echoes and prefigurations of ideas I had labored for a decade to bring into focus. The kinship between my own work and what I was now reading was remarkable, down to details and particulars. Here was a famous 19th century thinker who had already figured out and communicated, in a clear and cogent manner, much of the metaphysics I had been working on.'
Generally speaking, I think Kantian idealism has almost no following on this forum, with yourself being a notable exception. So I wouldn't think exploration of the idea was a redundant exercise.
Quoting creativesoul
But the whole point of the thought-experiment is that you can know about color vision in a theoretical sense - rods, cones, optical nerves, wavelengths, absorption, and so on - without having seen colours. So it is trying to differentiate 'the experience of seeing color' from 'knowing what constitutes the experience of seeing color'. That's the point.
I understand that that's what some believe. I do not share that belief. I do not believe that one can know about color vision without ever having seen colors. The terms that refer would have no referent for Mary. She could not know the meaning of those terms, for it would be impossible for her to draw the meaningful correlation(s) between the terms and their referents if the terms referred to a range in bandwidth of the visible spectrum that she could not pick out to the exclusion of all else.
I reject the notion that Mary could know everything there is to know about color vision without seeing color.
I guess I'm getting too micro now because I struggle with the idea that raw data isn't already subjected to implicit ordering and categorisation before we then consciously set out to assimilate it further in some way. We have to recognise it as raw data to begin with, right?
That is the whole point of the thought-experiment. It's an argument against reductive physicalism. Compare it to this statement:
So Dennett is arguing that it is possible, presumably, to know everything there is to know about the seeing of color, without the first-person experience. That is what the Mary's Room experiment is directed against.
Quoting Tom Storm
That distinction I made is from information science, not philosophy, although it has philosophical implications. Consider a probe gathering data about the atmosphere - the readings it collects are simply numerical values, represented as data-points - those data don't constitute information until they're aggregated into a data-set and arranged and displayed so as to convey information to the researcher or scientist. The data points are what is referred to as 'raw data'.
Where this originated again was the role of the observer in providing perspective, and the fact that perspective, which is fundamental in establishing duration, ratio, distance and so on, is not in itself discernable in the data. The perspective is what the observer brings to bear on the objects of analysis in order to interpret it.
I also wanted to call out this comment from a few pages back which makes an important point that I'm sure is being overlooked in this discussion:
Quoting sime
Well, I'd question whether or not Dennett holds that one can know everything there is to know about seeing color without seeing color. In fairness, I do not know whether or not he does.
For me, I reject the very idea for reasons already given.
Cool. Socratic dialectics? Roberts Rules? Jousting?
Cards on the table kinda thing, I must say, if were discussing analytic idealism from a Kantian perspective, Im not sufficiently versed in the one to juxtaposition to the other. So maybe you should start with a brief synopsis of what analytic idealism is. Or, just start anywhere you like.
-
Quoting Wayfarer
Whats that ol adage? If it was easy everybodyd be doing it?
Hello Tom Storm,
I think that it is a good hypothesis for explaining the soft problem of decomposition, but I dont think there is enough evidence to support it completely yet.
I think it connects well with the dream analogy that most idealists use: the other dream characters are conscious as well.
Subjective idealism is similary to objective idealism, but they have differences. Also, I am starting to consider Berkeley to be neither really a subjective or objective idealist but, rather, the original ancestor of them both: he seems to have incompletely and somewhat incorrectly worked out metaphysics, but he did us all a favor by starting the convo about idealism. So I think Kastrup accepts and rejects different aspects of Berkeleys idealism (especially the subjective idealist parts).
The idea is that we cant explain reality completely with reductive physicalism, so we should try with mind (which is the only other thing we have empirical evidence of) and see if it accounts for reality better. Kastrup argues, long story short, that it does account for reality and better than reductive physicalism. In metaphysics, there is no certainty about the positions: it is more about increasing explanatory power while decreasing complexity.
Bob
The quote I provided summarises his view - which is why I provided it. I know it seems incredible, but there it is. It is the view that David Chalmer's 'hard problem' argument was set against.
Quoting Mww
Ain't that the truth :lol:
Hello Mww,
Sure thing. To put it briefly:
Analytic Idealism is the idea that reality is a mind-at-large (i.e., a universal mind) and that is the brute fact of reality (i.e., is metaphysically necessary). We, as minds, are disassociated alters of that universal mind, such that we are cut off from experiencing everything at once. The physical, in the colloquial sense of the term (viz., tangible, solid objects within conscious experience), is an extrinsic representation of the mental; just like Schopenhauers epistemic dualism, so Analytic Idealism posits that one can come to know the world from two sides: the representations (which is the physical stuff) and the mental events which are being represented. In terms of ourselves as alters, since we are merely disassociated from the rest of the mind, when we die we re-integrate with the universal mind (kind of like how you realize that your mind was responsible for the whole vivid dream after awakening although you wrongly associated your identity with a particular character when it was occurring). For Kastrup, the thing-in-itself, like Schopenhauer, is the universal mind.
Can you give a brief elaboration of Kantianism as well?
Please navigate the discussion as you please.
Bob
Well, his response to Mary's room doesn't support that explanation/characterization. It's similar to my own thinking, or at least seems to dovetail nicely with it...
Dennett claims that if we grant the premiss that Mary knew everything there was to know about seeing color, then the conclusion that she would gain new knowledge upon being allowed to see color does not follow.
Knowing everything about seeing color includes seeing color. So either she did not know everything about seeing color and she gained new knowledge upon first seeing color, or she knew everything there was to know about seeing color, and hence could gain no new knowledge upon being allowed to see color, for she already knew everything there was to know...
This is only part of it. You are leaving out important information that cannot be gained simply by looking at an arrangement of parts. An engine does work. That work depends on parts but is not in any of the parts or combination of parts. The whole cannot be explained without an explanation of what the engine does, how it functions as a whole within another whole, a car for example.
It is not simply of analysis into parts but of parts as dynamic systems within larger dynamic systems. A dynamic system is more than just an arrangement of parts.
Quoting Bob Ross
I am claiming that there are no disembodied minds. We find bodies that seem to be without mind, but no mind without bodies. The physical is ineliminable.
quote="Bob Ross;811549"]The purpose is irrelevant for all intents and purposes here.[/quote]
You do not know what an engine is or even what its parts are if you do not know its function and purpose.
Quoting Bob Ross
An actual tornado is not an assemblage parts. Wind does not combine with dust, etc. The forces that create the tornado create the wind and raise the dust.
Quoting Bob Ross
Physicalism as I understand it, does not argue that it can explain mind in physical terms simply because it cannot yet. What is at issue is methodological rather than ontological. Because we do not have access to disembodied minds we must look to the embodied minds of living being. That is the only place we find mind.
a) states that there are physical things and that we are aware of these things within experience. If, however, you accept b) then it is not simply that we are aware of these things in experience but that they would not be without experience.
Quoting Bob Ross
If there is fundamentally only mind then the physical has to be explained in terms of mind. It there is fundamentally only the physical then the mental has to be explained in terms of the physical. If one cannot be solved in terms of the other this cuts both ways.
And once again, it has not been proven that physicalism is unable to solve it even theoretically. You are convinced it can't. You should leave it there.
Quoting Bob Ross
I have no introspective experience of a universal mind. Private experience cannot stand as public, shareable evidence. In your mind is the idea of universal mind. That idea in your mind is only evidence that your embodied mind can entertain the notion of a non-embodied mind .
Quoting Bob Ross
My mind that produced the dream is an embodied mind. Whatever I dream, whether a body is present in it or not, it is the dream of an embodied mind.
.
However, the rational intellect is capable of grasping purely abstract ideas, and even using them to construct novel inventions, such as computers.
The phenomena we experience are views of things, not the things themselves; we never experience whole objects, rather we think them, which collectively generates the notion of a realm of discrete objects.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
As I say to CS above, we never experience whole objects, and yet the objects are always there to be viewed from various perspectives, to be touched, to be tapped or rubbed in order to see what sound manifests, to be measured, weighed, cleaned, smashed or destroyed.
So, it seems impossible to think that objects don't persist, and some more than others, obviously. So, I don't follow Hume in thinking that we have no reason to believe that objects persist. What makes the case even stronger is observing the behavior of the animals most familiar to us that shows that they also see the same things in the same locations as we do.
But the metaphysical explanation for the existence of these commonly perceived objects is another matter. We really have no idea what they are in themselves. You might argue that QM comes closest to informing us as to their actual nature, but QM too is still not showing us anything beyond human observation and judgement.
So, I would say that objects persist, whatever the metaphysical explanation for that might be; whether they are real material or energetic structures or ideas in a universal mind, I would still say that they persist, because we have no reason to think they do not and every reason to think they do. That is how I understand Kant's notion of noumena, as being whatever gives rise to our experience of persistent objects, something which intellectual honesty and modesty demands that we acknowledge is not known, or even knowable.
Isn't the claim that Mary knows all the physical facts about seeing color?
I'm not entirely sure what the precise wording is. It matters though. Seems to me that Mary's room aims at the wrong target.
The precise wording matters. The whole point is that Mary knows all the physical facts about seeing, and then learns something new when she actually sees color for the first time.
Youre on record as admitting a Schopenhauer-ian bent. He was the champion of the PSR, yet brute facts negate the PSR. It must be that being metaphysically necessary is sufficient reason, or the PSR doesnt apply here. But why should it be necessary that reality be a universal mind, or manifest from such a thing?
Probably only if you accept the somewhat outlandish idea that there is a mind-at-large which we are all 'offshoots' of. I'm not sure this is a better account or in any way demonstrable. But I like his ambition.
At what point might Kastrup's answer to materialism be a case of 'mind-at-large of the gaps'?
As I see it, Kastrup does two jobs. 1) He undermines accounts of physicalism (but probably not all accounts) and 2) he posits an alternative account or 'reality'. He rather relies upon the frailties of the former in order to justify his version of latter. I think the first job is easier than the second.
OK. No problem. Thanks anyway.
Such ideas are not remote in principle from various formulations of panentheism or the kinds of cosmo-psychism found in Advaita Vedanta and is also not too far removed from the idea of the Intellect (nous) in neoplatonic philosophy.
Also interesting to note Erwin Schrodinger's interpretation of Indian philosophy, which appear in various of his philosophical essays and are summarized by Michel Bitbol in this essay. Some excerpts therefrom:
[quote=Michel Bitbol] He declares that the basic doctrine of the Upanishads, namely what he calls the doctrine of Identity, or the thesis that allegedly separated minds are identical with one another, and that our mind is identical with the absolute basis of the world as a whole, is the only credible solution to the apparent conflict between the experienced unity of consciousness and the belief that it is dispersed in many living bodies.
It is by observing and thinking this way that one may suddenly experience the truth of the fundamental idea of Vedânta. It is impossible that this unity of knowledge, of feeling and of choice that you consider as YOURS was born a few years ago from nothingness. Actually, this knowledge, this feeling and this choice are, in their essence, eternal, immutable and numerically ONE in all men and in all living beings (...). The life that you are living presently is not only a fragment of the whole existence; it is in a certain sense, the WHOLE *
From his reading of the Advaita Vedânta, and from the basic experience he associated with it, Schrödinger inferred that the basic illusion, in our naive and scientific view of the world, is that of multiplicity. Multiplicity of minds in the living bodies, and multiplicity of things in the material world. About the first type of multiplicity, Schrödinger wrote : what seems to be a plurality is merely a series of aspects of one thing, produced by deception (the Indian Mâyâ). The doctrine of identity can claim that it is clinched by the empirical fact that consciousness is never experienced in the plural, only in the singular. Not only has none of us even experienced more than one consciousness, but there is no trace of circumstantial evidence of this even happening anywhere in the world[/quote]
As I've explained, I don't find it necessary to posit a mind-at-large while still defending an idealist view. The risk with positing such an entity is the reification or objectification of it, but it never exists as an object, it is always only 'that which knows'.
Quoting Janus
We have quite a lot in common with animals, even if we may not know what it's like to be a bat. Also notice this observation from one of our learned contributors:
Quoting sime
I think the stumbling block you're dealing with is the idea that unobserved ceases to exist, like what G E Moore said, when he asked if the train wheels ceased to exist when the passengers were boarded. That is not what Berkeley's idealism is claiming.
Berkeley has the mind of God to hold everything in place. Ditto Kastrup with mind-at-large. Kastrup devoted quite some time on this in one of his lectures - the role of great mind and object permanence is precisely the matter I am hoping to hear more about. Kastrup actually says something like the reason his car is there in his garage when he is in bed at night is mind-at-large.
Quoting Wayfarer
Yes, I think that's very interesting.
Yes, well what everything do you have in mind when you say that?
All of the vast amounts of data being nowadays collected about the universe by our incredibly powerful space telescopes and particle colliders is still synthesised and converted into conceptual information by scientists. And that conceptual activity remains conditioned by, and subject to, our sensory and intellectual capabilities determined by the kinds of beings we are, and interpreted according to the attitudes and theories we hold. And were never outside of that web of conceptual activities at least, not as long as were conscious beings. That is the sense in which the Universe exists in the mind not as a figment of someones imagination, but as a combination or synthesis of perception, conception and theory in the human mind (which is more than your mind or mine, although these are instances of it). That synthesis constitutes our experience-of-the-world. It is not an hallucination or figment of the imagination, but the mind constitutes the imaginative matrix within which all of this exists.
What we need to grasp is that all we know of existence whether of the rock, or the screen you're looking at, or the Universe at large is a function of our world-making intelligence, the activity of the hominid forebrain which sets us apart from other species. Thats what empirical reality consists of. After all, the definition of empirical is based on, concerned with, or verifiable by observation or experience. So, asking of the Universe How does it exist outside our observation or experience of it? is an unanswerable question (reflected by that quoted passage from Sime above).
So there is no need to posit a supermind to account for it, because theres nothing to account for. Put another way: the Universe doesnt exist outside consciousness, but neither does it not exist, so there is no need to posit any agency to explain its supposedly continued existence.
Hence the apparently paradoxical statement attributed to the Buddha - 'By and large, Kaccayana, this world is supported by a polarity, that of existence and non-existence. But when one sees the origination of the world as it actually is with right discernment, "non-existence" with reference to the world does not occur to one. When one sees the cessation of the world as it actually is with right discernment, "existence" with reference to the world does not occur to one.' [sup]1[/sup] And that is because, in the Buddhist teaching, 'self-and-world' are co-arising, existing in dependent origination, due to the principles of conditioned origination.
Whereas, the 'polarity of existence and non-existence' shines through almost everything said about it in this thread. (I will acknowledge that it is a very subtle point to grasp.)
Quoting Wayfarer
I think that's a helpful summary and I don't think I can do better as a provisional overview.
Quoting Wayfarer
Almost a Kantian position.
Right. I mentioned not too long ago that, in us, thoughts are singular and successive, presupposing the condition of time, so it is reasonable we do not experience everything at once.
Quoting Bob Ross
So physical with respect to the conscious experience ..of humans.
Physical for humans is representation of the mental ..of the universal mind?
So for humans a representation of a representation?
The representation of the physical as conscious experience belongs to us as humans, but does the representation the universal mind gives to us as the physical, imply a conscious experience for that to which the universal mind belongs?
In conjunction with the above, wherein reality .our reality .is the brute fact of the universal mind, implies our reality just is the manifold of representations of universal mind without regard for the conscious experience of that to which such universal mind belongs.
Fine, I guess. We prescribe representations to ourselves without knowing how they come about, so no difference in kind prescribing them to something else we couldnt know anything about. I suppose, from a Kantian perspective, which is what youre asking for, we have no warrant whatsoever, to speculate metaphysically on that which is not completely within ourselves.
Im having trouble here. The representation is never the physical stuff, and the mental is sometimes what is represented. How is yours not backwards? Actually, it is backwards, so the real question becomes .how do you justify the backwardness, without merely saying it isnt?
Why is it not that coming to know the world from two sides isnt two kinds of knowledge? I agree there are two kinds of knowledge, re: a priori as representations of mental events, and a posteriori as representation of physical stuff, but only the latter is coming to know the world.
Id be happier if it was the case coming to know the world from two conditions, which would be physical stuff and mental events, but not so much that each is a kind of knowledge all by itself without influence from the other. Two sides just seems to invoke excessive separation.
Quoting Bob Ross
For S it is the will, I thought, but either way same-o, same-o. Only way this theory works at all, to assign to a concept that which didnt formally belong to it, is to redefine it. Which effectively makes it a different philosophy.
I completely agree with your post, and what you've said, but I would like to add something here. The principal thing which sets us, as human beings, off from other species, in the way that we perceive "the Universe at large", is the use of logic. This is what supports Aristotle's definition of "man" as rational animal. But even the extremely rapid development of the modern logical processes, initiated by Aristotle, has created a sub-variation definable distinction within the species, between ancient "man", and modern day "human being".
Here is my theory on the development of the use of logic in the human mind. The use of logic is a feature of language which is completely distinct from language as used for communication. This is the 'dual personality' of language which Wittgenstein approached with his inquiry into "private language". I like to look at this dual personality as a division between oral language and written language. And, I think the two can be seen historically to have developed initially in separate ways, and separate directions.
Spoken symbols had the use of communication, written symbols had the personal use of being a memory aid. These two evolved initially in separate directions. In ancient times though, it became evident that spoken word could be memorized through the use of verse, and verses were passed down through generations. This was a specific type of communication which required memorizing. At this time, written symbols were already employed personally for memory of things like numbers and maps. Then it became evident that representing spoken words with written symbols, as a memory aid for the verse repetition, was very effective, and this led to the formerly very personal memory device being translatable from one person to another. That combining of spoken and written language produced the explosion of human reasoning power.
Agree. I also think that rationality is often deprecated by modern philosophy, due to the animosity towards the idea of innate abilities on the part of empiricism, and also because it seems politically incorrect to say that humans are different to animals.
In the ancient world sacred lore was indeed committed to memory, and the feats of memory that were accomplished seems amazing to us now. The entire corpus of the Vedas and all the early Buddhist texts were preserved orally for centuries before being committed to writing. (There is still a term in Islam, hafiz, for those who have memorised the entire Koran, which seems an astounding feat.)
Actually, he says "zoon politikon" (political animal), yet given his monumental Organon, Aristotle tends to get tagged with that "rational animal" (which I think actually comes from Plato). Anyway, our uniquely distinguishing feature as a species, I think, is that, despite mostly being delusional, we are collaborative knowledge-producers. :fire:
Hello Foolos4,
I think we will have to just agree to disagree at this point, as I dont see how to further the discussion without circling back around.
This is partially true. I can get on board with the idea that our minds do not exist without bodies because our bodies are extrinsic representation of our minds. So of course we should expect to a dead body to still have an alive mind, but this doesnt mean that the mind is reducible to the brain.
You are just, at best, pushing the question deeper and it doesnt negate my point. When you understand the forces, wind, dust, etc. you thereby explain the weakly emergent property of a tornado. You can add whatever other parts you would like.
I am not completely in disagreement with you: I think we should do more research on minds. But that research isnt going to afford us an explanation of what mind is (as I have already stated and provided a proof for).
Firstly, Either or entails a dilemma, and A and B are not a dilemma (as I mentioned earlier).
Secondly, A in your quote and A in your elaboration are not the same claim: the former simply posits that there are physical things within experience while the latter claims that there are also physical things outside of our experience that we experience within our experience. Those are two different claims.
If that is what you are getting at, then I deny A and accept B (and it would be a dilemma).
As I already explained, there is a symmetry breaker.
I provided an argument and you didnt really counter it. Instead, you just keep claiming that I am wrong and am presuming it. If you think I am wrong, then counter the argument (I outlined it in a previous post).
Its introspective evidence. So if you havent experienced a dream in your life (which I highly doubt), then, yes, you shouldnt be convinced by it.
If you are a physicalist, then yes.
If by embodied you just mean that your mind corresponds to a physical body, then I agree. If you mean, on the contrary, that your mind is your body then I disagree with that ontological claim.
Bob
Hello Alkis Piskas,
I apologize Alkis! If you would like, then perhaps asking me questions about it might help further the conversation. I will do my best to adequately respond!
Bob
Hello Tom Storm,
Good question: I think it would be a mind-at-large of the gaps iff it was a soft problem for physicalism. However, since it is provably impossible for explain consciousness under physicalism, that invalidates the theory (as far as I am concerned) provably and not just merely we dont know, so it could be mind.
This is true. But, for me, it is the hard problem of consciousness that removes physicalism from the race, not the idea that they havent explained it yet.
Bob
Hello Mww,
Correct. I consider it a neo-schopenhauerian view.
Schopenhauer claimed that there are four modes of the PSR: mathematical, motive, reason, and causal. He claims that the principle of sufficient reason of becoming (i.e.,. causal) doesnt apply to the thing-in-itself as will, but the PSR of motive does in time. I didnt understand him to be claiming to be a necessitarian: the will, outside of space and time, is not affected by the PSR: the PSR only comes about in space and time.
Firstly, under every metaphysical theory, there must be something posited, by my lights, as metaphysical necessary: even if it is the infinite regression of contingencies itself. So I would say it is a matter if inevitability.
Secondly, the idea is that what is expressed in space (and time) is the representation of immaterial ideas (from a previous time): the physical is just an expression of the mental. Now, what is being expressed in time (which is fundamentally ideas being expressed as physical) is either mental or non-mental. If it is non-mental then we have the hard problem of consciousness all over again. If it is mental, then we dont: the latter is more parsimonious than the former. Metaphysics is about maximizing explanatory power whilst minimizing complexity.
Thirdly, it is not necessary that reality must be a universal mind but, rather, that the universal mind is being posited as metaphysically necessary as a part of what would be claimed as the most parsimonious account of reality (as a general account). I am not claiming that we can have air-tight metaphysical theories about reality.
The representation within the physical world is the representation of an immaterial idea. From the side of the physical, it appears as a seemingly potential infinite chain of physical causes; from the side of the mental, it was the expression of will (i.e., of immaterial ideas).
The mental is always what is represented when it comes to the physical stuff: that physical stuff is a representation of the mental: this doesnt mean that the mental always gets represented as intended (by our wills) in reality.
I am not following why it is backwards: please elaborate.
It is two kinds of knowledge: the physical, on its own, from that side, appears as an potential infinite chain of causalitybut what it is representing, the thing-in-itself, is immaterial ideas. I would say that they are two kinds of knowledge, but they dont give a holistic account of the world on their own: one needs both to account fully for each event (if that makes any sense).
If I am understanding you correctly, then you can come to know the world as well by understanding that the a priori representations of mental events are what is being represented, when it comes to your body, by the a posteriori physical stuff. With self-knowledge, and this where you probably will disagree and is the dispute between Kant and Schopenhauer, you can come to know the thing-in-itself of your body: your mind.
I am saying they dont influence each other insofar as causally. The physical is still influenced in the sense that it is a representation of the mental: you need both to account holistically for the events, but in the vast majority of cases you only have direct access to the physical account (and not the mental account).
Perhaps instead of two kinds of knowledge, we could call it two viewpoints that are required to gain knowledge.
Will is just the most fundamental aspect of mind: when we have ideas, it is fundamentally supplied by our will. You are correct that this is an overlap between schopenhauer and analytic idealism, as the latter is an extension (or adjustment) of the former.
Bob
No need to aplogize, Bob. Questions such as about the nature of consciousness, the existence of a universal mind, etc. cannot have definite answers. Besides, we have deviated a lot about the subject of your topic, which is "Analytical Idealism". We have been carried away by the energy that the process of Q&A has created. It's a very powerful process. And you never know where you can end up! :smile:
We will have to agree to disagree on this as well.
Quoting Bob Ross
You might expect that. I don't expect that. The majority of the medical community does not expect that. The majority of those working in cognitive science do not expect that.
Quoting Bob Ross
Either it is raining or it is not. What is the dilemma? Either it is Tuesday or it is not. What is the dilemma? Either consciousness is ontologically fundamental or it is not. what is the dilemma?
Quoting Bob Ross
It does not say that there are physical things within experience. It says that there are physical things that we are aware of. It does not say that those things are in experience. That is your assumption. I am aware of the tree that is providing me with shade, but that experience does not mean the tree is within experience, only that my awareness of it is. My experience does not provide shade, the tree does.
Quoting Bob Ross
Once again I will take the option to agree to disagree.
Quoting Bob Ross
Round and round we go.
Quoting Bob Ross
I agree. We do not have an adequate explanation of mind.
Quoting Bob Ross
Mind is a capacity of sufficiently developed living bodies.
Hello Fooloso4,
I apologize: that was a typoit was supposed to say so of course we should not.... I was meaning to agree with you on that.
I agree that the tree doesnt merely exist within your conscious experience (i.e., within your perceptions), but that doesnt mean it exists in-itself as the composition of mind-independent parts nor that it exists materially in the sense that you perceive it. The information is accurate (enough), but the appearance is just an appearance.
Bob
You misunderstand. If you had read my posts more closely you would know that all I'm claiming is that unobserved objects persist, and that I'm making no metaphysical claims about how that is possible, whether it is that objects are simply physical existents, or are ideas in a universal mind or that it is on account of decoherence and entanglement or whatever. Berkeley's idealism is in accordance with the fact that objects persist, since in his philosophy they persist in the mind of God.
The point is that we know objects persist and we don't know, and it would seem, can never know, just what the explanation for that is, because none of the few imaginable candidates for explanation are empirically testable. The point of realizing this is just to clarify the position we find ourselves in; that is we are ignorant as to the fundamental nature of things.
Agreed; Ill go with the three logical laws of thought.
Quoting Bob Ross
Is it just the same to say representation of immaterial ideas are whats expressed in space and time? And is it representation of immaterial ideas that is expressed by the mental? So the physical is just mental representation of immaterial ideas.
If my relocation of nomenclature doesnt change any of your propositional truth value, I wouldnt push an argument. The way Id say it is quite different, but its possible wed end up in the same place, iff it is my mind, my ideas, my representations.
Quoting Bob Ross
What are the other parts of the account of reality. I consider reality to be that which corresponds to a sensation in general, that, consequently, the conception of which indicates a being. It follows that there isnt need for a further account of reality, but there would certainly need to be an account for sensation. Sensation is how we are awakened to reality, which, of course, thereby presupposes it, be it what it may. No need to account for it. Sorta like your metaphysical necessity?
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Quoting Bob Ross
Hmmm. This looks like it puts representation in the external world, when I want it to be in my head. Id be ok with something like representations of the physical world are (mentally generated) immaterial ideas. Then wed have to discuss whether conceptions are immaterial ideas, insofar as I wouldnt have any problem calling conceptions mental. Immaterial, sure, but Im not too sure Id leave conceptions as mere ideas. Both conceptions and ideas are representations, an idea is a conception, but a conception is not necessarily an idea.
But the real problem is expressions of will, which for me belong in moral philosophy alone, which makes this metaphysical nonsense ..
.. indeed the answer to the riddle is given to the subject of knowledge who appears as an individual, and the answer is will. This and this alone gives him the key to his own existence, reveals to him the significance, shows him the inner mechanism of his being, of his action, of his movements. Every true act of his will is also at once and without exception a movement of his body. The act of will and the movement of the body are not two different things objectively known, which the bond of causality unites; they do not stand in the relation of cause and effect; they are one and the same .
(WWR, 2. 1. 18, 1844, in Haldane, Kemp, 1909)
.for he who would attribute to will no more than autonomous volition predicated on subjective principles.
Which brings out one of Ss gripes with K .causality, cause and effect. S rejected Ks invocation of freedom as a causality, so without it, for him, will does not stand the relation to cause and effect.
Whats next?
Quoting Janus
Rather, we assume they do. If you read my posts more carefully, you would see that I am saying that both the posits of 'existing' or 'non-existing' are mental constructions or surmises.
It is obvious that we don't know with absolute certainty that objects persist when unobserved, but all the evidence of human experience, including observation of animal behavior, suggests that they do persist. Really all we mean by "persist" is that they are perceptually invariant over varying degrees of time, depending on the object and also that they show perceptual commonality for almost all people and even some animals.
We are here discussing the perceived existence of invariance, so it is a cop-out to state the trivially true fact that 'existing' and 'non-existing' are mental constructs. If we want to do philosophy, then we have nothing else to work with than what are obviously our own concepts.
If you read my posts more closely you would know that I have acknowledged many times that our concepts may not be capable of capturing the nature of reality; how would we know whether they do or not? But they are all we have to work with.
Quoting Wayfarer
And here is a classic case in point: immaterial minds are something that language, by putting the words together, allows us to imagine. But there cannot, by your own admission, ever be any evidence for the existence of immaterial minds, so of what discursive or philosophical use is this "mental construction" or "surmise"?
If one does not want to work with substantive mental constructs and surmises, perhaps one should take a leave out of the pragmatic QM playbook and "shut up and live".
I don't know how to go about looking for something that probably does not exist. That is why I keep returning to living things as the place to look for minds.
I think we have gone about as far as we can with going over the same things again. I appreciate that despite our differences the discussion remained civil.
Hello Mww,
Which three? Principle of non-contradiction, excluded middle, and identity?
Representation are within our heads: they are perceptions; but, the world one is fundamentally representing is will (i.e., ideas in a universal mind) as opposed to something unknown (for Kant). Kant seems to think that we cant gain knowledge of anything that goes beyond our pure forms of intuition, whereas Schopenhauer claims it is will.
Yes.
Yes, but as an organism that has evolved to have perceptions (i.e., to represent the world: the sensations).
Correct. It is mental representation of the outer world, which is fundamentally more immaterial ideas (and I think that part you may disagree with).
If this is just another way of saying reality is the totality of what is, then I agree.
The way that you defined reality sort of confused me: I dont think that the totality of what corresponds to a sensation in general that...the conception of which indicates a being encompasses necessarily all realitythere could be something which is never impressed unto our faculty of intuition (in Kantian terms) but is still a part of reality.
Why wouldnt you need to account for what is sans-impressed sensations?
I mean something that has to be there in all possible worlds or is a brute fact. Are you saying that the laws of thought for a mind is what is the brute fact of reality?
I wouldnt say there are other parts to reality but, rather, Analytic Idealism is meant to account for all of it the best. The claim that there is a universal mind doesnt explain everything immediately, in itself, about reality other than it is the bedrock of it.
Agreed. I would say that fundamental reality is ideas and not conceptions. Conceptions I would posit as only available to higher evolved life forms that have acquired the ability to cognize. I remember now about the Kantian categories: I would side with Schopenhauer in saying that the representation of the world (as perception) is just the principle of sufficient reason of becoming and not the use of concepts: conceptions, as I would use the term, are the productions of the faculty of reason (of which it is not necessarily the case that an organism with perception has it nor that it is very adept to sophisticated reasoning) which takes in perceptions as its input. I dont see a need to posit categories (of conceptions and functions) for the understanding, but I would love to hear why your perspective on it.
Very interesting. To me, will is fundamental to our operations. When we think, those conception and ideas are fundamentally guided by (or, to me, quite literally fundamentally the) will. Will is not just morality to me, it is the essence of being alive. Conscious activity, at rock bottom, is willing. Do you disagree?
Correct, because, as I understand S, the will is fundamentally outside of time and space which is just an overly precise term (will) for mind (as mind is fundamentally will, but not just will).
I bet there is a lot you will want to respond to in my post (; If not, then theres plenty Kantian questions I have for you.
Bob
I appreciate you taking the time to converse with me Foolos4!
Have a wonderful day!
Bob
I wonder if this is a bit dogmatic? I don't think we can say it is impossible yet. I agree that there is no obvious answer at hand, but thinkers like Metzinger point in certain directions. But even if all forms of physicalism end up being superseded, this does not make mind-at-large necessary - there might be any number of other explanations we have not yet considered. I wonder about our expertise to make totalising statements on this highly complex and speculative subject. I also wonder about the limitations of human cognition to solve some of the problems we seem to identify.
There's a reason for why the definition is said to be "rational animal" rather than "political animal", and that is because "political" is further broken down by Aristotle, as being a special type of social activity. So it's true that he describes man as a political animal, but "political" is described as a social activity which involves moral reasoning. This is better described in his ethics, and here reasoning or contemplation is described as the highest moral activity. Then in his biology we see that reasoning is described as intellection, which, as a power of the soul is similar to sensation but distinct from sensation because it is not like a sixth sense. And the way that reasoning is done, through the use of immaterial abstractions, is what makes it unique to human beings.
I would argue that there is even a distinction to be made between reasoning and thinking. We see that all other animals think in some way, but as I said in the last post, reasoning is a special type of thinking which uses symbols, like numerals and words. And, the use of symbols in thinking is very different from the use of symbols in communication. This is what Wittgenstein is getting at in his discussion of private language. Under this terminology, reasoning is a private activity, with a private use of symbols, therefore it is based in the private language. This makes moral reasoning very special because it's fundamentally a private use of symbols (reasoning), but it's a private act which has as its intention, or end, a synthesis of the private with the communal.
I am very familiar with your sense of better and worse, so a statement of that sort was expected, and taken as a compliment.
If everything is a representation in our heads, are our heads also representations...in our heads?
What evidence would that be? We don't observe what we don't observe, so ...
As far as I can tell this is not something we believe on evidence at all, but an assumption. Hume describes it so.
In a Bayesian frame of mind, you might say the furniture out in the living room is part of my model of the world, and when I'm not observing it, that part of the model is essentially frozen, not being updated because there is no relevant information upon which to base an update. No new observations. That's not much like believing, based on the evidence, that it's still there as I left it, and a lot more like just assuming that it is.
But I'm sure what you mean is that if I were now to go and check, everything would still be as my model says it is, and it's the experience over time we should trust. Thus:
Quoting Janus
"Perceptually invariant" is a curious phrase, meaning something like "below our level of discrimination". We joke about watching paint dry or watching grass grow. You could, of course, do these things, and you would find that there is rather little in the world that never changes, even things that change too slowly for us to notice or care.
But of course invariance is, in some important ways, not a matter of observation exactly. I have an identity not just because I change slowly from day to day. So do many things. Or at least we're inclined to think so, so these identifications have at least the force of custom, and in some cases maybe that's all they have. (The identities of countries, firms, and so on.) If those identities are established by observation, it's by observation of the custom, not any object.
So if the couch has changed too little for me to notice or care since I last saw it an hour ago, I'm allowed to pretend it's the same and call it the same. Is that the metaphysics you had in mind?
Quoting Janus
Of course this is not quite what you mean, but that we infer similar perceptions upon seeing similar behavior. Not saying that's a bad inference, but it's an inference, not an observation. We also know there is considerable variation in how things are perceived, even among humans. Beyond that, more variation: for instance, it turns out humans are relatively rare in not seeing the ultraviolet part of the spectrum, and a great many animals do. Flowers look quite different to most insects, for instance.
None of which is going to bother you because a flower, for you, is, in the final analysis just a whatever-it-is; all you need for the point is that sentient creatures all behave as if there's something there. And so it is with infants: there's research suggesting that infants develop an expectation of object permanence before the expectation of object identity. (When something goes behind a screen, the infant is satisfied if something comes out, even if it's not the same thing.)
But the theory you're defending is not that I hold, based on the evidence, that there's still a lot of somethings out in the living room, but the same chair, couch, and tables that were there when I last was. We need a lot more specificity than your fallback metaphysics of something-or-others.
I said "evidence", I didn't say 'proof'. For example, say I lost my well-worn copy of Crime and Punishment twenty years ago, just before my son was born and now I have an issue with my pipes leaking under the house, which my son, now a plumber, volunteers to look at. He goes under the house and comes out with a book; "look what I found under the house" he says, " an old beaten up and slightly chewed copy of Crime and Punishment. Say I had never told him about losing that book. Now I think right, the dog, now years dead, must have taken it under the house. You don't think that would count as evidence that makes it plausible to think the book had been there the whole time? Or do you think it more likely that the book popped back into existence when my son went under the house?
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
No, we can easily test whether we see the same details on common objects. Say you and I have an apple in front of us: a read apple with a very unusual yellow mark on it that looks like an image of Jesus. I ask you whether you see anything unusual about this apple and you say that it has a mark on it that looks like a bearded man with long hair. What would you consider to be the best explanation for that?
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
I said perceptually invariant, not invariant tout court; if I can perceive any difference then it counts as perceptually invariant. And not, I'm not making any metaphysical claims about what it is that is responsible for presenting us with the world of objects of common perception.
So ..mid-Enightenment, in the schools, Aristotle and God were still in charge. K comes along, paradigm-shifts cognitive metaphysics away from God, maintains Aristotle. If youre S, a professional philosopher, whacha gonna do when the guy just before you upset the established applecart so completely, all thats left is to find a loophole in what he said, because its just too powerful to cancel. So you concentrate of the one thing you find questionable, and that is the prescription on the limits of knowledge, which you go about finding a way to exceed.
So the deal is, in K-speak, in a human representational system, that which is represented by the system, is not what is is entailed in human knowledge, which is the same as saying that for which the representation stands, is unknown by the system, which just is the human himself. That which is represented in humans is the world, so first and foremost the world itself is that which is unknown by humans.
The fix for that, is to say, in S-speak, even if the world is not known by humans, it is surely known by something not human, whatever it may be. If it happens to be a universal mind, and if Aristotle is still in force, then that universal mind will necessarily know everything about everything, which makes explicit it will know all about the very things humans do not, which the most important would be the world itself.
Long story short, the universal mind has ideas, wills them into worldly object manifestations, complete in themselves, subsequently representable in humans just as completely as the willed idea prescribes in its manifestations. This, of course, logically, makes human knowledge of the ding an sich not only possible, but given. If the universal mind has the idea of it, wills it, then the human system can represent it in himself, and Ks human knowledge limit is exceeded. Which was, given the time and place, the whole raison detre for Ss world as will and representation (idea) in the first place.
Close enough? Not even wrong, as my ol buddy Wolfgang might say? Whatever objections I might raise are irrelevant, if I got the synopsis wrong, or, not right enough. If close enough, however, it remains to be posited what is gained by such a program, and why it should not be dismissed as a bridge too far.
Quoting Bob Ross
There may be a lot to respond to, depending on how well Ive understood it so far. I suspect, perhaps somewhat egocentrically for which I somewhat apologize, faults in the universal mind theory must be addressed from a Kantian perspective, insofar as the one is almost directly connected to the other, thus if I can refute it, if the universal mind theory cannot withstand refutation, your questions would be answered thereby.
Your turn.
Hello Tom Storm,
Analytic Idealists, like any other world view, can become dogmatic: some of the things that Kastrup says about physicalism I disregard on that account. However, I dont think it is dogmatic, in itself, to claim that physicalism has the hard problem of consciousness (and that it is, as a hard problem, irreconcilable). I think it is provable that the reductive physicalist method fails to account for consciousness.
My argument, in short, would be as follows:
Every possible explanation, under reductive physicalism, that a physicalist could give for consciousness is of the form consciousness is [this set of biological functions] because [this set of biological functions] impacts consciousness [in this manner]. The reductionist method, assuming it is reducing into physical stuff, can only afford, as can be seen the form of the argument, to provide better insight into the relationship between conscious and brain states but doesnt actually, even when attempting to explain it, account for what consciousness is nor how it is produced by brain states.
Interesting: what is Metzinger proposing as a resolution?
No metaphysical theory can proclaim to be necessary. It is about trying to give the best general account of reality.
I am always open ears to new ideas, but I dont think this negates the fact that analytic idealism (I would argue) is the best known theory for accounting for reality (on the contrary to the popular belief that it is physicalism or substance dualism). I am never going to pretend that I have found the absolute truth.
This is fair, but, nevertheless, I do think metaphysics is good for navigating the world in which we live; and it is good to come to a generalization of what one thinks reality is even if we cant absolutely know for sure.
Bob
Hello Janus,
Our heads which we experience phenomenally, in the sense of a physical head of our bodies within our conscious experience, are, under both physicalism and analytic idealism, representations. When you look in the mirror, your head is a representation that your brain (if you are a physicalist) or your mind (if you are an idealist) has of itself. Your brain (or mind) is trying to represent itself to itself when it views itself by producing perceptions of it (just like anything else).
Bob
Hello Mww,
Would you say that Kant thought we could gather knowledge of the world (which is being represented by us) or would you say he thought that we could never acquire such knowledge (since the representations are mere phenomenon)?
To me, Kant goes dangerously close to (if not actually argues cryptically for) epistemic solipsism.
How does Kant even know, if he cannot know anything about things-in-themselves, that his mind is representing objects (which he seems to assume a lot to me)? Why not one object? Why not the unknown which may not be an object at all? Why not nothing?
To me, we only come to realize by empirical inquiry that our minds are the best explanation for the production of the conscious experiences we have which, in turn, show us that we are representing somethingbut this doesnt work if one is positing that all of it is mere phenomenon that cannot furnish them with knowledge of things-in-themselves and, in that case, by my lights, one cant even argue that their mind is representing anything but rather that theres just given conscious experiences.
For now, I accept this summary: please refute away! As you refute, I will understand better what you are saying. So far, this seems like a fair-ish summary (for intents and purposes).
The only thing I will say now is that the universal mind, under Analytic Idealism, doesnt will them directly into our representations: there are objective ideas that our faculty tries represent (and depending on how well that faculty is, it may not be represented all that accurately). Also, I wouldnt claim either that a human with supreme perceptive capabilities gets a 100% accurate representation of the world around them. It sounded like you may be saying that the will gives us 100% accurate representations: it doesnt.
That is exactly what I would like to hear about! Why do you think it is dismissable as a bridge too far? Why do you think we are completely cut off from knowing the things-in-themselves? And do you think it entails epistemic solipsism?
Sounds good to me! Refute away my friend!
Bob
So, if our brains are representations like anything else, then how can consciousness be said to reside there? If the brain is a representation, then the consciousness that seems to reside there, and the self-model that comes with it must also be representations. The question then is what is doing the representing? Perhaps nothing? Or everything?
:fire:
I like this question. I suspect that Kastrup would say that consciousness manifests as a brain, in a skull, in a body, in a world when viewed across the dissociative divide. It's just the form it appears to come in. Given that legs are as illusory as brains, I guess the functionality implied in a 'physical' body is a kind of combined hallucination to begin with. That's all I got....
Great minds think (confuse themselves) alike. :point:
Quoting 180 Proof
Technically, it is only knowledge of representations, hence not of the world per se. The amendments to our representations over time corresponds to the relative correctness of our knowledge, which we call experience. The world itself doesnt change in its time as much as our knowledge of it does in our own, so it is obvious there is a major distinction between the two.
Quoting Bob Ross
If it is to say epistemic solipsism is the notion that the only absolutely certain knowledge is that which belongs to the subject capable of it, then the proposition is an analytical truth, a mere tautology, carrying the implication theres no need to argue for it, insofar as it is a given. Put another way, its negation is impossible. Kant is arguing, not for the certainty of our knowledge but the warrant for it, the illusory nature of its origins a priori, and thereby its limits. A critique of the given, not a proof for it.
Quoting Bob Ross
Sensations. The thing of sensation is the same thing as the thing of the ding an sich. The thing of sensation is as yet undetermined, and only possibly determinable. Platos knowledge that, Russells knowledge of acquaintance. Sensation is just of an undetermined something, called an object mostly I suppose, because it is opposed to, distinct from, yet an affect upon, a subject.
Quoting Bob Ross
It is an object for the sake of communication, for talking about it. As far as the system is concerned, in and of itself as a system, it isnt an object, it is an effect by that which is external to it, sometimes called an appearance. Sometimes called that which awakens internal awareness.
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Quoting Bob Ross
Technically, conscious experience shows us we know something. Theoretically, knowledge of things presupposes the representation of them necessarily, given the kind of system by which humans know things.
Quoting Bob Ross
All of it, re: conscious experience, is not phenomenon, and experience, as a methodological terminus, is not itself a mere representation. In Kant, the last rendition of a representation is in judgement, an aspect of understanding, which, in the form of a logical syllogism, is way back at the point of the manifold of minor premises, whereas experience stands as the conclusion.
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Quoting Bob Ross
Which is fine, but reason will always ask .experience of what, exactly? Convention allows that all we need, under the most general of conditions, to grant is conscious experience; it is, after all, what is most readily apparent to us; the philosopher wants to make the clear exposition of just what is involved with such convention, in order to sustain, or falsify, it, once and for all. Or, bluntly, to ..
. raise a loud cry of danger to the public over the destruction of cobwebs, of which the public has never taken any notice, and the loss of which, therefore, it can never feel.
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Quoting Bob Ross
With respect to accuracy .agreed. Judgement requires exercise, exercise amends experience.
With respect to representations, on the other hand, how does the subject determine which idea/representation belong to the universal mind and which are his own?
Hello Janus,
For analytic idealism, consciousness does not reside in the brain: the brain is an extrinsic representation of aspects of mind. The mind is beyond the perceptions of the brain.
For (reductive) physicalism, to make it work, I would say that the phenomenal brain is the intrinsic (within conscious experience) representation of an noumenal (or otherwise non-phenomenal) brain. At this point, to me, theres no warrant to posit a noumenal brain: the only way would be, to me, if a (reductive) physicalist could account for how the noumenal brain is producing the conscious experience (which would have to be to account for it in the phenomenal brain and, once that is done, posit that that brain has a noumenal correlate); but at that point it is becoming a bit absurd to posit a brain outside of or beyond the mere phenomenal one.
Under analytic idealism, not all of conscious experience are perceptions: my ideas are not perceived by me by means of sensory input (that gets generated into a perception): it originates in me (as a mind). Therefore, we can acquire knowledge of what is being represented (i.e., perceived) within the tangible representations in our conscious experience: immaterial ideas.
I think your argument affects physicalists much more than it affects idealists: if your mind is an emergent property of a brain and that brain is only ever phenomenal, then why would we expect to come to understand what is outside of that mind? We wouldnt. Why would we even have reason to believe that the phenomenal brain has a noumenal brain correlate?--and, thusly, why would we expect to prove that the mind is emergent from the brain simply because brain states affect mental states? We shouldnt.
For analytic idealism, consciousness is fundamental; and so we can know what is being represented (because not all of our experience is a representation made by an emergent mind from a physical brain): immaterial ideas: will.
Bob
Hello Mww,
If you can only have refined knowledge of representations, then how can you know that the world itself doesnt change in its time as much as our knowledge of it does?
I am saying that Kants original view is a form of epistemic solipsism, which is to say that since one cannot know anything about things-in-themselves they cannot know that anything exists other than their own mind (even if you would like to use a weaker usage of the term mind, such as a faculty of understanding that creates representations of the things-in-themselves). For example, I dont see how you can know that there are other people with minds that have the same kind of a priori understanding (in Kants terms) that produces representations: that requires a metaphysical jump into the things-in-themselves.
I think this just pushes the same question a step deeper: how does Kant know that he has sensations without appealing to the phenomena, which are supposed to give us no knowledge of the things-in-themselves? I dont see how Kant can claim there is a bridge of sensations which are of the thing of things-in-themselves without such an appeal (which self-undermines his argument).
To me, Kant cant claim that phenomena give us no understanding of the things-in-themselves and posit that we have sensations of them: what do you think?
In other words, I agree that we are affected by sensations, but this fundamentally requires the concession that phenomena gives us some access to things-in-themselveseven if it is very limited or what have you.
Fair enough.
Your first sentence here suggests you agree that phenomena give us access to things-in-themselves to some degree (otherwise, I dont understand how you could agree with me there). Your second sentence I didnt fully follow: why does conscious experience presuppose sensations which are being represented necessarily theoretically without appeal to phenomena?
Again, how do you know what kind of system humans know things without granting that phenomena (which are supposed to be mere representations that give us nothing beyond them) do give us some access (even if it is transcendental or slightly transcendent)?
Interesting; but how do you come to understand that there is such a faculty of understanding without appealing to phenomena (appearances)?
We are within the objective world of the mind-at-large and, as such, we come to know that the reality in which we reside is superordinate; and this is distinguished by our intuitive distinctions between what is a part of our will vs. a port of anothers will vs. a part of a will greater than ours.
In terms of Kastrups Analytic Idealism, we are only separate minds insofar as we perceive the world from different angles and, at rock bottom, we are a part of the one mind which produces our experience: we are two characters in a dream, but when that universal mind wakes up the two characters were facadesbut that doesnt take away from the fact that those two characters has real, distinguishable experiences of the dream world. We are two whirlpools in on ocean, when we die down we re-assimilate into the ocean and even when we were distinguishable two different whirlpools we still were of the same ocean.
Bob
From the little I know about you and have gathered from you, this has taken me by surprise!
Are you a materialist?
Yes, although particular things that are ascribed to materialism might not stick.
Yes, in a sense, if you wanted to use that terminology, then fundamentally there is one Universal Spirit whereof there are derivate "spirits" (viz., alter perspectives within the one spirit).
Out of curiosity, what ontology would you subscribe to? Do you think that consciousness can be provably determined as reducible to brain states? What problems do you find with positing a Universal Spirit?
Bob
The interesting thing is that that is an untestable speculative explanation just as the idea that there are real mind-independent physical/ energetic structures is. The difference is that the latter seems to be more in accord with the whole consistent body of scientific knowledge as well as commonsense, while the former seems to be motivated by wishful thinking.
:up: The deadly infinite regress !
Are you implying the difference in knowledge from the human olden days to the human current days, is a reflection of a changing world? If so, sure, why not. That lightning came from angry gods reflected the ontological status of the old world, lightning as electrostatic discharge reflects the ontological status of the current world. It is impossible to prove or disprove the world changed on the whim of a universal mind.
How do we know? We dont, but we raise more questions by supposing our changing knowledge reflects a changing world, then we do if we suppose the world stays constant and it is our knowledge that changes.
We got the whole passel of folks, all through the ages, experiencing a certain thing, in exactly the same way, when they push the very same kind of round something down a hill. Basic mathematics hasnt changed since the invention of numbers.
Quoting Bob Ross
Only if the thing-in-itself is conceptually maligned, usually by invoking a theory that defines it differently or finds no need of such a thing, than the theory in which it was originally contained. I swear, I am sorely puzzled by how much trouble people have grasping this rather simple dichotomy.
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Quoting Bob Ross
Nope. You said conscious experience is the representation of something. It isnt representation, its knowledge. Conscious experience is knowledge of something, whether a determined something or just a plain ol something, depends on whether or not the tripartite logical part of the system, the proper cognitive part, comprised of understanding, judgement, and reason (but not intuition or consciousness, or the mere subjective condition) can all get their respective functional eggs in the same basket, re: the synthesis of representations conforms to the effect the object causes on perception.
Phenomena just give the functionaries something empirical to work on, having nothing to do with the thing-in-itself. The methodology by which we can say we know what an object is, mandates the necessity of representing them, by whichever means one thinks fit to employ.
Quoting Bob Ross
Im fine with distinguishing my will from yours, given the similarities or differences in our behaviors. But how Im going to distinguish my will from a mind that wills the universe, is inconceivable.
I understand what you mean, but theres no way I personally can conclude to its rational feasibility. Of course, by the same token, I cant rationally deny the possibility either.
Which gets us back to why propose such a thing in the first place.
By ontology I understand the constitutive, necessary and sufficient conditions of all human practices; therefore, it makes most sense to "subscribe" to naturalism (à la Laozi, Epicurus, Spinoza, Hume, Nietzsche, Dewey ... )
I think "consciousness" phenomenal self modeling supervenes on the brain's neurological systems bodily interacting with its local environment.
Well, for starters, I don't find any compelling reasons to believe that entities such as "ghosts" or "spirits" exist (except in fictions) and so "positing a Universal Spirit" seems to me merely an ad hoc projection of wishful or magical thinking akin to e.g. aether, phlogiston, chi, juju, mojo, astral planes, "The Force", etc. "Universal Spirit" certainly is not parsimonious, probably violates conservation laws and as a conjecture does not explain anything.
OK. Then --just for checking-- I guess you must believe that thoughts, ideas, memory, knowledge, emotions and all mental activities and contents of the mind in general are composed of matter, produced by the brain and stored in the brain. Right?
No. See my previous answer to your question. Mental activities are not composed of matter, but organisms that think are.
In your previous answer you talked about "particular things that are ascribed to materialism might not stick". But mental things are not just "particular" things. They consist a whole world, in contrast with the material one!
I don't want to waste more of your time on this. It was maybe wrong to make such a question in the first place. Thanks, anyway.
Throughout the long history of the term there have been various things ascribed to "matter". By particular things I mean some of the things that are said about matter that I am not in agreement with.
Nothing wrong with asking someone where they stand on an issue. I usually address the question in terms of embodied minds. The term "matter" has become problematic. In my limited understanding matter is not inert stuff but actively forms self-organizing systems.
Of course not. I talked about my specific question "Are you a materialist?". If not anything else it's too general. And one may also identify to it only in part, as I undestood you do. In fact only (conventional) scientists I think can full identify with it. And ... about 80% of the people in TPF! :smile: (Based on a poll that I conducted out a long time ago.)
So, it would be much more appropriate if I had asked you instead the question of my second message (about "mental things").
Quoting Fooloso4
I agree. I believe QM is responsible for that. Matter, as we new it until then was something very concrete and tangible. Yet, even so, I believe we can still differentiate between physical and non-physical, animate and inanimate things. We can also use the terms life, beings, organisms, existence, etc. as opposed to objects. In this way mabe we can avoid using the term "matter".
BTW, there's another kind of "matter", which Vedantists --and maybe otjher-- call "subtle matter", in contrast to "gross matter", and which refers to the mind. I like that. Also, I consider thoughts to consist of some kind of "energy" different from the one we know and which is we cannot call "physical".
Hello Mww,
My point is that under Kantianism, we dont get knowledge of the world: we just get phenomenon; and, so, how can you claim that the world itself doesnt change in its time as much as our knowledge does? Are you inferring from phenomena something about the things-in-themselves?
But, under Kantianism, I dont see how you can claim that those observed regularties are anything but phenomena: they dont tell you anything about the world beyond that. Would you agree with that?
Can you elaborate on what you mean by things-in-themselves vs. phenomena?
I see. Would you say that the logical part of the system is a thing-in-itself or a phenomenon (or neither)?
Its everything not associated with a will already (until proven its association with a different will).
To give the most parsimonious metaphysical account of reality. Under your view, it seems like you may be committed to ontological agnosticism: is that correct?
Bob
Hello Janus,
Metaphysics is not science: it doesnt posit a hypothesis that can be empirically tested. Metaphysics is in the business of trying to give the best general account of what reality is: it is about that which is necessarily beyond the possibility of all experience, but pertains to that experience (e.g., Universals vs. particulars).
Science can only be a negative criteria (i.e., it can falsify some metaphysical theories, but its inability to do so does not thereby affirm any of them either). Instead, metaphysics uses intuitions, parsimony, explanatory power, coherence, internal consistency, etc. to determine the best general account.
Physicalism (like all other metaphysical theories) is no exception either: if you say analytic idealism is groundless speculation, then so is physicalism. There are no scientific tests that will ever falsify nor prove physicalism either.
Bob
Hello 180 Proof,
Interesting. Let me phrase it a bit differently: what ontology of being/reality would you subscribe to (if any)?
To me, I dont mind if you use ontology to refer to the conditions of all human practices, but that doesnt say anything about what fundamentally is: it just determines what is required for humans to do what they do. To me thats not what ontology is about (as a shorthand for the philosophical practice--of course there are many ontologies of different things).
By naturalism, are you distinguishing it from physicalism and materialism? Are you referring to ontological or/and methodological naturalism? Correct me if I am wrong, but it seems as though you may be a methodological but not ontological naturalist (e.g., Nietzsche, which you cited, is definitely not an ontological naturalist but was a staunch methodological naturalist).
Would you say that consciousness is reducible to the brain or is it just supervenient? Would you classify yourself as a property dualist (i.e., irreductive physicalist)?
Why would it violate conservation laws?
Bob
I don't think that is what metaphysics is, I think it is a purely speculative exercise of the imagination; that is it consists in what we are capable of imagining might be the nature of reality. In the absence of ways to test these speculations, we have no possibility of determining what could be "the best general account of what reality is", Each person will have their own preferences, which will depend on what their basic presuppositions are. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that what their presuppositions are will depend on their preferences.
Hello Janus,
I somewhat agree, we are certainly in the business of plausibility and not certainty; but this is also true of scientific theories: it is likewise an speculative exercise of what we imagine is the best explanation of the scientific facts. I think if you are being consistent, then a lot of science goes out the window to.
This is dangerously close to scientism (to me): no, we do not only gain knowledge via empirical, scientific tests. For example, we dont gain the knowledge that every change has a cause by scientific inquiry; in fact, it presupposes it. If I were to take what I think you are saying to its fullest extent, then the very necessary presumptions we make for science (as well as a large portion of our knowledge in general) goes out the window as purely speculative.
True, we cannot separate ourselves from our own inquiry of the world; but this doesnt mean that we can only acquire knowledge by empirical inquiry (and, honestly, even empirical inquiry has a layer of psychological interpretation to it as well).
Bob
:100: :up:
For example: thermodynamics, nucleogenesis, dissipative structures, chaotic systems, autopoiesis, etc And in philosophy: e.g. Democritean-Lucretian atomism, Meillassoux's speculative materialism.
Quoting Bob Ross
Ontological naturalism (à la Spinoza).
I conceive of the latter two as distinctly methodological approaches within the former's paradigm.
Ontological (since that's what you asked about). However, I also "subscribe", as you say, to methodological naturalism.
Well, I "subscribe" to both.
I've already answered this in my last post:
Quoting 180 Proof
Check out the linked article for more clarification.
Quoting Bob Ross
Yes, more or less.
If your "Universal Spirit" is conceived of as a separate nonphysical substance that interacts with (or even generates) a physical substance, then that would violate the physical law of the conservation of energy, etc.
The difference is that scientific theories are testable by seeing if the phenomena they predict obtain. Of course, that doesn't prove they are true.
Quoting Bob Ross
As I understand it, scientism is the claim that science can answer all our questions and will save us. Of course, there are ethical and existential questions that science cannot answer, although it may certainly inform them.
Hello 180 Proof,
Interesting: what would you say are the methodological distinctions between them?
Fair enough.
I am never gotten the opportunity to discuss with a property dualist, so forgive me but I would like to pick your brain a bit pertaining thereto. Would you consider consciousness strongly emergent then (as opposed to weakly emergent)? If so, then how does its irreducibility not warrant the positing of another substance (i.e., substance dualism) as opposed to merely another property? Since the reductive methodology doesnt work on consciousness (which is, and correct me if I am wrong, what I am interpreting you to be agreeing with me on as a property dualist), do you deploy a different methodological approach that still retains (ontological) naturalism? If so, then could you give a brief elaboration thereon?
I am a substance monist, so I dont claim that one entity from a mental (i.e., nonphysical) substance is producting or interacting with an entity (or entities) within another physical substance: all of reality is of a mental substancethere is no, under Analytic Idealism, physical substance. With that in mind, do you still think it violates the law of conservation of energy (and what not)?
Bob
Hello Janus,
This is true that science uses testable hypothesis (and that doesnt positively prove the theories) while metaphysics isnt as engaged in that (all it still does to some extent): however, that would just mean that metaphysics is more speculation than science, but both are engaged in speculation. My point is that I dont think you can consistently reject metaphysics as pure speculation while fully pardoning scientific theories. Once one realizes that we are fundamentally engaging in some speculation no matter what, then it really becomes a question of how much is too much.
Scientism is the idea that we only gain knowledge via the scientific method; and, thusly, that all other forms of inquiry (such as metaphysics) doesnt get at the truth. It sounds like you may be in agreement with me that we can come to know things without the scientific method (e.g., ethics). I would merely add metaphysics in there too.
Bob
I see the speculative part in science as consisting in abductive reasoning, and I would say that even those speculative aspects of science are informed by the general picture of the world that is yielded by science, or else they may be informed by mathematics.
I can't think of any speculative what we might call "pure metaphysics" that is like this, but that doesn't mean there isn't any. I'm open to learning about things I was not aware of.
The main thing I have against Kastrup's metaphysics is that "will" or "mind at large" are notions derived from our understanding of the human and some higher animals. @Apokrisis refers to global constraints (i.e. entropy) as 'desire' sometimes, but again, in that context entropy is a scientific idea that does not derive specifically from the human. I guess we can't help being somewhat anthropomorphic in our thinking, since our thinking itself is "human-shaped".
Quoting Bob Ross
Right, except I don't count ethics as knowledge. I also think ethics can be framed as "if we want to achieve that, we should do this" and ethical action can be understood as what promotes rather than detracts from human flourishing. Human flourishing is hard to quantify scientifically, but I think we can all more or less recognize it. I think it counts as a kind of 'know-how' as distinct from being determinate propositional knowledge.
I can think of analogies between ethics and aesthetics, but I can't think of analogies between ethics and metaphysics. There is a modern post-Kantian metaphysics associated with analytical philosophy and modal logic, but I'm not much interested in that, because I think it only represents what is coherently imaginable, and I think it is unnecessarily laborious and not needed for that task.
I do think we can only gain definitive knowledge from observation and logic.
(I assume you meant 'distinctions between these methodologies'.) In sum, by methodological materialism I understand a criteria for eliminating 'immaterial entities' (e.g. non-instantiates) from observational / experimental data and by methodological physicalism a criteria for eliminating 'non-physical concepts' (e.g. un-conditionals) from the composition of explanatory models of (aspects of) nature; wherein the inclusion of 'immaterial Xs' and/or 'nonphysical Ys' are indicative of incomplete (i.e. untestable) data-sets and/or models, respectively.
No. A much more so "weakly emergent" function like e.g. breathing or digesting or walking.
Yes.
Nonreductive physicalism. I've previously (twice!) provided you a link to an article summarizing T. Metzinger's phenomenal self model which seems to me a highly cogent and experimentally supported research program within a nonreductive physicalist framework.
Well, "no physical substance" implies there are no physical laws to "violate"; and so, without physical laws, how do you suppose "Analytic Idealism" accounts for the fact of physical sciences and their prodigious efficacy in contrast to far less reliable (or probative) psychological / social sciences?
Or rather, how is it that "the physical" is publicly accessible if "all of reality is mental" and "the mental" is not publicly accessible? :chin:
'How much speculation is too much?', isn't the important question at all, from my perspective.
Much more important, it seems to me, is how undisciplined is the the speculation. Scientific speculation is disciplined, by looking to external reality for support or falsification. Mother Nature can smack you upside the head if you get it wrong.
A metaphysics that denies the existence of a non-mental external reality simply isn't comparable.
:up:
Hello Janus,
Abductive reasoning is the most speculative type of reasoning we have, and metaphysics is also engaged in abductive reasoning.
Having speculation be informed by the world around us is not special to science: metaphysics also tries to inform its theories based off thereof.
Firstly, I grant, and agree with you, that metaphysics is usually more speculative than science, but theres a couple things I would note:
1. Some science is actual metaphysics (e.g., Einsteins scientific theory, to explain the facts of his field equations, that there is a mind-independent space-time fabric is a metaphysical commitmentnot scientific itself).
2. Science and metaphysics are both engaged in abductive reasoning (i.e., trying to discern the best explanation to account for the data). Neither claim certainty nor absolute truth, and both are meant to get at a better picture (a model) of the world. The jursdiction of the models is just different: science is about modeling the relationship between (i.e., behavior of) the world we experience, whereas metaphysics is about modeling what the world fundamentally is. For example, science tells its best guess at how a car works (e.g., gas, engine, friction, etc.), metaphysics tells its best guess at what the car fundamentally is (e.g., an instantiation of a universal Car, fundamentally mind-independent, etc.). Both, I would say, are useful in their own ways.
3. Metaphysics is purer than science because it deals more heavily in the realm of pure reason, but science still deals with pure reason as well. They both need it to determine their axioms, jurisdiction of inquiry, etc. Pure reason is not special to metaphysics: it just is more prominent.
4. If one gets rid of metaphysics, as a practice, then theres no method of inquiry for us left to decipher what world we live in. Science doesnt tell us what metaphysically exists: it is just a pragmatic tool for navigating and discovering how things behave.
It is derived from our understanding of all life: not just higher animals. Kastrup posits that all life is a grade of consciousness. Of course, we only immediately, through introspection, have access to our own, so that is where we typically start.
Under analytic idealism, everything is will and representation; so entropy, as well as all observable phenomena, are extrinsic representations of mentalityof will. It isnt that entropy is a special case of which it is associated with an extra will that isnt the case for everything else but, rather, that the entire phenomenal world is fundamentally the representation of the will of a universal mind. So the natural forces, as well as entropy and everything else, is within the universal mind and thusly is upheld by the will thereof. The will is outside of the system of which represents it, just as necessarily as my minds will to dream of a beautiful forest is outside of that dream forest.
Are you saying that you dont think you can come to know what is right and wrong (even if the propositions are indexical: subjective)? Because then I dont know how you could assess what is right and wrong (even subjectively).
You cant invoke hypothetical conditionals without propositions, and, as far as I understand you, you are claiming ethics is non-cognitive (non-propositional): you cant assess that if p, then q (if we want to achieve that, we should do this) if ethics doesnt provide propositional or otherwise knowledge.
I disagree if by observation you mean scientific inquiry. For example, if one can only gather knowledge by observation and logic, then they can never come to know what a concept of concepts is. One will never observe the concept of concepts and logic (which is just the form of an argument) does not provide any means of determining the content necessary to figure out what the true concept of concepts is. I do not empirically observe the concept of concepts, and simply making a logically valid argument for what it is does not entail whatsoever that I have nailed down what a concept of concepts truly is.
Bob
Hello 180 Proof,
How can mental activity be both weakly emergent and irreductive? That seems, to me, like a contradictio in adjecto.
I see. I took a look: let me explain back to you what I interpreted PSM and PMIR to be (and correct me where I am misunderstanding).
The self-model theory of subjectivity (SMT) is split generally into two parts: the phenomenal self-model (PSM) and the phenomenal model of the intentionality relation (PMIR).
PSM is a theoretical postulation that we can possibly empirically observe that certain areas of the brain (e.g., prefrontal cortex) are responsible for producing unity of self (i.e., mineness, perspectivalness, and selfhood).
PMIR is the ongoing mental model, which is builds off of the PSM, that the subject is constantly using to evaluate itself and not-itself.
Did I generally get it correct? Before I give some critiques, I want to make sure I am at least in the ball park.
Not at all. I think you may be conflating two usages of the term physical: the colloquial (i.e., something tangible with size and shape within experience) with the formal (i.e., a mind-independently existent entity). Analytic Idealism posits that everything is in a mental substance and that includes the physical (in a colloquial sense of the term) and procludes the physical in a formal sense of the term. Matter still exists under analytic idealism, but by the term matter an analytic idealist is referring to the extrinsic representation, which is physical in the colloquial sense, of mentality.
Because the physical in a colloquial sense is weakly emergent from the mental: it is an extrinsic representation of mentality. However, the physical in a formal sense does not exist at all.
Bob
Hello Wonderer1,
Metaphysics is just as disciplined as science: they just use different criteria to determine their respective inquiries. Also, metaphysics also looks at external reality for support or falsification, but it doesnt only look at that (nor does science quite frankly when it comes to scientific theories).
I am failing to see the relation between specifically idealist metaphysics and your previous contentions: what you said equally applies to a physicalist metaphysics. They both use the same criteria to assess what the best general account of reality is (e.g., parsimony, coherence, empirical adequacy, logical consistency, reliability, intuitions, etc.).
Bob
Is breathing "reducible" to lungs, digesting "reducible" to intestines or walking "reducible" to legs? No, each is a function "activity" of the latter, respectively, just as mind(ing) "mental activity" is a (set of) function(s) of the brain-body-environment.
I don't understand what "in a formal sense" means here. The "physical" methodology certainly "exists" and facilitates productive sciences and technologies regardless of Analytic Idealists ignoring it "in a formal sense" or any other sense.
Hello 180 Proof,
Of course breathing isnt reducible to lungs, but it is reducible to the total functions and parts responsible for it. Obviously there is more to the weakly emergent property of breathing than simply having lungs. To me, that doesnt seem like a good analogy to oversimplify the act of breathing to just lungs: it is still weakly emergent because it is reducible to the set of functions and parts which produce it.
If you think breathing has some irreducible aspect to it, then please elaborate.
To me, being weakly emergent, as a matter of definition, is to say that the emergent property is reducible to the set of constituents (and their relations to each other) that are responsible for producing it (regardless of whether those are functions or not).
The term physical has two meanings (among more): tangible objects within conscious experience and mind-independent objectsand they arent the same thing. The latter is what is invoked by the metaphysical theory called physicalism.
A methodological approach that treats the world as if there are mind-independent objects is not the same as the ontological claim that there are mind-independent objects. So I agree with you here, but thats not what I was talking about: physical in the formal sense, that I was talking about, is the claim that there are, as a matter of an ontological as opposed to a mere methodological claim, mind-independent objects (and that is, as well, different than merely claiming that there are tangible objects within ones experience).
I agree that methodological naturalism (although I am not convinced that the methodological physicalism, in the sense of treating everything as mind-independent, is actually necessary to produce the fruitful results) has produced many productive sciences and I do not plan on advocating their removal; however, that says nothing about ontology.
I am unsure as to what you are referring to here. One can be a methodological naturalist and an analytic idealist: the former is a methodology for inquiry about the world which takes the world to be a natural process while the other is an ontological claim that everything is fundamentally mind-dependent. A universal mind can be a part of a natural process, and one can claim that the only way to understand it is via empirical inquiry of the natural world. Supernaturalism isnt necessitated by being an idealist whatsoever, although many end up going that route.
Bob
I'd say metaphysics informed by science is informed by the world around us, as we find it both in terms of ordinary observations and inductive reasoning and in terms of science, since science is really just an extension of ordinary observation and inductive expectation.
Quoting Bob Ross
Can you elaborate as to just what data is being explained by the idea of the world as will or mind at large?
Quoting Bob Ross
Our introspective access to consciousness I would not class as data. I would only class as data what can be observed publicly and corroborated by repeated experiment. It's not even clear that our purported introspective access to consciousness is what it naively seems to be.
Quoting Bob Ross
Yes, but all of this is purely speculative and cannot be tested.
Quoting Bob Ross
I can come to know what seems right and wrong to me. It may not agree with what others think is right and wrong. What counts as knowledge is what can be reliably agreed upon publicly. You might object that what can be reliably agreed upon publicly or by experts in a field is just a more widespread seeming, and in the final analysis I think that is true. That is why I say we can know the world only as it appears to us.
Quoting Bob Ross
The knowledge of what to do if you want to achieve an outcome comes from life experience. If you want to promote social harmony, don't go around murdering, raping and stealing; it is obvious that people don't like those things. If you want to promote personal physical health then eat foods which have proven to be good for the body, and don't eat foods that make it unhealthy. The ethics is not in knowing what foods are good for the body or what actions are bad for society, but in making the choice as to what outcome is desirable.
Quoting Bob Ross
I have no idea what this means.
What "universal mind"? There is not any publicly accessible evidence for such an entity. And if "everything is fundamentally mind-dependent" (including this "fundamental", which I find self-refuting), then "a universal mind" is only an idea, not a fact or "natural process".
Yes, I figure universal mind is essentially a god surrogate - held in place by similar fallacious justifications and essentially by faith. Instead of (in the case of Yahweh) arguing there can't be something from nothing, therefore god - AI seems to be saying, there can't be consciousness from nothing, therefore universal mind. Universal mind still functions as 'god', as the foundational guarantor of all conscious experience.
In my mind, the intelligible question was never "whether or not something comes from nothing?" but instead How ~X transforms into X and X transforms into ~X? For me, the answer We don't / can't know suffices no (inexplicable) "god/mind"-of-the-gaps (fiat) required.
Quoting Bob Ross
Under Kantianism yes, correct, with respect to the world, just phenomena. If folks of a certain time generally agree on much, and always agree on some, then the phenomena developed in each must be generally congruent or specifically congruent respectively, which shows the same world relative to them. If people in some other time repeat the process, with the same result, the same conclusion is given. If it happens that the folks of the later time agree with the record of the folks of a earlier time, then it is non-contradictory to posit that the world to which the agreement applies, remained constant.
No, nothing to do with the things-in-themselves. Again, that thing to which the system-in-itself is applied, cannot be the thing-in-itself to which it is not.
Quoting Bob Ross
Observed regularities implies knowledge, which is not in phenomena themselves. Phenomena dont tell you about the world, which implies description, but they are to inform that there is a world, which presupposes the reality of it, and thereby, the possibility of describing it.
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Quoting Bob Ross
Try this on for size. Thing-in-itself is out there, just waiting around, doing what things-in-themselves do, minding their own business. Human gets himself exposed to it, perceives it, it affects him somehow, it gets translated it into this stuff that travels along its nerves to its main processing center. That stuff on the nerves represents what the perception was, but the owner of the nerves isnt the slightest bit aware of any of that nerve stuff. That stuff is phenomenon stuff.
With respect to this particular form of dualism, the thing and the representation of the thing, the why is more interesting than the what. It is an empirically proven fact humans sometimes get what they perceive wrong, insofar as that by which they are affected (the thing) doesnt match what the system they use tells them about it (the representation of the thing). In order to reduce the source of error, some part of the whole system must be eliminated as being a possible source of any error at all, which leaves the other part as the sole guilty party. Pretty easy to see why speculative metaphysics, in its descriptive cognitive methodology, needs to make necessary only one possible source of error, otherwise it would be monumentally difficult to place blame hence alleviate it.
Keyword: cognitive metaphysical methodology. If that by which things are represented as phenomena are not themselves part of the system that cognizes, they cannot be blamed for cognitive errors. And, again, humans are not conscious of the generation of their phenomena, so to relegate them to the non-cognitive part of the system as a whole, is not self-contradictory.
Quoting Bob Ross
Oh, neither, absolutely. Those conceptions are already methodologically assigned; to use them again in a way not connected to the original, is mere obfuscation. The logical part is just that, a part, operating in its own way, doing its own job, not infringing where it doesnt belong. Why have a theory on, say, energy, then qualify it by attributing, say, cauliflower, to it as a condition?
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Quoting Bob Ross
Ehhhh .I dont need an account of reality. All I need is an account of how I might best understand the parts of it that might affect me, be it what it may. Ontological agnosticism sounds close enough to I dont really care, so yeah, I guess.
As to the relation of this agnosticism to a universal mind, yeah, there might be such a thing, but even if there is, nothing changes for me. If I think the moon is just this kinda thing because the universal minds idea is what gives it to me, it is still just a moon-thing to me. Its just like our own brain, operating under the laws developed to describe it, but we dont use our brain under those lawful conditions. Because of those conditions, sure, by not by those conditions. We dont think in terms of electron spin or quantum number. We never even consider ion potential .it is never given to us to consider ..when answering a question the traffic cop asks about why we were speeding.
Universal mind is just as empty a conception with respect to human cognition, as is lawful brain mechanics. As a foray into the sublime its wonderful; as a logical possibility its ok; as a methodological necessity, not so much. I mean, if its OUR intelligence, OUR knowledge, OUR reason, why examine any of it from some perspective that isnt OURS? You and I talking here arent invoking any universal mind in just the doing of it, and even if such a thing is operating in the background were not conscious of it as such, so ..
Hello Janus,
It is the best, allegedly, the most parsimonious general account of what the world (i.e., reality) is. In contradistinction to its main competitor (which is physicalism), it accounts for the data of qualitative experience, which is arguably the most real aspect of all of our lives, much better.
The main difference, in terms of explanatory power over the data of experience, revolves around consciousness.
I would. Introspection is a form of empirical inquiry; and, yes, we can have illusory ideas of what consciousness is, but this is no different for anything else. Humans have had illusory ideas of objects for as long as history can remember.
Conscious experience is what one can be the most sure ofnot objects. We use our conscious experience, we trust it enough, to determine the objects.
Again, empirical inquiry is only a negative criterion for metaphysics. You can test and not test physicalism in the exact same manners as idealism. There are aspects that cannot be tested, and aspects that could technically indicate their implausibility.
Then you agree that ethics is a form of knowledge?
My point was that scientific inquiry and logic are not exclusive means of determining knowledge: it doesnt work; and an example of that is the concept of concepts.
Bob
Hello 180 Proof,
One does not have to have public evidence of something to know it necessarily. If that were the case, then you cant know that you have thoughts.
The idea is the the universal mind is what is metaphysically necessary: what is self-refuting about that?
By everything is fundamentally mind-dependent, I mean that it is a part of a mental substance and not that there are no facts, if that is what you are trying to get at.
A universal mind is not an idea, it would be an fact that it exists: it is a mind within a mental substance. Natural processes are not only physical (i.e., mind-independent) processes.
Bob
Hello Tom Storm,
I did not come to say there is a universal mind on faith nor is it grounded in fallacious argumentation. What fallacies do you think I have committed?
The Universal Mind that I am discussing is not Yahwehnot even close. Honestly, some philosophers (like Schopenhauer) are atheists that hold there is a Universal Mind.
This is a straw man: I never made this argument nor has any Analytic Idealist I have ever encountered.
Bob
I wasn't referring to your arguments. I was saying in general any argument for universal mind would be held by fallacious ideas - like the ones I already mentioned and probably others. Such as universal mind being metaphysically necessary - this is no different than a Christian presuppositional apologist making the same claim about God.
Quoting Bob Ross
I didn't say it was like Yahweh (in personality). I said like Yahweh it plays a similar role - I am very familiar with Kastrup's account of what he calls mind-at-large - instinctive, not metacognitive, etc.
Quoting Bob Ross
It's not a straw man (at least not intentionally) - it comes from Kastup interviews where he essentially says - for there to be object permanence, a universal mind is necessary. His line (I'm paraphrasing) ' It means that when I park my car in the garage it is still there after I go inside'. If I knew which interview, I would include a clip here but I don't have to time to go find it.
But you can help us all here by answering the question - does your understanding of mind-at-large provide object permanence?
Here's Kastrup August 19th 2015 from his blog:
Essentially, as Kastrup himself admits, this metaphysics is arrived at through inference rather than evidence. It's clever and I'm not saying it is junk, but I don't see how this can be certain.
Hello Mww,
I am sorry to hear that Mww! I hope you are all ok!
Here is an example of where I am confused: if the phenomena dont provide knowledge about things-in-themselves, then how can you claim that we have a representational system which is the translation of the stuff that travels along the nerves to the main processing center? To me, that concedes that we actually do get inferential knowledge from the phenomena about the things-in-themselves: which, by my lights, negates Kants argument. He was claiming that we cannot know anything about things-in-themselves.
I get that, under Kantianism, each person is considered to be a representational system, so to speak, that has receptivity and sensibility which get translated into perception, and those perceptions are phenomena; but, to me, Kants flaw is that he then claims that, given that representational system, we shouldnt expect phenomena to tell us anything about things-in-themselves: but thats what he used (i.e., phenomena) to come to understand that he is fundamentally a representational system. To me, that seems a bit self-refuting, what do you think? Am I still not grasping the distinction between things-in-themselves and phenomena?
True, but this doesnt matter for Kant, because, to him, sorting out the non-illusory from the illusory is just more phenomena: which says nothing about things-in-themselves.
Interesting, if the logical part of the system is not a part of the thing-in-itself and is not phenomena, then what is it? To me, it either exists as a part of the things-in-themselves (i.e., reality) or it is an appearance from our representational facultytheres no third option.
Fair enough; however, I think that if one endeavors to give an account, idealism is the best choice.
This is fair and true: the world of which we experience does not change depending on what metaphysical theory we postulate as truebut what we are trying to do is get at the truth.
I wouldnt say it is an empty concept.
In terms of practicality, one can live a perfectly fine life without subscribing to a metaphysical theory; but the goal is to get at the truth not what is practical for most laymen. Most people dont need to know physics or calculus either, but that doesnt take aware from what they get right about reality.
Bob
Hello Tom Storm,
Those two statements contradict each other.
Can you refresh my memory? What fallacious ideas?
This is true of all metaphysical theories and has nothing specific to do with Christian apologists (nor any other mainstream religion): physicalists also posit something as metaphysical necessary. Atheists which subscribe to a metaphysical theory of reality necessarily posit something as metaphysically necessary. Theres no way of avoiding it.
I do want to clarify though that I am not arguing that the Universal Mind exists because it is metaphysically necessary but, rather, that, under this metaphysical theory, it is posited as existing (for other reasons); and because it exists and there is no more data of experience to explain it seems best to posit it as metaphysically necessary. Metaphysics is about giving the best general account of what reality is while increasing explanatory power and decreasing complexity. Every theory stops somewhere, and that stopping point is the metaphysically necessary stuff.
I see.
The idea there is not that the Universal Mind is metaphysically necessary because of object permanence but, rather, that there must be an objective world to best explain object permanence; and in the case of Kastrup, since he is an idealist, he utilizes the Universal Mind to explain it (i.e., there is an objective world which is the ideas in a universal mind and not subjectively in my mind only).
And, yes, I would say there is object permanencebut that doesnt mean that the Universal Mind is metaphysically necessary. Its necessary to explain the world around us (which exhibits permanence) by positing that there is an objective world of which we are in. The same line of argument can be used in the opposite direction for physicalism.
Bob
I think that's mostly true, but I am not certain about the 'stopping point'. But we can leave it.
I'm not motivated to explore this speculative subject much further since I've made my comments already and I would just be repeating myself. I get that you disagree. That's no problem for either of us. :wink:
Thanks for the chat. I might dip in and out later based on interest levels.
Quoting Bob Ross
I don't think so. You seemed to take my comment as personal, I was talking more generally about arguments that attempt to describe mind-at-large as axiomatic. It's an inference at best. And while it might be compelling if you share certain presuppositions, it is still an inference which can't be demonstrated. And before anyone says, 'but materialism relies on inferences...' remember that's an equivocation fallacy. I am not defending materialism.
But hey, I'm not a philosopher. This matter is really best left with people who have deep understanding the full range of metaphysical implications and arguments in this space (and I am not talking about a cultre war materialists versus idealists type thing). I am in fact more interested in idealists who do not favor a mind-at-large concept.
Maybe there needs to be a separate thread on idealism and universal mind or non-solipsistic accounts of idealism - since for idealism a way around solipsism and an explanation for object permeance often seems to require a mind-at-large.
The trouble is that there is no reliable data of qualitative experience. There are personal reports, but personal reports do no count as reliable data unless they can be checked against other personal reports, and even then they cannot be one hundred percent reliable.
Quoting Bob Ross
Introspection is not a form of empirical inquiry for the reasons I've already given. In short, empirical inquiry is a public venture, and introspection is not. Conscious experience is not what we can be most sure of, for the simple reason that there is no settled agreement about its nature. On the other hand there is agreement about the (perceptual, not absolute) nature of objects. So, humans have not had illusory ideas about the perceptual nature of objects, although they certainly may have had illusory ideas about the explanation of the existence of perceptual objects. Ideas about the absolute nature of objects are pure, untestable speculation, so it seems odd to even talk about those in terms of illusion.
Quoting Bob Ross
This is not true. Physical attributes are testable, measurable, quantifiable and ideal attributes (whatever they may be thought to be) are not. Physicalism as an absolute metaphysical claim cannot be tested, just as no absolute metaphysical claim can be tested.
Quoting Bob Ross
No, it's not a form of knowledge because knowledge is a public matter and how things seem to me is not. I should have said that what seems right and wrong to me is simply what I prefer.
Quoting Bob Ross
I still don't know what you mean by the "concept of concepts".
My basic stance is that when we come to claims about the absolute nature of things we are "all at sea"; we have no way of assessing which claims are more parsimonious because we have no way of measuring parsimony in the "absolute" context. Reality can be looked at from the perspective that consciousness is fundamental or that the physical is fundamental, and both are limited viewpoints because they are both, and the whole of language is, derived from the context of our experience of a world, which certainly looks as though it is mind-independent, even if that very claim is not. I think that when people want to take up a position, they are less motivated by reason than by other factors. So, you should understand I am not defending physicalism in anything other than a methodological sense.
I don't think we are going to agree on these things, so maybe we should leave it before we start going around in circles.
How do you know that you are not hallucinating "that you have thoughts"? or that those alleged "thoughts" are yours and not someone elses "thoughts"?
I don't understand what you mean by "metaphysically necessary". At least as far as (e.g.) property dualism is concerned, the negation of "universal mind" mental substance is not a contradiction.
... and yet you claim to be monist positing "mental substance" wherein there are only ideas. :roll:
Theres a box on the shelf at the post office .
(a.k.a., a thing-in-itself)
Guy brings you the box .
(a.k.a, your perception of a thing)
.hands it to you .
(a.k.a., square, solid, heavy, your intuition of a thing)
You open the box .
(a.k.a., the content of your intuition, packaging material, something in a plastic bag, is a phenomenon)
Phenomenon gets passed on to the cognitive part for object determination.
You still dont know what the content of the box is, only that the box has something in it, and you never would have had the opportunity to find out if it had stayed on the shelf at the post office. You could have lived your entire life without knowledge of the content of that box even while knowing full well post offices contain a manifold of all sorts of boxes; you can only know the contents of boxes handed to you. And, at this point, the last thing to cross your mind is how the box got to the post office in the first place, a.k.a., its ontological necessity.
Analogies really suck, when it comes right down to it, theres never a perfect one. But we still try by means of them to explain what simply needs to be intuitively understood, like a jigsaw puzzle.
Quoting Bob Ross
Phenomena are only one of three general classes of representation, the other two are conceptions and judgement, which is technically the representation of a representation.
Quoting Bob Ross
If you spend 12 years developing a theory on knowledge, wouldnt the accounting for how human get things wrong matter to you? Rhetorical question; of course you would. Your peers wouldnt give your theory a second review if you claimed a system is flawed, then dont show the means to rectify it, or, if such flaw cant be rectified at all, insofar as it is intrinsic to the nature of the system itself, then to show the means to guard against it.
Sorting out the illusory has nothing to do with phenomena. Reason, the faculty that subjects judgement to principles to determine the logical relation of cognitions to each other, separates the illusory from the rational. Humans can confuse/delude themselves in their thinking, without the possibility of experience correcting them, hence phenomena are irrelevant.
Quoting Bob Ross
Absolutely. No science is ever done that isnt first thought.
Hello Janus,
Absolutely no worries! I can respond more adequately if you would like, but it seems like you are hinting that you would like to end the conversation. I appreciate you having a conversation with me about it and look forward to many more to come!
Bob
Hello 180 Proof,
This is just unparsimonious hard skepticism. How do you know that you arent a brain in a vat? You dont.
I know that I am having thoughts because it accounts for the data (i.e., the thoughts occuring in my head) most parsimoniously. I cant be certain that I am not in a matrix, within a matrix, within another matrix, .
Of course it isnt a logical contradiction, but, then again, literally every sophisticated metaphysical theory is logically consistentso it isnt saying much.
If by contradiction you were referring to metaphysical impossibility, then, yes, under Analytic Idealism, there is nothing with any potency to produce a mind-independent world. In other words, the Universal Mind is posited as existing in all possible worlds, and that excludes the possibility of any mind-independent objects.
I am not claiming that a mental substance is a substrate which only bears ideas: it bears mental properties and minds which are responsible thereof.
Bob
There are not any grounds to believe I am a BiV and compelling evidence that I am not. I take your evasive reply as you conceding the point, Bob, that without public evidence one does not "know" one is not hallucinating (e.g. sensory deprivation).
Other than ideas (re: "idealism"), to what does this phrase refer?
I've enjoyed conversing with you, Bob, on account of your being able to engage without distorting what your interlocutor is saying, and to remain patient and civil throughout.
Yes, I think idealism ultimately entails a godhead.
That which assembles the parts of the representation of a perception in order, is intuition. That which assembles intuitions in order for successive perceptions of the same thing, is logic. In this way, it is not necessary to learn what thing is at each perception, but only understanding that either its already been learned, and subsequent perceptions conform to it, or they do not. Already been learned taken as a euphemism for experience.
In the tripartite human logical sub-system in syllogistic form of synthetic conjunction, understanding is the faculty of rules, by which phenomena provided a posteriori are taken as the major premise, conceptions provided a priori by understanding according to rules, serves as the minor premise or series of minors, the logical relation of one to the other is represented in a judgement, which serves as the conclusion.
Thing is, we dont notice or care about any of that, until, e.g., you perceive a thing that doesnt match anything else youve ever seen. Or, youve satisfied yourself with some judgement regarding a thing, then someone comes along and shows you, at least, how different your judgement could have been had you synthesized the same conceptions in a different order (you cant call that thing a dog because no dog is that big) or, worst case, how wrong you were insofar as the conceptions you did use in that synthesis were not properly related to what you perceived (you cant call that thing a dog because no dog has horns).
Usually humans learn by being taught by other humans. But show a relative youngster a picture of a dog, instill in him the relation between the picture and perception of the real thing, and he still might see a cow, relate it to the picture, judge it as being close enough, hence blurt out DOG!!!! Dutiful adults of good humor correct the tyke, everybodys happy. An adult has the exact same operating system, hence is liable to the same mistakes in judgement. The difference is the number of conceptions incorporated in the minor premises, which relates to the accumulation of experiences, such that the major is more precisely described, and the conclusion, the judgement, is thereby more consistent with reality.
Oh man. And we havent even started on the aspect of human cognition that is completely logical, which just means theres no dogs or kids or sensations of any kind, and nobody to tell you how wrong you are. You know this is the case, because youve conceived the notion of a universal mind as a completely valid and no one can tell you youre wrong, that the conception is invalid, but only that the synthesis of the manifold of conceptions conjoined to the major, used by each, dont relate in the same way, or do not relate at all, which only invalidates the one judgement relative to the other.
That third option ..for what its worth.
Hello Mww,
I appreciate the analogy: thank you!
Heres what I am trying to say in terms of that analogy: the idea that the box is a thing-in-itself which is, by definition, that which we cannot know and my intuition of the box (when I open) it is a phenomena which is a representation of that thing which we cannot know, then it seems self-undermining; for the box as thing-in-itself on the shelf is merely an abstraction (assuming I am not looking at, then it becomes a phenomena) based off of phenomenal boxes. If one were to posit there is something of which we cannot know, then I would reckon we cant know anything about itincluding that we are even representing anything in the first place (because our notion of representating things-in-themselves is just an abstraction of our phenomenal experience, which is supposed to give us no insight into the things-in-themselves). Perhaps you can clarify my confusion with that analogy?
This sounds like maybe you dont hold that we cannot know the things-in-themselves that appear to us, is that correct?
I agree!
My point is that you have to use your representation to argue that we have the other two classes, and if that class is supposed to give us zero knowledge of what actually is then that makes me wonder what grounds there are to say there are two other classes beyond that class (if we are using that class to determine the other two).
In other words, we start with just empirical inquiry (which can be as basic as introspection) and so we start with phenomena. We then reverse engineer that we those appearances that we are analyzing are produced by a representational system which has two other classes of representation and what not. We use phenomena to argue there is something beyond phenomena: but this isnt compatible with the claim that phenomena give us zero insight to non-phenomenal things.
I didnt follow this part. Kant is very avidly arguing that phenomena give us no insight into the things-in-themselves, and I would say his argument for them (i.e. transcendental argumentation) is predicated on reverse engineering the phenomenaso, by my lights, illusions is just the working out by comparison different phenomenal experiences from each other to see how a particular thing (as a phenomean) expresses itself sans other factors (that can produce illusions).
Thank you for the elaboration, but I am still not completely following. My question was what is the logical part of the representation system and, if I may add now, what the representation system isnot in the sense of every piece or part that produces how it works but, rather, ontologically what it is. A thing-in-itself vs. a phenomena are ontological statuses, so to speak, (viz., one exists merely as an appearance and the other the represented existent things beyond space and time): what ontological status does the logical part of the representational system have it is not a thing-in-itself nor an appearance. I get it is a logical system, but ontologically what is it?
I didnt quite follow this either: someone can prove me wrong about there being a universal mind. I dont take it as absolutely true.
Bob
Hello 180 Proof,
And this is why I would claim my thoughts are mine. We arent saying anything different, as far as I am understanding.
This is just false. If you have to have public evidence to know if you are hallucinating, then you, by your own argument, even under naturalism, cant prove your thoughts are yours. Likewise, if it were just you left on the planet, you wouldnt, by your lights, be able to prove ever that anything is not a hallucination.
Idealism refers, most broadly, to any metaphysical theory that posits mind as primary (to include less conventional views like Kantianism); and, more specifically, it usually refers to a substance monist view that there is one mental substance which contains mental properties and minds which are responsible for them. The phrase etymologically stems from the word idea and ideal, but that doesnt mean it is refers to the metaphysical theory that everything, literally, is an idea.
Bob
Hello Janus,
Oh, I apologize: I must have misunderstood. If you would like, then I can resume our conversation by responding to your original post (that we left off on)? It is entirely up to you and what you are comfortable with.
Thank you and same to you my friend!
Bob
No need for any apology Bob.
Perhaps it would be better to start afresh and in a more concrete way. You seem to be saying that by virtue of feeling our basic existences which you would characterize as "being a mind" (?) we can confidently extrapolate to a view of the basic nature of the cosmos. Are there other steps that need to be added in there or is that it?
Things-in-themselves arent what appear, never become a sensation, so, yes, those are what we dont know. If the thing-in-itself appeared to me it wouldnt be as-it-is-in-itself, it would be as-it-is-in-me, as phenomenon. Remember: the thing and the thing of the thing-in-itself are identical. The only difference is the exposure to human systemic knowledge/experience criteria, which reduces to time. I call it the occasion, but, same-o, same-o.
We cant know the thing-in-itself because it doesnt appear in us. If that specific box .the only one that appeared to your senses ..had stayed at the post office, youd never know anything of it, even while inferring the real possibility of boxes in general, iff you already know post offices contain boxes.
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Quoting Bob Ross
I guess I cant say why a logical part needs an ontological status. If ontology is the study of what is, and what is implies what exists, and to exist is to be conditioned by space and time, it follows that if logic is not conditioned by space and time but only time, thereby out of compliance with the criteria for existence, then the study of its ontological predicates from which its ontological status can be determined, is a waste of effort.
. Transcendental analytic has accordingly this important result, to wit, that the understanding is competent to effect nothing à priori, except the anticipation of the form of a possible experience in general, and that, as that which is not phenomenon cannot be an object of experience, it can never overstep the limits of sensibility, within which alone objects are presented to us. Its principles are merely principles of the exposition of phenomena, and the proud name of ontology, which professes to present synthetical cognitions à priori of things in general in a systematic doctrine, must give place to the modest title of analytic of the pure understanding .
Keyword: things. With respect to ontology, logic is not a thing. If a label is required for some reason, Id just call it a condition, or maybe a axiom or fundamental principle of a theory. Heck, maybe just a merely necessary presupposition, in order to ground all that follows from it. All of which lend themselves quite readily to analysis. This is metaphysics after all, immune to proof from experience, so there are some permissible procedural liberties, so maybe logic is just that which prohibits such liberties from running amuck.
Besides, it is possible that the human intellect is itself naturally predisposed to what we eventually derive as logical conditions, so maybe we put so much trust in the power of pure logic for no other reason than we just are logical intelligences. Maybe we just cant be not logically inclined.
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I want to get back to something you said the other day, something like .the universal mind change the world to fit out knowledge, to which I thought it better that our knowledge changed to fit the constant world. If I got that right, I might have a thought up a decent counter-argument or two Id like you to shoot down, in accordance with your thesis.
Way back when, and in the interest of the most general of terminology, that which contacted the bottom of human feet has never changed, even though through the ages more and more knowledge has been obtained about it.
Long ago, some humans knew the moon as some lighted disk in the sky. They also knew of periodically changing ocean levels, but had no comprehension of tidal effects caused by the moon and even less comprehension of effects a mere disk can have. Nowadays the relation between the tides and the moon are the same as they ever were, but there is resident knowledge of that relation derived from principles.
What say you?
I like it. Nicely expressed.
Thanks. Preciate it.
Hello Janus,
Sounds like a plan!
I wouldnt say that we should be idealists because we can confidently extrapolate to a view of the nature of the cosmos as mind, because one can be very confident in virtually any metaphysical theory. Heres how I would word a simplified, general depiction of my view:
The theory of what reality fundamentally is that is the most parsimonious (viz., maximizes explanatory power while minimizing conceptual complexity), is internally & externally coherent (viz., how well does it cohere with ones currently more highly prioritized beliefs, such as scientific facts?), is logically consistent (i.e., theres no logical contradictions), is the most complete (i.e., what cant it account for?), and aligns best with ones intuitions (i.e., everyone relies, to some degree, on what intellectual seems to be the case). I submit to you that Analytic Idealism, that reality is fundamentally a mind, meets the aforementioned requirements better than physicalism (and any other possible metaphysical theory).
Why (is Analytic Idealism the best theory), you might ask? Well, long story short, it coheres perfectly with scientific knowledge, accounts for the entirety of our experience in the most parsimonious manner (in comparison to any other possible theory), and is logically consistent. The only areas, nowadays, where it suffers is that it is not intuitive to most people (although I think that after properly understanding it people could see it as intuitive) and it isnt complete (but no other theory is other than the ones that dream up magical wishful thinking to explain everything).
That would be the spark notes.
Bob
:kiss:
Hello Mww,
If it never becomes a sensation, then it sounds like you are saying we never come in contact, even indirectly, with the things-in-themselves, is that correct? If so, then how do you know they even exist? If the representational system isnt getting, as input, sensations of the things-in-themselves, it sounds like, to me, the former is completely accounted for without positing the latter.
I didnt follow this part: what is a thing of the thing-in-itself? Is that the substance of (or in) which the thing-in-itself is of?
If we arent exposed to it as sensations (see my first quote of you), then how are we exposed to it?
But when you do look in the box, are you seeing an indirectly contacted box-in-itself? Or is the box-in-itself completely barred from your reach?
If what exists is what is conditioned by space and time, then space and time do not exist.
Are you saying that the logical part of our representational system (for each and every one of us) only is conditioned by time? So it exists within the temporal world but non-spatially?
But it has to exist in a thing: what thing are you saying it exists in? If it is outside of space and time, then I would think you are claiming it is a thing-in-itself.
Please feel free to critique away! I would love to hear your counter-arguments!
However, I think what you are referring to was one of my questions pertaining to your view and not mine (but correct me if I am misremembering): you were claiming that, despite us having no knowledge of the things-in-themselves which makeup the real world, we can still know that our knowledge of the world changes faster than the rate at which the world actually changes (or something along those lines); and I was merely inquiring how you could know that if you cant know anything about the things-in-themselvesi.e., the real world. I still dont understand, as of yet, how you resolve that.
In terms of my theory, I dont think that the Universal Mind changes the world to fit our knowledge but, rather, our knowledge changes to fit reality (which is fundamentally a Universal Mind). The Universal Mind doesnt have cognitive deliberation, isnt meta-conscious, nor does it have the ability to enumerate possible motives: it is the most basic, fundamental will which makes up reality and we emerged as evolved beings which have developed the ability to do such higher level things. As far as I can tell, the Universal Mind adheres to strict laws.
I have no problem admitting that our knowledge, in terms of our ability to cognize and deliberate as higher conscious forms, tries to conform to what the world is and, thusly, we slowly learn and adapt our theories to better account for it. My point was that I dont see how you know that about reality when reality under your view, as I am understanding it, is things-in-themselves.
Bob
The existence of things in themselves is an inference from the invariance and intersubjective commonality of sensations.
Quoting Bob Ross
And I submit to you that all ideas of substance are groundless. The world seems physical and substantial and from that experience and the reificational potentiality of language we naturally extrapolate the notion of substance. We really have no idea what either physicality or mentality are in any substantial sense.
I think this touches on something important. I've heard Chomsky make a similar statement. And of course, Chomsky concedes he is a Kantian in relation to human sense making and language being aspects of the human cognitive apparatus - we are 'contained' by these. But we keep wanting to escape our cognitive limitations and make pronouncements about reality as it is in itself.
Out of interest - let's assume we do accept analytic idealism as our ontological situation - what practical changes would this initiate in terms of human behavior? How much changes in terms of morality, human rights, climate change, political discourse, in short, how we live?
Things-in-themselves can be inferred the possibility of sensations in general a priori. The thing as it appears, and from which sensation is given, makes the non-existence of that particular thing-in-itself impossible, re:
. For, otherwise, we should require to affirm the existence of an appearance, without something that appearswhich would be absurd .
Transcendental analysis of the conditions for human knowledge doesnt care about ontology; all that is represented exists necessarily, all we will ever know empirically is given from representations, therefore all empirical knowledge presupposes extant things.
Quoting Bob Ross
This is correct, within the confines of this particular knowledge theory. The intuitive representational process itself, the only one determined by sensation, doesnt care about anything except what is given to it by perception.
The only reason for positing the thing-in-itself, is to grant that even if things are not perceived, they are not thereby non-existent. It is meant to qualify the semi-established dogmatic Berkeley-ian purely subjective idealist principle esse est percipi, by stipulating that it isnt necessary that that which isnt perceived doesnt exist, but only for that which is not perceived, empirical knowledge of it is impossible. It just says existence is not conditioned by perception, but knowledge most certainly is.
Theres also the confused impression/fact dichotomy inspired by Hume that needs examination, but thats beyond the realm here, I think.
Quoting Bob Ross
Oh, thats easy: once this thing, whatever it is, appears to perception, that thing-in-itself, whatever it was, disappears, that thing no longer in-itself, as far as the system is concerned.
Quoting Bob Ross
Cant be substance, insofar as substance is never singular, which implies a succession, which implies time, which is a condition for knowledge, and by which the imposition makes the impossibility of knowledge contradictory.
Permanence is that by which the thing-in-itself, is of. Which makes the notion that if Im not looking at the thing it isnt there, rather foolish.
Quoting Bob Ross
It taken to indicate the thing-in-itself ..we arent exposed to it; such is, qualified by definition, in-itself.
Quoting Bob Ross
Thats the epistemological issue, innit? We dont know the real world as it is in itself, but only as it appears to us. Another kind of intellect will probably understand whatever world is common to both differently than we understand it, but it doesnt matter one bit. We can only work with what we have to work with, and the uselessness of that tautology should tell us something. Like .stay in your own lane!!!!
The real world for us, is just how we understand what we are given. The world is only as real as our intellect provides. Whatever the world really is, we are not equipped to know, and if it really is as we understand it, so much the better, but without something to compare our understands to, we wont know that either.
-
Quoting Bob Ross
Correct, they do not exist in the same manner as that of which they are the conditions. They are objectively valid as presuppositions logically, but not objectively real as existences physically. They are the conditions for things, re: intuitions, but not the conditions of things, re: properties.
Quoting Bob Ross
Pretty much, yep. First one must grant that in humans, all thoughts are singular and successive, from which arises the very notion of time in and of itself. It follows that it is more the case that logic, which is merely the assemblage of thoughts according to rules, makes the world temporal, than that logic exists in a temporal world.
Quoting Bob Ross
If its not a thing, why does it have to exist in a thing? That which exists in a thing is a property thereof, and logic is not a property. All Im going to say about it, is that logic resides in human intelligence, and attempts to pin it down in concreto ultimately ends as illusory cognitions at least, or irrational judgements at worst.
Quoting Bob Ross
The reductionism required to get from reality to Mind must be truly intense!!! Even if I accept the human mind as a mere abstract placeholder to terminate infinite regress in intellectual cause/effect, I can still say that mind belongs to me. Which begs the most obvious of questions
But thats ok, youve circumvented the problem by relieving Mind from meta-cognitive deliberations, so it doesnt need to belong. But in so doing, youve attributed to it a different form of intellectual cause/effect, re: will, which I must say, as I conceive it, also belongs to me.
Quoting Bob Ross
Theres no legitimate reason to think that, insofar as it contradicts the notion that the universal mind does no meta-cognitive deliberations, which it would have to do in order to determine what laws are, and the conditions under which they legislate what it can do, which determines what it is.
In human cognition, strict law is subsumed under the principles of universality and absolute necessity. The idea of a Universal Mind covers the former, but the latter must be merely granted without justification, in that the Universal Mind does not imbue the necessity of existence itself. In other words, the Universal Mind, if it doesnt exist, cannot be legislated by law, which means if it is legislated by law it must exist. Which means it cannot be merely an idea.
But all universals are ideas AAAARRRRGGGGG!!!!!!
Could it be that Universal Mind "adhering to strict laws" is merely the wrong choice of words? Maybe he means that reality (including laws of logic, physics, etc) have universal mind as their source. The foundations of reality are grounded in Universal Mind. Or something like that.
That criticism may also accurately describe Panpsychism, which is a philosophical generalization, not a detailed scientific account of mind. It simply assumes that "mind stuff" is more fundamental than "matter stuff". In which case, the emergence of Mind from Matter needs no further explanation, other than perhaps adding the holistic notion of "Emergence".
I'm not familiar with the "details" of Kastrup's theory of Analytical Idealism, but it sounds like a modern version of the ancient notion of Panpsychism. If so, it seems to be generally compatible with my own thesis of Enformationism. But the devil is in the details. And philosophical theories tend to be skimpy in the kind of empirical & mathematical details that "physicalists" prefer. The "analytical" preface seems to imply that Idealism can be boiled-down to fundamentals or details of some kind. Does Kastrup make any attempt to mathematize his non-empirical theory? Is his "fundamentally unitary phenomenal field" defined in mathematical terms, similar to a quantum field? :nerd:
What is analytical idealism?
Analytic Idealism is a theory of the nature of reality that maintains that the universe is experiential in essence. That does not mean that reality is in your or our individual minds alone, but instead in a spatially unbound, transpersonal field of subjectivity of which we are segments.
https://www.essentiafoundation.org/analytic-idealism-course/
In my experience, most people act like Materialists in all practical phases of life. Only a few brain-washed nuts actually attempt to walk through walls, which, according to subatomic physics, are 99% empty space (image below).
AFAIK, It's only in the impractical hypothetical aspects of human existence that such literal "non-sense" arises. That's why Materialism is un-controversial : it is what it seems to be. But Idealism is inherently contentious, for the same reason that Art & Politics are questionable non-matters of taste --- along with "morality, human rights, climate change". Ideals exist in private minds, not in public space, where your freedom is restricted by hard objective physical laws, instead of soft subjective laws of propriety & decency.
Fortunately, on TPF, we have an unreal ideal impractical Forum, existing in the notional emptiness of cyber-space, where we can dispute our personal ideas & beliefs without physically coming to blows. Snarky remarks are meta-physical, and won't give you a physical black eye. :cool:
MEN WHO STARE AT GOATS and walk through walls
Maybe, but more likely my misunderstanding of what the words I read are supposed to represent.
You know ..guy spends most of his philosophical life in one mindset, pretty hard to shake him loose.
A cryptic answer to my question. I'm not sure I follow you.
As per Kastrup; mentation presents itself to us in the peculiar way we have come to understand as physical. We can leave this aspect of idealism in brackets.
My question is pragmatic and existential. I am a pragmatist - in the non-philosophical sense of this word.
Here we have a significant debate about ontology. I wonder what follows from one of the answers. How does how we live change if idealism is true?
I think this is the pertinent question. What is important to humans is how the world seems to humans because that is all we have to work with. The world seems physical not ideal, but that still doesn't warrant asserting the physical as substance, even if that seems to make more sense than asserting the mental as substance; in my view both claims are groundless, or even worse, meaningless, and I don't think the question is; per se, very important except to obsessive philosophers who cannot rest until they know the truth. No doubt some people may have other reasons for wanting the ultimate nature of reality to be either physical or mental.
For example, it seems to me that very often, if not always, the motivation for believing in idealism is the hope that the self does not perish with the body. If one feels incurably distressed by the thought of the death of the self, then perhaps the best thing would be to comfort oneself with the belief that the self continues after the death of the body, and this belief might seem unsustainable alongside the belief that the world is ultimately physical through and through.
That said, holding to idealism would only become harmful if one devalued this life in consequence, Personally I think that learning to live always right in the present moment, and thus experientially 'out of time', is a worthy aim, since I think this is the only eternity we can sensibly hope for. That said, I respect the right of others to believe in an afterlife, provided their beliefs do no harm, that they do not, for example, contribute to complacency concerning the very real problems that afflict not only human life, but the whole of life on this planet.
All universal common denominators are only ideas?
:gasp:
The sun also seems to move across the sky, the Earth seems flat, and it seems like we're not moving 10,000+ mph through space. We should be careful about making leaps from what seems true to what is true.
Quoting Janus
Of course, and like an idiot I didn't even consider this aspect.
I can't help thinking that (e.g.) asylums, ashrams, seminaries, cult communes, (sectarian) kindergartens, wall-to-wall video gaming (plus 24/7 social media), etc habitualize 'idealist (antirealist) living'.
That cuts both ways. I know atheists who are so invested in their atheism and the idea they are simply biological machines, they embrace strange notions, like mind and consciousness don't exist or are illusions.
What is meant here by "illusions"?
Sure, why not? Denominator indicates a underlying standardization, common denominator indicates an underlying standardization for all to which it conditions, and all to which it conditions indicates its universality, which would then be a mere idea. I guess it depends on how far, and on what, one wishes to extend the denomination.
Common denominator for footwear is that which separates the foot from the ground, but that separator in itself is hardly a universal idea. But that a foot should be separated from the ground is a universal idea insofar as far as the construction of all footwear whatsoever is conditioned by it.
Nothing you contribute here is easy, is it?
Either that, or you post stuff just to see how much of a mess folks will make of it. (Grin)
I wonder what they have in common? :chin:
Agree, in that illusions are artefacts of consciousness. This obvious objection never seems to stop Daniel Dennett, though.
I was just thinking about the cases when universal common denominators are discovered by us rather than stipulated. Such cases are examples of that which existed in its entirety prior to our naming and descriptive practices, prior to our consideration, prior to our awareness of them... prior to using "universal common denominator" in order to pick them out to the exclusion of all else.
I was reading a paper by Chalmers last night in response to your reply. You might be interested in it.
https://consc.net/papers/debunking.pdf
Do you agree that, for pragmatic reasons, most humans act as-if Matter is Reality? If so, how do you explain the behavior of a few feckless philosophers, or romantics, who act as-if there is a realm of Ideality, apart from the tangible substances they know from hard experience?
For example, even an officially idealistic philosopher knows better than to try to walk through a brick wall with no door. And yet, he can imagine such an unreal event. The Marvel movie heroes have been performing such unrealistic tricks on the silver screen, and in rag mags, for decades. So, apparently a lot of people like to imagine that magical powers could be employed to battle the hidden forces of personified Evil. Some people are motivated by Ideals, that go far beyond immediate Pragmatic concerns : e.g. why make long-range plans to go to Mars?
What "practical changes" do you think such unfettered imagination would initiate in their behavior? Do you see young people, at a Cosplay meeting, imitating the magical powers of their heroes*1, in addition to modeling their heroic costumes & postures? Maybe a psychotic few will try to fly from tall buildings. In the movies, downtrodden outcasts suddenly discover the power to project energy/chi from their fingertips. Why don't the Cosplayers do likewise? Perhaps, because they know the difference between romantic Fiction and realistic Facts? Maybe a few of them even understand the difference between Science & Religion, Physics & Faith, but choose the latter because it offers something that Science cannot. "Man cannot live by bread alone".
Apparently, unlike animals, humans can imagine "things that never were", but could be in an ideal world. So, they are not as concerned with boring Pragmatism as you think they should be. Would you expunge that mental creativity from human nature? Personally, I am basically a humdrum Pragmatist & Realist. So I have to depend on others to let their imaginations run free from the bonds of physical laws. Except, that is, on a Philosophy Forum, where I can tentatively, and impractically, imagine where freedom from physical bondage might lead. :smile:
PS__For a direct answer to your question --- "Out of interest - let's assume we do accept analytic idealism as our ontological situation - what practical changes would this initiate in terms of human behavior?" --- None : analytic Idealism is not practical, it's philosophical.
*1. Real light saber : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTRjkAWz-M4
FYI, is not interested in Philosophical opinions, only Physical facts. :joke:
I don't disagree with anything because you haven't explicated anything. Your claim, Rogue, is opaque to me for the reason given previously.
I see what you mean, but I would ask, and referencing Russell, doesnt the plethora of white things simultaneous with our naming practices and awareness of each of them as such over time, antecede the whiteness of which all white things partake? What if there was only a single instance of a thing with whatever quality, what universal can be attributed as the being of which a single thing partakes?
If that works, then it is possible for the particular and the universal to be identical, and if the particular is subject to human cognition as an object, then so is the universal, a metaphysical/logical contradiction.
I agree universals proper are not within the purview of human cognition as propositional predicate in a judgement (all white xs possess whiteness), rather merely designating a relation, but I might hesitate to put them before the particular, re: your, existing in their entirety prior to ( ).
Or not ..
Hello Janus,
This concedes my point about Kant: he is using phenomena to reverse engineer that there are things-in-themselves while claiming that phenomena do not tell us anything about things-in-themselves.
They cant be groundless if you consider reason a valid method of gaining knowledge, which you will have to if you agree with science. In that case, we can extrapolate insofar as safely can. For example, we can know that two substances would not have interaction with each other, and this is only via pure reason. I dont think that claim is groundless.
Bob
Hello Tom Storm,
Theres the answer Kastrup will tell you, and theres a grimmer answer I will tell you.
Kastrups:
Morality stems from our understanding that we are fundamentally hurting ourselves when we hurt others, because we are of the same mindso why do that? Morality for Kastrup is likewise objective, as there is Telos to the world, and something we should commit ourselves to.
He argues that physicalism leads to nihilism, whereas idealism leads to happier, more fulfilled lives.
He argues that politically we should be aiming to slower preserve all life, because consciousness is all that ontologically exists and we are a part of the same mind.
My answers (in summary):
There is no morality beyond what you hold yourself towhat lies in the depths of your heart.
Any view can lead to nihilism, although some more than others, and anyone can be happy under any of themnihilism is a reflection of ones psychology and nothing more.
Ones political views are going to be dependent on ones morals and amoral goalsno metaphysical view in-itself tells us what to do here, but it can end up being what formulates our morals (e.g., if we shouldnt hurt what is a part of ourselves and we are of the same mind, then we shouldnt hurt eachother).
Bob
Hello Mww,
I see. If this is true, then how is it inferred therefrom that there are multiple things-in-themselves and not a thing-in-itself?
However, I still would like to push back a bit: how can you infer that it is impossible that appearances arent of nothing? Is that simply absurd to you?
I still struggle with this because, to me, I infer that the appearances are representations by comparison of other appearances (e.g., they inject me with a hallucinogen drug and my representations becomes significantly different than when I am sober, etc.). But if representations tell us nothing about things-in-themselves then it is odd to me that it can even be inferred that there is a dynamic of representations vs. things-in-themselves in the first place.
How do you know this if representations tell you nothing about things-in-themselves? Also, why not hold that all the things of appearances of one thing-in-itself?
I agree with you here; but under Kantianism, how does one know there necessarily are things-in-themselves? It seems like Kant is just ruling out the alternatives because they are absurd.
Oh I see and agreeI thought you were saying something else there.
I am a substance monist, so I am unsure by what you mean by substance is never singular: could you elaborate?
How do you know they are permanent simply because they are beyond your representation of them?
So would it be fair to say that you think we are barred from metaphysics (other than transcendental inquiries)?
It has to exist in a thing, in the sense of of a substance and of an entity, because otherwise I dont know what you mean by existing. How is logic not a property of an entity? If it isnt a property, then I dont have the ability to do logic because that would be a property of my mind, would it not?
I apologize, that was a poor choice of words: the Universal Mind does not adhere to the laws but, rather, sustains them.
The universal mind is not an idea, it is mind that has ideas and those ideas are the Platonic, eternal forms which are expressed within space and time, which are conditions of our minds.
Correct, but I am saying that those ideas are within an eternal mind.
Bob
[quote="Schopenhauer's Compass, Urs App; https://books.google.com.au/books?id=N1AIogEACAAJ&lpg=PP5&pg=PA11#v=onepage&q&f=false" ]In order to always have a secure compass in hand so as to find one's way in life, and to see life always in the correct light without going astray, nothing is more suitable than getting used to seeing the world as something like a penal colony. This view finds its...justification not only in my philosophy, but also in the wisdom of all times, namely, in Brahmanism, Buddhism, Empedocles, Pythagoras [...] Even in genuine and correctly understood Christianity, our existence is regarded as the result of a liability or a misstep. ... We will thus always keep our position in mind and regard every human, first and foremost, as a being that exists only on account of sinfulness, and who is life is an expiation of the offence committed through birth. Exactly this constitutes what Christianity calls the sinful nature of man.[/quote]
As far as the world being a prison, Plato of course preferred another analogy, that of a cave, in which we are held captive by the chains of ignorance. The East speaks of the human condition in terms of avidya, ignorance (or nescience in some translations), whereas the Biblical traditions depicted it in terms of sin, which is of course the most politically-incorrect term in the English lexicon. But the underlying philosophical point is mistaking the illusory for the real, although of course for that to be meaningful, there must be some kind of inkling of a higher reality, which is also pretty non-PC in today's culture.
I agree.
Quoting Wayfarer
I understand the lineage of this this view, I'm just wondering how it helps to think this way.
Wouldn't be much of a leap to take the view that the world is malignant, that birth and children are a curse and take up a position wherein nuclear annihilation might be a useful way to demolish this metaphysical Bastille. Isn't climate change ultimately coming to liberate us from the cycle of death and rebrith? Why act to prevent it?
I hope it's the latter and not just business as usual. Which I guess is a Christian view - love your neighbour as you do yourself. The reason being we are all the same being... :wink:
I personally can't identify reasons to change how I interact with the world, regardless of the metaphysics or ontology posited. So I am wondering how useful it is to even have views on ontology, other than a common sense account, which may not be true, but has the virtue of working well enough as a frame.
How do you account for Schopenhauer's formulation of antinatalism, pessimism and negativity? Do you think his worldview (presumably acquired via his reading) was reasonable or extreme?
No, Kant is merely saying that if there are appearances, then logically speaking, there must be things which appear, whatever the in itself existence of what appears might be.
We know there are things which appear as phenomena, but we also know that these appearances are not the things, and that we cannot know what the things are apart from how they appear to us.
Quoting Bob Ross
No, I won't have to concede that, because I don't think reason without sense data produces knowledge. It is not a valid inference from the fact that sense data combined with reason produces knowledge to a claim that reason on its own can produce knowledge.
Quoting Janus
:fire:
Kant says he is an empirical realist and a transcendental idealist. I think for Kant sensory appearances are real.
So to break this down, Kant seems to be saying we have no choice but to accept empiricism even if it isn't a reflection of things as they are in themselves?
I'm not quite sure how sensory experiences are 'real' given his model - does this mean they are all that is available to us and produced by our interaction with noumena which are real? The reality of sense data seems to be a 'translation' or interpretation of the real.
Interesting point. Are you thinking of forms of phenomenology here?
I take it the difference between what I was pointing to and nihilism is the implicit understanding of there actually being release from the cycle of birth and death. Its as if were impelled to exist by craving, and the way to overcoming it, is by the cessation of craving. Without that, even those who seek not to exist or regret having come to exist, will always be bound to existence without knowing why. That element is common to both Indian philosophy and Schopenhauer.
But there's something else, and it's right there in your quote. (Is that Kant?)
What we know about the somethings the existence of which we infer from the possibility of experience, is that they are the sorts of things that can appear, and, in particular, can appear to us. That deduction works both ways: Kant had the idea that we can treat the objects of perception and knowledge as conforming to us, rather than us conforming our minds to them, and that's fine, but it also means that those objects must cooperate, must be capable of cooperating, of appearing to us, of revealing themselves to us or being revealed to us. Not as they are "in themselves", of course, but we know better than to expect that; but if things appear for us, then they must be things that can do that, and do.
There is moment here, of elevating epistemology to first philosophy, and leaving ontology as, at most, the matter of what is only formally posited by the theory of knowledge. I'm not convinced that works out. Look at what is posited. It is not the empty place-holder it was supposed to be, but is rich with its own structure of revealing and concealing, without which the formal description of knowledge hangs in the air.
The way I understand it, sensory experiences are real, in fact it is from sensory appearance that the notion of reality is derived. But since we don't know what is "behind" sensory experience, and since we cannot but think that what appears to us has its own existence independently of us, and since that existence cannot be the same as the appearances, we should acknowledge that the in itself nature of what appears is unknowable to us. although it's nature as it appears to us is of course knowable.
I think when Kant says that the empirical, what is perceived, is real, and the transcendental is ideal, he means that sensory experience is real for us, in fact it is the very prototypical exemplar of reality, and that the in itself, which is transcendental to sensory experience can only be ideal for us, meaning that we can only have ideas about what it might be, and all of those ideas are groundless. This is looking at it from our perspective.
If we try to think from an absolute perspective, and having acknowledged that what appears to us is conceptually shaped by us, this could be reversed; the empirical as we understand it then would be ideal (insofar as it is mediated by ideas) and the transcendental (about which we can have no cogent idea at all beyond that it must somehow be) would be the real. Though Kant didn't present this reversal as far as I know.
Right, I see what you mean. However, I wouldn't say that empirical reality is derivative, more like it is one aspect of the real. I mean, sure, it is, to some degree, constructed by us, but we are real beings. Likewise, the realities or "unwelts" of other creatures are fully real, being as they, different aspects of the real.
That, for what it is worth, is how I look at it anyway,
Working backwards: our representations are not all alike, therefore our sensations are not all alike, therefore the effects things have on sensibility are not all alike, therefore not all things are alike, therefore not all things-in-themselves are alike, insofar as for any thing there is that thing-in-itself.
Quoting Bob Ross
Because appearances are necessarily of something? Im kinda struggling with the triple negative. At any rate, appearances arent inferred, theyre given. Perception is, after all, a function of physics, not logic implied by inference.
Quoting Bob Ross
First off, appearances are not representations, they are affects on the senses. Not yet mentioned, is the speculative condition that appearance denotes only the matter of the thing as a whole, which leaves out the form in which the matter is arranged, the purview of productive imagination, from which arises the first representation as such of the thing, called phenomenon, residing in intuition.
We are not conscious of the instantiation of representations as phenomena, so the alteration of the cognitive process has no effect on that of which we had no awareness in the first place. The changes in representations that occur due to disregard of the rules by unnatural external influence, is in understanding, the representations of which are not intuitions from appearances, but conceptions. The appearance is the same, insofar as it is the same thing being sensed; what the cognitive process subsequently does with such appearance differs, which we commonly refers to as a misunderstanding, but is properly reflected in judgement.
Quoting Bob Ross
Odd to me as well; there is no dynamic of representations vs. thing-in-themselves, they have nothing to do with each other. Empirically, the dynamic resides in the relation between things and the intuition of them. Logically, and empirically, the dynamic resides in the relation between things and the conceptions of them. There is another dynamic, residing in pure reason a priori, in which resides the relation between conceptions to each other, where experience of the conceived thing is impossible, re: eternal/universal Mind and the like.
Quoting Bob Ross
Youd pretty much have to be, holding with a Universal Mind, right?
Quoting Bob Ross
Its the reduction from there is no such thing as an object comprised of a single property, which reduces to nothing can be cognized by a single conception. Human thought, being a logical system, always requires a relation.
But in all fairness, -isms are a dime a dozen, which makes this idea easily refutable.
Quoting Bob Ross
Nahhhh metaphysics is an unavoidable pursuit, when reason seeks resolution to questions experience cannot provide. Transcendental philosophy merely points out the conditions under which such resolutions are even possible on the one hand, and the circumstances by which the resolutions may actually conflict with experience on the other. The mind is, as my ol buddy Golum likes to say, tricksie.
Quoting Bob Ross
Ok, not an idea. If not an idea, and not a thing, for a human then, what is it? What does it mean to say it is mind, rather than it is a mind? This is what is meant by the impossibility of cognizing from a single conception. One can say it is mind, but that effectively says nothing. To say it is mind that has ideas makes it no different than my own mind. To call it eternal mind adds a conception, but by which is invoked that which is itself inconceivable, re: mind that has all ideas, or, is infinitely timeless.
Still, as long as universal mind theory doesnt contradict itself, it stands. If it contradicts other theories, then its a matter of the relative degree of explanatory power philosophically, or merely personal preference conventionally. There is the notion that reason always seeks the unconditioned, that abut which nothing more needs be said, which certainly fits here. It used to be a theocratic symbol having no relation to us, but its since graduated to an extension of us. Not sure one is any better than the other.
I made a mistake. The line should have said . Things-in-themselves can be inferred AS the possibility of sensations in general a priori.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Yep. The so-called Copernican Revolution, which of course, he didnt call it.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Perhaps, but parsimony suggests objects are either there or they are not there. Youre hinting at a limitation regarding the object (it doesnt cooperate hence doesnt appear) but I would rather think the limitation is in us, in that our physiology limits what can appear to us, re: only a specific range of wavelengths of light for visual appearances, etc., and also limits the effect that which can appear, has.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
If this is the case, the notion that objects conform to our intellect falls apart. Things are rich with the structure we understand it to have that doesnt contradict the sensation the object provides, for otherwise we couldnt know it as that thing and not another. We must grant a thing has a composition, but without its being subjected to an intellectual system, the composition cannot relate to a structure in which the composition is arranged. A most dramatic instance being .a sound may indeed affect the nose, but thereby no phenomenon is at all possible.
So the thing that appears isnt so much an empty placeholder ontologically, but moreso an undetermined constituent of reality. But either way .
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
..is nonetheless the case.
Let's stick with that example for a moment. What difference would our physiology make if objects didn't absorb and reflect and radiate certain wavelengths of light? If there weren't light for objects to do this with? Are you suggesting that color perception in us is an entirely "internal" matter, having nothing to do with the objects we perceive as colored? Nothing to do with light?
Sorry, Im not up on the science, and Im not going to pretend otherwise by reading wiki for 2 or 3 minutes.
But, yeah, I see what appears to be colored things, but I dont know if they are colored or I color them. And I really dont care, insofar as it wouldnt make the slightest difference to me if I should be informed with apodeictic certainty one or the other is the case.
Still, I will maintain that humans are very limited creatures, and leave it at that.
That's fine. It's not what I wanted to talk about anyway. But leaving the example aside, which was meant to function almost as an analogy, the point remains: in saying that there are somethings that appear to us, or that give rise to impressions on our sensorium, whatever, we are saying something about those things, that they have this character of revealing or being revealed, and showing themselves to us is a potential or capacity of such things.
To imagine something is to imagine it revealed to you, or as it would be if it were, or to imagine it somewhat revealed and still somewhat concealed.
You can say that an object's concealment from us can be recast as a limitation of ours, that we cannot see through walls, say, and leave it that. But what of the object that is revealed to us, at least partially? Is it illuminated only by the light of our minds? Or does it participate in our perception of it, by showing itself in such a way that we can perceive it?
Agreed, in principle; we say they exist, and that necessarily.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
But if we can say they exist necessarily, theres nothing added by saying they have a character of this kind or that, which could only be attributed to that which exists anyway.
-
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Then we cognize the part we perceive. How would we know the thing is only partially revealed? Reason might guess is there more than meets the eye, but perception does not.
Do you want to take another swing at this? It sounds like you said predicating F of x says nothing about x because you can only predicate F of x if x exists. That's nonsensical. Of course x has to exist, but predicating is still predicating. --- I wasn't really thinking about predication, but now I just don't know what you mean.
Quoting Mww
Now that's a funny thing. You may choose to phrase it more carefully than I will, but the overall shape of that Kantian position is that something is revealed to us but something at the same time is concealed, namely how the thing is in itself rather than for us.
(Loads more, but I don't want to take on all of Kant all at once!)
Thats why I said I agreed, in principle. You said we say something about x, and we do, but not at the time of x. We say determinate things about x after the system has already subjected x to process, in which neither the system as a whole nor the processing of x, say anything. And the processing of appearances has no other purpose than to give to the system some x, whatever x is. There is no predication here, no logic, only transition from the external natural state of being of x to an altogether very different internal state which represents it. We couldnt predicate in this time frame because were not conscious of it, which makes explicit theres no way to philosophize on the one hand metaphysically, or empirically theorize scientifically on the other, about how that transition occurs. But .it does, we know the ends, but not the means. Given all that, it remains that all that can be said about x, at the time of its appearance, is that x exists.
-
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
True enough, but not at the same time, which just distinguishes the thing from the thing-in-itself. At one point in time it is a thing-in-itself, and some other point in time the thing-in-itself is a thing for us, the changeover being if and when there is an appearance.
Again with the finer points, a euphemism for one mans reductionism is another mans quibble .
nothing is revealed to us, it is given to us.
if a thing is sufficiently concealed it is not necessarily an existence, but a thing-in-itself is a necessary existence, insofar as without it, the thing which appears is impossible, a contradiction.
Hello Tom Storm,
It is basically the golden rule but without Christian metaphysics per se. I dont think most Christians agree with Kastrup, because his view is more of a pantheism/theist hybrid.
I think for most people it drastically changes their behaviors because they depend heavily on their metaphysical views to guide them; but, for me, like you, I see many rational views and all of which can contain people with fruitful, moral, and thoughtful lives.
I like to say that I worry more about the average man that agrees with me than the sophisticated man that completely disagrees with me. Not to mention Ide rather live with the latter than the former.
Bob
Hello Janus,
This is where the obscurity sets in with Kant (for me): what do you mean logically speaking? If you cant point to your experience of things being representations of other things, then why do you think they are representations at all? You cant point to scientific inquiry into the brain: those are studies of phenomena which Kant thinks tells us nothing about what is being representedbut then why think there is something being represented in the first place?
I see. This doesnt work though. For example, if reason without sense data produces no knowledge, then you do not know that every change has a cause. You dont know that a = a. You dont know that 1+1=2 without counting your fingers (so to speak). You dont even know that reason without sense data produces no knowledge without appealing to pure reason. Some things are a priori true, and that means they do not require sense data.
Bob
Hello Mww,
I agree and think this is true if we were speaking about what you can empirically know (but thats just studying phenomena which tell us nothing of things-in-themselves); but how do you know metaphysically there are things-in-themselves and not a thing-in-itself?
By your own concession, we arent supposed to know reality fundamentally is, so how can you say that a part of that fundamental reality is things-in-themselves as opposed to one thing-in-itself?
To me it doesnt make sense to say we can gain just enough metaphysical access to know that there are things-in-themselves, but then claim we cant go further when it is the same exact abductive reasoning we use for all of it.
By my lights, you cannot be certain that there are things-in-themselves just as much as I cant be certain that there is a Universal Mind.
What I am trying to do is show you that if you want to go the truly skeptical route that we are barred from metaphysics (or at least ontology) then to be consistent I think you would have to also rebuke transcendental philosophy: you are using abductive reasoning to infer appearences are necessarily something?--theres no certainty in that. This is no different than inferring that the best explanation of what reality fundamentally is is a Universal Mindtheres no certainty in that either.
Appearances are perceptions, which are representations that your mind generated of the sensations.
Oh are you saying that the appearance is just the impression of the thing-in-itself on you and the representation is the formulation of it according to your minds abilities? If so, I can get on board with that.
I think you are just fleshing out more deeply what I was trying to get at with the representations vs. things-in-themselves. You are noting that there is an impression, an intuition, and then an understanding of the thing-in-itselfand that last step is the phenomena. I dont have a problem with this, but my point is that you cant come to understand these functions of the mind without abductive reasoning about the phenomena--the end result of that chain of interpretation. So Kant cant say stuff like:
If the relations between the phenomena tell us nothing about the things-in-themselves, since they are just the subjective constitution of our senses, then you cannot claim:
Because this is an extroplation of the relations of phenomena: you are saying that this phenomena relates to another in a manner that suggests they are representations of different things. Kant is barring this (as seen in the above quote).
Correct. But I dont hold substance monism to fit the view, I think substance monism is the best explanation of the universe in general.
Thats fair, but then I would like to know the symmetry breaker between abducing there are things-in-themselves and, lets say, everything being a part of one substance. Or that it is a part of a mental substance. Or that there is a Universal Mind. All of these are abductive, metaphysical attempts to explain the world, and some explain more of the data more parsimoniously than others.
For example, I dont think, under your view, you can hold object permanence because you cant know anything being your representative faculty, of which the very forms are supposed to be in your head. So how do you know the red block actually persists existing as you viewed it once you turn around? How do you know it exists at all other than a phenomena?
It was a typo: it is a mind. But it ends up arguably being the only mind and we are just off-shoots of the same mind.
Because solipsism isnt a parsimonious view. You cant explain other people, object permanence, etc. without positing an objective world around you. Sure, you could say that it is just your mind, but it doesnt account for the data very well.
It is outside of space and time. Yes, that it a tricky conception to wrap ones head around, but that doesnt mean it isnt true.
That is fair: I think that is what metaphysics is aboutgiving the best general account of reality.
Bob
Yes, exactly. Knowledge or possible knowledge a posteriori.
Quoting Bob Ross
To know metaphysically is knowledge a priori, as opposed to empirical knowledge. Knowledge a priori as it applies to external reality, in Kant, is impure a priori, insofar as it has empirical conditions contained in the syllogism, and is thereby an inductive inference, a logical function, hence, at least for convenience, is metaphysical knowledge. Which is all the thing-in-itself was ever meant to indicate.
So we dont know all things are appearances given from one thing-in-itself, or as many things-in-themselves as there are things that appear. Nevertheless, humans are capable of more than one sensation at a time, either from a single object or from a multiplicity of them. For single objects theres no conflict, but for more than one sensation from more than one object, and knowledge of things-in-themselves is impossible anyway, we gain nothing by the one-for-all over the each-in-itself, which makes the all-for-one superfluous.
Quoting Bob Ross
Not that were not supposed to, but that we are not equipped.
Quoting Bob Ross
Maybe not, but the alternative is that I am necessary causality for the entire manifold of all that I perceive. Let the contradictions rampant in that scenario simmer awhile.
Quoting Bob Ross
Absolutely**, but then, I dont hold with being barred from metaphysical expositions. I just find ontology unnecessary as a discipline in transcendental philosophy, because the existence of things is never in question as is the manifestation of them in experience.
** . Thus, the critique of reason leads at last, naturally and necessarily, to science; and, on the other hand, the dogmatical use of reason without criticism leads to groundless assertions, against which others equally specious can always be set, thus ending unavoidably in scepticism .
Quoting Bob Ross
Such is the bane of all speculative metaphysics: theres no empirical proofs, but only internal logical consistency and strict adherence to the LNC, the only form of certainty we have to guide our contemplations.
Quoting Bob Ross
Break it down: Appearance = the input to the sensory device; perception = the activity of the sensory device; sensation = the output of the sensory device. The sensory device generates the sensation, which is the matter of the object that appears. Not yet a representation, for the mere matter of sensation has not been arranged into a determinable form. There are representations generated by the mind from sensation, but these are phenomena, in which the matter is arranged into a form by the reproductive imagination.
(Easier to comprehend if it be granted a perception is the reception of the whole object, all at once, which makes descriptive analysis of it impossible, and if the system cant describe it, cant analyze it, it wont be able to cognize it, making knowledge of it impossible)
Quoting Bob Ross
Nope. Impression of the thing.
Quoting Bob Ross
Nope. Impression, intuition, understanding of the thing.
Quoting Bob Ross
Hey, give him a break. Hes a seriously-genius Enlightenment Prussian. Hes just reminding the readers, maybe half a dozen of whom are his intellectual peers, that the things of intuition are not things-in-themselves. And things-in-themselves, if they contain or are constituted by relations, such must be relations-in-themselves. Continuing with the passage ..
..if we take away the subject, or even only the subjective constitution of our senses in general, then not only the nature and relations of objects in space and time, but even space and time themselves disappear .
The subjective constitution of our senses in general, which is to say regardless of whatever appears to us, is imagination and the two pure intuitions. Take away imagination the synthesis of matter to form and therefore the phenomenon is impossible; take away the pure intuitions and objects that should have appeared wont, insofar as there is nothing for object to extend into, therefore they have no shape, and if they have no shape the can contain no matter, and if they contain no matter, they are not objects at all, and if they are not objects at all, there wouldnt be anything to appear, a blatantly inexcusable contradiction.
Quoting Bob Ross
Phenomena are not what is meant by subjective constitution of our senses in general. Subjective constitution is that within us which makes the transition from sensation, determined by the physiological constitution of the sensory apparatus, to phenomena, possible
The follow-up says it all:
.. What may be the nature of objects considered as things in themselves and without reference to the receptivity of our sensibility is quite unknown to us ..
Sensibility is that part of the human cognitive system that has to do with perception, covering the range from appearance to phenomena, technically, .. The capacity for receiving representations through the mode in which we are affected by objects, is called sensibility .. The mode in which we are affected means just which one or more of the five sense organs creates its sensation.
Notice, too, that the nature of objects considered as thing-in-themselves, presupposes their existence. I mean .how could the nature of a thing be considered, even if the thing is considered as having the nature of a thing-in-itself, if it didnt exist? But I think youve acceded that point, if I remember right.
-
Quoting Bob Ross
I dont see where in the above quote anything is being barred. If you perceive a horse jumping over a fence as a whole appearance, the phenomenon of the horse is separate from but nonetheless related to the phenomenon of the fence. And this, by the way, is a good example of the intricacies of the system, insofar as motion, having neither matter not form, and therefore not a phenomenon, is provided a priori as rules by the understanding, re: succession of times in conjunction with a plurality of spaces in a singular intuition.
If you think about it, you can see the validity in it. You may have experience with horses, and with fences, and with things that move, but youve never seen a horse jump a fence. But you an still connect a horse to jumping a fence even though youve never seen it happen, thus have no experience of it. In short, you can easily conceptually image the motion, a certain indication it must be possible without contradicting the natural order, which is a purely logical deduction, which only understanding can provide, exemplifying the prime dualism in human cognition:
.. Understanding cannot intuite, and the sensuous faculty cannot think ..
-
Quoting Bob Ross
Yep, no dispute there at all.
Man, after reading that, it appears youre more familiar with this stuff than you let on when talking to me. Which makes much of what I say pretty much superfluous.
We are NOT amused!!!! (Grin)
Hello Mww,
I am familiar with Transcendental Philosophy and do deploy the a priori vs. a posteriori distinction; however, I dont agree 100% with Kant, and it appears you do. So that is why I am having trying to understand your interpretation of him (as I can tell it is different already from mine).
I assure you that nothing you are saying is superfluous!
I am saying that Kant is using a posterior knowledge to determine that beyond the phenomena there are things-in-themselves which transcend ourselves--but then he equally claims that we cant gain transcendent access. This is the point where I think this notion of we cant know ontology because it is transcendent is refuted by the very argument meant to be in its favor.
If one takes Kant very seriously, by my lights, then there is no knowledge of things-in-themselves, and, consequently, they have to develop a post-modern pragmatist approach (such as using difference to gather knowledge)--like the American Pragmatist Pierce.
I am just curious how you get around this issue? Or is it even an issue to you?
I agree. He intended things-in-themselves as purely negative conceptions: correct? But, again, if we can reverse engineer from experience that our best guess is that there are things-in-themselves, then I dont see what is stopping us from hedging our best guess of whether there are Universals or particulars (for example).
The problem is that:
Transcendental Philosophy is a form of speculative metaphysics but Kant doesnt seem to think so. Literally all of good metaphysics tries to extrapolate based off of the real world their best explanations of it and only bad metaphysics ventures so far beyond reality with merely LNC. Kant isnt doing anything differently here other than trying to keep his metaphysical research as close to home as possible.
But heres where I get confused, because I only consider myself a representative being because of empirical observations; and so I have no problem saying the objects conform to my representative faculties; however, this is the same fundamental process I am using to develop all of my metaphysicstheres nothing special about this that makes it more legit than so-called speculative metaphysics when done properly.
Likewise, I view myself as a representative faculty of an objective world, which is a transcendent conception I haveit isnt acquirable transcendentally.
How can you be certain that that is the only other alternative? Do you see how these are the same questions you ask of me with the Universal Mind, but yet you seem to be using the same good criteria to make your best guesses about transcendent and transcendental ideas?
Thats fair. As far as I am understanding you, you are saying that the only metaphysics we can acquire knowledge of is what is a priori, correct? And thusly ontology is out of the question there.
If appearances are the input to the sensory device, then they impressions of things-in-themselves and the thing-for-ourselves is whatever our sensory devices can take in. Would it not?
By thing, do you just mean the thing-in-itself has captured by the sensory device?
To be honest, although he was very smart, he says these kinds of contradictory things so much in the CPR that I think he didnt have the view fully fleshed out.
To me this just seems like it is conflating the reasonable inference that we represent reality to ourselves and the reality which we are representing. To me, you just pointing out that if our representative faculty lost its two pure forms of intuition that we would not longer perceive the objects--but that doesnt mean there arent any. The space and time as our intuitions isnt necessarily the same as the space and time in reality (at least for physicalists).
It does not presuppose there existence as things-in-themselves.
Yes, by why do you think there is a horse-in-itself and a fence-in-itself?
I have no problem with this.
Bob
:smirk:
:up:
Quoting Mww
:fire:
Quoting Bob Ross
:fire:
So there is what Ned Block has characterized as the "Harder Problem of Consciousness." This speaks to Philosophim's point about experiencing other consciousnesses.. the problem as I understand it is: how can I know what it's like to be you, without actually being you. The physicalist rejoinder may be: well the brain stuff is the same, so the mental states must be the same.. but the brain stuff is only approximately the same, not exactly the same, and the difference in brain states means different mental states, and these mental states are simply not accessible to another, at least, not in an "experiential" way.
David Chalmers states the hard problem thusly: "there is no question that experience is closely associated with physical processes such as brains. It seems that physical processes give rise to experience, at least in the sense that producing a physical system with the right physical properties yields corresponding states of experience. But how and why do physical processes give rise to experience? Why do not these processes take place "in the dark"..." (Chalmers, Consciousness and its place in Nature).
In other words, what is it about this arrangement of physical matter and energy that allows consciousness, and how is it different from some other assortment of physical matter and energy that does not allow consciousness? That is, if we think consciousness arises from a physical substrata, what about that physical substrata gives rise to consciousness?
Quoting wonderer1
Isnt relation the manifestation of a difference? The very conception of a synthetic a priori cognition, the backbone of transcendental philosophy, specifies a difference in the relation between the conceptions contained in the subject and the conceptions contained in the predicate of a syllogistic proposition. VOILA!!! Using difference to make the gathering of knowledge possible.
I think Piece was a closet Kantian anyway, wasnt he? Early on he called himself a pure Kantist , The Monist, 1905. Also in The Monist, he states pretty much the Kantian doctrine regarding the ding as sich, and the importance of the categories. He abdicated the Kantian pedestal only later, becoming a Hegelian absolute idealist ..for some reason or another. But I get your point.
Quoting Bob Ross
Agreed, iff home is the human thinking subject.
Quoting Bob Ross
It does not follow from the loss of intuitions that we would lose perception. We would lose the ability to arrange the matter of the object into a form for a phenomenon, but that doesnt mean there werent any appearing objects. Appearance means presence; because we dont lose perception, we dont lose appearance so the object isnt lost to us. Completely and utterly useless appearance, insofar as we couldnt decipher the sensation the appearance provides, but provide it does.
If youd said we could no longer cognize the object, but that doesnt mean there isnt one, Id have just said .yep.
Quoting Bob Ross
Things are things in themselves until they are met with human sensibility, re: Pierce .since you brought him up:
.I show just how far Kant was right, even when right twisted up on formalism. It is perfectly true that we can never attain knowledge of things as they are. We can only know their human aspect. But that is all the universe is for us .
Quoting Bob Ross
I dont need to think it; I can represent to myself differences in arrangements of matter. Horse are not comprised of wood and fences dont have hooves. Different phenomena, different things, different things-in-themselves from which the things appear.
Quoting Bob Ross
Makes me wonder why you would ask why I maintain a thing-in-itself for each thing that appears.
Quoting Bob Ross
Ive heard that argument repeatedly, and maybe he didnt. Takes one more scholarly that I to show it, though.
By way of footnote in this discussion, the book I was introduced to Kant through was a book on Buddhist philosophy, namely, The Central Philosophy of Buddhism, by T R V Murti. Published in 1955, it is still in print, although it has been somewhat deprecated by recent Buddhologists on account of the perceived eurocentricity of the author, an Oxford-educated Sanskritist. But I found it tremendously helpful when I read it in my youth, as it tied together many profound themes in both Kantian and Eastern philosophy.
Anyway, getting to the point of 'things in themselves' - it is well known that Buddhist philosophy proclaims that all things ('particulars' or 'creatures' in traditional Western parlance) are 'empty'. Empty of what? Why, empty of own-being. In Buddhist philosophy, the saying "empty of own-being" or "empty of self-nature" (svabh?va) is associated with the doctrine of emptiness (??nyat?), typically found in the Mah?y?na schools of Buddhism.
The term "svabh?va" (literally 'self-originating') can be understood as describing the inherent or independent existence of phenomena. It asserts that particulars possess an intrinsic essence or self-nature, which is what makes them inherently real and substantial. However, the Buddhist concept of emptiness challenges this notion by asserting that all phenomena lack inherent existence or self-nature.
According to Buddhist philosophy, every aspect of the phenomenal world is characterized by dependent origination (prat?tyasamutp?da), which means that all phenomena arise in dependence on causes and conditions. Nothing exists independently or in isolation. Everything is interconnected and interdependent.
When Buddhist teachings refer to something as "empty of own-being," it means that phenomena lack fixed, independent, or inherent existence. They are devoid of an autonomous essence or self-nature that would make them truly existing entities. Instead, their existence and identity are contingent upon causes, conditions, and relationships.
The concept of emptiness is not a denial of the conventional reality of things but rather a negation of their ultimate or inherent existence. It challenges our ordinary way of perceiving and conceptualizing the world as inherently real and permanent. Emptiness emphasizes the fluidity, interdependence, and conditioned nature of all phenomena.
So it is plain to see that by this reasoning we cannot know things in themselves because they have no inherent or independent reality. They exist as an aspect of a matrix of causal conditions. We can't have knowledge of them, because they're not real in themselves. That is the sense in which it chimes with Kant's notion of 'knowledge of appearances only'.
Murti's book provides a detailed comparative analysis of the similarities and differences between this tenet of Buddhist Madhyamika (Middle Way) philosophy and Kant's transcendental idealism, saying that they arose from a similar kind of impasse which had developed as a consequence of dialectic. A preview of the relevant section in his book can be accessed here.
Taking the visual as paradigmatic for the sake of simplicity, the environment is presented, or given, to us, meaning that our eyes, optic nerves and brains are affected by and respond to reflected light and our brains produce representations of environments consisting of objects that stand out as such from, but are of course never separate from, the environments. It is acknowledged that ideas condition to some degree what stands out for us, what is noticed. Would anything be seen if there was nothing to be seen?
Quoting Bob Ross
If you had never encountered any sense data at all, there would be nothing to reason with and hence no a priori knowledge. Even Kant acknowledged this as far as I remember. Once we have sensory experience then reason can generalize from that experience, and will then know, a priori, that any future experience must conform to those generalizations. As an example, we see all objects extended in space and enduring through time, so we generalize to the a priori idea that no object could be experienced except spatiotemporally.
So, 'every change has a cause' is an inductive inference from experience which has eviolved into our consistent and coherent web of understanding of the empirical via science. For a simple example, if I throw a brick at an ordinary 2.4 mm pane of glass the glass will almost certainly break. If I push something which is top heavy, and precariously balanced, it will fall. If I punch you hard in the face you will likely cry out in pain, and your face will probably bruise. If I hit a nail into soft wood with a hammer it will go in more easily that into hard wood (it may even bend when I try to hammer it into hard enough wood and I may have to pre-drill a hole). These are a few examples of countless other kinds of experiences that lead to the conclusion that all effects have causes, and yet apparently in the quantum realm, not all effects do have causes.
One plus one always equals two. I can prove this by placing two objects together, and I can see two objects there or I can focus on each object and see them individually as two examples of one object. The very fact that you say that you don't know "1+1=2" without counting your fingers supports the idea that the formulation is a generalized abstraction from sense experience. It is not reason, but imagination, that tells you that reason without sense data produces no knowledge, because you cannot imagine any knowledge, or anything at all, which is completely separate from the senses.
My physicalist rejoinder is... Of course we all have unique brains and that is of some relevance. However the more important matter is that consciousness is a process that occurs in a specific brain, and therefore it's illogical to think that one could experience, experiences that only occur in the brain of someone other than you. So no problem.
Quoting NotAristotle
Information processing. This physical arrangement of matter allows consciousness, because it is structured in a way conducive to being able to do a massive amount of information processing.
The answer is networks of neurons. This wikipedia page on artificial neural networks might help with further questions you might have.
So is my idea of 7 different to yours? (Better not be, else it might be hard to do business.)
It is unlikely that for practical purposes of doing business, my idea of '7' is substantially different than yours. However in terms of more subtle associations we each make with '7', certainly. Perhaps you consider '7' to. be a lucky number. One of us might even have not so subtle differences in our associations with '7', as are seen in synesthesia.
Often is the case .like, almost always ..that the origin of an idea, and the use of that conception subsumed under it, are treated without regard for the necessary distinctions between them.
Use of the object representing an idea, presupposes it. If more than one understanding represents the idea with the same conception, and they understand each other in the mutual use of it, the idea presupposed in the one must be identical with the presupposed idea in the other.
So, no, your idea of seven, or any singular idea susceptible to representation, and mine, are not different, all else being given. But you already knew that.
Only if information processing is considered not only necessary, but sufficient for the advent of consciousness; in other words, I don't think so. I think concern and significance are necessary elements of consciousness. We are conscious of what matters to us. Nothing matters to the computer.
Quoting Wayfarer
It would be hard to do business if your idea of 'tree', 'car' 'road', 'building' and countless other examples were significantly different enough from one another to make communication impossible. '7' is just a name for a certain number of anything. Because number is manifold and addition, subtraction, multiplication and division are possible, then the whole system of complex mathematics can be evolved form a few simple rules. All those basic functions can be physically instantiated though, for example on an abacus. And modern calculators and computers are physical instantiations of the ability to complex mathematics, more complex than we can.
So'7' in a way is just like any other rule, except that mathematics is the most complex coherent system of logical rules that we know of.
Hello Janus,
All of this is dependent on us granting that the phenomena are a valid method of inferring what metaphysically is theree.g., you observe phenomenally that you are affected by what seems to you to be an environment which you are in, you find that it makes sense to explain other peoples difference observations as due to their faculties of representation (such as blind people), etc. However, under Kants view, I would argue, if we take him very seriously, then our own minds (or brains) are things-in-themselves (in order for him to claim we have representative faculties)--but, wait, he also says we cant know anything about the things-in-themselves...so we shouldnt even know we have minds or brains (in the sense of a mind-independent one).
If one concedes that we can engage in metaphysical inquiries to determine that we have a brain or a mind, then they are equally conceding that Kants original formulation of there being an epistemic barrier between us and the phenomena is wrong. That is my point. Then it can no longer be argued that we have no idea about ontology. The gates fly open, so to speak.
I agree, but this concedes that we can get at what the things-in-themselves are; and Kant will not accept that.
He acknowledges it, yes, but it is an internal incoherency with his view (I would say).
He just argues we must have it because how could it be otherwise--while also barring us from investigating the things-in-themselves (but, again, wouldnt our minds be things-in-themselves?).
I partially agree. every change has a cause is a priori true but we have to use a posteriori knowledge to get there. It is a necessitated by the preconditions of our experience: the pure forms of intuitioni.e., space and time. We dont, like hume thought, just experience things occur in happenstance with each other so many times that we label it causal.
Again, I would hold that causality is necessitated by our pure forms of intuition. There is no realm in terms of quantum mechanics. Every effect does have a cause.
Not quite. Yes you can count small numbers with objects, but not larger ones. You cant empirically prove that 8888888888888888 + 2 = 8888888888888890. Likewise, you cannot imagine that calculation either. The only way for you to prove it is with your faculty of reason: which is not imagination.
Bob
Hello Wayfarer,
I appreciate you sharing that information! I have also heard that eastern philosophy coincides with schopenhauerian and Kantian metaphysics, but I am not well enough versed on the Vedas (and such) to comment much further (unfortunately).
Bob
Hello Mww,
I meant difference in the post-modern sense: the acquisition of knowledge purely from the phenomena, of which says nothing of the things-in-themselves.
Arguably post-modernism owes a lot to Kantianism: without the idea that we can never know the world beyond what is capable to conform to ourselves entails that reality becomes hyperreality. The map and territory, for practical purposes, blend together.
I am unfamiliar if he was a hegelian, but I do know he was a Kantian in many respects and his views owe a lot to Kant.
Correct.
Yeah thats what I meant.
But isnt all evidence of human sensibility phenomenal? Isnt it a metaphysical claim?
Again, according to Kant our phenomena tell us nothing about things-in-themselves; but your description here is an attempt at reverse engineering what is outside of your representative faculty by means of what is presented to you by your representative faculty. Thats my point.
Because that would require that phenomena do tell you about the things which reside outside of your representative faculty; and then Kants original view falls apart if this is conceded.
Bob
Or exceptional luck. :razz:
All of that was just an outline of what appears to be the case empirically speaking. I make no human-independent metaphysical claims based on that. But I will say that, when speculating about what might be real in itself, it seems to me more likely that what gives rise to a differentiated world would be differentiated in itself, than not.
In any case, the fact remains that we cannot know. All we know is a human-shaped world, not a tiger-shaped world or an elephant-shaped world or a world without any particular shape; I don't see how that can be reasonably disputed.
So, if we are going to take a position on the question of what might be real independently of the human, then we are going to go with what seems most plausible, which is and must remain, a subjective matter. It really isn't a topic worth arguing about, because when people disagree based on their personal presuppositions or preferences, then they will inevitably merely end up talking past one another. The other reason i think it doesn't really matter is that it is of no real significance to how we live our lives in this world of appearances, the only world we know.
I won't respond to the rest of your post, because it all seems to me based on the same misunderstanding that Kant and I are making purportedly human-independent metaphysical claims.
That would be the case if the reversal went further than authorized by the normal Kantian method.
Quoting Bob Ross
Same as transcendental philosophy, except the latter says that things-in-themselves exist while saying nothing about such existence.
Quoting Bob Ross
All things which phenomena tell me about, are already outside my representational faculties.
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Quoting Bob Ross
Mine references a time before, yours references a time after. They dont connect to each other, and each is true on its own.
Quoting Bob Ross
For all practical purposes, yes. Reality conforms to us each time a high-rise goes up, or some
numbnuts burns down a forest. Metaphysically, on the other hand, the map/territory divide rests assured.
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Quoting Bob Ross
An individual may not have enough time to prove it, but it certainly can be proven. The measure is degree of difficulty, not its possibility.
Hello Wayfarer,
I must have misunderstood your post, because it seemed like you were advocating for ideas from eastern philosophy (e.g., that the things-in-themselves are really empty). Although I am not well versed therein, I dont find it a feasible solution to say that the objective world is really emptythat is no different, in terms of parsimony, as saying it is all produced by my mind only (to me).
I agree: that is fair. But I think his project ends up undermining itself. If we can get at that there are things-in-themselves, and arguably that our minds are things-in-themselves, then we can get at ontology.
Bob
Hello Janus,
Just because we see the world from our human perspective does not mean we cannot formulate accurate metaphysical claims. If that were the case, then you couldnt infer, for example, object permanence because it is beyond the possibility of all experience.
I think, for your argument to work, you would have to prove that our human representation of the world is completely inaccurateotherwise, then we have no reason to believe that we cannot get validly at metaphysics.
Metaphysics is not subjective (in that sense) at all: we use objective criteria just like science does.
My point was that Kants transcendental claims undermine his claims about us not being capable of knowing the things-in-themselves.
Bob
Hello Mww,
I didnt follow this part: could you elaborate?
Agreed.
As of yet, I think this is an assumption you are making if you arent extrapolating it from the phenomena.
I think it can be proven, just not empirically. Are you disagreeing? We prove it with reason, not empirical tests (e.g., not with counting our fingers). It is a priori.
Bob
There is indeed a school of Buddhism called Mind-Only, which is near in many respects to Kastrups Analytical Idealism. The reason that it doesnt end in solipsism, is that Buddhism rejects the sovereignty of the self. In other words, the world is created by the mind of beings. Compatible with enactivism and constructivism.
Intriguing. Can you say some more on this? In broad brush strokes, how is the world created by the mind of beings? And how is that contrasted with a sovereignty of self?
In this view, subjectivity is not considered as a purely private, inner realm divorced from the objective world. Instead, it emerges through the subject's engagement with the world. The subject's embodied interactions and sensory-motor skills shape its perceptual capacities, leading to the construction of its subjective experience.
That in turn can be traced back to The Embodied Mind. Published in 1991, it explores the idea that cognition is not solely a product of the brain but is grounded in the dynamic interaction between the body, the mind, and the environment. The book draws on insights from various disciplines, including cognitive science, phenomenology, and Buddhist philosophy, to propose a new understanding of the mind that emphasizes embodiment and action.
Hence the tie with Buddhism. Its a deep subject because it draws on abhidharma, Buddhist philosophical psychology which is a complicated topic. But one striking thing I noticed in studying the early Buddhist texts, is the frequent recurrence of the compound term, self and world, in dialogues on the nature of the self. Buddhism would put it that self and world co-arise - which is the perspective that enactivism draws on. Whereas, you will know if you read many topics on this forum, that the assumed attitude is generally that objective and subjective are clearly differentiated or distinct domains of being.
Thich Naht Hanh used the term inter-being to convey the meaning of ??nyat? - because all things exist on account of causes and conditions, and in relationship to others. Whereas the default view of liberal individualism is that the individual ego, the separated self, is the axis around which the world turns, so to speak.
Quoting Wayfarer
I think this makes sense and accords with my sense of things. I've watched a number of interviews and lectures with Evan Thompson and read some papers.
You did use the term 'created by the mind of beings' before - I'm assuming you intended this as analogous with enactivism - the 'dynamic interaction' you referred to above? I was a little thrown by 'created'.
Quoting Wayfarer
That is interesting and kind of hard to ignore as, dare I say it, common sense.
All our roads seem to lead towards phenomenology... :wink:
But I am necessarily extrapolating it from phenomena. It would be impossible to be informed of whatever phenomena does tell me, if there werent any. All I have to do to say what phenomena tell me about, is extrapolate within the method by which phenomena arise, to the source of them. If the phenomena is necessarily given according to methodological procedure, the source cannot be contingently assumed. The cause must be as necessary as the effect it produces, for otherwise the theory is without sufficient ground.
Caveat: there is as yet no knowledge of what the phenomena represents, but only that it represents something. Sensibility is a representational faculty, not a cognitive one.
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On large numbers:
Quoting Bob Ross
I disagree large quantity summations cannot be empirically proven, and I disagree reason a priori is itself the proof. The latter is the source of synthetic principles a priori, which make the form of mathematical operations possible, the content be what it may. All empirical proofs require content, which reason alone does not provide, in accordance with the principles, which it does.
Furthermore, reason can only prove within its own constructs, which we call logic. So it is true it is logically provable that some quantity adjoined to another in serial accumulation produces a quantity greater than either of two adjoined, but such is not a proof for particular numbers added together, insofar as to prove that, and thereby sustain the logic, the content for which the principle is the condition, would have to actually manifest, which just IS the empirical proof. In the case at hand, it follows that the great magnitude of the quantities to be adjoined, and the adjoining of them in a mathematical operation, do nothing to violate the principle.
Hello Mww,
I could equally claim that it is necessary that your mind is a thing-in-itself.
In both cases, it isnt logically nor actually necessary but rather (debatably) metaphysically necessary.
But none of this holds necessary transcendental absolute certainty that Kant thought it does. It is possible (albeit not plausible) that they arent representations of anything.
Seeing one block and another block and determining there are two blocks is empirically verifiable; but to then use that as a baseline to extrapolate huge numbers being summed together is the application of cognition only. I dont mean cognition in the transcendental idealist sense pertaining to the construction of the phenomenal world but, rather, the higher-order ability to self-reflectively cognize.
You seem to be claiming that simply because we start out with an empirical proof that the rest that is abstractly reasoned about them is thereby empirical: is that correct?
Bob
Kindasorta, I guess. The whole possibility of mathematical processes is predicated on the principle reason provides a priori, which itself is derived from a category, regardless of the quantities involved. It is so much easier to empirically prove the small number operations, but the large number operations follow the same principle, so, they are just as possible to empirically prove, but rather much more time consuming. As long as there are people willing to do it, or any sufficiently correlating method, all the sands on one beach could be added to all the sands on another beach .no problem. Not much point in it, except to prove it can be done.
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Quoting Bob Ross
Hmmmm. Ill go with it isnt actually necessary, in that there may not even be any such thing as a phenomenon (mind). Still, if phenomena/mind are valid metaphysical conceptions, and if they arise logically in a methodology which requires them, then they are logically necessary. And because logic is a metaphysical practice, and the conception is already a methodological requirement, then it could be said that they are metaphysically necessary.
Indeed. And that the mind does not appear among, or as, a phenomenon.
Object permanence is inferred on account of the experienced invariance of objects. It is an inductive, that is fallible, inference, not a deductive, infallible inference.
Quoting Bob Ross
If you are going to continue to distort what I've said like this, then I see little point in continuing. I have nowhere argued that our representations are inaccurate in a metaphysical context, and nothing I've said depends on such a claim. What could they possibly be inaccurate in relation to if the in-itself is unknowable? They are only accurate or inaccurate within their own context, i.e. within the empirical context; it is only there that we can get things right or wrong.
Quoting Bob Ross
This is a rubbish claim, Bob, and it has already been explained to you a few times as to why it is erroneous. Kant's a priori claims are only about the nature of intuitions, i.e. that they are spatiotemporal, and regarding the categories of judgements about phenomenally experienced objects. The transcendental ego is the closest he gets to looking like making a metaphysical, in the traditional sense, claim, but it not; it is just formulating the idea we all have of being a subject which is not empirically observable, i.e. that is transcendental. Kant does not reify this idea to claim the existence of a substantial self, as Descartes does, as far as I know. So, I see the transcendental ego as a phenomenological, not a metaphysical, posit. @Mww ?
Hello Mww,
Thats fair, but arguably there is a limit to what can be empirically proven in this mannerall I have to do is sufficiently raise the numbers; but I get your point.
I think you are saying that math is a priori in the sense that it is actually a part of the logical construction of our phenomena experience (i.e., it is transcendental), and I was more talking about a priori to our cognitive faculty of the mind (in the sense of just thinkingnot the construction of our phenomenal world).
My point is that, regardless, the true origin of our proofs in pure math is a priori in the sense of our faculty of reason (in the colloquial sense) and our proofs (arguably from a transcendental idealists perspective) of the useful application of math is a priori in the sense of our faculty of reasons ability to construct the phenomenal world according to principles.
Logical necessity pertains to the form of the argument: the proposition (or term) cannot be false. For example, a = a will be true all the way down in a truth table.
What do you mean by if they arise logically in a methodology?
Metaphysical necessity is essentially that it is true in all possible worldsor that the thing in question exists and there exists nothing with the potency to stop it existing. I am not sure that I followed what you meant here: could you elaborate?
Bob
Hello Janus,
But it is a metaphysical claim that you cannot make if you are claiming that we are barred from understanding the world in-itself beyond our human nature. You cant claim even inductively that object have permanence in the real world, because the real world is human-nature independent.
I said:
I didnt say you argued it. I said that is the only foreseeable argument to me for you view.
I think that if we dont have good reasons to believe that we are stuck in our human-nature box (so to speak), then the most parsimonious solution is to assume we arent (until its proven otherwise). So, to me, you would thusly have to prove that we cant. So, let me refurbish my statement: I think you would have to argue that our representation of the world gives us no insight into the things-in-themselves (instead of being inaccurate), and I thats where Transcendental Idealism starts self-undermining (e.g., but all this transcendental investigation is actually transcendent investigation of the mind as a thing-in-itself--but then we can get at the things-in-themselves).
To clarify, I apologize, I should have said that you need to prove that we cannot get at the things-in-themselvesnot that they are completely inaccurate. But, again, I wasnt distorting your view: I was saying what I thought you would need to prove: not what I thought you were claiming.
This didnt make sense to me: if you are claiming that we cannot know about the things-in-themselves, then you cant know whether they are accurate or inaccurate at all. All you can do is compare phenomena to each other, and that, according to Kant, tells you nothing about the things-in-themselves.
I dont see how it is rubbish. For example, even we are describing that we have a priori, transcendental aspects of our minds, then arent those minds a part of the things-in-themselves and we are describing that mind-in-itself? For example, his twelve categories are aspects of a thing-in-itself called a mind. But he also claims we cant know anything about things-in-themselves. Please explain to me what about my line of reasoning here is rubbish.
Sort of. Firstly, Kants claims about the nature of intuitions is that we have receptibility and sensibility which, by my lights, entails that it is a part of a mind or something in-itself. Now, as Mww pointed out, Kant doesnt actually say it is in a mind-in-itself; but then one has to hold that these receptive and sensible faculties that one has is just a part of nothing (if it isnt a part of the things-in-itself, then there is nothing else it could be a part of).
Secondly, the categories of judgments are also either (1) ontologically nothing or (2) ontologically a part of a thing-in-itself (which contradicts Kants claims).
All of his claims are metaphysical. Transcendental philosophy is metaphysics.
My read of it was that he was arguing for soul.
Bob
Isn't it a bit of an overstatement to say we know *nothing* of the thing-in-itself? Why not a more nuanced view, in which we know a limited amount about things-in-themselves, but some of us know more than others, depending on the thing under consideration.
Fer fuck's sake, Bob, how many times do I have to tell you I'm not claiming that object permanence or independence is a feature of, or inference about, anything more than the phenomenal world of human experience.
Quoting Bob Ross
But I would have to argue that, if my argument depended on it, which it doesn't. You don't pay attention to anything I write, apparently, or else you distort it in the reading. I've already explained numerous times that everything I have been saying relates only to the phenomenal world. When is that going to sink in?
Our representations of the phenomenal world are neither completely accurate nor completely inaccurate; a fact which has no bearing whatsoever on the question of whether we know the world as it is in itself (which simply as a matter of definition we don't, because anything we know is by definition the world as it is for us).
Quoting Bob Ross
No Bob, those minds may be a part of the world in itself, but the mind as we know it is the mind as it appears to us. Kant's twelve categories are analytically determined by reflecting on the ways in which we understand phenomenal objects.
Quoting Bob Ross
More unargued assertion; it's not interesting, Bob. Kant does not argue for a soul, at least not in the CPR. He does argue in the CPJ that we have practical reasons for believing in freedom, immortality and God, but that is a whole other kettle of fish, and is not relevant to the question of whether we know the in-itself * which, for the last time, by definition, we do not).
The thing in itself is posited as being what gives rise to the thing as it appears. we cannot be conscious of the primary effect on us of things, we can only be conscious of how we come to represent those things to ourselves.
Imagine the universe without humans; what would it be like? Of course, we have no idea, except to say that it wouldn't be like anything, but if we were there it would appear in just the kinds of ways it does, or so we imagine.
Look at it another way: is the world in itself a concatenation of energetic structures that are somehow isomorphic to the structures we perceive? Or is it a world of things that look just like the things as they appear to us. The former seems like a reasonable conjecture, but the latter is naive realism and in view of our scientific understanding of perception and even just on critical analysis seems absurd. If the latter were to be the case, then it would seem there must be a God or universal mind to whom things (which are ideas in its mind) look to it, just as they look to us. Which would make our senses windows onto the mind of God, or some such thing.
The true origin of the possibility of our proofs, is in reason and is a priori.
The origin of the proofs themselves, is in understanding, and is a posteriori.
Quoting Bob Ross
Useful application ..is empirical, for which the phenomenal is constructed, but by understanding, according to conceptions. Understanding is incompetent to construct synthetic principles a priori, but only to construct the conceptions and the synthesis of them to each other, representing the content of those principles. Transcendental application, is neither useful nor empirical, the form of which is merely syllogistic and thus having no empirical content.
. The understanding may be a faculty for the production of unity of phenomena by virtue of rules; reason is a faculty for the production of unity of rules (of the understanding) under principles. Reason, therefore, never applies directly to experience, or to any sensuous object; its object is, on the contrary, the understanding, to the manifold cognition of which it gives a unity à priori by means of conceptions, and which is of a nature very different from that of the unity produced by the understanding .
Quoting Bob Ross
Jeeezz, I hate that expression. Like ..what other world is there? That other worlds are not impossible says not a gawddamn thing about the one were in. And were not in a possible world; were in a necessary world.
Metaphysically necessary merely indicates a condition in a thinking subject. End of story.
A cautionary tale, relevant to the thread topic:
. The success which attends the efforts of reason in the sphere of mathematics naturally fosters the expectation that the same good fortune will be its lot, if it applies the mathematical method in other regions of mental endeavour besides that of quantities. Its success is thus great, because it can support all its conceptions by à priori intuitions and, in this way, make itself a master, as it were, over nature; while pure philosophy, with its à priori discursive conceptions, bungles about in the world of nature, and cannot accredit or show any à priori evidence of the reality of these conceptions.
As we have taken upon us the task of determining, clearly and certainly, the limits of pure reason in the sphere of transcendentalism, and as the efforts of reason in this direction are persisted in, even after the plainest and most expressive warnings, hope still beckoning us past the limits of experience into the splendours of the intellectual worldit becomes necessary to cut away the last anchor of this fallacious and fantastic hope. We shall, accordingly, show that the mathematical method is unattended in the sphere of philosophy by the least advantageexcept, perhaps, that it more plainly exhibits its own inadequacythat geometry and philosophy are two quite different things, although they go hand in hand in the field of natural science, and, consequently, that the procedure of the one can never be imitated by the other.
This just says, while mathematics is that which exhibits absolute certainty, and we are ourselves the author of mathematical procedures, then it is true absolute certainty is possible for us. The cautions lay in thinking that insofar as absolute certainty is possible, we are thus authorized to pursue the experience of some object representing it. But that just wont work, because the objects being pursued are not those we construct of ourselves, but are thought to exist in their own right. And they might, but there are no mathematically derived principles given from pure reason, and by association there can be no absolute certainty contained therein, that can support the reality of that object.
The certainty of mathematics can not be imitated in philosophy.
Question: Is a universal mind an absolute certainty deduced from mathematical principles? If not, the object, represented as a universal mind in our understanding, is a mere philosophical possibility. If all our representations are derived from ideas contained in that which is not itself a certainty, why should we trust that our representations arise from it?
I dunno, man. If I can grasp that all my representations belong to me, and never doubt or question that they do, why would I shadow that certainty with that which has decidedly less so, by thinking to myself that my representations are merely offshoots of something else?
While you are correct in saying it is possible, whats missing is why I should even consider the possibility that analytic idealism holds more persuasions than the transcendental idealism I currently endorse?
So ..what do I gain by granting my representations have their irreducible origin somewhere other than in me?
Hello Janus,
Firstly, Janus, I dont know why you are getting so hostile. I am trying to have a good faith conversation with you about your perspective on Kantianism, and all you are doing is insulting me left and right. Relax my friend! If there is something I am misunderstanding about your view or misrepresenting, then please always feel free to point it out and I will try to re-understand what you are saying. Theres no need to insult one another (:
So, I didnt understand you to be claiming that the object permanence only pertains to the phenomenal world for you, in terms of what you would claim to know. Originally I do not feel that you claimed that:
As you said the above and object permanence typically refers to the claim that the objects persist in the context beyond human representations of the world (which would be beyond the phenomenal one).
Anyways, it doesnt matter, because you are now clarifying that by it you mean something differentsomething like us using object permanence as it pertains only to the phenomenal world.
Heres my problems prima facie with this claim:
1. The idea that object persist in the phenomenal world doesnt make sense unless you are claiming that the phenomenal world are not representations but, rather, productions of your mind or a thing-in-itself. The Kantian idea of the phemonenal world is that just that of the representations we haveobject permanence in those representations would entail that there is something which you perceive, something you represent, which continues to exist wherever you last perceived it which would entail it is outside of your mind and thusly in the things-in-themselves.
2. If you say that your phenomena suggest that there is object permanence, and #1 is true, then you are equally conceding that you can know of the things-in-themselves beyond merely that they exist (even if it is inductive or abductive reasoning).
I understand that you are claiming you can only know of the phenomenal world, and I am trying to show you that it is a self-undermining argument (in terms of Kants argumentation at least). For example, see #1 above.
Its not that I am ignoring what you are saying, I am challenging it.
Again, heres another similar problem to #1 above (I think) with your view: you cant claim any bearings on accuracy or inaccuracy if you cant know anything about the things-in-themselves; and if you want to use accuracy and inaccuracy to refer to the phenomenal world, then you are claiming only that some phenomena are more useful then other phenomena. The moment you claim that a set of phenomena are truly accurate or inaccurate to any degree you are thereby comparing them to something other than phenomena, and that is, by definition, the things-in-themselves. I think to be a Kantian there are much more commitments to be consistent than Kant wanted.
I am not talking about the brain. I am talking about those categories Kants comes up with that are a part of your representative faculty. Unless you want to claim that your representative faculty exist as nothing then you will have to concede that they exist as a thing-in-itself.
It is all metaphysics because metaphysics is the study of that which is beyond the possibility of all experienceand transcendental philosophy is all about trying to infer the representative faculties from experience but those faculties are necessarily beyond all possible experience as the necessary preconditions thereof.
I think, given his background, he was; but, at the very least, he argued for a thing-in-itself I of the synthetic unity of apperception. See Of the Originally Synthetical Unity of Apperception section 12 of CPR for the whole argument, but heres an excerpt:
However, if the I think exists, it is a thing-in-itselfnot phenomena. And if it is a thing-in-itself, then Kant is contradicting his claim that we cannot know about the things-in-themselves.
Bob
Hello Mww,
I thought the origin of the proofs themselves, being in the understanding, would be a priori, would they not?
Or are you claiming that the possibility for math is within our understanding (and thusly a priori), but that we cannot know a priori the mathematical relations of objects a priori?
If so, then I agree.
Also, just a side note, I am a mathematical anti-realist; so, for me, math is not a priori in the sense of being a part of our construction, via the understanding, of the world around us. But I understand from a Kantian view what you are saying.
Agreed.
It isnt that the possible worlds exist but, rather, that under ones metaphysical commitments there is an existence with the potency to actualize the thing, and as such the thing is considered metaphysically possible.
We can be more certain of logical possibility than metaphysical possibility, and actual possibility less than the former and more than the latter.
If by condition you mean the belief that there is an existent thing which has the potency to actualize the said thing, then I agree.
I dont see how this is true if the application of math is a posteriori. There is no absolute certainty in that, unless you are claiming that our constructions of the same things-in-themselves will never waver.
I feel like you are agreeing with me on my previous statement here: correct?
When you say we have absolute certainty in math, are you just referring to what we can know via our faculty of reason? Like, theoretically, we can be absolutely certain that 1 + 1 = 2 without appeal to the empirical world?
I dont think we can deduce any existent thing from math. Math just doesnt afford that information, nor does logic.
The universal mind isnt represented to us as a thing-in-itself--it is the thing-in-itself and, as such, is the substrate of the reality in which we live which is what we represent to ourselves: not the Universal Mind.
We cant be certain of virtually anything. We cant be certain that there is a law of gravity, that math applies to objects in so and so manner, that logic applies to objects in so and so manner, etc. I am a neo-schopenhauerian and, as such, am a neo-neo-Kantian.
I have no problem admitting that we cannot be certain in metaphysics whatsoeverincluding Transcendental Philosophy. I, nor you, can be certain that there are twelve categories of the understanding, or that the understanding constructs the representative world around us. So I just dont see why this is a problem I guess.
But I would say we can get at, just like how metaphysically your representations are of your mind, other aspects metaphysically of reality. Just because you are representing things doesnt mean that we are barred from investigating the things-in-themselves.
And, also, I feel like in order for your argument here to work, that you have to concede that your mind is a thing-in-itself. Otherwise, I have no clue what you mean when you say that it belongs to you.
Theres no certainty in the claim that your conscious experience is a representation produced by your mind: it is based off of a cumulative evidential argument. It explains the data of your experience the best. If you have some proof that provides absolute certainty, then please share it!
Because, just like how it makes the most sense that your mind is representing the real world, it makes sense to account for object permanence and other minds as within an objective world and that that objective world is fundamentally mind.
Because, in my opinion, the transcendental notion that we cannot know the things-in-themselves is self-undermining: your mind is a thing-in-itself and transcendental philosophy is an evidence based analysis thereof. It is doing nothing special in comparison to the rest of good metaphysics. And this is barring you, I think, from fleshing out your whole metaphysical view (because you think that you simply cannot know the things-in-themselves). Whats missing is your account of the rest of the world.
For example, under transcendental idealism I dont think you can claim:
1. There are other minds.
2. That you have a mind.
3. That you have representative faculties.
4. That objects persist in their existences even when you are not perceiving them.
5. Etc
I think a more plausible explanation and account of reality. I can account for object permanence, other minds, my mind, my representative faculties, etc. no problem: I dont think you can.
Bob
I'm not becoming hostile, just impatient. I just don't believe that you are grasping what is meant by things in themselves. So, I am not going to deal with or respond to anything other than that one point at this juncture.
Quoting Bob Ross
The idea of things-in-themselves is not meant to be interpreted as claiming that there are things just like those that are perceived that exist independently of human perception; the "thing" in there is a kind of placeholder for some unknowable X. So, object permanence cannot reasonably be thought to apply to things in themselves, except in the sense that whatever it is that appears to us as invariant objects does so reliably, which suggests, but doesn't prove, that the in itself is invariant.
In truth, we never perceive whole objects, but only views of them from different perspectives, so we construct the notion of whole objects from the various views (and feels) we have of them, and the fact that we can act on them, and the whole picture of a world of objects of more or less invariance is woven together with remarkable consistency by the brain/ mind. Part of this picture consists in the idea of object invariance; this idea is inevitable, even animal behavior shows that they expect objects not to simply disappear when they can't be seen. I observe this when I throw the ball for my dog and it inadvertently goes into the long grass; he never stops searching for it until he finds it showing that he expects it to be there somewhere and not to have simply disappeared.
So, I haven't been arguing that it is provable that the in itself is invariant or that phenomenal objects are "permanent", but that object permanence is the inference to the best explanation in the empirical context, and that regarding noumenal invariance we really have no idea how to assess which explanation would be the more plausible because we have nothing to compare any explanation with. So, if anyone says that they think this or that metaphysical explanation is the most plausible, that really only speaks to their own personal preferences. That, in short, is all I've been arguing for.
But -- to start with, wholes and views aren't opposites; they're different sorts of things altogether, and it's exactly this ambiguity that's troublesome.
So would you rather say we perceive partial objects, out of which we construct a whole in our minds, conceptually, or that we have views of (presumably whole and complete) objects? I've substituted "have" there, but you can stick to "perceive views" if you intended to treat a view as a sort of object.
If the model is that there's something out there, and then our sensorium, and then finally, at the greatest remove from what's out there, our intellect, are phenomena the input to the sensorium, or the output of the sensorium? I'm thinking it's output, which is to say, the input for the intellect.
But that too is ambiguous, and if we expect this account to align with the findings of neuroscience, we have to decide whether to count the processing of perceptual data as part of the intellect or part of the sensorium. If you say intellect, then phenomena are almost nothing, the firing of neurons without considering where those impulses go (must go). But if you say sensorium, then an awful lot has already been done, without your awareness, before it reaches the intellect.
And that's fine, still seems like this is the way to go because that signals processing isn't incidentally unconscious but necessarily so, and we get to call phenomena whatever the first things are that we even can become aware of, whether we happen to be or not.
But at what point do we get objects? That's the question. Does perception make available to awareness uninterpreted views? That looks unlikely. Color constancy suggests that whether something is an object determines how its color is presented to your awareness, and you have no control over this. It seems your perceptual apparatus is already making decisions about which parts of your so-called field of vision are objects, or anyway something has.
And if objects are only offered to your awareness pre-assembled, we might say, then objects are constitutive of phenomena, not the other way around. The alternative is to take intellect to include this unconscious processing, but then I'm really not clear what phenomena are supposed to be. Not views certainly. Not color patches. I really don't know what.
Imagine you have an extremely limited view of something, so limited that you cannot tell what it is you are looking at. Say you are looking through binoculars and you see a patch of brown, then you change the focal length, and you realize it is a brick, then you change it gain and you realize it is a wall of bricks and changing it again you see that the wall is a wall of a building. Are you seeing a building now? Perhaps not, as it turns out it is just a freestanding facade.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
It seems to me we could say that any sensory perception of anything that we recognize as being anything at all would count as a perception of a particular, and particular kind, of object iff it turns out that our recognition is not mistaken.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Since we are not conscious of the process of input to the sensorium, I would agree that phenomena (defined as recognizable sense objects) are the output, so it seems we agree on that.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
I don't see a separable intellect in the process. The idea of the intellect is the idea of a "faculty", an idea which probably does not map well onto a neuroscientific understanding of the brain. It seems to be a kind of reification. Taking vision as paradigmatic, the instant reflected light enters the eye, the proceeds has begun, and it (in the right circumstances) terminates with recognition. But we are conscious only of the recognition (or lack of it). And reading on I see you seem to be saying something similar here:
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
I think perception sometimes presents us with uninterpreted views, but generally not uninterpreted views of familiar objects (unless it is a very unusual circumstance like we have taken a psychedelic for example). If psychedelics switch off the part of the brain that recognizes familiar objects, allowing other parts of the brain which normally do not communicate with one another to communicate, then such an experience of being unable to tell what you were looking at would seem to make sense.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Yes, but as my looking-through-the-binoculars example shows, there is always an ambiguity as to just what is the object; is it a brown patch, a brick, a wall, a building or a free-standing facade? That information may not be given just in the view but may require further investigation. Also, it remains true that we don't generally perceive whole objects at any given time, so memory must be involved in our construction of whole objects.
Cool.
And if we reserve the word phenomena for what we can possibly be aware of, then objects are constitutive of phenomena, agreed?
All this business about views I understand what you're getting at, I just want to be clear that views are not phenomena. Views belong to the perceptual system, which offers to our awareness fully assembled phenomena complete with whole objects. (Ambiguity about how to classify an object makes no difference; it's an object, whatever it turns out to be.)
As you say, there may corner cases, things not working as designed, and the perceptual system throws us something abnormal, but for the most part it's medium-sized dry goods.
Are we still agreed?
:up: Yep, I have no argument with the idea that phenomena are, at least for the most part, objects.
The a priori/a posteriori distinction is determined by the what, not by the where. While understanding creates it own objects, re: numbers, a priori, proofs by means of them would be impossible if they were not made into real objects in the world.
You can think all day long it takes three lines to enclose a space, but youre not going to prove it with apodeitic mathematical certainty, unless you physically draw three real lines in a relation to each other corresponding to the image representing your thinking.
Quoting Bob Ross
Correct. Relations of objects makes explicit experience, which is always and only determinable a posteriori.
Quoting Bob Ross
Agreed, not part of our construction of the world, which begins with phenomena, whereas mathematics ends with them. In the former objects are given to us, in the latter objects are given by us.
Quoting Bob Ross
Sure, but so what? For me, a thing I have yet to experience is already metaphysically possible, simply because it is conceivable as a thing, or a manifold of things, such as a world of things. Youre saying a thing is metaphysically possible insofar as some existence with the potency to actualization some possible thing hasnt done it yet, which is tantamount to a non-natural causality.
Now, I accept the transcendental conception of a non-natural causality, but not with respect to the actualization of metaphysically possible things.
(Paraphrased for simplicity)
Quoting Bob Ross
Transcendental philosophy is a speculative methodology. It doesnt work by claims, which imply possible truths, but by internal logical consistency in the unity of abstract conceptions, same as yours.
On the benefit of analytic idealism:
Quoting Bob Ross
Perhaps, but not more knowledge. So we have between us, one philosophy which demonstrates that some knowledge is impossible given this set of conditions, and another philosophy which demonstrates that the former impossible knowledge really isnt, given a different set of conditions, which in effect, only demonstrates another form of impossible knowledge.
Idealism, in whichever denomination, is always predicated on a subject that cognizes in accordance with a system contained in the form of his intellect. I rather think your idealism has to do with the cognitions, whereas my idealism has to do with the system proper; yours concerns what is thought about, mine with thought itself. Yours is limitless, mine self-limiting.
When considering the pros and cons of each, parsimony should be the rule.
Hello Janus,
Fair enough. Since we began this discussion as a conversation about Kantianism, I am going to assume you mean to be explaining it in terms thereofunless you specify otherwise. In other words, I am going to assume by thing-in-itself you are referring to it in the Kantian sense: please let me know if you are a neo-Kantian or something else.
I agree. Kant calls it a purely negative conception.
I agree.
And heres the problem: you cant say that things-in-themselves cannot be thought of as knowably having object permanence and then turn around and say that the phenomena suggests that the things-in-themselves have object permanence. The phenomena do not suggest anything about the things-in-themselves under Kantianism. Period.
Would you say that we, then, get indirect knowledge of the things-in-themselves? I think that none of the above (that you said) is compatible with Kantianism, but I personally agree with you. Kant argues adamantly that we have absolutely no clue what the things-in-themselves arenot even a reverse engineering of the phenomena. See:
Perhaps you can be a neo-Kantian, but you are clearly contradicting Kant here.
Janus, you are conceding here that you can, at the very least, get at what is suggested of the things-in-themselves via the phenomena, which is clearly not compatible with Kantianism (in its original formulation). I personally agree with you, but then you cant turn around and claim, like a Kantian would (which was my whole point originally with Mww), that we cant do metaphysics beyond transcendental philosophy. Your argument for object invariance here is exactly that: a metaphysical claim pertaining to the things-in-themselves.
It is exactly what you are arguing against right here:
noumenal invariance and object invariance are the same thing: they are both a metaphysical claim about the same things-in-themselves. By definition (of object invariance), we are talking about whatever persists beyond your phenomenal experience and is thusly non-phenomenal (i.e., noumenal).
Bob
Hello Mww,
But the image I draw wont necessarily be accurate and thusly will not prove it in itself. For example, take a circle: the circumference is 2?r. There is no circle, Mww, that you can draw for me that will actually have a circumference of exactly 2?r. The proof is within the abstractions and the drawings are approximations thereof and, consequently, afford no such apodeitic mathematical certainty on there own.
I think you may be saying something different than me while still agreeing on mathematical anti-realism: you seem to be saying that math is ingrained into the a priori construction of the phenomenal world, whereas I am not even granting that much.
I think that our mathematical formulas are good estimations of our qualitative experience, which is necessarily not quantitativeso theres no math in it. Reality is fundamentally a clash of wills.
But not all conceivable things are metaphysically possible. For example, under your metaphysics the understanding is not a phenomena: so it is metaphysically impossible for the understanding to be a phenomena. However, we can both imagine a world where the understanding is phenomena. But that doesnt matter because, under your metaphysical view, thats impossible because there is nothing you believe than actualize that potential.
I dont see how this follows. Something can have the potential to be actualized metaphysically and be perfectly natural. For example, under my view, it is actually and metaphysically possible for the ball at the top of the hill to fall to the ground because I belief the world has to offer such things that could actualize it.
I didnt follow this point: what do you mean by the non-natural causality in transcendental philosophy? And what do you mean in terms of its contradistinction to the actualization of metaphysically possible things?
I am failing to see how this was a response to my objections that you quoted. What do you mean by it doesnt work by claims?
What is the other form of impossible knowledge that my theory conceives?
Correct.
I think from your perspective I am skipping over the representative faculty of my mind which is supposed to the ultimate metaphysical dead-end. Whereas, I think we can extend the same metaphysical inquiries to all of reality.
I can agree with this to a certain extent; but I also hold that our minds are representative facultieshowever, I dont think it is cogent to claim that we can only go that far. Likewise, as a side note, I am not thoroughly convinced of Kants 12 categories: I appreciated Schopenhauers idea of the understanding as simply the PSR of becoming better.
Fair.
Parsimony, internal/external coherence, empirical adequacy, intuitions, explanatory power, reliability, and credence. I would say.
Bob
If things-in-themselves are responsible for producing the phenomenal things, and the phenomenal things are reliably invariant (to varying degrees according to the phenomena under consideration, of course) then we can say that things in themselves reliably give rise to invariant phenomena. That doesn't say anything about the things in themselves being invariant in themselves, though.
Quoting Bob Ross
What I meant there is the same as what I said above; we have no warrant for saying that things-in-themselves are invariant in themselves, but we do know that they are invariant in the sense that they reliably produce invariant phenomena. In positing things-in-themselves as being the things that give rise to the appearance of phenomenal things I'd say Kant must be committed to that much.
Now I admit that there is a tension here in the Kantian idea that we know absolutely nothing about things-in-themselves, but I don't think it amounts to an outright inconsistency.
However, I am not a Kant scholar, so I can't say whether Kant addresses this area of potential tension or passes it over. In any case, the point is that if all we know about things in themselves is that they invariably produce invariant phenomena, then it remains that we know nothing at all about what they are in themselves.
Quoting Bob Ross
If "the nature and relations of objects in space and time" and space and time themselves are human representations, human perceptions, then it would seem to follow that these cannot exist apart from human experience. Look at it another way: what could it even mean to say that the objects and relations and the very modalities themselves of human experience existed absent human experience? All he is saying is that the phenomena of perception cannot exist absent perception, and that seems right, doesn't it?
Quoting Bob Ross
No, you're misunderstanding again. I'm only talking about the natural expectations of the dog that objects don't simply disappear when not being perceived. And we know they don't because they are generally always there where they were last time we looked. But this speaks only to the phenomenal objects, it says nothing about the things-in-themselves other than that they must be thought to somehow invariably produce this object permanence.
Quoting Bob Ross
No, they are not the same thing, Bob. It might seem inconceivable to us that something could produce a world of differentiated and diversely invariant objects without being differentiated and invariant in itself, but it doesn't follow that we therefore know that the in itself must be differentiated and invariant. We might think that to be the most plausible explanation, but quantum physics might make us think twice about that (even though quantum physics only talks about how things are as they appear to us, we might think it is the closest we can get to the in itself, and it presents us with counter-intuitive and paradoxical pictures).
.
One of the subtleties of metaphysics in general, is the recognition that only through reason can reason be examined, from which follows that all that is reasoned about is predicated on what is reason is. This is, of course, the epitome of circularity, and because it is inevitable, it best be kept to a minimum. No one has admitted to having sufficient explanation for how we arrive at representations, even while many philosophize concerning what they do in a speculative theory, justifying their inclusions in it. So saying, to posit an additional representational faculty, doing what it does and we not being able to say how it does what it does, stretches circularity beyond what couldnt be explained beforehand.
Quoting Bob Ross
I mean you are correct, in that there are things, such as those you listed, that I have no warrant to claim, either as fact objectively, or as irreducible truth subjectively, which is exactly the conditions under which transcendental philosophy is to be understood.
Quoting Bob Ross
You hold that knowledge of the nature of the thing-in-itself is knowable, which is knowledge I hold as impossible, yet you hold with the mind as a representational faculty, which is something impossible to know without the antecedent knowledge there is a mind, and, the nature of it is such that it has representational capabilities.
Quoting Bob Ross
That the world offers (or withholds) is just another way of saying theres a set of relations between the world and its objects, one set of relations and this happens, another set of relations and that happens which is the same as this doesnt happen, all from the perspective of an intelligence capable of characterizing relations.
Quoting Bob Ross
If conception is itself a metaphysical function, and if possibility is a metaphysical condition, then whatever is conceivable must be metaphysically possible.
Quoting Bob Ross
No matter what was turned around from, or by whom, I never said nor hinted there is no metaphysics beyond transcendental philosophy, or that all metaphysics is necessarily predicated on transcendental philosophys critical method.
. (That for) which, with all its preliminaries, has for its especial object the solution of these problems (of pre reason) is named metaphysics .
One can attempt to solves pure reasons problems, including the one of singular importance, any way he wishes, depending on the preliminaries he uses.
Perhaps you might be so kind as to reiterate what your whole point originally was, with respect to what you said there.
Do you have an idea as to why your system is called analytic idealism, insofar as it is a metaphysical doctrine?
Hello Janus,
I think it does, because the only way a thing a representation can be invariant is if either (1) the mind of which it is produced simply fabricates it as such, or (2) the object of which it is representing (which is a thing-in-itself) is invariant. Theres no other options by my lights.
I understand what you are saying here, but this is predicated on the idea that there is another option, plausibly, other than #1 and #2 above.
I dont think so because I think #1 and #2 are the only options, and Kant denies #2; so #1 is the only thing plausibly left. Otherwise, Kant (and you) would be saying that the invariance of the phenomena are not fabrications of ones mind and they arent a reflection of the objects themselvesbut if the latter is true then they their invariance must be due to the mind.
I think, given what I said above, it is an inconsistency. Either the minds representative faculty cause the invariance, or the things-in-themselves which are being represented do: theres no third option. So to make a claim like we can know phenomenal invariance but nothing about the things-in-themselves, to me, is claiming a third option that cant exist.
By my lights, if space and time are pure intuitions, then the phenomenal permanence must be in our minds representative faculties (and not the things-in-themselves)unless one wants to posit a second outer space and time beyond our minds. If this is the case, though, then theres no reason to believe that there are outer objects (things-in-themselves) in any sense that we perceive them, and thusly, that they have permanence (other than our minds creating them fictitiously as permanent).
I dont think thats just what he is saying: our perceptions are all we can know according to him; they are perceptions of X, and X is never knowable. Thusly, we cant even know that the things-in-themselves have object permanence, which I think is highly unparsimonious.
If dont think you can know that the things-in-themselves produce the permanence (which you cant if Kant is right), then the only other option is that the mind creates it as a matter of fictionwhich would mean that it isnt there when you arent perceiving it.
To me, it does. Otherwise, you are invoking magic, which is always unparsimonious. (1) the mind of which it is produced simply fabricates it as such, or (2) the object of which it is representing (which is a thing-in-itself) is invariant.
Likewise, to say that the phenomenal invariance is caused by something which itself is not invariant is to say that it is a mere appearance and thusly there isnt really object permanence.
Think of it this way: if the things-in-themselves are not persisting when you are not representing them but yet your phenomenal experience of them is that they are persistent, then the only option available to you is that the mind is fabricating it and thusly the persistence is an illusion: the object doesnt persist when you are not looking at it because that persistence is a feature of your mind.
I dont see how quantum mechanics is helping your case: could you please elaborate?
Bob
Hello Mww,
This is fair.
Oh I see. Are you agreeing with me then that:
[/quote]For example, under transcendental idealism I dont think you can claim: there are other minds; that you have a mind; that you have representative faculties; that objects persist in their existences even when you are not perceiving them, etc[/quote]
I am not following which part of this is impossible knowledge (other than your claim that we cannot know the things-in-themselves). Yes, I think we can know that there are minds that represent the world around to themselves: what is impossible (in terms of knowledge) about that?
Why would conceptions be a metaphysical function?
I apologize: I must have misunderstood you. I thought you were claiming that we cannot perform valid metaphysics beyond transcendental philosophyas we cannot know the things-in-themselves. Is that incorrect?
I wasnt saying that you were defining metaphysics as only transcendental philosophy but, rather, that you would claim we cannot do metaphysics beyond transcendental investigations because that is impossible knowledge for you.
With respect to what was said there, I was saying responding to:
And the part you quoted was here (in its full context):
I am discussing with Janus about whether one, as a Kantian, can claim there is object permanence. Janus believes so (under the conditions they are explaining), and I say no. When I invoked you I was just tying in our conversation that I think we can go beyond transcendental metaphysics, and I think you would say we cant (because knowledge of the things-in-themselves) is impossible. I think this is a self-undermining under Kantianism (for many reasons that we have already expounded).
I apologize if I misrepresented you there, please correct me where I am wrong.
It is originally called analytic idealism because it is formulated under the Analytic school of philosophy, but I like it, beyond that personally, due to my definition of objectivity: so I prefer saying analytic idealism over objective idealism because I dont like misusing the term objective in that manner. Technically, it is a form of objective idealism as formulated by Kastrup.
Bob
The way I see it, everything that is outside of our conscious experience including what we don't know about ourselves is what we refer to apophatically as the noumenal. We know that we experience invariant objects in invariant environments, and all we can do regarding what is beyond our knowledge and experience is try to imagine what that noumenal being is; the problem with that being that all our imaginings are in terms of what we know of the experienced world.
So, there may be no other option for you than the two you outlined there, but that says everything about you and nothing about the noumenal as I see it. For me the other option, apart from the inevitably aporetic imaginable ones, is simply that we cannot know, and have no way of comparing our conjectures about the noumenal with anything in order to assess their plausibility.
Quoting Bob Ross
Our minds, by themselves, being as far as we can tell, unconnected with one another cannot plausibly be thought to cause invariances which are common to all percipients. So the thing-in-itself must cause the invariance; that is it must be mind-independent, in the sense of being independent of any and all individual minds (which are the only minds we know about). But, as I have said, it doesn't follow that the thing in itself is invariant, other than in its capacity to cause experienced invariance. Perhaps, it might be thought, as per some recent theses in QM, that everything is really one thing: an entangled unity; but then we have the problem of how it could produce experienced diversity.
Face it Bob, whatever we imagine about the noumenal, we are always going to run up against aporias. Personally, I think this is because all our categories of thought are based on our dualistic mode of thinking, and those categories just don't apply to the noumenal. If this is right, the noumenal can never be experienced or understood and our speculations are merely "pouring from the empty into the void". All that said, if you enjoy speculating then go for it, but I'd be wary of taking those speculations seriously.
I'm going to leave it there, Bob: it's been fun, but we are inevitably going to continue to go around in circles. Thanks for the conversation.
I dont think theres sufficient warrant to claim there are other minds in any case, but it is nonetheless reasonable to suppose there are.
I recognize the ubiquity of the conventional use of the word, but I personally dont hold with minds as something a human being has. I consider it justified to substitute reason for mind anywhere in a dialectic without detriment to it, given the fact it is impossible to deny, all else being equal, that every human is a thinking subject. On the other hand, I am perfectly aware I am a thinking subject, which authorizes me to claim reason for myself, and that beyond all doubt.
I dont claim representational faculties, but affirm the predicates of a speculative philosophy that presupposes them. They are explanatory devices in a discipline where the empirical support of experience is absent.
That objects do not persist in the absence of perception leads to irreconcilable contradictions, which suggests the claim as to whether or not they do, is an irrational inquiry. The logical consistency inherent in human intelligence demands only that which can be said about the relation a perceived object has with me, as opposed to the relation an unperceived object has with me, in either case the objects existence is presupposed, from which follows the ontology of the object should never be in question.
The absurdity resides in the notion that if non-perception implies non-existence, then my perception is necessary existential causality itself. But it is absolutely impossible for me to cause the existence of whatever I wish to perceive, as well as to not perceive that of which I have no wish whatsoever, which makes explicit the only existences I could possibly be the causality of, is that which was already caused otherwise, which is all my perceptions could ever tell me anyway.
Then there is time. If I am the cause of an objects existence merely from my perception of it, then the time of my perception is identical to the time of the objects existence, which is the same as my having attributed to that object the property of time. But time, as well as space, can never be assigned as a property, therefore the time or space of the objects existence cannot be an attribution of mine, which makes explicit the time and space of an unperceived object is a duration of a time in general and a position in a space in general, which for me is the same as any time and space in general, which is not necessarily the particular time and space of the object of my perception.
-
Quoting Bob Ross
In order to know a thing in the strictest sense, it must manifest as an experience. What is impossible (in terms of knowledge) about that, is that minds of any form are never going to manifest as an experience. You alternative is to not conceive minds that represent the world, as things, or, to characterize knowledge as something other than that which manifests as experience.
Complicated further but the annexation of to themselves. If it is the case minds that represent are not met with the criteria for knowledge, then a mind that represents to itself is unintelligible.
So the question remains ..how would such knowledge be possible? How is it that you think that which the judgement represents, can be known?
Quoting Bob Ross
That we cannot know the thing-in-itself has nothing to do with metaphysics. Metaphysics proper concerns itself with solutions to the problems pure reason brings upon itself, of which the thing-in-itself is not one. In fact, the thing-in-itself shouldnt be a problem in any case, under the purview of the theory from which it originates, re: transcendental philosophy. There are those that make a problem out of it merely by altering judgement of its original conception and its subsequent derivatives, which just culminates in the installation of a different philosophy.
You mentioned good vs bad metaphysics a few pages ago. I didnt think that a worthy distinction then, and I dont think valid/invalid metaphysics to be any better now. Good vs bad logic in conjunction with experience or possible experience, for whatever metaphysics, has better service.
Quoting Bob Ross
Ahhhh thats it? Transcendental idealism shifted the entire idealistic paradigm, so I figured that which attempts to shift it again, would shift from that. There is a short missive in CPR which sets the ground for its doctrine, which says metaphysics is predicated necessarily on the possibility of synthetic a priori cognitions, then goes about proving there are such things which validates the ground initially set as a premise. That to which synthetic cognitions are juxtaposed, are analytic, so .I just figured the new style of idealism wanted to be grounded in pure analytic cognitions, which are mere tautologies necessarily true in themselves, which, of course, a universal mind would have to be, re: self-evident. I mean .what would there be to synthesize to a universal, which makes synthetic cognitions with respect to that concept, impossible, which means that condition must itself be, well ..analytic.
But now .never mind. Just flew into my head, in keeping with what some philosophers historically do with themselves: take what one said, change this and that a little bit, present it as something new and different.
Fair enough my friend! I enjoyed our conversation and look forward to future ones!
Have a wonderful day!
Bob
Hello Mww,
Why would it be reasonable if you cannot know anything about the things-in-themselves, which would include other minds? Wouldnt it be most reasonable to be an epistemic solipsist?
But there are things about you as a mind you cannot prove of others without venturing into metaphysical claims about the things-in-themselves. Yes, we all reason, but thats really not what a mind is in the context of solipsism. It just seems like an evasion (inadvertently) of the real issue I am trying to address here to say that mind is merely reasoning.
Likewise, you cant prove, even if that is the case that we all reason, that we are the ones reasoning. Do you agree with me on that?
Yes, but if you cant know anything about the things-in-themselves, then you cant know that it is absurd for your mind to be producing it all.
Time and space arent properties of objects per se, but you are, under transcendental idealism, producing them under space and time. Saying that the objects only exist in your perception is just to say that there no corresponding object beyond those forms of space and time: it isnt to say that the objects themselves can be attributed the property of time in the same manner as the property of being red.
It can agree with this, as a matter of semantics, if you are saying that possible knowledge is that which one experiences; but then this just pushes the question back: why cant we say that possible knowledge goes beyond our experiences?
Also, as a side note, wouldnt it be impossible to know that, for example, your mind uses pure conceptions of the understanding to produce the world if we are defining possible knowledge as only that which we experience? Because we definitely dont experience that.
Because we can tell that our perception of the world is dictated by our representative faculties. For example, there are color blind people: this is due to their minds representing the world with disabled functionality.
It most certainly is. Metaphysics is about understanding that which is beyond all possibility of experience, and that includes transcendental philosophy.
Things-in-themselves are beyond the possibility of all experience.
Metaphysics predicated solely on logic is bad metaphysics. That only gets them to a logically consistent view. Parsinomy, coherence, empirical adequacy, and intuitions are just some examples of pertinent non-logical factors.
Analytic Idealism, I would say, is just pure ontolotical idealism; whereas transcendental idealism is really only epistemic idealismit isnt idealism in the ontological sense. So I wouldnt say analytic idealism has shifted the paradigm again, this is an old view starting with schopenhauer, plato, etc.
I am not sure I completely followed this, but the idea would be to say simply that the universal mind is the best explanation for the world that is given to us. Also, I dont think it uses Kants synthetic vs. analytic distinction; or if it does then it denies that the reality which we can know is purely synthetic of our minds.
Bob
Things-in-themselves concerns things. Minds are not things. Things-in-themselves do not include minds.
Quoting Bob Ross
I am not a mind; I am a conscious intelligence, a thinking subject, which is certainly a metaphysical claim. Notice the conspicuous lack of mention for the thing-in-itself. My body is never absent from my representational faculties, insofar as they are contained in it, thus is always a thing and never a thing-in-itself.
Quoting Bob Ross
I didnt say mind was merely reasoning. Such idea makes no sense to me. As well, Im responding in kind to your verbatim comments, so if Im evading its because I am not aware of what youre trying to address.
Quoting Bob Ross
Sure. It is not impossible what I consider as thinking really isnt, but is in fact merely the material complexity of my brain manifesting as the seeming of thought. So, what ..youre trying to say that because it is not impossible for thinking to be other than it seems, the door is thereby left open for my thinking to be a manifestation of something even outside my own brain? Perhaps thats no more than the exchange of not impossible regarding brains, for vanishingly improbable for external universal entity.
Quoting Bob Ross
No. I am not producing objects. I am producing representations of them, and those under, or conditioned by, space and time.
Quoting Bob Ross
Sure, but no one has sufficient justification for saying objects only exist in perception, which makes the rest irrelevant.
Quoting Bob Ross
Semantics, huh? Why dont we just agree that if you know a thing, youve experienced it.
Quoting Bob Ross
Why wouldnt that be true? The truth of that doesnt affect the premise that if a thing is known it must have been an experience, and doesnt affect possible experience.
Quoting Bob Ross
Of course. The categories are nothing but theoretical constructs. It is merely a logically consistent speculation that understanding relates pure conceptions to cognition of things. Pretty hard to experience a theory, right?
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Quoting Bob Ross
Now, for me, this is exactly backwards. I mean what comes first, the appearance of a thing, or the representation of it? Our understanding of the world is dictated by our representational faculties.
Quoting Bob Ross
Ehhhhh ..we just have different ideas of what entails metaphysics. While it may be fine to say it is understood for something to be beyond the possibility of all experience, it remains the case that understanding is not authorized to say what that something is, but only that the criteria for experience has not been met.
Understanding cannot inform what things are not conditioned by the categories, but only informs regarding those that are. Without the categorical criteria, understanding can still conceive on its own, but mere conception is by no means sufficient causality, from which follows that understanding cannot determine the ground of experience on its own accord. Something else must intervene, in order for subsequent understanding to grant the invalidity of its conceptions .the error in its judgement with respect to possible experience because of them.
. By exposition, I mean the clear, though not detailed, representation of that which belongs to a conception; and an exposition is metaphysical when it contains that which represents the conception as given à priori.
Yours wants the content of a conception as metaphysical, which is an exposition of it; mine wants that there are conceptions, including their content, not thought spontaneously as in understanding in conjunction with a synthesis of relations, but given complete in themselves from a pure a priori source. Reason is the only human faculty with the power to forward conceptions complete in themselves, which are called objects of reason, or, transcendental objects, and are not at all objects of experience.
So, yes, it is understood there are things beyond experience, but metaphysics in relation to understanding is not how they are given.
Quoting Bob Ross
And of course, the thing-in-itself is no more that a full-fledged, self-contained conception arising from ..thats right pure reason. A metaphysical conception understood within an empirical domain, but not given from it.
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Quoting Bob Ross
That sounds reasonable to me, and also serves as a barrier for the compatibility of our respective philosophies. Which is fine, I dont mind, but well run out of things to discuss sooner rather than later.
Hello Mww,
Are you a substance dualist? It sounds like you are saying there are minds which are of a mental substance and there are things-in-themselves which are a part of a physical substance. Otherwise, I do not know what you mean here.
But, traditionally, a mind is a conscious intelligencea thinking subject which has qualia.
I agree that the body is not a thing-in-itself, but the mind (or something else) must be. Even if the mind is not a thing in the sense of being of a physical substance, it is a thing-in-itself of a mental substance. Thing here is being used more vaguely as a purely negative conception (like Kant used it). It could be a mental thing or a physical thing.
Sorry, I must have misunderstood then. What is a mind to you then?
I am saying that you cant prove, because you think we cannot know anything about the things-in-themselves (even probabilistically speaking), that (1) other people have conscious experience and (2) that your own thoughts are associated with an I which is beyond the phenomena.
You cant appeal to probability nor plausibility for #1 or #2 because you are saying we cannot know the things-in-themselves, and those claims are about them: even if it is about fundamentally mental things.
Correct, I misspoke: I was saying that space and time are produced by your mind, not that the objects themselves are. They are produced by your mind because they are the pure forms of intuition that your mind uses to represent objects.
You cant appeal to the lack of justification for objects existing in perception because, according to Kant and you, we cannot know anything about the things-in-themselves: we can only know the phenomena. If theres no justification for saying there are objects (of which you cant make if you cant claim stuff about things-in-themselves), then we simply cannot know. If we cannot know, then you cant say there is object permanence. My point is that you cannot refute (even probabilistically) the claim that your mind produces the objects without making an assumption about the things-in-themselves, which you arent supposed to be able to do.
I said:
If by if you know a thing, youve experienced it, you just mean that youve experienced something, then, sure, that is true; but it is an uninformative tautology.
The question up for debate here is whether you have justification for claiming there are things-in-themselves that are being represented in that experiencenot that having an experience is having an experience.
You cant claim that possible knowledge goes beyond our experiences (quite frankly: your experiences) because that is non-phenomena, which are, by definition, things-in-themselves; and you cannot know anything about those.
But this is exactly what people who venture into understanding the things-in-themselves do! They speculate about them and come to the most reasonable conclusion in coherence with experience. So why think we cannot do that?
The appearance, then the representation. We come to know that is the case from the other way around.
We extrapolate that the representations we see are just that: representations. And there are appearances that come first to those representations. Our understanding of the world is dictated by our representational faculties, but that doesnt mean we cant give cogent accounts of beyond that; which includes the claim that we are beings that exists in a transcendent world with representative faculties.
Thats fine! As long as we understand what each other are saying.
Then you cant claim that you have a mind. You cant claim that you have representative faculties. You cant claim that your representative faculties use pure conceptions. These are all beyond the possibility of all experience.
But you cannot equally know, by your previous claim quoted above this one, that there are categories: they are likewise beyond the possibility of all experience.
Correct. Which, under yours, then, you must be, by my lights, an epistemic solipsist. You must not know if there is object permanence, etc. because all your reprsentations are purely a priori and cannot be derived farther back than that. It just seems to me like an incredibly unparsimonious account of reality.
Bob
I only said what my mind is not. Ive said before I dont hold that minds are anything beyond an object of reason, which negates that I may be whats referred to as a substance dualist.
Quoting Bob Ross
Oh. A new tradition, then. The old one didnt need qualia for conscious intelligence. Got along rather well without them, actually. A pair of shoes with a pretty shine, is still just a pair of shoes.
Quoting Bob Ross
Ok. Why must it be? For a mind, or something else which serves the same purpose, to be a thing-in-itself makes necessary it is first and foremost, a thing. Says so right there in the name.
Quoting Bob Ross
This looks like a way to force acknowledgement for the existence of a mind. The thing-in-itself is a physical reality, so if the mind is a thing-in-itself in a mental reality, then thats sufficient reason to justify its existence? Which still requires an exposition for mental substance such that mind can emerge from it. Are you using Descartes for that exposition? Its in Principia Philosophiae 1, 51-53, 1644, if you want to see how yours and his compare.
Quoting Bob Ross
I am not accounting for reality; Im accounting, by means of a logical methodology, realitys relation to me.
Youre correct, in that I dont know any of those things you listed, in the same manner as I know the things of my experience. But I know with apodeictic certainty the conditions under which the relations logic obtains, and from which my experiences follow, do not contradict Nature, which is all I need to know. Course, I might someday trust that logic so far that it kills me, but it hasnt yet, so I must be doing something right. Or at least not wrong enough to sustain permanent damage.
You want me to go further in my accounting, but I dont see any need for it.
Do you see that neither of your follow-ups relate to what I said?
Possible knowledge, knowledge not in residence, cannot be from experience that is.
To experience is not necessarily to know, but to know is necessarily to experience.
Justification for claiming things-in-themselves are being represented in experience, should never be a question up for debate, and if it does arise as such, it can only be from a different conception of it. To represent a thing-in-itself in its original iteration, is self-contradictory, insofar as the thing-in-itself is exactly what is NOT developed in the human intuitive faculty for representing sensible things.
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Quoting Bob Ross
Then why isnt such cogent account given by the understanding thats already dictated our understanding of the world? If it can, then it hasnt dictated as much as merely proposed, and if it cant then its dictation is all it is capable of doing, which releases anything beyond it from being an object of it, which in turn means there wont be a further cogent account.
But I get it. Reason can always influence understanding by enabling thoughts or chain of thinking beyond that which is dictated by the representational faculties. The old, what if .. scenario, which only reason can initiate, and in so doing requests that understanding bend its own rules. Which is fine, obviously, in that empirical science advances in no other way, except for sheer accident. Thing is, though, empirical science is checked by either Nature or experience, whereas pure mental exercise has no such check, but relies on self-correction in the form of logical juxtaposition to synthetic a priori principles, like.. . no, son, you cannot enclose a space with two straight lines. Dont even go there.
So it turns out, not only does reason ask understanding to bend its own rules, but justifies the request because it has already bent its own principles. If that happens, there are no checks and balances left at all, and there manifests an intellectual free-for-all where anything goes, an embarrassment to the dignity of proper philosophy ., so those old-time actual professional philosophers would have us know.
Hello Mww,
I see. Would you say that your mind does not exist in the things-in-themselves? If so, then what other possible options (to you) are their for where it resides?
It has to be a thing (either of a mental or physical substance) if it to be distinguishable from nothing: only things which do not exist are not of a substance. Are you saying that mind is just an emergent property from something else (that is the thing-in-itself)? I am having a hard time pinning down what you are saying here. Bottom line, to me, the mind, or whatever it is emergent from, must be traced back to something which is a thing-in-itself. If it is not itself the thing-in-itself, then it is an illusion. If it neither an illusion nor a thing-in-itself, then it doesnt exist.
Its meant to force acknowledge that the mind is of something. Either it is the thing-in-itself, emergent of a thing-in-itself, or it simply doesnt exist.
How could you know that if things-in-themselves are purely negative conceptions?
One could claim that something is eternal and of a mental substance. It doesnt necessarily have to be emergent from. I am just trying to pin down what you think a mind is, and so far is seems like just reason and the unknown.
Thank you for the reference, but, unfortunately I have not read that nor was I able to parse your citation to find it in a free PDF version of the book. Could you perhaps include in a the excerpt if you already know what you are referencing? Otherwise, no worries.
yes, but you are fundamentally saying that reality, true reality, is beyond our epistemic limits. And this entails a long of, in my opinion, unparsimonous positions (e.g., cannto know of object permanence, minds, ones mind being a representative faculty, etc.).
How do you know it doesnt contradict nature if you cant know anything about true nature? These are the kinds of weird implications I see if I were to commit myself to transcendent idealism.
No I dont see that. But let me try to address:
Why can possible knowledge not be from experience? Wouldnt you have to know that your mind isnt producing the objects? And wouldnt that requiring knowledge of the things-in-themselves?
Why??? This is just a flat assertion: I am asking exactly that! If you cant know anything about the things-in-themselves, if you are truly trapped within your phenomenal experience, then why would you even know there are things-in-themselves? It seems like you are just appealing to an intuition here. I have no problem with that BUT I can do the same exact thing about things-in-themselves.
Again: why??? Its just flatly asserted that we cant question (e.g., its self-contradictory) that there are things-in-themselves, but all of my knowledge that I am represented something is phenomena! I thought those shouldnt tell us anything about the things-in-themselves? The schema Kant as come up with here undermines itself to me.
What do you mean? I didnt follow this part.
If I am understanding you correctly, then you are using the understanding vs. reason semantics from Kant (which is fine). If so, then I would say that (1) your ability to acquire the knowledge of the understanding is just metaphysics (and is no different than what I am doing) and (2) I reject Kants formulation of it as merely an exposition of reason as opposed to the understanding. Maybe if I was convinced that we really had these twelve categories of the understanding and such, then I would be metaphysically cut off from further inquiry beyond that.
Maybe expound whatever proof you found convincing for Kants twelve categories: that might help me understand better.
As of now, I dont buy this. We use parsimony, coherence, intuitions, reliability, consistency, empirical adequacy, etc. and this doesnt require us to limit ourselves to transcendental investigations.
Bob
I dont think so. Not exactly. You can do as you wish, re: appeal to intuition, but you must first treat the thing-in-itself differently, such that it is all and only that which appears to be represented in intuition as a phenomenon. The established condition is that it is not, therefore you must show that it is. In order to do that, you must treat it differently. Which is fine, you are certainly authorized by your reason a priori. Just, not in accordance with Kantian transcendental philosophy.
Quoting Bob Ross
Experience is present or past; possible knowledge is future. Possible knowledge requires possible experience. Seems pretty cut and dried to me.
Quoting Bob Ross
Yeah, but I want to know if all those reduce to something that grounds them all, or if there is not. For that investigation, a transcendental method, insofar as a priori cognitions are the only way for my determinations with respect to those wishes to manifest and a transcendental method proves the validity of them, I am well served by it.
Quoting Bob Ross
(1) .correct. I dont acquire the knowledge of understanding; it is methodologically given as a faculty contained in and used by a speculative system, and is thereby just metaphysics;
(2) .reject to your own satisfaction. That doesnt detract from the ground of the formulation which shows what the opposition is.
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Quoting Bob Ross
. Transcendental analytic is the dissection of the whole of our à priori knowledge into the elements of the pure cognition of the understanding. In order to effect our purpose, it is necessary: (1) That the conceptions be pure and not empirical; (2) That they belong not to intuition and sensibility, but to thought and understanding; (3) That they be elementary conceptions, and as such, quite different from deduced or compound conceptions; (4) That our table of these elementary conceptions be complete, and fill up the whole sphere of the pure understanding. Now this completeness of a science cannot be accepted with confidence on the guarantee of a mere estimate of its existence in an aggregate formed only by means of repeated experiments and attempts. The completeness which we require is possible only by means of an idea of the totality of the à priori cognition of the understanding, and through the thereby determined division of the conceptions which form the said whole; consequently, only by means of their connection in a system. Pure understanding distinguishes itself not merely from everything empirical, but also completely from all sensibility. It is a unity self-subsistent, self-sufficient, and not to be enlarged by any additions from without. Hence the sum of its cognition constitutes a system to be determined by and comprised under an idea; and the completeness and articulation of this system can at the same time serve as a test of the correctness and genuineness of all the parts of cognition that belong to it ..
Convinced of a proof grounded in an idea? Nahhhh .no more than persuaded, and that in conjunction with his claim that hes thought of everything relevant, and needs nothing from me to complete the thesis. For me to think he could have done better, or that he trips all over himself, implies Im smarter than he, which I readily admit as hardly being the case.
Funny, though, innit? To help you understand? You realize, dont you, that is beyond my abilities? No matter what anybody says in attempting to help you, youre still on your own after theyve said whatever it is they going to say. And because youve rejected some parts, it isnt likely youre going to understand the remainder as a systemic whole, which necessarily relates to the parts rejected.
My interest here is waning , sorry to say.
Hello Mww,
Absolutely no worries! We can stop at anytime that you deem fit.
I didnt see a proof in that quote of the 12 categories of the understanding but, rather, a summary of transcendental philosophy.
Come on Mwww! (; If you are convinced that there are twelve categories, then you should be able to articulate the proof that convinced you. I am not asking for a super meticulous exposition of all of transcendental philosophy: I already understand the basic transcendental idealistic context for the argument.
I am just curious, within that context, why you would think there are these twelve categories. Why not, for example, hold there is one: the PSR of becoming. Why place the function and purpose of reason in the understanding, such as concepts?
Bob
I can't help interjecting here, since I have already explained this to you. The categories of understanding are identifiable simply by reflecting on the ways we experience and judge things; nothing at all to do with the thing-in-itself.
The problem is, Bob, I don't think you are listening to anyone else.
Because, as you say, its a summary, or an abstract, sort of, hence there isnt a proof per se. There is only, in the text that follows, an affirmative argument for something, at the time, that had never even been considered by any of his peers.
quote="Bob Ross;817972"] you should be able to articulate the proof that convinced you.[/quote]
My conviction regarding the fact of the categories is irrelevant. Im sufficiently persuaded by the affirmative argument to think hes come up with a perfectly fascinating metaphysical theory. Thats it.
. If a judgement is valid for every rational being, then its ground is objectively sufficient, and it is termed a conviction. If, on the other hand, it has its ground in the particular character of the subject, it is termed a persuasion. .
I could articulate the argument, but all Id doing is reading the book to you. To be as fair as possible, re: not imbue my interpretive subjectivity into a text, you should study it for yourself. Cut out the middleman, so to speak.
Now you may say youve already done that, but your interpretation is so different from mine that youre just looking for clarity. But what if Ive got it all wrong? Then youre right where you started, anyway, left with your own understanding. As it should be.
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Addendum: Fancy-talk for dammit!! I saw this but forgot to mention it:
On your Of The Originally Synthetical Unity of Apperception quote, the very next line after what you posted, shoots your argument in the foot. The I think is a representation, therefore not a thing-in-itself, which is, of course, never that which can be represented.
.. But this representation, I think, is an act of spontaneity; that is to say, it cannot be regarded as belonging to mere sensibility. I call it pure apperception, in order to distinguish it from empirical; or primitive apperception, because it is self-consciousness which, whilst it gives birth to the representation I think, must necessarily be capable of accompanying all our representations ..
Just sayin ..
Hello Janus,
All I was asking Mww in the quote you made of me was to expound briefly the argument for the twelve categories that he hold and not that he is trying to prove that they are things-in-themselves nor a part of a thing-in-itself.
Now, you correct that I do think that the 12 categories, if they existed, would be a part of a mind which, in turn, would be a thing-in-itself; but that is irrelevant to what I was asking Mww for.
I hope that is not the case: I do my absolute best to hear everyones perspectives; but I just think it is wrong to think that we can claim there are 12 categories of the understanding and not admit to ourselves that the understanding is either an (1) illusion or (2) a part of a thing-in-itself.
I appreciate your chiming in and please continue to do so as you deem fit!
Bob
Hello Mww,
If you would like to not give a proof, then that is perfectly fine. But, to clarify, I am saying I would like to hear your proof (or argument) for what convinced you of it.
Its not irrelevant to me, and what is the affirmative argument? To me, Kant just asserts it flat out and super speculatively in CPR. Im curious what convinced you, as you clearly interpreted the text differently than me.
I dont think it did. Heres the whole snippet:
He is clearly explicating that there is a phenomenal appearance of a self and a transcendental self; and that the transcendental self is the necessary precondition (i.e., subject: mind) for the former.
Bob
. because it is self-consciousness which, whilst it gives birth to the representation I think, must necessarily be capable of accompanying all our representations. It is in all acts of consciousness one and the same, and unaccompanied by it, no representation can exist for me. The unity of this apperception I call the transcendental unity of self-consciousness, in order to indicate the possibility of à priori cognition arising from it. For the manifold representations which are given in an intuition would not all of them be my representations, if they did not all belong to one self-consciousness, that is, as my representations (even although I am not conscious of them as such), they must conform to the condition under which alone they can exist together in a common self-consciousness, because otherwise they would not all without exception belong to me. From this primitive conjunction follow many important results .
The self that thinks transcendentally is not meant to indicate a transcendental self;
The notion of a phenomenal appearance of a self is an unwarranted intermingling of domains, leading to methodological incompatibilities, and from those arise contradictions;
I see no reason to agree he is clearly explicating as you say.
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. This relation**, then, does not exist because I accompany every representation with consciousness, but because I join one representation to another, and am conscious of the synthesis of them. Consequently, only because I can connect a variety of given representations in one consciousness, is it possible that I can represent to myself the identity of consciousness in these representations; in other words, the analytical unity of apperception is possible only under the presupposition of a synthetical unity. The thought, These representations given in intuition belong all of them to me, is accordingly just the same as, I unite them in one self-consciousness, or can at least so unite them; and although this thought is not itself the consciousness of the synthesis of representations, it presupposes the possibility of it; that is to say, for the reason alone that I can comprehend the variety of my representations in one consciousness, do I call them my representations, for otherwise I must have as many-coloured and various a self as are the representations of which I am conscious .
** this relation is between me and my representations.
This is a very subtle exposition that the doing, the methodological operation, and the talking about the doing, the speculative articulation of such method, are very different. When thinking, as such, in and of itself, I think is not included in that act, but just is the act;
That I am conscious that, is not the same as the consciousness of;
That I do this, presupposes the conditions of the ability for this.
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Quoting Bob Ross
The Part in CPR on understanding is a Division consisting of 2 Books, 5 Chapters, 8 Sections, 24 subsections, covering roughly a 185 A/B pagination range in 214 pages of text, AND a freakin appendix to boot!!!! .so to say he asserts anything flat out is a gross mischaracterization on the one hand, and at the same time stands as a super speculatively affirmative argument on the other.
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I must agree with when he says youre not listening. I keep saying Im persuaded yet you keep asking why Im convinced, which is merely an insignificant microcosm but representative of a significant part of the present dialectic nonetheless. Same with requests for proofs. There is no damn proof, fercrissakes. Its a fargin THEORY, grounded in abstractions for which there never can be a proof. And that a mind must be a thing-in-itself, when in accordance with the consistency of the presently concerned dialectic, it cannot.
(Sigh)
Hello Mww,
How can a self think transcendentally but not be a transcendental self? Those sound like the same thing to me.
True.
Included in what act? I didnt quite follow this part. The I think would be the act itself and different from the explication (to ourselves) of the actbut that, to me, is still a concession that the I think is transcendental and, thusly, not the mere aggregate of appearances of a self.
I didnt follow this part either: what do you mean?
Correct.
I honestly dont think his works (especially CPR) are well written, so, yeah, I mean he tend to presuppose a lot of things slash say things that can be interpreted three or four different ways without clarification.
Well, I apologize, but I feel as though I have been. For example:
This is not evidence that I am not listening: I have said many times that I understand that you find whatever convinced you insignificant but that I would like to hear it anyways (if you dont mind). And:
This is just semantics. By proof, I think I have been clearly asking for whatever pursuaded you which is not equivalent to whatever you are using the term for with respect to theories. Bottom line is that something convinced you and if you dont want to share it (for whatever reason) then that is fine. I was just curious.
Also, theories have proofs; but I would reckon you are referring to something wholly different by proof than me.
Bob
Just a note. I doubt that this is BK's view, although his language is sometimes imprecise on this point.
He has come around, I believe, perhaps partly due to his friendship with Rupert Spira, to a view sometimes called transcendental or absolute idealism.for which mind is emergent and not fundamental. For this view the extended universe may be explained as mind but not reality To think of 'The One' as mind, Plotinus tells us, is to think of it 'too meanly'.
I've discussed this with Bernardo and we seemed to agree on this point.