Reply to charles ferraro
From what I understood of him, there was no way to tell. He was arguing against those who said they had a point of leverage to move the activity one way or another.
Reply to charles ferraro As I understood it via Bernando Kastrup, all of reality emanates from the mind of God and this allows for apparent object permanence and the regularities of nature.
This from Bertrand Russell -
George Berkeley is important in philosophy through his denial of the existence of mattera denial which he supported by a number of ingenious arguments. He maintained that material objects only exist through being perceived. To the objection that, in that case, a tree, for instance, would cease to exist if no one was looking at it, he replied that God always perceives everything; if there were no God, what we take to be material objects would have a jerky life, suddenly leaping into being when we look at them; but as it is, owing to Gods perceptions, trees and rocks and stones have an existence as continuous as common sense supposes. This is, in his opinion, a weighty argument for the existence of God.
Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy (1945), III, I., Ch. XVI: "Berkeley", p. 647
Reply to Tom Storm
Russell's opinion misses a quality of Berkeley when Berkeley says nobody can actually question the phenomenal. Object permanence happens. God, in this situation, is not me.
I would suggest reading his A Treatise Concerning The Principles of Human Knowledge, which is a relatively short work outlining his idealism, to determine for yourself an answer. However, with that being said, I will attempt to give you my interpretation of him.
Firstly, to answer you directly:
Bottom Line: Did George Berkeley mean that the existence of the entire world was dependent upon human perception, or divine perception?
He clearly meant dependent on all perception (viz., on perceivers) (and, as a side note, the divine perception is what keeps things continually existing), and this is not disputed by anyone in the literature (as far as I am aware). In fact, he states it quite explicitly and adamently in the previously mentioned work:
Wherever bodies are said to have no existence without the mind, I would not be understood to mean this or that particular mind, but ALL MINDS WHATSOEVER
(A Treatise , p. 24).
I didnt add in those all-caps: thats how emphatically he wants us to understand that point.
It is disputed how much of a subjective idealist he really was and to what degree of difference he has with the newer objective idealists (like Bernardo Kastrup); and, to me, after reading him, I think he was a hybrid premordial formulation of idealism which both subjective and objective idealists owe respect. He was the first to carve out idealism in the west, and you will find even ideas that Kant uses in his viewslike, for example, you see space being argued as a priori and synthetic in a more rudimentary way in his work:
first, it is supposed that extension, for example, may be abstracted from all other sensible qualities; and secondly, that the entity of extension may be abstracted from its being perceived. But, whoever shall reflect, and take care to understand what he says, will, if I mistake not, acknowledge that all sensible qualities are alike sensations and alike real; that where the extension is, there is the colour, too, i.e., in his mind, and that their archetypes can exist only in some other mind; and that the objects of sense are nothing but those sensations combined, blended, or (if one may so speak) concreted together; none of all which can be supposed to exist unperceived
(A Treatise..., p. 48)
His main point is to refute materialism, which was the predominant and newly fashionable view at the time, and so he really focuses on the mind-dependence of ones experience; but he uses a term perception for it, which is what causes a lot of trouble in his view (for modern day objective idealists): it entails that that the objects only exist so long as something is perceiving them, and not merely so long as they are ideas in a universal mind, and thusly, for Berkeley, he gets around this by postulating that God, very similarly to ourselves, is constantly perceiving the world. This is an entirely different view from modern objective idealists, like Bernardo Kastrup, who posit that the universal mind cannot perceive and is much more fundamental and primitive then ourselves, as we are evolved minds. The objects exist mind-dependently for objective idealists, no doubt, but not on a mind consciously experiencing them like we do.
Now, I would like to include a response from @Tom Storm:
George Berkeley is important in philosophy through his denial of the existence of mattera denial which he supported by a number of ingenious arguments. He maintained that material objects only exist through being perceived. To the objection that, in that case, a tree, for instance, would cease to exist if no one was looking at it, he replied that God always perceives everything; if there were no God, what we take to be material objects would have a jerky life, suddenly leaping into being when we look at them; but as it is, owing to Gods perceptions, trees and rocks and stones have an existence as continuous as common sense supposes. This is, in his opinion, a weighty argument for the existence of God.
Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy (1945), III, I., Ch. XVI: "Berkeley", p. 647
This is the exact issue objective idealists tend to have with Berkeley, and tends to make them claim he was a subjective idealist for it; but it is important to remember that he was the first to sketch out the entire family of views under idealism (as he is quite literally the father of idealism) and, upon a close examination of his works, he isnt entirely consistent nor coherentbut thats true of pretty much every main philosopher that started a movement.
Empiricists cut through the issue by reducing the objects of perception to the perceptions themselves. This would make it difficult to define what a hallucination even is, or how my perceptions relate to those of other people, but it certainly is a matter of pushing Empiricist principles to their logical conclusion. Berkeley and Hume are good at that.
George Berkeley's motto for his idealist philosophical position that nothing exists independently of its perception by a mind except minds themselves.
Human or divine perception?
According to Berkeley, the mind of God always perceives everything. Unlike Gods perception of his own perfect ideas, human perceptions are imperfect and so provide incomplete or unclear knowledge of reality.
Nonetheless, Berkeleys esse is percipi has been criticized for implying epistemological solipsism, the main argument being that different minds cannot harbor numerically one and the same idea.
charles ferraroAugust 01, 2023 at 15:10#8260140 likes
Thank you for your comprehensive answer to my question.
So then, I would conclude from what you and others responded that the positing of a perceiving Master Mind by Berkeley was necessary in order for him to avoid solipsism and to preserve the integrity and explanatory power of his epistemology. The will of the Master Mind also provides a rational foundation for the lawfulness we perceive in nature and for the ways in which the particular objects we perceive are organized, since the will of individual perceivers plays no part in determining either. A very sophisticated form of "proving" the existence of God or of simply postulating a "Deus ex Machina," I think. Yes???
By the way, how similar or different are Kastrup's ideas about Objective Idealism compared to those of Hegel's Objective Idealism?
A very sophisticated form of "proving" the existence of God or of simply postulating a "Deus ex Machina," I think. Yes???
In my opinion, God, as a person that perceives, just doesnt work as a parsimonious account of reality. Reality seems, empirically speaking, to have existed prior to any perceptions.
By the way, how similar or different are Kastrup's ideas about Objective Idealism compared to those of Hegel's Objective Idealism?
I cant speak for Hegel, as I dont know enough about his absolute idealism. But Kastrups differences mainly lie in the world being perception-independent and he has a new resolution to the problem of decomposition: dissociative identity disorder. He posits that the way you get derivative minds is via alters, just like people who host genuinely different personalities.
Think of Berkeley as saying God perceived the world, and the world is only real insofar as that.
Think of Kastrup as saying God (or mind-at-large) is the world, and everything in the world is real insofar as it is within it as mental events.
charles ferraroAugust 02, 2023 at 03:02#8262030 likes
Guided by what you stated about him, Kastrup seems to me to be promoting a contemporary version of Spinoza's pantheism. Both thinkers claim that the world and God are one. Spinoza claims that mind and extension (that which comprises the world) are modes of expression and manifestation of an ultimate Substance. Kastrup seems to be saying much the same thing, however with the major stress being placed upon Substance as mind-at-large.
ItIsWhatItIsAugust 02, 2023 at 06:13#8262210 likes
Bottom Line: Did George Berkeley mean that the existence of the entire world was dependent upon human perception, or divine perception?
Bottom Line: The latter, ultimately. For, according to the good ol bishop, without the divine mind, there would be no human perceivers, & so neither their perceptions.
Guided by what you stated about him, Kastrup seems to me to be promoting a contemporary version of Spinoza's pantheism
Spinoza, I would say, was arguing that the one substance is God, which doesnt entail in itself a mind nor something mind-independent. In modern terms, I think he was basically saying being is God (i.e., essence involves existence).
Kastrup is arguing for full blown ontological idealism; that is, the universe is mind-dependent and the substance is mental.
charles ferraroAugust 02, 2023 at 15:46#8263310 likes
How can Kastrup argue for "full-blown ontological idealism" without first proving the existence of "God, or Mind at Large"?
Does he anywhere attempt an ontological argument, or any other type of argument, for the existence of God, or Mind at Large?
Also, when you state that Kastrup argues "the universe is mind-dependent and the substance is 'mental,'" to what substance are you referring? I thought Berkeley convincingly argued that, upon detailed analysis, material substance and nothingness had identical meanings.
Alkis PiskasAugust 02, 2023 at 18:28#8263760 likes
Did George Berkeley mean that the existence of the entire world was dependent upon human perception, or divine perception?
At the time I was studying various philosophers --quite far in the past-- Berkeley appeared to me as quite an obscure philosopher and he remains so. Just to show this and also set the "climate" in which he discoursed:
"It is, I think, a receivd axiom that an impossibility cannot be conceivd. For what created intelligence will pretend to conceive, that which God cannot cause to be? Now it is on all hands agreed, that nothing abstract or general can be made really to exist, whence it should seem to follow, that it cannot have so much as an ideal existence in the understanding. (Works 2:125)"
(https://iep.utm.edu/george-berkeley-british-empiricist/)
Well, although my English reading is excellent, I have a difficulty in understanding the above passage. Of course, we are talking about 17th century English, but even so.
I believe that the following says a lot about your question:
Now, about the "esse est percipi" principle itself, I cannot formulate any conclusive or even certain overall idea about it. So I prefer quoting ideas from others, much more knowledgeable than me on the subject. Maybe you can make something out of it for your quest:
"Berkeley's immaterialism argues that 'esse est percipi (aut percipere)', which in English is to be is to be perceived (or to perceive). That is saying only what perceived or perceives is real, and without our perception or God's nothing can be real."
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Berkeley)
"In the Principles and the Three Dialogues Berkeley defends two metaphysical theses: idealism (the claim that everything that exists either is a mind or depends on a mind for its existence) and immaterialism (the claim that matter does not exist). His contention that all physical objects are composed of ideas is encapsulated in his motto esse is percipi (to be is to be perceived)."
(https://iep.utm.edu/george-berkeley-british-empiricist/)
"For any nonthinking being, esse est percipi ('to be is to be perceived')."
(https://www.britannica.com/topic/esse-est-percipi-doctrine)
It seems that this principle is not applied to humans! So, if this is true, then all gets quite obscure ...
As I told you in the beginning, I found and still find Berkeley quite an obscure philosopher.
Anyway, I hope some of all this has added a small pebble to your topic ...
Now it is on all hands agreed, that nothing abstract or general can be made really to exist, whence it should seem to follow, that it cannot have so much as an ideal existence in the understanding. (Works 2:125)"
This is the major weakness in Berkeley, as he is a nominalist, i.e. denies the reality of universals.
George Berkeley is important in philosophy through his denial of the existence of mattera denial which he supported by a number of ingenious arguments. He maintained that material objects only exist through being perceived. To the objection that, in that case, a tree, for instance, would cease to exist if no one was looking at it, he replied that God always perceives everything; if there were no God, what we take to be material objects would have a jerky life, suddenly leaping into being when we look at them; but as it is, owing to Gods perceptions, trees and rocks and stones have an existence as continuous as common sense supposes. This is, in his opinion, a weighty argument for the existence of God.
Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy (1945), III, I., Ch. XVI: "Berkeley", p. 647
@Tom Storm 'what we take to be material objects would have a jerky life, suddenly leaping into being when we look at them' - this illustrates one of the fundamental misconceptions of idealism in my view. This has to do with the idea that, when it is stated that 'the object exists in dependence on mind', that, in the absence of a mind, it literally ceases to be, or goes out of existence. There was a similar argument, or sentiment, expressed by G E Moore, when he said that, when the passengers are all seated in the train, the wheels must dissappear, as they are no longer perceived.
I want to make a couple of points about this. The first is a reference to the Copenhagen Intepretation of quantum physics. According to it, the object of analysis of an experiment does not exist until it is measured or observed ('no phenomena is a phenomena until it is an observed phenomena' ~ Neils Bohr.) But a corollary of this was that it was incorrect to say that the object did not exist until it was observed. Rather, nothing could be said about it, until it was observed. (Positivism was to exploit that for their own ends.) What I would rather say, is that the kind of existence it had was indeterminate, prior to the observation of it. And this is supported by the principle of the wave function, which after all is a distribution of possibilities: if you ask, 'where is the (x) before the measurement', the answer is the wave function, i.e. a possibility distribution. 'It' neither exists nor doesn't exist prior to measurement - all it is, is a tendency to exist.
The second point, related, as that we have a flawed understanding of the meaning of 'to exist'. When we imagine the train wheels dissappearing, that is simply their imagined non-existence. We are attempting to assume a perspective from which we can envisage or see them outside any conception of them - which, of course, we cannot actually do. We can safely assume, or behave as if, they possess 'object permanence', which for the purposes of naturalism, they do. But what naturalism does not see, is the role of the observing mind in constituting the object - and that applies to any object whatever. And this is the main contribution of all forms of idealism - to throw into relief the role of the observer in the constitution of what we take to be real independently of any act of perception.
Compare with this passage on Husserl's critique of naturalism:
[quote=Routledge Introduction to Phenomenology, p144] In contrast to the outlook of naturalism, Husserl believed all knowledge, all science, all rationality depended on conscious acts, acts which cannot be properly understood from within the natural outlook at all. Consciousness should not be viewed naturalistically as part of the world at all, since consciousness is precisely the reason why there was a world there for us in the first place. For Husserl it is not that consciousness creates the world in any ontological sensethis would be a subjective idealism, itself a consequence of a certain naturalising tendency whereby consciousness is cause and the world its effectbut rather that the world is opened up, made meaningful, or disclosed through consciousness. The world is inconceivable apart from consciousness. Treating consciousness as part of the world, reifying consciousness, is precisely to ignore consciousnesss foundational, disclosive role. For this reason, all natural science is naive about its point of departure, for Husserl. Since consciousness is presupposed in all science and knowledge, then the proper approach to the study of consciousness itself must be a transcendental oneone which, in Kantian terms, focuses on the conditions for the possibility of knowledge...[/quote]
The whole point of idealist philosophy is to come to understand the constitutive role of the mind in the generation of experience. And you can actually see that awareness growing in modern cultural discourse, with phenomenology being one of the key tributaries of it. But Berkeley, Kant, and Schopenhauer are all significant precursors to it (god bless 'em).
Bottom Line: Did George Berkeley mean that the existence of the entire world was dependent upon human perception, or divine perception?
I'm not an expert on such esoteric questions, but my rather naive interpretation of "esse est percipi" means just the opposite of Solipsism : "the view or theory that the self is all that can be known to exist". Apparently he was merely stating the underlying assumption of traditional Idealism : that we observers are merely ideas, concepts, Forms, avatars in the mind of God (or LOGOS for Plato ; or the Universe Game for players). In other words, we humans, including bodies, are merely instances of universal Mind : parts of the whole ; chips off the old block. Is that hubris or modesty? Can we prove our claimed patrimony? Can the part question the Whole?
Both Self-image and God-image are imaginary concepts in your mind, not empirical objects. But, which came first : the Causal Principle or the Actual Effect ; the universal-eternal Creator or the local-temporal Conceiver? I guess that depends on your opinion of the reality/ideality/necessity of Eternity/Infinity to explain Space-Time and Consciousness. The computed answer is "42". :smile:
Mind of God : Plato thought that forms (which he called Ideas) exist in a realm of their own. However, Aristotle considered that forms only exist in so much as they are instantiated in the things they inform. St Augustine, taking a basically Platonic point of view, placed the realm of the Ideas in the mind of God. In this question, Aquinas attempts to reconcile the teaching of St Augustine concerning Ideas in the mind of God with an Aristotelian metaphysical framework.
http://readingthesumma.blogspot.com/2010/05/question-15-ideas-in-mind-of-god.html
How can Kastrup argue for "full-blown ontological idealism" without first proving the existence of "God, or Mind at Large"?
Kastrup usually starts by positing a mind-at-large as the best account of reality (to explain consciousness and newer empirical knowledge). My point before was not that Kastrup starts with something other than, well, his idealism but, rather, that his is very different in many ways to Berkeley (but likewise shares different aspects as well).
Does he anywhere attempt an ontological argument, or any other type of argument, for the existence of God, or Mind at Large?
Not that I am aware of; as he is very much an empiricist, like me, at his core. Theres no way to prove, in itself, from pure reason that God exists without the aid of empirical knowledge (of experience). Also, Kastrup is a naturalist; so by God he means more a pantheism and definitely not a form of theism.
Also, when you state that Kastrup argues "the universe is mind-dependent and the substance is 'mental,'" to what substance are you referring?
The substance is mental. In substratum theory, the idea is that properties are bore by a substrate, which serves as the compresence for the properties of a given thing, and theres typically two kinds of substances people posit: mental and physical. Physical is a mind-independent substance (a substrate that bears the properties) and mental is a mind-dependent substance (ditto). Its just to help denote the type of existence which one is positing as bearing the properties of things.
Kastrup is arguing that within the mental substance, the fundamental thing is a mind.
I thought Berkeley convincingly argued that, upon detailed analysis, material substance and nothingness had identical meanings.
By substance, I was referring to substratum theory (i.e., the substrate that bears properties) and not a material substance in the sense of a tangible object that exists. Berkeley is definitely against materialism, which, in its most basic form, is a substance monist view that posits a physical substance and, in the case of materialism, that what fundamentally exists therein is fundamental particles (which are tangible). Personally, I dont think material things, if they existed in that sense, would be identical to nothingness; rather, I think he had a good point that prima facie speaking about a material object is nonsensical, albeit potentially true, because nothing we experience is ever directly that material object.
Tom Storm 'what we take to be material objects would have a jerky life, suddenly leaping into being when we look at them' - this illustrates one of the fundamental misconceptions of idealism in my view.
Mine too. I was referring to the commonplace view. Bernado Kasturp has posited that the reason his car remains in the garage after the door is closed and he is sitting with a drink is that Mind at Large allows for object permanence. He seems more Berkeley than Kant.
The whole point of idealist philosophy is to come to understand the constitutive role of the mind in the generation of experience. And you can actually see that awareness growing in modern cultural discourse, with phenomenology being one of the key tributaries of it. But Berkeley, Kant, and Schopenhauer are all significant precursors to it (god bless 'em).
This is an important aspect of the discussion - thanks.
To clarify - are we not talking about two distinct accounts of idealism here? The phenomenological account where we 'co-create' our reality (this would be similar to Kant, perhaps) and the more transcendental variety wherein there are no material things and a cosmic consciousness is the guarantor of reality - Kastrup or Berkeley? Can you say some more on this?
Also do you have a brief take how a Vedanta conception of reality might fit into this schema?
To clarify - are we not talking about two distinct accounts of idealism here?
I think it's developed through the kind of dialectical process over many years of discussion and analysis, although I think that Kant was the watershed.
Also do you have a brief take how a Vedanta conception of reality might fit into this schema?
Buddhism and Vedanta are traditionally opponents in this respect, in that Vedanta posits something analogous to Kastrup's 'mind at large', whereas Buddhism does not.
I'm more inclined to the Buddhist analysis although the subtleties are hard to understand and to present. But I think it is something along these lines: that what we need to grasp is that all we know of existence whether of an immediate object or the Universe at large is a function of our world-making intelligence, the activity of the sophisticated 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. But there is no need to posit a mind at large 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. This is the ground of one of those paradoxical sayings of the Buddha - '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 I think that is because, right from the outset, the Buddha understood the real sense in which 'mind creates world'.
This is the sense in which Buddhist philosophy is said to be opposed to speculative metaphysics. Any attempt to name or to posit what it is that exists apart from or outside the organs of cognition and understanding is bound to culminate something like one of Kant's antinomies of reason (explicated in T R V Murti 'Central Philosophy of Buddhism'). We have to thoroughly realise that we really don't know (there's a Korean Son (Zen) school that is based on 'only don't know')
But this is also part of the background of The Embodied Mind, by Varela and Thompson et al, which brings together elements of Buddhist philosophy and phenomenology. I know it's kind of baffling to think about, that's where I think some element of Zen practice is kind of essential for it.
that what we need to grasp is that all we know of existence whether of an immediate object or the Universe at large is a function of our world-making intelligence, the activity of the sophisticated 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. But there is no need to posit a mind at large to account for it, because theres nothing to account for.
Got ya. This is so interesting and what a wonderful summary you've provided. Has your view of idealism changed much in the past 2 or 3 years?
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.' 1
I feel like I need to smoke a continental jazz cigarette to really savor that one. I'll need some time with that one.
Russell's opinion misses a quality of Berkeley when Berkeley says nobody can actually question the phenomenal. Object permanence happens. God, in this situation, is not me.
Object permanence is not strictly speaking a phenomenon. All we know, phenomenologically speaking (and of course trusting our memories) is that objects commonly appear unchanged in all particulars, including their locations, when we return to them.
The individual mind could not be responsible for this, because that posit could not explain how we all see the same things in the same places and with the same features. So if it is not to be mind-independent existents then it must be connected or entangled human minds or a universal mind to which we are all connected or something else we cannot imagine.
But I think it is something along these lines: that what we need to grasp is that all we know of existence whether of an immediate object or the Universe at large is a function of our world-making intelligence, the activity of the sophisticated hominid forebrain which sets us apart from other species.
This cannot explain how it is that other species see the same things we do. Also, we have individual intelligences, so my intelligence could not make the world for you and vice versa; and yet we see the same things. Perhaps our intelligences are connected in ways we cannot be aware of, but if we cannot be aware of it...?
Reply to Quixodian That doesn't seem relevant: I don't even know what it is like to be you. I do, however know that we all, you me and the dogs see the same objects; this is constantly confirmed by everyday experience.
Reply to Janus I dont see how that is relevant. Cats and dogs are sentient beings and are minds quite near to ours in evolutionary terms. But at the same time, they inhabit vastly different meaning worlds. If there were beings that saw using a completely different frequencies of light how could you say that they see the same things as humans?
Reply to Quixodian I'm not talking about seeing different light frequencies or seeing things in exactly the same ways or as having the same meanings, but simply about seeing the same objects in the environment. Evolved similarities of cognitive setup cannot explain that.
Reply to Janus But the ultimate constituents of objects are described by physics, which, since the advent of qm, has undermined their mind independent status. (Google The Mental Universe, Richard Conn Henry.)
Reply to Quixodian QM does not undermine the mind-independent status of objects, although it might throw it into question. You seem to be jumping to unwarranted conclusions.
In any case, that has nothing to do with the question. If you and I and everyone else we might ask see an orange on the table, how could our similar cognitive setups explain the fact that we all see a table with an orange on it rather than some else altogether?
It's not about how things appear to us, but what appears to us. I am genuinely puzzled that you don't seem to get this distinction.
If you and I and everyone else we might ask see an orange on the table, how could our similar cognitive setups explain the fact that we all see a table with an orange on it rather than some else altogether?
What do you think idealism is saying? Why do you think that idealism would suggest anything other than that? It's not saying that 'the world is all in your mind'. What I take it to be saying is that the fundamental ground of reality is experiential in nature, it doesn't comprise the objects or physical properties posited by physicalism which are said to exist completely independently of experience (yet at the same time, somehow mysteriously give rise to experience). But as Bernardo Kastrup frequently points out, that doesn't actually change anything about what science observes, or what we observe, day to day.
Also, we have individual intelligences, so my intelligence could not make the world for you and vice versa; and yet we see the same things.
Bernardo Kastrup suggests that if the entire universe is mind, the presence of dissociative personalities creating individual consciousnesses answers questions that defeat other ontologies. In this view, each of us is a dissociated alter, and just like conventional alters are, we can be aware of and interact with each other without mentally overlapping or seeing into each others minds (drawing on studies of dissociative personality disorders which provide a kind of limited example of the principle).
Kastrup proposes our individual experiences in the physical world arent an issue because theyre not what they seem: theyre merely patterns of self-excitation of cosmic consciousness. Thats to say there is no physical world as such, but rather It is the variety and dynamics of excitations across the underlying medium that lead to different experiential qualities. Within that, it is natural that we see the same things, particularly because we operate at more or less the same level of adaption.
Reply to Quixodian Right, I don't deny the idea that we can think of mind as fundamental (in some sense we have no way of understanding) but that wouldn't change the status of objects as existing independently of our minds. Likewise, we can say that physicality is fundamental, and which is the more plausible might be said to be a matter of personal opinion. Either way, there seems to be no doubt that the existence of what appears to us, but obviously not of the appearances themselves, is independent of our minds, of our very existence.
Reply to Quixodian I'm familiar with Kastrup's views, but the whole idea of a universal mind holding the incredible diversity and invariance we see in place by thinking it seems implausible to me. And in any case what practical difference would it make whether mind or mind-independent physical existents were the fundamental constituents of reality; what difference would it make to how we live our lives?
Additionally, if everything. including everything we think and everything anyone has ever thought were a manifestation of this one mind, how to explain the remarkable diversity of opinion regarding the nature of things?
charles ferraroAugust 05, 2023 at 15:27#8272500 likes
Perceiving, like imagining, remembering, speculating, inferring, etc., is a species of thinking.
Descartes: For any human mind, to think is to exist (cogito ergo sum).
In other words, when and while I am thinking, in the first person present tense mode, I must be existing.
Berkeley: For any human mind, to be (to exist) is to perceive (esse est percipere).
In other words, when and while I am perceiving in the first person present tense mode, I must be existing.
In my opinion, Berkeley's esse est percipere (to be is to perceive) and Descartes' cogito sum (while thinking, I am) are saying precisely the same thing.
To this extent Berkeley and Descartes are in agreement.
They both claim, each in his own way, that the existence or being of a human mind depends upon its perceiving or thinking.
However, Berkeley takes a major step beyond Descartes.
Unlike Descartes, Berkeley also claims the "esse" of every object of human perception depends upon its "percipi," i.e., the existence of every object depends exclusively upon its being perceived by a human mind.
However, Descartes was unable to go as far as Berkeley did because he claimed that, with the single exception of personal existence, the existence of all objects of human thought could not be indubitably certain.
In other words, for Descartes the performance of the esse est percipi (the to be is to be perceived) is neither existentially consistent nor existentially self-verifying, when and while I am performing it in the first person present tense mode, i.e., it cannot overcome hyperbolic doubt and, thus, is not indubitably certain.
Only the performance of the Cogito Sum is existentially consistent and existentially self-verifying, i.e., indubitably certain, when and while I am performing it in the first person present tense mode.
Alkis PiskasAugust 05, 2023 at 17:26#8272980 likes
Perceiving, like imagining, remembering, speculating, inferring, etc., is a species of thinking.
Imagining, remembering, speculating, inferring, etc., are indeed thinking. Perceiving is a total different thing. It involves our senses and is a most simple process: it stops at recognizing, identifying things, which are almost instant. What we observe we can then process with the mind, which involves thinking, a process that can take ... forever.
In other words, when and while I am thinking, in the first person present tense mode, I must be existing.
I have showed in different occasions that this unfortunately is not true, referring th the term "thinking" as we use it today. In fact, its the opposite. During thinking you may lose the sense and experience of living. There are many times that you are thinking all sorts of things but in reality you are absent-minded, or immerged in the past by bringing up memories, or while you are imagining things, etc. Thinking can be also illusory. In all these cases you are not aware, or you are partially aware, of your existence and anything in your environment! Thinking actually is an obstacle to being totally aware, that is, observe and perceive things in your environment as well as aware of youresf. But I can't believe Descartes didn't realize all these things. That's why I believe that by "thinking" he most probably meant "being aware". That is, "I am aware, therefore I exist".
Berkeley's esse est percipere (to be is to perceive) and Descartes' cogito sum (while thinking, I am) are saying precisely the same thing.
As I said, thinking and perception are two totally different things. But if by "thinking" pone means "being conscious/aware" --as in Descartes' time -- then they are close.
Berkeley also claims the "esse" of every object of human perception depends upon its "percipi," i.e., the existence of every object depends exclusively upon its being perceived by a human mind.
Right. By this only you should see that thinking and perception are different things. And that Berkeley was very close to consciousness/awareness, since consciousness depends on perceiving; it is actually and in essence perception. (Not as a definition, of course).
charles ferraroAugust 06, 2023 at 15:41#8275770 likes
For what it's worth, human thinking and human perceiving both presuppose human consciousness and are modes of human consciousness. When and while I am actively engaging in an act of thinking or an act of perception, in the first person present tense mode, I must be consciously aware of doing either while, simultaneously, also be consciously aware of the fact that I exist. To claim otherwise, in the first person present tense mode, would be existentially inconsistent and existentially self-defeating; i.e., impossible.
The main difference between thinking consciously and perceiving consciously is that the existence of the "object" thought consciously is indubitably certain (not subject to hyperbolic doubt), whereas the existence of the object perceived consciously is not indubitably certain (subject to hyperbolic doubt).
As I understood it via Bernando Kastrup, all of reality emanates from the mind of God and this allows for apparent object permanence and the regularities of nature.
I'm currently reading the 2021 book by Charles Pinter, subtitled : How the Mind Creates the Features & Structure of All Things. He seems to be an Idealist, but unlike Plato or Berkeley, he bases his idealistic interpretation of Reality on scientific evidence ; especially the non-classical (non-mechanical) notions of Quantum Physics.
For example, he says, echoing Donald Hoffman, that "we are biologically designed to believe that what we see is Reality with a capital R". Then he notes that "the 'cup in itself' -- the real teacup in the unobserved physical world -- consists of atoms & charged particles, and 'appearance' is not a force of physics". What he's referring to is the world as described by physicists probing the sub-atomic foundations of the physical world. What they report is something to the effect that atoms are fuzzy-fluff-balls of invisible energy. And each atom is like a star, whirling through empty space, connected to other atoms only by links of invisible attractive forces, like gravity. Hence, we perceive them only en masse (as a whole system), just as clouds are merely swarms of microscopic water particles as seen collectively from a distance. Hence, he concludes that "objectively the unobserved universe is formless and featureless" : like a fog.
Although I haven't reached the concluding chapter, so far Pinter doesn't seem to use the metaphor of the "Mind of God" to represent the ultimate reality. He does occasionally refer to a "mind-independent world", but that merely indicates the obvious fact that the Cosmos consists of more than a single human perspective. Yet that could imply that we collectively create the world, or that we each perceive a fraction of the whole world as created by some enigmatic cosmic mind. Similarly, Kastrup*1 sometimes uses the German term "alter" (elder ; other ; father ; dude)*2 to label a mysterious feeling of connection to some higher power. :smile:
Reality is not what it seems : The idea that reality is fundamentally thought, consciousness, or an idea, as opposed to physical matter, atoms, or particles, is becoming more main stream. The many problems with scientific materialism are finally coming home to roost. But this does not mean reality just is how it appears to be in our own private consciousness of it, writes Bernardo Kastrup.
https://iai.tv/articles/reality-is-not-what-it-seems-auid-2312
Alter : An alter is a dissociation of a part of the universal mind from the whole. A bit like monads
https://neuroself.wordpress.com/kastrup-bernardo/
Alkis PiskasAugust 06, 2023 at 16:57#8276010 likes
Reply to charles ferraro
As I see, you refuse to look up the terms. Well, you are not alone. You, along with all the others who hate or avoid to look up and/or examine closely and really undestand the terms the meaning of which they don't know or think they know, will always remain with misconceptions. Which means, they won't be able to make correct judgements. It's only obvious.
charles ferraroAugust 06, 2023 at 17:18#8276070 likes
[reply="Alkis Piskas;8276
You're certainly entitled to your opinion. Good luck with your inviolable dictionary definitions. The only thing obvious to me is your closed-minded dogmatic attitude.
I want to make a couple of points about this. The first is a reference to the Copenhagen Intepretation of quantum physics. According to it, the object of analysis of an experiment does not exist until it is measured or observed ('no phenomena is a phenomena until it is an observed phenomena' ~ Neils Bohr.) But a corollary of this was that it was incorrect to say that the object did not exist until it was observed. Rather, nothing could be said about it, until it was observed.
Yes. As I understand it, the Copenhagen Interpretation was not about Idealism, but about Holism. The particle that suddenly appears upon "collapse" of the superposed statistical state did not just materialize from thin air. Instead its statistical (mathematical) existence is Potential, and its collapsed existence is Actual.
For example, a Holistic system -- such as a galaxy of stars -- appears as a Nebula (cloud) from a distance, and its component stars are bound into a system by mutual gravitational attraction. As long as the gravitational field is stable, none of the stars can move independently. Likewise, an Atom is a cloud of particles that act holistically and display collective properties. But when an atom-smasher destroys the system, each sub-atomic particle moves off on its own trajectory, defined by its own properties. When bound into the atom, each electron only has a statistical existence. It's in there, but undetectable until Actualized by the "collapse" (mathematical state to physical state) of the atomic system.
Aristotle probably had nothing like the modern concept of Electrons or Galaxies, but he saw a need to distinguish Potential existence from Actual being.
Systems Theory/Holism : Holism emphasizes that the state of a system must be assessed in its entirety and cannot be assessed through its independent member parts.
https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Systems_Theory/Holism
Aristotle probably had nothing like the modern concept of Electrons or Galaxies, but he saw a need to distinguish Potential existence from Actual being.
I'm sure we discussed this article before Quantum mysteries dissolve if possibilities are realities -'This new ontological picture requires that we expand our concept of what is real to include an extraspatiotemporal domain of quantum possibility. Notes that Heisenberg (Platonist that he was) endorses the Aristotelian concept of potentia.
I'm sure we discussed this article before Quantum mysteries dissolve if possibilities are realities -'This new ontological picture requires that we expand our concept of what is real to include an extraspatiotemporal domain of quantum possibility. Notes that Heisenberg (Platonist that he was) endorses the Aristotelian concept of potentia.
Yes, that article seems to agree with my assessment of the Quantum quandaries, that make the basement of physical reality appear to be a dungeon of dragons. On the other hand, "including potential things on the list of real things can avoid the counterintuitive conundrums that quantum physics poses". Ironically, it expands our conventional materialistic notion of Reality into the realm of Platonic Ideality. Potential "things" --- hidden in statistical superposition --- are technically not-yet-manifest in our sensory reality. They must be coaxed to actualize (realize) by a technological act of mind.
That's why pragmatic scientists were appalled to "see" real particles appearing as-if out of nowhere (statistical probability) after an intervention by their mind-probes into the holistic systems of material atoms, that were previously assumed to be indivisible. Even singular photons are seen to split into multiple manifestations upon passing through a bottleneck slit. But, if we can be content to assume that the Potential for the multiple photons already existed in the potential of immaterial Energy, the mystifying magic is revealed to be merely a trick of the mind.
Comments (39)
From what I understood of him, there was no way to tell. He was arguing against those who said they had a point of leverage to move the activity one way or another.
This from Bertrand Russell -
Russell's opinion misses a quality of Berkeley when Berkeley says nobody can actually question the phenomenal. Object permanence happens. God, in this situation, is not me.
Hello Charles Ferraro,
I would suggest reading his A Treatise Concerning The Principles of Human Knowledge, which is a relatively short work outlining his idealism, to determine for yourself an answer. However, with that being said, I will attempt to give you my interpretation of him.
Firstly, to answer you directly:
He clearly meant dependent on all perception (viz., on perceivers) (and, as a side note, the divine perception is what keeps things continually existing), and this is not disputed by anyone in the literature (as far as I am aware). In fact, he states it quite explicitly and adamently in the previously mentioned work:
(A Treatise , p. 24).
I didnt add in those all-caps: thats how emphatically he wants us to understand that point.
It is disputed how much of a subjective idealist he really was and to what degree of difference he has with the newer objective idealists (like Bernardo Kastrup); and, to me, after reading him, I think he was a hybrid premordial formulation of idealism which both subjective and objective idealists owe respect. He was the first to carve out idealism in the west, and you will find even ideas that Kant uses in his viewslike, for example, you see space being argued as a priori and synthetic in a more rudimentary way in his work:
(A Treatise..., p. 48)
His main point is to refute materialism, which was the predominant and newly fashionable view at the time, and so he really focuses on the mind-dependence of ones experience; but he uses a term perception for it, which is what causes a lot of trouble in his view (for modern day objective idealists): it entails that that the objects only exist so long as something is perceiving them, and not merely so long as they are ideas in a universal mind, and thusly, for Berkeley, he gets around this by postulating that God, very similarly to ourselves, is constantly perceiving the world. This is an entirely different view from modern objective idealists, like Bernardo Kastrup, who posit that the universal mind cannot perceive and is much more fundamental and primitive then ourselves, as we are evolved minds. The objects exist mind-dependently for objective idealists, no doubt, but not on a mind consciously experiencing them like we do.
Now, I would like to include a response from @Tom Storm:
This is the exact issue objective idealists tend to have with Berkeley, and tends to make them claim he was a subjective idealist for it; but it is important to remember that he was the first to sketch out the entire family of views under idealism (as he is quite literally the father of idealism) and, upon a close examination of his works, he isnt entirely consistent nor coherentbut thats true of pretty much every main philosopher that started a movement.
Hopefully that helps.
Empiricists cut through the issue by reducing the objects of perception to the perceptions themselves. This would make it difficult to define what a hallucination even is, or how my perceptions relate to those of other people, but it certainly is a matter of pushing Empiricist principles to their logical conclusion. Berkeley and Hume are good at that.
George Berkeley's motto for his idealist philosophical position that nothing exists independently of its perception by a mind except minds themselves.
Human or divine perception?
According to Berkeley, the mind of God always perceives everything. Unlike Gods perception of his own perfect ideas, human perceptions are imperfect and so provide incomplete or unclear knowledge of reality.
Nonetheless, Berkeleys esse is percipi has been criticized for implying epistemological solipsism, the main argument being that different minds cannot harbor numerically one and the same idea.
Thank you for your comprehensive answer to my question.
So then, I would conclude from what you and others responded that the positing of a perceiving Master Mind by Berkeley was necessary in order for him to avoid solipsism and to preserve the integrity and explanatory power of his epistemology. The will of the Master Mind also provides a rational foundation for the lawfulness we perceive in nature and for the ways in which the particular objects we perceive are organized, since the will of individual perceivers plays no part in determining either. A very sophisticated form of "proving" the existence of God or of simply postulating a "Deus ex Machina," I think. Yes???
By the way, how similar or different are Kastrup's ideas about Objective Idealism compared to those of Hegel's Objective Idealism?
Hello Charles,
In my opinion, God, as a person that perceives, just doesnt work as a parsimonious account of reality. Reality seems, empirically speaking, to have existed prior to any perceptions.
I cant speak for Hegel, as I dont know enough about his absolute idealism. But Kastrups differences mainly lie in the world being perception-independent and he has a new resolution to the problem of decomposition: dissociative identity disorder. He posits that the way you get derivative minds is via alters, just like people who host genuinely different personalities.
Think of Berkeley as saying God perceived the world, and the world is only real insofar as that.
Think of Kastrup as saying God (or mind-at-large) is the world, and everything in the world is real insofar as it is within it as mental events.
Guided by what you stated about him, Kastrup seems to me to be promoting a contemporary version of Spinoza's pantheism. Both thinkers claim that the world and God are one. Spinoza claims that mind and extension (that which comprises the world) are modes of expression and manifestation of an ultimate Substance. Kastrup seems to be saying much the same thing, however with the major stress being placed upon Substance as mind-at-large.
Bottom Line: The latter, ultimately. For, according to the good ol bishop, without the divine mind, there would be no human perceivers, & so neither their perceptions.
Hello Charles,
Spinoza, I would say, was arguing that the one substance is God, which doesnt entail in itself a mind nor something mind-independent. In modern terms, I think he was basically saying being is God (i.e., essence involves existence).
Kastrup is arguing for full blown ontological idealism; that is, the universe is mind-dependent and the substance is mental.
How can Kastrup argue for "full-blown ontological idealism" without first proving the existence of "God, or Mind at Large"?
Does he anywhere attempt an ontological argument, or any other type of argument, for the existence of God, or Mind at Large?
Also, when you state that Kastrup argues "the universe is mind-dependent and the substance is 'mental,'" to what substance are you referring? I thought Berkeley convincingly argued that, upon detailed analysis, material substance and nothingness had identical meanings.
At the time I was studying various philosophers --quite far in the past-- Berkeley appeared to me as quite an obscure philosopher and he remains so. Just to show this and also set the "climate" in which he discoursed:
"It is, I think, a receivd axiom that an impossibility cannot be conceivd. For what created intelligence will pretend to conceive, that which God cannot cause to be? Now it is on all hands agreed, that nothing abstract or general can be made really to exist, whence it should seem to follow, that it cannot have so much as an ideal existence in the understanding. (Works 2:125)"
(https://iep.utm.edu/george-berkeley-british-empiricist/)
Well, although my English reading is excellent, I have a difficulty in understanding the above passage. Of course, we are talking about 17th century English, but even so.
I believe that the following says a lot about your question:
Now, about the "esse est percipi" principle itself, I cannot formulate any conclusive or even certain overall idea about it. So I prefer quoting ideas from others, much more knowledgeable than me on the subject. Maybe you can make something out of it for your quest:
"Berkeley's immaterialism argues that 'esse est percipi (aut percipere)', which in English is to be is to be perceived (or to perceive). That is saying only what perceived or perceives is real, and without our perception or God's nothing can be real."
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Berkeley)
"In the Principles and the Three Dialogues Berkeley defends two metaphysical theses: idealism (the claim that everything that exists either is a mind or depends on a mind for its existence) and immaterialism (the claim that matter does not exist). His contention that all physical objects are composed of ideas is encapsulated in his motto esse is percipi (to be is to be perceived)."
(https://iep.utm.edu/george-berkeley-british-empiricist/)
"For any nonthinking being, esse est percipi ('to be is to be perceived')."
(https://www.britannica.com/topic/esse-est-percipi-doctrine)
It seems that this principle is not applied to humans! So, if this is true, then all gets quite obscure ...
As I told you in the beginning, I found and still find Berkeley quite an obscure philosopher.
Anyway, I hope some of all this has added a small pebble to your topic ...
This is the major weakness in Berkeley, as he is a nominalist, i.e. denies the reality of universals.
@Tom Storm 'what we take to be material objects would have a jerky life, suddenly leaping into being when we look at them' - this illustrates one of the fundamental misconceptions of idealism in my view. This has to do with the idea that, when it is stated that 'the object exists in dependence on mind', that, in the absence of a mind, it literally ceases to be, or goes out of existence. There was a similar argument, or sentiment, expressed by G E Moore, when he said that, when the passengers are all seated in the train, the wheels must dissappear, as they are no longer perceived.
I want to make a couple of points about this. The first is a reference to the Copenhagen Intepretation of quantum physics. According to it, the object of analysis of an experiment does not exist until it is measured or observed ('no phenomena is a phenomena until it is an observed phenomena' ~ Neils Bohr.) But a corollary of this was that it was incorrect to say that the object did not exist until it was observed. Rather, nothing could be said about it, until it was observed. (Positivism was to exploit that for their own ends.) What I would rather say, is that the kind of existence it had was indeterminate, prior to the observation of it. And this is supported by the principle of the wave function, which after all is a distribution of possibilities: if you ask, 'where is the (x) before the measurement', the answer is the wave function, i.e. a possibility distribution. 'It' neither exists nor doesn't exist prior to measurement - all it is, is a tendency to exist.
The second point, related, as that we have a flawed understanding of the meaning of 'to exist'. When we imagine the train wheels dissappearing, that is simply their imagined non-existence. We are attempting to assume a perspective from which we can envisage or see them outside any conception of them - which, of course, we cannot actually do. We can safely assume, or behave as if, they possess 'object permanence', which for the purposes of naturalism, they do. But what naturalism does not see, is the role of the observing mind in constituting the object - and that applies to any object whatever. And this is the main contribution of all forms of idealism - to throw into relief the role of the observer in the constitution of what we take to be real independently of any act of perception.
Compare with this passage on Husserl's critique of naturalism:
[quote=Routledge Introduction to Phenomenology, p144] In contrast to the outlook of naturalism, Husserl believed all knowledge, all science, all rationality depended on conscious acts, acts which cannot be properly understood from within the natural outlook at all. Consciousness should not be viewed naturalistically as part of the world at all, since consciousness is precisely the reason why there was a world there for us in the first place. For Husserl it is not that consciousness creates the world in any ontological sensethis would be a subjective idealism, itself a consequence of a certain naturalising tendency whereby consciousness is cause and the world its effectbut rather that the world is opened up, made meaningful, or disclosed through consciousness. The world is inconceivable apart from consciousness. Treating consciousness as part of the world, reifying consciousness, is precisely to ignore consciousnesss foundational, disclosive role. For this reason, all natural science is naive about its point of departure, for Husserl. Since consciousness is presupposed in all science and knowledge, then the proper approach to the study of consciousness itself must be a transcendental oneone which, in Kantian terms, focuses on the conditions for the possibility of knowledge...[/quote]
The whole point of idealist philosophy is to come to understand the constitutive role of the mind in the generation of experience. And you can actually see that awareness growing in modern cultural discourse, with phenomenology being one of the key tributaries of it. But Berkeley, Kant, and Schopenhauer are all significant precursors to it (god bless 'em).
I'm not an expert on such esoteric questions, but my rather naive interpretation of "esse est percipi" means just the opposite of Solipsism : "the view or theory that the self is all that can be known to exist". Apparently he was merely stating the underlying assumption of traditional Idealism : that we observers are merely ideas, concepts, Forms, avatars in the mind of God (or LOGOS for Plato ; or the Universe Game for players). In other words, we humans, including bodies, are merely instances of universal Mind : parts of the whole ; chips off the old block. Is that hubris or modesty? Can we prove our claimed patrimony? Can the part question the Whole?
Both Self-image and God-image are imaginary concepts in your mind, not empirical objects. But, which came first : the Causal Principle or the Actual Effect ; the universal-eternal Creator or the local-temporal Conceiver? I guess that depends on your opinion of the reality/ideality/necessity of Eternity/Infinity to explain Space-Time and Consciousness. The computed answer is "42". :smile:
Mind of God :
Plato thought that forms (which he called Ideas) exist in a realm of their own. However, Aristotle considered that forms only exist in so much as they are instantiated in the things they inform. St Augustine, taking a basically Platonic point of view, placed the realm of the Ideas in the mind of God. In this question, Aquinas attempts to reconcile the teaching of St Augustine concerning Ideas in the mind of God with an Aristotelian metaphysical framework.
http://readingthesumma.blogspot.com/2010/05/question-15-ideas-in-mind-of-god.html
Hello charles,
Kastrup usually starts by positing a mind-at-large as the best account of reality (to explain consciousness and newer empirical knowledge). My point before was not that Kastrup starts with something other than, well, his idealism but, rather, that his is very different in many ways to Berkeley (but likewise shares different aspects as well).
Not that I am aware of; as he is very much an empiricist, like me, at his core. Theres no way to prove, in itself, from pure reason that God exists without the aid of empirical knowledge (of experience). Also, Kastrup is a naturalist; so by God he means more a pantheism and definitely not a form of theism.
The substance is mental. In substratum theory, the idea is that properties are bore by a substrate, which serves as the compresence for the properties of a given thing, and theres typically two kinds of substances people posit: mental and physical. Physical is a mind-independent substance (a substrate that bears the properties) and mental is a mind-dependent substance (ditto). Its just to help denote the type of existence which one is positing as bearing the properties of things.
Kastrup is arguing that within the mental substance, the fundamental thing is a mind.
By substance, I was referring to substratum theory (i.e., the substrate that bears properties) and not a material substance in the sense of a tangible object that exists. Berkeley is definitely against materialism, which, in its most basic form, is a substance monist view that posits a physical substance and, in the case of materialism, that what fundamentally exists therein is fundamental particles (which are tangible). Personally, I dont think material things, if they existed in that sense, would be identical to nothingness; rather, I think he had a good point that prima facie speaking about a material object is nonsensical, albeit potentially true, because nothing we experience is ever directly that material object.
Mine too. I was referring to the commonplace view. Bernado Kasturp has posited that the reason his car remains in the garage after the door is closed and he is sitting with a drink is that Mind at Large allows for object permanence. He seems more Berkeley than Kant.
Quoting Quixodian
This is an important aspect of the discussion - thanks.
To clarify - are we not talking about two distinct accounts of idealism here? The phenomenological account where we 'co-create' our reality (this would be similar to Kant, perhaps) and the more transcendental variety wherein there are no material things and a cosmic consciousness is the guarantor of reality - Kastrup or Berkeley? Can you say some more on this?
Also do you have a brief take how a Vedanta conception of reality might fit into this schema?
I think it's developed through the kind of dialectical process over many years of discussion and analysis, although I think that Kant was the watershed.
Quoting Tom Storm
Buddhism and Vedanta are traditionally opponents in this respect, in that Vedanta posits something analogous to Kastrup's 'mind at large', whereas Buddhism does not.
I'm more inclined to the Buddhist analysis although the subtleties are hard to understand and to present. But I think it is something along these lines: that what we need to grasp is that all we know of existence whether of an immediate object or the Universe at large is a function of our world-making intelligence, the activity of the sophisticated 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. But there is no need to posit a mind at large 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. This is the ground of one of those paradoxical sayings of the Buddha - '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 I think that is because, right from the outset, the Buddha understood the real sense in which 'mind creates world'.
This is the sense in which Buddhist philosophy is said to be opposed to speculative metaphysics. Any attempt to name or to posit what it is that exists apart from or outside the organs of cognition and understanding is bound to culminate something like one of Kant's antinomies of reason (explicated in T R V Murti 'Central Philosophy of Buddhism'). We have to thoroughly realise that we really don't know (there's a Korean Son (Zen) school that is based on 'only don't know')
But this is also part of the background of The Embodied Mind, by Varela and Thompson et al, which brings together elements of Buddhist philosophy and phenomenology. I know it's kind of baffling to think about, that's where I think some element of Zen practice is kind of essential for it.
That's so elegantly expressed.
Quoting Quixodian
Got ya. This is so interesting and what a wonderful summary you've provided. Has your view of idealism changed much in the past 2 or 3 years?
Quoting Quixodian
I feel like I need to smoke a continental jazz cigarette to really savor that one. I'll need some time with that one.
Some elements of it I've had for a long time, but I keep seeing new implications.
Object permanence is not strictly speaking a phenomenon. All we know, phenomenologically speaking (and of course trusting our memories) is that objects commonly appear unchanged in all particulars, including their locations, when we return to them.
The individual mind could not be responsible for this, because that posit could not explain how we all see the same things in the same places and with the same features. So if it is not to be mind-independent existents then it must be connected or entangled human minds or a universal mind to which we are all connected or something else we cannot imagine.
This cannot explain how it is that other species see the same things we do. Also, we have individual intelligences, so my intelligence could not make the world for you and vice versa; and yet we see the same things. Perhaps our intelligences are connected in ways we cannot be aware of, but if we cannot be aware of it...?
Quoting Quixodian
Unfortunately, you never seem to be able to see the problems.
Yes, but you will still never know what it's like to be a bat.
In any case, that has nothing to do with the question. If you and I and everyone else we might ask see an orange on the table, how could our similar cognitive setups explain the fact that we all see a table with an orange on it rather than some else altogether?
It's not about how things appear to us, but what appears to us. I am genuinely puzzled that you don't seem to get this distinction.
What do you think idealism is saying? Why do you think that idealism would suggest anything other than that? It's not saying that 'the world is all in your mind'. What I take it to be saying is that the fundamental ground of reality is experiential in nature, it doesn't comprise the objects or physical properties posited by physicalism which are said to exist completely independently of experience (yet at the same time, somehow mysteriously give rise to experience). But as Bernardo Kastrup frequently points out, that doesn't actually change anything about what science observes, or what we observe, day to day.
Bernardo Kastrup suggests that if the entire universe is mind, the presence of dissociative personalities creating individual consciousnesses answers questions that defeat other ontologies. In this view, each of us is a dissociated alter, and just like conventional alters are, we can be aware of and interact with each other without mentally overlapping or seeing into each others minds (drawing on studies of dissociative personality disorders which provide a kind of limited example of the principle).
Kastrup proposes our individual experiences in the physical world arent an issue because theyre not what they seem: theyre merely patterns of self-excitation of cosmic consciousness. Thats to say there is no physical world as such, but rather It is the variety and dynamics of excitations across the underlying medium that lead to different experiential qualities. Within that, it is natural that we see the same things, particularly because we operate at more or less the same level of adaption.
I'm familiar with Kastrup's views, but the whole idea of a universal mind holding the incredible diversity and invariance we see in place by thinking it seems implausible to me. And in any case what practical difference would it make whether mind or mind-independent physical existents were the fundamental constituents of reality; what difference would it make to how we live our lives?
Additionally, if everything. including everything we think and everything anyone has ever thought were a manifestation of this one mind, how to explain the remarkable diversity of opinion regarding the nature of things?
Perceiving, like imagining, remembering, speculating, inferring, etc., is a species of thinking.
Descartes: For any human mind, to think is to exist (cogito ergo sum).
In other words, when and while I am thinking, in the first person present tense mode, I must be existing.
Berkeley: For any human mind, to be (to exist) is to perceive (esse est percipere).
In other words, when and while I am perceiving in the first person present tense mode, I must be existing.
In my opinion, Berkeley's esse est percipere (to be is to perceive) and Descartes' cogito sum (while thinking, I am) are saying precisely the same thing.
To this extent Berkeley and Descartes are in agreement.
They both claim, each in his own way, that the existence or being of a human mind depends upon its perceiving or thinking.
However, Berkeley takes a major step beyond Descartes.
Unlike Descartes, Berkeley also claims the "esse" of every object of human perception depends upon its "percipi," i.e., the existence of every object depends exclusively upon its being perceived by a human mind.
However, Descartes was unable to go as far as Berkeley did because he claimed that, with the single exception of personal existence, the existence of all objects of human thought could not be indubitably certain.
In other words, for Descartes the performance of the esse est percipi (the to be is to be perceived) is neither existentially consistent nor existentially self-verifying, when and while I am performing it in the first person present tense mode, i.e., it cannot overcome hyperbolic doubt and, thus, is not indubitably certain.
Only the performance of the Cogito Sum is existentially consistent and existentially self-verifying, i.e., indubitably certain, when and while I am performing it in the first person present tense mode.
Imagining, remembering, speculating, inferring, etc., are indeed thinking. Perceiving is a total different thing. It involves our senses and is a most simple process: it stops at recognizing, identifying things, which are almost instant. What we observe we can then process with the mind, which involves thinking, a process that can take ... forever.
Quoting charles ferraro
I don't think Descartes has ever assumed "for any human mind". It;s an additive. It's Berkeley that assumed that, as I menteioned.
Quoting charles ferraro
I have showed in different occasions that this unfortunately is not true, referring th the term "thinking" as we use it today. In fact, its the opposite. During thinking you may lose the sense and experience of living. There are many times that you are thinking all sorts of things but in reality you are absent-minded, or immerged in the past by bringing up memories, or while you are imagining things, etc. Thinking can be also illusory. In all these cases you are not aware, or you are partially aware, of your existence and anything in your environment! Thinking actually is an obstacle to being totally aware, that is, observe and perceive things in your environment as well as aware of youresf. But I can't believe Descartes didn't realize all these things. That's why I believe that by "thinking" he most probably meant "being aware". That is, "I am aware, therefore I exist".
Quoting charles ferraro
As I said, thinking and perception are two totally different things. But if by "thinking" pone means "being conscious/aware" --as in Descartes' time -- then they are close.
Quoting charles ferraro
Please look up the definitions of "perceive" and "think" or "perception" and "thinking". I mean it.
Quoting charles ferraro
Of course. He lived a century later. And most probably he took ideas from Descartes.
Quoting charles ferraro
Right. By this only you should see that thinking and perception are different things. And that Berkeley was very close to consciousness/awareness, since consciousness depends on perceiving; it is actually and in essence perception. (Not as a definition, of course).
For what it's worth, human thinking and human perceiving both presuppose human consciousness and are modes of human consciousness. When and while I am actively engaging in an act of thinking or an act of perception, in the first person present tense mode, I must be consciously aware of doing either while, simultaneously, also be consciously aware of the fact that I exist. To claim otherwise, in the first person present tense mode, would be existentially inconsistent and existentially self-defeating; i.e., impossible.
The main difference between thinking consciously and perceiving consciously is that the existence of the "object" thought consciously is indubitably certain (not subject to hyperbolic doubt), whereas the existence of the object perceived consciously is not indubitably certain (subject to hyperbolic doubt).
I'm currently reading the 2021 book by Charles Pinter, subtitled : How the Mind Creates the Features & Structure of All Things. He seems to be an Idealist, but unlike Plato or Berkeley, he bases his idealistic interpretation of Reality on scientific evidence ; especially the non-classical (non-mechanical) notions of Quantum Physics.
For example, he says, echoing Donald Hoffman, that "we are biologically designed to believe that what we see is Reality with a capital R". Then he notes that "the 'cup in itself' -- the real teacup in the unobserved physical world -- consists of atoms & charged particles, and 'appearance' is not a force of physics". What he's referring to is the world as described by physicists probing the sub-atomic foundations of the physical world. What they report is something to the effect that atoms are fuzzy-fluff-balls of invisible energy. And each atom is like a star, whirling through empty space, connected to other atoms only by links of invisible attractive forces, like gravity. Hence, we perceive them only en masse (as a whole system), just as clouds are merely swarms of microscopic water particles as seen collectively from a distance. Hence, he concludes that "objectively the unobserved universe is formless and featureless" : like a fog.
Although I haven't reached the concluding chapter, so far Pinter doesn't seem to use the metaphor of the "Mind of God" to represent the ultimate reality. He does occasionally refer to a "mind-independent world", but that merely indicates the obvious fact that the Cosmos consists of more than a single human perspective. Yet that could imply that we collectively create the world, or that we each perceive a fraction of the whole world as created by some enigmatic cosmic mind. Similarly, Kastrup*1 sometimes uses the German term "alter" (elder ; other ; father ; dude)*2 to label a mysterious feeling of connection to some higher power. :smile:
Reality is not what it seems :
The idea that reality is fundamentally thought, consciousness, or an idea, as opposed to physical matter, atoms, or particles, is becoming more main stream. The many problems with scientific materialism are finally coming home to roost. But this does not mean reality just is how it appears to be in our own private consciousness of it, writes Bernardo Kastrup.
https://iai.tv/articles/reality-is-not-what-it-seems-auid-2312
Alter :
An alter is a dissociation of a part of the universal mind from the whole. A bit like monads
https://neuroself.wordpress.com/kastrup-bernardo/
As I see, you refuse to look up the terms. Well, you are not alone. You, along with all the others who hate or avoid to look up and/or examine closely and really undestand the terms the meaning of which they don't know or think they know, will always remain with misconceptions. Which means, they won't be able to make correct judgements. It's only obvious.
You're certainly entitled to your opinion. Good luck with your inviolable dictionary definitions. The only thing obvious to me is your closed-minded dogmatic attitude.
Yes. As I understand it, the Copenhagen Interpretation was not about Idealism, but about Holism. The particle that suddenly appears upon "collapse" of the superposed statistical state did not just materialize from thin air. Instead its statistical (mathematical) existence is Potential, and its collapsed existence is Actual.
For example, a Holistic system -- such as a galaxy of stars -- appears as a Nebula (cloud) from a distance, and its component stars are bound into a system by mutual gravitational attraction. As long as the gravitational field is stable, none of the stars can move independently. Likewise, an Atom is a cloud of particles that act holistically and display collective properties. But when an atom-smasher destroys the system, each sub-atomic particle moves off on its own trajectory, defined by its own properties. When bound into the atom, each electron only has a statistical existence. It's in there, but undetectable until Actualized by the "collapse" (mathematical state to physical state) of the atomic system.
Aristotle probably had nothing like the modern concept of Electrons or Galaxies, but he saw a need to distinguish Potential existence from Actual being.
Systems Theory/Holism :
Holism emphasizes that the state of a system must be assessed in its entirety and cannot be assessed through its independent member parts.
https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Systems_Theory/Holism
I'm sure we discussed this article before Quantum mysteries dissolve if possibilities are realities -'This new ontological picture requires that we expand our concept of what is real to include an extraspatiotemporal domain of quantum possibility. Notes that Heisenberg (Platonist that he was) endorses the Aristotelian concept of potentia.
Yes, that article seems to agree with my assessment of the Quantum quandaries, that make the basement of physical reality appear to be a dungeon of dragons. On the other hand, "including potential things on the list of real things can avoid the counterintuitive conundrums that quantum physics poses". Ironically, it expands our conventional materialistic notion of Reality into the realm of Platonic Ideality. Potential "things" --- hidden in statistical superposition --- are technically not-yet-manifest in our sensory reality. They must be coaxed to actualize (realize) by a technological act of mind.
That's why pragmatic scientists were appalled to "see" real particles appearing as-if out of nowhere (statistical probability) after an intervention by their mind-probes into the holistic systems of material atoms, that were previously assumed to be indivisible. Even singular photons are seen to split into multiple manifestations upon passing through a bottleneck slit. But, if we can be content to assume that the Potential for the multiple photons already existed in the potential of immaterial Energy, the mystifying magic is revealed to be merely a trick of the mind.