There is no Independent Existence
Hi everyone in the forum, I would like to present a claim to get replies and reactions from you.
I claim: Objects do not exist independently, there is no existence without mind actualizing it. A firm requirement of existence is for existents to include traits and details which the external world lack, except force.
The five human senses do a very good job at seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and dermal feeling by touch but what is cognized is not something located in the external world, only the appearance-less essence of what is cognized is located in the external world and it is mind what provides all cognized appearances and details.
In other words, the external world is constituted by force (different levels of force) and appearances or details do not exist there independently, it is only stimuli promoters what lead to appearances or details when mind does its job using the five human senses.
Your comments on what I have stated would be welcome, and if a question is needed for the topic to be valid: can you prove my claims wrong?
I claim: Objects do not exist independently, there is no existence without mind actualizing it. A firm requirement of existence is for existents to include traits and details which the external world lack, except force.
The five human senses do a very good job at seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and dermal feeling by touch but what is cognized is not something located in the external world, only the appearance-less essence of what is cognized is located in the external world and it is mind what provides all cognized appearances and details.
In other words, the external world is constituted by force (different levels of force) and appearances or details do not exist there independently, it is only stimuli promoters what lead to appearances or details when mind does its job using the five human senses.
Your comments on what I have stated would be welcome, and if a question is needed for the topic to be valid: can you prove my claims wrong?
Comments (126)
Well, we have no direct access to external objects anyway, except through the mind and the senses.
But are you saying that the external objects are created by and made of mind or "force" (like intelligent energy or creative intelligence)? Or only the mental objects perceived internally by the mind and the senses?
Or maybe 2 questions. Do all of the people involved in growing the ingredients, making the beer brewing equipment, brewing the beer, canning/bottling the beer actually do nothing at all?
The beer exist when you drink it, everything involved in making it sub-exist in a dark underground I call: Actuality.
Actuality is made out of facts but it is not Reality.
What would then happen if we "actualized" the Moon (or each other) differently?
What about new discoveries? Are they somehow actualized unconsciously...?
If only I could actualize covid-19 immunity for my mum. What's with the constraints? Oh yes, I'd like a word with whoever actualized the virus. Maybe they could just go ahead and uhh unactualize.
Quoting Nelson E Garcia
The plot thickens. :)
Well, is this "substratum" then existentially mind-independent?
Very good, similar to the doctrine of Bishop Berkeley:
[quote=Wiki;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Berkeley#Immaterialism]George Berkeley’s theory that matter does not exist comes from the belief that "sensible things are those only which are immediately perceived by sense." Berkeley says in his book called The Principles of Human Knowledge that "the ideas of sense are stronger, livelier, and clearer than those of the imagination; and they are also steady, orderly and coherent." From this we can tell that the things that we are perceiving are truly real rather than it just being a dream.
All knowledge comes from perception; what we perceive are ideas, not things in themselves; a thing in itself must be outside experience; so the world only consists of ideas and minds that perceive those ideas; a thing only exists so far as it perceives or is perceived.[/quote]
Well it is a philosophy forum. If you want to find some actual gems, try fossicking.-)
Keep in mind, metaphysics is not a science, offering testable hypotheses, the reputation of the metaphysician is an important component of the enterprise and it depends on the audience respecting it just because the claims could not be disproven, if proved wrong that would be the end of the effort.
My metaphysical persuasion is presented in a book I have self-published and here is an excerpt from my book glossary (the glossary is a separate book) which perhaps would give you a clear idea of my frame of mind.
“Absolute Realization is a metaphysical persuasion which I classify as a theist, essentialist, intelligent design proposition about a foundation of epistemological awareness that eventually reaches theoretical-practical realness. My metaphysical argument springs from a simple, although surprising realization: As a matter of metaphysical fact, the universe is invisible and silent, and the human genetic makeup—practically singlehandedly—must overcome such considerable interaction limitations in order to succeed.
Genetic instructions carried by the chain of species are responsible for both the emergence and functioning of the body and mind in human beings. As the necessary means to interact with the featureless substratum of the universe, they are the cause of the feature-rich environment we are able to observe as soon as we become aware. Therefore, the external world we identify as being visible, audible, tastable, smellable and touchable is a synthesis of the universe substratum’s pre-existents and mind’s effect on them…”
Glossary Book Page 1
I take my previous statement back, the plot is now diluting.
If things were wholly of my own making, actualized, then I couldn't really misunderstand or get something wrong about them. I'd know already. Something's amiss, @Nelson E Garcia.
Quoting Wayfarer
Not really. (I guess there are reasons only 4.3% of academic philosophers go down this rabbit hole; dead end.)
To quote from a post, select the text you want to quote and a floating Quote button will appear - click on that to copy the properly-formatted text into a new post.
Quoting jorndoe
'Very good' as in 'Very well, then', not 'Hey I think that's great'. But I am inclined to agree with Berkeley, and predict that many of the objections to such ideas will be lapidiary, although we'll have to wait and see.
Do do not confuse understanding with actualizing. Understanding depends on you intellectual build-up. Actualizing of the object you observe is provided automatically by your cognitive system. What you observe within awareness (awake, not in a dream or hallucinating) is created by mind in subjective fashion so it can never be wrong since it is actualized internally (from genetic resources and at your highest intellectual level). It is not in fact observed in the external world but since it fits the substratum under target with precision, that is why it is hard to believe.
Scientists claim that the Earth existed billions of years before the emergence of human beings (with minds).
Either you are disagreeing with their claim in which case this is an empirical dispute. Or else you're using words unconventionally which is likely to confuse your audience. If the latter, can you restate your claim in conventional terms?
But the idea that things don't exist until something observes them is just Quantum Mechanics. Now all the fighting is over what this "observer" is. Though there is still some fighting over whether or not QM should be interpreted ontologically or epistemologically. When we talk about the uncertainty principle, and say we are uncertain of where the electron is, is this an "epistemological limitation" as in the electron is in fact in a specific location X and we don't know where, or is it an "ontological limitation" as in the electron is in no specific location X, and is ontologically only describable by a probability function? I think the ontological interpretation is more common nowadays, though Multiple Worlds is of the epistemological variety.
Is the mind an object? Does it exist independently? Or must each mind be actualised by another mind?
Is this "appearance-less essence" or "force" that exists in the external world not an object?
All-in-all this seems like you're getting at something like Kant's noumena/phenomena distinction.
Who are you talking to?
Self-contradictory? If existants require it, but the external world doesn’t have it.....how does an external thing meet its own requirements?
————-
Quoting Nelson E Garcia
Agreed. What is cognized is representation of that which is in the external world. But that which does not exist in the external world cannot affect sensibility, therefore cannot be represented, hence cannot be cognized.
—————
Quoting Nelson E Garcia
Dunno so much about that, but......
Quoting Nelson E Garcia
....this is agreeable, insofar as “stimuli promoters” are merely the matter of extant objects. In effect, appearances logically reduce to stimuli promoters. There’s no significant difference between something appearing to be “round”, and that which promotes perception to respond to the conditions of “round-ness”.
—————
Quoting Nelson E Garcia
What is this “force” you’re talking about? I suppose one could say extants in the external world “force” themselves upon sensibility, iff any of them are in fact perceived. But if that’s the case, how is that I still cognize my four-legged childhood companion “Sparky”?
—————
No existence without an actualizing mind, is Berkeley’s dogmatic idealism; attribution of “traits and details” is Kant’s transcendental idealism, albeit by means of reason, not mind. “Force” may be original to you, but the rest is well-worn.
And no, no one can prove your claims wrong, because it’s metaphysics. But your claims can be argued and theoretically refuted given some generally identical initial premises but operating under different systemic conditions from them.
Have fun with it, I say.
I have redefined existence as something that becomes rather than “is”. It is not easy to bring that redefinition to the forum in one shot so first you read my initial claim, ask me to restated it, and here it is in different words. We learn that things (objects) exist in their own, but in fact each time you sense-target there is only a substratum which requires mind to become an existent. Such state of affairs does not affect logical facts such as the one you mentioned: “the Earth existed billions of years before the emergence of human beings (with minds).” Therefore before you become acquainted with my whole frame of mind, all significant aspects of it, I suggest taking my initial explanation as a correction of misguided language. In metaphysical talk (perception metaphysics in particular) it is incorrect to refer to existence-in-its-own, there is no such thing in the universe. Existents become by act of mind.
I am careful about the word “exist”. Anything able to exist should you sense-target it, pre-exists in the meantime. Consider pre-exist as a correct expression.
Quoting Michael
When referring to immaterial targets such as mind, consider actualization by judgment (judgment of mind) so yes another mind judging yours is needed, but your own judgment is as good as another mind judgement, right? Essence is not an object until it is realized by mind (realized into an object of realness).
Initially I meant to talk to all members, but sarcastic or disrespectful members, if any, I rather not talk to.
Yeah...about that. Theses days, I got all kinds of time, but I seem to have lost a great deal of interest. So, yep, got time, but maybe not inclination.
The universe pre-existent substratum would be left.
What are the properties of this substratum?
Quoting Nelson E Garcia
How can you if 'There is no Independent Existence'?
This forum, and all its members are figments of your solipsistic imagination.
You're talking to yourself - and you still didn't get it!
If you are looking for a metaphysical definition: force surfaces. If looking for a scientific response, physics has a growing catalogue regarding properties of the substratum.
Check my website to determine whether you have interest. (look at my bio).
I would be willing to suppose that the universe is expanding to keep up with how far we are looking, but mind actualization seems to limiting to be the only requirement for existence. Things that are out of view still need to remain in existence in so much as other variables states rely on them. The inner core of the earth is probably always there without the need for anyone constantly pinging it.
It is a controversial feature of my metaphysical persuasion to only rate as reality what is perceived, while anything else pre-existing out of mind’s sense-targeting I rate as actuality, not reality. The controversy is large because I claim science in its totality operates within actuality. Only perception (directly and in close proximity) reaches realness and if that was not enough a controversy, human cognition I divide between reception and perception. Only human beings who attain the hierarchy of perceptors are capable of perceiving. Human receptors and scientific instrument are not capable of perceiving, they operate by means of psychological impressions. I do not expect you to fully understand my frame of mind just by reading here a few of my claims.
Actually.....that’s not half bad, gathered from the “about the book” section. Most of it is within, or amendable to, my metaphysical disposition.
On the other hand, I reject the “facts of intelligent design” and “supernaturally imposed programmed features” out of hand, whatever their associations, and tentatively withhold judgement on “force surface”......not quite getting the gist of that one.
But why? (agree, predict, ...)
Minds are parts of the world, there are things that depend thereupon, but (literally) everything? :brow:
@Nelson E Garcia, not really seeing any (good) responses to inquiries.
Oh, keep in mind that what you don't know can still kill you. ;)
Anyway, I'm certainly not going to universalize self-dependence.
Kind of haphazard, unwarranted, questionable, ...
Supposing this is the case I have a couple of questions regarding the demarcation line between in and out of the mind's sense-targeting. Keeping with the inner core of the earth as an example, I see two possible cases under your criteria.
The inner core of the earth exists in actuality; in the sense we can get information about it but it isn't there because there isn't a direct path between our senses and the inner core of the earth.
or
The inner core of the exists in reality, because of the gravity I feel for a positive sense or the lack dangerous radiation hitting me because of the magnetic field as a negative sense.
Which are you implying to be the correct interpretation or neither. I realize it's later qualified, but I'm looking for a starting point.
(sidelong glances)......who, me???? Nahhh......no formal training. I couldn’t sit still long enough for the superfluous stuff. Plus, there was the......you know.....the draft.
Thanks for the offer.
If idealism is so obviously wrong to you, why do you think people believe it? I'm asking for philosophical reasons, not psychological or cultural ones. I've never seen you really engage with the philosophy of idealism, despite repeated mockeries and hints at ridiculousness.
But aren't you a kind of linguo-idealist? Sometimes you say things along the lines of language structuring the world. But we can't talk about the world without talking about it, can we? Why doesn't that fall foul of a version of Stove's gem?
No doubt I've mischaracterised your view here, but I'm interested in the correct version.
May I disagree with your description of the Berkeleyan perspective? Berkeley thought the external world is only felt in some ways (as ideas). Therefore it would be improper to attribute properties to it other than the ideas that make up our feeling of the external world. That is because we are limited to our cognitive system and there is no way to reach the external world beyond our ideas. Later on, a remarkable thing happened that would surprise Berkeley very much. He thought there was no way to corroborate materiality, and concluded, correctly so, there is no matter, only a “feeling” of matter. In the basis of his conclusion it can be inferred that neither materiality or immateriality can be corroborated, and that was the case in his time. But then comes the surprise, the atom microscope was developed and his Immaterialism became a scientific fact.
Yes
Quoting Nelson E Garcia
I don't understand what you are referring to there.
The OP is pretty muddled, moving between sensing and force and existence without much clarity. But the rough idea seems to be a version of Stove's Gem: that we only ever cognise/know/understand stuff through our senses and hence that we never cognise/know/understand stuff as it is "in itself"; the "appearance-less essence of what is cognized is located in the external world and it is mind what (sic.) provides all cognized appearances and details."
Stove's Gem is that you only know stuff with your mind, so you don't really know stuff.
Meditate on that for a bit. It contains that odd word, "really"; and it says you know stuff but you don't really know stuff. Both hallmarks of confusion.
Do you know you are reading this post? The argument would go something like that the "appearance-less essence of what is cognised" of this post "is located in the external world", not in your mind, but your reading is located in your mind... so you are not really reading this post.
But I put it to you that you are indeed reading this post, and further that you also know you are reading this post. It follows, by reductio, that any argument that says otherwise is wrong.
(If you prefer only justified knowledge, replace "know" with "are certain" in the argument for the same result).
So where does Garcia go astray? By trying to make a distinction where there is none, between what is
cognise/know/understand and what is "really real" - some unknowable essence. What is cognise/know/understand is what is real. This is what T-sentences demonstrate, and is the point made by Davidson in On the very idea of a conceptual scheme. Our language is in direct unmediated contact with the world, and not separated from it by some conceptual scheme.
Doubtless this post will be misunderstood in twenty different ways by folk who will not bother to do the work of reading the background material, but you did ask, so I answered.
Berkeley would agree I think. And Berkeley also thinks we have direct unmediated contact with the world. Your views on the relationship between language and the world seem strikingly reminiscent of idealism to me, even though you repudiate idealism.
I do think that a reader's understanding of a post is primarily the responsibility of the writer of that post. You, Apokrisis, 180 Proof, and other regular posters, all blame readers for not understanding you. Apokrisis particularly was strangely unable to perceive how his posts came across to many others. Having said that I'm grateful for your response. It is interesting and I haven't read Davidson and I should. I will do that. :)
Why would 'force' exist independently? to me it seems you are rethinking Kant in a way. Read his trnascendental deduction. What you call 'force' he called 'ding an sich' or noumenon. To me it seems that 'existence' does indeed not exist independently, whatsoever. that does not mean existence is any less real. If I dream of a beautiful dark haired girlfriend, it is damn waste if I wake up and se turns out not to exist.
The building example gives me something to work with, thanks. Does it matter what medium of perception I use? Looking versus echo locating? Both direct relationships with the senses. Suppose I look at it through night vision googles to see the heat signature that I am blind to otherwise. Where would these fall?
Before going to far; is there some novel conclusion that is supposed to be drawn that can't otherwise be assailed?
I'm not going to pretend to understand Berkeley.
Do you have time to read a book? If you do check my website. (Look up my bio.)
Perception, as defined by me, is more than observation and there is a lot to gain in such “subjugating” but it is too long to explain here. Specially when members respond only to my last post ignoring what I have explained previously and I need to repeat myself.
These stimuli seem to hover somewhere in between natural existence and nonexistence yet they lean far away from nonexistence and more toward existence since they are apparently something that the senses can take in, with the brain needed to turn them into phenomena as 'existence' in our minds' reality, they only in that sense being named as 'pre-existent'.
You lack enough information to determine whether the concept is one worthy of consideration.
Quoting Nelson E Garcia
I don't understand what the bolded phrase means nor why I should regard it as a fact. Conventionally, the term mind has an idiomatic use (e.g., I changed my mind), it doesn't have substantial existence (in Descartes' sense).
Quoting Nelson E Garcia
What is your second sense of fact/state of affairs and what does that usage clarify philosophically?
Quoting Nelson E Garcia
What does "become" mean here? You seem to be defining it in terms of mind which, so far, remains undefined. The scientific view is that the Earth came into existence billions of years in the past and has undergone many changes prior to the emergence of human beings. While no-one thinks the Earth existed independently of the universe itself (including atoms and what-not), it's widely understood that the Earth did exist independently of and prior to the emergence of human beings. Are people in some sense mistaken about that? If so, perhaps you could provide your criteria (or the metaphysical authority implied by "In metaphysical talk") for saying that that talk is incorrect/misguided.
Testable hypotheses are ruled out because I do not conduct experiments that would be scientifically testable in a physical way or present logical arguments that would be proven with logical outcomes resulting in exact science. Basically what the audience could get are claims based on what I assert as correct, the way things are or where.
From there you need to determine what the consequences would be should I be right, and for this enterprise to be successful, you must take my claims as correct for a suitable period of time carefully considering significant consequences and ramifications. If you do that, find no way to significantly disprove my claims, and as a result you end up either liking or fearing the consequences foreseen by your figuring out, you will respect me as metaphysician and could become a member of my persuasion.
If on another hand, you convincingly disprove my claims, come to think I do not know what I am talking about and should think about occupying myself in something other than metaphysics or philosophy of mind, I wish you good luck and apologize in advance for the time you’ve lost taking my rhetoric into consideration.
Clear enough?
Don't give any examples, 'cause that won't help.
Perhaps you could briefly present the problem that you're attempting to solve, and why the conventional (and scientific) language that most people find eminently useful is not up to the task.
Have you read Wittgenstein, Ryle, Austin and other ordinary language philosophers? That will give you a sense of where I'm coming from. A quote of Austin's that I find instructive in this context is:
Quoting J. L. Austin
Rather than solving a problem, my task is to define fundamentals and after I define some fundamentals the results themselves offer guidance that could help preventing problems. Language that is expressed is a cultural matter, but awareness itself includes language fundamentals. The issue of realness, which is my main interest, is not boarded, penetrated, or even significantly reach by the cultural use of language, not even by specialty uses of language of writers such as Wittgenstein, Ryle, Austin, etcetera because what is handled by them is logic. There is a large difference between logical schemes and materiality. Talking about materiality does not board, penetrate, or even significantly reach it. So if you have a prejudice against dualities, if you think all things are set in a single plane, the plane of language, or the plane of nuclear elements, or the plane of logic, or mathematics, you are somehow handicapped for the totality of reality.
So, for the sake coherence could I summarize the position as a belief that if the right mind 'percepts' the intended target the truth about the target will be manifest. And one ought expect it may deviate from information gained by other means.
Putting it in my own words in hope of bridging this communication canyon.
You lack enough information to determine whether the concept is one worthy of consideration. You need to wait until my exchange with Andrew M gives you more clues because you are too far away from what I mean.
I'm pretty sure his patience ran out like mine did, but I could be wrong. People don't like being frustrated and then condescended to, so there's a limit. Just tell us what you've invested your entire ego into and we'll let you know it's horribly mistaken. Trust me they are good at; keeps you fresh.
Then how is it possible that some people know things better than others and yet all knowledge is equally true by standing definition. Seems we would have to be wrong in order to improve knowledge.
Quoting Nelson E Garcia
He hasn't read them, it seems, since that's exactly wrong. But he's written a book on it, and so nailed his colours to the mast. .
It is certainly interesting. Considering there are literal pieces of paper called degrees which denote a level of knowledge. If the JTB is a conceptual scheme that misrepresents the world then it contradicts your assertion below.
Quoting Banno
One of these concepts doesn't fit well. It's odd to find such a glaring hole in the JTB schema while not really looking for one.
Wouldn't it be more parsimonious (and more accurate and less misleading) to simply say that cognition is presentation?
But go ahead and see if you can articulate exactly what the issue is. Here's the JTB account: A statement counts as knowledge if and only if it is justified, true and believed.
Tell us exactly what you see as the problem.
A belief can be true or false
Knowledge is a belief
Knowledge can only be true
I couldn't figure out how to apply the account. I'll look again and repost there. Thanks.
First off, this is a tautology because existence is defined as that perceived and "to be is to be perceived" is actually the statement, to exist (to be) is to exist (be perceived). Basically, the tautology boils down to the circular definition: existence is existence. We haven't made an inch of progress.
Secondly, it leads to a paradox vis-à-vis God, a necessary component of Berkeley's idealism I'm told for reasons you can Google. Since theism is part of idealism, it must include an act of creation - the universe and everything in it must come into being through God's perception as it were. That means, there's a point in time when God is alone. God, if esse est percipi, can exist because God perceives faerself. However, to perceive, God must first exist but to exist, God must first perceive. Round and round in a circle we go. God can't exist. If so, idealism collapses like a house of cards!
Yep. That's why there's a "T" in JTB.
That's not right. There are things that have not been perceived.
As per idealism, God is reportedly the all-seeing eye! Nothing escapes God's notice. Panopticon. See also CCTV and Police, to name a few possible means of keeping an eye out on the universe.
You think of God as a gaoler? Fair call.
SO you need god in order that the cup still exist when you put it back in the cupboard. That's a bit of overkill.
Ignoratio elenchi!
I don't need God. Idealism does!
IIF a belief can be true or false, then a true belief is not a belief, because a belief can be true or false.
:grin:
Think that's an end to this discussion.
I followed the trail as best as I could.
Depends. Presentation of what, to what?
You ask as if I have a choice! Mu!
As @Banno points out, that is not what they were doing. Among other things, they offered critiques of how language goes astray when not woven into our ordinary actions. See, for example, Wittgenstein's private language argument and Ryle's influential book The Concept of Mind. Following Austin's advice, a good place to start for understanding how the word real is used is to check the dictionary. That provides a shared basis for communication which is really what has been lacking in this thread (there's that word!) Then say what you want to say in connection with that.
Quoting Nelson E Garcia
Not a prejudice. Just aware of how disconnected they can be from ordinary life.
I'd like to agree with you but finding it difficult. Your presentation is rather idiosyncratic.
But I do have some general comments to make on the relationship of various idealisms to the generally realist critics of it, specifically
Quoting Andrew M
I think I have mentioned previously the discussion of this topic in Magee's book Schopenhauer's Philosophy. The context is a discussion of Schopenhauer's defense of Kant with respect to just this question. The objector states:
Bryan Magee Schopenhauer's Philosophy, Pp 106-107.
What the realist objection overlooks, is the role of the observing subject in the establishment of what counts as 'before h.sapiens evolved'. A remark made in a post I was reading says 'Like Kant and subsequently Niels Bohr, Ulfbeck and (Aage) Bohr [Neils Bohr's son, also a physicist] view space and time as “a scene established for the ordering of experiences.” 'It is obviously a hard thing to accept, but I think the point that is being made is that time and space have no intrinsic, observer-independent reality, but are instead inextricably intertwined with the sense of perspective that an observer brings to the question.
I think the realist view takes for granted the reality which any fundamental philosophy is required to question. The underlying issue is that realism forgets the sense in which 'naturalism assumes nature' - meaning that naturalism begins with the apparently obvious reality of the empirical domain, which is really a methodological premise, but then too easily forgets that it is methodological, and instead projects it as a metaphysical certainty. That, I think, accounts for many realist criticisms of idealist philosophies.
Ordinary life is cultural, and my writing is mostly about metaphysical issues, my writing does not intend to explain everyday cultural manifestations or how the use of expressed language affects cultural interactions. It centers on metaphysical fundamentals and the use of the senses rather than the details of communication. So you could put aside my comment about Wittgenstein, Ryle, Austin, etcetera who I choose to mention because you mentioned them, what I mean is that most philosophy (not only theirs) is based on logical schemes that do not reach the metaphysical bases of realness. So consider me a philosopher who does not like the philosophical method, I get tired of logical schemes and seek to get straight, or as close as possible, to my target which is realness (reality, perception).
Regarding dualities I value highly my determinations, definitions and conclusions about them, reception and perception, actuality and reality, receptor and perceptor, etcetera are crucial components of my metaphysics, so I felt compelled to tell you if you have a prejudice about them it could become an obstacle for your understanding of my persuasion.
Are you open-minded to an idiosyncratic philosopher? I am a self-taught one who has no much formal education but makes up with considerable vocation for metaphysics. Regarding the example of the earth being a fact long before mind, I have no doubt about that, I only rate facts differently, perceptive facts require perception that depends on direct, concurrent subject-object targeting and those facts are the facts of reality. Logical facts, such as the earth taking form long before mind, do not require mind to be a “fact” but are facts of inference not of reality.
So if what you care about is whether: “the earth took form long before mind” is a solid fact, yes it is. However do not confuse logical facts with perceptive facts. Regarding my metaphysical persuasion it is neither idealism or realism, reality is “realized” (actualized in perception {by mind} over epistemological-practical foundations in synthesis with external world substrata) by human perceptors, and you should tell me whether such realization by mind is realism proper, or something else.
Presentation of objects to consciousness.
To say that the empirical world is a creation of the understanding is an unfounded presumption: we don't know, beyond the current theory of genesis, how it came to be. We know that we apprehend it via consciousness, that is all.
Just as there may be naive realism, this is an example of naive idealism.Naivete in this context consists in thinking that we know what we don't know. Socrates warned against that failing nearly 2500 years ago, and many still have not learned the lesson.
If you’d said representations of objects, as phenomena, I would have agreed, but that’s still only half of it.
As far as being parsimonious.....ehhhh, sometimes we need to be down and dirty, not merely conventional.
Also the formulation 'objects presented to consciousness' is not any more conventional than any other; they all have a long history.
No, it isn’t any more conventional; it is nonetheless conventional. Unqualified, stand-alone objects, as such, are conventionally that which is in space and time.
Quoting Janus
I don’t. Objects aren’t presented to consciousness; phenomena are but phenomena aren’t objects. Objects are presented to sensibility....the faculties for physical impressions, the senses.
What I haven’t said anything about, the other half of it, is the a priori presentation to consciousness of mere conceptions, fully abstracted notions, ideas....the things we think but never perceive.
Sure! I think you're on the right track, where others might not. But the point about academia
is not only to impart knowledge, but also to help you to articulate and situate your ideas in respect of the work of other philosophers. When you use phrases like
Quoting Nelson E Garcia
Quoting Nelson E Garcia
If you were presenting in an academic context, you would be required to explain those ideas in terms intelligible to others, and also in comparison to other like-minded philosophers. ‘Unlike Husserl, I think that X’. I think I know what you’re getting at, but I’m predisposed towards idealism. But that is where I think your terminology is idiosyncratic. (I should add, I'm not an admirer of much of what goes under the name of philosophy in the 20th century.)
Quoting Nelson E Garcia
I think it has a lot in common with transcendental idealism, which is why I mentioned that particular passage about Schopenhauer. Until the late 19th Century various forms of metaphysical idealism were the mainstream of philosophy, in Europe, Britain and the US. But there was a backlash against idealism in the early 20th Century. Philosophy became, in my view, a lot more utilitarian after that.
There are some idealists in physics also. Have a read of The Mental Universe, Richard Conn Henry. He’s probably a maverick in a lot of people’s eyes, but they’re out there.
Sorry, I’m not meaning to lecture you, it is intended in the spirit of constructive criticism. Hope that is OK.
(Arthur Eddington, in Quantum Physics and Ultimate Reality—Mystical Writings of Great Physicists, Michael Green, 2013)
Not at all, I have no expectations.
Quoting Nelson E Garcia
You know that after Kant published the first edition of Critique of Pure Reason, many of his critics said he was saying the same as Berkeley. So in the next edition, he included a section differentiating his work from Berkeley's. I'll spare you the details but it's worth noting that Kant himself said that did not subscribe to Berkeley's philosophy.
Quoting Nelson E Garcia
Based on what you had said so far, that is what I came up with, but I'm not trying to impose that categorisation on you. I thought it might be useful in orienting your ideas in respect of other philosophers. Obviously at this point I can't anticipate what you mean by 'actualised materiality'.
**
A note on my own philosophical background - I first encountered a detailed exposition of Kant in a text called The Central Philosophy of Buddhism, published in 1955, by T R V Murti. Murti compares Kant with the Madhyamika dialectiic of N?g?rjuna. It is nowadays considered dated and has fallen out of favour but it helped me, because it situated Kant in relation to an actual philosophical praxis or way of life, namely, that of Mah?y?na Buddhists.
The passage I quoted from Bryan Magee's book on Schopenhauer continues:
[quote=Bryan Magee] This, incidentally, illustrates a difficulty in the way of understanding which transcendental idealism has permanently to contend with: the assumptions of 'the inborn realism which arises from the original disposition of the intellect' enter unawares into the way in which the statements of transcendental idealism are understood, so that these statements appear faulty in ways in which, properly understood, they are not. Such realistic assumptions so pervade our normal use of concepts that the claims of transcendental idealism disclose their own non-absurdity only after difficult consideration, whereas criticisms of them at first appear cogent which on examination are seen to rest on confusion. We have to raise almost impossibly deep levels of presupposition in our own thinking and imagination to the level of self-consciousness before we are able to achieve a critical awareness of all our realistic assumptions, and thus achieve an understanding of transcendental idealism which is untainted by them. This, of course, is one of the explanations for the almost unfathomably deep counterintuitiveness of transcendental idealism, and also for the general notion of 'depth' with which people associate Kantian and post-Kantian philosophy. Something akin to it is the reason for much of the prolonged, self-disciplined meditation involved in a number of Eastern religious practices.[/quote]
Chapter 15 in that book is 'A Note on Schopenhauer and Buddhism' which expands on that theme in more detail.
Let me ask you a couple of questions about Kant and Berkeley. You just told me Kant did not agree with Berkeley, but Kant was an idealist as Berkeley was right?
Does Idealism mean: you do not see the object as it is in itself (in both cases for Kant and for Berkeley)?
Does materialism mean: you see the object as it is in itself?
[quote=Principle of Human Knowledge§1]It is evident to any one who takes a survey of the objects of human knowledge, that they are either ideas actually imprinted on the senses, or else such as are perceived by attending to the passions and operations of the mind, or lastly ideas formed by help of memory and imagination, either compounding, dividing, or barely representing those originally perceived in the aforesaid ways.[/quote]
There's no thing in itself for Berkeley, because there's really no thing independent of perception. This leads to the well-known couplet of limericks about Berkeley - a student musing on whether a tree in the University quadrangle continues to exist when there's nobody about:
There once was a man who said "God
Must think it exceedingly odd
If he finds that this tree
Continues to be
When there's no one about in the Quad."
Dear Sir,
Your astonishment's odd.
I am always about in the Quad.
And that's why the tree
Will continue to be
Since observed by
Yours faithfully,
God
(Modern English versions of Berkeley's texts can be found here.)
Kant's views can't be summarised easily, but he rejected the notion that there are only ideas. As I mentioned, many of Kant's critics said that his Critique of Pure Reason was the same as Berkeley's philosophy, which enraged Kant - in the next edition he published a 'refutation of idealism'.
[quote=SEP; https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-transcendental/#RefIde]'At the present time I am aware of the specific temporal order of many of my past experiences, an awareness produced by memory. But what is it about what I remember that allows me to determine the temporal order of my experiences? There must be something by reference to which I can correlate the remembered experiences that allows me to determine their temporal order. But first, I have no conscious states that can play this role. Further, this reference cannot be time itself, for “time by itself is not perceived."[/quote]
Kant also said that we don't perceive things as they are in themselves, but only as they appear to us. The gist of it is, objects of perception are interpreted by us according to the categories of the understanding, by which we perceive phenomena - phenomena literally means 'what appears' - but we don't see them as they really are in themselves. That has caused debates for centuries. I don't find it problematical. The best short intro to Kant I'm aware of is this one although Kant is notoriously hard to understand and writings by and about him are voluminous.
Quoting Nelson E Garcia
My view of materialism is that it claims that material bodies are real in their own right, irrespective of whether perceived or not, and that furthermore, material bodies, or nowadays what is understood to be matter-energy, is the only real subject, and that the mind is a product of that, via evolution. In my view, that is more or less the default attitude of modern scientific ciultures, although of course it has its critics.
What's the difference between saying this and just sticking with material bodies being real in their own right.
On the one hand you have objects as ideas, except there is an omnipresent "idea maintainer" called God that makes sure rocks don't go anywhere by looking at them all the time. On the other hand you have objects always being real in their own right, the rocks don't go anywhere at all. It seems to me like there is not much actual difference here. What are the advantages or disadvantages of both? What does having the combination of impermanent ideas, with an omnipresent "idea maintainer" allow you to say that that just having permanent objects doesn't, or vice versa?
For Berkeley, what exactly are the "perceivers" that are having the ideas? Are those ideas in the mind of God too?
Quoting Wayfarer
I don't see how this is incompatible with Kant:
Quoting Wayfarer
The first is an ontological statement. The second an epistemological statement. It can be the case that material bodies are real in their own right and that we don't perceive things as they are in themselves but only as they appear to us.
Berkeley believes that 'we're are spirits in a material world', to quote Sting. Material objects exist but they have no inherent reality.
Quoting khaled
I guess that's true, but again, the ambiguous nature of sub-atomic phenomena really undermines the idea of the mind-independent reality of fundamental objects.
I'm reading this as: Material objects are actually just ideas in the mind of an observer.
Regardless though, this doesn't answer my question. What are "perceivers" for Berkeley? Are they also ideas in the mind of an observer? If not, what are they?
Quoting Wayfarer
You use the word "reality" weirdly so I can't tell what you're saying here exactly. And, again, QM has epistemological interpretations that don't touch the mind-independent reality of matter.
Regardless though, can we agree that matter has a mind-independent existence of some sort? That if we take out all the minds in the world that there would still exist something (called matter)?
Subject?
1612......HOLY _____!!!! (Sorry, Lord) There’s something REALLY weird about Saturn.
1613......Man, I ain’t diggin’ this chit. That 1610 thing about Saturn, that disappeared two years later? Well, guess what. It’s back.
1655......Hey, dudes!!! That thing with Saturn? We’re looking at rings!! Yea, that’s right, detached....er....stuff!!!
1659........Rings is right, but that mystery of 1612 is solved, cuz we’re just looking at them edge-on every so often. Phases of the moon kinda thing, doncha know.
1787.....Yeah, well, guess what. Rings? Yeah, but there’s a whole bunch of ‘em. All just....like....there. Not stuck to anything, not flyin’ off, not doing much of anything but throw shadows.
—————
Prussian guy comes along, says some Irish guy says God did everything, and accedes that maybe he did. So God put that stuff around Saturn just to give some Italian guy something to look at. But then he thinks maybe it doesn’t matter who or what did what was seen about Saturn, it is reasonable that Saturn always did what we see it doing, long before we ever noticed it. Otherwise, he continues (yaddayaddayadda), Saturn had no handles at all until Italian guy invented his looking device, which means God put the handles there simultaneously with being looked at, per Irish guy’s esse est percipi, which means God knew all about Italian guy thinking about, then creating his telescope, per the Biblical account. Possible, sure. It is God after all.
But still, he thinks, that’s hardly a thoroughly natural way to do things, disregarding he’s never seen a platypus, seeing as how Nature shouldn’t be inclined to cater to those guys, plus an English guy, plus a Dutch guy, plus a quasi-French guy, plus a really French guy, just because they-all questioned Her inner workings, all with respect to the exact same thing. If that were true, and She did so cater to all those questioners, each would see a completely different Saturn according to a corresponding idea in the mind of God to which Nature must adhere, and all different from the farmer out in the fields who doesn’t question anything, but sees merely a spot of light in the night sky. Now we got maybe a whole basketfull of Saturns, and that just seems awful stupid. Much better to say there’s rather many ways for us to see the one thing, whatever the mind of God or Nature is doing.
To follow up on that gem of rationality, and which makes more sense actually, he then suggests, Prussian guy does, even if God did it a long time ago, let’s suppose the rings had been in existence as long as Saturn itself, which makes them, as far as he’s concerned anyway, even if at one time mere ideas in the mind of God, per Irish guy, existing long before they happened to be perceived after the perception and hence the existence of Saturn itself. And if that is the case, we can safely say Saturn, rings and all, once perceived as merely different from stars but subsequently perceived as different than stars and at the same time also different from other planets, is a thing all its own, or, a thing-in-itself. A thing that is as it is, whether we know of it, its differences, or its parts, or not. Then he goes ahead and spends ten years and fully 1700 total pages justifying it, consequently destroying the esse est percipi establishment.
True story. Saturn’s rings were just another discovery in the 1610 natural philosophy domain, but blew up the 1781 metaphysical philosophy domain and from which it thankfully never recovered. Big whoop, things exist. Yea. Real things out there, and even some real things waaaaayyyyy out there. Matters not a whit that some real things can’t be touched as can a banana or a cannon ball, all it needs be is not a measly idea in the mind. We don’t care that things exist near or far; we want to know what things exist as, and the things out there can never give that to us.
And the beat goes on...........
Bell rings.
There is something fundamentally wrong with defining knowledge with the requirement that it must always be true. The only thing that is always true is a theoretical statement that corresponds exactly to the actual state of affairs. I believe we often make this theoretical statement, but we also fall short of it and produce an approximation that can be improved upon. To say these approximations that we work with everyday to model and test our reality are not knowledge; misinterprets the human condition and it's unmediated connection to the world.
Or not.
In addendum if "false knowledge" is incoherent because it changes the logical operation of 'true' then "true belief" is just as incoherent, because it removes the logical operator 'or'.
Idealism just needs other minds, not necessarily god.
but…..
I would count as an object of awareness or consciousness anything that stands out, whether that be a hole, a surface, a mountain, a tree, an animal,a thought, a feeling and so on endlessly. Ontological democracy and interdependence; the individual stands out but nothing stands alone.
Quoting Mww
I would put it exactly the opposite way: what we sense are phenomena; light, texture, sound, taste, smell, mass, etc., and from that "buzzing, blooming confusion" we pick out objects by becoming aware of them. To be sure becoming aware of them does entail something of construction, but that process of conceptual construction is not, and cannot be, conscious.
"Conceptions, fully abstracted notions, ideas" are not "things we think but never perceive", but simply another kind of phenomena we do perceive or more accurately enact in the act of thinking ( if it is a conscious act, at least). So, that enaction may be either conscious or unconscious (subconscious).
On another note, dependency can't ultimately be without independency (yet not vice vers); & contrariwise can't be so, because what's dependent would have no foundation that's different from it to emerge out of. The coupling of an individual with another makes two of them; the fact of these two depending on the coupling of one individual with another individual who are both independent, & also the condition, of it. Thus dependency is impossible without independence, i.e., dependency is always conditioned on some form of independence.
Also, going off of what you've just written, if mind is needed to actualize such potential, it would itself have to be actual in order to do so; since potentiality can't actualize itself or another. So there would still be something, namely, mind, that existed independently of this potential, which proceeds to actualize it.
Oh, I like that. Yours?
Quoting Janus
Perception informs of a general affect on sense, sensation informs which sense is affected. Both of which are sufficient for being aware of the presence of objects. But neither tells us what is affecting, nothing is yet being constructed, conceptually nor intuitively. The cognitive system that does the constructing, is not yet in play.
From the physical point of view, all that is between the external world out there, and the brain in here. The eyes, ears, skin, etc., don’t tell us anything at all about what is affecting them, only that there is something.
—————
Quoting Janus
If I get stung on the back of my neck, where’s the buzzing blooming confusion of phenomena in that? There is only one, the sting. I never taste the sting, I never smell it, it is not lit. The confusion resides solely in the object that stung me in accordance with a particular kind of sensation, which relates my confusion to some unknown object, and it is a phenomenon to me for that reason. I know I’ve been stung, but I may not know what stung me.
I can see the legitimacy of saying we sense phenomena, in effect, that’s exactly what we do. But I do not grant legitimacy to the notion that phenomena are sensations. Phenomena are that to which the sensations belong, not that that’s what they are. It may at first appear non-contradictory to say we experience smells, but if that were the case, we should be able to experience smell without ever having perceived anything with the nose. I can’t do that, myself, and I suspect no human has that capacity. I can easily think occasions where I smell bacon, say, but I cannot actually smell bacon unless there actually is bacon readily available, affecting my nose.
————-
Quoting Janus
Are you saying justice is not a fully abstracted notion, and that justice is a kind of phenomenon we perceive? That we perceive justice in that which is just? While that may be true, it is so iff we already know what justice is, in order for that which we perceive as just, conforms to it necessarily. Justice must be antecedent to all its instances, and that which is antecedent to all instances of anything at all, is thought. So yes, conception is an enactment of thinking, but it is not a different kind of phenomenon.
Food for thought: subconscious enactment is imagination, and, no thought can be subconscious.
I see where you’re coming from, but if we look closer at how we might do what you say is being done, we might find it doesn’t hold as well as it first appears. Of course, you might have a better methodology than I, so, there is that......
Good refresher article. Thanks.
(Sidebar, of little or no import: right across the inlet from Harris Island, is the 1718 Sayward-Wheeler House, a colonial mansion/museum. Ancestry, perhaps? Dunno.)
What do we as Everydayman gain, by knowing of the extremely large or the extremely small? Nothing whatsoever, I say, which reduces those sciences to mere interest. That we are part of the large and the small is a part of us, is given, but quite irrelevant to the general public.
Case in point....I read somewhere, given the double slit and the extension of it to massive objects like toaster ovens and such, the dynamics of the experiment would have to be of the scale which makes them impossible to enact. The dimensions of the slit, in relation to the dimensions of the electron that passes through it, scaled up to the dimensions of dump trucks as passing objects, just to prove the invariant validity of a scientific principle......ain’t happenin’.
That, and spooky action at a distance is up to, what......34 miles now? Fascinating, indeed, but still.......
Sum over histories, while rationally sustainable, presupposes a possibility all objects of experience are prohibited from manifesting. Which reduces to....for that which is impossible to experience, to that is permitted its own laws.
There’s always gonna be a “but”, no matter what, isn’t there. Seems like that’s what we do best.
Your reasoning is ok however I have adopted pre-existent into my own metaphysics and have an entry titled “pre-existent” in my book glossary explaining what I mean. Although the term is a conventional one in the way you have show it in your post: ‘Commonly used & understood, "pre-exist" means existed before’ in the metaphysical sense I use it, is an original term of my own choice.
I suppose you are familiar with philosophers who found fit to adopt terms with a new meaning; useful for their philosophies, or to create new terms just to explain what they mean. In my book glossary I group my adopted or created terms in two categories: Original Metaphysical Terms, and Meaning-Modified Conventional Terms.
I classified ‘pre-existent’ as an original metaphysical term since the use of it which you mentioned is not metaphysical. Do you believe I should have classify it as a meaning-modified term, just because it is written the same way, or would you agree with me in the basis of my use of it (and meaning) being metaphysical?
In relation to whether mind needs to be an existent to actualize potentialities I do not regard it as part of the universe substratum, it is genetically sourced, was designed to be the actualizer of existence, and it is foreign to the natural world. It neither exist or pre-exist, it is genetic for sure and perhaps you could suggest what the correct adjective for it should be other than ‘existing’ or ‘pre-existing’.
As far as I know it is. I googled it and could not find it anywhere.
Quoting Mww
I count perception as the act or process of something being perceived. So, for me it is a cognitive act. "No perception without conception (however minimal)". We always see something, hear something, feel something, smell something, taste something and so on, and for me, we do not have to know exactly what that something is in order for a sensory process to count as perception. A sensory process (the affect of an organ of sense by light, sound, or molecule) of which we are totally unaware I would not count as perception.
But I guess this is a matter of definition. I would say that definitional differences or distinctions all carry their own suite of presuppositions, though.
Quoting Mww
I would not say that phenomena are sensation either, but that they are what impinges on. or affects, the senses. I see this as being prior to perception; and would say that once we have perceived something it has become an object; something more than a mere phenomenon.
Of course these terms are somewhat plastic, though, so we each may have different takes on their definitions and ambits of application. It might be reasonable to say it's largely a matter of taste. :smile:
Maybe. But even science acknowledges that the energy input to the sense organs is not the same kind of energy output. From that it follows that upstream is a physical act or process, but on the downstream it is a cognitive act or process. But then, of course, the physicalist says even if the output energy is of a different kind, it is still energy. To which the metaphysician rejoins, output energy must then be merely representational of input energy.....and the war continues unabated.
—————
Quoting Janus
I would agree, in that what we perceive is an object, but further stipulate that which we do not perceive as still a possible object. Otherwise we are left with the absurdity that anything we don’t perceive isn’t an object, and that inevitably reduces to the mandate for our creation of reality, necessarily. Might be better to say that while it is true what we perceive is an object, but it doesn’t become an object merely upon once being perceived.
Following you by the letters, yes, what we perceive becomes an object.....but only FOR US. This permits what we perceive to have always been an object, even antecedent to its perception. Also by the letters, yes, objects are more than mere phenomena, insofar as objects are naturally complete in themselves, whereas phenomena are incomplete by our own logical inference.
I do understand that phenomena are generally taken to mean all that is external to us, of which we as yet have no knowledge, which is, as you say, that which impinges on the senses. The contradiction only arises when one thinks the impingement is the sensation, but also says sensation is not phenomenon. So the one contradicts the other, or the one or the other contradicts itself.
—————
Matter of taste, indeed. The object though, is to find common taste. People been trying for thousands of years....ain’t quite there yet.
Yes, the physicalist will say that cognition or perception is a physical process, but is also to be counted as a mental or neural process. The energetic impingement on the senses, along with the established neural structures formed gradually by prior impingement, give rise to perception, which is always already perceiving as. So, perception is always already conceptually shaped, and the eliminative physicalist is not denying personal experience or consciousness, but merely denying that the mental is what we intuitively think it is. To which one may retort that the physical is not what one intuitively think it is either. Personally I find it a tedious debate; it's like a threshing machine with strawmen flying in all directions, and no one noticing that they are strawmen mean since they are all in tiny pieces.
Quoting Mww
I agree; insofar as the act of sensing is itself sensed and/or studied, then it too is a phenomenon. The internal act, or as some might say the illusion of an internal act, is not something which seems to be susceptible to awareness, though; but in saying that I am speaking only from my own experience; others may experience, or interpret their experience, differently, so...
Quoting Mww