Idealism poll
Idealism has mutated/branched some over time. Historically, Plato (-427 — -347) is often said to be the origin of idealism (“hyperouránios”), and Berkeley (1685 — 1753) is an example of a later idealist (“esse est percipi”).
In an ontological sense, idealism will have it that the Moon is not actually the Moon, but rather is Moon-experiences. There may be all kinds of chatter about the Moon as if it’s real, but, on idealism, I’m led to understand that experiencing the Moon cannot be separated from the experiencer (even in principle), such chatting is like a kind of pretense (maybe even hypostatization), or linguistic practice perhaps. So there’s no mind-independent Moon as such, it has evaporated according to this inquiry, gone the way of phlogiston, like a dream that exists only due to the dreamer; rather there’s relata among the experience (e.g. qualia, phenomenological) and the experiencer (the self). All I (the self) can ever know is the experience, and so that’s where the road ends, more or less literally. The Moon = those Moon-experiences.
Going by idealism, and keeping it consistent, there’s no difference among you and my experiences of you. (On a non-idealist account it’s impossible for me to experience your self-awareness, since then I’d be you instead.) You = my experiences of you. But I’m not omniscient, since otherwise I’d know that I were. I don’t have to experience someone else’s self-awareness to take it’s independent existence for granted, I don’t have to become the Moon to take it’s independent existence for granted — and I learn of both much the same way, by interaction, observation, coherence, whatever. Attempting to escape solipsism by declaring that others also are selves would be textbook special pleading. There’s no more experiencing some supposed “transcendent reality” of others’ self-awarenesses than of the Moon. (For that matter, you experience someone else’s body/actions, not their mind.) The non-solipsist may have no choice but to accept others’ self-awarenesses as examples of a kind of noumena or ding-an-sich (in a very broad sense), always just over the horizon. Fortunately we have language to share our poetry.
Do we know what a bat’s echo-location is like (qualia)? Is your red my red (qualia)? It would seem a fallacy to abstract mind away, only to go ahead and reify the abstraction instead. Individual experiences occur to individuated experiencers.
Category mistakes can occur when ignoring that …
But what do you think?
In an ontological sense, idealism will have it that the Moon is not actually the Moon, but rather is Moon-experiences. There may be all kinds of chatter about the Moon as if it’s real, but, on idealism, I’m led to understand that experiencing the Moon cannot be separated from the experiencer (even in principle), such chatting is like a kind of pretense (maybe even hypostatization), or linguistic practice perhaps. So there’s no mind-independent Moon as such, it has evaporated according to this inquiry, gone the way of phlogiston, like a dream that exists only due to the dreamer; rather there’s relata among the experience (e.g. qualia, phenomenological) and the experiencer (the self). All I (the self) can ever know is the experience, and so that’s where the road ends, more or less literally. The Moon = those Moon-experiences.
Going by idealism, and keeping it consistent, there’s no difference among you and my experiences of you. (On a non-idealist account it’s impossible for me to experience your self-awareness, since then I’d be you instead.) You = my experiences of you. But I’m not omniscient, since otherwise I’d know that I were. I don’t have to experience someone else’s self-awareness to take it’s independent existence for granted, I don’t have to become the Moon to take it’s independent existence for granted — and I learn of both much the same way, by interaction, observation, coherence, whatever. Attempting to escape solipsism by declaring that others also are selves would be textbook special pleading. There’s no more experiencing some supposed “transcendent reality” of others’ self-awarenesses than of the Moon. (For that matter, you experience someone else’s body/actions, not their mind.) The non-solipsist may have no choice but to accept others’ self-awarenesses as examples of a kind of noumena or ding-an-sich (in a very broad sense), always just over the horizon. Fortunately we have language to share our poetry.
Do we know what a bat’s echo-location is like (qualia)? Is your red my red (qualia)? It would seem a fallacy to abstract mind away, only to go ahead and reify the abstraction instead. Individual experiences occur to individuated experiencers.
- the map is not the territory (Korzybski)
- the description is not the described (Krishnamurti allegedly)
- the model is not the modeled (science)
- the talk is not always the talked about (linguistics)
- the perception is not always the perceived (Searle and others)
- my experience of you is not you (non-solipsism)
- the experience is not always the experienced (non-idealism)
- the memory is not the remembered (you know who you are)
- the smell/look/taste of the food is not the food (you eat food, not qualia)
Category mistakes can occur when ignoring that …
- you can experience self-awareness
- you cannot experience unconsciousness
- you can be unconscious
- therefore mind incorrectly appears persistent/ever-present
But what do you think?
Comments (193)
I think is a bit of a misinterpretation, although an understandable one. But Kant's 'refutation of idealism', in the second edition of the Critique of Pure Reason, addresses this exact criticism, in the context of showing what was wrong with Berkeley's account.
I am certainly one of the idealists here, but I also believe, with Kant, in the model of 'empirical realism, transcendental idealism'. The upshot, for me, is that the mind makes an inextricable contribution to knowledge. We can't see or know anything as it is, or as it would be if it were not being observed by any mind. Knowledge is of appearances, and appearances imply a subject. It doesn't mean empiricism is untrue, but it does mean that empiricism will never have the final word.
We have a scientific account of the existence of the world prior to our personal existence, and it is consistent with many kinds of evidence that it indeed pre-existed us. But all of that evidence is still something that requires interpretation and explanation by a subject, in order to be brought to bear on the question at hand. So the sense in which that pre-existing world is independently real can still, I think, be called into question. But that is also not to say that it is merely or only subjective, in the sense of pertaining only to my understanding. It is part of the shared understanding of our culture and indeed species. But it is still an understanding, in that an essential component of it is a cognitive act of interpretation.
Recall it was Einstein who rhetorically posed the question: does the moon continue to exist when we're not looking at it? He was genuinely perplexed, and also somewhat indignant, that such a question need be asked. But what caused him to ask it, was the so-called 'measurement problem' which had become apparent in the very field of science of which he was a pioneer, namely, quantum physics. The discoveries of Bohr and others threw Einstein's rock-solid assumption of the 'mind-independence' of reality into doubt. And that is why he asked that very question; he devoted many of his Princeton years to attempting to overturn the apparently idealist implications of physics. This, by the way, is documented in two thoroughly researched books, Manjit Kumar's Quantum and David Lindley's Uncertainty. Both of these refer to the 'battle' over scientific realism, for 'the soul of science' or over 'the nature of reality'.
What you're up against, is a consequence of a foundational move in the Enlightenment, which was to cast aside metaphysics, and to see the world as it truly is, shorn of 'metaphysical baggage'. However, as has become clear, it was not nearly so straightforward; philosophy, as Etienne Gilson remarked, has a remarkable ability to 'bury its undertakers', i.e. those who have declared it dead.
The relevance of that to the thread is that, without that verb, I don't think one can even describe a difference between an Idealist and a materialist. The difference dissolves to just one of language use.
Bourland was a student of Korzybski. Wiki says that Korzybski agreed with his student to the extent that he thought two uses of the verb 'to be' - those of identity and predication - had structural problems. It confuses me no end that Korzybski is best known for his saying 'The map is not the territory', which uses 'to be' in the 'identity' use. So according to Korzybski himself, his most famous utterance may be meaningless.
It certainly seems that whatever reality "in itself" 'is', it is independent of your mind or my mind. If it is independent of all human minds, (as would certainly seem to follow) then what mind could it be dependent upon?
Berkeley's answer is "God's mind". Unless God or a universal mind is posited, then it would seem that reality cannot be mind-dependent.
Kant's answer is that the empirical is real (meaning tangible or available to the senses) and the transcendental (the conditions for the possibility of experience ) is ideal. But what does "ideal" mean in that transcendental context? Kant denies Berkeley's notion that what is transcendental is dependent on Gods' mind, and instead posits that it is mediated by the human mind to give rise to experience. Can this mean that the transcendental is originated by the human mind? I don't believe that to say that could make any sense at all. So, if the transcendental (in its origin) is independent of any and all human minds; then it would not seem right to refer to it as ideal. It (whatever it is) must, on that account, be real (in fact it must be the ultimate reality), so the position 'transcendental idealism' really makes only very limited sense.
There's other ways of noting that a map of London is not the city of London. I can't hail a cab while visiting a map of London. I can't bungee jump off a six inch model of the Eiffel Tower. And the equations of gravity written out on a chalkboard don't exert any force on me.
Of course the map isn't the territory.
Does it really though? If you asked this Indonesian tribe whether imaginary rocks are made up out of the same stuff as ordinary ones you stump your toe on, would they say yes?
The imaginary vs real distinction doesn't relate to the question of Idealism vs Materialism. Both Idealists and Materialists make the imaginary vs real distinction.
It's not some obscure tribe by the way. It's the official language of Indonesia, spoken by more than 200 million people.
I suppose if I wanted to ask an Indonesian, in Indonesian, whether Harry Potter is real, I might ask something like 'Do you think anybody ever did all those things that the book says Harry Potter did?'.
The question is though, given Korzybski's concerns about the use of 'is' in the 'identity' sense (concerns that presumably arose later in his life, subsequent to his making the famous statement), how would he have rephrased that statement?
Perhaps something like:
'A map does not have all the same properties as the territory it represents'
And consider the Cartesian dualist who believes that there are physical bodies and minds. Now just take away the physical bodies. There are minds other than mine. It's idealism, but not solipsism.
You're only considering solipsistic idealism. But obviously solipsistic idealism entails solipsism.
We could also ask the Indonesian if rocks are made up of smaller things we can't see, taste, touch, etc which give the rock the properties it has.
I never understood how idealism justified this stance. I get that metaphysically non-solipsistic idealists maintain there are other minds, but how they know this is problematic.
Quoting Michael
So me perceiving your body is how I know you have a mind? *Ahem*
How does the materialist know that there are other minds?
Yes. Isn't that also what the materialist says?
Yes, bodies are more than perceptions for a materialist.
Quoting Michael
This depends on whether the materialist can make a case for mind being a part of a living body. If so, then the materialist can say that we perceive the activity of a mind when interacting with another human being.
The idealist doesn't have this option, since bodies are just ideas. Minds can't be ideas on the pain of solipsism.
And the idealist says the same. Only that the human beings that we interact with are mental/immaterial things, not physical/material things.
That doesn't work, because minds aren't ideas. See where I edited my previous post right before you responded.
My fault, read too quickly. Used to hearing about some tribe that thinks/does things radically different.
Anyway, for what it's worth, I used Google Translate from the English "to be or not to be" to Indonesian: "untuk menjadi atau tidak menjadi". Then reversed it, and "to be or not to be" was the result.
I tried "existence" => "adanya" => ???????? (hindi) => presence
That's interesting. ???????? => Kehadiran => presence
I wonder why the Indonesian to Hindi is different.
So? You have some straw-man understanding of idealism.
The idealist claim that all things are fundamentally mental or immaterial in nature is not to say that only my experiences exist. And the idealist's claim that independent minds can interact with and perceive each other is no more problematic than the physicalist's claim that independent bodies can interact with and perceive each other.
Yeah, I know that.
Quoting Michael
But I don't see how. Walk me through how I go from ideas of your body in my mind to interacting with and perceiving your mind, which isn't an idea/perception at all.
You're a mental thing and I'm a mental thing. When we "touch" this elicits in you certain experiences.
It's the same sort of thing that happens for the materialist. When my physical body "touches" your physical body, this elicits in you certain experiences.
So our minds touch? Or is it our perceptions that are touching?
Quoting Michael
I don't think it is. Materialism does have difficulties with incorporating all aspects of mind, but not in this case. Having a body is how we interact.
And the idealist would agree. It's just that our body is a mental/immaterial thing, not a physical/material thing.
If we go for Hume's bundle theory, for example, our bodies are bundles of sense-data, and when these bundles of sense-data interact, you can directly perceive my immaterial body (as per a naive/direct realist understanding of perception).
The problem here is that sense-data are sense-data for some perceiver, not an independent bundle that anyone can perceive. Unless you want to invoke God as the universal perceiver, there is no place for an independent bundle of bodily sense-data.
There is a huge epistemological hurdle to overcome here where mind A and mind B are somehow having a shared sense-data experience, where mind A's is of mind B's sense-data body bundle, and vice versa.
Come to think of it, why would mind A & B have sense-data body bundles at all?
But this is what (some) idealists claim is the case. So you're saying that idealism can't avoid solipsism because non-solipsistic idealism is false?
If all you want to do is argue that idealism is wrong, then fine. But it's still the case that there are forms of idealism that don't entail solipsism; that claim that the fundamental nature of the world is mental/immaterial, but that my mind is just one small part of a much bigger world (which contains other minds).
I don't know. It seems like it has an epistemological problem regarding other minds.
As an analogy, say both of us are BIVs. I have experiences of a world and people, and so do you. Let's say you're aware of being envatted. Now how would you know that I exist, and solipsism isn't the case for you? You would have to say that somehow we interact. But in order for that to happen, something has to wire our BIVs together in order to have a shared experience. So we can invoke the mad scientist as an analogy for Berkley's God.
But without the mad scientist, there's no reason to think that my experiences have anything to do with any other minds, other than as pure speculation. There's no way for me to know if my experience of you is anything more than an idea in my mind.
A materialist can say that it's inconceivable for a human being to act like they have a mind but not have one, since mind is necessary for human behavior.
And the idealist can say the same.
Then why don't I experience your mind instead of your body when we touch?
Are our minds touching when I read your words on this screen? How is that different than being in each other's presence? I can experience you as words on a screen, or as a body, or as a voice on the phone, but never as a mind.
When I look in a mirror, I don't experience a reflection of my mind. I experience a reflection of my body.
Quoting Michael
Quoting Michael
Quoting Michael
So then what is the difference between materialism and idealism? Why choose one over the other?
It seems to me that you are saying that we aren't disagreeing on which meat we are chewing on, rather we are chewing on the same meat and we are merely disagreeing on the name of the meat we are chewing on.
Quoting MichaelWhat is it that separates other minds, if not time and space, for us to say that there are other minds besides my own? What is it that causes us to experience other bodies, and not other minds, when we "touch"?
Actually, sometimes it is possible to experience people as a mind if you develop the sensitivity for it. In this way, you can catch what they're thinking before they even say it. But it takes a bit to build such a connection.
We never experience other minds, only other bodies. You learn to predict other people's behavior that you know well.
One says that things are physical, the other that things are mental. It's a disagreement on the nature of the fundamental substance. It's not a disagreement on whether or not there are parts of the world that are not me. That would be solipsism vs non-solipsism.
All I'm saying is that idealism doesn't entail solipsism. There can be mental phenomena that isn't me. The Cartesian dualist says as much. There's no reason to believe that the existence of physical bodies is required to maintain this separation of minds.
Pretty much. As Hempel's dilemma shows, there's hardly even a coherent understanding of what it even means be a physical thing. And I think the same dilemma can be used to question the notion of the mental, too (and any other monism).
Substance is a vacuous concept.
Nope, that's not what I said. And you just repeated what you previously said, so you're clearly talking past what I'm saying.
An idealist can say it, but I've not seen it backed up. What is it that connects the ideas in my mind of your behavior to your actual behavior, which I suppose are ideas in your mind?
BIV A has experiences of having a body, BIV B has experiences of interacting with other bodies.
But how does B justify interacting with A?
Those questions can be asked of the materialist as well.
I don't understand why you think bodies being of substance A can avoid solipsism but bodies being of substance B can't.
Because the substance of idealistic bodies is ideas in the mind of a perceiver, not a shared world of material objects.
Idealists don't have a body. They're in a similar position as the BIVs, minus the envattment. What they have is ideas in their minds of having a body and interacting with other bodies.
You need the idealist version of a Matrix to get around that.
It's like claiming that we're all dreaming. Take the movie Inception. On one interpretation, the main character is inside a dream the entire movie. If so, then he has no reason to believe anyone else he interacts with is real.
Contrast this with being awake. We have reasons to believe other people are real, and not just ideas in the mind. That's the difference.
I’d say the allegory to Inception is more for kids who wonder about what-ifs without understanding the (hopefully not too outdated) mindset of philosophical skepticism—ala Plato, Hume, and others. The allegory to The Matrix (“the womb”, no?), imperfect though it might be, is more in tune which an objective idealism (I’m specifically thinking of the latter movies in the series).
As to why not solipsism in either scenario: conscious agents will by definition be endowed with agency: top-down causal ability. At a very abstract metaphysical level, what is not my intention/agency will then pertain to some other agency’s (or agencies’) will / top-down causal ability. Hence, there are mandatorily entailed multiple agents (all of which must be aware/conscious of goals in order to will) via the first-person point of view’s reality; this because not everything is a consequence of its current or past will/agency/intentions within this world. Indeed, as per both Inception and The Matrix, conflicts of will are common … of course, between multiple agents/agencies.
To then affirm that in the movie Inception the other agencies were not “real” is then, I argue, a fallacy of reasoning (given the very metaphysical premises of the movie). Either you envision a body that is asleep/unconscious/etc. from which is produced multiple interacting agencies, or, else no such body and there being nothing but a communally shared dream between a multitude of agencies (as to the movie’s depiction of recurring personas, this in a way is no different than Shakespeare’s comments that all we are are actors/agencies/roles on a stage … playing out our roles on the sage of life (or at least something to the like)).
Of course, this doesn’t of itself resolve “why are there ‘independent’ phenomenal objects perceived in like ways by multiple agents … such as the moon?” but, imo, it would logically refute the possibility of solipsism (aka, a singular aware/conscious agency in the entirety of existence). Then it’s back to the same old same old: does that dog over there hold conscious agency or is it an automaton as people such as Descartes assumed?
I don't think this is right; I think the distinction is closely related to the question of idealism vs realism. The imaginary is understood by realists to be something mental (ideal) whereas the real is considered to be something material (which is to say extra-mental).
The imaginary is understood as something perceivable only by the mind imagining it, whereas the real is something perceivable by multiple minds or even something not perceivable by any mind. The real is thus understood to be materially so.
How would you say idealists make sense of the distinction between real and imaginary?
In a sense, there's a lot more to the story of imaginary and real. E.g. are you’re perceptions, emotions, etc. imaginary or real? They certainly pertain to you as a total mind, though (and not the physically objective world).
Still, in the simplified sense you’ve addressed, the answer is (at least for those I have in mind, such as Kant) the same as the answer you’ve given:
Quoting Janus
I am under the impression that realists interpret imagined counterfactual possibilities of perception as being evidence for the existence of mind independent objects.
Conversely, I understand idealists as interpreting imagined counterfactual possibilities of perception as being [i]the definition of[/I] "mind-independent" objects.
But Inception does explicitly state that the people you encounter when entering someone else's dream are projections of the dreamer's unconscious mind. The only exceptions being the other minds who have entered the dream with you from outside via the machine that allows people to have a shared dream experience.
However, the main character Dom, played by DiCaprio, does have ongoing doubts as to whether he's ever actually awake, and one of the characters in the movie is actually a projection (his deceased wife).
This leads to the possibility that Dom is stuck inside a dream the entire movie, and all the other characters are his projections. Or he's being incepted from outside. But there's no way for him to be sure. In actuality, the director is incepting the audience, creating doubt in the viewer as to what's real, leaving it open to interpretation, similar to a philosophy discussion.
In a very somber way, I have to admit my amusement at this idea. There are an infinite what-ifs (I presume; I haven't enough fingers to count them all :) ). What does it matter!? This running about for absolute certainty is a running after the horizon in belief that one can eventually hold it in one's hands.
Here, a what-if: what if its all a dream & I am the only conscious agent & all other beings I presume to be independent conscious agents are actually just portions of my unconscious as indivuated conscious agents (notice the mine, mine, mine attitude at work here): this would mean that I as a conscious agent am not all that pivotally important, that I'm an agent along with a bunch of other fellow agents within a singular mind ...
And?
Get over the emotive tingle of it all and it amounts to the same old same old. I'm still me; you're still you; (physical) reality is still as it is. What's the difference? We still conflict, we still find moments of accord, will still have to deal with realities that bite/limit/constrain.
(as to the movie Inception, again, it wasn't one I gravitated toward)
I would say that, for an idealist, an event is imaginary if it was invented and narrated by somebody that had no good reason to suppose that it ever happened.
A materialist can use the same definition.
We can't be certain, but we can strive for reasonable beliefs. I'm arguing that idealism is less reasonable than materialism when it comes to other minds, because materialists have a plausible account of interaction via bodies that idealists lack.
Are you even arguing for materialism here or dualism? Because if you're arguing for materialism then the mind is a physical thing, and so there shouldn't be a problem with saying that minds can interact with each other without any intermediary. But then if you're arguing for dualism then you have to account for how your mind can interact with your body. Although even if there were an account of that, if minds can interact with bodies and bodies can interact with minds then why can't minds just interact with minds?
Either way, you're just shifting the goalposts.
Yet materialism, at least traditionally, upholds epiphenomenalism to be true. A strange paradoxical perspective: I as an agency, in order to coherently account for my physical and metaphysical context(s) as viewed in a manner X, conclude that I am in no way an agency.
I find a hybrid version more pleasing, though whether it would be termed objective idealism or some variant of neutral monism, it still would not be one of materialism (nor Cartesian Dualism).
Other than the issue of solipsism - were one to be accordant to empirical realities of brain-mind relations within this (objective) idealism - what else would made idealism a less reasonable belief of other minds?
Is that like how software can interact with other software without an intermediary (hardware)? For a materialist, the mind is part of a living body, not separate from it. It would be meaningless for mind to mind interactions independent of a body.
And the materialist has to show how mind A can know about body B via ideas in mind A.
You might say that the ideas in mind A are caused by changes in body A which are caused by interacting with body B.
I fail to see how that's more parsimonious than saying that ideas in mind A are caused by interacting with mind B.
But this epistemological problem is still besides the point. Idealism doesn't entails solipsism. One can claim that only mental phenomena exists without claiming that only my mental phenomena exists. It's just Cartesian dualism minus any physical bodies.
All you're actually arguing for is scepticism. But sceptical problems are problems for the materialist as well.
Au contraire. The materialist can just deny that perceptions are ideas in the mind. It's my understanding that the majority of professional philosophers who weigh in on perception are direct realists these days, and that sense-data has fallen out of favor.
Quoting Michael
You're right, but that's a problem for indirect realists and dualists to deal with.
Ideas, as in thoughts? Man, this is a bit too Cartesian sounding in mindset for my own personal tastes. We are far more than thoughts. Unless one expands thought to include emotions, intuitions, perceptions via senses, understandings, non-phenomenal sensations (such as pleasure or happiness), and, of course, intentionality/will … which then tends to make “thought” a rather amorphous concept.
Our thoughts are there to better to guide, but we at pith are not our thoughts/ideas.
For instance, I sense your mood via interaction, as you might sense the mood of others. I, personally, don’t have an idea of your mood. Not unless I abstract what I sense into a thought.
I grant it’s a very different outlook on what a mind consists of. But then, never been one to like Descartes’ philosophical mindset (not that he doesn’t have some good aspects).
Ideas as in perception, not concepts. That's the sense-data theory of perception that Locke, Hume, Berkeley and others have championed. And it does bring up the specter of skepticism regarding other minds.
But if we directly perceive minds/bodies when we interact with people, the problem of other minds need not be an issue.
Their concept(s) of "perception" were not limited to the materialist concept of perception being that which occurs via the living physiological senses. They weren't materialists. An example I find easy to express: I can perceive/apprehend happiness in me: it has no smell, tactile feel, visual appearance, etc. Nor is it in any way differentiated from me the perceiver/apprehendor when present.
That I can sense other people's moods (sometimes better than other times) is something we all naturally experience (something we can all perceive, as you say).
There's no objection to there being a perceiver, just that the perceived is the perception.
Or, put differently, that the experienced is always the experience.
Or, that everything (literally) is mind stuff, where mind is the likes of experiences, qualia, thinking, love/feelings, headaches, self-awareness, consciousness.
Seems that, in an ontological sense, an experience is part of the experiencer when occurring.
The experienced, on the other hand, may or may not be.
Suppose cogito ergo sum is actually cogitamous ergo sum.
Nope. I said that we never experience other minds, and you said we can. I then repeated myself and said that we can't. So no, we aren't talking past each other. The problem seems to be that you either spoke past what I originally said, or you didn't clearly explain what it is that you meant.
That isn't all you are saying. You philosophers don't seem to realize the implications of what you are saying. There is always more to what you are saying. It's just that you don't tend to think about the implications of what you are saying on the rest of your beliefs and world-view.
What you are saying is that mental stuff behaves the same way as physical stuff. What you are saying is that science can, and does, explain the behavior of mental stuff. So much for those idealist claims that science can NEVER explain the mind!
What you are saying is that mental light can be bent when passing through a mental glass of water, just as physical light can be bent when passing through a physical glass of water. Again, what is the difference between idealism and materialism, as you seem to imply that the only difference is the name of the substance? Why do we need a body if everything is mental?
Quoting MichaelSomething is required to explain the separation of minds. Are mental bodies required to maintain the separation of minds? How are mental bodies different than physical bodies?
Quoting Michael
Then idealism/materialism (or any idea that says that there is substance) is an idea that is based on a vacuous concept?
What do you mean it's "the best solution" to the mind-body problem? And what does that have to do with the becoming/being dichotomy (flux)?
Why? Do we require something to explain the separation of physical stuff? What separates this photon from that electron?
Quoting Harry Hindu
Yes. Hempel's dilemma.
It's really quite simple. One can claim that only mental phenomena exists without claiming that only my mental phenomena exists, just as one can claim that only physical bodies exist without claiming that only my physical body exists.
Yes, but the difference all hinges on what the idealist means by saying that an event did or did not happen. So, it is misleading to say the materialist uses "the same definition", because when the realist or the materialist says something happened they usually mean that its happening does not depend on anyone's experiencing it happening (unless of course it was an experiential kind of event).
Sure, and in that case both are acknowledging the existence of "mind independent objects". The materialist says they are independently materially existent, and an idealist (who acknowledges the existence of human mind-independent objects) says they are independently ideally existent. The latter position, to be coherent, must posit God or some kind of universal or collective mind. That is just the point I have been making.
I can't see the "lot more", I think it is fairly simple: if I imagine something, my imagining it is real, but what is imagined may be merely imaginary, obviously.
If I experience an emotion, the emotion is real, and so is the experiencing of it. If I perceive something the perception of it is real, and so is the perceived object, at least in cases where the perception is veridical.
Given the context in which my reply to you was made:
The materialist affirms that only matter is real. The epiphenomenalist affirms likewise. Sort of self-contradictory reasoning given that this affirmation is made via means devoid of matter: e.g., thoughts, percepts, and that skeleton-in-the-closet sometimes termed one’s choice, or will, or intention (such as regarding what is in fact real).
If you would like to clarify you’re stance, what justifications do you utilize to determine which mental givens are real and which mental givens are imaginary? As a reminder, your real thoughts (as opposed to those either imagined (maybe hallucinated?) or fibbed about) are not empirical in the modern sense of the term empirical. Neither are your emotions, sensations, intentions, etc. They don’t stand outside you as something you can perceive via the physiological senses. (same could be somewhat also said of cultures, as an added example)
BTW, for the sake of philosophical rigor and verity—since this is a philosophical forum—idealists such as Plato were/are realists … only not materialist-realists.
I think you are taking for granted what you need to demonstrate: that reasoning is "made via means devoid of matter".
In any case I am not arguing for materialism; so I think you have misunderstood "my stance". All I'm concerned with is unpacking what is logically involved in the various stances.
And for the sake of "philosophical rigor and clarity", any idealist who claims that the ultimate reality is ideal, not material, is obviously a realist about that claim, since they are saying that this is the case independently of what any human mind experiences or thinks about it. My whole point has been that the positing of a universal mind, God or "realm" of ideas is necessary to make this form of idealism coherent. I also want to say that I cannot see how any other form of idealism could be coherent. since it would fail to explain how a shared world is possible.
And I, in turn, think you are applying an all or nothing perspective to idealism that doesn’t need to be—and almost always isn’t when looking at actual idealists, be it Plato, Pierce, or others. We look at a particular concrete object over there to understand if it’s actually made up of matter or mind … and then it seems the next question is always “whose?”— but this is misplaced. The materialism/idealism debate is not one of physics. It is one of metaphysics.
I’ll try to justify “that which I need to demonstrate” more, however, only if you are polite enough to first try justify that which I previously asked you to justify regarding what is real.
I'm not clear on what you are asking here. Objects are "made of matter" by definition. Just as thoughts and experiences "happen to minds' by definition. We know what we mean (not in the sense of being able to offer exhaustive explanations, obviously) when we say an object is made of matter, just as we do when we say that a thought occurs in a mind. Do we know what we mean when we say that objects are made of mind, or ideas occur to matter? I don't think so.
On the other hand, I believe we do have a more or less intuitively coherent notion of God (an infinite mind), and of the idea that objects might be ideas in His mind.
OK, but on its own this leads to the position of Cartesian Dualism. The position does hold some logical inconsistencies at a metaphysical level of contemplation.
Quoting Janus
Its a different outlook which, in part, entails a different understand of what constitutes real causation types. Freewill being one such different form of causation - top-down causation - which, in turn, entails teleological causation(s). So, if we're to start using this language of "objects are made of mind" first and foremost--unless one chooses to irrationally go down a solipsism mindset--this "mind-stuff of objects" ought to be duly understood to be fourth-person (not pertaining any individual mind in the sense that all idealists and materialist understand "individual minds"). The question of "whose mind is it then?" holds, at minimum, two alternatives: a) somebody's, such as being the mind of God (as you've alluded to) or, else, b) nobody's, something like "the collective phenomena-endowed mind emerging from out of the collective unconscious, to which all individual minds (similar to Jung's worldview) are in their own ways partly tied into" (hence, not the mind of God). This, of course, is painted with wide brush strokes ... and the two alternatives mentioned are not exhaustive.
Quoting Janus
Many do. I, personally, can't claim to so hold an "intuitively coherent notion of God (an infinite mind)". With some sober humor I intend to be good natured: Do the Jews, the Christians, or the Muslims hold the same notion of God, or do they hold three different such notions vying with each other for supremacy? And of course, there are other major religions out there, such as Hinduism and Buddhism.
And without some kind of universal perceiver, the idealist has no way to justify the existence of other minds. The universal perceiver plays the role of spacetime for idealists.
It's a satisfying solution to the mind-body problem because it denies the body exists in any way transcendental to the mind.
Quoting Agustino
Nietzsche's position is that people cling to metaphysics, especially metaphysics of eternal, unchanging, present substance, as a psychological defense mechanism against the flux of existence. Under all this wild current, there "must" be some unchanging entity that is undisturbed. Lots of religious, mystical, ethical projects are aimed at achieving some kind of contact with this substance.
Yeah, what makes it the best? Materialism for that matter is also a "satisfying" solution because it denies that the mind exists in any way transcendental to the body. And of course, then we have positions like substance dualism, or neutral monism.
Quoting darthbarracuda
This psychological reading of philosophy is in the final analysis pathetic. The reason is that both poles of the dichotomy can be conceived as the cause of fear. Let me give the clearest example. Atheists frequently pull out the trope that the theist believes in God because they are afraid of death and non-being. The theist, can of course, always retort that the atheist doesn't believe in God because he's afraid of having to bear eternal responsibility and accountability for his actions.
So just like the metaphysics of being is a psychological defense mechanism against the flux of existence, so too the metaphysics of becoming is a psychological defense mechanism against immutable, unchanging Being. These are of course neither arguments for nor against one metaphysics or the other. They're just red herrings.
But regardless, my original question was what does idealism have to do with flux/being? :s
Quoting MichaelTime and space.
What separates this mental phenomenon from that mental phenomenon?Quoting Michael
I don't understand the question. I understand physicalism as the claim that mental processes are brain processes and they exist, but are not the only kind of processes to exist, and idealism as the claim that only mental phenomenon exist.
You haven't done anything to clarify how mental substances are different from physical substances. To say that both viewpoints have the same problems is to say that they are the same viewpoint. WHAT is different between your view of idealism that you claim doesn't allow one to fall into solipsism, and physicalism? What makes them separate ideas?
But then the idealist has to explain how it is that the universal perceiver doesn't need a perceiver themselves in order to exist. It really is no different than the problem of explaining how God doesn't need a designer for itself. Idealism is really religion in different wrapping paper.
Time and space. Or something else. Regardless, one can claim that only mental phenomena exists without claiming that only my mental phenomena exists.
Also, multiple bosons can occupy the same space at the same time, and yet are still separate, so your answer isn't correct.
So what are mental phenomena? If you're a physicalist then you think that mental phenomena are brain processes. So you must understand the claim "only mental phenomena exist" as the claim "only brain processes exist". Does that seem right?
Quoting Harry Hindu
I know. I explicitly said (twice, I think) that the very notion of "substance" is vacuous.
But that's besides the point I'm making, which is the logical point that one can claim that only mental phenomena exists (whatever that is), without claiming that only my mental phenomena exists. Pluralistic idealism is a thing, and so it is simply false to assert that idealism entails solipsism. It's a strawman.
I think there is a difference here, and a case can be made for 'special pleading'. We experience the world around us as a public space, in principle accessible to others inspections/senses. "Look at that!" and we point, sort of thing. We don't infer the existence of other minds through perceiving bodies in a private space around ourselves, rather the world is pre-theoretically (or, 'before inferring') lived in as a public space, inhabited always by myself and others, as the leaders of lives, rather than us being 'masses of perceptions' lost within ourselves.
I think solipsism arises from misunderstanding the way in which others actually exist for us, seeing them as bodies - objects like the moon that can be mentally 'stripped away' into nothing more than perception, rather than as a fundamental structure of the world.
But that's the thing - If the notion of "substance" is vacuous, then any point you attempt to make about a particular substance is vacuous (my vs. other). The claim that you are seperate from any thing is a claim about how your substance differs from other things. If it isn't then what are you actually saying? How is it that your mind isn't other minds, or how is it that other minds aren't your mind?
So when a doctor opens your skull and looks at your brain, then why does he only see a brain and not your mind? Why does his mind experience a brain instead of another mind? How would he get at looking at your mind?
What I'm taking issue with is the claim "everything is physical" or "everything is mental". The point is that it isn't even clear what it means to be physical or mental, as per Hempel's dilemma.
I'm not taking issue with the claim that there exists more than one thing.
Quoting Harry Hindu
I fail to see how this addresses my question.
What I want to know is what the physicalist thinks the idealist means when he says "only mental phenomena exists". If the physicalist believes that mental phenomena just are brain processes then he must understand the claim "only mental phenomena exists" as the claim "only brain processes exist". Is that what the idealist means?
Mathematical realists are unlikely to be materialists.
Then why do you keep making claims about how there is a distinction between my mind and other minds (more than one mind)? You keep veering off in different directions. I wonder if you really understand what it is that you are talking about.
My point has been that if different things interact with each other, then it is pointless to call these things "physical" or "mental". They are the same "substance" if they can interact. Period. That's all we need to know. What we label the primary "substance" is irrelevant - especially if there is no difference in how it interacts, or how it behaves when compared to claims of some other "substance" behaving and interacting the same way. We can both dispense with the terms, "physical" and "mental". They aren't necessary to make yours, or my, points. Now that you understand that it isn't necessary to use these terms, now explain to me how minds interact, without using the terms, "mental" or "physical" or "substance".
1. The claim "only mental phenomena exists" doesn't entail the claim "only my mental phenomena exists", and so idealism doesn't entail solipsism.
2. It isn't clear what it means to be either physical or mental, and so physicalism and idealism are nebulous notions.
Then physicalism and idealism are identical. They both just assert "all things interact with each other".
They'd also be false, given that some things can't interact with other things (e.g. light and dark matter).
How do bodies (or at the smaller scale, particles) interact?
The question of causation is a question for everyone.
So materialists and idealists are one and the same and have no idea that they have been arguing for the same thing all of these centuries?
Quoting Michael
And that needs to be explained - why some things can interact and some things can't - again without using terms like "substance" (because, according to you, it is a vacuous term), or "physical" or "mental".
According to what you have said, yes. Or would you like to go back on this:
"My point has been that if different things interact with each other, then it is pointless to call these things "physical" or "mental". They are the same "substance" if they can interact. Period."
Of course. Like I said, the problem of causation is a problem for everyone.
But, if we are to accept what you said above, then if some things can't interact with something else then they are of a different substance, and so monism of any variety fails. Dark matter is one substance, light another, etc.
Quoting Michael
Dark matter is just an idea, or a solution (that hasn't been proven), to our observation of the behavior of galaxies. So to use light and dark matter as an example of things that don't interact is quite presumptuous. Do you have any other examples of things that can't interact?
Quoting Michael If "substance" is vacuous, then it would seem to me that "causation" would be vacuous as causation is dependent on the idea of like substance can, and do, interact with each other. If they aren't the same substance, then how do they interact? We can observe that these things do interact, and can even make predictions of what kind of effect will result from a certain cause. An explanation of causation would also need to explain how we can make causal predictions that come true more than they don't. To have a higher than 50% chance of making causal predictions must mean something, no?
Photons and gluons.
But materialism fails for the self-evident truth that the mind is not reducible or identical to the brain.
I'll admit, dualism a la Aquinas are plausible as well.
Quoting Agustino
The point is not to refute metaphysical positions through psychology but to move away from them, cast them aside as being unnecessary.
Then you ought to certainly cast both of them aside if you really want to rely just on psychology.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Okay.
Cartesian dualism is not the only logical conclusion here; Spinoza's 'dual aspect' conception is also consistent and coherent with our ordinary understandings of matter and mind.
Quoting javra
Yes, these are just the two alternatives I have outlined; it's either God or a universal or collective mind. You say these alternatives are not exhaustive; can you think of others?
Quoting javra
Those three notions of God have their similarities and their differences. In all three though God is an eternal infinitely conscious being. In Buddhism, Buddha Nature is eternal, infinite and all-knowing, as is Brahman in Hinduism. Broadly, they are all conceptions of eternal infinite intelligence and wisdom.
Agree.
Does it also deny that the mind exists in any way transcendental to the body?
I have already acknowledged that 'objective' idealists may be realists (in fact must be) in the sense that they acknowledge the reality of an absolute being which is not dependent on human minds, which is to say on human perception and thought, and I agreed with Javra that Plato is an example; so it's not clear to me what your point is here.
Yeah, I remember some of those times. :)
And how would “dual aspect” monism be logically contradictory to a stance of objective idealism? To better spell things out, some mind-stuff holds the aspect of matter and some holds the aspect of individual minds.
Quoting Janus
I can. But again, I await your justification of what is and is not real regarding mind (as asked in one of my previous posts) before I oblige you with any further specifics as regards my own views. Fair is fair. Else it's a one sided interrogation, which we could both agree would be other than fair. Lets first agree on what is real in regard to our thoughts/minds and in how we justify their reality.
BTW, given the posts of the thread so far, as regards those opposed to the very notion of idealism (not here pointing fingers), it seems like this all boils down not to issues of logic, reality, and metaphysics, but to emotive anxieties over atheistic dogmas v. theistic dogmas. Would like to see this disproved, but not holding my breath.
We seem to be talking at cross purposes here. I haven't said that dual aspect monism would be contradictory to objective idealism. Hegel's regard for, and appropriation of, some of Spinoza's key ideas is a case in point.
All I have been trying to point out from the start is that any idealism which would purport to explain human experience of a shared world must posit some objectively existent absolute mind or spirit; something to foundationally connect and unify individual human minds. It must be said, though, that Spinoza's monism does not posit either mind or matter as substance, but rather both as attributes of substance. I think Hegel's objective idealism is best understood if you think of his phenomenology as phenomenology of spirit, not as phenomenology of mind. Hegel replaces Spinoza's Substance with Spirit. Body and mind (extensa and cogitans) are dual aspects of substance or spirit, of nature or God ; "Deus siva Natura" ( Spinoza).
Quoting javra
To be honest, I still don't understand what you are asking for.
OK. To reply, no: There is no "must posit" some guiding mind or spirit required for the stance of such idealism. One could instead posit an end-state that is a final cause. Again, no mind/spirit required in so doing. Actually, a mind/spirit would will/aspire/intend/etc.; hence, would not of itself be the final cause/telos ... for it would be via this final cause that the mind/spirit intends, regardless of how evolved or superlative it might be.
Quoting Janus
The question of what of our being is real is pivotal to the entire metaphysical discussion--far more so than the issue I've just given reply to. If this point is swept under the rug, the conversation becomes meaningless as far as I can see. Don't know what else to add here ... this metaphysical, ongoing debate is about what is and is not fundamentally real ... as was also the case on the old forum we all have such fond memories of.
It's not that the spirit must be "guiding", because that suggests it would be external to what is "being guided". Reality is the unfolding of spirit according to Hegel's objective idealism and is the manifestation of substance according to Spinoza. Neither Spirit for Hegel, nor Substance for Spinoza has any "prior intentions". Neither are positing a transcendent God who possesses intentionality or a "plan", and such a God is not needed to ground objective idealism. (I should note here that I am not suggesting Spinoza's standpoint constitutes any kind of idealism, but some scholars seem to think there is, contrary to popular contemporary physicalist interpretations, a priority of mind over matter in his system).
And of course, on the assumption of physicalism, one could posit, as apokrisis does, some "end-state" (maximum entropification) as a final cause or telos; nothing I have said runs contrary to that, as far as I can tell.
On the other hand if that "final cause/telos" is somehow "intended" by "mind/ spirit", how would you parse the difference between that and the physicalist model, other than to say that the spirit guides (material, mental or whatever) reality towards a preconceived (by mind/ spirit, presumably) goal?
Quoting javra
I can't see how all of our being would not be real, by definition.
I'm afraid I'm finding most of what you are saying here hard to make sense of, and I certainly haven't been able to extract a salient point from it that runs contrary to anything I have said. :s
Maybe on a different topic we won't. Till then, I'm logging out of this discussion with you.
Let's take a predicate from the first and third person perspective:
a. "I see red"
b. "He sees red"
I presume that everyone is in agreement that the conditions of assertion of a and b are not generally inter-translatable. Wittgenstein mentioned in PI that the experiential criteria for (b) are "what he says and does", but that (a) cannot be given experiential criteria in terms of other words.
Since the meaning of a. and b. are irreconcilable (at least to Wittgenstein), then how did our language manage to trick us into thinking that a and b are in some way transcendentally equivalent or inter-translatable?
What if our language had merged the subject, verb and object so that a and b were represented with the single words "Iseered" and "heseesred" respectively?
Could such a language remain as competitive as our actual language?
Could beliefs in realism still get off the ground?
What gives?
Man, not to hound you, but, maybe: it's due to peer pressure? Cool is cool, and who wants to be a nerd, kind of thing.
It seems to not take into account the person's experience of themselves, which is important to understand reality and what the person is trying to communicate. If everything is understood only within your lens of perception then you probably have it wrong. The reason being that you are measuring what is being said by your experience instead of the other person's experience. While there are objective truths, everything is subjectively internalized and that means that in the social world we have to accommodate. Idealism doesn't do that accurately.
I've never understood that problem about "other minds".
I can't speak for Materialism, which has other, prohibitively serious, problems anyway.
But,as an Idealist, I don't understand what the problem is.
Obviously, your life-experience possibility-story's setting, the possibility-world in which you live, must include a species to which you belong, and other members of that species.
That possibility-world is implied by, and part of, your life-experience possibility-story. In that sense, it's real for you. It's a world in which there are other people, who are persons like you.
No surprise there.
Of course, among the infinity of life-experience possibility-stories, there's one about the life-experience of each of those other individuals, and in that same possibility-world.
But you needn't theorize about that. Those other experience-stories are inaccessibly-distant from your own experience.
What you do know about is the fact that, in the possibility-world in which you reside, there are other animals, like you, including other animals of your own species, who are essentially just like you.
...essentially just like you in terms of their feelings too
It's a fallacy to try to separate, dissect, "Mind" or "Consciousness" from body, to make the unnecessary fallacious "Hard Problem Of Consciousness". There's just the animal, indivisible.
An animal is a purposefully-responsive device, designed by natural-selection.
Its surroundings, in the context of the purposes built into its purposeful response to those surroundings, are its experience.
Where there's a live body, there's experience, mind, and feelings.
So of course those other animals, including those of your species, have experience and feelings, just as you do.
...even though you don't directly feel their feelings or directly experience their experience.
...even though all that you can know about your surroundings is via your experience.
...and even though your experience is metaphysically primary, in your metaphysical reality.
Michael Ossipoff
Such logical systems are isolated from and independent of eachother**, and independent of any global context or medium.
**except that, inevitably, among that infinity of life-experience possibility-stories, some are set in a common possibility-world.
Tegmark's MUH is described from the universe-wide, objective 3rd-person point-of-view, and that's one of my disagreements with it. Obviously, he describes the same possibility-worlds, but our own experience is what we genuinely know, and anything we know about this physical world, we know via our experience. ...direct physical perceptions, or our experience of someone reporting something to us.
Michael Ossipoff
I think that this skirts around something that hasn't been given due attention.
All philosophical positions consist entirely in/of thought/belief. The only way that one can deny the existence of an external world is if one is working from an inadequate notion of thought/belief.
1. All thought/belief consists of mental correlation(s) drawn between 'objects' of physiological sensory perception and/or the agent's own state of 'mind'.
2. Correlation presupposes the existence of it's own content.
3. All thought/belief formation is existentially contingent upon presupposing the existence of an external world.(from1,2)
4. All meaning is attributed by virtue of drawing mental correlation(s) between that which becomes symbol/sign and that which becomes symbolized/signified.
5. The attribution of meaning happens entirely within thought/belief formation.(from4,1)
6. All meaning is existentially contingent upon presupposing the existence of an external world.(from3,5)
This cannot be directly deduced from 1 and 2, since neither of them mentions an external world. At best, there may be some steps omitted, that introduce that notion and could bridge that gap, but they'd need to be written out explicitly for it to be convincing.
This forum is populated mostly by undergrads or less, and hence is biased towards the chaff. PhilPapers is biased towards the wheat.
Fair enough. Implication isn't always good enough.
:D
I understand I and He to be two different people perceiving something red, unless one is lying. I can think in terms of watching a movie or reading a book where one characters is first person and the other is third. The book or movie can easily can change perspective so the audience or reader can see both experiencing red.
Why do I think other people perceive red? Because they're human beings who also have first person experiences. So I come to KNOW that someone else sees red by their behavior or language, but I cognate that they are like me in the first person.
I can put myself in someone else's shoes and imagine the experiences they have, unless it's something I have no experience of. When they tell me they see red, or I see them looking at something red, I understand this from my first person experiences of seeing red. Unless they're colorblind.
That's how you can translate from a to b. I don't agree with Witty. The alternative is a slippery slope to solipsism.
I'm curious about a synthesis between the two, since it would seem there have been compelling arguments in favor of both. I tend more toward scientific realism than direct, so I would be okay with a Kantian synthesis, provided it didn't leave the real totally unknowable.
If we can get at the real world through careful investigation, which is different from our experiences of it, then that would be both realism and idealism, without giving up at skepticism.
IOW, the ideal realist would say the skeptic is lazy, and gives up too easily. It's hard work knowing what's real. Just a thought - I have heard one realist philosopher say pretty much that.
1. All thought/belief consists of mental correlation(s) drawn between 'objects' of physiological sensory perception and/or the agent itself(it's own state of 'mind' when applicable).
2. Correlation presupposes the existence of it's own content.
3. Thought/belief presupposes the existence of it's own content.(from1,2)
4. 'Objects' of physiological sensory perception are external to thought/belief.
5. All thought/belief presupposes the existence of an external world.(from3,4)
6. All meaning is attributed by virtue of drawing mental correlation(s) between that which becomes symbol/sign and that which becomes symbolized/signified.
7. The attribution of meaning happens entirely within thought/belief formation.(from1,6)
8. All meaning is existentially contingent upon presupposing the existence of an external world.(from5,7)
9. All philosophical positions consist entirely of meaningful thought/belief.
10. All philosophical positions presuppose the existence of an external world.(from8,9)
Is that a bit more convincing?
X-)
It effectively refutes solipsism as well, and not merely 'by definition' mind you. The 'definition' of thought/belief contained in 1. is not arbitrarily chosen. To quite the contrary, it is arrived at by virtue of looking at all meaningful use of the terms "thought" and "belief". All thought/belief consists of mental correlations. All mental correlation counts as thought/belief. All predication is correlation. Not all correlation is predication. Thought/belief is not existentially contingent upon language. To quite the contrary, it's the other way around.
Thought/belief formation happens prior to language. Thought/belief is accrued. That which rudimentary thought/belief is existentially contingent upon and/or consists in/of, so too is/does the more complex. Thought/belief begins with drawing rudimentary correlations(think Pavlov's dog) and gains in complexity in direct accordance with/to the complexity of the correlations drawn between object(s) and/or self.
Enough for now. I don't get paid enough for this...
Seems like common sense to me. That which is real has an affect/effect.
You've begged the question.
Do idealism and solipsism "presuppose the existence of an external world"? If not then 10. is false. And it seems pretty obvious that (subjective) idealism and solipsism don't presuppose the existence of an external world, given that their claim is "there isn't (or might not be) an external world".
Besides, if presupposing the existence of an external world contradicts the meaning of the claim "there isn't (or might not be) an external world" (which you seem to be saying) then the meaning of the claim "there isn't (or might not be) an external world" isn't 'existentially contingent upon presupposing the existence of an external world', and so it would seem that 8. is (also) false.
How does sense data fit into this? Is sense data included in your talk of "thought/belief", or is it "external" to it? If "external" to it, at best all you can argue is that sense data exists (which even the subjective idealist and skeptic can accept) and is required for meaning. But that's not the same thing as showing that there must be an external world (as ordinarily understood).
Are you denying that 4 is true?
:-}
:-}
A premise begs the question if it assumes the conclusion. Whether or not a premise is true has no bearing on whether or not it begs the question. Both true and false premises can beg the question.
If all you're going to do is assert your conclusion and "defend" it by claiming it to be true then why bother offering an argument at all? Just say that idealism and skepticism are wrong.
But if you actually want to offer a good argument against idealism and skepticism than it can't beg the question. Premise 4 is fallacious (even if true).
I might only know that someone has been walking on the beach because I see footprints, but it doesn't then follow that those footprints are all there is (there was in fact a person walking on the beach).
You've missed the point. You can't go from "I can only know of X except through Y" to "only Y exists". So if we consider the above, 2 doesn't entail 1.
It could be that I only see footprints but that also there was an (unseen) person walking on the beach. If this is a coherent situation then your epistemological claim doesn't entail your ontological claim.
Which conclusion is assumed in 4?
That there is an external world.
Then how do you derive 5 from 3 and 4?
Either 4 begs the question or 5 is a non sequitur.
Clear as mud. Makes perfect sense...
What are you denying Michael?
You're trying to argue that there's an external world, and yet one of your premises amounts to "there is an external world". That's question-begging.
What you need as a premise is an "if X then there is an external world". You don't have anything like that.
Because all philosophical positions consist entirely of meaningful thought/belief and all meaningful thought/belief presupposes the existence of an external world, then it only follows that all philosophical positions presuppose the existence of an external world.
Pretty sure the voters in the poll are aware of idealist arguments.
Quoting charleton
Even if perception is ideal, that doesn't mean that existence is. But one doesn't have to accept that perception is ideal. Direct realism would deny that.
:-O
This might be an opportune time to provide a few of the textbook examples of 'problems with correspondence theory', as I'm sure they're relevant to 'correlation' also.
Randall, J. & Buchler, J.; Philosophy: An Introduction. p133
Beck, L.W. & Holmes, R.L.; Philosophic Inquiry, p130.
(Kant, 1801. The Jasche Logic, in Lectures on Logic.)
Correspondence is another topic in it's own right Jeep. We've been over this many times before as well. In fact, on the old forum, you once(during our first discussion about truth) told me that I had offered you the best defense of correspondence 'theory' that you'd ever read. I'm not a typical correspondence theorist.
With regard to this topic...
I find it interesting how those quotes presuppose an external world. Kant even openly says it. So, I'm not sure what your point here was?
:-|
As mentioned somewhere, mind is typically used as an umbrella term, including the likes of, or synonymous with some of: (1st person) experiences, qualia, (self)awareness, consciousness, sentience, thinking, ideation, feelings, pain/joy/love; mind = such activities of our individuated selves. So, mind is the means by which we understand things, talk about the world, etc, in the first place.
Idealism then strides right ahead and situates mind as the fundamental constituent of literally everything, i.e. self-elevation, since it's already a prerequisite for any thinking about non/idealism and such cognitive activities.
Is there an alternative to self-identity, in this context? Not as far as I can tell.
For that matter, we already know self-reference can be troublesome (like paradoxes).
Either way, consciousness comes and goes, starts and ends, and there isn't anything in particular that unconsciousness is like. The bulk of available evidence (by far), will have it that mind is contingent on something else. When some think that they themselves, or their mind, is persistent/ever-present, they're evidently wrong.
Solipsism is a performative contradiction, for example:
1. morals are social
2. solipsism is not social
3. morals are inconsequential to a solipsist
That these arguments apply to your initial premise:
Quoting creativesoul
On the grounds that 'mental correlations' amount to the same idea as 'correspondence'.
False grounds Jeep. Related, but certainly not equivalent.
That comes from treating 'mind' as if it were an object of perception, which it never is. A lot of enormous philosophical problems accrue from that relatively simple error.
So, in a sense, of course valid reasoning is begging the question.
Though it’s interesting when surprising conclusions are reached, or something implicit in the premises is laid bare.
Mathematics tend to go by revisable axioms with rather complex implications, that are not clear from the get-go.
An example of an argument that’s not purely deductive (copy/pasted from elsewhere):
1. There are good people and other animals suffering [†]
2. Either all suffering, without exception, is warranted
[sup]
• strong/comprehensive assertion (all instances); heavy onus probandi
• a large number of human activities are unwarranted [‡]
• if your doctor/veterinarian/dentist tells you that all suffering is warranted, then what will your reaction be?
• if someone tells you that all activities such as those mentioned under [‡] should cease, then what will your reaction be?
• poorly justified, possibly unjustifiable (indiscernible) (N)
[/sup]
3. Or there exists some unwarranted suffering
[sup]
• light/limited assertion (some instances); modest onus probandi
• a large number of human activities are warranted [‡]
• justified by available evidence and obtainable consensus (discernible) (Y)
[/sup]
4. Thus, it stands to reason that there is unwarranted suffering
[sup]
• what else is there to go by?
• consistent with a largely indifferent universe and non-teleological biological evolution
• where the contrary involves disproportionate appeal to “the unknown” (all, not just some)
[/sup]
Soberly considering available evidence uniquely suggests an indifferent universe. Other than civilized societies, what — anywhere, including the Moon, the North Pole, Sahara, the Mariana Trench — cares about me/you/us?
[sub][†] The Black Death, The Spanish Flu, “the child missing out and suffering due to cancer”, “the priest wasting away due to debilitating migraines”, HIV/AIDS, schizophrenia, epilepsy, depression, suicide, delusions, infant epidermolysis bullosa, crippling birth defects, polymelia, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, dementia, teratoma, toxoplasma gondii, … — this includes animals other than humans[/sub]
[sub][‡] Doctors, nurses, dentists, social care workers, veterinarians, hospitals, medical science, research efforts towards relief, WHO, UNICEF, WWF, negligence laws, The Hippocratic Oath, … — not many doctors would state that “the child missing out and suffering due to cancer” [†] is warranted — among these there are caring, loving, willing (but not omnibenevolent), capable (but not omnipotent), knowing, aware (but not omniscient) people — there are present moral actors[/sub]
I will take a stab at an answer.
Suffering is an inevitable aspect of physical existence, because whatever is physical is necessarily subject to decay, disease and illness. No religion has ever promised an existence exempt from suffering, except for 'in heaven', or such like, which is not physical. Hence the sayings 'gone to a better place', the world being 'a vale of tears' and so on.
Whereas your expressing the 'hotel manager' theodicy - 'look, people (and animals) are suffering, whose in charge here? Someone must have responsibility! (Points at God) That's you! How dare you! Can't you see, people are suffering!?!
What this doesn't understand is the notion that there might be 'an end to suffering' but that it is incumbent on the individual to discern what that might be - something which involves the acceptance of the moral truths of the various religious answers to 'the problem of suffering'. That, indeed, is the meaning of 'salvation', i.e. 'to salve', to go 'beyond suffering'.
But the upshot is, the mere fact of suffering, doesn't constitute an argument against religion.
Poor kids. At least St Jude is picking up the slack (please don't tell them you're arguing that the kids' suffering is actually warranted).
Quoting Wayfarer
Evidently so. Just what you'd expect of a largely indifferent world.
Incidentally, going by common theism, there exists a heaven that's free of suffering, implying that suffering is not a necessary condition, albeit just reserved for some (or so it is claimed by some, those very same ones).
But, this was just an example of not arguing by deduction alone.
because of anthropomorphic misconceptions?
‘Hence’, says the Christian, ‘the need for salvation’.
Quoting Marty
The basic argument of Descartes’ Cogito is apodictic - cannot plausibly be denied - and indeed had been anticipated by Augustine millenia previously:
[quote=“St Augustine”]I am not at all afraid of the arguments of the Academicians [i.e., skeptic philosophers], who say, “What if you are deceived?” For if I am deceived, I am. For he who is not, cannot be deceived; and if I am deceived, by this same token, I am. And since I am if I am deceived, how am I deceived in believing that I am? for it is certain that I am if I am deceived. Since, therefore, I, the person deceived, should be, even if I were deceived, certainly I am not deceived in this knowledge that I am.[/quote]
(From City of God, although it is repeated in various forms elsewhere.)
However, the notion of ‘res cogitans’ as a ‘thinking substance’ is another matter. There are two complications here: the first is the use of the word ‘substance’. That is the term that was used to translate the Greek ‘ouisia’ in Aristotle’s metaphysics. It means something like ‘the bearer of predicates’ - so in some ways, is more akin to a ‘subject’ than a ‘substance’. But at any rate, in the 17th Century, ‘substance’ was still used in the Aristotelian way, and philosophers knew what it meant. In the intervening centuries, the philosophical meaning, which to begin with might have been a mis-translation anyway, has been lost, and ‘substance’ has now assumed the meaning you and I know - some kind of stuff, be it plastic or liquid or ethereal.
There’s a very perceptive critique of Deacartes in Husserl’s last book, which is called The Crisis of the European Sciences. In it, he recognises Descartes’ genius (and Descartes was a genius), but observes a great flaw in his dualism. This is depicting ‘res cogitans’, the ‘thinking substance’, In a naturalistic manner, as something that could potentially be known in an objective way. It’s an elaborate argument which I haven’t paraphrased very well here, but that is the upshot. And the resulting idea of a ‘thinking substance’ is an absurdity.
It’s a shame that Descartes didn’t have any real succcessors to elaborate and defend his ideas (I have heard someone called Malebranche mentioned in that respect, but he has fallen into obscurity.) But in any case, the consequences of Cartesian dualism have been generally pernicious in my opinion, as the idea of the ‘thinking substance’ has rightfully been utterly rejected - but then, it is based on a misunderstanding in the first place.
That’s my interpretation. (Incidentally, when I studied philosophy as an undergrad, Descartes was the first course in the curriculum as ‘the first modern’.)
Right on, though. (Y)
I said that they're related on my view. However, I wouldn't say that "there's a correlation between correlation and correspondence", because it would be an equivocation of the term correlation. On my view, mental correlation(s) are what all thought/belief consist in/of. With that in mind what you're asking me, if employing my framework, would translate as...
...so there's no thought/belief between thought/belief and correspondence?
Surely you can understand how that would be problematic...
I bolded and underlined the bit above relevant to your query, I think...
It is basically still about correspondence, though. But that isn't to say that it is, therefore, a false argument. It's a very difficult philosophical problem, because you're trying to articulate the foundations of knowledge, the conditions for knowledge. But I think it is still subject to the criticisms that I quoted from those text books, the basic problem being that, if you're going to try and talk about both the agent, on the one side, and the object, on the other, then you're assuming a position above or outside them. You're trying to sketch how we know what we know, from some point where you can see both sides of the correlation - the agent, and the object of knowledge. But how can you get above or outside of that, in such a way that you can see both sides at once?
In a day-to-day sense, of course it is perfectly sound to say 'that journalist's account of what happened corresponded to the facts'. Used in that way the notion of there being correspondence or correlation between an account of what happens, and what happens, is OK. But it doesn't come to grips with philosophical skepticism, idealism, realism, and the other kinds of fundamental philosophical conundrums that are at issue. I suspect you're trying to construct a common sense explanation of common sense.
Read the Kant quote again:
I'm articulating what thought/belief consists in/of. The scope of what I'm putting forth couldn't be broader, so it would rightfully apply to knowledge as well. However, I'm not talking about correspondence. If I were I would use the term and talk about it. I'm not trying to articulate the foundations for knowledge, the conditions for knowledge. If I were I would say so. It just so happens, that thought/belief is required for knowledge. That is, knowledge(both kinds) is existentially contingent upon thought/belief formation. So, here as well as earlier, knowledge is related to thought/belief just as correspondence is. However, I've not talked about either, aside from telling you that I'm not talking about them.
I assume no such thing. Awareness of the content of thought/belief doesn't require getting outside of thought/belief. That doesn't even make sense to say, on my view. It requires the ability to think about thought/belief. Metacognition requires written language, for starters, in order to name and/or isolate our mental ongoings. We have that.
The criticisms posted all work from and/or talk about a position other than the one I hold and argue for. By the way, Kant fails to draw the crucial distinction between cognition and metacognition. I'm also fairly certain that he inverts belief and judgment, in terms of existential contingency and/or temporal order. I like Kant. Think God got in his way...
Actually existence is ideal - you have no other reference but yourself. Idealism is thus true as the substrate of all understanding, even materialism and realism are ideal inventions.
Are you Marchesk or are you referencing something other than yourself by virtue of using "Marchesk"?
Charleston's referencing of Marchesk is ideal*, but I'm real. I'm physically identical to myself, although not the label.
* or perhaps not, shouldn't flatter myself
I'm saying that you can only know X as an ideal. Existence is an ideal too. Everything is partially understood through the ground of our understanding and experience.; a mental construct.
Realism is a mental construct too; a theory about the world.
That is how it exists. You don't have to like it, but its unavoidable.
Is your brain also a data stream?
Looks as if Charleton finally took on the picture of a causa sui being possible.
Is that any different to saying that it's quantum fields (or whatever) all the way down?
But something is ontologically primary. Maybe quantum fields is a good guess or approximation?
Anyway, whatever else exists is made up of the primary stuff, be it quantum fields or what have you. So it would be society then brains/biology, then chemistry, then physics, or however one wishes to do the reduction.
I wonder if that's what charleton means, then. Data streams are ontologically primary, and all other things (brains, hands, trees, etc.) are emergent phenomena.
Possibly. I don't know what it would mean for data streams to be primary. Streams of data according to whom?
Personally, I don't actually understand much of physics (especially quantum mechanics). I just know to repeat the things it says.
But I mean ontologically the way the Greek atomists thought it was atoms and the void.
Ontological primacy gets a bit murky when we're talking about quantum mechanics, though.
My understanding is that it would be valid to say that quantum fields are in a sense primary with respect to particles (and thus all matter), but that there is a reciprocal ontological relationship between the two nonetheless.That is, while certain quantum fields potentiate certain particles (and the latter could not exist without the former) it may be just as correct to say that particles potentiate quantum fields. For example, we would say that the Higgs field gives rise to the Higgs boson, but if there were no Higgs bosons, then the Higgs field wouldn't exist in any coherent sense because it wouldn't be doing anything.
It seems to be, then, that we can't have particles without fields, but that we also can't have fields without particles. To that extent, it wouldn't make sense to say that either is primary.
Sure, whatever happens to be the case.
Do you see a utility in emergentism? What work is it suppose to do?
Quoting Michael
Can an objective idealist say or claim all the same things that a metaphysical physicalist realist could? It seems to be the case that what's of issue is that what we experience must be separate from our minds or other minds to be meaningful (not contradictory) but both of the those positions, the realist or objective idealist, do it just well with the idealist merely taking an epistemological doctrine to an ontological extreme.
Because Occam. And I think Quine. But mostly because it seems the more complex, everyday stuff is determined by the micro stuff.
Quoting Wayfarer
I'd think your mere existence is independent of my mind (might be a bit rude/arrogant to claim otherwise). Same deal with the rest. The judgement may be ours, should we do that. The judged has no existential dependence on whether we judge it or not, the judged is not the judgment. It's our judgment that's the adjustable part. And that's not a trap in the question.
Right, the great physicists of last century did discuss such questions. I'd say, though, that raising their discussions by giving them the same weight as their physics, can be a bit misleading. That's not to deflate them, just to avoid inflating them.
What makes parsimony a metaphysical commitment that one ought to take?
And there seems to be a lot of examples where the opposite it true: the parts are maintained by the whole.