Idealism as I described and as entertained in the article I linked is completely consistent with external objects beyond your immediate experience so the idea of external objects is completely consistent, they just happen to be mental or experiential. — Apustimelogist
But do you not see - this IS incoherent? If everything is mental, there
are not external objects. That can only
appear external. There is nothing to be aware of, outside of mind as you've stipulated a mind-only universe. So this simply is not a consistent notion. If what you're driving at is a reading along the lines of 'transcendental idealism' i think perhaps you're not doing justice to what you're trying to get across. You've posited that this theory holds
everything as mental. If that's hte case, there cannot be anything with extension - nothing
can be external on that account. That's just not allowed by the theory, on it's own terms. You might need to
elaborate to make sense of how everything could be mental, yet 'something' has extension to be aware of?
I think your notion of idealism is far narrower than most people seriously entertaining idealism today. — Apustimelogist
I seriously., seriously think you're reading into utterances about it more than is intended. Perhaps you're thinking of some type dualism as analogous? Idealism is necessary precluded from including extension on it's own terms. It deny's the physical. Idealism
is a narrow conception. Formal Idealism simply is not idealism, in any proper sense. It's just the same as a Kantian reading, which is actually fundamentally
not idealistic. Its a form of mysterianism about perception. It's merely a description of our access to knowledge and not a metaphysical theory of what
is available to be aware of.
In the alternative, where I am entirely wrong about how these things are being put forward in current times, I would just say given what I've described in these replies my position is: They are plainly wrong, and there's not really any grey areas to canvass. They are misusing words to maintain incoherent positions. Ryle would be proud.
The idealist would agree and then they would say the physical simply does not exist so there is no problem. There is no need to reduce the mental to the physical because the physical just doesn't exist. All there is are experiences. Consciousness doesn't supervene on the physical because consciousness is all there is. — Apustimelogist
And this position entails all i've said(you'll note this does fatal damage to the position, as above). I do apologise, but this is becoming very much an exercise in trying to understand how you're confusing certain concepts.
Once you formulate an idealist universe as identical to a physicalist one except that everything is made out of mental stuff — Apustimelogist
"made of mental stuff" is literally incoherent. If there is extension, there is matter. Either everything is internal, seemingly external(mind), which is entailed by a 'mental-only' Universe (A'), or we're looking at a world in whcih there are things, proper(A - apparently, the actual world). To put this more clearly, if there are
only experiences there are no things. There just isn't, on the theory's own terms. Again, I'm having trouble understanding how you could posit a universe that is 'only mental' yet has 'objects'. Objects have extension. Mentation does not. Is the theory just more speculative, in that the mental can in some peculiar way extend, or something similar, in that Universe?
There will always be some point where it just doesn't have an answer - we don't know why things exist or don't exist. — Apustimelogist
I think this is a little bit of a cop-out - but there are clearly some base-levels that wont have a further explanation. So, yes, i agree with this statement, but I don't think
this question is one of them. Either there are physical things, or there are no physical things. 'Why' is literally irrelevant. But that's like.. my opinion man. LOL.
The problem of why experience exists would reduce to exactly that problem for an idealist. — Apustimelogist
Hm, I can clearly see the confusion in this one, and it is plainly wrong to me. The existence of 'things' and 'experience' are not at all analogous. Again, having trouble. I've been over this twice I think. The two questions are
entirely different questions. The idealist has an entirely different question to answer than "why is there something rather than nothing?" because they actually hold that there
is nothing. Just experience. So, why the experience? Same question. But in world A' we
also want to know why there are 'things' which are not conscious, for lack of a better delineation. One does not reduce to the other. One simply disappears, magically, if you posit idealism. This is why its such a faulty, untenable position to most. It simply says 'that's not real' without a shred of good reason.
Though, this is tied to it's fundamental incoherence, You cannot be experiencing an experience. This is one point Banno has made, that I agree with *but totally ruins his take*. You can't be aware, in consciousness,
of perception. Experience is
of something. Perception without content is no experience. So, where is the idealist drawing phenomena from? After several hours with Kastrup (not personally) it seems totally clear this is just ignored. Though, I note that given the idealist pretends there is no question to answer about matter, they just run with it as a free lunch. But that is ... really, really dumb. We have phenomena. You can't get around that in explaining reality. Mental "objects" giving rise to conscious experience sans anything else is just dumb. You'll need simulation theory or something behind it.
So the hard problem doesn't exist for the idealist and this is probably one of the major advantages amy idealist will give you to their theory. — Apustimelogist
I agree this si what they would
say - but it's stupid. It's raises even less-sensible questions, to my mind. It isn't an advantage at all. Simply saying "i'll ignore that explanatory gap by making an extreme claim that is tenuous and essentially a spiritual position" isn't helpful.
The reply is saying that a dualist reality where there is a metaphysical divide between the mental and physical is unfounded. It has no basis in science — Apustimelogist
This seems patently wrong, also. This seems more like a dogma. In fact, I am quite convinced it is a dogma. It's just uncomfortable. Property Dualism explains the data better than physicalism, currently. We have zero scientific basis to claim that consciousness is a physical thing. None. Zip. Nada. Your later quotes seem to exemplify this, on idealist terms, well.
Now I can also say that I have experiences but the fact that I say I have experiences doesn't entail that there must be some other physical substance which is profoundly metaphysically different and from which experiences arise. — Apustimelogist
Semantically it doesn't but given that the conscious does not supervene on the physical, it is a better explanation than "Muhhh.. duhh Mysterianism". It's not logically entailed, but no other doors are unlocked in that room. Either you need to posit something supernatural causing phenomena of objects, or objects.
In any case any even semi-serious dualism doesn't posit that the Mental is some separate
physical substance that is a plain mis-reading. It posits that Consciousness is a
fact about the physical (a property - a 'further fact') which does not reduce to the physical (you've noted this.. Makes this an awkward clarification). Natural supervenience is the term used here, as opposed to Logical supervenience. Property Dualism avoids literally all the issues you've brought up, and raises little more than doubts about its reality, not it's coherence.
We have no idea about the intrinsic nature of what we scientifically observe beyond our experiences ..... there is absolutely no reason why we should be able to have any tangible access to some fundamental metaphysical nature of how the universe is, whether from science or perception. None of this comes from a particular realist viewpoint which I think is probably key. — Apustimelogist
Agreed. This doesn't seem to have much effect on either of our positions. It just sort of points out that where we see explanatory gaps, you're happy to lean into mysterianism. Not an invalid view, But i think its premature here. Though, again, prima facie, totally agree. We may just be incapable, regardless of what theory we posit. However, I don't think your reasoning
entails that position.
But then again, neither the notion of "structure" or "what it is like"(experience) have any substantive definitions that let me pick out anything metaphysically or scientifically meaningful, — Apustimelogist
Ooof. That seems like a bear trap you've put your own foot in. We can absolutely pick out metaphysical notions based on empirical/mental structure. Given consciousness
fails to supervene on the physical we actually have really, really good reason to think we are
currently beginning to identity some metaphysically distinct concepts. And, it only makes sense that conscious experience
alone would even give rise to the question, i think. Nothing else fails to logically supervene, in some way that explains it's emergence.
Experience clearly does. It just doesn't allow you to convey it. I couldn't possibly know that you are having a profound idea about X, but you are having it, on your own account. You dont need to prove it to another mind for that to be the case. So, "scientifically meaningful' would be wrong,
practically but theoretically, its actually the closest to the bone you're ever going to get - entirely removing the problem of induction(or hard sci realism) you laid out further up this paragraph (which I note seems empirically true as a limitation of knowledge and does put a spanner in having strong views either way),
let alone any dichotomy between experience and the physical which would only lead to an incoherent type of epiphenomenalism. — Apustimelogist
It does not but even where it points toward EP, it's not incoherent at all. I would recommend reading
Chalmers section-long treatment of epiphenomenalism (150-160 or so) in the face of his property dualism. It is very compelling. There really is no problem here as I see it. Further work since publication seems to do nothing for either side (other than we still have no fucking clue what's going on - as Koch has had to admit). To taste:
Epiphenomenalism is counterintuitive, but the alternatives are more than counterintuitive. They are simply wrong, as we have already seen and will see again. The overall moral is that if the arguments suggest that natural supervenience is true, then we should learn to live with natural supervenience — Chalmers(1996)
I don't think you have said anything here that distinguishes realism about scientific theories from that about objects of perceptual. — Apustimelogist
I clearly have. One is about experience, and one is about hte external world. Scientific realism posits there
is an external world we can accurately measure. Perceptual realism posits that we, without measurement, can directly access an external world. They are plainly different considerations. One is necessarily prior to the other in explanatory terms. Ill leave that there.
seems to me just as much a concern — Apustimelogist
It may, but it's obviously not. It simply doesn't matter in A', as an example of why they're separate. You can subtract the one, and still ahve the other open question.
The question of "why the universe is the way it is?" is the same for any kind of metaphysical position because you can imagine the universe in a vast number of different — Apustimelogist
Yes, that's right and exactly why an idealist
actually does not avoid any problems entailed by this question. I may prematurely be thinking you're starting to grok it here... Onward.
just as arbitrary — Apustimelogist
Not at all, on my account. Physicalists cannot entertain the majority of metaphysical theories because they posit something over and above hte physical, or remove/re-cast the physical as something other than it is currently understood. This is one of the biggest drawbacks. Physicalism begs several questions about it's foundational tenets. The problem of consciousness seems to pretty squarely jettison the sanguine notions of physicalists.
So too you can have an idealist universe where even what you are thinking of as non-experiential cognition is still experience or consciousness — Apustimelogist
This is a plain contradiction, unless your position is that I am empirically wrong - that doesn't seem to be what you're saying, so i remain in the position that this sentence is self-contradictory and does nothing for you. If A'- (our world, exactly, but there is no consciousness) exists, there just is no experience. Nothing else changes. Cognition and behaviour remains exactly the same, but is not accompanied, ever, by an experience in S. This specifically disallows phenomenal experience while losing precisely zero about our world that we
actually know in the scientific sense.
An 'idealist' universe, on your account, is pure experience. Nothing else. Not experience
of anything - just experiences on experiences on experiences. So, you've baked into your notion that both your sentence must be contradictory, and that you can't take an idealistic Universe seriously - you're trying to maintain non-experiential cognition in a world of
experience - not cognition - from which experience can be subtracted without a loss of form, structure or function from what we know currently about A.
Personally I don't believe in some strong distinction between "conscious" and "non-conscious" cognition in the way that I believe you are thinking about it. — Apustimelogist
What's your take here, then? Pure curiosity. To come to table, 'cognition' doesn't seem to me something that is the same as experience. So, all cognition is 'conscious' but barely any cognition arises in
experience
The problem of consciousness is only in contrast to the metaphysics of the physical and functional. — Apustimelogist
While, semantically, I agree, and I wrongly formulated discussions about hte Hard Problem earlier, i'm sorry, but the question of 'why is there conscious experience' is simply live on any theory that allows for experience. Nothing in those quotes changes this. The problem of experience looms over
any theory that doesn't deny it. Which is why many theories simply deny it. Idealism being one that does the opposite - denies the physical s a non-problem. They are exactly the same tactics in terms of theorizing. And both are as silly as the other, imo. If the idealist position rested on
cognition which is far more coherent than resting on
experience you can see that this question is just as much a problem for the idealist.