Our everyday experience shows us clearly that we live in a shared world. It can even be seen as an empirical fact, as it can be demonstrated so easily. — Janus

And what. specifically, about the original post goes against that?

What you are gleaning from physics is just one interpretation―the one you resonate with―there is no solid consensus that your interpretation is the correct one. Also you are not an expert in that field, by any means, which gives you even less warrant to cite it. — Janus

It goes directly against your contention that every observer sees the same thing when the observations show they don’t. If it were really objective there would be no need for interpretation.

Yes, with the very large difference being that they work :100:

I’m saying there’s a sense in which quantum physics seems like magic. Have a read of Spooky Action in Action

'I think i can safely say that nobody understands quantum physics' ~ Richard Feynman (who ought to have some credibility, as he won the Nobel Priize in the subject.)

I always comes back to this basic problem―experience shows us that we all see the same things at the same times and places is unquestionable that we live in a shared world. — Janus

That's where you're being dogmatic. As has been pointed out, physics itself has cast this into doubt, to which you then say you don't have the expertise to judge that. But it can be explained in English, even if the subject itself relies on mathematics. You can't just brush that off, as if it has no significance, when it's central to philosophy in the 21st century.

The second point is, that I've also repeated a number of times, we share a common set of cognitve, cultural and linguistic practices, which converge on what you describe as a shared world. I say it's a shared experience of the world, which is almost, but not quite, the same thing! The world as it perceived by very different kinds of beings, would be a very different world.

The things we encounter don't depend on us for their existence, but what their existence is for us does. So again you need to get clear what I mean by independent of mind. I say right at the outset there are many things we ourselves will never encounter or know, but that doesn't vitiate the argument, that all we know of existence is dependent on our cognitive and intellectual faculties.

Again what I'm arguing against is the idea of a kind of ultimate objectivtiy, that the real world is what exists independently of any observation or knowledge on our part. I'm arguing that all knowledge has an inelminably - can't be eliminated - pole or aspect. Contrary to what you say, this is not 'trivial', it's something that many objectively-oriented philosophers and scientists don't accept,

But maybe quantum mechanics really is magic. Not metaphorical magic, but actual sorcery. We build lasers, computers, and superconductors out of it, but the act of “observation” still works by means unknown — changing the outcome simply by measuring. Engineers can harness it, like magicians who know the words of power, but nobody can finally say why the spell works. It produces miracles daily, on a basis that remains mysterious. If that isn’t sorcery, what is?

Nevertheless the observer problem can’t be wished away by realist rhetoric.

But can only be validated by observation a posteriori.

Afaik, the vast majority of religious believers are not "classical" theists in practice and instead worship a personal God (or gods). — 180 Proof

More easy targets for you, 180 ;-)

You're not the only one it puzzles. Esteemed mathematical physicist Sir Roger Penrose adamantly declares that quantum physics must be wrong, deficient or incomplete for exactly that reason. He says that the Universe must be a certain way, and it's the job of science to discern the way it is, independently of any act on our part. But others, for example QBists, say that each act of measurement is unique to a particular observation and therefore that it is inherenently subjective in some sense.

By the way, I don't know if it was C G Jung who said that. Bishop Berkeley, who is often discussed on this forum, certainly said esse est percipe (to be is to be perceived) but he was a long time before Jung. But you're right in saying that quantum physics has opened these cans of worms again, of that there is no question,

I am perplexed the modern personalist idea of God. I've read some discussion of this by Edward Feser and David Bentley Hart (Thomist and Orthodox respectively, ) Theistic personalism, common in much modern philosophy of religion, conceives of God really as a “person” in the ordinary sense: a supremely powerful and intelligent agent who shares our basic categories of mind and will, only infinitely perfected. For critics like Edward Feser and David Bentley Hart, this picture risks reducing God to a kind of “super-creature,” a being among other beings, which makes Him vulnerable to anthropomorphic misunderstanding and to the criticisms of modern atheism. I see that depiction as being upheld by many evangelical Christians and disputed by scientifically-inclined atheists.

Classical theism, by contrast, sees God not as a being but as Being (ipsum esse subsistens), the source and ground of all. God is not less than personal but more than personal: the transcendent fullness of intellect and will, whose knowing and willing are identical with His essence, not discursive or contingent as ours are. This avoids the opposite error of treating God as an impersonal force or abstract energy, since God is the very ground of personality, consciousness, and agapē. In short, where theistic personalism projects human categories “upwards” into God, classical theism emphasizes God’s radical transcendence as the living source of all being, without collapsing Him into either a cosmic individual or a faceless principle.

But a more generaous hermeneutic could see theistic personalism as amenable to certain personality types or stages of spiritual development (somewhat analogous to the concept of 'dharma doors' in Buddhism, which are different kinds of teachings suited to beings on various levels of development.)

He’s not a mainstream philosopher, more an alternative type. But, I think, perfectly authentic. Probably overshadowed by more recent figures like Eckhart Tolle,

I don't think that's quite it.

Terrence Deacon's concept of "absentials" from *Incomplete Nature* refers to higher-order phenomena that are defined by what is absent, constrained, or negated rather than by what is materially present. These are real causal powers that emerge from organized absences or constraints.

Here are some key illustrative examples:

**Biological Examples:**
- **A hole in a membrane** - The hole itself is an absence of material, but it has real causal power (allowing specific molecules to pass through while constraining others)
- **Enzyme active sites** - The precisely shaped "empty" space in an enzyme that constrains which molecules can bind and react
- **Ecological niches** - Defined not by what's there, but by the absence of certain competitors, predators, or resources, creating opportunities for specific organisms

**Physical Examples:**
- **Soap bubbles** - The bubble's spherical form is maintained by the constraint of surface tension minimizing area, not by any positive structural material
- **Whirlpools or hurricanes** - Stable patterns maintained by constraints on fluid flow, with no fixed material components
- **Crystalline structures** - The regular lattice emerges from constraints on how atoms can be arranged, creating "forbidden" positions

**Information/Meaning Examples:**
- **Phonemes in language** - The sound /p/ is defined by the absence of vocal cord vibration that distinguishes it from /b/
- **Musical rhythm** - Defined as much by the silences and what doesn't happen as by the notes played
- **DNA's informational content** - Meaning emerges from constraints on which base pairs can form, not just from the bases themselves

**Thermodynamic Examples:**
- **Temperature gradients** - The difference (absence of equilibrium) drives heat engines and biological processes
- **Chemical potential** - The "tendency" for reactions based on what's energetically prohibited vs. allowed

These absentials demonstrate how constraint, absence, and negation can be causally efficacious - they do real work in the world by organizing and channeling material processes, even though they're not material things themselves.

Terrence Deacon's book is pretty novel, although it has convergences with Evan Thompson Mind in Life, and Alicia Juarrero Dynamics in Action (the latter accused him of plagiarising her ideas, but he was later cleared by a formal review.)

Deacon's Incomplete Nature: How Mind Emeged from Matter was published around 12 years ago. Very hard book to descibe in few words. Have a look at the info about it. particularly this interview. He stays within the bounds of scientific naturalism, but is critical of mainstream materialist explanations of living beings. He introduces concepts including 'absentials' and 'ententionality'. Worth knowing about.

But the important thing is that they are constitutive and non-present. In that sense consciousness is constituted by that which is not it. — JuanZu

Are you familiar with the book Incomplete Nature by Terrence Deacon, a biological anthropologist. He develops the idea of absentials, which are ‘constitutive absences’ - a purpose not yet achieved, such as a seed aiming to become a plant, or the absence of a specific structure, like the cylinder in an engine that channels force, which gives it causal power. or the axle hole which allows the wheel to spin.

So, we could all benefit from what troubled you while reading this text. — Paine

It’s not that I find Kant troubling so much as that reading him is very hard work. But I find if I go through it methodically I can understand the arguments. I also want to understand it well enough to understand the criticisms by his successors.

I’m determined to get through the whole work by year’s end. I talk a lot about it but am well aware of the gaps in my reading.

It is the 'egological' outlook. Not egocentric, in an obvious way, but the sense of being a separate subject/self in an object world primarily oriented around the visual senses. That term 'egological' I found in an academic paper on the logic of the Diamond Sutra (A is not A, therefore it is A)

That song, I don't remember, but then I never had any of their albums.

There is an expression in esoteric philosophy 'the eye of the heart'.

And I feel that sense we have of being 'in the head' is very much associated with a certain kind of mentality.

Ever run across Douglas Harding 'On Having no Head'? He hasn't been mentioned much on this forum, but he was quite a popular spiritual teacher a generation ago. https://amzn.asia/d/9kFTHpb

Aristotle believed that the heart was the seat of sensation, thought, and intelligence. In De Anima (On the Soul) and other biological works, he describes the heart as the central organ of life, the source of motion and sensation, and the place where the “soul” (in the sense of the animating principle) most directly resides. The brain, in his view, was a cooling device for the blood. Galen later corrected this view saying that the brain was the seat of thought.

Interestingly in Thai and other Eastern cultures, 'citta' can be translated as either 'heart' or 'mind' depending on the context. That is nearer the colloquial usage of 'knowing in your heart' or 'heartfelt'. I do wonder if there's a somatic element to knowing which those saying reflect.

Perhaps the ancients were not as much "in their heads" and language oriented as we are today.
— Janus
I think that's very likely. — Ludwig V

Good comments. The key point is ‘participatory’ - not being a bystander.

Krishnamurti used to say, ‘to see as it is without condemning it or justifying it.’ That is something that stayed with me,

That’s more Freud’s superego, The philosopher’s aim is always ‘seeing what is’.

often these prejudices become reinforced concrete for their bearer — Astorre

Ain’t that the truth. Everyone has them but the wise are willlng to own up to it.

Thank you for that input, it's an aspect of Husserl that I hadn't encountered yet (there are many). I will think that over some more.

‘I tick therefore I am’ :lol:

I always thought of [alayavijnana] as a kind of collective karmic storehouse, and it is explicitly doctrinally classed as a form of consciousness. So I'm not seeing how it is not an idea of collective consciousness or mind. — Janus

As I say, a very deep topic, I could easily be mistaken about many aspects. It is not accepted by all Buddhist schools, because it said by some Buddhists to be too close to the idea of an 'underlying self or soul'. Madhyamaka philosophers say that ālaya-vijñāna risks reifying consciousness into a hidden essence or foundational mind. From their standpoint, this contradicts the radical emptiness (śūnyatā) of dharmas.

Early Buddhist schools (e.g. Theravāda and some Sarvāstivādins) didn’t have this concept, and when later confronted with it, some commentators saw it as smuggling in an underlying self.

Even within Yogācāra, the idea had to be very carefully explained: the storehouse consciousness is not a permanent self or universal mind, but a provisional way of accounting for karmic continuity and the latent “seeds” (bīja) that ripen into experience.

But the whole subject is one which hinges on the sense in which such a faculty can be said to exist. Perhaps we could say that it exists as potential - but then in what sense do such potential states exist? They are by definition not yet manifest so not existent. But also not beyond the realm of possibility.

Calling the alaya a collective mind does tend to reify it as some ethereal kind of medium or intelligence, which is really a non-Buddhist view. I remember the well-known W Y Evans-Wentz translation many of us has in the 60's and 70's The Tibetan Book of the Great Liberation by Knowing the One Mind. Regrettably, that translation is not at all accurate, and there is no 'one mind' concept in Tibetan Buddhism. Evans - Wentz absorbed those ideas from theosophy which also had many spurious interpretations of Buddhism.

Bernardo Kastrup in the other hand sometimes dialogues with Swami Priyananda, and says that his ‘analytical idealism’ is broadly compatible with Vedanta. And I think his ‘mind at large’ reflects that. So my essay reflects a Buddhist critique.

Buddhists believe in the Universe. The Universe is, according to philosophers who base their beliefs on!idealism, a place of the spirit. Other philosophers whose beliefs are based on a materialistic view, say that the Universe is composed of the matter we see in front of our eyes.

Buddhist philosophy takes a view which is neither idealistic nor materialistic; Buddhists do not believe that the Universe is composed of only matter. They believe that there is something else other than matter. But there is a difficulty here; if we use a concept like spirit to describe that something else other than matter, people are prone to interpret Buddhism as some form of spiritualistic religion and think that Buddhists must therefore believe in the actual existence of spirit. So it becomes very important to understand the Buddhist view of the concept ‘spirit.’

I am careful to refer to spirit as a concept here because in fact Buddhism does not believe in the actual existence of spirit. So what is this ‘something else’ other than matter which exists in this Universe?

If we think that there is a something which actually exists other than matter, our understanding will not be correct; nothing physical exists outside of matter.
Some people explain the Universe as a universe
based on matter. But there also exists something which we call value or meaning. A Universe consisting only of matter leaves no room for value or meaning in civilizations and cultures. Matter alone has no value. We can say that the Universe is constructed with matter, but we must also say that matter works for some purpose.

So in our understanding of the Universe we should recognize the existence of something other than
matter. We can call that something spirit, but if we do we should remember that in Buddhism, the word ‘spirit’ is a figurative expression for value or meaning. We do not say that spirit exists in reality; we use the concept only figuratively. — Nishijima Roshi

So you're saying it isn't memory if there's not a purpose of homeostasis in it? Wow... — noAxioms

Show me I’m mistaken and I’ll change my view. As always.

‘ ‘… The discovery of the genetic code was a breakthrough of the first order. It showed why organisms are fundamentally different from any kind of nonliving material. There is nothing in the inanimate world that has a genetic program which stores information with a history of three thousand million years!’ ~ Ernst Mayr.

I sure will but I’m in grand-dad mode today so am besieged with a thousand minor annoyances and it’s a very deep topic. I’ll try and find some time soon.

Thank you for those comments on my essay, appreciated. My only comment on the closing analogy is the proximity to that materialist saying that ‘the brain secretes thought as the liver secretes bile.’ I wpild agree however that being is more a verb than a noun.

I sometimes entertain the idea that modern culture normalizes problematical states of consciousness—restlessness, distraction, alienation—and that philosophy, properly understood, is a discipline that seeks critical awareness of this fact. In that sense, it’s not just abstract speculation but a kind of therapy, aimed at cultivating lucidity. Of course easier said than done as we’re all to some extent immersed in it.

I have a romantic notion of philosophy as potentially being able to provide this kind of psychological or experiential transformation, not just the lifeless pursuit of analysis and cold reasoning, but a new way of seeing that enlarges our experience in some way. Yet such a description feels rather tendentious, soft and poetic. — Tom Storm

For Pierre Hadot, famously, the means for the philosophical student to achieve the “complete reversal of our usual ways of looking at things” epitomized by the Sage were a series of spiritual exercises. These exercises encompassed all of those practices still associated with philosophical teaching and study: reading, listening, dialogue, inquiry, and research. However, they also included practices deliberately aimed at addressing the student’s larger way of life, and demanding daily or continuous repetition: practices of attention (prosoche), meditations (meletai), memorizations of dogmata, self-mastery (enkrateia), the therapy of the passions, the remembrance of good things, the accomplishment of duties, and the cultivation of indifference towards indifferent things (PWL 84).]

https://iep.utm.edu/hadot/#SH5a

This kind of attitude is bubbling up through independent philosophers rather than academics although again John Vervaeke is both.

The edition Paine links to is the Cambridge Edition of the Critique of Pure Reason, ed Guyer and Wood. The gold standard translation.

A gloss on first the section Paine quotes ( A758 B786)

1. Ignorance as motive, not paralysis

Kant begins by distinguishing types of ignorance. Some ignorance is contingent (we simply don’t know some facts yet), which motivates empirical or dogmatic investigation. But there is also necessary ignorance — ignorance grounded in the very conditions of our knowing — which is revealed only by critique. That’s the crucial distinction between simply bumping up against the limits of what we happen not to know, and recognizing the boundaries of possible cognition itself.

He stresses: ignorance known critically becomes a kind of knowledge — a “science” — whereas ignorance known only empirically is merely a vague awareness that there’s more out there than we presently grasp.

2. The sphere vs. plane metaphor

The extended image is helpful. If reason’s domain were like a flat surface with an indefinite horizon, we could never tell how far our knowing might reach — ignorance would always be open-ended. But if reason is like a sphere, then from any part of its curvature we can (at least in principle) work out the total extent and boundary.

The analogy is drawn from mathematics: by knowing the curvature of a degree of arc, you can infer the whole globe. Likewise, by analyzing the structure of synthetic a priori judgments, Kant claims we can infer the scope of reason itself — where it has jurisdiction and where it does not.

This is why his project is not mere “censorship” (Hume’s skeptical rejection of claims beyond experience), but critique: not simply banning speculative metaphysics, but charting the precise boundaries of possible cognition.

3. Hume as halfway point

Kant explicitly positions Hume as a “geographer of reason” who erred by thinking that because causality could not be justified a priori, therefore no metaphysical principle could extend beyond experience. That’s skepticism as a resting place — useful for sobering us up from dogmatism, but not a permanent home. Kant’s third step is to give positive grounds for why certain a priori principles (e.g. causality as a category) apply within experience but not beyond it.

This is Kant’s classic “Copernican” move: reason is not authorized to legislate beyond the field of possible experience, but within that field, it has real and demonstrable authority.

4. The architecture of the Critique

You can see Kant here making explicit the shape of the CPR as a whole. It’s not merely destructive of metaphysics, nor is it skeptical in Hume’s vein. Instead, it seeks to establish metaphysics as a science by:

• identifying the legitimate use of pure reason (within experience), and
• sharply delimiting the illegitimate transcendent use (questions about “objects” beyond possible experience).

Thus the “sphere of reason” is bounded, but not indeterminate.


5. Resonances

• The passage echoes Socratic docta ignorantia — knowing that one does not know, but in a disciplined and productive way.
• It also resonates with Buddhist cautions about “objectifying the non-objectifiable”: the distinction between what can be known under conditions of cognition versus what lies beyond them.
• It is one of Kant’s strongest rebuttals to both reductionism and naive empiricism: the critical path is neither endless accumulation of data (dogmatism) nor permanent suspension of judgment (skepticism), but systematic self-knowledge of reason itself.

A further reflection: - Kant addresses the limitations, not the limits, of knowledge. There may be no limit to the discovery of further empirical facts, but there are limitations inherent to reason itself, regardless of the accumulation of facts.

@Janus - this is typical of how Kant says there is a 'determinable fact of the matter'. It relies on sophisticated arguments to be sure, but that is what he is claiming.

It's the possibilities that near-death experiences suggest that are of philosophical interest. It raises the question, in what sense is our being more than or other than physical?

Just the passage I had in mind! ‘Tat tvam asi’ :pray:

Is that the discussion you want to have? — Srap Tasmaner

The reason why one might be open to the possibility of a ‘life beyond’, or not, or why one might think it ridiculous, is the philosophical question at issue.

What I said ‘couldn’t be more wrong’ was this:

A scientist doing science is not going to worry about whether an atom of hydrogen is "really out there" or not. — J

That’s why I mentioned the Bohr-Einstein debates which were precisely over this issue, insofar as this statement assumes the realist attitude.

I’ll try to find some time to study this the next few days.

"If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise" William Blake — Janus

Alan Watts used to quote that all the time.


Between drinks.

I don't keep up with this stuff, but Wikipedia seems to believe there is still no evidence for extra-sensory perception that is broadly accepted among scientists. — Srap Tasmaner

I suggest Wikipedia may not be a reilable source for matters of this kind. There is a group known as Guerilla Sceptics, who methodically edit or redact anything pertaining to PSI or paranormal phenomena on Wikipedia. Case in point was a story about ten years ago concerning a controversial TED talk given by Rupert Sheldrake, which was subsequently removed from the archives of past TED lectures, due to his criticism of scientific materialism (about which he had published a book, The Science Delusion.) There were 'editing wars' over Sheldrake's Wikipedia entry for months or years after that, with various partisan editors trying to either restore or delete material in favour or critical of Sheldrake.

As to general evidence for psi or esp - it's not a battle I want to get involved in as it often is subject of considerable animus. Dean Radin seems the go-to for acfual scientific research but the only book I've read of his seems to spend huge amounts of time on what can be considered statistically significant, based on meta-data research. The result is that there's always enough margin for the believers to believe, and the sceptics to doubt.

But this being a philosophy forum, and not the National Enquirer, I think the significant philosophical question is, why the controversy? I think the suggestion that there might be states beyond physical death re-opens questions that most would rather leave closed. A quote from a review of one of Carl Sagan's books:

Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.

So PSI, NDE, and past-life recall all appear to open that door a crack.

I'll concede that I'm more in favour of a kind of 'naturalistic supernaturalism', as it were, which considers the possibility that as life and mind may not be explainable solely in terms of physical laws and forces, that there might be some sense in which they accomodate these kinds of research. At the very least, I'm open to the possibility, in the way that those committed to the physicalist view can't be.

//ps// although I will add that I don't believe all the cases that Sam has presented can simply be written off as hallucinations or deceptions. There's too much data.//