For those who are upset at my rhetoric (and perhaps the lens by which I am analyzing this), I challenge you to try to justify, in your response to this OP, e.g., why Western, democratic values should not be forcibly imposed on obviously degenerate, inferior societies at least in principle—like Talibanian Afghanistan, North Korea, Iran, China, India, etc — Bob Ross

I agree with some aspects of your OP but I think it's framed in a somewhat inflammatory way. I agree with you, for example, that the European liberal tradition (in the broad sense) and its associated values are valuable and worth preserving. The Taliban and some of the other failed states are not really examples of alternative political systems, but the failure of politics altogether. But lumping China and India in with that - both of which have considerably longer histories of civilisation than does Europe - veers pretty close to out-and-out racism.

I'm with you in opposing the reflexive denigration of both liberalism and Western cultural values, but I think it could be approached in a far more nuanced way. (Also agree with the above that Trump/MAGA is a serious internal threat to liberalism.)

Well, glad we came to some understanding, although I wouldn't want to leave it with the tacit understanding that philosophies other the scientifically-mediated type are merely personal or subjective.

Yes, I do wonder how much of factor fantasy is in all of this. I think Trump lives in a fantasy world of his own making. He plainly believes whatever he likes, and has all the apparent trappings. I've stood under Trump Tower in Chicago, and it really does convey astounding wealth and power. It doesn't hold up to scrutiny, of course, because in reality Trump has many business failures, and started out, not with the million that his Dad bequeathed him, but 400 million. But any kind of scrutiny applied to Trump, he simply denies and lies, and the projects all his weaknesses onto those who accuse him. And now the electorate has validated all of that.

when a country deliberately rejects decency, truth, democratic values and good governance, the problem is not a candidate, a party, the media or a feckless attorney general. Democracy is not self-sustaining. It requires a virtuous people devoted to democratic ideals. Whether we can recover the habits of mind — what we used to call civic virtue — will be the challenge of the next four years and beyond. — Jennifer Rubin, Washington Post

Personally, I doubt it. I feel a grave crisis is imminent, but we'll see.

I think you're saying that limiting our perspectives (our world views) to objective facts is too limiting; it leads to rejecting some philosophies that can be valuable. — Relativist

Sure, I'd go along with that. But it's the tip of a large iceberg!

What I infer is that you are defending or promoting world-views which do not depend exclusively on objective facts. Am I right? — Relativist

I'll go back to your first response to this thread:

This oversight imbues the phenomenal world — the world as it appears to us — with a kind of inherent reality that it doesn’t possess. This in turn leads to the over-valuation of objectivity as the sole criterion for truth - wayfarer.

I don't understand this. Truth is not subjective, although there are truths about subjective things. Objective truth: "The universe exists". Truth about something subjective: "The images of the 'Pillars of Creation' produced by the Webb telescope are beautiful". — Relativist

I will try again to re-state the idea. Another way to explain it is to observe that reality contains both the observer and the observed - the subject who observes, and the object of observation. Reality is the totality of that, the total situation of human existence. And philosophy seeks to find reason and meaning in that context.

The objective sciences by contrast begin with an act of exclusion. They narrow the focus to only and precisely those elements of experience which can be measured and quantified with exactitude. That is the point of the Thomas Nagel passage I quoted here, a 'mathematically precise quantitative description of an external reality extended in space and time, a description limited to spatiotemporal primary qualities such as shape, size, and motion, and to laws governing the relations among them'. So this means that even if science considers everything on every scale, from the sub-atomic to the cosmological, already there's an implicit perspective, it considers all of those matters in those terms. So you're asking, what other 'terms' are there? To which the answer is, practically the whole of philosophy other than science. Ancient and pre-modern philosophy, Eastern philosophy, existentialism, phenomenology. There are many. But if they are looked at through the perspective of 'what is "objectively true" in what they say', then most of what they say will be missed.

I'm going to try to become more indifferent to US politics as it tends to dominate the news, and I have become too concerned with it. My family gets annoyed with me 'shouting at the television'.

But I will note that the Trump phenomenon has normalised mendacity. It is indisputable that Trump lies continuously, about matters large and small, some of which concern issues of extreme national and global importance.

But with this victory, these lies have now become normalised - for example, the lie that Trump's many indictments were based on 'weaponising' politics and politicisation of the Department of Justice. The lie that the January 6th insurrection was anything other than a vile assault on democracy and law and order. All of this is now going to become normalised in public discourse.

There's a term, I think it's associated with Marxist philosophy, although I'm not highly familiar with it - 'false consciousness'. This is what I think the whole Trump phenomenon crystallises in the electorate. An entire national identity that has lies as part of its identity. It can't be good.

You noted that science cannot discover God. I agree 100%. My question is: is God discoverable through some alternative, objective means? What about other aspects of reality that are beyond the reach of science ? — Relativist

There are domains other than that of objective fact. I will only say that Armstrong's style of philosophy is to assume that science provides the only valid perspective.

This conclusion seems to imply that a conscious "God" that arose before all of creation is impossible because a) he would have nothing to perceive and thus have no content of thought or qualia, and ii) he would have no mechanism to perceive or sense. — Brenner T

Welcome aboard.

As we're discussing Berkeley, a limerick known to generations of philosophy of students ought to be mentioned:

"There was a young man who said "God
Must find it exceedingly odd
To think that the tree
Should continue to be
When there's no one about in the quad."

Reply:

"Dear Sir: Your astonishment's odd;
I am always about in the quad.
And that's why the tree
Will continue to be
Since observed by,
Yours faithfully,
God."


I don't know if the absence of there being anything to perceive would be necessarily a hindrance for God, although there are tropes that the reason anything exists at all, was because He experienced a sense of incompleteness without there being something other than Him to contemplate. (There is an early Buddhist text which presents an idea like this by way of satirising the idea of a personal God.)

Secondly, quite what 'conscious' means in this context is far from obvious. Many of the aspects of our own consciousness are, in fact, unconscious, as 20th c psychology has shown, in that we can't necessarily be introspectively or directly aware of them, while they still comprise the basis on which our conscious experience is founded. So there is no reason to presume that, were a Divine Intelligence to be real, that the kind of consciousness it possesses would be like that of humans (although hopefully there is some kind of commonality.) Isn't it the case that a conscious intelligence can be self-aware even in the absence of any external stimuli? Consciousness is something that knows of its own being even in the absence of stimuli. As René Descartes said, even if all belief in an external world is suspended, one will still retain a sense of one's own being, 'cogito ergo sum'.

There's a lot more I might say, because, as it happens, I'm generally an advocate for philosphical idealism, but it's a deep topic, so I'll leave it at that for now.

If George Washington was the father of America’s democracy, Donald Trump is its undertaker

George Washington notably declared American democracy to be “an experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people”.

The American people are now abandoning it as a failed experiment.

In word and in deed, Donald Trump for years has made plain that he does not respect the results of elections, unless he is winning.

Yet most American voters, in full knowledge, cast their ballots for him in this election.

In case anyone had forgotten his autocratic instinct, Trump issued a reminder just two days before election day.

He has never accepted the outcome of the 2020 election, fomented a riot to try to stay in the White House, and on Sunday said that “I shouldn’t have left” it.

Seven in 10 Americans understood the risk, telling CNN pollsters last week that they didn’t expect Trump would concede defeat if he lost. Yet most voters willingly handed him power.

If Washington was the father of America’s democracy, Trump has auditioned to be its undertaker and is now positioned to duly deliver.

He didn’t have to seize power. America, the modern world’s greatest champion of democracy for the past eight decades, has lost faith in its calling.

That is the true uniqueness of this election – not the candidates, not the policies, not the pageantry. They matter. And, in a democratic system, the power holders and their policies can be replaced, renewed, reviewed.

But in an autocracy, an absolute leader is not interested in being replaced nor his policies reviewed. The great advantage of democracy is not that it produces the best possible government but the bloodless removal of a bad one, as Karl Popper said.

Trump has made clear, over and again, that, if given power, he will not surrender it. As he said to an audience this year, vote for him “just this time, you won’t have to do it any more. Four more years, you know what? It’ll be fixed, it’ll be fine, you won’t have to vote any more”.

When Joe Biden took power, he said he would try to save American democracy.

“From the very beginning, nothing has been guaranteed about democracy in America,” he said in 2022. “Every generation has had to defend it, protect it, preserve it, choose it.”

Until now. Biden and his vice president, Kamala Harris, failed.

Democracy has been in retreat on planet Earth since the “democratic recession” took hold at the time of the global financial crisis 16 years ago. Only 24 full democracies survive among the world’s 200 nations, according to The Economist’s Democracy Index.

And now the centrepiece of the system, the hub of a network of democratic allies embracing more than 40 nations, has collapsed in on itself.

American democracy was hollowed out by a failure of its promise to its people. Most Americans believe that their country is riddled with corruption, most believe that government serves the elites and not the people, and “nearly half of all voters are sceptical that the American experiment in self-governance is working”, to summarise a New York Times poll published last month.

And now they have delivered the death sentence to the system they feel betrayed them.

Not because they expect Trump to actually fix a broken system. In her landmark work, The Politics of Resentment, political scientist Katherine Cramer described how she took regular part in a wide range of community groups in her home state of Wisconsin, one of the swing states in deciding elections and part of the great swath of left-behind, fly-over America.

When Kramer asks groups of Trump supporters how they expect he will improve their lives, they are surprised at the question, she reports. They don’t expect Trump to be the vehicle for their improvement but for their disenchantment and anger.

When Trump said last year “for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution”, he spoke for those voters. They have given up on their system, feeling abandoned by smug big-city elites, but have confidence in Trump to offend the elites and damage their system.

The US, the nation that kept liberty alive in the face of a fearsome axis of autocracies eight decades ago, seems to be losing confidence that it’s worth the effort.

Will Trump’s America be prepared to confront the rising partnership of autocracies in their fast-forming new front – Xi Jinping’s China, Vladimir Putin’s Russia, the ayatollahs’ Iran and
Kim Jong-un’s North Korea?

It must be in question. A former Trump national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, explained why Trump prefers the world’s worst dictators to America’s traditional allies. It’s part of “his struggle for self-worth”. If he’s accepted by so-called strongmen, “he might convince others, and especially himself, that he was strong”.

Benjamin Franklin said that America was “a republic, if you can keep it”. He might be surprised to know that, in the end, it just gave democracy away. — Peter Hartcher, Sydney Morning Herald

When did Musk become a right-wing cartoon? — Tom Storm

Around the time he bought Twitter.

I've gotten a very profound Buddhist text book by a scholarly Bhikkhu, recommended by our friend @boundless. I am going to take refuge in this book, now that these dreadful events have happened in America, to take my mind off what is going on over there.

Isn't Trump just another celebrity, virtue signalling, identity policies wanker (albeit of the right)? — Tom Storm

who happens to now be the most powerful man in the world. The Republicans now control the White House, Senate and House. Forget about environmental policies and climate targets. Forget about all the lawsuits and indictments he was facing, he'll walk away scot free. It's a disastrous outcome.

the founders of quantum mechanics were notorious for either abandoning any attempt at the intelligibility of the atomic or grew rather pessimistic at said notion. — substantivalism

I don't think that's in the least true. You know that Neils Bohr thought that his discovery of the principle of complimentarity was one of his greatest breakthroughs. And that when he was awarded Imperial Honours by the Danish Crown, he had a Coat of Arms designed that featured the Taoist Ying-Yang symbol. It might be the case that human knowledge is forever limited in some fundamental respects. It might be the case that what we understand as the physical domain is not exhaustive of reality as a whole. Then what are you going to do, as the entire thrust of Western thought since Galileo has been that it is.

And don't fall for the dogma that metaphysics is nonsense. It is meaningful within a domain of discourse, one that has endured for millenia and still has advocates and exponents to this day. The positivist aversion to metaphysics might have been very much a manifestation of the unconscious fear of religion, arising from the tortured history of religious politics in European affairs.

And now he's protected by the Supreme Court decision that he's granted immunity for 'any official acts'. The Project 2025 ideologues are lined up to purge the bureacracy and, quote, 'take down the deep state leadership.' He's promised 11 million deportations and massive tarrifs. He has a hit list of his 'enemies within'.

I always feared the worst, but I think this is going to be a lot worse than I feared. I think I'm going to get my head out of news broadcasts and go back to just studying philosophy and Buddhism.

RFK Secretary for Health. Elon Musk, Secretary for Government Expenditure. Steve Bannon, chief press officer. Like when your jetliner starts to fall from the sky - buckle your seatbelts, put your head between your knees, and kiss your ass goodbye.

Some relevant iconography:



This icon is ubiquitous in Buddhist cultures. They are called 'the three poisons', responsible for all human misery. Snake represents hatred. Pig represents greed. Rooster is ignorance. They're running the show now.

In Buddhist cultures, unlike Christian cultures, Buddhist don't feel generally obliged to impose their religion on others. So if someone said, 'I don't see any rationale for it', they would probably say 'suit yourself!' rather than try to evangalise you.

And, I wasn't going to stay on retreat forever. I'm not a monk and at this stage of life, it's not a feasible option, although I'm very aware of the need for a kind of 'lay monasticism' of practice, recitation and renunciation of the hindrances and obstacles to spiritual growth.

I went on a Buddhist retreat many years ago, and at one of the Q&A's I put my hand up, and asked a question, along the lines, 'modern life is very complex. You have relationships, financial and work obligations, bad habits develop.' And so on. The monk replied, with a broad grin, 'I know! Why do you think we're monks!'

I'm not sure where you got that definition. — L'éléphant

Physicalism is, in slogan form, the thesis that everything is physical. The thesis is usually intended as a metaphysical thesis, parallel to the thesis attributed to the ancient Greek philosopher Thales, that everything is water, or the idealism of the 18th Century philosopher Berkeley, that everything is mental. The general idea is that the nature of the actual world (i.e. the universe and everything in it) conforms to a certain condition, the condition of being physical. Of course, physicalists don’t deny that the world might contain many items that at first glance don’t seem physical — items of a biological, or psychological, or moral, or social, or mathematical nature. But they insist nevertheless that at the end of the day such items are physical. — SEP

It denies that there is an unexplained gap between the physical and the intangible, subjective experiences... — L'éléphant

It takes more than a denial, it takes an argument. The 'explanatory gap' is similar to the 'hard problem of consciousness', which is basically that physical descriptions fail to properly depict or describe the subjective sense of being, for which there is no analogy in physical terms.

What physicalism denies is that there is no explanation at all for the mind or the consciousness. — L'éléphant

What it denies is that there can't be a physical explanation for the mind. A physical explanation for the mind must be given in terms proper to physics, such as mass, velocity, number, composition, and other attributes of matter, otherwise it's not a physicalist explanation.

Yes, that might have been it - been a long time! - but if you're familiar with him already, you probably know that!

Have a look for The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion, Mircea Eliade. He discusses the Mysteries and also (from memory) their relationship to the ancient proto-Indo-European mystery cults that spread across the ancient world with the original Aryan peoples.

Interesting to note that one of the etymologies for 'mystic' and 'mysticism' was precisely 'an initiate into the Mysteries.'

I think scholarly opinion favours the view that Plato was an initiate, although as is well known, speaking about them was forbidden, they're secret rites (like Masonic rites in today's culture.) But many of the themes in the more spiritual of the dialogues - Phaedo, Phaedrus, and Symposium - are at least strongly suggestive of the soteriological beliefs of the that cult.

It is really not difficult to interpret the Analogy of the Cave as an analogy from ignorance (avidya in the Indian texts) to philosophical enlightenment although as always Plato's dialogues contain a strong rationalistic element which was not so pronounced in Eastern wisdom teachings.

Consciousness IS part of the world at large. If consciousness is immaterial, then the world includes this immaterial sort of thing. — Relativist

The world contains no immaterial things, according to materialism. An 'immaterial thing' is an oxymoronic expression.

The difficulty of devising a naturalistic account of the nature of consciousness is precisely the subject of David Chalmers' 'hard problem of consciousness', the essence of which is that no objective description can truly depict the nature first person experience (ref). There are many active threads on that topic, but suffice to say here, the issue is again one of perspective. Consciousness is not an objective phenomenon, because it is that to which phenomena appear - it is not itself among phenomena. Mind, as such, is never an object in the sense that all of the objects sorrounding you are, including the screen you're reading this from. Husserl's point is precisely that the attempt to 'naturalise' consciousness as an object on the same ontological plane as other objects is erroneous as a matter of principle. (This is why it is essential for Daniel Dennett that it is eliminated, as there is no conceptual space for it in his materialist framework.)

I just don't understand why you think metaphysical physicalism overvalues the scientific method. — Relativist

It is very clear, although to provide a detailed account would occupy many hundreds of words. I will default to one of the passages I often cite from a critique of philosophical materialism, Thomas Nagel's 2012 book Mind and Cosmos:

The modern mind-body problem arose out of the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century, as a direct result of the concept of objective physical reality that drove that revolution. Galileo and Descartes made the crucial conceptual division by proposing that physical science should provide a mathematically precise quantitative description of an external reality extended in space and time, a description limited to spatiotemporal primary qualities such as shape, size, and motion, and to laws governing the relations among them. Subjective appearances, on the other hand -- how this physical world appears to human perception -- were assigned to the mind, and the secondary qualities like color, sound, and smell were to be analyzed relationally, in terms of the power of physical things, acting on the senses, to produce those appearances in the minds of observers. It was essential to leave out or subtract subjective appearances and the human mind -- as well as human intentions and purposes -- from the physical world in order to permit this powerful but austere spatiotemporal conception of objective physical reality to develop.

This is a very succinct statement of a very broad issue which is the subject of many volumes of commentary. But suffice to say this provides the background assumed by physicalism, a background in which Descartes' 'res cogitans' is deprecated and naturalistic explanations sought solely in terms of 'res extensia' or extended matter, which is manipulable and measurable in a way that 'mind' could never be. This is why physics is paradigmatic for physicalism. It is this, which Husserl's critique of naturalism has in its sights.

If there is more to existence than what science can possibly discover or extrapolate, how then can it be discovered? — Relativist

It was at this point last night (in my time zone) that I thought I should chuck it in, on the basis that we're 'talking past' one another. But in the light of day, I will try and compose a response.

In his history of philosophy, Frederick Copleson observes that due to the outstanding achievements and presence of science and technology, that the temper of 20th century philosophy:

The immense growth of empirical science, and the great and tangible benefits brought to civilisation by applied science, have given to science that degree of prestige which it enjoys, a prestige, which far outweighs philosophy and still more theology; and that this prestige of science, by creating the impression that all that can be known, can be known by means of science, has created an atmosphere or metal climate which is reflected in logical positivism. Once, philosophy was regarded as the ‘handmaiden of theology’. Now it has tended to become the ‘handmaiden of science’. As all that can be known can be known by means of science, what is more reasonable than that the philosopher should devote herself to an analysis of the meaning of certain terms used by scientists and an inquiry into the presuppositions of scientific method. .... As science does not come across God in its investigations, and, indeed, as it cannot come across God, since God is, ex hypothesi, incapable of being an object of investigation by the methods of science, the philosopher will also not take God into account. — A History of Philosophy, Vol 11, F. Copleston

Although Armstrong would not describe himself as a logical positivist, I still think this description fairly depicts Armstrong's philosophical perspective.

So the point of all this is as follows: both Kantian idealism, and Husserl's phenomenology, are concerned, not with the objects of knowledge, as discovered by natural science, but with the nature of knowing, from a first-person perspective. So it's not as if they have access to some vast repository of information not known to science, but they are occupied with different kinds of issues than are the sciences. However it's true from the rather 'scientistic' perspective of materialist philosophy of mind, those issues may well be invisible to science, hence not considered suitable subjects of investigation (although they are very much on the agenda for philosophers of science such as Thomas Kuhn and Michael Polanyi.)

I believe I've stayed faithful to this (structural realism) approach in all my replies to you. — Relativist

I wouldn't doubt that, but it also has the effect of interpreting the various materials and sources I'm presenting against that perspective, which is why I think we're 'talking past' one another. However, reviewing that SEP source on Structural Realism, I do notice a paragraph on Kantian ESR which might be congenial to my overall outlook (although I haven't absorbed it yet.)

In any case, the crucial point is the perspectival distinction between idealist and phenonenological stances, and the 'objectivist' stance of Armstrong et al. I hope the foregoing has brought that into a sharper focus.

"consciousness is precisely the reason why there was a world there for us in the first place." - what's the basis for this assertion? — Relativist

You may recall Descartes’ famous meditation, cogito ergo sum. This takes the reality of the thinking subject as apodictic, i.e. cannot plausibly be denied. One of Husserl’s books is Cartesian Meditations, and I think the influence is clear.

(Armstrong) explicitly stated that he believed spacetime comprises the totality of existence, that it is governed by laws of nature, and that physics is concerned with discovering what these are — Relativist

Which is naturalism or physicalism in a nutshell. I do understand that.

If there is more to existence than what science can possibly discover or extrapolate, how then can it be discovered? — Relativist

I think we’ve gone as far as we can go. Thank you for your comments and especially for your evenness of tone.

Further, the error has not prevented science from learning more precise truths- such as a more precise understanding of space and time. — Relativist

I will note here my conviction that time has an inextricably subjective element, which is a specific example of the more general observation in the OP, that perspective is an irreducible element of what we perceive as external reality. There’s an interesting Aeon essay on this point, about Henri Bergson and Albert Einstein’s meeting and debate about the nature of time, n Paris, 1922:

Bergson insisted that duration proper cannot be measured. To measure something – such as volume, length, pressure, weight, speed or temperature – we need to stipulate the unit of measurement in terms of a standard. For example, the standard metre was once stipulated to be the length of a particular 100-centimetre-long platinum bar kept in Paris. It is now defined by an atomic clock measuring the length of a path of light travelling in a vacuum over an extremely short time interval. In both cases, the standard metre is a measurement of length that itself has a length. The standard unit exemplifies the property it measures.

In Time and Free Will, Bergson argued that this procedure would not work for duration. For duration to be measured by a clock, the clock itself must have duration. It must exemplify the property it is supposed to measure. To examine the measurements involved in clock time, Bergson considers an oscillating pendulum, moving back and forth. At each moment, the pendulum occupies a different position in space, like the points on a line or the moving hands on a clockface. In the case of a clock, the current state – the current time – is what we call ‘now’. Each successive ‘now’ of the clock contains nothing of the past because each moment, each unit, is separate and distinct. But this is not how we experience time. Instead, we hold these separate moments together in our memory. We unify them. A physical clock measures a succession of moments, but only experiencing duration allows us to recognise these seemingly separate moments as a succession. Clocks don’t measure time; we do. This is why Bergson believed that clock time presupposes lived time. — Evan Thompson

Bergson’s critique aligns with Kant in suggesting that time is not merely a succession of isolated moments that can be objectively measured, but a continuous and subjective flow that we actively synthesize through consciousness. This synthesis is what lets us experience time as duration, not just as sequential units. It is our awareness of the duration between points in time that is itself time. There is no time outside that awareness.

By this account, Bergson is challenging Einstein’s emphasis on clock-based measurement, pointing to the irreducibility of subjective experience in understanding time’s nature. Kant’s notion of time as an a priori intuition parallels this because he saw time as essential to organizing our experiences into coherent sequences. It’s not a feature of objects themselves but rather of our way of perceiving them—a precondition that shapes experience.

This highlights how understanding “what exists” inevitably involves interpreting it through something that only a perspective can provide. In both Kant and Bergson’s views, the subjective experience of time is foundational, suggesting that any scientific or philosophical statement about existence must, knowingly or not, rely on this element of lived experience.

Constructive Empiricism seems to me to go to far, by denying that science tells us anything about reality. — Relativist

I don't know if it does that. The term 'anti-realist' often gives the impression of someone who denies the reality of science or regards scientific findings as somehow illusory or insubstantial. This isn’t what van Fraassen advocates at all. Instead, he’s deeply committed to the empirical success and practical validity of science but questions whether we should interpret scientific theories as giving us a literal account of an objective, mind-independent reality. At issue is the nature of the fundamental constituents of reality and whether they are physical, as physicalism claims.

Another basic point in this context is the distinction between reality, as the aggregate or sum total of observable phenomena and the objects of scientific analysis, and being, as a description of the existence as experienced by human beings. This is where I think physicalism over-values scientific method, for which physicalism may be an effective heuristic while being descriptively accurate within its scope. But many of the questions of philosophy may not be amendable to scientific analysis. Unless you're a positivist, that doesn't make them meaningless.

we should not accept standard scientific realism, which asserts that the nature of the unobservable objects that cause the phenomena we observe is correctly described by our best theories. — Relativist

which also implies distance from physicalism.

A few by the renowned idealist Berkeley seem to be rather relevant here. — substantivalism

Do you know that in addition to being described as idealist, Berkeley is overall categorised with the British Empiricists. Why? Like Locke and Hume, Berkeley rejected the notion of innate ideas and emphasizes that all knowledge ultimately comes from sensory experience. For Berkeley, our knowledge of the world is grounded in perceptions—ideas that come directly from sensory experience. He rejects the rationalist view that reason alone provides access to knowledge independent of experience. Even though he disagrees with Locke on the existence of a material substance, he still accepts Locke’s methodology of starting from sensory impressions rather than innate concepts or principles. He adopts a systematic, experience-based approach, where sensory data as the fundamental "stuff" of his philosophy, even if he arrives at different metaphysical conclusions than do Locke or Hume.

His arguments against material substance are essentially aimed at pushing empiricism to its logical conclusion: if knowledge depends entirely on sensory experience, then the notion of a material world that exists independently of perception is, he argues, meaningless. So, while Berkeley’s conclusion—that reality consists only of minds and ideas—diverges from Locke’s or Hume’s, his reliance on sensory experience as the foundation of knowledge places him within the empiricist tradition.

You can see how this is one source of what was to become positivism in subsequent periods.

The fact that some constructs in science don't represent real physical objects doesn't imply anything about physicalism vs. alternatives. — Apustimelogist

...the inherent difficulties of the materialist theory of the atom, which had become apparent even in the ancient discussions about smallest particles, have also appeared very clearly in the development of physics during the present century.

This difficulty relates to the question whether the smallest units are ordinary physical objects, whether they exist in the same way as stones or flowers. Here, the development of quantum theory...has created a complete change in the situation. The mathematically-formulated laws of quantum theory show clearly that our ordinary intuitive concepts (of existence) cannot be unambiguously applied to the smallest particles. All the words or concepts we use to describe ordinary physical objects, such as position, velocity, color, size, and so on, become indefinite and problematic if we try to use them of elementary particles. I cannot enter here into the details of this problem, which has been discussed so frequently in recent years. But it is important to realize that, while the behavior of the smallest particles cannot be unambiguously described in ordinary language, the language of mathematics is still adequate for a clear-cut account of what is going on.

During the coming years, the high-energy accelerators will bring to light many further interesting details about the behavior of elementary particles. But I am inclined to think that the answer just considered to the old philosophical problems will turn out to be final. If this is so, does this answer confirm the views of Democritus or Plato?

I think that on this point modern physics has definitely decided for Plato. For the smallest units of matter are, in fact, not physical objects in the ordinary sense of the word; they are forms, structures or — in Plato's sense — Ideas, which can be unambiguously spoken of only in the language of mathematics. — Werner Heisenberg, The Debate between Plato and Democritus (i.e. between idealism and materialism)

“If you’re moved by something, it doesn’t need explaining.
If you’re not, no explanation will move you.”
—Federico Fellini

Thanks, Javra. Very much in keeping with the OP.

I was going to suggest to @Relativist whether he'd ever encountered 'constructive empiricism', associated with Bas Van Fraasen.

Constructive empiricism is a philosophical view that science aims to produce theories that are empirically adequate, rather than true. It was developed by the 20th-century Canadian philosopher Bas van Fraassen and is presented most systematically in his 1980 work The Scientific Image.

Constructive empiricism differs from scientific realism, which holds that science aims to provide a literally true story of the world. Constructive empiricists believe that science aims for truth about observable aspects of the world, but not unobservable aspects. They also believe that accepting a scientific theory involves only the belief that it is empirically adequate. — AI Overview

I think this is a framework which is not antagonistic to science while leaving the question of the ultimate nature of reality an open one.

Suffering is caused by being born — schopenhauer1

Painful is birth
again & again. — DhP 153-4

The Middle Path, already shows defeat — schopenhauer1

I won't take your word for it ;-)

Satire:

We have an ego because we are born (in the physical sense). — schopenhauer1

I'm sure the Buddhas understand that. Escaping enculturation is the reason Buddhism started as a renunciate movement (one of many in that culture).

Right. To draw on an element of the current philosophical lexicon, perhaps 'the Buddhist way' is to learn to deconstruct this sense of the alienated self by seeing through the process that drives it - not in an abstract theoretical sense, but in real time (another bit of modern jargon)

Through the round of many births I roamed
without reward,
without rest,
seeking the house-builder.
Painful is birth
again & again.

House-builder, you're seen!
You will not build a house again.
All your rafters broken,
the ridge pole destroyed,
gone to the Unformed, the mind
has come to the end of craving. — DhP 153-4

It sounds like I had it right: you think physicalism should be rejected if physics doesn't have a complete, verifiable description of reality. — Relativist

That physicalism should be rejected, if the thesis is that 'everything is ultimately physical' while what is physical can't be defined.

Armstrong's model is consistent with what we do know, so it's not falsified. — Relativist

If it hasn't been falsified by quantum physics, it's not falsifiable. So again, it appeals to science as a model of philosophical authority, but only when it suits.

I posted this comment some days ago, do you think it has any bearing on the argument?

In contrast to the outlook of naturalism, Husserl believed all knowledge, all science, all rationality depended on conscious acts, acts which cannot be properly understood from within the natural outlook at all. Consciousness should not be viewed naturalistically as part of the world at all, since consciousness is precisely the reason why there was a world there for us in the first place. For Husserl it is not that consciousness creates the world in any ontological sense—this would be a subjective idealism, itself a consequence of a certain naturalising tendency whereby consciousness is cause and the world its effect—but rather that the world is opened up, made meaningful, or disclosed through consciousness. The world is inconceivable apart from consciousness. Treating consciousness as part of the world, reifying consciousness, is precisely to ignore consciousness’s foundational, disclosive role. For this reason, all natural science is naive about its point of departure, for Husserl (PRS 85; Hua XXV 13). Since consciousness is presupposed in all science and knowledge, then the proper approach to the study of consciousness itself must be a transcendental one—one which, in Kantian terms, focuses on the conditions for the possibility of knowledge. — Routledge Introduction to Phenomenology, p144

Do you see the point of this criticism of philosophical naturalism? Because, if you don't, then I think I'll call it a day.

It seems uncontroversial to stipulate that the objects of our ordinary experiences are physical. It seems most reasonable to treat the component parts of physical things as also physical, all the way down to whatever is fundamental. — Relativist

There's a strong component of common sense realism in it, buttressed by the polemical and rhetorical skills developed by centuries of philosophical argument.

what we regard as the physical world is “physical” to us precisely in the sense that it acts in opposition to our will and constrains our actions. The aspect of the universe that resists our push and demands muscular effort on our part is what we consider to be “physical”. On the other hand, since sensation and thought don’t require overcoming any physical resistance, we consider them to be outside of material reality. — Pinter, Charles. Mind and the Cosmic Order: How the Mind Creates the Features & Structure of All Things, and Why this Insight Transforms Physics (p6).

That’s physicalism in a nutshell.

A "wave function" is a mathematical abstraction. I see no good reason to think abstractions are ontological. So I infer that a wave function is descriptive of something that exists. — Relativist

It isn't so easily dismissed. The ontology of the wave function in quantum physics is one of the outstanding problems of philosophy of science. Realists argue that the wave function represents something real in the world, while instrumentalists may view it as merely a predictive tool without deeper ontological significance. Treating it as only an abstraction is one option but it is far from universally accepted. The point is, claiming that everything that exists is physical becomes problematic if we can’t definitively say what kind of existence the wave function has, as in quantum mechanics, the wave function is central to predicting physical phenomena. If we take its predictive power seriously, it’s hard to ignore the question of its ontological status without leaving an unresolved gap in the theory.

I may misunderstand, but it sounds also bit like you're suggesting that we should reject physicalism if physics doesn't have a complete, verifiable description of reality. — Relativist

As I said before, as a materialist, D M Armstrong believes that science is paradigmatic for philosophy proper. So you can't have your cake and eat it too - if physics indeed suggests that the nature of the physical eludes precise definition, then so much for appealing to science as a model for philosophy!

I acknowledge that our descriptions (and understandings) are grounded in our perspective, but we have the capacity to correct for that. — Relativist

Perspective is not the same as bias.

I'd like to know if there are good reasons to think I'm deluding myself with what I believe about the world. — Relativist

I wouldn't put it in personal or pejorative terms, but I do believe that philosophical and/or scientific materialism is an erroneous philosophical view.

I love that Trump is having conniptions because A POLL puts him behind in Iowa. One poll. Sure, an influential and well-regarded poll, but all his staffers are running around trying to appease the Emperor and putting out press releases that that pollster is wrong. Imagine the scene if he ACTUALLY loses (as I hope and believe.) There’ll be more than ketchup on the walls. Imagine the staff. (“I wouldn’t change places with Ed Exley now for all the whisky in Ireland” ~ LA Confidential.)

I think so too but there doesn’t seem much awareness of it, let alone consensus.

As for the relationship of time and motion, that seems obviously implied by the equation of space and time in relativity. But neither space nor time are self-existent, so to speak.

It is false only if there exists something non-physical. — Relativist

But you say:

No interpretation of QM is verifiably true, but it's a near certainty that reality actually exhibits the predictible law-like behavior that we observe. — Relativist

Sure it does. But what about this requires that the fundamental constituents are actually physical? What does 'physical' mean, when the nature of the so-called fundamental particles is ambiguous, as has been discussed? It's entirely plausible that 'physical' is a concept only applicable to composite objects, but not to their fundamental constituents. After all Neils Bohr said 'Everything we call real is made of things that cannot be regarded as real'. You could substitute 'physical' for 'real' in that sentence and it would still parse correctly.

And as for something non-physical, the wavefunction Ψ is an ideal candidate:

There is a crucial difference between the wave effect in the double-slit experiment and physical waves. In classical wave systems, such as ripples on water, the frequency — the number of wave peaks passing a point per second — determines the pattern and behavior of the wave. We might expect to equate the rate of emission (how often electrons are fired) with the frequency of a classical wave. But in quantum mechanics, this analogy breaks down, as particles can be emitted one at a time — and yet the interference pattern still forms. There is no equivalent in classical physics for a “one particle at a time” emission in a medium like water.

So the interference pattern arises not because the particles are behaving as classical waves, but because the probability wavefunction ψ describes where at any given point in time, any individual particle is likely to register. So it is wave-like, but not actually a wave, in that the pattern is not due to the proximity of particles to each other or their interaction, as is the case with physical waves. Consequently, the interference pattern emerges over time, irrespective of the rate at which particles are emitted, because it is tied to the wave-like form of the probability distribution, not to a physical wave passing through space. This is the key difference that separates the quantum interference pattern from physical wave phenomenon. This is what I describe as ‘the timeless wave of quantum physics’. — The Timeless Wave