Maybe I'm wrong. — Shawn

The better consciousness in me lifts me into a world where there is no longer personality and causality or subject or object. My hope and my belief is that this better (supersensible and extra-temporal) consciousness will become my only one, and for that reason I hope that it is not God. But if anyone wants to use the expression God symbolically for the better consciousness itself or for much that we are able to separate or name, so let it be, yet not among philosophers I would have thought.

In a manner reminiscent of traditional Buddhism, Schopenhauer recognizes that life is filled with unavoidable frustration and acknowledges that the suffering caused by this frustration can itself be reduced by minimizing one’s desires. Moral consciousness and virtue thus give way to the voluntary poverty and chastity of the ascetic. St. Francis of Assisi (WWR, Section 68) and Jesus (WWR, Section 70) subsequently emerge as Schopenhauer’s prototypes for the most enlightened lifestyle, in conjunction with the ascetics from every religious tradition.

This emphasis upon the ascetic consciousness and its associated detachment and tranquillity introduces some paradox (only some?!) into Schopenhauer’s outlook, for he admits that the denial of our will-to-live entails a terrible struggle with instinctual energies, as we avoid the temptations of bodily pleasures and resist the mere animal force to endure, reproduce, and flourish. Before we can enter the transcendent consciousness of heavenly tranquillity, we must pass through the fires of hell and experience a dark night of the soul, as our universal self battles our individuated and physical self, as pure knowledge opposes animalistic will, and as freedom struggles against nature. — SEP

In order to always have a secure compass in hand so as to find one's way in life, and to see life always in the correct light without going astray, nothing is more suitable than getting used to seeing the world as something like a penal colony. This view finds its...justification not only in my philosophy, but also in the wisdom of all times, namely, in Brahmanism, Buddhism, Empedocles, Pythagoras [...] Even in genuine and correctly understood Christianity, our existence is regarded as the result of a liability or a misstep. ... We will thus always keep our position in mind and regard every human, first and foremost, as a being that exists only on account of sinfulness, and who is life is an expiation of the offence committed through birth. Exactly this constitutes what Christianity calls the sinful nature of man. — Schopenhauer's Compass, Urs App

You hate on science. — apokrisis

Will we get to the stronger idealist interpretation shortly? — apokrisis

This implies that our subjectivity is necessary to the objective being of the cosmos. The ontic claim. — apokrisis

it all turns out to be making the epistemological points I already agree with — apokrisis

science must be right not to just take that humancentric view. — apokrisis

(you're) not making a connection to an ontic strength version of the contention that "consciousness caused its own universe to exist/the quantum measurement issue is the proof". — apokrisis

are integral to the fabric of existence
— Wayfarer

So these are your words. They imply no observers means no fabric, no world. — apokrisis

The universe as it is outside the scope of any observer is an austere and inhospitable place. In a world in which so much of reality is actually constructed by observers, the laws of physics take on a new form. The new aspect of fundamental physics has been brilliantly captured by a new theory called quantum Bayesianism. According to this new way of thinking about material phenomena, what traditional physicists got wrong was the naïve belief that there is a fixed, true external reality that we perceive correctly, as it really is. What the scientist actually perceives is the reality depicted in our human model of the world.

By assumption, the universe outside the purview of any living observer is not divided into separate objects. Moreover, rigid bodies have no shape or structure, because those things are created by observers. This universe has no inherent description: It simply is. Atom-for-atom it is exactly the universe we know. However, without living observers to give it form and structure, it is radically diminished compared to the reality we perceive. Its physics is not at all like the science we know. What, then, can we say about it? Surprisingly, we can say a great deal. The remarkable answer comes from the latest research in neuroscience, which aims to elaborate a theory called predictive processing. The underlying idea is a very simple one:

In order for animals to survive, they must find optimal ways of using the resources available in their environment. They learn by trying every path open to them: Along some paths they make progress, while along other paths they are turned back because they run into obstacles. Gradually, natural forces oblige them to distinguish what’s possible from what’s not. It is through the medium of these hurdles—these natural constraints—that organisms gradually learn the structure of their environments. The impediments which the natural world imposes on their efforts progressively shape their understanding of the world. In fact, that’s what the real world is: It is the set of all the restraints and obstacles imposed on living beings striving to achieve their goals. For the scientist, the universe consists of matter and incandescent plasma. These, however, are images invented by the human mind. Behind these images, and evoking them, are the constraints of nature that channel the scientist’s thinking and determine the outcomes of experiments. In fact, 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. — Mind and the Cosmic Order

I’m sorry but which of these interpretations say that human minds are what cause the Universe to be? — apokrisis

the participation of observers is integral to the fabric of existence. — Wayfarer

One is an exaggerated ontic claim — apokrisis

Leibniz's Law is a similar principle, that if two objects have all the same properties, they are in fact one and the same. — Tarskian

As an 80kg organism, Linde's biology draws that line down at the quasiclassical nanoscale boundary of chemistry where an enzyme is gluing or cutting some gene-informed sequence of amino acids. That is ground zero for life as a system that exists by modelling its world so as to regulate its entropic flows. — apokrisis

without introducing an observer, we have a dead universe, which does not evolve in time', and, 'we are together, the Universe and us. The moment you say the Universe exists without any observers, I cannot make any sense out of that. I cannot imagine a consistent theory of everything that ignores consciousness...in the absence of observers, our universe is dead. — aready cited

That all our intuition is nothing but the representation of appearance; that the things we intuit are not in themselves as we intuit them, nor are their relations in themselves so constituted as they appear to us; and that if the subject, or even only the subjective constitution of the senses in general, be removed, the whole constitution, all relations of objects in space and time, indeed space and time themselves, would vanish — this is quite certain.(A42/B59)

The dependence of what is observed upon the choice of the experimental arrangement made Einstein unhappy. It conflicts with the view that the universe exists "out there" independent of all acts of observation. In contrast, Bohr stressed that we confront here an inescapable new feature of nature, to be welcomed because of the understanding it gives us. In struggling to make clear to Einstein the central point as he saw it, Bohr found himself forced to introduce the word "phenomenon". In today's words, Bohr's point - and the central point of quantum theory - can be put into a simple sentence: "No elementary phenomenon is a phenomenon until it is a registered (observed) phenomenon". — Law without Law

But, for philosophical purposes, I make a distinction between empirical Real world, and theoretical Ideal world. — Gnomon

Am I an idiot to entertain the optimistic notion that there's more to Reality than "first you suffer, and then you die"? — Gnomon

some very smart scientists accept the bizarre notion of an infinite chain of real-but-non-empirical realities, — Gnomon

Republicans are the party of climate denial — Mikie

What Trump offers is an easy escape from the pain. To every complex problem, he promises a simple solution. He can bring jobs back simply by punishing offshoring companies into submission. As he told a New Hampshire crowd—folks all too familiar with the opioid scourge—he can cure the addiction epidemic by building a Mexican wall and keeping the cartels out. He will spare the United States from humiliation and military defeat with indiscriminate bombing. It doesn’t matter that no credible military leader has endorsed his plan. He never offers details for how these plans will work, because he can’t. Trump’s promises are the needle in America’s collective vein. — J D Vance

Instead of like other animals, driven by the bliss of instinct sprinkled with some deliberation, experiencing in the moment, we are burdened with our own storm of deliberative thoughts. To form goals and habits and to choose to do so. We have gone beyond what is harmonious and we must always trick ourselves which is why things like values, and self-restraint and shame are what keep us from a kind of freedom that leads to hopeless madness. — schopenhauer1

Humans are irrelevant. The Cosmos would be the same with or without us.
— apokrisis
:100: A fact that terrifies 'anthropocentric antirealists' (e.g. Gnomon @Wayfarer) to the point of despair or woo-woo denials. — 180 Proof

this diversion onto Materialism vs Metaphysics or Realism vs Idealism is off-topic for this thread. Do you think it should be moved to a new thread? — Gnomon

Vyse noted that "religious and spiritual beliefs promote the assumption that the universe is fair". Then, he adds, "they find solace in the belief that they will be made whole in this life or the next". Perhaps, a non-Christian source of solace is the Eastern religious concept of Karma : that Good & Evil acts in this life will be morally balanced in the next incarnation. Ironically, both approaches to a Just World seem to accept that the real contemporary world is neither fair, nor balanced. As Vyse summarizes : "The universe has no interest in your success or failure, and things don't happen for a reason --- they just happen". — Gnomon

But for the naturalistic holism I argue, we are all contextual beings who have the right instincts because we are being shaped by our lived environments to make choices that on the whole – statistically speaking – lead to the continuing repair and reproduction of that system. — apokrisis

A fact that terrifies 'anthropocentric antirealists' (e.g. Gnomon @Wayfarer) to the point of despair or woo-woo denials. — 180 Proof

I don’t find Linde’s approach convincing. — apokrisis

So in general, science has observer problems. — apokrisis

You can simply switch off the lights and declare that it is all just meaningless symbol manipulation and about nothing at all, which it actually is, if you take the time to think about it. — Tarskian

Sen. Bob Menendez found guilty on all counts, including acting as foreign agent, in federal corruption trial — NOS4A2

So in America, criminality is more acceptable than aging?

Lord have mercy! — L'éléphant

What other monstrosities are they going to discover in the melted plutonium core of Chernobyl reactor number four? — Tarskian

How does reading off a number make a difference to what the dial has recorded? Be as precise as you like. — apokrisis

The problem of including the observer in our description of physical reality arises most insistently when it comes to the subject of quantum cosmology - the application of quantum mechanics to the universe as a whole - because, by definition, 'the universe' must include any observers.

Andrei Linde has given a deep reason for why observers enter into quantum cosmology in a fundamental way. It has to do with the nature of time. The passage of time is not absolute; it always involves a change of one physical system relative to another, for example, how many times the hands of the clock go around relative to the rotation of the Earth. When it comes to the Universe as a whole, time looses its meaning, for there is nothing else relative to which the universe may be said to change. This 'vanishing' of time for the entire universe becomes very explicit in quantum cosmology, where the time variable simply drops out of the quantum description. It may readily be restored by considering the Universe to be separated into two subsystems: an observer with a clock, and the rest of the Universe.

So the observer plays an absolutely crucial role in this respect. Linde expresses it graphically: 'thus we see that without introducing an observer, we have a dead universe, which does not evolve in time', and, 'we are together, the Universe and us. The moment you say the Universe exists without any observers, I cannot make any sense out of that. I cannot imagine a consistent theory of everything that ignores consciousness...in the absence of observers, our universe is dead'. — Paul Davies, The Goldilocks Enigma: Why is the Universe Just Right for Life, p 271

Liz Cheney said on Tuesday that Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) would help former President Trump “illegally seize power” if they were elected on the GOP ticket in November.

Cheney, pointing to previous statements from Vance, drew a stark contrast between the freshman Ohio senator and Trump’s first-term vice president, Mike Pence — whose refusal to abide Trump’s request to reject certified electoral votes from certain states that voted for President Biden turned him into a pariah in many GOP circles.

“JD Vance has pledged he would do what Mike Pence wouldn’t – overturn an election and illegally seize power,” Cheney said on the social platform X. “He says the president can ignore the rulings of our courts. He would capitulate to Russia and sacrifice the freedom of our allies in Ukraine.”

“The Trump GOP is no longer the party of Lincoln, Reagan or the Constitution,” she added. — The Hill

If you can't figure out where to place the epistemic cut, then sure, you wind up trying to put it in the "mind" of the individual scientist making the measurement rather than where it should be, which is out in the instruments designed to produce the mechanical click of a yes or no, an on or an off, an up or a down, etc. — apokrisis

Peirce defined vagueness as that to which the principle of non-contradiction fails to apply — apokrisis

reality is always something being produced by the "monism" of a triadic relation. — apokrisis

Today it would be general relativity and quantum field theory. — apokrisis

Broadly speaking, Mathematical Platonism (deriving from Plato’s broader theory of ‘forms’) is an ontology of mathematics according to which mathematical objects are abstract, timeless entities existing objectively independent of the circumstances of the physical universe in a separate, abstract realm.

Forms...are radically distinct, and in that sense ‘apart,’ in that they are not themselves sensible things. With our eyes we can see large
things, but not largeness itself; healthy things, but not health itself. The latter, in each case, is an idea, an intelligible content, something to be apprehended by thought rather than sense, a ‘look’ not for the eyes but for the mind. This is precisely the point Plato is making when he characterizes forms as the reality of all things. “Have you ever seen any of these with your eyes?—In no way … Or by any other sense, through the body, have you grasped them? I am speaking about all things such as largeness, health, strength, and, in one word, the reality [οὐσίας] of all other things, what each thing is” (Phd. 65d4–e1). Is there such a thing as health? Of course
there is. Can you see it? Of course not. This does not mean that the forms are occult entities floating ‘somewhere else’ in ‘another world,’ a ‘Platonic
heaven.’ It simply says that the intelligible identities which are the reality, the whatness, of things are not themselves physical things to be perceived
by the senses, but must be grasped by thought. If, taking any of these examples—say, justice, health, or strength—we ask, “How big is it? What
color is it? How much does it weigh?”we are obviously asking the wrong kind of question. Forms are ideas, not in the sense of concepts or abstractions, but in that they are realities apprehended by thought rather than by sense.

Sometimes, I don't really get it, or not immediately. At that point, I know that I am close to understanding something that is even worse than all the bad stuff that I have come across already.

I cannot stop because I like too much playing with metaphysical fire. If you have the sensation that you are about to discover the true secret name of Satan, would you stop or would you keep going? — Tarskian