But at the end all that universe must function in a specific way right? I mean despite human concept of "truth", it has to work in a certain way, no? And If we ever figure it out it would be the absolute truth. You get what I mean? — dimosthenis9

No idea if what you say is correct. I have no real apetite for this line of thinking. I am not a scientist or a metaphysician. Personally, I doubt that humans will ever be able to do much more than hold up tentative models that endure for a time and are then displaced. To borrow from Richard Rorty - I think we can justify ideas, but I think there's not much we can say about truth. And what do we get by adding the word 'absolute' to truth? Is it like the final invoice which hits our desk? Or is it a god surrogate? :wink:

So I m really curious to see what others think as their universal truths. — dimosthenis9

My view is that 'truth' is the product of human cognition and imagination; it's provisional and perspectival. Mostly I'm interested in how people conduct their behaviours towards others and would hold to a version of the Golden Rule. While I'm not especially interested in scientific or metaphysical theories of everything, I generally hold that methodological naturalism is our most reliable pathway to useful knowledge.

Good stuff, thanks.

"Justified", or "warranted", are the usual the terms used, rather than proven. — Banno

This does seem important. Do you have any particular views on Truthmaker Theory?

Even if there is no proof of other minds, it does not follow that they do not exist. — Banno

I would have thought that was self-evident to most folk. I think where people seem to get carried away is the notion that in some cases if X can't be proven (let's say God), we have no good reason to accept X (God). It seems to me easy to slip from this to X does not exist. Thoughts?

I've said that our lives, phenomenologically speaking, consists in images. Out of the repetition of these images we fabricate world of stable objects. But day to day, we do not experience stable objects; we experience a flux of imagery.

So, the objects are mental creations; purely conventional. And that's what science deals with. Nothing wrong with that and it obviously has practical uses, but that is not where life, experience and poetry are to be found. — Janus

Does this mean I don't have to read and try to understand Merleau-Ponty or Heidegger now? :razz: :cool:

The OP is confused. There is no peace in death. There is nothing. What the OP wants is peace in life. To get to a moment where they feel peace. You have to live to feel peace. They would prefer a life where they feel peace then a life where they feel pain. Death does not give peace. — Philosophim

I hear you, but for me this is being a bit too concrete or literal. Death is often described as the end of suffering - which technically it is likely to be (unless you think there is a judgement coming after). Therefore death brings 'peace' in as much is it brings non suffering or 'nothingness'. From the perspective of a suffering life, death holds the appeal of relief or a metaphorically peaceful alternative - you may not be there to experience it, but you won't be there to experience ongoing suffering either.

I like philosophy enough to want to find the best way to make sense of 'appear' and 'physical.' But that's just fine-tuning the details. — Pie

Yes, well this seems to be where the fun is found.

I point out that any attempt to deny it assumes what it would deny. Since I expect objections, I'll stop here. We can get into the details together... — Pie

Yep, fair enough - I think this point has also been made by others here in passing.

I've generally held to the presuppositions that I live in a reality that appears to be physical and there are others who share this reality with me who have similar experiences - capacities and vulnerabilities - and that while I can dismantle any ideas I might have about all this and play a bunch of games about what is real and what is not real, in practical terms, in making life choices and going about my business, it makes little sense - and there are no advantages - when these presuppositions are doubted.

I was wondering if anyone else thinks similarly or if they have a counter to what I've mentioned. I realize I'm alone — Darkneos

I think it's pretty common to go through phases thinking/feeling like this, especially in the first third of life. Most people I know had periods of anhedonia, accompanied by periods of suicidal thoughts. But things did get better.

Great. Appreciated.

Philosophy is not exegesis. — Banno

Aren't exegetical work ups sometimes needed to contextualize or clarify positions? Or am I missing something? :wink:

What should I live for or how should I live? — rossii

Totally up to you. There are billions of reasons (you make your own meaning through your use of time, your job, interests, friends, family, nature, pets, causes, helping others, whatever) and many people, even those living with great suffering, privation and war are often optimistic and future focused. Nevertheless lots of people go though a 'what's the point of it all' phase early in life. Some people feel the onset of this in middle age, as priorities suddenly change. In my experience, many people find helping others the most effective pathway out of meaninglessness and depression. Sometimes too much ruminating over meaning leads to a state of analysis paralysis.

They say there is no language instinct , but rather , out of which language emerged in different ways in different cultures. — Joshs

Quick question: I find it hard to understand what the nuances of difference are between 'innate capacities for complex cognition' and an 'innate , and therefore universal , computational module'. Sounds like different language for a similar phenomenon. Can you clarify this in a few sentences? I understand that Chomsky's view provides a rationalist logic but how is Lakoff's view antithetical to this?

Without taking the divine seriously, we cannot understand the #1 idealism, as the mental constituting the foundation of reality. Then "the mental" becomes human thought, and idealism appears to be monist. — Metaphysician Undercover

Doesn't Schopenhauer qualify as a #1 without a divine foundation? His notion of a blind, striving, instinctive Will, which is not metacognitive, isn't really a god analogue, is it?

Thanks. :up:

Philosophers ! I mean the 'serious' kind who labor together, subject to the norms of rationality, carefully building and testing the self-consciousness of the species. It's just us becoming more and more aware of ourselves in our talking about our talking about our talking. As Hegel might put, we little bald monkeys come and go, downloading the highlights of the conversation so far, maybe make a good point, and die. This conversation becomes more and more aware of itself as it continually moves to see itself from the outside, forever forging and extending its metacognitive vocabularies, making an otherwise necessary inheritance optional, sending out exploratory 'tentacles' (theories it's willing to drop if they don't live up to expectations), ... — Pie

That's a lovely bit of writing. It does suggest a kind of progress (rather than an emerging truth) any further thoughts on this? Are we able to say the conversation becomes more useful over time?

:up:

So I'm agreeing with your broader point that we can’t even see what counts as the right detail without having the right big picture and I'm expressing skepticism in my ability to identify what matters in this vast and highly technical subject. For this reason, I have never tried to study or incorporate any advanced theory of mentation or cognitive processes and am satisfied to behold glimmers from others more assertive than I am.

yet you are happy to stand to one side and make condescending noises. — apokrisis

Interesting take on my response. Do you take me as condescending? Not my intention.

It is about understanding the deep structure of the very thing of an organism. You can’t even see what counts as the right detail without having the right big picture. — apokrisis

You are probably right. Which is kind of why I have never bothered to worry about details. The chances of determining or identifying the correct big picture seem remote to me and likely will make no real difference to my day-to-day life. Interesting to hear snippets from true believer's however.

I've noticed that as a serious flaw in this thread. Idealism is represented as "mind alone exists". In reality, idealists are mostly dualists. — Metaphysician Undercover

Interesting. Which of the famous idealists are dualists? Isn't the notion that 'all which exists is mentation' eg, Schopenhauer, a monist claim? Number 2 is Kantian, right? I heard Kastrup say he doesn't consider this to be idealism as such. What's the distribution of 1's and 2's?

Life is evidence of the divine. Nothing about the spark of life is reflected in atheism. It's just a dearth of rational thought masquerading as science. — neonspectraltoast

Cool. Three bald assertions which don't seem to hold up very well. But they do sound like functional rhetoric. :wink: You seem aggrieved.

Life is evidence of the divine - where's the evidence for this? And what do you mean by divine - Christian, Islamic, Zoroastrian, Hindu? And how did you rule out the other gods and systems?

Nothing about the spark of life is reflected in atheism. What spark of life is this? And what do you know about atheism, which is just a view about a single claim. Atheists are just as capable of love and a sense of the numinous as any fundamentalist or New Ager.

It's just a dearth of rational thought masquerading as science. Actually the dearth of rational thought is faith. That's the very point of faith, isn't it? When you say masquerading as science - which version of 'science' to you subscribe to? Intelligent design?

I'd not heard this Asimov quote before, it's a good one. :up:

One problem for those idealists who hold their view because they claim we cannot know about anything "outside" our own minds - roughly, phenomenalism - is how they can know about other minds, which are also "outside" their own mind. — Banno

Nice. One question I often ponder - is idealism largely sustained by intrinsic flaws in old-school materialist arguments and misunderstandings about realism, or does it stand alone as a reasonable hypotheses in its own right? I suspect the former.

Rogan, on the other hand, was notoriously irascible and provocative, sometime leaving his students in tears and alienating his colleagues. His philosophical insights, however, were original without being merely idiosyncratic, casting new light on old problems and opening up fresh lines of enquiry for a generation of thinkers. — Cuthbert

Is it true that Rogan once wrote a definitive book on psychophysical parallelism, but tore it up one weekend making filters for his continental jazz cigarettes?

atheistic faiths (faith in no god) or scientific materialism and logical positivism. — intrapersona

This is a common rhetorical device used by evangelical apologists all the time - 'You atheists have faith in reason/science.' Seems an inadequate approach and a gimmick. It's also an example of the tu quoquo fallacy, or an appeal to hypocrisy.

Most atheists I know do not have faith in science or anything else. Faith is the excuse you give for believing something when you have no good reason to believe it. An atheist who privileges science generally sees it as the most reliable method for determining what is true or not, developing tentative models, using the best available evidence at the time. Science therefore is fallibilistic and changes when new facts emerge - which is the opposite of how faith functions.

Atheists do not always subscribe to materialism. Some are into New Age ideas, reincarnation and idealism. Atheism generally holds that there is no good reason to believe in any gods. It does not say there are no gods (a positive claim). That's all there need be to it. There is no faith in 'no god' just as you or others do not have faith in 'no Loch Ness Monster'. As an atheist myself, I am simply unconvinced that there are god/s.

I have never liked stand up comedy, but at least Hicks seemed intermittently insightful. Rogan seems to me to be a bit of a try-hard plonker, and these days a weed-addled bore.

:fire:

The nature of the interaction between our reality and the unknowable one, noumena or the Tao, is something I've struggled with. The fact that Kant was fully aware of the implications of the consequences of that relationship was what surprised me most. — T Clark

This is very interesting. Thanks.

I found this essay by Steven R. Palmquist on a comparison between aspects of Kant and Tao.

https://philarchive.org/archive/PALADM-4

I don't have time to explore this in any depth and forgive my awkward phrasing - but a continuing question I have (which may be of relevance to mental processes) is the idea that the world has no intrinsic properties and that humans see reality in terms of neutrally generated matrix of gestalts. These generate what we know as reality. An example would be an understanding that space and time are a product of generalized neurocognitive system that allows us to understand the world. Or perhaps 'a' world - the one we have access too.

Maybe this is too Kantian and feel free piss it off if you find it superfluous. My understanding of Kant in the Critique is that he viewed space as a preconscious organizing feature of the human mind - a critic, (I forget who) compared this to a kind of scaffolding upon which we're able to understand the physical world. I suspect @joshs would say that we don't understand it as such; we construct the semblance of an intelligible world based on shared values. Or something similar.

And as kids, didn't we all covet a Swiss army knife with the most tools - including the spike for getting stones out of horses hooves - only to find they are useless crap in reality. :grin: — apokrisis

No. I find them invaluable. :wink:

Most are lashing out in silly ways, to the point of electing clowns because they say they like them. — Xtrix

I think they are electing clowns because clowns appear not to be a product of the system viewed as hopeless, broken and corrupt. A clown like Trump has the right populist enemies (regardless of his real status as a cunt). The cult of 'everything is fucked' is lubricant for demagogues. :wink:

I can't dream understanding the language of Japanese, — praxis

I'm not so sure. I once dreamt I was fluent in French (I'm not). I was talking it and understanding it in the logic of a dream state. But life often seems pretty dumb too, so subject to whatever reality (noumena?) may be, our life on earth may well resemble an episode of Space:1999. Or even an early episode of Dr Who. Perhaps even Heidegger looks like a rerun of Monty Python when viewed from a perspective of 'enlightenment'. :smile: :gasp:

Sounds about right.

For context, I don't feel strongly about 'matter' and the 'physical' either when used metaphysically or 'transpractically.' Perhaps I'm missing out. Too late now. — Pie

You and me both, Pie. I've written here before that even if idealism is true, it makes no difference to how I live my life. A perfect illusion of a material world which can't really be transcended except perhaps via glimmers during meditation, or perhaps at 'death', is functionally no different to an actual material world. The speeding bus coming at you will still end your plans even if it is the product of mentation seen from a particular perspective. So why should all this matter, except as a curiosity? Fascinating though it may be.

I hear you. :pray: :smile:

I had a compelling night a few years ago with some twins. Isn't that a type of sandwich too? There was bread involved, but that was afterwards...

I get that - except isn't idealism a la berkeley predicated on the idea that all things disappear when we're not experiencing them first hand.

The tree in the forest - and me - and you? — GLEN willows

No. Berkeley has everything or 'empirical reality' held in place by the mind of god who allows us to share a world which exists independent of our mental processes.

Idealism often has to make use of some kind of 'big mind' to prevent solipsism. For Kastrup - a current idealist - all matter is just what consciousness looks like when viewed from a different perspective. What allows us to share a world is that it is all held in place by a universal mind - cosmic consciousness or 'mind at large'. But this is not a god - this consciousness is instinctive, blind and striving and is not metacognitive. Humans are described as dissociated alters of this consciousness.

From Kastrup's blog:

Although I say that all reality is in consciousness, and that there is no universe outside, or independent from, subjective experience, I also do not deny that reality exists independent of personal psyches, like the human psyche. I maintain that empirical reality is an experience of an impersonal mind, which I like to call 'mind-at-large' in honor of Aldous Huxley. As such, empirical reality isn't created by personal psyches, and would still exist as an experience in mind-at-large even if there were no life in the universe.

Bernado Kastrup

If you were a figment of my imagination I would know more about you then you do. — praxis

Interesting. What if not knowing all is built into the grammar of solipsism or such figments? It is possible to imagine a voice without a body and then to put a body to that voice. Nothing is fully imagined or understood in dreams, let along in a potential solipsistic universe.

I even think it is impossible to say that Christianity is "anti-supremacist" when they are ruled by a pope in Vatican city. This complex structure of power always leads to supremacism and corruption. — javi2541997

That's only the Catholics, which many Christians see as a kind of heresy anyway. Christianity also holds that there should be no hierarchy and that each community should understand Jesus teachings as they wish with no dogmatic authority.