Mind-independent' is a methodological assumption, — Wayfarer
Why shouldn't it exist if there are no observers? There would be no perception of it, but space would still be there. As we perceive it. — Raymond
What I'm drawing attention to is that what we presume is real independently of any observers, is still very much a construction of the mind. Any judgement about what exists, whether space or anything else, is a judgement — Wayfarer
Emphatically not. My view is not that 'reality requires an observer', as this is an anthroporphism. But I think that reality has an ineluctably subjective pole or aspect. — Wayfarer
Consider when you point towards any object, be that a rock, an apple, a distant star, or whatever as an example of an object external to yourself. What you know of that object is due to the sensory information that you receive from it. That is combined - synthesised - with what you already know, to judge it as a rock, apple, star, whatever. (Infants, for example, are not able to do this, as their minds are not yet sufficiently mature.) But this is an action on the part of the conscious mind - it's not as if the mind is a passive recipient upon which data is impressed, even though impression is part of it. The mind puts all of the impressions together along with judgement. That is fundamental to the nature of experience and therefore it is what 'reality' means for us. In that sense, knowledge of anything is a product of the observing mind, not something which the mind, like an empty vessel, simply receives. — Wayfarer
There's massive misunderstanding of philosophical idealism in my view. It's about having insight into how the mind works. Most people start from some form of uncritical realism, that the external domain, the world of sensory experience, is the real world and that our experience of it is just in our own minds. From that perspective 'idealism' seems like a fantasy - but it's not what idealism really means. Idealism is the understanding of how the mind structures experience and so reality itself. But that is not an easy thing to understand, it takes a shift in perspective. See this interview. — Wayfarer
Why would you say that idealism understood as reality requires an observer is anthropomorphism — Agent Smith
I prefer the original idealism (the mind creates & sustains reality) — Agent Smith
Truth is a property of sentences — Tom Storm
The Kastrup interview is bound to irritate some people. — Tom Storm
§ I. "The world is my idea" — this is a truth which holds good for everything that lives and knows, though man alone can bring it into reflective and abstract consciousness. If he really does this, he has attained to philosophical wisdom. It then becomes clear and certain to him that what he knows is not a sun and an earth, but only an eye that sees a sun, a hand that feels an earth ; that the world which surrounds him is there only as idea, i.e., only in relation to something else, the consciousness, which is himself. If any truth can be asserted a priori, it is this : for it is the expression of the most general form of all possible and thinkable experience: a form which is more general than time, or space, or causality, for they all presuppose it; and each of these, which we have seen to be just so many modes of the principle of sufficient reason, is valid only for a particular class of ideas; whereas the antithesis of object and subject is the common form of all these classes, is that form under which alone any idea of whatever kind it may be, abstract or intuitive, pure or empirical, is possible and thinkable.
Worse than that, I suspect:Is idealism the claim that reality is a dream? — Agent Smith
Re: Plato, Berkeley, Kant, Hegel ...(something like) "reality" consists of only whatever I/we "know" (or can "know"), that is, my/our (i.e. subjective / intersubjective) ideas and experiences
Again, you're speaking from a perspective which imagines the universe with no observer in it, but that itself is also a product of your mind. — Wayfarer
Modern naturalism on the contrary starts with the assumption that what is known by the senses and scientific instruments is inherently real - that is, I believe, what you mean when you use the term 'immanent'. What is 'transcendent' is rejected on account of it's putative association with metaphysics and religious ideas (as we see all of the time in debates on this Forum). — Wayfarer
I see no evidence of that. — Wayfarer
l I think the argument that the world must be mind-dependent because a world cannot be imagined except by a mind is specious. The fact is that we can imagine a world without minds. — Janus
It also seems to me that those who mount arguments akin to Schopenhauer's very often do so for religious reasons, which indicates to me that they comprehensively misunderstand the relationship between logic, science and religion. — Janus
We can imagine two possibilities; either the things we encounter via our senses have their own existences, and are not dependent for their existence upon us encountering them, or the things we encounter are dependent on us encountering them. — Janus
I think this is closer to what Wayfarer is aiming at. — ZzzoneiroCosm
Schopenhauer argues that philosophy and religion have the same fundamental aim: to satisfy “man’s need for metaphysics,” which is a “strong and ineradicable” instinct to seek explanations for existence that arises from “the knowledge of death, and therewith the consideration of the suffering and misery of life” (WWR I 161). Every system of metaphysics is a response to this realization of one’s finitude, and the function of those systems is to respond to that realization by letting individuals know their place in the universe, the purpose of their existence, and how they ought to act. All other philosophical principles (most importantly, ethics) follow from one’s metaphysical system.
Both philosophers and theologians claim the authority to evaluate metaphysical principles, but the standards by which they conduct those evaluations are very different. Schopenhauer concludes that philosophers are ultimately in the position to critique principles that are advanced by theologians, not vice versa. He nonetheless recognizes that the metaphysical need of most people is satisfied by their religion. This is unsurprising because, he contends, the vast majority of people find existence “less puzzling and mysterious” than philosophers do, so they merely require a plausible explanation of their role in the universe that can be adopted “as a matter of course” (WWR II 162). In other words, most people require a metaphysical framework around which to orient their lives that is merely apparently true. Therefore, the theologian has no functional reason to determine what is actually true. By contrast, the philosopher is someone whose metaphysical need is not satisfied by merely apparent truths – he is intrinsically driven to seek out actual truths about the nature of the world. In his 1831 dialogue Religion, Schopenhauer has Demopheles put it thusly:
"Religion is the metaphysics of the people, which by all means they must keep … Just as there is popular poetry, popular wisdom in proverbs, so too there must be popular metaphysics; for mankind requires most certainly an interpretation of life, and it must be in keeping with its power of comprehension."
This passage echoes an unpublished note, from Schopenhauer’s time as a student of Fredrich Schleiermacher, rebuking his professor’s claim that “no one can be a philosopher without being religious,” with the retort “no one who is religious attains to philosophy; he does not need it. No one who really philosophises is religious; he walks without leading-strings, perilously but free” (HN2 243).
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