If you like. Looks like a change of topic. Before moving on to consciousness, it might be a good idea to get some basic logic right. "The tree has three branches" is about the tree, while "I perceive the tree to haver three branches" is not about the tree. One way or another, those who advocate idealism in its various forms all seem to muddle this rather simple distinction, changing sentences about the world into sentences about themselves.

"The tree has three branches" is about the tree, while "I perceive the tree to haver three branches" is not about the tree. — Banno

Yes, agreed.

One way or another, those who advocate idealism in its various forms all seem to muddle this rather simple distinction, changing sentences about the world into sentences about themselves. — Banno

Some might be doing this, but not all. Certainly, if you don't assent to something like, "All is mind, and can only be mind", then this would be seen as muddling the two, as the idealist would be accused of denying any reality outside their perception, and this is seen as incredulously absurd, based on notion that inputs (outside the person's mind) seem to be causing the experiences we are having of a tree.

Further, tying it to my previous statement, the idealist might be making the same error:

"My experience IS the tree" rather than,
"My experience is CAUSED by the tree".

(Error of the Idealist)

And as I think about it more, this error of the idealist is akin to the error by the realist/materialist as to consciousness. It is misplaced ontology, or something like this.

"Consciousness IS the physical system"
"Consciousness is CAUSED by the physical system"

(Error of the realist)

Some might be doing this, but not all. — schopenhauer1

I take idealism to be pretty much defined by this transformation of facts about trees to facts about minds.

Not at all sure what you are saying at ...

I take idealism to be pretty much defined by this transformation of facts about trees to facts about minds.

Not at all sure what you are saying at — Banno

Just that Kantian Idealists wouldn't say this and other kinds that acknowledge an external reality that is outside the framework of mind. That is all. Nothing more.

Again, I'm not so interested in interpreting Kant as taking about trees. The thing-in-itself strikes me as nonsense on stilts.

Again, I'm not so interested in interpreting Kant as taking about trees. The thing-in-itself strikes me as nonsense on stilts. — Banno

Again, going back to first part here, I was commenting that Kantian is seen as idealist (transcendental idealist), and it is an example of idealism that does not deny an external reality. That is all I was saying. I moved past this and just accepted you meant a certain variety of idealism, and am now just going with that so that this language game can continue.

Ok, so if we agree to leave aside the exegesis, do we agree that idealism errs in treating facts about trees as facts about minds?

Ok, so if we agree to leave aside the exegesis, do we agree that idealism errs in treating facts about trees as facts about minds? — Banno

For the purpose of this particular dialogue yes, I can accept this.

And as I think about it more, this error of the idealist is akin to the error by the realist/materialist as to consciousness. It is misplaced ontology, or something like this. — schopenhauer1

I'm being quite specific here. The error I see in idealism is that a fact about the world - say f(a), is treated as a relation involving mind, say f(a,m).

What would be the equivalent in the realist/materialist attitude to consciousness?

What would be the equivalent in the realist/materialist attitude to consciousness? — Banno

Not equivalent. I am not sure if it is the inverse/converse, or what not but analogously, just as an idealist is mistaking ontology with causation, so too might the realist.

Thus,
"The tree IS my experience" is the idealist error. Rather it should be:
"The tree CAUSES my experience (of that tree)"

The realist makes a similar error in terms of emergence and especially consciousness. Thus,
"Consciousness IS X physical system." Rather it should be:
"Consciousness is CAUSED by X physical system".

So while not the same, they make inverse/converse(not sure nor do I care the proper term) mistake.

I wouldn't use cause. Consciousness is not a thing like moving billiard balls. I advocate treating it as a difference in seeing as, a la duckrabbit. The event can be seen as a physical system or as being conscious. Two sides of the same coin.

In much the same way as this line can be a bunch of pixels or a sentence in English.

But again, this is a change of topic.

I wouldn't use cause. Consciousness is not a thing like moving billiard balls. I advocate treating it as a difference in seeing as, a la duckrabbit. The event can be seen as a physical system or as being conscious. Two sides of the same coin. — Banno

Isn't this just restating the problem at hand rather than answering it?

The problem:
There is mind and there are physical systems that correlate with mind.

Banno's Answer:
The event can be seen as a physical system or as being conscious. Two sides of the same coin.
This simply seems to be stating:
"There is mind and there are physical systems that correlate with mind".

That is indeed the problem we are trying to solve, but not answering the problem.

But again, this is a change of topic. — Banno

They dovetail nicely because of the error in language used. You can replace either one with a different wording and still errors ensue (use correlates or impresses upon, or anything else instead of cause to indicate that it is external)

The problem:
There is mind and there are physical systems that correlate with mind. — schopenhauer1

That's an observation, not a problem.

They dovetail nicely because of the error in language used. — schopenhauer1

I'm not seeing it.

That's an observation, not a problem. — Banno

How is one the other and vice versa? That is the problem.

I'm not seeing it. — Banno

They both make the error of one BEING the other versus one CAUSED by the other. Something may be caused, but not actually be the same as what causes it.

Is the tree the same as the experience of the tree? No. The tree impresses upon the experiencer which then experiences the tree.

Is consciousness the same as the physical systems causing the consciousness? Not necessarily.

"My experience IS the tree" rather than,
"My experience is CAUSED by the tree".

(Error of the Idealist) — schopenhauer1

that is not idealism - it is representative realism, where the idea or perception represents the actuality.

'“Realism” (in philosophy) is the view that certain concepts refer to real things. For Locke, it is the view that our sensory ideas (sensations) represent material objects in the world.

We must distinguish between the mental representation of an object, and the object itself. The mental representation is an idea (probably a complex idea). The object in the world is not an idea but an object. The slogan is “ideas in the mind, qualities in bodies.” Ideas can represent qualities, as well as (entire) objects.'

that is not idealism - it is representative realism, where the idea or perception represents the actuality.

'“Realism” (in philosophy) is the view that certain concepts refer to real things. For Locke, it is the view that our sensory ideas (sensations) represent material objects in the world.

We must distinguish between the mental representation of an object, and the object itself. The mental representation is an idea (probably a complex idea). The object in the world is not an idea but an object. The slogan is “ideas in the mind, qualities in bodies.” Ideas can represent qualities, as well as (entire) objects.' — Wayfarer

I am aware of this, but going down @Banno's rabbit hole. I pointed this error out if you looked a few posts prior to that.

How is one the other and vice versa? That is the problem. — schopenhauer1

Again, a change of topic.

I think this in the main a question for neuroscience. The contribution of philosophy might go no further than pointing out a few grammatical subtleties.

Looks like a change of topic. Before moving on to consciousness, it might be a good idea to get some basic logic right. "The tree has three branches" is about the tree, while "I perceive the tree to haver three branches" is not about the tree. One way or another, those who advocate idealism in its various forms all seem to muddle this rather simple distinction, changing sentences about the world into sentences about themselves. — Banno

Again this is chiefly illustrative of the difficulties that plain language philosophy has with the meaning of idealism. It seems to always insist that idealists of all kinds are muddling or confusing 'the idea of x' with 'x', and that if we restrict our conversation to 'x' without bringing in the 'idea of x' then the whole problem goes away.

But that doesn't solve the problem that idealisms sought to address in the first place, which is not about the nature of 'x', but about the nature of knowing.

And as far as the neuroscience is concerned, as I have pointed out in the thread on the idealism poll, there is an outstanding problem in neuroscientific accounts of conscious experience, which is that it cannot seem to locate any specific area of the neural systems responsible for the subjective unity of perception, as is amply documented in this reference.

Again this is chiefly illustrative of the difficulties that plain language philosophy has with the meaning of idealism. It seems to always insist that idealists of all kinds are muddling or confusing 'the idea of x' with 'x', and that if we restrict our conversation to 'x' without bringing in the 'idea of x' then the whole problem goes away. — Wayfarer

From the plain language point of view, the problem does go away. Or better, doesn't even get started.

But that doesn't solve the problem that idealisms sought to address in the first place, which is not about the nature of 'x', but about the nature of knowing. — Wayfarer

...which it treats by treating the nature of 'x' in absurd ways.

There are other ways to treat "knowing" than getting rid of the things of our world.

it cannot seem to locate any specific area of the neural systems responsible for the subjective unity of perception — Wayfarer

The god of the gaps, written into neuroscience. There not being a specific region responsible for this or that is part of how the architecture of neural networks functions.

That there are unanswered questions does not imply that there are no suitable answers.

Look, the defence of idealism here is a proxy for a defence of some form of spiritualism or similar; and so the idealist brings stuff form outside the problem to bear. Fair enough. But I'll insist in countering this move by asking about how many branches the tree has. "The tree has three branches" is about the tree, not about our relation to the tree. And that's pretty much what realism contends.

This is a fascinating discussion and not a new one for TPF. As a low-rent pragmatist, I dissolve the problem in a whole different way - by not giving a shit.

Which is a joke, of course, but has some semblance of truth. What I'm keen to discover here are the best arguments from both positions, in recognition that this debate is probably insoluble for now.

I do find myself coming back to a simple query about idealism which is, if all human knowledge is a swirling constructivist enterprise of perception and consciousness which can tell us nothing about reality as it really is, then how can we say idealism is at the heart of reality? Is idealism really just one way of expressing a problem in epistemology - that of the perspectival nature of knowledge, expressed through language, with all its dead ends and confusions?

if all human knowledge is a swirling constructivist enterprise of perception and consciousness which can tell us nothing about reality as it really is... — Tom Storm

I want to stop the question there, as I think it's this framing that is problematic.

Basically, what could reality be if not the stuff we know about via the swirling constructivist enterprise of perception and consciousness?

And if that's right, then of course we know about reality, and the notion of a reality about which we know nothing is just nonsense. Word games.

That there are unanswered questions does not imply that there are no suitable answers — Banno

Indeed it doesn't, but it does indicate that your directing the whole issue to neuroscience might have - well - gaps.

Look, the defence of idealism here is a proxy for a defence of some form of spiritualism or similar; and so the idealist brings stuff form outside the problem to bear — Banno

It clashes with the presumed physicalism of secular philosophy. It's out of bounds, hence 'stuff from the outside'. Anglo philosophy overwhelmingly comprises polite conversation about language, with the presumption that science has been assigned the task of solving every problem worth solving, and bugger the objections. All of your arguments simply come back to coffee cups, spoons, number of branches, and so on. 'Look old chap, be sensible. Stop with all this idealism nonsense, it belongs to a bygone age. Get with the program'.

I'm solemnly intending to do some concentrated reading on the current neuro-philosophers, like Antonio Damasio, Thomas Metzinger, Anil Seth, and Donald Hoffman, because their work tends to challenge what I think should be designated 'cognitive realism'. Not that any of them advocate philosophical idealism directly. Meanwhile - and I really have to log out and work - here's an OP from many years ago which I think presages a lot of these debates - David Brooks, The Neural Buddhists (NY Times, might be paywalled if so try a fresh browser).

It's out of bounds, — Wayfarer

For good reason. One doesn't go to "The Hunting of the Snark" for advice on navigation.

I was introduced to Bernard Gert the other day, who's catch phrase seems to have been "I'm a philosopher, I don't know anything that you don't know". I quite like that. It's not that philosophers have cast out spiritual thinking, so much as that the stuff we know about the world isn't found in spiritual thought. The Dali Lama doesn't make laptops.

I have Hoffman's book next to me here, in the Pile. When I get to it, I will be reading to see if he is advocating anything other than realism, and how. I doubt that he is.

Strange that his Quanta magazine article was headlined The Case Against Reality, then.

It is true that the Dalai Lama doesn’t make computers, but also quite irrelevant.

There's a big difference, sometimes lost, between supposing that we don't see the world, and that there is no world.

So here's the thing: would Hoffman deny that the tree has three branches? I hope not, for his sake.

It's not that philosophers have cast out spiritual thinking, so much as that the stuff we know about the world isn't found in spiritual thought. — Banno

The automatic association of philosophical idealism with 'spiritual thought' is what is at issue. I think it amounts to a prejudice - there is a taboo in play. It's very much shaped by cultural dynamics.

As regards Hoffman, here's an abstract in the form of a Q&A. He says straight up 'The world presented to us by our perceptions is nothing like reality' on the grounds that our perception is shaped by evolutionary biology to orient us to what is effective for survival. To be honest, I'm not sure I buy his argument but I am going to finish the book first.

I wonder what to make of "The tree has three branches"? That seems to involve a tree, and not a perception-of-tree. It's different to "I perceive that the tree has three branches". It must be, as one might be wrong while the other is correct.

What do you think? — Banno

Teacher: "Student I have shown you many examples of what a branch looks like on a tree.

Student: "Yes, you have."

Teacher: "Please go outside to the courtyard and tell me how branches the tree has."

Student: "I will"

Student returns inside where the tree is not viewable and says "The tree has three branches."

Basically, what could reality be if not the stuff we know about via the swirling constructivist enterprise of perception and consciousness?

And if that's right, then of course we know about reality, and the notion of a reality about which we know nothing is just nonsense. Word games. — Banno

To be honest this has been my default, without the benefit of any philosophy. I'm curious these days to understand the idealist model better so I can say to myself I didn't dismiss things out of hand. I enjoy speculative, imaginative exercises - to a point.

So here's the thing: would Hoffman deny that the tree has three branches? — Banno

He seems to be an infotech Kant in some ways. From what I can tell, Hoffman would posit that humans have evolved a tailored and limited account of reality which assists us in survival. We do not apprehend reality. What we experience through our senses is like the icons on a computer desktop (phenomena?) but these icons are heuristic tools and are not to be confused with the reality they represent (noumena?) Unfortunately we can say nothing useful about the world beyond appearances so I wonder how helpful Hoffman is.

There's a minefield right there.

The question is, when the scientist perceives an event in their laboratory, as Hume asks, can this only ever be an inference ? — RussellA

I think you are saying not only "the scientist perceives an event in their laboratory" as an inference, but "the laboratory" itself can only ever be an inference.

This is an absurdity derived from a grammatical fiction.