• Dominic Osborn
    38
    What is Reality?

    I think it is—the Continuum of Experience. I mean by the Continuum of Experience: something not identified with a brain, or with a number of brains; something that is infinitely extended in space and time; and something that does not divide up into parts. I mean the undetermined; I mean—almost—nothingness.

    Contrasted with this view is Physicalism. Physicalism says that the Continuum of Experience is a representation of Reality; thus that it is just a part of Reality, something that is inside my head (something that is thus finite and divisible).

    Thus Physicalism says there is another, greater, reality. This greater reality it calls “the Physical”. The Continuum of Experience is accordingly rechristened “the Subjective” or “Appearance” or “the Known” or “the Mind” or “Theory”.

    What is the nature of this physical reality? Its fundamental features are two.

    1. It is Objective.

    But it is objective only because there is a subject. It is something you look at. Another word for objective is finite. It is is finite because there is something other than it, because there is a representation of it, because there is a mind, because there is a Continuum of Experience.

    2. It is Divisible.

    But it is divisible only because there is something in the middle of it. It is something all around you. It is divisible because there is something it is to the left of, to the right of, above, below, etc. because there is a representation of it, because there is a mind, because there is a Continuum of Experience.

    That is: whilst Physicalism strives to discount or at least to discredit the Continuum of Experience, it is the very inclusion of the Continuum of Experience within its picture—the absolutely necessary inclusion—which generates the fundamental features of the Physical. It is only that there is a scientist, that Reality is scientific (physical). The essence of Physicalism is not—there is a thing, a great thing, the universe, which divides into parts, which is unconscious matter, or space, or events—but—there is something to find out about (something that is not the Continuum of Experience), and there is something that does the finding out (the Continuum of Experience). We think we all go round with little pictures in our heads of the real, physical world, but it’s the exact opposite of this. That picture—of us going round the world with little pictures in our heads of it—is itself the picture. The Continuum of Experience is not a picture of the Physical; the Physical is a picture of the Continuum of Experience.

    Physicalism, in thus unconsciously availing itself of the Continuum of Experience, and at the same time denying it—by saying that in fact it is just a part of Reality, just flesh—thus conceives the Self—and thus conceives representation too (and things that represent, and are represented, and are not represented, and misrepresented, etc.)—and Knowledge (and the Unknown, and things that know)—and generates all the questions that follow: What is Representation? How is the Mind identified with the Brain? How is the Brain about the World? What is Knowledge? Etc..

    I have described here what I think the Physical is, but in fact I have only described half of the Physical, the spatial half. There is another half, Time, which I have had to omit (along with other things) to keep this from getting even longer.

    Reality doesn’t require an explanation—because it isn’t anything. God or Objective Reality as explanations are question-begging (: where did God come from?; where did Objective Reality come from?). In the middle ages they called Cause, the underlying, the explanans: “God”, and there was earnest—and reverent—investigation into His attributes. As belief in God diminished so Idealism emerged. Nietzsche believed that after the death of God we would be free. But he overestimated us: there was a counter-reformation (which Russell, winningly, dubbed a “rebellion” against Idealism): the Learned reconvened, only this time calling the focus of their investigation—their earnest and indeed reverent investigation—not “God” but “Objective Reality”.
  • Rich
    3.2k
    Much if what you wrote is similar to what Bergson wrote at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century and later picked up somewhat by Whitehead.

    What is missing from your analysis is the huge economic motivations behind physicalism, which demotes human life to the level of a machine that can be divided up and tinkered with and where the death of hundreds of thousands and millions by such actions are considered acceptable losses because after all they are only machines without ba soul.
  • Dominic Osborn
    38
    I missed out a lot more than that…

    But thanks for introducing me to Bergson. I’ve just read the Wikipedia article, and yes, there are a lot of resonances. But—and feel free to correct me—it seems Bergson is more dualistic than me. Yes, he thinks there are things insusceptible of scientific description: Time, Intuition, Creativity, Will, etc., but he also thinks that this stuff is situated within a physical, spatial world—or alongside it.

    I myself am a more thoroughgoing idealist. My notion of Time is very similar to Bergson’s—a continuum, which is neither many different things nor a single thing—and my notion of Consciousness is (probably) similar too, but I think Bergson has a different idea about Space. He thinks Space (and perhaps Matter) is something opposed to Time, Consciousness, Will, etc..

    I however think Space is inseparable from these things, that it is an (infinite) continuum, like Time and Consciousness, and that it is indivisible, even in thought: you can’t even point to one bit and point to another, and say, This bit is different from that bit. It doesn’t exist independently of thought or consciousness, but exists only inasmuch as it is Consciousness. You aren’t in it, you are it.
    So I don’t think there are two things, the Physical—and Consciousness; I think there is only one, and that it is neither physical nor mental.

    I don’t suppose that is very clear, but maybe you get the gist.
  • Wayfarer
    22.5k
    I don’t think there are two things, the Physical—and Consciousness; I think there is only one, and that it is neither physical nor mental.Dominic Osborn

    Ideas like that have the rather drab title of 'neutral monism' (which for some reason always reminds me of a British gentleman in a drab overcoat, possibly because Bertrand Russell once espoused it.) But the general gist, that there is some primordial substance that appears here as matter, and there as mind, is, I'm sure, a sound intuition.
  • Rich
    3.2k
    it seems Bergson is more dualistic than meDominic Osborn

    If you read Bergson (try to avoid interpretations) you will find that he is not a dualist. We are duration that is evolving.

    He thinks Space (and perhaps Matter) is something opposed to Time, Consciousness, Will, etc..Dominic Osborn

    Matter would be moving in the opposite direction, decaying. Interestingly the notable architect Louis Kahn that a similar idea as he spoke of the nature of life:

    "All material in nature, the mountain and the stream and the air and we, are made of Light which has been spent, and this crumpled mass called material casts a shadow, and the shadow belongs to Light."

    I however think Space is inseparable from these things, that it is an (infinite) continuum, like Time and Consciousness, and that it is indivisible, even in thought: you can’t even point to one bit and point to another, and say, This bit is different from that bit. It doesn’t exist independently of thought or consciousness, but exists only inasmuch as it is Consciousness. You aren’t in it, you are it.

    So I don’t think there are two things, the Physical—and Consciousness; I think there is only one, and that it is neither physical nor mental.
    Dominic Osborn

    Yes, very similar to Bergson. Bergson continues to be studied in Europe but in the U.S. scientific academia has c successfully suppressed all discussion. A Nobel prize winner who one has to hunt for in their philosophical pursuits. Rupert Sheldrake, and his idea of hierarchical memory preserved as morphic resonance fields, was influenced by Bergson.
  • Dominic Osborn
    38
    Physicalism and Idealism are really to be understood as traditions.

    Physicalism is the inheritor of Materialism.

    Materialism is the man-in-the-street view of Reality. “There are houses, cars, trees, the world, the sun, the moon, the other planets, and many other things—and I am one of these. These things are finite (because limited by one another and by me) and I am finite (because limited by them).”

    Physicalism is Materialism refined: where once there were bits of matter floating about in space, now there are fields and forces and waves and equations. But the essence hasn’t changed: there is stuff out there that is being looked at (and so separate from something that looks)—and it is divided up into different parts: some to the left of me, some to the right.

    Society is a mirror of the man in the street. Just as the man in the street (and all of us) is greedy, lustful, fearful, angry etc., and so thinks there is something he is greedy for, lusts after, is fearful of, angry about, etc.—the engine of the view that there is an Objective Reality “out there”—so too society is greedy, lustful, fearful, angry, etc.—and so too society thinks there is a world “out there”.

    It thus thinks that there is something to find out about—and something that does the finding out. It thinks that there is something that is unknown and something that is known. Society is thus fundamentally scientific.

    And accordingly honours—and indeed pays—that part of itself that attempts to read the nature of that “Objective Reality”. In this way—so it believes—it can better get what it wants and avoid what it hates. Universities, those organs of society and of the establishment, are thus inevitably physicalist.

    Physicalism and Science are winning: think of the honour in which Science is held—even when it “discovers” that Time is relative, that Space is not different from Time, that the observer conditions the observed, that we are mixed up with the universe (!) Think of how it has successfully sold the holiness of its project: (voiceover in poetry mode, shaking with emotion): “We must never stop asking ‘Why?’”. We must gawp at the “majesty” of the universe. What is the best emotion we can have? —“A sense of wonder”. And what must we think of ourselves? —We must be gleefully tiny. (See OP: we exchanged God for the Physical Universe.)

    Idealism is the argument against the man in the street. Idealism is the view of the contemplative, the cloistered, the hermit, the otherworldly.

    Idealism says: Those things that you think are out there—are really you. You are not distinct from the other things of the world, you are not your body, Reality is undivided. Vedanta: Atman is Braham (individual soul and world soul are one); Christ: Love thy Neighbour (I am not separate from others), I shall rise again (I am not temporally finite); Berkeley: an Immaterialist in his words; Hegel: a Neutral Monist.

    Idealism stands outside society and outside the establishment. It scrapes out a living in religion, in “spirituality”, in literature, in a few as-yet-uncorrupted students starting out on their philosophy degrees, as devil’s advocate in philosophical debate. —Of course society is not going to honour and pay for something that rejects its idea of what is real.

    So Physicalism is the philosophy of the worldly, the secular; Idealism that of the otherworldly, the religious.

    Those who are persuaded by the Idealist argument that if there is an Objective, there must be a Subjective (such that Physicalism implies Dualism) and who also misrepresent Idealism either as platonic Idealism—the view that Reality is abstract ideas, a view that is as far from mainstream Idealism as Physicalism—or as the view that there is only the Subjective (which succumbs to the kantian argument that if there is a Subjective, there must be an Objective too) —call themselves Neutral Monists. —Yes it is true that Reality is neither physical nor mental, but that view belongs to the (non-platonic) Idealist tradition.
  • Wayfarer
    22.5k
    “We must never stop asking ‘Why?’”. We must gawp at the “majesty” of the universe. What is the best emotion we can have? —“A sense of wonder”. And what must we think of ourselves? —We must be gleefully tiny.Dominic Osborn

    X-)

    So Physicalism is the philosophy of the worldly, the secular; Idealism that of the otherworldly, the religious.Dominic Osborn

    A splendid post, overall, but I would take issue with this characterisation. There is certainly some truth in idea of the opposition, or even the dialectic, of 'materialism v idealism'. But your depiction of idealism is rather too wide, if it takes in Christ. I also don't know that Platonic idealism is 'far from mainstream idealism'. Actually I think the Platonist tradition (which has much greater scope than simply 'the works of Plato') properly is the wellspring of the idealist tradition, German idealism included. By that I mean that Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, and Kant are all recognisably part of the tradition which goes back to Plato, even if they introduce many radically new ideas.

    But, nevertheless, overall, a splendid and impassioned post and one I can't help but agree with.
  • Dominic Osborn
    38
    Thanks a lot. I'm sure you're right about Platonism. I was thinking of that strain of Idealism that says there are only such things as abstract ideas. I thought that was what Platonism was. But I stand by my remark about Christ - though without justifying it for the minute.
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