I believe that's what Nagel means. I think "There's something it's likes to be a bat" means "There's something it feels like to be a bat.". But not a physical feeling.Does it just mean that the animal feels something then? — Janus
I don't know enough about ChatGPT to know if it's a good example of the idea that's only half-baked in my head. I'm wondering what you mean by "playing with language". How does that come about? Can we program a computer to do that? If so, does that mean it's self-reflectively aware? Even if it doesn't claim to be? If it needs to claim to be, but doesn't, what is it about us that makes us claim to be, despite the fact that we aren't? What extra programming would we have to give the computer?ChatGPT doesn't play with language in the sense I mean. It is programmed to sample vast amounts of relevant language and predict the most appropriate sentences to any question as I understand it. It doesn't claim to be self-reflective either. — Janus
I believe that's what Nagel means. I think "There's something it's likes to be a bat" means "There's something it feels like to be a bat." But not a physical feeling. At least not only physical feelings. Do you have a feeling of your own existence aside from your physical body? Yes, we feel when our skin is torn. But we have a feeling about pain. We feel different ways about different people. We feel a certain way about one genre of music, but differently about another. We have feelings about specific pieces of music. I have very strong feelings about various instrumental works be Bach, Beethoven, and others. The last half of Layla, by Derek and the a Dominoes is a good example. We feel certain ways about political issues and moral issues. We feel love and hate. Many different feelings and types of feelings. And it all combines into what it's like to be me.Does it just mean that the animal feels something then? — Janus
I believe that's what Nagel means. I think "There's something it's likes to be a bat" means "There's something it feels like to be a bat." But not a physical feeling. At least not only physical feelings. Do you have a feeling of your own existence aside from your physical body? — Patterner
The really hard problem of consciousness is the problem of experience. When we think and perceive, there is a whir of information-processing, but there is also a subjective aspect. As Nagel (1974) has put it, there is something it is like to be a conscious organism. This subjective aspect is experience. When we see, for example, we experience visual sensations: the felt quality of redness, the experience of dark and light, the quality of depth in a visual field. Other experiences go along with perception in different modalities: the sound of a clarinet, the smell of mothballs. Then there are bodily sensations, from pains to orgasms; mental images that are conjured up internally; the felt quality of emotion, and the experience of a stream of conscious thought. What unites all of these states is that there is something it is like to be in them. All of them are states of experience.
You and I seem to be very different. :rofl: This isn't the first time our conversation has made me think of things like aphantasia and anaduralia. I don't know which of us lacks this or that ability that the other has, but we experience life very differently.↪Patterner I don't know about you, but all my feelings seem physical, visceral, bodily, to me. Even mental associations, such as I may experience when reading, looking at artworks, listening to music or thinking about someone I love, evoke feelings I can only understand and describe as bodily. — Janus
This isn't the first time our conversation has made me think of things like aphantasia and anaduralia. I don't know which of us lacks this or that ability that the other has, but we experience life very differently. — Patterner
I didn't mean those conditions specifically. I just used them as things that are sometimes very different from one person to another. You and I are not always simply interpreting things differently. — Patterner
'Something it is like to be...' is actually an awkward way of referring to 'being' as such. — Wayfarer
I think we have at least a couple of major differences. Going back to an earlier conversation, I can definitely look at something, and be aware that I'm looking at it, at the same time. I can talk about my awareness of looking at it, and anything else about it, and I will still notice if something blocks my vision of the thing, moves it, throws paint on it... I wouldn't see it move or change if I was not still looking at it while discussing my awareness of looking at it.We have much in common physiologically speaking. I seems to me that the greatest divergence consists in the ways we each interpret the general nature of experience. — Janus
I think it's a vague way of approaching the issue, — Patterner
a world that is fully real and determinate independently of mind. — Wayfarer
To make this clearer, consider the example you cite of Neptune’s pre-discovery existence. The realist insists: “It existed all along—we simply didn’t know it.” But the claim I'm advancing would point out that what “it” was prior to its discovery is not just unknown, but indeterminate. — Wayfarer
And finally, the reason this matters is so we do not lose sight of the subject—the observer—for whom all of this is meaningful in the first place. The scientific, objective view is essentially from the outside: in that picture, we appear as one species among countless others, clinging to a pale blue dot, infinitesimal against the vast panorama that scientific cosmology has revealed. But it is to us that this panorama is real and meaningful. So far as we know, we are the only beings capable of grasping the astounding vistas disclosed by science. Let’s not forget our role in that. — Wayfarer
You have noticed that I am cautious. That’s true (most of the time). So, with due caution, that looks like something I can accept. Apart from deleting the word “fully” in “fully real and determinate”. I don’t know what that commits me to and suspect it may be a bit rhetorical.While nobody would disagree that the mind plays a role in cognition—supplying the conceptual framework, perceptual integration, and interpretive acts by which we know—they would nevertheless retain an innate conviction that there exists, in the background, a world that is fully real and determinate independently of mind. This is what I see as the import of metaphysical realism and that is what I am seeking to challenge. — Wayfarer
I’m clear that intelligibility is something that is constituted (“created”?) in the interaction between mind and world. However, our understanding of the world tells us that it has not changed in any radical way since we appeared and that many of the processes now going on must have been going on long before any sentient or intelligent creatures appeared. So is it not reasonable to infer that the world would have been intelligible if there had been anyone around to understand it? (Note that this is a counter-factual, not a blunt assertion.)…. the very structure of the world, as intelligible and coherent, is constituted in and through the relation to mind. Not an individual mind, of course, but the noetic act—the perceiving, structuring, and meaning-bestowing – that makes any world appear in the first place. — Wayfarer
I love etymology and the history of words (and concepts). It is important in its way, and sometimes is relevant to philosophical understanding. But words change their meanings over time. So the relevance of etymology is always in need of demonstration. I’m afraid that, in this case, I don’t think that the etymology is particularly helpful.(Relevant to note that the etymology of 'world' is from the old Dutch 'werold' meanig 'time of man'.) — Wayfarer
There is indeed something very odd about the concept of "an object that exists but is wholly outside any possible disclosure".But the claim I'm advancing would point out that what “it” was prior to its discovery is not just unknown, but indeterminate. The very notion of “an object that exists but is wholly outside any possible disclosure” is, I suggest, an imaginative construction. It is an extrapolation or projection. — Wayfarer
I’m all for co-arising of “reality as it shows up at all”. Reality is a different matter. Much of reality has not shown up yet. Yet it is true that we expect our ways of understanding the world as we know it to apply to the bits of the world that we do not yet understand or even know about. If perchance our current ways of understanding the world turn out not to yield what we expect, we work out new ways of understanding – in the process, we are prepared to abandon what seemed to be important parts of our existing understandings, extract whatever we can from the data and work out new ways of understanding it. So what it would take for us to acknowledge that we do not, and cannot ever, understand some new phenomenon, I cannot imagine. (I’m thinking of quantum physics and relativity, of course. But the Galileo/Newton revolution was, in its way, very dramatic indeed – it’s just that we’ve got used to it.I’m arguing that the world as a coherent totality is incomprehensible outside the structures of consciousness. It’s not that the mind projects onto a blank slate, nor that it merely filters a pre-existing reality, but rather that reality as it shows up at all is a co-arising: dependent on the mutual implication of mind and world. — Wayfarer
Yes, what we know is “bound” to the mind. How else could it be known? But one of the things we know is that there is much that we don’t know; it is reasonable to think that what we don’t know is not “bound” to the mind.…. intelligibility is not something we add to a blank canvas but something that arises with, and through, the encounter of mind-and-world. — Wayfarer
If something is there, it must be part of the “world”. It certainly will be when we find out what it is. On the other hand, “form, object, existence and so on” are certainly not transparent labels (any more than “world” is, especially since recent developments in physics). Anyone who looks carefully can see that. (Philosophers don’t always look very carefully – they are too often in a hurry to get to some huge vista or other.)The critique that “the world exists anyway” misses this crucial nuance. Of course, something is there. But to designate it as “the world,” or even as “something,” already presupposes the categories of thought—form, object, existence, and so on. The realist mistake, in my view, is to treat these categories as transparent labels for things that are "there anyway", failing to recognise the way the mind categorises and situates them, without which they would be unintelligible. — Wayfarer
Yes, form is what makes something intelligible. On the other hand, I think that Aristotle calls the form “what it is to be” something (a.k.a. essence) and believes that whatever it is is mind-independent and yet is required if things are to be intelligible.Aristotle posits forms as intrinsic to particulars, but in a way that already implies a kind of noetic participation—form is what renders a thing intelligible, it is how we know what it *is*. — Wayfarer
Well, yes. We can’t meaningfully call anything real if we don’t exist. That does not justify saying that there is “no world at all without mind”.…my position …. is that there is no world at all without mind—not as a subjective opinion, but as the condition for appearance, for disclosure, and for anything we might meaningfully call real. — Wayfarer
I agree that the subject, the observer (and, sometimes, intervener) should not be lost sight of and that the vistas disclosed by science are astounding. You’ll think that I’m a bit of a heathen, but I’m just not convinced that scientific knowledge – and still less, physics - is the whole of knowledge or that science has a monopoly of astounding vistas.And finally, the reason this matters is so we do not lose sight of the subject—the observer—for whom all of this is meaningful in the first place. The scientific, objective view is essentially from the outside: in that picture, we appear as one species among countless others, clinging to a pale blue dot, infinitesimal against the vast panorama that scientific cosmology has revealed. But it is to us that this panorama is real and meaningful. So far as we know, we are the only beings capable of grasping the astounding vistas disclosed by science. Let’s not forget our role in that. — Wayfarer
I’m clear that intelligibility is something that is constituted (“created”?) in the interaction between mind and world. However, our understanding of the world tells us that it has not changed in any radical way since we appeared and that many of the processes now going on must have been going on long before any sentient or intelligent creatures appeared. So is it not reasonable to infer that the world would have been intelligible if there had been anyone around to understand it? (Note that this is a counter-factual, not a blunt assertion.) — Ludwig V
On the Schopenhauer discussion I referred to his view qua idealist that, really, there was no world per se before the first perceiver, but also that science is correct in investigating ancient history, i.e. the world before perceivers. How could both of these claims be true? This is a general problem that idealism must address, summed up adequately by the old chestnut about the tree falling in the forest: The idealist must say that no, it doesn’t make a sound, and in fact there’s no tree or falling at all unless something (not necessarily a person) is there to witness it, to be a subject and thereby create it as a distinct object. Yet science still needs to work, i.e. people should be able to come along later and truly say that yes, there was a tree here standing, and it fell at such and such a time from such and such causes.
the law of causality and the treatment and investigation of nature which is based upon it, lead us necessarily to the conclusion that, in time, each more highly organised state of matter has succeeded a cruder state: so that the lower animals existed before men, fishes before land animals, plants before fishes, and the unorganised before all that is organised; that, consequently, the original mass had to pass through a long series of changes before the first eye could be opened.
And yet, the existence of this whole world remains ever dependent upon the first eye that opened, even if it were that of an insect. For such an eye is a necessary condition of the possibility of knowledge, and the whole world exists only in and for knowledge, and without it is not even thinkable. The world is entirely idea, and as such demands the knowing subject as the supporter of its existence.
Thus we see, on the one hand, the existence of the whole world necessarily dependent upon the first conscious being, however undeveloped it may be; on the other hand, this conscious being just as necessarily entirely dependent upon a long chain of causes and effects which have preceded it, and in which it itself appears as a small link. These two contradictory points of view, to each of which we are led with the same necessity, we might again call an antinomy in our faculty of knowledge...
The necessary contradiction which at last presents itself to us here, finds its solution in the fact that, to use Kant’s phraseology, time, space, and causality do not belong to the thing-in-itself, but only to its phenomena, of which they are the form; which in my language means this: The objective world, the world as idea, is not the only side of the world, but merely its outward side; and it has an entirely different side—the side of its inmost nature—its kernel—the thing-in-itself… But the world as idea… only appears with the opening of the first eye. Without this medium of knowledge it cannot be, and therefore it was not before it. But without that eye, that is to say, outside of knowledge, there was also no before, no time. Thus time has no beginning, but all beginning is in time.
I’m clear that intelligibility is something that is constituted (“created”?) in the interaction between mind and world. However, our understanding of the world tells us that it has not changed in any radical way since we appeared and that many of the processes now going on must have been going on long before any sentient or intelligent creatures appeared. So is it not reasonable to infer that the world would have been intelligible if there had been anyone around to understand it? (Note that this is a counter-factual, not a blunt assertion.) — Ludwig V
that gives us an easy way to measure bullshit in this thread. See which group is having an easier time defending their position - the group that's having a harder time of it must be right — flannel jesus
In answer to the second question, the short answer is no. In order to count something as visible it is only necessary to demonstrate that it is capable of being seen. However the best, and arguably only conclusive way to demonstrate that something is capable of being seen is to see it.Must the world be understood in order to be intelligible (able to be understood)? As an analogy, must something be seen in order to be counted as visible? — Janus
Yes. This is very like the argument that Berkeley calls his Master Argument, because he says he will rely on that argument in favour of his idealism above all the others. There's no easy way to crack it. Suppose I protested to you that I do not imagine the dinosaurs without any observer. On the contrary, I imagine myself there as an observer. Does that help?Yes, it is reasonable: but the point is, there was not! What I'm arguing against is the idea that our picture of the world, as we imagine it to be without any observer, still relies on perspective, on there being a viewpoint, which is implicit in the picture of the early universe before life evolved. It is an empirical fact that there is and was the universe before h.sapiens evolved and outside the conception of any human being. But empirical fact still relies on an implicit perspective, which we have tended to absolutize in such a way that we believe it to be 'the way things truly are'. — Wayfarer
What do you mean by "the whole world exists only in and for knowledge"? I certainly don't think that's true of the insensate world; it's not even true of people.And yet, the existence of this whole world remains ever dependent upon the first eye that opened, even if it were that of an insect. For such an eye is a necessary condition of the possibility of knowledge, and the whole world exists only in and for knowledge, and without it is not even thinkable. The world is entirely idea, and as such demands the knowing subject as the supporter of its existence.
You seem to be claiming that the moon, for example, is "embedded in a complex of ideas, concepts and practices". That's true, in a way. But clearly false in another way. The ideas, concepts and practices that you are talking about are the ideas, concepts and practices of human beings about the moon. The moon, in fact, is an element, not a participant, in those activities; human beings are participants. But neither human beings nor moons are only or merely embedded in complexes of ideas, concepts and practices.Whatever we think of as 'existing' is already embedded in a complex of supporting ideas, concepts, practices, and so on. This is so, for anything we can know or identify as an existent. — Wayfarer
One could say that idealists (the eye) mistake the reflection of the moon in a lake for the actual thing. They need to look up, or perhaps out. That is what the eye is designed to do.The necessary contradiction which at last presents itself to us here, finds its solution in the fact that, to use Kant’s phraseology, time, space, and causality do not belong to the thing-in-itself, but only to its phenomena, of which they are the form; which in my language means this: The objective world, the world as idea, is not the only side of the world, but merely its outward side; and it has an entirely different side—the side of its inmost nature—its kernel—the thing-in-itself…But the world as idea… only appears with the opening of the first eye. Without this medium of knowledge it cannot be, and therefore it was not before it. But without that eye, that is to say, outside of knowledge, there was also no before, no time.
I accept that there are boundaries to our knowledge. But these boundaries, like boundaries everywhere are also opportunities to go further. Our knowledge is never complete, finished. Every answer we find generates more questions. We push at the boundaries of what we know and expand what we understand. From time to time, we find that simple expansion is not enough. We find phenomena that do not fit our ideas and concepts - and this is where the unknown and unthought reveals itself. But we don't stop there. We develop new, more comprehensive, ideas that enable us to understand the new anomalies and puzzles, or at least to extract from the data as much understanding as we can. Then, the boundary moves on.This reciprocity, this antinomy, reflects the limits of our faculty of reason when it tries to grasp the world in itself. — Wayfarer
The picture is one thing, the universe is another. Isn’t that obvious? There are some issues there, but that is something of a starting-point for sorting this out.The error is to mistake this picture for something that exists independently of any condition for its appearance—as if meaning and form could simply hover, unperceived, in the void. That, I believe, is the illusion of realism, and why the universe and the mind are truly 'co-arising'. — Wayfarer
I'm not quite sure that I know what you mean by "absolutize" — Ludwig V
I protested to you that I do not imagine the dinosaurs without any observer. On the contrary, I imagine myself there as an observer. Does that help? — Ludwig V
"And yet, the existence of this whole world remains ever dependent upon the first eye that opened, even if it were that of an insect. For such an eye is a necessary condition of the possibility of knowledge, and the whole world exists only in and for knowledge, and without it is not even thinkable. The world is entirely idea, and as such demands the knowing subject as the supporter of its existence."
What do you mean by "the whole world exists only in and for knowledge"? I certainly don't think that's true of the insensate world; it's not even true of people. — Ludwig V
The picture is one thing, the universe is another. Isn’t that obvious? — Ludwig V
Well, if a difficult philosophical point is not worth spending time on, what is?I do understand how difficult this point is, and I genuinely appreciate the seriousness and patience with which you’re engaging it—by now, most people would have thrown up their hands and walked away. But I still hold to the fundamentals of the argument. If there’s a shortcoming, it lies in my own inability to explain it more clearly. — Wayfarer
I'm not very well-versed in Phenomenology. But it points to a key difference in worldviews upon which many of the contentious posts on this forum pivot : Realism vs Idealism. The notion that our world is actually an idea in the Mind of God (world mind), may be unintelligible, not just to secular scientists, but also to many spiritual religionists. It just goes against our intuition of Self vs Other.My position is closer to what might be called a phenomenological form of idealism: it asserts that there is no reality outside of some perspective, not in a merely epistemological sense (i.e., that we only know from a point of view), but in a deeper sense—namely, that the very structure of the world, as intelligible and coherent, is constituted in and through the relation to mind. Not an individual mind, of course, but the noetic act—the perceiving, structuring, and meaning-bestowing – that makes any world appear in the first place. — Wayfarer
I'm not very well-versed in Phenomenology. But it points to a key difference in worldviews upon which many of the contentious posts on this forum pivot : Realism vs Idealism. — Gnomon
Phenomenology...prioritizes the study of conscious experience and how things appear to us... questioning the possibility or necessity of grasping underlying substances. — Gnomon
Brentano defined intentionality as the main characteristic of mental phenomena, by which they could be distinguished from physical phenomena. Every mental phenomenon, every psychological act has content, is directed at an object (the intentional object). Every belief, desire etc. has an object that they are about: the believed, the desired. ... The property of being intentional, of having an intentional object, was the key feature to distinguish psychological phenomena and physical phenomena. — Wiki
In contrast to the outlook of naturalism, Husserl believed all knowledge, all science, all rationality depended on conscious acts, acts which cannot be properly understood from within the natural outlook at all. Consciousness should not be viewed naturalistically as part of the world at all, since consciousness is precisely the reason why there was a world there for us in the first place. For Husserl it is not that consciousness creates the world in any ontological sense—this would be a subjective idealism, itself a consequence of a certain naturalising tendency whereby consciousness is cause and the world its effect—but rather that the world is opened up, made meaningful, or disclosed through consciousness. The world is inconceivable apart from consciousness. Treating consciousness as part of the world, reifying consciousness, is precisely to ignore consciousness’s foundational, disclosive role.
In philosophical idealism, the "mind of God" refers to the idea that the ultimate reality is fundamentally mental or spiritual, and that God's mind is the source and sustainer of all existence. — Gnomon
In answer to the second question, the short answer is no. In order to count something as visible it is only necessary to demonstrate that it is capable of being seen. However the best, and arguably only conclusive way to demonstrate that something is capable of being seen is to see it. — Ludwig V
On the assumption that "intelligible" means "capable of being understood", is the analogy a good one? Showing that one understands something is a good way of showing that it is capable of being understood; that's a parallel with "visible". But there is also a difference. Seeing something can be completed - one can reach a point at which one has actuallly seen whatever it is. But understanding is (usually) incomplete - there is almost always further that one could go. Usually, we settle for an understanding that is adequate for the context and do not worry about whether our understanding is complete.
So the answer is (as it usually is with analogies) the parallel is partial. Yet it is somewhat strange that we also use "see" to describe understanding as well as vision. So perhaps there is more to be said. — Ludwig V
I am not arguing that [idealism] means that ‘the world is all in the mind’. It’s rather that, whatever judgements are made about the world, the mind provides the framework within which such judgements are meaningful. So though we know that prior to the evolution of life there must have been a Universe with no intelligent beings in it, or that there are empty rooms with no inhabitants, or objects unseen by any eye — the existence of all such supposedly unseen realities still relies on an implicit perspective. What their existence might be outside of any perspective is meaningless and unintelligible, as a matter of both fact and principle.
Hence there is no need for me to deny that the Universe is real independently of your mind or mine, or of any specific, individual mind. Put another way, it is empirically true that the Universe exists independently of any particular mind. But what we know of its existence is inextricably bound by and to the mind we have, and so, in that sense, reality is not straightforwardly objective. It is not solely constituted by objects and their relations. Reality has an inextricably mental aspect, which itself is never revealed in empirical analysis. — Wayfarer
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