Could that pre-conscious era be described metaphorically as Gestation : the period between Conception and Birth? — Gnomon

It could. The question would be what impact would that have on how one thought about that process. I'm very suspicious of the idea that we, or the universe, are progressing anywhere - though I know full well that things are always in the process of change. Everything changes, except change itself.

Yet, the question remains : did cosmic Mind exist before the emergence of embodied personal Minds? Or, as some postulate, did our accidental (fortuitous) collective human minds merge into a Cosmic Mind? — Gnomon

I can't think of a Cosmic Mind except as a huge version of the collective mind that seems to emerge in crowds.

Personally, I am not inclined to worship a sentient world, or the implicit Inventor of a "mind-created world", nor to join a social group centered on a relationship with a Cosmos that doesn't communicate or correspond with me. I'm just exploring the wider world to satisfy my own philosophical curiosity. Am I missing some deeper meaning here? :smile: — Gnomon

I feel much the same - especially about worshipping anything. You may be missing a deeper meaning, but at least you are not pursuing chimeras.

For Galileo, how things appeared, on the other hand - color, taste, scent, and so on - were assigned to the mind of the individual. So here was a dualism of a completely different kind to what you're suggesting - between the measurable attributes of bodies, understood as objectively real, the same for all observers, as opposed to how they appeared, which was assigned to the individual mind, and so 'subjectivised'. This is the genesis of the 'Cartesian division' which has been subject to much commentary. — Wayfarer

My main point is to push back against the view that what we call science reveals reality, and replace it with the view that it is based on a "construction" of reality which is not, philosophically at least, any different from any other. (That's not quite right.) The historical changes were the result of a changed methodology - everything revolves around that; that was the hinge, if you like.
I'm not quite sure what you mean by the dualism of a completely different kind; all I was trying to do was to puncture a balloon - or undermine a claim to special status. I'm in pursuit of a more nuanced approach to reality vs appearance.

It was essential to leave out or subtract subjective appearances and the human mind -- as well as human intentions and purposes -- from the physical world in order to permit this powerful but austere spatiotemporal conception of objective physical reality to develop. — Mind and Cosmos, Pp 35-36

That's well expressed. This conception seems much less exceptional when it is spoken of as a conception and by implication one possibility among others. But then, no-one, I think, could say that it was not worth developing, even if there were downsides. On yet the other hand, it has morphed several times since then and seems in the process of morphing again.

Buddhism has always been aware of the way the mind creates (or constructs) our world. That is why there has been extensive consultation between contemporary Buddhist scholarship, psychologists, and neuroscience (see The Mind-Life Institute). But Buddhism doesn't rely on scientific apparatus to attain its insights - it relies on highly-trained awareness to discern these insights about the constructive activities of the mind – although, that said, neuroscientists have devoted resources to exploring the effects of meditation on the mind: — Wayfarer

Yes. I have a lot of time for the diagnosis that Buddhism proposes. But I get stuck on the idealism. I think there is a problem about the idea that the mind "constructs" the world; it's somewhat better when it is our world or the lived world. But that leaves the world simpliciter in the shadows, which seems wrong, somehow. I realize we can't simply say that the mind reveals the world, but I don't think it is really meaningful to say that the mind constructs the world, either. It's obviously not mean literally.

From the reactions to this OP, I'm realizing that it's a very difficult argument to present clearly. Broadly speaking, it's a transcendental argument—that is, it begins not with claims about what exists, but with an analysis of experience and cognition, and then asks: what must be the case for such experience to be possible? (This is why it is epistemological rather than ontological. — Wayfarer

Yes, it certainly is difficult. I think I have a sort of understanding what "transcendental" means or might mean. But I don't really understand the form of this analysis, except in a confused and intuitive way.

One of the key implications is that we are not passive observers of a pre-given world, but active participants in the constitution of the world as we know and live it. To grasp this, we have to reflect on the role our own minds play in shaping the structures of experience—our world of lived meanings. This is precisely where phenomenology enters the picture, since it offers a disciplined way of examining experience from within, rather than assuming it as something merely external or objective. Hence the requirement for a changed perspective, not simply the acquisition of some propositional knowledge. — Wayfarer

Yes, I take that. I don't say I altogether understand it, but there are things about it that make some sense. But how does this fit with Buddhism and meditation?

Where does the measure 'years' originate, if not through the human experience of the time taken for the Earth to rotate the Sun? — Wayfarer

There are lots of fascinating complications, starting with the obvious point that a year on Mars or Venus is different, and a year on the moon is different again and differently conceptualized; then one wonders how long a year would be on the sun. However, I take your point, in a way. Yet I also find myself reflecting that there must be something real - not constructed, but recognized - about the Earth's orbiting the sun, no matter how we conceptualize it.

what must be the case for such experience to be possible? — Wayfarer

I'm afraid I'm prone to afterthoughts. Our problem can be thought of as a kind of antinomy. Our language seems to me to point beyond itself, over and over again. Which seems to be impossible.
We learnt from Wittgenstein's discussion of ostensive definition that pointing is not self-explanatory; it has to be interpreted, and that requires a framework (Wittgenstein says that we need to know "where the word is stationed in the language"). What if it were the case that the existence of a mind-independent world to which we have some sort of access must be the case for our language (and perception, not to mention action) to be possible? Would it be possible for phenomenology that has "bracketed" the external world to recognize that?

Yes, according to modern cosmology, the physical universe existed for about 10 billion years without any animation or "cognition" : just malleable matter & causal energy gradually evolving & experimenting with new forms of being ; ways of existing. — Gnomon
Where does the measure 'years' originate, if not through the human experience of the time taken for the Earth to rotate the Sun? — Wayfarer

Obviously, the human mind is doing the measuring in terms of locally conventional increments. But the point is that the physical universe existed long before metaphysical minds. So, logically, the mechanisms of Physics must have had the Potential (the "right stuff") for mental functions all along. Apparently, it just took Time to evolve mental mechanisms (thinking organisms) from the raw materials of Matter & Energy, wondrously produced by the explosion of a long long long ago Black Hole Singularity. Something from What-thing?

Yet, where did that un-actualized pre-bang Potential come from? Is that unknowable Source of Probability (creative power) temporal or eternal? Is it Mathematical (statistical) or Mental (ideal) or Spiritual (G*D)? How and why did the evolving universe of mostly simple hydrogen atoms assemble simple holons (parts) into complex wholes that can self-reflect, and can imagine countless balls of radiant energy (stars) as a living & thinking Cosmos?

Some scientists are now exploring the notion that the Cosmos is a computer*1, processing Information (raw data) into complex Forms with novel functions, such as Thinking & Feeling. But who or what is the Programmer that set-up the system to pursue a Teleology leading to observant & reflective Minds? How do those mindful brains create an ideal mental world within the real physical world? :smile:

PS___ Which came first Mind or Potential?


*1. The idea that the universe is a computer is a fascinating and complex concept explored in digital physics and simulation theory. It suggests that the universe operates based on fundamental principles of computation, where physical laws and processes can be understood as algorithms and information processing. While not universally accepted, this idea has gained traction, particularly with the development of quantum computing and the exploration of the universe's computational capacity.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=universe+is+a+computer

Obviously, the human mind is doing the measuring in terms of locally conventional increments. But the point is that the physical universe existed long before metaphysical minds. — Gnomon

The point I'm pressing is the distinction between the empirical facts of science, which I'm not disputing in the least, and the grounding of these facts in the philosophical and scientific framework through which we understand them. That argument is that our knowledge of the physical universe (world, object) is not knowledge of the universe as it is in itself but of how it appears to us.

Western culture has a preoccupation with finding the primary ground or fundamental state, being or thing, but nowadays conceived as first in series of material and efficient causes. I'm not pursuing an understanding of a first cause in that sense (whether scientific or theistic).

That’s why I’ve referred to Kant, and to Husserl’s critique of the “natural attitude.” What I’m exploring isn’t an alternative physical theory — it’s a philosophical inquiry into the possibility of meaning, including the meaning of physical theories. And also an argument against the sense that science sees the world as it truly is outside any perspective.

what must be the case for such experience to be possible?
— Wayfarer

I'm afraid I'm prone to afterthoughts. Our problem can be thought of as a kind of antinomy. — Ludwig V

Precisely! A couple of pages back I quoted a long passage from Schopenhauer which says exactly that (this post).

But how does this fit with Buddhism and meditation? — Ludwig V

Because a major point of mindfulness is to understand how the mind creates your world. This is a snippet from an essay on 'emptiness' in Buddhist meditation. It means, among other things, empty of presuppositions or inferred meanings.

Emptiness is a mode of perception, a way of looking at experience. It adds nothing to and takes nothing away from the raw data of physical and mental events. You look at events in the mind and the senses with no thought of whether there's anything lying behind them.

This mode is called emptiness because it's empty of the presuppositions we usually add to experience to make sense of it: the stories and world-views we fashion to explain who we are and the world we live in. Although these stories and views have their uses, the Buddha found that some of the more abstract questions they raise — of our true identity and the reality of the world outside — pull attention away from a direct experience of how events influence one another in the immediate present. Thus they get in the way when we try to understand and solve the problem of suffering.

Ultimately in the Buddhist analysis the cause of suffering is clinging or holding to possessions, sensations, ideologies - attachment, generally speaking. This is an incessant mental activity. Notice also the similarity to the phenomenological epochē or suspension of judgement.

I'm in pursuit of a more nuanced approach to reality vs appearance. — Ludwig V

As am I! The main point being that in the early modern scientific worldview, the division of subject and object was fundamental but also concealed. Kant and later, phenomenology, seeks to make explicit this division and to re-instate the role of the subject in the construction of knowledge.

I get stuck on the idealism — Ludwig V

There is a school of Mahāyāna Buddhism (the form of Buddhism common to Tibet and East Asia, distinct from the Theravada schools of southern Asia) called Yogācāra or Vijñānavāda. This is usually translated as 'mind-only Buddhism'. It is by no means universally accepted in Buddhism (and not at all by Theravada Buddhism). But it is philosophically rich and many comparisions have been made between it, and Berkeleyian and Kantian idealism. You can find the Wikipedia entry here.

It's obvious what it means to say there was a universe prior to observers...it means, if true, that there was a universe prior to observers. — Janus

According to the concept "universe", there was a universe prior to observers. But many aspects of that concept indicate to us that it is a misrepresentation of reality. It's really a false premise. So it doesn't mean a whole lot, that the implication of that false premise, is that there was a universe prior to observers.

Similarly we know what it means for something to exist, and it doesn't depend on the existence of humans. — Janus

This is highly doubtful. "To exist" is very clearly a concept structured around human experience. If you think otherwise, I'd be interested to see a good explanation of "existence" which wasn't based in human experience. And a simple definition which begs the question would not qualify as a good explanation.

So, logically, the mechanisms of Physics must have had the Potential (the "right stuff") for mental functions all along. — Gnomon

Obviously. Consequently, we are inescapably part of the universe that we observe and interact with. There is an understanding of this that says that our waking up was actually the universe waking up. I think that's over-doing it a bit, but it is better than the idea we are alien visitors. Yes, we are thrown into it. But that doesn't mean we don't belong. If we were not adapted to survive and thrive in this universe, we would have disappeared long ago.

As am I! The main point being that in the early modern scientific worldview, the division of subject and object was fundamental but also concealed. Kant and later, phenomenology, seeks to make explicit this division and to re-instate the role of the subject in the construction of knowledge. — Wayfarer

I'm not sure why you say it was concealed. Surely everybody knew about it, and everyone (except, possibly, for a few marginal eccentrics) accepted it. On the other hand, it's true that the 17th and 18th centuries were not terribly conscious of the process that goes on to enable us to perceive and reason, so the turn of the 19th century in focusing more on the subject was indeed needed.

Emptiness is a mode of perception, a way of looking at experience. It adds nothing to and takes nothing away from the raw data of physical and mental events. You look at events in the mind and the senses with no thought of whether there's anything lying behind them.

That does sound like a phenomenological project, though the motivation is not theoretical in the sense that phenomenology is. The cessation of desire and the pursuit of truth are not the same.
But the language here confuses me. The first sentence is ambiguous. Experience can even be understood as common sense experience of shoes and ships and sealing-wax. The second sense introduces raw data. I don't believe we ever experience raw data; the uninterpreted experience is a mirage. Interpreting the last sentence takes us on a long, familiar journey without a destination.

Although these stories and views have their uses, the Buddha found that some of the more abstract questions they raise — of our true identity and the reality of the world outside — pull attention away from a direct experience of how events influence one another in the immediate present. Thus they get in the way when we try to understand and solve the problem of suffering.

An excellent example of distracting questions is the question of idealism, which is presented front and centre in the previous quotation. Now, I can make sense of this as a variant on "kicking away the ladder" exemplified in the Tractatus. But it seems a side-issue beside the real project of abandoning attachments, such as possessions and ideologies; I can't see why that requires accepting idealism even temporarily.

Ultimately in the Buddhist analysis the cause of suffering is clinging or holding to possessions, sensations, ideologies - attachment, generally speaking. This is an incessant mental activity. Notice also the similarity to the phenomenological epochē or suspension of judgement. — Wayfarer

I get quite confused about whether the aim is to end mental activity or give up one's attachment to it and in it. Both of these are hard to distinguish from ceasing to live. As to the epoche, it is clearly a cousin or something. You see, presented with this relationship, my first thought is to clarify the differences, and there are plenty of those.

You probably want to say "Shut up and meditate". I think I may be unusually attached to realism because I was brought up to believe that the material, physical universe is an illusion. I woke up as I grew up, but it was an important process in my teen-age life. Most people, I think, are allowed to grow up as naive realists, so their reaction to idealism may well be different.

... and here's my afterthought. I can understand "emptiness" as meaning something like the idea that things and events do not, in some sense, have the significance or importance or weight that common sense attributes to them. That would enable one to abandon desire. (That would be a parallel to the stance that Western scientists and phenomenologists attempt.) But the difficulty with that is that it makes compassion hard to understand.

According to the concept "universe", there was a universe prior to observers. But many aspects of that concept indicate to us that it is a misrepresentation of reality. It's really a false premise. So it doesn't mean a whole lot, that the implication of that false premise, is that there was a universe prior to observers. — Metaphysician Undercover

I don't see how the idea that there was a universe prior to observers is a misrepresentation of reality.

I don't see how the idea that there was a universe prior to observers is a misrepresentation of reality. — Ludwig V

What I said is that the concept "universe" is a misrepresentation of reality. There is much evidence to support this claim, things like spatial expansion, and dark matter, demonstrate that what we think of as "the universe" is not an acceptable representation.

Under that representation, there was necessarily "a universe" prior to observers, and so that is a valid conclusion. However, "universe" is clearly a false concept, in the sense of correspondence, so the conclusion ought to be dismissed as unsound.

The expansion of space and dark matter are indeed among the many issues that seem likely to change what we know about the universe. But there is not, so far as I know, any actual reason to think that the universe only began when observers evolved. At present, the evidence says that it began long before that happened, so I'lI stick with that conclusion until some actual evidence against it turns up. Let's not get ahead of ourselves.

The expansion of space and dark matter are indeed among the many issues that seem likely to change what we know about the universe. — Ludwig V

It's not a matter of changing what we know about the universe, it's a matter of "the universe" being a false conception. There is no such thing. For analogy, consider ancient people who saw the sun, moon, and planets orbiting the earth. What you say here, is like if someone back then said "indeed, retrogrades are among the many issues that seem likely to change what we know about the way that these bodies orbit the earth". Do you see how this is the wrong attitude? It is not the case that we "need to change what we know about the universe". The whole conception needs to be changed from the bottom up, like a Kuhnian paradigm shift, but even more radical.

The point I'm pressing is the distinction between the empirical facts of science, which I'm not disputing in the least, and the grounding of these facts in the philosophical and scientific framework through which we understand them. That argument is that our knowledge of the physical universe (world, object) is not knowledge of the universe as it is in itself but of how it appears to us. — Wayfarer

Personally, I have a very parochial view of the world. Except for four years in the navy, my body, with its sensory organs, has seldom experienced the wider world beyond my location, within a radius of a few miles, on the North American continent. Since I live in a small city, I seldom see any stars, except for Venus. So, my "knowledge of the physical universe" is not "as it is in itself", but as reported by humans who have made it their business to explore parts of the universe beyond my ken.

Presumably, those reports --- from scientists, philosophers, explorers --- describe the universe "as it appears" to them. From those varied accounts, I have stitched together a worldview of my own. But, it's still a patchwork, and not knowledge of the world "as it is". And Kant concluded that Ultimate Reality (noumenon) is fundamentally unknowable to humans. He seems to be implying that philosophers are just ordinary humans, who have made it their business to guess (speculate) about non-phenomenal noumena.

And yet, mystics, shamen, prophets, psychonauts, etc, have claimed to see beyond the limits of human senses, with introspection, or extra-sensory perception, or drugs that dull the left brain (rational mind). Should I take their reports as descriptions of what the world is really truly like --- or as it "appears to them"? :wink:

It's not a matter of changing what we know about the universe, it's a matter of "the universe" being a false conception. It's not a matter of changing what we know about the universe, it's a matter of "the universe" being a false conception. There is no such thing. — Metaphysician Undercover

In a sense, I already think that there is no such thing as the universe. The "universe" overlaps with "the world" and "the cosmos" and does not mean anything concrete except "everything that exists". That doesn't make much sense to me. But people will keep using it and continually protesting to deaf ears is boring to me and others. So I go along with it.

For analogy, consider ancient people who saw the sun, moon, and planets orbiting the earth. What you say here, is like if someone back then said "indeed, retrogrades are among the many issues that seem likely to change what we know about the way that these bodies orbit the earth". — Metaphysician Undercover

I'm clearly not as excited as you are about these things. But I don't understand what is going on, except that there is a lot of controversy which I do not understand and cannot understand, I'm told, unless I have at least two degrees in physics. Forgive me if I am more laid back about it than you are.
But you are missing my point. Take your analogy. Suppose someone had said to us just before Copernicus published that everything that we think we know about the sun, moon and stars is wrong. No reaction. Compare someone saying to us in 1690, after Newton's Principia was published, that everything had changed. I would pay attention. Same here. Give me answers that I can get my head around in language that I speak, then I'll pay attention.

Do you see how this is the wrong attitude? It is not the case that we "need to change what we know about the universe". The whole conception needs to be changed from the bottom up, like a Kuhnian paradigm shift, but even more radical. It is not the case that we "need to change what we know about the universe". The whole conception needs to be changed from the bottom up, like a Kuhnian paradigm shift, but even more radical. — Metaphysician Undercover

No, I don't see what is wrong with my attitude. You aren't telling me anything. You are promising that you will be telling me something at some point in the future. Back in the day, a Kuhnian paradigm shift was the most radical change possible, and the scientific revolution was precisely a change in the whole conception of the universe and the place of human beings in it. So I understand it will be quite something. I'm waiting. In the mean time, life goes on.

And Kant concluded that Ultimate Reality (noumenon) is fundamentally unknowable to humans. He seems to be implying that philosophers are just ordinary humans, who have made it their business to guess (speculate) about non-phenomenal noumena. — Gnomon

It’s more a question of intellectual humility - no matter how much we know there’s still a sense in which we lack insight into how things really are. Human knowledge is necessarily incomplete, in that sense.

I get quite confused about whether the aim is to end mental activity or give up one's attachment to it and in it. Both of these are hard to distinguish from ceasing to live. As to the epoche, it is clearly a cousin or something. You see, presented with this relationship, my first thought is to clarify the differences, and there are plenty of those.

You probably want to say "Shut up and meditate". — Ludwig V

I've given up on meditation. I attempted to practice it for many decades, having a disciplined routine of getting up an sitting in a customary 'zazen' position for anything up to 45 minutes (which was often excruciating, but then that's part of it.) About five years ago, the practice just fell away, and besides, I was never a disciplined yogi. My lifestyle remains pretty 'bougie' (a word I picked up from my adult son). I've tried to return to it a few times, but I can no longer assume the customary posture, and just sitting on a chair seems lacking. Due to books like 'The Miracle of Mindfulness', it's presented as a panacea, the end to all woes. But if you read the original text of mindfulness meditation, the Satipatthana Sutta, you will see that in context it is a very exacting discipline, conducted as part of a regimen of discipline and lifestyle (in which mindfulness, sati, is one leg of a tripod, the others being morality, sila, and wisdom, panna.)

All that said, something remains. My initial discovery of meditation involved a confluence of reading and practice which really did trigger some epiphanies. I used to see visiting teachers some of whom really did precipate awakening experiences. I was enrolled in comparative religion and studying what I understood as the enlightenment vision, and I really do believe that this is real. (Believing that is not necessarily the same as believing in God.) I have always had the sense of having, in some very distant past, an understanding which was the most important thing in life, the only thing that really needed to be understood. I came to understand this as an intimation of what Vedanta calls self-realisation although I make no claim to have realised a higher state. More like a glimpse or what Plato calls an anamnesis, an un-forgetting of something vital once known.

I can understand "emptiness" as meaning something like the idea that things and events do not, in some sense, have the significance or importance or weight that common sense attributes to them. That would enable one to abandon desire. (That would be a parallel to the stance that Western scientists and phenomenologists attempt.) But the difficulty with that is that it makes compassion hard to understand. — Ludwig V

Excellent insight and completely true. That is why Mayahana Buddhism stresses that emptiness (śūnyatā) and compassion (metta-karuna) are like the two wings of a bird - the bird needs both to take flight.

Scientific objectivity started, in Medieval thought, as a form of philosophical detachment, but it diverges from it, due to the emphasis on the 'primacy of the measurable', which we've already discussed. That is the subject of one of my Medium essays Objectivity and Detachment.

But you are missing my point. Take your analogy. Suppose someone had said to us just before Copernicus published that everything that we think we know about the sun, moon and stars is wrong. No reaction. Compare someone saying to us in 1690, after Newton's Principia was published, that everything had changed. I would pay attention. Same here. Give me answers that I can get my head around in language that I speak, then I'll pay attention. — Ludwig V

Here's the difference between you and I then. You won't go anywhere unless someone, who has already been there, points the way to you, (and gives you answers that you can get your head around). I'll find my own new direction without anyone showing me the way, simply because I apprehend the conventional as wrong. Someone has to be first or no one will ever go. It will not be you.

If you take a bit of time to consider the true nature of time, you'll come to realize that current conceptions of "the universe" have it all wrong.

You aren't telling me anything. You are promising that you will be telling me something at some point in the future. — Ludwig V

You are not paying attention. I'm not promising to provide for you something new, in the future. I am telling you that what others are providing for you today, and in the past, is wrong. That's it, that's all, no promise concerning the future. I expected that you are capable of crafting your own future. But now you demonstrate that you'll only go where someone else has already been, and this casts doubt on that expectation.

So I understand it will be quite something. I'm waiting. In the mean time, life goes on. — Ludwig V

I see, you like to wait and let life go on. You are not prepared to take the bull by the horns are you?

You are not prepared to take the bull by the horns are you? — Metaphysician Undercover

It depends on the bull.

If you take a bit of time to consider the true nature of time, you'll come to realize that current conceptions of "the universe" have it all wrong. — Metaphysician Undercover

OK. Enlighten me.

I've given up on meditation. — Wayfarer

So have I. I'm not sure why. I certainly lacked the total commitment that seems to be expected in the literature. There's a hint (which I think that those who write about it would reject) that one needs to abandon everything else to do it properly, but I thought that the point was to do everything else properly. I read quite a lot about Zen, which I discovered through Alan Watts and Thich Nhat Hanh. The value of that was that it gave me a counter-weight to the idea that it is essential to get one's ideas sorted out before anything else, i.e. philosophy. (It is obviously needed. Otherwise, one has to face the question how to live while working out how one should live?)

I was enrolled in comparative religion and studying what I understood as the enlightenment vision, and I really do believe that this is real. — Wayfarer

I've never studied comparative religion systematically, so I try not to pontificate about it. My founding texts were Aldous Huxley "The Perennial Philosophy" and William James' "The Varieties of Religious Experience". I know enough to know that there are varieties of the enlightenment vision. It seems at least possible that there is a core experience, which can be interpreted differently in different intellectual contexts. (Yet one its features is the down-grading of the intellect.) Whether the "core" experience itself is the same in all contexts or not seems unclear to me. A common element is that it is self-certifying. I'm extremely sceptical about that. For me, validation of the experience comes back to ordinary life and its effects on that.

But if you read the original text of mindfulness meditation, the Satipatthana Sutta, you will see that in context it is a very exacting discipline, conducted as part of a regimen of discipline and lifestyle (in which mindfulness, sati, is one leg of a tripod, the others being morality, sila, and wisdom, panna.) — Wayfarer

Yes. I suspect that the suggestion that one can just simply sit and wait for something to happen is unhelpful. Something probably will, in the end, but there is no telling what it will amount to. There needs to be a mind-training as well, and that implies a community around one. I've never found that. Things might have been different if I had.

Scientific objectivity started, in Medieval thought, as a form of philosophical detachment, but it diverges from it, due to the emphasis on the 'primacy of the measurable', which we've already discussed. That is the subject of one of my Medium essays Objectivity and Detachment. — Wayfarer

I don't think that "detachment" is univocal, although we often speak as if it were. The detachment of a judge in court is different from the detachment of a scientist or philosopher, is different from that of a Buddhist (or a Hindu) sitting in meditation and so on.

That argument is that our knowledge of the physical universe (world, object) is not knowledge of the universe as it is in itself but of how it appears to us. — Wayfarer

I don't see any way of breaking out of the dilemma between idealism and realism, so I think we ought not to treat that distinction for granted, but articulate it more carefully so that the antimony doesn't arise. I'll try to articulate more later.

My lifestyle remains pretty 'bougie' (a word I picked up from my adult son). — Wayfarer

Afterquestion. What does "bougie" mean?

I'm waiting. In the mean time, life goes on. — Ludwig V

Yes. I suspect that the suggestion that one can just simply sit and wait for something to happen is unhelpful. — Ludwig V

What does "bougie" mean? — Ludwig V

bourgeois

It means to be inclined toward luxury

Thanks.

I'm sorry I annoyed you so much. There's little I can do about, except to refuse to engage in order to avoid escalating your annoyance.

And Kant concluded that Ultimate Reality (noumenon) is fundamentally unknowable to humans. He seems to be implying that philosophers are just ordinary humans, who have made it their business to guess (speculate) about non-phenomenal noumena. — Gnomon
It’s more a question of intellectual humility - no matter how much we know there’s still a sense in which we lack insight into how things really are. Human knowledge is necessarily incomplete, in that sense. — Wayfarer

I just came across a quote in the book I'm currently reading, after the author discussed Aldous Huxley's notion : "that our entire perception of reality is a hallucination". That's a strange way to think about the "reality" philosophers have striven to understand rationally for 3000 years. He then quotes neuroscientist David Eagleman :
". . . . what we call normal perception does not really differ from hallucinations, except that the latter are not anchored by external input. . . . . . Instead of reality being passively recorded by the brain, it is actively constructed by it."

That's a big exception for rational thinkers. But does the notion that humans "actively construct" their worldview resonate at all with your concept of a Mind-Created World? :smile:

I'm sorry I annoyed you so much. There's little I can do about, except to refuse to engage in order to avoid escalating your annoyance. — Ludwig V

No apology required, I wasn't annoyed at all. How did you get that idea? I was just alluding to lesson #1 in reply to the request you made:

OK. Enlighten me. — Ludwig V

First lesson in learning about the true nature of time, do not accept determinist, fatalist bullshit like 'wait and see', 'que sera sera'. You can cause real change.

I'm very suspicious of the idea that we, or the universe, are progressing anywhere - though I know full well that things are always in the process of change. Everything changes, except change itself. — Ludwig V

Some secular scientists describe the universe as simply wandering, with no apparent direction or goal. Yet, Theologians tend to take for granted that the world has a goal : A> to produce worshipers that will stroke the imperial ego of the supreme Lord on his heavenly throne ; and/or B> to save those faithful servants from the wrathful destruction of his own imperial Garden of Eden (obviously, Noah's Flood didn't finish the job). Although I was indoctrinated, as a child, with various versions of those options, as an adult, those self-defeating plans don't make any sense to me . . . . except as a capitulation to the win-lose Game of Thrones against a demonic anti-god, with humans as expendable pawns.

However, my own 21st century worldview, acknowledges the Progress that has been made in space-time since the Big Bang : from a dot-like Singularity --- doorway to infinity? --- beginning with nothing-but World-creating Energy & Natural Cosmic Laws to a near-infinite-yet-still-expanding universe full of countless blazing stars, and at least one blue planet of thinking & feeling & philosophizing meat entities. I had come to that conclusion long before I discovered that a 20th century genius had beaten me to it : A.N. Whitehead's Process and Reality*1. :smile:

*1. Evolutionary Process and Cosmic Reality :
Process Metaphysics vs Substance Physics
https://bothandblog8.enformationism.info/page43.html

I can't think of a Cosmic Mind except as a huge version of the collective mind that seems to emerge in crowds. — Ludwig V

My own notion of G*D*2 in a participatory universe is similar to the concept of Group Mind, except that it must also account for a First Cause of some kind to program the Singularity with enough Energy & guiding Laws to produce an evolving sphere of Actualizing Potential. That's where the Mind & Matter potential of Information Theory comes in. :nerd:

*2. G*D :
An ambiguous spelling of the common name for a supernatural deity. The Enformationism thesis is based upon an unprovable axiom that our world is an idea in the mind of G*D. This eternal deity is not imagined in a physical human body, but in a meta-physical mathematical form, equivalent to LOGOS. Other names : ALL, BEING, Creator, Enformer, MIND, Nature, Reason, Source, Programmer. The eternal Whole of which all temporal things are a part is not to be feared or worshiped, but appreciated like Nature.
# I refer to the logically necessary and philosophically essential First & Final Cause as G*D, rather than merely "X" the Unknown, partly out of respect. That’s because the ancients were not stupid, to infer purposeful agencies, but merely shooting in the dark. We now understand the "How" of Nature much better, but not the "Why". That inscrutable agent of Entention is what I mean by G*D.
https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page13.html

David Eagleman :
". . . . what we call normal perception does not really differ from hallucinations, except that the latter are not anchored by external input. . . . . . Instead of reality being passively recorded by the brain, it is actively constructed by it."

That's a big exception for rational thinkers. But does the notion that humans "actively construct" their worldview resonate at all with your concept of a Mind-Created World? — Gnomon

Of course! That's what the whole thread is about. (Maybe I should have called it 'Mind-Constructed World'). It's about how cognitive science validates philosophical idealism. The realisation that what we think is the external world, is constructed, ("synthesised" to use Kant's terminology) by the magnificent hominid forebrain. It's not an hallucination or an illusion, but it does not possess the inherent reality that we accord to it. It arises as a result of the interaction between mind and world.

One of the videos I refer to in the references is Is Reality Real? featuring neuroscientist Beau Lotto (who looks like a Californian surfer), Donald Hoffman (whom we've discussed) Alva Noe, and others. (Richard Dawkins makes a cameo, talking nervously about some 'plot against objectivity'.) I discussed this video with various contributors who couldn't see the point (i.e. 'What do you think it means...?' It means what the OP is about! :grimace: )

But many aspects of that concept indicate to us that it is a misrepresentation of reality. — Metaphysician Undercover

All our science is consistent in indicating that there was a universe, galaxies, star systems, planets and on Earth many organisms, plants, creatures long before there were humans. I see no reason to doubt the veracity of that conclusion.

This is highly doubtful. "To exist" is very clearly a concept structured around human experience. If you think otherwise, I'd be interested to see a good explanation of "existence" which wasn't based in human experience. And a simple definition which begs the question would not qualify as a good explanation. — Metaphysician Undercover

"To exist' is a human concept, as are all other concepts. There is nothing about that concept that necessitates it being confined to the human. Given that we all and some animals manifestly perceive the same environments and things in those environments there is no reason to consider that the concept applies only to what humans have experienced. You seem to be conflating two different things―that 'existence' can be understood to be a linguistically generated concept and the range of the application of that concept.

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All our science is consistent in indicating that there was a universe, galaxies, star systems, planets and on Earth many organisms, plants, creatures long before there were humans. I see no reason to doubt the veracity of that conclusion. — Janus

Consistency doesn't imply truth. We can make very consistent fictions. And even when the story is consistent with empirical sensations, truth is not necessitated. "There is a ghost in the other room" is consistent with something going bump in the night.

Given that we all and some animals manifestly perceive the same environments and things in those environments there is no reason to consider that the concept applies only to what humans have experienced. — Janus

Well then, give me an explanation of what it means to exist, which is not based in human experience, or simply begging the question.

You seem to be conflating two different things―that 'existence' can be understood to be a linguistically generated concept and the range of the application of that concept. — Janus

Sorry, I don't understand what you are accusing me of.

My point is very clear. Human beings have experience. Whether or not other animals have similar experience is irrelevant. Human beings have produced a concept "existence", which is based on their experiences. Any attempt to explain accurately what "existence" means will necessarily reference human experience. That is why I said it is highly doubtful that what it means for something to exist does not depend on human existence. It's very clear to me, and it ought to be for you as well, that "existence" refers to the specific way that we perceive our environment, and nothing else. "Existence" is defined by experience.

Consistency doesn't imply truth. We can make very consistent fictions. And even when the story is consistent with empirical sensations, truth is not necessitated. — Metaphysician Undercover

I haven't said it is necessarily true that a Universe of things existed prior to humans existing. I've said that all the available evidence points to its having existed. You seem to be conflating logical necessity with empirical evidence.

Well then, give me an explanation of what it means to exist, which is not based in human experience, or simply begging the question. — Metaphysician Undercover

To exist is to be real, actual as opposed to imaginary. There are two logical possibilities―either the Universe existed prior to humans or it didn't. Neither is logically provable, since both are logical possibilities. We are left with what the evidence points to―which is that the Universe did exist prior
to humans.

It's very clear to me, and it ought to be for you as well, that "existence" refers to the specific way that we perceive our environment, and nothing else. "Existence" is defined by experience. — Metaphysician Undercover

That is not, in my experience, how 'existence' is generally understood, and it is certainly not how I understand it―it is merely your own idiosyncratic, tendentiously stipulated meaning. There is no reason why others should share your prejudices. If you want to live in your own little echo chamber that's up to you.

I haven't said it is necessarily true that a Universe of things existed prior to humans existing. I've said that all the available evidence points to its having existed. You seem to be conflating logical necessity with empirical evidence. — Janus

Well sure, but my point is that the thing referred to here as "it" is a fiction. Therefore all that evidence does nothing for you. It's like pointing to a whole lot of bumps in the night, and telling me that all the evidence points to there being a ghost in the other room. And you can go right ahead and dismiss any logical arguments which go against what you've concluded through the "available evidence", because you prefer evidence over logical necessity.

What I dispute is the concept of "the universe", I think it's a fiction, like the ghost in the other room. Of course the narrative which supports "the universe" is going to make it look like all the evidence points to the truth of "the universe". And if you neatly ignore all the logical arguments against "the universe", insisting that empirical evidence is more important then logical necessity, you'll be restricted to believing in your fictitious story because all the available evidence points that way.

To exist is to be real, actual as opposed to imaginary. — Janus

This definition is based in human experience. You define "exist" as what is not imaginary. So you base the definition in imagination, and say whatever is not imagination, exists. But that's self-refuting, because your definition is itself imaginary, you are imagining something which is not imaginary, i.e. exists, but by that very definition, it cannot exist. So what you say "exists" cannot exist, by your own definition, because you are just imagining something which is not imaginary. The proposed not-imaginary thing is nothing other than something imagined. This gets you nowhere fast.

There are two logical possibilities―either the Universe existed prior to humans or it didn't. — Janus

You haven't paid attention to what I've said. What I dispute is the truth of "the universe". So your two logical possibilities are irrelevant. It's like saying either you've stopped beating your wife or you haven't. Well, obviously we have to validated the initial proposition first. I readily agree, that under the conception of "the universe", it existed prior to humans. What I disagree with is the truth of "the universe".

So, what we need to determine is whether that conception is an adequate representation of reality. And, I've argued that it clearly is not. There is much evidence like spatial expansion, and dark matter, to indicate that "the universe" is a failure as a concept.

This is why the subject of the thread is very helpful. It can help us to understand that all these concepts like "existence", and "universe", are just constructs derived from our experience. They may be completely misleading in relation to the way reality actually is.

That is not, in my experience, how 'existence' is generally understood, and it is certainly not how I understand it―it is merely your own idiosyncratic, tendentiously stipulated meaning. There is no reason why others should share your prejudices. If you want to live in your own little echo chamber that's up to you. — Janus

Well, I am waiting for someone to explain how "existence" could be understood in any other way. I've provided no "idiosyncratic, tendentiously stipulated meaning" so that charge is false. I've just challenged anyone to provide a description or definition which isn't based in human experience, or simply begging the question, because i strongly believe that is impossible. Your proposal above obviously fails miserably. It provides no basis for any sort of understanding whatsoever, of what "existence" means, only self-contradiction, which is incoherency. So it narrowly avoids begging the question, but only by being incoherent.

Well sure, but my point is that the thing referred to here as "it" is a fiction. Therefore all that evidence does nothing for you. — Metaphysician Undercover

'Universe' just means 'the sum of what exists', so it refers to everything that exists, and is thus not a fiction at all.

And if you neatly ignore all the logical arguments against "the universe", insisting that empirical evidence is more important then logical necessity, you'll be restricted to believing in your fictitious story because all the available evidence points that way. — Metaphysician Undercover

This is very confused. What are the "logical arguments against the universe" exactly? Do you perhaps mean that there is no universe apart from the collection of all existing things inclduing spacetime? If so, I haven't denied that.

This definition is based in human experience. You define "exist" as what is not imaginary. So you base the definition in imagination, and say whatever is not imagination, exists. But that's self-refuting, because your definition is itself imaginary, you are imagining something which is not imaginary, i.e. exists, but by that very definition, it cannot exist. — Metaphysician Undercover

This is just playing with words sophistically. Of course the definition is based in human experience, everything we say is, so your "point" is without a point. The definition of 'existence' is not based in imagination, it is the counterpoint. 'To exist, to be real', only gets its meaning in distinction from 'to be imaginary, to be unreal', just as 'to be imaginary, to be unreal' only gets its meaning from 'to exist, to be real'.

What I dispute is the truth of "the universe". — Metaphysician Undercover

What are you disputing? It's far from clear. Are you claiming that nothing existed prior to humans?

There is much evidence like spatial expansion, and dark matter, to indicate that "the universe" is a failure as a concept. — Metaphysician Undercover

On what basis do you claim that spatial expansion and dark matter indicate that the idea of a universe is a "failed concept". What do you mean by "failed concept"? Did spatial expansion and dark matter exist prior to humans according to you?

concepts like "existence", and "universe", are just constructs derived from our experience. They may be completely misleading in relation to the way reality actually is. — Metaphysician Undercover

Again, it can obviously be said that every concept is derived from experience, in which case noting that is pointless. All our concepts "may be completely misleading in relation to the way reality actually is", but then what could that mean? "Concept', 'misleading', 'in relation to' 'the way reality actually is' are all concepts which we might equally claim to be somehow in error. But then what could that "being in error' even mean and where would that leave us?

I've just challenged anyone to provide a description or definition which isn't based in human experience, or simply begging the question, because i strongly believe that is impossible. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yet you have failed to give any argument for why we should agree with you. What's your argument? So far you are just looking like a blowhard.

'Universe' just means 'the sum of what exists', so it refers to everything that exists, and is thus not a fiction at all. — Janus

That looks very naive to me. If reality includes more than just what exists, then this part of reality is not part of the universe. How would we establish a relationship between the universe, and that part of reality which does not exist?

For example, you seem to imply a separation between what exists and what is fiction. The fictional cannot be part of the universe, by your definition, but we still must afford it some kind of reality which i assume would be somehow outside the universe. What kind of reality does the fictional have, when it is outside the universe?

What are you disputing? — Janus

As I said, I am disputing the concept of "the universe". By that concept, it is correct and coherent to say that the universe existed before there was human life. However, I believe that concept is faulty, and does not provide an accurate representation of reality. Therefore the conclusion that the universe existed before there was human life is unsound, because it is derived from a false premise, that "the universe" provides an accurate representation of reality.

On what basis do you claim that spatial expansion and dark matter indicate that the idea of a universe is a "failed concept". What do you mean by "failed concept"? — Janus

There is much evidence that reality extends beyond what is known as "the universe". If "the universe" is intended to refer to all that is, then the evidence indicates that it is a failed concept.

Again, it can obviously be said that every concept is derived from experience, in which case noting that is pointless. All our concepts "may be completely misleading in relation to the way reality actually is", but then what could that mean? — Janus

It means that we must go beyond experience if we desire to understand the nature of reality. Since many people believe that truth is limited to what can be known from experience (empiricism), but others do not believe this, then it is very important, and not pointless to note this distinction.

So, if you insist that "every concept is derived from experience", then we need to look beyond conceptualization to understand why those people do not believe in empiricism. The reality though, is that not everyone believes that all concepts are derived from experience. Therefore, the fact that "it can obviously be said" that every concept is derived from experience is what is pointless, because people can say whatever they want.

Yet you have failed to give any argument for why we should agree with you. What's your argument? So far you are just looking like a blowhard. — Janus

Yes, I'm blowing very hard, just like the wind. Be careful, the wind can be dangerous. But I'm still waiting for a definition of "existence" which would prove that I am wrong. Unless you can provide me with one, I think that's a good argument for why you should agree with me.

Yes, I'm blowing very hard, just like the wind. — Metaphysician Undercover

:rofl: You seem more like a sailor whose ship is stuck motionless on a windless sea. You have a set of oars which would give you enough purchase to get you moving, but you don't realize it and instead stand in front of the sails futilely blowing at them.