Physics tells us that there are no public physical objects. So what’s going on? Here’s how I think about it. I can talk to you about my headache and believe that I am communicating effectively with you, because you’ve had your own headaches. The same thing is true as apples and the moon and the sun and the universe. Just like you have your own headache, you have your own moon. But I assume it’s relevantly similar to mine. That’s an assumption that could be false, but that’s the source of my communication, and that’s the best we can do in terms of public physical objects and objective science..
Like Kant, Hegel believed that we do not perceive the world or anything in it directly and that all our minds have access to is ideas of the world—images, perceptions, concepts. For Kant and Hegel, the only reality we know is a virtual reality. Hegel’s idealism differs from Kant’s in two ways. First, Hegel believed that the ideas we have of the world are social, which is to say that the ideas that we possess individually are utterly shaped by the ideas that other people possess. Our minds have been shaped by the thoughts of other people through the language we speak, the traditions and mores of our society, and the cultural and religious institutions of which we are a part. Geist is Hegel’s name for the collective consciousness of a given society, which shapes the ideas and consciousness of each individual.
I can talk to you about my headache and believe that I am communicating effectively with you, because you’ve had your own headaches. The same thing is true as apples and the moon and the sun and the universe. Just like you have your own headache, you have your own moon. But I assume it’s relevantly similar to mine. That’s an assumption that could be false, but that’s the source of my communication, and that’s the best we can do in terms of public physical objects and objective science.
"Monad" means that which is one, has no parts and is therefore indivisible. These are the fundamental existing things, according to Leibniz. His theory of monads is meant to be a superior alternative to the theory of atoms that was becoming popular in natural philosophy at the time.
Gottfried Leibniz's theory of pre-established harmony (French: harmonie préétablie) is a philosophical theory about causation under which every "substance" only affects itself, but all the substances (both bodies and minds) in the world nevertheless seem to causally interact with each other because they have been created by God in advance to "harmonize" with each other.
There is no sun or moon unless a conscious mind perceives them, for both are constructs of consciousness, icons in a species-specific user interface. To some this seems a patent absurdity, a reductio of the position, readily contradicted by experience and our best science. But our best science, our theory of the quantum, gives no such assurance. And experience once led us to believe the earth flat and the stars near. Perhaps, in due time, mind-independent objects will go the way of flat earth. — Donald Hoffman
Per Leibniz, there is no connecting cross-piece. The explanation for the coordinated movement is God.
Tune in later for a more esoteric explanation.
What science?The idea that 'extended entities are infinitely divisible' makes complete sense to me and has been borne out by science, I think. — Wayfarer
What is the "original image" you mentioned? A monad? Or God?But the problem is conceiving of what it is that is *not* extended. It's more like a 'principle of unity' than an actual numerical unit of something. Here's one analogy from modern technology - if a holographic image is broken, then each part of resulting pieces contains the whole image, but at a slightly lower resolution. So the original image may be physically divided but still retain its 'wholeness'. I think that is nearer the idea than 'solidity' which is too much like atomism. — Wayfarer
I haven't read Leibniz, but I'm wondering if the esoteric explanation is that the role God is playing is from our perspective like (rather crudely) someone spinning and balancing plates on top of poles, and has to tweak them all continuously to keep them balanced. Each plate could represent an atom. God could delegate the tweaking to a team of angels, infact many teams and hierarchies, these could be the kingdoms of nature. I mean the transcendent spirits in nature not their outer casing(expression) or physical vehicles? — Punshhh
The idea that 'extended entities are infinitely divisible' makes complete sense to me and has been borne out by science, I think".
— Wayfarer
"What science? — Mongrel
What is the "original image" you mentioned? A monad? Or God? — Mongrel
obviously, Hoffman does not appeal to 'god', in his theory, the process is driven by natural selection. But in other respects I think the schemes map quite well. — Wayfarer
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