Life philosophy doesn't care about whether or not the speaker's opinions have any relevance to the world. It cares about the speaker himself, and what importance such opinions as: 'the world sucks' or 'the world is golden', have for the speaker himself. — Merkwurdichliebe

I hear you, but I think there is an entanglement.

I've noticed that depressed/anguished people tend to be self-obsessed or at least not that interested in anything impersonal. A 'true' philosopher takes the impersonal personally.

This has very little relevance to the physical or logical structure of the world, or any philosophical explanation. But for you, in your life, it has great importance. — Merkwurdichliebe

That's a good point. But why is that irrelevance relevant to you? From my POV we both share a similar interest in something that is bigger than us, the structure of the world, the way things are.

We are doing a kind of psychology. So what I take seriously is important information for me as I try to understand the world. In understanding the world, I need to understand why I take understanding the world seriously. (Nietzsche's will to truth, etc.)

I must register and consider my standpoint as part of the inquiry (to avoid bias if possible, etc.). Having no standpoint perhaps only means that one has been careless/oblivious in this regard. We have to work through our standpoint perhaps.

And what if 'seeing the world aright' is as much a matter of character as it is of logic? How does one prove that it is good to feel free and stand tall? Prove that self-possession is virtuous? What virtue do we target as we take understanding the world seriously? Where does practical utility shade off into 'spiritual' passion?

Life philosophy essentially turns you back upon yourself, and forces you to examine and reflect upon your own life/existence. I might argue that the more exposure one has to the traditions of philosophy, the better the self examination. — Merkwurdichliebe

This is true. But I personally find that turning back into my own depths just led me back out to the wide world. 'I' am only a vessel. The 'I' is the candle and not the flame. This isn't science but a metaphorical framework, a 'spiritual' statement. So it's not I but Christ science, art, and philosophy thru me that matters.

My prejudice is that the cool people meet 'in' science, art, philosophy, and religion. Our higher selves intersect there. (For me religion these days is just blended with the others I mentioned, but I respect those who get their kicks in traditional ways if they respect my unorthodox approach.)

A 'true' philosopher takes the impersonal personally. — g0d

A true philosopher see the usefulness of the useless. I think one thing that makes philosophers special is that they are so paradoxical.

We are doing a kind of psychology. So what I take seriously is important information for me as I try to understand the world. I take my own standpoint into the account. Having no standpoint perhaps only means that one has been careless. We have to work through our standpoint perhaps.

And what if 'seeing the world aright' is as much a matter of character as it is of logic? — g0d

Even if the system cannot be effectively put into practice in life, the individual can theoretically relate himself to it, and this kind of groundwork is indeed a kind of psychology. And if we consider psychology to be intermediate between science and life of the subject, then this is probably where systems philosophy and philosophy of life overlap.

And I think seeing the world aright' is as much a matter of character as it is of logic. But logic pertains much more to a scientific understanding, whereas good character, although it might have corollary benefits and be scientifically explicable, it is infinitely important to me and my life, regardless of any honor, repute, or flattering narrative I may receive.

A true philosopher see the usefulness of the useless. I think one thing that makes philosophers special is that they are so paradoxical. — Merkwurdichliebe

Nice. I agree.

And if we consider psychology to be intermediate between science and life of the subject, then this is probably where systems philosophy and philosophy of life overlap. — Merkwurdichliebe

I like this too. Nietzsche is a great one to consider. Is he a great 'folk' psychologist? I think so. I don't see how thoughtful people can avoid some kind of unofficial and slippery psychology as they try to make sense of the world. At the very least we have to wrestle with ourselves and be on the lookout for rationalization. And we have to model others in order to predict them, make them happy, destroy them if way breaks out. Folk psychology looks central to human life. Status play, etc.

And I think seeing the world aright' is as much a matter of character as it is of logic. But logic pertains much more to a scientific understanding, whereas good character, although it might have corollary benefits and be scientifically explicable, it is infinitely important to me and my life, regardless of any honor or repute I may receive. — Merkwurdichliebe

I agree here too, I think. A physicists can be an asshole and his discoveries don't lose value. But some philosophical discoveries seem to be made possible by this or that character.

Perhaps we often start with intuitions that something is the right or wrong way to go and then find reasons and make a case. Or, as Popper would have it, we get an idea of the way things are first and only then can put it to the test. At some point our identity becomes entangled in being brave enough to expose our views/identities to the fire. The philosopher is different from the prophet in this way. The philosopher prides himself or herself on continuing to listen to reality (and other people.)

This is true. But I personally find that turning back into my own depths just led me back out to the wide world. 'I' am only a vessel. The 'I' is the candle and not the flame. This isn't science but a metaphorical framework, a 'spiritual' statement. So it's not I but Christ science, art, and philosophy thru me that matters. — g0d

This has the sound of a life philosopher. I imagine that the one concerned only with systems, would ignore, reject, or ridicule you for writing this. But something like this, which expresses the importance of your own experience in life, may speak volumes for one interestested in self (perhaps in the betterment of character).

I don't see how thoughtful people can avoid some kind of unofficial and slippery psychology as they try to make sense of the world. At the very least we have to wrestle with ourselves and be on the lookout for rationalization. And we have to model others in order to predict them, make them happy, destroy them if way breaks out. Folk psychology looks central to human life. Status play, etc — g0d

Good point. I think Nietzsche was making the point that folk psychology is historically/geologically embedded in human understanding and natural language, and we all inherit it by birthright. The whole thing with the Ubermensch was to overcome the dominant illusion of folk psychology, and to create your own.

A physicists can be an asshole and his discoveries don't lose value. But some philosophical discoveries seem to be made possible by this or that character. — g0d

I would say if a discovery is valid in itself, it will stand regardless of the character of the physicist or philosopher. Furthermore, I think that many discoveries in both philosophy and physics required a particular character to stumble upon it. I believe Galileo, Newton, and Einstein were known to be quite unique characters.

I would say if a discovery is valid in itself, it will stand regardless of the character of the physicist or philosopher. Furthermore, I think that many discoveries in both philosophy and physics required a particular character to stumble upon it. I believe Galileo, Newton, and Einstein were known to be quite unique characters. — Merkwurdichliebe

That's a good point. Yeah, I guess even the physicists needed a certain character to see the world in a new way.

And I agree a philosophical discovery can stand even if the philosopher loses respect as a person (Heidegger is an obvious example).

I think Nietzsche was making the point that folk psychology is historically/geologically embedded in human understanding and natural language, and we all inherit it by birthright. The whole thing with the Ubermensch was to overcome the dominant illusion of folk psychology, and to create your own. — Merkwurdichliebe

I think I know what you mean here and agree.

The superman is fascinating. I think of 'Him' as a twisted Christ image. What I take away from Nietzsche is ultimately the presentation /celebration / defense of some classic 'masculine' virtues. Now I love Nietzsche, but I am skeptical about creating one's own values. How do we decide which values to create or keep if not by the values we already have?

She isn't modeling herself nor the people she encounters, she is modeling her experiences of herself and of the people she encounters. From her perspective she might say she is directly modeling people and herself, but from anyone else's perspective she is modeling her experiences of people and herself. — leo

If Alice thinks that she and the people she encounters are real (actually existing as a thing or occurring in fact; not imagined or supposed (OED)), then she will model them as being real. Similarly, if others accept that her reported observations and experiences are real (not as imagined or supposed), then they will also model those people as being real.

If you assume she is actually modeling other people, you quickly encounter the problem that these people exist and do not exist at the same time. They exist to Alice, but they do not exist to those who have never met them. Isn't it more coherent to say that she is modeling her experiences of them? — leo

That Carol hasn't met or heard about Bob doesn't imply he doesn't exist. It simply means that Carol has no internal representation for him. If Alice talks to Carol about Bob, then she can model him as well. That's simply knowledge-acquisition, not the creation of Bob for her.

It is impossible to derive from their models that photons of wavelength 460nm stimulating an eye will give rise to an experience of the color blue. It is impossible because they have neglected the human perspective. — leo

From the earlier scenario, "Alice ... finds the nearest seat, choosing to ignore the peeling blue paint that reveals the grey metal underneath." That is an account of Alice's experience in the world from her perspective. The ordinary use of the color term "blue" has its referent in things like the paint on the seat which is what Alice is observing and interacting with.

So I don't think you can say that the human perspective is being neglected above unless you're using "experience" in a private sense (how things seem to you) rather than in its usual public sense (practical contact with things).

What I think this demonstrates is a kind of 'presumptive naturalism', i.e. it arises from the very 'blind spot' at issue. And please don't take this as a pejorative because it's actually a very subtle and important point, and it's not by any means obvious. — Wayfarer

OK. But of course I think the blind spot is the assumption that the subject is not themselves an object, which is dualism. Of relevance to that, I'm curious where you stand on Wittgenstein's private language argument and its implication for private experience.

good character, although it might have corollary benefits and be scientifically explicable, it is infinitely important to me and my life, regardless of any honor, repute, or flattering narrative I may receive. — Merkwurdichliebe

I very much respect this. The good stuff is 'beyond' externals (recognition.) Or at least I am tuned in to the image of a 'superman' who has this kind of purity and independence. When I occasionally chastise myself, it's usually for descending into some kind of pettiness or vanity. It's hard to find the right words for. I don't think the perfect words exist. But we have truly noble characters in our stories.

Returning to the 'monkey see, monkey sometimes do' theme, I suggest that the mere presentation of a noble character is more than half the work. Our philosophical heroes are new possible identities for anyone they come into contact with. And we don't have to adopt them wholesale. We just expose ourselves to lots of noble/lovable personalities and they rub off on us. We synthesize something for our little lives. And our adjustments to our time (if we succeed) might then rub off on others.

From this point of view, literature /TV is a central source of life philosophy. Most if not all of the vital ideas appear there.

But anyway, the polemical point I am working towards is that while naturalism is concerned with what can be explained, metaphysics is concerned with what explains us. It is 'upstream', prior, anterior, or something like that. — Wayfarer

For me the issue is bigger than naturalism. It involves the structure of human cognition. The blind spot of science is the blind spot of religion is the blind spot of philosophy. Then grasping the contingency of the world is also 'the mystical' for some people. Or it's not mystical but just good philosophy.

How is 'what explains us' going to avoid being itself a brute fact? Will we then get 'what explains what explains us' and so on? The usual device is to give the explaining object some kind of weird properties like being prior to time or transconceptual or works-in-mysterious-ways. Now people can take these things as they like, but I find it hard to call such a thing an explanation. I tempted to talk of metaphor or myth as a plush rug under which we can sweep the brute fact.

The blind spot of science is the blind spot of religion is the blind spot of philosophy. Then grasping the contingency of the world is also 'the mystical' for some people. Or it's not mystical but just good philosophy. — g0d

That's too easy a solution. The blind spot is a literal cognitive function, exactly comparable to the optical blind spot, which is caused by where the optical nerve joins the retina. The metaphorical blind spot is a much harder thing to communicate, but it's certainly understood in at least some philosophies much more clearly than in others; specifically, in both Hindu and Buddhist philosophy, there is an aphorism along the lines that 'the eye can see another, but cannot see itself', often elaborated to further cognitive and physical acts - hands, swords, and so on. So it's the basic insight of non-dualism. But it's also close to somethat Kant identified - see that post linked to my reply below about transcendental apperception.

But this insight has now been incorporated in phenomenology, mainly due to Varela and Maturana's pioneering work in The Embodied Mind. That drew on both Husserl and elements of Buddhist abhidharma to elucidate this point - that's the context in which Michel Bitbol explains it. in fact the whole reason I created this OP, is because here at last something is being commented on which I've been talking about on these forums for ten years.

Anyway- there is an end the implied infinite regress that you hint at. But it's not something that can be grasped discursively, as it were - that's one of the points of non-dualism. Not that I'm by any means an adept of it, but enough to see how it resolves the issue of the 'circularity of reference'. Metaphysics requires metanoia, and metanoia requires 'piercing the veil of thought', or realising the limitations of discursive knowledge as a cognitive mode. It's an aspect of philosophy that I believe has been forgotten or neglected.

This can also be framed in the context of the qualitative-quantitative dichotomy. The modern approach has married itself to quantitative understanding, only operating along the horizontal line. One might say such an approach is very one dimensional. — Merkwurdichliebe

Exactly so. Ever heard of a book called 'The Reign of Quantity?' by Rene Guenon? That's what the title is referring to. I wouldn't necessarily recommend it but it's one of those books that is worth knowing about.

Can you provide even one example of a supernatural explanation for any natural phenomenon that stand up to reasonable scrutiny, that we would have any reason at all to accept as true? Can anyone else on here think of any? — Janus

I don't believe in trying to prove ghosts exist, if that's what you mean. I had in mind something more along the lines of Husserl's criticism of naturalism, which I think is close to what is expressed in this post. Have you got the Routledge Intro to Phenomenology, ed. Dermot Moran, by any chance? There's a very good couple of pages on Husserl's critique of naturalism in it. If I had more time I would copy some in.

The metaphorical blind spot is a much harder thing to communicate, but it's certainly understood in at least some philosophies much more clearly than in others; — Wayfarer

I have no objection to this. You yourself use 'metaphorical' here.

Anyway- there is an end the implied infinite regress that you hint at. But it's not something that can be grasped discursively, as it were - that's one of the points of non-dualism — Wayfarer

Let's say you are right. In any case, your end of the infinite regress is indeed transconceptual and/or metaphorical. I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with that. I'm just saying that 'explanation' no longer feels right. It's a lurch into the esoteric and into the Mystery. That's fine. But doesn't this exit the game of reason ? I'm not saying that people ought not exit the game of reason. Not at all.

I guess I resist the attempt to have it both ways. Sometimes it's as if you are blaming science for not being mysticism. Yet the whole point of science is perhaps precisely to keep everything exoteric, testable, as clear as possible. The mathematical models are difficult, but (as Conway and Kant said) math is the stuff that we do understand.

https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/103758/pythagorean-theorem-proof-without-words-request-for-words

For what it's worth, I do think accepting science changes a culture. Politics replaces religion. The vertical dimension is still there, but it is reframed. In a godless, scientific world the 'religion' is moral progress and/or the preservation of the good old ways. And I think with you perhaps that educated people are largely godless these days. We have cultural Christians, etc., but we are mostly of this world, the one we can touch and see. It's this worldliness that I find more important than the 'isms' of a few intellectuals.

Have you got the Routledge Intro to Phenomenology, ed. Dermot Moran, by any chance? There's a very good couple of pages on Husserl's critique of naturalism in it. — Wayfarer

I may have it somewhere, I'll take a look. I''l just say now, though, that I don't believe Husserl had any interest in the supernatural, and I will not be surprised to find that this critique of naturalism is along the lines of emphasizing its irrelevance to a phenomenology of human experience, which I would actually agree with. I mean as I understand it that is precisely what his epoché is all about; avoiding getting tangled up in questions about the existence of an "external" world, or the mind independent reality of phenomena, so as to be able to focus on inquiring into just what phenomena are for us.

Edit: I found what I thought might have been this book, but it is The Phenomenology Reader edited by Dermot Moran and Timothy Mooney. It has selections from Husserl; is the section you are referring to text written by Husserl or by Moran? If the latter then it probably won't be in the reader.

Can the world as whole (which would include any god or principle) be explained? How do we avoid either infinite regress or brute fact at the apex ? — g0d

I only noticed this now. I think, if you look at history, much of the impetus behind modern cosmology has been to arrive at a complete explanation in terms of mathematical physics. I'm only a casual reader of such topics, but it must require absolutely enormous skills and intellect to try and do that. And at this time, as is often discussed, mathematical cosmology is beset by a number of enormous conceptual problems which I know I can't even understand.

I think the 'intuition of being' is rather a different thing, however. I mean, I know you know Heidegger, probably much more than do I, but earlier in this thread I googled his 'forgetfulness of being' and found a very nice reflection on a philosophical website which included this paragraph:

Is it possible to reconcile the uniqueness of human existence with being “at home” in the world? Can we live authentically human lives – ones fundamentally different from those of any other beings – without being compelled to regard ourselves as “aliens”, set apart from the rest of reality? To this question, Heidegger gave a single answer throughout his career, albeit one that was significantly modified. This answer was that we must overcome “the forgetfulness of Being”, for to “recall” and reflect on Being (Sein) enables us both to appreciate our uniqueness and to feel at home in the world.

I think it's in this sort of key, if you like, that philosophy, as distinct from science, considers 'the nature of being' - not as an attempt to arrive at a putative first cause in the sense that science would demand or require, through an analysis of the mass and scope of the Cosmos, but more of an intuitive insight. (That article, by the way, made much of Heidegger's indebtedness to taoism.)

I'm just saying that 'explanation' no longer feels right. It's a lurch into the esoteric and into the Mystery. That's fine. But doesn't this exit the game of reason ? — g0d

I think the task of philosophy, or one of them, is to point out the limits of knowledge. To take you to the border, as it were. That doesn't mean 'the limit to what can be known', as there is an endless procession of things that could be discovered. But it's to point to the limitations of knowledge. Maybe it is mystical, but mainly as a corrective to hubris. 'Mystical' is usually a pejorative in modern discourse,

Naturalism is very much focussed on finding natural explanations for causal relationships - causes, effects, and causal patterns or laws.
— Wayfarer

Naturalism is focused on finding natural explanations for natural phenomena, Can you provide even one example of a supernatural explanation for any natural phenomenon that stand up to reasonable scrutiny, that we would have any reason at all to accept as true? Can anyone else on here think of any? — Janus

If you look at the context in which I was distinguishing the limitations of 'natural', the point I had in mind, was much nearer in terms of meaning, purpose and reason than to 'supernatural' per se. Many of these concepts were suspended or bracketed out of modern science, specifically because of the discovery of the new sciences based on 'primary qualities', and the expulsion of Aristotelian or scholastic notions of final and formal causes. So it's more metaphysical than supernatural, although strictly speaking the words are synonyms. The article touches on that; in post Galilean science, meaning, reason, etc, are assigned to the mind, which is essentially subjective or personal in nature. There's no meaning 'out there anywhere'. But that understanding is itself based around a 'construction' or worldview in which meaning becomes subjective or social, and what is real is energy and matter. And mind is itself a product of those forces. That is what modern materialism says (for which the reference case is Dennett but only in the sense that he consistently argues for the full implications of materialism).

So I wasn't talking about 'supernatural explanations' in the sense of appealing to empirical science to prove something beyond science. But I think philosophy should reflect on the inherent limitations of empirical science, as it is conceived nowadays, as it does tend to engendering a certain attitude or worldview. But the philosophical argument that interests me, is that the very notion of reason and meaning itself overflows the empirical. That is why I keep going back to the reality of numbers, laws, conventions, and so on - all of these kinds of things signify that the mind sees an order behind and beyond the simply empirical; that is why this domain gives rise to the 'a priori' (which is trivialised in analytic philosophy as mere tautology). But modern science tends to think it has a naturalistic explanation for these capacities, namely, that provided by neo-darwinism. That's what my criticism of naturalism is about.

I think the inherent limitations of the strictly empirical scientific method when it comes to investigations of human phenomena; phenomenology, psychology, history, anthropology, economics, and so on is well acknowledged by all but the most hard-nosed adherents of scientism.

Anyway you forgot to tell me where the passage you referred to is.

Naturalism is focused on finding natural explanations for natural phenomena, Can you provide even one example of a supernatural explanation for any natural phenomenon that stand up to reasonable scrutiny, that we would have any reason at all to accept as true? Can anyone else on here think of any? — Janus

If you would consider a supernatural explanatoin had stood up to reasonable scrutiny then you would consider it a natural explanation. What I mean is that we stand here at this particular point in history where certain phenomena are considered natural and validated and others are not. If we go back in time a ways, one could have said that elephants were psychic. Natives and finally one Western scientists noticed patterns in the way they moved, even when separated, as if they could communicate over long, long distances. This was considered not real by most scientists and that the people in question were seeing patterns that were not there. Later it was discovered that they communicated via infrasound.

The word supernatural is misleading and a poor term, I think.

There are phenomena, which perhaps people are correct about or perhaps not. Should they be confirmed within science, then they are natural phenomena. If they remain undemonstrated, then they often get the label supernatural (by both sides) but they are simply undemonstrated, and obviously someone with no experience of the phenomenon or good reasons to think it is likely something other than what the beleive thinks, has no good reason to believe it is real. However this does not mean that others may not have excellent reasons for believing in the phenomenon and their interpretation of it.

What the causes are of this phenomenon are something that might come much later than confirmation that it is real.

If there are ghosts or psychic phenomena or deities or things that continue beyond death or whatever, then these are natural phenomena. Not something beyond nature - unless one means by nature some subset of the real, for some reason.

I think this word 'supernatural' just leads to more confusion.

Anyway you forgot to tell me where the passage you referred to is. — Janus

Heading is Critique of Naturalism p142 (Routledge Intro to Phenomenology Ed. Dermot Moran).

It's basically about how Husserl rejects the idea of treating consciousness as part of the natural world. Also in the Crisis of European Sciences, he both praises and criticises Descartes, first for the discovery of the 'cogito', but then for 'objectifying' (my word) the discovery, as if res cogitans were itself an object of cognition. So this is once again the link to the 'unknown knower, unseen seer' - consciousness as ground of reality, but never disclosed as an object of cognition.

'Naturalism as a theory involves a certain ‘philosophical absolutising’ of
the scientific view of the world (Ideas I § 55); “it is a bad theory regarding
a good procedure”' .

Many other such statements there.

So that's the sense in which I mean 'limits of naturalism' - not in defense of some putative 'super-natural' but because of the unknown nature of the mind which defines 'naturalism' ;-)

For Husserl, naturalism is not just only partial
or limited in its explanation of the world, it is in fact self-refuting, because
it has collapsed all value and normativity into merely physical or psychical
occurrences, precisely the same kind of error made by psychologism when it
sought to explain the normativity of logic in terms of actual, occurrent
psychological states and the empirical laws governing them. The whole
picture is absurd or ‘counter-sensical’ (ein Widersinn) in that it denies the
reality of consciousness and yet is based on assuming the existence of
consciousness to give rise to the picture in the first place (Ideas I § 55). (which is the 'blind spot'!) Or as Husserl says in the 1911 essay: “It is the absurdity of naturalizing
something whose essence excludes the kind of being that nature has” (PRS
107; Hua XXV 29).

I pretty much agree with what you say. But there is an idea of the supernatural which posits or presupposes a transcendent reality, something ontologically more, and even more real, than what can be known via the senses. In the Western tradition this idea seems to begin with Pythagoras and Plato.

I think it's in a way ironical that this idea of a transcendent reality is actually a kind of objective realism, although it is not an object for Plato it was the most real, beyond the "doxa" or ordinary opinions which impute reality to the shadows on the wall of the cave.

We have to bear in mind here that Husserl was a person of the late 19th / early 20th century. He had no concept of neurons nor neural networks and therefore also not of states of consciousness arising from a pattern of neurological activity. Instead he coined the term phenomenons for them, his philosophy is a crutch before the advent of serious neuroscience. Husserl is of historical interest in the history of philosophy, but hardly relevant to this debate.

'The Reign of Quantity?' by Rene Guenon? That's what the title is referring to. I wouldn't necessarily recommend it but it's one of those books that is worth knowing about. — Wayfarer

Never heard of it. Thanks for the lead. And that last line was funny. :lol:

I think it's in a way ironical that this idea of a transcendent reality is actually a kind of objective realism, — Janus

Objective idealism, thank you. Ideas are real, material objects their poor simulacra. (Furthermore I'm sure without this understanding, mass production would never have occurred.)

I learned that Steve Bannon likes it, which bothers me.

We have to bear in mind here that Husserl was a person of the late 19th / early 20th century. — TheArchitectOfTheGods

Poor fellow! A wonder he could tie his shoelaces.

The point was not that our experiences are exactly the same, but that we perceive the same objects and that it can easily be shown that we can all agree about precise qualities and features of those objects. I can only imagine two possible explanations; one is that the objects are mind-independent and the other is that our minds are all connected together in some unknown way. — Janus

I thought I had made clear that we don't perceive the same objects. That when we refer to an object, we don't actually refer to the same perception/experience. You perceive something that you call a cloud, and you perceive someone else that points to it and call it a cloud, so you think that you two perceive the same object. And yet if you spend time discussing with that person you may find out that you two are actually perceiving something quite different. Some people might have a very similar perception to yours, and some others might have a quite different perception.

So what does it mean to say that you are perceiving the same object if you are not perceiving the same thing? All you can really say is that there are many similarities between your experiences and what you infer to be the experiences of others, but if you don't only focus on the similarities you would see that there are also many differences. You may assume that the similarities stem from the existence of mind-independent objects, but you may also assume that the similarities stem from minds being connected in some way, as you mentioned.

But then through your experiences you can actually notice that minds are connected in some way. Because you can influence what others experience, what they perceive, their beliefs, shape their world view, through speech, through what you do. Whereas earlier you were saying that our experiences tell us our minds are not connected, which I don't agree with. And sure this can be accounted for in both frameworks, both the framework of a world of objects existing independently from minds, and the framework where everything is mind-dependent. If our minds are connected in some way, it could be that as we are born and grow up we receive what others experience, which explains the similarities. And then we participate in shaping and creating our own world, and in making it experienced by others.

But the mind-independent framework has a lot of intractable and unsettling problems. In that framework we cannot explain how we can experience anything. We never see things as they are. Free will is very limited or inexistent. Why do these things bother us so much? Maybe because they are not an accurate representation of existence. These problems go away if we stop assuming a mind-independent reality.

If Alice thinks that she and the people she encounters are real (actually existing as a thing or occurring in fact; not imagined or supposed (OED)), then she will model them as being real. Similarly, if others accept that her reported observations and experiences are real (not as imagined or supposed), then they will also model those people as being real. — Andrew M

Sure, and then when others model these people as they experience them, and they find that their model doesn't match that of Alice, then they have a problem: these people are real but they do not appear the same to different people, why is that? So they attempt to find the similarities between their model and that of Alice, and they say that the similarities is what is really real, and the differences are subjective interpretations. And then some time later someone else comes and models these people, but that model doesn't have the same similarities as the other models did. But Alice and some others already agreed on what was real, so this new person is wrong, he is delusional, he ought to accept what is real! And if he doesn't we'll lock him up and attempt to make him see the right way, 'cause we can't have him running around not seeing reality as it really is, y'know.

I pretty much agree with what you say. But there is an idea of the supernatural which posits or presupposes a transcendent reality, something ontologically more, and even more real, than what can be known via the senses. In the Western tradition this idea seems to begin with Pythagoras and Plato. — Janus

Sure, and ironically this includes mathematicians and physicists - not all of course, but some. I suppose it's not ironic about the mathematicians given Pythagorus, but that a significant minority of physicists are neo-platonists, in the hardest science (according to some), is .

I think it's in a way ironical that this idea of a transcendent reality is actually a kind of objective realism, although it is not an object for Plato it was the most real, beyond the "doxa" or ordinary opinions which impute reality to the shadows on the wall of the cave. — Janus

Yes, it is an objective realism, oddly reached as a conclusion deductively, at least by Plato.

But Alice and some others already agreed on what was real, so this new person is wrong, he is delusional, he ought to accept what is real! And if he doesn't we'll lock him up and attempt to make him see the right way, 'cause we can't have him running around not seeing reality as it really is, y'know. — leo

I think the call for the pitchforks might have more to do with a certain kind of temperament than whether one subscribes to realism or not.

The more natural response for an intellectually curious realist would be to investigate why the new person thinks differently to the others given that they're all interacting in the same world.

The more natural response for an intellectually curious realist would be to investigate why the new person thinks differently to the others given that they're all interacting in the same world. — Andrew M

Indeed. Personally I have mostly encountered intellectually incurious realists, who believe they are right and everyone else is wrong, who ridicule and dismiss those who believe differently as cranks, adepts of pseudoscience, believers of supernatural bullshit, brain diseased, delusional, too stupid to see why they are wrong.

Indeed. Personally I have mostly encountered intellectually incurious realists, who believe they are right and everyone else is wrong, who ridicule and dismiss those who believe differently as cranks, adepts of pseudoscience, believers of supernatural bullshit, brain diseased, delusional, too stupid to see why they are wrong — leo

Another way to put this, less sociologically (lol), is to say that people seem to see an excluded middle between full belief and disbelief. There is no 'agnositicism'. Or to put it a different way: it lack of enough evidence is often conflated with disproof. And to come at it a further way there is the assumption. if you have good grounds to believe what you believe then you must be able to, now, convince the majority of scientists it is the case. IOW there can be no instance where your belief is valid where you cannot convince, say, all rational people. The history of rogue waves or animals as experiencers counter this idea, which is unfortunately generally merely assumed not stated.