What's complex about it? Mental phenomena exists and behaves in certain ways. How is it any different to saying that physical things exist in behave in certain ways? — Michael

Things coming into and out of existence depending on whether they are being perceived by a consciouses or not, is hugely complex.

Also, while non-existing, reality clearly creates records. How does it do that while it doesn't exist?

Things coming into and out of existence depending on whether they are being perceived by a consciouses or not, is hugely complex — tom

So pain coming into and out of existence depending on whether it's being perceived by a consciousness or not is hugely complex? Seems simple to me. What would be more complex (or, incoherent, really) is there being pain even when it's not being perceived by a consciousness and that we just happen to sometimes interact with it and so feel it.

What you're doing seems to be the same thing that others are doing; trying to combine realism with idealism. You're trying to think of things coming into and out of existence in the realist sense, i.e. as external objects, depending on whether it's being perceived by a consciousness or not. Obviously that's going to be problematic.

Also, while non-existing, reality clearly creates records. How does it do that while it doesn't exist?

I have no idea what you're talking about here.

But the veracity of idealism isn't the issue here. The issue is whether or not idealism entails solipsism. — Michael

But that is the issue. To defend idealism against the charge of solipsism, you wish to make a special claim for consciousness - that other minds persist (but trees do not) because they are self-aware (i.e., experience themselves). I am trying to examine that claim. If another mind can ever be shown to be non-self-aware (i.e., not experiencing itself) then it would appear to be no different from trees in terms of its continued existence when not being experienced by me.

Let us accept for the moment that minds persist when unconscious or in non-dreaming sleep. I assume then that you must hold the belief that (higher order) animals also persist when not being perceived by humans, for surely the mental ability of a wakeful dog is the equivalent of an unconscious human. To believe otherwise seems to me to be a case of special pleading.

But that is the issue. To defend idealism against the charge of solipsism, you wish to make a special claim for consciousness - that other minds persist (but trees do not) because they are self-aware (i.e., experience themselves). I am trying to examine that claim. If another mind can ever be shown to be non-self-aware (i.e., not experiencing itself) then it would appear to be no different from trees in terms of its continued existence when not being experienced by me. — Real Gone Cat

The "to be is to be perceived" motto is a bit misleading. The idealist claim is just that only mental phenomena exists. So whatever exists, be it minds or trees or colours or pain, is mental phenomena. The question, then, is whether it makes sense for minds as mental phenomena to exist without being perceived and whether it makes sense for trees as mental phenomena to exist without being perceived and whether it makes sense for pain as mental phenomena to exist without being perceived. I don't think that an affirmative answer to one entails an affirmative answer to the rest. If, for example, you can show that minds can exist without being perceived (not even self-perception), does it then follow that pain can exist without being perceived? I don't think so. And so it also doesn't follow that trees can exist without being perceived.

So even if you can show that minds can exist without being perceived it doesn't follow either that trees can exist without being perceived or that trees aren't mental phenomena. And by the same token, if you can show that trees can't exist without being perceived then it doesn't then follow that minds can't exist without being perceived.

It's a simple fact that idealism just doesn't entail solipsism. You can't go from "only mental phenomena exists" to "only my mental phenomena exists". And you can't go from "the mental phenomena of trees can't occur without a perceiving mind" to "other minds can't exist unless I see them". They're invalid inferences.

Let us accept for the moment that minds persist when unconscious or in non-dreaming sleep. I assume then that you must hold the belief that (higher order) animals also persist when not being perceived by humans, for surely the mental ability of a wakeful dog is the equivalent of an unconscious human. To believe otherwise seems to me to be a case of special pleading.

What is a mind to you? To me it's a cohesive collection of thoughts and memories and experiences. Does it make sense for there to be unconscious thoughts and memories and experiences? I don't think so. Which is why I won't accept that minds persist when unconscious. The mind is consciousness.

What is a mind to you? To me it's a cohesive collection of thoughts and memories and experiences. Does it make sense for there to be unconscious thoughts and memories and experiences? I don't think so. Which is why I won't accept that minds persist when unconscious. The mind is consciousness. — Michael

Ah, so minds are not continuous (since, seemingly, a person may be unconscious for a time).

Or perhaps you are arguing for a discrete existence that only appears continuous to the observer who is "inside" that existence. I mean, should I become unconscious for a time, that time does not actually exist for me. In other words, consciousness is like a song on an old cassette tape that stops when you press the STOP button, and starts up again from the exact same point when PLAY is pushed. To the song (i.e., the consciousness) no time has passed at all.

n other words, consciousness is like a song on an old cassette tape that stops when you press the STOP button, and starts up again from the exact same point when PLAY is pushed. To the song (i.e., the consciousness) no time has passed at all. — Real Gone Cat

Except that when the song status up again, it appears as if stuff was going on while the song was stopped. The time on the clock, the snow on the ground, the latest news, etc.

And when I leave a room full of people then walk back in a few minutes later, it is as if the conversation went on without me. Weird.

And when I leave a room full of people then walk back in a few minutes later, it is as if the conversation went on without me. Weird. — Real Gone Cat

I think that's God's way of trolling us.

:D

Berkeley's Prime Perceiver having a bit of fun?

There was an anecdote about Sartre, that they were all around at his place, and he started to hold forth on some aspect, and they all went out for coffee, leaving him alone, and when they came back an hour later, he was still talking....

The "to be is to be perceived" motto is a bit misleading. The idealist claim is just that only mental phenomena exists. So whatever exists, be it minds or trees or colours or pain, is mental phenomena. — Michael

I think the idealist claim is, that our knowledge of the [tree/star/chair/] is itself an idea. What we know any thing to be, is based solely on the fact that we have an idea in our minds - that is what knowledge consists of.

Berkeley refutes the notion that things go in and out of existence depending on whether they're perceived by saying that they are always 'perceived by God' and are therefore in some sense 'ideas in God's mind'. (In fact such ideas have considerable pedigree in Western philosophy.)

However there is another way of dealing with the objection. This is that things don't pass in and out of existence at all. We can't say anything about 'non-perceived things', because to say anything about them, is to perceive them, even if only in the mind's eye.

If we try and imagine their non-existence, then we're simply imagining their absence; we form an idea of their supposed non-existence. So the objection that 'idealism means objects blink in and out of existence' really doesn't come to terms with the idealist argument. If idealism had said that, actually nobody would have reason to have taken any notice of it in the first place. Yet it's interesting how many people refute on that kind of basis.

Whatever we say about [x] - even if we analyse them scientifically - whatever statement we make, is a statement of our knowledge of [x]. My argument is that [X] doesn't exist in itself or in its own right; that to speak of any [x] is to situate it in a context and a perspective which is provided by the mind of the observer. That is the sense in which no [X] is mind-independent; it doesn't mean that absent my particular cognitive act, the universe doesn't exist. It means that everything we know or conjecture about, is in some real sense a cognitive or intellectual act, and we can't absent ourselves from the picture in the way that science assumes that we do.

Ah, so minds are not continuous (since, seemingly, a person may be unconscious for a time).

Or perhaps you are arguing for a discrete existence that only appears continuous to the observer who is "inside" that existence. I mean, should I become unconscious for a time, that time does not actually exist for me. In other words, consciousness is like a song on an old cassette tape that stops when you press the STOP button, and starts up again from the exact same point when PLAY is pushed. To the song (i.e., the consciousness) no time has passed at all. — Real Gone Cat

Isn't that what many (physicalist) realists would say? Presumably for the most part they don't equate the mind with some persistent immaterial soul. They're likely to say that the mind is identical to (or emerges from) certain brain activity. If that brain activity stops, or reduces to a lesser type of brain activity (a kind that doesn't amount to a mind) then there is no mind (anymore), and it is only when that kind of brain activity returns that the mind returns.

Of course! But the realist believes that the world continues while the brain lies dormant. Unconsciousness, sleep, etc. are no problem for the realist. But for the idealist, they must either believe unconscious minds are self-aware, or that minds can somehow be discrete (non-continuous) entities.

We also experience unreal things, — Marchesk

That's like saying that some cards are hearts and some clubs, so you need something more to justify that some cards are hearts.

That's like saying that some cards are hearts and some clubs, so you need something more to justify that some cards are hearts. — Terrapin Station

No, it's like saying I directly experience hearts, but sometimes dream of, hallucinate, have the illusion of, falsely remember, imagine, clubs.

Then you're not talking about the same thing that I am. My dreams, hallucinations etc. are nothing like experiences of real things. That's why the fact that we also experience dreams, hallucinations etc is irrelevant to the fact that we experience real things. Maybe you have unusual dreams and hallucinations, though, or unusual experience of real things.

And the idealist would agree. They'd just say that the real things we experience (trees, cups, etc.) don't continue to exist after the experience ends. — Michael

That would make that person a realist with an unusual ontology of how real things "behave" rather than an idealist.

That would make that person a realist with an unusual ontology of how real things "behave" rather than an idealist. — Terrapin Station

No it wouldn't. A realist believes that the things we see continue to exist even when nobody sees them. Believing that the things we see are real doesn't entail believing that the things we see continue to exist even when nobody sees them.

The pain I feel is real, even though it doesn't continue to exist even when I stop feeling it. This equating of "real" with "mind-independent" (which I assume you're doing) is a mistaken one.

A realist believes that the things we see continue to exist even when nobody sees them. — Michael

Wrong. A realist believes, at minimum, that some real things exist, at least at some times. That doesn't require believing that things continue to exist when no one sees them.

Wrong. A realist believes, at minimum, that some real things exist, at least at some times. That doesn't require believing that things continue to exist when no one sees them. — Terrapin Station

You're not a realist if you don't believe that, because otherwise, your position is no different from anti-realism, as I'm sure Michael well tell you, or SEP, if you look. The central point of realism is mind-independence.

My dreams, hallucinations etc. are nothing like experiences of real things. — Terrapin Station

I recall reading something interesting about Schizophrenia were schizophrenics lose the ability to tell the difference between what's in their heads, and what they're perceiving. Apparently, the brain flags stuff that's generated internally.

That's highly suggestive, if it's true. I did come across that article in Scientific American or Nature years ago.

You're not a realist if you don't believe that, because otherwise, your position is no different from anti-realism, as I'm sure Michael well tell you, or SEP, if you look. The central point of realism is mind-independence. — Marchesk

You could phrase it differently: A realist holds that, if according to the simplest explanation, an entity is complex and autonomous, then it is real.

An autonomous entity does no come into and go out of existence depending on whether a human happens to be looking at it. And no one who thinks it does can be described as a realist.

...if you can but conceive it possible for...any one idea or anything like an idea, to exist otherwise than in a mind perceiving it, I shall readily give up the cause…. But, you say, surely there is nothing easier than to imagine trees, for instance, in a park, or books existing in a closet, and nobody there to perceive them.

I answer, you may so, there is no difficulty in it: but what is all this, I beseech you, more than framing in your mind certain ideas which you call books and trees, and at the same time omitting to frame the idea of anyone that may perceive them? But do not you yourself perceive or think of them all the while? This therefore is nothing to the purpose: it only shows you have the power of imagining or forming ideas in your mind; but it doesn't show that you can conceive it possible [that] the objects of your thought may exist without the mind: to [show] this, it is necessary that you conceive them existing unconceived or unthought of, which is a manifest repugnancy. When we do our utmost to conceive the existence of external bodies, we are all the while only contemplating our own ideas. But the mind taking no notice of itself, is deluded to think it can and does conceive bodies existing unthought of or without the mind; though at the same time they are apprehended by or exist in itself. — Berkeley

Of the Principles of Human Knowledge: Part 1 Pp 22-23

A realist believes, at minimum, that some real things exist, at least at some times. That doesn't require believing that things continue to exist when no one sees them. — Terrapin Station

That wouldn't satisfy most realists, who most certainly do believe that things continue to exist unperceived.

I recall reading something interesting about Schizophrenia were schizophrenics lose the ability to tell the difference between what's in their heads, and what they're perceiving. Apparently, the brain flags stuff that's generated internally. — Marchesk

I would have thought the fundamental issue of schizophrenia was the ability to recognise one's thoughts and internal states as being one's own. Hence 'a voice told me to do it'. What appears to be lacking is the integrative facility, i.e. the facility that integrates different thoughts, sensations, perceptions and judgements into a coherent whole; hence the popular (but frowned-upon) expression 'split personality'.

would have thought the fundamental issue of schizophrenia was the ability to recognise one's thoughts and internal states as being one's own. Hence 'a voice told me to do it'. What appears to be lacking is the integrative facility, i.e. the facility that integrates different thoughts, sensations, perceptions and judgements into a coherent whole; hence the popular (but frowned-upon) expression 'split personality' — Wayfarer

Sure, but the interesting thing is losing the ability to discriminate what's going on in your head from some potential outside source, so that it seems like the TV is putting thoughts into your head, or you're hearing or seeing something out there which other people don't.

It's as if a normal functioning brain needs to discriminate between the source from external and internal, and if it doesn't then your perception of reality breaks down and the two overlap. That sounds like a potential challenge to direct realism.

I think we learn to differentiate 'self and world' in very early childhood development; it's not something new-borns have. So part of the process of maturation and normal personality development requires awareness of the nature and boundaries of the self. Presumably that is part of what is missing or damaged in the case of mental illness.

It's only tangentially related to the philosophical question, though. I mean, if you study Freud, as far as he was concerned the aim of psycotherapy was integration into normal society, the ability to form loving relationships and work. There's nothing the matter with that, but I don't think it has anything to say about the philosophical analysis of the nature of knowledge. Freud was a committed scientific materialist, whereas Berkeley's motivation was criticism of materialism.

What i'm saying is that it's a challenge along the lines of illusion or hallucination, because it potentially breaks down the difference between veridical perception and internal experiences. Difference not in veracity, but kind of experience, or where it's taking place, or how it's been generated. Meaning, it's a challenge to account for direct perception.

Well, I suppose. There's that saying about there being a fine line between genius and madness. And when you read history of science, there are plenty of scientists who had to wrestle with that question. (One of my all time favourite books was Arthur Koestler's The Sleepwalkers, about the history of physics - the title is an allusion to the idea that many of those involved set out to discover something entirely different from what they ended up finding.)

You're not a realist if you don't believe that, because otherwise, your position is no different from anti-realism, as I'm sure Michael well tell you, or SEP, if you look. The central point of realism is mind-independence. — Marchesk

Yeah, mind-independence but that does not imply that the item in question continues to exist when we are not aware of it. Certainly most realists, including me, believe that real things continue to exist when we're not experiencing them, but that view is not implied by simply being a realist. This is no different than the fact that most atheists buy evolution, but that atheism does not imply a belief in evolution.

The difference between realism on x and antirealism on x is that realists believe that x exists extramentally. Antirealists do not believe this. They that believe x only exists mentally, if at all.

An autonomous entity does no come into and go out of existence depending on whether a human happens to be looking at it. — tom

That would be quite separate view from realism, even if the vast majority of realists believe it.

That wouldn't satisfy most realists, who most certainly do believe that things continue to exist unperceived. — Wayfarer

Most realists believe that, but it isn't implied by being a realist.