you need to define the object in terms of the subject, and this is because the properties of the object, without question, are contingent upon the brain. You must also understand that unicorns exist as images inside the mind, but do not exist in the world, so you cannot say that they absolutely do not exist, but exist as objects of imagination only. They thus have existence in some sense.

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I do not define the object in terms of the subject, for the properties of the unicorn are not dependent upon the brain. Unicorns would still be horned horses, even if no humans had ever existed. And to say that unicorns exist as images in the mind is to make a common mistake. Surely ideas of unicorns exist in the mind, but unicorns themselves do not. A unicorn and the idea of a unicorn are two very different things, so conflating them is a mistake (indeed, I think this is one of the central errors of idealism). What I want to claim is that unicorns do not exist anywhere, and thus don't have existence in any sense.

you're not acknowledging the fact that ideas exist as objects of memory.

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I accept this point, but a nonexistent object and the idea of a nonexistent object are very different things. The idea of a nonexistent object exists in the mind, but the nonexistent object that it is an idea of does not.

I do not define the object in terms of the subject, for the properties of the unicorn are not dependent upon the brain. — Alvin Capello

You're presupposing that the subject, in its entirety, is contingent upon the brain. In idealism, it isn't. In materialism, it is (this is called reductionism).

Unicorns would still be horned horses, even if no humans had ever existed — Alvin Capello

but according to idealism, the unicorn then, which is product of imagination, is thus a product of mind, albeit, a mind existing prior to the human mind.

And to say that unicorns exist as images in the mind is to make a common mistake. Surely ideas of unicorns exist in the mind, but unicorns themselves do not. — Alvin Capello

Be careful.

A unicorn and the idea of a unicorn are two very different things, so conflating them is a mistake (indeed, I think this is one of the central errors of idealism). — Alvin Capello

This is an assumption. You cannot say that unicorns do not have the potential to exist in the actualized sense. Maybe they existed before, exist now on some planet somewhere, or will exist in the future somewhere.

A unicorn and the idea of a unicorn are two very different things, so conflating them is a mistake (indeed, I think this is one of the central errors of idealism). — Alvin Capello

not exactly; not in terms of idealism. It's like saying that the computer code for the existence of a unicorn in a video game is "very different" from the unicorn in the game relative to the perspective of one of the characters.

What I want to claim is that unicorns do not exist anywhere, and thus don't have existence in any sense. — Alvin Capello

again, this is a presupposition. In philosophy, we don't do presuppositions. Those are for theologians.

I accept this point, but a nonexistent object and the idea of a nonexistent object are very different things. The idea of a nonexistent object exists in the mind, but the nonexistent object that it is an idea of does not. — Alvin Capello

what do you mean by "very different." you don't have a point until you can represent this concept using sets. If they have the same logical form, how can they be "very different?" they only appear to be very different. There's no contradiction here. The idea of a nonexistent (i.e. non-actualized) object exists in mind, but you cannot prove that this object is not actualized somewhere else, and an idea came from another mind on another planet who perceived it, through a collective unconsicous, and into a human mind. This a huge flaw in your argument. you would first have to prove that this is not possible as opposed to take it as a presupposition.

You're presupposing that the subject, in its entirety, is contingent upon the brain. In idealism, it isn't. In materialism, it is (this is called reductionism).

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I'm not presupposing anything, I'm only responding to the point you made earlier, to wit:

the properties of the object, without question, are contingent upon the brain

I myself don't reduce the mind to the brain.

Most of your other remarks seem to involve it being possible that we might discover unicorns one day in reality. This is surely true, but the obvious thing to do here is to replace 'unicorn' with something we know a priori does not exist in reality. For instance, the round square that is not identical with itself, or the blind, non self-identical seeing-eye dog that doesn't exist in the actual world. The very descriptions of these 2 objects insure from the get go that they do not exist in actuality.

If they have the same logical form, how can they be "very different?"

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A nonexistent object and the concept of a nonexistent object do not have the same logical forms; for in order to assess the structures of a golden mountain and the concept of a golden mountain, for instance, we would need to use different axioms.

The idea of a nonexistent (i.e. non-actualized) exists in mind, but you cannot prove that this object is not actualized somewhere else, and an idea came from another mind on another planet who perceived it, through a collective unconscious, and into a human mind. This a huge flaw in your argument. you would first have to prove that this is not possible as opposed to take it as a presupposition.

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Well if the nonexistent objects under question are of the same sort as the 2 I mentioned earlier, viz. the round square that is not identical with itself, or the blind, non self-identical seeing-eye dog that doesn't exist in the actual world, then I can prove that these objects do not exist at all. This is because both of these objects violate the Law of Identity, and thus they cannot possibly exist in reality (even though the concepts of them exist in the mind).

It's like saying that the computer code for the existence of a unicorn in a video game is "very different" from the unicorn in the game relative to the perspective of one of the characters.

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I would make exactly this claim. The unicorn in the video game and the computer code for the unicorn have very different properties, so they are very different

i think that you should come up with a new argument. but ultimately, it will doesn't matter what argument you come up with, for they will all fail because idealism is absolutely true, and materialism is only relative true, or rather, appears to be true.

To immediately disregard the possibility that an opponent might come up with a successful argument is the height of dogmatism, and it is anti-philosophical.

I should also mention that i am absolutely not a materialist in any sense. Indeed, my argument can be tweaked to attack materialism too.

This is because there is a mystical experience that comes along with the path that cannot simply be discredited by words. To say that this experience does not exist is to be a dogmatist. This is why philosophers today are a joke, and the gods are laughing at them. It's hard to tell who is more foolish, man, or the educated man.

I’m not claiming that the mystical experience doesn’t exist, but if you claim that it overrides any arguments, then you are no longer doing philosophy.

Wait, you are writing the next Critique of Pure Reason and you don't even believe the world is real? Are you saying there is a greater reality in comparison to which this one we live in doesn t exist? Is this God or a Form?

I’m not claiming that the mystical experience doesn’t exist, but if you claim that it overrides any arguments, then you are no longer doing philosophy. — Alvin Capello

You become one with absolute being, then you earn the title of "philosopher." until then, you are merely fumbling around the outskirts of knowledge because the existence of the absolute is still a presupposition for you and not a direct experience.

Wait, you are writing the next Critique of Pure Reason and you don't even believe the world is real? Are you saying there is a greater reality in comparison to which this one we live in doesn t exist? Is this God or a Form? — Gregory

Yes. According to my philosophy, the world is not not "real," but existing, as it appears, in relation to sense perception only. It is thus "illusory," as opposed to "real." Only a fool would understand that objects are composed of more than 99.99% empty space and still think that the world is "real."

There is a higher reality, yes, and it is much, much different than this one. Trying to explain it is pointless. It is like trying to teach the blind about sight. The only eternal form is the unchanging structure of God in Himself.

Boo! God clearly doesn't exist. Haven't you seen a Christmas tree? People say they didn't feel like a person till their teens. I felt like a full person with free will and reason at age 3. The only thing towards which this world doesnt exist Is Pure nothingness

Boo! God clearly doesn't exist. — Gregory

this is an opinion. I don't see supporting arguments either. don't forget, opinions are like assholes, everyone's got one and they all stink.

Haven't you seen a Christmas tree? — Gregory

this is nonsensical and irrelevant.

People say they didn't feel like a person till their teens. — Gregory

sounds like a belief.

I felt like a full person with free will and reason at age 3. — Gregory

yep. me too.

The only thing towards which this world doesnt exist Is Pure nothingness — Gregory

this is worded very poorly, and contradicts your belief in our prior conversation, in which, you claimed, without reason, that nothingness is prior to being, or rather, that being can come from nothingness. Then I said, if nothingness possesses within itself the potential to become something, that it cannot be nothing. Are you saying that you've changed your mind?

You become one with absolute being, then you earn the title of "philosopher." until then, you are merely fumbling around the outskirts of knowledge because the existence of the absolute is still a presupposition for you and not a direct experience.

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Not at all. Philosophy is not a secret cult that you need to become initiated into. It is for everyone. Anyone who loves wisdom, and who is willing to critically analyze their own presuppositions and to rationally argue for their beliefs is a philosopher.

A blank canvas of only one color is the foundation of patterns. Something comes from nothing. That's why we die says Heidegger. We were always at home until we existed and what was not is what it is

Not at all. Philosophy is not a secret cult that you need to become initiated into. It is for everyone. Anyone who loves wisdom, and who is willing to critically analyze their own presuppositions and to rationally argue for their beliefs is a philosopher. — Alvin Capello

Yes. they both possess the ability to think.

the unenlightened philosopher is to the enlightened philosopher as the child is the educated adult. a child is a human, just the same as the adult, yes, and the unenlightened philosopher can think, just the same as the enlightened philosopher; but still, they are "very different," to borrow your terminology from earlier. One is on the earth staring at the ground, the other is in outer space, flying amongst the stars.

A blank canvas of only one color is the foundation of patterns. — Gregory

are you sure that their is a foundation for the blank canvas? This might be a bad analogy...

Something comes from nothing. — Gregory

sounds like a presupposition.

That's why we die says Heidegger. — Gregory

Do you have proof that nothing can contain something within itself. or are nothing and something mutually exclusive? how do they relate?

We were always at home until we existed and what was not is what it is — Gregory

this is incoherent. I remember you saying this last time we talked.

You are thinking about nothing in a mathematical sense. You're being far to Kantian. The stars are limited

Being comes out of its opposite. So they are mutually opposed but one is the source. They don't technically relate

Kant is interesting because because although we can only know the world through our representations of it, Kant, in all his rigour, says that the same applies to the self: self-knowledge is not exempt from representation and the self has no special status in this regard: "I, as intelligence and a thinking subject, know myself as an object that is thought, insofar as I am given to myself … like other phenomena, only as I appear to myself … I therefore have no knowledge of myself as I am, but merely as I appear to myself." Elsewhere: "Of this I or he or it (the thing) which thinks, nothing further is represented than a transcendental subject of the thoughts = X … This I or He or It … is known only through the thoughts that are its predicates, and of it, apart from them, we cannot have any concept whatsoever".

This is the basis of what alot of commentators have referred to as the Kantian 'split subject': a subject at once both an object like any other and that which is a condition of any knowledge whatsoever. In the words of Markus Gabriel: "We have no grasp of that which constitutes our world even though it is we who perform said constitution. The uncanny stranger begins to pervade the sphere of the subject, threatening its identity from within. Kant is thus one of the first to become aware of the intimidating possibility of total semantic schizophrenia inherent in the anonymous transcendental subjectivity as such". The possibility of madness is one of the marks of the real in the subject - in thought - and not merely 'beyond it'. Kant himself vacillates on this point and it causes all sorts of issues, but there's definitely a way to read Kant as opening the issue of 'subject as object' in a way that's worth pursuing. — StreetlightX

It would seem to me that we have direct access to the "representation" itself, which is a real thing that has causal power. The "representation" would be an effect of prior causes. So, in effect, we have direct access to one effect of reality - our own mind - and we determine what the world is like by determining the causes of the effect. We can only get at the world through the effect of the mind. The mind is a real thing with causal power.

What is the "representation" made of relative to what is being represented? If the "representation" is such that it isn't related at least in it's ontological substance to what is being represented, can we really say that it is a representation of something else? How would it be a representation if there isn't some aspect that is similar between what is being represented and the representation? Doesn't there need to be some kind of causal relationship to say that something is a representation of something else?

Having access to a real thing that isn't just a representation but is also the cause of other "representations" - like your behavior and the words that you write or say - is having access to the part of the world itself. It is the basis upon which idealism is founded. Idealists believe, and I would agree with them on this point, is that the mind is real and is part of the world because it has a causal relationship with the world, being both an effect and a cause itself. If the mind can establish causal relationships with the rest of the world, then a good monist would declare that everything is mental.

For me, "mental" is an anthropomorphic, and therefore an inappropriate, term. I prefer the term, "information". Everything is information. How is declaring that everything is information different than declaring everything is mind? It seems to me that mind includes a central executive, or an information processor, that performs value-judgments with sensory data - determining what is important at that moment. Another name would be, "attention" - amplifying certain signals that are deemed meaningful to some goal present in the mind. Information is just information - without any values being integrated.

I do not define the object in terms of the subject, for the properties of the unicorn are not dependent upon the brain. Unicorns would still be horned horses, even if no humans had ever existed. And to say that unicorns exist as images in the mind is to make a common mistake. Surely ideas of unicorns exist in the mind, but unicorns themselves do not. A unicorn and the idea of a unicorn are two very different things, so conflating them is a mistake (indeed, I think this is one of the central errors of idealism). What I want to claim is that unicorns do not exist anywhere, and thus don't have existence in any sense. — Alvin Capello

It seems to me that unicorns do exist. They exist as ideas, not as organisms. Ideas have just as much causal power as an organism. The idea (or more precisely, the imagining) of a unicorn can cause you to talk about, write about, draw a picture of it, - leave a "physical" mark on the world. How does a "mental" idea cause "physical" effects, if both the idea and the paper and ink are of completely different substances?

To say that something exists means that it has causal power. To say that it doesn't exist means that it doesn't have causal power.

It seems to me that unicorns do exist. They exist as ideas, not as organisms.

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A unicorn and the idea of a unicorn are radically different kinds of objects. For one thing, a unicorn is a horned horse, while the idea of a unicorn is not a horned horse (rather, it represents a horned horse). So too, the idea of a unicorn exists in the mind, while a unicorn itself does not.

To say that something exists means that it has causal power. To say that it doesn't exist means that it doesn't have causal power.

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I understand this view, but I don't accept it. The reason why is because many nonexistent objects have causal powers. For instance, Frodo Baggins caused the One Ring to be destroyed by casting it into the fires of Mount Doom, but Frodo doesn't exist.

On my view, to say that something exists is just to say that it has the property of existence; while to say that it doesn't exist is just to say that it lacks the property of existence. This might sound somewhat uninformative, but in my view existence is a simple property, and thus cannot be analyzed into something more basic.

It's not that there is high standard of falsification, but that falsification is impossible. People aren't squabbling over what appears in phenomena or not. Experience always appears consistent with both. Kicking a rock does not show idealism false because one is clearly experiencing it. Just another construction of experience.

Realism and idealism is a metaphysical distinction of things. When the realist says there is a rock I'm kicking, they are not saying a pheneonma is manifest in my experience. Instead, they are identifying the rock is not me. The rock is not me or my experience (of the rock).

Kantian analysis of the transcendental illusion only redoubles the idealist illusion. He traps our account only in the context of phenomenal experience. Our experiences are just of things which are in our experiences. Or So the story goes. Perfectly compatible with the idealist, for whom there are only the things in experience.

Kant didn't push through to recognise the transcendental illusion has a different genesis. Not a failure to recognise phenomenal reality or a worship of empty noumena phenonemal cause, but rather the error of failing to recognise transcendental reality. The mistake was just confusing on transcendental feature with another, such as the thing/causality/phenomena with God.

Frequently, we know about things which have no appearance in experience. In fact, this is everything, including all pheneonma. Each pheneonma is something outside experience, an existing thing which is not any experience if it. This is the metaphysical distintion of realism: the things I experience are not my experience.

As a distinction of difference/identity/defintion, there is no empirical observation or analysis which addresses the question.

"You can't imagine something that is not in a mind." <-- what is that, other than a claim that everything is mental because I can't think of anything that isn't?

Good observation.
Kant is creating problems with his solutions, not solving problems with his creations.

Properly stated, as a realist, it would be a claim one's imagination was in one's mind. In other words, just a recognition one's imagining are states of their experience.

The realist postion is things which do appear in our minds are not our minds. If we cannot imagine anything outside our minds, there is no consequence of rendering everything mental.

It certainly sounds like Hawking was wrong to say philosophy is dead. Boo to Wittgenstein too. There are genuine questions here

A thought: idealism, or the role of the mental in constructing (our?) reality, seems inevitable once you spend enough time philosophizing.

On the other hand, that mind is intrinsic and underlies everything, is exactly what creatures with minds would say. Especially after they spend a lot of time thinking.

"I am the center of the universe, and everything else moves around me." - how am I to disprove this to myself? — Pneumenon

I suggest replacing 'mental' with 'social.' If we are talking about reality, than our talk is indeed presupposed in our talking about reality. Yet we can talk about what happened before we were able to talk (before our species was here.)

This is something like a knot, glitch, or riddle. I don't think this glitch has been fixed or the knot untied. But it ends up being mostly ignored, because we are primarily practical animals. The malfunctions or ambiguities in our talk 'must' be ignored, since we prioritize effective speech, etc.

A unicorn and the idea of a unicorn are radically different kinds of objects. For one thing, a unicorn is a horned horse, while the idea of a unicorn is not a horned horse (rather, it represents a horned horse). So too, the idea of a unicorn exists in the mind, while a unicorn itself does not. — Alvin Capello

You said that they are "radically different". I would agree, but probably not in the way that you meant. They are radically different because one exists and the other doesn't.

A horned horse also doesn't "exist", so "horned horse" is just another idea. So, your idea, "unicorn" would represent another idea, "horned horse". So you only end up representing other ideas in the case where the idea wasn't caused by an actual observation of that organism, like dogs and cats. Your idea "dog" is caused by your mental categorization of your observations of similar organisms. Being taught the word, "dog" to represent that mental category is something else, or a separate process. We don't need words to categorize the world. We need words to communicate our mental categories (ideas).

What caused the idea of "unicorn" to exist in your mind? Probably someone else communicating that idea to you. How did "unicorn" come to exist in the first mind that imagined it if there are no unicorn organisms for them to observe? How does any imagining in our mind come to exist? Imaginings are an amalgam of existing mental categories. Unicorns are an amalgam of horse and horn. You can only assemble an amalgam of mental categories that you already have, or already experienced. Your picture of a unicorn would be a representation of the original unicorn - the one you imagined.

I understand this view, but I don't accept it. The reason why is because many nonexistent objects have causal powers. For instance, Frodo Baggins caused the One Ring to be destroyed by casting it into the fires of Mount Doom, but Frodo doesn't exist. — Alvin Capello

Now you're confusing the idea of causation with the process of causation. You seem to have understood the difference between an organism and the idea of an organism, but here you regressed into confusing the process of causation with the idea of causation (Frodo causing the One Ring to be destroyed).

On my view, to say that something exists is just to say that it has the property of existence; while to say that it doesn't exist is just to say that it lacks the property of existence. This might sound somewhat uninformative, but in my view existence is a simple property, and thus cannot be analyzed into something more basic. — Alvin Capello

It's not just uninformative. It's circular. If this is how you define, "existence" then I don't understand your use of "existence" any better than when you first used the word.

Properly stated, as a realist, it would be a claim one's imagination was in one's mind. In other words, just a recognition one's imagining are states of their experience.

The realist postion is things which do appear in our minds are not our minds. If we cannot imagine anything outside our minds, there is no consequence of rendering everything mental. — TheWillowOfDarkness

That would be the naive realist position. For the indirect realist, the things that appear in our minds are about things that are not in our minds.

How is the idea of your best friend different or separate from your best friend? How is it similar? If you are saying that they are one and the same, then you are arguing for solipsism/naive realism. If you are arguing that they are different yet similar, and their differences are spatial-temporal and similarities being the causal relationship, then you are arguing for some kind of indirect realism.

Our minds are not cut off from the world. They are causally related. We use the world (air to speak, ink and paper to write) to communicate with each other - through the process of cause and effect. Effects are not their causes, but they are about their causes, so we can be safe in knowing that the things in our mind can be about the things in the world thanks to causation.

For an idea of a unicorn to "represent" a horned horse, which also doesn't "exist", then "horned horse" is just another idea. So, your idea, "unicorn" would represent another idea, "horned horse".

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When I said that a unicorn is a horned horse, I did not at all mean that it represents the idea of a horned horse. Rather, I meant that a unicorn is a physical horse with a physical horn (even though it’s nonexistent). A unicorn is a horse in exactly the same way in which existent horses are; and it has a horn in exactly the same way in which existing horned animals do.

What caused the idea of "unicorn" to exist in your mind? Probably someone else communicating that idea to you. How did "unicorn" come to exist in the first mind that imagined it if there are no unicorn organisms for them to observe?

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What caused the idea of unicorn to come into the mind of the first person who imagined it might have been a number of things. Perhaps it was an initial baptism they performed upon a characterization; that characterization being the set of properties {horse, has a horn}. Or maybe that person saw a unicorn in a dream or hallucination (I think we can perceive nonexistent objects) and performed the initial baptism that way. In either case, the idea has now reached me through a causal chain. This is basically Saul Kripke’s view on naming and reference. I am not an empiricist either, so I don’t think it is strictly necessary for someone to have already experienced the properties contained in a characterization, even though it is frequently the case that we do.

Now you're confusing the idea of causation with the process of causation. You seem to have understood the difference between an organism and the idea of an organism, but here you regressed into confusing the process of causation with the idea of causation (Frodo causing the One Ring to be destroyed).

You are actually misunderstanding me here. When I said that Frodo caused the One Ring to be destroyed, I was referring to the process of causation. A physical Frodo dropped a physical ring into a physical fire, even though none of these exist.

It's not just uninformative. It's circular. If this is how you define, "existence" then I don't understand your use of "existence" any better than when you first used the word.

It’s not circular; I just define existence as a property that some objects have and other objects lack. Magnanimity is also a property that some objects have and others lack; would you say that this too is circular?

"I am the center of the universe, and everything else moves around me." - how am I to disprove this to myself? — Pneumenon

If assuming idealism, by not assuming a solipsistic idealism. All other beings are just as much at their own center of the universe as you yourself are (thereby nullifying you being the absolute center). I’ve, for example, read Aikido philosophy to articulate things in just this manner.

It’s somewhat like saying that, because our planet is spherical, all inhabitants of Earth are always on top of the world in more or less equal fashion – so that no one person or populace is more on top of the world than any other. It to me also meshes well enough with modern cosmology’s stance that the physical universe has no - dare I say, objective - center.

Embellishing this with some imperfect thought:

We all interact with that which is impartially applicable to all sentient beings, and hence in this sense with that which is independent of us – which in common understanding is termed the physical or, alternatively, nature. Given a non-solipsistic idealism, that which is commonly termed physical will itself be contingent on the coexistence of minds (in the plural, since it's not solipsism). Via analogy, this could be in some ways comparable to the following understanding of geometric space:

The existence of geometric space is contingent on the coexistence of multiple, otherwise volume-less (hence space-less) geometric points. Hence, the very plurality of points is what the given manifestation of geometric space is dependent on, with no individual geometric point in any way being the cause to the space all share. If there is only one point in the whole of existence, then, because the one point is volumeless, there will be no space. Then, given a plurality of geometric points, the space that is thereby inter-dependently manifested by all coexistent points will itself be independent of the properties of any particular geometric point – including its location or whether the particular geometric point ceases to be. Further embellishing this analogy, one can imagine that each geometric point is itself at its own center of three-dimensional space – such that what is up or down, front or back, and left or right will be relative to each geometric point. Again, each geometric point is at the center of space in total – a space inter-dependently caused by the coexistence of multiple points standing in relation but not caused by any individual point - such that up or down, front or back, and left or right as three spatial planes hold their existence by virtue of being impartially shared among all spatially related points. Here, there is no absolute center to the three-dimensional space which the plurality of geometric points brings about; nor is there any absolute up or down, front or back, and left or right to the three-dimensional space which the geometric points inhabit.

If this analogy doesn’t make any sense, so be it. But to the extent that it might, in the aforementioned analogy each individual sentient being is represented by a geometric point, and the universe by three-dimensional space.

Not here to argue for idealism, just wanted to address the OP with a, I grant, somewhat whimsical way of thinking about the paradox of each sentient being dwelling in its own center of an otherwise centerless universe – and this within a framework of idealism.

:mask:

↪StreetlightX
Good observation.
Kant is creating problems with his solutions, not solving problems with his creations. — Valentinus

:up:

The case against idealism has never turned upon finding something that is not of the mind; it turns instead on showing how the mind is itself 'non-ideal', how the mind itself already belongs to an outside: the mind as an involution of the outside, a fold in a fabric. It is the nature of mind itself on which the fate of idealism hangs: as origin as or product? Thought itself is a secrection, already impersonal, socialized, involuntary, alien. Thought as a monument or index of what is not thought. — StreetlightX

:clap:

The possibility of madness is one of the marks of the real in the subject - in thought - and not merely 'beyond it'. — StreetlightX

:wink: i.e. suffering ...

I suggest replacing 'mental' with 'social.' — jjAmEs

E.g. à la Witty's "private language argument", etc.