You have to do the proper yoga system under the guidance of a proper guru, that's the experiment. — Dharmi

How much is this going to cost me? Do you get a cut for every referral?

I'll stick with scientology for now.

I'll stick with scientology for now — norm

I'm running with A Course In Miracles, it changed my life.

I'm running with A Course In Miracles, it changed my life. — Tom Storm

Nice! I know someone who really is into that. Cool guy, but I just can't go there with him. For religion I choose....nothing at all. It's free, and I don't like to pay retail.

Mind-matter battles are like flower arrangement to me, and not like some grand science of the foundations. — norm

The term "Idealism" came into vogue roughly during the time of Kant (though it was used earlier by others, such as Leibniz) to label one of two trends that had emerged in reaction to Cartesian philosophy. Descartes had argued that there were two basic yet separate substances in the universe: Extension (the material world of things in space) and Thought (the world of mind and ideas). Subsequently opposing camps took one or the other substance as their metaphysical foundation, treating it as the primary substance while reducing the remaining substance to derivative status.

Materialists argued that only matter was ultimately real, so that thought and consciousness derived from physical entities (chemistry, brain states, etc.) Idealists countered that the mind and its ideas were ultimately real, and that the physical world derived from mind (e.g., the mind of God, Berkeley's esse est percipi, or from ideal prototypes, etc.). Materialists gravitated toward mechanical, physical explanations for why and how things existed, while Idealists tended to look for purposes - moral as well as rational - to explain existence. Idealism meant "idea-ism," frequently in the sense Plato's notion of "ideas" (eidos) was understood at the time, namely ideal types that transcended the physical, sensory world and provided the form (eidos) that gave matter meaning and purpose. As materialism, buttressed by advances in materialistic science, gained wider acceptance, those inclined toward spiritual and theological aims turned increasingly toward idealism as a countermeasure. Before long there were many types of materialism and idealism.

Idealism, in its broadest sense, came to encompass everything that was not materialism, which included so many different types of positions that the term lost any hope of univocality. Most forms of theistic and theological thought were, by this definition, types of idealism, even if they accepted matter as real, since they also asserted something as more real than matter, either as the creator of matter (in monotheism) or as the reality behind matter (in pantheism). Extreme empiricists [e.g. Berkeley] who only accepted their own experience and sensations as real were also idealists. Thus the term "idealism" united monotheists, pantheists and atheists. At one extreme were various forms of metaphysical idealism which posited a mind (or minds) as the only ultimate reality. The physical world was either an unreal illusion or not as real as the mind that created it. To avoid solipsism (which is a subjectivized version of metaphysical idealism) metaphysical idealists posited an overarching mind that envisions and creates the universe.

A more limited type of idealism is epistemological idealism, which argues that since knowledge of the world only exists in the mental realm, we cannot know actual physical objects as they truly are, but only as they appear in our mental representations of them. Epistemological idealists could be ontological materialists, accepting that matter exists substantially; they could even accept that mental states derived at least in part from material processes. What they denied was that matter could be known in itself directly, without the mediation of mental representations. Though unknowable in itself, matter's existence and properties could be known through inference based on certain consistencies in the way material things are represented in perception.

Transcendental idealism contends that not only matter but also the self remains transcendental in an act of cognition. Kant and Husserl, who were both transcendental idealists, defined "transcendental" as "that which constitutes experience but is not itself given in experience." A mundane example would be the eye, which is the condition for seeing even though the eye does not see itself. By applying vision and drawing inferences from it, one can come to know the role eyes play in seeing, even though one never sees one's own eyes. Similarly, things in themselves and the transcendental self could be known if the proper methods were applied for uncovering the conditions that constitute experience, even though such conditions do not themselves appear in experience. Even here, where epistemological issues are at the forefront, it is actually ontological concerns, viz. the ontological status of self and objects, that is really at stake. Western philosophy rarely escapes that ontological tilt. Those who accepted that both the self and its objects were unknowable except through reason, and that such reason(s) was their cause and purpose for existing - thus epistemologically and ontologically grounding everything in the mind and its ideas - were labeled Absolute Idealists (e.g., Schelling, Hegel, Bradley), since only such ideas are absolute while all else is relative to them.

With the exception of some epistemological idealists, what unites all the positions enumerated above, including the materialists, is that these positions are ontological. They are concerned with the ontological status of the objects of sense and thought, as well as the ontological nature of the self who knows. Mainstream Western philosophy since Plato and Aristotle has treated ontology and metaphysics as the ultimate philosophic pursuit, with epistemology's role being little more than to provide access and justification for one's ontological pursuits and commitments. Since many of what are decried as philosophy's excesses - such as skepticism, solipsism, sophistry - could be and were accused of deriving from overactive epistemological questioning, epistemology has often been held suspect, and in some theological formulations, considered entirely dispensable in favor of faith. Ontology is primary, and epistemology is either secondary or expendable. — Dan Lusthaus

What is, and isn't, Yogācāra

That's quite a bouquet!

But why choose 'ontology is primary' over 'epistemology is primary'? A case could be made for each. Another case could be made for neither.

I'm leaning toward the idea of the not-said as primary. A good (anti-)metaphysician is manifested in what he doesn't needlessly add to practical communication. By that I mean that philosophy teaches us to avoid wasted motion, to do more with less. Instead of choosing the correct grand metaphysical statement, we can simply abandon the entire project of making such statements.

It's a game that's won by no longer playing it, by seeing its emptiness, by seeing that it's not needed. Note that I'm talking about mind-matter confusion. I find the more directly human-practical-literary aspect of philosophy as important and interesting as ever.

But why choose 'ontology is primary' over 'epistemology is primary'? — norm

He goes on to discuss that in the attached essay, but I picked that passage because it’s quite a good summary.

Instead of choosing the correct grand metaphysical statement, we can simply abandon the entire project of making such statements. — norm

There still remains a malady for which philosophy is the cure.

There still remains a malady for which philosophy is the cure. — Wayfarer

Well I'd hate to have not read some of the books I've read. I could have done without many other things, but give me the best books. So I agree with you, I guess. I don't know about a permanent cure, but I do think we can get ourselves half-civilized. I do think novels are as valuable as philosophy proper. ( Balzac's and Dostoevsky's narrators and characters philosophize for instance. It's all the same, statements about existence, sometimes ironic.)

I'm hard on the mind-matter thing because I think it's game that can't be won, usually driven in the background (?) by religious/political issues that would be more interesting to talk about directly. It's all so low stakes, at least in the foreground.

In this way a chaos of visual, auditory and tactile sensations which constantly bombard us becomes sorted into stable objects. Other animals must also construe perceptual order out of constantly changing sensory stimulation. So we invent constructs but the world teaches us whether those constructs are useful or not are by either validating or invalidating our constructed patterns that we attempt to impose on the world in order to make sense of it’s changes. — Joshs

I agree that we are constantly bombarded by sense data. But we sort them out into stable objects, not the world.

Suppose I see something on the the floor, lying around in the grass, I think it's a snake. So I tell other people to avoid stepping on that area. However, another person points out to me that what's there is actually not a snake, but a stick. Other people come and verify this second account, indeed it was a stick all along, not a snake. Nothing changed in the world, my perception of what I saw was wrong.

You would say that the world was the one that "taught" me that my concept was wrong, since other people came along and verified I misjudged that object in the world. But nothing changed in the world, my perception was wrong.

You could then say, other people knew that was a snake because they've seen one before and maybe (not necessarily) they've mistaken them for sticks as well, but the world showed them that the concept they had was wrong. The concept was wrong, but the world did not teach them it was wrong. People discovered that they were using the wrong concept to describe something in the world.

Other animals also have concepts for nature as well as social interchanges in their communities. They don’t have the complex verbal language that we do but they do have simpler gestural and auditory language. When your dog responds to a command , or anticipates your next behavior( taking him for a walk) based on your currents actions (bringing him his leash)he has formed a concept. — Joshs

Animals don't have language in any sense of the word. They can communicate, sure. But that's not language. The have cries that signify things like this is edible, this is dangerous, come here and so on. I'm obviously anthropomorphizing the cries. They probably have categories of some kind that allows them to interpret something as a sound for something specific like food or predator, etc. As for dogs when they respond to a command, they are repeating a behavior which they have associated with that command. One command is for them to sit down, for example. They do an action which the human has shown leads to a reward, or a desired outcome. They always had the capacity to do this, otherwise they wouldn't be able to do it.

When turtles are born, they immediately rush towards the ocean. When a baby elephant is born, they immediately start walking, even if it takes them a few hours to get it right. It's all innate. There is a world, but that world is entirely interpreted by the relevant creature. You can't think of an apple and become satiated, nor of fire to get warm. You need to go to the place which, on occasion of sense data, you take to be an apple or fire.

I'll stick with scientology for now. — norm

Were you born into it? Or did you join as an adult?

I am not a philosopher. I practice critical thinking with a philosophical bent. I'm not into labels. I have spelled out what I consider to be reliable and non reliable pathways to knowledge. I do privilege empiricism and methodological naturalism but I don't think we can be 100% certain of anything. To be called an anti foundational skeptic is thematically close, but way too grand and extreme. I am still working out what I am. Sorry if that sounds inadequate. — Tom Storm

Right. So that's exactly my point, you aren't even clear on what your own position is. So how can I answer your position if even you are not clear on it? This is just an unfair game you're playing at.

So I'm offering my system, and I'm asking you to tell me what's wrong with my system. You haven;t done that, you're just rejecting it for some unknown reason that you haven't explained yet.

How much is this going to cost me? Do you get a cut for every referral? — norm

The cost is discipline and time. And you're obviously not interested. Don't bother. You can stay in your post-truth worldview, and I have my worldview.

I was talking about child development - as I thought should have been clear. The cultural affectations that adults later see value in appropriating are irrelevant. — Isaac

That's also false. Children are believers in gods, angels, demons, entities like that, until society socially conditions them out of it.

That's been studied. And Idealism doesn't say "the world is all in my mind" it says the world is constituted of mental/spiritual/conscious stuff. It doesn't have to be in any particular person's mind.

And I'll ask you the same question I asked another person: suppose in 5,000 years, science has explained pretty much everything except how consciousness arises from matter — RogueAI

I'll ask you the question I suppose in 5,000 years, when spirituality has explained pretty much everything it is mandated to, except how matter arises from consciousness.

I'll ask you the question I suppose in 5,000 years, when spirituality has explained pretty much everything it is mandated to, except how matter arises from consciousness.

You can't turn it around on me, that's the advantage of idealism. When you say "how matter arises from consciousness", you're assuming matter is real. My position, on the other hand, doesn't depend on an assumption that consciousness exists. We know, irrefutably, that consciousness exists. I don't have to assume anything.

Or are you talking about the idea of the physical world? If idealism is true, why did we come up with the idea of matter? Is that what you're asking?

That's also false. Children are believers in gods, angels, demons, entities like that, until society socially conditions them out of it. — Dharmi

So? Do the children concerned believe that these gods, angels, and demons are material objects ideas? Believing something exists which, it turns out, doesn't is not a measure of one's commitment or otherwise to physicalism.

That's been studied. — Dharmi

Great. Let's have the citations then.

And Idealism doesn't say "the world is all in my mind" it says the world is constituted of mental/spiritual/conscious stuff. It doesn't have to be in any particular person's mind. — Dharmi

Fair enough. So the studies which demonstrate that children believe this to be the case...

So? Do the children concerned believe that these gods, angels, and demons are material objects ideas? Believing something exists which, it turns out, doesn't is not a measure of one's commitment or otherwise to physicalism. — Isaac

Nobody believed in "material objects" before the 16th century. Materialism was not believed by even the Epicureans. This is just a posthoc reading back into history something people didn't believe.

think you misunderstand where I'm coming from. It's not a denial of mind but a 'denial' of the individual mind, of the single mind. This is a hyberbolic attack on the Cartesian starting point. 'I' is a piece of language that only exists socially. Obviously, in an everyday sense, we can hide in the closet and murmur to ourselves. But we've already absorbed the language from social interaction. Even if I were to somehow persuade you to my view, it wouldn't change you life much. You'd just be more bored with mind/matter talk (yet here I am, at least for the moment.)

I'm not asserting the existence of just one mind. I'm claiming that we know for certain that at least one mind exists. There might be one, there might be billions of minds, but there can't be zero minds. That's powerful. We don't have that kind of certainty about the existence of anything else, except logical/mathematical truths.

Where I'm coming from, it's not about 'go mind !' or 'go matter!' but about seeing the futility of trying to make one the foundation of the other. All of our words are caught up in a system. Our practical distinctions of inner and outer are fine but way too flexible and leaky to take seriously for the construction of metaphysical castles in the air. (Mind-matter battles are like flower arrangement to me, and not like some grand science of the foundations. If anything is a foundation, I vote for practical life in all its ambiguity.)

I don't agree. I don't think our situation is that hopeless.

So, no studies then?

Great. Let's have the citations then. — Isaac

Google's algorithm isn't helping me find the particular study, but here's a related study: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/07/110714103828.htm

And like, I don't know how you can expect me to have all of the scientific studies ever published ready on the spot, that's a very unreasonable standard of evidence.

Google's algorithm isn't helping me find the particular study, but here's a related study: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/07/110714103828.htm — Dharmi

That study shows that humans might be predisposed toward belief in gods and afterlife. It makes no mention of children at all.

And like, I don't know how you can expect me to have all of the scientific studies ever published ready on the spot, that's a very unreasonable standard of evidence. — Dharmi

If you assert something to be the case you should have the evidence to hand to back up that assertion. Otherwise, don't assert it, enquire instead. It's of no interest what you just happen to reckon. Why would anyone want to know what you think there might be studies of, we're not compiling your autobiography.

The most important paragraph in this post is the last one. Feel welcome to skip to there and ignore the in-between contents.

My position, on the other hand, doesn't depend on an assumption that consciousness exists. — RogueAI

True. But you seem to be absolutely sure that mind is idealism stuff. I guess I hadn't clicked on "Post comment" for the following I had written up earlier today -- I was distracted.

To put it simply, the foundation of idealism is stuff that *has* to exist: mind and thought. The foundation of materialism is stuff that *might* exist. I think it obvious idealism clearly has an a priori advantage. — RogueAI

Mind and thought exists for sure. But why are you so absolutely certain that they both are matters of idealism? Mind could be matter, from where we sit, we don't know if it is or not; and conversely, we don't know if mind is idealism stuff or not. You say it is obvious that mind is idealism stuff. To me it's not obvious.

That's A. B. is that while we can't at this point or in 5000 years explain how consciousness or mind arises from matter; but because we can't explain it, it is not inconceivable that it does.

Again, you may say: yes, but to know that mind and thought exist, we don't need any assumptions that they exist, but for matter to be known to exist, we must have assumptions.

Right. The material world is an empirical world; the rules of logic apply, but the existence of the material world is a belief. We sense the physical world, so we assume it exists. We sense our thoughts, we assume it exists, but hey, in the least thoughts exist in our mind, so two things exist for sure: mind and thought. This is the only EMPIRICAL truth that has an a priori foundation. If we had no mind, thought would not exist.

So far we agree. My objection, only objection, is that you are adamant that the mind is not a physical unit. You may be right, but just as equally likely you may be wrong. There is no proof or indication of any source, in the "Cogito ergo sum"'s logical structure, that denies that the mind is physical.

That study shows that humans might be predisposed toward belief in gods and afterlife. It makes no mention of children at all. — Isaac

Oh my God dude really? This conversation is over. You're not actually interested in a serious discussion.

If you assert something to be the case you should have the evidence to hand to back up that assertion. Otherwise, don't assert it, enquire instead. It's of no interest what you just happen to reckon. Why would anyone want to know what you think there might be studies of, we're not compiling your autobiography. — Isaac

You have a very serious ego problem. You can't tolerate anyone else's opinion for even a second. That's pretty sad.

Mind and thought exists for sure. But why are you so absolutely certain that they both are matters of idealism? Mind could be matter, from where we sit, we don't know if it is or not; and conversely, we don't know if mind is idealism stuff or not. You say it is obvious that mind is idealism stuff. To me it's not obvious.

So, my reply is that it is so obvious to me that my mind is not a physical thing with physical characteristics, like size, shape, weight, volume, etc. that I'm not making an assumption when I say my mind is not a physical thing. It's clearly not. It makes sense to ask what a (supposedly) physical thing like a flower smells like, but it's incoherent to ask what my mind smells like, or looks like, or tastes like. To say minds and brains are identical is to make a fundamental category error. I think a materialist who asserts that has lost the game in the same way as a materialist who starts questioning whether minds/consciousness even exist.

Consider the following: two people from thousands of years ago can meaningfully talk about their minds, agreed? They can exchange meaningful information with each other about their mental states. Now, if minds and brains are the same thing, then two people in ancient times exchanging meaningful information about their minds must also be exchanging meaningful information about their brains. But of course, ancient peoples had no idea how the brain worked. They thought it cooled the blood. It's an absurdity to claim ancient peoples were meaningfully exchanging information about their brains, so the claim mind=brain entails an absurdity.

Good discussion!

Consider the following: two people from thousands of years ago can meaningfully talk about their minds, agreed? — RogueAI

I would not agree to that. It was already pointed out that all content that could be meaningfully be talked about is something that is for sure not the mind. And of what two people are you talking? You cannot even prove or be sure there is anyone to talk with. Who of both is you?

Animals don't have language in any sense of the word. They can communicate, sure. But that's not language. The have cries that signify things like this is edible, this is dangerous, come here and so on. I'm obviously anthropomorphizing the cries. They probably have categories of some kind that allows them to interpret something as a sound for something specific like food or predator, etc. As for dogs when they respond to a command, they are repeating a behavior which they have associated with that command. One command is for them to sit down, for example. They do an action which the human has shown leads to a reward, or a desired outcome. — Manuel

It sounds like you are using a combination of Stimulus Response theory and a notion of prewired innate categories to explain animal communication. But there is much new research showing that animals conceptualize in ways similar to humans.

Can Dogs Learn Concepts the Same Way We Do? Concept Formation in a German Shepherd

https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4pb6w96g


“Do animals have concepts?

The considerations above lead most cognitive scientists to assume that the meanings of words and sentences are to be cashed out in non-linguistic mental representations: ‘concepts’ hereafter. However, the cognitive revolution remains incomplete: while few today deny the existence of internal mental representations (concepts) in humans, many remain suspicious when attributing them to animals. Animal cognition researchers are typically required to reject all possible associative explanations, regardless of their complexity, before attributing mental representations to animals [23] and the discipline spends considerable energy and ingenuity refuting so-called killjoy associative explanations [10,24]. Fortunately, the field has matured to the point where, for many phenomena, there can be little doubt that mental representations exist in animals, and can be recalled, manipulated and themselves represented.”

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rstb.2019.0046

“ We suggest that several of the major varieties of conceptual classes claimed to be uniquely human are also exhibited by nonhuman animals. We present evidence for the formation of several sorts of conceptual stimulus classes by nonhuman animals: perceptual classes involving classification according to the shared attributes of objects, associative classes or functional equivalences in which stimuli form a class based on common associations, relational classes, in which the conceptual relationship between or among stimuli defines the class, and relations between relations, in which the conceptual (analogical) relationship is defined by the relation between classes of stimuli. We conclude that not only are nonhuman animals capable of acquiring a wide variety of concepts, but that the underlying processes that determine concept learning are also likely to be quite similar. ”

https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2008-13159-002

So, my reply is that it is so obvious to me that my mind is not a physical thing with physical characteristics, like size, shape, weight, volume, etc. that I'm not making an assumption when I say my mind is not a physical thing. It's clearly not. It makes sense to ask what a (supposedly) physical thing like a flower smells like, but it's incoherent to ask what my mind smells like, or looks like, or tastes like. — RogueAI

This is dualist talk then?

Idealism should be the default starting position.
— RogueAI

Irrelevant. Physicalism is the default starting position. — Isaac

There are many forms of physicalism.
For instance , what allows Barrett to reject naive realism is her indebtedness to Kantian idealism. That’s why she can talk about a veil of appearances separating us from a world we have no direct access to and must use interpretive faculties to understand. She would agree we can never access the thing in itself. That notion of the physical only emerged with Kant. So I would say the default position in most of the sciences is a physicalism
derived from , or at least consistent with, Kant’s idealism.

No, it's a claim that the mind is not a physical thing. It has no physical characteristics. The contents of the mind (various subjective experiences) are also not physical things.

By the way, the discussion moves along nicely when no one talks about qualia.

No, it's a claim that the mind is not a physical thing. It has no physical characteristics. — RogueAI

Physical things are always changing. They're transient. We ourselves are transient. If ideas are eternal and unchanging (I think they are), and we're made of mind stuff, why aren't we immortal?