I believe we both acknowledge that we exist in the world, as do other living organisms and things. You clearly think that those other creatures and things are "external" to us. If by that you mean they exist in the world along with us, in addition to us, I agree. If you mean they exist in a world that is outside us, I don't agree.

Idealism doesn't seem to provide any explanation as to how the flower I see can be the same flower you see, hence it doesn't cohere with everyday experience, which seems to show that we can both look at, smell, and touch particular flowers (among many other wonderful things which I won't mention here for the sake of brevity and decorum).. — Janus

Idealism wouldn't require anything external to the mind, so I'm not sure it's worried about other minds and what they see.

In any event, if your basis for realism is to provide an external causative object so that we'll have an explanation for consistency of perception from person to person, that object need not bear any resemblance to the perception. It need only be some noumenal whatever. The flower, for example, could be an algorithm that causes such perceptions in that scenario and nothing more.

When I see a flower, I don't see a perception of a flower. I see a flower. Do you claim I see something else? — Ciceronianus

My car has this feature that causes a light on the side mirror to light up when another vehicle passes into my blind spot. Unless you wish to speak if qualia, which I understand you don't, the car's perception of the passing car elicits the behavior of a light blinking on.

My question is whether the blinking light is the passing car.

To clarify my analogy: the flower is the passing car and my internal experience is the blinking light. That is, a flower elicits a physical response and it is my phenomenal experience. Is that experience the flower? I'd say no, unless you're willing to commit to the idea that the side blinking light is a passing car?

I believe we both acknowledge that we exist in the world, as do other living organisms and things. You clearly think that those other creatures and things are "external" to us. If by that you mean they exist in the world along with us, in addition to us, I agree. If you mean they exist in a world that is outside us, I don't agree. — Ciceronianus

I agree that in this world that we live in, other living organisms and things are external to us.

I too don't believe in a multiverse, where other living organisms and things external to us live in a world outside the world we live in.

Words have meanings, and as regards the phrase "external world" in the context of a discussion about the philosophy of the mind, external means external to the mind and world means the world we live in, not another world outside our world in the multiverse.

It is of course OK for you to give words meanings that are not commonly accepted within the context that they are being used in, but it does cause confusion.

It need only be some noumenal whatever. The flower, for example, could be an algorithm that causes such perceptions in that scenario and nothing more. — Hanover

Why should a "noumenal whatever" with unknowable or no attributes reliably produce the experience of a particular flower? Who wrote the algorithm?

Thinking that way denies the whole ordinary world of shared human experience, so what use is it?

No, there's nothing particularly Stoic about that (as far as I know, in any case). — Ciceronianus

It very much is. Most ideologies/philosophies/religions propose that there are things which should not be, beings which should not exist, which must or will be destroyed, eliminated, or at least changed or punished.

Universal acceptance or the idea that the universe is perfect, flawless as it is are not the norm. Stoicism is one such exception. In some ways, Hinduism. Native American beliefs also come to mind (although I'm not sure how they integrate the arrival of colonizers, if at all).

I suppose it's the result of the dualism that induces us to think of ourselves as separate from the "external world." — Ciceronianus

Were you not taught this way? It seems to be a given in Western cultures to think there is oneself, and then there's the external world.

(For example, many religious people think of themselves as being "in this world, but not of this world".)

I don't think so, no. When I say there's no "external world" I'm simply saying there's a single world, and that we're a part of it, not apart from it. I think referring to an "external world" is confusing as it implies there's some world outside of us in which we don't participate, and perhaps even in which we don't exist, but simply observe. — Ciceronianus

Of course. It's safe to say that most people think this way, including Hindus and Indians.

I think when we refer to an "external world" which "exists independently of the mind" we've already accepted a dualism I reject.

But why do you reject it? Based on what?

We assume the existence of a mind separate from the world. I don't think our minds are separate from the world; I think they're parts of the world just as we are (necessarily so, of course).

How do you explain mental illness?

No, objects have properties. — Hanover

And if there is disagreement about what those properties are?

And if there is disagreement about what those properties are? — baker

I get @Banno's comment, suggesting that if all properties are subjectively imposed, then how can we speak of those properties of the thing in itself. The noumenal is by definition unknowable, so I'd agree that we can't know what those properties are, but realize that a property free entity is nothing at all.

My only non-Kantian response is to say that the object is whatever creates the experience, but I don't know what that is. To state otherwise must result in an idealism or anti-realism.

So, if we're realists here, we need to start allowing for this "external" talk, else we slip into a purely imaginative world. It would be ironic if the direct realist who prides himself as having the common sense approach ends up denying external reality.

The trick to dealing with the little man who wasn't there in Antigonish is to understand that he makes no difference to your ability to walk up the stair.

The trick in dealing with the noumenal is to understand that it makes no difference to anything you might choose to do.

The trick in dealing with the noumenal is to understand that it makes no difference to anything you might choose to do. — Banno

On the condition one is an atheist/non-spiritual/non-religious.

Again, you make unjustified leaps.

Explain why.

The trick to dealing with the little man who wasn't there in Antigonish is to understand that he makes no difference to your ability to walk up the stair.

The trick in dealing with the noumenal is to understand that it makes no difference to anything you might choose to do. — Banno

To whom is the noumenal important? To those who believe in a kind of transcendence, ie. the religious, the spiritual, the theists. Those who have a stake is some unknowable thing out there being one way and not another.

Unlike you, who doesn't care whether that man upon the stair is there or not, even as you met him while he wasn't there.

My only non-Kantian response is to say that the object is whatever creates the experience, but I don't know what that is. — Hanover

Do you know that you don't know what it is? Or do you merely not know whether you know what it is or not, because you are seeking an impossible, incoherent kind of knowledge? You don't think you have better reason for saying it is a flower, some of whose attributes you know, than saying that it is completely unknowable, even if you cannot be absolutely certain this is true?

We can get stuck on Kant, which is fine, there's lots of stuff there.

We can also simplify a bit while still being as accurate as we can be and we say there are "things themselves" which play a role is cementing my experience of the world.

What we know and are familiar with is what we take to be our ordinary image of the world: rivers, trees, clouds, birds, etc. But to attribute these very same things to the world, absent our ordering and classification is not coherent.

Of things themselves we are only acquainted with effects, which feed into an innate structure that attributes, not only "thatness" to items, but colours, smells, etc., not to mention the concepts which we use so (seemingly) effortlessly.

But we cannot go behind these, as much as we may want to.

What we know and are familiar with is what we take to be our ordinary image of the world: rivers, trees, clouds, birds, etc. But to attribute these very same things to the world, absent our ordering and classification is not coherent. — Manuel

The reason I disagree with this is that the idea of the thing in itself becomes irrelevant if we absolutely can't know what it is, which is exactly how it is defined. What we do know is that we inhabit a world we share with other non-human percipients, and their behavior towards things shows us that they see the same things (even if not in the exactly the same ways) in the same locations. The whole world is an incredibly complex coherent system comprising countless environments and kinds of entity, all of which hangs together coherently and consistently as a shared world.

So, it's not a matter of attributing anything to the purported "thing in itself" in principle we cannot do that; the thing in itself just is the idea of "something" to which nothing can be attributed. So, I say "fuck the thing in itself, what use is it"? Why do we cling to this incoherent idea of something to which nothing can be attributed?

To whom is the noumenal important? To those who believe in a kind of transcendence, ie. the religious, the spiritual, the theists. Those who have a stake is some unknowable thing out there being one way and not another. — baker

What possible stake could anyone have in something completely unknowable? The "religious, the spiritual, the theists", contradicting themselves, think they do know something. or at least can, or could, know something "one day", about the purportedly unknowable.

I'm confused. I would've sworn in another conversation we had that you thought the idea was useful.

I currently re-reading Cudworth, a persecutor to Kant, who stated a similar doctrine almost 100 years before the Critique was published. It's very interesting.

He say that of these things themselves, we feel only motion - effects the objects induce in us, specifically to creatures like us, that we then attribute all this richness we take for granted. The idea being there was something here prior to us existing, but it cannot be defined using the concepts we apply to nature.

But there's also Schopenhauer, who says that the-thing-in-itself is will, energy, the same thing you feel when you move your arm is what it would be like to be anything else in the universe, if it were conscious.

So there's no need to say that things in themselves are completely, 100% unknowable. Perceiving effects, feeling as a subject and object or using the idea as a limiting notion, so as to not postulate a relational ontology ad infinitum, are useful and have content, to me anyway.

So it depends on how you take these ideas. I would agree, if we can know nothing at all about it, then the idea is not too useful.

I would've sworn in another conversation we had that you thought the idea was useful. — Manuel

I may have said that the distinction is a valid logical one, which I think it is. But I agree with Hegel's critique; that the idea of the thing in itself is just an idea derived by positing the opposite of the for us, an idea which nonetheless irrevocably remains just an idea for us; which makes taking it seriously a kind of a performative contradiction. Schopenhauer's totalizing notion of a blind will does not seem capable of explaining how it is that we experience a complex, consistently integrated world.

The most parsimonious explanation would seem to be that the structures and events we perceive, although obviously not known exhaustively, are real and somehow isomorphic with what is independent of us and our perceptions and judgements. But we are always pushing the limits of language, so if we don't attempt to speak from "beyond ourselves" we will save ourselves from uttering what is pretty much useless nonsense.

structures and events we perceive, although obviously not known exhaustively, are real and somehow isomorphic with what is independent of us and our perceptions and judgements. But we are always pushing the limits of language, so if we don't attempt to speak from "beyond ourselves" we will save ourselves from uttering what is pretty much useless nonsense. — Janus

Then it is a mere difference on the use of our words. A structure or an event unperceived by a conscious being capable of making these discriminations is not too different from things-themselves.

Beyond this, structures or things or whatever you want to call it, our knowledge is indeed in very shaky grounds. But if something akin to this is not postulated, I don't see how we avoid saying that we make everything up and are left with pure idealism.

I think we could clarify these notions by speaking about what they can't be.

I suspect such notions are contrasted with a priori knowledge - a complicated subject, which I'm trying to clear up.

Funny how hard "naïve realism" turns out to be!

Beyond this, structures or things or whatever you want to call it, our knowledge is indeed in very shaky grounds. But if something akin to this is not postulated, I don't see how we avoid saying that we make everything up and are left with pure idealism. — Manuel

I agree,. Schopenhauer's critique of Kant's "things in themselves" was that they can't be plural because difference and change is nothing more than a category of judgement, just as space and time are nothing more than the "pure forms of intuition". So there cannot be things unless there is differentiation, which requires space and change, which requires time, both of which Kant claimed were relevant only to the phenomenal and which he denied of the noumenal. But the conundrum is as to how "something" supposedly completely changeless and undifferentiated could give rise to a perceived world of change and difference.

So, I tend to think we do know things, just not exhaustively; and that seems to dissolve the problem, for me at least. I'm not convinced the question "But what are they, really?" is not nonsensical, even though it may seem sensical enough. It relies on the idea of an omniscient mind which could exhaustively know what things truly are in a kind of absolutely total way. I tend to think this is a linguistically induced fantasy.

The problem I see with saying we make everything up and that idealism is the case, is that it doesn't work at all without a God or some such entity, something that guarantees that we all see the same things. Absent a deity it seems to be an idea incapable of explaining anything at all.

Idealism wouldn't require anything external to the mind, so I'm not sure it's worried about other minds and what they see. — Hanover

Indeed, idealism reduces to solipsism.

To those who believe in a kind of transcendence, ie. the religious, the spiritual, the theists. Those who have a stake is some unknowable thing out there being one way and not another. — baker

The gullible? Perhaps you do have a point.

Yes. And I think Schopenhauer was quite acute in making that observation. Somehow, at bottom, we are all one thing. Somehow the appearance of difference emerged with sufficient cognitive capacities.

. I'm not convinced the question "But what are they, really?" is not nonsensical, even though it may seem sensical enough. It relies on the idea of an omniscient mind which could exhaustively know what things truly are in a kind of absolutely total way. — Janus

'What are they really' presupposes a perseptive-less view or an omniscient view of all possible lived experience of all living creatures experiencing a "similar object". My thought is more, what grounds these appearances? Structures, negative noumena, will? One can say "well it's all atoms and fields at bottom". But from our representations of objects all the way down to atoms, there is a massive gap in our knowledge.

Imagine being in front of a tree with all senses. You lose sight, the tree is still there. You can touch it, hear it, etc. Now lose touch. You can still hear it, taste it if you like. But keep on going. You lose your traditional five senses. But we can't deny an object exists out there.

The problem I see with saying we make everything up and that idealism is the case, is that it doesn't work at all without a God or some such entity, something that guarantees that we all see the same things. Absent a deity it seems to be an idea incapable of explaining anything at all. — Janus

We have essentially the same genes, and one human being can be used in experiments, as a substitute for the whole species when it comes studying perception, or medication and so on. Why would we drastically experience a different world, people with severe cognitive problems aside?

We just project the world entirely. But don't have enough knowledge to see how we do this. I don't believe this at all, but it's what remains if we don't postulate a structure, etc.

I think it's a question which shouldn't arise, frankly, and I assume it does only if one takes faux doubt of the kind which so famously was indulged in by Descartes seriously. — Ciceronianus

Ok, but it keeps coming back. Descartes has been dead a long time and we still worry about brains in vats. The flies get out of the bottle and then a whole new generation of flies gets in.

The flies get out of the bottle and then a whole new generation of flies gets in. — Cuthbert

:wink:

Words have meanings, and as regards the phrase "external world" in the context of a discussion about the philosophy of the mind, external means external to the mind and world means the world we live in, not another world outside our world in the multiverse. — RussellA

That would seem to me to make the mind the "internal world." Words have meanings, you see.

It seems to be a given in Western cultures to think there is oneself, and then there's the external world. — baker

Western culture has been fundamentally selfish for some time, it's true. The concern with individual rights, individual salvation, individual status, comfort, power, wealth, has been overwhelming. Self-love seems to me to be a narrow basis on which to assess the universe.

I think when we refer to an "external world" which "exists independently of the mind" we've already accepted a dualism I reject.

But why do you reject it? Based on what? — baker

Because I don't accept that our "minds" are separate from us, and think we're not separate from the rest of the world. I don't think it can be doubted on any reasonable basis that all we do is the result of our interaction as living organisms with the rest of the world.

How do you explain mental illness? — baker

As a particular kind of illness, or disorder, we suffer from. I'm not sure I understand what you mean, though.

To clarify my analogy: the flower is the passing car and my internal experience is the blinking light. That is, a flower elicits a physical response and it is my phenomenal experience. Is that experience the flower? I'd say no, unless you're willing to commit to the idea that the side blinking light is a passing car? — Hanover

This seems to be to simply beg the question. Why should we assume the blinking light is all we see?

Ok, but it keeps coming back. Descartes has been dead a long time and we still worry about brains in vats. The flies get out of the bottle and then a whole new generation of flies gets in. — Cuthbert

The fact so many are enamored by the thought of being brains in vats is disturbing, as it seems to amount to a rejection of the world in which we live.

This seems to be to simply beg the question. Why should we assume the blinking light is all we see? — Ciceronianus

This misunderstands the analogy. We don't see the blinking light. We see the flower. The car sees the passing car and a blinking light is activated.

Direct realism holds that the flower and the perception are indistinct. What you see is what there is.

Under direct realism, when I see a flower, the flower is whatever I see. We don't distinguish between "flowers" and "perceptions of flowers" as that would lead us down the path of having to explain which part of the flower is real and which is subjectively created. We also don't bother with things like qualia, as that would ask us to explain the difference between cognitive substance and external physical substance and it might suggest there are two flowers (the real and the perceived).

Now to my car:

The car sees a passing vehicle. Under direct realism, its response isn't to interpret the passing car, but to simply perceive it. Perceptual events aren't mysterious events, but they are simply behavioral responses offering direct impressions of objects. So, a car sees a passing car and it offers a behavioral response to it, namely to blink a light. The passing car, under direct realism, to my car, is a blinking light.

If passing cars are not blinking lights, but are something far more substantial, and include doors, windows, and seats and you know this because you've seen them, then my question is why your behavioral responses can be said to be accurate, but not the car's.

Back to bees and flowers:

Is the flower the way I see it or the way the bee sees it? If some creature sees it as a blinking light, is it a blinking light?