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
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
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
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
No, there's nothing particularly Stoic about that (as far as I know, in any case). — Ciceronianus
I suppose it's the result of the dualism that induces us to think of ourselves as separate from the "external world." — Ciceronianus
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
I think when we refer to an "external world" which "exists independently of the mind" we've already accepted a dualism I reject.
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).
And if there is disagreement about what those properties are? — baker
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
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
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
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
I would've sworn in another conversation we had that you thought the idea was useful. — Manuel
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
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'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
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
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
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
It seems to be a given in Western cultures to think there is oneself, and then there's the external world. — baker
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
How do you explain mental illness? — baker
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
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
This seems to be to simply beg the question. Why should we assume the blinking light is all we see? — Ciceronianus
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