Let’s begin with a thought-experiment: Imagine that all life has vanished from the universe, but everything else is undisturbed. Matter is scattered about in space in the same way as it is now, there is sunlight, there are stars, planets and galaxies—but all of it is unseen. There is no human or animal eye to cast a glance at objects, hence nothing is discerned, recognized or even noticed. Objects in the unobserved universe have no shape, color or individual appearance, because shape and appearance are created by minds. Nor do they have features, because features correspond to categories of animal sensation. This is the way the early universe was before the emergence of life—and the way the present universe is outside the view of any observer. — Pinter, Charles. Mind and the Cosmic Order (p. 1)
When we open our eyes and observe the world around us, we don’t see a smooth, evenly distributed continuum, but a scene that is sharply and unambiguously divided into separate objects. Each of these objects is familiar to us, we know their identities, and we are able to name them. To the animal [i.e. sensory] mind, the world is subdivided into separate, discrete things. Without a separation into independent parts, nothing would be comprehensible, there could be no understanding, and thought would not be possible.
...Common sense has us believe that the world really does consist of separate objects exactly as we see it, for we suppose that nature comes to us ready-carved. But in fact, the animal visual system does such a thorough job of partitioning the visual array into familiar objects, that it is impossible for us to look at a scene and not perceive it as composed of separate things. — (p. 67)
with no color, appearance, feel, weight or any other discernible features. In fact, every feature which might impact the senses—hence produce an impression of some kind—is absent because in this hypothetical universe there is no life and there are no senses. Everything material may be there, but not the senses. As Kant said about the noumenal world (which is the same as the mind-independent world), nothing can be said about its objects except that they exist. — p.118
When you speak of a straight line in science, you must suppress the image of the taut string in mind. You must force yourself to forgo any mental picture of what a straight line looks like, and instead, think of it as nothing but an empty word. When you use that word, you may hold the image of the taut string in mind, but that’s for your own benefit: It may guide your intuition but should not participate in your reasoning. ...If that were permitted, then the laws of science would depend on the meanings we attach to concepts—on the mental images we hold in mind. — Pp118-120
Newton’s equations, which apply to pairs of bodies in space, determine the trajectories of planets around the sun. However, these trajectories are meaningful only to beings who see and conceive in Gestalts. The shape of an orbit, though it exists only in the eyes of a Gestalt observer, is a direct consequence of Newton’s laws, and no further principle is needed to account for it. Although the shapes of orbits are fully determined by the underlying physics (that is, by addition of simples), orbits exist only in the scheme of reality of Gestalt observers. The reality which a Gestalt observer perceives is quite different from that of the underlying physical world. In the Gestalt whole, the observer sees patterns—and these patterns do not exist in the ground reality because patterns emerge only in spread-out wholes and exist only in Gestalt perception. — p124
Sensations, beliefs, imaginings and feelings are often referred to as figments, that is, creations of the mind. A mental image is taken to be something less than real: For one thing, it has no material substance and is impossible to detect except in the mind of the perceiver. It is true that sensations are caused by electrochemical events in a brain, but when experienced by a living mind, sensations are decisively different in kind from electrons in motion. They are indeed “figments” because they exist nowhere except in awareness. As a matter of fact, they exist only as claims made by sentient beings, with no material evidence to back up those claims. Indeed, brain scans reveal electrical activity, but do not display sensations or inner experience. — (p. 52).
the meaningful connectedness between things — the hierarchical organization of all we perceive — is the result of the Gestalt nature of perception and thought, and exists only as a property of mind. These insights give the first glimmerings of a new way of seeing the cosmos: not as a mineral wasteland but a place inhabited by creatures.
One of the main advantages of this book is its clarity and focus. It has really helped me to understand the sense in which the world is 'mind-generated' - not the world in its entirety, not the whole vast universe of space and time, but 'world' as, and insofar as it is, a meaningful whole - which is the meaning of 'cosmos' - and in which the mind plays a fundamental part. — Wayfarer
Does Pinter account for what generates the structure and properties of (the) mind(s) which generates the structure and properties of the world / cosmos? — 180 Proof
What Hoffman claims is that the way objects appear to us is dictated by considerations of fitness and not realism. What an animal experiences seeing may be unlike a high-fidelity reproduction of reality, with all its complexity and inscrutability—yet it may be far more helpful when the animal needs to size up the current situation correctly and act appropriately. The claim is that so long as all the experiences a creature has with objects are consistent with one another—with no discrepancies of any kind—the creature is far better off interacting in mind with usefully simplified and schematized replicas.
We ourselves, as physical organisms, are part of [the] universe, composed of the same basic elements as everything else, and recent advances in molecular biology have greatly increased our understanding of the physical and chemical basis of life. Since our mental lives evidently depend on our existence as physical organisms, especially on the functioning of our central nervous systems, it seems natural to think that the physical sciences can in principle provide the basis for an explanation of the mental aspects of reality as well — that physics can aspire finally to be a theory of everything.
However, I believe this possibility is ruled out by the conditions that have defined the physical sciences from the beginning. The physical sciences can describe organisms like ourselves as parts of the objective spatio-temporal order – our structure and behavior in space and time – but they cannot describe the subjective experiences of such organisms or how the world appears to their different particular points of view. There can be a purely physical description of the neurophysiological processes that give rise to an experience, and also of the physical behavior that is typically associated with it, but such a description, however complete, will leave out the subjective essence of the experience – how it is from the point of view of its subject — without which it would not be a conscious experience at all. — Thomas Nagel, Core of Mind and Cosmos
Don't miss the main point. — Wayfarer
the world is 'mind-generated' - not the world in its entirety, not the whole vast universe of space and time, but 'world' as, and insofar as it is, a meaningful whole - which is the meaning of 'cosmos' - and in which the mind plays a fundamental part. — Wayfarer
Can Kant’s noumenal world to be understood to potentially have any kind of physical form (waves, for instance) which we cannot apprehend directly? Or is the use of the word ‘physical’ here entirely superfluous? — Tom Storm
Following Kant, we obviously construct the phenomenal world we know out of the noumenal world in some way - presumably from the sensations which present themselves to our consciousness. Is there any simple way of describing how this is might be understood to actually work?
In the phenomenal world we are always operating from some kind of sense making schema. We make sense of the world we apprehend and choices based on this - which may have impact upon our very survival (don’t jump off that cliff, don't smoke, etc). Could dying then be taken as an example of receiving direct feedback from the noumenal world?
Kastrupt's Idea of the World, while advancing a less than convincing idealist ontology, has a very succinct overview of the seemingly intractable problems facing realism and particularly physicalism. But the interesting thing to me is that the same arguments he uses can be easily flipped around to show how, assuming that physicalism is true, we would still have these same intractable issues anyhow. — Count Timothy von Icarus
I don't think so. Hegel completely rejects Kant's noumenon / thing-in-itself – he doesn't "have to assume" it and neither do we (pace Schopenhauer).You have to assume the noumenal exists from the outset [ ... ] You can't fully exorcise radical skepticism, but plenty of good works have been done to talk people down off the ledge of skepticism (the Phenomenology of Spirit being the example I always look to). — Count Timothy von Icarus
For Hoffman it is ludicrous to talk of "neurons giving rise to minds," as such because "neurons" only exist in the minds of human beings. — Count Timothy von Icarus
qualities have no function under materialism, for quantitatively-defined physical models are supposed to be causally-closed; that is, sufficient to explain every natural phenomenon. As such, it must make no difference to the survival fitness of an organism whether the data processing taking place in its brain is accompanied by experience or not: whatever the case, the processing will produce the same effects; the organism will behave in exactly the same way and stand exactly the same chance to survive and reproduce. Qualia are, at best, superfluous extras.
Therefore, under materialist premises, phenomenal consciousness cannot have been favoured by natural selection. Indeed, it shouldn’t exist at all; we should all be unconscious zombies, going about our business in exactly the same way we actually do, but without an accompanying inner life. If evolution is true—which we have every reason to believe is the case—our very sentience contradicts materialism. — Bernard Kastrup, Consciousness Cannot have Evolved (paywalled)
A major theme of this book is that “reality” is not confined to matter and its physical properties. There is a whole firmament of appearances, sensations, perceptions, insights and wide-ranging Gestalt vision. These things exist in the minds of sentient creatures, and are often won by hard and persistent effort. It is true that they exist only in animal minds, but they are nonetheless real and indispensable aspects of the universe. What is shown above is that the very existence of hierarchically complex objects is confined to the minds of living observers. Only living minds apprehend complexity and multiplicity. Complexity exists in the universe solely because it is discerned—in fact created—in minds. It exists only in minds.
The problem I find with Hoffmann's theory is that if reality is nothing like what we experience, then how could he arrive at the conclusion that reality is nothing like what we experience. — Janus
The idea that what we’re doing is measuring publicly accessible objects, the idea that objectivity results from the fact that you and I can measure the same object in the exact same situation and get the same results — it’s very clear from quantum mechanics that that idea has to go. Physics tells us that there are no public physical objects. So what’s going on? Here’s how I think about it. I can talk to you about my headache and believe that I am communicating effectively with you, because you’ve had your own headaches. The same thing is true as apples and the moon and the sun and the universe. Just like you have your own headache, you have your own moon. But I assume it’s relevantly similar to mine. That’s an assumption that could be false, but that’s the source of my communication, and that’s the best we can do in terms of public physical objects and objective science. — Donald Hoffman
QBism would say, it’s not that the world is built up from stuff on “the outside” as the Greeks would have had it. Nor is it built up from stuff on “the inside” as the idealists, like George Berkeley and Eddington, would have it. Rather, the stuff of the world is in the character of what each of us encounters every living moment — stuff that is neither inside nor outside, but prior to the very notion of a cut between the two at all. — Chris Fuchs
These two parts seemed quite ad hoc to me. — Count Timothy von Icarus
Through reason and experimental observation. — Wayfarer
He's not saying that. I don't think you've taken in what he's saying. — Wayfarer
The same thing is true as apples and the moon and the sun and the universe. Just like you have your own headache, you have your own moon. But I assume it’s relevantly similar to mine. That’s an assumption that could be false, but that’s the source of my communication, and that’s the best we can do in terms of public physical objects and objective science. — Donald Hoffman
The idea that what we’re doing is measuring publicly accessible objects, the idea that objectivity results from the fact that you and I can measure the same object in the exact same situation and get the same results — it’s very clear from quantum mechanics that that idea has to go. Physics tells us that there are no public physical objects. So what’s going on? Here’s how I think about it. I can talk to you about my headache and believe that I am communicating effectively with you, because you’ve had your own headaches. The same thing is true as apples and the moon and the sun and the universe. Just like you have your own headache, you have your own moon. But I assume it’s relevantly similar to mine. That’s an assumption that could be false, but that’s the source of my communication, and that’s the best we can do in terms of public physical objects and objective science. — Donald Hoffman
For example the idea of evolution is based on the fossil record; and observation of plants and animals and their similarities and differences, and also on studying DNA profiles but according to his theory all that could tell us nothing about how species evolved, and indeed the very idea of species evolving and sharing traits and DNA would be groundless.How do you think he could address this problem? — Janus
Reality is not 'just an experience'. It's a constructive activity which synthesises elements of sensory data with the categories of the understanding to generate the phenomenal experience. — Wayfarer
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