a worm, a termite, a pig, and a human all have a perspective. No perspective would seem privileged as to evaluating truth. Yet a worm can’t discern electromagnetism, nor scientific insights, mechanical theory etc., but humans can. But there is not supposed to be a Great Chain of Being. Yet humans at least act as though we have a privileged perspective to being close to what is “really going on”, more than other animals at least — schopenhauer1

For those who say that the direction of scientific knowing is an asymptotic progress toward
truth, what grounds perspective isn’t some ‘really real’ view from nowhere. Rather, dialectical relation is irreducible. There is no perspective-free reality to be uncovered prior to dialectical perspective. Instead, the structural form of the movement of the dialectic itself is the ground.

How can information processing simpliciter be the same as a full-blown observer? I think there are too many jumps and "just so" things going on here to link the two so brashly. — schopenhauer1

For those involved with building theories through 'cybernetic codes', there is an interesting model that separates two kinds of cognitive processes and sees them interacting in parallel. The model assumes that stress of negative experiences drives the interaction:

The cognitive system, shown in the left-hand side of Figure 1, is comprised of low-level automatic processing and on-line (strategic) processing that includes the limited capacity “thinking space.” The output illustrated is labeled “psychological disorder” and is considered the consequence of the cognitive attentional syndrome (CAS) dominating on-line processing as depicted. Under different on-line processing configurations, where, for example, inhibition of worry under control of the MCS is specified, internal psychological events will be transitory and therefore not constitute “disorder.”

The need to pay attention is accompanied by a process that gives it a way to resolve the emergency. The system becomes dysfunctional without that relief:

The model highlights clear differences between metacognitive therapy and other treatment approaches in the intended target of change. In MCT, the therapist retrieves and modifies the validity of declarative metacognitions and also retrieves and re-writes the commands (procedures) for regulating processing with the purpose of modifying those involved in the CAS. In contrast, other treatments either do not aim to work on metacognitions or they do so without maintaining a clear structural and functional distinction between systems. But such a distinction could be facilitative in the design of more advanced theory-grounded treatment techniques. For example, if we consider the treatment of low self-esteem, a cognitive therapist will aim to identify and challenge negative beliefs about the self by asking questions such as: “What is the evidence you are a failure, is there another way to view the situation?” but the metacognitive therapist would ask: “What’s the point in analyzing your failures?” and follows with techniques that allow the individual to directly step-back and abandon the perseverative thought processes that extend the idea. Of particular importance, in MCT, the client discovers that processing remains malleable and subject to control in spite of the dominant cognition (belief) “I’m a failure,” thus creating an alternative model of processing rather than an alternative model of the social self (the latter considered a secondary topographic event).

From this perspective the 'perceiver' happens between the processes rather than appears as a result of any process by itself.

We get a view from nowhere. — schopenhauer1

Or rather … no view anywhere. Case solved.

That is to say, where ever information is being coded and decoded, that local interaction between information components is where a perspective is taking place. — schopenhauer1

What I would say was that a perspective is a modelling relation with reality. A nervous system encodes habits of action and prediction. The gives an organism its point of view.

And key to an organism making such a model is that it models itself as in fact an organism in the world. It is a third person model as much as a first person one. The self must be discriminated from world, and thus it must be included in the reality being modelled.

To chew my food, I must model my tongue as part of myself, the food as part of the world. Pain sensors help define that objective line. After coming back from the dentist with a numb mouth, eating becomes a risky business for a while as consciousness of the boundary between self and world are neurologically disrupted.

None of this is mysterious - a drama for metaphysics. Just standard biology.

Or rather … no view anywhere. Case solved. — apokrisis

No, same thing. What is no view even mean? You will use a pseudo view to describe it.

None of this is mysterious - a drama for metaphysics. Just standard biology. — apokrisis

What is a world without perspective? Let me guess, my OP predicts your answer:

So I immediately see apokrisis and others point to "information" being the source of perspective. That is to say, where ever information is being coded and decoded, that local interaction between information components is where a perspective is taking place. But is it? How is information akin to perspective? Perspective, a point of view, seems to be attached to an observer, not an information processor. How can information processing simpliciter be the same as a full-blown observer? I think there are too many jumps and "just so" things going on here to link the two so brashly. — schopenhauer1

So yeah

I notice you went straight to organism. I’m talking no point of view from a sentient being.

For those who say that the direction of scientific knowing is an asymptotic progress toward
truth, what grounds perspective isn’t some ‘really real’ view from nowhere. Rather, dialectical relation is irreducible. There is no perspective-free reality to be uncovered prior to dialectical perspective. Instead, the structural form of the movement of the dialectic itself is the ground. — Joshs

But what is a perspective free universe. One without sentience? Planets planeting? Particles particling? What is being without perspective? I get there is no neutral perspective but I’m asking what is a universe without a perspective at all, neutral, relative, or otherwise?

But what is a perspective free universe. One without sentience? Planets planeting? Particles particling? What is being without perspective? I get there is no neutral perspective but I’m asking what is a universe without a perspective at all, neutral, relative, or otherwise? — schopenhauer1

I dont think there is being without perspective. Every facet of the universe produces its own changing reality via its relations with its environment. So you have a universe continually developing , but not in some perspective free sense, because a perspective isn’t simply an observation for a point of view, it’s a contribution to the production of a universe. If every facet of being produces what only exists from its vantage, the it makes no sense to speak of the absence of perspective. If you take away perspective you also take away the very facts that make up a universe.

Yet humans at least act as though we have a privileged perspective to being close to what is “really going on”, more than other animals at least. Now take away humans, take away animals. We get a view from nowhere. Here is true metaphysics. What then exists in the view from nowhere? — schopenhauer1

that is a meaningless question. You might imagine a universe devoid of observers, but you can't even imagine a universe devoid of perspective. Devoid of perspective, there is neither time nor space (as Joshs says). This is where Kant's analysis of the role of the 'primary intuitions' seems right.

There's one of my stock quotes that addresses this from a physics perspective.

The problem of including the observer in our description of physical reality arises most insistently when it comes to the subject of quantum cosmology - the application of quantum mechanics to the universe as a whole - because, by definition, 'the universe' must include any observers. Andrei Linde has given a deep reason for why observers enter into quantum cosmology in a fundamental way. It has to do with the nature of time. The passage of time is not absolute; it always involves a change of one physical system relative to another, for example, how many times the hands of the clock go around relative to the rotation of the Earth. When it comes to the Universe as a whole, time looses its meaning, for there is nothing else relative to which the universe may be said to change. This 'vanishing' of time for the entire universe becomes very explicit in quantum cosmology, where the time variable simply drops out of the quantum description. It may readily be restored by considering the Universe to be separated into two subsystems: an observer with a clock, and the rest of the Universe. So the observer plays an absolutely crucial role in this respect. Linde expresses it graphically: 'thus we see that without introducing an observer, we have a dead universe, which does not evolve in time', and, 'we are together, the Universe and us. The moment you say the Universe exists without any observers, I cannot make any sense out of that. I cannot imagine a consistent theory of everything that ignores consciousness...in the absence of observers, our universe is dead'. — Paul Davies, The Goldilocks Enigma: Why is the Universe Just Right for Life, p 271

The conceit of a lot of modern thinking is to believe that science really does exclude the subject. In fact that is impossible. What scientists endeavour to do, is to arrive at an understanding which is as general as possible, devoid of personal, subjective or cultural influences. That's what 'the view from nowhere' is trying to achieve, and it can do that. But it's not a metaphysic. To mistake it for a metaphysic is to lapse into scientism.

It's an inconvenient truth for our objectivist culture that 'the subject of experience' is an inextricable pole or aspect of reality. To which the objectivist will immediately respond: where is this 'subjective pole'? Show it to me! And that's the blind spot.

Yet humans at least act as though we have a privileged perspective to being close to what is “really going on”, more than other animals at least. — schopenhauer1

We, they, call that privileged perspective "objective reality," which it's not.

Now take away humans, take away animals. We get a view from nowhere. Here is true metaphysics. What then exists in the view from nowhere? — schopenhauer1

I'm with Apokrisis here:

...no view anywhere. Case solved. — apokrisis

It makes sense to say that, without an observer, there is no perspective and thus no existence. This is really at the heart of some eastern philosophies. For example, Taoism. Lao Tzu wrote:

The tao that can be told
is not the eternal Tao
The name that can be named
is not the eternal Name.

The unnamable is the eternally real.
Naming is the origin
of all particular things.

The act of seeing, naming, conceptualizing is what brings things into being - into a human perspective. Before that happens, they are unspeakable, unspoken. In a sense they don't exist. The Tao is the unbroken oneness that can't be described. That's what you get when there is no observer.

I dont think there is being without perspective. — Joshs

I agree with this.

Every facet of the universe produces its own changing reality via its relations with its environment. So you have a universe continually developing , but not in some perspective free sense, because a perspective isn’t simply an observation for a point of view, it’s a contribution to the production of a universe. If every facet of being produces what only exists from its vantage, the it makes no sense to speak of the absence of perspective. — Joshs

But not this. It seems like you are calling every interaction an observation which provides a perspective. That dilutes the meaning of "observation" and "perspective" till there's nothing left.

If you take away perspective you also take away the very facts that make up a universe. — Joshs

I think this is true, although I would say "things" rather than "facts."

There's one of my stock quotes that addresses this from a physics perspective. — Wayfarer

This is an example of a physicist confusing science with metaphysics. Human perspective is a metaphysical entity. It doesn't affect how matter and energy interact out here in the universe.

Matter and energy interacting out there in the universe, is a human perspective. It's how we describe things. You cannot escape the human perspective.

Matter and energy interacting out there in the universe, is a human perspective. It's how we describe things. — Metaphysician Undercover

I agree.

You cannot escape the human perspective. — Metaphysician Undercover

I know what you mean, but I think I disagree. I think it is probably possible to escape the human perspective. Even if we can't do that, we can imagine what it would be like to escape the human perspective. We can examine it from a metaphysical ...perspective.

Yet humans at least act as though we have a privileged perspective to being close to what is “really going on”, more than other animals at least. Now take away humans, take away animals. We get a view from nowhere. Here is true metaphysics. — schopenhauer1

True metaphysics is an idea established by OUR deficit. Take away the deficit, then there is no metaphysics, nor physics. To think of an "absolute" metaphysics is just bad metaphysics.

And it can be reasonably argued that the measure of superiority between species is not about what one knows. One could have all the factual knowledge there could be and still it could be objected: so what? It is not knowledge that is the measure, but value. The depth and breadth of affectivity.

I wonder what all that elephant brain's 257 billion neurons actually do; certainly not philosophy. But perhaps some glorious, unfathomable sense of well being. A world of extraordinary experiential depth and breadth, I would hazard, is there.

And that's the blind spot. — Wayfarer

But of course, all there is, is blind spot, for positing what is not blind would issue from what is blind.

In the Blind Spot sits experience: the sheer presence and immediacy of lived perception.
This statement is LOADED with problematic talk about something that is "blind". One has to wonder how blindness, us, can produce its opposite to set such a thing against itself. I don't think this is impossible, frankly, but it will not be done via any model science can provide.

I’d take time to read that article carefully, it has sound provenance.

Even if we can't do that, we can imagine what it would be like to escape the human perspective. — T Clark

Try it then. Try to remove the human temporal perspective, so that there's no "now". You'd have the entire temporal expanse of the universe at once. There'd be no separation of any object from any other object, because everything would exist everywhere all at once. If you wanted to imagine just a short portion of time, what would separate that portion from the rest other than your chosen perspective?

But what is a perspective free universe. One without sentience? Planets planeting? Particles particling? What is being without perspective? — schopenhauer1

It's obviously either a meaningless question, or else at least a question that cannot be answered.

In the Blind Spot sits experience: the sheer presence and immediacy of lived perception.
This statement is LOADED with problematic talk about something that is "blind". — Constance

I think the idea of the blind spot is a metaphor for the failure to recognize a bias held by our own position - humans often assume a god-like, objective understanding of reality when it is actually a perspective with limitations. In this I think the notion is appropriate and I think Wayfarer states the problem well.

The conceit of a lot of modern thinking is to believe that science really does exclude the subject. In fact that is impossible. What scientists endeavour to do, is to arrive at an understanding which is as general as possible, devoid of personal, subjective or cultural influences. That's what 'the view from nowhere' is trying to achieve, and it can do that. But it's not a metaphysic. To mistake it for a metaphysic is to lapse into scientism. — Wayfarer

To my mind this is one of your best succinct descriptions of the matter at hand.

The conceit of a lot of modern thinking is to believe that science really does exclude the subject. In fact that is impossible. What scientists endeavour to do, is to arrive at an understanding which is as general as possible, devoid of personal, subjective or cultural influences. That's what 'the view from nowhere' is trying to achieve, and it can do that. But it's not a metaphysic. To mistake it for a metaphysic is to lapse into scientism. — Wayfarer

What then could constitute a metaphysic? Surely no merely human perspective could qualify, since metaphysics, to be considered substantive in your book, must be absolute. no?

I can't speak for Wayfarer but surely any metaphysics is always based on a human point of view. If we have described it, we co-created it. As an idealist, I imagine Wayfarer would hold to a view that there is a reality beyond human perception. Perhaps the enlightened gain access to it.

I can't speak for Wayfarer but surely any metaphysics is always based on a human point of view. If we have described it, we co-created it. As an idealist, I imagine Wayfarer would hold to a view that there is a reality beyond human perception. — Tom Storm

If a metaphysics, to be considered valid or substantive, must reflect a "reality beyond human perception" and all our metaphysics are merely human creations or at best "co-creations" (whatever that could be thought to mean), then there are no valid metaphysics, or at least no metaphysics which we can demonstrate or know to be valid.

Sure.

Right, so I was hoping Wayfarer would offer an explanation of what he thinks could constitute a valid or true metaphysics, as opposed to merely the usual necessarily invalid and questionable,because subjective, speculations.

What then could constitute a metaphysic? — Janus

Recall that according to the Greek tradition, that humans have a dual nature - sense and reason - the intellectual faculty being nous (ironically re-deployed in today's vernacular as 'common sense'). That is the basis of the various ancient formulations of dualism: the faculty of reason as the ability to discern the real. In Western philosophy metaphysics proper began with Parmenides, although properly studying Parmenides is, I fear, probably beyond my capability. But one of the books I've encountered about it is by an independent scholar, Arnold Hermann, called To Think Like God: Pythagoras and Parmenides: The Origins of Philosophy.The title does convey the original impetus behind those philosophers, which is precisely to penetrate a reality behind the appearance. In fact that has always informed science as well - not for nothing did Stephen Hawking say, atheist that he is, that his aim was to 'know the mind of God'. So, not claiming any expertise in any of that, but some understanding of what I know that I don't know.

That is the basis of the various ancient formulations of dualism: the faculty of reason as the ability to discern the real. — Wayfarer

That is the very claim which Kant refuted. Kant's metaphysical project is confined to reflection and analysis of what possible human experience and judgement must consist in. He specifically rejects the idea that reason can, inductively or deductively, come to discern the nature of the real (the noumenal). He rejects rational psychology, rational cosmology and rational theology; in other words the reliability of metaphysical speculations about the nature of the soul, the world and God. Did you read the SEP article I linked earlier?

and all our metaphysics are merely human creations or at best "co-creations" (whatever that could be thought to mean), — Janus

Metaphysics is not my thing, so apologies. That said, my understanding is that our metaphysics amounts to a collaboration between ourselves and what it is we describe as reality. We create the measuring systems, the tools, the very language of description. And as we learn or grasp more, our metaphysics shifts and evolves. So that's what I mean by co-created. Do we ever grasp the real? Isn't even the notion of real a human construct? Or am I now sounding like a stoner? Physicalism as understood by most scientists is a metaphysical position, but many, like Bernardo Kastrup, would hold that this is questionable in the light of some interpretations of QM,if nothing else, right?

It's much easier to dismiss the whole subject than to even begin to understand it.

Apology rejected because unneeded. :wink:

I would say our study of what we describe as reality (the empirical) is science, not metaphysics. Do we ever grasp the real? It depends on what you mean by "the real". Science does a good job of grasping empirical reality; in fact science would be impossible if we couldn't comprehend the field of our experience. Can we go beyond that? Traditional metaphysics says we can, and Kant was one of the first to say we can't (even though he thinks the tendency to try to do so is built into rational thought). Later thinkers (the logical positivists being the prime example) thought metaphysical claims are completely meaningless, or at least without sense (Wittgenstein).

I think physicalism is a metaphysical position (and is invalid as any other) if it holds that the nature of reality in itself is physical. Reality as we understand it is indeed physical, but that is an empirical or phenomenological claim, not a metaphysical one (unless you want to redefine metaphysics and ontology in terms of phenomenology).

I think many people want to reject physicalism holus bolus just because they think it threatens the spiritual side of human life. I don't agree with that concern.That's my small change on the matter, anyway.

It's much easier to dismiss the whole subject than to even begin to understand it. — Wayfarer

And it's much easier to make a sweeping claim that others don't understand the issues, or that they have dismissed the "whole subject" without sufficient investigation of it, than it is to actually explain and defend your position.

others don't understand the issues, — Janus

Parmenides is, I fear, probably beyond my capability — Wayfarer

I'm not claiming any expertise, but I also don't accept your reading that Kant sweeps the whole of metaphysics off the table or that he's an out-and-out sceptic. But once you start getting into arguments about Kant....well, they're about as impenetrable as arguments about interpretations of quantum physics..... I think I've said all I want to say about it.

That said, my understanding is that our metaphysics amounts to a collaboration between ourselves and what it is we describe as reality. We create the measuring systems, the tools, the very language of description. And as we learn or grasp more, our metaphysics shifts and evolves. — Tom Storm

Let me have another shot, on the basis of what you've said. Going back again to Parmenides, then Plato, then Aristotle - there you have the beginning of the idea of the Ideas or Forms which was first articulated in the Parmenides. At issue in the way that line of thinking developed, was the fact that through the faculty of reason, you could know something with apodictic certainty - mathematical certainty, as we like to say. My interpretation is that this was a realisation of the nature of reason itself - the realisation that through reason one could come to know principles (logoi) with the kind of certitude that was never possible in respect of mere particulars - the insight that is, after all, at the origin of the Western tradition. That intuition was behind this notion that the sage apprehended the realm of unchanging truth, as distinct from the perishable objects of ordinary perception. Those 'sages of yore' were much nearer to what we would now call 'the great mystics', than to bench-scientists or academic philosophers. (This is the theme explored by the maverick academic, Peter Kingsley.)

That subsequently gives rise to Plato's epistemological scheme of the 'divided line' in the Republic. There you see the articulation of the idea of an heirarchy of knowledge, starting with mere opinion and belief, rising through dianoia, mathematical and geometric knowledge, to noesis (a word which has no modern equivalent.)

Galileo Galilei was deeply influenced by the Platonist revival of the Italian Renaissance - Marcello Ficino having produced the first complete Latin translation of Plato. Galileo's philosophy of science - 'the book of nature is written in mathematics' - was deeply influenced by Plato's esteem of dianoia. But at the same time, even though Galileo did indeed help usher in modern science with all of its immense powers, there is a fundamental philosophical issue in his work - subject of Philip Goff's recent book Galileo's Error, and also a penetraing critique by Husserl, in his Crisis of the European Sciences. That is, first, the conception of science solely as the 'domain of the quantifiable'; and second, the division of nature into the primary domain of supposedly mathematically-quantifiable entities, and the secondary domain, supposedly that of subjective perception. Joined to Descartes' vision of matter and mind, this gave rise to the dominating philosophical paradigm of the modern age. This is where the idea originates that the entirety of space-time (which is all that exists! a voice booms) can be modelled as a matrix of mathematically-describable relations. The 'view from nowhere'.

From Husserl's critique came the re-assertion of the primacy of first-person experience - that the human subject was not simply the by-product of the presumably 'primary bodies' describable by mathematical science, but was real in and of itself (which was at the origin of phenomenology. ) That's the perspective which is brought to bear by The Blind Spot of Science article (co-author Evan Thompson being one of the prominent theorists of phenomnology in the life sciences.)

But, all that said, I think something real was lost in all of this, which phenomenology itself has not recovered, even though it's vital. There is something about the Western metaphysical tradition that has gotten lost. That's what I'm researching.