René Descartes’ famous quote: “ I think therefore I am”, expresses an idea that is often used to support the idealists’ position: we cannot doubt our existence. — Hello Human

If some are using the cogito for their idealist view, we should let them be. But the cogito is NOT a view of idealism. Descartes is a dualist.

My own take is that we can grant that the world as humanly experience is naturally dependent upon the experiencing human. But I don't see how we can leap from this truism to a denial of the world's independent existence, even if I admit that it's difficult indeed to articulate exact 'how' it is supposed to exist in this sense. — igjugarjuk

I don't think you can extract the sense in which the world exists apart from our participatory observation in it.

The underlying issue is that the classical attitude of modern science was to assume a stance of complete objectivity, by reducing the objects of analysis to purely quantitative terms. This was supposedly to arrive at the putative 'view from nowhere' which was understood to be what was truly there. As noted above, this attitude has been undermined, or superseded, by enactivism and the embodied cognition approach that was pioneered by Varela and Thomson. There are also many parallels in physics arising from the well-known 'observer problem' - consider for example Wheeler's 'participatory universe' wherein the act of cognition is intrinsic to the nature of what is observed.

I'm just now reading a very interesting and highly relevant book on this subject, Mind and the Cosmic Order: How the Mind Creates the Features & Structure of All Things, and Why this Insight Transforms Physics, Charles Pinter. He's a mathematician and emeritus professor with a long history in mathematical modelling especially of problems in neuroscience. His basic contention is that the features and structure of everything we see is transformed into a gestalt (a meaningful whole) by the process of cognition, which occurs in even the most simple of organisms (fairyflies, 0.5mm in length) and this cogntive act is what creates the structure that we perceive as 'the Universe'. He contrasts that with the instinctive view of naive realism, which is also a consequence of the same evolutionary processes that give rise to cognition in the first place (with the caveat that humans are potentially able to 'deconstruct' this instictive, but fallacious, sense of reality.)

So, what I'm getting from this book is the sense in which you can say that the mind creates the universe. It's not some spooky cosmic mind, but every mind, or mind in general.

I don't think you can extract the sense in which the world exists apart from our participatory observation in it. — Wayfarer

I may agree that one cannot extract or capture the sense or meaning of the world apart from that human meaning making. If meaning, as some theorists hold, lives in our inferences and the norms that govern them, then it's only where we are. But can we move from this to insisting that there was nothing here before we were able to talk about it ? Surely my mother was here before I was, and surely early lifeforms, not yet intelligent, preceded our own appearance as a species...as a condition of its possibility, making it harder to deny.

The underlying issue is that the classical attitude of modern science was to assume a stance of complete objectivity, by reducing the objects of analysis to purely quantitative terms. This was supposedly to arrive at the putative 'view from nowhere' which was understood to be what was truly there. — Wayfarer

In my view, objectivity is just a synonym of rationality, and 'complete' objectivity sounds like perfect science, or just the goal of (rational) inquiry. I don't object to the notion that some scientists were also metaphysicians who liked to think that the entities in their models were more real than the medium sized dry goods that made such modeling possible, but it seems prudent to insist on the gap between science and a correlated, optional metaphysical 'crust.' Are electrons more real than microscopes or sidewalks? I was thinking of this on my walk earlier. If meaning lives in our inferences and the norms that govern them, then sidewalks and electrons and promises and inferences are all on the same 'plane.' (The only thing that seems to have priority epistemologically or ontologically is the philosophical situation itself, which is to say us and the norms that more our less explicitly govern our discussion. This 'fixes' the Cartesian beginning, which forgets that being rational is a group activity. )

But can we move from this to insisting that there was nothing here before we were able to talk about it ? Surely my mother was here before I was, and surely early lifeforms, not yet intelligent, preceded our own appearance as a species...as a condition of its possibility, making it harder to deny. — igjugarjuk

It isnt simply a matter of pointing out that everything has a history. As you know , for Derrida, Foucault, Nietzsche and Heidegger we are nothing but history. But there is an important distinction between history as they understand it and what they call historicism. The former understands history as a genealogy. The latter subordinates history to a scheme , whether dialectic or empirical causation within some form
of realism or another. Heidegger and Derrida point out that not only a pre-human history , but the history of what I ate for breakfast yesterday, is not behind us but ahead of us as a reinterpretation of ‘what was’, generated by current concerns.

It sounds like you want to use the history of a thing in a causative way within a realist paradigm. Such does not realize the normative assumptions that secretly guide its notion of history.

Perhaps that's what you mean by 'playing ideas'? — Cuthbert

I think so. Playing ideas means trying to work with them without pretence of reaching anything fundamental, the same way musicians play their instruments without pretending that what they are producing is “the music”, or “the essence of music”. They know that what they are doing is just an exploration of music from the limited perspective of that instrument, that culture, that personality. I think philosophy should me meant the same way.

But can we move from this to insisting that there was nothing here before we were able to talk about it ? — igjugarjuk

I think of that as the 'imagined non-existence' of the world - imagining that the world didn't exist, prior to the mind, and then begins to exist with the awareness of it. But that implicitly relies on a perspective which you can never actually assume - as if you're able to be aware of the Universe from a perspective outside your awareness of the Universe.

From the empirical perspective it is true that the world existed before any particular mind came along. But it is the mind that furnishes the framework within which the whole concept of temporal priority is meaningful in the first place.

You may recall this passage:

'Everyone knows that the earth, and a fortiori the universe, existed for a long time before there were any living beings, and therefore any perceiving subjects. But according to Kant ... that is impossible.'

Schopenhauer's defence of Kant on this score was [that] the objector has not understood to the very bottom the Kantian demonstration that time is one of the forms of our sensibility. The earth, say, as it was before there was life, is a field of empirical enquiry in which we have come to know a great deal; its reality is no more being denied than is the reality of perceived objects in the same room.

The point is, the whole of the empirical world in space and time is the creation of our understanding, which apprehends all the objects of empirical knowledge within it as being in some part of that space and at some part of that time: and this is as true of the earth before there was life as it is of the pen I am now holding a few inches in front of my face and seeing slightly out of focus as it moves across the paper. — Bryan Magee, Schopenhauer's Philosophy

So, I think the argument is that philosophical realism assumes that empirical knowledge portrays the world as it truly is. But it can't do that, because it can't get outside the conditions under which objectivity is possible in the first place. Another way of putting it is that it forgets the role of the the mind in arriving at such judgements. This is why there's been an emerging trend in philosophy the last few decades around the rediscovery of the subject. And a lot of that goes back to phenomenology and thence to Kant.

His basic contention is that the features and structure of everything we see is transformed into a gestalt (a meaningful whole) by the process of cognition, which occurs in even the most simple of organisms (fairyflies, 0.5mm in length) and this cogntive act is what creates the structure that we perceive as 'the Universe'. He contrasts that with the instinctive view of naive realism, which is also a consequence of the same evolutionary processes that give rise to cognition in the first place (with the caveat that humans are potentially able to 'deconstruct' this instictive, but fallacious, sense of reality.) — Wayfarer

I find it hard to believe that naive realism exists very much among adults. A few philosophers pretend to be, but I think they are playing with words (or indulging linguistic preferences). For context, I wouldn't call a confident atheoretical managing of daily tasks 'naive realism' just because one is not recalling that of course the scene of those tasks is largely the product of my nervous system.

My point about the inscription is from a perspective of indirect realism. The 'raw material' that our nervous system transforms into mountains and messages has a memory that makes such a message possible. That chiseled string of gashes in the granite is like a dormant virus, waiting for a host, for the possibility of its quotation.

I find it hard to believe that naive realism exists very much among adults. — igjugarjuk

I find it exceedingly easy to believe, I encounter it in very many discussions on this forum - not as an articulated or explicit philosophy but as a set of implicit assumptions, questioning of which often results in eye-rolling or exasperation.

I don’t think that my idea falls into the problem of applying it to itself, because I didn’t suggest any alternative system. What I suggested is abandoning philosophy and making art by using the remnants of the abandoned philosophy. How can art be suspected of proposing another metaphysical system?

The very question itself is so full of presuppositions and premises that it should be thoroughly deconstructed and reassembled to make sense. As it stands it's a 17th century question, though in some form asked by the Greeks somewhat earlier and somewhat better. The short answer is that there likely is an "external world" but it appears not to be static Cartesian "external material world" and nor do "we" appear to be static Cartesian subjects loftily observing everything and doubting everything. I wonder if much more can ever be sensibly said, so we should probably stay quiet about it, wovon man nicht sprechen kan etc.

I don’t think that my idea falls into the problem of applying it to itself, because I didn’t suggest any alternative system. What I suggested is abandoning philosophy and making art by using the remnants of the abandoned philosophy. How can art be suspected of proposing another metaphysical system? — Angelo Cannata

To be fair, I'll grant that one can sort of escape metaphysics by carefully avoiding any talk that involves norms. One can suggest that we try something else. The wrong way to do this is the pomo cartoon, which presents the impossibility of truth or metaphysics as a supreme metaphysical truth. The more sophisticated way to do this (a Rortian way?) is to avoid the temptation to make grand claims (including grand claims about the nullity of grand claims ) and stick with artsy suggestions. I think art is great, and I can understand a literary shift away from metaphysics...while not being so ready to abandon ship myself.

I doubt if much can ever be smensibly said, so we should probably stay quiet about it, wovon man nicht sprechen kan etc. — hwyl

Oh, but I think a lot has sensibly been said by recent philosophy about a concept of history that is neither Cartesian nor Kantian.

not as an articulated or explicit philosophy but as a set of implicit assumptions, questioning of which often results in eye-rolling or exasperation. — Wayfarer

Now that I can relate to. It's those pesky implicit assumptions that wreak the most havoc. We can't criticize what we don't yet recognize as optional.

So, what I'm getting from this book is the sense in which you can say that the mind creates the universe. It's not some spooky cosmic mind, but every mind, or mind in general. — Wayfarer

Call it the human mind and make it a demiurge, and I think I agree. There was stuff here before us from which we emerged, but the world as we know it is largely our creation. Humans take some kind of raw environmental 'stuff' and (as you mention) carve out a lifeworld. We even created among ourselves norms that govern our communication. We understand concepts like lying or fallacious reasoning...and we understand that we understand such things. We are at the level of Hamlet. We are characters who are also playwrights, experiencing ourselves on a stage, accountable for our words and deeds, as potentially and ideally responsible and autonomous selves among other such selves. (This is related to Robert Brandom's stripped down and modernized version of Hegel.)

It seems instead to me that materialism is an idea which can never be verified, as for it to be verified, it would require proving that there is something existing independently of conscious beings. — Hello Human

Don't you exist independently of other conscious beings? Since those conscious beings each have material bodies, then there is something material which exists independently of you: other people. Otherwise, do you assume that we are each free-floating consciousnesses without material bodies?

From the empirical perspective it is true that the world existed before any particular mind came along. But it is the mind that furnishes the framework within which the whole concept of temporal priority is meaningful in the first place. — Wayfarer

I agree with this. Both points are valid.

So, I think the argument is that philosophical realism assumes that empirical knowledge portrays the world as it truly is. — Wayfarer

A quibble, but one can believe that there is some kind of 'the way things are outside us' without believing that science ever portrays it correctly or can be sure that it is doing so.)Personally I would go so far as to say 'the way things are outside us.' I largely agree with your point, just to be clear. I'm only saying that an outright denial of some kind of crap 'out there' is metaphysically nontrivial (though probably practically trivial.)

m

We are at the level of Hamlet, characters who are playwrights, experiencing ourselves on a stage, accountable for our words and deeds, as potentially and ideally responsible and autonomous selves among other such selves. — igjugarjuk

Unless of course the responsible and autonomous self is just an effect of discursive practices within a community.

Unless of course the responsible and autonomous self is just an effect of discursive practices within a community. — Joshs

My response is...of course it is. But those discursive practices are equally their own product, as are the sense organs their own product, as Nietzsche joked once.

And what is discursive practice? Is it rational ? Is it a group activity? It's hard to see how one monkey body can make a nonviolently binding claim on other monkey body without discursive norms that hold each monkey accountable for assertions as to the way things are. If there are proper ways to use concepts, we have norms, which are hard to make sense of without individuals subject to them before witnesses. Once we are doing philosophy, it's 'too late' to question the framework, for such questioning is part of the game. "Let me prove to you that the responsible and autonomous self is ontologically secondary."

Yes, it's good to be a god.

Yes, it's good to be a god. — Real Gone Cat

Indeed. It's almost tautological, as if god is the guy in the ad we're trying to be.

Unless of course the responsible and autonomous self is just an effect of discursive practices within a community. — Joshs

Just? Anyway, this is a dichotomy that often comes up in discussion about the mind or the self. Either or, a very Western binary question. It could be seen or felt - "I" see and feel - that the mind as a concept (and/or as an empirical self-observation) is more like a spectrum. No continuous and stable Cartesian fully autonomous and moral subject but more than an illusion of whatever origin. Something messy in between, something that at times is in some shifting unclear shape there, but then often isn't. Many dualities of Western thought, zeroes and ones, trues and falses are fundamentally quite strange, misleading.

Yes, it's good to be a god. — Real Gone Cat

The Trial of God

:snicker:

Agreed, friend. Who wants to be a product of filthy, base matter and energy when one can be a pure shining intellect floating in the void with other pure, shining intellects?

Unfortunately, I think I got one of those defective minds - try as I might, I can't will myself to win the lottery. Or meet Swedish lingerie models. <sigh>

Unfortunately, I think I got one of those defective minds - try as I might, I can't will myself to win the lottery — Real Gone Cat

Can't do that in dreams either. You're fully capable of constructing a world and inhabiting it, following it's rules as you go.

That's what games are, fiction, dreams, possibly real life as well.

What? You mean imagine things? Do tell me more!

I live near one of the recent mass shootings we enjoy here in the great US of A. It's funny how stuff you never imagined or dreamed has a way of intruding on your life.

I live near one of the recent mass shootings we enjoy here in the great US of A. It's funny how stuff you never imagined or dreamed has a way of intruding on your life. — Real Gone Cat

How do you know you didn't dream it?

No continuous and stable Cartesian fully autonomous and moral subject but more than an illusion of whatever origin. Something messy in between, something that at times is in some shifting unclear shape there, but then often isn't. Many dualities of Western thought, zeroes and ones, trues and falses are fundamentally quite strange, misleading. — hwyl

:up: