In the name of logic, reason and truth you yourself may be inclined to demonize certain right wing political views ( Trumpism, Qanon) that you believe are
either irrational, illogical or false. But do you really understand why they hold those views, where they came from, and how similar that process was to the formation of your own ‘rational’ views? — Joshs

I will answer more thoughtfully later. But, no, I'm not really interested how my rational views might be similar to fascism - I'm sure they at least partially are as they are specifically anti-fascist, so to some degree probably mirroring various stuff. I just don't see any ideal situation in history, in our human society with our animal impulses where we would sit around in ironic, sceptical friendship, lions and sheep alike, deconstructing hegemonic power structures, hand in hand. I don't know if you will accept this observation but our human history seems to stubbornly avoid such ideal situations being slaughter and exploitation instead.

he wasn't pushing idealism, and it doesn't seem to refute materialism in any way — noAxioms

Indeed, it doesn’t actually refute materialism. It only makes idealism more intuitive by making the existence of a mind the only 100% sure fact. If the only thing you can be sure of is that there is mind, would it not make more sense to posit that all the world is made of that ? This line of reasoning seems to be about simplicity. A is more probable than A&B. The entire world being made of mind (which is the only sure thing) is more likely than there being mind and matter at the same time. At least according to this argument.

You might object by saying that the entire world being made of matter only too is just as likely. But then again remember that the only sure thing is mind, and so that the existence of matter is less likely than the existence of mind.

I think quantum field theory has pretty much made a hash of the position because try as them might, they've never found any actual material. — noAxioms

I’m gonna hold back from commenting on this for now as I don’t have much quantum physics knowledge.

Humans are highly sociable, they live in a shared world of concepts, language, culture, and so on. — Wayfarer

I 100% agree. But I don’t understand how this defends idealism from the argument I’ve presented.

The dinosaurs were conscious, but they were not philosophers. By their fossils we can know that they existed, independent of us. Independent of human consciousness ever coming into existence on earth. Because we are not imagining the fossils, they are remnants of a former time in the universe — TheArchitectOfTheGods

I can’t help but resist the temptation to play the skeptic’s game and ask: How can we know that certain fossils come from dinosaurs? How can we know that the entire world to have started to exist 5 minutes ago and for those fossils to be objects created with it since the beginning?

It all hinges on the meaning of the word "external" as used in the OP question, doesn't it? External in what sense, external to what? And precisely how is it external to the what?

Is the material world external to consciousness in a space within consciousness created by consciousness, or is the material world external to consciousness in a space outside of consciousness not created by consciousness?

Are both alternatives possible, or only one alternative?

100% agree. But I don’t understand how this defends idealism from the argument I’ve presented. — Hello Human

Because you seem to be confusing idealism with solipsism. Idealism isn't saying that the world exists in your personal conscious mind. It's a mental construction in a much deeper sense than that. Your mind is an instance of 'the human mind'.

Agree. Would you be game to define idealism in, say 4 or 5 sentences or dot points (taking as given that there are various versions)?

Would you be game to define idealism in, say 4 or 5 sentences or dot points (taking as given that there are various versions)? — Tom Storm

Plato is exemplar. Ideas are the final reality.

Agree. I ask not because I don't have position but because @Wayfarer is an articulate exponent of idealism and there is sometimes confusion about what idealism means.

There's no simple way of explaining it but off the top of my head, it would be something like this.

Materialism is the claim that the fundemental constituents of reality are material (even though the concept of matter itself has become somewhat indefinite in 20^th century physics.)

The starting point for idealism is the fundamental nature of experience itself - that our knowledge of even the most apparently basic material objects is experiential in nature.

The opening lines of Schopenhauer's World as Will and Idea state the principle:

“The world is my idea”—this is a truth which holds good for everything that lives and knows, though man alone can bring it into reflective and abstract consciousness. If he really does this, he has attained to philosophical wisdom. It then becomes clear and certain to him that what he knows is not a sun and an earth, but only an eye that sees a sun, a hand that feels an earth; that the world which surrounds him is there only as idea - that is, only in relation to something else, the consciousness, which is himself.'

I think the difficulty in grasping it is that idealism requires a kind of perceptual shift - something which Schopenhauer has also stated in the Preface to his book. But is often interpreted to mean that in the absence of a mind, everything ceases to exist, which seems an obviously absurd proposition, and rejected on those grounds. (I had just such an exchange here last week.) The problem with that criticism is that it covertly adopts a perspective outside the observing mind, as if it can know what does or doesn't exist in the absence of that mind. But everything we know, including the most incontestable empirical facts and principles, is grounded in the knowing mind.

Philosophical naturalism generally tries to assume a perspective free of anything subjective. It aims to discern the nature of the object of analysis as it would be for any and all observers. From a methodological point of view, that is perfectly sound, but it is easily forgotten that the mind of the detached scientific observer is still, after all, a mind. 'But where is that "mind"?' will come the question. To which the answer is that it is never the object of cognition, nor is it amongst them (which is the basis of the so-called 'hard problem' argument). So to grasp that requires a kind of self-reflection, which your confident empiricist will usually dismiss as navel-gazing. (This is the subject of the OP found on my profile page 'The Blind Spot of Science'.)

That is why a gestalt shift is needed, which is what philosophical idealism has always consisted in and attempted to communicate.

Nicely done. I think this point -

From a methodological point of view, that is perfectly sound, but it is easily forgotten that the mind of the detached scientific observer is still, after all, a mind. 'But where is that "mind"?' will come the question. To which the answer is that it is never the object of cognition, nor is it amongst them (which is the basis of the so-called 'hard problem' argument). — Wayfarer

- is easy to see but more challenging to understand in the fullness of its implications. Even having read some Evan Thompson, it's a concept I often find slippery.

I think the difficulty in grasping it is that idealism requires a kind of perceptual shift - something which Schopenhauer has also stated in the Preface to his book. — Wayfarer

I'm not the least bit interested in the idealism vs materialism wars. Basically in very few of the famous conflicts that arose from the 17th century philosophy when Christianity collided with history. But often you get a sense of malleability from idealism - that if there is no "independent outside reality", then the world really should be your oyster and be humbler and more obedient in front of the all defining mind (or will). And also of course that natural science should maybe work less nicely and impressively in this ocean of subjectivity.

That last bit somehow reminds me of Dover Beach :)

It's a beautiful poem: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43588/dover-beach

Anyway, if one thinks about this obsolete dichotomy, then idealism appears the rational and logical alternative - and materialism the more emotional and intuitive counter reaction to all that logic. And I guess that most us tend to feel intuitively that materialism is true: that we exist as subjects in this independently existing material world, so cold to our passions, so indifferent to our will. But obviously it's infinitely more complicated than that. Pox on both their houses and that irrelevant debate.

our knowledge of even the most apparently basic material objects is experiential in nature. — Wayfarer

... is not in any way opposed to...

the fundemental constituents of reality are material — Wayfarer

One talks about the constituents of that which causes our mental experiences, the other about how we come to know of it. Two different questions entirely.

it is easily forgotten that the mind of the detached scientific observer is still, after all, a mind. — Wayfarer

Is it? Can you provide an example from philosophical naturalism where this is 'forgotten'?

'But where is that "mind"?' will come the question. To which the answer is that it is never the object of cognition, nor is it amongst them — Wayfarer

Again. The former question is asking about the mind's physical location, the latter about how (and whether) we might ever come to know that. Two different questions. It's perfectly possible (though I don't personally believe so) that the seat of 'the mind' might just be some little cluster of neurons somewhere but we'd never ever be able to know that because we could not ever grasp the evidence showing it to be so. What things are and how we come to know them are two different things.

to grasp that requires a kind of self-reflection — Wayfarer

How so? Can you give an example of having 'grasped' it, and explain how it is you come to know they've 'grasped' it? If empirical analysis is apparently shackled by the limits of the mind examining itself, then how is non-empirical analysis any less shackled? Does non-empirical analysis take place somewhere other than the mind?

One talks about the constituents of that which causes our mental experiences, the other about how we come to know of it. Two different questions entirely. — Isaac

Ontological and epistemological, respectively - but they're not entirely different. The gist of it is that materialism claims that matter, or matter-energy, or whatever it turns out to be, has a kind of mind-independent or inherent reality which is the source or ground of everything that we see and know, whereas idealism stresses the primacy of mind or experience.

That is the subject of the article I mentioned above - the 'blind spot of science' - which criticizes...

...the belief that physical reality has absolute primacy in human knowledge, a view that can be called scientific materialism. In philosophical terms, it combines scientific objectivism (science tells us about the real, mind-independent world) and physicalism (science tells us that physical reality is all there is). Elementary particles, moments in time, genes, the brain – all these things are assumed to be fundamentally real. By contrast, experience, awareness and consciousness are taken to be secondary. The scientific task becomes about figuring out how to reduce them to something physical, such as the behaviour of neural networks, the architecture of computational systems, or some measure of information.

This framework faces two intractable problems. The first concerns scientific objectivism. We never encounter physical reality outside of our observations of it. Elementary particles, time, genes and the brain are manifest to us only through our measurements, models and manipulations. Their presence is always based on scientific investigations, which occur only in the field of our experience.

This doesn’t mean that scientific knowledge is arbitrary, or a mere projection of our own minds. On the contrary, some models and methods of investigation work much better than others, and we can test this. But these tests never give us nature as it is in itself, outside our ways of seeing and acting on things. Experience is just as fundamental to scientific knowledge as the physical reality it reveals.

The second problem concerns physicalism. According to the most reductive version of physicalism, science tells us that everything, including life, the mind and consciousness, can be reduced to the behaviour of the smallest material constituents. You’re nothing but your neurons, and your neurons are nothing but little bits of matter. Here, life and the mind are gone, and only lifeless matter exists.

To put it bluntly, the claim that there’s nothing but physical reality is either false or empty. If ‘physical reality’ means reality as physics describes it, then the assertion that only physical phenomena exist is false. Why? Because physical science – including biology and computational neuroscience – doesn’t include an account of consciousness. This is not to say that consciousness is something unnatural or supernatural. The point is that physical science doesn’t include an account of experience; but we know that experience exists, so the claim that the only things that exist are what physical science tells us is false. On the other hand, if ‘physical reality’ means reality according to some future and complete physics, then the claim that there is nothing else but physical reality is empty, because we have no idea what such a future physics will look like, especially in relation to consciousness.

Sorry for the lengthy quote, but it explains it in the most succint terms I'm aware of.

Can you provide an example from philosophical naturalism where this is 'forgotten'? — Isaac

Daniel Dennett's form of 'eliminative materialism', for example:

What, then, is the relation between the standard ‘third-person’ objective methodologies for studying meteors or magnets (or human metabolism or bone density), and the methodologies for studying human consciousness? Can the standard methods be extended in such a way as to do justice to the phenomena of human consciousness? Or do we have to find some quite radical or revolutionary alternative science? I have defended the hypothesis that there is a straightforward, conservative extension of objective science that handsomely covers the ground — all the ground — of human consciousness, doing justice to all the data without ever having to abandon the rules and constraints of the experimental method that have worked so well in the rest of science. — Daniel Dennett, Whose on First?

Whereas Dennett's critics claim that there's no way to reproduce the reality of first-person experience in third-person terms. That is the basic argument behind Chalmer's 'Facing up to the Hard Problem of Consciousness'.

Does non-empirical analysis take place somewhere other than the mind — Isaac

It has different standards of evidence. Empiricism only considers what can be objectively validated in a third-person sense. Take for example empirical studies of mindfulness meditation, of which there have been many. Such studies will attempt to validate or measure the relationship between such practices and objective reports of symptoms or effects in subjects, generally with a sufficiently large number of subjects to generate a large data set. But that kind of analysis is different to the first-person practice of mindfulness meditation.

The broader point is that self-awareness of the kind that is the subject of (say) Husserl's epoché is of a different order to any form of objective study.

materialism claims that matter, or matter-energy, or whatever it turns out to be, has a kind of mind-independent or inherent reality which is the source or ground of everything that we see and know, whereas idealism stresses the primacy of mind or experience. — Wayfarer

But there's no 'whereas' there. There's nothing contrary about claiming the 'primacy' of the mind over the 'independence' of the source of what we know. Primacy and dependence are, again, two different properties.

If materialism claims matter has a mind-independent reality, then the opposing claim is that matter has no mind-independent reality. Anything less is simply an additional claim, not an opposing one. One might be a staunch materialist and still believe in the primacy of mind or experience.

Dennett's critics claim that there's no way to reproduce the reality of first-person experience in third-person terms. — Wayfarer

Right. But in neither case is it 'forgotten' that the mind of this 'third-person' is a mind. The debate is over whether one mind can adequately describe another. Nothing there forgets minds are involved.

It has different standards of evidence. — Wayfarer

It does. But how are you linking standards of evidence to the ability of a mind to comprehend itself? Your objection to Dennett wasn't with his standard of evidence, it was with the impossibility of reproducing the first-person experience from a third party perspective. That impossibility applies to any conclusions Husserl might reach as it does conclusions a neuroscientist might reach, standards of evidence notwithstanding.

There's nothing contrary about claiming the 'primacy' of the mind over the 'independence' of the source of what we know. Primacy and dependence are, again, two different properties. — Isaac

But what is dependency dependent upon, if not the primary? They’re defined in relation to each other.

One might be a staunch materialist and still believe in the primacy of mind or experience. — Isaac

I don't think so. They're contradictory views. 'Materialism, also called physicalism, in philosophy, the view that all facts (including facts about the human mind and will and the course of human history) are causally dependent upon physical processes, or reducible to them'.

But in neither case is it 'forgotten' that the mind of this 'third-person' is a mind — Isaac

I don't know about that, either. Dennett's eliminative materialism holds that the understanding of the mind as an intentional agent is mistaken. Of course he can't claim that the mind simply doesn't exist, but he does claim it can be wholly understood in terms of unconscious neural processes, something which he calls 'unconscious competence'.

how are you linking standards of evidence to the ability of a mind to comprehend itself? — Isaac

Self-knowledge, having insight into your own mind, is not a matter for empirical research. What are the standards of evidence when you have a cathartic insight into your own behaviour or character? You can't necessarily prove its validity to anyone else, although others might notice a change about you, but that wouldn't make it any less real.

But what is dependency dependent upon, if not the primary? — Wayfarer

'Primary' as in most fundamental is a different meaning to 'primary' as in most important. We're talking here about the causes of our mental events. Materialism is saying that those causes are material. Unless idealism is saying that those causes are not material, then it is not saying anything incompatible with materialism. One might well be of the opinion that we cannot directly 'know' those causes. One might be of the opinion that those causes are completely irrelevant and that the only subject is our mental representations. Neither of those two positions are about what those causes are, hence neither are incompatible with materialism.

'Materialism, also called physicalism, in philosophy, the view that all facts (including facts about the human mind and will and the course of human history) are causally dependent upon physical processes, or reducible to them'. — Wayfarer

How does what they are causally dependant on, or what they reduce to have any bearing on how fundamental or important they are? My wife is made of nothing but molecules. That doesn't have any bearing on how important she is.

he can't claim that the mind simply doesn't exist, but he does claim it can be wholly understood in terms of unconscious neural processes, something which he calls 'unconscious competence'. — Wayfarer

Uh huh. So a claim against Dennett would require that the mind cannot ever be understood in terms of neural processes. Again, this seems to be a claim about epistemology, not ontology. What causes mental events is distinct from whether we can ever relate those causes to their effects.

You can't necessarily prove its validity to anyone else — Wayfarer

Exactly.

Contrary to the image you may have of me, I have no issue with the limits of empirical research in explaining human mental events. What I take issue with is the idea that some other form of enquiry would do any better.

How does what they are causally dependant on, or what they reduce to have any bearing on how fundamental or important they are? My wife is made of nothing but molecules. That doesn't have any bearing on how important she is. — Isaac

Not just the magnitude of her importance to you, but the qualitative changes in her importance, how and whether she is relevant or irrelevant to you, is closely tied to the motivational model you understand her behavior through. You don’t just understand her at the reductive level of neural or molecular interaction in causal terms. You also understand her molar behavior in such terms(social and bodily influences). Objectively causal materialist models are rife in current social
psychologically we literature, such as ‘cognitive bias’ and Jonathan Haidt’s empirical analysis of moral thought.

There are of course alternatives to neo-Kantian approaches to motivation that don’t require a return to traditional metaphysics.

For instance , if your wife develops depression do you recommend a cognitive therapist who will help her to change her ‘unrealistic’ thinking, a classic Freudian who would examine her adjustment to the ‘real world’, or would you choose a client-centered therapist who would encourage her potential to create new realities?

You don’t just understand her at the reductive level of neural or molecular interaction in causal terms. You also understand her molar behavior in such terms(social and bodily influences). — Joshs

Indeed. What I'm trying to unpick is why the claim that the causes of our mental events are material must have any bearing whatsoever on how we treat that causal relationship epistemologically. We could be thoroughgoing materialists about the causes of mental events yet believe anything about their epistemology from a belief in complete one-to-one reductionism to a belief that the whole thing will remain a complete mystery forever.

Personally, I don't think we'll ever have a one-to-one model of how matter causes mental events. I think the relationship is too complex and probably varies between individuals. None of that perennial uncertainty causes me to doubt that material physics directly causes all mental events. It just means we'll just never know the exact nature of that relationship.

if your wife develops depression do you recommend a cognitive therapist who will help her to change her ‘unrealistic’ thinking, a classic Freudian who would examine her adjustment to the ‘real world’, or would you choose a client-centered therapist who would encourage her potential to create new realities? — Joshs

I'm not sure where this line of questioning is going, but for furtherance, I'm a proponent of person-centred therapy, yes.

'Primary' as in most fundamental is a different meaning to 'primary' as in most important. We're talking here about the causes of our mental events. Materialism is saying that those causes are material. Unless idealism is saying that those causes are not material, then it is not saying anything incompatible with materialism. — Isaac

Idealism, as I interpret it, is definitely saying that. To say that the cause of mental events - the cause of thought or of a chain of reasoned inference - can be understood in molecular terms, undermines the efficacy of reason. Why? When you say you believe something because of some reason, you're not pointing to a physical, causal chain, but to a rational inference based on 'if-then' statements.

To quote an analysis by a current philosopher 'The only form that genuine reasoning can take consists in seeing the validity of the arguments, in virtue of what they say. As soon as one tries to step outside of such thoughts (e.g. by describing them in terms of molecular properties) one loses contact with their true content. And one cannot be outside and inside them at the same time: If one thinks in logic, one cannot simultaneously regard those thoughts as mere psychological dispositions (or neurophysical activities), however caused or however biologically grounded. If one decides that some of one's psychological dispositions are, as a contingent matter of fact, reliable methods of reaching the truth (as one may with perception, for example), then in doing so one must rely on other thoughts that one actually thinks, without regarding them as mere dispositions. One cannot embed all one's reasoning in a psychological theory, including the reasonings that have led to that psychological theory. The epistemological buck must stop somewhere.'

My wife is made of nothing but molecules. That doesn't have any bearing on how important she is. — Isaac

I submit your wife (and you, and I, and everyone else) are constituted by intentional acts. Living creatures are intentional from the outset. The problem is, if you say that what the mind is nothing but the activities of neurons and exchanges of ions across synapses, then you're excluding intentionality from the picture as a matter of course - which is very much the point at issue in this whole debate.

Contrary to the image you may have of me, I have no issue with the limits of empirical research in explaining human mental events. What I take issue with is the idea that some other form of enquiry would do any better. — Isaac

I don't have an image of you but I notice that your arguments generally assume a kind of positivist attitude. Please don't take that as an ad hominem or a pejorative, this is a philosophy forum, and here we're discussing philosophical ideas. Your attitude, which is generally positivist and presumptively materialist ('presumptively' because you regard other kinds of explanations as speculative and unprovable, as you say in your own words) is characteristic of a lot of people. And I appreciate your line of questioning, as it has really made me think about my arguments, but I stand by them.

To say that the cause of mental events - the cause of thought or of a chain of reasoned inference - can be understood in molecular terms, undermines the efficacy of reason. — Wayfarer

I agree. But you've switched again from saying mental events are caused by physical matter to saying mental events can be understood that way. It's perfectly possible to believe that mental events are caused entirely by physical matter and yet also believe that they will never be understood that way. This is, in fact, my personal position.

The only form that genuine reasoning can take consists in seeing the validity of the arguments, in virtue of what they say. As soon as one tries to step outside of such thoughts (e.g. by describing them in terms of molecular properties) one loses contact with their true content. And one cannot be outside and inside them at the same time: If one thinks in logic, one cannot simultaneously regard those thoughts as mere psychological dispositions (or neurophysical activities), however caused or however biologically grounded. If one decides that some of one's psychological dispositions are, as a contingent matter of fact, reliable methods of reaching the truth (as one may with perception, for example), then in doing so one must rely on other thoughts that one actually thinks, without regarding them as mere dispositions. One cannot embed all one's reasoning in a psychological theory, including the reasonings that have led to that psychological theory. The epistemological buck must stop somewhere. — Wayfarer

If I were to claim "It is true that my thoughts are just neural states" then I agree with the analysis. I cannot say such a thing without recursion because the means by which I've determined it to be true must itself be nothing but a set of neural states and there's no reason to believe they yield 'truth'. In fact, the very concept of 'truth' would be meaningless since a 'true' state of affairs would just be a state of affairs which elicited a particular neural state (the state of something seeming to be true).

But his recursion affects reason no less. If I say that my thoughts are just logical relations, I must have used a logical relation to arrive at that conclusion and it is the logical relation of facts which lead me to believe it is true. But if 'truth' is just those facts which seem to result from a logical relation, then I've no ground on which to claim that logical relations lead to truth. The argument is no less self-immunised.

Whatever model we have of 'what thoughts really are' it will itself be a thought. Doesn't matter what the model is. Recursion is built in.

When I test perception, I look at the difference between maybe some illusion I've set up and the image the subject reports, but I'm acutely aware that if I'm using an experiment to determine that perception is flawed, then I must accept the inherent problem that I'm using my perception to determine the results. Yet we know perception is flawed. Illusions exist. We can resolve that recursion quite adequately for our needs by coming to a collective decision about what is real (and hence what is an illusion).

Likewise with thought. I cannot use my own thought alone to determine the nature of thought, but collectively we can come to an agreement about what thought is sufficient to identify when something isn't one. That agreement might be 'logical relation', or it might be 'neural state'. It doesn't matter, as long as we agree for our purposes.

The problem is, if you say that what the mind is nothing but the activities of neurons and exchanges of ions across synapses, then you're excluding intentionality from the picture — Wayfarer

Why? Why can intentionality no be constituted of neurons and exchanges of ions across synapses? Why must it be constituted of something else?

you regard other kinds of explanations as speculative and unprovable — Wayfarer

Well, yes. I've yet to be presented with a meas of proving them that works. It's not that I hold empirical proof as being fundamentally better, there's no metaphysical property that empirical proof possess that makes them better. It's just that they work. When I show you an empirical proof, you take it to be proof, you agree. As does virtually everyone. They work as proofs only because they convince people. No other reason. Non-empirical 'proofs' do not work. You show them to me and I am unconvinced. Others are also unconvinced. They don't work.

It's perfectly possible to believe that mental events are caused entirely by physical matter and yet also believe that they will never be understood that way. This is, in fact, my personal position. — Isaac

So how is a causal explanation that can't be understood anything other than an article of faith? 'Well, we'll never really know how it works, but even so, we must believe it.' It's like a Catholic talking about transubstantiation. ;-)

(Although perhaps this view is similar to mysterians, who claim that 'although we know that the conscious mind is nothing more than the brain, it is simply beyond the conceptual apparatus of human beings to understand how this can be the case.')

If I were to claim "It is true that my thoughts are just neural states" then I agree with the analysis. I cannot say such a thing without recursion because the means by which I've determined it to be true must itself be nothing but a set of neural states and there's no reason to believe they yield 'truth'. In fact, the very concept of 'truth' would be meaningless since a 'true' state of affairs would just be a state of affairs which elicited a particular neural state (the state of something seeming to be true). — Isaac

:up:

But his recursion affects reason no less. If I say that my thoughts are just logical relations, I must have used a logical relation to arrive at that conclusion and it is the logical relation of facts which lead me to believe it is true. But if 'truth' is just those facts which seem to result from a logical relation, then I've no ground on which to claim that logical relations lead to truth. The argument is no less self-immunised. — Isaac

But notice the sleight-of-hand. The reason that describing thought as neural states robs it of explanatory power, is because in doing so you are appealing to something other than logic. You're implicitly appealing to a physical (in this case neurophysiological) cause. But the reason this particular appeal is recursive, is because it is attempting to explain the very faculty which is itself the source of explanations, namely, reasoned inference. The theorist has to appeal to reason to establish the axiom that 'thought is a neurological product' - but in so doing she must always be using the very faculty which she is proposing to explain. Hence the circularity. But it doesn't follow that reason itself is subject to the same criticism because reason is the court of appeal for any and all claims.

Yet we know perception is flawed. Illusions exist. We can resolve that recursion quite adequately for our needs by coming to a collective decision about what is real (and hence what is an illusion). — Isaac

Using reason.

Why can intentionality no be constituted of neurons and exchanges of ions across synapses? Why must it be constituted of something else? — Isaac

For the reasons we have been discussing.

When I show you an empirical proof, you take it to be proof, you agree. As does virtually everyone. — Isaac

Except for all the thousands of issues for which there is a range of different interpretations, huge controversies raging, threatened paradigms, etc etc.

So how is a causal explanation that can't be understood anything other than an article of faith? 'Well, we'll never really know how it works, but even so, we must believe it.' It's like a Catholic talking about transubstantiation. — Wayfarer

Yes. That's right. It's just a model I find most convincing, that's all. Just like Catholics and God.

it doesn't follow that reason itself is subject to the same criticism because reason is the court of appeal for any and all claims. — Wayfarer

That sounds to me like it exactly following. Saying that "reason is the court of appeal for any and all claims" is something you have derived by reason.

Why can intentionality no be constituted of neurons and exchanges of ions across synapses? Why must it be constituted of something else? — Isaac


For the reasons we have been discussing. — Wayfarer

I haven't picked up on any. What exactly prevents the feeling we call 'intending' being made from neural activity?

Except for all the thousands of issues for which there is a range of different interpretations, huge controversies raging, threatened paradigms, etc etc. — Wayfarer

Yes, but those are disagreements in science. Science and empirical proofs are not the same thing. Science uses empirical proofs, but it also uses a huge dose of reasoning, metaphysical assumptions, speculation... It's generally those over which people disagree. I very rarely find if I say "the scan shows activity in the left ventral region" someone looking at the same scan will say "no it doesn't". If we disagree, it will be on my theoretical assumptions, not the actual evidence they make use of.

'Well, we'll never really know how it works, but even so, we must believe it.' — Wayfarer

Just wanted to add some clarity to my earlier response to this.

If we were speculating as to the contents of a sealed box, it's right to say that we can't possibly know what's in it. I claim it's a rock "there used to be a rock on the same table this box is on, the box is about the right size...". We still can't know.

If you say "I think the box contains a unicorn", that doesn't become an equally acceptable theory just because we can't know what's in the box.

I think we agree on this much.

So all I'm saying is that the materialist model of mental activity is of the former category of theory. It's a perfectly reasonable theory, it just can't ever be shown to be the case because we must rely on that very mental activity to process any evidence we might produce. We can't escape that particular recursion, so we can't 'look in the box'. But the fact that we can't provide proofs doesn't preclude its reasonableness as a model. Nor, most importantly, does it raise any alternative model to a more reasonable status.

So all I'm saying is that the materialist model of mental activity is of the former category of theory. It's a perfectly reasonable theory, it just can't ever be shown to be the case because we must rely on that very mental activity to process any evidence we might produce. We can't escape that particular recursion, so we can't 'look in the box'. But the fact that we can't provide proofs doesn't preclude its reasonableness as a model. Nor, most importantly, does it raise any alternative model to a more reasonable status. — Isaac

That's a nice piece of writing and reasoning. I sometimes wonder if idealism's great strength is its ineffability and its contrast to the materialist model which has atrophied over time and is rather easily undermined by philosophers.

the fact that we can't provide proofs doesn't preclude its reasonableness as a model. — Isaac

There’s a certain duplicity here, coming from someone who makes constant appeals to empiricism.

There’s a certain duplicity here, coming from someone who makes constant appeals to empiricism. — Wayfarer

Again, appeals to empiricism are perfectly warranted. It's a very convincing form of evidence. Evidence and theory are, however, two very different things. The materialist model is a theory. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the acceptability or otherwise of certain types of evidence.

If someone says "I can walk through walls" I can guarantee you the first response of 99.99% of the planet will be "show me!". It will not be "does it phenomenologically seem that way to you?"

Proofs are all about convincing, nothing more. Empirical evidence is very convincing.