It appears that the skeptic can throw a spanner in the works at every turn: first by questioning the reality of an external, material world and if that doesn't stop the dogmatist who smugly offers proof of an external material world, by raising doubts about logic & rationality à la Agrippa and his trilemma! There's no way we could mount a defense against skepticism when it enters the arena on all thrusters with guns blazing. :snicker:

That said, ignoring logical skepticism - that logic is inherently flawed - we could argue using principles such as the novacula Occami. In a video titled was the moon landing a hoax?, Niel deGrasse Tyson argues that it would far easier to land people on the moon than to create the illusion of doing so (can you imagine how many documents would have to be fabricated to prop up the lie not to mention how many stool pigeons Uncle Sam would have to pay to keep their mouths shut).

In short, in a weird and counterintuitive sense, an illusion is more complex than the real McCoy!

There was nothing in that account that ran contrary to materialism. — Banno

Except for this

I don't think idealism is opposed to realism. I think it's opposed to the notion of the 'mind-independent reality of the objects of the physical sciences.' Materialism is just the belief that the objects of the physical sciences have an intrinsic or inherent reality, independent of your or my or anyone else's observation of them, and the corollary that the mind is the product or output of those essentially unconcious and undirected material entities — Wayfarer

Which you didn’t respond to adequately in my opinion.

And also this:

But mind is part of the world. — Banno

Where in the world do you see a mind? You see beings with minds, or that loose their mind, or whose minds are clear or confused. But mind is not part of the world, As Husserl put it, 'Consciousness is not a thing among things, it is the horizon that contains everything.'

So it seems to me that the notion of our minds constructing the objects of reality out of those physical properties is entirely consistent with physicalism. Wayfarer seemed to disagree, but I couldn't get him to explain why. End of discussion it seems. Unfortunate. — Isaac

I will try again. The problem that ‘what is physical’ is very much a matter of definition. It is something that constantly changes and evolves. And need I say where definitions originate? Have you heard of Hempel’s dilemma?

As I’ve said a number of times already, I’m not questioning realism, I’m questioning the reality of matter. (I’ll qualify that by saying the intrinsic or inherent reality of matter. I don’t doubt if I get hit by a rock that it will hurt or that one ought not to step in front of buses. As the Muslims say ‘trust in Allah, but tether your camel first’. But that still does not privilege matter with being the fundamental ground of reality.)

The SEP article on idealism says that ‘ the idealist, rather than being anti-realist, is in fact … a realist concerning elements more usually dismissed from reality.’And that’s what I’m arguing. Why? Because I claim that numbers, scientific principles, lexical and logical laws, and much more, are real. Furthermore, that they exist independently of any particular mind, your mind or mine - but that they can only be grasped by a mind. So they’re real, but they’re not material in nature. They are what Augustine described as ‘intelligible objects’. (This is the subject of platonic realism in Mathematics among other things.) So that’s what I’m arguing against materialism. Furthermore that due to the faculty of reason, these elements are just as intrinsic to the world as material objects - or even more so, because it is in virtue of them that we are able to classify, analyse, comprehend and understand the physical world. They are constituents of the human life-world, and they’re neither physical nor derivable from the principles of physicalism, but it is by virtue of our possession of them, that rational thought is possible (which I think is the basic view of classical philosophical rationalism, very much the precursor to philosophical idealism..)

When we say the mind is a ‘product of matter’ presumably we mean by that the ‘product of’ the brain’, and the brain is an evolved organ. But my understanding is that science really has no handle on how the apparently physical brain - and I question whether the embodied brain is really just a physical organ - ‘produces’ or ‘generates’ the mind. It might analogously be better thought of as a receiver than a generator (although who is transmitting what is then a big question.)

The classical philosophical idea of mind was ‘nous’, which is translated as ‘intellect’ but which has a very different meaning to intellect in today’s lexicon. ‘Nous’ was ‘the faculty which comprehends the real.’ And in those times, it was not assumed that everyone knew what is real, by virtue of basic education. It took something more than that.

I understand the basic overview, I'm just not sure I can accept the presuppositions at this point. What seems to be missing is a viable (albeit tentative) model of idealism. If all is mind - we need to explain why reality appears consistent over time. Why can't our minds change reality at will? How is it that all people appear to be seperate or discrete entities of consciousness?

If matter is just what consciousness looks like when viewed from a particular perspective, then I guess we might need to presuppose the existence of a 'great mind' which holds all together - not a god - but something perhaps more like Schopenhauer's Will - instinctive and not metacognitive. Hypothetically it would take me a lot of work to get to this point but the ideas do interest me.

roughly, metal events described intentionally ("I want to go to the pub") do not have a direct correspondence to brain states. This is, I understand, what one would expect in a neural network. — Banno

Yes, that's also my understanding. We might be able to say there's a brain state which temporarily corresponds with your tendency to go to the pub, but not one which corresponds with "I want to go to the pub". Personally, I see the issue as one of function over description. Both the mental event and the statement are functional, not descriptive. Saying "I want to go to the pub" is not a description of anything (brain state or otherwise) it's just a functional statement in conversation. Mistaking it for a description is where many of these confusions arise. Likewise with mental states. The cognitive functions of the brain are processes, not states, they do stuff rather than are stuff. So you have some neural cluster in your brain somewhere which might be specifically associated with your cat (not just any cat), but it's not a 'representation' of you cat, it's process which triggers further 'your cat'-related functions (which themselves trigger further functions...). At no point is the brain in a 'state' which could be said to correlate with "I recognise my cat", at best we could have "I'm recognising my cat", but since we don't talk that way, something seems necessarily anomalous.

I do wish I'd explored Davidson earlier in my career. I can't say that I agree with all he writes, but some of the issues he draws out would have saved me a considerable number of wrong paths and dead ends in my early work.

That's very clear, thank you. I don't agree (obviously) but I think I can now see what it is about materialism and physicalism that you object to.

I think my main objection is that you seem to define what is 'real' as if the category were clear (in terms of its membership criteria) and we could assign certain things to it - numbers, logical laws etc. But I don't see how you've arrived at those membership criteria. The set {all things which are real} doesn't seem to be well defined. Do you have some criteria in mind for determining what belongs in the set {all that is real}?

For example, we might both agree that Unicorns are not real. What is it about Unicorns which denies them membership of {all that is real}?

Personally, I see the issue as one of function over description. Both the mental event and the statement are functional, not descriptive. — Isaac

In the case of state vs function, description vs process, being vs doing , is it basically a matter of a temporally unfolding event ( or series of events ) rather than an instantaneous spatial pattern? And if so, can such a temporal sequence repeat itself more or less such as to be consistently identifiable as the same, and thus allow a something like a neural process to be correlated with a statement?

is it basically a matter of a temporally unfolding event ( or series of events ) rather than an instantaneous spatial pattern? — Joshs

Yes, I think so. It's recognising that we must 'slice up' what is, in fact, a continuous process involving the mind and the environment. Not only are these 'slices' arbitrary, but the leave threads hanging. Like if we say such-and such a mental snapshot was me "wanting a drink" we would (if we took the fMRI at the right time) see something of me wanting a drink, but all the flow of data beforehand is lost, as is the flow afterwards, and, of course, the drink itself (which is an integral part of the process). Most importantly, nothing in a snapshot can capture the difference between backward acting suppressive neurons and forward acting promotion ones, they're only differentiated by their function over time in the system.

if so, can such a temporal sequence repeat itself more or less such as to be consistently identifiable as the same, and thus allow a something like a neural process to be correlated with a statement? — Joshs

Weakly correlated, I think, yes. There could never be any strong correlation because of the problem of constituting a temporal pattern as a snapshot. The relevant state is not say, axon1 firing, it's the type of flow from axon to axon. One day that might be carried out by axons 1, 2 and 3. The next day it might be axons 5, 6 and 7. There's really no way to tell except by the outcome (which kind of begs the question). The pattern might be the same, but it's not in the same place.

A lot of folks are questioning your ideas, so I've been reluctant to pile on. But there's something I wish to explore.

Because I claim that numbers, scientific principles, lexical and logical laws, and much more, are real. — Wayfarer

Let us consider an example. When I think of the number 3, is there a pattern of synapses that fire in my brain that correlate to that thought? Is that pattern of firing synapses fairly consistent every time I think of 3? And if a neurosurgeon were to get those synapses to fire while I lay on the examining table, would I think, "3"? If so, then "3" does not exist independent of matter and energy, nor is it the product of matter and energy. It is that firing of synapses in my brain. It's the name I give to that particular synapse pattern.

Now before you dismiss my idea because you think no human brain could contain all possible numbers and scientific principles - they are infinite in number - consider that the typical healthy human brain contains approximately 3.6 x 10^14 synapses. By comparison, there are at most 4 x 10^11 stars in the Milky Way galaxy. That means 1000 Milky Ways could fit in your head (not really - stars are huge).

Saw this after my post. I think it's important to note that the particular synapse pattern associated with "3" that accompanies the 3 apples I see today is not exactly the same as the 3 miles I must drive tomorrow. But some commonality will exist. Not only does our experience of "3" change from situation to situation, but it can also change from our understanding of what "3" means. To change the synapse firing pattern associated with "3" in your own brain, check out Russell's definition of number (that he attributes to Frege, 1884). If you've never studied it before, I'm willing to bet that once you understand it, the synapse pattern in your brain associated with "3" will be altered forever! :razz:

Where in the world do you see a mind? — Wayfarer

Everywhere. We are embedded in a social world that is utterly dependent on mind. See my recent post to Athena, and my comments concerning Searle's notion of institutions.

When I think of the number 3, is there a pattern of synapses that fire in my brain that correlate to that thought? Is that pattern of firing synapses fairly consistent every time I think of 3? — Real Gone Cat

Why do you think of the number 3? What is the motivation, the context that frames the thought of 3? Isn’t it always slightly different? If I ask you to continue thinking the number 3, is that not the same as repeating a world over and over? Doesn’t the word begin to lose its initial sense? So my over overall
question is , is the sense of meaning of ‘3’ ever identically repeatable, and if not , would not the pattern of firing of neurons associated with the thinking of ‘3’ also change from in lstance to instance?

I don't think idealism is opposed to realism. I think it's opposed to the notion of the 'mind-independent reality of the objects of the physical sciences.' Materialism is just the belief that the objects of the physical sciences have an intrinsic or inherent reality, independent of your or my or anyone else's observation of them, and the corollary that the mind is the product or output of those essentially unconcious and undirected material entities
— Wayfarer

Which you didn’t respond to adequately in my opinion. — Wayfarer

I responded with an entire post on this here.

Perhaps you found it inadequate because my response involves the logic at which you baulked.

"Materialism is just the belief that the objects of the physical sciences have an intrinsic or inherent reality, independent of your or my or anyone else's observation of them" is the notion that there can be true statements that are not known or believed. That is the realist position. The cup still has a handle, even when unobserved in the cupboard. There are no teapots in Jovian orbit even though we have not made conclusive observations. There are aspects of reality that are the way they are regardless of their relation to mind.

Idealism is the converse of this view. Idealism holds that statements are true only in some relation to mind. It claims not just that we cannot know that the unobserved cup has a handle, but that there is no truth to the matter; not just that we cannot be certain that there are no teapots in Jovian orbit but that there the notion of truth cannot be applied to what is beyond consciousness.

You apparently wish to be both an idealist and a realist. I can't see, on the logic offered, how you could make these compatible.

There are no teapots in Jovian orbit even though we have not made conclusive observations. There are aspects of reality that are the way they are regardless of their relation to mind.

Idealism is the converse of this view. Idealism holds that statements are true only in some relation to mind. It claims not just that we cannot know that the unobserved cup has a handle, but that there is no truth to the matter; not just that we cannot be certain that there are no teapots in Jovian orbit but that there the notion of truth cannot be applied to what is beyond consciousness. — Banno

Not necessarily. If we are expand the concept of idealism beyond Kant and neo-Kantianism ( and actually we wouldn’t need to do so in order to protect the form of realism that you embrace, since your realism is already a kind of idealism) we can incorporate forms of idealism that argue all of reality are ideas. But ideas dont require humans or mind or consciousness. Deleuze and Nietzsche argue this way. Idea is a creative differential
of forces imminent in all relations , whether animate or inanimate. This avoids the split between mind and matter.

They are constituents of the human life-world, and they’re neither physical nor derivable from the principles of physicalism, but it is by virtue of our possession of them, that rational thought is possible (which I think is the basic view of classical philosophical rationalism, very much the precursor to philosophical idealism..) — Wayfarer

Here we may be getting down to brass tacks. You are advocating some form of Platonism, yes? Numbers and so on have a reality that is not physical and yet not dependent on any individual mind, so it seems we must go along with Plato in arguing for something like a world of forms?

But there is an alternative. Sure, numbers and so on have a reality that is not physical and yet not dependent on any individual mind. That's because they are constructed by communities of minds using language. Numbers are just the sort of pattern that neural networks are particularly adept at recognising. Same goes for triangles and circles and all the paraphernalia of the world of forms. The patterns are reinforced by the part they play in our social world, in sharing out the lollies fairly and making lego model that will roll down a slope, in keeping mum happy by making sure you have both your shoes, and in understanding that the red teddybear is your sister's property and not for you to do what you want with.

Idea is a creative differential
of forces imminent in all relations , whether animate or inanimate. — Joshs

I've no way to unpack that; no idea what it might mean.

Sure, numbers and so on have a reality that is not physical and yet not dependent on any individual mind. That's because they are constructed by communities of minds using language. — Banno

Is this also true of cups? Are they constructed by communities of minds using language? Is the word ‘physical’ then just one of these social
constructions?

The cup still has a handle, even when unobserved in the cupboard. — Banno

Glad that made sense.

I do wish I'd explored Davidson earlier in my career. — Isaac

"anomalous monism" is a dreadful term. It would put anyone off. But it is interesting, and surly not a coincidence, that it seems now to be so similar to what one would expect from a neural network.

is thinking along similar lines. The point seems to be the one I think Isaac and I agreed on elsewhere, that neural networks follow a rule without representing that rule. explains this very clearly as a process not a state.

Is this also true of cups? — Joshs

Sure, if you like. Communities construct cups out of clay.

Sure, if you like. Communities construct cups out of clay. — Banno

And they construct ‘clay’ and ‘chemicals’ and ‘physical’.

Clay is dug out of the ground.

"Clay" is a socially constructed word; the stuff we dig up and make pots out of is called "clay".

This is a very important distinction.

↪Joshs Clay is dug out of the ground.

"Clay" is a socially constructed word; the stuff we dig up and make pots out of is called "clay".

This is a very important distinction. — Banno

Where and how do you draw the line here so as to be able to make the distinction you’re trying to make between what is constructed and what is prior to and independent of construction?

Where and how do you draw the line... — Joshs

Wherever I like, depending on what I am doing.

...the distinction... between what is constructed and what is prior to and independent of construction — Joshs

Folk generally have little difficulty as to the distinction between clay, the stuff we make pots with, and "clay", the word we use to talk about clay.

Have you a point, or are you just wanting to play Socrates?

Folk generally have little difficulty as to the distinction between clay, the stuff we make pots with, and "clay" the word we use to talk about clay. — Banno

I would hope not , because that distinction is presupposed by the way we use language in those situations.

Again, I don't know how to unpack that. One can't make a pot out of words.

I suppose what is happening here, @Joshs, is the discussion where the idealist insists that it is words all the way down, while the realist points out that the words are about something that is not just words.

My own suspicion, in line with Davidson, is that both are roughly true. So my favourite quote from the very end of On the very idea of a conceptual scheme:

In giving up dependence on the concept of an uninterpreted reality, something outside all schemes and science, we do not relinquish the notion of objective truth -quite the contrary. Given the dogma of a dualism of scheme and reality, we get conceptual relativity, and truth relative to a scheme. Without the dogma, this kind of relativity goes by the board. Of course truth ot sentences remains relative to language, but that is as objective as can be. In giving up the dualism of scheme and world, we do not give up the world, but reestablish unmediated touch with the familiar objects whose antics make our sentences and opinions true or false. — Davidson

(by way of cutting to the chase...)

Edit: Or alternately, Philosophical Investigations §201. There is a way of understanding "pot" that is not found in talking about pots, but in throwing clay on a wheel, firing it, eating a meal off it and selling it at the market.

When I think of the number 3, is there a pattern of synapses that fire in my brain that correlate to that thought? — Real Gone Cat

An excellent question, and I think the answer is ‘no’. That is mistaking one level of explanation with another. Let me explain.

For every number there are many different kinds of symbols, and modes of representation. You can represent it in Latin or Arabic numerals, or in binary code. But in each case, the meaning remains exactly the same - it has to, otherwise you violate the law of identity, because in all situations, 3=3, no matter by what symbolic form it is represented. I recently read an article about something called ‘neural drift’ in mice. It concerns studies of how memories of stimuli are encoded in mouse brains. It was found that even for simple stimuli, the traces of the memory shift constantly around the brain ( ref.) So I don’t see how it’s feasible to propose any kind of literal correspondence between meaning statements and neural configurations.

The same can be said for propositions. Say I want to convey a formula to someone in another language. The translation has to be exact, but the language and syntax are completely different. Provided all of the technical terms have equivalent meaning and the translation is accurate, it can be translated without difficulty. Then send it via computer - the whole string has been translated once again, this time into binary. The recipient takes that formula and inscribes it on a metal plate to attach to a factory wall. The same information now exists in several languages, binary code, inscribed on metal. So all of the forms of the information are completely different, but the meaning remains the same. How could the meaning be physical?

What seems to be missing is a viable (albeit tentative) model of idealism. If all is mind - we need to explain why reality appears consistent over time. Why can't our minds change reality at will? How is it that all people appear to be seperate or discrete entities of consciousness? — Tom Storm

Reality appears consistent to some extent, because we’re embedded in a culture and language group that identifies things according to conventions. Also don’t underestimate how deep habits of cognition go. (That was the point I tried to make about the distinction between self and other stretching back into the fossil record, although it was completely misunderstood.) We have a certain core functionality that corresponds with a great deal of our affective and intellectual make-up, which is individuated at the top-most level by the experiences unique to each of us as persons while retaining a great deal in common with others on various levels. (Kastrup has a lot to say about all of this in Decoding Schopenhauer’s Metaphysics. ) So ‘the mind’ is not just your mind or mine, it is universal.

Why did Wittgenstein say that if a lion could speak we wouldn’t understand him? I think it’s because he is so far outside the form of consciousness that is familiar to humans. We could never understand ‘what it is like to be a lion’ (tip of the hat to Thomas Nagel).

numbers and so on have a reality that is not physical and yet not dependent on any individual mind. That's because they are constructed by communities of minds using language. — Banno

But they have also lead to the discovery of genuinely novel properties which were not in the possession of any community of minds, which is the subject of Wigner’s essay The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences.

One of my pinned articles is from the Smithsonian Magazine, on the topic What is Math? I provide the following excerpt because I believe it makes a profound point in respect of this debate. It starts with an emeritus Professor who defends Platonism. Then there’s a couple of rejoinders from sceptics. And I think it spells out why there is such controversy and pushback against platonism.

“I believe that the only way to make sense of mathematics is to believe that there are objective mathematical facts, and that they are discovered by mathematicians,” says James Robert Brown, a philosopher of science recently retired from the University of Toronto. “Working mathematicians overwhelmingly are Platonists. They don't always call themselves Platonists, but if you ask them relevant questions, it’s always the Platonistic answer that they give you.”

Other scholars—especially those working in other branches of science—view Platonism with skepticism. Scientists tend to be empiricists; they imagine the universe to be made up of things we can touch and taste and so on; things we can learn about through observation and experiment. The idea of something existing “outside of space and time” makes empiricists nervous: It sounds embarrassingly like the way religious believers talk about God, and God was banished from respectable scientific discourse a long time ago.

Platonism, as mathematician Brian Davies has put it, “has more in common with mystical religions than it does with modern science.” The fear is that if mathematicians give Plato an inch, he’ll take a mile. If the truth of mathematical statements can be confirmed just by thinking about them, then why not ethical problems, or even religious questions? Why bother with empiricism at all?

Massimo Pigliucci, a philosopher at the City University of New York, was initially attracted to Platonism—but has since come to see it as problematic. If something doesn’t have a physical existence, he asks, then what kind of existence could it possibly have? “If one ‘goes Platonic’ with math,” writes Pigliucci, empiricism “goes out the window.” (If the proof of the Pythagorean theorem exists outside of space and time, why not the “golden rule,” or even the divinity of Jesus Christ?)

Please try and see the unintended irony of these objections. After all, mathematical physics is the crown jewel of modern science. Many eminent physicists and mathematicians have Platonist leanings (Roger Penrose an eminent example). But you can’t admit that Platonism might be true, on the grounds that it ‘sounds religious’ - you’re admitting the reality of something, i.e., numbers, that you can’t interact with via the senses. And if you don’t concur with the consensus view of physicalism or naturalism or materialism, then it obliges you to admit non-material realities, which is a no-go in secular culture.

Good response to @Real Gone Cat.

I think you have pointed to that magazine article previously.

...(maths) have also lead to the discovery of genuinely novel properties which were not in the possession of any community of minds, — Wayfarer

It's as if you were to argue that because a house is constructed, houses could never have "genuinely novel properties". I just do not see how that is supposed to count against houses being constructed.

Sure mathematical forms and languages and many other things are socially constructed, but they’re not only socially constructed. There are elements of them that are real. (I think that’s the meaning of that saying ‘God made the integers, the rest is the work of man.’)

Notice that the use of mathematics to discover previously unknown facts bears a strong similarity to Kant’s ‘synthetic a priori’.

There are elements of them that are real. — Wayfarer

Time to do the Austin chat about "real" again, it seems.

"Real" gets its meaning by being contrasted to what is not real. It's real money, not counterfeit; it's a real van Gogh, not a print; it's a real lake, not an hallucination.

What is it that you would contrast mathematical elements to? What is it that completes the sentence "mathematical elements are real, not..."?

But there is another point here, the presumption that social constructs are not real. As if money were not real. As if nation-states were not real. As if language were not real.

So I don't see an argument against constructionism here.