You seem to be attacking a straw man version of idealism.

Berkeley is the most famous and best idealist. And he argued that the external world that our sensations give us some awareness of must itself be made of sensations. He got to this conclusion in the following way. First, he noted that our sensations can only be said to be giving us some awareness of an external world if they in some way resemble it. If our sensations in no way resemble the world they're supposed to be telling us about, how do they give us any awareness of it?

Next, he held that it was self-evident to reason that a sensation can only resemble another sensation. Sounds are like sounds, smells like smells, textures like textures and so on.

From this it follows that the world our sensations give us some awareness of must itself be made of sensations, for it is only such a place that they could possibly tell us about.

Next he held that it was also self-evident that sensations are essentially sensed. That is, they cannot exist unsensed.

Next, sensations are always and everywhere sensed by a mind of some kind. For any sensation, there is a sensor, and the sensor is a mind.

Thus the sensations constitutive of the external world are being sensed and by a mind, for only a mind can sense things.

And as the external world is unified - there's 'the' sensible world - the external sensible world is the sensational activity of a single mind. Not yours or mine, but another.

It is noteworthy that many contemporary critics of Berkeley's idealism also attack straw man versions of it. For instance, many critics seem to think that Berkeley was arguing that the sensible world exists in 'our' minds. That was not his view. The external world is every bit as external on his view as it is on a materialist view. It is not its location that he is disputing, but its composition.

But the gestalt is the apple — Wayfarer

Stewed gestalt with custard...?

...as explained in this post — Wayfarer

Full circle, then. As I replied to that post, when one's mind constructs reality, what is it mind constructs it from?

I would say, reality is not generated by the mind but that everything we experience and know is generated by the mind. But we cannot see that process of construction ('vorstellung' in Schopenhauer, 'vikalpa' in Buddhism) 'from the outside', as it is the act of cognition. That's why it's a not a model as such. — Wayfarer

Good. That clarifies things.

But, 'In order to make a comparison, we must know what it is that we are comparing, namely, the model on the one hand and the object on the other. But if we already know the reality, why do we need to make a comparison? And if we don't know the reality, how can we make a comparison?' — Wayfarer

Yes, an odd kind of dualism.

Splendid question. To a fruit-fly, an apple is host to its eggs. If I throw an apple at an annoying bird, it's a weapon. To fruit bats and primates it is food, whereas it wouldn't necessarily register to a carnivore. Which is 'the real apple'? — Wayfarer

This is true, but these are all experiences of the one thing as seen by different beings? It's a type of species-perspectivism, perhaps, but the same object is in play. This notions seems more like a phenomenology.

Full circle, then. As I replied to that post, when one's mind constructs reality, what is it mind constructs it from? — Banno

I think that's the key question in this matter.

So if I see a rock in the next room through a TV screen and a camera feed then I am not seeing that rock indirectly? Then it's not entirely clear to me what you even mean by seeing something either directly or indirectly. Because that seems to me to be a prime example of seeing something indirectly.

My distinction between direct and indirect pertains to viewing the world. The TV screen, being in the world, is viewed directly, as is anything else in the periphery, like the TV stand. An indirect view would be representationalism, the assumption that we are viewing a representation of a TV.

Yes, and we paint people and write about history. But it doesn't then follow that there is a direct connection between the painting and the woman or the writing and the war. So it doesn't follow from us perceiving external world objects that there is a direct connection between perception and those external world objects. The grammar of how we describe the intensional object of perception says nothing about the (meta)physics of perception.

I don’t understand. The only direct connection I am speaking of is the viewing of the painting (along with everything else in the periphery), not that there is any connection between a painting of a woman and a woman. The connections and contacts are real, not figurative, for instance light hitting the eyes.

I'm saying what I said above: that experience is a mental phenomena, that there is no direct connection between mental phenomena and external world objects, and that the qualities of mental phenomena are not properties of external world objects.

To me, the phenomena of the brain are the biological movements of the brain. These are observable with certain scans, and therefor phenomena in the sense that they can be witnessed to occur, but I suspect more evasive means could provide more detail. I’m not sure what mental phenomena are, to be honest.

This is true, but these are all experiences of the one thing as seen by different beings? It's a type of species-perspectivism, perhaps, but the same object is in play. This notions seems more like a phenomenology. — Tom Storm

I think the Kantian answer is that the purported one thing is not known to us and that positing 'the real apple' is what Kant calls 'transcendental realism', i.e. that there's a real object beyond our perception of it.

I understand by the transcendental idealism of all appearances the doctrine that they are all together to be regarded as mere representations and not things in themselves, and accordingly that space and time are only sensible forms of our intuition, but not determinations given for themselves or conditions of objects as things in themselves. To this idealism is opposed transcendental realism, which regards space and time as something given in themselves (independent of our sensiblity). The transcendental realist therefore represents outer appearances (if their reality is conceded) as things in themselves, which would exist independently of us and our sensibility and thus would also be outside us according to pure concepts of the understanding. — CPR, A369

As I replied to that post, when one's mind constructs reality, what is it mind constructs it from? — Banno

I thought I'd answered. The bare data of experience are unintelligible until they're synthesized in the act of perception into the panorama of mental life. Whereas you think that there's a real world, out there, and an idea, in here, not seeing that this is itself a mental construction.

experience is a mental phenomena, that there is no direct connection between mental phenomena and external world objects, and that the qualities of mental phenomena are not properties of external world objects. — Michael

In that case, you have no reason to expect that mathematics would make accurate predictions.

Incidentally I don't place G E Moore's refutation of idealism anywhere beyond Johnson's argumentum ad lapidem. 'Here is a hand' is no more a refutation than kicking a rock.

Here is the abstract for Mind and Cosmic Order, Charles Pinter:

The topic of this book is the relationship between mind and the physical world. From once being an esoteric question of philosophy, this subject has become a central topic in the foundations of quantum physics. The book traces this story back to Descartes, through Kant, to the beginnings of 20th Century physics, where it becomes clear that the mind-world relationship is not a speculative question but has a direct impact on the understanding of physical phenomena.

The book’s argument begins with the British empiricists who raised our awareness of the fact that we have no direct contact with physical reality, but it is the mind that constructs the form and features of objects. It is shown that modern cognitive science brings this insight a step further by suggesting that shape and structure are not internal to objects, but arise in the observer. The author goes yet further by arguing that the meaningful connectedness between things — the hierarchical organization of all we perceive — is the result of the Gestalt nature of perception and thought, and exists only as a property of mind. These insights give the first glimmerings of a new way of seeing the cosmos: not as a mineral wasteland but a place inhabited by creatures.

Incidentally I don't place G E Moore's refutation of idealism anywhere beyond Johnson's argumentum ad lapidem. 'Here is a hand' is no more a refutation than kicking a rock. — Wayfarer

Sure, for the idealist these would just be demonstrating the regularities inherent in an experience produced though mentation - matter being what mind looks like when seen from a certain perspective. I suppose the argument would be that these are examples of mistaking the map for the territory.

Whereas you think that there's a real world, out there, and an idea, in here, not seeing that this is itself a mental construction. — Wayfarer

Again and again and again, that is not what I think. The notion that there is an "out there" and an "in here" is the source of the confusion in the OP.

Fair enough. But I find that hard to reconcile with what else you've been saying. If everything simply is as it seems, then what is there to analyse?

If everything simply is as it seems, — Wayfarer

That's not what was claimed...

what is there to analyse? — Wayfarer

Philosophical errors.

If everything simply is as it seems,
— Wayfarer

That's not what was claimed... — Banno

That is what I thought you meant, when you said

What you see is the apple. — Banno

Thoughts just are inherently meaningful. Thinking just is meaning-making. — Janus

If thinking is meaning-making, then meaning is the product of thought not the property. In the same way as building is just house-making. The product of building is a house. We wouldn't say that because building just is house-making building is inherently a house.

Do you deny that "I'm cold" (unspoken) is a thought? I'll assume not. When you think "I'm cold", it has a different meaning to you than it does when I think "I'm cold". As such the meaning of "I'm cold" (the thought) cannot be inherent to the thought, can it? It must be something we construct.

How can there be anything to discuss, then? You’re not saying anything, you’re just making marks that show up on a screen. I might interpret them to mean anything whatever — Wayfarer

I really don't see what the maintained agreement over the meaning of words has to do with this but regardless, it was your own quote which said...

neural processes, like marks or shapes or whatever, have no inherent meaning, but that we read meaning into them. — Wayfarer

So the marks and shapes on the screen have no inherent meaning, you started out agreeing with that.

You’re sawing off the branch on which you sit. — Wayfarer

Throwing cliches isn't an argument.

that model is not what you see; it is you seeing. — Banno

Exactly, otherwise we end up having to define the mechanism which is 'seeing' the model.

So @Wayfarer, in the process of perception from the retinal stimuli to say, a specialised object-recognition cell in the anterior hippocampus - where are you suggesting the 'seeing' takes place and where is the 'model' it's seeing?

if you say that it requires reflection to find meaning in thought, then all you are really saying is that it requires thinking to find meaning in thought. If thinking can find meaning in itself, doesn't that imply that meaning is necessarily inherent in thought? — Metaphysician Undercover

I don't see how that follows at all. If metal-detecting can find metal in a metal-detector, does that imply that metal is inherent in metal-detecting (or detectors)? No we can make plastic metal detectors and some metal-detecting is completely without metal.

What we call 'a thought' might be things like "I'm cold" or "That's a bus". What we call a meaning might be what emotion something causes in you, what value you assign it, or what you can do with it.

Since the same thought "I'm cold" can have different meanings (to you it might be unpleasant, to me it might be desirable), those meanings cannot be inherent to the thought.

Just like an actual apple has a different meaning (values, emotions, utility) to you as it does to me, so the meaning cannot inhere in the apple.

If you want to say that some apples (those unobserved by humans, for example) have no meaning at all and thus are different from thoughts, then you'd have to demonstrate that there existed no thoughts which were unobserved by humans (thoughts which we're not aware of). Since we're not aware of them, by definition, that's going to be a hard task.

otherwise we end up having to define the mechanism which is 'seeing' the model. — Isaac

Yep. Homunculus Fallacy.

Talk of "meaning" is not going to get very far. There's to much baggage, too much variation in the meaning of "meaning"...

The same holds for "thoughts"; so put them together in

our thoughts do have inherent meaning
— Edward Feser
↪Wayfarer — Isaac

And the way forward will be far from clear.

In 's quote we can see one of the ideas that underpins idealism. It's the notion that thought is an utterly different thing to the other stuff of our world. The quote takes this as granted, not arguing for it. You and I have both pointed this out, but that seems lost on Way farer.

There may be an interesting digression here following Wittgenstein. Rather than looking to the meaning, we might look to the use. What do we get if we paraphrase the Feser quote in terms of use?

Brain processes, like ink marks, sound waves, the motion of water molecules, electrical current, and any other physical phenomenon you can think of, seem clearly devoid of any inherent use. By themselves they are simply useless patterns of electrochemical activity. Yet our thoughts do have inherent use– that’s how they are able to impart it to otherwise useless ink marks, sound waves, etc. In that case, though, it seems that our thoughts cannot possibly be identified with any physical processes in the brain. In short: Thoughts and the like possess inherent use or intentionality; brain processes, like ink marks, sound waves, and the like, are utterly devoid of any inherent use or intentionality; so thoughts and the like cannot possibly be identified with brain processes.

The cracks are obvious.

There is also in the quote an equation of meaning and intentionality, something that ought not go unremarked. But that is a whole new barrel of herrings, red or otherwise.

In ↪Wayfarer's quote — Banno

As that was a passage from one of Edward Feser's blog posts, I think I should include a link to the original. Incidentally it was posted as an argument for dualism, not idealism as such.

Talk of "meaning" is not going to get very far. There's to much baggage, too much variation in the meaning of "meaning"...

The same holds for "thoughts"; so put them together in

our thoughts do have inherent meaning
— Edward Feser
↪Wayfarer — Isaac

And the way forward will be far from clear. — Banno

Indeed. In my opinion, a classic example of expressions whose meaning is not found in an analysis of the words. "Thoughts are inherently meaningful" here seems to mean absolutely nothing about either 'thoughts' or 'meaning' (since neither are defined), but acts as a general badge, a token, that the speaker is of a certain mind about the issue. I think much of the actual expressions used hereabouts just stand in for a general declaration of distaste for scientistic reductionism.

There may be an interesting digression here following Wittgenstein. Rather than looking to the meaning, we might look to the use. What do we get if we paraphrase the Feser quote in terms of use? — Banno

Nice. It does indeed show the cracks.

There is also in the quote an equation of meaning and intentionality, something that ought not go unremarked. But that is a whole new barrel of herrings, red or otherwise. — Banno

Yes. I find it such an odd phrasing of Feser's that he would carry out this general equivalence. That a thought might 'have' a meaning or intentionality in the same way an apple has the property of being spherical. It seems such a messy way of analysing the distinctions.

Cheers.

Still seems to me that Feser phrases the issue in such a way that dualism is assumed.

Throwing cliches isn't an argument. — Isaac

But if you don't understand an argument, then you can't be said to have refuted it.

This exchange started with:

Thoughts aren't entities capable of possessing inherent properties, and even if they were, what kind of analysis produced the conclusion that they had inherent meaning? — Isaac

to which I responded:

Your question has 'inherent meaning' doesn't it? You didn't just blurt out random sounds. — Wayfarer

And then again, you responded

I don't see how our thoughts are any different to the "marks or shapes or whatever" in that they lack 'inherent' meaning. We might find meaning in them on reflection, but I don't see any evidence that the meaning is inherent. — Isaac

In which case, how can you argue that you are asking a meaningful question? Because if you say that thoughts don't have any inherent meaning then neither does your asking of this question. That is what I mean by 'sawing off the branch you're sitting on'. It's not a cliché but an analogy.

Yes. I find it such an odd phrasing of Feser's that he would carry out this general equivalence. That a thought might 'have' a meaning or intentionality in the same way an apple has the property of being spherical. It seems such a messy way of analysing the distinctions. — Isaac

As things stand at present, it doesn't seem to me obvious that a neural network could not have intentionality. At least, a neural network with some task would seem to have a directionality of the sort seen in the aboutness of an intentional act.

I'll note again that I do agree with @Wayfarer that physics is not capable of explaining everything. I'm no keener on scientism than he is.

if you say that thoughts don't have any inherent meaning then neither does your asking of this question. — Wayfarer

Yes. I've already agreed that my asking of that question doesn't have any inherent meaning. I can, however, have a very high degree of confidence that the meaning you give it will be similar enough to the meaning I give it to make our exchange worthwhile. I can make this guess because you and I both grew up in a culture similar enough to have trained us both to give such a question roughly the same meaning.

the meaning you give it will be similar enough to the meaning I give it — Isaac

And where does that originate? What is the medium through which that is transmitted? I say that meaning, as such - the basis of rational inference, 'if this is the case then that must be' is internal to thought. You will not observe it anywhere in the objective domain - which is the point at issue.

At least, a neural network with some task would seem to have a directionality of the sort seen in the aboutness of an intentional act. — Banno

I agree, but if one accepts (for the sake of argument) Feser's distinction of thought from neural networks, then thought is left seeming like the sort of thing which determines properties. For it to then have properties of its own seems unwarranted.

Of course, if one accepts that 'thoughts' and 'neural networks' are the same thing from different perspectives, the problem disappears.

I do agree with Wayfarer that physics is not capable of explaining everything. — Banno

Me too, but possibly not for the same reasons.

And where does that originate? What is the medium through which that is transmitted? — Wayfarer

Culture.

Right. The process of enculturation, language, social practice, and much more, which collectively comprise the meaning-world in which humans dwell. And of which physics, and the physical, is one parameter.

No, it does not follow.

The "model" at point here is a distribution of probabilities in a neural net. That is the apple you see?

No, that is your seeing the apple. — Banno

Neural nets have nothing to do with what we are discussing. This is about the way we would normally speak about things. If my seeing an apple is a modeling of an apple then I see a model of an apple, just as if my carving is a modeling of an apple then my carving is a model of an apple.

Of course I can say I see an apple, just as I can say I carve an apple but in the case of claiming that my seeing is a modeling, then what is it that is modeled in your view?

We wouldn't say that because building just is house-making building is inherently a house. — Isaac

Building is not inherently house-making, though, but structure-making, And structure is inherent to building, just as meaning is inherent to thought.

When you think "I'm cold", it has a different meaning to you than it does when I think "I'm cold". As such the meaning of "I'm cold" (the thought) cannot be inherent to the thought, can it? It must be something we construct.

I didn't say that a particular meaning is inherent to thoughts. If I think "I'm cold" that thought is inherently meaningful to me, just as (presumably) when you think "I'm cold" the thought is inherently meaningful to you.

We simply don't know how to answer the OP's question, period!

Maybe philosophers need to be taught some math especially how to calculate probabilites which is, to my reckoning, the mathematics of possibility. We could, to some extent, silence the skeptics if you know what I mean. :snicker:

My distinction between direct and indirect pertains to viewing the world. The TV screen, being in the world, is viewed directly, as is anything else in the periphery, like the TV stand. An indirect view would be representationalism, the assumption that we are viewing a representation of a TV. — NOS4A2

I'm asking if I'm seeing the rock directly if I see it through a TV screen, or if I see it in the reflection of a mirror, or if I see it through a telescope, or if I see it through a pair of glasses.

I don’t understand. The only direct connection I am speaking of is the viewing of the painting (along with everything else in the periphery), not that there is any connection between a painting of a woman and a woman. The connections and contacts are real, not figurative, for instance light hitting the eyes. — NOS4A2

I'm saying that it doesn't follow from "the painting is of a woman" that there is a direct connection between the painting and the woman, and similarly that it doesn't follow from "the experience is of an external world object" that there is a direct connection between the experience and the external world object.

You need to do more than just say "we experience external world objects" to make a case for direct realism. If I see a rock through a TV screen then I'm seeing a rock, but I'm seeing it indirectly. So it can be that we experience external world objects and that indirect realism is the case.

I don't see how that follows at all. If metal-detecting can find metal in a metal-detector, does that imply that metal is inherent in metal-detecting (or detectors)? — Isaac

If a metal detector finds metal in itself, then unless the metal detector is wrong, metal is inherent in the detector.

No we can make plastic metal detectors and some metal-detecting is completely without metal. — Isaac

Sure, but metal inheres within the detector in which it is found. So by analogy, meaning inheres within the thinking in which it is found. If some other thinking does not practise introspection (detecting itself for meaning), this does not produce the conclusion that there is no meaning inherent within that thinking.

Since the same thought "I'm cold" can have different meanings (to you it might be unpleasant, to me it might be desirable), those meanings cannot be inherent to the thought. — Isaac

I think you are using "inherent" or "meaning", or both, in a way which I am unfamiliar with. Generally, "inherent" means to exist within. If meaning inheres within thought, this does not mean that the same meaning ought to inhere within your thought, as the meaning which inheres within my thought. How would that even be possible, since we are two distinct thinking beings.

Just like an actual apple has a different meaning (values, emotions, utility) to you as it does to me, so the meaning cannot inhere in the apple. — Isaac

But I am saying that the meaning inheres in the thought, not in the apple. It's possible that meaning inheres in the thing itself as well, but I haven't said anything about that yet.

Yes. I've already agreed that my asking of that question doesn't have any inherent meaning. — Isaac

Do you recognize the difference between a sentence written on a page, as a material object, or arrangement of objects, or part of an overall page, or collection of pages, and the existence of thought, or some thinking, which that material arrangement is supposed to be a representation of?

If so, then you can apprehend your act of "asking of that question", as a third thing, the action which caused the existence of that material object which is supposed to be a representation of some thinking or thought.

Of course, if one accepts that 'thoughts' and 'neural networks' are the same thing from different perspectives, the problem disappears. — Isaac

I believe, the issue is the activity which is involved here. When we describe the activity of thinking, and when we describe the activity of neural networks, we produce completely different descriptions. The question comes down to "what is the causal agent?". Is it the self, me, thinking, or is it a bunch of electrical impulses. If the latter, what produces (creates or causes) coherency in this bunch of impulses. The former takes coherency as "the self", for granted.

So it is impossible to accept that thoughts and neural networks are the same thing, because one perspective assumes natural, inherent coherency (I'll use "coherency" instead of "meaning"), and the other perspective provides no indication as to how coherency is possible. Coherency and lack of coherency makes the two descriptions worlds apart, and not the same thing at all.

The process of enculturation, ... of which physics, and the physical, is one parameter. — Wayfarer

I don't see how this relates to the matter of where meaning inheres? Physics is a practice of our culture, sure. I don't see what you could mean by 'parameter' other than perhaps that what we can culturally choose to believe is constrained by the physical (we can't fly, for example). I don't find anything there to disagree with, just nothing which seems to bear on materialism (the OP), or how meaning is carried (this little section of the OP).

Building is not inherently house-making, though, but structure-making, And structure is inherent to building, just as meaning is inherent to thought. — Janus

I'm just going to flag in here because it's a similar issue.

I think we're getting crossed wires over the meaning of 'inherent' here. The argument Feser gives is that thoughts cannot be just neural patterns because they have a property (inherent meaning) which neural patterns lack. So whatever your personal understandings of what 'inherent' means here, fro the argument, it has to mean something which neural networks cannot have as a property.

So it's insufficient (for Feser's argument) for 'inhere' to simply mean that we find meaning in it. We can find meaning in a painting, and no doubt a neural network (for some), so this cannot be Feser's intended use. It's also insufficient to argue that, say, meaning is inherent to thought the way structures are inherent to the activity of building. Again, Feser's argument requires that thoughts have a property neural networks cannot have, not simply one which they may or may not have.

The use of 'inherent' in Feser's argument seems, to me, to require it either point to something non-interpretable (it has that meaning independent of any observer - something objects don't have), or that he uses 'inherent' to mean something like 'cannot exist without...' (again, something external object lack as they can exist without having meanings assigned to them).

I dismissed the latter as there would be no possible way of knowing if thoughts could exist without meaning as we would be unaware of them. The argument then begs the question.

So we're left (by my reckoning) with the former. That 'inherent' means that the thought has meaning regardless of the interpreter (inherent), as opposed to meaning assigned by an interpreter as external objects like ink marks, trees, structures etc.

Hence the counterargument to Feser shows that thoughts do not have inherent meaning in this particular sense. Whether thoughts have inherent meaning in any other sense of 'inherent' is irrelevant to the argument at hand.

I'm saying that it doesn't follow from "the painting is of a woman" that there is a direct connection between the painting and the woman, and similarly that it doesn't follow from "the experience is of an external world object" that there is a direct connection between the experience and the external world object.

It does follow that we experience the world directly and that there is a connection between oneself and the object for the same reasons I stated earlier. Real, physical connections, for instance light touching the eyes, hands touching the object etc. occur in these interactions.

You need to do more than just say "we experience external world objects" to make a case for direct realism. If I see a rock through a TV screen then I'm seeing a rock, but I'm seeing it indirectly. So it can be that we experience external world objects and that indirect realism is the case.

You’ll need to figure out a better argument because you’re still viewing the TV screen directly.