"The tree has three branches" is about the tree, while "I perceive the tree to haver three branches" is not about the tree. — Banno
One way or another, those who advocate idealism in its various forms all seem to muddle this rather simple distinction, changing sentences about the world into sentences about themselves. — Banno
Some might be doing this, but not all. — schopenhauer1
I take idealism to be pretty much defined by this transformation of facts about trees to facts about minds.
Not at all sure what you are saying at — Banno
Again, going back to first part here, I was commenting that Kantian is seen as idealist (transcendental idealist), and it is an example of idealism that does not deny an external reality. That is all I was saying. I moved past this and just accepted you meant a certain variety of idealism, and am now just going with that so that this language game can continue.Again, I'm not so interested in interpreting Kant as taking about trees. The thing-in-itself strikes me as nonsense on stilts. — Banno
Ok, so if we agree to leave aside the exegesis, do we agree that idealism errs in treating facts about trees as facts about minds? — Banno
And as I think about it more, this error of the idealist is akin to the error by the realist/materialist as to consciousness. It is misplaced ontology, or something like this. — schopenhauer1
What would be the equivalent in the realist/materialist attitude to consciousness? — Banno
I wouldn't use cause. Consciousness is not a thing like moving billiard balls. I advocate treating it as a difference in seeing as, a la duckrabbit. The event can be seen as a physical system or as being conscious. Two sides of the same coin. — Banno
But again, this is a change of topic. — Banno
That's an observation, not a problem.The problem:
There is mind and there are physical systems that correlate with mind. — schopenhauer1
I'm not seeing it.They dovetail nicely because of the error in language used. — schopenhauer1
That's an observation, not a problem. — Banno
I'm not seeing it. — Banno
"My experience IS the tree" rather than,
"My experience is CAUSED by the tree".
(Error of the Idealist) — schopenhauer1
that is not idealism - it is representative realism, where the idea or perception represents the actuality.
'“Realism” (in philosophy) is the view that certain concepts refer to real things. For Locke, it is the view that our sensory ideas (sensations) represent material objects in the world.
We must distinguish between the mental representation of an object, and the object itself. The mental representation is an idea (probably a complex idea). The object in the world is not an idea but an object. The slogan is “ideas in the mind, qualities in bodies.” Ideas can represent qualities, as well as (entire) objects.' — Wayfarer
How is one the other and vice versa? That is the problem. — schopenhauer1
Looks like a change of topic. Before moving on to consciousness, it might be a good idea to get some basic logic right. "The tree has three branches" is about the tree, while "I perceive the tree to haver three branches" is not about the tree. One way or another, those who advocate idealism in its various forms all seem to muddle this rather simple distinction, changing sentences about the world into sentences about themselves. — Banno
Again this is chiefly illustrative of the difficulties that plain language philosophy has with the meaning of idealism. It seems to always insist that idealists of all kinds are muddling or confusing 'the idea of x' with 'x', and that if we restrict our conversation to 'x' without bringing in the 'idea of x' then the whole problem goes away. — Wayfarer
...which it treats by treating the nature of 'x' in absurd ways.But that doesn't solve the problem that idealisms sought to address in the first place, which is not about the nature of 'x', but about the nature of knowing. — Wayfarer
The god of the gaps, written into neuroscience. There not being a specific region responsible for this or that is part of how the architecture of neural networks functions.it cannot seem to locate any specific area of the neural systems responsible for the subjective unity of perception — Wayfarer
I want to stop the question there, as I think it's this framing that is problematic.if all human knowledge is a swirling constructivist enterprise of perception and consciousness which can tell us nothing about reality as it really is... — Tom Storm
That there are unanswered questions does not imply that there are no suitable answers — Banno
Look, the defence of idealism here is a proxy for a defence of some form of spiritualism or similar; and so the idealist brings stuff form outside the problem to bear — Banno
It's out of bounds, — Wayfarer
It's not that philosophers have cast out spiritual thinking, so much as that the stuff we know about the world isn't found in spiritual thought. — Banno
I wonder what to make of "The tree has three branches"? That seems to involve a tree, and not a perception-of-tree. It's different to "I perceive that the tree has three branches". It must be, as one might be wrong while the other is correct.
What do you think? — Banno
Basically, what could reality be if not the stuff we know about via the swirling constructivist enterprise of perception and consciousness?
And if that's right, then of course we know about reality, and the notion of a reality about which we know nothing is just nonsense. Word games. — Banno
So here's the thing: would Hoffman deny that the tree has three branches? — Banno
The question is, when the scientist perceives an event in their laboratory, as Hume asks, can this only ever be an inference ? — RussellA
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