I mean I am a rationalistic idealist in these topics, so the idea is far from foreign.

As for the analogy, there's a limit, it's fine for a video game. For real life it's different. If I see a tree, and am confident I am not dreaming, nor hallucinating, then I take the tree not merely seriously, but literally, there's a tree outside my window.

Now so far as the transistors go, they play a massive role in its constitution, and if our best theories say there are transistors, then I take them literally. The transistors are at a deeper layer, but I wouldn't say that the transistors are "more real" than the tree.

There are other questions too, crucial ones, like the idea of "things-in-themselves", which I take very seriously, but I don't think science can speak about these.

At bottom pure experience? Sure, I agree with you that there is no good evidence for this.

The given is a fascinating topic, though Sellar's own arguments are complex, and I often don't follow his reasoning. I prefer C.I. Lewis' take on the subject, or Raymond Tallis, but I don't see much disagreements here.

The transistors are at a deeper layer, but I wouldn't say that the transistors are "more real" than the tree. — Manuel

:up:

I like to insist that promises and marriages are no less real and no more real than quarks and crossbows. They are all caught up in a single system that gives them sense (or in a system that is their sense.)

Materialism - the view that all that exists is matter - hasn't had a place since Newton. — Banno

Are you unfamiliar with the late David M. Armstrong? He was a materialist metaphysician, and who's metaphysics is still widely discussed in the literature.

It goes against what he is saying, if he is giving evidence that our senses mislead us, why trust the evidence? It too is misleading. — Manuel

He could answer - I don't know if he does - that reason is not reducible to adaptation, that despite the senses decieving us - an intuition that goes back to the ancient Greeks - we are still capable of grasping the truth by the faculty of reason. That's why I mentioned the 'argument from reason'. Thomas Nagel has an excellent essay on this, from the perspective of analytical philosophy, Evolutionary Naturalism and the Fear of Religion, which goes into the question of what it means to ascribe the faculty of reason to evolutionary causes. In a criticism of another philosopher's evolutionary rationale for reason, he says:

Unless it is coupled with an independent basis for confidence in reason, the evolutionary hypothesis is threatening rather than reassuring. It is consistent with continued confidence only if it amounts to the hypothesis that evolution has led to the existence of creatures, namely us, with a capacity for reasoning in whose validity we can have much stronger confidence than would be warranted merely from its having come into existence in that way. I have to be able to believe that the evolutionary explanation is consistent with the proposition that I follow the rules of logic because they are correct--not merely because I am biologically programmed to do so. But to believe that, I have to be justified independently in believing that they are correct. And this cannot be merely on the basis of my contingent psychological disposition, together with the hypothesis that it is the product of natural selection. I can have no justification for trusting a reasoning capacity I have as a consequence of natural selection, unless I am justified in trusting it simply in itself -- that is, believing what it tells me, in virtue of the content of the arguments it delivers.

If reason is in this way self-justifying, then it is open to us also to speculate that natural selection played a role in the evolution and survival of a species that is capable of understanding and engaging in it. But the recognition of logical arguments as independently valid is a precondition of the acceptability of an evolutionary story about the source of that recognition. This means that the evolutionary hypothesis is acceptable only if reason does not need its support. At most it may show why the existence of reason need not be biologically mysterious.
— Thomas Nagel

Are you unfamiliar with the late David M. Armstrong? — Relativist

He was Professor of the department where I did my undergraduate units in philosophy. As his book was called 'materialist philosophy of mind', I always believed a priori that it must be mistaken, the subsequent fragments I have read have done nothing to dissuade me. I don't think any of his books would withstand the 'hard problem' arguments, or the arguments from the observer problem in physics.

I'm not trying to change your mind about materialism. I was just pointing out that it didn't stop with Nrwton.

:up:

Those are hard questions. If we look at most living things virtually all of them lack reason.

Maybe higher mammals have some glimmerings or sparks of reason, but nowhere close to us. Which is to say, that it could be "dumb luck" that we are here.

If that's true, that might cause us to pause and marvel that we are lucky enough to have reason. But with a sample planet of one, it's hard to say.

I read Hoffman's book and have seen interviews. I don't recall him explicitly mentioning reason in any exulted manner, though he pre-supposes it.

I agree with you. I'd only accentuate that if we look at a river - conditions being good, we being mentally healthy, etc. - that's a remarkable achievement of reason, by sense alone we wouldn't discover them.

Since we are alive, we must have gotten many things right (and true), despite numerous errors in perception.

...the salient point is not that the rock as appearance is not real, but that we have no idea what is behind appearances. — Janus

Just a suggestion. Let's call whatever it is that is behind the appearance of the rock, a "rock".

I wouldn't have thought you would be so keen to give primacy to quantum mechanical descriptions over our regular intentional descriptions.

I think point is that it is the experience of the object that is real. — Wayfarer

Isn't he just playing with the word "real"?

So, says Hoffman, the material world is a bunch of icons in spacetime, a headset, which we use to manipulate reality. Evolution has given us this headset because if we had to manipulate reality directly, we couldn’t. — Art48

Yes. As I understand the thesis, Hoffman is not saying there is no material reality out there, but that all we know about that presumptive*1 reality is the images in our minds. So we humans are somewhat insulated from harsh reality by our reason-enhanced imagination. Ontology is a theory.

Besides the computer icon, another analogy is that our concept of Reality is a simulation : like the ground-based pilots of remote military drones*2. What they see is a low-res simulation of the terrain the drone is flying over*3 -- plus a lot of non-visual information pertinent to the job. Likewise, our visual images are supplemented with data from other senses, such as smell & hearing in order to give us a broad-spectrum overview that is adequate for survival. It's not a perfect bit-for-bit representation of reality, but it's good enough to get the job done. :smile:

*1. Presumptive : conjectured, speculative, notional, theoretical

*2. LOW-RES REALITY SIMULATION

*3. FULL RESOLUTION REALITY

Just a suggestion. Let's call whatever it is that is behind the appearance of the rock, a "rock". — Banno

Why? In order to create the illusion of knowing what is behind appearances?

The idea is that snakes and trains are like icons on a computer desktop. The icon for a Word document is really on the screen but it is not the Word document itself, so in that sense is somewhat unreal. The reality of the Word document is computer bits. Janus and Wayfarer make a similar point. — Art48

"But it is not the word document itself".

What exactly is the word document "itself"? The one in RAM? The one saved? The one printed? The one emailed?

When I click on the icon, the document opens, When I move it to a folder, it will (usually) be int hat folder when I go looking for it later. When I trash it and empty the trash, the document is gone.

The icon is as good a candidate for being the "real" word document as are the things in RAM, on the hard drive, on paper or emailed.

Choosing one of these to call the "real" document is fraught.

The computer analogy breaks down quickly, so while it has its pedagogic value, it is limited.

But then I agree with the content of your post, so I'm not sure what you want me to reply to, or comment on.

The icon is as good a candidate for being the "real" word document as are the things in RAM, on the hard drive, on paper or emailed. — Banno

The real word document is the one we can read; the icon is merely a shortcut,

The computer analogy breaks down quickly, so while it has its pedagogic value, it is limited. — Manuel

Oh, I agree. But it might serve as a pedagogic device against certain over-stimulated interpretations of Hoffman - for @Art48, and @Janus, perhaps.

No, it's just a piss-poor analogy.

I think the point of the computer metaphor is to illustrate the shortcomings of naive or even scientific realism. Realism 'takes the world at face value' - trees are trees, rocks are rocks, there's nothing 'behind' them or 'to' them which makes them other than what they are.

But to assess that a step back needs to be taken. What, after all, is the subject matter of philosophy? What are is it talking about? If you look back to the origins of the discipline - Plato and (in particular) Parmenides, there is (sorry to say) a kind of quasi-religious vision behind it. Which is that: what us normal folks (the hoi polloi) take for granted, is actually a distorted understanding, or even a delusion. Sure, we're not obviously insane, but maybe in a state halfway between insanity, at one extreme, and wisdom, on the other end of the spectrum. There's something the matter with how we see the world. I think it's a harsh truth, an inconvenient truth, and one that brings me no joy, but I feel compelled to acknowledge it.

You ask most folks what is real, they will naturally gesture towards science as the arbiter for that question. But at the same time, scientific culture is producing technologies which we have barely the moral and political ability to control. It was said of quantum physics, the crown jewel of science, that 'nobody understands it', by Richard Feynman, one of its most illustrious exponents. Culture is adrift in a miasma of computer-mediated imagery, which multiplies delusion to a degree that really does verge on the metaphysical. And within this picture, there is no room even for the human subject. We have declared ourselves the accidental by-product of an entirely fortuitous chain of events navigating a world which is increasingly chaotic.

That has to be the background of what we're trying to understand, I feel. And a lot of 20th century 'ordinary language' philosophy has absolutely no grasp of that. It is polite parlour games, entertained for the leisured classes. There are probably exceptions, but on the whole that's how it comes across. It has no sense of moral urgency or of the existential predicament we find ourselves in.

What that has to do with Donald Hoffman in particular, I'm not entirely certain, but he is a collaborator with Bernardo Kastrup on an effort to develop analytical idealism, which is, I think, a deeper philosophical perspective.

As long as the dark foundation of our nature, grim in its all-encompassing egoism, mad in its drive to make that egoism into reality, to devour everything and to define everything by itself, as long as that foundation is visible, as long as this truly original sin exists within us, we have no business here and there is no logical answer to our existence. Imagine a group of people who are all blind, deaf and slightly demented and suddenly someone in the crowd asks, "What are we to do?"... The only possible answer is "Look for a cure". Until you are cured, there is nothing you can do. And since you don't believe you are sick, there can be no cure. — Vladimir Solovyov (19th c philosopher, not current Russian TV propagandist of same name)

Hoffman is not saying there is no material reality out there, but that all we know about that presumptive*1 reality is the images in our minds — Gnomon

Agree. However, Hoffman is trying to model reality in terms of "conscious agents." So, while I don't think he specifically denies material reality, he is working on an alternative based on consciousness. He says the hard problem of consciousness was one of the things that motivated his search for an alternative to materialism.

Kastrup is very interesting, though his notion of "depersonalyzed complexes" referring to objects is not convincing. I much prefer Raymond Tallis, who isn't an idealist per se, but certainly has very rich things to say about consciousness.

As for Hoffman, his value, I think, is to make idealism a respectable position in the sciences, which it should be. These metaphysical questions are quite enriching and offer plenty of food for thought.

As for ordinary people, I don't know - some of the more informed (which does not mean they are correct) might say that science tells you what there is. Most, I'd guess, would be baffled to think that anything other than naive realism could be true. If you add in religion, they may have some ideas about the "in itself" - or similar notions.

But at the same time, despite the noises made by some of the rowdier types, scienticism isn't taken seriously by most scientists.

Most, I'd guess, would be baffled to think that anything other than naive realism could be true. — Manuel

That's 'cause they're not philosophers. :razz:

Scienticism isn't taken seriously by most scientists. — Manuel

Agree, but it's a strong undercurrent in cultural discourse regardless.

...to make idealism a respectable position in the sciences, which it should be. — Manuel

Trouble is, idealism is incoherent. Hence it is incompatible with science.

How can one reconcile the scientific view, say that the the universe is billions of years old or that natural selection functions on individuals, with the idealist view that nothing exists without a mind to believe it exists?

That's an argument almost directly from Tallis, by the way.

There's something the matter with how we see the world. I think it's a harsh truth, an inconvenient truth, and one that brings me no joy, but I feel compelled to acknowledge it. — Wayfarer

Well put series of ideas and nice summary and I'm not responding to disagree with this, just to clarify. Would it be more prudent to say 'there appears' to be something the matter with how we see the world.

Or is this for you, axiomatic?

I guess the issue for me this construction raises questions about whether right and wrong fit into any understanding of human perception. Could it not be that humans see the world just fine for what we need to do in it. Perhaps obsessing over the putative gaps and contradictions, while worthy of the term philosophy, is not going to take us any further or offer a path which transcends our perspectives.

And yes, I am aware of the promises in the various teachings of higher awareness and perennialist traditions. And I guess that's where you are heading if you think that this problem of human perception and perspective can be 'solved' or integrated in some way into an enhanced domain of the human experience of 'reality'.

Berkeleyan idealism is hard to defend. So is something like Hegel's idealism.

Even worse is the whole Chopra-like industry.

It's very different with people like Cudworth, Schopenhauer and Kant. You can add Hume too, within an interpretation, as well as Locke.

I don't need to mention how much the fathers of QM - or least several distinguished figures like Einstein, Schrodinger and Wolfgang Pauli thought of Schopenhauer, and Kant.

This whole tradition of marginalizing consciousness is rather recent, arising after WWII, and now slowly losing force.

These types of idealism are far richer, and in fact, without them, science wouldn't be possible.

So, it very much depends on what "idealism" one defends.

Just a suggestion. Let's call whatever it is that is behind the appearance of the rock, a "rock". — Banno

:lol:

How can one reconcile the scientific view, say that the the universe is billions of years old or that natural selection functions on individuals, with the idealist view that nothing exists without a mind to believe it exists? — Banno

Easy, just posit a universal mind or consciousness.

:up:

I am neither an idealist nor a materialist, but I object when proponents of one or the other show their prejudice by attempting to dismiss the view that is unfavorable to them by declaring it to be incoherent.

I'll be generous and say that you have a generous sense of humour. (Although it depends on whether you are laughing at or with :wink: ).

Just a suggestion. Let's call whatever it is that is behind the appearance of the rock, a "rock". — Banno

This doesn't work, because what is behind the appearance of the rock could be all sorts of strange interactions, meaning, information, which is not included in the meaning of "rock". So this would mislead us into thinking that we know what we do not know.

As an analogy, 'let's say that the meaning of the word "rock" is rock. It doesn't work to say that the meaning of the symbol is the symbol.

I made a similar point above but...surprise, surprise!...it remains unaddressed.

So, it very much depends on what "idealism" one defends. — Manuel

...and few have the courage to set out an argument.

So I'll steal one from Tallis. Idealism, one way or another, has it that there is nothing that is not related in some way to mind. Hence things only exist if they stand in some relation to mind.

Now evolution and quantum mechanics and cosmology posit that events occur over time, and that they happen to discreet individuals.

But if idealism is true, then there can be no time, nor individuals, in the absence of mind.

Specifically, evolution presupposes individuals evolving in the aeons before people evolved to discuss them. It posits that there are things that happened when there was no mind around to stand in any relation to those things. Idealism is therefore incompatible with evolution.

As Tallis points out, Hoffman uses evolution to justify a view of idealism that is incompatible with evolution.

Anyway, the clowns are here now, so this thread will go for another twenty or thirty pages without saying anything new.

I'll offer an open invitation to anyone who would like to defend Hoffman in a debate thread.

I'll offer an open invitation to anyone who would like to defend Hoffman in a debate thread. — Banno

Accepted.