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
bout how to navigate the world fairly smoothly. But does it follow our perceptions give us accurate information about the world? Don't optical illusions, criticisms of naive realism, etc. show it does not? — Art48
We can learn to navigate the empirical world more or less effectively, but if our perception and understanding of the empirical world were at odds with the underlying real nature of things it seems reasonable to think we would not do well.
So it seems reasonable to conclude that there is some kind of isomorphism between the world we perceive and whatever world production, beyond and independent of human experience, that is really going on. — Janus
if our perception and understanding of the empirical world were at odds with the underlying real nature of things it seems reasonable to think we would not do well. — Janus
Enformationism may not be a formal Monism*1 as you are used to it. It's primarily based on scientific concepts, instead of academic philosophy. So it does not deny the practical (functional) distinction that humans make between Brains & Mind. It merely traces the physical (material) & metaphysical (mental) elements of the Real world back to a single Source. Depending on your personal preferences, you can label that source as mathematical "Singularity" or as metaphysical "G*D". A common metaphorical explanation for a non-intervening Deistic Creator is to imagine that the Big Bang Singularity represents a conception in the Mind of God, and that the evolving material world represents the Body of God. In effect, it's all G*D, all the time.The human Brain is made of matter, which is organized (by natural logical processes) into a Meaning-Seeking machine. So it processes incoming information (data) into abstract concepts that are meaningful to the observer. But, in order to establish a relationship between the observer and its environment, the brain constructs a concept (the Self image) to represent its own subjective perspective*3 on the objective world. No spooky spirits required. — Gnomon
I don't think you've presented a monism. Problematic quotes above. — green flag
You say that it is misleading or confused somehow to believe in these things? Why? — Manuel
I have heard of him, but have been warned by a very good philosopher - Susan Haack - to steer clear of him. — Manuel
Ah, you are a follower or fan of Wittgenstein. Then we will probably disagree. Words get meanings in several ways- it’s context dependent. I don’t see any problem with the idea of a private mental state. — Manuel
I haven't said it is a fake world. The real world independent of human experience produces the real world of human experience is how I would characterize it. — Janus
I understand by thetranscendental 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.
The transcendental idealist, on the contrary, can be an empirical realist, hence, as he is called, a dualist, i.e., he can concede the existence of matter without going beyond mere self-consciousness and assuming something more than the certainty of representations in me, hence the cogito ergo sum. For because he allows this matter and even its inner possibility to be valid only for appearance– which, separated from our sensibility, is nothing –matter for him is only a species of representations (intuition), which are call external, not as if they related to objects that are external in themselves but because they relate perceptions to space, where all things are external to one another, but that space itself is in us. — (CPR, A369, 379)
It grants that objects of experience are real, but that their reality is dependent on causes and conditions, and not inherent or intrinsic to them; they are not real 'from their own side' is one way that it is put. — Wayfarer
As I quoted Hume before:
"Let us fix our attention out of ourselves as much as possible; let us chase our imagination to the heavens, or to the utmost limits of the universe; we never really advance a step beyond ourselves, nor can conceive any kind of existence, but those perceptions, which have appeared in that narrow compass."
The fact that we can attribute independent existence to the entities postulated by science is a (reasonable) postulate, subject to further refinement. — Manuel
But some have taken him to be the solution for all (of most) of the problems in philosophy. It often boils down to, one is using a word incorrectly, hence this word causes your thinking to be wrong. — Manuel
That can solve problems. But it's also a way of avoiding them — Manuel
but somehow he can see outside of his narrow compass and determine that I too am trapped in my own narrow compass — green flag
Still, all these layers are confusing. — green flag
Of course I like Wittgenstein. But that's like liking Shakespeare. To me it doesn't make sense as a polemical thing. One disagrees with this or that, but denying the quality altogether ? That'd be bold. Sort of like denying Cantor. — green flag
This reads like an appeal to authority. I don't think Wittgenstein's contributions to philosophy can be compared to Shakespeare's contributions to poetry and theatre or Cantor's contributions to mathematics. — Janus
To me that's hilarious. But Wittgenstein's work doesn't need me to keep it in circulation. So go to it. Take the old fraud down a notch.an influence which can legitimately be seen as largely unfortunate in my view. — Janus
All what layers? There is an imaginable logical distinction between the world as experienced and the world in itself is all. Would you want to claim that there is nothing beyond what can possibly be experienced and articulated by us? — Janus
I think I got you on this one. Who ever said Shakespeare or Cantor were great? That sounds like an appeal to authority to me. — green flag
Take the old fraud down a notch. — green flag
The way I'd try to solve that kind of problem is to say that the world seems to offer such richness and complexity that we'll never run out of novelty. I find it implausible (unimaginable?) that humans will ever be a loss for further inquiry. So the world is infinite, one might say, with no bound on the depth of its detail and so on. — green flag
He's assuming you are a creature similar to him - a fellow human being. And since it is true that both are human beings, he feels confident in saying that his "narrow compass" will also apply to others. — Manuel
For my part, when I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never can catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe any thing but the perception. — Manuel
If there is no "inner consciousness" (and I don't know of an alternative), — Manuel
I agree that the potential scope for knowledge within the bounds of human experience and judgement is infinite, but it doesn't follow that there is not also an infinity that will forever remain closed to us. — Janus
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