This is why I asked about the "something" that has always been capable of observing. — Fooloso4
Imagine that all life has vanished from the universe, but everything else is undisturbed. Matter is scattered about in space in the same way as it is now, there is sunlight, there are stars, planets and galaxies—but all of it is unseen. There is no human or animal eye to cast a glance at objects, hence nothing is discerned, recognized or even noticed. Objects in the unobserved universe have no shape, color or individual appearance, because shape and appearance are created by minds. Nor do they have features, because features correspond to categories of animal sensation. This is the way the early universe was before the emergence of life—and the way the present universe is outside the view of any observer. — Charles Pinter, Mind and the Cosmic Order
In order for Kastrup's assertion to qualify for a theory of reality it must explain how animals like us, capable of experiencing, came to be in a universe like ours full of things to be experienced. — Fooloso4
So a starlight, for example, from distant galaxies (or the CMB) that predates by millions (or billions) of years the human species – it's capability of "mind" – is not a "meaningful idea" or a "real" (mind-invariant) referent?We can form no meaningful idea of what exists in the absence of the order that the mind brings to reality. — Wayfarer
So a starlight, for example, from distant galaxies (or the CMB) that predates by millions (or billions) of years the human species – it's capability of "mind" – is not a "meaningful idea" or a "real" (mind-invariant) referent? — 180 Proof
We can form no meaningful idea of what exists in the absence of the order that the mind brings to reality. — Wayfarer
Objects in the unobserved universe have no shape, color or individual appearance, because shape and appearance are created by minds. — Charles Pinter, Mind and the Cosmic Order
There is an implicit endorsement of scientific realism in this. Analytic idealism is not a realist philosophy in that sense. — Wayfarer
A stone carried along in a river will either continue on downstream or get stuck if it bumps up against some other object or objects depending on its shape. — Fooloso4
I certainly see the 'constructionist' logic in your last paragraph. — Tom Storm
The fact that we cannot now explain consciousness does not mean that there is not a physical explanation.
According to the Standard Model of Particle Physics there are fundamental or elementary particles of matter.
You are assuming that there is mind, but what do we know of mind that is not based on our mind? You are arguing that our consciousness cannot be explained unless consciousness is fundamental and irreducible
Based off of our experience you infer that reality is essentially experiential.
Put differently, based off the human mind you infer that there is mind itself.
The best theories do not misuse Occam's razor. Monism is not better than dualism or pluralism simply because it seems simpler to have one thing rather than many. Unless the theory can explain the whole of reality in terms of this one thing then Occam's razor does not apply.
is not something we can experience but it is also not something we know. Whether it is something that can be known is questionable.
But now it seems that in order for there to be experience there must be us or something like us. If so, then prior in time to such animals the nature of reality could not have been experiential. There was nothing capable of experiencing.
In order for Kastrup's assertion to qualify for a theory of reality it must explain how animals like us, capable of experiencing, came to be in a universe like ours full of things to be experienced.
So the problem with Kastrup is the problem I have with Schopenhauer's metaphysics. Why is there so much involved in this "illusion" of the representation (physical) from the monistic Mind? I don't know. Why should it be so complex if it is some sort of unity?
Even if it is unity individuated into an "alter" of disassociated parts, why should these parts be the complexity that it is?
Why would it take on this complexity rather than simply being a simple physical aspect?
Let's take the known seriously at least, and take that where it leads us, to perhaps a plurality.
I guess I can try to counter-argue this point and say, time is the main factor of why we think of plurality. If everything started as a unity (singularity), then time makes it seem as if things are not a singularity. So the multiplicity is not a multiplicity in at least one point in time (the singularity). But then why is that point in time the only one we are focusing on? Not sure, maybe someone like @Bob Ross wants to chime in.
What struck me immediately was that the OP presupposes that the purportedly "'Hard Problem' of Consciousness" refers to an actual problem, particularly for reductive physicalism. I think that that presupposition is based upon an ambiguous inadequate idea... regarding exactly what counts as being a problem. If there is no problem to begin with, then the entire exercise is moot.
Consciousness is emergent. As such, it is - as we know it - the result of millions of years of evolutionary progression
There is no "aha!" point or moment in time that can be pointed at, and then it can be said "here it is!".
The reductive physicalist can identify and thoroughly explain how all sorts of 'the parts' commonly associated with conscious subjective experience work physically(See Dennett's Quining Qualia).
It's akin to the physicalist pouring hundreds of thousands of grains of sand onto the floor and pointing at the result, while the opponent says... that's not enough to count as a pile of sand.
I understand this point, but how is this semantically different from just saying that reality is independent of observers? A tree is going to be what it is no matter if we observe it or not
Why introduce mind and mentality?
Mind and mentality imply an observer, which always leads to the question of, "Then what is the observer?" You have an outside entity which needs explaining. Is it also just a mentality? If a mentality can have a mentality, what does the word even mean at that point?
If being is reality, then all of reality is being.
I think I just need a better definition of "mentality" and "mental".
I agree, but this isn't any different from a physical reality based model. Reality exists independently of what is observed
…
I suppose this really asks us to break down what "physical" means, as its only been implicit. "Physical" essentially means there is an existence independent from our observation.
As noted, this eliminates infinite meta self-observation
You exist as a physical being. Despite your lack of observing yourself, you still exist physically in the world.
our mind does not float, it is located within your body
What is real is not perception-independent. What is real is what exists, and does not need to be perceived to exist.
I am not sure I agree with this assessment. Science uses falsification to test hypotheses by trying to break them. When they cannot be broken, what is left is considered scientific fact. This does in fact describe what certain things fundamentally are.
How could this be falsified? Destroying the brain and still seeing green
It is a common mistake to believe that the hard problem is claiming physicalism cannot link brain states and consciousness together.
What I am open to is seeing if you can prove that physicalism cannot link the brain and consciousness together.
The answer a physicalist gives is, "Because our attempts to disprove this claim have all failed". Neuroscience does not assert a theory that we are to buy into. It asserts a theory that we cannot buy out of.
I see. You're advocating immaterialism (which entails solipsism), not (just) panpsychism.
Well, Bob, this is how I see it:No it [immaterialism] does not entail solipsism. — Bob Ross
This is just like pixels in a hologram each of which containing all of the information that constitutes the hologram (à la Leibniz's monads).If one only "knows" ideas because there are only ideas, and if ideas are properties of minds, and if each mind is an idea, then all minds are properties of each mind or, in effect, one mind. QED. — immaterialism, ergo solipsism
Consciousness is emergent. As such, it is - as we know it - the result of millions of years of evolutionary progression. — creativesoul
I am not merely claiming that physicalism hasn’t explained mentality but, rather, that it can’t. That is the hard problem of consciousness. — Bob Ross
What is real is what exists, and does not need to be perceived to exist. — Philosophim
After we came out of the church, we stood talking for some time together of Bishop Berkeley's ingenious sophistry to prove the non-existence of matter, and that everything in the universe is merely ideal. I observed, that though we are satisfied his doctrine is not true, it is impossible to refute it. I never shall forget the alacrity with which Johnson answered, striking his foot with mighty force against a large stone, till he rebounded from it, "I refute it thus!"
I believe that is essentially the case when it comes down the micro-micro level (i.e., quantum mechanics). However, the idea that entities behave or relate to each other relatively to observation (or what have you) does not say anything about what they fundamentally are nor what substance they are of. — Bob Ross
The idea that there is an actual space-time fabric is predicated on the physicalist metaphysical notion that there is a mind-independent world (and no wonder Einstein, being a realist, tried to explain his field equations within that metaphysical schema). Science proper in relation to spacetime is not that there actually is such but rather that space and time behave differently (in accordance with Einstein’s field equations) than we originally intuited. For a realist though, they will probably be committed (metaphysically) to there actually being a space-time fabric. — Bob Ross
There has to be at least one thing-in-itself of which you-as-yourself are representing in your conscious experience, unless you would like to argue that somehow you are both the thing-in-itself and the you-as-yourself (i.e. solipsism). — Bob Ross
Everthing in phenonimal experience is connected to each other: but what is your mind fundamentally representing to you (as that is the thing in itself or things in themselves)? — Bob Ross
The idea is to question what exists sans your particular experience. If you died, how do things exist in-themselves? Do they at all? That is the question. Perhaps, for you, the thing-in-itself is a giant blur of everything, but that is still a thing-in-itself. — Bob Ross
Very interesting. Your view, as far as I understand it, still has then the hard problem of consciousness: how does that emergence actually happen? How is it even possible to account for it under such a reductive method? I don’t think you can. — Bob Ross
Correct me if I am wrong, but it sounds like you may be an existence monist? Even if that is the case, then the entire universe (reality) would be the thing-in-itself. There’s always at least one thing-in-itself as something has to be posited as fundamental and eternal, even in the case of an infinite regression. — Bob Ross
I don’t think it is possible to account for consciousness in this manner because no matter how well we uncover how consciousness relates to bodily functions it fundamentally does not explain consciousness itself. — Bob Ross
Well, Bob, this is how I see it:
If one only "knows" ideas because there are only ideas, and if ideas are properties of minds, and if each mind is an idea, then all minds are properties of each mind or, in effect, one mind. QED.
— immaterialism, ergo solipsism
This is just like pixels in a hologram each of which containing all of the information that constitutes the hologram (à la Leibniz's monads). — 180 Proof
Yes, property dualism (or reflexive monism) but not unparsimonious substance dualism.This is exactly why dualism is called for. — Metaphysician Undercover
I am not merely claiming that physicalism hasn’t explained mentality but, rather, that it can’t. — Bob Ross
That is a metaphysical claim (specifically a physicalist claim), not science proper (i.e., physics in the tradition, Aristotelian sense). Nowadays, due to the age of enlightenment and modernism, we tend to smuggle metaphysics into ‘science’ without batting an eye. — Bob Ross
it is due to a careful consideration of the possible metaphysical theories and finding it the most parismonous. — Bob Ross
Are you essentially arguing for ontological agnosticism? — Bob Ross
And which stone would that be? 'Oh, it doesn't matter - any stone.' But 'any stone' is an abstraction - and abstraction is still dependent on the matrix of conceptual thought. — Wayfarer
So - the point I'm getting at is that the instinctive sense that the object is real whether or not anyone perceives it, is precisely the point at issue in idealist arguments - hard as that may be to accept. — Wayfarer
I am well aware of this general idea, the problem is it is plainly false. I don't want to argue here and derails Bob Ross's fine thread, but in general such challenges to accepted theory are fun to consider when first entering philosophy, but are eventually solved. — Philosophim
The smooth stone will be carried along by the current, the jagged one will catch and snag — Fooloso4
our perception relies on an internal categorization of reality and that to fully understand it we instead require imagination based on understanding scientific data. — Christoffer
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