This is why I asked about the "something" that has always been capable of observing. — Fooloso4

We can form no meaningful idea of what exists in the absence of the order that the mind brings to reality.

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

There is an implicit endorsement of scientific realism in this. Analytic idealism is not a realist philosophy in that sense.

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?

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

No, it's not. It's not anything, until it is cognised. It's not non-existent, but it's also not existent - it has a kind of latent or unmanifest reality. There's a subjective element in all cognition which synthesises and contextualises the stimuli we're receiving - starlight included - and combines it into the world. That activity is what gives rise to the subjective unity of experience - which is 'the world'. That is the sense in which nothing is ultimately mind-independent, although for practical purposes, it can be treated as if it is. Hence as I said - mind-independence is a methodological assumption, not a metaphysical axiom. In actual fact, reality is not something we're outside of, or apart from - it has an inextricable subjective foundation, which we're not consciously aware of - transcendental in the Kantian sense.

I certainly see the 'constructionist' logic in your last paragraph. It's hard or impossible to imagine how we could separate our perception, cognition, experience and metaphysical presumptions from what we generally think of as an experience of reality.

We can form no meaningful idea of what exists in the absence of the order that the mind brings to reality. — Wayfarer

I agree, but I don't think it follows that:

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

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.

There is an implicit endorsement of scientific realism in this. Analytic idealism is not a realist philosophy in that sense. — Wayfarer

But that does not answer the question.

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

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.

I certainly see the 'constructionist' logic in your last paragraph. — Tom Storm

Constructivism (I've learned) is an approach in science and philosophy that emphasizes the role of the mind in the construction of knowledge and the interpretation of data - hence the name! I don't think it is synonymous with idealism and so I'm not sure if 'idealism' is really what I'm arguing for - although I do notice that Kastrup has published articles in Constructivist Foundations.

... transcendental in the Kantian sense. — Wayfarer

So is this "transcendental" conception of 'mind-dependence' also mind-dependent? :chin:

No! This is where 'the unknown knower' comes into the picture. 'The eye can't see itself, the hand can't grasp itself', which is an aphorism from Vedanta. What it means is that we can't see the subjective faculties which synthesise the 'subjective unity of experience' because we're never outside of it, so it's not objectively known to us. (Hence also the tortuous and painstaking analysis required by the Critique of Pure Reason.)

//with that I'll bow out for now, don't want to hog @Bob Ross's thread.//

Thus, we cannot know whether or not this "transcendental" (subject / mind) is anything more than a convenient fiction (i.e. confabulation)? :roll:

Hello Fooloso4,

The fact that we cannot now explain consciousness does not mean that there is not a physical explanation.

It is true that an unsolved problem which can be theoretically solved under a metaphysical theory is not to say that it cannot be solved eventually (by that theory); however, those are called soft problems. I am not merely claiming that physicalism hasn’t explained mentality but, rather, that it can’t. That is the hard problem of consciousness.

According to the Standard Model of Particle Physics there are fundamental or elementary particles of matter.

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.

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

I am arguing qualities, which are expressions of ideas, is reality and not the quantitative maps that we produce to better navigate existence. I am not assuming a mind: if mind cannot be reduced to something mind-independent, then the only other option is that whatever affects (my and our) mind(s) is mind. If mind is irreducible to matter and I were to postulate that reality isn’t fundamentally mind, then I either have to concede substance dualism or the hard problem of consciousness re-emerges full force. In the case of the former, it has the hard problem of interaction which renders it more epistemically costly than simply positing reality as mind.

Based off of our experience you infer that reality is essentially experiential.

Physicalism is us using our experience to infer that reality is nothing like our experience. I am not following what the critique is here. We use experience to try to infer what reality fundamentally is.

Put differently, based off the human mind you infer that there is mind itself.

Again, I am not simply claiming there is a universal mind because we are minds: it is due to a careful consideration of the possible metaphysical theories and finding it the most parismonous. To claim that fundamentally all is mind simply because we are mind is a bad argument for idealism.

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.

I apologize: I slightly misspoke. You are right that monism is only more parsimonious if it it accounts for the same data which I failed to mention earlier. However, monism is better because it does account for everything more parsimoniously. For example, substance dualism is indefensible compared to physicalism and idealism. In order to account for the world, it has to overly complicate its explanation (to try and account for the hard problem of interaction). These other theories (which are not monist) are extremely epistemically costly.

is not something we can experience but it is also not something we know. Whether it is something that can be known is questionable.

Are you essentially arguing for ontological agnosticism?

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.

What do you mean by “experience”? If you mean perception, then no: the universal mind does not perceive anything and it has no self-knowledge. The universal mind is not something we can personify.

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.

Through the natural process of evolution as disassociated alters.

Bob

Hello schopenhauer1,

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?

I totally understand your concerns here: they perfectly valid. My response would be to note that analytic idealism is meant to explain the empirical data better than other theories, and so it seems empirically that the mind is natural in the sense that it is a lower grade of mind (than our evolved ones) which is following a rigid pattern of excitation. Why is it doing that? I have no clue. Analytic idealism has its fair share of soft problems.

Even if it is unity individuated into an "alter" of disassociated parts, why should these parts be the complexity that it is?

This is because of evolution. Kastrup is a staunch empiricist, and so he explains the develop of alters in terms of standard biological evolution: the lower grades of conscious beings slowly develop more complexity over time in its environment. The only difference (in comparison to physicalism) is that Kastrup views those beings (which are evolving and have evolved biologically) as in essence mind and not matter (i.e., alters and not mind-independent organisms).

Why would it take on this complexity rather than simply being a simple physical aspect?

Although you didn’t explicitly state this, I would like to clarify that the mind-at-large doesn’t choose in the sense of having deliberate, cognitive decisions: it is, according to Kastrup, following a natural process. Kastrup claims that originally the mind-at-large was in harmony until “something” disrupted the process and formulated an alter: the first life (other than that universal mind). How did that happen? I have no clue. Again, analytic idealism has its soft problems for sure.

Let's take the known seriously at least, and take that where it leads us, to perhaps a plurality.

I agree: we should always be open minded to other metaphysical accounts of the world. I just don’t see what need we have to posit substance pluralism. It also comes with hard problems (like interaction) whereas your critique of idealism is a soft problem.

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.

Honestly, the principium individuationis aspect of schopenhauerian metaphysics still leaves my mouth sour: I find it utterly obscure how eternity “converts” to temporality. So, unfortunately, I am still thinking through that part and can’t give a good answer yet. However, what I can say is that I think all metaphysical theories run into this problem: fundamentally something has to be eternal (even if it is the infinite regress itself) and thusly there is this problem of explaining how eternity relates to temporality. Perhaps positing time itself as eternal would help resolve the issue: I am not sure yet.

Bob

Hello Mww,

Thank you for the elaboration!

Bob

Hello creativesoul,

I appreciate your response!

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.

I agree that if the hard problem isn’t actually a hard problem then there physicalism would be a much more appealing metaphysical account than I would currently consider it.

Consciousness is emergent. As such, it is - as we know it - the result of millions of years of evolutionary progression

I disagree. I think that physicalism cannot account for consciousness. There is a conceptual gap in reductive physicalism between mechanical awareness and qualitative experience. For example, the physicalist can account for how a brain can acquire knowledge of its environment (e.g., how a brain acquires the knowledge of greeness) but not why one has a subjective experience of it which goes beyond and above the mere brain-knowledge of it (e.g., not how one qualitatively experiences the greeness: there is not reason for that to happen under a physicalist account of the world).

There is no "aha!" point or moment in time that can be pointed at, and then it can be said "here it is!".

The hard problem of consciousness is not where exactly, in evolution, one particular organism (or a group) acquired consciousness but, rather, how one can even account for consciousness (even theoretically) within a physicalist metaphysics.

I would agree with you that if consciousness did arise via evolution, then there wouldn’t be an exact “aha!” moment, just like how there is not exact “aha!” moment of when one species transitions into another.

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).

I disagree.

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.

That is a mischaracterization of what the hard problem is. It is not what exact species it arose in (or something like that): it is the claim that in principle consciousness is not explanable via the reductive physicalist method.

Bob

Hello Philosophim,

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

You would have to define what you mean by “observer”: I don’t use that terminology. I would say that the tree exists as a part of ideas in the universal mind and is thusly perception-independent, where “perception” is an ability that only animals (including humans) have: the ability to take in sensations and represent that to itself (as a perception).

Why introduce mind and mentality?

Although I know you disagree, if the hard problem of conscious exists, then it is more parsimonious to posit that the strong correlation between mental states and brain states is that the latter (not the former) is an extrinsic representation of (is produced by) the former. In that case, we still have to account for why there is a objective reality which goes beyond my particular mind and thusly there must be a universal mind (as if it isn’t mind, then we have the hard problem all over again).

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?

I didn’t follow this chain of reasoning: perhaps if you explain what you mean by “observer” then it will become clear to me.

If being is reality, then all of reality is being.

I agree, this is just a tautology.

I think I just need a better definition of "mentality" and "mental".

“Mentality” is the sum total of qualitative experience—of activity in the mind (e.g., ideas, thoughts, emotions, feeling, sight, colors, etc.). Although I know you are a physicalist, forget that for a second. Just from introspection, birth the idea of raising your right arm and watch it rise. The idea to raise the right arm was prima facea mental, not physical (although you may ultimately argue it is reducible to something physical). Look at a green pen, that pen is prima facea within your qualitative, conscious experience: it is a greeness (and a pen) which you subjectively experience. You are experiencing as a mind (even in physicalist worldview): everything you experience is within mind. Of course, a physicalist will abstract that that mind is reducible to something non-mind (i.e., a brain).

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.

No. “Physical” within physicalist metaphysics refers to something mind-independent: something quantitative. Again, maybe by “observer” you are meaning “mind”, but then you will have to explicate what you exactly for me to determine if I agree or not. Further, the idea that there is an “existence independent of our observation” is just the definition of an objective world: not physicalism. Analytic idealism makes the exact same claim. I think that the tree exists independent of our perception as well (as I would imagine you would agree with that too). This isn’t unique to physicalism.

As noted, this eliminates infinite meta self-observation

The universal mind does not have meta-consciousness: it doesn’t have self-knowledge.

You exist as a physical being. Despite your lack of observing yourself, you still exist physically in the world.

I think, and correct me if I am wrong, now you may be referring to the colloquial usage of the term “physical” (i.e., something with solidity, shape, size...material): this isn’t what it means in physicalism metaphysics—it is mind-independent. In the colloquial usage of the term (explicated above), I would agree that my experience is of a physical world; however, I am not a physical body but rather, under analytic idealism, my body is an extrinsic representation of my mind. To better understand this, recall the tree in the game analogy: the tree doesn’t exist fundamentally how it gets perceived and so, under analytic idealism, the tree in our perception is just a representation of the tree (which is fundamentally information: ideas in a mind). Likewise, this includes our bodies no differently than the tree: my body, my organs, my brain, etc. is my mind representing itself to itself and it doesn’t, just like the tree, exist fundamentally how it is perceived.

our mind does not float, it is located within your body

This doesn’t apply to my view (I don’t think) because I agree that the body and mind are inextricably linked: because they are two sides of the same coin. So, of course, I would not expect my mind to somehow float outside my body in space. My body is just in extrinsic representation of myself (as a mind) within my perception.

What is real is not perception-independent. What is real is what exists, and does not need to be perceived to exist.

I am a bit confused here. If what is real is what exists independently of what we perceive to exist, then isn’t it perception-independent?

Maybe we are saying the same thing two different ways.

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.

Not quite. Scientific facts are “observations of reality”: there are also laws and theories. Laws and facts are science proper (as far as I am concerned) as it is the attempt to understand how things relate and not in the business of metaphysics (e.g., ontology). Scientific theories can be either (1) metaphysical claims, (2) an explanation in terms of another relation, or (3) both.

The problem with your idea of falsification for the claim that mental states are brain states is that metaphysics can’t work with the same criteria that science uses—and I can demonstrate this with your example:

How could this be falsified? Destroying the brain and still seeing green

This criteria of falsification for mental states being brain states (that you postulated here) applies to a whole range of metaphysical theories: not just physicalism. For example, I can, as analytic idealism, claim that the mental states are producing the brain states and the way by which you can falsify it is to destroy a brain and prove that they are still seeing green (as that would disprove that the link between mental and physical states). Under idealism, just as much as physicalism, it is expected that there is a strong correlation between mental states and brain states. Since we can posit the same falsification criteria that you just posited to try and back physicalism, there must be some other criteria that you are using to determine that physicalism is better than idealism (for they both can be falsified in that exact same manner).

I don’t see how your criteria uniquely applies to the metaphysical theory of physicalism.

It is a common mistake to believe that the hard problem is claiming physicalism cannot link brain states and consciousness together.

I was never disputing that brain states cannot be linked to mental states nor that that is the hard problem of consciousness. Physicalism cannot account for qualitative experience: understanding scientifically how brain states are linked to mental states (and vice-versa) does not entail any metaphysical view whatsoever. Science and physicalism are two entirely different things.

What I am open to is seeing if you can prove that physicalism cannot link the brain and consciousness together.

Again, both idealism and physicalism expect links between the brain the mental events. Proving that there is not such correlation between the two would equally disprove analytic idealism.

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 think you might be conflating metaphysics with physics: neuroscience is science, not physicalism. Metaphysics can only use falsifiability as a negative concept (i.e., that it can disprove some metaphysical theories) and not a positive one (i.e., not being falsified does not prove a metaphysical theory correct).

Bob

Hello 180 Proof,

I see. You're advocating immaterialism (which entails solipsism), not (just) panpsychism.

As I already elaborated, it isn’t a form of pansychism (unless you want to clarify that you mean a vague, superficial etymological definition that goes against the literature).

No it does not entail solipsism.

Bob

No it [immaterialism] does not entail solipsism. — 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).

Consciousness is emergent. As such, it is - as we know it - the result of millions of years of evolutionary progression. — creativesoul

When did consciousness first appear?

Bob, I confess you've lost me at this point. Try as I can, I can't relate to the terminology used here and any attempt to grasp it just doesn't make sense to me. I feel like we have a fundamental difference in understanding that perhaps isn't all that far off from one another, but at the same time, somehow is.

One statement that I think we both agree on in layman's terms is that the perception of a 'thing' is real in itself, and that the perception cannot exist without the perceiver. But we seem to have a disagreement on how that happens. I say that the perception of a thing is done completely through the matter and energy of the brain, which is the scientific consensus. You believe this to be the hard problem, which to my knowledge, is not it. You also have ideas about falsification and science that I do not agree with, which again I think has been explored and is at this moment an irreconsilable difference.

As I noted early on, if we diverge here I do not believe I can adequately contribute to the conversation any longer. My line of thinking is too different from yours for us to be able to discus what you want to address. That being said, a wonderful commitment to your thread, and I respect the attempt! Best of thoughts in fielding the remaining discussions, I will likely be reading your other replies to see if I can understand your side better.

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

If it is true that physicalism (physics, chemistry, biology since all testable explanations are physical explanations) can't explain consciousness then it is not a hard problem but an impossible problem. It then follows that it is not a problem at all.

Or the question then becomes 'is there any alternative to a physical explanation'? and of course the answer would be 'no' since the so-called hard problem specifically calls for a causal, IE physical, explanation.

Much ado about nothing...?

Hope you don't mind me chipping in here. My aim is not to persuade, but (hopefully) clarify.

What is real is what exists, and does not need to be perceived to exist. — Philosophim

This is the crux of the issue. Realism presumes 'the world' (or object of perception) to be real, irrespective of whether it is perceived or not. Idealism, on the other hand, takes issue with this apparently-obvious fact. George Berkeley, for example, said explicitly 'esse est percipe' - to be is to be perceived. His argument is nevertheless categorised as empiricist, because it is based on the observation that the existence of physical objects cannot be proven independently of, or outside of, the perception of them (where 'perception' includes seeing, touching, instrumental analysis, etc). He maintained that we only have direct access to our own perceptions and cannot perceive anything beyond those - that when we see the object, our seeing of it consists in 'the experience of the object'. It is therefore unwarranted to assume the existence of material objects outside perception.

It is well known that many people think Berkeley's philosophy absurd. There is an historical anecdote featuring the famous writer, Samuel Johnson:

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!"

This is now immortalised as the 'argumentum ad lapidem', meaning 'argument from the stone', and is said to be fallacious, on the grounds that kicking a stone does not actually address the theory. It rather asserts a conclusion incompatible with the theory and then demonstrates the conclusion without discussing the real claims of the argument. After all, the stone and the sensation of striking your foot against it are, likewise, perceptions and impressions of color, hardness, time and place, and the like. In this sense, Berkeley's argument is not too distant in spirit from Descartes' argument that in all of our perceptions, we might be mislead by an evil daemon. (Updated and annotated translations of Berkeley can be found here - and one thing you will learn if you look at them, is that Berkeley was no slouch when it came to dealing with objections to his philosophy. He was a very clever polemicist.)

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.

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

I'd say the opposite, quantum-level interactions have lower relational interactions, and sometimes objects are quantum entangled and essentially behave the same. General relativity acts on larger scales and due to that, everything exists in a relational bond to every other object forming a causality of entropy.

What they fundamentally are is just a separation of molecular structures. Some bonds of matter fuse together better than others and therefore we have chemical elements that can further bond together depending on the situation. An object in space is just an object that has a different molecular structure than the air or space around it. That an object then gets a definition by us, like a chair is chair, a moon is a moon, or iron is iron, is just language and our mind's way of categorizing reality in order to communicate and create a mental model of our surroundings.

What fundamental thing or substance is it that you mean isn't defined?

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

Every prediction Einstein made has been verified in a number of different ways, so what does that tell about a mind-independent world? If everything was just within our minds, we wouldn't have verifications that rely on input data separate from how humans input data. A "field" is just something that has a mathematical value at each point in space, case point, the magnetic field. And with the recent verification of gravitational waves, we have verified spacetime as a field more clearly than previously.

What is it that you are trying to convey?

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

Yes, there's a difference between how we experience things and how things really are. If you just take our visual representation of the world around us, it only sees a small portion of the spectrum. If we were to see the entire spectrum of light, we would witness a sensory overload of events happening all around us, from infrared to ultraviolet, to radiowaves and cosmic radiation. It is probably the reason why animals have only evolved to see certain parts of the spectrum because to see everything would have no practical application in nature.

We are a limited species in our perception, in order to let us function better for the existence we have.

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

Our mind does not represent anything accurately. This is why in science we rely on data that fits together in logic and math rather than just looking at something and concluding it to be something specific. We can, however, verify something as being constant to a vast variety of minds by a simple process: Have a room that only has a table and a red apple on it. Let a hundred people go in one at a time, then go out and describe what they observed in the room. Summarize these hundreds of observations into statistics and you can conclude a collective representation of subjective observations, i.e the sum of a hundred minds observing the same thing.

Even then, it is still just human minds interpreting the apple. We don't see the infrared, the cosmic particles flowing through the apple etc. But we know have concluded what we as a species observed.

We can also scan the room using different types of measurements that register data that are outside of our perception. If that data correlates with our collective statistics of observations, then we can crosscheck the differences in our perception to that of other known sensors' reactions inside the room.

But even with all that data collected and formed into the best type of observation we have, both by us and our expanded tools, we are still forming a categorization based on a crosscheck with our memories. We have learned what a room is, what a table is, and what an apple is and use that to verify what we observe either in perception or with external tools. These things aren't much different from language, how we categorize an apple as "an apple". Such categorizations aren't just language-based, but we have the same in our inner representation of an apple, the sum of memories of "an apple" is constantly referenced to our perception of something or a current internal representation of an apple (maybe the memory of the apple in the room, or in this case our ability to visualize that apple in that room through this text).

All of such objects are interpreted in relation to other objects around them and that's how we categorize objects.

In reality, however, these objects are not anything in themselves, outside of our interpretation of reality these objects blend together and are just formations of accumulations of matter through entropic processes. We see a chair and interpret it as such, but the chair itself is just an accumulation of carbon molecules and other molecular structures that sticks together in a bond that dissolves into its surrounding space so slowly that our perception of time makes us observe the chair as solid and still. In reality, its half-life will eventually dissolve it into space, making it into high entropy dust.

If reality could observe itself, it would just experience everything as if it looked like a fluid, with accumulated parts in different places, some denser than others.

All of this is of course a vastly simplified description of perception and reality. The core of it is that our perception is a very limited representation of actual reality, but what we can perceive isn't stranger than a camera able to capture light into a specific value structure that represents a snapshot of how light particles bounced around in the moment of registration. How our minds interpret that isn't stranger than a computer program crosschecking statistics against a reference archive that has been formed by previous snapshots.

In essence, our minds function identically to how these new AI systems do. Not in self-awareness, but in their core functions of crosschecking data input against stored data.

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

That sounds more like a dissonance between accepting that blur of reality and our minds desperately trying to categorize reality. This categorization in our cognition that helps us navigate reality through time also makes it hard for us to conceptualize past it and think in purely abstract ways. Because it is hard coded into our ability to function properly.

It may be that some mental disorders tamper with this core function of cognition and makes us unable to function. We could interpret H.P Lovecraft's cosmic horror in this way when people in his stories come to a higher level of understanding of reality they go absolutely insane.

I think that arguments that try to distinguish reality from our perception in a "do a tree fall in the woods if no one is observing it" way, is rather an error from how our minds functions. That our perception relies on an internal categorization of reality and that to fully understand it we instead require imagination based on understanding scientific data. Otherwise, we get caught in an internal conceptualizing loop.

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

I would argue that it happens in the same way as any other complex system going hyper-complex as a holistic system.

Think of an ecosystem. The specific species, plants, and animals within this system are extremely complex organisms in themselves. Even the most basic bacterial system at a microscopic part of this system can have millions of complex bonds and interactions. Scientists have simulated such bacterial spaces perfectly with super-computers, which tells you just how complex such systems are even when we describe them as "simple" in relative terms. Now, take this small bacterial system and go larger, observe how it relates to its surroundings. Now you have a complex bacterial system that has exponentially become more complex just by zooming out and looking at its closest relation and bonds to other parts around it, and we might have only zoomed out to a square centimeter around it.

Now zoom out to observe the entire ecosystem. The hyper-complexity of it is so vast that we have no possible way to conceptualize it all in all that complexity. We witness it in simplified ways and observe the emergent properties of this system, how large pools of animals, plants, water, and geography ebb and flow through it.

This is how we observe our perception and cognition as well. We see the entire ecosystem and observe it in simplified ways in the form of emergent movements and behaviors. We cannot conceptualize or see the hyper-complexity and therefore we have trouble concluding "how it formed". But just as an ecosystem forms by these ebbs and flows, finding an equilibrium in which they function as a balanced system in relation to reality, so does our cognition. The emergent aspects of cognition take on the form of such simple things as our ability to see and interpret visual sensory data into a representation of reality, but the underlying complexity of both registering that visual data and interpreting it is within a hyper-complex system.

It is simply that emergent consequences form when a complex system reaches hyper-complexity. We see it in every complex system in the universe and since our brain and body is part of this universe we are part of this complexity reaching hyper-complexity. An animal brain is extremely complex, but when that complexity reaches a certain level, the hyper-complexity starts to form emergent abilities.

The key here is that instead of looking inwards to try to understand these emergent properties, we need to observe other places where complexity exists and see such behaviors over time. If we agree that there aren't any religious and supernatural aspects of reality, then we are part of nature/reality and we function the same as all other organic matter around us.

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 so. What I'm describing is how reality fits together and how we perceive the separation between objects as just part of our cognition's way of making us able to navigate reality. The universe could be an infinite loop or it could be part of a larger system of inflating bubbles of universes. The problem with speaking of concepts outside our universe is that if spacetime and our laws of physics are different there, we have less ability to describe them in a way we can conceptualize. I.e we need to conceptualize through pure abstraction that still holds on to how scientific data predicts back to before the big bang. It means that we need to let go even more of our mind's way of categorizing reality and embrace abstract perspectives, while still keeping us rooted to the data that we have.

It might be that we need to go absolutely insane while still being sane in order to conceptualize it correctly. Even this sentence referring to it as "it" is less abstract than it needs to be and we may have problems even communicating about these concepts since our language is part of the same categorizing principles as the rest of our cognition.

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

In relation to what I wrote above, our consciousness is a hyper-complex ecosystem that is self-aware of being such and this self-awareness is part of the emerging abilities out of this system. But just as an ecosystem, if we were able to trace back how each microscopic complex component function in itself and describe all of the exponential potential connections, relations, and bonds to other components, we would be able to observe just how consciousness works and why the emergent abilities formed and how. But just as an ecosystem, we know a lot about it, and we can even predict and experiment on parts of it with certain results... but forming a perfect holistic view of the entire system with its exponential relations and bonds might be such a colossal undertaking that we need a computer the size of the universe to be able to do it in perfect detail.

I think that the key is that researchers aren't primarily studying the holistic aspect of our brain/body, we look too heavily into detailed parts of us trying to find consciousness when consciousness might only exist with all parts as a whole. Just like when we look at a video on our phones and we experience the result of the holistic system of a phone that cannot be taken apart and still be able to show that video in the way that we experience it, it is the sum of it that produces the ability, not some part, or a few parts, but the whole system, the holistic entity.

Us trying to decode consciousness is akin to an alien trying to decode how an iPhone works. They observe it playing a video and they are going through a deconstruct of all its parts, but they cannot find where the sum of it is, because the sum requires every part to function in relations and bonds to each other. Where a phone could be able to be deconstructed in that way, due to its binary simplicity, our consciousness isn't a binary system, and as such the hyper-complexity is a far greater challenge to be decoded.

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

This is exactly why dualism is called for. All is not one mind. My mind is separate from yours, as your ideas are separate from mine. So we need to assume a medium of separation, which is commonly called "matter". Matter does not exist within the mind because if it did the boundary between your mind and my mind would be dissolved and we would be one mind. Therefore matter is necessarily external to mind.

Since this is the defining feature of matter, that it is the boundary, divisor, or medium between individual minds, and it therefore cannot be within any mind, it is necessary to conclude that the mind is immaterial. Furthermore, since matter is necessarily outside the mind, it constitutes that part of reality which is unintelligible to us. Therefore to dismiss dualism is to allow in principle, that matter is within the mind, thereby creating the illusion that the unintelligible is intelligible. So allowing matter into the mind is to allow contradiction to penetrate (dialectical materialism for example). This act of denying dualism, which is to allow this principle, matter, into the mind, is to cultivate confusion and self-deception.

So….anything I said find a place in your analytic idealism?

This is exactly why dualism is called for. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, property dualism (or reflexive monism) but not unparsimonious substance dualism.

:fire:

I am not merely claiming that physicalism hasn’t explained mentality but, rather, that it can’t. — Bob Ross

It is merely a claim. It is not a theoretical or metaphysical issue, but an actual practical one. Your metaphysical assumptions are an impediment.

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

This is nonsense. First, Aristotle's physics rests on its own metaphysical assumptions. Second, if you want to hamstring science by requiring it to adhere to the authority of Aristotle, you are too late. If Aristotle were alive today his physics would look quite different.

it is due to a careful consideration of the possible metaphysical theories and finding it the most parismonous. — Bob Ross

So, first you fault science for smuggling in metaphysics and then appeal to metaphysical theories. The fact of the matter is that advances being made in neuroscience do not get tangled up in metaphysical questions of substance monism, dualism, pluralism.

Are you essentially arguing for ontological agnosticism? — Bob Ross

No. I am arguing that the claim that the universe is experiential in essence is, as I said, not something we experience or know. Speculative ontology is not something I take seriously beyond its limited entertainment value.

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

We can be more specific. We meet on the bank of the Concord River where Thoreau hunted for rocks for his collection. We find two stones, formed millions of years ago, one smooth and round, the other rough and jagged. We place them in the river and watch. The smooth stone will be carried along by the current, the jagged one will catch and snag. Although we observe what happens, it does not follow that the stones do not have a shape unless observed. It is because of their shape that one is carried along and the other snags.

Thank you Wayfarer, it is kind of you to attempt to clarify. Also, a fun story! 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.

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

Its not that its hard to accept, its just wrong. When such arguments are examined in depth on their own merit, and not merely through the lens of challenging the status quo, a whole host of conflicts, ill defined vocabulary, and issues come up that collapse the idea in on itself completely. As such, I cannot consider any such argument on its terms without it clearly demonstrating a strong and unambiguous vocabulary and logic.

:up:

Glad to hear names like Kastrup coming up in this medium!
It's the first time since about two years ago when I joined TPF ...

Now, you have touched quite a few subjects, concepts/notions and areas in your description of your topic. So I would llike to know where does "What are your thoughts" refer to. From a few replies I read from other people, they don't seem to have such a "problem". But I have! :smile:

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

This is not true that idealism has been 'solved' or refuted generally. There are quite a few people of scientific bent, of whom Bernardo Kastrup is one, who have made detailed arguments for philosophical idealism, which have not been refuted.

When discussing these matters, just be aware that your physicalist views are not supported by philosophical argument, but are simply expressions of your 'gut feel' as to what can and can't be true. Incredulity is not itself an argument.

The smooth stone will be carried along by the current, the jagged one will catch and snag — Fooloso4

The example you're giving takes 'the objective' as independently real - independently, that is, of any judgement or perception on our part, and imputes self-evidence to it. The basic argument remains: look, these stones are far older than our minds, how can you say they don't exist independently of our perception of them? They were around millions of years before anyone perceived them.

But idealism does not necessarily call the empirical reality of objects into question. It's not saying that the world is only 'in the mind' (although certainly Berkeley can be interpreted as saying that, which is why, in the second edition of the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant added a section distinguishing his philosophy from what he called the 'problematic idealism' of Berkeley.)

What idealism, analytic or transcendental, is drawing attention to, is that the mind creates the framework within which our judgements about the stone (or any object) are meaningful. Schopenhauer, for example, published an early book, On Vision and Colors, which is his analysis, based on the neuroscience of his day, of how the brain synthesises visual data to generate color cognition. The basic outlines of what he said have been abundantly confirmed by later science. Cognitive and evolutionary psychology have revealed that conscious perception, while subjectively appearing to exist as a steady continuum, is actually composed of a heirarchical matrix of interacting cellular transactions, commencing at the most basic level with the parasympathetic system which controls one’s respiration, digestion, and so on, up through various levels to culminate in that specifically human ability of rational thought (and beyond, although this is beyond the scope of current science and a matter of controversy.)

Consciousness plays the central role in co-ordinating these diverse activities so as to give rise to the sense of continuity which we call ‘ourselves’ and also the coherence and reality of the world of appearance. Yet it is important to realise that the naïve sense in which we understand ourselves and the objects of our perception to exist is dependent upon the constructive activities of our consciousness, most of which are unknown to us. We have no more knowledge of them than we do of cell division or of our hair growing or our food digesting.

When we perceive something - large, small, alive or inanimate, local or remote - there is a considerable amount of work involved in ‘creating’ the object from the raw material of perception. Your eyes receive the lightwaves reflected or emanated from it, your mind synthesises the image with regards to all of the other stimuli impacting your senses at that moment – acknowledging it or ignoring it depending on how busy you are; your memory will then compare it to other objects you have seen, from whence you will recall its name, and perhaps know something about it ('star', 'tree', 'frog', etc - this is the process of 'apperception').

And you will do all of this without you even noticing that you are doing it; it is largely unconscious.

In other words, your consciousness is not the passive recipient of sensory objects which exist irrespective of your perception of them. Instead, your consciousness is an active agent which constructs experiential reality - partially on the basis of sensory input, but also on the basis of a huge number of unconscious processes, including memories, intentions and cultural frameworks. This is how we arrive at what Schopenhauer designates as 'vorstellung', variously translated as 'representation' or 'idea'. And that is what reality consists of. It includes the object, but it is not in itself an object. As Schopenhauer says in the first paragraph of WWI, discerning this fact is the beginning of philosophical wisdom.

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

Their remains no scientific account of which neural systems are able to generate the subjective unity of experience. See The Subjective Unity of Perception in a paper on the Neural Binding Problem. He notes that the problem posed by David Chalmers in his paper Facing Up to the Hard Problem of Concsiousness, remains 'intractable'.