Let’s begin with a thought-experiment: 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.
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.
The cause of Sense, is the Externall Body, or Object, which presseth the organ proper to each Sense, either immediatly, as in the Tast and Touch; or mediately, as in Seeing, Hearing, and Smelling: which pressure, by the mediation of Nerves, and other strings, and membranes of the body, continued inwards to the Brain, and Heart, causeth there a resistance, or counter-pressure, or endeavour of the heart, to deliver it self: which endeavour because Outward, seemeth to be some matter without. And this Seeming, or Fancy, is that which men call sense; and consisteth, as to the Eye, in a Light, or Colour Figured; To the Eare, in a Sound; To the Nostrill, in an Odour; To the Tongue and Palat, in a Savour; and to the rest of the body, in Heat, Cold, Hardnesse, Softnesse, and such other qualities, as we discern by Feeling. All which qualities called Sensible, are in the object that causeth them, but so many several motions of the matter, by which it presseth our organs diversly. Neither in us that are pressed, are they anything els, but divers motions; (for motion, produceth nothing but motion.) But their apparence to us is Fancy, the same waking, that dreaming. And as pressing, rubbing, or striking the Eye, makes us fancy a light; and pressing the Eare, produceth a dinne; so do the bodies also we see, or hear, produce the same by their strong, though unobserved action, For if those Colours, and Sounds, were in the Bodies, or Objects that cause them, they could not bee severed from them, as by glasses, and in Ecchoes by reflection, wee see they are; where we know the thing we see, is in one place; the apparence, in another. And though at some certain distance, the reall, and very object seem invested with the fancy it begets in us; Yet still the object is one thing, the image or fancy is another. So that Sense in all cases, is nothing els but originall fancy, caused (as I have said) by the pressure, that is, by the motion, of externall things upon our Eyes, Eares, and other organs thereunto ordained. — Leviathan, close to the beginning
Idealism is just a rejection of the independence of impenetrability, space, time and emergent phenomena, yet often proposed by people who thinks they have asserted anything what so ever of their own, by imagining that the "mind" could be a substance when the very essence which depicts it hinges on being dual to something different from itself, something different from mind. — Julian August
:up:Yes, we are self-reflexive (i.e. strange looping phenomenal-self-modeling) objects in which this self-reflexivity is completely transparent making each of us the "subject" of a narrative delusion (i.e. ideality, or supernatura) that s/he is not – is ontologically separate from – objects (i.e. reality, or natura). — 180 Proof
https://iep.utm.edu/spino-ep/#SH2bHe retains his substance monism by affirming the existence of the great variety of ways humans, and moreover all beings, can have knowledge as being so many ways God expresses himself. If all ways of knowing are ways God is known, then God himself, insofar as he is absolutely self-causal and self-expressive, would have to thereby know himself through and as all the different ways he is known. Therefore, from the perspective of God, God knows himself in an infinity of ways, while we, in our everyday existence and from our finite perspective, are just so many of these infinite ways God can both inadequately and adequately know all of reality as himself. — link
But Pinter's featureless stuff here is empty of content — plaque flag
In a universe without an observer having a purpose, you cannot have facts. As you may judge from this, a fact is something far more complex than it appears to be at first sight. In order for a fact to exist, it must be preceded by a segmentation of the world into separate things, and requires a brain that is able to extract it from the background in which it is immersed*. Moreover, this brain must have the power to conceive in Gestalts, because in order to perceive its outlines and extract it, a fact must be seen whole, together with some of its context.
A fact does not exist if it has not been articulated, that is, if it does not exist explicitly as a verbal entity sufficiently detailed that it can be made to correspond (approximately) to something in the external world. Facts don’t exist in the absence of their statement (because a statement cuts the fact out of the background), and the statement cannot exist apart from an agent with a purpose. When an intentional agent sets out to carve a specific object from the background world, he has a Gestalt concept of the object—and from the latter, he acts to carve the object out. Thus, a fact cannot exist in a universe without living observers.
A fact does not hold in the universe if it has not been explicitly formulated. That should be obvious, because a fact is specific. In other words, statements-of-fact are produced by living observers, and thereby come into existence as a result of being constructed. It is only after they have been constructed (in words or symbols) that facts come to exist. Commonsense wisdom holds the opposite view: It holds that facts exist in the universe regardless of whether anyone notices them, and irrespective of whether they have been articulated in words. You may now judge for yourself if that is true. — Pinter, Charles. Mind and the Cosmic Order (p. 93). Springer International Publishing. Kindle Edition
Of course! That's the point! — Wayfarer
So, facts come into being with us. Not 'the universe', but there is no meaningful sense of existence in the universe prior to this act of formulation (as naturalism never tires of telling us). — Wayfarer
To discover the nature of our IDEAS the better, and to discourse of them intelligibly, it will be convenient to distinguish them AS THEY ARE IDEAS OR PERCEPTIONS IN OUR MINDS; and AS THEY ARE MODIFICATIONS OF MATTER IN THE BODIES THAT CAUSE SUCH PERCEPTIONS IN US: that so we may not think (as perhaps usually is done) that they are exactly the images and resemblances of something inherent in the subject; most of those of sensation being in the mind no more the likeness of something existing without us, than the names that stand for them are the likeness of our ideas, which yet upon hearing they are apt to excite in us.
11. How Bodies produce Ideas in us.
The next thing to be considered is, how bodies operate one upon another; and that is manifestly by impulse, and nothing else. It being impossible to conceive that body should operate on WHAT IT DOES NOT TOUCH (which is all one as to imagine it can operate where it is not), or when it does touch, operate any other way than by motion.
12. By motions, external, and in our organism.
If then external objects be not united to our minds when they produce ideas therein; and yet we perceive these ORIGINAL qualities in such of them as singly fall under our senses, it is evident that some motion must be thence continued by our nerves, or animal spirits, by some parts of our bodies, to the brains or the seat of sensation, there to produce in our minds the particular ideas we have of them. And since the extension, figure, number, and motion of bodies of an observable bigness, may be perceived at a distance by the sight, it is evident some singly imperceptible bodies must come from them; to the eyes, and thereby convey to the brain some motion; which produces these ideas which we have of them in us.
...
15. Ideas of primary Qualities are Resemblances; of secondary, not.
From whence I think it easy to draw this observation,—that the ideas of primary qualities of bodies are resemblances of them, and their patterns do really exist in the bodies themselves, but the ideas produced in us by these secondary qualities have no resemblance of them at all. There is nothing like our ideas, existing in the bodies themselves. They are, in the bodies we denominate from them, only a power to produce those sensations in us: and what is sweet, blue, or warm in idea, is but the certain bulk, figure, and motion of the insensible parts, in the bodies themselves, which we call so. — Locke
Your argument is well-made, but I actually disagree. I actually have a thread drafted on why epistemology is always posterior to metaphysics, but I don't know if it will ever see the light of day. — Leontiskos
The extremely truncated argument is that it comes down to which of the two is more known: 1) That we know things (as they are), or 2) That there is a glassy perspective. Whichever is less-known must be funneled through that which is more-known, and the modern assumption is that (2) is more-known and that we must therefore begin with epistemology. I don't think that will work. Will I ever get around to addressing this more fully in its own thread? I don't know. :sweat: — Leontiskos
(Another argument is that if our understanding is 'flawed', then our understanding of our understanding will also be 'flawed'. We can't fix (or necessarily perceive) the flaw in our understanding by reflexively applying our understanding to our understanding. Any uncertainty deriving from the faculty of the intellect will color both internal and external objects.) — Leontiskos
Well for Aristotle and Aquinas the intellect is immaterial for precisely the reason you are outlining. But on the other hand, matter qua matter (or qua singular) is not intelligible on Aristotelianism, but only matter qua property (or qua universal). So Aristotle would not be surprised that something like the quantum realm begins to approach unintelligibility. — Leontiskos
I don't begrudge you your conclusion, because it is a reasonable inference. Yet recall that for Aquinas we will know God "perfectly" (as perfectly as we can) not only in the intermediate state, but also in the resurrected state. And in the resurrected state we will have a body of some kind. — Leontiskos
Let's consider the case of bona fide COVID vaccines vs quack cures such as hydroxychloroquine. Scientific studies show that the former are effective and the latter not. That is because of the inherent properties of the real vaccines, which the quack cures do not possess. — Wayfarer
So none of this open and shut. As the closing quote says in the essay ''Ultimately, what we call “reality” is so deeply suffused with mind- and language-dependent structures that it is altogether impossible to make a neat distinction between those parts of our beliefs that reflect the world “in itself” and those parts of our beliefs that simply express “our conceptual contribution.” The very idea that our cognition should be nothing but a re-presentation of something mind-independent consequently has to be abandoned.’ — Wayfarer
'We just don't see it as it is.' — Wayfarer
Then have a look at Mind and the Cosmic Order, by Charles Pinter. Chapter 1 abstract is: — Wayfarer
Objects in the unobserved universe have no shape...
But you seem (to me) to be flitting from position to position. Either it makes sense to talk about some object apart from all subjectivity or it doesn't. — plaque flag
But you seem to be holding to two conflicting principles. Either the mind can know mind-independent reality as it is in itself, or it cannot. — Leontiskos
I would not agree that Kant thinks our cognitions distort reality. — Janus
So it's the idea that knowledge of the world is possible, and this knowledge is not automatically contaminated, distorted, or even conditioned by the human subject. — Leontiskos
How can it be extrapolated? That a person's psychological, social, economical situation is also a type of topography?
— baker
Well, I would like to suggest that social and psychological situations along with social constructs are all real, but I don't have that map to hand, if there is one. Humans are territory rather than map, is more my point, whereas physics is map. — unenlightened
But you seem to be holding to two conflicting principles. Either the mind can know mind-independent reality as it is in itself, or it cannot. If it cannot, then there is always a reason to deny the existence of external objects a la post-Kantian philosophy (thus modern philosophy is intrinsically bound up with solipsism). If it can, then reality does not have an inextricably mental aspect a la western science.
For me the possibility of perception is derivative on the thing that exists in itself. The thing is more than a possibility of perception, even though we always know by means of perception. ...But then given what you say <here> I think we might be on the same page, and I may just be splitting hairs. — Leontiskos
I agree that epistemology is always posterior to metaphysics, so perhaps you have drawn the wrong conclusion from my argument. In your glass analogy, metaphysics would be the discipline by which we understand the glass, which is "being" in general, and of which perspective is a feature. This would lay the grounds for epistemology. — Metaphysician Undercover
...but whatever is your argument for choosing one over the other is a metaphysical argument. — Metaphysician Undercover
You say that we cannot "fix" the flaw by understanding our understanding, but this is exactly what we do in practise, to improve ourselves, we repair flaws in our understanding. — Metaphysician Undercover
In this way, (habituation), the means now determine the ends by crippling our capacity to freely choose our goals. We act in the habitual way, we are satisfied, therefore we do not question the ends and the forms of satisfaction which the habits provide for us. — Metaphysician Undercover
Notice though, that I referred to a special type of goal, the ideal, as perfection. I said that it was the ideal, perfection as a goal, which cannot be obtained by the human intellect. So the goal then is not to "fix" the understanding, but to improve upon it, in relation to the ideal... — Metaphysician Undercover
I agree, "matter" is posited by Aristotle for the purpose of accounting for that feature of reality which we cannot grasp, the part of reality which appears as unintelligible. — Metaphysician Undercover
I disagree that Aquinas believed we would "have a body of some kind" in the resurrected state. But of course there would be ambiguity providing different interpretations on this matter because Aquinas often had to stretch his ontology to appear consistent with Church dogma. — Metaphysician Undercover
A guy once broke up with me and he stated as his reason, and I quote, "I question the wisdom of continuing a relationship with someone who barely knows herself".Cuz I can’t make heads or tails out of self-knowledge. — Mww
Yes. And to control the masses, of course.Sometimes it seems to me that the quest to gain glimpses of transcendence is more about self-aggrandizement or a kind of metaphysical tourism. — Tom Storm
Husserl's notion of the transcendence of the object is helpful here. Sartre opens B&N with it (does a great job). The spatial object is never finally or completely given. I'm quite happy to understand the object as some kind of ideal unity of its possible 'adumbrations.' — plaque flag
Reality is 'horizonal.' I speak too easily of the being of the world when it's better perhaps to stress its fluid endless becoming. I'd say I have a kind of continuous blanket ontology, with all thinks inferentially linked. — plaque flag
One of the important features of the paper is that it isn’t trying to posit consciousness as an ineffable, inner sanctum. On the contrary, Bitbol emphasizes the irreducibly intersubjective nature of experience.
“…objectivity arises from a universally accepted procedure of intersubjective debate. — Joshs
Great point!This intersubjective construction of objectivity is what phenomenology is about , not ‘introspection ’, which is a common misunderstanding of its method. — Joshs
Whereas this isn't a problem if mind independent reality can be known. If mind independent reality can be known, than at least in some way, it isn't mind independent. The mind can access it. — Count Timothy von Icarus
Going off now on a psychological tangent, the other thing is that I think that underlying these 'materialism vs idealism' debates is very often a concern that things should be a certain way, in accordance with what various people want to be the case. So, there are affective concerns at work behind the scenes, otherwise these questions would not be so compelling, having, as they do little to no practical significance for our everyday lives. It seems that some folk on both sides of the debate see these questions as representing a battle between the forces of good and evil, or at least enlightenment and endarkenment, that will determine the fate of humankind. — Janus
I want to say that the soul ultimately transcends and encompasses the world, and is not metaphysically co-extensive with it. So the subject is the world from a point of view, but it is at the same time more than that. It is not only world-from-a-point-of-view. Do we even disagree on that? — Leontiskos
(I am also willing to toy with the idea that intellect is able to obtain a universal or rather quasi-universal point of view, which is I think what much of philosophy and science is interested in.) — Leontiskos
There you fixated on contamination and distortion, ignoring conditioning. Anti-Realists certainly hold that reality is conditioned by the human subject. Imputation of or fixation on distortion tends to beg the question, but it is ultimately pertinent given that we are considering the possibility of knowing reality as it is in itself. Thus it is a distortion in relation to that counterfactual possibility. — Leontiskos
Sounds right; I agree. :up: It seems like we are pretty close, but I'm sure we'll manage to find something to argue about one day. :razz: — Leontiskos
I think this is so by design, because otherwise, any kind of normativity is impossible. And without normativity, society and culture are impossible.What I’m calling attention to is the tendency to take for granted the reality of the world as it appears to us, without taking into account the role the mind plays in its constitution. This oversight imbues the phenomenal world — the world as it appears to us — with a kind of inherent reality that it doesn’t possess. This in turn leads to the over-valuation of objectivity as the sole criterion for truth. (That, I contend, is the major source of 'scientism' and a major weakness of naturalism, generally.) — Wayfarer
How do you propose to build a system of morality based on the above idea?I’m careful to explain that I’m not claiming that things go into and out of existence depending on whether they’re being perceived,
but that, absent an observer, whatever exists is unintelligible and meaningless as a matter of fact and principle. — Wayfarer
Husserl's notion of the transcendence of the object is helpful here. — plaque flag
From a phenomenological perspective, in everyday life, we see the objects of our experience such as physical objects, other people, and even ideas as simply real and straightforwardly existent. In other words, they are “just there.” We don’t question their existence; we view them as facts.
When we leave our house in the morning, we take the objects we see around us as simply real, factual things—this tree, neighboring buildings, cars, etc. This attitude or perspective, which is usually unrecognized as a perspective, Edmund Husserl terms the “natural attitude” or the “natural theoretical attitude.”
When Husserl uses the word “natural” to describe this attitude, he doesn’t mean that it is “good” (or bad), he means simply that this way of seeing reflects an “everyday” or “ordinary” way of being-in-the-world. When I see the world within this natural attitude, I am solely aware of what is factually present to me. My surrounding world, viewed naturally, is the familiar world, the domain of my everyday life. Why is this a problem?
From a phenomenological perspective, this naturalizing attitude conceals a profound naïveté. Husserl claimed that “being” can never be collapsed entirely into being in the empirical world: any instance of actual being, he argued, is necessarily encountered upon a horizon that encompasses facticity but is larger than facticity. Indeed, the very sense of facts of consciousness as such, from a phenomenological perspective, depends on a wider horizon of consciousness that usually remains unexamined. — Key Ideas in Phenomenology
I explicitly disagreed with Pinter's claim that objects in the unobserved universe have no shape, and you agreed with my argument. We agreed that unobserved boulders have shape. Or rather, so as not to put words in your mouth, you said, "It's safe to assume." — Leontiskos
I would have thought that knowing reality as it is in itself cannot be known in principle, because reality as it is in itself is defined by its nor being reality as it appears to us. On this definition it follows that anything we know is not reality as it is in itself.
But I don't consider reality as it appears to us to be any less real than reality as it is in itself. Reality as it appears to us is a function of reality as it is in itself, because reality as it appears to us is on account of the effect the environment has on us precognitively. — Janus
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