I can't see any distinction between this idea of a collective consciousness and the idea of "mind at large". What would you say is the difference? — Janus
That 'mind at large' suggests an objective reality. That is the reification involved. A subtle but important point, discussed extensively in Buddhist scholastic philosophy and in debates with the Brahmins.
Oh, and Happy New Year to you, although it's already an old year, I copped a traffic radar booking on Day One. :fear: complete with double points. — Wayfarer
That particular essay is attempting to stay within the guidelines of Madhyamaka philosophy - 'middle way'. When asked if the self exists or does not, the Buddha does not reply, but maintains a noble silence. — Wayfarer
And although the unified nature of our experience of this ‘world-picture’ seems simple and even self-evident, neuroscience has yet to understand or explain how the disparate elements of experience , memory, expectation and judgement, all come together to form a unified whole — even though this is plainly what we experience. — Wayfarer
One of the thought-experiments I sometimes consider is imagine having the perspective of a mountain (were a mountain to have senses). As the lifespan of a mountain is hundreds of millions of years, you wouldn't even notice humans and animals, as their appearances and dissappearances would be so ephemeral so as to be beneath your threshold of awareness. Rivers, you'd notice, because they'd stay around long enough to actually carve into you. But people and animals would be ephemera. At the other end of the scale, from the perspective of micro-organisms, humans and animals would be like solar systems or entire worlds. — Wayfarer
What their existence might be outside of any perspective is meaningless and unintelligible, as a matter of both fact and principle. — Wayfarer
But just because we cannot truly think beyond perspective, isn't it injudicious to thereby conclude that reality itself is incoherent outside of perspective? — hypericin
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. — Introduction
As I said at the outset, we can imagine an empty cosmos, but that imaginative depiction still relies on an implicit perspective, or else there is nothing nearer or further, larger or smaller. — Wayfarer
Objects in the unobserved universe have no shape, color or individual appearance, because shape and appearance are created by minds — Introduction
Are you conflating a frame of reference with a mental perspective? Nothing can be nearer or further, larger or smaller, independent of a frame of reference. But a frame of reference is not a mind, even though a mind can furnish one. — hypericin
We are misled by common sense to assume that we see in Gestalts because the world itself is constituted of whole objects. In actual fact, the manner in which physical objects are related to one another and come together rests on an entirely different principle, called the Addition of Simples, which is explained above. The reason events of the world appear holistic to animals is that animals perceive them in Gestalts. The atoms of a teacup do not collude together to form a teacup: The object is a teacup because it is constituted that way from a perspective outside of itself. In a similar way, a photograph consists of a large number of tiny dots of different colors, called pixels. The little dots do not conspire together to give rise to Grandma’s portrait. The portrait comes to exist in visual awareness when the whole of it is seen from an external perspective. The existence of an object as an individual whole is always something external to the object, not inherent in the object itself. — Mind and the Cosmic Order, Charles Pinter
Newton’s equations, which apply to pairs of bodies in space, determine the trajectories of planets around the sun. However, these trajectories are meaningful only to beings who see and conceive in Gestalts. The shape of an orbit, though it exists only in the eyes of a Gestalt observer, is a direct consequence of Newton’s laws, and no further principle is needed to account for it. Although the shapes of orbits are fully determined by the underlying physics (that is, by addition of simples), orbits exist only in the scheme of reality of Gestalt observers. The reality which a Gestalt observer perceives is quite different from that of the underlying physical world. In the Gestalt whole, the observer sees patterns—and these patterns do not exist in the ground reality because patterns emerge only in spread-out wholes and exist only in Gestalt perception.
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 — Husserl’s Legacy: Phenomenology, Metaphysics, and Transcendental Philosophy, Dan Zahavi
Isn't positing 'a frame of reference' without their being a mind to conceive it, merely speculation? — Wayfarer
The little dots do not conspire together to give rise to Grandma’s portrait. The portrait comes to exist in visual awareness when the whole of it is seen from an external perspective. The existence of an object as an individual whole is always something external to the object, not inherent in the object itself. — Mind and the Cosmic Order, Charles Pinter
So what is thought to be 'inherent in the object' such as its perceived roundness, does not exist on the level of the primitive constituents of that object as described by science, but is imputed to it by the observer. — Wayfarer
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.” — Husserl’s Legacy: Phenomenology, Metaphysics, and Transcendental Philosophy, Dan Zahavi
I don't see how. It takes a mind to mark something as a frame of reference. — hypericin
How do you think that something other than a mind could mark a frame of reference? — Metaphysician Undercover
In what sense would "the Earth is further from the sun than Venus" no longer be true when sentient life is gone? — hypericin
For my part, I don't see why the roundness of the bowling ball should not be included among the "primitive constituents of that object as described by science". — hypericin
In the sentence "the Earth is further from the sun than Venus" , the sun is the frame of reference in which the relation "further" operates. It takes a mind to formulate any proposition; in this one, the Sun is marked as a frame of reference, without which "further" would be meaningless. But does the proposition hold independently of minds, or not? — hypericin
reality is a vast unity of conscious experiences, that binds together experiences as of every object from every perspective: a “tapestry” woven out of experiential “threads”. — Helen Yetter-Chappell
By "solipsism" I understand – ontologically, not epistemologically – that only one mind exists and that all else are merely thoughts, ideas or dreams in that one mind. Thus, for the (ontological) solipsist, there is not any "non-mind" for her mind to be "dependent on". No doubt, however, this is not the case.... why you think it is the case that mind is not dependent on non-mind if solipsism is the case. — Lionino
What about that equation ‘looks spherical?’ Rhetorical question of course but makes the point that a sphere can be perfectly described by an equation as can all of the primitive elements described by mathematical sciences without ‘looking like’ anything. Its appearance as spherical is imputed by the observing mind - which is not to deny that it is spherical, but to recognise the constructive contribution of the observer. — Wayfarer
hat is one example of an empirical fact. As I said in the OP I don't deny empirical facts. What I'm criticizing is the attempt to absolutize them as self-existent in the absence of any mind. The nature of the universe absent any mind....well, what can be said? — Wayfarer
Methodological naturalism can be, in fact should be, circumspect with regards to metaphysical questions, of which ‘the role of the mind in the construal of experience’ is an example par excellence. — Wayfarer
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.
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