The blind spot keeps us from recognizing these things.
— Joshs

What do you think of Thompson's comment towards the end of the video, about idealism being a philosophical crutch? — wonderer1

Not sure, since he didn’t have time to elaborate. How do you interpret it?

Rather, the point is that such statements have no sense or intelligibility once you remove the life world. In that case, the statements suffer from a kind of presupposition failure, and they have no significance. They're neither true nor false. They don't refer at all. — Evan Thompson

This seems either nonsensical or trivially obvious. Of course the (human) lifeworld cannot be "removed" as long as human claims are made, because claims ensue from experience and judgement and that just is what constitutes the human lifeworld as it is conceived.

If I make a claim that there can be existence without any lifeworld, that does not constitute "removing the lifeworld", but rather it is a claim from within the human lifeworld about what may be thought to be logically possible without it. The claim that something exists beyond the human lifeworld is either true or false even though we cannot be absolutely certain about which it is.

Aligns with the argument made in Mind-Created World. — Wayfarer

It seems quite different. For example, Thompson says, "But the claim I'm making isn't about existence," and yet the claim that you make is all about existence. In your quote of Thompson, after clarifying that his claim is not about existence, he spends nine sentences explicating his position, and he does not reference existence or non-existence once in those nine sentences. Contrariwise, you reference existence and non-existence four times in three sentences, in the quote you provide. More directly, Thompson would apparently oppose something like this, "In reality, the supposed ‘unperceived object’ neither exists nor does not exist." Your view reminds me of Madhyamaka Buddhism, but I doubt many scientists would take up a Buddhist philosophy to such a strong extent.

That seems a rather silly thing to say to me. A rather significant element of my lived experience is based in knowing that in many cases that there is a huge amount that can be said about it.

What is the point of such a binary statement?

Can you give me a reason to think that it is not a case of Going Nuclear? — wonderer1

There seems to be an aspect of "Going Nuclear," and there is another aspect that is not "nuclear" but strongly polemical, but I think there is more to it than that. There are certain schools of Buddhist philosophy that really do view reality this way, and in my opinion these philosophies flow from a specific understanding of psychology and liberation. To oversimplify, it was thought that attributing too much reality to things would result in the sort of grasping and aversion that Buddhists wish to avoid, and so this approach is Buddhism taken to a very extreme but self-consistent conclusion. Yet even the general approach to meta-negation is found in various Buddhist schools, e.g. "I am not predicating existence, I am not predicating non-existence, I am not predicating any affirmation or denial whatsoever, I am not even not-predicating..." etc.

In your quote of Thompson, after clarifying that his claim is not about existence, he spends nine sentences explicating his position, and he does not reference existence or non-existence once in those nine sentences — Leontiskos

So in philosophical jargon, this is a transcendental claim, in Kant's sense of transcendental. It's about the conditions of possibility of the intelligibility of things, such as the past, or time, given that they are, indeed, intelligible. So there's no problem with ancestrality statements understood as statements about facts in the past, before there was subjectivity. Rather, the point is that such statements have no sense or intelligibility once you remove the life world. In that case, the statements suffer from a kind of presupposition failure, and they have no significance. They're neither true nor false. They don't refer at all. — Evan Thompson

Compare that with what I said here:

The idea that things ‘go out of existence’ when not perceived, is simply their ‘imagined non-existence’. In reality, the supposed ‘unperceived object’ neither exists nor does not exist. Nothing whatever can be said about it. — Wayfarer

I'm saying Thompson's 'they don't refer at all' is exactly synonymous with 'nothing whatever can be said about it'. I'm expressing the same idea as he is, in a slightly different way. The whole thrust of the Mind Created World is that it is impossible to speak of a truly mind-independent reality, as whatever is totally detached from the 'meaning world' that constitutes our consciousness is literally unintelligible. Note that I also explicitly reject subjective idealism and the idea that 'mind' is a literal constituent of objective reality (panpsychism). So I see the approach of the Mind Created World as very much aligned with that expressed in the essay at the head of this OP, The Blind Spot of Science is the Neglect of Experience.

Your view reminds me of Madhyamaka Buddhism, but I doubt many scientists would take up a Buddhist philosophy to such a strong extent. — Leontiskos

Why thank you, very perceptive.

You may not be aware, but Evan Thompson was co-author, with Francisco Varela and Eleanor Rosch, of 'The Embodied Mind', which has become a seminal book in the formation of 'embodied philosophy' and 'enactivism'. That book draws extensively on Buddhist abhidharma (philosophical psychology). Indeed Varela was one of the prime movers behind the Life and Mind Conferences, of which the Dalai Lama is the Chair, and before his untimely death took he lay ordination in a Buddhist order. So there is a Buddhist influence in that book.

Subsequently, Evan Thompson has published 'Why I am Not a Buddhist', in which he explains his critical view of what he calls 'Buddhist Modernism' and gives his reasons for why he doesn't consider himself formally Buddhist. Nevertheless throughout Thompson's writing there are perceptible influences of both Buddhist non-dualism and phenomenology, among other sources. He says in that book and elsewhere he remains positively disposed towards Buddhism.

Compare that with what I said here — Wayfarer

I was. You had that in the post I responded to.

I'm saying Thompson's 'they don't refer at all' is exactly synonymous with 'nothing whatever can be said about it'. — Wayfarer

But crucially, his statement is conditional, "...once you remove the life world." He is not talking about unperceived objects, he is talking about objects stripped of their condition of intelligibility (which he calls the life world). I doubt Thompson would say that a lack of perception removes the "life world."

The whole thrust of the Mind Created World is that it is impossible to speak of a truly mind-independent reality, as whatever is totally detached from the 'meaning world' that constitutes our consciousness is literally unintelligible. — Wayfarer

Yes, this sounds more like what Thompson is saying.

You may not be aware, but Evan Thompson was co-author, with Francisco Varela and Eleanor Rosch, of 'The Embodied Mind', which has become a seminal book in the formation of 'embodied philosophy' and 'enactivism'. That book draws extensively on Buddhist abhidharma (philosophical psychology). Indeed Varela was one of the prime movers behind the Life and Mind Conferences, of which the Dalai Lama is the Chair, and before his untimely death took he lay ordination in a Buddhist order. So there is a Buddhist influence in that book. — Wayfarer

Okay.

Subsequently, Evan Thompson has published 'Why I am Not a Buddhist', in which he explains his critical view of what he calls 'Buddhist Modernism' and gives his reasons for why he doesn't consider himself formally Buddhist. — Wayfarer

But this is precisely what I would expect, and it is why I said, "I doubt many scientists would take up a Buddhist philosophy to such a strong extent." Scientists are perhaps more consciously influenced by Buddhism than any other religion, but I don't see them taking things to Nagarjuna's extreme. I think science requires that the natural world possess a certain degree of intrinsic existence, so to speak. I think natural science will slowly fade out of a culture which does not hold that the natural world possesses intrinsic, discoverable existence of its own (esse).

But crucially, his statement is conditional, "...once you remove the life world." He is not talking about unperceived objects, he is talking about objects stripped of their condition of intelligibility (which he calls the life world). — Leontiskos

Which is the same as what I'm saying:

I am making clear the sense in which perspective is essential for any judgement about what exists — even if what we’re discussing is understood to exist in the absence of an observer, be that an alpine meadow, or the Universe prior to the evolution of h. sapiens. The mind brings an order to any such imaginary scene, even while you attempt to describe it or picture it as it appears to exist independently of the observer. — Wayfarer

That's what he, and Husserl, mean by the 'lebenswelt' - the 'life-world' of assumed meanings and relationships, which is assumed even in contemplating 'the universe prior to all subjectivity'.

Here's a snippet from the essay which drives the point home.

In general terms, here’s how the scientific method works. First, we set aside aspects of human experience on which we can’t always agree, such as how things look or taste or feel. Second, using mathematics and logic, we construct abstract, formal models that we treat as stable objects of public consensus. Third, we intervene in the course of events by isolating and controlling things that we can perceive and manipulate. Fourth, we use these abstract models and concrete interventions to calculate future events. Fifth, we check these predicted events against our perceptions. An essential ingredient of this whole process is technology: machines – our equipment – that standardise these procedures, amplify our powers of perception, and allow us to control phenomena to our own ends.

The Blind Spot arises when we start to believe that this method gives us access to unvarnished reality. But experience is present at every step. Scientific models must be pulled out from observations, often mediated by our complex scientific equipment. They are idealisations, not actual things in the world. Galileo’s model of a frictionless plane, for example; the Bohr model of the atom with a small, dense nucleus with electrons circling around it in quantised orbits like planets around a sun; evolutionary models of isolated populations – all of these exist in the scientist’s mind, not in nature. They are abstract mental representations, not mind-independent entities. Their power comes from the fact that they’re useful for helping to make testable predictions. But these, too, never take us outside experience, for they require specific kinds of perceptions performed by highly trained observers.

For these reasons, scientific ‘objectivity’ can’t stand outside experience; in this context, ‘objective’ simply means something that’s true to the observations agreed upon by a community of investigators using certain tools. Science is essentially a highly refined form of human experience, based on our capacities to observe, act and communicate. — The Blind Spot

The realisation I've had, is that all objects of perception are conditioned. (Yes, very Buddhist.) But due to the influence of empirical philosophy, somehow the mind-independence of supposed objects of perception are supposed to be the very yardstick by which we ascertain what is real.

Which is the same as what I'm saying — Wayfarer

Yes, I think that is fairly close to his claims. :up:

Here's a snippet from the essay which drives the point home. — Wayfarer

I think much of this is correct, but what I find is that usually, at one point or another, these interlocutors have a tendency to overstate their case. It's pretty easy to fall into an excessive subjectivism when you are pressing hard against modern "objectivism." It's like when you are driving a motorcycle in high winds, leaning hard just to stay straight, and then the wind drops away and the bike swerves. Often these authors write their arguments and perspectives in the midst of the high winds of modern empirical science, and they have the proper corrective force when they are in conversation with modern empiricists, but yet their force is not properly calibrated for speaking to those of us who are not coming from that perspective.

:up:

Often these authors write their arguments and perspectives in the midst of the high winds of modern empirical science, and they have the proper corrective force when they are in conversation with modern empiricists, but yet their force is not properly calibrated for speaking to those of us who are not coming from that perspective. — Leontiskos

:up:

What do you think of Thompson's comment towards the end of the video, about idealism being a philosophical crutch?
— wonderer1

Not sure, since he didn’t have time to elaborate. How do you interpret it? — Joshs

I think it suggests that Thompson thinks that the matters he brings up shouldn't be taken as supporting idealism.

This is more of a stretch, but perhaps Thompson also recognizes how Stephen Law's Going Nuclear is of relevance in the case of many who profess idealism, and use idealist arguments to feign philosophical sophistication and to avoid the apperance of losing arguments.

I think it suggests that Thompson thinks that the matters he brings up shouldn't be taken as supporting idealism. — wonderer1

I quoted what he said about idealism verbatim. If you missed it go back and have another look. Note the distinction he makes between subjective idealism and Kant - 'Kant's sense of "transcendental"' - and Kant's is still an idealism.

I quoted what he said about idealism verbatim. If you missed it go back and have another look. Note the distinction he makes between subjective idealism and Kant - 'Kant's sense of "transcendental"' - and Kant's is still an idealism. — Wayfarer

Okay, it would have been better if I had said, "shouldn't be taken as supporting idealism in a broad sense or radical sense.

Still, what are your thoughts on using idealism as a rhetorical ploy, along the lines of Stephen Law's "Going Nuclear"?

This is more of a stretch, but perhaps Thompson also recognizes how Stephen Law's Going Nuclear is of relevance in the case of many who profess idealism, and use idealist arguments to feign philosophical sophistication and to avoid the apperance of losing arguments. — wonderer1

I can’t help but suspect that Law would consider Thompsons’s thoughts below as a form of idealism.

I would give up both realism and anti-realism, then, in favour of what could be called a pluralist pragmatism. What the pluralist insists on is that there is no foundational version, one which anchors all the rest or to which all others can be reduced. The pragmatist insists that the world is both found and made: it is made in the finding and found in the making.To erase the boundary between knowing a language and knowing our way in the world gives us a fresh appreciation of the world. That world, however, is not given, waiting to be represented. We find the world, but only in the many incommensurable cognitive domains we devise in our attempt to know our way around. The task of the philosopher is not to extract a common conceptual scheme from these myriad domains and to determine its faithfulness to some uncorrupted reality; it is, rather, to learn to navigate among the domains, and so to clarify their concerns in relation to each other.

…..this is a transcendental claim, in Kant's sense of transcendental. It's about the conditions of possibility of the intelligibility of things, such as the past, or time, given that they are, indeed, intelligible. — Evan Thompson

Hmmmm…..

If it is given that a thing is intelligible, in what sense are there conditions for the possibility of its being intelligible? For that which is given, re: those things that are intelligible, the very possibility of it is also given, so wouldn’t the conditions be met?

?

If it is given that a thing is intelligible, in what sense are there conditions for the possibility of its being intelligible? For that which is given, re: those things that are intelligible, the very possibility of it is also given, so wouldn’t the conditions be met? — Mww

What Thompson means by condition of possibility here isn’t simply the generic givenness that things are intelligible but the specific way they are intelligible, their manner of being. Heidegger gives a good illustration of the blind spot for the conditions of possibility for the intelligibility of things.

The most immediate state of affairs is, in fact, that we simply see and take things as they are: board, bench, house, policeman. Yes, of course. However, this taking is always a taking within the context of dealing-with something, and therefore is always a taking-as, but in such a way that the as-character does not become explicit in the act.

The non-explicitness of this “as” is precisely what constitutes the act's so-called directness. Yes, the thing that is understood can be apprehended directly as it is in itself. But this directness regarding the thing apprehended does not inhibit the act from having a developed structure. Moreover, what is structural and necessary in the act of [direct] understanding need not be found, or co-apprehended, or expressly named in the thing understood

I’ll have to think about that.

If it is given that a thing is intelligible, in what sense are there conditions for the possibility of its being intelligible? For that which is given, re: those things that are intelligible, the very possibility of it is also given, so wouldn’t the conditions be met? — Mww

More fully explained in the original essay.

The 'blind spot ' of science may come down to the means and reliability of scientific measurement. So much may come into play of the role of participant observer bias and meanings. The blind spot itself may be a gulf of void of unknowing, and it may in itself be an area for expansion of idea of possibilities in the development of ideas. The blimspots of vision and philosophical visio may be dismissed or attuned to, in the scope of understanding of perception.and its significance.
.

Kant's is still an idealism. — Wayfarer

Kant's is an epistemological, not an ontological, idealism.

The 'blind spot ' of science may come down to the means and reliability of scientific measurement. So much may come into play of the role of participant observer bias and meanings. The blind spot itself may be a gulf of void of unknowing, and it may in itself be an area for expansion of idea of possibilities in the development of ideas. The blimspots of vision and philosophical visio may be dismissed or attuned to, in the scope of understanding of perception.and its significance. — Jack Cummins

The essay I linked to spells it out pretty clearly. It doesn't come down to the 'reliability of scientific measurement'. Measurement is one of the things that modern science excels at, science can measure things from the sub-atomic to the cosmic with astonishing precision. It is more about the idea that science, or us human beings using science, see the world as it truly is, as it would be without any observers in it.

Behind the Blind Spot sits the belief that physical reality has absolute primacy in human knowledge, a view that can be called scientific materialism. In philosophical terms, it combines scientific objectivism (science tells us about the real, mind-independent world) and physicalism (science tells us that physical reality is all there is). Elementary particles, moments in time, genes, the brain – all these things are assumed to be fundamentally real. By contrast, experience, awareness and consciousness are taken to be secondary. The scientific task becomes about figuring out how to reduce them to something physical, such as the behaviour of neural networks, the architecture of computational systems, or some measure of information.

Kant's is an epistemological, not an ontological, idealism. — Janus

Looks like it to me. I assume you mean that Kant's project is concerned with the nature and source of knowledge, and emphasizes the role of the mind (structures of human cognition) in shaping our understanding of the world. Kant is not (as far as I can tell) arguing that reality is dependent upon mind as Berkeley would hold it - 'immaterialism'. I have not read Kant on Berkeley but I am assuming this would be instructive.

:100:

Here's a snippet from the essay which drives the point home.
— Wayfarer

I think much of this is correct, but what I find is that usually, at one point or another, these interlocutors have a tendency to overstate their case. It's pretty easy to fall into an excessive subjectivism when you are pressing hard against modern "objectivism." It's like when you are driving a motorcycle in high winds, leaning hard just to stay straight, and then the wind drops away and the bike swerves. — Leontiskos

On further thought, don’t agree. I looked back to when I first posted this five years ago, the response was vitriolic, it was taken as an attack on science. But it is not an attack on science. They say at the beginning:

This (their criticism) doesn’t mean that scientific knowledge is arbitrary, or a mere projection of our own minds. On the contrary, some models and methods of investigation work much better than others, and we can test this. But these tests never give us nature as it is in itself, outside our ways of seeing and acting on things. Experience is just as fundamental to scientific knowledge as the physical reality it reveals. …..

The Blind Spot arises when we start to believe that this method gives us access to unvarnished reality. But experience is present at every step. Scientific models must be pulled out from observations, often mediated by our complex scientific equipment. They are idealisations, not actual things in the world. Galileo’s model of a frictionless plane, for example; the Bohr model of the atom with a small, dense nucleus with electrons circling around it in quantised orbits like planets around a sun; evolutionary models of isolated populations – all of these exist in the scientist’s mind, not in nature. They are abstract mental representations, not mind-independent entities. Their power comes from the fact that they’re useful for helping to make testable predictions. But these, too, never take us outside experience, for they require specific kinds of perceptions performed by highly trained observers.

What I would take issue with is the use of the word ‘experience’ in these passages What I think is being referred to is closer in meaning to the capacity for experience - in other words, being. When they say ‘experience is just as fundamental’ - you can respond, ‘well, sure, isn’t that what ‘empiricism’ means?’ Empiricism, after all, means ‘verifiable in experience’. But that’s not what they’re trying to highlight. They’re pointing to the experiential aspect of even so-called objective measurement. When they say ‘experience is present at every step’, I think what they’re saying is simply ‘science is an activity of beings. The facts it discloses are registered and understood by beings - by human beings.’ But we don’t notice that, because of the ostensibly objective and observer-independent nature of scientific observation. We think that these facts are entirely observer-independent, which in one sense is true, but in a deeper, philosophical sense is not.

That’s what I see as the point of this essay, and the book that comes from it, and I think it needs saying. I talk to people here almost every day who don’t see this point (I don’t mean you.)

(I think there’s a connection here with Heidegger’s ‘forgetfulness of Being’, although he traces that back to metaphysics rather than to science per se. Although it’s also the case that scientific method was also an outgrowth of metaphysics e.g. E A Burtt’s ‘Metaphysics of Modern Science’.)

The facts it discloses are registered and understood by beings - by human beings.’ But we don’t notice that, because of the ostensibly objective and observer-independent nature of scientific observation. We think that these facts are entirely observer-independent, which in one sense is true, but in a deeper, philosophical sense is not. — Wayfarer

I get the point and it interests me. Reality is constructed for us via an intersubjective human experience. This seems to me to be a similar point Nietzsche makes when he argues that truth is always interpreted through the lens of individual perspectives. He takes it further and says that there is no objective or universal truth that stands independently of human interpretation. While you would accept the possibility of something approaching a Platonic realm. Nietzsche also subdivides perspective into both cultural and individual blindspots. His somewhat brutal visual approach to this struck me as apropos.

It is true, there could be a metaphysical world; the absolute possibility of it is hardly to be disputed. We behold all things through the human head and cannot cut off this head; while the question nonetheless remains what of the world would still be there if one had cut it off.

- Nietzsche: Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits

He takes it further and says that there is no objective or universal truth that stands independently of human interpretation. While you would accept the possibility of something approaching a Platonic realm. Nietzsche also subdivides perspective into both cultural and individual blindspots. His somewhat brutal visual approach to this struck me as apropos. — Tom Storm

I generally avoid comment on Nietzsche as I’ve never felt compelled to read him and don’t know his writings very well. But I don’t agree with his perspectivism, that literally everything is a matter of perspective. I accept the Buddha’s teaching that there is an unborn, unmade, unconditioned. But that this can’t be made subject of propositional logic, as it is subtle, deep, and profound, discernible only by the wise, and has to be discerned by each one for themselves (to paraphrase the canonical text.)

The problem with objectivity as usually construed is that it is anchored to sense-perception - that only what can be validated by senses and instruments can be taken into consideration. And as I said before, it’s a matter of fact that all sense-objects are conditioned. This results in a sense of misplaced absoluteness. The stakes in philosophy are much higher than that.

As for ‘we behold these things through a human head’ - ‘going beyond’ I take to be the point of enlightenment or sagacity. One of the books on my Amazon Wishlist which I’ll probably never get around to is To Think Like God, an account of Parmenides and Pythagoras, the title makes the point. But in our culture, such enlightenment is generally lumped in alongside religion by those who understand neither, and then dismissed on those grounds as ‘mere belief’. Can of worms, I know.

That's fair enough. Aristotle and Aquinas also had a much more nuanced understanding of "experience." Cf. "An Essay on Experimentum."

I think it's because pre-moderns had a fundamentally different 'experience of the world' as or them, it was an expression of the divine intelligence. So they had an 'I-thou' experience (per Martin Buber) rather than the experience of separatness which is the hallmark of modernity.

(duplicate)

I believe I have mentioned this before, but if you can find yourself a copy of Tallis' The Knowing Animal, I think you will very much enjoy it.

I think it is his best work, by far, and I have read quite a bit of him.

Deals with this thread topic quite well, a very interesting account of the given in experience, even richer than Lewis original one back in the day. Of course, Tallis doesn't call it that.

Nevertheless, worth keeping an eye out for that one.

…..isn’t simply the generic givenness that things are intelligible….. — Joshs

Yes, I get that now, after paying attention to the video. The elapsed time reference in it, from helped with the transcendental part I took exception to.

Thanks.