Have you ever heard of pragmatism as a theory of truth? Doubt has to have its reasonable basis.

The Hard Problem pretends to have its ontic ground - zombies as a real possibility despite all that science and commonsense says - but it simply devolves to standard Humean epistemic issue that “we will never really know” that bedevils all rational inquiry and which became precisely the reason for pragmatism becoming standard as the way to move forward after that.

Did the sun come up this morning? It looked as though it did. But maybe you dreamt, misremembered or hallucinated that fact. One could always doubt your certitude.

The Cornell University team called their "new law" of Evolution : "the law of increasing functional information.". — Gnomon

One has to laugh. Astrobiology - NASA’s fund-raising publicity department - reinvents the wheel. A new law that no one ever thought of.

I'm skeptical of the idea that Daniel Dennett believes anything these days, but anyway, that appears to be gratuitious slander.

From Wikipedia:

Some physicalists, such as Daniel Dennett, argue that philosophical zombies are logically incoherent and thus impossible, or that all humans are philosophical zombies;[4][5] — wonderer1

I've just realised we may be talking at cross purposes. I've bolded the relevant bit. Eliminativism is exactly the view that nothing is conscious, so humans are philosophical zombies. Dennett oscillates (as far as I can tell) between eliminativism and perhaps a kind of functionalism. Not sure exactly. I only got about a third of the way through Consciousness Explained.

I've bolded the relevant bit. — bert1

But the relevant bit is (as an ontological committment)...

Some physicalists, such as Daniel Dennett, argue that philosophical zombies are logically incoherent and thus impossible — wonderer1

his Buddhist-based metaphors & analogies… — Gnomon

I will add, by way of footnote, that scholars question the label of ‘idealism’ applied to Buddhist teachings. The very brief reason is that Christian principles begin with the creation conceived as the actual origin of the Universe, in which God is the Creator of everything that is. Buddhism doesn’t start with the origin of everything, but with the fact of dukkha (unease, distress, suffering), the cause of it, the ending of it, and the path to the ending of it.

Yogācāra doctrine is summarized in the term vijñapti-mātra, "nothing-but-cognition" (often rendered "consciousness-only" or "mind-only") which has sometimes been interpreted as indicating a type of metaphysical idealism, i.e., the claim that mind alone is real and that everything else is created by mind. However, the Yogācārin writings themselves argue something very different. Consciousness (vijñāna) is not the ultimate reality or solution, but rather the root problem. This problem emerges in ordinary mental operations, and it can only be solved by bringing those operations to an end.

Yogācāra tends to be misinterpreted as a form of metaphysical idealism primarily because its teachings are taken for ontological propositions rather than as epistemological warnings about karmic problems. The Yogācāra focus on cognition and consciousness grew out of its analysis of karma, and not for the sake of metaphysical speculation. — What Is and Isn’t Yogācāra, Dan Lusthaus

How the OP question is interpreted in light of that, is another matter. I think, suffice to say that ‘the world’ in Buddhism is basically understood as transient and not what it seems (although, as the Lankavatara Sutra mysteriously adds, neither is it otherwise.)

Very interesting! Thanks.

And thank you. I will add, by way of a footnote to my footnote, that Lusthaus does acknowledge in that article:

To the extent that epistemological idealists can also be critical realists, Yogācāra may be deemed a type of epistemological idealism, with the proviso that the purpose of its arguments was not to engender an improved ontological theory or commitment, but rather an insistence that we pay the fullest attention to the epistemological and psychological conditions compelling us to construct and attach to ontological theories. — Dan Lusthaus

Again, the aim being not to 'explain the world' but to untangle the Gordian knot of dukkha.

The notion of a model is misused in various ways. One important distinction that quite often is ignored is that between neural networks and beliefs. There's a naive approach to cognition that simply assumes that the "modelling" we speak of in talking about our beliefs and theories is the very same as the "modelling" that occurs in the neural nets in our brains. This was a topic taken up by @Isaac. :worry: It gives the appearance of having solved problems it hasn't actually addressed.

If your point is that "model" be used with care, I agree.

If your point is that "model" be used with care, I agree. — Banno

My point with respect to the 'mind-created world' theory is that many of the criticisms of it implicitly assume a perspective outside both. Like, 'the universe is so vast, and so ancient, how can that be something in my mind, when I'm only a few decades old?' But that perspective makes of an object of the very mind that provides the framework for the judgement of the vastness of space and duration of time. It's an abstraction.

I was going to add a point about 'dasein' although I tread warily as I've never read the entire work. But in my lay understanding, it is that our experience of the world is not one of the detached observer, where we build models of an external reality, but of direct involvement and engagement. It collapses the perceived dichotomy between self and world, as they're always intimately entertwined. We do not first exist as isolated subjects - islands! - who encounter a world of objects; instead, our very being is always already situated within a world we have imbued with meaning (or its lack). Even Wittgenstein touches on that in his Notebooks, with 'I am my world'.

Despite the many posts, it remains unclear to me how @Wayfarer's idealism holds together. He claims not to be an ontic idealist - not to be claiming that all there is, is mind; he then says something along the lines that we only know stuff with our minds, which is to say the least somewhat redundant; and then he goes on as if he has shown that idealism is true.

There's a lot missing here.

And when pushed, he replies with somewhat obtuse quotes that do not seem to address the issue.

But we love him anyway.

Well, gosh, thanks :yikes: . A couple of my by-now standard pieces of text in support of my contention.

Everyone knows that the earth, and a fortiori the universe, existed for a long time before there were any living beings, and therefore any perceiving subjects. But according to Kant ... that is impossible.'

Schopenhauer's defence of Kant on this score was ...that the objector has not understood to the very bottom the Kantian demonstration that time is one of the forms of [human] sensibility. The earth, say, as it was before there was life, is a field of empirical enquiry in which we have come to know a great deal; its reality is no more being denied than is the reality of perceived objects in the same room.

The point is, the whole of the empirical world in space and time is the creation of our understanding, which apprehends all the objects of empirical knowledge within it as being in some part of that space and at some part of that time: and this is as true of the earth before there was life as it is of the pen I am now holding a few inches in front of my face and seeing slightly out of focus as it moves across the paper.

This, incidentally, illustrates a difficulty in the way of understanding which transcendental idealism has permanently to contend with: the assumptions of 'the inborn realism which arises from the original disposition of the intellect' enter unawares into the way in which the statements of transcendental idealism are understood.

Such realistic assumptions so pervade our normal use of concepts that the claims of transcendental idealism disclose their own non-absurdity only after difficult consideration, whereas criticisms of them at first appear cogent which on examination are seen to rest on confusion. We have to raise almost impossibly deep levels of presupposition in our own thinking and imagination to the level of self-consciousness before we are able to achieve a critical awareness of all our realistic assumptions, and thus achieve an understanding of transcendental idealism which is untainted by them. — Bryan Magee Schopenhauer's Philosophy, Pp 106-107

According to evolutionary biology, Homo Sapiens is the result of billions years of evolution. For all these thousands of millions of years, our sensory and intellectual abilities have been honed and shaped by the exigencies of survival, through billions of lifetimes in various life-forms - fish, lizard, mammal, primate - in such a way as to give rise to the mind that we have today.

Recently, other scientific disciplines such as cognitive and evolutionary psychology have revealed that conscious perception, while subjectively appearing to exist as a steady continuum, is actually composed of a hierarchical matrix of interacting cellular transactions, commencing at the most basic level with the parasympathetic nervous system which controls one’s respiration, digestion, and so on, up through various levels to culminate in that peculiarly human ability of ‘discursive reason’ (and beyond, according to the mystics.)

Consciousness plays a 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 apparent coherence and reality of the 'external world'. 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, the bulk of which are completely unknown to us.

When you perceive something - large, small, alive or inanimate, local or remote - there is a considerable amount of work involved in ‘creating’ an object from the raw material of perception. Your eyes receive the light-waves reflected or emanated from it, your mind organises the image with regards to all of the other stimuli impacting your senses at that moment – either 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).

And you will do all of this without you even noticing that you are doing it; it is largely below the threshold of conscious perception.

In other words, your consciousness is not the passive recipient of sensory objects which exist irrespective of your perception of them (Locke's tabula rasa). Rather, consciousness is an active agent which constructs reality partially on the basis of sensory input, but also on the basis of an enormous number of unconscious processes, memories, intentions, and so on, not to mention the activities of reason, which allows us to categorise, classify and analyse the elements of experience. — Wayfarer

So remind me again, what, exactly, is 'incoherent' about these claims?

My point with respect to the 'mind-created world' theory is that many of the criticisms of it implicitly assume a perspective outside both. — Wayfarer

In the story I wrote for you, as we walked across the landscape we developed a way of talking about the movement of butterfly that became progressively less dependent on the place we were standing. That "perspective" was never outside of the landscape. It is nto about the view from nowhere, but about the view from anywhere.

Now this can be seen as a riff on Einstein's Principle of Relativity: that the laws of physics are to be written so as to be the same for all observers. While the observations may differ, the "laws" are consistent.

If Wigner swaps places with his friend, his friend will find himself in Wigner's situation.

The notion of a view form outside is a piece of rhetoric, not a valid criticism.

In the story I wrote for you, as we walked across the landscape we developed a way of talking about the movement of butterfly that became progressively less dependent on the place we were standing. — Banno

But I don't accept that your story does away with the requirement for an observer's perspective. It only compares perspectives between different observers. I'm not saying that it's reliant on a particular perspective, but that there is no perspective without an observer to bring it to bear. Absent observers, there are no perspectives.

Bits like this:

The point is, the whole of the empirical world in space and time is the creation of our understanding — Bryan Magee Schopenhauer's Philosophy, Pp 106-107

...are incompatible with your contending that you are no ontic idealist. You are sayign that the world is, and isn't, the creation of mind.

Again, we only know stuff by using our minds, but that does not lead to the conclusion that the stuff we know about is mind-stuff.

...there is no perspective without an observer to bring it to bear — Wayfarer

Sure. But so what? It's as if you were to say there is no vista without there being someone to see it, and that therefore the mountains depend on the tourist for their existence.

Or this:

In other words, your consciousness is not the passive recipient of sensory objects which exist irrespective of your perception of them (Locke's tabula rasa). Rather, consciousness is an active agent which constructs reality partially on the basis of sensory input, but also on the basis of an enormous number of unconscious processes, memories, intentions, and so on, not to mention the activities of reason, which allows us to categorise, classify and analyse the elements of experience. — Wayfarer

If you reject ontic idealism, then consciousness does not "create reality".

Sure, consciousness is not a passive recipient of the stuff in the world; nor is it it's creator.

Edit: Consider:

Rather, consciousness is an active agent which interacts with reality partially on the basis of sensory input, but also on the basis of an enormous number of unconscious processes, memories, intentions, and so on, not to mention the activities of reason, which allows us to categorise, classify and analyse the elements of experience.

The point is, the whole of the empirical world in space and time is the creation of our understanding
— Bryan Magee Schopenhauer's Philosophy, Pp 106-107
...are incompatible with your contending that you are no ontic idealist. You are sayign that the world is, and isn't, the creation of mind. — Banno

That is a gloss on a paragraph from Kant. The sorrounding text in Magee's book discusses how Kant himself didn't follow through on the implications of that paragraph, and that Schopenhauer does. And recall the opening few lines of Schopenhauers WWI:

“The world is my idea:”—this is a truth which holds good for everything that lives and knows, though man alone can bring it into reflective and abstract consciousness. If he really does this, he has attained to philosophical wisdom. It then becomes clear and certain to him that what he knows is not a sun and an earth, but only an eye that sees a sun, a hand that feels an earth; that the world which surrounds him is there only as idea, i.e., only in relation to something else, the consciousness, which is himself.

----

Sure. But so what? It's as if you were to say there is no vista without there being someone to see it, and that therefore the mountains depend on the tourist for their existence. — Banno

But again, I address this. You think I must maintain that the vista (i.e. 'object') doesn't exist in the absence of the observer. But that is what I'm saying is the 'imagined non-existence', your imagining it as being non-existent. But the object neither exists nor doesn't exist in the absence of the observer. Nothing can be said about it. The object that you're referring to as existing (or not existing) in the absence of an observer is still a product of your mind.

And this is where 20th century physics is relevant. It has called into question the very existence of the so-called 'mind-independence' of reality. That is what the decades-long debate between Bohr and Einstein was about (reference - Quantum: Einstein, Bohr, and the Great Debate about the Nature of Reality, Manjit Kumar. Note the title! Another similar popular science book is David Lindley's 'Uncertainty: Einstein, Heisenberg, Bohr, and the Struggle for the Soul of Science'. Why 'the struggle'? It is an argument between Einstein's scientific realism, which is precisely that 'the object is mind-independent', and the Copenhagen interpretation, which is that this can't be upheld.)

If you reject ontic idealism, then consciousness does not "create reality". — Banno

Again, you only say that, because you have something in mind.

Sure, consciousness is not a passive recipient of the stuff in the world; nor is it it's creator. — Banno

The jealous God dies hard, eh? Hence the note about the distinction between Buddhist and Christian philosophy. Buddhist philosophy is not concerned with the origin of everything in the sense that Christian (and post-Christian) philosophy feels compelled to be.

It then becomes clear and certain to him that what he knows is not a sun and an earth, but only an eye that sees a sun, a hand that feels an earth; that the world which surrounds him is there only as idea, i.e., only in relation to something else, the consciousness, which is himself.

...and therefore he has eyes and hands! Why are eyes and hands OK, but not the sun or the earth?

the object neither exists nor doesn't exist in the absence of the observer. Nothing can be said about it. — Wayfarer

So the cup ceases to exist when you put it in the dish washer? We can't say that it is being cleaned?

Again, you only say that, because you have something in mind. — Wayfarer

So you have nothing in mind?

It has called into question the very existence of the so-called 'mind-independence' of reality. — Wayfarer

That we the relevance of this, from another text you quoted:

From A Private View of Quantum Reality.
If this were how the wave function is, unobserved, then there is a way that the wave function is, unobserved.

Or is it that there is no "way that the wave function is", unobserved? — Banno

Again, it seems ot me that you are an ontic realist until someone points out the problems with ontic realism.

So the cup ceases to exist when you put it in the dish washer? We can't say that it is being cleaned? — Banno

The precise point Schrodinger was making with Schrodinger's Cat.

Why are eyes and hands OK, but not the sun or the earth? — Banno

Gosh, I wonder. :chin:

That Chris Fuchs interview is here. You have excerpted the graph but not the commentary, which is that:

Spooky action at a distance, wherein one observer’s measurement of a particle right here collapses the wave function of a particle way over there, turns out not to be so spooky — the measurement here simply provides information that the observer can use to bet on the state of the distant particle, should she come into contact with it. But how, we might ask, does her measurement here affect the outcome of a measurement a second observer will make over there? In fact, it doesn’t. Since the wavefunction doesn’t belong to the system itself, each observer has her own. My wavefunction doesn’t have to align with yours. ...

QBism...treats the wave function as a description of a single observer’s subjective knowledge. It resolves all of the quantum paradoxes, but at the not insignificant cost of anything we might call “reality.”

Read the remainder for more context. Also this documentary.

The precise point Schrodinger was making with Schrodinger's Cat. — Wayfarer

Well, no. The cat is either alive, or it is dead: therefore there is a cat.

Edit: this is not trivial; physics is based on the presumption that physicists have available a shared topic that they can prod and poke and about which they can talk - the world.

Chris Fuchs interview — Wayfarer

I don't see how this helps, except to push you further into the ontic idealist camp.

A quick word about truth.

There are true sentences.

Some philosophers create Big theories about truth, "Correspondence", "Cohesion", "Pragmatism" and so on.

But regardless of whether any of these are right, it remains that there are true sentences. Any philosophy that tries to claim otherwise undermines itself.

Edit: this is not trivial; physics is based on the presumption that physicists have available a shred topic that they can prod and poke and about which they can talk - the world. — Banno

You would benefit from reading those books I mentioned. They're aimed at a non-specialist audience. But once again, thanks for your criticisms. :pray:

I've read a few. There is a joy in reading bad philosophy done by physicists. :smirk:

In many cases it comes down to the point I just made, that physics is based on the presumption that physicists have available a shared topic that they can prod and poke and about which they can talk; but some forget this when they become more speculative.

In many cases it comes down to the point I just made, that physics is based on the presumption that physicists have available a shared topic — Banno

'Shared topic', indeed. I have no beef whatever with science or scientists inter-subjective validation. My beef is with the over-valuation of objectivity as the sole criterion of truth.

I've read a few. — Banno

None of the good ones, I would hazard.

None of the good ones, I would hazard. — Wayfarer

Well, none I thought much good, at least. :wink:

My beef is with the over-valuation of objectivity as the sole criterion of truth. — Wayfarer

And on that we agree.

Yeah, and then you draw an unwarranted conclusion about "the world itself" as if the living are its victims. Stop shifting goal posts and admit you've been caught poorly reasoning again (e.g. category mistake of "world as perpetrator of unfairness ad injustice"). — 180 Proof

So... you like Ligotti's Conspiracy Against the Human Race, correct? Do you think that title means a "literal" conspiracy? And if you don't, why would you think how I am talking isn't also metaphorically describing the situation?

What there is (i.e. the view from any where): the world¹ and true statements about the world¹; all the rest consist in abstractions, fictions, fallacies, confusions, illusions and affects.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commons [1]

Philosophy should be about how best to live. Whatever does not inform that, however interesting and creative it might be, is just a diversion in the form of speculation. — Janus

:up: :up:

The precise point Schrodinger was making with Schrodinger's Cat. — Wayfarer

:roll: Schrödinger proposed this thought-experiment only to show that the 'Copenhagen interpretation' of quantum mechanics is, at best, paradoxical (i.e. does not make sense).

???

??? — 180 Proof

Yeah?

Schrödinger proposed this thought-experiment only to show that the 'Copenhagen interpretation' of quantum mechanics is, at best, paradoxical (i.e. does not make sense). — 180 Proof

:100: How easily and how often that is forgotten!

Philosophy should be about how best to live. Whatever does not inform that, however interesting and creative it might be, is just a diversion in the form of speculation. — Janus

The vast, vast majority of philosophy has nothing to do with this, despite best efforts to pretend it is about personal development. "How best to live" is an empty phrase.