What you often hear from idealists (Kastrup and Hoffman are good examples) is that materialism and a physical world is debunked and quantum physics tells us reality comes into being by the act of observation. Therefore idealism is a more reasonable and parsimonious explanation for our experience. I've often thought that the arguments in favour for idealism are actually more arguments against old school materialism than any great championing of an 'it's all consciousness' style metaphysics. — Tom Storm
Was everything in superposition back then? — boundless
*I actually think that we tend to do that also in classical physics. — boundless
I make this same point all the time. :up: — apokrisis
Realism (Open). This is - indeed quite 'open' - view that there is something the existence of which does not hinge on thought
Is this 'something' the set of all objects, of all the atoms, of events, God, the Platonic Ideas, still something else? Open realism is mute on this.
...
It just says 'something,' in the widest possible sense of the world.
I posted this general story here - https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/679203 — apokrisis
What difference does that make? Do you imagine that astrobiologists are ignorant of Negentropy? Why are you trying to put-down this "new law" with nit-picky irrelevant comments? Does it contradict your personal worldview in some way? Do you read into it some outrageous religious doctrine? Is there some particular sore-point that it aggravates? Spell it out. What "well known" wheel are they reinventing?Did your astrobiologists remember that classic as they restated what has been well known among those who study these things for so many years. — apokrisis
Why are you trying to put-down this "new law" with nit-picky irrelevant comments? — Gnomon
Degree of function, Ex, is a quantitative measure of a configuration’s ability to perform the function x. In an enzyme, for example, Ex might be defined as the increase in a specific reaction rate that is achieved by the enzyme, whereas for a fluid flowing over a granular medium such as sand, where some form of periodic dune structure emerges, we could define Ex as the minimum perturbation strength required to disrupt the dune structure.
For a given set of parameters, the most persistent dune structure should be that which resists the largest range of perturbations (90, 91). The units of Ex depend on the character of the function under consideration: The catalytic efficiency of an enzyme might be measured as a decrease in activation energy, for example, whereas the function of patterned sand might be to be maximally stable to external flow perturbations (28).
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2310223120#:~:text=Accordingly%252C%2520we%2520propose%2520a%2520%E2%80%9Claw,for%2520one%2520or%2520more%2520functions.
The point is epistemic. And it reflects the semiotic fact that the mind must reduce reality to a system of signs. The world is a blooming, buzzing confusion of noise and we must distil that down to some orderly arrangement of information. A set of counterfactuals that impose a dialectical crispness on the vagueness of our experience.
So in Gestalt fashion, we turn sensory confusion into perceived order by homing in on critical features that would distinguish and R from an E or a K. We have to be sensitive to the fact that Rs have this loop that Es leave open. This becomes a rule of interpretation for when we start having to deal with a real world of messy handwriting and wild fonts. We have to see information that was meant to be there according to the rules and so ignore the variation that is also in some actual scribble or fancifully elaborate font.
Our interpretative experience of even the alphabet, let alone the world, has this epistemic character. — apokrisis
Everything you see, hear and think comes to you in structured wholes: When you read, you’re seeing a whole page even when you focus on one word or sentence. When someone speaks, you hear whole words and phrases, not individual bursts of sound. When you listen to music, you hear an ongoing melody, not just the note that is currently being played. Ongoing events enter your awareness as Gestalts, for the Gestalt is the natural unit of mental life. If you try to concentrate on a dot on this page, you will notice that you cannot help but see the context at the same time. Vision would be meaningless, and have no biological function, if people and animals saw anything less than integral scenes. — Chapter 3, Abstract
The title of this thread is not a "claim", but a question. In the OP, I did make one positive statement : "Although I'm not comforted by scriptural assurances that "all things work together for good", I do infer a kind of Logic to the chain of Cause & Effect in the physical world --- and an overall proportional parity between positive & negative effects". You claimed that the universe "slides inevitably toward thermodynamic equilibrium". If so, how do you explain the historical fact that the metaphorical Big Bang didn't immediately or inevitably evaporate in a puff of entropic smoke? Why, after 14 billion sol-years of wasted energy, due to disorganizing Entropy, is the "explosion" not only still expanding, but even accelerating, and creating a plethora of novel physical configurations, along with animated organisms, and a few metaphysical (mental) forms of cosmic stuff? How has the world evaded "inevitable" heat death for so long?Just trying to work out what your claim is. So we have something like that the universe that, as it slides inevitably towards thermodynamic equilibrium, progresses towards increasing complexity & creative novelty eventually led from a hypothetical Singularity Soup (quark/gluon plasma) to the emergence of complex brains & minds?
It remains that the universe is fair and just only if those "complex brains & minds" make it so - is that right? — Banno
The question I want to ask is the sense in which gestalts are irreducible. — Wayfarer
And isn’t the so-called ‘wave function collapse’ exactly analogous to the forming of a gestalt where there was previously only an array of probabilities? — Wayfarer
It must surely be something like that for Wheeler’s diagram, as it was presented in the context of his discussion of his baffling ‘delayed choice’ experiment. — Wayfarer
Semiotic logic says reality has irreducible complexity. You can't get simpler than – as Gestalt theory puts it – the relational view that is a figure and its ground. — apokrisis
Bergson.Henri Bateson — Gnomon
It remains that the universe is fair and just only if those "complex brains & minds" make it so - is that right? — Banno
the basic features of the world are not mind-created, but mind-recognized. — Janus
There are no features without minds. In the absence of minds the universe, such as it is, is featureless, formless, and lacking in any perspective. — Wayfarer
Inferentially. — Wayfarer
The book’s argument begins with the British empiricists who raised our awareness of the fact that we have no direct contact with physical reality, but it is the mind that constructs the form and features of objects. It is shown that modern cognitive science brings this insight a step further by suggesting that shape and structure are not internal to objects, but arise in the observer. The author goes yet further by arguing that the meaningful connectedness between things — the hierarchical organization of all we perceive — is the result of the Gestalt nature of perception and thought, and exists only as a property of mind. These insights give the first glimmerings of a new way of seeing the cosmos: not as a mineral wasteland but a place inhabited by creatures. — Mind and the Cosmic Order: How the Mind Creates the Features & Structure of All Things, and Why this Insight Transforms Physics
Even to say that "In the absence of minds the universe such as it is, is featureless, formless, and lacking in any perspective" is too much. Absent the mind, and you absent inference itself.There are no features without minds. In the absence of minds the universe such as it is, is featureless, formless, and lacking in any perspective. — Wayfarer
But you will take this as implying that there is no world without mind. It doesn't. It implies only that there is no interpretation without mind.
You always take one step further than your argument allows. — Banno
In order for you to establish what the world would be outside your cognition of it, you would have to stand outside that whole process of cognition. (This is even recognised in analytical philosophy, in Sellars' 'the myth of the given'.) — Wayfarer
The 'myth of the given' is a concept in philosophy, particularly within epistemology, that critiques the idea that there are certain immediate, self-evident pieces of knowledge that serve as a foundation for all other knowledge. This concept was primarily developed by philosopher Wilfrid Sellars in his essay "Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind" (1956). Sellars argued against the notion that there are "given" elements in experience—such as sense data, raw feels, or basic perceptual inputs—that can serve as an unquestionable foundation for knowledge.
Sellars maintained that any attempt to base knowledge on such "givens" fails because even these purportedly immediate experiences are influenced by our conceptual framework. For example, seeing a red apple is not just a matter of raw sensory input but involves recognizing and categorizing the experience within a framework of concepts and beliefs.
According to Sellars, all knowledge is theory-laden; it is shaped by the language, concepts, and theories that we use to interpret our experiences. Thus, the supposed "givens" are not independent of our conceptual understanding. This view challenges traditional empiricism, which often relies on the idea of foundational, immediate knowledge derived from sensory experience.
The critique of the myth of the given has significant implications for epistemology. It suggests that knowledge cannot be grounded in indubitable perceptual inputs but must instead be understood as a network of interdependent beliefs and concepts. This idea has influenced various areas of philosophy, including debates about foundationalism, coherentism, and the nature of perception and understanding.
To say that reality is 'irreducibly complex' seems to omit something fundamental to metaphysics, the unconditioned or unmade. — Wayfarer
Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.