I don't understand why you say that. Please elaborate.No, but they're also not understandable outside the scientific context within which they were discovered. — Wayfarer
These two clauses seem to be contradictory. If there is an objective world external to ourselves, then it exists independent of our minds.I've said, I don't deny the reality of there being an objective world, but that on a deeper level, it is not truly mind-independent.
It seems obvious to me that there are objective facts about the world that we know or can come to know. It is objective fact that we live on the third planet from the sun, which we orbit. How is this anything other than an absolute fact?Which is another way of saying objectivity cannot be absolute.
That's fine, and we can discuss it, but do you agree it has no practical significance? That's what I meant.Why does this matter?
— Relativist
As for whether you're defending physicalism, the link to this discussion was made from this post in another thread in which you claimed to be 'representing David Armstrong's metaphysics'. I see the above arguments as a challenge to Armstrong's metaphysics. As I'm opposing Armstrong's metaphysics, this is why I think it matters. — Wayfarer
If you think the idea of a mind-independent reality is incoherent, then you can't believe there exists a mind-independent reality. I believe there is. Can you give me any reasons to change my mind? Understand that I acknowledge that physicalism could be wrong, but the belief in a mind-independent reality isn't dependent on physicalism being true.I think the idea of a mind-independent reality is really incoherent. Reality is something which minds create, as pointed out by the op. If you try to imagine the world as existing without any point-of-view, from no perspective at all, it becomes completely unintelligible, so it cannot be imagined. That's because "reality" as we know it, is point-of-view dependent. So the idea of a mind-independent reality really is incoherent. — Metaphysician Undercover
I think the idea of a mind-independent reality is really incoherent. Reality is something which minds create, as pointed out by the op. If you try to imagine the world as existing without any point-of-view, from no perspective at all, it becomes completely unintelligible, so it cannot be imagined. That's because "reality" as we know it, is point-of-view dependent. So the idea of a mind-independent reality really is incoherent. — Metaphysician Undercover
"I've said, I don't deny the reality of there being an objective world, but that on a deeper level, it is not truly mind-independent." - Wayfarer
These two clauses seem to be contradictory. If there is an objective world external to ourselves, then it exists independent of our minds. — Relativist
That doesn't address the issue I raised.I've said, I don't deny the reality of there being an objective world, but that on a deeper level, it is not truly mind-independent." - Wayfarer
These two clauses seem to be contradictory. If there is an objective world external to ourselves, then it exists independent of our minds.
— Relativist
Just say this quibble between you and Wayfarer. As I've just tried to illustrate, the quibble can be resolved by differentiating "mind" as generality (which occurs wherever individual minds occur) and "mind" as one concrete instantiation of the former (such that in concrete form minds are always plural and divided from each other) ... this in the term "mind-independent". Physical reality is not mind-independent in the first sense but is mind-independent in the second sense, this in any system of (non-solipsistic) idealism wherein the world is contingent upon the occurrence of minds. — javra
That doesn't address the issue I raised.
I believe there exists a world (AKA "reality") independent of minds. I also believe nearly everyone agrees with me. — Relativist
Can you give me any reasons to change my mind? — Relativist
If what is addressed by the term “reality” (I presume physical reality which, in a nutshell, is that actuality (or set of actualities) which affects all minds in equal manners irrespective of what individual minds might believe or else interpret, etc.) will itself be contingent on the occurrence of all minds which simultaneously exist—and, maybe needless to add, if the position of solipsism is … utterly false—then the following will necessarily hold: reality can only be independent of any one individual mind. As it is will be independent of any particular cohort of minds—just as long as this cohort is not taken to be that of “all minds that occur in the cosmos”. — javra
No, but they're also not understandable outside the scientific context within which they were discovered.
— Wayfarer
I don't understand why you say that. Please elaborate. — Relativist
If you don't believe we can know truths about the world, that seems more significant than whether or not the mind can be adequately accounted for through physicalism. I don't see how you could propose a superior alternative with such a background assumption. — Relativist
If what is addressed by the term “reality” (I presume physical reality which, in a nutshell, is that actuality (or set of actualities) which affects all minds in equal manners irrespective of what individual minds might believe or else interpret, etc.) will itself be contingent on the occurrence of all minds which simultaneously exist—and, maybe needless to add, if the position of solipsism is … utterly false—then the following will necessarily hold: reality can only be independent of any one individual mind. As it is will be independent of any particular cohort of minds—just as long as this cohort is not taken to be that of “all minds that occur in the cosmos”. — javra
I really can't understand what you are saying here javra. Perhaps you could rephrase it? — Metaphysician Undercover
The very notion of a perspective entails having a mind. We are sufficiently aware that we can recognize the fact we even have a perspective.Read the op, and what I said in my last post. Only minds provide a spatial-temporal perspective, and without assuming such a perspective, all these supposed mind independent things, the world, the universe, even "reality" itself, are completely unintelligible. — Metaphysician Undercover
Fair enough. I'll try. First, we all know in our heart of hearts that solipsism is false. Therefore, ours is not the only mind that currently occurs in the world. Given this fact, we then entertain the metaphysical reality/actuality that there can be no world in the absence of minds (in the plural). — javra
Via one convenient though imperfect analogy: We all know that an ocean is not one single drop of water. Given this fact, we then hold the conviction that there can be no ocean in the absence of individual drops of water from which the ocean is constituted. — javra
In a roundabout way, the same can then be upheld for any non-solipsistic idealism: the physical world is mind-independent when it comes to any one individual mind (or any relatively large quantity of minds) - this even thought it is mind-dependent in the sense that no physical world can exist in the complete absence of minds. — javra
As one possible summation of this, within any non-solipsistic idealism, there will necessarily be an external world that occurs independently of me and my own mind. — javra
We obviously perceive space and time... — Relativist
We obviously perceive space and time, so why doubt that this is an aspect of the actual world? The mere fact that we have a perspective does not entail that this perspective is an illusion. — Relativist
What we can conclude from the assumption that solipsism is false, is that there must be something which separates one mind from another, some sort of medium. But we cannot exclude the possibility that the medium is an illusion, or mind-created, as a sort of deficiency in minds' ability for direct communication with one another. — Metaphysician Undercover
This one doesn't make sense to me. What is a "drop of water"? Why can't we say that the ocean is a single drop of water? And to me, "a drop" is an isolated quantity of water, so it makes no sense to talk about a body of water as if it is made of drops. — Metaphysician Undercover
Sorry javra, I just cannot understand what you are saying here. This is what I get from it. If there is a complete absence of minds, then there is also the complete absence of a physical world. In that sense there is no mind-independent word. However, if there is so much as one mind (or a multitude of minds), then there must also be a mind-independent.
So how does the existence of a mind (or multitude of minds) necessitate the existence of a mind-independent world? If it is the existence of a mind, (or minds), which necessitates that world, how can it be a mind-independent world? — Metaphysician Undercover
I don't deny that there would be something outside my own mind, what I called the "medium" above. But why conceive of this as "a world", or "a universe", or even "reality", as all these refer to mind dependent things, if you want to think of the medium as mind-independent? But, since I believe in the reality of numerous minds, there is nothing to persuade me that the "medium" is not something inside another mind, therefore not mind-independent at all. — Metaphysician Undercover
The fact that models makes successful predictions demonstrates that we know something about the nature of physical reality, and that's really the basic thing I'm defending.It is well known that the nature of the existence of former, in particular, is rather ambiguous, to say the least. Although I don't want to divert this thread too far in this direction, this is where the Copenhagen interpretation of physics is relevant. This says that physics does not reveal what nature is in itself (or herself, some would say) but as how she appears to our methods of questioning. So these 'elementary particles' are not mind-independent in that sense - which is the implication of the observer problem. — Wayfarer
So you aren't denying that genes exist. You're pointing to the fact that there are other factors that influence growth and development. So once again, genetics does tell us something about life: more objective facts.As for genes, and whether these comprise a fundamental explanatory unit, again, the emergence of epigenetics has given rise to an understanding that genes themselves are context-dependent. That is not downplaying the significance of the discovery of genes (or quantum theory, for that matter) but the role they are both assigned by physicalism as being ontologically primary or fundamental. — Wayfarer
Sorry I didn't understand, but that's how it sounded to me. Glad we could clarify that you agree scientific knowledge is efficacious- so I assume you agree that we indeed have some knowledge about the world external to minds.I don't know how you could come to that conclusion. We know all manner of things about the world. I'm not denying that scientific knowledge is efficacious. What I'm questioning is the metaphysics of materialism, which posits that 'Elementary particles, moments in time, genes, the brain – all these things are assumed to be fundamentally real. — Wayfarer
I completely agree with this; it makes perfect sense. My issue has been that these intuitions don't preclude discerning aspects of reality.transcendental idealism still maintains that in a fundamental sense, the mind provides the intuitions of time and space, within which all such empirical judgements are made — Wayfarer
But you're making an error if you think materialism requires these scientific models to be correct depictions of reality. The metaphysics does not depend on these models to correspond to reality. — Relativist
Absolutely! The fact that we (i.e..Einstein) developed a theory that transcends the "human perspective" of time is a testimony to our ability to transcend our own perspective, and endeavor to be objective.So our time perception is not necessarily an adequate representation of the time that occurs in the actual world. — javra
Physicalism = the thesis that everything that exists is physical. It is false only if there exists something non-physical. It depends only on this being true.But you're making an error if you think materialism requires these scientific models to be correct depictions of reality. The metaphysics does not depend on these models to correspond to reality.
— Relativist
So, what does it depend on, then? — Wayfarer
It is false only if there exists something non-physical. — Relativist
No interpretation of QM is verifiably true, but it's a near certainty that reality actually exhibits the predictible law-like behavior that we observe. — Relativist
There is a crucial difference between the wave effect in the double-slit experiment and physical waves. In classical wave systems, such as ripples on water, the frequency — the number of wave peaks passing a point per second — determines the pattern and behavior of the wave. We might expect to equate the rate of emission (how often electrons are fired) with the frequency of a classical wave. But in quantum mechanics, this analogy breaks down, as particles can be emitted one at a time — and yet the interference pattern still forms. There is no equivalent in classical physics for a “one particle at a time” emission in a medium like water.
So the interference pattern arises not because the particles are behaving as classical waves, but because the probability wavefunction ψ describes where at any given point in time, any individual particle is likely to register. So it is wave-like, but not actually a wave, in that the pattern is not due to the proximity of particles to each other or their interaction, as is the case with physical waves. Consequently, the interference pattern emerges over time, irrespective of the rate at which particles are emitted, because it is tied to the wave-like form of the probability distribution, not to a physical wave passing through space. This is the key difference that separates the quantum interference pattern from physical wave phenomenon. This is what I describe as ‘the timeless wave of quantum physics’. — The Timeless Wave
Why would we have these intuitions, if they aren't consistent with reality (i.e. true within the scope of our perceptions).We obviously perceive space and time...
— Relativist
I don't think so Relativist. Kant names these as intuitions which are the necessary conditions for the possibility of sensory perception. So from that perspective space and time are prior to perception. — Metaphysician Undercover
Why think our abstractions about space and time are false?Another type of ontology would hold that space and time are logical abstractions, posterior to perceptions. We deduce from our perceptions, the conclusion that there must be something which we conceive of as "space", and something we conceive of as "time". But there is no indication that we actually perceive whatever it is which we call "space", or "time".
But so entertaining goes far deeper, I believe, than claiming physical reality to be on par to something one hallucinates or else can imagine at will or so forth. As individual first-person points of view we are all bound to the physicality that surrounds, and our very lives are dependent on there being a sufficient degree of conformity to it. — javra
Still, a drop is typically understood as that amount of liquid which might remain intact and maybe fall as such from a stick which had been placed into the liquid. — javra
But importantly, if no solipsism then, necessarily, the world can only be brought about by a multitude of minds - and not by a sole mind. — javra
To be clear, are you then saying that if the so-called "medium" of physicality in total - to include my physical body and its brain - is not something that is an aspect of my own mind it would then need to be something the occurs as an aspect of some other individual mind? — javra
As to the initial question, (I take it that) there is an actuality, or set of actualities, which affects all observers equally irrespective of what the observes believe, perceive, imagine, want, interpret, etc. — javra
Do you deny there being actualities which occur irrespective of what any one individual sentient being intends, believes, and so forth? — javra
It seems uncontroversial to stipulate that the objects of our ordinary experiences are physical. It seems most reasonable to treat the component parts of physical things as also physical, all the way down to whatever is fundamental.Sure it does. But what about this requires that the fundamental constituents are actually physical? What does 'physical' mean, when the nature of the so-called fundamental particles is ambiguous, as has been discussed? — Wayfarer
A "wave function" is a mathematical abstraction. I see no good reason to think abstractions are ontological. So I infer that a wave function is descriptive of something that exists.And as for something non-physical, the wavefunction Ψ is an ideal candidate: — Wayfarer
How can an external world exist independently of human minds AND be contingent upon human minds?If you re-read what was my initial reply to MU, you'll see that I also believe there exists a world independent of individual minds, and so I too agree with you on this count - even if, as the case is, I simultaneously believe this same world is contingent on the occurrence of mind as a generality. — javra
How can an external world exist independently of human minds AND be contingent upon human minds?
Being contingent upon entails a dependence, does it not? — Relativist
Replace "heap of sand" with "the physical world" and "individual sand particles" with "individual minds". The same relations will hold. This can thereby lead to the logically valid affirmation that, in a non-solipsistic mind-created world, the physical world occurs independently of me and my own mind, even though it will be dependent on the occurrence of a multiplicity of minds in general. — javra
I believe there exists a world (AKA "reality") independent of minds. I also believe nearly everyone agrees with me. That doesn't mean we're right, of course, but I'd like you or Wayfarer to give me reasons why I should reject, or doubt, my current belief. — Relativist
When I say "independent of minds", I mean that the world at large exists irrespective of the presence of any minds at all. I believe the universe is about 14B years old, and there were almost certainly no minds within it for quite a long time. Can you give me a reason to reject or doubt this belief of mine? — Relativist
That mentioned, I agree that the sometimes tacitly implied notion of physical reality being somehow metaphysically independent of the individual minds which, after all, are aspects of it—such that physical reality could be placed here and minds there without any dependency in-between—is a logical dud. A close second dud is the attempt to describe minds, and all their various aspects, as purely physical (such that, for one example, all ends one can conceive of and intend are all physical in their nature). — javra
No. You expressing your judgement is not a reason for me, even with a vague allusion to some questionable assumption that it seems based on.Reasons such as these?:
That mentioned, I agree that the sometimes tacitly implied notion of physical reality being somehow metaphysically independent of the individual minds which, after all, are aspects of it—such that physical reality could be placed here and minds there without any dependency in-between—is a logical dud. A close second dud is the attempt to describe minds, and all their various aspects, as purely physical (such that, for one example, all ends one can conceive of and intend are all physical in their nature). — javra
I may agree that we're "habituated" to hold the view that there exists a mind-independent reality.Yes, I can provide them, but I don't think reasons will here much help. We are all typically attached to the notions we are habituated to hold, in this case that there was physicality long before there was any type of awareness, ergo physicalism. — javra
You're indicating panpaychism is a logical step beyond the "premise of a non-solipsistic mind awareness-created world." I'm just asking why should entertain that premise.My reply to this will be that of panpsychism - this in the sense that awareness pervaded the cosmos long before life evolved into it (i.e., in the sense that the physical is, was, and will remain dependent of the psychical). This conclusion for me, though, is only a deduction from the premise of a non-solipsistic mind awareness-created world. — javra
If your answer is that this feels right, and/or provides you comfort, I have no objection. I'm not trying to convince you that you're wrong. I'm just seeking my own comfort- I'd like to know if there are good reasons to think I'm deluding myself with what I believe about the world.And I do not claim to have any great insight into how panpsychism works - nor into any metaphysically cogent explanation for how life evolved from non-life (the physicalist explanation that "it must have" doesn't much console me either as far as metaphysical explanations go - I find it just as comforting as the explanation of "God did it"). — javra
It seems uncontroversial to stipulate that the objects of our ordinary experiences are physical. It seems most reasonable to treat the component parts of physical things as also physical, all the way down to whatever is fundamental. — Relativist
what we regard as the physical world is “physical” to us precisely in the sense that it acts in opposition to our will and constrains our actions. The aspect of the universe that resists our push and demands muscular effort on our part is what we consider to be “physical”. On the other hand, since sensation and thought don’t require overcoming any physical resistance, we consider them to be outside of material reality. — Pinter, Charles. Mind and the Cosmic Order: How the Mind Creates the Features & Structure of All Things, and Why this Insight Transforms Physics (p6).
A "wave function" is a mathematical abstraction. I see no good reason to think abstractions are ontological. So I infer that a wave function is descriptive of something that exists. — Relativist
I may misunderstand, but it sounds also bit like you're suggesting that we should reject physicalism if physics doesn't have a complete, verifiable description of reality. — Relativist
I acknowledge that our descriptions (and understandings) are grounded in our perspective, but we have the capacity to correct for that. — Relativist
I'd like to know if there are good reasons to think I'm deluding myself with what I believe about the world. — Relativist
But there IS this unresolved gap in our physics. We really don't know. Therefore one can't claim it's inconsistent with physicalism.The point is, claiming that everything that exists is physical becomes problematic if we can’t definitively say what kind of existence the wave function has, as in quantum mechanics, the wave function is central to predicting physical phenomena. If we take its predictive power seriously, it’s hard to ignore the question of its ontological status without leaving an unresolved gap in the theory. — Wayfarer
It sounds like I had it right: you think physicalism should be rejected if physics doesn't have a complete, verifiable description of reality.I may misunderstand, but it sounds also bit like you're suggesting that we should reject physicalism if physics doesn't have a complete, verifiable description of reality.
— Relativist
As I said before, as a materialist, D M Armstrong believes that science is paradigmatic for philosophy proper. So you can't have your cake and eat it too - if physics indeed suggests that the nature of the physical eludes precise definition, then so much for appealing to science as a model for philosophy! — Wayfarer
My position is that Armstrong's theory is not necessarily true, but it's superior to other theories in terms of explanatory scope, parsimony, and ad hoc-ness.I wouldn't put it in personal or pejorative terms, but I do believe that philosophical and/or scientific materialism is an erroneous philosophical view. — Wayfarer
It sounds like I had it right: you think physicalism should be rejected if physics doesn't have a complete, verifiable description of reality. — Relativist
Armstrong's model is consistent with what we do know, so it's not falsified. — Relativist
In contrast to the outlook of naturalism, Husserl believed all knowledge, all science, all rationality depended on conscious acts, acts which cannot be properly understood from within the natural outlook at all. Consciousness should not be viewed naturalistically as part of the world at all, since consciousness is precisely the reason why there was a world there for us in the first place. For Husserl it is not that consciousness creates the world in any ontological sense—this would be a subjective idealism, itself a consequence of a certain naturalising tendency whereby consciousness is cause and the world its effect—but rather that the world is opened up, made meaningful, or disclosed through consciousness. The world is inconceivable apart from consciousness. Treating consciousness as part of the world, reifying consciousness, is precisely to ignore consciousness’s foundational, disclosive role. For this reason, all natural science is naive about its point of departure, for Husserl (PRS 85; Hua XXV 13). Since consciousness is presupposed in all science and knowledge, then the proper approach to the study of consciousness itself must be a transcendental one—one which, in Kantian terms, focuses on the conditions for the possibility of knowledge. — Routledge Introduction to Phenomenology, p144
No. You expressing your judgement is not a reason for me, even with a vague allusion to some questionable assumption that it seems based on. — Relativist
My reply to this will be that of panpsychism - this in the sense that awareness pervaded the cosmos long before life evolved into it (i.e., in the sense that the physical is, was, and will remain dependent of the psychical). This conclusion for me, though, is only a deduction from the premise of a non-solipsistic mind awareness-created world. — javra
You're indicating panpaychism is a logical step beyond the "premise of a non-solipsistic mind awareness-created world." I'm just asking why should entertain that premise. — Relativist
If your answer is that this feels right, and/or provides you comfort, I have no objection. I'm not trying to convince you that you're wrong. I'm just seeking my own comfort- I'd like to know if there are good reasons to think I'm deluding myself with what I believe about the world. — Relativist
My fundamental axiom of speculative philosophy is that materialism and spiritualism are opposite poles of the same absurdity-the absurdity of imagining that we know anything about either spirit or matter. — Thomas Henry Huxley
Constructive empiricism is a philosophical view that science aims to produce theories that are empirically adequate, rather than true. It was developed by the 20th-century Canadian philosopher Bas van Fraassen and is presented most systematically in his 1980 work The Scientific Image.
Constructive empiricism differs from scientific realism, which holds that science aims to provide a literally true story of the world. Constructive empiricists believe that science aims for truth about observable aspects of the world, but not unobservable aspects. They also believe that accepting a scientific theory involves only the belief that it is empirically adequate. — AI Overview
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