Hello creativesoul,

What is the conscious mental experience that I have every day and every waking moment of my life?

It is the subjective perceptions that collectively makeup your life. It is your feelings (e.g., feeling pain), tastes (e.g., the sourness of the apple you bit into), hearing (e.g., hearing a piano playing), sight (e.g., seeing a tree), smells (e.g., smelling the stench of a rotten apple), thoughts (e.g., thinking about the tree of which you see), and imagination (e.g., picturing a pink elephant eating a mango).

Every waking moment you are immersed in a rich qualitative experience.

Exactly what qualia are you referring to?

Qualia refers to the unique perceptive experience that is generated by your senses (and obviously the idealist and physicalist are going to disagree about what those senses ontologically are—viz., mind-independent organs vs. mind-dependent faculties of a soul).

When you look at a tree, that is a qualitative experience you are having which is a perception generated by your senses of input from reality.

Is obscurity allowed now?

Obscurity about what? I do not deny that every metaphysical theory has its obscurities. My point was that the hard problem can only be accounted for by an obscurity, and since it is a hard problem it makes it very epistemically costly to hold the theory (I would argue). Whereas, a theory that, for example, cannot give currently a complete and accurate account of something that is possibly explainable under the theory (e.g., like how a certain drug completely affects brain activity under physicalism) is an obscurity (now) but only of a soft problem (and thusly not as bad as a hard problem).

Bob

Hello creativesoul,

Well, as above shows nicely, you've just contradicted yourself.

Where is the contradiction in the quotes of mine you mentioned? They both claim that physicalism cannot account for qualia.

I'm not sure what you're claiming

I am claiming that reductive physicalism cannot account, under its reductive physicalist approach, for qualitative experience (e.g., subjective feeling, subjective sense of touch, etc.) other than by obscurely saying it “somehow” produces it.

Perhaps it's better to take this slowly. Our respective positions are very different, and that seems to be on a foundational/fundamental level. Right now, I'm just wanting to ensure that I am aiming at the right target, so to speak. So, I ask...

Exactly what qualia are you and other proponents of the hard problem saying that reductive physicalism cannot account for?

Taking it slow sounds good to me! My answer was:

Not a single mental event is explained as actually produced by brain states nor could it be explained in that reductive physicalist manner. All they can do is point to another correlation (or causation) between mental and physical states which doesn’t further progress the physicalistic explanation of qualia.

Did you find this to be an unsatisfactory answer? To try to say it in other words, reductive physicalism cannot account for qualia, not just any particular aspect of qualia. To me, it is like you are asking “which red trucks can they not explain?” and I am answering “all red trucks”. Are you asking “what a red truck is?” (essentially). Because qualia is subjective, qualitative experience (e.g., subjective feeling, subjective touch, etc.). It is the conscious mental experience that you have every day and every waking moment of your life.

Bob

Hello creativesoul,

Without appeal to obscurity, reductive physicalist approaches can account for qualia at least as well as any other position.

I disagree: it can’t account for it at all. The fact that the brain interprets the world mechanically in this manner and that those processes have a “causal” (or correlative) relationship with mental states doesn’t account for the mental states themselves at all. Under reductive physicalism, we should expect no qualia: just philosophical zombies. Under idealism, we should expect no philosophical zombies but rather rich, conscious subjects.

I would argue better than, especially if obscurity is unacceptable.

Could you please elaborate? How so?

There's a need for you to elaborate on exactly what counts as qualia, for that is precisely what any approach is supposed to be taking account of

Qualia is subjective, qualitative, and conscious experience (e.g., the subjective feeling of pain, subjective seeing redness, subjective touching of a book, etc.). The bare minimum criteria is that the event is a mental, subjective, and conscious experience.

The position you're working from and/or arguing in favor of presupposes that there is a distinction between biological machinery doing it's job and so-called 'subjective' experience.

It’s not so much that there is such a distinction in actuality but, rather, that the reductive physicalist account on explains biological machinery and doesn’t account for the subjectivity. I, as an idealis, can happily grant that, since mental events are primal, there is no biological machinery doing something completely separately from subjective experience (however, under physicalism, all we get is an explanation of the biological machinery).

I'm also quite unsure of the invocation of 'mechanical awareness', in terms of AI or something akin. I've not likened experience to that, nor would I. It's a red herring. Unnecessary distraction.

I am not sure I followed this part: could you please elaborate? How is mechanical awareness a red herring?

My point was that reductive physicalism expects and explains the world in a manner that only expects and explains mechanical awareness (akin to a future AI or something as a mere analogy) and not qualitative experience. It is utterly shocking under a physicalist view that we are conscious.

Exactly what qualia are you and other proponents of the hard problem saying that reductive physicalism cannot account for?

Maybe I am misunderstanding you, but my claim is not that they can’t account for a particular subgroup of qualia but, rather, all of it. Not a single mental event is explained as actually produced by brain states nor could it be explained in that reductive physicalist manner. All they can do is point to another correlation (or causation) between mental and physical states which doesn’t further progress the physicalistic explanation of qualia.

Bob

Hello Mww,

There isn’t a proof, per se, only an internal affirmative logical consistency.

I just mean what is the case for it? What do you mean by it being an internal affirmative logical consistency? I don’t think it is necessarily the case that the mind fundamentally uses if conditionals (for example) to produce perceptive experience (although it might).

Yes, I could elaborate on the rationality justifying the categories, but to do so is a foray into the seriously transcendental, which may be a different idealism then is represented in the theme of your thread.

I would prefer if you did elaborate on it, so I can understand the argument for those categories better!

Bob

Hello TheMadMan,

By materialistic I don't mean the materialism worldview.

I see.

Although I am not sure I entirely understood your post yet, let me try to adequately respond.

By materialistic I mean the mind obeys space-time.

Although I am not entirely sold on this part, Analytic Idealism would posit that our minds are alters of a universal mind, and space and time only emerge as a production of perceptive conscious beings. In terms of analytic idealism, the world around you that you are perceiving is fundamentally the unfolding in space and time (which are synthetic but arguably not a priori in the sense schopenhauer exactly meant it) of eternal platonic ideas. Although space and time do not behave necessarily as we would intuit from normal every day-to-day experience, they are also within the eternal ideas as we are, as evolved emergent perceptive and self-conscious beings, a part of those eternal ideas.

Honestly, I am not entirely sold on this part yet, but that would be the response.

In every metaphysical theory, I find there is the problem of accounting for the inevitable eternal somehow continually “converting” into something temporal—and I don’t know how to account for it adequately under any theory.

1. the duality of mind (spacetime) and 2. the non-duality of non-mind (spacetime-less)

Are you saying that the mind can “switch” (so to speak) between two modes of existence or perceptive capabilities?

I mean that you simply cannot express it fully since systems of thought will always be limited.
And yes in different periods of human history it has to adapt and evolve to make sense.

I agree.

Bob

Hello Alkis Piskas,

So, if you find a philosophical term that combines both these two kinds of philosphical views, I would be much obliged!

I am not sure I am familiar with a term that means a hybrid view of rationalism and empiricism; but, then again, I would need you to explain further what you mean by those terms to give a more precise answer.

For example, I do know that many modern-day empiricists do hold that there is a priori knowledge.

However, Eastern philosophers, as well as Western ones who have borrowed elements from Eastern philosophy, as I have already mentioned, talk a lot about metaphysical subjects but they almost always offer a detailed description of as well as examples for them

Could you give an example of such a detailed description of consciousness?

Yet, "obscurity" and lack of explanation for me means lack of real undestanding. And this holds for both physical and non-physical things.

There is always going to be some obscurities in any metaphysical theories one takes: metaphysics is about trying to maximize explanatory power while minimizing the explanatory parts. It isn’t even apparent that we will one day be able to definitively understand the entirety of reality.

In terms of Einstein, I would think that what he meant was that one should be able to articulate their position concisely and precisely to opponents, which is what you have to do for little children or else it goes straight past there heads. It doesn’t violate his principle to explain to a child that we don’t know: it is clear and simple what it means for one to not know. On the contrary, Einstein is referring to (I would think) sophistry and rhetoric that can convolute and even mask bad positions as somewhat feasible.

Yes, I know that. Yet, it does not explain what "consciousness" is. This was my point.

If by “explain what ‘consciousness’ is” you are asking how it works, then only via empirical inquiry will we find out. If by that question you are asking for a deeper ontology, then that will not be afforded in analytic idealism because the universal mind (i.e., consciousness) is posited as metaphysical necessary. Every metaphysical theory has to have a bedrock (i.e., something that is unexplainable) and for objective idealism it is mind. For physicalism, it is some sort of elementary particle or quantum field or what have you. There is no way to account for reality completely without hitting a rock bottom.

But there are a few I know that have descibed this quite well and in a plausible way.

Could you give an example?

Still, I can safely say, as general description, that consciousness is perception

Interesting. For analytic idealism, consciousness is not synonymous with perception. “Perception” is used to denote conscious beings that have evolved to have the faculties to represent its environment to itself (viz., to take in sensations/input and generate an understanding of the causal order and such). Consciousness is a broader term (under analytic idealism) that includes all mind-operative mental processes. The universal mind, for instance, does not perceive: it is more fundamental, primitive willing which operates blind of itself and others. Think of it like the difference between plants, which will on a basis of very basic stimulus responses, vs. a complex animal (like a dog): the plant is perceiving anything but yet, under analytic idealism, is conscious.


Bob

Hello Janus,

So, you agree there is a mind-independent world, you just don't agree that it is physical?

Good question: no. I agree that there is a reality which transcends your and my mind (i.e., our experience as conscious beings), but that reality is not fundamentally mind-independent.

Likewise, since I deny that reality is “made up of” mind-independent things, I also hold that it is not physical (because ‘physical’ entails, in the formal sense of the term, mind-independence).

I have no argument with that since the definition of 'physical' derives from how things appear to us: tangible and measurable.

You may be using the colloquial sense of the term ‘physical’ (i.e., objects with solidity, size, shape, etc. within our experience): I don’t deny that kind of physicality. I deny the physicalists idea of ‘physical’: mind-independent objects (or parts more generally speaking).

I think Kant's claim that we don't know what things are in themselves stands

I disagree: I think schopenhauer finished Kant’s project by correcting this error of Kant’s. Being self-conscious, we are uniquely able to acquire the thing-in-itself: mind (i.e., what schopenhauer called will). We can understand the reality has two sides: mind (subject) and object. They are not completely separate but, rather, two sides of the same coin. When I will for my arm to raise, it manifests in conscious experience as an potential infinite chain of causality. The chain, according to schopenhauer, is not the complete explanation of what happened but it is all we have access to when it comes to every aspect of reality other than ourselves. We only ‘see’ the world from both of its sides within our own introspective conscious experience: otherwise, Kant would be correct in that we would have no clue what the thing-in-itself is.

Saying that things are fundamentally mental is an example of the same kind of category error, because 'mental' is a term denoting how certain phenomena: thoughts, feelings, volitions and so on, seem to us. That is to say they seem to be different than the objects of the senses in that they seem intangible and are not measurable.

I think this would follow if Kant were correct in saying that we never come to understand the noumena—but we can. The mental activity is outwardly expressed as physicality. When I am sad, the extrinsic representation of that is tears and, if one were to biologically test me, certain hormonal secretions.

meaning that the former can be reductively modeled in a mechanical or causal way, and the latter cannot, which makes it seem as though there will always be am unbridgeable explanatory gap.

I agree with this part. However, the idea with analytic idealism is that the mental events are expressed as physical events but yet the former do not “cause” the latter (in the sense of the typical physical causation).

I have never heard a convincing argument that this gap can somehow be crossed by an explanation that holds together on both sides of it

What problem do you have with positing the physical as an outward expression of the mental?

Bob

Hello Foolos4,

In Chalmers own words, from "The Hard Problem of Consciousness":

I didn’t find anything I disagree with in the quote from Chalmers you made: was there something in it you thought is a problem for my view?

This example works against your claim. If I am anesthetized I do not dream. Signals in the nervous system are blocked.

Firstly, it was an analogy to demonstrate that, under idealism, the “transmission” is fundamentally immaterial (i.e., mental) and not physical. The physical “transmission” is the extrinsic representation of the mental.

Secondly, anesthesia causing you to not dream and the signals in the nervous system being blocking thereby is expected under idealism too (and definitely doesn’t go against the theory). Anesthesia, like everything else, is fundamentally mental under idealism, and the outward expression of the mental idea of anesthesia disrupting your mind (mentally) is the blocking of signals in the nervous system (which can be observed empirically when someone is under anesthesia). The idea behind the analogy was not to take it so far as to say that you must dream for mental transmissions to occur but, rather, that in the same manner that your mind (even under physicalism) produces conscious experience during sleep via immaterial ideas so is it the case with reality.

Bob

Hello Fooloso4,

The question of why and how biological functions give rise to experience has everything to do with science!

What you described here is a purported soft problem of consciousness, which would, indeed, be expected (under physicalism) to be explained eventually (or at least possibly) by science. However, the hard problem is metaphysics proper. A scientist does not decipher in their job that there is a hard problem of consciousness (i.e., that there is a conceptual explanatory gap between mechanical awarenss and qualitative experience): on the contrary, the moment that dawns on them they are engaged in metaphysics and not science. Science is about empirically testing things to better understand behaviors of those things, metaphysics is about understanding that which lies beyond the possibility of all experience (but yet still meaningfully pertains to reality). In this case, the hard problem is only ever postulated by application of pure reason: not any empirical tests.

Blocking such inquiry because it does not fit your metaphysical assumptions is the metaphysical, that is, conceptual problem.
…
we should not exclude the physical organism out of some metaphysical conviction

I think you may have misunderstood what I was saying: it is not that science isn’t a consideration when coming up with one’s metaphysics (on the contrary, empirical adequacy is important for any metaphysical theory to be taken seriously); but, rather, it is only a negative criteria: one can only negate certain metaphysical theories with scientific facts, whereas the vast majority or perfectly coherent with science yet are directly incompatible with each other (e.g., physicalism and idealism). This is why I referred to science as a supplement in metaphysics: one’s metaphysics should adhere to scienctific knowledge, but that doesn’t prove the theory--one also needs to consider parsimony, intellectual seemings, internal/external coherence, logical consistency, explanatory power, etc.

but if your metaphysics excludes scientific inquiry then it is a dead end. It is embodied minds that we must deal with, and so science is not merely a "supplement".

I don’t see how you can claim I am both excluding scientific inquiry (in my metaphysics) and considering it a valid supplement. By supplementation, I mean that it strengthens the metaphysical theory (but does not prove it) to be empirically adequate.

The question of being is a philosophical question, but that does not mean that science, which deals with actual beings, is excluded from ontological inquiry.

If you are a strong scientific realist (viz., you think that science produces true results of what entities fundamentally exist), then I understand why you would claim this. However, I deny this. Just like trees, I hold that atoms are a nominal distinction and they do not exist in the underlying ontological structure of reality but, rather, they are extrinsic representations of fundamentally mentality. Science tells us that we should expect this to behave as though there are atoms and, I would go so far as to say, that there are phenomenally atoms, but not that there are noumenally atoms.

Right, we don't experience that the world is physical, our experience includes things that are physical.

By ‘physical’, I was not referring to the colloquial usage of the term (i.e., something with solidity, shape, size, etc.) but, rather, what it means in relation to physicalism: something that is mind-independent. In the sense as it is used for physicalism, it is an abstract inference and does not exist within our experience.

How is the data transmitted to us if not physically?

Think of a vivid dream you have had, there is nothing physically being transmitted while you are flying in the sky (in your dream) or walking the dream world streets: it is mental events occurring from your mind and they are still occurring. The brain activity measurable when you are dreaming is simply the extrinsic representation of that mental process. Same thing with the objective world, being in a universal mind.

Bob

Hello Mww,

He argued only enough to suit the overall purpose. All he needed to do in justifying a systemic conclusion (the possibility for human empirical knowledge), is demonstrate the necessity of a certain set of antecedent conditions. It’s just a simple “if this then that” logical construct.

I am just hesitant to say that our minds interpret the mentality in hypothetical judgments. I am not saying it is wrong, I just don’t see what the proof is of that. Could you elaborate on the proof?

Bob

Hello Alkis Piskas,

Thank you for sharing your thoughts!

I launched a discussion "You are not your body!"

I see: are you an idealist?

he talks so much about "in consciousness" and I have never found a piece of information about what he thinks/believes consciousness is.

This is fair: idealism’s weak point prima facea is that it doesn’t give an incredibly detailed depiction of consciousness, which it is positing as fundamental. However, the important thing to note is that it is being posited as fundamental and thusly necessary. Every metaphysical must stop its explanation at something which is metaphysically necessary, and for idealism it is mind. So there’s going to be a bit of obscurity in how it works not only because we have been living in a physicalist world so long that we haven’t bother to try and look for explanations in mind but also because we are trying to understand the bedrock of reality (which is certainly much harder to understand than entities within phenomenal experience).

With that being said, I can elaborate on his distinction between being “in consciousness” and “having consciousness”: the latter is when a being exists fundamentally as matter and has the property of consciousness (i.e., qualia), whereas the former is when the being is within fundamentally conscious activity (i.e., me and you has alters in one universal mind that it having conscious activity in a primal sense).

I don’t think Kastrup claims to know exactly how all of consciousness works, but I think he would say that consciousness is, at its base, mental events “interacting” with each other (like how when you vividly dream the entire world is representation from your dream character’s perspective of the environment that is within your real mind that is dreaming). We, like your dream character in a vivid dream you may have, are perceiving what that mental activity (in the mind) looks like from our perspective: it is our faculties representing as best it can that mentality.

Likewise, he stresses that “consciousness proper”, under analytic idealism, is not to be confused with physicalist usages of the term “consciousness”: the latter is just an emergent “add-on” to the organism (as it is the surface of awareness as a subject), whereas the former is the entirety of the organism. Under analytic idealism, consciousness can be attributed to the entirety of your being, including your organic processes that you don’t directly control, and the aspects that are within your every day-to-day experience is what “bubble up” to the tip of the iceberg: your ego (in the psychological sense of the term). Under analytic idealism, the involuntary processes of your stomach, for example, when viewed from our perception, is the extrinsic representation of mental processes that are attributed largely to your mind as a conscious being (albeit can be manipulated or altered by external influences). Physicalism doesn’t use the term the same way at all as idealism.

Then, he maintains that the "self" is an illusion. But then he connects it to the "ego", i.e. the "constructed self", which of course is an illusion. But then I have never heard from him describe what the individual himself, as a unit of awareness, i.e. the "I" or "YOU", stripped from any additives, is. This is certainly not an illusion!

I agree. I am also not convinced that the entirety of myself is an illusion, but can get on board with the ego being an illusion. I would say that we, as dissociated alters (or perhaps more vaguely dream characters), are concretely separate from each other and are not illusions. We are concretely separate from others and the universal mind in the sense that two whirlpools in the same body of water are distinct but yet made of the same water.

The disassociated boundary (or dream character boundary if you like) is conscious experience. Unlike non-conscious objects, it is very clear (in a non-arbitrary way) where my conscious experience ends and yours begins if we were to touch hands. There is no illusion here.

I think, to be fair, Kastrup is more claiming it is an illusion in the sense that the whirlpool thinks it is concretely distinct but, in fact, when it dies down will reassimilate into the body of water: our minds (as dream characters or disassociated alters) are distinct but when they die off reassimilate into the universal mind. To me, this just means that we reassimilate into nature, which is what I would expect and not that we are illusions.

Bob

Hello TheMadMan,

So a metaphysical theory can never be wholly because of the nature of "theory".

I agree that metaphysics is meant as an good general theory, and not absolute truth.

The way our mind works is materialistic which means dualistic

I don’t think our mind works materialistic: I think that the modernist era has produced a predominant metaphysical view in favor of materialism. Also, why would our mind working materialistically entail duality? Are you saying materialism entails irreductive materialism?

and it can only explain something within space-time meanwhile the fundamental reality must be beyond space-time /or spaceless-timeless

I agree. It is hard to explain eternity with our temporal nature for sure.

The truth that is spoken is no longer the truth.

Do you mean that metaphysical theories evolve? Or that they don’t give absolute truth?

Bob

Hello Sime,

I appreciate your response!

I had a hard time understanding what you were conveying, as I think we just use terminology differently, so let me ask some questions pertaining thereto.

Subjective Idealism and solipsism aren't ideas

By “idea”, I was meaning it in the colloquial sense of the term. Technically, those are metaphysical theories. One is a sub-type of idealism that does not hold there is an objective reality but, rather, that all that exists is to perceive or to be perceived (e.g., the tree doesn’t exist other than an image within your perception). The other is the theory that all that exists is one’s own mind, or, epistemically speaking, one can only know the existence of their own mind.

but a tautological understanding that the meaning of all propositions is ultimately reducible to whatever is perceived or thought in the first-person at the end of the day.

I don’t see how this is an accurate representation of what the two theories purport, but, again, I don’t think I fully followed what you mean by them being ‘tautological understanding’. Could you elaborate more?

Naturalism isn't an idea

Just to clarify, again, I was using “idea” in the colloquial sense and not idealist sense.

Naturalism isn't an idea, but an understanding that the meaning of inter-subjectively valid propositions, such as those concerning the properties of natural kinds, cannot be identified with particular thoughts and experiences of the first person.

I don’t agree with this (assuming I am understanding you correctly): naturalism is the view that either everything can only be explained by reduction to natural properties (i.e., methodological naturalism) or that natural properties is all that exists (i.e., ontological naturalism). The latter can be interpreted as strictly a materialist or physicalist metaphysical worldview, or more loosely as simply any metaphysical view that holds properties in the world as naturalistic (such as potentially analytic idealism).

Why would it be the “understanding [of] the meaning of inter-subjectively valid propositions”?--and why would it be anything that holds there is an objective world (“cannot be identified with particular thoughts and experiences of the first person”)? Supernaturalism also meets that criteria as far as I am understanding you currently (but correct me if I am misunderstanding).

So i don't consider Naturalism and solipsism or idealism to be incompatible per-se

I agree with you here.

"Being is perception" is an unavoidable tautology of non-representational idealism that is necessarily appealed to whenever an observer interprets a physical proposition in terms of his personal experiences

I don’t see how this is true. For example, both physicalists and analytic idealists hold that being is more than perception. No one inevitably speaking in terms of their experiences forcing “being” to be perception. Why would that be the case?

"perception is representation" is an unavoidable tautology of naturalism

It just depends on how you are using the terms. For me, regardless of naturalism, it is (essentially) a tautology because they are synonymous.

for universalising intersubjective semantics in an abstract fashion that isn't dependent upon the perceptual judgements of any particular observer.

Could you elaborate on this? I did not understand this part.

Taken together, "Being is Perception" and "Perception is Representation" don't necessarily imply that "Being is Representation", as is often naively assumed by materialists, if one understands these principles as referring to different and non-overlapping aspects of semantics.

To me, this is logically invalid. You are arguing for using a proposition X has both X and another proposition Y (i.e., that ‘perception’ refers to two different semantical meanings in the different statements you made), which is against the rules of formal logic because then one cannot formulate anything with it coherently. Thusly, to me, you are arguing that:

(X == Y) [being is perception] && (Y == Z) [perception is representation] && (Z != X) [representation is not being]

Which has a logical contradiction in it. I get that you wouldn’t hold the words “perception” and “perception” in your sentences as equivalent, but this just doesn’t make any sense to me to argue that. Why would one use the same word differently in the same argument? Doesn’t that make the argument harder to convey?

Bob

Hello Janus,

If there are many minds and many mental states, and they are not connected with one another, then how to explain the unarguable fact that we experience the same things in the same environments?

If I am understanding you correctly, then I would answer that they are ‘connected’ in the sense that they are perceiving the same objective world: it just isn’t fundamentally a physical world.

I don't deny that the way we perceive things is peculiar to humans because our brains and perceptual organs are constituted in the same ways, and in ways more or less similar to animals. But other animals, judging from their behavior, perceive the same things we do in the same locations that we do, which suggests that there are real structures there, which are independent of being perceived.

Firstly, I agree that all conscious beings capable of perception are perceiving the same world, even in the case that they can only perceive it as well as their faculties allow them.

Secondly, from an analytic idealist perspective, the fact that our perceptions converge on an objective world does not entail that the objective world in-itself (of which we are representing on our perceptions) is physical. Instead, it is argued that it is mental.

Think of it this way: think of a video game. In the video game, let’s say there’s a tree that the character can view if they go walk over to it. This tree is objectively there in the video game, and the character should expect for other characters, all else being equal, to see the tree where it is if they were to go view it. He would likewise expect that the tree will still be there, all else being equal, if nothing changes when it takes a stroll and re-visits it later. Likewise, he would expect the lower perceptive creatures, like his pet dog, to also have a perception of that tree. However, that character would be gravely mistaken to think that the tree thereby exists in-itself like he is visualizing it as, in fact, it is actually a bunch of 0s and 1s on the hard drive of the computer. The information about the tree is being represented in the tree that the character sees, but it doesn’t exist as the tall brown and green thing that he perceives in virtue of that. Likewise, if we posit that the video game has been coded to mimick real life, then it would also be true that the more capable a creature (in the game) is to perceiving, the more accurate, in terms of the information, will be represented. Thusly, it may be the case that that the tree is has green leaves, and that is objectively coded into the source code in 0s and 1s, but the color blind character, having not the ability to represent color, will mis-sight of its green leaves.

The hard problem is only a problem for physicalists if they presume that consciousness is not physical

Perhaps you are referring to property dualism (i.e., irreductive physicalism)? Personally, I don’t think it is a valid position in itself and thusly would argue that it either dissolved into substance dualism or reductive physicalism. In the case of the former, it has the hard problem of interaction; in the case of the latter, it has the hard problem of consciousness.

The subjective "feel" of conscious experience is not available to third person observation, so it is not the business of science to explain it.

I agree that science will not explain, nor is it its business to, but a reductive physicalism is required, by their own view, to expect neuroscience to explain it one day.

Why should we think that everything whatsoever can be explained in terms of physical models?

I think that this is exactly why science is about creating a map (i.e., quantifying the qualitative), and says nothing about the territory.

Bob

Hello Creativesoul,

Could you put the "hard problem" in question form please? The question needs to have an acceptable answer, by my lights. So, if you could formulate a question that has a potential/possible answer that you would find satisfactory, it would be super helpful. I want to make sure we're on the same page.

Fair enough my friend! To formulate the question in a manner to avoid any anticipated misunderstandings, I would like to clarify some terminology first (that will to utilized therein). Otherwise, I find that physicalists and idealists tend to both talk passed each other with vague questions (e.g., “physicalism can’t account for awareness”, “physicalism can’t account for why I see the color red”, etc.). Without proper explication of the terms, it isn’t self apparent (at least to me) that there is is a hard problem being expressed (in a question form).

For intents and purposes hereon, I will deploy a distinction between mechanical awareness (or ‘awareness’ for short) and qualitative experience (or ‘experience’ for short): the former is an account of how a mechanical (or otherwise mind-independent: consciousness-independent) being can acquire information of its environment that ultimately allow it to navigate (e.g., mimicking the brain, we can reverse engineer AIs that are increasingly becoming aware in this sense, as they can interpret their surroundings), whereas the latter is how a conscious being has qualitative, subjective experience of its surroundings (e.g., subjectively experiencing redness, feeling pain, hearing sounds, seeing objects, etc.).

With a lot of the discussion on the hard problem, the same sentence, depending on if the person is targeting contextually ‘awareness’ or ‘experience’, can be interpreting as expressing a soft problem, solved problem, or the actual hard problem. For example, the question “how does one see greeness?” could be interpreted two ways: “how does one acquire the information of the greeness?” or “how does one qualitatively experience greeness?”. A physicalist can explain easily how a brain mechanically interprets the world to acquire the information that such and such is green, but this doesn’t explain in-itself why a subject also qualitatively experiences the greeness: the qualia is an over an beyond, unexpected, phenomena when viewed from a physicalist’s metaphysical perspective. So, it is incredibly important not to get hung up on how physicalism accounts for ‘awareness’, because even if there is an aspect that we don’t fully understand yet, it is theoretically possible for one to explain it someday under physicalism: not so much for ‘experience’.

Now, to get to the question you asked for: “can physicalism possibly account for qualia under its reductive physicalist methodological approach without appeal to an obscurity?”. That is essentially the question that expresses the hard problem of consciousness. If one answers not, then it is a hard problem; however, if they answer yes, then it is a soft problem.

Bob

Hello Alkis Piskas,

I appreciate your response!

Glad to hear names like Kastrup coming up in this medium!
It's the first time since about two years ago when I joined TPF ...

I suspect most people on this forum are physicalists or at least not idealists (;

So I would llike to know where does "What are your thoughts" refer to.

Any thoughts you may have pertaining to this subject. Please feel free to share them! I enjoy hearing everyone’s perspectives.

From a few replies I read from other people, they don't seem to have such a "problem". But I have!

Are you referring to the hard problem of consciousness? If so (or honestly even if not), I would love to hear your thoughts!

Bob

Hello Fooloso4,

It is merely a claim. It is not a theoretical or metaphysical issue, but an actual practical one

I am unsure as to what you mean here: could you please elaborate? The hard problem of consciousness is absolutely a metaphysical problem, as it pertains solely to metaphysics and has nothing to do with science.

Your metaphysical assumptions are an impediment.

What assumptions?

This is nonsense. First, Aristotle's physics rests on its own metaphysical assumptions. Second, if you want to hamstring science by requiring it to adhere to the authority of Aristotle, you are too late. If Aristotle were alive today his physics would look quite different.

Science proper tells us how things relate (i.e., it gives a map), it does not do ontology (i.e., tells the territory). I only brought up Aristotle not to import his entire philosophy but rather to give reference to the old, traditional sense of what ‘physics’ means (which is now called science). I am not importing his philosophy by noting that.

So, first you fault science for smuggling in metaphysics and then appeal to metaphysical theories.

Philosophy of mind is metaphysics, which is what we are discussing right now. We are not discussing science (although it can come up as a supplement). Metaphysics is not physics. Yes, science should not be in the business of ontology: so I do think it is a fault if a scientist tries to smuggle in metaphysics into their job.

The fact of the matter is that advances being made in neuroscience do not get tangled up in metaphysical questions of substance monism, dualism, pluralism.

Correct, because science isn’t metaphysics. The hard problem is consciousness is a metaphysical issue for a metaphysical theory called physicalism. Neuroscience (and science in general) is not synonymous with ‘physicalism’: the latter is a metaphysical theory, the former is physics (in the traditional sense of the term: science).

Speculative ontology is not something I take seriously beyond its limited entertainment value.

What counts as “speculative ontology”? To you, is that all of ontology? Are there any aspects that you would consider valid?

Do you consider metaphysics valid at all?

I am arguing that the claim that the universe is experiential in essence is, as I said, not something we experience or know.

Firstly, again, we don’t experience that the world is physical either: we infer it from the data as allegedly the best general account of the territory. So there’s nothing wrong (I would say) with inferring things based off of experience. Also, this is what is done in many areas of science and every day life (e.g., I haven’t seen bacteria, but I infer from my experience that there are germs).

Secondly, I am claiming we can know that the best general account the territory is idealism: it sounds like you don’t think that claim is substantiated. I can go into further detail about it if you would like, but essentially it is a collective argument that idealism explains the data most parsimoniously without losing explanatory power (that is generally offered to physicalism).

Bob

Hello Mww,

So….anything I said find a place in your analytic idealism?

To be honest, I still can’t say confidently that I see how those are the categories of ones mind (in the sense that it produces phenomenal experience). I can get on board with the idea that our minds produce the representations according to space and time (as the pure forms of experience)(but not as completely a priori certain how they are going to behave), but I am not entirely convinced of how exactly minds produce phenomena. So I am not against it, but I would need more information on the proofs for how it works. I read Kant and I didn’t think he really did a good job of arguing for the categories.

Bob

Hello Christoffer,

Firstly, I wanted to thank you for the wonderful post! I can tell you put a lot of thought and effort into it: I respect that and am grateful! With that being said, let me try to respond as adequately as I can.

What they fundamentally are is just a separation of molecular structures.

I agreed with you until this point. This is where metaphysics (I would argue comes in), because you are not merely claiming that science demonstrates that such behave as though there is a separation of molecular structures but that, in fact, they are such (which would entail that they are mind-independent). Idealism partially entails (I would say) scientific anti-realism (or at least quasi-anti-realism): there may really be the molecular structures phenomenally (viz., that we would expect to experience them if we could use a powerful enough measuring tool, which is still consciousness-dependent) but they do not exist noumenally (viz., there isn’t those molecular structures in the thing-in-itself): they are extrinsic representations of mentality.

This is why sometimes you will here Kastrup’s analytic idealism called a form of non-dualism, because he holds that matter still exists, but it is the representation of mentality (and so the latter is actually fundamental). We still expect to see an atom if we could zoom in that far, but it is just another extrinsic representation on our dashboard of experience like the tree outside. So, I think an idealist is committed to at least a weaker interpretation of science, whereas physicalism typically has a stronger realist position that the atom we infer exists mind-independently.

What fundamental thing or substance is it that you mean isn't defined?

My point was that science is not in the business of ontology: it only tells us how things relate better. In other words, it gives a great map, but speaks nothing of the territory. Now, metaphysics is concerned with what exists ontologically (e.g., is everything a part of a physical substance? Mental substance? Both? Neither? Etc.). Physicalists, for example, are typically going to disagree with my “science gives a map not the territory” claim because they metaphysically claim a very strong scientific realism (but this takes nothing away that there claim is metaphysical and not scientific, this is why neuroscientists can do their job without thinking twice about the hard problem of consciousness: it has nothing to do with their job intrinsically).

Every prediction Einstein made has been verified in a number of different ways, so what does that tell about a mind-independent world?

Einstein’s field equations, which pertain to the map of reality, have been empirically verified. On top of that, einstein posited a scientific theory that the best explanation is that there really is a space-time fabric. This is now a claim about the territory, and is going to utterly depend on one’s metaphysical commitments whether they agree with Einstein on that point or not. The fact that the field equations give us more precise, quantified predictions of the behavior of objects phenomenally does not tell us that he is right about his metaphysics (although one can certainly make that metaphysical stand with Einstein if they want).

What is it that you are trying to convey?

Hopefully, the above provides some clarification. The idea of whether there actually is a space-time fabric (which would be mind-independent) is a totally different claim than the field equations (which are laws, not a theory) that have been verified. Yes, one may metaphysically believe that the best explanation is that there is really is a space-time fabric: but that is metaphysics not the physics involved (where the latter is supplementing the former).

We are a limited species in our perception, in order to let us function better for the existence we have.

I completely agree, and I agree with the paragraph before that one (I just wanted to save some space).

Our mind does not represent anything accurately.

I wouldn’t say it is completely inaccurate, I would just say that it isn’t 100% accurate. Under analytic idealism, the information is fairly accurate, but the representations obviously aren’t the real things (as they are ideas).

In reality, however, these objects are not anything in themselves, outside of our interpretation of reality these objects blend together and are just formations of accumulations of matter through entropic processes

Although I think you are coming at it from the angle of physicalism (which is fine), I still agree with you that objects are only nominally distinct (however, I would not include our bodies in that, which I would imagine you might).

I think that arguments that try to distinguish reality from our perception in a "do a tree fall in the woods if no one is observing it" way, is rather an error from how our minds functions

Maybe I am misunderstanding you, but wouldn’t you say that the tree does still fall however the tree and its falling does not exist in the manner that we perceive it? To me it is incorrect to think that the information pertaining to the tree falling is perception-dependent: there is something that is objectively being represented by the tree falling even if it is just swarms of particles or what not: would you agree?

I am failing to see the conceptual loop you refer to: could you elaborate?

It is simply that emergent consequences form when a complex system reaches hyper-complexity

To me, I don’t think you actually explained. Don’t get me wrong, I think you did a fantastic job of elaborating on your view: but I don’t think it solved the problem.

I think you still have the problem of explaining qualitative experience, and so far (although correct me if I am wrong) you seem to have just obscurely noted that it essentially occurs the same as all of evolution (or organic processes): simplicity turns into hyper-complexity over billions if not trillions of years. This doesn’t explain how a brain produces consciousness, and I would add reducing it to physical phenomenon always has an explanatory gap between mechanical awarenss and qualitative experience.

The key here is that instead of looking inwards to try to understand these emergent properties, we need to observe other places where complexity exists and see such behaviors over time.

My problem is that we can know that we can’t reduce mental states to brain states, so this kind of traditional naturalistic reductionism doesn’t work.

If we agree that there aren't any religious and supernatural aspects of reality, then we are part of nature/reality and we function the same as all other organic matter around us.

I agree in the sense that we are a part of one natural world, but not that we are ontologically comprised of matter: matter is the extrinsic representation, on our dashboard, of mentality (under idealism).

In relation to what I wrote above, our consciousness is a hyper-complex ecosystem that is self-aware of being such and this self-awareness is part of the emerging abilities out of this system.

To me, this is just an obscure explanation to try to account for the irreconcilable problem of consciousness for physicalism. Could you elaborate perhaps in more detail about how that process would work?

Bob

Hello Janus,

If it is true that physicalism...can't explain consciousness then it is not a hard problem but an impossible problem. It then follows that it is not a problem at all.

A ‘hard problem’ in philosophy of mind is an irreconcilable problem for the metaphysical theory in question, whereas a ‘soft problem’ is a reconcilable (but not yet solved) problem. A hard problem is still a problem (even though it can’t be solved): it just means that is a much more damaging problem to the metaphysical theory (when compared to soft problems). It means more epistemic cost for holding it.

Or the question then becomes 'is there any alternative to a physical explanation'? and of course the answer would be 'no' sinve the so-called hard problem specifically calls for a causal, IE physical, explanation.

Yes there is an alternative explanation (in fact, there are many): idealist will argue that the brain states are extrinsic representations of the mental states. Substance dualism argues they are two independent things. Physicalists argue that the mental state is an intrinsic (or extrinsic depending on how one wants to view there qualia) representation of brain states. The hard problem is only a hard problem for physicalists, and different views (like idealism and substance dualism) attempt to provide a metaphysical theory that be rid us of the problem.

Bob

Hello Philosophim,

Absolutely no worries my friend! I can relate to the conceptual bubbles between physicalist and idealist metaphysics (regardless of which is right), as I it made no sense to me initially either (since I was thinking of it in light of physicalist metaphysics, and that doesn’t transfer nicely for considering idealism). If you ever think of anything would like to say, then please always feel free to message me! I always enjoy our conversations.

One statement that I think we both agree on in layman's terms is that the perception of a 'thing' is real in itself, and that the perception cannot exist without the perceiver.

Agreed.

Bob

Hello 180 Proof,

I appreciate your elaboration: let me try to understand it better and respond hopefully adequately.

If one only "knows" ideas because there are only ideas

Although I may be misunderstanding you, one, under analytic idealism, does not only know ideas: it is that ontologically reality is fundamentally ideas. Our entire phenomenal experience is not directly ideas but, rather, the representation of them (e.g., I can know of a tree which is a representation of ideas, however the representation is different phenomenally from the ideas which are represented). There is a dashboard and that which the dashboard represents, so to speak. Perhaps you quoted “knows” to denote something in particular?

and if each mind is an idea

Our minds (as alters) are not ideas under analytic idealism: non-minds are. Thusly, there is only a nominal distinction between non-mind objects in phenomenal experience, but there is a concrete distinction between minds.

According to analytic idealism (or at least Kastrup’s version) is that the we are disassociated alters of a universal mind. We are concretely distinct as there is a disassociated barrier “between” (obviously not in a strict spatial sense) us: we are fundamentally made up of the universal mind and are a part of it (as alters).

then all minds are properties of each mind

Are you saying that, under the conditions you set, each mind in relation to the other is really just a property of the other (and thusly really just illusory or what not)?

Although, in light of what I stated previously about those conditions you set, I don’t think I would accept (assuming I am even remotely representing your argument correctly) the consequent simply because I don’t accept the antecedent (as minds are not ideas, etc.); however, I grant that is seems as though the inference (if one accepts the antecedent) holds.

I would like to just clarify that solipsism is not just the view that there is one mind but rather that it is one’s mind. It is not the idea that we are separate, distinct minds (as alters) which are comprised fundamentally of one mind. If that were the case, then solipsism loses literally every argument and conclusion that’s ever been leveraged in its name.

Bob

Hello 180 Proof,

I see. You're advocating immaterialism (which entails solipsism), not (just) panpsychism.

As I already elaborated, it isn’t a form of pansychism (unless you want to clarify that you mean a vague, superficial etymological definition that goes against the literature).

No it does not entail solipsism.

Bob

Hello Philosophim,

I understand this point, but how is this semantically different from just saying that reality is independent of observers? A tree is going to be what it is no matter if we observe it or not

You would have to define what you mean by “observer”: I don’t use that terminology. I would say that the tree exists as a part of ideas in the universal mind and is thusly perception-independent, where “perception” is an ability that only animals (including humans) have: the ability to take in sensations and represent that to itself (as a perception).

Why introduce mind and mentality?

Although I know you disagree, if the hard problem of conscious exists, then it is more parsimonious to posit that the strong correlation between mental states and brain states is that the latter (not the former) is an extrinsic representation of (is produced by) the former. In that case, we still have to account for why there is a objective reality which goes beyond my particular mind and thusly there must be a universal mind (as if it isn’t mind, then we have the hard problem all over again).

Mind and mentality imply an observer, which always leads to the question of, "Then what is the observer?" You have an outside entity which needs explaining. Is it also just a mentality? If a mentality can have a mentality, what does the word even mean at that point?

I didn’t follow this chain of reasoning: perhaps if you explain what you mean by “observer” then it will become clear to me.

If being is reality, then all of reality is being.

I agree, this is just a tautology.

I think I just need a better definition of "mentality" and "mental".

“Mentality” is the sum total of qualitative experience—of activity in the mind (e.g., ideas, thoughts, emotions, feeling, sight, colors, etc.). Although I know you are a physicalist, forget that for a second. Just from introspection, birth the idea of raising your right arm and watch it rise. The idea to raise the right arm was prima facea mental, not physical (although you may ultimately argue it is reducible to something physical). Look at a green pen, that pen is prima facea within your qualitative, conscious experience: it is a greeness (and a pen) which you subjectively experience. You are experiencing as a mind (even in physicalist worldview): everything you experience is within mind. Of course, a physicalist will abstract that that mind is reducible to something non-mind (i.e., a brain).

I agree, but this isn't any different from a physical reality based model. Reality exists independently of what is observed
…
I suppose this really asks us to break down what "physical" means, as its only been implicit. "Physical" essentially means there is an existence independent from our observation.

No. “Physical” within physicalist metaphysics refers to something mind-independent: something quantitative. Again, maybe by “observer” you are meaning “mind”, but then you will have to explicate what you exactly for me to determine if I agree or not. Further, the idea that there is an “existence independent of our observation” is just the definition of an objective world: not physicalism. Analytic idealism makes the exact same claim. I think that the tree exists independent of our perception as well (as I would imagine you would agree with that too). This isn’t unique to physicalism.

As noted, this eliminates infinite meta self-observation

The universal mind does not have meta-consciousness: it doesn’t have self-knowledge.

You exist as a physical being. Despite your lack of observing yourself, you still exist physically in the world.

I think, and correct me if I am wrong, now you may be referring to the colloquial usage of the term “physical” (i.e., something with solidity, shape, size...material): this isn’t what it means in physicalism metaphysics—it is mind-independent. In the colloquial usage of the term (explicated above), I would agree that my experience is of a physical world; however, I am not a physical body but rather, under analytic idealism, my body is an extrinsic representation of my mind. To better understand this, recall the tree in the game analogy: the tree doesn’t exist fundamentally how it gets perceived and so, under analytic idealism, the tree in our perception is just a representation of the tree (which is fundamentally information: ideas in a mind). Likewise, this includes our bodies no differently than the tree: my body, my organs, my brain, etc. is my mind representing itself to itself and it doesn’t, just like the tree, exist fundamentally how it is perceived.

our mind does not float, it is located within your body

This doesn’t apply to my view (I don’t think) because I agree that the body and mind are inextricably linked: because they are two sides of the same coin. So, of course, I would not expect my mind to somehow float outside my body in space. My body is just in extrinsic representation of myself (as a mind) within my perception.

What is real is not perception-independent. What is real is what exists, and does not need to be perceived to exist.

I am a bit confused here. If what is real is what exists independently of what we perceive to exist, then isn’t it perception-independent?

Maybe we are saying the same thing two different ways.

I am not sure I agree with this assessment. Science uses falsification to test hypotheses by trying to break them. When they cannot be broken, what is left is considered scientific fact. This does in fact describe what certain things fundamentally are.

Not quite. Scientific facts are “observations of reality”: there are also laws and theories. Laws and facts are science proper (as far as I am concerned) as it is the attempt to understand how things relate and not in the business of metaphysics (e.g., ontology). Scientific theories can be either (1) metaphysical claims, (2) an explanation in terms of another relation, or (3) both.

The problem with your idea of falsification for the claim that mental states are brain states is that metaphysics can’t work with the same criteria that science uses—and I can demonstrate this with your example:

How could this be falsified? Destroying the brain and still seeing green

This criteria of falsification for mental states being brain states (that you postulated here) applies to a whole range of metaphysical theories: not just physicalism. For example, I can, as analytic idealism, claim that the mental states are producing the brain states and the way by which you can falsify it is to destroy a brain and prove that they are still seeing green (as that would disprove that the link between mental and physical states). Under idealism, just as much as physicalism, it is expected that there is a strong correlation between mental states and brain states. Since we can posit the same falsification criteria that you just posited to try and back physicalism, there must be some other criteria that you are using to determine that physicalism is better than idealism (for they both can be falsified in that exact same manner).

I don’t see how your criteria uniquely applies to the metaphysical theory of physicalism.

It is a common mistake to believe that the hard problem is claiming physicalism cannot link brain states and consciousness together.

I was never disputing that brain states cannot be linked to mental states nor that that is the hard problem of consciousness. Physicalism cannot account for qualitative experience: understanding scientifically how brain states are linked to mental states (and vice-versa) does not entail any metaphysical view whatsoever. Science and physicalism are two entirely different things.

What I am open to is seeing if you can prove that physicalism cannot link the brain and consciousness together.

Again, both idealism and physicalism expect links between the brain the mental events. Proving that there is not such correlation between the two would equally disprove analytic idealism.

The answer a physicalist gives is, "Because our attempts to disprove this claim have all failed". Neuroscience does not assert a theory that we are to buy into. It asserts a theory that we cannot buy out of.

I think you might be conflating metaphysics with physics: neuroscience is science, not physicalism. Metaphysics can only use falsifiability as a negative concept (i.e., that it can disprove some metaphysical theories) and not a positive one (i.e., not being falsified does not prove a metaphysical theory correct).

Bob

Hello creativesoul,

I appreciate your response!

What struck me immediately was that the OP presupposes that the purportedly "'Hard Problem' of Consciousness" refers to an actual problem, particularly for reductive physicalism. I think that that presupposition is based upon an ambiguous inadequate idea... regarding exactly what counts as being a problem. If there is no problem to begin with, then the entire exercise is moot.

I agree that if the hard problem isn’t actually a hard problem then there physicalism would be a much more appealing metaphysical account than I would currently consider it.

Consciousness is emergent. As such, it is - as we know it - the result of millions of years of evolutionary progression

I disagree. I think that physicalism cannot account for consciousness. There is a conceptual gap in reductive physicalism between mechanical awareness and qualitative experience. For example, the physicalist can account for how a brain can acquire knowledge of its environment (e.g., how a brain acquires the knowledge of greeness) but not why one has a subjective experience of it which goes beyond and above the mere brain-knowledge of it (e.g., not how one qualitatively experiences the greeness: there is not reason for that to happen under a physicalist account of the world).

There is no "aha!" point or moment in time that can be pointed at, and then it can be said "here it is!".

The hard problem of consciousness is not where exactly, in evolution, one particular organism (or a group) acquired consciousness but, rather, how one can even account for consciousness (even theoretically) within a physicalist metaphysics.

I would agree with you that if consciousness did arise via evolution, then there wouldn’t be an exact “aha!” moment, just like how there is not exact “aha!” moment of when one species transitions into another.

The reductive physicalist can identify and thoroughly explain how all sorts of 'the parts' commonly associated with conscious subjective experience work physically(See Dennett's Quining Qualia).

I disagree.

It's akin to the physicalist pouring hundreds of thousands of grains of sand onto the floor and pointing at the result, while the opponent says... that's not enough to count as a pile of sand.

That is a mischaracterization of what the hard problem is. It is not what exact species it arose in (or something like that): it is the claim that in principle consciousness is not explanable via the reductive physicalist method.

Bob

Hello Mww,

Thank you for the elaboration!

Bob

Hello schopenhauer1,

So the problem with Kastrup is the problem I have with Schopenhauer's metaphysics. Why is there so much involved in this "illusion" of the representation (physical) from the monistic Mind? I don't know. Why should it be so complex if it is some sort of unity?

I totally understand your concerns here: they perfectly valid. My response would be to note that analytic idealism is meant to explain the empirical data better than other theories, and so it seems empirically that the mind is natural in the sense that it is a lower grade of mind (than our evolved ones) which is following a rigid pattern of excitation. Why is it doing that? I have no clue. Analytic idealism has its fair share of soft problems.

Even if it is unity individuated into an "alter" of disassociated parts, why should these parts be the complexity that it is?

This is because of evolution. Kastrup is a staunch empiricist, and so he explains the develop of alters in terms of standard biological evolution: the lower grades of conscious beings slowly develop more complexity over time in its environment. The only difference (in comparison to physicalism) is that Kastrup views those beings (which are evolving and have evolved biologically) as in essence mind and not matter (i.e., alters and not mind-independent organisms).

Why would it take on this complexity rather than simply being a simple physical aspect?

Although you didn’t explicitly state this, I would like to clarify that the mind-at-large doesn’t choose in the sense of having deliberate, cognitive decisions: it is, according to Kastrup, following a natural process. Kastrup claims that originally the mind-at-large was in harmony until “something” disrupted the process and formulated an alter: the first life (other than that universal mind). How did that happen? I have no clue. Again, analytic idealism has its soft problems for sure.

Let's take the known seriously at least, and take that where it leads us, to perhaps a plurality.

I agree: we should always be open minded to other metaphysical accounts of the world. I just don’t see what need we have to posit substance pluralism. It also comes with hard problems (like interaction) whereas your critique of idealism is a soft problem.

I guess I can try to counter-argue this point and say, time is the main factor of why we think of plurality. If everything started as a unity (singularity), then time makes it seem as if things are not a singularity. So the multiplicity is not a multiplicity in at least one point in time (the singularity). But then why is that point in time the only one we are focusing on? Not sure, maybe someone like @Bob Ross wants to chime in.

Honestly, the principium individuationis aspect of schopenhauerian metaphysics still leaves my mouth sour: I find it utterly obscure how eternity “converts” to temporality. So, unfortunately, I am still thinking through that part and can’t give a good answer yet. However, what I can say is that I think all metaphysical theories run into this problem: fundamentally something has to be eternal (even if it is the infinite regress itself) and thusly there is this problem of explaining how eternity relates to temporality. Perhaps positing time itself as eternal would help resolve the issue: I am not sure yet.

Bob

Hello Fooloso4,

The fact that we cannot now explain consciousness does not mean that there is not a physical explanation.

It is true that an unsolved problem which can be theoretically solved under a metaphysical theory is not to say that it cannot be solved eventually (by that theory); however, those are called soft problems. I am not merely claiming that physicalism hasn’t explained mentality but, rather, that it can’t. That is the hard problem of consciousness.

According to the Standard Model of Particle Physics there are fundamental or elementary particles of matter.

That is a metaphysical claim (specifically a physicalist claim), not science proper (i.e., physics in the tradition, Aristotelian sense). Nowadays, due to the age of enlightenment and modernism, we tend to smuggle metaphysics into ‘science’ without batting an eye.

You are assuming that there is mind, but what do we know of mind that is not based on our mind? You are arguing that our consciousness cannot be explained unless consciousness is fundamental and irreducible

I am arguing qualities, which are expressions of ideas, is reality and not the quantitative maps that we produce to better navigate existence. I am not assuming a mind: if mind cannot be reduced to something mind-independent, then the only other option is that whatever affects (my and our) mind(s) is mind. If mind is irreducible to matter and I were to postulate that reality isn’t fundamentally mind, then I either have to concede substance dualism or the hard problem of consciousness re-emerges full force. In the case of the former, it has the hard problem of interaction which renders it more epistemically costly than simply positing reality as mind.

Based off of our experience you infer that reality is essentially experiential.

Physicalism is us using our experience to infer that reality is nothing like our experience. I am not following what the critique is here. We use experience to try to infer what reality fundamentally is.

Put differently, based off the human mind you infer that there is mind itself.

Again, I am not simply claiming there is a universal mind because we are minds: it is due to a careful consideration of the possible metaphysical theories and finding it the most parismonous. To claim that fundamentally all is mind simply because we are mind is a bad argument for idealism.

The best theories do not misuse Occam's razor. Monism is not better than dualism or pluralism simply because it seems simpler to have one thing rather than many. Unless the theory can explain the whole of reality in terms of this one thing then Occam's razor does not apply.

I apologize: I slightly misspoke. You are right that monism is only more parsimonious if it it accounts for the same data which I failed to mention earlier. However, monism is better because it does account for everything more parsimoniously. For example, substance dualism is indefensible compared to physicalism and idealism. In order to account for the world, it has to overly complicate its explanation (to try and account for the hard problem of interaction). These other theories (which are not monist) are extremely epistemically costly.

is not something we can experience but it is also not something we know. Whether it is something that can be known is questionable.

Are you essentially arguing for ontological agnosticism?

But now it seems that in order for there to be experience there must be us or something like us. If so, then prior in time to such animals the nature of reality could not have been experiential. There was nothing capable of experiencing.

What do you mean by “experience”? If you mean perception, then no: the universal mind does not perceive anything and it has no self-knowledge. The universal mind is not something we can personify.

In order for Kastrup's assertion to qualify for a theory of reality it must explain how animals like us, capable of experiencing, came to be in a universe like ours full of things to be experienced.

Through the natural process of evolution as disassociated alters.

Bob

Hello Philosophim,

Wonderful analysis as usually! As I think that the root of our dispute is the hard problem of consciousness, I am going to briefly elaborate on the other portions of your reply (for now) so as to focus on the hard problem. If, at any point, you feel as though the conversation pertaining thereto is circling around or hitting a brick wall, then we can absolutely just agree to disagree; however, I think as of now that we have much more in common than we both may think and I do think we are both slightly speaking over one another (although not on purpose of course). There is still much to explicate on the topic.

I've heard something similar to this before. Its sort of a "God observer of reality" idea (does not necessitate a God). I've seen this type of thought as the idea that if we could have an observer that could observe and comprehend reality, that would be the true understanding of reality.

I want to clarify that this view is not a form of Berkleian idealism, where “to be is to perceive or to be perceived”. I do not hold that the universal mind is “observing” the world in the sense that we are. Instead, it is a lower grade of consciousness. Our, as humans, evolved consciousness is capable of things which the universal mind is not (e.g., cognitive deliberation, motive deliberation, meta-consciousness, etc.). In other words, I don’t think that the tree that I am seeing exists in the (or close to the) manner that I am perceiving it nor that it exists in that manner independently of perception due to a God-observer. The tree that I phenomenally see is perception-dependent, but the tree-in-itself still exists independently of perception: it is a part of the ideas within the universal mind. Think of it this way: if no one is looking at the tree, then it does not continue to exist in the manner that we perceive it, but it continues to exist in the sense that it is an idea in the universal mind that if we were to go perceive it we would expect to see the same tree (because our ability to perceive will represent the ideas the same manner it did before).

It is kind of like a video game in the sense that the game world (whatever it may be) is a representation of 0s and 1s. If the character moves to view a tree in that game, then they should expect to see the same representation (i.e., the tree), but that tree doesn’t ontologically exist: it is a representation of 0s and 1s. So, although the game analogy isn’t equivalent to our experience, under analytic idealism, the tree we perceive is just a representation within our perception-dashboard and the true essence of the tree is ideas (information).

Isn't reality itself the substance the God observer observes, while the entire rational interpretation of it all can be known about that substance?

This is a fair critique of berkelian idealism (where God is keeping the tree existing by continually perceiving it). The substance of reality under analytic idealism is mentality and the universal mind is fundamentally the one existing brute fact, and we are derivatives thereof (i.e., priority monism).

If I understand what you're going for here, its the idea that the "sun-in-itself" only has identity because of rational beings. Let us imagine a child who looks at a picture and see a sun in a sky. If the child has never been told that there is a sun and a sky, would the child necessarily see the sun and sky as separate? We identify it as separate, and so it is. But without a rational being doing the identifying, would the concept of the sun and the sky exist? Would there really be a separation, or would it just be a blend of atoms?

You actually went a step deeper than I was intending for the original post. I was just attempting to mention that the tree (or sun) doesn’t exist as what we perceive it (just like how the tree in the video game exists truly as 0s and 1s). But you are nevertheless correct that, under analytic idealism, the distinction between non-conscious entities is nominal. So I agree with you there.

Also, I really like the air example! That is really good for explaining that situation.

If I have this right, this still does not eliminate the sun as an existence if an observer did not exist.

This is correct. The idea is that the sun (just like the sun in a video game) doesn’t exist ‘in-itself’ (even though I only think it nominally is distinguishable from other non-conscious things, I like to use ‘in-itself’ still just to keep it simple) as what is perceived by conscious beings that are capable of perception.

This is the vital distinction between analytical (i.e., objective) idealism and subjective idealism and why I am not the latter.

If "being" is reality, why not just call it "being" instead of reality?

You could. I was using them interchangeably.

In which case, why not simplify it to state that reality is what exists regardless of our observations, or our being, while what we know about reality is a combination of our rational identifications that aren't contradicted by what exists?

Because what we observe is also real (i.e., a part of reality). When I imagine a unicorn, that unicorn exists as an imaginary unicorn. My concept of a car exists in my mind and is thusly a part of reality: humans and other conscious beings are a part of reality.

If one simply calls what is real what is perception-independent (or something similar) than (I would say) it fails under more in depth scrutiny. For example, one cannot evaluate the concept of concepts as true (even in the case that it references what a concept is correctly) because it doesn’t correspond to something outside of perceptive-experience (which is what you would be calling ‘reality’).

Ok, now for the hard problem of consciousness. Firstly, I really appreciate you sharing neuroscience with me, but I don’t think that is what is under dispute here. Let’s see if we can find some common ground.

Science (proper) tells us how things relate and not what they fundamentally are. The latter is actually metaphysics. All neuroscience is engaged in understanding how conscious experience relates to brain states and does not in-itself have anything to do with what conscious experience nor brain states fundamentally are (ontologically). Thusly, there are two claims I think you are accepting: (1) that neuroscience proves that brain states are strongly (maybe even incessantly) correlated with mental states and (2) that that suggests that metaphysically the former is the latter. I accept #1, but not #2: so our dispute is not about the science but rather the metaphysical implications of the science. To me, thusly, I agree with many claims you make because they are geared towards #1: such as the neuroscience you quoted.

However, you haven’t provided an argument for why you think that the fact that conscious states are heavily correlated with brain states (which is a scientific fact) suggests or implies that the latter is reducible to the former. Why do you think that?

Another key distinction I think needs to be made to provide clarity is that there is a difference between explaining mechanical awareness and qualitative experience. The former is how a mechanical (or otherwise consciousness-independent) organism can acquire information about its environment, whereas the latter is the qualitative experience that a subject has. Some of the claims you are making are really not a hard problem for physicalism at all (as you rightly point out) but this is because you are providing explanations of the former and not the latter. The hard problem pertains to how a consciousness-independent organism produces the latter, not how it has the former.

For example, when you say that we see the color green because of the light wavelengths and its interpretation by the brain to be green, that explains how the brain acquired knowledge of the greeness of the object (in the sense that it is reflected those wavelengths) and not why you have a qualitative experience of greeness. According to that account, we have not reason to expect that a qualitative experience of greeness would be produced: that is what you would have to explain to solve the hard problem.

Now, you could argue that we see strong correlations between the brain acquiring the knowledge of the greeness and the subject qualitatively experiencing the greeness to claim an inference that the latter is really reducible to the former, but, right now, I am just trying to explicate that the brain acquiring the knowledge of a color is distinct from a subject qualitatively experiencing that color; and, inherently, the account that you gave (i.e., the wavelengths being interpreted by the brain) only implies that the brain knows it is green, but not why would or how the brain generate an extra qualitative experience of it. This is a subtle but incredibly important distinction to make when discussing the hard problem: otherwise we begin to talk passed each other.

Further, I would anticipate that your response (although correct me if I am wrong) is that the strong correlations (e.g., the fact that every time the brain state has acquired the knowledge of the greeness we also subjectively experience the greeness) suggests that the mental state is truly the brain state (or states): this is where are dispute really lies.

I think that the only way one can account for consciousness in that manner is by obscurely noting it as produced by the brain (in light of strong correlations between the two) but never actually being able to account for its productions (i.e., how it actually happens). The reason I would say this is impossible to account for in physicalism (as opposed to being a soft problem) is because fundamentally the physicalist can only try to explain it by reduction to some brain state (or states) of which they are always only (at best) strong correlations between the two: the brain states themselves can never, due to them being brain states, account for how the qualitative is being produced by the quantitative. For example, if a person claims that this mental state X is strongly correlated to this brain state Y, there is still the valid conceptual question of “how did Y produce X”? The physicalist then has to explain this either (1) by another appeal to the same relationship (i.e., “because Y is correlated with Z”) of which the same conceptual question applies (i.e., “how did Z and Y produce X?”) or (2) by positing that “because strong correlation entails or implies causation” of which it equally applies, and is thusly not unique to physicalism, to an idealistic account of it (i.e., an idealist can accept that claim and hold that the brain states are extrinsic representations—or ‘caused’--by the mental states).

I am going to stop there to allow you to respond.

I look forward to hearing from you,
Bob

Hello Mww,

I appreciate your response!

I am familiar with what Kant said were the categories, but I have never understood the proof for it. I don't see how those categories are function that produce objects as opposed to being meaning an aspect of our cognition (in the modern sense of the word). Could you elaborate on why one should believe that these categories are what our minds use as functions to produce phenomenal experience?

Bob

Under analytical idealism, the entirety of reality is fundamentally mind and is thusly conscious: not just animals. — Bob Ross

Analytical Idealism is not a form of pansychism. Furthermore, could you please elaborate on why you think such? — Bob Ross

Explain why you have not just contradicted yourself, Bob. Thanks.

Absolutely: let me explain. Pansychism, in the literature, although the word etymologically means "all" + "soul", is reserved prominently for a family of metaphysical views which claim that matter is fundamental but that matter is conscious, whereas analytic idealism is the view that mind (i.e., consciousness) is fundamental: the former is the claim that everything has consciousness and the latter is that everything is in consciousness--which is a vital distinction. That is why I said it is not a form of pansychism.

I don't remember the exact context of the first quote of me from you, but when I said everything "is fundamentally mind and is thusly conscious", I was referring to the idea that everything is in a mind-at-large and not that everything has consciousness.

The reason this distinction is vital (i.e., between having vs. being in consciousness) is because pansychism has two issues that analytical idealism does not: the hard problem of consciousness (viz., how did those tiny bits or entities of matter become conscious?) and the compositional problem (viz., how can tiny conscious bits or entities of matter compose a much large and more complex subject like ourselves?). Ultimately I think that these problems render pansychism epistemically costly to hold (and that is why I am not a panpsychist).

If by pansychism, you were just referring to its etymological meaning (i.e., all + soul), then technically this would be a form of pansychism (so I apologize if I misunderstood you)--but I have been and would like to keep to the formal, traditional usages of the terms to reduce confusion.

With that being said, please let me know if you think I am still contradicting myself and I would love to hear that fallacies you think analytic idealism is committing.

Bob

I appreciate your response!

I don't have much substantive to offer here, but I wanted to compliment you on a well written and clear OP. You obviously put a lot of thought and effort into it.

Thank you! I really appreciate that. I am still thinking over my metaphysics and so I am interested to hear everyone's opinions on it.

Bob

Hello Wayfarer,

I appreciate your response!

but I adopt the Kantian principle of there being innate categories and functionalities of the mind which are not simply given but which the mind brings to experience.

Very interesting: what would those categories be exactly?

Bob

Hello 180 Proof,

Yes, it seems to me that 'panpsychist' arguments (e.g. analytical idealism) consist of appeal to ignorance / incredulity, hasty generalization and compositional fallacies.

Analytical Idealism is not a form of pansychism. Furthermore, could you please elaborate on why you think such?

Bob

Hello Fooloso4,

Does science suggest that there was mind experiencing itself experiencing?

No; and neither does analytical idealism. The universal mind is not something we can personify: the cognition, deliberation, and meta-consciousness that we (as humans) have are a product of evolution and are not something the universal mind has.

The universal mind is not experiencing itself directly like we experience the world but, arguably under Kastrup’s view, it is experiencing itself via us (as we are alters of that mind).

Or that there is something experienced that is not experience? That there is a difference between experience and what is experienced?

Science only tells us how things behave, not what they fundamentally are.

There is a logical leap from our being experiential to the universe being experiential. We have no experience of the experience of the universe or of it being experiential. It seems to be a form of anthropomorphism. The ancient assumption of like to like. Microcosm and macrocosm.

This would be true if my argument was that the universe is mind simply because we are mind: it is not. The argument is that we cannot account for consciousness by the reductive physicalist method and we can explain the exact same data with idealism, so that is our best metaphysical theory. I am not simply assuming the world out there is mind because I am mind: that is a bad argument.

This is still within the world of human experience.

What do you mean? My point is that we use reason to infer, based off of experience, things which are not a part of our experience (and this is perfectly valid).

It is the best because the best theory must be reductive?

Analytical idealism is not the best theory simply because it is a reductive methodololgical approach; however, yes, reductionism is the best means of explanation (regardless of whether one is a physicalist or idealist): “explanations” are fundamentally the reduction of a phenomenon (an effect) to other effects (or potential abstractions). If you don’t agree with that methodological approach, then you can’t be a physicalist either.

That there must be a single something that is fundamental?

There is nothing in reality that necessitates substance monism; however, the best theories are the one’s that use occam’s razor: otherwise, theories explode into triviality.

We have no experience of something fundamental.

I am not a full blown empiricist: it sounds like you might be. I think we can know things without directly experiencing them.

Bob

Hello Philosophim,

So if I understand this correctly, reality is the total abstraction of an observer

No. The concept of “reality” is the sum total of existence (i.e., of being), just like how “substance” is the concept of a type of being. I am not saying that something is real simply by being abstracted by a human being (or something like that). Abstracts are prominently associated with our ability to reason, which has nothing directly to do with what exists.

Isn't this just solipsism?

Good question: no. Solipsism is the idea that everything is in my mind, whereas analytical idealism is the idea that both our minds are in a universal mind.

Because this seems to run into the problem of multiple beings each having a separate, and often times conflicting representation of reality.

There is no doubt that we have different experiences because we are different minds (i.e., different disassociated alters), but that doesn’t mean we aren’t a part of the same mind-at-large fundamentally.

If the observer is doing the abstracting, what is the observer? Is that also an abstraction of itself? In which case, what is it?

I didn’t quite follow this part: could you elaborate? Reality isn’t an abstraction: our understanding of reality by application of reason (i.e., our concepts of reality) are abstractions.

For example, if I abstract that I can fly, but fall and shatter half of my body, while I am in the hospital I have to find an explanation for why my abstraction failed.

This isn’t unique to a solipsist view (although analytic idealism is not solipsism regardless): our abstractions is our cognizing of what exists and it isn’t necessarily accurate all the time. Truth, I would say, is a relationship between thinking (cognizing) and being (reality) whereof something is true if our concept corresponds to what it is referencing in reality. This can include concepts referencing other concepts as well.

They cannot understand what it is like to experience a green pen from your point of view.
…
This is where we run into the hard problem. How do we objectively handle personal qualitative experience when it is impossible to know if we can replicate it on ourselves? Is what I call green your qualitative green when you see the waves that represent green? So far this seems impossible.

They cannot explain why anyone experiences the color green. A strong correlation between a brain function and the qualitative experience of greeness does not entail that the latter was produced by the former.

I think, and correct me if I am wrong, what you refer to by “the hard problem of consciousness” is how we account for the uniqueness of each persons experience: but I would say it is a much deeper problem than that. Just because they can stimulate something in brain that affects the conscious experiencer does not entail nor is proof that consciousness is reducible to the brain.

No, we know you're going to see green when a green wavelength hits your eyes and the proper signals go to your brain.

Again, this is just to acknowledge that conscious states are correlated with brain states: this does not prove that conscious states are brain states.

The fact that everything you experience is from your brain is not questioned in neuroscience at this point, only philosophy.

I agree with you on this, because I think most neuroscientists are physicalists and they are not acquainted with nor interested in the philosophical side of it, and really the only thing they are proving is a strong correlation between consciousness and brain states—not that the brain produces consciousness.

What is it like to be a fire for example?

Did you mean “to be on fire”? There is nothing to be like a fire: it isn’t a subject. Or are you saying it is a subject?

Just because we don't understand all the mechanics to the exact degree in a system does not invalidate the overlaying mechanics that we do understand about that system.

I absolutely agree, but a system not accounting for something it can theoretically account for is a soft problem, whereas a hard problem is in theory unprovable from the system. I think that the latter is the case with consciousness with respect to physicalism. Just to clarify, I am not claiming that we simply can’t explain it now, I am saying the reductive physicalist method fails in theory to be able to explain it.

qualitative experiences being linked to the physical brain

Again, them being linked is not under dispute: it is whether the brain is producing the qualitative experience and, thusly, whether reductive physicalism can account for it under its methodological approach. I agree that brain states are heavily correlated with conscious states; however, this is accounted for in analytic idealism by postulating that the brain state is an extrinsic representation of mental states (including the aspects of consciousness that bubble up to the ego: to our immediate awareness).

it is that a physicalist method cannot account for what it is like to be the thing experiencing that qualitative experience, because it is purely in the realm of the subject having the experience

I agree here: I am claiming that physicalism cannot account for what it is like to be a subject.

We cannot objectively know through the mechanics of stimulating the brain what it is like to have the experience of that brain, as we can never be that other brain.

This is also true for our own brain + mental states (if we were to experiment on them): we would never come closer, under physicalism, to proving mental states are derived from brain states.

Check out brain surgeries, or the case of the color blind painter who had brain damage that removed his ability to ever see or imagine color again

I don’t deny that we can manipulate conscious states by affecting brain states, this is also expected under analytic idealism.

Bob

Hello Manuel,

I appreciate your response!

First of all, very few people actually believe in "materialism" meaning, that very few people think that all we are bits of matter that can be reduced to tiny particles and that emotions are just chemicals.

That is why I distinguish “physicalism” from “materialism”: the former is more generally the notion that everything is ultimately reducible to something mind-independent (i.e., a physical substance) whereas the latter is a more archaic view that everything is made up of smaller, elementary particles. Either way, both have the hard problem of consciousness.

But mental properties couldn't be explained by these mechanical properties, ergo dualism.

I found that substance dualism, likewise, fails to explain reality as well as analytical idealism because of the hard problem of interaction.

Lastly, we know so little about personal identity and how it actually works, that it just makes no sense to say objects in the universe are "disassociated complexes" of a universal mind

Firstly, objects in general, under analytical idealism, are not disassociated complexes: only other conscious beings are. The cup I am holding exists only nominally distinctly from the chair I am sitting on: they both do not have distinct boundaries like disassociated minds.

Secondly, I agree with you that DID is still a very newly researched psychological disorder, and that is why Kastrup notes it as a working hypothesis to solve to soft problem of decomposition.

Bob

One little grain of sand, or one little atom is conscious sounds odd.

I would like to clarify that analytic idealism is not a form of pansychism: I do not hold that reality is fundamentally matter that has consciousness but rather that everything is in consciousness (i.e., one universal mind). Pansychism and the like still have the exact same hard problem of consciousness, as there is not possible explanation for how the little grain of sand or atom is became conscious itself.

Sounds like neo-Schopenhauerian metaphysics.

It absolutely is (;

Bob

Hello Chistoffer,

I appreciate your response!

Isn't it the modern scientific paradigm that everything is relative to something else?

I believe that is essentially the case when it comes down the micro-micro level (i.e., quantum mechanics). However, the idea that entities behave or relate to each other relatively to observation (or what have you) does not say anything about what they fundamentally are nor what substance they are of.

Even the core of spacetime functions on relative terms.

The idea that there is an actual space-time fabric is predicated on the physicalist metaphysical notion that there is a mind-independent world (and no wonder Einstein, being a realist, tried to explain his field equations within that metaphysical schema). Science proper in relation to spacetime is not that there actually is such but rather that space and time behave differently (in accordance with Einstein’s field equations) than we originally intuited. For a realist though, they will probably be committed (metaphysically) to there actually being a space-time fabric.

So can someone even claim that something is something in itself?

There has to be at least one thing-in-itself of which you-as-yourself are representing in your conscious experience, unless you would like to argue that somehow you are both the thing-in-itself and the you-as-yourself (i.e. solipsism).

Everything in the universe has some connection to each other, energy transfers, everything is entropic

Everthing in phenonimal experience is connected to each other: but what is your mind fundamentally representing to you (as that is the thing in itself or things in themselves)?

There are no notions that something that is just what it is, separate from everything else.

The idea is to question what exists sans your particular experience. If you died, how do things exist in-themselves? Do they at all? That is the question. Perhaps, for you, the thing-in-itself is a giant blur of everything, but that is still a thing-in-itself.

My position is that our consciousness emerged from a simple evolutionary origin of adaptability.

Very interesting. Your view, as far as I understand it, still has then the hard problem of consciousness: how does that emergence actually happen? How is it even possible to account for it under such a reductive method? I don’t think you can.

But in essence I think that the notion in science that everything relates to everything else is fundamental for the universe, maybe even beyond, and that specific definitions of objects core definition of being are made-up by us to be able to communicate better about reality.

Correct me if I am wrong, but it sounds like you may be an existence monist? Even if that is the case, then the entire universe (reality) would be the thing-in-itself. There’s always at least one thing-in-itself as something has to be posited as fundamental and eternal, even in the case of an infinite regression.

I then think that our mind, consciousness and cognition needs to be viewed as an emergent phenomena based on an analysis of its original evolutionary function and how our advanced form of experience and self-awareness are emergent factors out of these fundamental evolutionary functions

I don’t think it is possible to account for consciousness in this manner because no matter how well we uncover how consciousness relates to bodily functions it fundamentally does not explain consciousness itself.

Bob

Hello Fooloso4,

I appreciate your response!

If the nature of reality is essentially experiential does this mean that prior to experiential animals there was no reality

Under analytical idealism, the entirety of reality is fundamentally mind and is thusly conscious: not just animals. Animals are conscious beings that are higher evolved, dissociated alters, of the universal mind (or mind-at-large). So, to answer your question, there was a reality before any animals (as science suggests).

Given our limited experience how can we move beyond our experience to something prior to it?

I am not sure I am completely following, but we can infer that the most reasonable explanation for the data of experience is that there was a world before we opened our own eyes. It is very epistemically costly to be a solipsist if that is what you are referring to.

What do we know of subjectivity beyond the personal and interpersonal?

A lot. I can reasonably infer that I was born and before that my mother and father existed (for example). It would be special pleading for me to think that everyone else is a philosophical zombie but yet I am somehow special (even though I can be categorized as just like them and I have conscious experience).

Is it? In what way is this claim an explanation? Does it merely assert the very thing it is to explain?

It is the best metaphysical theory I have heard (so far) for what reality fundamentally is. It isn’t supposed to explain the hard problem because there isn’t one from an idealistic perspective, it posits that we should reduce everything fundamentally to mind and claims that we can do so while adequately fitting the data of experience.

Bob