Nor I, but that’s why I said that the argument is kind of a red herring - if you were looking for purpose in the abstract, what would you be looking for? But I’m interested in the idea that the beginning of life is also the most basic form of intentional (or purposive) behaviour - not *consciously* intentional, of course, but different to what is found in the inorganic realm. (The gap between them being what Terrence Deacon attempts to straddle in Incomplete Nature.) — Wayfarer

I agree. And the big question for a reductionist or emergentist model is how to explain the properties that are associated with life (and consciousness) in purely physical term.

'Weak' Emergence works very well, say, in explaining how a collection of particles can behave as a liquid or a solid. In a sense, you can say that 'liquidity' and 'solidity' are just conventional/provisional properties that are useful to us to explain things. After all, if they are completely understandable in terms of properties of the parts that constitute the solid and liquid objects, they can be rightly understood as useful abstractions that simplify the descriptions of what is going on. Even inanimate macroscopic objects themselves can be thought as 'weakly emergent' features from the microscopi world. I don't think it is particularly controversial to say that, ultimately, even the inanimate macroscopic objects themselves are useful abstractions.

The above is of course 'reductionism' and it works quite well outside life and consciousness.

The problem with life is, however, that even, say, an unicellular organism is difficult to understand as merely an emergent 'feature' of its constituents and its environment. Also, as you say, there seem to be a basic intentionality going on and yes intentionality is difficult to explain in weakly emergentist/reductionist terms. So, if physical reality is merely a 'mechanism', 'reductionistic' etc how can we explain life with all its properteis? Personally, I never encountered a satisfying explanation. So, perhaps, reductionism is false*.

Regarding the 'strong anthropic principle', I mentioned it because, after all, it's both a tautology and a profound insight IMO. Of course, physical laws must be compatible with life and consciousness - after all, living and conscious beings exist. But, again, this 'tautology' is, in fact, quite insightful. First of all, it inspires us to seek an explanation of how life and consciousness are possible in this physical universe. Secondly, it also highlights that, given what we know about physics, life is very unlikely.

Proponents of the 'multiverse' try to explain this by alluding that there might be a large (infinite?) number of (inaccessible) worlds and we happen to be in one that allows the existence of life (and consciousness BTW). There are, I admit, good scientific reasons to support that idea. But, philosophically, I find it very unpersuasive.
IIRC others also try to explain the problem by simply saying that even unlikely events 'just happen', which I guess is true. But, again, is the most satisfying explanation? I guess that if I roll 100 times a 6-sides dice and I obtain always '6' as a result, it is of course a possible result even if the dice is fair. But, perhaps, a more convincing explanation is that the dice is not fair and there is a, so to speak, 'hidden reason' to explain that very unlikely result.

A more convincing explanation might be that we know only in part our physical world and, therefore, the 'unlikeliness' is merely apparent, due to observation bias (like, say, that we are more likely to observe brighter galaxies and, therefore, we might understimate the number of less bright galaxies). So, maybe, if we study more in depth the 'arising of life' won't be as 'unlikely' as it seems. But this might imply that, indeed, a more deep study of our physical universe will eventually reveal that the reductionist/weakly emergentist paradigm is simply wrong.

It is understandable why some try to explain away the intentionality, 'holism' etc which seem to be present in life as illusions (i.e. living beings behave 'as if' they have those properties...). It is perhaps the only consistent way to account for these properties. Some, instead, try to explain these things in a 'strong emergent' model, which seems to be unintelligible. So IMO these difficulties point to the possibility that, indeed, the reductionist/emergentist models are wrong and we need something else.

1) boundless made no mention of life forms. An observing entity is indeed implied, but I personally don't consider 'observing entities' to be confined to life forms. — noAxioms

No worries about the delay! Anyway, I wanted to point out that I did in my replies use the word 'observer' in different ways and it certainly can create confusion.

Standard QM by itself is silent, I believe, on what is an 'observer'.

Of course, what is an observer is a matter of interpretations. So, in the future I'll try to qualify the word 'observer' with adjectivies when I'll make interpretation-dependent claims. Like, say, 'sentient observer' or 'conscious observer' for interpretations that need that specifications. With RQM, where every physical object can be an observer it's more difficult. Perhaps 'physical observer' - it is a bit awkward but I think in some way one must distinguish these views from standard QM which is simply silent on what an observer might be.

I'll respond to the rest in the next few days.

Good OP! I'll make some brief comments on your post.

I more or less agree with most of it. I would even say that 'purpose' is the hallmark of living beings. Also, I would add that living beings exhibit a 'holistic' character that isn't found elsewhere, i.e. they seem to be truly 'distinct entities' that aren't 'reducible' or even 'emergent' from their environment. So, other than 'having an end' they seem to be truly 'beings' in a fuller sense than inanimate objects are. And I don't believe that any of these things contradict the theory of evolution.
How can 'irreducible wholes' and 'purpose' arise from something purposeless is clearly a problem. In fact, as I said elsewhere, I think that this perhaps is an indication that the 'mental' is perhaps a fundamental aspect of reality in some way. Celarly, it is a problem for a reductionistic and mechanicist view of physical reality.

Regarding physics, I would not be so sure. I don't think there is sufficient evidence to say that there are 'purposes' outside living beings. And, in fact, even if one takes very seriously the 'observer' role - like epistemic interpretations of QM do - I believe that it at most poses a limit on 'what is knowable' rather than giving insights on how 'physical reality really is'. Perhaps one might argue that, along the lines of Anthropic principle, that the fact that physical constants have such values as to be consistent with life is something to be explained and taken seriously. I, for one, don't think that the 'multiverse' is a good response to this problem: I generally don't like explanations that assume the existence of a lot of 'unobservable worlds' in order to explain features of this world. Again, perhaps, life and 'consciousness' might be at least an essential latent potentiality in the inanimate. Certainly, even in this case the physical universe doesn't seem to be like a 'mechanism'.

Very sad news. My condolences to her family and all her loved ones.

Rest in peace, Vera!

But for the committed materialist, the shortcomings that you and I might see are not at all obvious. — Wayfarer

Yes, I agree.

In any case, I think the very best arguments against Armstrong's form of materialism is the fact that propositional content can be encoded in an endless variety of languages, symbolic forms, and material media. The same proposition can be written out in different languages, encoded as binary or morse code, carved in stone or written on paper - and yet still retain the same meaning. So it's not feasible to say that the content of an idea must be identical to a particular state of physical matter, such as a brain state, as the meaning and the form it takes can so easily be separated. — Wayfarer

Right! Also, that material data doesn't intrinsically have meaning. And that if one assumes that, in fact, forms are really a property of the material, then, the material has some intrinsic intelligible content, which would imply that it's not material in the sense that one might want it to be.

I see Armstrong's style of materialism as a direct descendant of scholastic philosophy, but with science assigned the role formerly attributed to God, and scientific laws equivalent to the Aristotelian universals. — Wayfarer

Yep! But note that scientific laws, in fact, can be considered universals, in fact. But if they are taken to be real, then, one must IMO abandon reductionism.

For instance, consider the conservation of the total momentum of a two-particle system in newtonian mechanics. If it is considered something real, it is clearly a property of the whole system. You can't derive it from the properties of the parts. The variation of the momentum of each particle is 'constrained' by this law that is about the whole system. I am not sure how a reductionist picture of the material world can accomodate this.
For a reductionist it is much more convenient to adopt a nominalist view of the law, that is a denial that is in some sense real but just an useful construct.

But the point is that the scientific study of brains doesn't care about fundamental metaphysics. We just study and describe patterns of what we observe in reality regardless of some fundamental metaphysical description. — Apustimelogist

Ok. Methodological naturalism doens't imply a metaphysical commitment of any kind. But if one is agnostic about metaphysics, let's be agnostic.

The point is that if one is able to explain our intelligibility of the world in terms of brains, it is open to anyone regardless of their metaphysical preference. Providing one can make a good argument that brains are sufficient to explain intelligibility, then it seems less compelling imo to just assert that any specific metaphysical picture precludes intelligibility unless one can give some concrete argument other than incredulity. — Apustimelogist

We prabably are talking past each other about intelligibility because we have different criteria to judge something as 'intelligible'. For me, intelligibility means that our concepts can, in principle, mirror perfectly some properties of the external world as in classical metaphysics.
If one doesn't assume that there is a correspondence between the structure of our thoughts and the structure of material reality, then, we can't really understand material reality. We might be able to predict, to make good models but we can't have real understanding in my opinion.
If there is correspondence, however, this would mean, for me, that the material is not so opposed to the 'mental' as it is commonly assumed to be. Neither that the mental can be derived from something that is purely non-mental. Unless a credible explanation can be given about the emergence of intentionality, consciousness, laes of intellect/reason from what is devoid of these things is given, I see no reason to think that these things are not fundamental.

This is meaningless imo. To say something is incorrect means that we get things wrong about it and make predictions that do not come true. But to my understanding of these viewpoints, one could in principle exhaust the correct in-principle-observable facts and still not penetrate the noumena. But then if no one can access it, then in what sense do these things actually have any influence on events in the universe? In what sense is there anything at all to learn about them? — Apustimelogist

You seem to have a pragmatic approach to truth. I respect that. Just a curiosity, though: do you think that, say, the ancient geocentrists did have 'knowledge' of the world as they were able to make correct predictions?

Regarding the noumena... well, it is a quite complex issue. I see it more as an antinomy of reason, if you like. That is, we can't go 'out' of our perspective or, at least, be sure that our knowledge is independent from it.
These days, I am more drawn to something like hylomorphism or platonism however. That is, forms are real and are really in some way instantiated in the material world. This to me implies that the material world has, ironically, a mental aspect that allows us to be able to understand via conceptual knowledge. So, I do think that our conceptual reasoning gives us a real understanding of the material world... because in a sense the material world is not so different from the mental.

So what form of idealism is being promoted? What does this form of idealism have to say about cosmology (14 billion year old universe, 5 billion year old solar system and all the time before advanced or organized minds existed?) Or even the process of evolution. I just can't see how the notion that everything is just minds and mental contents, survives the modern scientific view of the world we live in.? — prothero

The problem with 'idealism' is that there are different forms of it and under that names are included views that are incompatible with each others.

If we restrict to the 'strict' ontological idealism that I talked about before - that is everything is either 'minds' or 'mental contents' - then, of course, you have to posit something additional to what we observe 'in this world'. Berkeley, for instance, would probably respond that God's creative and sustaining activities are what guarantee the validity of scientific theories, at least from a phenomenological and practical level.

Other ontological idealists that are not so strict and affirm the existence of the material/physical world nevertheless accept the idea that the 'mental' is more independent from the 'material'. So, of course, something mental must have existed before the coming into being of life and mind as we know it.

But, anway, even if something like Democritus' atomism - i.e. reductionist materialisms - were true then scientific theories like evolution would be only provisionally true. After all, if at the ultimate level there are only the fundamental consitituents of matter and everything else - like cells, DNA, mountains, animals, humans etc - are reducible to those consituents, it seems evident to me that a theory like evolution would not be ultimately true, but only pragmatically/transactionally true. Why? Because under such reductionist models, there are, ultimately, no DNA, cells, humans, animals etc. So you can't take the theory of biological evolution as a literal picture of 'reality as it is'. You can still speak about its practical usefulness, its ability to make predictions and so on but you have to renounce to treat it as a correct depiction of 'what really happens'.
So, I guess that, ironically, the most strict forms of materialism - i.e. reductionist materialisms - actually have to treat these things in a similar way as they are treated by strict ontological idealism.

I agree with you, of course, but I've had some discussions with an advocate of Armstrong's materialist theory of mind, and he's pretty formidable. I don't think his style of materialism is much favoured any more, but it's instructive how far it can be taken. — Wayfarer

Ok. Yes, I would prefer that kind of materialism rather than others. But IMO such a materialism is hard to differentiate to either a panpsychism of sorts or something equal or close to hylomorphism.

So are you suggesting that what science understands about brains could never be true under idealism? How would you explain what we observe about brains and human cognition / behavior in that case? — Apustimelogist

Well, in some ontological forms idealism, in a sense, no. If the whole reality is exclusively 'minds' + 'mental contents' then there is no 'brain' as a 'material object' outside minds. In another sense, however, yes: the models are still good for predictions and for practical usefulness.

But not even all ontological idealists deny the existence of something non-mental.

Regarding the epistemic idealists, I would say that the answer would be that the scientific models are correct at the level of phenomena, not at the level of the things-in-themselves.

But even in a panpsychist universe, the brain would have exactly the same role and would completely explain intelligibility in either a materialist or a panpsychist universe. It seems that once you start talking about our understanding of brains, the fundamental metaphysics is irrelevant to intelligibility. The intellect and the material world have analogous structures because a brain is a model of structure that exists in the material world. — Apustimelogist

Ok, but the panpsychist postis that the 'mental' is a fundamental aspect of reality. So it's no surprise to me that the 'material' and the 'mental' share some properties if panpsychism (in some form) were true.

Rather, the materialist asserts that the 'material' is fundamental and everything else is derived from the material. But if one accepts intelligibility is something essential to the 'material' then I believe that it is reasonable to ask how is that possible. As I said in my posts I have my reservations in asserting that what makes the world intelligible ('forms', 'laws'...) is 'material' in any acceptable sense of the word 'material'.

Of course, one can adopt 'nominalism'. The price is, however, that nominalism makes the world inaccessible to conceptual knowledge. And I am not sure that materialism actually is compatible with nominalism. After all, materialist generally acknowledge that there are intelligible structures, laws etc in reality.

The materialist would say that an understanding of how brainsw work fills this gap. — Apustimelogist

The brain is also a material object. So saying that the brain works in a certain way doesn't explain why the material world has such a structure. In fact, even the very attempt to understand 'how the brain works' assumes intelligibility of the material world or the brain in this specific case.

So, I don't think that understanding how the brain works gives an explanation here. It might however give us a confirmation that 'everything fits' once the intelligibility is however assumed.

Materialist philosophy of mind would probably account for that in terms of the well-adapted brain's ability to anticipate and model the environment. Impressive indeed, he will say, but ultimately just neurochemistry. D M Armstrong, who was Professor of the department where I studied philosophy, was a firm advocate for universals, which he identified with scientific laws. But his major book was Materialist Philosophy of Mind, which is firmly based on the identity of mental contents and neural structures. There are universals—but they are nothing over and apart from the physical form they take. They are repeatable properties instantiated in space and time. You and I wouldn’t accept that, but it’s a hard argument to refute. — Wayfarer

Interesting. But note that in his model, the material world has a structure analogous to the intellect. Is this ok for a materialist? I guess that at a certain point it also depends on how much one goes with the search for explanations, so to speak. It is rather odd for me that, say, a purely 'material' world would 'follow' laws. Where do these 'laws' come from? Are they 'material'? It doesn't seem so. In fact, laws do not seem to satisfy the criteria to be considered 'material'. They are not causal. They are not detectable. And so on.

And, also, if 'forms' and 'laws' are fundamental aspects of the material world then reductionism is false. After all, forms and laws seem properties of wholes rather than the 'smallest' objects.

Well, what would any of us be talking about absent intelligibility? — SophistiCat

I believe that some would say that even if the world isn't intelligible it would still make sense to 'talk about' it and builing models about it if they were useful.

But, again, I think that such a denial of intelligibility is incompatible with 'materialism' in any acceptable sense of the term. It's mostly found in skpetical philosophies like Pyrrhonism or even Kantianism (at least in reference to the 'things-in-themselves') and so on.

As for what accounts for the intelligibility of the world, I am not convinced that there are substantive disagreements between, say, realists and nominalists - disagreements that are more than just different ways of speaking / ways of seeing. — SophistiCat

I believe, instead, that the difference is much more than that. Realists assert that 'forms' are not just constructs of our minds which have at best practical utility but are in some ways independent from us. If it is so, then, it means that even the 'material' world has a structure that is analogous to the structure of our intellect, which is able to 'grasp' these forms. Nominalists deny this and assert that the forms are just convenient constructs that are useful to us. The problem is IMO that nominalism isn't able to explain why they are useful. In fact, if nominalism were true, any conceptual model simply can't grasp the structure of the material world, which remains forever inaccessible. But nominalism, in fact, seems to ironically lead us to a denial even of materialism, due to the fact that it denies intelligibility.
If, however, some kind of realism is affirmed, then, as I said before it seems that the material world has a structure analogous to the one of the intellect. Is this acceptable under a materialist ontology? I am not sure. At least, if the materialist ontology is reductionistic.

Are you saying that materialists deny this? Can you point to anyone, at any time in history, who held this position? — SophistiCat

Actually, I'm not sure that it is even possible to a materialist to abandon the idea of intelligibility. Certainly, it has been downplayed. So, I am probably wrong here.

Well, probably Democritus who held that the most fundamental things were atoms and the void. Everything else was reducible to those (either via emergence or supervenience). I'm not sure, however, how he explained the interactions of the atoms. Did the atoms follow some 'laws'? If they did, how these laws can be explained in terms of the model he proposed?
Hume denied causation. Yes, he was probably more of a skeptic rather than a materialist but his influence is certainly immense.
More recently, some physicists accept the idea of 'superdeterminism' which, more or less says that while quantum mechanics makes wrong predictions, the universe behaves 'as if' QM makes correct predictions.

Anyway, my point was that materialism doesn't have IMO convincing ways to explain intelligibility, at least if it is based on a reductionist paradigm. After all, intelligibility implies that our intellect grasps some actual property of the material world. Since, however, what is grasped by the intellect are 'forms'/'concepts', this would imply that 'forms' are, indeed, an essential aspect of the material reality. I am not sure how this is consistent with a purely materialistic outlook.

So, perhaps I was wrong in my claim you quoted but, nevertheless, I think that my point stands.

Well, it's not that simple.

Even in the most strict forms of ontological idealism, the scenario you have to imagine is something like a shared dream, where each subject interacts with others. So, there is an 'external' world relative of each subject and the subject interacts with that external world - and this interaction can be a cause of harm.

What this kind of idealist deny is that there is something beyond minds and mental contents (thoughts, sensations and so on).

I personally don't subscribe to such a view but I think it is a disservice to say it is equivalent to solipsism (or something like that) without giving a good argument for saying that such a view actually implies solipsism.

Geat OP, I'll however comment only on mathematics.

I think that the use of mathematics in physics actually undermines the materialist project. It is based on the assumption that there is an intelligible structure in material reality which is to be discovered. And this 'structure' is not perceived by the senses but it is grasped by the intellect.
Some materialists, I believe, reject the assumption but this, IMO, leads to quite undesiderable consequences. For instance, if there is no real intelligible structure in material reality, is scientific knowledge really knowledge? One might insist that it would be so because predictions would be still valid. But, again, is the ability to predict and make applications really knowledge? Would we say, for instance, that ancient geocentric astronomers had 'knowledge' when they made correct predictions? Furthermore, if there is no intelligible structure how could predictions even be possible, especially as precise as those of science?

So, it seems that there is an intelligible structure of the 'material (or physical) reality'. If this is the case, however, it seems to me that such a structure would not be material. It lacks the characteristics of what can be thought as material and it is neither detectable by the senses nor by scientific instruments. It can be grasped through sensory and instrumental data but it cannot be detected. This is also the same as saying that meaning is something essential to material reality, as meaning is graspable by the intellect. Anyway, all of this implies IMO that materialism must either (1) allow that there is some irreducible non-material reality or aspects of reality or (2) reject altogether the existence of an intelligible structure. If one adopts (1), there is no reason to think that there aren't other 'nonmaterial' aspects of reality, irreducible to the material. If one accepts (2), however, I don't see any way to escape a radical skepticism, a transcendental idealism and so on. If there is no intelligibility, how can we claim to know?

In high scholastic terminology for instance, the idea is more "how things exist in us in the manner of an art," (i.e., our capacity for reproduction, as the form of a statue is in a sculptor before he sculpts) as opposed to being primarily objects or principles of knowledge. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Does this mean that the content of our knowledge are images of 'things' which are nevertheless intrinsic properties of things? If that is the case, 'direct' realism would be 'a middle position' between 'naive' and 'indirect' realism. That is, we can know something of external things but we can't know all their intrinsic properties. But this also means that concepts/forms are something essential even of the 'external' or even 'physical' reality.

Aristotle would say that sensation is "of" the interaction between the environmental medium (which interacts with the object perceived) and the sense organs, but that it carries the intelligible form of what is perceived. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Ok, yes. The intellect grasps the intelligible form of what is perceived. Doesn't this imply, however, that we are directly acquainted with something essential to the external things as they are (i.e. things-in-themselves)? In other words, we have a partial yet genuine knowledge of 'things as they are'.

A. "Everything is received in the mode of the receiver" (and this is as true for how salt interacts with water as for how we interact with an apple when seeing it)—this dictum becomes totalizing and absolutized in modern "critical philosophy" in a way that direct realists tend to find problematic and indirect realists tend to find unavoidable. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Ok. While the modern 'critical philosophy' says that the sensibility and intellect ordain the representation and 'dictate' how things appear to us, the 'scholastic' here says that the intellect recognizes the forms it can recognize. Is that right?

B. "Act follows on being." Only natural things' interactions with other things make them epistemically accessible (or at all interesting). Hence, the gold standard of knowledge is not knowledge of things "as they are in themselves,' (which would be sterile and useless) but rather "things as they interact with everything any anything else." — Count Timothy von Icarus

Ok but I'm not sure how this avoids to assert that we know something of the 'things in themselves'. After all, forms seem to be intrinsic to things. But on the other hand, the knowledge is partial in the sense that we can't know everything about something external.

Perhaps this is a bigger point than direct versus indirect. I am not sure if mediation really matters that much. Lots of pre-critical philosophy of perception and "metaphysics of knowledge" involves mediation. But it's a "direct" mediation in that it ties back to some determinant prior actuality (form). A thing's eidos is its form which is also its image, its interactions vis-á-vis everything else. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Ok. If, however, the 'eidos'/'forms' of physical things are the images that are 'recognizable' by the intellect, it seems that there is a 'likeness' between the 'physical' and the 'mental'. How is this explainable?

A possible explanation is that something 'mental' is the fundamental reality. If that is the case, then, the 'external reality' can be said to be both independent and dependent from 'mind'. Independent from our minds - we merely recognize 'forms'. But not independent from the 'fundamental mind' or 'fudamental mental aspect' of reality. So, as I said in my previous post, this leads to either to some form of panpsychism or of 'ontological idealism' in a broad sense.

Epistemic idealists would argue that 'forms' are something that our minds impose on the 'external world' in order to give a structure to experience. I guess that it's partially true. However, the problem of such a view is that it doesn't explain why the mind would ordain in such a way. Even if it is said that such a 'structuring' is done because it is useful, it nevertheless seems to me that it leaves the issue unresolved: why is it useful?
The epistemic idealist would retort that we can't be certain that forms 'really' exist 'out there'. But it does seem reasonable to assume that.

I agree that our perception gives us direct access to the external world but not in itself, and I reject the rest.
(On second thought….our perception is how the external world has direct access to us. The first makes it seem like we go out to it, when in fact it comes in to us.) — Mww

Ok, thanks! But both the formulations IMO are valid inside Kantianism and related epistemologies. In a sense, the 'representation' is the manifestation of the 'external world', 'how the external world has access to us'. In another way, however, it is also a 'representation' something that has an irreducible 'subjective pole', to mutuate an expression that uses @Wayfarer.

In effect, and to make a long story short….we tell things what they are. All they gotta do, is show up. — Mww

Ok! Again, a very good way to sum up transcendental idealism, thanks.

As I said in other posts, gradually I came to believe that the intelligibility is not something that is due to the ordaining faculties of sensibility and intellect. Rather, the very fact that we can't conceive an unintelligible external reality suggests to me that intelligibility is an essential feature even of physical reality, which implies that either there is a fundamental mental aspect of reality or that fundamental reality is mental.

I still think that transcendental idealism provides us some truths but, ultimately, I believe that it also fails to explain why reality appears/manifests the way it appears/manifests. Of course, I don't think that transcendental idealists ever claimed to explain this. But for me this means that TI is incomplete (I admit that this is not a decisive argument).

I would say I allow realism but in a thinner, looser, more deflationary sense of a consistent mapping or coupling to the outside world without requiring much more than that. When those mappings become systematically erroneous, we might, it then becomes possible to conceptualize them as not real. But I do not think there are systematic, tractable, context-independent nor infallible ways of deciding what is real or not real. And I think people all the time have "knowledge" which is some sense false or not real but persists in how they interact with the world due to ambiguity. — Apustimelogist

Ok. To me this confirms that you endorse a skeptical form of 'realism', i.e. you accept the existence of an independent reality but you are agnostic about its 'nature' and that you are skeptic about the possibility of knowing it except the patterns we can know via scientific investigation (which include the patterns we can know by our perceptions).

Sorry for the late reply. Unfortunately, I am quite busy right now, so I don't think that I'll be able to continue the conversation for a while. I just answer to some of your points.

How does your panspychism and idealism differ? — Apustimelogist

Well, as I understand it, ontological idealism asserts that the 'mental' is the fundamental reality. It is generally used to denote the position that only minds and mental contents are real. If the 'fundamental' is understood in a weaker sense, however it certainly tends to include some views that aren't traditionally included in 'idealism' (for instance neoplatonism, theisms and so on) because they still allow the 'material' to be real.

IMO the 'intelligibility' of reality tells us that there is a structural correspondence between the 'mental' and the 'physical' and this means at least that the 'mental' is always a 'potentiality' in the 'physical', which would strongly suggest panpsychism.

On the other hand, I do believe however that intelligibility actually tells us something more. The 'physical' has an order, a structure that can be grasped by reason because the fundamental level of reality is 'mental'. The 'hard problem' might be a hint in this direction as it seems to suggest that consciousness cannot be explained in purely 'physical' terms.

Now, of course, I don't pretend to be able to explain how the 'physical' has 'emerged' from the 'mental', but what we have said about intelligibility, meaning and so on of the physical world suggests to me that an 'idealist' is right.

IMO if one accepts that the 'mental' is fundamental, one adopts either a (broadly) 'ontological idealist' view or something like panpsychism.

Anyway, I admit that this hardly convinces, especially someone like you who says:

This would make me commit more than I wish and it seems to suggest some kind of ontology that I would like to see scientifically backed-up, which I don't think is the case. — Apustimelogist

Note that I appreciate your perspective. It is right to be skeptical in the sense that it is right to be open to revise one's thoughts. But I think that there are two things to consider here. First, maybe science isn't the only valid way of knowing 'reality'. Second, even if these speculations cannot give us knowledge, they might still be 'reasonable' and some may be better than others. Of course, if one doesn't accepts these two possibilities, then one has no motive to pursue anything else except science in the quest of knowledge.

Ok. Anti-realism about models perhaps, but it seems to me that you are pretty certain that there is an external, independent reality. — boundless

Well, as it happens often in philosophy terminology can be confusing.

If by 'realism' one means that our models do have necessarily correspondence with reality if they 'work', I guess that yes your view might be classed as 'anti-realist'.

But 'realism' and 'antirealism' have also an ontological meaning. In the most general sense, 'realism' in this context means that there is an independent reality that is in principle knowable. 'Anti-realism' is the denial of this (and I saw it used as a flat denial of any kind of independent reality).

Agreed. So what mediates between the external reality in perception, to empirical knowledge in experience, if not the intelligence directly affected by that reality. Again, that intrinsic dualism pervades the method. — Mww

To summarize the position one IMO can also say: there is an external reality but how it appears to us is shaped by the intellectual and sensible faculties of the mind. And it's impossible to 'disentangle' the contribution of the mind to the way the world appears.

But the world isn’t already modeled, insofar as the mode of our cognitive system is representational, which just is to construct a model, mentally, in conjunction with the effect an object has on the senses, physiologically. — Mww

I wonder how however this is consistent with the larger framework of the transcendental idealist philosophy. I think that causality is also a conceptual category for Kant in which we 'ordain' experience. The world in itself is not the 'cause' of the empirical world.

We perceive real things directly. What more needs to be said? — Mww

But the way we perceive them is probably not the way they are. Naive realism asserts that we perceive things as they are. Direct realist asserts that our perceptions give us direct access to the external world in itself and we can know how the world is independent on the mental representations.
So probably Kant would agree that we somehow perceive 'real things directly' but we can't know whether they really are as they appear to us.

There are three: establish the validity of synthetic a priori cognitions, which in turn establishes a non-self-contradictory method for acquiring empirical knowledge, contra Hume, which in turn defines the limits of pure reason contra Berkeley’s brand of dogmatic, re: purely subjective, idealism. — Mww

Ok, I see.

….and I am probably being overly precise. — Mww

Well, the advantage of being overly precise is clarity.

I think this is more or less an acceptable interpretation. — Apustimelogist

Good!

Hmm, I think it is compatible with realism and anti-realism, because I am just appealing to our models, claiming that our best models of reality don't point to the mental as fundamental among the things they talk about. — Apustimelogist

Ok. Anti-realism about models perhaps, but it seems to me that you are pretty certain that there is an external, independent reality.

From my perspective, saying that the mental is fundamental is about as informative as saying that structure is fundamental - I don't think these views are distinguishable, and I would rather lean to the latter rather than the former, if just to have a story to tell about things in reality. — Apustimelogist

Interesting that you too see the similarity here.

I don't think saying that the mental is fundamental really solves the hard problem either. All resulting metaphysical views have an issue with the problem that our direct experiences seem to look completely irreducible to descriptions that science says are more fundamental because they seem to occupy a higher scale of reality. Panpsychism doesn't solve that, it just reframes the problem in a different way - the combination problem - which requires also something like a strong emergence of macroscopic experiential phenomena, which imo kind of has the same properties as substance dualism. The problem is for me that there is no scientific evidence of something like this strong emergence, which would result in epiphenomenalism also. So I don't think the problems you have with certain views are not necessarily resolved by panpsychism. — Apustimelogist

I agree that panpsychism by itself doesn't solve the hard problem for the reasons you allude here. It certainly mitigates it, however. If some kind of 'rudimental' mentality is there in the more fundamental level of physical reality, we IMO have a more consciouness-friendly world than the usual 'physicalist' position. One might think that 'consciousness' exists as a 'latent potential' in panpsychist position (which is fully actualized in conscious beings).
And, in fact, I believe that some form of panpsychism are probably the most credible option for a 'naturalist' account of mind which, in turn, however renders the usage of the terminology 'physicalism' dubious, however.

Anyway, since I lean more towards the 'idealist' side of things, I do not endorse panpsychism.

Or, they may seem to have the same structure, because they do. — Mww

Agreed. I have a tendency to use 'might', 'may' far too often even in casual conversations. So, yes, sometimes even if I am sure about something I use the hypotheticals/conditionals.

Fundamental privateness of your experiences, yep; fundamental privateness of the empirical world….nahhhh. Share-sies, dude. This land is your land this land is my land and all that kinda hippie prophetizing, donchaknow. — Mww

Well, it depends on about we understand the word 'world'. Yes, Kant believed in an external reality but he did believe that we don't have an unmediated knowledge of it. In fact, to us what is 'given' it's an already pre-ordained world, the empirical world, which is already modeled in sensible and intellectual categories (like space, time, pluarality and so on). I wasn't saying that the empirical world is 'private' in the sense that is a creation of our mind. But certainly, it's not either the external reality as it is, otherwise Kant would agree with the naive idealist (a thing that I doubt). If it's not the external reality, then, you must say that it's at best partly internal (private*) and partly external.

Transcendental philosophy presupposes direct realism. There is an inescapable duality intrinsic to that method. — Mww

If that were the case, then, what's the point of transcendental idealism? You might say that it is direct realist in the sense that the empirical world is the external world as is given to us already organised by our mental faculties. But if Kant had said direct access to the external world in itself, then, why a positing a distinction between the empirical world and the world in itself?

I disagree. For empirical knowledge, the empirical world is given. To know is to know about something. The analysis and study from which knowledge follows, is of representation of the empirical world, which are constructs of the human cognitive system. A.K.A., experience. — Mww

Ok, I think I agree here.

The empirical world is a representation, the conception of the totality of real things of possible experience. But the empirical world is not a thing we know; we know only of representations of things in it. And because it is a mere conception, there is no sensibility involved, no intuition hence no phenomenon, which explains why knowledge of it is impossible. — Mww

OK, I see. But if the empirical world is a 'representation' then it can't be a 'direct realism', except in the sense that we have direct knowledge of the representation. Direct realism asserts that we have direct knowledge of the 'world in itself'.

In Kant and the Enlightenmrnt era natural philosophy, the world is a general conception, having all possible existent things subsumed under it. The ancients called such conceptions Universals. — Mww

Well, (some of) the 'ancients' believed that the world was actually mind-independent, except in the case of the Mind of God. In a sense, then, they would agree that the woruld is a 'general conception', only in the sense that it is the creation of the Divine Mind and it is an intelligible structure that reflect that.
However, they would disagree with Kant's skepticism about 'how the world is in itself'.

Pretty much what I’ve been saying all along. If this is your position as well, perhaps we’ve just been tangled up in words. And maybe a scattered misplaced principle here and there. — Mww

I am not sure if we agree. In fact, I still do not have a 'stable' view on all of this. I am tentatively leaning on something like 'some of the ancients' view' in the past paragraph.

But yes, I believe that we got some misunderestandings because we used (and use) the words differently and from your response it seems to me that we have a similar understanding of what Kant thought, which would be very good for if it is true :smile:
To be fair, probably I am using the words in an imprecise way (after all I do not read anything written by Kant from ages...)

I'm just suggesting that we innately believe (intuitively, not deductively or verbally) there is an external world. Classifying it as physical, material etc depends on some later learnings. — Relativist

And I'm suggesting that even the ontological idealist actually believes in an external world. It's just a very counterintuitive picture of that world but it's nevertheless true that there is an external world (the other minds).

I agree. That is contradicted by our basic intuitions. — Relativist

Ok!

I can accept that there is SOME relation to the world of experience. It's iterative: we start with out innate instincts, then have experiences we interpret through the lens of our instincts, creating a revised lens through which the next tier of experiences are interpretted. Rinse. Repeat. — Relativist

Yes, it seems reasonable. If one believes that there is an external physical world it must have some structural similarities with the 'world of our experience'.

Based on your description, I'd consider the strict ontological idealist irrational, because he has no rational basis to defeat his innate belief. The reasoning seems to be: I'm possibly wrong therefore I'm wrong. — Relativist

I can see why you are saying that. But I disagree that this is a real problem for the ontological idealist. As I said, the ontological idealist would retort that he's not denying the external world. Rather, he simply asserts that everything is mental and there is a plurality of interacting minds.

The epistemic idealist could be rational, but only if he applies that this skepticism consistently - which entails general extreme skepticism. — Relativist

Ok! But I would even say more... if the epistemic idealist position is strictly followed it would imply that skepticism or even an 'illusionist' position where nothing that is understandable according to, say, plurality, distinctiveness and so on is ultimately real. After all, if those concepts are valid only in the context of the 'empirical world', then, they might well be unapplicable outside of it. And if one accepts that the 'empirical world' and the associated mind are not ontologically fundamental (which would imply a negation of empirical idealism BTW), then, I see no other conclusions as saying that either fundamental, ultimate reality is a oneness or neither one nor many.

If this just means we should be willing to question everything, I'm OK with it. I'm not OK with jumping to intellectual nihilism. — Relativist

Yes, I would say the first. But, maybe, we can't know 'ultimate reality' or even 'reality as it is'. Not sure if that would be intellectual nihilism for you. I don't. Intellectual knowledge would still have its own merits.

Excellent analogy. I see your point- it makes perfect sense. — Relativist

Thanks. BTW, I believe that the 'shared dream' analogy is even better than the 'Matrix' one.
Note that if the dream is shared, then, there is still an external reality. After all, other minds are not mental contents. If you like, ontological idealism is quite similar to this scenario (with the difference of course that the 'shared dream' is not dependent on technology).

But to emphasize, all I have been talking about is this notion of structure. So there is an inherent agnosticism (or even rejection) about fundamental metaphysics, and even a skepticism about there being anything to say about it beyond what our intelligible models of reality say. These intelligible models are just the ones I have been talking about all along, with the physical at the core on which other models supervene or relate through coarse/fine-graining. — Apustimelogist

Thanks for the post. Not sure if I understood the whole of it (some parts are beyond my grasp...), but I hope to have understand the gist of what you did write.

Anyway, it seems to me that you are saying:

(1) Experience is structured and we have cognitive/perceptual structures that allow us to make intelligible models of the 'world';
(2) Experience is not self-enclosed, i.e. we need to posit something 'outside' of it, which grounds both experience itself and the structure of it;
(3) That 'external world' has its own structure, otherwise we could not get an intelligible 'world of experience';
(4) We can't have access to knowledge about the intrinsic and fundamental properties of that world.

Assuming that I am not misrepresenting you, it boils down for me to how we understand (4). The agnosticism that you refer for me is an indication that your position would be best described with a general label 'realism', rather than naturalism or physicalism (if we understand these two terms in an ontological way). That is, you posit the existence of an external, structured 'reality' about which, however, we can't know very much.

Also, you share with many physicalists the skepticism about something like some claims about consciousness, spirituality, religion and so on. I guess that, if you want to call 'physicalist' your position IMO you are fine doing that. But, again IMO, from a metaphysical 'classification', I would think that your position should be called a form of 'realism'.

Regarding the 'hard problem', I do believe, however, that it is a very profound problem and, like intelligibility, to me suggest that the 'mental' must be in some sense fundamental. I have found no explanation of the propeerites of consicousness in 'physical' terms that have been satisfying. Emergentism, for instance, at a certain point seems like saying "and somehow we get consciosness" due to the fact that there seem no physical properties in virtue of which we can 'derive' consciousness. Other models like epiphenomenalism seems to just contradict experience (consciousness does have an effect on our body). And so on.
But I guess we will have to agree to disagree.

Do you see the difference in that, and this: the world of my cognition. The empirical world you are now cognizing must be the same world I am now cognizing, else there must be as many empirical worlds are there are cognizers, which is absurd. The world of your, or my or anyone’s, cognition, on the other hand, is singular and private. If you were to say the world of your cognition did not exist before you were born you’d be correct without equivocation, but the empirical world of my cognition remains existent and unaffected. — Mww

I am not sure about this. I believe that 'our' empirical worlds are similar. They might have the same structure owing to the fact that, as humans, we share the same sensible and cognitive faculties. But there is a fundamental 'privateness' of my experience that suggests to me that my empirical world is indeed 'mine'. This doesn't imply, of course, that we can have an intersubjective agreement.

We haven’t yet agreed the world, or reality, whichever, is mind-independent? I should hope we have, in which case, if in any time your mind didn’t exist the existence of a world is irrelevant, and for the time in which your mind does exist…..it doesn’t but suffice it to say you have one…..the world was already there awaiting your perception. Or, which is the same thing, the world is given, in order for you to even have perceptions for your mind to work on. — Mww

But if the 'world' is given and is knowable I am not sure how transcendental/epistemic idealism isn't a form of direct realism.
I would say that epistemic idealists do not hold any views about what is 'given'. The empirical world is always constructed, 'given' in a secondary sense. That is, we can analyse and study our empirical world so for empirical knowledge the empirical world is given. But this doesn't negate the point that in transcendental idealism the empirical world is a representation/construct of sensible and congnitive faculties of the mind.

But perhaps I'm not grasping something about transcendental idealism.

The gist of the first Critique is, basically, one shouldn’t worry so much about the answers he can’t get, but more the questions he wouldn’t even have asked if only he’d thought about it a bit more. — Mww

But aren't these qurstions precisely those relating the world 'in-itself'? That is independent of forms of sensibility and categories (which are both mental)?

The common rejoinder is that it isn’t the exact same thing. A bug’s world is different from a fish’s world. But that’s not really the case, is it. The world from a bug’s perspective is different than the world from a fish’s perspective, but the world itself, is what it is regardless of either. Same with all other beings, I should think, or there comes mass contradictions. — Mww

Well, I guess that this is true if one assumes a transcendental idealist position.

But if one accepts that there is an intelligible external reality which can in principle be known (and we know/understand in part as it is possible to us), then, there are no different 'worlds' here but different understandings of the world, one perhaps more correct than the other.

Havin’ fun yet? — Mww

Yup :smile:

Of course, but it's rational to maintain a belief before it's disproven, and its irrational to reject something just because it's logically possible that it's false. This latter is my issue with idealism, per my understanding of it. — Relativist

OK. I see your point. But IMO, you are conflating the belief with an 'external world' in generale and a 'physical world' in particular. I would say that abandoning the second is certainly counter-intuitive and probably incorrect but not necessarily 'irrational'. I would say that if one denies the existence any kind of external reality (solipsism) or affirms that, at most, there might be something else but we do not interact in any way with that is irrational.

It wasn't an argument to show idealism is false. I was just showing that it is rational to deny idealism. I'm struggling to find a rational reason to deny mind-independent reality exists. The only reasons I've seen so far is because it's possible. That's not a good reason. There's loads of possibilities - many of which conflict with one another. Surely it's at least POSSIBLE that mind-independent reality exists - so what's the reasoning that tips the scale away from that? — Relativist

I honestly believe that you are underestimating Bradley's argument. If knowledge about the 'physical world' is empirical, it is true IMO that, in fact, what is directly known to us are sensations and perceptions (i.e. sensations organised within a conceptual framework). It seems to me that he is right that we can't conceive anything 'physical' with no relation with the 'world of experience'.

Of course, there is a stretch from this observation to flatly deny the existence of the 'physical world'. But, anyway, if you are not a naive realist, you would agree that 'the world we experience' is, in fact, a mental construction of sorts. In which case, an external 'physical' world would be somethin we haven't direct access to and we have no way to verify if it is really 'there' or not (assuming that knowledge at least comes from experience). The (strictly) 'ontological' idealist would say that the 'fact' that we imagine that the 'external physical world' in terms of the 'world of experience' is a reasonable reason to deny that there is something different from either minds and mental contents. The epistemic idealist would say that the same 'fact' leads us to the conclusion that we can't know anything about such a 'world' (note that Kant, in my understanding, rejected traditional metaphysics because he thought that it could not give us true knowledge... not sure about what he would say to someone who asserts that he doesn't claim to have certain knowledge but confident, but not certain, beliefs...).

Personally, I don't think that Bradley's argument is decisive or anything like that. But, certainly, it is not something to be overlooked.

I agree that we can't be absolutely certain. And while I also agree that pragmatism doesn't imply truth, my impression is that idealists interact with the world pragmatically (they eat, sleep, piss, work, raise kids...) - and if so, this seems like cognitive dissonance. Why get out of bed, if they truly believe mind-independent reality doesn't exist? If they aren't walking the walk, it makes me think they're just playing an intellectual game (perhaps casting a middle finger at reality, a reality that places relatively little value on a PhD in Philosophy: "F__k you! You don't even exist! Nya Nya!). — Relativist

Again, I respectfully disagree. If there is something external from us and we interact with that - even if not physical (and that's the point) - then it is still meaningful to interact with the world pragmatically.

To make a hopefully helpful analogy, let's assume that in the future we will be able to develop a technology that enables us to create a Matrix-like virtual reality or a shared dream, where pleasant and painful sensations are experienced. It would be foolish to, say, cause to oneself painful sensations for no 'higher' reason even if these sensations happpen in that virtual reality or shared dream.

What do you think about this?

(Another possible reason: in my past lucid dreams I would still experience pain even if I was aware of being in a dream. It would be foolish to me to experience pain for no higher reason even in that 'fully internal' experiences, let alone if I a know that I do interact with something and/or someone external)

The issues raised with perception and the role of our cognitive faculties are definitely worth considering. But how should influence our efforts to understand the world beyond acknowledging the role of those cognitive faculties? — Relativist

Sorry, I don't understand your question. Or how it relates of the topic of the discussion we are having.

Exploring the nature of "meaning" is a worthwhile philosophical endeavor, and it seems to me that it's entirely within the scope of the mind. That's because I see its relation to the external word as a matter for truth-theory: what accounts for "truth"? I'm a fan of truthmaker theory, which is just a formalized correspondence theory: a statement is true if it corresponds to something in reality (what it corresponds to, is the truthmaker). — Relativist

Ok! As I said in my previous post, however, to me if there is an intelligible and 'meaningful' external physical reality 'cries' for an explanation (which might 'cry' to another one). I really do understand, however, if one doesn't see that 'need for an explanation'.

Anyway, I do respect your view. But IMO assuming that universals inhere to reality lead to at least some form of panpsychism where the 'mental' is an essential aspect of the fundamental physical reality (and, hence, a fundamental, ultimate aspect of reality itself). Personally, this is because I believe that universal are best understood as concepts and I do have difficulties to understand them in other ways.

This is just going in loops I can't follow
A physicalist would say that you can describe how a brain does what it does in understanding the world virtue of physical processes by which it works and interacts with other physical processes. — Apustimelogist

I agree, we are talking about each other. But IMO this is because we start from different principles.

To you it's 'granted' that physical phenomena have 'regularities'. It's just the way it is. I understand your poisition. To me, however, it isn't granted. It's a mystery that 'cries' for an explanation (which in turn might 'cries' for another and so on).

Don't think about it as prediction then. Its just about models or maps that tells you where things are in relation to others. My use of the word "predict" is clearly an idiosyncracy that comes from its appearance in neuroscience where I would give it a slighlty more general meaning. — Apustimelogist

Ok. I am actually not sure, however, how this isn't going to the assumption that 'meaning' is something fundamental in the physical. If that is the case, it seems to me that the 'mental' is somehow fundamental (at least as a fundamental aspect of physical reality as some panpsychist affirm)

the Dharmakaya is nevertheless real - but never to be made the subject of dogmatic belief. But that is definitely another thread (or forum!) — Wayfarer

Yes! Anyway, I believe that strictly carried through empirical idealism leads either to an Advaita-like system (there is only one Reality) or to a Madhyamaka-like one (there is neither-one-nor-may ultimate realities, but ultimate reality is wholly beyond concepts).
Also, I don't think that it is a chance that these systems posit (at least as provisional truths) a beginningless mental continuum. If that is the case, there is no problem of explaining how the mind and the empirical world 'arose' in the first place.

Kant’s T.I. does just that, to my understanding anyway. As in his statement that the proud name of ontology must give place to the modest title of analytic of the pure understanding, which is to say it is useless to inquire of the being of things, or indeed their possible nature, when there is but one a posteriori aspect of any of those things for our intellect to work with, and consequently supplies the rest from itself. — Mww

Ok, thanks!

The empirical world doesn’t ‘arise’’; it is given, to the extent its objects are our possible sensations. — Mww

But, in fact, it does, right? Before I was born, for instance, the empirical world that I am now cognizing didn't really exist. If there was a point in time that my mind didn't exist, then, given that the empirical world is not 'independent' from it, it would seem that the empirical world arose. So, it seems to me that the question is worth asking.

If there is no answer to that question is either because we can't know it or becuase there is, indeed, no answer because, perhaps, what is 'beyond' the empirical world cannot be known conceptually.

Would it be the same to say, within, or under the conditions of, e.g., transcendental idealism, an ordered, intelligible representation of our empirical world is constructed, in relation to our understanding? — Mww

The problem is that even asking this question and assuming that we can, indeed, answer it seems to go beyond transcendental idealism. A consistent transcendental idealist IMO would simply say: "I cannot answer this question".

I can’t get behind the notion of an intelligible world, is all. Just seems tautologically superfluous to call the world intelligible, or to call all that out there an intelligible world, when without our intelligence it would be no more than a mere something. Just because we understand our world doesn’t mean the world is intelligible; it, more judiciously, just means our understanding works. — Mww

I disagree. If we say that the world is intelligible we are saying something non-trivial. That is, it has a structure/order that can be grasped by our faculties of understanding.
The empirical world of transcendental idealism can be grasped because it is constructed by the mind via sensibility and other mental faculties. On the other hand, if the 'external reality' is intelligible, we are saying that it has a structure that is graspable. This structure/order is not imposed by the mind but it's 'there'.

So, I would say that it is an explanation of why our understanding works not just a mere recognition that it does.

Anyway, thanks for getting back to me. I’m kinda done with it, if you are. — Mww

Thanks to you too! I hope I clarified a bit more.

Recall the koan, 'first there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is.' 'First, there is a mountain' refers to before training, before initial awakening, the state of everyday acceptance of appearances. 'Then there is no mountain' refers to the state of realisation of inter-dependence/emptiness and the illusory nature of appearance. 'Then there is' refers to the mature state of recognising that indeed mountains are mountains, and rivers are rivers, but with a balanced understanding. — Wayfarer

Well, appearances are not negated but they must be recognized as 'mere appearances'. So, the 'mountain' seems to be an entity but, in fact, it isn't. But this doesn't mean that the there is no 'appearance of a mountain'. The mountain is illusion-like. So, I guess that one might attach some ontological status to the 'mountain' but it is very tenuous.

Anyway, as you know, most Buddhist schools regard the 'self' as illusion-like/mere appearance. Of course, there are various strands of Buddhist thought. I believe that Madhyamaka and Yogacara come close to transcendental idealism. But, in both case, both the 'self' and the 'world' (and thus every thing) are illusion-like, mere apperances. When all conceptual constructs are removed, 'what remains' is neither 'something' nor 'nothing' (because, after all, apperances cannot be negated).

In Advaita, the reasoning is similar but Advaitins affirm that recognizing the apperances as 'mere appearances' actually leads one to the conclusion that only Brahman is real. It's no chance that IIRC that both Advaitins and Madhyamikas argue that the when we anlyse the world correctly, we come to the conclusion that no thing ever arose. For the Advaitin this means that there is, ultimately, only the unarisen Brahman. For the Madhyamika, ultimately, both oneness and plurality don't apply - 'Suchness' is not a unity, nor a collection of things but not even nothing. Our concepts do not apply (Kant would IMO say that we can't know if they do not apply or they do...).

Nowadays I am less persuaded by these views even if I am still very fascinated by them. I do believe that multiplicity is real. Even if we and the things in the world are ontologically dependent, it isn't true that we and them are ultimately illusion-like. We maintain our identity as distinct from what is not us. And the distinction is real.

I don't understand what you mean by the idea that structure of the world needs explaining. Its like asking why there is anything at all, which is a question not resolved by any perspective. — Apustimelogist

I disagree, unless you think that existence involves intelligibility (which is something that classical metaphysics asserts but I'm not sure physicalists generally would say). In any case, if you assume that the world is intelligible and its existence must be intelligible too, then it would be meaningful to ask if the world is contingent or not contingent and discuss the consequences of such statements.

Its entirely prediction. You see the words, you infer the kinds of behaviors you expect to see in that context and act appropriately. Words and meaning is about association which is just what anticipates a word, what comes after a word, what juxtaposes words - that is all I mean by prediction. prediction is just having a model of associations or relations between different things. Like a map that tells you how to get between any two points. Fictional stories are included. Everything we do is included. — Apustimelogist

I'll need to think about this. This is also because it includes things that I would never classify under the term 'prediction'. Not saying that you are wrong in calling that way.

Here's where I explained it to Wayfarer: — Relativist

Ok, thanks for the clarification. But note, that, however one can still say that we have been proven wrong in our assumptions many times, even by science itself. It's obvious, for instance, the Sun and the stars revolve around us.
Of course, the existence of a 'physical world' is something more fundamental than the motion of celestial objects but the point is interesting regardless.
Furthermore, note that even the most radical of the ontological idealist often assumes that the minds interact. So, even for them, there is an external world. It's just very, very different from what we tend to think.

So, I'm not sure if your argument here is compelling. But I agree that denying the 'physical' seems to much of a stretch. But this isn't something that all ontological idealist do anyway. Neither neoplatonists nor Hegel nor classical theists (if we consider them as 'idealist') deny the existence of the 'physical'.
Berkeley and Bradley apparently did but ontological idealism is a very wide spectrum.

This is unarguably true, but it doesn't imply the framework represents a false account. Consistent with evolution, it's plausible that our mental faculties came into being in order to interact with the world that we perceive and "make sense" of. Were these faculties to deceive us, we wouldn't have survived- so it is reasonable to maintain our innate trust in these faculties. Perfectly fine to keep the truism in mind, and adjust our inferences, but extreme skepticism seems unwarranted. — Relativist

But note that, however, pragmatism doesn't imply truthfulness. For instance, it is useful for me to 'know' that the Sun rises in the east and sets in the west even if, in some sense, it's false. So, even if I believe that the Sun truly revolves around the Earth this can be still an useful belief for me.
That said, of course, unwarranted skepticism can be dangerous. So, the best might be to not claim 'sure knowledge' and be open to revision of one's own beliefs, especially those that we can't have 'direct access' to a verification or falsification.
I would say that, however, the existence of an external, partially intelligible physical world is a reasonable belief to be mantained. But I do not claim certainty about this.

This still relies on mere possibility. This is like a conspiracy theorist who comes up with some wild claim which he clings to because it can't be proven wrong. Only this is worse because there's no evidence to support the hypothesis. — Relativist

I see what you mean but Bradley's argument is at least different in character. While I don't buy the conclusions it is still interesting. Saying that it's like a conspiracy theory is a disservice to it.
IMO it raises interesting questions also about the nature of the 'physical', even when we assume that it is real.

Yes, the law of contradictions is semantics: it applies to propositions, not directly to the actual world.

How can it be that the physical world can produce physical beings that make sense of the world? The survival advantage explains the causal context. Can something physical experience meaning? I can't prove that it can, but it seems plausible to me. If you're inclined to think it cannot, then what would you propose to account for it? The problem you have is that you need to make some wild assumptions about what exists to account for it - and then I'd ask if those assumptions are truly more reasonable than physicalism? — Relativist

Again, I can even agree with this. But note, that 'meaning' seems something that relates to mind. So, if meaning is something that relates to the physical too (and, in fact, it is something fundamental), it would seem that the 'physical' is not that different from the 'mental'. In other words, we land to a physicalism that seems not to far from a panpsychism (or at least quite open to the 'mental').

I suspect that I don't understand what you mean. — Apustimelogist

Well, I believe that it's simply becuase for you it is a fact that needs no explanation. So, you don't see a problem (perhaps I am the one that sees a problem where there is none. But I am not persuaded by that).

Yes, meaning is just more prediction. Nothing different, nothing special. — Apustimelogist

Not sure about this. Let's say you encounter the words "one way" in a traffic sign. How is that 'prediction'? It seems to me that here meaning is not predictive.

The meaning of 'word' just comes from its associations with other aspects of our experiences which become apparent in how we use the word 'word'. Nothing more than prediction. — Apustimelogist

Do you believe that, say, fictional stories (like, say, fantasy novels) are still 'predictions'? How is that so? They are certainly meaningful, but I am not sure that we can say that their meaning are instances of predictions.

What do you mean? — Apustimelogist

I meant that if the world is completely devoid of intelligible structure it might still be possible for us to make good predictions. It just doesn't seem plausible. It would seem to me an incredible amount of 'luck'. I can't, however, exclude with certainty that possibility.

My answer would be that the in-itself—the world as it is entirely apart from any relation to an observer—cannot be said to be non-existent. Of course something is, independently of our perception of it. But precisely insofar as it is independent of any possible relation to perception or thought, it is beyond all predication - hence, also, not really 'something'! Nothing can truthfully be said of it—not that it is, nor that it is not, for even non-existence is itself a conceptual construction.

In this sense, and somewhat in line with certain strands of Buddhist philosophy, the in-itself is neither existent nor non-existent. Any claim otherwise would overstep what can be justifiably said, since even the concept of "existing" or "not existing" already presupposes a frame of conceptual reference that cannot be meaningfully applied to what is, by definition, outside such reference. (The proper attitude is something like 'shuddup already' ;-) ) — Wayfarer

Yes, I would say that this is a possibility and perhaps it is the most consistent one if one accepts epistemic idealism. The 'in itself' is 'beyond concepts'. If this is so, then, it's not nothing because, if it would be nothing then, well, we could not experience anything. It can't be 'something' in the sense that it isn't something that we can conceive.

My problem with this is the following. If the 'in-itself' is so 'beyond concepts' it would imply IMO that, ultimately, the plurality is illusory. Either all reduces to 'one' (as in Advaita) or to 'neither one nor many' (as non-dualism is conceptualized in Buddhist schools). It just seems that we can, say, speak of 'boundless that is writing' but, in fact, there is no 'boundless' and the whole thing is illusion-like. If one wants, instead, to assign some reality to us and the world it seems to me that one must assume that the 'external world' has some intelligible structure. So IMO if one wants to follow the epistemic idealism model to its inevitable conclusions, then, it seems to me that, ultimately, one must say that selves, minds, the external world are illusion-like (not completely equivalent to illusions, perhaps, because when all that is ordered in conceptual representation is removed it's isn't true that nothing remains...). To be fair, some who say that the 'in itself' is beyond concepts accept just these things, so it's not a criticism, I guess. I am just not persuaded by these views.

IMO many empirical/transcendental idealists underestimate the implications of their model (I think that you do not BTW).

Most in fact, naturalism being one of them. Pretty much anything except materialism and idealism respectively. — noAxioms

Naturalism generally explicitly denies anything 'supernatural' (there is nothing outside the 'universe' or the 'multiverse'). Unless it is something like 'methodological naturalism' I don't see how it is metaphysically neutral.

I am aware of this wording, but have never got it. How can a perspective not be first person by the thing having the perspective, even if it's a tree or a radio or whatever? Sure, it might not build a little internal model of the outside world or other similarities with the way we do it, but it's still first person.

An internet intelligence might have thousands of points of view corresponding to widespread input devices. That's not a single perspective (just like our own isn't), but again, it's still first person. — noAxioms

Well, I believe we would disagree here about what is a 'first-person' perspective (see our discussion about 'perspectives' before). Anyway, the 'third-person perspective' is said to more or less be equivalent to a view from anywhere that makes no reference to any perspective.
I guess that you would say that there can't be any true 'third-person perspective', though.

I kind of lost track of the question. Classify the ontology of the first and third person ways of describing what might be classified as an observer? — noAxioms

I meant: is it dualistic to assume that there is indeed consciousness and 'the material world' and none of them can be reduced to the other with the proviso, however, that any of them are 'ontologically fundamental'?

OK, I can go with that, but it implies that 'stuff' is primary, interaction supervenes on that, and laws manifest from that interaction. I think interaction should be more primary, and only by interaction do the 'things' become meaningful. Where the 'laws' fit into that hierarchy is sketchy. — noAxioms

I actually agree with that. 'Stuff' requires both interactions and laws/regularities of how these interactions happen. You can't have 'stuff' before interactions and regularities, which both seem more fundamental (after all, every-thing in this world seems to be relational in some way...).

Depending on one's definition of being real, I don't agree here. A mind-independent definition of reality doesn't rely on describability. By other definitions, it does of course. — noAxioms

Well, is it interesting, isn't it? I believe that, say, someone that endorses both materialism and scientism would actually tell you that the world is 'material' and totally describable. It would be ironic for him to admit that this implies that is not 'mind-independent'.
I am open to the possibility that something mental is fundamental also because of this: if the 'physical world' truly has a structure that is describable by concepts and must have such a structure, then, it seems that 'something mental' is fundamental.

Anyway. If, in order to be mind-independent a definition of reality must not rely on describability would not this mean that, in fact, we can't conceive such a definition of reality?

There were no sensations in the universe before life came into being. — Relativist

Not sure if you understood Bradley's argument and similar. The point is: can you conceive a world that has absolutely no relation to 'sentient experience'?
Remember that our knowledge certainly starts from our experience. If we don't experience we don't know. And the point here is that we can't conceive anything except withing the framework of your experience and the mental faculties that 'make sense' of it.

This seems to entail abandoning our innate sense of a world external to ourselves. If one really believed this, why wouldn't one stop interacting with the world we're allegedly imagining? Why eat? Why work? — Relativist

It depends on the 'ontological idealist'. Ontological idealists of this kind, for instance, are generally not solipsists and they would affirm that there is something outside our minds: other minds and their mental contents. So, perhaps, while there is no 'material' world, there is still something external of us and, in fact, there are still other minds with which/whom can interact.

Understanding can only be from our perspective (it's like a non-verbal language - a set of concepts tied directly to our perceptions), but that doesn't mean it's a false understanding. And it has proven to be productive — Relativist

Right but this doesn't undermine neither idealism (epistemic or ontological) nor the argument that Bradley makes. There might be some kinds of sentient experience that we can't know but are in principle knowable.

Ironically, epistemic idealists would actually assert in a rather strong manner that our understanding can only be from our perspective. Certainly, a metaphysical physicalism asserts something 'more' than what empirical idealists claim we can know.

It is a necessary fact that survival entails successful interaction with the external world. Our species happened to develop abstract reasoning, which provided a "language" for making sense of the world- a useful adaptation. There may very well be aspects of the world that are not intelligible to us. Quantum mechanics is not entirely intelligible -we have to make some mental leaps to accept it. If there's something deeper, it could worse. — Relativist

I disagree that QM isn't intelligible. The predictions are certainly intelligible. The problem is with the interpretation. But, after all, even in newtonian mechanics there are various things that are matters of interpretation (such as how to understand 'forces').

Anyway, you are still asserting that there is intelligility without explaining it. That is, the very fact that evolution happened in a way that is intelligible to us means, to me, that the world is intelligible. 'It makes sense' that, say, language and reasoning allow us to adapt in a very flexible way to our environment. And this suggests that the world is intelligible (at least partly). My point is: why is it so? can we understand the 'structure' in purely physical terms?

Exactly. We can consider a universal by employing the way of abstraction: consider multiple objects with a property in common, and mentally subtract the non-common features. This abstraction is a mental "object", not the universal itself. — Relativist

Ok, thanks for the clarification. I am myself not sure if 'universals' are concepts or not.

What IS ontologically fundamental? Isn't it a brute fact? Even if it is mathematical, it's a brute fact that it's mathematical, and a brute fact as to the specific mathematical system that happens to exist. — Relativist

Well, at a certain point explanations do stop. Agreed. But IMO physicalism stops before the time. That is, I think that the intelligibility of the physical world has an explanation. Not that we can explain everything.

A physicalist perspective is that we abstract mathematical relations which exist immanently. There are logical relations between the pseudo-objects (abstractions) in mathematics, and logic itself is nothing more than semantics. — Relativist

So, the 'law of non-contradiction' is semantics?

Anyway, I believe that intelligibility also implies meaning ('making sense'). So, that's another reason why I don't understand how to explain (without assuming it from the start and leaving it de fact unexplained) how a purely physical world is intelligible.

Not too sure what form the problem is supposed as having, but at first glance:
So if the ordered world of experience arises from the interaction between the mind and representations of the external domain….the problem disappears? — Mww

No, actually, I meant that from a Kantian perspective it's just difficult to explain, without assuming the intelligibility of the 'external world' (in the thing-in-itself), how the empirical world 'arises'. Of course, one might think to leave this unexplained, as perhaps the most consistent forms of transcendental idealism do.

For instance, Schopenhauer argued that the 'thing in itself' must be 'one' because plurality arises in the empirical world. That is, the will, according to him, as the thing-in-itself wasn't characterized by the properties that categories understand. But IMO this is self-contradictory. First of all, if the thing-in-itself is one, then, it can be understood by the concept of 'unity'. Secondly, he tried to explain how plurality arises by saying that it is 'imposed' on the will by the mind. But the minds are many, not one. So, at the very least Schopenhauer either had to say that plurality was ultimately an illusion (as in Advaita Vedanta, if you are familiar) or that the minds (and, therefore, plurality) are ontologically distinct from the will (while dependent on it). In both cases, however, I would say that Schopenhauer had to resort to 'pre-Kantian metaphysics' (either by denying the reality of plurality or by affirming it one must make a metaphysical statement). I don't think that this is 'bad'. But on this he was inconsistent.

IMO Kant was more careful here. He tried to assert nothing about the 'noumenon'. But, again, it is difficult to me to see transcendental/epistemic idealim as a stable position, especially in practice.

That which is mind-independent cannot be represented. With respect to Kant’s view alone, reality is not mind-independent, by definition hence by methodological necessity, the content of which remains represented not by the cognitive faculties, but sensibility. From which follows the ordered world of experience arises from that which is always truly presented to the mind, and from that, appearances to the senses are not merely assumed, but given. — Mww

I agree that 'reality' for Kant is not mind-indepedent if by reality we mean 'empirical reality'. In my post I didn't make a distinction between cognitive faculties and sensibility, which was wrong in terminology from a Kantian perspective. I do believe, though, that sensibility is also cognition (and IMO 'cognition' as generally understood shares some analogies with 'sensibilities'). If we want to stick to Kant's terminology, however, ok.

Anyway, the point is that within transcendental idealism you have an ordered, intelligible empirical world that is related to a mind. It seems evident - albeit we can't have a 'total certainty' - that this 'empirical world' is the result from an interaction between the subject and the 'external world' and the latter might be unknowable. But even if it is unknowable, the 'best guess' is that it somehow must have a structure/order that allows the 'arising' of the 'empirical world'.

Frankly, I still don't see how transcendental/epistemic idealism avoids the pitfall of 'epistemic solipsism', which might in a sense 'correct', in the sense that we have no 'certain knowledge' of anything outside us and 'the world as it is represented by us'. But I am my misgivings when this is taken to mean that we can't know anything about the 'thing in itself'.

From whence, then, does the interface arise? If the represented world of experience is all with which the human intellect in general has to do, there isn’t anything with which to interface externally, interface here taken to indicate an empirical relation. And if the only possible means for human knowledge is the system by which a human knows anything, the interface takes on the implication of merely that relation of that which is known and that which isn’t, which is already given from the logical principle of complementarity. Does the interface between that out there, and that in here, inform of anything, when everything is, for all intents and purposes, in here? — Mww

I am not sure about the point you make in this paragraph. The interface is the 'empirical world' itself, which is ordained by cognitive and sensitive faculties. The point is that the 'interface' is supposed to be a representation of something 'outside' of our minds which never 'appears' in the interface itself. Can we avoid an epistemic solipsism, however, if we deny that we can say anything about that 'something'.

Empirical/experienced world, and the variated iterations thereof, is a conceptual misnomer, though, I must say, a rather conventional way of speaking, not fully integrating the development of the concepts involved. That, and the notion of “intelligibility of the world”. Which sorta serves to justify why the good philosophy books are so damn long and arduously wordy. — Mww

Intelligibility of the world merely means that the world has a structure that can be 'understood' in terms of some conceptual categories, principles and so on. That is, that it has a structure that can be 'mirrored' to some conceptual order.

Not sure however what is your point about empirical/experienced world. It is IMO a somewhat clear concept to me. It is the world as it appears to a given mind.

Alright, sure. I just think those things come from a brain that has evolved able to infer abstract structure in the information it gets from the environment. There is a kind of pluralism in the sense that depending on how the brain relates to the environment, different information appears on its sensory boundary and so different structures are inferred. Like say if you are looking at an object from different angles and it looks different. — Apustimelogist

Ok. The problem for me, however, is to explain from a purely physicalist point of view why there are these 'structures' in the first place.

For the world to intelligible imo just means that it has structure. To say the world has structureis just to say something like: there is stuff in it and it is different in different places, which is kind of trivial. — Apustimelogist

Not just that. It also means that the 'stuff' behaves in a certain manner and so on. And this 'order'/'strucure' is such that it can be understood (maybe only in part, but the point remains) by a rational mind.

Furthermore, it seems to me that intelligibility also conveys meaning. And I am not sure meaning is something you can explain in purely physical terms. For instance, the meaning of the word 'word' is difficult to explain just in physical terms. But, again, I assume that if one accepts that intelligibility is just a 'fact', then, also the associated meaning is assumed to be a 'fact'. I don't see both of them as trivial. But I think we have to agree to disagree here.

Yes, this doesn't make sense to me. If we can fit coherent models to reality, even if they turn out to be erroneous after some limit, it would suggest they capture some subset of the intelligible structure (at the very least intelligible empirical structure) of reality. This just happens to be embedded in a model whose wider structure is erroneous. — Apustimelogist

:up: I guess that the negation of this isn't 'impossible' but it doesn't seem plausible.