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

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

A quick word about truth.

There are true sentences.

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

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

Chris Fuchs interview — Wayfarer

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So you have nothing in mind?

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

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

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

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

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

Or this:

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

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

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

Edit: Consider:

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

Bits like this:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There's a lot missing here.

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

But we love him anyway.

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

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

It's been a while. If there were something in it that addressed the issue, I'm sure you would be able to tell me about it.

COMMANDOS: Hear! Hear!

LORETTA: I agree. It's action that counts, not words, and we need action now.

COMMANDOS: Hear! Hear!

REG: You're right. We could sit around here all day talking, passing resolutions, making clever speeches. It's not going to shift one Roman soldier!

FRANCIS: So, let's just stop gabbing on about it. It's completely pointless and it's getting us nowhere!

COMMANDOS: Right!

LORETTA: I agree. This is a complete waste of time. — Monty Python

I gotta make a lasagne.

Heh. So Hegel's metaphysic is a good way to ensure the continuation of philosophy professors? :D — Moliere

The slobbering slave is living proof. (Too rude? I enjoy Žižek)

You haven't and Wayfarer hasn't, said what that alternative form of idealism consists in. If it is only that the brain models a world, well I think that is uncontroversial. But to think that what is being modeled exists in its own right seems most plausible to me given all the evidence from our experience as it is given by science. — Janus

Yep, a model is presumably a model of something.

Oh no. It's not that central to my thinking. — Moliere

And I bet it's even less central to your Doing!

Wittgenstein and Anscombe are lurking in the background here, pointing out that it's the use of our metaphysics that has meaning.

Sure, but what he says is blatantly misguided. There is more here than mind and perception.

Didn't we at least reach some agreement that being good at physics does not make one good at philosophy?

The only reality is mind and observations...

Well, no. There are cats, too. And Forums. And promises.

Essentia has a free online course... — Wayfarer

So does Scientology.

:100:

:wink:

What resonated with me is the 'constructivist' perspective... — Wayfarer

Again, something with which I have considerable sympathy. But not in terms of a dialectic, for the reasons I have given.

Actually, I gave a fairly clear argument against dialectic. Your reply amounted to waving at Pierce.

That said, I think there is a way of parsing the quoted statement that makes sense: 'The idea of a self co-arises with the idea of a world'. Both ideas are inherently vague—we never actually encounter a whole self, or a whole world. — Janus

"The conscious self is a construction that arises in the dialectical process that is a world-making" is the sort of text against which Russell and Moore rebelled, Russell appealing to the newly formalised logic and Moore to common sense.


(Which do you prefer, "The conscious self is a construction that arises in the dialectical process that is a world-making" or "Here is a hand"?

Think about it this way: if you became convinced that all of the Dialectic was in error, would that change your view of what ought be done?

So what is it that dialectic does?



Edit:

...if nothing is working then "making stuff up" is a necessity to continue. — Moliere

Quite a good point. My question is only partly facetious. Metaphysics does seem to play a sort of background role in our actions, somewhat like a catechism.

↪Banno If you don't take a metaphysical position then you haven't put your faith in anything. I also try to avoid taking any metaphysical position. — Janus

Yep. Apo, Way and Moli are all attempting to answer the Big Questions with various stories. Much easier to point out the problems with their accounts, in my smug critical fashion, "setting myself up as the judge" - as if there were any alternative. (Choosing someone else to be the judge is itself making a judgement).

While the attempt might be admirable, and I have sympathy for each, none of them quite work.

"The conscious self is a construction that arises in the dialectical process that is a world-making" could be a quote from Edward Caird or T.H. Green.

@Jamal, I'm having visions of the forums being overtaken by the self-replicating grey goo of misnamed threads concerning 0.9999....

...if the moderators are friendly — alan1000

Let's hope they are not.

I've used that word twice already this morning... Seems to be the word of the day. Perhaps age has given me a better understanding of its meaning.

The conscious self is a construction that arises in the dialectical process that is a world-making.
— apokrisis

:100: — Wayfarer

You see, I don't think that this comment says anything. At least, not clearly.

Perhaps, , I do lack faith. I'm not convinced that's a bad thing.

Hmmm. I write a post explaining how dialectic invites confabulate, and get and in reply.

we'll have to trust Chat GPT. — T Clark

Even though it is right, its authority cannot be assumed. It confabulates.

Not following you here - there is more to clarity, and to logic, than just syntax.

...if what Aristotle does in Metaphysics IV is correct, then there is a logical law that cannot be breached, namely the law of non-contradiction. — Leontiskos

To which the dialetheist may simply say "so much for Aristotle".

Since Aristotle, the assumption that consistency is a requirement for truth, validity, meaning, and rationality, has gone largely unchallenged. Modern investigations into dialetheism, in pressing the possibility of inconsistent theories that are nevertheless meaningful, valid, rational, and true, call that assumption into question. If consistency does turn out to be a necessary condition for any of these notions, dialetheism prompts us to articulate why; just by pushing philosophers to find arguments for what previously were undisputed beliefs it renders a valuable service... And if consistency turns out not to be an essential requirement for all theories, then the way is open for the rational exploration of areas in philosophy and the sciences that have traditionally been closed off. — Dialetheism, SEP

:wink: They are neat little puzzles.

Why?

I really can't blame him for this because I don't think a cogent (consistent and compete) ontologically is possible. — Janus

Perhaps not, but we could go for at least consistency. I'm not keen on faith... depending on how it is understood.

the world and mind are co-arising — Wayfarer

Ok, whereas I - and perhaps @apokrisis - take mind to arise within the world.

...whatever we consider to be real has a subjective as well as objective grounding — Wayfarer

Do you see how this crosses from the epistemic to the ontic, in the way I tried to encapsulate using cake?

Like you I am not enamoured with a simple division into ontic and epistemic versions of idealism.

A bit more on dialectic. A contradiction leads to explosion, as explained. Dialectic bases itself on contradiction, where "opposite sides" lead to a "speculative mode of cognition".

I would like to place some emphasis on the second criticism I offered above, that " even if we supose that dialectic does not breach non-contradiction, the result is not clear."

In Hegel the first moment, of "understanding", gives way to the instability of the second moment, the "negatively rational", and thence to the third moment, the "speculative" or "positively rational".

But somewhat notoriously, what that third moment consist in remains quite undetermined. Just as from a contradiction, anything follows.

This is close to Popper's criticism, that dialectic is unfalsifiable.

In effect dialectic provides the opportunity to invent a just-so story in support of your preferred third moment, by choosing your first and second. But such a method can explain anything, and so ends in explaining nothing.

Now this is a quite general criticism, and so needs to be explicated in some detail in particular cases, but more often than not it is possible to see in a writer's use of dialectic how they first reach their conclusion and then work backwards to the explanation using the dialectic. So in Hegel, The Prussian Court is the inevitable outcome of history, while for Marx, Communism is not so much deduced using dialectic, as justified.

Similar things occur elsewhere.

Cheers. Might leave the idealism line where it is, unless it becomes salient. Except that I will point out that the argument above applies to ontic idealism generally, showing how it leads to solipsism.

Both the is/ought and the hard problem are to do with intentionality, but though related they are not the very same issue. In both cases there is the aspect of our bringing about various states of affairs, including the way we see the world.

Your use of the Cake metaphor sounds like you think it's a bad (magical?) idea to try to have it both ways — Gnomon

This was perhaps partially answered by the stuff about dialectic. My worry is that @Wayfarer argues for what he calls epistemic idealism when talking to me, yet a form of ontic idealism when talking to other folk. To his credit he's addressing the tension here between beliefs and world. There is perhaps little difference between what he says and what I say, apart from where we place the emphasis - he on the beliefs, but I on the reality.

We could do that again, but it's sunny... :wink:

Those three puzzles are more of a problem for solipsism than idealism. But I think you think that idealism readily collapses into solipsism. Is that right? — bert1

Long ago, in a previous forum, there was a long debate concerning the chairs at the end of the universe...

Another debate. What fun! How pleasing to have a forum that allows such things. Thanks, Busy, for setting this up; your time is appreciated. Thanks also to Landru, for agreeing to meet here.

This topic comes from a thread that I started just last week, and which in that short time has boomed to over seven hundred posts. A hundred a day.

As things stand I simply cannot give the time needed for such a thread. My reading was encumbered by the sheer speed of posting. My slow old head could not make the signal out from the noise.

So I am pleased that one of the more erudite defenders of anti-realism has agreed to spend some time pondering my puzzlement, perhaps to help me understand what is going on here.

To start, I will repeat the opening post from the thread mentioned above. It’s about a problem I have in understanding how ontological idealism avoids being solipsistic.

So, apparently the idea is that a kettle is not a kettle, but is experiences-of-kettle. We might talk of kettles as if they are things, but the more sophisticated of us ought understand that what we call a kettle is no more than one’s experiences. Although we pretend that the thing is a kettle, one cannot separate the kettle from the self that is doing the experiencing. What there is, is the experience of kettle.

What happens here is that the individual kettle dissipates, becoming instead a relation between experience and the self. The boiling kettle becomes my experience of the kettle, my experience of hot water; So the self becomes central to every such account. All I can know is the experience, never the really, really kettle. For all that I might infer or induce about the kettle, all there is, is my experiences.

What bothers me is that having placed the experiences had by the self at the centre of the universe, how does one avoid there only being one’s self?

What about you? There is my experience-of-you. If I am to be consistent in applying this ideal approach, what more is there of you than my experiences of you? That’s what you are. You become my experience of you.

All I can know is the experience of the kettle. There is no kettle apart from these experiences. For all that I might infer or induce about the kettle, all there is, is my experiences.

But if this is so, then surely all I can know is the experience of you. There is no you apart from these experiences. For all that I might infer or induce about you, all there is, is my experiences.

Hence, if one is consistent, one must accept some form of solipsism.

It will not do to claim that other people are also selves. One cannot experience the self of another, just as one cannot experience the “transcendent reality’ of a kettle. If one is entitled to induce that other people have a reality beyond one’s experience, one is also surly entitle to induce that kettles have a reality beyond experience. If one denies reality beyond experience, then one denies it for both people and kettles.

So demanding a reality beyond experience for other people, but not for the objects of the world in which we find both them and ourselves embedded, would appear to be no more than special pleading.

I hope, Landru, that you can help me with this. How does idealism avoid solipsism?
— Banno

But few here would remember @Landru Guide Us...

...

There he is again.