There is nothing incoherent in the idea that there are innate categories of mind. — Fooloso4

The mind’s a priori conceptual contribution to experience can be enumerated by a special set of concepts that make all other empirical concepts and judgments possible. These concepts cannot be experienced directly; they are only manifest as the form which particular judgments of objects take. Kant believes that formal logic has already revealed what the fundamental categories of thought are. The special set of concepts is Kant’s Table of Categories, which are taken mostly from Aristotlewith a few revisions — IEP, Kant's Metaphysics

Once we have granted that any physical theory is essentially only a model for the world of experience,” Everett concluded in the unedited version of his dissertation, “we must renounce all hope of finding anything like the correct theory ... simply because the totality of experience is never accessible to us.

The main scientific attraction of the MWI is that it requires no changes or additions to the standard mathematical representation of quantum mechanics. There is no mysterious, ad hoc and abrupt collapse of the wave function.

Interestingly, Alvin Plantinga takes this idea to show how evolutionary ideas undermine naturalism. — Richard B

It's not that philosophers have cast out spiritual thinking, so much as that the stuff we know about the world isn't found in spiritual thought. — Banno

That there are unanswered questions does not imply that there are no suitable answers — Banno

Look, the defence of idealism here is a proxy for a defence of some form of spiritualism or similar; and so the idealist brings stuff form outside the problem to bear — Banno

Looks like a change of topic. Before moving on to consciousness, it might be a good idea to get some basic logic right. "The tree has three branches" is about the tree, while "I perceive the tree to haver three branches" is not about the tree. One way or another, those who advocate idealism in its various forms all seem to muddle this rather simple distinction, changing sentences about the world into sentences about themselves. — Banno

"My experience IS the tree" rather than,
"My experience is CAUSED by the tree".

(Error of the Idealist) — schopenhauer1

if the senses are material powers, they receive the forms of objects in a material manner; and if the intellect is an immaterial power, it receives the forms of objects in an immaterial manner. This means that in the case of sense knowledge, the form is still encompassed with the concrete characters which make it particular; and that, in the case of intellectual knowledge, the form is disengaged from all such characters. To understand is to free form completely from matter.

“Moreover, if the proper knowledge of the senses is of accidents, through forms that are individualized, the proper knowledge of intellect is of essences, through forms that are universalized. Intellectual knowledge is analogous to sense knowledge inasmuch as it demands the reception of the form of the thing which is known. But it differs from sense knowledge so far forth as it consists in the apprehension of things, not in their individuality, but in their universality.

In knowledge we become intentionally the object known, and thus acquire a new perfection for ourselves, the same perfection of the things we know. And since, for Aquinas “form” is the principle of perfection, knowledge consists in acquiring or receiving the forms of the things we know and thereby becoming one with them:

The perfection belonging to one thing is found in another. This is the perfection of a knower insofar as he knows; for something is known by a knower by reason of the fact that the thing known is, in some fashion, in the possession of the knower. Hence it is said in The Soul that the soul is “in some manner, all things,” since its nature is such that it can know all things. In this way, it is possible for the perfection of the entire universe to exist in one thing.

De veritate 2, 2

Ryle gave a paper called “Phenomenology versus ‘The Concept of Mind,’” the latter being the title of his most famous book. That “versus” captured his pugnacious mood. In this paper, Ryle outlined what he regarded as the superiority of British (“Anglo-Saxon,” as he put it) analytic philosophers over their continental counterparts, and dismissed Husserl’s phenomenology as an attempt to “puff philosophy up into the Science of the sciences.” British philosophers were not tempted to such delusions of grandeur, he suggested, because of the Oxbridge rituals of High Table: “I guess that our thinkers have been immunised against the idea of philosophy as the Mistress Science by the fact that their daily lives in Cambridge and Oxford colleges have kept them in personal contact with real scientists. Claims to Führership vanish when postprandial joking begins. Husserl wrote as if he had never met a scientist—or a joke.”

After giving an outline, he goes on to say:

Such in outline is the official theory. I shall often speak of it, with deliberate abusiveness, as ‘the dogma of the Ghost in the Machine’. I hope to prove that it is entirely false, and false not in detail but in principle. It is not merely an assemblage of particular mistakes. It is one big mistake and a mistake of a special kind. It is, namely, a category-mistake.
— The Concept of Mind - Gilbert Ryle — Andrew M

Methodological naturalism has been responsible for considerable advances in technology and science.
— Wayfarer

Indeed, it is difficult to move past this — Banno

remember the poll? This is a thread about a poll. — Banno

Nagarjuna, if I recall correctly, rejects the principle of dependent origination and the śūnyatā is an apophatic rejection of any metaphysic, as I understand it. — Janus

Then why did you disagree with me without providing a counter-argument when I said just that, and then go on to say that it didn't warrant a counter-argument. — Janus

methodological naturalism is the attitude that science ought to investigate the world as if it were strictly independent of the observer.
— Wayfarer

I think this is misleading in that it suggests the deliberate adoption of one attitude over another. On the contrary it seems much more plausible to think that it was discovered that investigating the world without concern for metaphysics or about questions regarding the subject of experience yielded the most fruitful methodology for investigating empirical phenomena. — Janus

This does not constitute not an argument. — Janus

Since you are a Buddhist, you should listen to your greatest philosopher Nagarjuna, who argues for the rejection of all metaphysical "views". — Janus

How could we possibly know anything about anything outside the context of human experience and judgement? — Janus

You keep arguing that science has a "blind spot", as though at some point in history there had been a clear choice between two equally viable methodlogies and methodological naturalism was mistakenly or blindly adopted. — Janus

What if it were meaningful and intelligible to God, for example? Can you rule that out? — Janus

That is to say panpsychists have to bite the bullet and say that non-living things have some sort of experientialness, however minute. — schopenhauer1

The appeal of panpsychism is that, while preserving the physicalist notions that (a) matter has standalone existence and (b) material arrangements are responsible for human-level consciousness, it avoids the famous ‘hard problem’ by making lower-level consciousness fundamental. Notice, however, that instead of enhancing the explanatory power of physicalism, this merely avoids the need for an explanation by throwing one more element—namely, low-level consciousness—into the reduction base, while removing nothing from it. It can thus be argued that panpsychism is as arbitrary as it is unhelpful, for it would be trivial to ‘solve’ every metaphysical problem simply by declaring every aspect of nature to be fundamental. — Kastrup

You may not be aware of how much information and discovery computers have opened up, but neuroscience back then really is the stone age comparatively. — Philosophim

However on second reading, you’re differentiating life from chemistry, by saying that ‘life seeks to sustain and extend….’ So you’ve introduced the element of intentionality which I agree is necessary and which I don’t believe has any analogy in materialism.
— Wayfarer

Sure, if you want to use intentionality to describe chemical reactions that attempt to keep the chemical reactions going, that's fine by me. I just think that's an aspect of the physical world, and not anything else. — Philosophim

Can you extend your consciousness outside of your physical body? No. — Philosophim

If it was completely separate from us, we wouldn’t see anything at all;
Insofar as we do see, it is necessary that we be part of that something which is see — Mww

Cartesian anxiety - refers to the notion that, since René Descartes posited his influential form of body-mind dualism, Western civilization has suffered from a longing for ontological certainty, or feeling that scientific methods, and especially the study of the world as a thing separate from ourselves, should be able to lead us to a firm and unchanging knowledge of ourselves and the world around us. The term is named after Descartes because of his well-known emphasis on "mind" as different from "body", "self" as different from "other".

…..through rational sentient creatures such as ourselves, the universe comes into being….
— Wayfarer

This seems dangerously close to sentience as sufficient existential causality. Might be more the philosophical case, that the universe assumes a form in accordance with the rationality of sentient creatures. — Mww

Man is that part of reality in which and through which the cosmic process has become conscious and has begun to comprehend itself. His supreme task is to increase that conscious comprehension and to apply it as fully as possible to guide the course of events. In other words, his role is to discover his destiny as an agent of the evolutionary process, in order to fulfill it more adequately. — Julian Huxley

I think this is misleading in that it suggests the deliberate adoption of one attitude over another. — Janus

But I claim that the world that you will claim ‘continues to exist’ is just the world that is constructed by and in your mind that is the only world you’ll ever know. The incredulity you feel at this point is due to the idea that this seems to imply that the world ceases to exist outside your mind, whereas I’m claiming that this idea of the non-existence of the world is also a mental construction. Both existence and non-existence are conceptual constructions.
— Wayfarer

I understand what you are saying but I con't quite conceptualise this in a way which makes it entirely comprehensible. — Tom Storm

Let’s begin with a thought-experiment: Imagine that all life has vanished from the universe, but everything else is undisturbed. Matter is scattered about in space in the same way as it is now, there is sunlight, there are stars, planets and galaxies—but all of it is unseen. There is no human or animal eye to cast a glance at objects, hence nothing is discerned, recognized or even noticed. Objects in the unobserved universe have no shape, color or individual appearance, because shape and appearance are created by minds. Nor do they have features, because features correspond to categories of animal sensation. This is the way the early universe was before the emergence of life—and the way the present universe is outside the view of any observer. — Charles Pinter

A rainbow is not corporeal, — Janus

relations and functions are not corporeal, — Janus

methodological naturalism is the attitude that science ought to investigate the world as if it were strictly independent of the observer. The picture is that of the behaviours of objects that are defined in terms of their primary attributes, those attributes being amenable to quantisation and measurable in terms common to all observers. Secondary attributes are assigned to the mind of the observer, so are not part of the objective domain. This attitude generally corresponds with the rise of modern scientific method. Methodological naturalism has been responsible for considerable advances in technology and science. — Wayfarer

don't know about "ultimate facts" but naturalism, as I understand the concept, certainly entails negation of unconditional (i.e. supernatural, non-immanent, non-contingent) facts. — 180 Proof

There was a member here, active a couple years ago, I can't remember the name, but a self-proclaimed physicist who was big on this time reversal stuff. — Metaphysician Undercover

There is something more I am trying to say, — schopenhauer1

world (n.)
Old English woruld, worold "human existence, the affairs of life," also "a long period of time," also "the human race, mankind, humanity," a word peculiar to Germanic languages (cognates: Old Saxon werold, Old Frisian warld, Dutch wereld, Old Norse verold, Old High German weralt, German Welt), with a literal sense of "age of man," from Proto-Germanic *weraldi-, a compound of *wer "man" (Old English wer, still in werewolf; see virile) + *ald "age" (from PIE root *al- (2) "to grow, nourish").

1. something mental (the mind, spirit, reason, will) is the ultimate foundation of all reality, or even exhaustive of reality, and

2. although the existence of something independent of the mind is conceded, everything that we can know about this mind-independent “reality” is held to be so permeated by the creative, formative, or constructive activities of the mind (of some kind or other) that all claims to knowledge must be considered, in some sense, to be a form of self-knowledge.