What a non-physical cause "looks" like is a freely willed act of intention (final cause as javra explains). — Metaphysician Undercover

Can you present an actual example of such a cause?

Well I guess no one has learned the history of metaphysical ideas then, because no one truly understand them all yet. — Metaphysician Undercover

Learning and understanding are not all or nothing.

If final causes cannot and thereby do not occur in the world ... then the awkward conclusion that all our teleological reasons (e.g., goals/intents) for our actions are illusory/nonexsitent. — javra

I don't see that. If the final cause of something is the purpose for which it is created, then we know that there have been final causes for countless human artefacts. This is a very human way of understanding human motivation and creativity, but do we have any warrant for projecting that onto the cosmos?

But few, if any, would doubt that perceptions occur within the world - i.e., would sustain that perceptions per se could be all be illusory and thereby nonexistent. — javra

I agree, there can be no doubt that perceptions occur within the world. Would an illusory perception be non-existent, though, or rather would it be a perception of something non-existent? Think of an after-image or a dream; do we say there is a perception, but nothing is being perceived or do we say that there is no perception? I think this comes down to different usages or playing with words.

Thing is final causes, such as our goals/aims/intents, cannot be accommodated for within physicalism, and the empirical sciences cannot empirically observe them (this as physical existents can be observed) ... or at least so I last gathered. — javra

They cannot be accommodated within eliminative physicalism perhaps, but I don't see why they cannot be accommodated within physicalism tout court. They are not observable empirical objects. @Apokrisis sees entropy as final cause, since it seems to be the most universal "top-down' constraint in and on existence. How do we know that entropy is real beyond our experience, though?

As one easily expressed example, some have proposed backward causation - wherein the effect occurs before the cause - in attempts to explain some aspects of quantum phenomena. This, though, is not scientific reasoning but metaphysical reasoning about what science has discovered - whether its good or bad metaphysical reasoning being another matter all together. — javra

Are you referring to collapse of the wave function? Otherwise I'm not familiar with the idea. Doesn't sound like it could be testable in any case, so yes it would be metaphysics.

I mean…where else but from human intelligence can any claim come from, justified or not? — Mww

Well, leaving aside the possibility of intelligent alien species, nowhere of course. But that wasn't what I've been driving at. Maybe an example will help. If I claim that the Universe existed prior to humans that is a claim about existence outside of the context of human experience and judgement. It is also a pretty standard realist claim, so this is not off-topic.

Our notion of existence is derived from our experience and the concept is fine in that context. But are we justified in projecting that concept beyond that context, by saying things like 'the world existed prior to humans' or the 'the world didn't exist prior to humans'?

There is no such thing as universal human experience is itself a justified universal claim about human experience. Still, being tautological, the claim tells us nothing we didn’t already know, given the infinite conditions of space and time, which are the necessary conditions for experience in the first place, both of which are implied by universality, and is certainly contained in a metaphysical doctrine.

If phenomenology justifies universal claims about human experience other than the one I just stated…..so be it. I wouldn’t dare say there aren’t any, but I would dare you to offer one that isn’t every bit as metaphysical as it is phenomenological. — Mww

I don't know what you mean by "There is no such thing as universal human experience", so I don't know whether that is a justified claim or not. An example of a universal claim about human experience would be "all human experiences are temporal", that is they take time. But I don't understand that as being a metaphysical claim, but rather a phenomenological, or even tautological. claim.

Not all experiences are spacial, but the body and all other objects are experienced as existing in spacetime. Does it follow that we and all other objects can only exist or be in spacetime? If it does follow, then it must be a logical truth, not a metaphysical one. But if we imagine that there might be a greater existence, that we derive our little concept of existence from unknowingly, then it might be possible to say, with for example Spinoza, that we exist in eternity. The concept of existence will not be the same in this imagined greater context, though. So, then it is not clear whether it is coherent or not to even speak of such a possibility.

That presupposes there is such a traditional metaphysics, which may be true whether or not I’m even the least familiar with it. Which puts me in a tough spot, insofar as if you offer such a justified universal claim that purports to obtain independently of human context, in a non-traditional metaphysical way, in accordance with the phenomenological doctrine, I’m pretty sure I won’t understand it. But others seems to well enough, so…there ya go. — Mww

Think about the metaphysical claims of the presocratics for example. All is water, all is apeiron, all is air, all is fire. Or Democrites' atoms and void. Or God exists or doesn't exist. I'm not saying that such claims could ever be justified phenomenologically. As I understand it such claims are justified only if you believe that the very fact that we can imagine certain things reflects some higher, human-independent truth.

If I understand you aright I think we agree. Let's see if you agree with the following: there can be no justifiable universal claims that purport to obtain independently of the context of human experience and judgement.

There could be justifiable universal claims about human experience, but I understand such claims to be phenomenological, not metaphysical.

That said if I understand correctly, Heidegger equates phenomenology with metaphysics, but then that would not be the kind of traditional metaphysics that does make claims that purport to obtain independently of the human context.

The questions you ask seem to presuppose physicalism. To answer your questions via counterexamples: Final causes (teloi) are not deemed to be physical causes; e.g. the goal/telos of replying to you caused me to write this post as written (or, Q: “what on earth caused you to do X” A: “I wanted Z”). Are teloi real or illusory? — javra

I acknowledge that in regard to thinking about human behavior we encounter the domain of reasons, whereas we think about events in terms of causes. Causes are understood to be physical drivers and conditions and reasons to be emotional or rational drivers and conditions.

I'm not sure what you mean by asking whether our reasons for acting are real.or illusory. If I say I did something for some reason or think something for some reason, if I am right then the reasons are real, and if I am mistaken then the reasons are illusory.

The same thing applies to thinking about what causes events; if I am right in positing some causes to explain an event then the causes are real, if not they are illusory,

Think about Chinese medicine; it explains illnesses in terms of chi; a subtle energy flowing in channels through the body called meridians. There is no empirical evidence for the existence of chi, so it might be illusory, or maybe we just haven't discovered the evidence for it yet.

Not that I in any way endorse either, but, since they’re easy pickings, the alternative worlds of heaven and hell are temporal, comprised of befores and afters, devoid of physical existents though they are - so the occurrence of time does not logically entail physical existents. — javra

In heaven and hell there are spiritual existents: souls, no? Where do we get the notion of a soul? Is it not a notion of a body? The soul is understood to be discrete in the sense that my soul is not your soul, right? I would say it is arguable that the notion of a soul is the notion of body composed of finer material than the gross physical body, otherwise what else could it be?

I think all our notions derive from experience of the everyday material world. But I'm not saying that the real is, in any ultimate sense, material, just that our experience is of what we class as material things and events. All we mean by ascribing the concept of "material" is that what it is ascribed to interacts with our bodies, which are also experienced as tangible, material. We can only experience consciousness in terms of bodily feelings and images.

That definition would certainly turn any metaphysical doctrine endorsing it into irredeemable junk. Thankfully there are definitions without those conceptual relations, which do not. — Mww

If Kant thinks that the metaphysical a priori reasoning from principles is apodeictic, would that not be to posit that such reasoning yields universal truth, at least as regards the human?

In my understanding, since science assumes the truth of causality, of identity and change, of time and space, etc., with certain understandings of what these signify, science then always relies upon metaphysical beliefs. — javra

I wouldn't count causality as metaphysical because I see causality as intimately tied with, indispensable to, the understanding of the physical, and I don't think we have any idea of causes which are not physical. I mean we can think the possibility of non-physical causes, but we have no grasp on what they would "look" like. Same thing with time and space; what could time be without physical existents, can we imagine a non-physical space? What changes if not physical things? As to identity I think that is a logical, not a metaphysical, notion.

So, again I think these notions are all intimately connected with experience of the physical or with logic.

Since idealism claims all things to be either directly or indirectly dependent upon psyche, wouldn't that then make idealism a non-metaphysical construct? :razz: (kidding) — javra

I know you said you are kidding, but I think this still warrants a response. If we say that all things, as experienced, depend on the psyche (or body/mind) then it is really just a matter of definition; a logical truth, if you like.

If you say all things, tout court, are dependent on the psyche then that would be a metaphysical claim.

Learning the history of ideals is a lot different than actually learning the ideas. The former is like memorizing a list of named ideas, in chronological order, the latter requires actually understanding the ideas. — Metaphysician Undercover

I would not count someone as having learned the history of ideas unless they understood the ideas.

I think we are in agreement basically. Perhaps the ""there' there" for the rock, in Whitehead's philosophy is God's experience of the rock.

Where actual entities have formed into non-self-organising aggregates – such as doors and windows – there is no unified sentience associated with the aggregate itself – only the myriad lesser sentiences of which the aggregate is composed: the sentiences of the molecules, atoms, and subatomic particles. — The Philosophy of Organism

Taking the interpretation expressed in this passage it would seem that the author believes that for Whithead there would be no ""there there" for the rock, but only for the "molecules, atoms and subatomic particles".

I don't know, though, it's a long while since I read Process and Reality, and the necessary secondary texts needed to understand it; Whitehead is difficult.

I think it should be noted that Whitehead did not identify as a panpsychist, but as a panexperientialist.

Note the implication that although a brain is required for high-level animal-type consciousness, a brain is not required for mere sentience. — The Philosophy of Organism

From what I remember reading in Whitehead (many years ago) his notion of experience does not equate to sentience. He saw relationality and process as fundamental; things only are what they are in relation to other things and the processes that evolve out of their relations. So, an example would be that a rock experiences erosion on account of the wind, temperature differentials and the rain.

The rock has no identity apart from its dynamic ever-changing relationship with its environment. We are infinitely more complex and of course both sentient and sapient, but are we really any different, since we are really nothing apart from relations and processes within our bodies, and interacting with the environment, with culture and language?

Things are real for Whitehead insofar as they can experience being affected by other things, but this idea of experience does not entail consciousness or awareness of any kind. Even Whitehead's God is constantly evolving in response to the dynamic actuality of existence. If I am wrong about that, I am happy to be corrected by anyone more familiar with Whitehead's philosophy.

Doesn't make him a positivist. See the passage I quoted previously with the Buddha saying that both the views 'the world exists' and 'the world doesn't exist' are due to 'not seeing how the world really arises.' The 'ten undecided questions' of Buddhism are similar in many regards to Kant's 'antinomies of reason' (Murti, 1955.) — Wayfarer

I haven't mentioned positivism, I am not remotely a positivist, so I don't know why you have brought it up. I think that metaphysics is undecidable, so I agree with the Buddha and the "ten undecided questions" of Buddhism, and as I have said that all metaphysical positions end in aporia, it should be obvious that I agree with Kant regarding the antinomies of pure reason.

Because your objection to what I said then went on to basically re-affirm what I said: — Wayfarer

It didn't, because as I originally said the way you framed it made it look as though the adoption of scientific method to understand how things as they appear to us work, was a mistake, and that we could have chosen some other unspecified methodology, or that the choice of methodological naturalism was driven by an attitude that that is what we ought to do rather than the choice happening gradually through finding out that it yielded more systematic and testable results.

Cheers 180. :cool:

Some metaphysical views must be supported, otherwise transcendental philosophy as a doctrine grounded in synthetic a priori principles, is invalid. And even if the validity is subjected to dispute, it can only be from different initial conditions, which are themselves metaphysical views. — Mww

I see a priori reasoning to principles as phenomenological and pragmatic, not metaphysical. But here we come up against the fact that exactly what is defined as metaphysics is unclear. My definition of what qualifies as a metaphysical claim would be that it purports to be a universal and absolute truth, independent of human experience and understanding. Is it the case that I can dispute a metaphysical claim only from the perspective of some other metaphysical counter-claim? I don't see that, I think all metaphysical claims can be disputed from the fact of their undecidability.

The empirical sciences would be nonexistent without the philosophy of science upon which they are founded, which in turn could not obtain without a philosophy of causation, and causation is in turn a metaphysical study. — javra

I would agree that it is true that science evolved out of a context of metaphysical dogma, but I don't see any reason to believe that the continuing practice of science relies on any metaphysical beliefs.

We cannot help understanding the world in causal terms, even animals do. So, I don't count that as metaphysics, but as a phenomenological fact about humans and other higher organisms.

You say that without metaphysics there can be no scientific truths, but I've already acknowledged that I don't see scientific conclusions and theories, apart from the most basic empirical observations, as true or false, but rather as workable guidelines.

You say you "uphold the reality of causation"; if you mean that it is real for us, then I agree; it cannot but be. If you want to claim it is real independently of us, I would say that I don't know about that because I can't see how we could determine that to be true.

The claim didn't warrant one. — Wayfarer

That's nothing more than arrogant copout.

The principle of dependent origination and the Buddhist śūnyatā is a metaphysic. (I don't claim to be a Buddhist, although I did undertake an MA in the subject in order to understand it better.) — Wayfarer

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. Are you wishing to reify emptiness now?

Also, I recall you saying on the old site that you had taken Buddhist vows, have you now renounced them?

One of the principle subjects of philosophy. — Wayfarer

It had been one of the principle subjects of philosophy up until Kant let the air out of all the tyres, showing it to be impossible. Are you claiming that it is possible to know anything outside of human experience and understanding? If so, then you contradict yourself by constantly reminding us that science is not outside of human experience and understanding.Can you point to any item of knowledge that is outside of human experience and understanding?

Methodological naturalism was in no way blindly adopted. — Wayfarer

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. Perhaps I misunderstood and you were agreeing all along. Or perhaps you mean to say that it was mistakenly, if not blindly, adopted. If so, I'm not sure I see the distinction, because if something is mistakenly believed is that not a kind of blindness?

On the one hand, you assert that all metaphysical speculation is a contrivance, then you turn around and ask me to engage in it. — Wayfarer

I have said we can imagine metaphysical possibilities, but we have no way of knowing whether any of them are, or even could be, true. You claim that the "in itself" is meaningless and unintelligible, and I agree that it is to us (apart from the fact that we can imagine it as a possibility).

"To us" is all we know, but if you don't want to rule out the possibility that God or some universal mind might exist, then surely you must acknowledge that in such an imagined scenario the in itself could have meaning and be intelligible to God or the universal mind.

This statement is what is absurd. If there is a multitude of distinct attitudes toward metaphysics, then education in metaphysics is even more important in order that we get exposed to all the different possibilities. — Metaphysician Undercover

If you are interested in metaphysics then learning about the history of metaphysical ideas would be a good idea. However it's arguable that most people don't give a flying fuck about metaphysics, so it's not likely to be on the school curriculum any time soon. I think metaphysics is a valuable study, for its imaginative and creative interest, I am only rejecting the idea that truth may be found there.

I think it would be more fruitful to see ethics being taught in school than metaphysics.

Much more elegantly expressed than my attempt at pretty much the same point. — Tom Storm

I don't know about that, but cheers Tom.

So what I'm arguing is that methodological naturalism - the idea that we see the world as it is completely separately from us, as if we're not part of it - is mistaken, if we believe that the world really is that way, that it can be real with no perspective. Perspective is essential to reality and it can only be provided by a point of view, by an observer. And again this validates Kant's contention that time and space have no intrinsic objective reality, but are furnished by the mind, and again by a passage from a cosmologist I've already quoted before in this thread. So I'm arguing that human being is intrinsic to reality, we're not an 'epiphenomenon' or a 'product'. So does that mean, in the absence of h. sapiens, the universes ceases to exist? Have to be very careful answering, but I'm arguing, it's not as if it literally goes out of existence, but that any kind of existence it might have is completely meaningless and unintelligible. The kind of existence it might have is very close, again, to what Kant describes as the unknowable thing-in-itself. — Wayfarer

Methodological naturalism is not the idea that we see the world as it is completely separately from us, it is simply the bracketing out of such questions and concerns in order to focus on investigating the world as it is presented to us.

The question as to whether the world can be "real with no perspective" is undecidable. It cannot be real for us with no perspective, because we cannot view the world non-perspectivally; that is just a truism. We think we know what the question could even mean, but do we really?

We don't know whether time and space are real absent human experience; all we can do is conjecture. How could we possibly know anything about anything outside the context of human experience and judgement?

You say that absent us it is not as though the world "goes literally out of existence, but that any kind of existence it might have is completely meaningless and unintelligible". Yes meaningless and unintelligible to us, but that goes without saying. What if it were meaningful and intelligible to God, for example? Can you rule that out?

If the world is just a realm of physical existents and nothing more, then what it was prior to the advent of humans would have been neither meaningless nor meaningful, but would have been, at least potentially, intelligible, as is proven by the fact that it is intelligible to us now. Analogously, the moon is not invisible when it is not being seen, it is just unseen. To be unseen is not the same as to be invisible.

It's the way empiricism and naturalism developed. History of ideas 101. — Wayfarer

This does not constitute not an argument; it is mere hand-waving.

I question whether there is or should be 'a scientific worldview'. Science is first and foremost a methodology. It has philosophical entailments, but often its practitioners are not aware of those entailments - which is part of what I'm saying. I'm saying that science deals mainly with contingencies and discoverable principles ('laws'), so as such doesn't really extend to Aristotle's 'unprovable first principles', but it is often taken as a metaphysic by 'scientism' (which you yourself have criticized on many an occasion.) — Wayfarer

Firstly, I said that it is to be expected that we see that our worlviews are in fact informed by science and you respond by saying there should not be a scientific worldview, and yet you also contradict yourself by saying this:

So if that's the wrong view, what's the right view. Rewind to what I've said a number of times already - 'the world' is, for us, you and me, Tom Storm and Wayfarer, generated or constructed by our fantastically elaborated hominid forebrain, which evolved at a breakneck pace over the last few million years. — Wayfarer

If that evolutionary view of the world is not scientifically informed then what is it informed by?

So I'm arguing that methodological naturalism, which is a perfectly sound in principle, doesn't support metaphysical naturalism, which is the attempt to extend empirical evidence to metaphysical propositions. It's often confused because our culture is on the whole not educated in metaphysics and has abandoned the conceptual space for metaphysics due to its rejection of religion.

As Kant has shown us, no metaphysical views are supported, because they are the erroneous attempt to extrapolate to an "ultimate" "god's eye" view of reality from what are merely empirical models. Religion cannot yield a true metaphysical view, a fact which is proven by the various mutually contradictory models it has produced in various cultures. Since you are a Buddhist, you should listen to your greatest philosopher Nagarjuna, who argues for the rejection of all metaphysical "views".

The whole idea of being educated in metaphysics is absurd, because there is no settled metaphysics and never has been. Metaphysics is just an exercise in the human imagination, and as I often say, it has creative value and can even help to lead to workable scientific discoveries and theories.

I objected to your way of framing the historical emergence of methodological naturalism and you respond with your "101" comment. 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.

I said it is much more plausible to think that it was realized that if you want to investigate things then you must focus on the things themselves, as they present themselves to us, leave aside purely imaginative notions about how things might work, and attempt to discover how they actually do work This proved itself to be an unprecedentedly successful strategy as evidence by the dramatic rise of science.

Science is not in the business of investigating first person experience, instead it focuses on the third person observable nature of the world as it presents itself to us. Whether the scientist believes that we somehow construct the world or not is not at issue, and makes no difference to the actual practice. That question is bracketed just as the question of the independent existence of the external world is bracketed in the practice of phenomenology, and for similar reasons; what is needed in such investigations is focus not distraction with irrelevant issues.

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.

If objects had no shape then they would have no surface from which light could be reflected and they could not appear to us at all. In fact they could not be objects at all if they had no shape. If objects had no features then they could not appear to us as rough or smooth, as this colour or that colour, could not reverberate or fail to when you strike them, or smell or taste like this or that when you taste them. Pinter presumptuously purports to know what cannot be known: what things are or are not in themselves.

There are two main imaginable scenarios that could explain our human experience of the world. Either the Universe is a great energy field of diverse intensities that determine how it appears to us (who are indeed part of that great field) or the objects we experience are ideas in a universal mind. The irony is that if the latter were true then objects would have just the qualities that they appear to have, since those qualities would be part of the idea that is the object. This would be naive realism par excellence. Think Berkeley for this.

But we don't, and cannot, know whether either of these imaginable scenarios is true, or whether they are both nothing more than figments that correspond not all to what is independent of human experience. If we insist on holding a metaphysical worldview, then we have nothing better than science to inform us, as inadequate as science might be.

Spiritual practices are, in my view, about exploring the possibilities of altering consciousness. Experiences of altered states of consciousness cannot tell us anything discursive about the nature of what is, but we can certainly feel the world in different ways when we explore the limits of human experience. hence the great importance of the arts, and of phenomenology.

A rainbow is not corporeal, — Janus


Corporeal definition - of the nature of the physical body; bodily.
material; tangible:
corporeal property.

Rainbows comprise light refracted through water droplets. Nothing incorporeal about that.

relations and functions are not corporeal, — Janus


Part of my point. — Wayfarer

The point was that there is no body of the rainbow: it is not tangible, cannot be bodily felt, even in the subtle way that clouds can be felt.. It looks like it is a corporeal object, but it is a purely optical phenomenon.

As I said about relations and functions or processes, they are entirely comprised of series of observable physical states, yet they are not, taken as a whole, corporeal objects, yet they are entirely physical. If you want to say that a relation, process or function is not physical then you should be able to identify their non-physical components.

Hence, real, but not corporeal. Which is why it is incompatible with naturalism and empiricism. — Wayfarer

This is not true in my view. Not all empirical phenomena are corporeal. A rainbow is not corporeal, for example. An atom, an electron, a photon, a quark—corporeal?

And also relations and functions are not corporeal, in the sense of being being embodied or objects of the senses, even though they may be instantiated as or in a series of discernible material states.

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.

The fact that we modify our worldviews in accordance with scientific findings is inevitable since we have nothing else discursively substantive to rely on. That doesn't entail that the worldviews deduced from or inspired by science are true, they are just working hypotheses. Metaphysics is the undecidable "science"; the paradigmatic knowing of uncertainty. Creative and imaginative value, but discursive truth will not be found there, since the latter belongs to the empirical realm.

Same here, except I see metaphysical speculations as criteria for eliminating – filtering-out – impossible objects / worlds (i.e. necessary fictions) from reasoning. — 180 Proof

:up: Yes, anything that involves actual logical contradiction can certainly be ruled out.

I have to disagree. At the very least, "materialism" is a far more useful epistemological paradigm than any version of "immaterialism" for learning about – adapting to – nature. — 180 Proof

I agree 180; methodological naturalism or materialism is most useful for understanding the physical. Should we be surprised about that?

Insofar as this "universe is a single mind" is a "speculative idea", it follows that it's an "idea" of either (A) the human mind or (B) some other mind not located witnin "the universe" – which seems to me (B) amounts to "mind"-of-the-gaps and (A) amounts to a compositional fallacy – or (C) there are minds within the universe which are not themselves mere "ideas" (i.e. reals) rendering this "speculative idea" itself conceptually incoherent. — 180 Proof

Granted, for us this is a speculative idea, just as the idea that the universe is nothing but physical complexes and their processes is. But in either case the idea is not the actuality, but the idea of the actuality. Can such ideas even correspond to the actuality (whatever it is)?

If such ideas can correspond to actuality, and if the idea that the universe is a single mind is true then individual minds might just be facets of that universal mind, locked in the illusion of their own separateness,

Personally, I'm not convinced by any metaphysical speculations; I see them as being just imaginative possibilities that may or may not possibly correspond to what is, or the very idea of what in an absolute sense may be incoherent because we don't really know what we mean when we say the world is fundamentally mental or fundamentally physical. I think here we find ourselves in the territory of the undecidable.

So, I do see realism if it is posited in an absolute sense as potentially incoherent, or at least hopelessly inadeqaute, just as other metaphysical positions are, but I also think none of this matters because we have a world of human experience to understood both empirically and phenomenologically, that is in third person and first person terms respectively. We can speculate beyond that, but we cannot know whether our speculations are of any use, apart from whatever creative interest they may have.

Thank god you got there before me. I was dreading having to make this very simple point. — bert1

:cool:

Accordingly, a metaphysical idealist like Peirce (matter is a peculiar sort of mind) can still affirm that the external world is real (including everything that exists), as well as logical realism (some generals are real even though they do not exist). — aletheist

This point will be dodged or perhaps deliberately misunderstood as evidenced by this:

It's astonishing. Idealism begins by looking for certainty in one's individual perceptions - "esse est percipi" - and almost immediately finds itself supposing some universal spirit, god or some such.

As if such a fable were more acceptable than the independent existence of trees, tables and cups of our everyday experience. — Banno

As if what you said logically entails a denial of the independent existence of trees, tables and cups, when it explicitly does not..

Agree. That's kind of my perspective too. I suspect it makes almost no difference to how I would choose live, whether I am an outmoded retro physicalist or an a la mode idealist. — Tom Storm

:up:

Perhaps, although the versions of great mind of Schop or Kastrup posit a universal mind which is instinctive and not metacognitive. — Tom Storm

I guess things could be ideas (or impulses?) in an instinctive universal mind equally as they could be in a meta-cognitive one. Spinoza's God is not meta-cognitive as I understand it. Of course we could never know either way, it's just one of the speculative possibilities.

Life, existence are mysteries and we are mired in ignorance when it comes to anything purportedly outside of the human empirical and logic-based understanding.

Looks to be a performative contradiction. If it's human-independent then it's not somethign whc whcih we need be concerned. — Banno

We don't need to be concerned with something in order to be concerned with it. The interminability of these kinds of arguments on this forum attest to that. I'm asking you to look at the logic of the claim that the Universe is a single mind, and that all the things in it, including human minds, are ideas. There is nothing in that admittedly entirely speculative idea of a universal mind that entails that it must be human-dependent. So not a "performative contradiction" it seems.

My impression was that the Good Bishop held everything to be ideas in god's mind; except presumably god isn't an idea in god's mind... In which case not everything is an idea ain god;'s mind... and we've gotten nowhere. Or god is just an idea in god's mind... can't see how that works.

Makes no sense to me. — Banno

The idea is logically no different than the idea that all things are in the Universe...in which case not everything is in the Universe...or the Universe is just a thing in the Universe...can't see how that works either.

"Makes no sense to me" sounds like an argument from incredulity.

- the part of reality seperate from humans? Idealism says, one way or another, that to be is to be related in some way to some mind. If you hold there to be a "human-independent nature of reality" a part of your metaphysics, you are not an idealist.

See how confusing it gets? Hence the chat above about if Kant counts as a realist. — Banno

If I held that the human-independent nature of reality was ideas in a universal mind would I not count as an idealist? In other words the Universe existed in God's mind (if you like) or some universal mind prior to the existence of humans just as materialist might think it did. I believe Berkeley asserted just this and he is considered to be an idealist.

I agree that Kant is not really an idealist, and as I said in a post above"

I have sometimes thought that Kant has his characterization of his philosophy as empirical realist and transcendental idealist backwards. We know the empirical world only via ideas; as I like to say the empirical world is a collective representation and in that sense it is ideal. About the transcendental we have no idea, except that if it is at all it must be real.

There is a fair degree of conceptual confusion in all of these metaphysical positions, and as I've also said recently on these forums, I think they all end up, one way or another, in aporia.

Here's an example:

Yet it is important to realise that the naïve sense in which we understand ourselves, and the objects of our perception, to exist, is in reality dependent upon the constructive activities of our consciousness many of which are below the threshhold of conscious awareness.

If the "constructive activities" are "below the threshold of conscious awareness" how could we tell what is doing the constructing?

So if we have no access to anything not a perception, how could we ever differentiate between what we experience and what we don't....? — Banno

That's dead easy: we know what we experience, and we know what we don't experience. We don't experience the human-independent nature of reality, we experience the human-dependent nature of reality (the empirical). This is true by definition, because if we did experience the human-independent nature of reality it would not be human-independent, so we can rule that out as a contradiction.

Now the pertinent question would be how the hell does anyone know all this? It's fine to debunk old school materialism, but it's another thing to use this as to support a speculative ontology. It's at best built from some debatable inferences, right? Cue quantum speculations, quotes from Hinduism, Plato's cave, past lives accounts and critiques of scientism.... — Tom Storm

Of course the same problem exists with materialism; how could you know that everything, independently of anything human, is material or even what that could mean?

All ontology and metaphysics is based on debatable inferences. So, as I see it, the only pertinent question is what ideas best fire your interest, inspire your passion or help you live most fully. For myself I can say that I feel no need to decide between these mutually exclusive polemics. I find uncertainty most satisfying.

That said, I find some interest in ideas for their own sake, looking at what each of the different views on the menu would entail, and thinking about what possible difference it could make to human life if they were true (whatever their being true independent of human understanding could even mean).

One advantage of the "great mind" ontology is that that truth could, independently of the human, be related to, known by, that universal mind. If there were nothing but the material, then that truth would be nothing without the human, which seems to beg the question as to how it could even be coherent to consider it a human-independent truth.

Still, I am not convinced by that; so my choice is to refuse to settle on one or other side of the dichotomy, and settle for the idea that the non-dual reality can only be known experientially, and not discursively, which would mean that there is no truth of the matter. The idea that there must be a discursive truth of the matter is a human, dualistic-thinking based illusion; that's my take.

It's interesting to me that most of what comes out of discussions like this seems to hinge on the significance of the extents to which our understanding (our models, in my terminology) are constrained by external forces. — Isaac

Right, anything we understand must be a part of the model and not of the purported "external forces". We know we are constrained by external forces, we just cannot say just what they are.

The realist sees the existence of constraints as the most significant element, the idealist sees the degree of freedom within those constraints as the most important bit. — Isaac

I don't know that it's so neat as that. The Berkeleyan idealist could be as determined by God as the realist is by brain chemistry (for example).

I have sometimes thought that Kant has his characterization of his philosophy as empirical realist and transcendental idealist backwards. We know the empirical world only via ideas; as I like to say the empirical world is a collective representation and in that sense it is ideal. About the transcendental we have no idea, except that if it is at all it must be real.

I can't see a way around the problem, myself. Certain methods of dealing with data qualify as being 'connected' to the world and so produce what we might call 'reasonable' theories - as opposed to merely guessing, or making stuff up. But within that canon, there doesn't seem to be any reliable process for choosing between them. If they meet the criteria of not being overwhelmed by evidence to the contrary, then then seem to all be equally fair game. — Isaac

I think your post hits the nail on the head. There can be no justification of any discursive dualistic kind (as all our knowledge is) that comes out of meditation or revelation. I've been labouring this point on these forums for years, but the idea that such spiritual methodologies can yield discursive knowledge seems to be very hard to let go of for some. (That said, I think we each believe (or should) what serves us best (and I don't mean what's most comforting, although I suppose for those whose primary need is for comforting, what is comforting may indeed serve them best)).

On the other hand I can know something non-dually, but it is more of a sense of profound satisfaction in knowing that which cannot be communicated. It is, admittedly, merely an affective state, but it can profoundly transform one's life, leaving one in a state of no-doubt, but since this is impossible to translate into discursive terms such experiences can never be evidence for anything, or convincing
to those who don't have like experience.

Both, I think, ultimately (assuming model-dependant realism) find themselves in the same statistical quandary of wanting to associate truth value with popularity. The scientistic wants the 'consensus' theory to have more weight, the religious want the 'serious' religions to be taken...well, more seriously. But neither can have what they want out of this model (and so both are dissatisfied). Despite intuitions which may seem to tell us the opposite, there's no mechanism (in this model) to connect popularity with truthiness. — Isaac

Schopenhauer claims that we can know the reality of the "in-itself" introspectively as Will. But this is purely speculative; for all we know it might be true, but since we could have no way of knowing it to be true, it would seem to be of little use.

What is really important, in my view, is what convinces you (or me or her). We are all convinced by different things, all driven by different presumptions, but what is important is that our ideas enable us to live more fully, a life as rich as possible. Everything else is a waste of time.

Very droll. — Banno

Why thank you...?

Interesting that folk seem to feel the need to address themselves to me, personally, rather than the topic at hand. — Banno

Just another one of life's illusions...

The Black and White Minstrel strikes again!

I think it's both. When we use the word 'world' in that context it encompasses both the variable products of human experience and the proposed causes of those experiences.

Trees are in the world. They are obviously to some extent a product of human experience (I doubt a creature at a radically different scale to us would identify such an object), but it is also constrained by factors external to our experience, otherwise we'd have no entropic factor in our models, no uncertainty. — Isaac

If I'm reading you right I agree. There is 'something' independent of any and all human experience and understanding which appears to us as the empirical world. For the sake of ordinary parlance we can say that something is the familiar world of naive realism, the @Banno world of cups and chairs, cupboards and cats on mats, or we can be more sophisticated and say that it is a quantum realm of differential energetic intensities, but both of these understandings, and others, are not independent of human experience and judgement, and we have no way of knowing how they might correspond to purportedly human-independent reality.

This would seem to make the notion of human-independent reality useless to us, even incoherent. It's a closed book to us, but the fact that there is this closed book has great significance for human life, because it renders it a profound mystery to which we can respond in any way that seems right to us, only limited by our imaginations. In that sense we really do construct our own realities.

We can also suspend all judgement on that front and see and live the non-dual nature of our experience, and become comfortable with uncertainty and undecidability; find our best lives in the ataraxia of the Pyrrhonian skeptics.

To my way of thinking abstraction is generalization, and a generalized concept requires symbolic language. It also seems obvious that things must stand out for animals; they can re-cognize things; which I think means that they can give attention to those things which matter to them.

The more abstract ideas we build up around things the stronger our grasp of them becomes. Our conceptual "grip" becomes firmer. I also think that things have their perceptual boundaries—surfaces that reflect light, and I think that in one way or another these light-illuminated edge boundaries make things to potentially stand out for all percipients.

This makes for the world to seem to be constituted by separate things, but I think this is a light-generated illusion. On the other hand I don't think the world is an amorphous mass, I don't doubt the world is a field of differential intensities that is neither one nor many; hence non-dualism.

I think we're merely capable of more abstract thought than animals, because of our relatively large cerebral cortex. You'll need to be clearer about what "machinery" it's possible to let go of. I've already agreed that people can have a hyperactive default mode network or 'monkey mind' and that deactivating it can reduce any anxiety produced by the hyperactivity. — praxis

Do you think abstract thought is possible without language? It is possible to slow down the internal dialogue, and my own experience shows me that in order to do that I must already be calmer; I doubt it is possible to shut it down completely. It is also possible to avoid being carried away by thought, but it is far from easy.

Does the anxiety cause the hyperactivity or vice versa? Probably a "feedback" process, but who knows where it starts?

I do wish that Leary and his contemporaries had more thoroughly examined their attitudes toward it. Perhaps without their deluded visions of grandeur, it may not have turned out to be classified as a Schedule I substance — praxis

Leary alarmed the authorities with his revolutionary rhetoric. I don't see it as egomania or "visions of grandeur", but more like childish over-enthusiasm. I can't think of any of his contemporaries who got nearly as carried away and/or caused nearly as much alarm as Leary. Your view of Leary ( and unnamed contemporaries) seems over the top to me.

We all live in the present, actually, though that present is often lost in thought, and all that thought may have a tendency to cause undo anxiety. Animals may suffer maladaptive anxiety nevertheless, though not caused by overthinking. The good news is that we can think our way out of it, unlike animals. — praxis

Of course by definition we all live in the present, but that is trivially true: we don't all experience living in the present. Perhaps you could give an example of a situation that could be characterized as an animal that is suffering maladaptive anxiety due to a situation not caused by humans. That would perhaps help me to see what I might not be seeing about what you're saying now.

OK, fair enough. :cool:

I think my response would always be 'defiled' or 'contaminated' by my own preconceptions and expectations. I also think there's considerable danger in envisaging such states in terms of what we consider pleasure or ecstacy. (I actually I recall a remark in the preface to Zen Mind Beginner's Mind where Suzuki roshi remarks that, if you have an enlightenment experience, you may not like it!) — Wayfarer

All our responses are "defiled" by preconceptions and expectations. As Wittgenstein says "Don't for heaven's sake, be afraid of talking nonsense! But you must pay attention to your nonsense."

I don't imagine that non-dual experience (enlightenment) is always pleasant. Pain can be a non-dual experience.Is enlightenment the cessation of all suffering or the cessation of attachment to suffering? The body is always prone to suffer.

I think what Shunryu is referring to is the fear that can be attendant upon losing a sense of self; think "bad trip" as opposed to "good trip" and how quickly we can shift from the first to the second, if we "let go". I have plenty of experience of that dynamic.

No. Phenomena are 'what appears' - sensory input. The stream of consciousness is just that, a stream of consciousness. 'Phenomena' is a hugely overused word nowadays, because it's come to mean, basically, 'everything' - which makes it meaningless, as it doesn't differentiate anything. — Wayfarer

There is an everyday usage of 'phenomena' which arguably restricts the term to appearances of the external kind. But, as I understand it, the term has a much wider range in phenomenology.

In its most basic form, phenomenology attempts to create conditions for the objective study of topics usually regarded as subjective: consciousness and the content of conscious experiences such as judgements, perceptions, and emotions. Although phenomenology seeks to be scientific, it does not attempt to study consciousness from the perspective of clinical psychology or neurology. Instead, it seeks through systematic reflection to determine the essential properties and structures of experience.

From here

I learned in Enlightenment 101 that the state of enlightenment is inconceivable, but let's not get too far into the long grass. — Wayfarer

The ordinary state of non-dual awareness is "inconceivable", simply because all conceptions are dualistic. The question I asked is along a different trajectory: I was asking whether you imagined enlightenment as being in a constant state of ecstasy, such as might be experienced when tripping, or when having a "mystical" or intense aesthetic experience.

If you want to do philosophy you must be prepared to get into the long grass. On the other hand there is no imperative to do philosophy; philosophy is not spiritual practice, but may be good preparation for it.

No? I think of it as entirely phenomenal. When you visualize, or play a song in your head, is that not phenomenal? — hypericin

I agree; all appearances, images, sensations, impressions; whether "internal" or "external" count as phenomena in my book.

You do wonder, then, why it's origins and traditions lie mostly with renunciates and sannyasins.

You might be referring to the 'ordinary mind' approach of Zen but bear in mind it is situated in Japanese society with high levels of ritual and aesthetic enculturation. It appeals to Westerners because it sounds very approachable but I think the reality is different. — Wayfarer

I imagine the ordinary mind of the Japanese is suffused with Japanese culture just as the ordinary mind of a westerner is suffused with western culture.

I'm not suggesting that the practice that must be undertaken to realize (with your whole being and not merely intellectually) that experience is non-dual is easy, and that is why renouncing the workaday life of social commitments and all the stress and confusion that comes with that ( in any culture, but arguably even more so in modern life) would not be a hindrance.

What do you imagine the experience of the "enlightened ones" is like? Ordinary or "satcitananda"; is there a difference; do you imagine it is a state of aesthetic rapture?

I'm sure that's a kind of romantic myth. They're also incapable of wrestling with the meaning of existence, that is the perogative of rational sentient beings. (See Are Humans Special, David Loy.) — Wayfarer

I'm not promoting the idea that animals live in some kind of aesthetic rapture, or even that humans who attain non-dual awareness do. I think non-dual awareness is very ordinary, it is just everyday experience. Our experience itself is always already non-dual; it is the rational discursive mind that creates the illusion of a world of subjects and objects. I don't believe animals share that illusion.

I'll have a look at the Loy article, but my response right now to the idea of human exceptionalism is that all animals are special. 'Special' is related to species, and all species are unique. So humans are not special by virtue of being the only special ones, but are ordinary just like the other animals in terms of being special.

We are the only species that possesses symbolic language, and all the cultural creativity that enables, and the suffering and sense of loss and being lost that also comes with self-reflection. Other animals do not have to bear that burden, and in that sense also we are special. But all of that has interest and meaning only for us. We also exploit other animals and each other more than any other animals do.

I voted "the question is too unclear to answer". If I were asked "do you experience a world that seems to be external to your body?" I would answer 'yes'.

It is unclear as to whether the question assumes some further substantive reality than that world seeming to be external to the body we all seem to experience.

It is unclear if it is being asked whether the external world in question consists of solid three dimensional objects independently of human experience and understanding.

The question seems like it is generated by "philosophy for dummies".

The moment we include any creation, any theory, model or idea within our arsenal of concepts, it is of us, not outside of us. — Isaac

So, would you say the world is external to human experience or not?

While animals do not speak, nothing stops them from generating their own phenomenal experiences, and thus having at least a rudimentary sense of self. — hypericin

I'm wondering why you speak in terms of "generating" phenomenal experience. It would seem that phenomenal experience is ongoing for percipients as long as they are alive. What do you think a "rudimentary sense of self" consists in? Just the basic proprioceptive and sensational experience that comes with being alive, or something more than that?

. The sacred has a nasty habit of becoming mundane, in other words. — praxis

It just sounds to me like you lack the experience, because that is not at all in accordance with mine.

I think it's counterproductive to conflate vision and abstract thought. — praxis

Human experience is mediated by abstract thought. Consequently, we understand the world in dualistic terms. It is possible to let that whole machinery go, and you seemed to be claiming that if we did that we would experience nothing at all. So I asked you about whether you think animals experience nothing at all.

So I too can develop a giant ego like Leary and crew? No thank you. — praxis

Your unexamined attitudes are a laugh! You don't know what you are missing.

They have an internal model of their bodies just as we do, as well as a model for everything else they know, just as we do. They can develop maladaptive responses to situations that cause them undue anxiety, just as we can. — praxis

So we must imagine, since we understand things dualistically in terms of model/ reality: of having a model of reality. Models need not be understood in this kind of dualistic fashion. We could instead say that modeling is intrinsic to experience. that experience just is modeling.

I don't know about animals developing maladaptive responses, but they can certainly suffer and be miserable in situations that cause them anxiety; situations mostly created by humans.

That's an odd thing to say, that you don't have to separate a tree from its surroundings in order to see it. If you mean to say that our minds, and the minds of animals, automatically distinguish things like trees and you don't need to consciously focus on a tree to see it then yeah, that makes sense. — praxis

I'd say both animals and humans distinguish things that are of significance to them. Animals are not split off from their experience, caught up in an internal dialogue or monologue that pushes them to seek some illusionary stable dualistic understanding that will answer all their linguistically generated questions once and for all. Animals, I imagine, live in the eternal present, in a non-dual state of awareness.

What they lack is the ability to consider themselves as subjects, i.e. they're absent rational self-awareness. Yes some can pass the mirror test, but I bet none of them are thinking 'what am I doing here?' or 'what does being an elephant mean, really?' They don’t have the predicament of selfhood. — Wayfarer

Yes, all that seems obvious; since they would need symbolic language to think "what am I doing here?" or "what does being an elephant mean, really?", and we don't think they possess symbolic language.

The question was: if they don't possess symbolic language then they don't conceive of their experience dualistically (meaning they would not "consider themselves as subjects), but does it follow that they would experience nothing, as @praxis claimed?

Fair enough, I suppose...but I draw a distinction between "eating shit" and eating shit. :lol: