O, the infinitely evil Buddhists; all destined for eternal damnation! :rofl:

Yes. I made the same point many pages ago. It's remarkable how some threads can motor on needlessly fueled mostly by misunderstanding.

It seems circular to me; there is only a problem of the equations "coming out at zero" because there is already an observer to produce the equations.

In other words it is a problem for our equations, and says nothing about the mind-independent existence of the universe or of spacetime.

Linde seems to be saying the opposite; that spacetime is independently real. — Janus


He makes the case for the role of the observer. — Wayfarer

As I understood it he refers to it as a possibility that ought to be explored. The problem is that no indication of how it could be explored is forthcoming.

So, understanding mind (or consciousness) in that way requires something like a gestalt shift or change in perspective. It's difficult, but not impossible. — Wayfarer

You haven't said what you think the understanding of the mind you seem to be trying to refer to is. You say it's not any individual mind, you say it's not panpsychic mind, so what is it? Vague references to "gestalt shifts" don't tell us anything.

Linde seems to be saying the opposite; that spacetime is independently real.

Yes, exactly. I speculate that, a being with more acute senses and intellect than us could perceive how physics leads to biology "up" to qualia. — Manuel

I guess it's possible. Although I have to say I am skeptical because to my way of thinking the idea of qualia is just the notion of how things "feel", how experience feels, to us, and I don't see any way that subjective feeling could be directly accessed by scientific observation. We all access our own subjective feelings constantly, at least when we pay attention; they constitute our very life, and I think the best way to "explain" them (I think 'express' or 'evoke' is a better term since the feeling itself, as opposed to the conditions that allow for the feeling, cannot really be explained in any scientific sense) is via the arts, and most discursively, poetry and imaginative literature.

I think there is something non-relational to objects, that is not revealed in the physics we do. If we all suddenly vanish, and that tree out there remains, it hard to think that all that remains are a "bundle of particles". — Manuel

I agree, and I think there certainly seem to be real "levels" of being and interaction. There is the atomic level, below that the "quark" level, and above it the molecular and cellular. At each successive level, there seem to be emergent processes and interactions which cannot be explained in terms of the levels below.

So we identify all these cellular processes going on in the tree: photosynthesis, respiration, transpiration, micorrhizal symbiosis and so on. Plant cells appear to similar to our own except they also have cellulose cell walls which animals cells don't. Plant cells do have mitochondria, just as animal cells do, so there would seem to be a real commonality there.

In any case the point is that I think it is a mistake to think of any level as being "more real" than any other, because of the reality of emergent properties that cannot be explained in terms of the lower "levels".

Yes, there's an excellent discussion of this topic by whom I consider to be the best Kant interpretation (who incidentally Strawson recommended to me) Manifest Reality by Lucy Allais. She not only clearly establishes that Kant was a transcendental idealist, but also an empirical realist. — Manuel

I touched on this earlier; I think Kant's idea makes sense if we consider it from the human point of view. So from that perspective empirical objects insofar as they are intersubjectively shared in a public world are real, and certainly not merely in anyone's mind. And from that standpoint transcendental "objects" are ideal insofar as they can only be thought about, but never encountered (except as empirical objects of course :wink:).

From a more "absolute objective" standpoint, the situation is reversed: empirical objects, as such, are mind dependent identities and so ideal, and transcendental "objects" are whatever is ultimately real.

:up: I was really into Whitehead a few years ago, and I generally agree with a process approach, as the idea of static entities seems to be merely a formal abstraction.

I see physics as being a heavy duty reduction. How can we describe time and material change on that most basic abstracted level of interactive forces? I have no doubt that atmospheres formed, earth cooled, rain fell and erosion happened long before humans appeared.

Of course having no doubt and being absolutely certain are not the same in my book.

How can a language less creature, say a prehistoric mammal, have an attitude towards a proposition when propositions themselves are language constructs? The failure of what you argue is shown in it's inherent inability to make much sense of such language less belief. — creativesoul

Say a prehistoric animal is thirsty and remembers where it last drank. Then it starts moving in the direction of the water. Is it not expecting the water to be where it was last time? I would say expectation is a kind of propositional form, insofar as it is intentional (in the phenomenological sense of being of or about something) even in the absence of symbolic language.

What we take to be real is dependent on the kind of being that we are. — Wayfarer

I have no doubt that other animals see the same things we do. They recognize the same things as food, water, trees, and so on. You don't see birds trying to eat stones; they eat fruit just as we do , for example.

I agree that our discussions have always been pleasant (and mine with @Mww as well). I am never quite sure with you too whether we are actually disagreeing at all.

What do you gain by saying "actual" structure? I ask because, I could imagine another intelligent being, conceptualizing the same thing, in a way we would not. For example what we call a "pond", could be bed to that creature.

The same structure causes us to see a pond, causes an alien to see a bed. — Manuel

Probably I should have said "bare structures", because of course the kinds of structures we are considering are actual, not imaginary. I was just trying to indicate the thing without its human- conceived function(s).

So, yes I agree that the same thing could have very different functions for differently constituted creatures.

It very likely exists it some manner, I don't doubt that, but what can be said of this existence, absent people is very little.

For instance, I don't think a feline creature or an insect, would make sense of a building, and if the only creatures that remained after a nuclear holocaust were insects, then there'd be very little world to speak of, it would be something like an undifferentiated mass, with places to go to and maybe some food. — Manuel

I agree that the function of such things as buildings, roads and so on would be lost if there were no sentient beings capable of grasping it. But that says nothing about whether the actual structures would remain; and that is all I've been claiming.



Judgements about what exists are not, to my way of thinking, what exists. You say "the manner of the existence of the universe absent any consciousness is unknowable by definition"; I see this as a trivial truism, which simply says that we cannot know something without being there to know it. We can imagine the manner of the existence of the universe without us, though. We can look back some 13 billion light years and see how the universe was long before we existed. We thus know that it existed long before we did. From that we can conclude that it would continue to exist if we were totally wiped out.

So, from an ontic perspective the world is prior to the self, whereas from a phenomenological perspective the self is prior to the world. I don't see this as a contradiction; the two paradigms are incommensurable.

All theatrical. One thing that puzzles me is why the universe is more a nightmare than a wet dream? — Agent Smith

Whether life is more suffering than joy is up to you. In any case it is impossible to quantify, so such a judgement is down to disposition.

Whether or not anyone would be around is not relevant to the cogency of the question, just as what was around prior to the advent of humanity is not an "empty question".

My first thought is, could anyone accomplish this positing without the use of their awareness? Take away awareness in general and the very possibility of this supposition seems to me to existentially vanish. What then? — javra

You are assuming that the existence of things depends on our positing their existence; I don't make that assumption.

I also don't follow Peirce in assuming that matter is effete mind. But yes, disagreement is fine; I don't hold any position regarding idealism vs materialism, although I think it's fair to say I do lean towards thinking materialism is the more plausible assumption. I also acknowledge that we don't know what materiality is (or anything else for that matter) in any "ultimate" sense.

Something would remain, yes. That's the belief in the external world.

But what would remain would not be "buildings", "roads", "furniture" nor "cars". They would be "things", or some other very general, abstract term.

I very much doubt another creature has these concepts, nor knows what these things are. — Manuel

I don't see any reason to think that buildings, roads and so on would not remain if all humans were gone. What about remains of previous cultures which have been buried and then unearthed? Such items had been not been perceived for centuries, even millennia, and yet are recognizable as buildings, pottery and so on.

Why would there have to be creatures with "these concepts" in order for physical structures in various forms to exist? I don't think such structures are dependent for their continuing existence on our conceptions of them, even if they had been dependent on such conceptions for their creation.

Why not? Houses, bridges, cars, doors, steps, parks, roads, sidewalks etc, etc.

But I would not understand what you would mean to say that something like tables and chairs are in any way mind independent. — Manuel

Say humanity was instantly and totally wiped out somehow; you don't think all the buildings, roads, furniture, cars and so on would remain?

Mass hallucination; more realistically, mass delusion. — Agent Smith

On that assumption what remains to be explained is how it is that we all see the same things in the same locations.

In other words, everything bar awareness and awareness-contingent givens. What would that be though? — javra

True without percipents there would be no conceptualization. But conceptualization requires perception and perception require percipients and something to perceive.

What can be posited to exist without any perceptions or conceptualizations (for perceptions and conceptualizations are awareness-contingent and would in no way occur in the absence of all awareness)? — javra

I would say that absent percipients only what would be perceived if there were percipients could be posited. So, stars planets, mountains, rivers and so on. A very long list if you include plants.

Sure, what else would we have to go on?

I haven't failed to see the point, Wayfarer; I actually agree with what you said above, it is you who fails to see what I am saying and are thus arguing against a strawman; see my post above.

It's interesting that Schopenhauer was in his day understood as a vociferous atheist, and yet now his metaphysics is criticized as being too near to religion! Speaks volumes, in my opinion. — Wayfarer

I don't think it's surprising, Given the shifting notions of religion and metaphysics. It's Schopenhauer the metaphysician whose arguments I see as facile and specious. His conclusions do not follow from his premise. As I already said, that it is our constitutions, whether that be considered in some "transcendental" or merely physical sense, which contribute to the ways we perceive things, does not entail that things are mind-dependent.

Similarly, that Kant was a transcendental idealist indicates only that he thinks we cannot be realist about the imagined "ultimate" nature of things because we cannot apprehend any ultimate nature; it does not follow that he was an idealist, rather than a realist, when it comes to the question about whether the things we perceive have their own existence, they are fro him "things in themselves", after all. He actually says they must exist since it would be illogical to propose that there could be appearances without there being something which appears.

:up:

A third possibility: the things we encounter are dependent on human contact to take the form we perceive or imagine them to take.

The things we encounter may be independent of human contact for their existence but dependent on human contact for their particular form.

I think this is closer to what Wayfarer is aiming at. I could be wrong. — ZzzoneiroCosm

But as I have acknowledged ad nauseum, I have no argument with what seems to me to be the obvious fact that the way we are constituted affects the way we view things, in the very most basic perceptual or cognitive sense. That, however, says nothing whatsoever about the independence or otherwise of the things we perceive.

I have acknowledged this countless times to @Wayfarer, and if that is all he is arguing, then I can only say that he is anything but a close reader. I don't believe for a minute that is all he is arguing, but of course I could be wrong.

More contemporary idealists like Kastrup additionally make the point that materialism or physicalism is false (using a particular understanding of QM) therefore all which exists must be consciousness - ergo idealism.

What do you consider to be the best defeater/s for idealism? — Tom Storm

I don't believe idealism or realism can be defeated; they just represent the two imaginable metaphysical possibilities. I do think it is pretty disingenuous when idealists cherry pick ideas from an empirical discipline to support their beliefs, as if the implications of the observer problem, or just what constitutes an "observer" in QM is known and perfectly well understood.

So, I have more time for phenomenology; which brackets the question of the mind-independent existence of things, and focuses on what things and our experience of them and ourselves is for us, rather than worrying about, and taking stances on, questions which are not ultimately decidable.

@Wayfarer says that physicalism is corrosive. I think that's bullshit, it is the physicalist/ idealist polemic which is corrosive. Obviously I would not agree with atheists who think idealism is corrosive either. That said, inasmuch as any philosophical or theological position supports attitudes which contribute to any undervaluing of earthly life, then I would say it is corrosive

I think the argument that the world must be mind-dependent because a world cannot be imagined except by a mind is specious. The fact is that we can imagine a world without minds. We can imagine two possibilities; either the things we encounter via our senses have their own existences, and are not dependent for their existence upon us encountering them, or the things we encounter are dependent on us encountering them.

These are metaphysical questions, and I cannot see how there could ever be any demonstrably correct answer to them. Schopenhauer's strategy is to mount what I see as a facile argument, more or less following Kant, that because we are encountering and imagining objects they cannot be independent of us. This simply does not logically follow.

In any case I don't think such questions are really important to us, except insofar as they reveal what possibilities are imaginable to us. I cannot help myself weighing in though, when I see others rehearsing Schopenhauer's specious argument; an argument which amounts to fallaciously claiming that anyone thinking that objects could have a mind-independent existence is indulging in a performative contradiction just because they are thinking it.

It also seems to me that those who mount arguments akin to Schopenhauer's very often do so for religious reasons, which indicates to me that they comprehensively misunderstand the relationship between logic, science and religion. The atheists also, ironically, misunderstand the relation between science, the empirical, and religion. Rightly understood religion (if it is not fundamentalism) is not a matter of believing any empirical propositions; it is purely affective, and responsive to the felt sense of life and being.

David Lewis said "Let there be shite" and then there was this thread.

I see no evidence of that. — Wayfarer

You see only what you want to see it seems. Saying that I don't understand those arguments is pretty rich coming from you, given that when I first started posting on forums I used to present the very arguments you continue to, and you used to agree, approve and applaud vociferously. But you couldn't handle it when I changed my mind, and began to see large holes in the very arguments you are so enamoured of.

Again, you're speaking from a perspective which imagines the universe with no observer in it, but that itself is also a product of your mind. — Wayfarer

That is a trivially true and irrelevant. Of course what I say is being said and what I think is being thought. The point is that your statement that a perspective, that is a view from a particular location, is required for one thing to be further away from something than another is simply incorrect.

What you fail to realize it seems is that I completely understand Schopenhauer's argument having read both volumes of his magnum opus and McGee's exegesis. I understand Schopenhauer, but do not agree with his conclusions; which seems to be something which you simply cannot comprehend, when it pertains to something you personally believe.

Modern naturalism on the contrary starts with the assumption that what is known by the senses and scientific instruments is inherently real - that is, I believe, what you mean when you use the term 'immanent'. What is 'transcendent' is rejected on account of it's putative association with metaphysics and religious ideas (as we see all of the time in debates on this Forum). — Wayfarer

What is known by the senses and their augmentations is that from which the very notion of reality is derived. What is known by the feeling of being is life, and is immanent and ineffable. It is a matter of phenomenology, not metaphysics, and has nothing to do with empirical concerns. But you seem to fail to understand that and see science, particularly science of the mind, as the enemy.

They're all nevertheless dependent on perspective. Things are only nearer or further away with respect to some other thing, and someone has to be measuring that. — Wayfarer

This is not true: Proxima Centauri is further away from Earth than the moon is from all possible perspectives.

In fairness, though, you have so far not directly answered the question I've posed:

If all awareness in the cosmos were to somehow miraculously vanish [...] what, if anything, would remain of the world as we in any way know it? — javra

I would say everything bar percipients and their perceptions.

Perhaps I'm thick, but I didn't understand what you were trying to convey in your first paragraph.

In like enough manner, the physical world (to not even mention individual object in it) occurs fully independently of me, or you, of any other individual psyche. But in the absence of all awareness, including that pertaining to psyches, there would be no such thing as a world. — javra

If the physical world occurs independently of any and all individual psyches, then why would there be no such thing as a world in the absence of all awareness? Are you positing a collective psyche or something like that?

I believe I've already accounted for this in my post via some, as of yet to be clarified, form of panpsychism. — javra

OK, but I can't see how pan-psychism would help. I see no reason to think it is impossible for physical things like planets and stars to exist absent humans or other percipients. I see the so-called "hard problem" as existing only on account of a presumptuous idea that we understand the nature of physical matter.

You say you agree with "the empiricist view is that the universe exists irrespective of whether it is observed or not. In one sense that is true, but the empiricist overlooks the role of the observing mind in the representation of the Universe and so what it means to say the universe exists".

It is. I think, trivially true that we and all percipients contribute to how things are perceived on account of different perceptual constitutions. That aside, what it means to say things exist independently of percipients, is that they are there to be perceived, and there regardless of whether or not they are perceived.

If we believe the science it tells us that the universe did indeed exist before any organisms appeared on the scene.

I believe that what I perceive in my senses is an effect of a prior cause, and that prior cause is a world independent of me as an observer. — RussellA


That is 'transcendental realism', the commonsense pre-theoretic view that objects in space and time are things in themselves or possess an innate reality independently of the mind. — Wayfarer

So, you believe that if you as an observer ceased to exist, the world would go with you?

Because that is what the subject of philosophy is concerned with. That is the basis of the idea of 'appearance and reality' which is the fundamental preoccupation of philosophy since the subject began. — Wayfarer

Maybe so with ancient and medieval philosophy, but in today's terms a very narrow, anachronistic conception of philosophy, corrected by Kant 240 years ago. Phenomenology has nothing to do with ultimate concerns. Neither has continental or analytic philosophy or pragmatism. You're living in the past.

:roll: