If one answers yes to all, then there is no evolution in and of itself. Our dashboard then fabricates evolution out of the time- and space-less. Evolution would be just a story we tell ourselves. — spirit-salamander

You'll need to read Kastrup more closely to get a better explanation that I can provide. I'm neither an idealist, nor a philosopher, so for me all this more like trying to understand the plots of various stories. Kastrup is committed to evolution and to matter being an illusion. What all this means in terms of coherence and big ticket philosophical notions like time, being and becoming, I can't tell you.

Thanks for your considered answers.

Kastrup's answer to the question is very wild and speculative. The superior mind suffers from a multiple personality disorder. That's what he thinks. — spirit-salamander

I think his idea may be more nuanced that this. He says experiences of individual consciousness are dissociated alters of universal mind - which is not metacognitive and entirely instinctive. My sense is he uses dissociative personality disorder more as a metaphor. But you are right, it is entirely speculative.

The mind operates with categories, which constitute the formal structure of the external world. — spirit-salamander

Yes.

Most of them are then likely to be merely psychosomatic. But all would have to be due to a mental disorder. Factors like repression, guilt, stress are then responsible for most of the diseases. — spirit-salamander

Interesting and controversial. Maybe the word metal disorder is a bit too strong. What are we to make of schizophrenia , say vis-à-vis diabetes? What are we to make of the word mental when all is mental?

The question would be, how does the universal mind perceive evolution? With our understanding and feeling of time? — spirit-salamander

Wouldn't time simply be another way in which mentation appears to us on the dashboard of physicalism? Isn't time one of those Kantian structures we bring to our understanding of experience and reality. Perhaps time in this model is our understanding of universal mind 'thinking'.

Nice summary. Teasing out the disparate strands of thinkers in brief like this is helpful.

I do not argue against the existence of any one thing that we can apprehend, either by sense or reflection. That the things I see with my eyes and touch with my hands do exist, really exist, I make not the least question. The only thing whose existence we deny, is that which philosophers call matter or corporeal substance.’ — Wayfarer

Marvellous quote.

There are some excellent editions of Berkeley's dialogues on Early Modern Texts and if you take time to peruse them you will see that he anticipates and disposes of many seemingly obvious objections to his philosophy. — Wayfarer

:up:

But where they attribute the inferiority to an incursion of undesirable cultures, I attribute the inferiority of modernism to a lack of artistic skill in the work itself (based on the criterion of the classical tradition). — Merkwurdichliebe

Sure. I mention the Nazi's just as an example of egregious stupidity in judgement. But I find there are a lot of people who dislike any art they don't understand. 'My 7 year-old could do better!' There are lots of things I don't understand. For me the trick is not to dismiss the stuff I don't get as a defensive reflex action. I like much modernist art and most abstract art. To come back to the OP - I am not overly interested in the quality of draftsmanship or demonstration of skills when it comes to painting or sculpture. Skills here don't really move me.

but let's not fool ourselves into believing that this person is an actual artist who creates actual art. — Merkwurdichliebe

I see how you might argue this and I am not saying you are wrong. I just feel uneasy about saying what is and what is not art - it's a thin line from this to the Nazi's Degenerate Art exhibition (1937). For me it is generally just a matter of do I like it?

I had the idea of a shit. I took a dump and it became actual and sensuous. Is it art? — Merkwurdichliebe

Yes - if it's put on display and exhibited as such. Imagine the throngs who would clog up a gallery to sneek a glimpse of Picasso poo.

The real question with such an example is not whether it is art, but whether it's any good, subject to whatever criteria you wish to apply.

Then you learn a trade — Bartricks

:rofl:

That tells me you didn't understand the point of my post, but I've been down this rabbit hole umpteen times in the past, so I'll leave it there. — Wayfarer

Yeah... I think this is the issue. People don't seem to follow the argument. I think they fight it rather than go with the flow. IMO one doesn't have to accept it as true to understand it.

Austin's criticism of "universal" concepts starts at about p.84. — Banno

Cool. I'll go look.

I would ask you how covid exists outside sensible experience and it not be material/physical. — Marchesk

I believe this matter and the nature of the physical has been answered several times already. I think @Bartricks has a very succinct definition of idealism.

I take an idealist to be someone who believes that minds are immaterial objects and that reality is made solely of minds and the contents of minds. So, everything is either an immaterial mind or a state of such a mind. (Berkeley is the paradigm case of an idealist, and that's what he believed). — Bartricks

So the idealist is put in the awkward position of explaining why the material representation has mind as a latter development on brains, surrounded by a universe of mostly physical things and processes, where mind is a relative late comer, one that we only know about in one little corner of the cosmos. — Marchesk

That's not really an issue for some idealists. They postulate that consciousness - something like a universal mind - preexists all.

IOW, why does the world appear to be mostly physical? — Marchesk

We regard it as psychical.

Here's Kastrup summarizing his model - it's a snippet from his vast output on the matter (no pun intended). From an essay called The Unexpected Origin of Matter.

First of all, let us immediately acknowledge the empirically obvious: there is a world beyond and independent of our individual consciousness; a world that we all inhabit. And, alas, we clearly can’t change how this world works by a mere act of individual conscious volition. But to acknowledge this does not require the bankrupt notion of matter outside consciousness. It only requires a transpersonal consciousness within which our individual consciousnesses are immersed.

Indeed, I maintain that the external world is itself constituted by transpersonal experiential states that simply present themselves to us in the form we call ‘matter.’ As such, ‘matter’ is merely the extrinsic appearance—the image—of inner experience; there’s nothing more to it. In the case of living beings, the ‘matter’ constituting their body is the extrinsic appearance of their individual experiential states (this being the reason why measurable patterns of brain activity correlate with inner experience). In the case of the inanimate universe, on the other hand, ‘matter’ is the extrinsic appearance of transpersonal experiential states.

I'm saying that it's odd that we have all those visual representations of mental processes that are said to be explanations for our experiences, such as getting sick, neuroscience, evolution, star formation and death. — Marchesk

Of course it's odd. An idealist might argue that we have centuries of thinking that the material world is a pure representation of reality.

But COVID isn't just the symptoms people experience, it's the explanation for the pandemic, and why millions have died. It's also not just the experience of falling off a cliff, but what happens you hit the bottom. — Marchesk

As I said, I am not an idealist, but - the point being that everything humans experience is simply mind when viewed from a particular perspective. Chemicals, brains, atoms are all visual representations of mental processes. We use these 'dashboard' images to negotiate our apparent world. Idealists don't necessarily say they have an explanation of death other than your particular discrete experience of consciousness ends.

It can't be a material cause such as an invisible virus or the rocks at the bottom. — Marchesk

You're not there yet. Idealist Bernardo Kastrup would say that a virus and rocks are not matter - they are visual representations of mental processes. Consciousness has it's own risks and hazards which are represented to us as material things.

I work closely with psychiatry departments in our big city hospitals. In a clinical setting, suicide is understood as an individual's response (albeit regrettable) to situations they find overwhelming and is understood contextually. I have responded to many individuals who wanted to kill themselves. In every case I've seen it is because life has become unbearable through chronic pain, the loss of a loved one, major depression, sexual abuse, trauma - that kind of thing. Most people do find a way to work through the issues and find reasons to live.

each individual's first person perspective is unique to oneself. — Wayfarer

That's my intended point. :wink:

By no means! Living beings are the way in which meaning enters the universe. Rational sentient beings are those able to realise that. — Wayfarer

A digression - Where do you sit on the notion that true art criticism/aesthetics should rest on identifying transcendental notions of truth, goodness and beauty which are part of humanity's platonic/idealist heritage?

Back to evolution. If what we take to be the physical world is the product of mentation - can you guess/describe what evolution is 'doing'? Did the single, self-replicating cell begin as nascent consciousness, as part of universal consciousness and eventually develop into full blown meta-cognitive awareness - human sentience? Is such a journey to be seen as purposeful, or simply Schopenhauer's blind will doing its thing? I'm not necessarily asking you to go down Hegel's giest or Bucke's Cosmic Consciousness territory unless you think it apropos.

It's not as if things come into and go out of existence when you or I are looking at them, or not. Existence of the car or the moon or anything else is constituted within our cognition of those objects. Furthermore, they are designated objects by sentient beings. — Wayfarer

Sure, but from your account of idealism are cars, for instance, essentially the product of mentation - even if built from materials and labour that is also mentation expressing itself? They are not physical objects, surely? Idealism being a monist ontology.... Can you say more about this point?

They are designated objects by sentient beings. — Wayfarer

We see objects based on an inherent structure in our consciousness? The 'designation' process interests me.

The thing with neuroscience is that the brain is taken to explain the functionality of the mind. But we don't normally have experiences of our brain. Why is it that investigation our head gives us an idea of an organ that's supposed to be responsible for us having those ideas? There's a thousand such questions about everything. How come we find fossils in the ground? Are they ideas of something that lived before we did?

How do you explain pandemics? Is Covid just an idea? People get sick and die because of an idea? What is death to an idealist? How do ideas cause you to die? — Marchesk

Idealists have interesting answers for all these questions. Nothing is 'just an idea' it seems. Idealism seems to maintain that all we have access to is experience which presents itself to us symbolically as the matter we think we are seeing. So no doubt COVID, or falling off a cliff for that matter, are representations of something happening in consciousness when viewed from a particular perspective.

It is odd that it is present in both materialism and idealism, as if one conceded something to the other. — NOS4A2

Interesting point.

Nice and charitable interpretation.

They're not totally unique. The more unique there are, the harder to communicate. Look up the meaning of 'idiosyncratic'. It basically means not understandable to others. — Wayfarer

Goodness, I need to watch the words I use! Not my intended meaning. By 'unique' I just meant people have individual conscious experiences that don't seem connected to other's conscious experiences. No hive mind. Kastrup says this is one of the most common questions he gets asked - 'How come we are all different if all reality is one consciousness.' It's like the opposite of solipsism.

We are all the same species, culture, language group, etc. But glaring discrepancies appear all the time. I mean, there are still people who think Trump was great. — Wayfarer

I was referring to reality - 'the world' and observed regularities within it.

Appealing to evolution as a support for why reason might be true is the subject of Plantinga's Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism, and also the broader Argument from Reason. Both have generated many volumes. — Wayfarer

Idealists like Hoffman and Kastrup say that idealism supports evolution - I don't quite get the model. If all is mentation why did life evolve? -Presumably there was a concomitance emergence of higher consciousness in humans somewhere between being a fish and being a high functioning ape? :razz:

That mind is not numerically one, but is of a kind, like space - the capacity for experience, or something of that nature. — Wayfarer

I was referring to universal mind as a 'god surrogate' that holds the reality we perceive in check. At least this is how Berkeley and Kastrup seem to describe it. E.g., Why is our car still in the carport the next morning after we sleep? Is the moon still there when we are not looking?

Sentient life of all kinds are the way the Universe realizes dimensions of being. Rational sentient beings are able to reflect on that. — Wayfarer

So by that token idealism makes no practical difference to a life lived? We can reflect perfectly well as physicalists or is it your contention that we need to know more to reflect properly?

So, we can make up our stories about mind independently existent physical objects or ideas in the mind of God or collective unconscious or whatever, but they are all just stories we tell ourselves, some of us preferring one and others preferring others. For all intents and purposes we know there are publicly accessible objects, whatever their "ultimate constitutions" might be; and we don't even know if that idea is of ultimate constitution is coherent. — Janus

Very nicely put and reasoned.

For a physicalist, (Kastrup's) idealism confuses the map with the territory. — 180 Proof

May well do. It's interesting how this is one of those rhetorical tricks which can so easily be turned on the trickster.

Have you ever had any sympathy for any form of idealism?

Idealism is not the view that there is one mind (yours). That's solipsism.

I am an idealist and I believe in billions of minds. And so did Berkeley. Note, the basis upon which one infers the existence of other minds is going to be the same whether one is an idealist or an immaterialist (with one exception - the idealist will typically posit one extra mind as the mind who is bearing the mental states constitutive of the sensible world we're all inhabiting). — Bartricks

Yes, that's what I was getting at with the question. Would I be correct in assuming that for you God is the universal mind in idealism?

Thank you for your considered responses. It is interesting how often idealism is understood as solipsism.

There's no connection between idealism and us having any particular role. Note, to have a role you need to have been created for a purpose. — Bartricks

My words were probably unclear. I wasn't implying that idealism had a role for us but more that if we are idealists how might this have impact upon how we should live?

For example the idea of evolution is based on the fossil record; and observation of plants and animals and their similarities and differences, and also on studying DNA profiles but according to his theory all that could tell us nothing about how species evolved, and indeed the very idea of species evolving and sharing traits and DNA would be groundless.How do you think he could address this problem? — Janus

Kastrup (a different idealist thinker) simply argues that all we experience is real - it just isn't physical. So signs and fossils and DNA and an oncoming bus - are all important readings on a dashboard that hold real consequences. They are mind when observed from a different perspective. But this stuff is very elusive and cannot be demonstrated other than undermining materialist ontologies.

Reality is not 'just an experience'. It's a constructive activity which synthesises elements of sensory data with the categories of the understanding to generate the phenomenal experience. — Wayfarer

The interesting part of this for me is unpacking what these 'categories of understanding' are. Not wanting to race ahead but I am assuming that here you would subscribe to a Platonist model of ideas, right?

These two parts seemed quite ad hoc to me. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Thanks for the clarification. I hear you.

Kastrupt's Idea of the World, while advancing a less than convincing idealist ontology, has a very succinct overview of the seemingly intractable problems facing realism and particularly physicalism. But the interesting thing to me is that the same arguments he uses can be easily flipped around to show how, assuming that physicalism is true, we would still have these same intractable issues anyhow. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Can you say a little more? Why do you find Kastrup's Analytic Idealism less than convincing? I ask out of interest, and am personally not invested in his ontology.

Don't miss the main point. — Wayfarer

You'll have to help me. I got this.

the world is 'mind-generated' - not the world in its entirety, not the whole vast universe of space and time, but 'world' as, and insofar as it is, a meaningful whole - which is the meaning of 'cosmos' - and in which the mind plays a fundamental part. — Wayfarer

Then I guess Trump supporters and liberals
in the U.S live in different worlds, as Goodman says, given that they disagree profoundly on ethical, political and scientific issues. No pointing to the true facts , while castigating our foes for their laziness, stupidity or malevolent motives, will change this situation. — Joshs

Yes, dualistic thinking is unhelpful and I can see the merit of this view. Is deescalation of culture war possible and how do we find our way to a less disruptive, violent world in the light of this?

One of the main advantages of this book is its clarity and focus. It has really helped me to understand the sense in which the world is 'mind-generated' - not the world in its entirety, not the whole vast universe of space and time, but 'world' as, and insofar as it is, a meaningful whole - which is the meaning of 'cosmos' - and in which the mind plays a fundamental part. — Wayfarer

Thank you - this is helpful. Food for thought. I can see how this is all compatible with phenomenology. I guess the aspect left out of this - the nature of and structure of reason - probably does also need to be engaged with to make the entire 'vision' coherent.

Intention probably is a better word to use. I would perhaps say skill is the ability to communicate one’s intentions? And perhaps meaning is found when that is done successfully — Pinprick

Doesn't quite resonate with me but, I hear you. I think there are people with prodigious natural skill that is instinctive. I know a person with an intellectual disability who sometimes takes photos with her phone. In almost every instance those photos are extraordinarily well composed and impactful. She has what was unfashionably known once as 'the eye'. But all she does is point and shoot with no reflection or deliberation or communicative intent. It's an instinctive skill - capturing light and angle and composition like a pro.

I’m not sure if you could say that you can even properly interpret a work of art without first understanding it…I don’t know. — Pinprick

Apart from whether this is true or not, the other question is your assumption that there is a proper interpretation. Not convinced this is right.

To start with, if art is truly an act of self-expression, then it really is a need the person feels. — Pinprick

I wouldn't say art is 'truly an act of self-expression' - and I am not sure what 'truly' is doing there. I think art always emerges from a context, as well as from an individual. A well trained artist from a particular school will produce works that reflect their creativity but often be beholden to conventions set by others. Artists often try to encapsulate an established artistic vernacular they have not created.

True, there are no rules in art. As the master vilppu said there are no rules, only tools. — Merkwurdichliebe

I think that is true in one sense, but only if you take a panoptic overview of art as a subject. Given the diversity of the history of artistic expression, it looks like there are no rules. But if you are talking about expressions of particular art forms; Athenian vase painting or Japanese art or 19th century realism, or pop art, there were very strict conventions that must be observed.

Maybe it is a given and I'm just wasting my breath, but I doubt it. Not even sure my contributions are useful for this crowd, — Noble Dust

Not at all, I enjoy your observations. We're just sifting through the strands of thought and experience here.

Of course, realism, in comparison to other genres, holds the potential to include the greatest variety of design techniques in a single work, which is why I believe it is the genre requiring the greatest skill. — Merkwurdichliebe

You may be right. Although the fact remains for me that some highly skilled work comes off as 'dead'. Like the aforementioned Steve Vai's masturbatory guitar technique. I am not always drawn to skill as such as a criterion of value in art, but I do appreciate it in craftworks.

For artists, one of the primary goals is to be recognized for their skill by their artistic peers. I would venture to say that art is something quite different for the artist than it is for nonartists.
— Merkwurdichliebe

:fire:

Probably the thrust of most my posts in Phil of Art threads. — Noble Dust

No question - I guess I would have thought that was a given - just as philosophy is quite different to the philosopher than it is for nonphilosophers. And symphonic music something quite different for the instrumentalist than it is for nonmusicians, etc.

:up:

What counts as skill in Cubism is very different than what counts as skill in Realism. To me the common thread connecting all art across mediums or genres is meaning — Pinprick

I think this is reasonable. Personally I would take a different approach. Cubism skill can be judged in relation to Cubism and skills in Realism in relation to Realism. So there's that. Also, if you think skill is subjective, I would venture that what counts as meaning is probably even more subjective. :wink:

The problem with any faith is it is based upon the subjective preferences of the believers who interpret God's will. This is why beliefs about god's will vary radically, even within the one religion.

Since god/s are missing and all we have are 'old books which say a thing', along with a thriving marketing department (preachers, priests and rabbis), it seems to me we have no reliable way of demonstrating 1) if there are god/s 2) which god/s are the real ones 3) whether those god/s have views on human behavior and 4) what those views are exactly. A futile quest if ever there was one.

In the meantime, some Christian churches fly a rainbow flag of inclusion and others want gays to burn in hell. When it comes to sin and moral behavior all we have are opinions.

So, a skilled craftsman is someone who makes very functional items, and a skilled artist is someone who makes very meaningful items. — Pinprick

For my taste this is getting too instrumental and narrow. Skill generally refers to expertise in an activity undertaken. We can choose that activity at random and then measure a person's skill in achieve it. For instance, some people are skilled at not taking responsibility. Some people are skilled at marketing their art, but are not great artists. When we say an artist is skilled, we can apply this word to a wide criterion of value. Are they skilled in technique? (Goya) Are they skilled in shocking their audience? (Damien Hirst) Are they skilled in publicity. (Jeff Koons) Are they skilled in most areas? (Picasso)

A skilled craftsman for me would be someone who makes beautiful craft items. These are sometimes not as useful as less beautiful objects. I have a fantastic, hand crafted leather carry bag that sucks as a bag, but is an exceptional testament to the maker's craft and shows off every skill going. My father, a practical man, would have said that since it doesn't work as a bag very well, the craftsman failed. This depends upon what you chose to privilege as the criterion of value. Of course the ultimate skills would produce a bag that was usable and beautiful.

Well, what is skill? Has anyone defined that term yet? It could be that skill is the ability for the artist/craftsman to match their ideal concept of what the items purpose is. — Pinprick

I generally think 'skill' refers to a core competency in a craft or creative process, which can pretty much be measured. In the case of painting, draftsmanship would be a skill. In the case of guitar, mastery of the instrument would be a skill and you could break that down into micro skills, such as strumming and finger picking. All this is also known as technique. But these are words that are rarely used in any strictly codified sense and don't have precision.

The universe is not “set up” in any way. It is us who interpret the universe as universe and building mental frames, schemes, ideas, concepts, to try to understand it. — Angelo Cannata

I was going to say the same thing.

Reminds me a little of this:

It is demonstrable," said he, "that things cannot be otherwise than as they are; for as all things have been created for some end, they must necessarily be created for the best end. Observe, for instance, the nose is formed for spectacles, therefore we wear spectacles. The legs are visibly designed for stockings, accordingly we wear stockings. Stones were made to be hewn and to construct castles, therefore My Lord has a magnificent castle; for the greatest baron in the province ought to be the best lodged. Swine were intended to be eaten, therefore we eat pork all the year round: and they, who assert that everything is right, do not express themselves correctly; they should say that everything is best.”

― Voltaire, Candide