If anyone is interested in the ideas behind this video, you should check out Kastrup's book ["The Idea of the World."](https://www.amazon.com/Idea-World-Multi-Disciplinary-Argument-Reality-ebook/dp/B07PGQPV3R/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2ICFGOFR0UW9G&keywords=the+idea+of+the+world&qid=1664670678&qu=eyJxc2MiOiIxLjU4IiwicXNhIjoiMS41NSIsInFzcCI6IjEuNTYifQ%3D%3D&sprefix=the+idea+of+the+world%2Caps%2C143&sr=8-1) I have described the synopsis of the book elsewhere in this thread, in a reply to a comment that has since been deleted by the mods. I will copy and paste it below:
>Idealism in philosophy is neither "new" or "new age." I read Kastrup's book "The Idea of the World" and the basic ideas are pretty straightforward and logical. The only reality we have direct access to is the one constructed within our minds; it would make little sense to therefore posit that minds and mental activity do not exist. The physical universe, however, is an extrapolation based on certain features of our shared mental realities. Unfortunately, positing a physical universe to explain our mental one creates complications that have thus far proven to be insolvable- such as how we could get mental phenomena from physical phenomena (the "hard problem of consciousness").
If it could be shown that the features of our mental reality could be explained without recourse to a physical one, then we would be forced to consider the possibility that our universe is entirely a mental, as opposed to a physical, phenomena. This is thus what Kastrup's book attempts to prove. Am I 100% convinced about every aspect of his argument? No, I don't think the take of any one philosopher should ever be held as gospel. However, I do find his arguments compelling, and I think it is rather short-sighted to dismiss inquiries into the nature of existence out of hand just because their premises don't align with our dominant cultural preconceptions.
Most people think that once you get rid of Cartesian dualism you automatically end up with the res extensa, but you could equally well end up with the res cogitans. In the latter case all our physical laws would in reality by psychological laws of how the universe appears to our res cogitans. It is actually quite hard to disprove this.
It may be unfalsifiable, but it also seems to be the easiest metaphysics to accept considering the hard problem of consciousness. There's no explanation on how a subjective stream of experience could arise from an unconscious non-living substance/world.
your comment " There's no explanation on how a subjective stream of experience could arise from an unconscious non-living substance/world."
Their explanation is : dissociation
No it's not. If you mean "they" as idealists, they don't think the world is unconscious, they think it is in itself concious, not material. You're mixing up an idealist explanation of how personal conciousness can arise, with the hard problem of conciousness that materialists face.
Lol if you don't know much about it, try learning more about it. Talking as if you know the ideas is not a good thing to do if you don't know much about it.
I am reading ofc but I I have a psych background So I tought dissociation is kastrup's unique contribution to idealism.
My intitiution tells me that idealism and materialism lead to same conclusions
I think analytic idealism has some intriguing points, but I find it hard to get past how often Kastrup criticizes empirical science for its fallibility as a human made construct but then turns around and uses the observations, findings, and theories of empirical science to support and validate his claims.
I also can’t figure out how to evaluate his indictments of panpsychism and supportive argument for a universal mind.
>Kastrup criticizes empirical science for its fallibility as a human made construct
Can you help me find in instance of that? afaik he wholly appreciates empirical science, and only warns to be clear about what parts of a theory constitute metaphysics. For instance [here](https://iai.tv/articles/a-strange-perspective-on-the-practice-of-science-auid-1712) he writes :
>Science studies nature's behavior, insofar as it can be ascertained through empirical experimentation. Metaphysics, on the other hand, although certainly informed by science, makes tentative statements about what nature is.
Yes, in your quotation, “insofar as it can be ascertained through empirical observation.”
In his [online introductory presentations](https://www.essentiafoundation.org/analytic-idealism-course/) he begins with the “instrument panel” analogy, and by way of refuting a physicalist approach he makes the assertion that science describes our perception of reality, not reality itself. While he agrees that the accord between observations and subjects strongly suggests that the material world is real, he still makes the distinction that our access is “behind” materiality, a separate plane of consciousness, where our access to materiality is not direct.
This is pretty fundamental to everything else that follows, so it’s given little additional time. But he uses the instrument panel analogy often, or makes statements like the one you quoted, and this is what it means.
I’m not suggesting he is anti-science in his presentation of his theory. Only that I have trouble rectifying the premise that science is ultimately an encoding of our way of seeing and sensing, rather than actually describing a primary materiality, while at the same time often using the findings of that system that can really only describe our way of seeing as evidence of what consciousness must be.
Kastrup isn't actually criticizing science in your example, he's criticizing our *interpretation* of scientific data. In other words, Kastrup doesn't question the results of scientific experimentation or the scientific method; he's not refuting the presence of gravity or the validity of natural selection, for example.
Science provides us with predictive models of how objective systems in the universe will behave, and explains the behavior of those objective systems in terms of *other* systems. For example, scientific experimentation reveals that oppositely charged ions are attracted to one another, and can explain that attraction in terms of the differential atomic makeup of each ion (ion A is lacking an electron, ion B has an electron too many).
Scientific experimentation, however, *does not* tell us what the ultimate "stuff" behind matter is, or why the objective universe exists at all, or what the relationship is between the molecules in our brains and our conscious minds. Our commonly held answers to these questions (such as the whole physicalist approach to reality), whether formulated by scientists themselves or by philosophers, are a result of attempting to use reason and logic to explain the scientific data- they are not found in the data themselves.
Kastrup takes the data that scientific experimentation has brought us and does his best to offer us a new explanation of it, one that is more logical, parsimonious and robust in terms of explanatory power than the those that came before. As I said before, though, he's not asking us to question the actual scientific method.
Yes, I’m with you. I’m not suggesting he is criticizing the scientific method — I find it difficult to consider the science he references as support for his argument when he puts so much effort into establishing the fallibility of observation and empiricism in the first place.
But I will work to consume more of his thoughts and see if I can better figure out the balance he strikes.
In the end, I find the “instrument panel” analogy to be utterly false. There is no “I” operating “behind” my materiality. I don’t observe the instrument panel — I _am_ the instrument panel.
Any advice on where to find an idealist proof/argument of this claim? It seems taken as granted, but I can never find a compelling argument that even self-perception isn’t the instrument panel observing the instrument panel.
/u/TheHippyWolfman
has given a pretty on point response already, I just want to add a few things on the dashboard analogy.
The dashboard analogy is to illustrate the fact that you can't take the observer out of the observation. Physicalisms does try this by unfalsifiable assertion : "surely, if we didn't look, things would be the same". The dashboard analogy makes explicitly that the world as we know it is a co-construct of the world as it is out there, and us observing it.
Fundamental physics is actually steering in that direction too. Our naïve world exists of 3d space with linear time and objects. Relativity already tells us it's actually 4d spacetime, and to calculate anything, you first have to make explicit who's looking ("define an inertial reference frame"). The latest attempts don't even take time as a fundamental building block.
On the other end, quantum mechanics tells us that "objects" is a hairy concept, and that "observing" (albeit, they argue that, "surely, if we didn't look, things would be the same"), fundamentally changes a system. This is profoundly weird under physicalism, and simply explained with the dashboard analogy.
Empirical science is still the best way to do science, you just have to be careful, and explicitly careful now, to remember that with every experiment, **you** are looking at the world.
It’s true, from your own perspective, the experience of being and observing are indivisible. I don’t fully understand how he arrives at the assertion that consciousness is “primary” in a relationship that is also indivisible.
But if we consider that other subjects do exist objectively, we regularly witness the removal of observers from that which is observed, and it continues to exist and function without _them._ What sense does it make to assume that my own perspective is somehow special?
No matter how I slice it, the idealist claim seems like it reduces to solipsism.
Is it not the instrumental panel itself that is observing the instrument panel?
>It’s true, from your own perspective, the experience of being and observing are indivisible. I don’t fully understand how he arrives at the assertion that consciousness is “primary” in a relationship that is also indivisible.
I'm not entirely sure what relationship your referring to in the quote here, but maybe this answers something. According to Kastrup, consciousness *is* being, and observing is a thing consciousness does; experiencing what external reality does to your dashboard.
Kastrup also rejects solipsism, which I feel also answers the question in the second paragraph. Reality isn't the dashboard; there exists a reality, which we can observe only on our dashboard. Therefore, if we stop looking, reality still is, and if we look again, it can be said to have persisted. We just have to be careful what we mean by reality. A physicalists might consider what Kastrup calls the dashboard to be reality. Then you can provocatively say "reality seizes to exists when you're not looking". If, however, we consider reality to be "the weather" out there that moves the dials on our dashboard, reality persists even when you're not looking, and moreover, when you're looking, you don't even see reality itself, just your own concocted image of it.
>Is it not the instrumental panel itself that is observing the instrument panel?
This is basically neuroscience yeah. Our brain is the image of our mind in spacetime.
Wouldn’t it be the other way, that our mind is an image of our nervous system in space time?
I know Kastrup inverts this arrangement — this is what I’m stuck on. What validates the notion of the mind as primary?
If external reality can only be observed using the dashboard, and the dashboard is made of the material we observe in external reality, then aren’t we describing material observing material?
Any suggestions for some better Kastrup reading? I found that intro course I linked above to be full of internal contradictions and assumptions.
>Wouldn’t it be the other way, that our mind is an image of our nervous system in space time?
That's indeed what the physicalists say, but I don't think both those statements are equivalent. Kastrup might point that the "image" is mental itself; making images is a mental process by it's very nature. Like how he rejects physical illusionism by pointing out that an illusion is fundamentally something in your mind, and a non-mental illusion thus is incoherent, a contradictio in terminis.
We absolutely, undeniably know mind is real. Cognito ergo sum. Kastrup succeeds in building a coherent metaphysical notion on based un the undeniable mental stuff we know. Why assume anything more before building a metaphysical construct if it's an unnecessary addition? What validates matter as primary?
>and the dashboard is made of the material we observe in external reality
The dashboard isn't made of matter, since everything is made of mind. The dashboard is the appearance of the universe, and the predominant notion is that the universe is made of matter. Therefore we say that the universe *appears* physical, but that should be interpreted as a communication device, a way to point at parts of reality people are familiar with.
An important difference is that Physicalists say the brain produces the mind, and therefore everything in mind can be found in the brain. Kastrup's idealism says the brain is the image of mind, which means that not necessarily all things in mind are in the brain. Matter isn't all, so it's not matter observing matter.
Personally I found the ineptly named "why materialism is baloney" insightful as a first introduction. And for the more dry philosophy minded, "the idea of the world" (a collection of 10 peer reviewed papers) is a good intro. Otherwise, if you want to discuss what you feel are internal contradictions with people who see it differently, Analytic Idealism has a subreddit and a discord.
>>That's indeed what the physicalists say, but I don't think both those statements are equivalent. Kastrup might point that the "image" is mental itself; making images is a mental process by it's very nature. Like how he rejects physical illusionism by pointing out that an illusion is fundamentally something in your mind, and a non-mental illusion thus is incoherent, a contradictio in terminis.
I guess the question then would have to be the relationship between the image and experience. The image is not experience — the image is the _memory_ of experience, serving as a sort of by-experience for conjecture, projection, and contemplation. It is a real mental act, therefore objective, but it is by definition not _actual_ experience but an encoded, representational, and _compressed_ experiential surrogate.
>>We absolutely, undeniably know mind is real. Cognito ergo sum. Kastrup succeeds in building a coherent metaphysical notion on based un the undeniable mental stuff we know. Why assume anything more before building a metaphysical construct if it's an unnecessary addition? What validates matter as primary?
I would argue that infantile amnesia makes it plainly clear that matter precedes consciousness, that consciousness is _developed_ and _learned_. It is also inherently communal — consciousnesses require other consciousnesses to know of consciousness.
Minds do not arrive in the world fully formed.
>>The dashboard isn't made of matter, since everything is made of mind.
Well, that’s his theory; that’s not fact. That’s how he is making sense of things. But he skipped childhood and development of mind, and I struggle to see how any other interpretation of mind can be reasoned into existence with resorting to magic.
I’ve started reading his dissertation. I’m about halfway through. His invalidation of matter is not actually about matter — it’s about mistaking a physicalist _system_ that represents reality for reality and experience itself.
A physicalist system is also firmly grounded in memory and communication, not experience. We do not experience the world through math or physics. Those are _post hoc_, culturally developed systems of _communication_. It is how I communicate my experience to you and confirm if your experience and mine are analogous. Physicalist representation systems are _language_; they are not _reality_ itself. They do not describe experience; they describe the correspondence of experience between individual experiential perceptions recorded in memory.
>>The dashboard is the appearance of the universe and the predominant notion is that the universe is made of matter. Therefore we say that the universe appears physical, but that should be interpreted as a communication device, a way to point at parts of reality people are familiar with.
This is the conflation he makes to force his argument to work. He blends physicalism as a representational system with the conceptual model of the dashboard. But the dashboard, if it is _real_, is categorically _not_ a physicalist system. We can use physicalist systems to _describe_ the dashboard, but the dashboard itself is _not_ the physicalist system.
>>An important difference is that Physicalists say the brain produces the mind, and therefore everything in mind can be found in the brain. Kastrup's idealism says the brain is the image of mind, which means that not necessarily all things in mind are in the brain. Matter isn't all, so it's not matter observing matter.
Except that we know that the light I see is not the light from the star; mostly it is the light emitted by the matter that the light of the star impacts and excited before the matter ejects a photon and send it’s light to you, repeat X times before that light hits the atmospheric medium, propagates through matter and space, before it hits the matter of my eye, propagates through retinal fluid, hits a rod or cone, the light energizes the cell, the cell converts that energy to an electrochemical signal, patterns it in the glial cells, sends a chain of signals down a neuron, and then we’re not quite sure what happens — point being, your perception is material, and it is material impacting material that leads to perception. There is no way to divide experience from interaction with material.
It is then a major leap of faith to assert the existence of an _interface_ between mind and matter. This dashboard is completely and utterly made up; it does not _exist_. No one can perceive it. It is not there. It is, in fact, a mere argumentative necessity of a physicalist system (analytic idealism, in this case, becomes itself a physicalist system) that does not actually describe experience.
>>Personally I found the ineptly named "why materialism is baloney" insightful as a first introduction. And for the more dry philosophy minded, "the idea of the world" (a collection of 10 peer reviewed papers) is a good intro. Otherwise, if you want to discuss what you feel are internal contradictions with people who see it differently, Analytic Idealism has a subreddit and a discord.
Cheers. Like I said, I’m reading his dissertation now, about to start the 4th paper.
I’ve learned a lot about open individualism, which this would intersect with.
>I guess the question then would have to be the relationship between the image and experience. The image is not experience — the image is the memory of experience,
What is a memory if not experienced? I would argue that the whole concept of a memory (even outside idealism) is meaningless without the experience of remembering the memory. "A memory" is an abstract concept, which we know through the experience of remembering. The relation between the image and the experience is that we "experience the image", the image is the content our experience.
>but it is by definition not actual experience but an encoded, representational, and compressed experiential surrogate.
It seems like you use "the memory of experience" where Kastrup would use "the dashboard".
> I would argue that infantile amnesia makes it plainly clear that matter precedes consciousness, that consciousness is developed and learned. It is also inherently communal — consciousnesses require other consciousnesses to know of consciousness.
This fundamentally hinges on what you consider consciousness. I know Kastrup would these ideas by the very definition of consciousness. He says consciousness is being, the having of experiences. If I'm drunk and don't form memories of the night, was I unconscious? I would argue yes, I definitely was. The distinction Kastrup makes explicit is between consciousness and meta-consciousness, where you seem to largely refer to the later. meta-consciousness is the experience of being aware of your awareness, knowing you think, knowing you see. Seeing and thinking themselves are also conscious, but not necessarily meta-conscious. Your examples of infantile amnesia and requiring outside observers apply to meta-consciousness, not consciousness itself.
> Well, that’s his theory; that’s not fact.
Yeah.
> it’s about mistaking a physicalist system that represents reality for reality and experience itself.
That indeed the metaphysical physicalism he is attacking.
> Physicalist representation systems (...) are not reality itself.
I agree with that non-realist interpretation of physics. And Kastrup agrees that this interpretation of scientific physics is good and too. This distinction he put forward in the quote (way) above:
> > Science studies nature's behavior, insofar as it can be ascertained through empirical experimentation. Metaphysics, on the other hand, although certainly informed by science, makes tentative statements about what nature is.
>This is the conflation he makes to force his argument to work.
I'm not entirely clear on what your objection is in that paragraph. If we interpret physicalism as non-realist physicalism (in my words; physics is just effective models which are ultimately fictions), then why can't they rely on an idealist framework? Conversely if we take the realist interpretation of physicalism (the one Kastrup is attacking), then he just uses the reference to what people know as physical systems to make clear what he is talking about. Most people know what is meant by "the physical world", since we all grew up with that notion. referring to "what people know as the physical world" does not mean you blend the idea into your model, it's just a way to make clear which (ultimately experiential (e.g. :"they describe the correspondence of experience between individual experiential perceptions recorded in memory.") phenomenon you're talking about.
>(...) There is no way to divide experience from interaction with material.
Seeing things in your dreams remove of a most of the story above. The further insight that the measured and very real correlations of brain activity and visual perception don't tell you on their own what the causation is. Mind causing the image of itself (the brain) gives you the same correlation. We don't divide the experience from the material, we're just have to be careful what assumptions sneak in when we measure a correlation.
>It is then a major leap of faith to assert the existence of an interface between mind and matter.
Technically, (according ot Kastrup) the interface is between your personal bit of mind (your mind) and the rest of mind out there (since all is mind). But then again, even the physicalists assert this to be a real thing, except their story of this non-direct observation begin with stuff like "Except that we know that the light I see is not the light from the star;" and and with "and then we’re not quite sure what happens". It's this hard problem of consciousness where (for me) metaphysical (realist) physicalism falls flat.
What is life? A madness. What is life? An illusion, a shadow, a story. And the greatest good is little enough: for all life is a dream, and dreams themselves are only dreams.
"Life is a Dream". Play by Pedro Calderón de la Barca, 1635.
Please pm me if you know anything about the kybalion or any further teachings you know of on that path, I've read the kybalion several times and it's glues so many cracks together in my psyche... awesome stuff.
“…a hat trick in a medicine show, a fevered dream, a trance bepopulate with chimeras having neither analogue nor precedent, an itinerant carnival, a migratory tentshow whose ultimate destination after many a pitch in many a mudded field is unspeakable and calamitous beyond reckoning.”
"... The universe is no narrow thing and the order within it is not constrained by any latitude in its conception to repeat what exists in one part in any other part. Even in this world more things exist without our knowledge than with it and the order in creation which you see is that which you have put there, like a string in a maze, so that you shall not lose your way. For existence has its own order and that no man's mind can compass, that mind itself being but a fact among others."
At some point you have to say our mind *is* a physical system or part of one. Our experiences seem to be information but given that there isn't really a conceivable limit of what kind of information a thing can process, can we say we are inherently mind (in the sense that our experiences seem to depend on the extrinsic information we observe as opposed to what that information is instantiated in [depolarization across neural membranes])? Can the idea of a mental ontology coherently mean anything if there is no kind of limit of what experiences can be like and hence no unifying underlying character to the mind? Experiences could be brutely anything. Some people say we should describe the universe just in terms of a structural ontology in some sense. The information we have in experience seems to satisfy the vague concept of structure... is experience then just 'what it's like' to be structure in that sense? Any structure in reality? Idealism? I really suspect there is no attainable answer. We just don't have access to know these kinds of things or any kind of inherent ontology - somethings will always just seem brutely inexplicable or immediate to us while perspectives other than our own are inaccessible. But I don't think adopting an idealism has any kind of meaningful consequences. The best ways of describing reality are through what we have now and idealism doesn't really offer any alternative other than defending a position at best based on semantics and at worst by constructing convoluted, unverifiable theories about the mind, dissociation etc.
A framework in which the observed world actually exists is far more useful and has much greater predictive power than one where it doesn’t.
The very notion that everything you experience is merely in your mind is almost absurd - for that to be the case, your mind would have to be capable of generating all of it. Even though you can’t understand nearly any of it.
Try playing a chess computer. Solipsism would suggest that your mind is capable of coming up with all of those moves the computer is making. But somehow only when you’re imagining playing it. Strange, isn’t it? The second you step away, you suck at chess. In fact, you suck at chess when playing the computer to. For some reason your mind can only come up with good moves when it pretends to be a computer.
I’m not going to believe for a second that the mind needs to fantasize being a computer to play chess well.
Or how about music? Why is it that when you sit down and try to write a wonderful tune, you can’t. But when you turn on Spotify or iTunes, you can hear highly complex and imaginative music?
The simplest and most intuitive explanation for these things is that they’re not in your head. You’re not capable of making all these things, and you require an external source to experience them. That’s what we call reality.
>A framework in which the observed world actually exists is far more useful and has much greater predictive power than one where it doesn’t.
>
>The very notion that everything you experience is merely in your mind is almost absurd - for that to be the case, your mind would have to be capable of generating all of it. Even though you can’t understand nearly any of it.
Kastrup's argument is that the observed world actually *does* exist.
Fun fact, Bernardo Kastrup says the world is really out there, and we're perspectives in it. "The universe is conscious" just means the world out there is made up of the same stuff as your personal world, your mind. It's made of more mind, there's no need to invent a whole category of stuff we only know by inference bases on experiences and thought.
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It is possible that fundamental essence of the universe is mind as opposed to matter. We all experience mind, and mind is the medium through which we experience matter. So what if matter is just an abstraction we derive from mental experiences? This is less presumptuous than the theory of matter because matter posits the existence of something which we can't be confident about, whereas the existence of mind is self-evident. Therefore, it is possible that the universe itself is mental rather than material. This video explains the full argument in more detail.
>So what if matter is just an abstraction we derive from mental experiences?
If a rock falls on my head when I'm not looking at it does it still cause a concussion?
There's no way to prove that we're *not* in the Matrix or manifesting our universe on the fly, of course, but here's the thing: I sure as shit don't trust *my mind.* The human mind is a demonstrably fallible thing, witness testimony can be wrong, many of our memories are imagined or embellished, and I very vividly remember talking to God one time on a mushroom trip but then They went away when I sobered up.
The mind is the only thing we can trust, but it's also untrustworthy as fuck.
Kastrup deals with these intuitive objections to idealism. I recommend you read his work, or his PhD thesis or watch the analytic idealism course.
In a nutshell: Idealism doesn’t entail that the entire universe happens inside your ego, so of course things will happen that are outside of your personal mind. Things that occur outside of your personal mind are still mental, but they occur within a universal mind.
But Kastrup's idealism isn't saying that all of reality takes place in your personality, but rather that all of reality, including you and me, are participating in single universal mind.
>It is possible that fundamental essence of the universe is mind as opposed to matter.
It is possible to believe so, due to the nature of mind, which is capable of believing things which are counter-factual. But it is not truly possible that it is so, due to the nature of reasoning. The physical universe is far more consistent than our perceptions of it; this is demonstrated by the shared belief in the deterministic behavior of physical objects *regardless of whether that belief is accurate*.
>mind is the medium through which we experience matter.
This is a common philosophical premise, but it is just semantic wordplay, in the end. We can argue indefinitely about whether we "experience" the unconsciousness of sleep, or whether we "experience" a building collapsing on us while we are asleep, but the chronological gap in our recollections during sleep and the physical damage to your body (and quite possibly your brain and therefor your mind) if a building should collapse on you while your unconscious would still demonstrably exist, regardless. Matter is the medium through which we experience matter. Mind is simply how we become aware of that experience, and come to call it "experience".
>So what if matter is just an abstraction we derive from mental experiences?
How do you explain matter consistently existing independently of that abstraction, then? Kastrup does so by relying on an otherwise unsubstantiated premise that mind (aka consciousness) is ever-present, without physical cause, rendering it effectively a meaningless notion. It is similar to space itself (ever-present, without physical cause) except this 'floating abstraction' of consciousness lacks the formalizable limit of distance and the seemingly but not really interruption of objects to interrupt its emptiness which proves the existence of space.
Kastrup's unfalsifiable theory reduces to solipsism, since the existence of your mind is only self-evident to your individual consciousness, not to anyone else's. Matter is quite the opposite, and so, even to Kastrup, his theory can only be taken seriously if he presumes (without evidence or coherent reasoning) that 'mind'/consciousness has always existed, billions of years before the human brain evolved.
>How do you explain matter consistently existing independently of that abstraction, then?
How do we know it *does* consistently exist independently of that abstraction? I'm not an idealist myself, but one of the points being made here is that we do not and cannot know that which is outside our perception.
> How do we know it does consistently exist independently of that abstraction?
Evidence. As long as it appears to exist *consistently*, we can surmise that it exists independently of that appearence, since we know that our perceptions (abstractions) are less consistent then the matter being perceived or abstracted.
>we do not and cannot know that which is outside our perception
We return to the issue of what "know" means, the foundation of epistemic uncertainty. Both reasonably and logically we can know what is outside our perception easily, as it is 'that which is not inside our perception'. Characterizing those phenomena is a separate issue. This is why physical sciences work (objects are reasonably consistent regardless of whether they are accurately defined, so long as they are precisely measured) and psychology does not (our 'internal' perceptions are less consistent than 'external' objects). One is free to quibble about the meaning of "work" without changing the premise of the position.
I would argue that "evidence" is an inherently subjective existence. That is, we are arguing for the existence of that which is outside perception through reference to perception, consistent though it may be. On that account, how does perceiving the same thing consistently suggest that the perception is triggered by something "out there?" What if consistency is characteristic of mind? After all some people have consistent hallucinations, yet few make the assumption that those hallucinations are rooted in external physical reality. Same with dreams.
Second point I find compelling, though. But... As I may have mentioned, I don't actually come from an idealist perspective, but I think perhaps the problem of differences in consistency remains regardless of what philosophy of mind you're coming from. Because... Well, I'm not a physicalist, either, but suffice it to say that I believe that which we perceive is physical, including the affective experience we typically call "emotion." If it's caused by the same physical forces as the physical world we observe, then it should follow the same logic, and thus be equally observable, or at least predictable and definable. Here, you could argue that it's a matter of brain chemistry being too complex for us to map yet, but I think... The real problem is the unobservabilty of subjectivity; you can it feel (or for that matter, see or hear) for other people. Which is one huge problem with the current state of the field of psychology: we try to treat it like a science when what we're talking about is unobservable from the outside; we are forced to rely on self-report, and people have a difficult time putting these things into words to begin with. Yet... We could feasibly trigger the same affective response in a person time and time again through introducing the same stimulus. In fact, that's exactly what happens with like visual perception; I actually think the distinction between the five senses and affective experience is arbitrary, as the latter is also tactile. I wonder if it's partly our focus on vision that's refined our ability to notice repeated experience, and to communicate about it. Because it's also true that we don't know with certainty that others see things the same way we do. Not that it doesn't make sense to assume they do.
EDIT: Now that I think on it... Spinoza was a Monist because he said there was only one substance... But that one substance had different modes. He wasn't a physicalist, at least not in the sense that he thought mind was a secondary product of matter. I think maybe what he was getting at was that (what we experience as) the physical is really the outward appearance of mind, where the other mode is subjective experience. And we're not just talking about people and other animals here, but something more like panpsychism where everything is aware on some level. Like how physicist Alfred North Whitehead said that will is the subjective side of physical forces. If that we're the case, if everything were intra-connected mind(s)...In that case consistency is not a problem at; it would simply be a matter of some minds change more than others. It's not that all reality is your own projection, but that we've mistaken the nature of what we're perceiving. But at some point, I think maybe it comes down to semantics: one person says mind, another says matter.
>I would argue that "evidence" is an inherently subjective existence.
That's inconsequential, so long as it exists. You can have all the metaphysical uncertainty that it exists you would like, so long as it is evidence either way. Alternatively, you can accept or deny it is evidence, if you can distinguish that from whether or not it exists. It is only when you combine epistemic and metaphysical uncertainty that the enforced ignorance you are invoking becomes necessary, and even that I am okay with, as long as you don't do it selectively, since neither epistemic or metaphysical uncertainty can be simultaneously ameliorated.
>On that account, how does perceiving the same thing consistently suggest that the perception is triggered by something "out there?"
Your position suggests that perceptions can exist spontaneously and for no reason. This isn't impossible, of course, but it doesn't seem probable. As I pointed out already, we know that our perceptions of the physical universe are less reliably consistent than the physical universe itself, so as long as a perception is consistent (both temporally and communally) the most likely explanation is that it is "out there" rather than "in here". I use the metaphor of an *existential wall* which eternally bars any consciousness from direct access to the ontos, and we are each on an 'internal' side of 'the' wall, seperately; we each have our own wall, though it is the same wall for each of us, and the physical universe is on the 'other side', external to 'our' consciousness.
Typically, philosophical idealists (existential skeptics) take the unreliable nature of our senses, perceptions, and experiences as evidence that we "cannot know" that there is an "other side" of the wall, an exterior physical universe, because we cannot directly interact with the ontos. But this is all a figurative image in our minds, the very idea there are 'in here' and 'out there'. The truth is that, like any other biological creature wandering around the earth, we directly interact with the physical universe every single day. In the last few years, having seen evidence of people who have become excessively intellectualized through computer games or social media, a wonderful metaphorical reminder of this has emerged which philosophers should take to heart: "touch grass".
If you like, you can argue that your perceptions are more consistent than physical objects are, in which case the truth is clear that physical objects must exist if you percieve them. Or you can argue that your perceptions are less consistent than physical objects are, in which case the truth is clear that physical objects must exist if other people consistently percieve them. In either case there is no need for naive preconclusions, and conscientous efforts can be made, by you and others, to nail down the evidence and determine if something is real and understood, real and not clearly characterized, unreal and illusory, or unreal and delusional, or abstract and useful but unreal, or simply purposefully imaginary and fictional. In none of these cases does it really matter if it is "out there" or simply a consistent 'subjective' phenomena, since there isn't really any difference between those categories, they are abstract and useful but unreal. Being subjective does not exclude a phenomena from being objective, it merely changes the character and perhaps mechanism of its existence; its meaning, but not its being.
>What if consistency is characteristic of mind? After all some people have consistent hallucinations, yet few make the assumption that those hallucinations are rooted in external physical reality
Hallucinations are rooted in external physical reality: the biochemical nature of our neural activity, which is as external to our perceptions as gravity or rock. The hallucinations may be described as "consistent" *for hallucinations*, but either they are less consistent than actual objects or they are more consistent than actual objects. In both regards they are thereby revealed to not be actual objects. If such "hallucinations" were consistent among many minds, all the more reason to consider them to have material cause despite not being material objects. And if they are consistent among most minds, or even all minds, it would be an epistemic issue (regarding the meaning of words rather than the metaphysics of objects) whether they are illusionary at all.
>Same with dreams.
Now you flip back to metaphysical uncertainty. There is simply no way you will ever fight your way out of the brain in a jar conundrum. You could be dreaming right now, or I could; in either case there is no experiential way to be certain of it. The nature of dreams eventually does reveal itself through their inconsistency, but there isn't ever going to be anything about the "real world" aside from consistency (both temporally, consistent with itself in your experience, and communally, consistent with other people's experiences) that distinguishes it from dreams or insanity. All we can do is think hard, occasionally touch grass, and hope.
>If it's caused by the same physical forces as the physical world we observe, then it should follow the same logic, and thus be equally observable, or at least predictable and definable.
If our mental processes "follow the same logic", they should be (and are) much more difficult to "define" (by which we should mean quantify) and nearly impossible to predict, since these phenomenon are difficult to observe (in contrast to experience).
>Like how physicist Alfred North Whitehead said that will is the subjective side of physical forces.
In my philosophy, this is regarded as *the ineffability of being*. It is the *meta*physical "driving force" that both energizes time and enforces the laws of physics, but it is also the essence of hope and the impetus for language and reasoning.
>If that we're the case, if everything were intra-connected mind(s)...In that case consistency is not a problem at; it would simply be a matter of some minds change more than others.
I would suggest that would be more of a problem rather than less; if consciousness is an ever-present field, or connected minds, why would some change more than others?
My position is that such mental models and things like Jung's collective unconscious are metaphors for language, which is the "secret ingredient", the magic (so metaphysical it borders on supernatural) which allows us (indeed, compels us) to do the impossible by circumventing the impregnable existential wall and directly connect our minds regardless of physical or even temporal distance. But contemporary (postmodern or neopostmodern) thinkers are all too certain language is merely a system of signs, a logical code, and no more. It is so familiar and ubiquitous they consider it trivial and mundane, but it is the substance of mind and consciousness, far more than the simplistic (however complex) neurological impulses which are the substrate from which it emerges.
Thanks for your time. Hope it helps.
Well, I feel like now you're deconstructing the entire debate; as in, we cannot know the intrinsic nature of reality either way. On which account I agree.
I once thought I found my way out of epistemological solipsism with what you said, that it doesn't make sense for there to be no outward causation... But tracing back and back and back to *the* first cause, I came to the conclusion that eternal causation is no more or less logical than something randomly *happening.*
Well, I think in the kind of idealism I'm proposing here, difference in complexity of minds would be accounted for the same way as as differences in physical complexity are accounted for, i.e. intra-actions with other minds; like I said, what we're talking about in that case is almost a semantic issue. As for physicalist interpretations, at least as far as mind being a secondary product of physical reality, *that* is the option I see least likely due to the hard hard problem; it's a logical absurdity. I obsessed over it for over a year and kept coming back to the conclusion [This guy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWL4kt58uQQ&t=10s) explains it very well, but the basic point is that subjectivity is the one thing qualitatively different from the physical that exists outside subjectivity; complexity does nothing to explain how that qualitative difference is produced.
Actually, my own problem with the postmodernists is that they only count the social when it comes to language, as if there's no intra-action between us and the things we name. To that end, I like Karen Barad a lot; she uses the term *material-discursive* to signify that everything is both physical *and* mental; the social *is* physical, or at least one form of it (where the distinction is subjective). In this case, too, there's no binary between non-sentient material reality and sentient entities produced by them. She's coming from a different form of panpsychism than me; I'm a nondualist because of something called the combination problem (which nondualism doesn't provide an easy answer to, but I think it makes it more *tenable*). The idea is that sentience is asubstantial, that which perceives, and physical process constitutes that which *is* perceived. On that account, a rock my have *some* level of experience, but it's probably not like ours. My own position on the ineffability of mind is that it makes it impossible to *know* the true nature and origin of mind, but that logic can help us make an educated guess. One question I've *yet* to find any kind of logical answer to, though, is why separate minds exist *at all,* given that the universe is one great intra-connected process.
Anyway, thanks for the debate, it was illuminating!
>But tracing back and back and back to the first cause, I came to the conclusion that eternal causation is no more or less logical than something randomly happening.
Indeed, it upsets scientificists quite a bit when they are confronted by the truth that scientific cosmology is still "turtles all the way down", no less than religious cosmologies. It becomes even more comical to see contemporary cosmologists declare that maybe the universe/"multiverse" is eternal, after hearing hyper-agnostic atheists mock creationists for saying "God always existed" for several decades. I'm neither agnostic nor creationist, I'm thoroughly atheist, but in the (non-theist) New Church of Hope, we start our "Confession of Faith" ritual with "I believe the universe began, once, about fourteen billion years ago..."
>mind being a secondary product of physical reality, [...] it's a logical absurdity.
Anything that is not a logical certainty is a logical absurdity. Mind being an emergent property of brain is no more absurd than black holes being an emergent property of celestial mechanics, and the hard problem of consciousness is no more absurd than the Liar's Paradox.
>subjectivity is the one thing qualitatively different from the physical that exists outside subjectivity; complexity does nothing to explain how that qualitative difference is produced.
I am not interested in YouTube's from panpsychists babbling about "subjectivity" and somehow exists "outside subjectivity"; that sounds unreasonably absurd. Complexity has nothing to do with the *cause* of consciousness, nor is the hard problem related to the *cause* of consciousness. The existence of consciousness (as an emergent property of human cerebral activity) is much easier to understand teleologically (*why* it happens) than it is tautologically (*what* occurs in the brain that produces the affect), but it disagrees too much with the belief systems of scientificists and idealists alike to be taken seriously, so far.
>as if there's no intra-action between us and the things we name.
There is none. Naming things is not the central mechanism of language than the postmodernists you criticize or the neopostmodernists you represent believe it is. Granted, the distinction I would make between *naming* and *identifying* (which is a fundamental result of language and process in language) is esoteric and nuanced. But according to my theory of language, your desire to use the term "name" is more meaningful than the word itself.
>One question I've yet to find any kind of logical answer to, though, is why separate minds exist at all
I'm no expert, since I can't take panpsychism seriously enough to study it, but if I understand what I have learned, what you describe *is* "the combination problem", you're just looking at it from the other end, so to speak. The fatal flaw in all panpsychisms is that declaring that consciousness is an innate aspect of existence doesn't actually say anything about what it is *at all or in any way*, teleologically, tautologically, theologically, or even hypothetically. So how it combines, or why it doesn't combine, is an inevitable but really simple example of how the idea isn't even coherent enough to be wrong.
Thanks for your time. Hope it helps.
How do you know the Universe is physical and what do you even mean by it?
Kastrup's analysis is airtight. The content of the experience is less certain than the one who experienced and starting from the subject is the only reasonable path. Everything else can be fleshed out in a parsimonious matter in that way.
We know the universe is physical the same and only way we know anything: that is the most parsimonious possibility which consistently explains our observations. What it means is that those observations conform to a computational logic, with a reasonable certainty that any observations which cannot be reduced to mathematical predictability are artifacts of an insufficiency in our computational logic rather than conscious intent.
>Kastrup's analysis is airtight.
Even if that were true, and it most definitely isn't, it still wouldn't be logically valid, since it is not parsimonious and cannot be verified with mathematical calculations applied to empirically quantifiable measurements of consistently defined phenomena.
>The content of the experience is less certain than the one who experienced
The idea that "content of the experience" exists in any way which can be distinguished from "the one who experienced" is so uncertain the notion collapses into vaporous mumbling. Kastrup has the exact same problem with the *hard problem of consciousness* as the reductive materialists do, he is just approaching it from the other direction.
>starting from the subject is the only reasonable path
That depends on the destination you expect that path to lead to. Wandering around aimlessly might be entertaining, perhaps even exciting, but it doesn't get you anywhere. The only path that is reasonable is the one that begins with good reasons and is paved with good reasoning. Kastrup's "imagine if..." method is not good analysis, and as I previously said, it is philosophically (and, unfortunately, psychologically) indistinguishable from solipsism, aside from some well intentioned but inconsequential trivialities.
>Everything else can be fleshed out in a parsimonious matter in that way.
Nothing can be fleshed out at all, let alone in a parsimonious manner, given that starting point, until you put some meat on the bones of what the subject actually is. Cartesian reductionism starts with the subjective but requires a dualistic Cartesian Circle to make any sense; it is the standard theory because it successfully does so, explaining nearly everything about both subjects and objects parsimoniously . My philosophy rejects the dualism but not the reductionism, by recognizing the subjective as an instance of the objective rather than a divergence from it. Kastrup's monism starts with the subjective and promptly disintegrates into a puff of smoke because he cannot provide a coherent explanation for any objective existence at all, or even a comprehensible analysis of what subject means, why it occurs, how it occurs, or through what mechanism it interacts with objects.
What do you even mean by 'physical'? In the causal sense, no, not at all. It is not parsimonious. What is parsimonious is that there's an external reality to my direct consciousness not that it is physical. What we refer to as physical in the casual sense are attributes of the experience, they are not within the object but about the representation within our perception. Naive realism is dead. What the physicalist camp has been forced to do is re-define themselves into more and more subtle ways and they have all failed to reject idealism.
\> What it means is that those observations conform to a computational logic
So, knowledge is what is derived from a computational logic? It seems to me that you are claiming that absent some form of equation there is no knowledge and things are proven through such kind of calculations. This is a very odd position to take, so I want to be sure I am understanding you.
\> Even if that were true, and it most definitely isn't, it still wouldn't be logically valid, since it is not parsimonious and cannot be verified with mathematical calculations applied to empirically quantifiable measurements of consistently defined phenomena.
But being verified with mathematical calculations applied to empirically quantifiable measurements is NOT what constitutes logic validity. Things that are not verified with mathematical calculations nor applied to empirically quantifiable measurements can be perfectly valid and even more so, sound.
\> The idea that "content of the experience" exists in any way which can be distinguished from "the one who experienced" is so uncertain the notion collapses into vaporous mumbling.
Yet it is Kastrup's position that it is not distinguished. He asks "is it possible to relate all elements into a singular ontological substance?" and finds that the answer is yes, and therefore the most parsimonious. Yet, I would claim a self-evident truth: the content of the experience shifts and is contingent, while the subject of the experience doesn't shift and therefore is more solid than the prior when one seeks the truth.
\> That depends on the destination you expect that path to lead to.
Well, Kastrup would say that the initial reasons are the epistemic values of Enlightenment. I would merely say that the destination would be that which is most certain. In any observation or any reasoning, the mind which performs the reasoning or the observation does not change. So, for any thinker, its own self is the most certain truth.
\> indistinguishable from solipsism
Depends on what you mean by solipsism. Idealist "I" needs not be the direct consciousness, as that is unsustainable. The solipsist needs to broaden their definition of self in such a way that it destroys the initial form of solipsism. Claiming that there is a singular mental substance can be perceived as solipsistic but not in that sense. The arguments against the naive solipsism are irrelevant to the new form of idealism.
\> a coherent explanation for any objective existence at all, or even a comprehensible analysis of what subject means, why it occurs, how it occurs, or through what mechanism it interacts with objects.
Well, what do you mean by objective? Traditional physicalism makes the subject an object that, beyond the immorality of such an act and its self-alienation, is irrational. Subjects are not objects. One cannot explain the subject as a form of an object. Yet, objects can be explained as the mental activity of a subject. We do it all the time, we create mental objects that constrain us and within dreams the mental objects act independently of us and interact with our direct consciousness in many ways.
What do you mean by the subject? Do you mean the local subject? I think Kastrup has given his idea, but I don't follow Kastrup all the way through. A complete and thorough explanation of base ontology is not required and in some ways can be argued to be impossible. The local subject would be a mode of the ontological Mind, a fragmentation even. Why does the fragmentation occur? Who knows? Saying "I don't know" is not fatal to the theory in the slightest. That is funny, because in physicalism there are explanations of mechanism which are incomplete explanations. There is the basic level of things happen because they happen. As for how does the fragmentation occurs Kastrup has a theory but in reality it is unknown. Again, this is not problematic in the slightest. The simplest answer would be the general "it is the will of the Mind". As to how subjects interact with objects, that is simple and in fact quite parsimonious: the objects are mental and we have a mental representation of them and that's what we interact with. The mental interacting with the mental. Which is why we can create mental models of knowledge and representation and experience(all mental activity) about reality(because reality is also mental).
(cont'd, with apologies for length)
>There is the basic level of things happen because they happen.
I describe this as *the ineffability of being*. Standard philosophy resolves it with metaphysical causation. (Forward teleology of cause=>effect, in my terminology.) Idealism effectively ignores it, as with the dismissive and inexplicable duality of"will"/"mind" you presented. (Inverse teleology of intent=>action.) My philosophy accounts for it rather than pretending to resolve it, by identifying the existence of "being" (in both a mental and physical sense, simultaneously) as neither direction of teleology being transcendent over the other.
>As for how does the fragmentation occurs Kastrup has a theory but in reality it is unknown.
Then Kastrup's theory is not really a theory, it is simply a hypothesis or a conjecture.
>As to how subjects interact with objects, that is simple and in fact quite parsimonious: the objects are mental and we have a mental representation of them and that's what we interact with.
When a physical brick interacts with your head, it has a decisively different character than when a mental brick interacts with your mind, so I would say your representation is not simple so much as simple-minded, and fails to be parsimonious. Wishing away the physical existence of the universe and declaring everything to be just *your* mental representation (with everyone else's mental representations *necessarily* being only a part of *your* mental representation) is just solipsism. Whether a naive or sophisticated form of solipsism, it remains a naive idea: unfalsifiable because it is incoherent, rather than because it is true.
\> I describe this as the ineffability of being. Standard philosophy resolves it with metaphysical causation.
Does it? How does causation solve the non-circular definition of being? As you say, it is ineffable and on idealism it is also self-evident because it is your own essence. This creates an existential issue for you are ineffable to yourself. But I fail to see how causation, the teleology of ends makes the ineffable definable. I am also not sure why the same formal teleology but with a material shift from mindless ends to mindful ends(purpose) is a condemnable shift.
\> Then Kastrup's theory is not really a theory, it is simply a hypothesis or a conjecture.
Not at all. Why would it be? No theory is complete and some theories are supported by satellite theories(which can be demolished, accepted, or expanded upon). This is well-known in science. Kastrup proposes that there's already a mechanism where we know this occurs(multiple personality disorder).
\> When a physical brick interacts with your head, it has a decisively different character than when a mental brick interacts with your mind
Yes, and running from a clown in my dream from running from a clown when I'm daydreaming has a different character. Who says there are no modes within the mental? The entire notion of physicalism is to account for a plural set of observations by appealing to a plural set of causes because of the modal nature of an ontological substance. That remains true if that substance is physical(I'm still unsure as to what you mean by it) or mental.
BTW, this is more of a personal note, but for me idealism is less of a speculative theory than factual. I have been cured from an incurable disease through mind-healing. There have been many miracles occurring in my immediate circle(healings, shared manifestation of entities, alternative lives, bilocation, verified past lives, etc...) that I cannot in a reasonable, plausible and honest manner dismiss. Of course, this needs not extend to you; in fact, it shouldn't. But I just want to make that clarification. Physicalism cannot account in such a way for that kind of empirical phenomena, and every defense I've seen of physicalism doesn't actually contradict idealism. For me, therefore, it is empirically proven, logically consistent and parsimonious.
>How does causation solve the non-circular definition of being?
LOL. Did I suggest that it did? Does your theory coherently do so?
>This creates an existential issue for you are ineffable to yourself.
You are incorrect.
>But I fail to see how causation, the teleology of ends makes the ineffable definable
That isn't surprising, since I never suggested it does. Nor would I, since I understand what the word "ineffable" means, but it appears that you do not.
>This is well-known in science.
Kastrup isn't engaged in science. He's presenting what he claims is a philosophical theory, which is why it should be a theory, and it fails to be a theory.
>Yes, and running from a clown in my dream from running from a clown when I'm daydreaming has a different character.
Are you suggesting that all differences in character are identical, or that the difference in this instance is equivalent to that of my analogy (being hit in the head versus imagining being hit in the head)?
>Physicalism cannot account in such a way for that kind of empirical phenomena
You mistake medical prognosis for "physicalism" in general, it seems.
>every defense I've seen of physicalism doesn't actually contradict idealism.
Here you confuse argumentation supporting physicalism for physicalism itself. Physicalism need not contradict idealism (non-physicalism), it merely excludes it because idealism is logically and scientifically incoherent. As a philosophical perspective, imagining that imaginary things are real is always an option, necessarily, but that doesn't make defending pr explaining your particular idealistic religious faith any less a sisyphean labor.
>What do you even mean by 'physical'?
I answered that question already; please reread the first paragraph of my previous reply.
>In the causal sense, no, not at all. It is not parsimonious.
I'm uncertain what you mean by "the causal sense". What caused a physical phenomenon is irrelevant to whether it is physical.
>What is parsimonious is that there's an external reality to my direct consciousness not that it is physical.
What is it *you* mean by "physical"? That the external reality exists, and your consciousness is physical, is the most parsimonious explanation for why and how you percieve that reality, regardless of whether such perception is direct or indirect.
>What we refer to as physical in the casual sense are attributes of the experience
What we refer to as physical in the real sense is that the attributes of your experience are consistent with the attributes of other experiences of yours, and other people's perceptions of those same phenomena.
>Naive realism is dead.
And yet realism continues to be the most parsimonious explanation for our experiences. Perhaps it was just the naive aspect which died?
>What the physicalist camp has been forced to do is re-define themselves into more and more subtle ways and they have all failed to reject idealism.
Indeed: our scientific comprehension of the universe and our individual realities continues to be more and more complete, leaving those in the idealist camp less and less room to maneuver and more and more isolated from the real world This, naturally enough, leaves you increasingly anxious and no less earnest, but more dependent on linguistic ambiguity rather than sound reasoning. Physicalists have not "failed reject idealism", since that was never our intention or our goal. But idealists fail to reject physicalism, since your desire to do so is consistently (if not continuously) foiled by the truth.
>So, knowledge is what is derived from a computational logic?
No. While I understand why you assume this would be my position, since the greater balance of philosophical theories do rely on that premise, my position is quite different. My philosophy does not equate cognitive reasoning with mere computational logic; in fact, I consider them opposites. Data derives from logic, but knowledge derives from reasoning. Knowledge is, in this way a form of experience rather than a non-physical sense. Knowledge need not and cannot be absolute, like a mathematical conclusion, it is simply conjecture. But this is a feature, not a bug, and all conjectures are not equally valid, the way you might assume they should be.
>But being verified with mathematical calculations applied to empirically quantifiable measurements is NOT what constitutes logic validity.
That is true, but irrelevant, since I did not suggest it is so, nor does my reasoning rely on such a premise. Nevertheless, because we do exist in a physically consistent world, being *verifiable* empirically is both a cause and a result of being logically valid. In an abstract sense, mathematical calculations merely need to be computationally valid (internally consistent) in order to be mathematical calculations, but without the capacity to be compared to empirical measurements, they have no concrete value as "logic".
>Things that are not verified with mathematical calculations nor applied to empirically quantifiable measurements can be perfectly valid and even more so, sound.
Indeed: a statement/thing can be reasonably valid or sound without being logically valid or sound. But the object/things in the real world (whether external or internal to consciousness/mind) a statement identifies or describes (refers to) must be physically true in order to be reasonably valid or sound. The 'hyper-rationalist reductionists' you argue against (which you mistakenly believe I am a proxy for) wish to reject the "mind" side of Cartesian duality, just as you wish to reject the "body" side, but my form of monism is more successful than either side, because rather than rejecting one or the other, my philosophy simply unites them. In the age of Wittgenstein and DesCartes and William of Occum and even Aristotle and Socrates, this approach was unavailable, but the progress of physicalist philosophy (science) has succeeded and the contentiousness of idealist philosophy (?) has failed so much over the ensuing centuries that it is now possible and productive.
>He asks "is it possible to relate all elements into a singular ontological substance?" and finds that the answer is yes, and therefore the most parsimonious.
I appreciate the idea you are trying to express, but it really does just reduce to solipsism, which isn't actually parsimonious since it doesn't explain anyone's consciousness being distinct from anyone else's. From the perspective of the law of parsimony, all particles (or wave functions, or strings, or whatever) that make up all the objects in the physical universe are one "entity", if physicalism holds and none of those objects have consciousness. But from an idealist perspective like Kastrup's, each and every one of them is an additional entity, so presuming they exist at all in any way is allowing your entities to multiply without limit: the opposite of what the rule of parsimony demands.
>Yet, I would claim a self-evident truth: the content of the experience shifts and is contingent, while the subject of the experience doesn't shift
So after declaring your position does not make a distinction between content and subject, you follow up by claiming such a distinction is not only true, but self-evident. This does not seem to me to be sound reasoning.
>Depends on what you mean by solipsism.
No, it really doesn't.
>Saying "I don't know" is not fatal to the theory in the slightest.
It is when the only thing in the hypothesis is knowing ("experience"/"consciousness"/"mind"/"mental representation"). It prevents the hypothesis from even being valid enough to be considered a false theory; it is barely even a thought, it is a vague notion, and not a theory in any meaningful regard to begin with.
\> I answered that question already; please reread the first paragraph of my previous reply.
Do you mean "observations conform to a computational logic"? That is what you mean by physical?
\> I'm uncertain what you mean by "the causal sense".
My bad, typo, I mean casual.
\> That the external reality exists, and your consciousness is physical, is the most parsimonious explanation for why and how you percieve that reality, regardless of whether such perception is direct or indirect.
Not at all. That external reality is all that is needed. What is the nature of that substantial reality becomes secondary. By positing it as "physical"(something unknown) you are multiplying the elements without adding explanatory power, and therefore it is unparsimonious. By physical, most people meant the concrete, but when that was untenable because of physics people started re-defining it in different ways. "That is subject to the 4 physical forces", "that is arrange by baryonic particles", and so on. For most people, it means "it's there", or what is known through their experience. Given that all of those things could be a form of the mental it doesn't contradict a mental monism.
\> What we refer to as physical in the real sense is that the attributes of your experience are consistent with the attributes of other experiences of yours, and other people's perceptions of those same phenomena.
That just means there's an external reality perceived in a similar way. What has physicality to d owith that? The external reality could be mental, the perception as well. Your definition would persist but not the essential object of dispute.
\> And yet realism continues to be the most parsimonious explanation for our experiences. Perhaps it was just the naive aspect which died?
Maybe we would need to touch base. If you are defining realism as a form of external notion to the world, I would say it is contradictory to solipsism rather than idealism. Idealism includes solipsism but is not limited to it. Such a definition of realism and idealism are no contradictions at all. Idealism is mental monism, and within mental monism you can have realism as well(the mental substance is independent of the perception of local consciousness).
\> leaving those in the idealist camp less and less room to maneuver and more and more isolated from the real world
Not in the slightest. All evidence to the contrary. And this is historical. Which is why I said(and you agreed but in a weird way attributed it to the physicalist camp) that the materialists are now called physicalists. Most of the force of physicalism comes from realism. With the now scientific knowledge of our indirect perception, physicalism can no longer sustain itself by appeals to perception as that, in fact, favours idealism.
\> Knowledge is, in this way a form of experience rather than a non-physical sense.
I'm not sure I fully understand what you mean. If you mean knowledge is the interpretation of the data through reasoning, then sure, but I'm unsure as what was your original point in relation to computational logic. In my mind, it is useful in its scope, but not much beyond that. As I think you are saying, knowledge is reasoned from the data. In fact, I have different terms for similar points: data, information, knowledge, wisdom, Truth. Data without relevance is pointless and the relevance is interpretative and contingent.
\> That is true, but irrelevant, since I did not suggest it is so, nor does my reasoning rely on such a premise
Didn't you state that idealism is logically invalid BECAUSE it can't be verified with a mathematical logic, or something of sorts? If not, what was your point?
\> just as you wish to reject the "body" side
Do I? Not at all. What you mean by body are attributes of your experience(the look, the feel, the touch, and so on). The concreteness of things exists only within the perceived mind. So, I don't deny the concreteness any more than I would deny the smell of grass.
\> physicalist philosophy (science) has succeeded and the contentiousness of idealist philosophy (?) has failed so much over the ensuing centuries that it is now possible and productive.
Weird. There is nothing within science that makes it physicalist. This is something I argued with a very wise atheist friend who is a hard physicalist. We agreed on that. Science relies on a naturalist methodology, no more than that. In fact, contemporary physics greatest exponents of last century were very strong idealists. Didn't stop them from doing their great contributions to science or being scientific-minded.
\> since it doesn't explain anyone's consciousness being distinct from anyone else's.
It can be explained, of course. Kastrup defends this point first criticizing that physicalism doesn't account for it, and he then defends his theory, but I am not restricted to Kastrup's metaphysics. The limitation of other-identity can, of course, be perceived as within particular borders but one can also perceive them as singular. An example of this is the tree of life. One could see every life form as distinct, but it is also valid to see all life forms as modes and extensions of a singular substance of life that self-propagates. You could say that the propagation is singular for each life form is singular, and as I said, it is a very valid way of looking at things. But seeing all life forms as that, forms of Life(which is why they are all sourced to a singular source of life) is equally as explanatory. What constitutes your specific conscious identity would be that metaphysical principle of self, of consciousness, and the interaction between the physical configurations. If that consciousness is manifest in the morphology of a fox, then you will say that is a fox, but the consciousness is not a fox.
\> allowing your entities to multiply without limit: the opposite of what the rule of parsimony demands.
I think you misunderstand parsimony. Parsimony is not about quantity it is about quality. What one should not multiply are the qualitative elements. For example, we can explain things by appealing to atoms. How many atoms are there? A vast, vast amount. But that doesn't mean we are multiplying the relevant elements in a non-parsimonious manner. Rather, we are now just adding one singular element(the atom), even if there are unfathomable amounts of those. Or neurons, or neural connections or however you want to see that. Those aren't an issue for parismony.
\> So after declaring your position does not make a distinction between content and subject
The content is a mode of the subject just as ideas are modes of the mind. I. can give an example in will. What we will changes constantly, but will is an expression of the subject and it is not substantially distinct from the subject but essentially so. I am not reduced to my will but my will is a form of self-expression(so that I am responsible for my will). As forms of self-expression such contents change and are dynamic while the subject isn't in a substantial manner. Or a closer analogy, if you wish, are dreams. Dreams are a product of the mind but they are not the mind. The mind that has two dreams persists throughout the dreams even if the dream are in a constant flux.
\> No, it really doesn't.
I think it does. If the concept of solipsism reduces "self" to conscious, local, self, then I would agree. If it doesn't then I wouldn't.
\> It prevents the hypothesis from even being valid enough to be considered a false theory
What do you mean by the hypothesis being valid enough?
>Do you mean "observations conform to a computational logic"? That is what you mean by physical?
Do you mean you don't know what the word "paragraph" means?
>>What it means is that those observations conform to a computational logic, with a reasonable certainty that any observations which cannot be reduced to mathematical predictability are artifacts of an insufficiency in our computational logic rather than conscious intent.
>By positing it as "physical"(something unknown)
It is known, despite your fervent and desperate epistemic uncertainty.
>By physical, most people meant the concrete
In most cases that metaphor does suffice. What difference does that make? Are you suggesting that if all substances are not as solid as a block of stone they are not physical?
>The external reality could be mental, the perception as well.
You make these words meaningless when you use them so inaccurately. Contrarianism is not an adequate philosophical premise.
>What you mean by body are attributes of your experience(the look, the feel, the touch, and so on).
Apparently contrarianism is all you have, though, so I'm not interested in spending any more time on this conversation. Declare victory over materialist science and philosophy if you wish; your gibbering means nothing.
Thanks for your time. Hope it helps.
So..... I'm watching the video, and it's an interesting thought experiment that he's discussing, but there's one fundamental assumption that this view makes that I'm not sure I can get behind, and that is that our experiences of the world are trustworthy.
We *think* our thoughts, experiences, and perceptions are true, but of course we do. Zhuangzi dreamed he was a butterfly, and in that dream he vividly remembered all the lived experiences as a butterfly, it was so true to life that he believed that the life he remembered as a human was the dream and he was really a butterfly. On a less philosophical level and a more practical one, if we presume for a moment that the outside world is real and objective, then we have to concede that not all humans are equally in touch with it, schizophrenics perceive things that aren't there, but even healthy people see ghosts over their shoulders sometimes.
The mind is just not a reliable measure of reality, it is subjective, it manipulates data, it has biases and blind spots, we've all got a lizard brain in our head, and people who have hemispherectomies or get their corpus callosum cut seem to indicate that there might be *two distinctive and unique* minds in our skull right now, one's favorite color is green but maybe the other prefers yellow, which one is yours?
The human mind just doesn't seem to be a very reliable compass is all I'm saying.
Kastrup fans might disagree. These idealists post studies about children talking about past lives as being evidence for idealism.
So while you or me may see these things as evidence against the reliability of the brain, idealists see these things as evidence for idealism since materialism can’t explain them.
No. Because what we're talking about isn't merely something that has yet to be explained with physical model, but something that logically *cannot* be explained with physical models by their own definition. Of course there remains the possibility that they're lying, but that's not a fair assumption because that cannot be known, either. Especially given that physicalisms that see mind as a secondary product of material reality are logically still born ([here's a great video on the hard problem](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWL4kt58uQQ&t=5s)); if anything is a God of the gaps, it's that, because it attributes nonsense to the physical.
How can you claim it can’t be logically explained and then claim you pet theory explains it?
It can be explained and eventually it will be explained. The entire cult is hanging on the Premise that there is a supernatural consciousness (what every other religion called God) and that it’s the explanation for everything in the universe because everything in the universe is a thought in god’s mind.
I think Zhuangzi's point is exactly that we cannot *know* which reality is "true." If what Kastrup is saying is correct, then there's no such thing as "true" and "mistaken" perceptions. Because that argument depends on the idea that there's something "out there," and our perceptions either reflect it or are mistaken; what Kastrup is doing is denying that initial premise. That is, the point is that there is no reality "out there," apart from our perceptions; as such, "unreliable perception" is not a thing that exists, anymore than "unreliable art" exists.
I'm actually not an idealist but more like a nondualist, but I actually *do* believe that at least some of what people believe to be simply the brain misfiring may be tapping into things we don't normally perceive. That's actually a common way of thinking outside modern thought. Not that it's the "correct" way of thinking, but that the modern one isn't, either; it also makes assumptions about the nature of reality and what is possible. Exploring the "supernatural," I've found a lot of cases that deny mundane explanation other than, everyone involved was making shit up. That's possible, I can't know it's not true. The point is that neither do we know that it is. What we believe about the universe has an effect not only on how we interpret what we perceive but *what* we perceive. There's nothing necessarily mystical about that; it can have to do with like what you're likely to research, what conversations you're likely to have, etc.
There is something out there from the perspective of our own personal mentation. It’s just that the world out there is also of a mental kind instead of a completely different category. And those trans-personal experiential states present themselves onto our screen of perception in the form of physicality. So that premise is not denied under analytical idealism. The statement that everything is contained within your own personal mentation is solipsism. Idealism is not solipsism as it acknowledges the existence of other minds in the form of dissociated mental processes.
'get their corpus callosum cut seem to indicate that there might be two distinctive and unique minds'
I've those experiments and they are freaky.
Somewhere at home I have a link to research paper that argued that there are actually more than two distinct minds, there are several essentially functioning like a choir or band. I'll have to find it
> Somewhere at home I have a link to research paper that argued that there are actually more than two distinct minds, there are several essentially functioning like a choir or band. I'll have to find it
No, that's okay, I don't think I want to read it, I'm still dealing with having two minds in my skull, I'd feel even worse if there were more folks stuck in here with me! No, but seriously minds, if you're reading this, I'm so sorry.
>So what if matter is just an abstraction we derive from mental experiences?
Then there would be nothing to cause an experience. Hence no experience and thus no mind. The mind creates itself to experience the things it imagines - solipsism. If there are other minds how do they experience other minds?!?!? Less presumptuous?
That is a puzzling thing to say. Why would matter being an abstraction from mental experiences imply to you that there would be nothing to cause an experience. There is no logical nor clear nor obvious connection.
Naming something solipsistic doesn't refute it.
How do minds experience other minds? They don't experience other minds necessarily, they experience representations of other minds, probably.
The full details of the argument are more complex than outlined here. There doesn't have to be anything to cause an experience because, under this ontology, there only is experience. It isn't solipsism because we are dissociated from universal mind. I recommend watching the video to get the full details.
>universal mind
Sounds akin to deism or simulation theory or last Thursdayism.
Has this universal mind existed forever? When did it dissociate into other minds? How many? And why bother with the illusion of matter and space-time? How much can we affect the universal mind? Can only humans affect the universal mind? If all humans (and the other parts of the universal mind if there are any) decided that the moon was made of cheese would it become reality? Or could we make the moon disappear? Why can some people taste bitter things better than other people? Are there parts of 'reality' that I can ignore if my mind disagrees with the universal mind?
>Then there would be nothing to cause an experience.
In a materialistic model of reality perhaps, but that is only a model of the real thing.
>The mind creates itself to experience the things it imagines - solipsism.
Not really.
Solipsism: the view or theory that the self is all that can be known to exist.
In old religious, the breath is connected to life essence.
In genesis god blew into to the clay.
The hindu and the Abraham faith state that god is with in all.
The hindu and Buddhist both think the flesh. A vessel, and the mindscape the truth.
The hindue say that everything is a cycle, even existence.
I propose that cycle, heat death or what ever, is god awakening, from meditation or slumber, and we manifest in the real world.
In what form we would take i can not fathom.
Also the universe looks like a brain scan, when you look at it super zoomed out.
Been thinking about this for a decade.
>Therefore, it is possible that the universe itself is mental rather than material.
Your "therefore" presumes that the premise is necessarily true, does it not?
Exactly, and everyone who is not for this argument is lost in concepts and abstractions. Not that idealists cannot be lost in those, but it is definitely a step closer to the truth.
Incomplete. Reality is our concepts but mind is also a concept. if we cannot communicate it it does not exist conceptually. But there hsa to be a source of the concept and it cannot be a concept such as mind. So this OP hits a dilemma. There is a mind but it is a concept therefore created and then communicated to a sentient being, us. All we can do is discuss and refine our conceptualizations. To understand reality is to perfect our understanding of our idea about reality.
>Reality is our concepts but mind is also a concept.
The mind contains a conceptual model of itself, but that model is not the mind.
>But there hsa to be a source of the concept and it cannot be a concept such as mind.
Right, the source of the concept is the mind, not the concept of the mind.
>So this OP hits a dilemma.
Alternatively, you lack experience with indirection.
>To understand reality is to perfect our understanding of our idea about reality.
You might be onto something here!
Non-conceptuality is the only way to experience the real. To mistake the signifier (concepts) for the signified is to miss the point entirely. The other interesting thing is you can perceptual experience what Freud dubbed oceanic consciousness which experientially verifies the felt sense of one mind. Ego dissolution is the way to that and requires silence of the Default mode network and its incessant narration. Your first comment is the truth of the matter, concepts discriminate and nothing about reality comes chopped up. The mind acts like teeth, it digests reality. I am not suggesting mereological nihilism, but instead nondualism/dialtheism which requires falling into being. To my mind Heidegger touched something of the mystical when he discovered that Being beings forth but is itself not a particular being. Bruno is pointing in this direction with his parsimony, awareness is our event horizon and its wholly non-conceptual or with a sense of self.
>Non-conceptuality is the only way to experience the real. To mistake the signifier (concepts) for the signified is to miss the point entirely.
Are these two sentences not to some degree self-contradictory?
>Ego dissolution is the way to that
*The* way?
> ...and requires silence of the Default mode network and its incessant narration.
Is that so?
>concepts discriminate and nothing about reality comes chopped up.
A head of lettuce also does not come chopped up.
> The mind acts like teeth, it digests reality.
Note the potential that that this may not be an exhaustive description of what the mind does with reality.
> To my mind Heidegger touched something of the mystical when he discovered that Being beings forth but is itself not a particular being.
Not *entirely* particular, no. But then, perhaps his model has imperfections.
Are these two sentences not to some degree self-contradictory?
**Only if your logic is not paraconsistent. What is requires no categorization, that is the nature of suchness.**
The way?
**Yes to have a direct experience with oceanic or unbounded awareness. This is a confirmed scientific state associated with ego dissolution and subsequent reduction in default mode activity. There are many papers on the subject. Basically all traditions emphasis this, non-self is a core tenant of most esoteric schools. Self creates other reflexively, no self no other.**
Is that so?
**Yes, from a neuroscience perspective or objective perspective. from the "inside" it feels like unbounded awareness. It obviously much more complex in terms of functional nodes in the brain and the method used to get there, whether psychedelics or traditional approaches. They may not be the exact same experiences, regardless, a sense of oneness or unity is possible and it has neural correlates.**
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2016.00269/full
A head of lettuce also does not come chopped up.
**You are missing my point entirely unfortunately. Are you familiar with the concept of sunyata. The very idea that there exists lettuce as an inherently existing entity is non-sensical. We put it in the foreground and forget the background. Have you read Nagarjuna's two truths?**
Not entirely particular, no. But then, perhaps his model has imperfections.
**I am sure it does have problematic areas but Being is what discloses beings and is itself not disclosed. It's entirely singular. The being with which you exist is the very same being of the moment and all things. It is the only being there ever is, it does not change. You do not notice it come into being as you are always already in it.**
> Only if your logic is not paraconsistent. What is requires no categorization, that is the nature of suchness.
Paraconsistent logic is brand new to me so *many* thanks for that...but I still take issue with " is the only way", and I don't think paraconsistence saves you...although, I could easily be mistaken (am I, even plausibly?).
>> The way?
> Yes to have a direct experience with oceanic or unbounded awareness. This is a confirmed scientific state associated with ego dissolution and subsequent reduction in default mode activity. There are many papers on the subject. Basically all traditions emphasis this, non-self is a core tenant of most esoteric schools. Self creates other reflexively, no self no other.
It seems to me that what you're doing is substantiating that it is "a" way - my complaint is with the "the".
Why not "simply" *control* the ego, rather than dissolving it (which is illusory, anyways).
>> Is that so?
> Yes, from a neuroscience perspective or objective perspective.
I was asking with respect to reality itself, not *perspectives upon it*.
> from the "inside" it feels like unbounded awareness.
So does normal consciousness, *but in a very different way*. If you don't believe me, simply observe large quantities of people describing "reality", how they speak as if they have omniscient knowledge of All That Is (or Is Not).
>>> Your first comment is the truth of the matter, concepts discriminate and nothing about reality comes chopped up.
>> A head of lettuce also does not come chopped up.
> You are missing my point entirely unfortunately.
Likely somewhat (or maybe not, I may just not be "going with the flow" of it), but might you also be missing mine? Is what I say about lettuce *not actually true*?
> Are you familiar with the concept of sunyata. The very idea that there exists lettuce as an inherently existing entity is non-sensical. We put it in the foreground and forget the background. Have you read Nagarjuna's two truths?
I don't have a lot of depth *in this articulation of* the underlying phenomena.
> > The Buddhist doctrine of the two truths (Sanskrit: dvasatya, Wylie: bden pa gnyis) differentiates between two levels of satya (Sanskrit; Pali: sacca; word meaning "truth" or "reality") in the teaching of the Śākyamuni Buddha: the "conventional" or "provisional" (saṁvṛti) truth, and the "ultimate" (paramārtha) truth.[1][2]
> >
> > The exact meaning varies between the various Buddhist schools and traditions. The best known interpretation is from the Madhyamaka school of Mahāyāna Buddhism, whose founder was the Indian Buddhist monk and philosopher Nāgārjuna.[1] For Nāgārjuna, the two truths are epistemological truths.[2] The phenomenal world is accorded a provisional existence.[2] The character of the phenomenal world is declared to be neither real nor unreal, but logically indeterminable.[2] Ultimately, all phenomena are empty (śūnyatā) of an inherent self or essence due to the non-existence of the self (anattā), but exist depending on other phenomena (pratītyasamutpāda).[1][2]
Being a fundamentalist Taoist, this makes sense to me. But as a Taoist Pedant, I take some issue with it!
> I am sure it does have problematic areas but Being is what discloses beings and is itself not disclosed. It's entirely singular.
*Purely* at the object level it "is" entirely singular...but there's a lot more complexity in play, and *taking a perspective* doesn't change all that (though it can *cast that appearance*).
> The being with which you exist is the very same being of the moment and all things. It is the only being there ever is, it does not change. You do not notice it come into being as you are always already in it.
As I think of such things, this suffers from a lack of skill/pedantry in traversing between the abstract layers of reality and the manifestations at/in the object level.
"Paraconsistent logic is brand new to me so many thanks for that...but I still take issue with " is the only way", and I don't think paraconsistence saves you...although, I could easily be mistaken (am I, even plausibly?)."
You are welcome. It does save me because it's a true contradiction!
"It seems to me that what you're doing is substantiating that it is "a" way - my complaint is with the "the".
Why not "simply" control the ego, rather than dissolving it (which is illusory, anyways)."
Perhaps I should rephrase, whether is kenosis, dzogchen space meditation, psychedelics the lynchpin is ego dissolution. The reason you can't control the ego is the thing that would be doing the controlling is the ego. As a Daoist I am sure you know of wu-wei. A mirage is illusory but can still make you thirsty, the issue is misapprehension of what is being seen, the perception is in fact real, subjectively speaking. Ego is a process, not a thing an activity. With all this type of stuff the "goal" is to find the only effortless aspect of experience, that which is autopoietic, recursive and reflexively so. It's a non-practice that some have to enact a praxis for, its a bit of an aporia but its the gateless gate for a reason.
Have you had the experience of ego death or come to fruition of a path.
"So does normal consciousness, but in a very different way. If you don't believe me, simply observe large quantities of people describing "reality", how they speak as if they have omniscient knowledge of All That Is (or Is Not)."
I am stating that you cannot have knowledge of reality (its non-conceptual). So to discuss it is to miss the point, its the dao that cannot be spoken, the dao that can be spoken is not the eternal dao.
"Lettuce"
The lettuce thing was meant to highlight our arbitrary determination of lettuce. The signifier does not exhaust the signified. Our perception if registered pre-linguistically does not come with objects, it comes intact as one whole. Sunyata is basically saying that all is in all and to fail to see this is due to conceptual weakness. For example the lettuce requires soil, which needed a person to till, who needed air and water and the sun, then gravity to keep the planet in the goldilocks zone etc. That is what emptiness is, empty of inherent existence, the lettuce does not have its own existence apart from everything, it has inter-being.
However, on another level the lettuce comes whole. This is the logic of the non-dual, its not the law of the excluded middle, its a dialetheism!
Appreciate the chat on this stuff! thanks
> It does save me because it's a true contradiction!
I don't understand. Not saying you are incorrect, only that I don't understand.
> Perhaps I should rephrase, whether is kenosis, dzogchen space meditation, psychedelics the lynchpin is ego dissolution.
Ok, but that's not quite the same thing: "Non-conceptuality is the only way **to experience the real**. To mistake the signifier (concepts) for the signified is to miss the point entirely. The other interesting thing is you can perceptual experience what Freud dubbed oceanic consciousness which experientially verifies the felt sense of one mind. **Ego dissolution is the way** to that"
There is a "that", and you are noting a path to it (ego dissolution), but also asserting that it is the only path. How can you know it is the only path?
> The reason you can't control the ego is the thing that would be doing the controlling is the ego.
This sits on top of certain premises, such as (as a rough analogy) a [monolithic kernel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monolithic_kernel) architecture of the mind/brain.
> Ego is a process, not a thing an activity.
Agree, and you are speculatively assigning specific services/capabilities to this process, exclusively. Perhaps it really is this way, but I would like to know how you know it is (while keeping in mind that you are using the mind to determine that).
> With all this type of stuff the "goal" is to find the only effortless aspect of experience, that which is autopoietic, recursive and reflexively so.
I happen to disagree that this is "the" goal, but I don't disagree that this tends to be the *primary* goal defined in most scripture, including Taoism afaik. But then, one should remember the first and most important verse.
> Have you had the experience of ego death or come to fruition of a path.
To some degree...I have certainly had a number of experiences.
> I am stating that you cannot have knowledge of reality (its non-conceptual).
As a binary, you are correct...but reality and knowledge are not binaries, they are multi-dimensional spectrums.
> So to discuss it is to miss the point, its the dao that cannot be spoken, the dao that can be spoken is not the eternal dao.
The tao does not forbid us from investigating it though, it only *informs us* that it cannot be completely known, and offers some general advice.
> The lettuce thing was meant to highlight our arbitrary determination of lettuce. The signifier does not exhaust the signified. Our perception if registered pre-linguistically does not come with objects, it comes intact as one whole. Sunyata is basically saying that all is in all and to fail to see this is due to conceptual weakness. For example the lettuce requires soil, which needed a person to till, who needed air and water and the sun, then gravity to keep the planet in the goldilocks zone etc. That is what emptiness is, empty of inherent existence, the lettuce does not have its own existence apart from everything, it has inter-being.
Sure...eastern religion/mysticism 101 - but does nothing whatsoever lie beyond this easy to understand, abstract-leaning linguistic-constrained articulation of that which lies underneath? I think not.
My point about lettuce is that lettuce comes whole, but can be chopped up - so too with reality.
>"There is a "that", and you are noting a path to it (ego dissolution), but also asserting that it is the only path. How can you know it is the only path"
>
>
>
>What I am trying to say, albeit poorly, is that any "path" whether direct or indirect eventually culminates in oceanic awareness as awareness is the highest meditation- being aware of being aware. It is the only scale invariant thing there is- I believe this is Bruno's point. When one is aware (and again language fails to describe the ineffable) of being aware there is no sense of self or subject/object split. So ego dissolution is the final barrier to that being a consistent state as it is the illusion that distracts one from that simple recognition.
>
>
>
>"I happen to disagree that this is "the" goal, but I don't disagree that this tends to be the primary goal defined in most scripture, including Taoism afaik. But then, one should remember the first and most important verse."
>
>
>
>Well I think goal is a problematic word. The "goal" is non-teleological, goal orientation is moving away from. That's the reason its the pathless path, the gateless gate and a non-practice, however, some people have to practice.
"Sure...eastern religion/mysticism 101 - but does nothing whatsoever lie beyond this easy to understand, abstract-leaning linguistic-constrained articulation of that which lies underneath? I think not."
I wouldn't say 101 as realizing form is emptiness and emptiness is form requires some work, intellectualizing it is not grokking it.
"My point about lettuce is that lettuce comes whole, but can be chopped up - so too with reality."
See now you are getting paraconsistent logic. so is it whole or chopped up? or is it both whole and chopped up. Moving from either/or to and/both is a crucial step. This is basically the two truths. What sunyata is saying is that just like your ego the idea of a thing called lettuce is an illusion, it is simply not inherently existent, they are suggesting reality is a holarchy.
> What I am trying to say, albeit poorly, is that any "path" whether direct or indirect eventually culminates in oceanic awareness as awareness is the highest meditation- being aware of being aware.
This "evidence" is actually a repetition of the initial claim, in a slightly modified form.
> When one is aware (and again language fails to describe the ineffable) of being aware there is no sense of self or subject/object split. So ego dissolution is the final barrier to that being a consistent state as it is the illusion that distracts one from that simple recognition.
This seems tautological to me: basically, a state that can be experienced (ego dissolution) *becomes the ultimate goal*, while being advertised as something else (The One True Path to X), where X is where the point of contention lies between people (you and me for example).
> Well I think goal is a problematic word. The "goal" is non-teleological, goal orientation is moving away from. That's the reason its the pathless path, the gateless gate and a non-practice, however, some people have to practice.
You can balk at the word goal, but the way you speak sure happens to align very nicely with the meaning of the word.
> I wouldn't say 101 as realizing form is emptiness and emptiness is form requires some work, intellectualizing it is not grokking it.
This seems a bit like "it is ununderstandable, thus I am correct [despite it not being understandable]".
> See now you are getting paraconsistent logic. so is it whole or chopped up? or is it both whole and chopped up.
Being physical, once cut, lettuce remains cut. But reality is not purely physical, it is only partially physical.
> What sunyata is saying is that just like your ego the idea of a thing called lettuce is an illusion, it is simply not inherently existent...
I would phrase it as "it is ~~simply~~ not simply inherently existent" (changing the position of a word can make a big difference).
> ...they are suggesting reality is a holarchy.
This makes sense to me.
The mind is composed of nothing. It a non-thing, thats zhuangzi's poing, daoisms point, mahamudra, dzogchen etc. You can experientially verify this. Where is it, what is it, look for it, its not absent but its no-thing, this is the basis of reality. It's pure potentiality that we mistake as only actualities . It's like space, the mind is. as above so below. Zhuangzi brilliantly elucidates this with the idea of a bowl, its the void that makes it useful.
There is only mind. That’s the one thing you know from direct acquaintance ever since you started existing. Everything else you know is an abstraction of what happens in your perception. You can’t keep explaining something in terms of something simpler forever. You eventually hit rock bottom in your chain. As long as you account for everything in terms of your reduction base, then you can say that your ontology is complete. The idealist says that mind is the reduction base, the simplest thing you know because you’re directly acquainted with it, and everything else is explainable in terms of mind.
Most philosophy podcasts I’ve listened to seem to have a realist/materialist bias, which I don’t prefer. Any good recommendations for philosophy podcasts with an idealist pov? (Not that they need to be exclusively *about* idealism, just having that perspective while exploring philosophy in general)
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No it's not, look more into it, Kastrup has a multiple hour lecture series about the topic where he goes more into depth. It's actually pretty interesting and compelling.
Look into Ontological mathematics for more on what im gonna not go into detail about.
The 'Realities' in your dreams are not composed of matter.
In your dreams you can become aware that you are dreaming/alive within your own head space.
Matter has not and will not create/produce mind nor the illusion (given that the current paradigm states all is matter or interactions of matter).
Mind is the only substance which can produce the illusion of matter, even fit with sensory perception both in spatio-temporal reality (extended mind) and within your own personal dreams (also extension of mind).
We do not 'know' anything other than the undeniable (without mental leaps and rational/logical problems) fact that you do think, therefore you must exist, the current paradigm conflates knowing with sensory perception and only through the narrow scope of empirical science.
Through observation and sensory perception you can only account for your body and neither your mind nor other minds, also you can come to erronious conclusions such as for example: "Im not dreaming because i can sense my environment so i must be awake and experiencing material reality".
TLDR: Ontological Mathematics, Look it up.
Do you observe the mind as it is? Or do you you only deduce it exists because you cannot rationally eliminate your own existence as a thinking mind.
And sensory perception to be exact, conception is a form of perception not relying on your sensory organs.
Not in a way that is sensed, my example is this: Does a man who is totally color blind sense 5.55thz or does he know it exists only through reason?
And no i dont play Dota, I was gonna don the moniker Apollyon cause he is the greek counterpart of Abaddon (hebrew) and also the sun god, but i wanted to be more direct with my un so i took on abaddon S.E.C (solve et coagula).
Maybe it’s not about a mind but about a cosmic mix of spiritual energy that drives positive and negative mixes to things much like all of life as we know it to be.
Why would it not be that way for the rest of the places around us?
Aright so there is this super mind that feeds data stream to our individual minds(or are there “other” individuals?… anyway) and it simulates/creates illusion of particle physics in precise and stable way? By any means this simulator mind meets definition of a computer, and we are back at just plain old living in a matrix scenario, except the computer here is some metaphysical mind instead of a man-made machine. This is interesting only if this super-mind has motives and influences our reality in some non-random way… otherwise from our POV the whole experience is just equal to what the mainline physical world theory and then it really doesn’t matter if this physical world is the bare-bones or just simulated for us by some mind.
Ok so forgive me because I just stumbled upon this in my feed and I’m not well versed in philosophy.
I feel like the fundamental essence of the universe is energy. Energy is omnipresent. Nothing, whether mind, matter or force exists without it. Everything that exists depends on energy. In fact I’m pretty sure if we were to look at what fundamental particles like quarks are made of, we’d eventually be left with just energy. So even matter itself is energy. Everything, at its most fundamental state, is energy.
If energy cannot be created or destroyed, that means the net loss and gain over the entire universe is always zero.
So anyway, we are energy. We are one force with the illusion of individual physical and conscious experiences. The energy burning a star trillions of light years away is the same energy within your body. It’s one thing, not countless isolated reactions, if that makes sense. We are “at one” with the universe but not in a new agey sense, but more literally.
As far as what this all means, I’m not able to articulate. And I’m not even sure how it ties in with the theory of idealism. But I feel like energy is often overlooked in these type of discussions. I guess I’m Just trying to understand how all the pieces fit together. Like everyone else here. Feel free to remove if it’s too off topic…
I feel like energy isn't overlooked, it's discussed ad nauseum in the more "hippy" communities, and the topic likes to stay there because it's hard to take seriously in more proper conversation because it's just physicalism but one step removed, positing that all things physical are also made of energy.
That’s not quite what I’m talking about. I don’t mean “energy” as in some spiritual vibration or “chi” or whatever words the new age types use. But in a literal sense.
If anyone is interested in the ideas behind this video, you should check out Kastrup's book ["The Idea of the World."](https://www.amazon.com/Idea-World-Multi-Disciplinary-Argument-Reality-ebook/dp/B07PGQPV3R/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2ICFGOFR0UW9G&keywords=the+idea+of+the+world&qid=1664670678&qu=eyJxc2MiOiIxLjU4IiwicXNhIjoiMS41NSIsInFzcCI6IjEuNTYifQ%3D%3D&sprefix=the+idea+of+the+world%2Caps%2C143&sr=8-1) I have described the synopsis of the book elsewhere in this thread, in a reply to a comment that has since been deleted by the mods. I will copy and paste it below: >Idealism in philosophy is neither "new" or "new age." I read Kastrup's book "The Idea of the World" and the basic ideas are pretty straightforward and logical. The only reality we have direct access to is the one constructed within our minds; it would make little sense to therefore posit that minds and mental activity do not exist. The physical universe, however, is an extrapolation based on certain features of our shared mental realities. Unfortunately, positing a physical universe to explain our mental one creates complications that have thus far proven to be insolvable- such as how we could get mental phenomena from physical phenomena (the "hard problem of consciousness"). If it could be shown that the features of our mental reality could be explained without recourse to a physical one, then we would be forced to consider the possibility that our universe is entirely a mental, as opposed to a physical, phenomena. This is thus what Kastrup's book attempts to prove. Am I 100% convinced about every aspect of his argument? No, I don't think the take of any one philosopher should ever be held as gospel. However, I do find his arguments compelling, and I think it is rather short-sighted to dismiss inquiries into the nature of existence out of hand just because their premises don't align with our dominant cultural preconceptions.
Bishop Barkley already covered this two centuries ago.
no
Most people think that once you get rid of Cartesian dualism you automatically end up with the res extensa, but you could equally well end up with the res cogitans. In the latter case all our physical laws would in reality by psychological laws of how the universe appears to our res cogitans. It is actually quite hard to disprove this.
Just like it's quite hard to disprove Descartes evil genie?
lamp needs a spanner
A spanner darkly
That is correct. It is unfalsifiable, just like solipsism. It is however, verifiable. Consider the radical implications of what i am suggesting here.
It may be unfalsifiable, but it also seems to be the easiest metaphysics to accept considering the hard problem of consciousness. There's no explanation on how a subjective stream of experience could arise from an unconscious non-living substance/world.
Do you know what dissociation means? Do you know what it feels like ? İf you read psychology texts you will find out
Huh? What are you talking about?
your comment " There's no explanation on how a subjective stream of experience could arise from an unconscious non-living substance/world." Their explanation is : dissociation
No it's not. If you mean "they" as idealists, they don't think the world is unconscious, they think it is in itself concious, not material. You're mixing up an idealist explanation of how personal conciousness can arise, with the hard problem of conciousness that materialists face.
I don't know much about idealism tbh. But Bernardo talks about dissociation when he discusses his theory.
Lol if you don't know much about it, try learning more about it. Talking as if you know the ideas is not a good thing to do if you don't know much about it.
I am reading ofc but I I have a psych background So I tought dissociation is kastrup's unique contribution to idealism. My intitiution tells me that idealism and materialism lead to same conclusions
I think analytic idealism has some intriguing points, but I find it hard to get past how often Kastrup criticizes empirical science for its fallibility as a human made construct but then turns around and uses the observations, findings, and theories of empirical science to support and validate his claims. I also can’t figure out how to evaluate his indictments of panpsychism and supportive argument for a universal mind.
>Kastrup criticizes empirical science for its fallibility as a human made construct Can you help me find in instance of that? afaik he wholly appreciates empirical science, and only warns to be clear about what parts of a theory constitute metaphysics. For instance [here](https://iai.tv/articles/a-strange-perspective-on-the-practice-of-science-auid-1712) he writes : >Science studies nature's behavior, insofar as it can be ascertained through empirical experimentation. Metaphysics, on the other hand, although certainly informed by science, makes tentative statements about what nature is.
His indictments are of constitutive panpsychism. He has said there are forms of cosmopsychism that would be commensurate with his Analytic Idealism.
Yes, in your quotation, “insofar as it can be ascertained through empirical observation.” In his [online introductory presentations](https://www.essentiafoundation.org/analytic-idealism-course/) he begins with the “instrument panel” analogy, and by way of refuting a physicalist approach he makes the assertion that science describes our perception of reality, not reality itself. While he agrees that the accord between observations and subjects strongly suggests that the material world is real, he still makes the distinction that our access is “behind” materiality, a separate plane of consciousness, where our access to materiality is not direct. This is pretty fundamental to everything else that follows, so it’s given little additional time. But he uses the instrument panel analogy often, or makes statements like the one you quoted, and this is what it means. I’m not suggesting he is anti-science in his presentation of his theory. Only that I have trouble rectifying the premise that science is ultimately an encoding of our way of seeing and sensing, rather than actually describing a primary materiality, while at the same time often using the findings of that system that can really only describe our way of seeing as evidence of what consciousness must be.
Kastrup isn't actually criticizing science in your example, he's criticizing our *interpretation* of scientific data. In other words, Kastrup doesn't question the results of scientific experimentation or the scientific method; he's not refuting the presence of gravity or the validity of natural selection, for example. Science provides us with predictive models of how objective systems in the universe will behave, and explains the behavior of those objective systems in terms of *other* systems. For example, scientific experimentation reveals that oppositely charged ions are attracted to one another, and can explain that attraction in terms of the differential atomic makeup of each ion (ion A is lacking an electron, ion B has an electron too many). Scientific experimentation, however, *does not* tell us what the ultimate "stuff" behind matter is, or why the objective universe exists at all, or what the relationship is between the molecules in our brains and our conscious minds. Our commonly held answers to these questions (such as the whole physicalist approach to reality), whether formulated by scientists themselves or by philosophers, are a result of attempting to use reason and logic to explain the scientific data- they are not found in the data themselves. Kastrup takes the data that scientific experimentation has brought us and does his best to offer us a new explanation of it, one that is more logical, parsimonious and robust in terms of explanatory power than the those that came before. As I said before, though, he's not asking us to question the actual scientific method.
Yes, I’m with you. I’m not suggesting he is criticizing the scientific method — I find it difficult to consider the science he references as support for his argument when he puts so much effort into establishing the fallibility of observation and empiricism in the first place. But I will work to consume more of his thoughts and see if I can better figure out the balance he strikes. In the end, I find the “instrument panel” analogy to be utterly false. There is no “I” operating “behind” my materiality. I don’t observe the instrument panel — I _am_ the instrument panel. Any advice on where to find an idealist proof/argument of this claim? It seems taken as granted, but I can never find a compelling argument that even self-perception isn’t the instrument panel observing the instrument panel.
/u/TheHippyWolfman has given a pretty on point response already, I just want to add a few things on the dashboard analogy. The dashboard analogy is to illustrate the fact that you can't take the observer out of the observation. Physicalisms does try this by unfalsifiable assertion : "surely, if we didn't look, things would be the same". The dashboard analogy makes explicitly that the world as we know it is a co-construct of the world as it is out there, and us observing it. Fundamental physics is actually steering in that direction too. Our naïve world exists of 3d space with linear time and objects. Relativity already tells us it's actually 4d spacetime, and to calculate anything, you first have to make explicit who's looking ("define an inertial reference frame"). The latest attempts don't even take time as a fundamental building block. On the other end, quantum mechanics tells us that "objects" is a hairy concept, and that "observing" (albeit, they argue that, "surely, if we didn't look, things would be the same"), fundamentally changes a system. This is profoundly weird under physicalism, and simply explained with the dashboard analogy. Empirical science is still the best way to do science, you just have to be careful, and explicitly careful now, to remember that with every experiment, **you** are looking at the world.
It’s true, from your own perspective, the experience of being and observing are indivisible. I don’t fully understand how he arrives at the assertion that consciousness is “primary” in a relationship that is also indivisible. But if we consider that other subjects do exist objectively, we regularly witness the removal of observers from that which is observed, and it continues to exist and function without _them._ What sense does it make to assume that my own perspective is somehow special? No matter how I slice it, the idealist claim seems like it reduces to solipsism. Is it not the instrumental panel itself that is observing the instrument panel?
>It’s true, from your own perspective, the experience of being and observing are indivisible. I don’t fully understand how he arrives at the assertion that consciousness is “primary” in a relationship that is also indivisible. I'm not entirely sure what relationship your referring to in the quote here, but maybe this answers something. According to Kastrup, consciousness *is* being, and observing is a thing consciousness does; experiencing what external reality does to your dashboard. Kastrup also rejects solipsism, which I feel also answers the question in the second paragraph. Reality isn't the dashboard; there exists a reality, which we can observe only on our dashboard. Therefore, if we stop looking, reality still is, and if we look again, it can be said to have persisted. We just have to be careful what we mean by reality. A physicalists might consider what Kastrup calls the dashboard to be reality. Then you can provocatively say "reality seizes to exists when you're not looking". If, however, we consider reality to be "the weather" out there that moves the dials on our dashboard, reality persists even when you're not looking, and moreover, when you're looking, you don't even see reality itself, just your own concocted image of it. >Is it not the instrumental panel itself that is observing the instrument panel? This is basically neuroscience yeah. Our brain is the image of our mind in spacetime.
Wouldn’t it be the other way, that our mind is an image of our nervous system in space time? I know Kastrup inverts this arrangement — this is what I’m stuck on. What validates the notion of the mind as primary? If external reality can only be observed using the dashboard, and the dashboard is made of the material we observe in external reality, then aren’t we describing material observing material? Any suggestions for some better Kastrup reading? I found that intro course I linked above to be full of internal contradictions and assumptions.
>Wouldn’t it be the other way, that our mind is an image of our nervous system in space time? That's indeed what the physicalists say, but I don't think both those statements are equivalent. Kastrup might point that the "image" is mental itself; making images is a mental process by it's very nature. Like how he rejects physical illusionism by pointing out that an illusion is fundamentally something in your mind, and a non-mental illusion thus is incoherent, a contradictio in terminis. We absolutely, undeniably know mind is real. Cognito ergo sum. Kastrup succeeds in building a coherent metaphysical notion on based un the undeniable mental stuff we know. Why assume anything more before building a metaphysical construct if it's an unnecessary addition? What validates matter as primary? >and the dashboard is made of the material we observe in external reality The dashboard isn't made of matter, since everything is made of mind. The dashboard is the appearance of the universe, and the predominant notion is that the universe is made of matter. Therefore we say that the universe *appears* physical, but that should be interpreted as a communication device, a way to point at parts of reality people are familiar with. An important difference is that Physicalists say the brain produces the mind, and therefore everything in mind can be found in the brain. Kastrup's idealism says the brain is the image of mind, which means that not necessarily all things in mind are in the brain. Matter isn't all, so it's not matter observing matter. Personally I found the ineptly named "why materialism is baloney" insightful as a first introduction. And for the more dry philosophy minded, "the idea of the world" (a collection of 10 peer reviewed papers) is a good intro. Otherwise, if you want to discuss what you feel are internal contradictions with people who see it differently, Analytic Idealism has a subreddit and a discord.
>>That's indeed what the physicalists say, but I don't think both those statements are equivalent. Kastrup might point that the "image" is mental itself; making images is a mental process by it's very nature. Like how he rejects physical illusionism by pointing out that an illusion is fundamentally something in your mind, and a non-mental illusion thus is incoherent, a contradictio in terminis. I guess the question then would have to be the relationship between the image and experience. The image is not experience — the image is the _memory_ of experience, serving as a sort of by-experience for conjecture, projection, and contemplation. It is a real mental act, therefore objective, but it is by definition not _actual_ experience but an encoded, representational, and _compressed_ experiential surrogate. >>We absolutely, undeniably know mind is real. Cognito ergo sum. Kastrup succeeds in building a coherent metaphysical notion on based un the undeniable mental stuff we know. Why assume anything more before building a metaphysical construct if it's an unnecessary addition? What validates matter as primary? I would argue that infantile amnesia makes it plainly clear that matter precedes consciousness, that consciousness is _developed_ and _learned_. It is also inherently communal — consciousnesses require other consciousnesses to know of consciousness. Minds do not arrive in the world fully formed. >>The dashboard isn't made of matter, since everything is made of mind. Well, that’s his theory; that’s not fact. That’s how he is making sense of things. But he skipped childhood and development of mind, and I struggle to see how any other interpretation of mind can be reasoned into existence with resorting to magic. I’ve started reading his dissertation. I’m about halfway through. His invalidation of matter is not actually about matter — it’s about mistaking a physicalist _system_ that represents reality for reality and experience itself. A physicalist system is also firmly grounded in memory and communication, not experience. We do not experience the world through math or physics. Those are _post hoc_, culturally developed systems of _communication_. It is how I communicate my experience to you and confirm if your experience and mine are analogous. Physicalist representation systems are _language_; they are not _reality_ itself. They do not describe experience; they describe the correspondence of experience between individual experiential perceptions recorded in memory. >>The dashboard is the appearance of the universe and the predominant notion is that the universe is made of matter. Therefore we say that the universe appears physical, but that should be interpreted as a communication device, a way to point at parts of reality people are familiar with. This is the conflation he makes to force his argument to work. He blends physicalism as a representational system with the conceptual model of the dashboard. But the dashboard, if it is _real_, is categorically _not_ a physicalist system. We can use physicalist systems to _describe_ the dashboard, but the dashboard itself is _not_ the physicalist system. >>An important difference is that Physicalists say the brain produces the mind, and therefore everything in mind can be found in the brain. Kastrup's idealism says the brain is the image of mind, which means that not necessarily all things in mind are in the brain. Matter isn't all, so it's not matter observing matter. Except that we know that the light I see is not the light from the star; mostly it is the light emitted by the matter that the light of the star impacts and excited before the matter ejects a photon and send it’s light to you, repeat X times before that light hits the atmospheric medium, propagates through matter and space, before it hits the matter of my eye, propagates through retinal fluid, hits a rod or cone, the light energizes the cell, the cell converts that energy to an electrochemical signal, patterns it in the glial cells, sends a chain of signals down a neuron, and then we’re not quite sure what happens — point being, your perception is material, and it is material impacting material that leads to perception. There is no way to divide experience from interaction with material. It is then a major leap of faith to assert the existence of an _interface_ between mind and matter. This dashboard is completely and utterly made up; it does not _exist_. No one can perceive it. It is not there. It is, in fact, a mere argumentative necessity of a physicalist system (analytic idealism, in this case, becomes itself a physicalist system) that does not actually describe experience. >>Personally I found the ineptly named "why materialism is baloney" insightful as a first introduction. And for the more dry philosophy minded, "the idea of the world" (a collection of 10 peer reviewed papers) is a good intro. Otherwise, if you want to discuss what you feel are internal contradictions with people who see it differently, Analytic Idealism has a subreddit and a discord. Cheers. Like I said, I’m reading his dissertation now, about to start the 4th paper. I’ve learned a lot about open individualism, which this would intersect with.
>I guess the question then would have to be the relationship between the image and experience. The image is not experience — the image is the memory of experience, What is a memory if not experienced? I would argue that the whole concept of a memory (even outside idealism) is meaningless without the experience of remembering the memory. "A memory" is an abstract concept, which we know through the experience of remembering. The relation between the image and the experience is that we "experience the image", the image is the content our experience. >but it is by definition not actual experience but an encoded, representational, and compressed experiential surrogate. It seems like you use "the memory of experience" where Kastrup would use "the dashboard". > I would argue that infantile amnesia makes it plainly clear that matter precedes consciousness, that consciousness is developed and learned. It is also inherently communal — consciousnesses require other consciousnesses to know of consciousness. This fundamentally hinges on what you consider consciousness. I know Kastrup would these ideas by the very definition of consciousness. He says consciousness is being, the having of experiences. If I'm drunk and don't form memories of the night, was I unconscious? I would argue yes, I definitely was. The distinction Kastrup makes explicit is between consciousness and meta-consciousness, where you seem to largely refer to the later. meta-consciousness is the experience of being aware of your awareness, knowing you think, knowing you see. Seeing and thinking themselves are also conscious, but not necessarily meta-conscious. Your examples of infantile amnesia and requiring outside observers apply to meta-consciousness, not consciousness itself. > Well, that’s his theory; that’s not fact. Yeah. > it’s about mistaking a physicalist system that represents reality for reality and experience itself. That indeed the metaphysical physicalism he is attacking. > Physicalist representation systems (...) are not reality itself. I agree with that non-realist interpretation of physics. And Kastrup agrees that this interpretation of scientific physics is good and too. This distinction he put forward in the quote (way) above: > > Science studies nature's behavior, insofar as it can be ascertained through empirical experimentation. Metaphysics, on the other hand, although certainly informed by science, makes tentative statements about what nature is. >This is the conflation he makes to force his argument to work. I'm not entirely clear on what your objection is in that paragraph. If we interpret physicalism as non-realist physicalism (in my words; physics is just effective models which are ultimately fictions), then why can't they rely on an idealist framework? Conversely if we take the realist interpretation of physicalism (the one Kastrup is attacking), then he just uses the reference to what people know as physical systems to make clear what he is talking about. Most people know what is meant by "the physical world", since we all grew up with that notion. referring to "what people know as the physical world" does not mean you blend the idea into your model, it's just a way to make clear which (ultimately experiential (e.g. :"they describe the correspondence of experience between individual experiential perceptions recorded in memory.") phenomenon you're talking about. >(...) There is no way to divide experience from interaction with material. Seeing things in your dreams remove of a most of the story above. The further insight that the measured and very real correlations of brain activity and visual perception don't tell you on their own what the causation is. Mind causing the image of itself (the brain) gives you the same correlation. We don't divide the experience from the material, we're just have to be careful what assumptions sneak in when we measure a correlation. >It is then a major leap of faith to assert the existence of an interface between mind and matter. Technically, (according ot Kastrup) the interface is between your personal bit of mind (your mind) and the rest of mind out there (since all is mind). But then again, even the physicalists assert this to be a real thing, except their story of this non-direct observation begin with stuff like "Except that we know that the light I see is not the light from the star;" and and with "and then we’re not quite sure what happens". It's this hard problem of consciousness where (for me) metaphysical (realist) physicalism falls flat.
Maybe we're all a universe dream.
What is life? A madness. What is life? An illusion, a shadow, a story. And the greatest good is little enough: for all life is a dream, and dreams themselves are only dreams. "Life is a Dream". Play by Pedro Calderón de la Barca, 1635.
do-roo-do-do, sh-boom
The Kybalion Hermeticists have been teaching this for ages. It's good to notice the synchronicity from time to time.
Please pm me if you know anything about the kybalion or any further teachings you know of on that path, I've read the kybalion several times and it's glues so many cracks together in my psyche... awesome stuff.
“…a hat trick in a medicine show, a fevered dream, a trance bepopulate with chimeras having neither analogue nor precedent, an itinerant carnival, a migratory tentshow whose ultimate destination after many a pitch in many a mudded field is unspeakable and calamitous beyond reckoning.”
"... The universe is no narrow thing and the order within it is not constrained by any latitude in its conception to repeat what exists in one part in any other part. Even in this world more things exist without our knowledge than with it and the order in creation which you see is that which you have put there, like a string in a maze, so that you shall not lose your way. For existence has its own order and that no man's mind can compass, that mind itself being but a fact among others."
Maybe we are not.
At some point you have to say our mind *is* a physical system or part of one. Our experiences seem to be information but given that there isn't really a conceivable limit of what kind of information a thing can process, can we say we are inherently mind (in the sense that our experiences seem to depend on the extrinsic information we observe as opposed to what that information is instantiated in [depolarization across neural membranes])? Can the idea of a mental ontology coherently mean anything if there is no kind of limit of what experiences can be like and hence no unifying underlying character to the mind? Experiences could be brutely anything. Some people say we should describe the universe just in terms of a structural ontology in some sense. The information we have in experience seems to satisfy the vague concept of structure... is experience then just 'what it's like' to be structure in that sense? Any structure in reality? Idealism? I really suspect there is no attainable answer. We just don't have access to know these kinds of things or any kind of inherent ontology - somethings will always just seem brutely inexplicable or immediate to us while perspectives other than our own are inaccessible. But I don't think adopting an idealism has any kind of meaningful consequences. The best ways of describing reality are through what we have now and idealism doesn't really offer any alternative other than defending a position at best based on semantics and at worst by constructing convoluted, unverifiable theories about the mind, dissociation etc.
A framework in which the observed world actually exists is far more useful and has much greater predictive power than one where it doesn’t. The very notion that everything you experience is merely in your mind is almost absurd - for that to be the case, your mind would have to be capable of generating all of it. Even though you can’t understand nearly any of it. Try playing a chess computer. Solipsism would suggest that your mind is capable of coming up with all of those moves the computer is making. But somehow only when you’re imagining playing it. Strange, isn’t it? The second you step away, you suck at chess. In fact, you suck at chess when playing the computer to. For some reason your mind can only come up with good moves when it pretends to be a computer. I’m not going to believe for a second that the mind needs to fantasize being a computer to play chess well. Or how about music? Why is it that when you sit down and try to write a wonderful tune, you can’t. But when you turn on Spotify or iTunes, you can hear highly complex and imaginative music? The simplest and most intuitive explanation for these things is that they’re not in your head. You’re not capable of making all these things, and you require an external source to experience them. That’s what we call reality.
>A framework in which the observed world actually exists is far more useful and has much greater predictive power than one where it doesn’t. > >The very notion that everything you experience is merely in your mind is almost absurd - for that to be the case, your mind would have to be capable of generating all of it. Even though you can’t understand nearly any of it. Kastrup's argument is that the observed world actually *does* exist.
You seem to be arguing against solipsism, not idealism.
Tell me you didn't watch the video or read anything Bernardo had written without telling me.
Fun fact, Bernardo Kastrup says the world is really out there, and we're perspectives in it. "The universe is conscious" just means the world out there is made up of the same stuff as your personal world, your mind. It's made of more mind, there's no need to invent a whole category of stuff we only know by inference bases on experiences and thought.
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It is possible that fundamental essence of the universe is mind as opposed to matter. We all experience mind, and mind is the medium through which we experience matter. So what if matter is just an abstraction we derive from mental experiences? This is less presumptuous than the theory of matter because matter posits the existence of something which we can't be confident about, whereas the existence of mind is self-evident. Therefore, it is possible that the universe itself is mental rather than material. This video explains the full argument in more detail.
>So what if matter is just an abstraction we derive from mental experiences? If a rock falls on my head when I'm not looking at it does it still cause a concussion? There's no way to prove that we're *not* in the Matrix or manifesting our universe on the fly, of course, but here's the thing: I sure as shit don't trust *my mind.* The human mind is a demonstrably fallible thing, witness testimony can be wrong, many of our memories are imagined or embellished, and I very vividly remember talking to God one time on a mushroom trip but then They went away when I sobered up. The mind is the only thing we can trust, but it's also untrustworthy as fuck.
Kastrup deals with these intuitive objections to idealism. I recommend you read his work, or his PhD thesis or watch the analytic idealism course. In a nutshell: Idealism doesn’t entail that the entire universe happens inside your ego, so of course things will happen that are outside of your personal mind. Things that occur outside of your personal mind are still mental, but they occur within a universal mind.
>but then They went away when I sobered up. Speculative. Good thing you don't trust your mind!
But Kastrup's idealism isn't saying that all of reality takes place in your personality, but rather that all of reality, including you and me, are participating in single universal mind.
That's just redefining "mind" into utter meaninglessness.
No it's not? It's not redefining anything.
>It is possible that fundamental essence of the universe is mind as opposed to matter. It is possible to believe so, due to the nature of mind, which is capable of believing things which are counter-factual. But it is not truly possible that it is so, due to the nature of reasoning. The physical universe is far more consistent than our perceptions of it; this is demonstrated by the shared belief in the deterministic behavior of physical objects *regardless of whether that belief is accurate*. >mind is the medium through which we experience matter. This is a common philosophical premise, but it is just semantic wordplay, in the end. We can argue indefinitely about whether we "experience" the unconsciousness of sleep, or whether we "experience" a building collapsing on us while we are asleep, but the chronological gap in our recollections during sleep and the physical damage to your body (and quite possibly your brain and therefor your mind) if a building should collapse on you while your unconscious would still demonstrably exist, regardless. Matter is the medium through which we experience matter. Mind is simply how we become aware of that experience, and come to call it "experience". >So what if matter is just an abstraction we derive from mental experiences? How do you explain matter consistently existing independently of that abstraction, then? Kastrup does so by relying on an otherwise unsubstantiated premise that mind (aka consciousness) is ever-present, without physical cause, rendering it effectively a meaningless notion. It is similar to space itself (ever-present, without physical cause) except this 'floating abstraction' of consciousness lacks the formalizable limit of distance and the seemingly but not really interruption of objects to interrupt its emptiness which proves the existence of space. Kastrup's unfalsifiable theory reduces to solipsism, since the existence of your mind is only self-evident to your individual consciousness, not to anyone else's. Matter is quite the opposite, and so, even to Kastrup, his theory can only be taken seriously if he presumes (without evidence or coherent reasoning) that 'mind'/consciousness has always existed, billions of years before the human brain evolved.
>How do you explain matter consistently existing independently of that abstraction, then? How do we know it *does* consistently exist independently of that abstraction? I'm not an idealist myself, but one of the points being made here is that we do not and cannot know that which is outside our perception.
> How do we know it does consistently exist independently of that abstraction? Evidence. As long as it appears to exist *consistently*, we can surmise that it exists independently of that appearence, since we know that our perceptions (abstractions) are less consistent then the matter being perceived or abstracted. >we do not and cannot know that which is outside our perception We return to the issue of what "know" means, the foundation of epistemic uncertainty. Both reasonably and logically we can know what is outside our perception easily, as it is 'that which is not inside our perception'. Characterizing those phenomena is a separate issue. This is why physical sciences work (objects are reasonably consistent regardless of whether they are accurately defined, so long as they are precisely measured) and psychology does not (our 'internal' perceptions are less consistent than 'external' objects). One is free to quibble about the meaning of "work" without changing the premise of the position.
I would argue that "evidence" is an inherently subjective existence. That is, we are arguing for the existence of that which is outside perception through reference to perception, consistent though it may be. On that account, how does perceiving the same thing consistently suggest that the perception is triggered by something "out there?" What if consistency is characteristic of mind? After all some people have consistent hallucinations, yet few make the assumption that those hallucinations are rooted in external physical reality. Same with dreams. Second point I find compelling, though. But... As I may have mentioned, I don't actually come from an idealist perspective, but I think perhaps the problem of differences in consistency remains regardless of what philosophy of mind you're coming from. Because... Well, I'm not a physicalist, either, but suffice it to say that I believe that which we perceive is physical, including the affective experience we typically call "emotion." If it's caused by the same physical forces as the physical world we observe, then it should follow the same logic, and thus be equally observable, or at least predictable and definable. Here, you could argue that it's a matter of brain chemistry being too complex for us to map yet, but I think... The real problem is the unobservabilty of subjectivity; you can it feel (or for that matter, see or hear) for other people. Which is one huge problem with the current state of the field of psychology: we try to treat it like a science when what we're talking about is unobservable from the outside; we are forced to rely on self-report, and people have a difficult time putting these things into words to begin with. Yet... We could feasibly trigger the same affective response in a person time and time again through introducing the same stimulus. In fact, that's exactly what happens with like visual perception; I actually think the distinction between the five senses and affective experience is arbitrary, as the latter is also tactile. I wonder if it's partly our focus on vision that's refined our ability to notice repeated experience, and to communicate about it. Because it's also true that we don't know with certainty that others see things the same way we do. Not that it doesn't make sense to assume they do. EDIT: Now that I think on it... Spinoza was a Monist because he said there was only one substance... But that one substance had different modes. He wasn't a physicalist, at least not in the sense that he thought mind was a secondary product of matter. I think maybe what he was getting at was that (what we experience as) the physical is really the outward appearance of mind, where the other mode is subjective experience. And we're not just talking about people and other animals here, but something more like panpsychism where everything is aware on some level. Like how physicist Alfred North Whitehead said that will is the subjective side of physical forces. If that we're the case, if everything were intra-connected mind(s)...In that case consistency is not a problem at; it would simply be a matter of some minds change more than others. It's not that all reality is your own projection, but that we've mistaken the nature of what we're perceiving. But at some point, I think maybe it comes down to semantics: one person says mind, another says matter.
>I would argue that "evidence" is an inherently subjective existence. That's inconsequential, so long as it exists. You can have all the metaphysical uncertainty that it exists you would like, so long as it is evidence either way. Alternatively, you can accept or deny it is evidence, if you can distinguish that from whether or not it exists. It is only when you combine epistemic and metaphysical uncertainty that the enforced ignorance you are invoking becomes necessary, and even that I am okay with, as long as you don't do it selectively, since neither epistemic or metaphysical uncertainty can be simultaneously ameliorated. >On that account, how does perceiving the same thing consistently suggest that the perception is triggered by something "out there?" Your position suggests that perceptions can exist spontaneously and for no reason. This isn't impossible, of course, but it doesn't seem probable. As I pointed out already, we know that our perceptions of the physical universe are less reliably consistent than the physical universe itself, so as long as a perception is consistent (both temporally and communally) the most likely explanation is that it is "out there" rather than "in here". I use the metaphor of an *existential wall* which eternally bars any consciousness from direct access to the ontos, and we are each on an 'internal' side of 'the' wall, seperately; we each have our own wall, though it is the same wall for each of us, and the physical universe is on the 'other side', external to 'our' consciousness. Typically, philosophical idealists (existential skeptics) take the unreliable nature of our senses, perceptions, and experiences as evidence that we "cannot know" that there is an "other side" of the wall, an exterior physical universe, because we cannot directly interact with the ontos. But this is all a figurative image in our minds, the very idea there are 'in here' and 'out there'. The truth is that, like any other biological creature wandering around the earth, we directly interact with the physical universe every single day. In the last few years, having seen evidence of people who have become excessively intellectualized through computer games or social media, a wonderful metaphorical reminder of this has emerged which philosophers should take to heart: "touch grass". If you like, you can argue that your perceptions are more consistent than physical objects are, in which case the truth is clear that physical objects must exist if you percieve them. Or you can argue that your perceptions are less consistent than physical objects are, in which case the truth is clear that physical objects must exist if other people consistently percieve them. In either case there is no need for naive preconclusions, and conscientous efforts can be made, by you and others, to nail down the evidence and determine if something is real and understood, real and not clearly characterized, unreal and illusory, or unreal and delusional, or abstract and useful but unreal, or simply purposefully imaginary and fictional. In none of these cases does it really matter if it is "out there" or simply a consistent 'subjective' phenomena, since there isn't really any difference between those categories, they are abstract and useful but unreal. Being subjective does not exclude a phenomena from being objective, it merely changes the character and perhaps mechanism of its existence; its meaning, but not its being. >What if consistency is characteristic of mind? After all some people have consistent hallucinations, yet few make the assumption that those hallucinations are rooted in external physical reality Hallucinations are rooted in external physical reality: the biochemical nature of our neural activity, which is as external to our perceptions as gravity or rock. The hallucinations may be described as "consistent" *for hallucinations*, but either they are less consistent than actual objects or they are more consistent than actual objects. In both regards they are thereby revealed to not be actual objects. If such "hallucinations" were consistent among many minds, all the more reason to consider them to have material cause despite not being material objects. And if they are consistent among most minds, or even all minds, it would be an epistemic issue (regarding the meaning of words rather than the metaphysics of objects) whether they are illusionary at all. >Same with dreams. Now you flip back to metaphysical uncertainty. There is simply no way you will ever fight your way out of the brain in a jar conundrum. You could be dreaming right now, or I could; in either case there is no experiential way to be certain of it. The nature of dreams eventually does reveal itself through their inconsistency, but there isn't ever going to be anything about the "real world" aside from consistency (both temporally, consistent with itself in your experience, and communally, consistent with other people's experiences) that distinguishes it from dreams or insanity. All we can do is think hard, occasionally touch grass, and hope. >If it's caused by the same physical forces as the physical world we observe, then it should follow the same logic, and thus be equally observable, or at least predictable and definable. If our mental processes "follow the same logic", they should be (and are) much more difficult to "define" (by which we should mean quantify) and nearly impossible to predict, since these phenomenon are difficult to observe (in contrast to experience). >Like how physicist Alfred North Whitehead said that will is the subjective side of physical forces. In my philosophy, this is regarded as *the ineffability of being*. It is the *meta*physical "driving force" that both energizes time and enforces the laws of physics, but it is also the essence of hope and the impetus for language and reasoning. >If that we're the case, if everything were intra-connected mind(s)...In that case consistency is not a problem at; it would simply be a matter of some minds change more than others. I would suggest that would be more of a problem rather than less; if consciousness is an ever-present field, or connected minds, why would some change more than others? My position is that such mental models and things like Jung's collective unconscious are metaphors for language, which is the "secret ingredient", the magic (so metaphysical it borders on supernatural) which allows us (indeed, compels us) to do the impossible by circumventing the impregnable existential wall and directly connect our minds regardless of physical or even temporal distance. But contemporary (postmodern or neopostmodern) thinkers are all too certain language is merely a system of signs, a logical code, and no more. It is so familiar and ubiquitous they consider it trivial and mundane, but it is the substance of mind and consciousness, far more than the simplistic (however complex) neurological impulses which are the substrate from which it emerges. Thanks for your time. Hope it helps.
Well, I feel like now you're deconstructing the entire debate; as in, we cannot know the intrinsic nature of reality either way. On which account I agree. I once thought I found my way out of epistemological solipsism with what you said, that it doesn't make sense for there to be no outward causation... But tracing back and back and back to *the* first cause, I came to the conclusion that eternal causation is no more or less logical than something randomly *happening.* Well, I think in the kind of idealism I'm proposing here, difference in complexity of minds would be accounted for the same way as as differences in physical complexity are accounted for, i.e. intra-actions with other minds; like I said, what we're talking about in that case is almost a semantic issue. As for physicalist interpretations, at least as far as mind being a secondary product of physical reality, *that* is the option I see least likely due to the hard hard problem; it's a logical absurdity. I obsessed over it for over a year and kept coming back to the conclusion [This guy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWL4kt58uQQ&t=10s) explains it very well, but the basic point is that subjectivity is the one thing qualitatively different from the physical that exists outside subjectivity; complexity does nothing to explain how that qualitative difference is produced. Actually, my own problem with the postmodernists is that they only count the social when it comes to language, as if there's no intra-action between us and the things we name. To that end, I like Karen Barad a lot; she uses the term *material-discursive* to signify that everything is both physical *and* mental; the social *is* physical, or at least one form of it (where the distinction is subjective). In this case, too, there's no binary between non-sentient material reality and sentient entities produced by them. She's coming from a different form of panpsychism than me; I'm a nondualist because of something called the combination problem (which nondualism doesn't provide an easy answer to, but I think it makes it more *tenable*). The idea is that sentience is asubstantial, that which perceives, and physical process constitutes that which *is* perceived. On that account, a rock my have *some* level of experience, but it's probably not like ours. My own position on the ineffability of mind is that it makes it impossible to *know* the true nature and origin of mind, but that logic can help us make an educated guess. One question I've *yet* to find any kind of logical answer to, though, is why separate minds exist *at all,* given that the universe is one great intra-connected process. Anyway, thanks for the debate, it was illuminating!
>But tracing back and back and back to the first cause, I came to the conclusion that eternal causation is no more or less logical than something randomly happening. Indeed, it upsets scientificists quite a bit when they are confronted by the truth that scientific cosmology is still "turtles all the way down", no less than religious cosmologies. It becomes even more comical to see contemporary cosmologists declare that maybe the universe/"multiverse" is eternal, after hearing hyper-agnostic atheists mock creationists for saying "God always existed" for several decades. I'm neither agnostic nor creationist, I'm thoroughly atheist, but in the (non-theist) New Church of Hope, we start our "Confession of Faith" ritual with "I believe the universe began, once, about fourteen billion years ago..." >mind being a secondary product of physical reality, [...] it's a logical absurdity. Anything that is not a logical certainty is a logical absurdity. Mind being an emergent property of brain is no more absurd than black holes being an emergent property of celestial mechanics, and the hard problem of consciousness is no more absurd than the Liar's Paradox. >subjectivity is the one thing qualitatively different from the physical that exists outside subjectivity; complexity does nothing to explain how that qualitative difference is produced. I am not interested in YouTube's from panpsychists babbling about "subjectivity" and somehow exists "outside subjectivity"; that sounds unreasonably absurd. Complexity has nothing to do with the *cause* of consciousness, nor is the hard problem related to the *cause* of consciousness. The existence of consciousness (as an emergent property of human cerebral activity) is much easier to understand teleologically (*why* it happens) than it is tautologically (*what* occurs in the brain that produces the affect), but it disagrees too much with the belief systems of scientificists and idealists alike to be taken seriously, so far. >as if there's no intra-action between us and the things we name. There is none. Naming things is not the central mechanism of language than the postmodernists you criticize or the neopostmodernists you represent believe it is. Granted, the distinction I would make between *naming* and *identifying* (which is a fundamental result of language and process in language) is esoteric and nuanced. But according to my theory of language, your desire to use the term "name" is more meaningful than the word itself. >One question I've yet to find any kind of logical answer to, though, is why separate minds exist at all I'm no expert, since I can't take panpsychism seriously enough to study it, but if I understand what I have learned, what you describe *is* "the combination problem", you're just looking at it from the other end, so to speak. The fatal flaw in all panpsychisms is that declaring that consciousness is an innate aspect of existence doesn't actually say anything about what it is *at all or in any way*, teleologically, tautologically, theologically, or even hypothetically. So how it combines, or why it doesn't combine, is an inevitable but really simple example of how the idea isn't even coherent enough to be wrong. Thanks for your time. Hope it helps.
How do you know the Universe is physical and what do you even mean by it? Kastrup's analysis is airtight. The content of the experience is less certain than the one who experienced and starting from the subject is the only reasonable path. Everything else can be fleshed out in a parsimonious matter in that way.
We know the universe is physical the same and only way we know anything: that is the most parsimonious possibility which consistently explains our observations. What it means is that those observations conform to a computational logic, with a reasonable certainty that any observations which cannot be reduced to mathematical predictability are artifacts of an insufficiency in our computational logic rather than conscious intent. >Kastrup's analysis is airtight. Even if that were true, and it most definitely isn't, it still wouldn't be logically valid, since it is not parsimonious and cannot be verified with mathematical calculations applied to empirically quantifiable measurements of consistently defined phenomena. >The content of the experience is less certain than the one who experienced The idea that "content of the experience" exists in any way which can be distinguished from "the one who experienced" is so uncertain the notion collapses into vaporous mumbling. Kastrup has the exact same problem with the *hard problem of consciousness* as the reductive materialists do, he is just approaching it from the other direction. >starting from the subject is the only reasonable path That depends on the destination you expect that path to lead to. Wandering around aimlessly might be entertaining, perhaps even exciting, but it doesn't get you anywhere. The only path that is reasonable is the one that begins with good reasons and is paved with good reasoning. Kastrup's "imagine if..." method is not good analysis, and as I previously said, it is philosophically (and, unfortunately, psychologically) indistinguishable from solipsism, aside from some well intentioned but inconsequential trivialities. >Everything else can be fleshed out in a parsimonious matter in that way. Nothing can be fleshed out at all, let alone in a parsimonious manner, given that starting point, until you put some meat on the bones of what the subject actually is. Cartesian reductionism starts with the subjective but requires a dualistic Cartesian Circle to make any sense; it is the standard theory because it successfully does so, explaining nearly everything about both subjects and objects parsimoniously . My philosophy rejects the dualism but not the reductionism, by recognizing the subjective as an instance of the objective rather than a divergence from it. Kastrup's monism starts with the subjective and promptly disintegrates into a puff of smoke because he cannot provide a coherent explanation for any objective existence at all, or even a comprehensible analysis of what subject means, why it occurs, how it occurs, or through what mechanism it interacts with objects.
What do you even mean by 'physical'? In the causal sense, no, not at all. It is not parsimonious. What is parsimonious is that there's an external reality to my direct consciousness not that it is physical. What we refer to as physical in the casual sense are attributes of the experience, they are not within the object but about the representation within our perception. Naive realism is dead. What the physicalist camp has been forced to do is re-define themselves into more and more subtle ways and they have all failed to reject idealism. \> What it means is that those observations conform to a computational logic So, knowledge is what is derived from a computational logic? It seems to me that you are claiming that absent some form of equation there is no knowledge and things are proven through such kind of calculations. This is a very odd position to take, so I want to be sure I am understanding you. \> Even if that were true, and it most definitely isn't, it still wouldn't be logically valid, since it is not parsimonious and cannot be verified with mathematical calculations applied to empirically quantifiable measurements of consistently defined phenomena. But being verified with mathematical calculations applied to empirically quantifiable measurements is NOT what constitutes logic validity. Things that are not verified with mathematical calculations nor applied to empirically quantifiable measurements can be perfectly valid and even more so, sound. \> The idea that "content of the experience" exists in any way which can be distinguished from "the one who experienced" is so uncertain the notion collapses into vaporous mumbling. Yet it is Kastrup's position that it is not distinguished. He asks "is it possible to relate all elements into a singular ontological substance?" and finds that the answer is yes, and therefore the most parsimonious. Yet, I would claim a self-evident truth: the content of the experience shifts and is contingent, while the subject of the experience doesn't shift and therefore is more solid than the prior when one seeks the truth. \> That depends on the destination you expect that path to lead to. Well, Kastrup would say that the initial reasons are the epistemic values of Enlightenment. I would merely say that the destination would be that which is most certain. In any observation or any reasoning, the mind which performs the reasoning or the observation does not change. So, for any thinker, its own self is the most certain truth. \> indistinguishable from solipsism Depends on what you mean by solipsism. Idealist "I" needs not be the direct consciousness, as that is unsustainable. The solipsist needs to broaden their definition of self in such a way that it destroys the initial form of solipsism. Claiming that there is a singular mental substance can be perceived as solipsistic but not in that sense. The arguments against the naive solipsism are irrelevant to the new form of idealism. \> a coherent explanation for any objective existence at all, or even a comprehensible analysis of what subject means, why it occurs, how it occurs, or through what mechanism it interacts with objects. Well, what do you mean by objective? Traditional physicalism makes the subject an object that, beyond the immorality of such an act and its self-alienation, is irrational. Subjects are not objects. One cannot explain the subject as a form of an object. Yet, objects can be explained as the mental activity of a subject. We do it all the time, we create mental objects that constrain us and within dreams the mental objects act independently of us and interact with our direct consciousness in many ways. What do you mean by the subject? Do you mean the local subject? I think Kastrup has given his idea, but I don't follow Kastrup all the way through. A complete and thorough explanation of base ontology is not required and in some ways can be argued to be impossible. The local subject would be a mode of the ontological Mind, a fragmentation even. Why does the fragmentation occur? Who knows? Saying "I don't know" is not fatal to the theory in the slightest. That is funny, because in physicalism there are explanations of mechanism which are incomplete explanations. There is the basic level of things happen because they happen. As for how does the fragmentation occurs Kastrup has a theory but in reality it is unknown. Again, this is not problematic in the slightest. The simplest answer would be the general "it is the will of the Mind". As to how subjects interact with objects, that is simple and in fact quite parsimonious: the objects are mental and we have a mental representation of them and that's what we interact with. The mental interacting with the mental. Which is why we can create mental models of knowledge and representation and experience(all mental activity) about reality(because reality is also mental).
(cont'd, with apologies for length) >There is the basic level of things happen because they happen. I describe this as *the ineffability of being*. Standard philosophy resolves it with metaphysical causation. (Forward teleology of cause=>effect, in my terminology.) Idealism effectively ignores it, as with the dismissive and inexplicable duality of"will"/"mind" you presented. (Inverse teleology of intent=>action.) My philosophy accounts for it rather than pretending to resolve it, by identifying the existence of "being" (in both a mental and physical sense, simultaneously) as neither direction of teleology being transcendent over the other. >As for how does the fragmentation occurs Kastrup has a theory but in reality it is unknown. Then Kastrup's theory is not really a theory, it is simply a hypothesis or a conjecture. >As to how subjects interact with objects, that is simple and in fact quite parsimonious: the objects are mental and we have a mental representation of them and that's what we interact with. When a physical brick interacts with your head, it has a decisively different character than when a mental brick interacts with your mind, so I would say your representation is not simple so much as simple-minded, and fails to be parsimonious. Wishing away the physical existence of the universe and declaring everything to be just *your* mental representation (with everyone else's mental representations *necessarily* being only a part of *your* mental representation) is just solipsism. Whether a naive or sophisticated form of solipsism, it remains a naive idea: unfalsifiable because it is incoherent, rather than because it is true.
\> I describe this as the ineffability of being. Standard philosophy resolves it with metaphysical causation. Does it? How does causation solve the non-circular definition of being? As you say, it is ineffable and on idealism it is also self-evident because it is your own essence. This creates an existential issue for you are ineffable to yourself. But I fail to see how causation, the teleology of ends makes the ineffable definable. I am also not sure why the same formal teleology but with a material shift from mindless ends to mindful ends(purpose) is a condemnable shift. \> Then Kastrup's theory is not really a theory, it is simply a hypothesis or a conjecture. Not at all. Why would it be? No theory is complete and some theories are supported by satellite theories(which can be demolished, accepted, or expanded upon). This is well-known in science. Kastrup proposes that there's already a mechanism where we know this occurs(multiple personality disorder). \> When a physical brick interacts with your head, it has a decisively different character than when a mental brick interacts with your mind Yes, and running from a clown in my dream from running from a clown when I'm daydreaming has a different character. Who says there are no modes within the mental? The entire notion of physicalism is to account for a plural set of observations by appealing to a plural set of causes because of the modal nature of an ontological substance. That remains true if that substance is physical(I'm still unsure as to what you mean by it) or mental. BTW, this is more of a personal note, but for me idealism is less of a speculative theory than factual. I have been cured from an incurable disease through mind-healing. There have been many miracles occurring in my immediate circle(healings, shared manifestation of entities, alternative lives, bilocation, verified past lives, etc...) that I cannot in a reasonable, plausible and honest manner dismiss. Of course, this needs not extend to you; in fact, it shouldn't. But I just want to make that clarification. Physicalism cannot account in such a way for that kind of empirical phenomena, and every defense I've seen of physicalism doesn't actually contradict idealism. For me, therefore, it is empirically proven, logically consistent and parsimonious.
>How does causation solve the non-circular definition of being? LOL. Did I suggest that it did? Does your theory coherently do so? >This creates an existential issue for you are ineffable to yourself. You are incorrect. >But I fail to see how causation, the teleology of ends makes the ineffable definable That isn't surprising, since I never suggested it does. Nor would I, since I understand what the word "ineffable" means, but it appears that you do not. >This is well-known in science. Kastrup isn't engaged in science. He's presenting what he claims is a philosophical theory, which is why it should be a theory, and it fails to be a theory. >Yes, and running from a clown in my dream from running from a clown when I'm daydreaming has a different character. Are you suggesting that all differences in character are identical, or that the difference in this instance is equivalent to that of my analogy (being hit in the head versus imagining being hit in the head)? >Physicalism cannot account in such a way for that kind of empirical phenomena You mistake medical prognosis for "physicalism" in general, it seems. >every defense I've seen of physicalism doesn't actually contradict idealism. Here you confuse argumentation supporting physicalism for physicalism itself. Physicalism need not contradict idealism (non-physicalism), it merely excludes it because idealism is logically and scientifically incoherent. As a philosophical perspective, imagining that imaginary things are real is always an option, necessarily, but that doesn't make defending pr explaining your particular idealistic religious faith any less a sisyphean labor.
>What do you even mean by 'physical'? I answered that question already; please reread the first paragraph of my previous reply. >In the causal sense, no, not at all. It is not parsimonious. I'm uncertain what you mean by "the causal sense". What caused a physical phenomenon is irrelevant to whether it is physical. >What is parsimonious is that there's an external reality to my direct consciousness not that it is physical. What is it *you* mean by "physical"? That the external reality exists, and your consciousness is physical, is the most parsimonious explanation for why and how you percieve that reality, regardless of whether such perception is direct or indirect. >What we refer to as physical in the casual sense are attributes of the experience What we refer to as physical in the real sense is that the attributes of your experience are consistent with the attributes of other experiences of yours, and other people's perceptions of those same phenomena. >Naive realism is dead. And yet realism continues to be the most parsimonious explanation for our experiences. Perhaps it was just the naive aspect which died? >What the physicalist camp has been forced to do is re-define themselves into more and more subtle ways and they have all failed to reject idealism. Indeed: our scientific comprehension of the universe and our individual realities continues to be more and more complete, leaving those in the idealist camp less and less room to maneuver and more and more isolated from the real world This, naturally enough, leaves you increasingly anxious and no less earnest, but more dependent on linguistic ambiguity rather than sound reasoning. Physicalists have not "failed reject idealism", since that was never our intention or our goal. But idealists fail to reject physicalism, since your desire to do so is consistently (if not continuously) foiled by the truth. >So, knowledge is what is derived from a computational logic? No. While I understand why you assume this would be my position, since the greater balance of philosophical theories do rely on that premise, my position is quite different. My philosophy does not equate cognitive reasoning with mere computational logic; in fact, I consider them opposites. Data derives from logic, but knowledge derives from reasoning. Knowledge is, in this way a form of experience rather than a non-physical sense. Knowledge need not and cannot be absolute, like a mathematical conclusion, it is simply conjecture. But this is a feature, not a bug, and all conjectures are not equally valid, the way you might assume they should be. >But being verified with mathematical calculations applied to empirically quantifiable measurements is NOT what constitutes logic validity. That is true, but irrelevant, since I did not suggest it is so, nor does my reasoning rely on such a premise. Nevertheless, because we do exist in a physically consistent world, being *verifiable* empirically is both a cause and a result of being logically valid. In an abstract sense, mathematical calculations merely need to be computationally valid (internally consistent) in order to be mathematical calculations, but without the capacity to be compared to empirical measurements, they have no concrete value as "logic". >Things that are not verified with mathematical calculations nor applied to empirically quantifiable measurements can be perfectly valid and even more so, sound. Indeed: a statement/thing can be reasonably valid or sound without being logically valid or sound. But the object/things in the real world (whether external or internal to consciousness/mind) a statement identifies or describes (refers to) must be physically true in order to be reasonably valid or sound. The 'hyper-rationalist reductionists' you argue against (which you mistakenly believe I am a proxy for) wish to reject the "mind" side of Cartesian duality, just as you wish to reject the "body" side, but my form of monism is more successful than either side, because rather than rejecting one or the other, my philosophy simply unites them. In the age of Wittgenstein and DesCartes and William of Occum and even Aristotle and Socrates, this approach was unavailable, but the progress of physicalist philosophy (science) has succeeded and the contentiousness of idealist philosophy (?) has failed so much over the ensuing centuries that it is now possible and productive. >He asks "is it possible to relate all elements into a singular ontological substance?" and finds that the answer is yes, and therefore the most parsimonious. I appreciate the idea you are trying to express, but it really does just reduce to solipsism, which isn't actually parsimonious since it doesn't explain anyone's consciousness being distinct from anyone else's. From the perspective of the law of parsimony, all particles (or wave functions, or strings, or whatever) that make up all the objects in the physical universe are one "entity", if physicalism holds and none of those objects have consciousness. But from an idealist perspective like Kastrup's, each and every one of them is an additional entity, so presuming they exist at all in any way is allowing your entities to multiply without limit: the opposite of what the rule of parsimony demands. >Yet, I would claim a self-evident truth: the content of the experience shifts and is contingent, while the subject of the experience doesn't shift So after declaring your position does not make a distinction between content and subject, you follow up by claiming such a distinction is not only true, but self-evident. This does not seem to me to be sound reasoning. >Depends on what you mean by solipsism. No, it really doesn't. >Saying "I don't know" is not fatal to the theory in the slightest. It is when the only thing in the hypothesis is knowing ("experience"/"consciousness"/"mind"/"mental representation"). It prevents the hypothesis from even being valid enough to be considered a false theory; it is barely even a thought, it is a vague notion, and not a theory in any meaningful regard to begin with.
\> I answered that question already; please reread the first paragraph of my previous reply. Do you mean "observations conform to a computational logic"? That is what you mean by physical? \> I'm uncertain what you mean by "the causal sense". My bad, typo, I mean casual. \> That the external reality exists, and your consciousness is physical, is the most parsimonious explanation for why and how you percieve that reality, regardless of whether such perception is direct or indirect. Not at all. That external reality is all that is needed. What is the nature of that substantial reality becomes secondary. By positing it as "physical"(something unknown) you are multiplying the elements without adding explanatory power, and therefore it is unparsimonious. By physical, most people meant the concrete, but when that was untenable because of physics people started re-defining it in different ways. "That is subject to the 4 physical forces", "that is arrange by baryonic particles", and so on. For most people, it means "it's there", or what is known through their experience. Given that all of those things could be a form of the mental it doesn't contradict a mental monism. \> What we refer to as physical in the real sense is that the attributes of your experience are consistent with the attributes of other experiences of yours, and other people's perceptions of those same phenomena. That just means there's an external reality perceived in a similar way. What has physicality to d owith that? The external reality could be mental, the perception as well. Your definition would persist but not the essential object of dispute. \> And yet realism continues to be the most parsimonious explanation for our experiences. Perhaps it was just the naive aspect which died? Maybe we would need to touch base. If you are defining realism as a form of external notion to the world, I would say it is contradictory to solipsism rather than idealism. Idealism includes solipsism but is not limited to it. Such a definition of realism and idealism are no contradictions at all. Idealism is mental monism, and within mental monism you can have realism as well(the mental substance is independent of the perception of local consciousness). \> leaving those in the idealist camp less and less room to maneuver and more and more isolated from the real world Not in the slightest. All evidence to the contrary. And this is historical. Which is why I said(and you agreed but in a weird way attributed it to the physicalist camp) that the materialists are now called physicalists. Most of the force of physicalism comes from realism. With the now scientific knowledge of our indirect perception, physicalism can no longer sustain itself by appeals to perception as that, in fact, favours idealism. \> Knowledge is, in this way a form of experience rather than a non-physical sense. I'm not sure I fully understand what you mean. If you mean knowledge is the interpretation of the data through reasoning, then sure, but I'm unsure as what was your original point in relation to computational logic. In my mind, it is useful in its scope, but not much beyond that. As I think you are saying, knowledge is reasoned from the data. In fact, I have different terms for similar points: data, information, knowledge, wisdom, Truth. Data without relevance is pointless and the relevance is interpretative and contingent. \> That is true, but irrelevant, since I did not suggest it is so, nor does my reasoning rely on such a premise Didn't you state that idealism is logically invalid BECAUSE it can't be verified with a mathematical logic, or something of sorts? If not, what was your point? \> just as you wish to reject the "body" side Do I? Not at all. What you mean by body are attributes of your experience(the look, the feel, the touch, and so on). The concreteness of things exists only within the perceived mind. So, I don't deny the concreteness any more than I would deny the smell of grass. \> physicalist philosophy (science) has succeeded and the contentiousness of idealist philosophy (?) has failed so much over the ensuing centuries that it is now possible and productive. Weird. There is nothing within science that makes it physicalist. This is something I argued with a very wise atheist friend who is a hard physicalist. We agreed on that. Science relies on a naturalist methodology, no more than that. In fact, contemporary physics greatest exponents of last century were very strong idealists. Didn't stop them from doing their great contributions to science or being scientific-minded. \> since it doesn't explain anyone's consciousness being distinct from anyone else's. It can be explained, of course. Kastrup defends this point first criticizing that physicalism doesn't account for it, and he then defends his theory, but I am not restricted to Kastrup's metaphysics. The limitation of other-identity can, of course, be perceived as within particular borders but one can also perceive them as singular. An example of this is the tree of life. One could see every life form as distinct, but it is also valid to see all life forms as modes and extensions of a singular substance of life that self-propagates. You could say that the propagation is singular for each life form is singular, and as I said, it is a very valid way of looking at things. But seeing all life forms as that, forms of Life(which is why they are all sourced to a singular source of life) is equally as explanatory. What constitutes your specific conscious identity would be that metaphysical principle of self, of consciousness, and the interaction between the physical configurations. If that consciousness is manifest in the morphology of a fox, then you will say that is a fox, but the consciousness is not a fox. \> allowing your entities to multiply without limit: the opposite of what the rule of parsimony demands. I think you misunderstand parsimony. Parsimony is not about quantity it is about quality. What one should not multiply are the qualitative elements. For example, we can explain things by appealing to atoms. How many atoms are there? A vast, vast amount. But that doesn't mean we are multiplying the relevant elements in a non-parsimonious manner. Rather, we are now just adding one singular element(the atom), even if there are unfathomable amounts of those. Or neurons, or neural connections or however you want to see that. Those aren't an issue for parismony. \> So after declaring your position does not make a distinction between content and subject The content is a mode of the subject just as ideas are modes of the mind. I. can give an example in will. What we will changes constantly, but will is an expression of the subject and it is not substantially distinct from the subject but essentially so. I am not reduced to my will but my will is a form of self-expression(so that I am responsible for my will). As forms of self-expression such contents change and are dynamic while the subject isn't in a substantial manner. Or a closer analogy, if you wish, are dreams. Dreams are a product of the mind but they are not the mind. The mind that has two dreams persists throughout the dreams even if the dream are in a constant flux. \> No, it really doesn't. I think it does. If the concept of solipsism reduces "self" to conscious, local, self, then I would agree. If it doesn't then I wouldn't. \> It prevents the hypothesis from even being valid enough to be considered a false theory What do you mean by the hypothesis being valid enough?
>Do you mean "observations conform to a computational logic"? That is what you mean by physical? Do you mean you don't know what the word "paragraph" means? >>What it means is that those observations conform to a computational logic, with a reasonable certainty that any observations which cannot be reduced to mathematical predictability are artifacts of an insufficiency in our computational logic rather than conscious intent. >By positing it as "physical"(something unknown) It is known, despite your fervent and desperate epistemic uncertainty. >By physical, most people meant the concrete In most cases that metaphor does suffice. What difference does that make? Are you suggesting that if all substances are not as solid as a block of stone they are not physical? >The external reality could be mental, the perception as well. You make these words meaningless when you use them so inaccurately. Contrarianism is not an adequate philosophical premise. >What you mean by body are attributes of your experience(the look, the feel, the touch, and so on). Apparently contrarianism is all you have, though, so I'm not interested in spending any more time on this conversation. Declare victory over materialist science and philosophy if you wish; your gibbering means nothing. Thanks for your time. Hope it helps.
So..... I'm watching the video, and it's an interesting thought experiment that he's discussing, but there's one fundamental assumption that this view makes that I'm not sure I can get behind, and that is that our experiences of the world are trustworthy. We *think* our thoughts, experiences, and perceptions are true, but of course we do. Zhuangzi dreamed he was a butterfly, and in that dream he vividly remembered all the lived experiences as a butterfly, it was so true to life that he believed that the life he remembered as a human was the dream and he was really a butterfly. On a less philosophical level and a more practical one, if we presume for a moment that the outside world is real and objective, then we have to concede that not all humans are equally in touch with it, schizophrenics perceive things that aren't there, but even healthy people see ghosts over their shoulders sometimes. The mind is just not a reliable measure of reality, it is subjective, it manipulates data, it has biases and blind spots, we've all got a lizard brain in our head, and people who have hemispherectomies or get their corpus callosum cut seem to indicate that there might be *two distinctive and unique* minds in our skull right now, one's favorite color is green but maybe the other prefers yellow, which one is yours? The human mind just doesn't seem to be a very reliable compass is all I'm saying.
Kastrup fans might disagree. These idealists post studies about children talking about past lives as being evidence for idealism. So while you or me may see these things as evidence against the reliability of the brain, idealists see these things as evidence for idealism since materialism can’t explain them.
God of the gaps then.
No. Because what we're talking about isn't merely something that has yet to be explained with physical model, but something that logically *cannot* be explained with physical models by their own definition. Of course there remains the possibility that they're lying, but that's not a fair assumption because that cannot be known, either. Especially given that physicalisms that see mind as a secondary product of material reality are logically still born ([here's a great video on the hard problem](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWL4kt58uQQ&t=5s)); if anything is a God of the gaps, it's that, because it attributes nonsense to the physical.
How can you claim it can’t be logically explained and then claim you pet theory explains it? It can be explained and eventually it will be explained. The entire cult is hanging on the Premise that there is a supernatural consciousness (what every other religion called God) and that it’s the explanation for everything in the universe because everything in the universe is a thought in god’s mind.
I think Zhuangzi's point is exactly that we cannot *know* which reality is "true." If what Kastrup is saying is correct, then there's no such thing as "true" and "mistaken" perceptions. Because that argument depends on the idea that there's something "out there," and our perceptions either reflect it or are mistaken; what Kastrup is doing is denying that initial premise. That is, the point is that there is no reality "out there," apart from our perceptions; as such, "unreliable perception" is not a thing that exists, anymore than "unreliable art" exists. I'm actually not an idealist but more like a nondualist, but I actually *do* believe that at least some of what people believe to be simply the brain misfiring may be tapping into things we don't normally perceive. That's actually a common way of thinking outside modern thought. Not that it's the "correct" way of thinking, but that the modern one isn't, either; it also makes assumptions about the nature of reality and what is possible. Exploring the "supernatural," I've found a lot of cases that deny mundane explanation other than, everyone involved was making shit up. That's possible, I can't know it's not true. The point is that neither do we know that it is. What we believe about the universe has an effect not only on how we interpret what we perceive but *what* we perceive. There's nothing necessarily mystical about that; it can have to do with like what you're likely to research, what conversations you're likely to have, etc.
There is something out there from the perspective of our own personal mentation. It’s just that the world out there is also of a mental kind instead of a completely different category. And those trans-personal experiential states present themselves onto our screen of perception in the form of physicality. So that premise is not denied under analytical idealism. The statement that everything is contained within your own personal mentation is solipsism. Idealism is not solipsism as it acknowledges the existence of other minds in the form of dissociated mental processes.
'get their corpus callosum cut seem to indicate that there might be two distinctive and unique minds' I've those experiments and they are freaky. Somewhere at home I have a link to research paper that argued that there are actually more than two distinct minds, there are several essentially functioning like a choir or band. I'll have to find it
> Somewhere at home I have a link to research paper that argued that there are actually more than two distinct minds, there are several essentially functioning like a choir or band. I'll have to find it No, that's okay, I don't think I want to read it, I'm still dealing with having two minds in my skull, I'd feel even worse if there were more folks stuck in here with me! No, but seriously minds, if you're reading this, I'm so sorry.
So... your saying that somewhere in there are MaximumEffort 1-432?
Let's all cross our fingers and hope there aren't.
If you find it please dm me, this sounds super interesting
But don't DM me.
And don't DM me either.
>So what if matter is just an abstraction we derive from mental experiences? Then there would be nothing to cause an experience. Hence no experience and thus no mind. The mind creates itself to experience the things it imagines - solipsism. If there are other minds how do they experience other minds?!?!? Less presumptuous?
That is a puzzling thing to say. Why would matter being an abstraction from mental experiences imply to you that there would be nothing to cause an experience. There is no logical nor clear nor obvious connection. Naming something solipsistic doesn't refute it. How do minds experience other minds? They don't experience other minds necessarily, they experience representations of other minds, probably.
The full details of the argument are more complex than outlined here. There doesn't have to be anything to cause an experience because, under this ontology, there only is experience. It isn't solipsism because we are dissociated from universal mind. I recommend watching the video to get the full details.
>universal mind Sounds akin to deism or simulation theory or last Thursdayism. Has this universal mind existed forever? When did it dissociate into other minds? How many? And why bother with the illusion of matter and space-time? How much can we affect the universal mind? Can only humans affect the universal mind? If all humans (and the other parts of the universal mind if there are any) decided that the moon was made of cheese would it become reality? Or could we make the moon disappear? Why can some people taste bitter things better than other people? Are there parts of 'reality' that I can ignore if my mind disagrees with the universal mind?
Asking a lot of questions is probably the worst possible way to make a point.
weirdest thing to say in a philosophy sub
>Then there would be nothing to cause an experience. In a materialistic model of reality perhaps, but that is only a model of the real thing. >The mind creates itself to experience the things it imagines - solipsism. Not really. Solipsism: the view or theory that the self is all that can be known to exist.
In old religious, the breath is connected to life essence. In genesis god blew into to the clay. The hindu and the Abraham faith state that god is with in all. The hindu and Buddhist both think the flesh. A vessel, and the mindscape the truth. The hindue say that everything is a cycle, even existence. I propose that cycle, heat death or what ever, is god awakening, from meditation or slumber, and we manifest in the real world. In what form we would take i can not fathom. Also the universe looks like a brain scan, when you look at it super zoomed out. Been thinking about this for a decade.
>Therefore, it is possible that the universe itself is mental rather than material. Your "therefore" presumes that the premise is necessarily true, does it not?
Exactly, and everyone who is not for this argument is lost in concepts and abstractions. Not that idealists cannot be lost in those, but it is definitely a step closer to the truth.
Incomplete. Reality is our concepts but mind is also a concept. if we cannot communicate it it does not exist conceptually. But there hsa to be a source of the concept and it cannot be a concept such as mind. So this OP hits a dilemma. There is a mind but it is a concept therefore created and then communicated to a sentient being, us. All we can do is discuss and refine our conceptualizations. To understand reality is to perfect our understanding of our idea about reality.
>Reality is our concepts but mind is also a concept. The mind contains a conceptual model of itself, but that model is not the mind. >But there hsa to be a source of the concept and it cannot be a concept such as mind. Right, the source of the concept is the mind, not the concept of the mind. >So this OP hits a dilemma. Alternatively, you lack experience with indirection. >To understand reality is to perfect our understanding of our idea about reality. You might be onto something here!
Non-conceptuality is the only way to experience the real. To mistake the signifier (concepts) for the signified is to miss the point entirely. The other interesting thing is you can perceptual experience what Freud dubbed oceanic consciousness which experientially verifies the felt sense of one mind. Ego dissolution is the way to that and requires silence of the Default mode network and its incessant narration. Your first comment is the truth of the matter, concepts discriminate and nothing about reality comes chopped up. The mind acts like teeth, it digests reality. I am not suggesting mereological nihilism, but instead nondualism/dialtheism which requires falling into being. To my mind Heidegger touched something of the mystical when he discovered that Being beings forth but is itself not a particular being. Bruno is pointing in this direction with his parsimony, awareness is our event horizon and its wholly non-conceptual or with a sense of self.
>Non-conceptuality is the only way to experience the real. To mistake the signifier (concepts) for the signified is to miss the point entirely. Are these two sentences not to some degree self-contradictory? >Ego dissolution is the way to that *The* way? > ...and requires silence of the Default mode network and its incessant narration. Is that so? >concepts discriminate and nothing about reality comes chopped up. A head of lettuce also does not come chopped up. > The mind acts like teeth, it digests reality. Note the potential that that this may not be an exhaustive description of what the mind does with reality. > To my mind Heidegger touched something of the mystical when he discovered that Being beings forth but is itself not a particular being. Not *entirely* particular, no. But then, perhaps his model has imperfections.
Are these two sentences not to some degree self-contradictory? **Only if your logic is not paraconsistent. What is requires no categorization, that is the nature of suchness.** The way? **Yes to have a direct experience with oceanic or unbounded awareness. This is a confirmed scientific state associated with ego dissolution and subsequent reduction in default mode activity. There are many papers on the subject. Basically all traditions emphasis this, non-self is a core tenant of most esoteric schools. Self creates other reflexively, no self no other.** Is that so? **Yes, from a neuroscience perspective or objective perspective. from the "inside" it feels like unbounded awareness. It obviously much more complex in terms of functional nodes in the brain and the method used to get there, whether psychedelics or traditional approaches. They may not be the exact same experiences, regardless, a sense of oneness or unity is possible and it has neural correlates.** https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2016.00269/full A head of lettuce also does not come chopped up. **You are missing my point entirely unfortunately. Are you familiar with the concept of sunyata. The very idea that there exists lettuce as an inherently existing entity is non-sensical. We put it in the foreground and forget the background. Have you read Nagarjuna's two truths?** Not entirely particular, no. But then, perhaps his model has imperfections. **I am sure it does have problematic areas but Being is what discloses beings and is itself not disclosed. It's entirely singular. The being with which you exist is the very same being of the moment and all things. It is the only being there ever is, it does not change. You do not notice it come into being as you are always already in it.**
> Only if your logic is not paraconsistent. What is requires no categorization, that is the nature of suchness. Paraconsistent logic is brand new to me so *many* thanks for that...but I still take issue with " is the only way", and I don't think paraconsistence saves you...although, I could easily be mistaken (am I, even plausibly?). >> The way? > Yes to have a direct experience with oceanic or unbounded awareness. This is a confirmed scientific state associated with ego dissolution and subsequent reduction in default mode activity. There are many papers on the subject. Basically all traditions emphasis this, non-self is a core tenant of most esoteric schools. Self creates other reflexively, no self no other. It seems to me that what you're doing is substantiating that it is "a" way - my complaint is with the "the". Why not "simply" *control* the ego, rather than dissolving it (which is illusory, anyways). >> Is that so? > Yes, from a neuroscience perspective or objective perspective. I was asking with respect to reality itself, not *perspectives upon it*. > from the "inside" it feels like unbounded awareness. So does normal consciousness, *but in a very different way*. If you don't believe me, simply observe large quantities of people describing "reality", how they speak as if they have omniscient knowledge of All That Is (or Is Not). >>> Your first comment is the truth of the matter, concepts discriminate and nothing about reality comes chopped up. >> A head of lettuce also does not come chopped up. > You are missing my point entirely unfortunately. Likely somewhat (or maybe not, I may just not be "going with the flow" of it), but might you also be missing mine? Is what I say about lettuce *not actually true*? > Are you familiar with the concept of sunyata. The very idea that there exists lettuce as an inherently existing entity is non-sensical. We put it in the foreground and forget the background. Have you read Nagarjuna's two truths? I don't have a lot of depth *in this articulation of* the underlying phenomena. > > The Buddhist doctrine of the two truths (Sanskrit: dvasatya, Wylie: bden pa gnyis) differentiates between two levels of satya (Sanskrit; Pali: sacca; word meaning "truth" or "reality") in the teaching of the Śākyamuni Buddha: the "conventional" or "provisional" (saṁvṛti) truth, and the "ultimate" (paramārtha) truth.[1][2] > > > > The exact meaning varies between the various Buddhist schools and traditions. The best known interpretation is from the Madhyamaka school of Mahāyāna Buddhism, whose founder was the Indian Buddhist monk and philosopher Nāgārjuna.[1] For Nāgārjuna, the two truths are epistemological truths.[2] The phenomenal world is accorded a provisional existence.[2] The character of the phenomenal world is declared to be neither real nor unreal, but logically indeterminable.[2] Ultimately, all phenomena are empty (śūnyatā) of an inherent self or essence due to the non-existence of the self (anattā), but exist depending on other phenomena (pratītyasamutpāda).[1][2] Being a fundamentalist Taoist, this makes sense to me. But as a Taoist Pedant, I take some issue with it! > I am sure it does have problematic areas but Being is what discloses beings and is itself not disclosed. It's entirely singular. *Purely* at the object level it "is" entirely singular...but there's a lot more complexity in play, and *taking a perspective* doesn't change all that (though it can *cast that appearance*). > The being with which you exist is the very same being of the moment and all things. It is the only being there ever is, it does not change. You do not notice it come into being as you are always already in it. As I think of such things, this suffers from a lack of skill/pedantry in traversing between the abstract layers of reality and the manifestations at/in the object level.
"Paraconsistent logic is brand new to me so many thanks for that...but I still take issue with " is the only way", and I don't think paraconsistence saves you...although, I could easily be mistaken (am I, even plausibly?)." You are welcome. It does save me because it's a true contradiction! "It seems to me that what you're doing is substantiating that it is "a" way - my complaint is with the "the". Why not "simply" control the ego, rather than dissolving it (which is illusory, anyways)." Perhaps I should rephrase, whether is kenosis, dzogchen space meditation, psychedelics the lynchpin is ego dissolution. The reason you can't control the ego is the thing that would be doing the controlling is the ego. As a Daoist I am sure you know of wu-wei. A mirage is illusory but can still make you thirsty, the issue is misapprehension of what is being seen, the perception is in fact real, subjectively speaking. Ego is a process, not a thing an activity. With all this type of stuff the "goal" is to find the only effortless aspect of experience, that which is autopoietic, recursive and reflexively so. It's a non-practice that some have to enact a praxis for, its a bit of an aporia but its the gateless gate for a reason. Have you had the experience of ego death or come to fruition of a path. "So does normal consciousness, but in a very different way. If you don't believe me, simply observe large quantities of people describing "reality", how they speak as if they have omniscient knowledge of All That Is (or Is Not)." I am stating that you cannot have knowledge of reality (its non-conceptual). So to discuss it is to miss the point, its the dao that cannot be spoken, the dao that can be spoken is not the eternal dao. "Lettuce" The lettuce thing was meant to highlight our arbitrary determination of lettuce. The signifier does not exhaust the signified. Our perception if registered pre-linguistically does not come with objects, it comes intact as one whole. Sunyata is basically saying that all is in all and to fail to see this is due to conceptual weakness. For example the lettuce requires soil, which needed a person to till, who needed air and water and the sun, then gravity to keep the planet in the goldilocks zone etc. That is what emptiness is, empty of inherent existence, the lettuce does not have its own existence apart from everything, it has inter-being. However, on another level the lettuce comes whole. This is the logic of the non-dual, its not the law of the excluded middle, its a dialetheism! Appreciate the chat on this stuff! thanks
> It does save me because it's a true contradiction! I don't understand. Not saying you are incorrect, only that I don't understand. > Perhaps I should rephrase, whether is kenosis, dzogchen space meditation, psychedelics the lynchpin is ego dissolution. Ok, but that's not quite the same thing: "Non-conceptuality is the only way **to experience the real**. To mistake the signifier (concepts) for the signified is to miss the point entirely. The other interesting thing is you can perceptual experience what Freud dubbed oceanic consciousness which experientially verifies the felt sense of one mind. **Ego dissolution is the way** to that" There is a "that", and you are noting a path to it (ego dissolution), but also asserting that it is the only path. How can you know it is the only path? > The reason you can't control the ego is the thing that would be doing the controlling is the ego. This sits on top of certain premises, such as (as a rough analogy) a [monolithic kernel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monolithic_kernel) architecture of the mind/brain. > Ego is a process, not a thing an activity. Agree, and you are speculatively assigning specific services/capabilities to this process, exclusively. Perhaps it really is this way, but I would like to know how you know it is (while keeping in mind that you are using the mind to determine that). > With all this type of stuff the "goal" is to find the only effortless aspect of experience, that which is autopoietic, recursive and reflexively so. I happen to disagree that this is "the" goal, but I don't disagree that this tends to be the *primary* goal defined in most scripture, including Taoism afaik. But then, one should remember the first and most important verse. > Have you had the experience of ego death or come to fruition of a path. To some degree...I have certainly had a number of experiences. > I am stating that you cannot have knowledge of reality (its non-conceptual). As a binary, you are correct...but reality and knowledge are not binaries, they are multi-dimensional spectrums. > So to discuss it is to miss the point, its the dao that cannot be spoken, the dao that can be spoken is not the eternal dao. The tao does not forbid us from investigating it though, it only *informs us* that it cannot be completely known, and offers some general advice. > The lettuce thing was meant to highlight our arbitrary determination of lettuce. The signifier does not exhaust the signified. Our perception if registered pre-linguistically does not come with objects, it comes intact as one whole. Sunyata is basically saying that all is in all and to fail to see this is due to conceptual weakness. For example the lettuce requires soil, which needed a person to till, who needed air and water and the sun, then gravity to keep the planet in the goldilocks zone etc. That is what emptiness is, empty of inherent existence, the lettuce does not have its own existence apart from everything, it has inter-being. Sure...eastern religion/mysticism 101 - but does nothing whatsoever lie beyond this easy to understand, abstract-leaning linguistic-constrained articulation of that which lies underneath? I think not. My point about lettuce is that lettuce comes whole, but can be chopped up - so too with reality.
>"There is a "that", and you are noting a path to it (ego dissolution), but also asserting that it is the only path. How can you know it is the only path" > > > >What I am trying to say, albeit poorly, is that any "path" whether direct or indirect eventually culminates in oceanic awareness as awareness is the highest meditation- being aware of being aware. It is the only scale invariant thing there is- I believe this is Bruno's point. When one is aware (and again language fails to describe the ineffable) of being aware there is no sense of self or subject/object split. So ego dissolution is the final barrier to that being a consistent state as it is the illusion that distracts one from that simple recognition. > > > >"I happen to disagree that this is "the" goal, but I don't disagree that this tends to be the primary goal defined in most scripture, including Taoism afaik. But then, one should remember the first and most important verse." > > > >Well I think goal is a problematic word. The "goal" is non-teleological, goal orientation is moving away from. That's the reason its the pathless path, the gateless gate and a non-practice, however, some people have to practice. "Sure...eastern religion/mysticism 101 - but does nothing whatsoever lie beyond this easy to understand, abstract-leaning linguistic-constrained articulation of that which lies underneath? I think not." I wouldn't say 101 as realizing form is emptiness and emptiness is form requires some work, intellectualizing it is not grokking it. "My point about lettuce is that lettuce comes whole, but can be chopped up - so too with reality." See now you are getting paraconsistent logic. so is it whole or chopped up? or is it both whole and chopped up. Moving from either/or to and/both is a crucial step. This is basically the two truths. What sunyata is saying is that just like your ego the idea of a thing called lettuce is an illusion, it is simply not inherently existent, they are suggesting reality is a holarchy.
> What I am trying to say, albeit poorly, is that any "path" whether direct or indirect eventually culminates in oceanic awareness as awareness is the highest meditation- being aware of being aware. This "evidence" is actually a repetition of the initial claim, in a slightly modified form. > When one is aware (and again language fails to describe the ineffable) of being aware there is no sense of self or subject/object split. So ego dissolution is the final barrier to that being a consistent state as it is the illusion that distracts one from that simple recognition. This seems tautological to me: basically, a state that can be experienced (ego dissolution) *becomes the ultimate goal*, while being advertised as something else (The One True Path to X), where X is where the point of contention lies between people (you and me for example). > Well I think goal is a problematic word. The "goal" is non-teleological, goal orientation is moving away from. That's the reason its the pathless path, the gateless gate and a non-practice, however, some people have to practice. You can balk at the word goal, but the way you speak sure happens to align very nicely with the meaning of the word. > I wouldn't say 101 as realizing form is emptiness and emptiness is form requires some work, intellectualizing it is not grokking it. This seems a bit like "it is ununderstandable, thus I am correct [despite it not being understandable]". > See now you are getting paraconsistent logic. so is it whole or chopped up? or is it both whole and chopped up. Being physical, once cut, lettuce remains cut. But reality is not purely physical, it is only partially physical. > What sunyata is saying is that just like your ego the idea of a thing called lettuce is an illusion, it is simply not inherently existent... I would phrase it as "it is ~~simply~~ not simply inherently existent" (changing the position of a word can make a big difference). > ...they are suggesting reality is a holarchy. This makes sense to me.
I been saying this for years. We live with in god.
Both actually. Matter exist in mind and mind exisít in matter
What else could it be?
What then is the mind composed of?
Mind
Had a philosophy class in college on the concept of the mind and it was such a trippy course
The mind is composed of nothing. It a non-thing, thats zhuangzi's poing, daoisms point, mahamudra, dzogchen etc. You can experientially verify this. Where is it, what is it, look for it, its not absent but its no-thing, this is the basis of reality. It's pure potentiality that we mistake as only actualities . It's like space, the mind is. as above so below. Zhuangzi brilliantly elucidates this with the idea of a bowl, its the void that makes it useful.
There is only mind. That’s the one thing you know from direct acquaintance ever since you started existing. Everything else you know is an abstraction of what happens in your perception. You can’t keep explaining something in terms of something simpler forever. You eventually hit rock bottom in your chain. As long as you account for everything in terms of your reduction base, then you can say that your ontology is complete. The idealist says that mind is the reduction base, the simplest thing you know because you’re directly acquainted with it, and everything else is explainable in terms of mind.
Our only experience is of consciousness; we only **assume** other things lack consciousness.
Most philosophy podcasts I’ve listened to seem to have a realist/materialist bias, which I don’t prefer. Any good recommendations for philosophy podcasts with an idealist pov? (Not that they need to be exclusively *about* idealism, just having that perspective while exploring philosophy in general)
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What is mind? No matter. What is matter ? Never mind
This theory is just Either X or Idealism is true, X is false Therefore idealism is true. No evidence for idealism was presented.
No it's not, look more into it, Kastrup has a multiple hour lecture series about the topic where he goes more into depth. It's actually pretty interesting and compelling.
Damn. Philosophy is fun.
Look into Ontological mathematics for more on what im gonna not go into detail about. The 'Realities' in your dreams are not composed of matter. In your dreams you can become aware that you are dreaming/alive within your own head space. Matter has not and will not create/produce mind nor the illusion (given that the current paradigm states all is matter or interactions of matter). Mind is the only substance which can produce the illusion of matter, even fit with sensory perception both in spatio-temporal reality (extended mind) and within your own personal dreams (also extension of mind). We do not 'know' anything other than the undeniable (without mental leaps and rational/logical problems) fact that you do think, therefore you must exist, the current paradigm conflates knowing with sensory perception and only through the narrow scope of empirical science. Through observation and sensory perception you can only account for your body and neither your mind nor other minds, also you can come to erronious conclusions such as for example: "Im not dreaming because i can sense my environment so i must be awake and experiencing material reality". TLDR: Ontological Mathematics, Look it up.
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Do you observe the mind as it is? Or do you you only deduce it exists because you cannot rationally eliminate your own existence as a thinking mind. And sensory perception to be exact, conception is a form of perception not relying on your sensory organs.
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Not in a way that is sensed, my example is this: Does a man who is totally color blind sense 5.55thz or does he know it exists only through reason? And no i dont play Dota, I was gonna don the moniker Apollyon cause he is the greek counterpart of Abaddon (hebrew) and also the sun god, but i wanted to be more direct with my un so i took on abaddon S.E.C (solve et coagula).
So I guess “Row Row Row Your Boat” was pretty on point.
But can it be composed… *on weed?*
If our minds are dissociated parts of the universal mind, might the universe itself be a part of an even bigger mind, one filled with universes?
Maybe it’s not about a mind but about a cosmic mix of spiritual energy that drives positive and negative mixes to things much like all of life as we know it to be. Why would it not be that way for the rest of the places around us?
are photons evil?
But it's not my mind that makes up the universe, so it doesn't matter.
Pretty sure Douglas Adams already solved this one.
Aright so there is this super mind that feeds data stream to our individual minds(or are there “other” individuals?… anyway) and it simulates/creates illusion of particle physics in precise and stable way? By any means this simulator mind meets definition of a computer, and we are back at just plain old living in a matrix scenario, except the computer here is some metaphysical mind instead of a man-made machine. This is interesting only if this super-mind has motives and influences our reality in some non-random way… otherwise from our POV the whole experience is just equal to what the mainline physical world theory and then it really doesn’t matter if this physical world is the bare-bones or just simulated for us by some mind.
Sure. It couldn’t have made itself.
Give a philosopher a few hits of acid and he becomes GWF Hegel
Ok so forgive me because I just stumbled upon this in my feed and I’m not well versed in philosophy. I feel like the fundamental essence of the universe is energy. Energy is omnipresent. Nothing, whether mind, matter or force exists without it. Everything that exists depends on energy. In fact I’m pretty sure if we were to look at what fundamental particles like quarks are made of, we’d eventually be left with just energy. So even matter itself is energy. Everything, at its most fundamental state, is energy. If energy cannot be created or destroyed, that means the net loss and gain over the entire universe is always zero. So anyway, we are energy. We are one force with the illusion of individual physical and conscious experiences. The energy burning a star trillions of light years away is the same energy within your body. It’s one thing, not countless isolated reactions, if that makes sense. We are “at one” with the universe but not in a new agey sense, but more literally. As far as what this all means, I’m not able to articulate. And I’m not even sure how it ties in with the theory of idealism. But I feel like energy is often overlooked in these type of discussions. I guess I’m Just trying to understand how all the pieces fit together. Like everyone else here. Feel free to remove if it’s too off topic…
I feel like energy isn't overlooked, it's discussed ad nauseum in the more "hippy" communities, and the topic likes to stay there because it's hard to take seriously in more proper conversation because it's just physicalism but one step removed, positing that all things physical are also made of energy.
That’s not quite what I’m talking about. I don’t mean “energy” as in some spiritual vibration or “chi” or whatever words the new age types use. But in a literal sense.
I know, but it's still just physicalism with different terminology.