Well, a software engineer might say thus in response: — schopenhauer1

That saves your software engineer from having to think.

The SEP entry on Idealism:

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

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

The notion of idealism that I am defending is not quite the same as either of those. It is based on the constructive activities of the brain/mind - that the external world (which really is an external world) is a product of consciousness, insofar as it you were dead, or a rock, or a log of wood, there would be no such world. Here is where most will say ‘but the world will continue exist, even if the dead or rocks or logs are not aware of it.’ But I claim that the world that you will claim ‘continues to exist’ is just the world that is constructed by and in your mind that is the only world you’ll ever know. The incredulity you feel at this point is due to the idea that this seems to imply that the world ceases to exist outside your mind, whereas I’m claiming that this idea of the non-existence of the world is also a mental construction. Both existence and non-existence are conceptual constructions.

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

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

:up: "Looking for certainty" —> illusion of control (e.g. conspiracy / magical thinking).

Solipsism, then.

So you’re the only human being in existence - do I have that right?

Oh, I thought you thought that was you...

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

Way more acceptable!

the external world (which really is an external world) is a product of consciousness, — Wayfarer

What is it external to?

The skin, the boundary of the organism.

What I’m arguing against is metaphysical naturalism,

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

But when it morphs into metaphysical naturalism, is when this is taken to prove, or disprove, any ultimate facts about the world. For instance, that the world is ‘the outcome of the accidental collocations of atoms’ (Bertrand Russell) or that intentional activity is the consequence of the interaction of organic molecules (Daniel Dennett) or that God doesn’t exist (Richard Dawkins) or does (Intelligent Design). Within this picture (well except the last) the human is seen as a kind of a fluke outcome of a random process. This is where I point out that the human mind is what creates the world which it surveys. I’m not using that to argue for any kind of ‘mind at large’ or even any metaphysical counter-argument, simply the recognition of foundational nature of the mind.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

:cool:

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

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

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

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

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

Personally, I'm not convinced by any metaphysical speculations; I see them as being just imaginative possibilities — Janus

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

... metaphysical naturalism [ ... ] taken to prove, or disprove, any ultimate facts about the world. — Wayfarer

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

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

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

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

It certainly does not. They’re simply put to one side for the purpose of the hypothesis.

:roll: What "hypothesis"? Metaphysical naturalism consists of categorica, not hypthetical, statements. Clearly, you still don't understand metaphysics (or naturalism), Wayf.

Please explain what is wrong with this description then

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

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

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

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

I’m not using that to argue for any kind of ‘mind at large’ or even any metaphysical counter-argument, simply the recognition of foundational nature of the mind. — Wayfarer

Fair enough. Do you have sympathy for a mind-at-large/universal mind model?

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

I understand what you are saying but I con't quite conceptualise this in a way which makes it entirely comprehensible. Can you say some more in simple terms or maybe even an analogy? I'm trying to avoid the solipsism thing...

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

The people I know who defend methodological naturalism may sometimes assume this but they don't generally argue or defend this point should it be identified. They generally hold that the human perspective and naturalism are all we can use to build reliable models of our reality based on the best available evidence at a given time. I think they are generally open to the notion that approaches can evolve and new information can be encountered.

:fire: :100:

:up: :up:

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

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

I question whether there is or should be 'a scientific worldview'. Science is first and foremost a methodology. It has philosophical entailments, but often its practitioners are not aware of those entailments - which is part of what I'm saying. I'm saying that science deals mainly with contingencies and discoverable principles ('laws'), so as such doesn't really extend to Aristotle's 'unprovable first principles', but it is often taken as a metaphysic by 'scientism' (which you yourself have criticized on many an occasion.) In other words, I'm criticizing metaphysical arguments which appeal to empirical arguments, such as those employed by many atheist polemics, that science 'shows' or 'proves' that God does not exist, or something of the kind. It does nothing of the kind, either for or against. So I'm arguing that methodological naturalism, which is a perfectly sound in principle, doesn't support metaphysical naturalism, which is the attempt to extend empirical evidence to metaphysical propositions. It's often confused because our culture is on the whole not educated in metaphysics and has abandoned the conceptual space for metaphysics due to its rejection of religion. (The David Albert review of Lawrence Krauss' 'A Universe from Nothing' is exactly about this point. And Krauss is one of the serial offenders on this score.)

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

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

Many (including @Banno) say something along the lines that 'idealism can't differentiate the [x] from the idea of [x] so that in the event of an [x] not being perceived, it ceases to exist'. As I said already in this thread, even Karl Popper made a remark along those lines to Bryan Magee. Then of course there's the 'argumentum ad lapidem', Samuel Johnson's famous 'I refute [Berkeley] thus!' while striking his boot against a rock. So the popular depiction of idealism is something like 'idealists say the world is all in your mind', meaning that, absent the mind, it goes out of existence - perhaps until its perceived again, by another mind. Furthermore that real tables and chairs have a definite, concrete existence, where the ideas of objects seem flimsy and fleeting. All of these are understandable errors but errors nonetheless.

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

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

So - he's not saying the universe doesn't exist absent observers, but that conscious observers create it as a meaningful whole by recognising objects and relations between them. He develops the argument that even very simple cognition proceeds in terms of 'gestalts' - meaningful wholes. And take us out of the equation - that meaningful whole, that 'cosmos', no longer exists. Sure all the same stuff remains, but it can't be said to meaningfully exist - whenever we make a statement about 'what exists', we do so from an implicit perspective within which the term 'it exists' is meaningful.

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

The idea that I've been contemplating is that through rational sentient creatures such as ourselves, the universe comes into being - which is why we're designated 'beings'.

I know it's a very hard thing to grasp, I've been contemplating it most of my life, including having done two degrees about it, still only scratching the surface.

I know it's a very hard thing to grasp, — Wayfarer

This is where you keep equivocating which perpetuates the confusion...

It's not 'hard' to grasp. It's just an option. Unargued for, no evidence, no reasoning... Just a choice.

You're saying we could look at things one way, or the other. A or B. But then when people choose B you want to also say they've 'missed' something, haven't 'grasped' the difficult argument. But there is no argument. Just a declaration that things might be viewed that way.

All the while it's just an option, there's very little of philosophical interest in the mere fact that you chose it.

Thanks. This is a very lucid and clear account of your position. Not what I thought you were going to say.

'the world' is, for us, you and me, Tom Storm and Wayfarer, generated or constructed by our fantastically elaborated hominid forebrain, which evolved at a breakneck pace over the last few million years. — Wayfarer

Yes, this I get and I guess phenomenology parses things similarly.

So - he's not saying the universe doesn't exist absent observers, but that conscious observers create it as a meaningful whole by recognising objects and relations between them. He develops the argument that even very simple cognition proceeds in terms of 'gestalts' - meaningful wholes. And take us out of the equation - that meaningful whole, that 'cosmos', no longer exists. Sure all the same stuff remains, but it can't be said to meaningfully exist - whenever we make a statement about 'what exists', we do so from an implicit perspective within which the term 'it exists' is meaningful. — Wayfarer

Yep. This I get too and I have sometimes entertained similar, less developed views.

So I'm arguing that human being is intrinsic to reality, we're not an 'epiphenomenon' or a 'product'. So does that mean, in the absence of h. sapiens, the universes ceases to exist? Have to be very careful answering, but I'm arguing, it's not as if it literally goes out of existence, but that any kind of existence it might have is completely meaningless and unintelligible. — Wayfarer

Ok, now I've got you. I've only understood some snippets before. No doubt I could do a lot of reading to enlarge this brief account to give it nuance and texture.

The idea that I've been contemplating is that through rational sentient creatures such as ourselves, the universe comes into being - which is why we're designated 'beings'. — Wayfarer

I can see why you would contemplate this. There's an element of the poetic in this account, but it has the merit of being grounded, coherent and justifiable.

Would you say this way of understanding the constructivist nature of reality is similar to phenomenology?

The empirical science folks would perhaps find the chief challenge here the constructivist nature of your approach - problems inherent for them in the perspectival nature of reality you describe. I'd need to think more about this.

My question is what flows from this understanding? What then can we meaningfully say about anything if our reality, our quotidian awareness is essentially a hybrid formulation of memory, anticipatory imagination, our senses and the conceptual apparatus of our brains? Would it be your position that if there is foundational grounding underlying human experience it is accessible only through techniques of higher awareness (meditation, mysticism)?

It's not 'hard' to grasp. It's just an option. Unargued for, no evidence, no reasoning... Just a choice. — Isaac

:up:

The idea that I've been contemplating is that through rational sentient creatures such as ourselves, the universe comes into being - which is why we're designated 'beings'. — Wayfarer

This statement is quite incoherent, because the phrase "rational sentient creatures" presupposes – makes sense IFF there is – the universe that brings them "into being" so that they can conceive of "the universe". Mind – "comes into being" because of nonmind (processes) – is embodied. Thus, your disembodied (i.e. transcendental) speculation, Wayfarer, doesn't fit (or explain away) the facts.

Maybe seeing it is a start. Thanks for your feedback, and the questions.

….the idea that we see the world as it is completely separately from us, as if we're not part of it - is mistaken…. — Wayfarer

It must be mistaken; it is self-contradictory. Twice.

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

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

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

…..which is why we're designated 'beings'. — Wayfarer

I fail to grasp how that explanatory qualifier justifies the original assertion. Maybe just needs an elucidation of “being”…..

Let’s begin with a thought-experiment: Imagine that all life has vanished from the universe, but everything else is undisturbed — Charles Pinter

A better formulation of this thought experiment is to imagine that there never was any life in the universe, ever. It is better because imagining that all life vanishes is already providing a spatial-temporal perspective, the moment when, and place where, all life vanishes. So then we have an image, of the universe now, as we perceive it from our spatial-temporal perspective, and then the universe from that same perspective, with no life anymore.

If, instead, we assume a universe without any life ever, we assume absolutely no temporal or spatial perspective from which that universe is being observed. Therefore we have the entirety of time and space, with nothing to differentiate one billion years from another billon years, nothing to distinguish here from there, no individuation of anything at all, and it becomes very easy to grasp that it's completely nonsensical to talk about any sort of existence without implying a perspective from which that existence is observed.

Incidentally, this point can be derived very easily from relativity theory. Regardless of the supposed fact that observations from one frame of reference will always be compatible with observations from another, and that the same laws will be applicable from every frame of reference, relativity theory implies that a frame of reference is required in order for the idea of any activity in the world to make any sense at all. So first there is a frame of reference (a perspective), then there is a world according to this frame. Further, we might add worlds according to other frames. Notice "a world" is just a product of the perspective. So the perspective is logically prior to "a world". That the different "worlds" produced from the different perspectives, can be resolved into "one world" through the presupposition that they all obey the same laws is unverifiable, and highly doubtful, even though it is commonly assumed as "a law" itself. This is the law which states that the laws are universally applicable, even though we haven't the capacity to test that law. It really just a metaphysical presupposition.

@Tom Storm @Wayfarer @180 Proof @Metaphysician Undercover @Mww @Banno

This statement is quite incoherent, because the phrase "rational sentient creatures" presupposes – makes sense IFF there is – the universe that brings them "into being" so that they can conceive of "the universe". Mind – "comes into being" because of nonmind (processes) – is embodied. Thus, your disembodied (i.e. transcendental) speculation, Wayfarer, doesn't fit (or explain away) the facts. — 180 Proof

I have a sneaking suspicion that often "realists" and "idealists" of a certain variety, start to converge on some form of panpsychism. That is to say, some idea that experience is not confined to neural activity but to "events" or "processes" in general (sometimes objects for those more substance oriented).

Both sides are going to run into crazy errors they don't want to cop-to if they are not "mystical" oriented.

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

Those who think that the brain/neural activity has to be where mental activities lie, then they have the burden of NOT making an unintentional Homunculus Fallacy whereby the consequent is ALREADY in the equation. In other words, "These neurons firing = MIND" (whoops, that's the very thing we are trying to understand how it is that it is mind and not just neurons firing). "These neural networks and INTEGRATION", same thing.

idealists" of a certain variety (…) have to bite the bullet and say that non-living things have some sort of experientialness…. — schopenhauer1

I hate the taste of bullets.

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

There's an expression that captures what I was getting at:

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

Richard J. Bernstein coined the term in his 1983 book Beyond Objectivism and Relativism: Science, Hermeneutics, and Praxis.

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

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

I'm not saying that our designation as 'beings' means that we are beings in the causative sense that God is said to be through the act of creation, but because the cognitive order of rational sentient beings makes manifest an order that is previously latent; that through the evolution of rational sentient beings, the universe realises a dimension of being that it would otherwise not. That has many precedents in philosophy. Consider for example:

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

Although I'll add that Julian's vision of how this was to be achieved was more scientifically, and less mystically, oriented than his brother Alduous'.