So, what is it like to watch a sunset?

Not relevant to my point. As I said,

What is it like? This is a question that elicits a rich source of experiential data from people, the answers are meaningful, but the question probably doesn't elicit specific, verifiable data. — Tom Storm

For instance, if you were involved in counselling or supporting people to recover from trauma (as I am) or a series of other similar activities, then the question 'what is it like' can be of immense significance in assisting people to navigate their experiences and identity.

I have often heard philosophers, including gifted ones, assert that according to transcendental idealism 'everything exists in a mind, or in minds' or 'existence is mental'. This is a radical error. It is not what Kant or Schopenhauer were saying, nor is it what they believed. On the contrary, both of them believed that the abiding reality from which we are screened off by the ever-changing surface of our contingent and ephemeral experiences exists in itself, independent of minds and their perceptions or experiences. If reality had consisted only of perception, or only of experience, then it would presumably have been possible for us to encompass it exhaustively in perception or experience, to know it through and through, without remainder. But that is not so, and the chief clout of transcendental idealism is contained in the insight that while it is possible for us to perceive or experience or think or envisage only in categories (in the ordinary, not Kant's technical, sense) determined by our own apparatus, whatever exists cannot in itself exist in terms of those categories, because existence as such cannot be in categories at all. This must mean that in an unfathomably un-understandable way, whatever exists independently of experience must be in and throughout its whole nature different from the world of our representations. But because the world of our representations is the only world we know ‚ and the only world we can ever know ‚ it is almost irresistibly difficult for us not to take it for the world tout court, reality, what there is, the world as it is in itself. This is what all of us grow up doing, it is the commonsense view of things, and only reflection of a profound and sophisticated character can free us from it. — Bryan Magee, Schopenhauer's Philosophy

I think the idea of noumena is derived from the pretty much universal belief that the objects of perception are independently existent, coupled with the realization that naive realism is, on analysis, untenable. What follows is the realization that we know objects of the senses only as they appear to us.

Perhaps I'm confused: "noumenon" (singular as per Schopenhauer) has always seemed to me the limit, or horizon, of experiential cognition (or conceptualization) as such rather than a "thing-in-itself". That things can appear seems an intrinsic property of them being things (e.g. just as mappability is intrinsic to the territory) and is not just merely an illusory or occluding add-on – construction – of our "minds" (pace Kant, pace Berkeley, pace Plato). :chin:

A good observation when considering that Kant wanted to secure the logic of causality in the face of the skepticism of Hume.

Yes, I also find the question of the difference or sameness of noumenon with thing-in-itself can be somewhat confusing. I think of the noumena as being what appears to us as the phenomena. But then would not the thing-in-itself be what appears to us as thing-for-us, making the two ideas pretty much equivalent?

I take Kant to be a realist; phenomena are real for us and noumena can only be ideal, in that we can only have ideas about their nature, whereas we perceive the phenomenal aspects of noumena that appear in the interactions with us we call "perception".

So in that sense noumena and phenomena can be understood to be the same thing seen under the two different aspects: in-themselves and as-they-appear.

I remember reading somewhere that there are two schools of thought among Kant scholars: the dual world theorists and the dual aspect theorists.

So, I don't think of the ideas of noumena and in-itself as add-ons, but as qualifications marking the limits of knowledge.

An add-on would consist in making claims about what the noumena or things-in-themselves are, as Plato and Schopenhauer do.

Maybe @Mww can shed more light.

:up:

So in that sense noumena and phenomena can be understood to be the same thing seen under the two different aspects: in-themselves and as-they-appear.

I remember reading somewhere that there are two schools of thought among Kant scholars: the dual world theorists and the dual aspect theorists. — Janus

:up:

I'm in the dual-aspect school (à la Spinoza).

I'm in the dual-aspect school (à la Spinoza). — 180 Proof

Me too.

Not relevant to my point. As I said,

What is it like? This is a question that elicits a rich source of experiential data from people, the answers are meaningful, but the question probably doesn't elicit specific, verifiable data.
— Tom Storm

For instance, if you were involved in counselling or supporting people to recover from trauma (as I am) or a series of other similar activities, then the question 'what is it like' can be of immense significance in assisting people to navigate their experiences and identity. — Tom Storm

If your point is that such questions(what is it like to..) can be used in common parlance to generate meaningful discussion, then sure, I agree. If your point is that the question can be used to help people come to acceptable terms with past events, then again... sure, I would agree. That's beside the point I was making about the general thrust of the thread...

The context here, in this thread, is whether or not such questions support the charge that idealism is superior to reductive physicalist approaches when it comes to taking adequate account of human experience. The charge was made by the OP that reductive physicalist approaches cannot account for qualia without appealing to obscurity whereas idealist approaches presumably can. I was pointing out that idealist approaches are more obscure than reductive physicalist approaches when it comes to explaining experience.

The typical question posited to bring the so-called hard problem into consideration regarding the inadequacy of explanatory power inherent to reductive physicalist approaches is often one that begins with "what is it like to..."

I was pointing out that such questions are not indicative of any shortcomings of reductive physicalist approaches, but rather serve to muddy the waters and distract(add obscurity) because they are not well formulated questions to begin with.

The entire enterprise of qualia is fraught with ambiguity, obscurity, and untenability compounded by simile and metaphor. It makes for poorly done philosophy.

Sure. My answer was just a modest response to this:

There is no sensible meaningful answer to it. — creativesoul

Which I think overstates the case, for reasons I have spelt out. But it was a small point. And you're right the qualia debate is banal. Personally I have no idea what it's like to be me let alone you, or a fucking bat!

There is no sensible meaningful answer to it.
— creativesoul

Which I think overstates the case, for reasons I have spelt out. — Tom Storm

Yeah, you're right. On its face, it's false. I second guessed the wording when writing that, but wrote it anyway.

Personally I have no idea what it's like to be me let alone you, or a fucking bat! — Tom Storm

Exactly. It's not 'like' anything else... which is the point.

Exactly. It's not 'like' anything else... which is the point.

:up:

No object without subject. That’s my final offer. :wink:

Pinter goes on to make the case that without subjects, there are no facts. — Wayfarer

An object and a fact are two different things. No facts without subjects because facts are propositions. Objects are not.

If, as you claim, we can't get outside the appearance then what is the basis of the assumption that there are no discreet entities? When a meteor hits the earth one thing impacts the other.

I don't think of the ideas of noumena and in-itself as add-ons, but as qualifications marking the limits of knowledge. — Janus

Yup. It is my understanding that Kant posits the Noumena precisely as a negative limit for human knowledge. I take the general gist of it to be something like... we can know that we cannot know anything about noumena aside from that they are not equivalent to phenomena.

But that line of reasoning is untenable. There is no way to compare noumena and phenomena in order to determine that the one is not the other.

So, as you said earlier, it's purely a conceptual or logical distinction. I think "conceptual" fits better, but that's just me being pedantic about what counts as being logical. Hence, the earlier scare-quotes around the term...

Hello creativesoul,

What is the conscious mental experience that I have every day and every waking moment of my life?

It is the subjective perceptions that collectively makeup your life. It is your feelings (e.g., feeling pain), tastes (e.g., the sourness of the apple you bit into), hearing (e.g., hearing a piano playing), sight (e.g., seeing a tree), smells (e.g., smelling the stench of a rotten apple), thoughts (e.g., thinking about the tree of which you see), and imagination (e.g., picturing a pink elephant eating a mango).

Every waking moment you are immersed in a rich qualitative experience.

Exactly what qualia are you referring to?

Qualia refers to the unique perceptive experience that is generated by your senses (and obviously the idealist and physicalist are going to disagree about what those senses ontologically are—viz., mind-independent organs vs. mind-dependent faculties of a soul).

When you look at a tree, that is a qualitative experience you are having which is a perception generated by your senses of input from reality.

Is obscurity allowed now?

Obscurity about what? I do not deny that every metaphysical theory has its obscurities. My point was that the hard problem can only be accounted for by an obscurity, and since it is a hard problem it makes it very epistemically costly to hold the theory (I would argue). Whereas, a theory that, for example, cannot give currently a complete and accurate account of something that is possibly explainable under the theory (e.g., like how a certain drug completely affects brain activity under physicalism) is an obscurity (now) but only of a soft problem (and thusly not as bad as a hard problem).

Bob

Hello Janus,

This is the crux of the issue for me. I am unconvinced by Schopenhauer's (and Kastrup's derivative) claims that we know the "in-itself" on the basis of some kind of postulated intellectual intuition

I see. Let me try to clarify a bit.

The idea is not that we know of the thing-in-itself from an intellectual seeming (i.e., intuition) but rather that, because we are self-conscious, we have the unique ability to understand empirically (from introspection) that the mental is manifested as something physical. It is an introspective, empirical claim: it is not a claim that we somehow intellectual grasp that it is the case (although maybe perhaps our empirical observation of it as an outward expression is an intellectual seeming).

this cannot be knowledge but is just a feeling

Perhaps I misunderstood you, as intellectual seemings are not feelings. If you were saying schopenhauer was basing the aforementioned claim on a feeling, then I think the previous clarification I made (above) clears that up: it is an introspective, empirical claim.

Another significant problem I have with the idea is that there is a huge body of consistent and coherent scientific evidence that tells us there we many cosmological events long before there were any minds.

If by “mind” you are referring to the idealistic sense of the word (i.e., an immaterial, conscious, and thinking—in the sense of mental activity and not complex cognitive deliberation—subject), then there are no such scientific evidence. None of it suggests that there were cosmological events prior to a mind but, rather, that there were such events prior to organic minds. In other words, the analytic idealist agrees that there was a world prior to you, me, or any other animal and plant: this doesn’t contradict the view at all. If you think there is compelling scientific evidence that there was absolutely not conscious activity prior to organisms/animals/plants, then please share! I just don’t see any.

Also, I should mention that the term “mind” in a physicalistic sense entails that there were organisms which existed without minds (because the mind is an emergent property of the brain that comes with higher life form complexity). Is that what you are referring to?

Bob

Hello Fooloso4,

How does what I say differ from the hard problem as described by Chalmers? He concludes:

I apologize: I didn’t understand what you were asking.

I didn’t really have a problem with what Chalmer’s was saying because I was interpreting his formulation of the hard problem as from the presumption that the physical does produce the mental, and he was noting that this makes no sense (which I agree with: if the physical does produce the mental, then we should expect us all to be philosophical zombies). I also agree with him that the consensus amongst most people is physicalism (and I would say scientists tend to be physicalists).

However, my point with your quote was that it asserts the presumption (which arguably Chalmer’s is making too) as true (that physicality produces mentality); while I was interpreting Chalmer’s in the sense that he is formulating the puzzling fact of qualia for physicalist accounts of the world, which only exists if you presume physicalism.

With your claim (that you quoted as well), I was pointing out that you were claiming (if I didn’t misunderstand you) that science can eventually come to understand how the biological functions give rise to experience (because you were saying science is the rightful investigator of the hard problem whereas I was saying it is squarely within metaphysics), which implies that the so called hard problem is actually a soft problem (as science can only account for how that works if it is possible to explain it scientifically, and the idea behind calling it a ‘hard problem’ is that we know it is impossible to do so). I am not sure how Chalmer’s defines a ‘hard problem’.

If you agree that it is a hard problem, then I think you should also agree that science can’t help solve it. Otherwise, it is a soft problem. For me, that is a matter of definition: perhaps you semantically disagree?

Likewise, your claim was presuming physicalism at the start. You can’t claim that biological functions product or give rise to experience without being committed already to physicalism: the metaphysical claim comes before, in this case, the claim that science is the rightful investigator of consciousness (since you are presuming, in the question at least, that biological functions produce mental events).

If experience arises from a physical basis, then the question of why and how biological function gives rise to experience, is the hard problem

This is sort of correct but I would like to clarify: a “hard problem” is a purported irreconcilable problem in the theory, whereas a ‘soft problem’ is a purported reconcilable problem. Chalmers, as I understood the quote, is just formulating it a bit like a suspicion rather than a true hard problem: I could see how his wording makes it seem like the hard problem is something that could be reconciled someday; but I disagree if that is what he is implying. I agree with the questions he is raising against physicalism though.

You are right that the hard problem of consciousness is fundamentally asking “why and how biological function gives rise to experience?” but I would say that the idea behind calling it a ‘hard problem’ is that there cannot be an account of it. It is a brick wall that the theory has hit.

It sounds like you may be saying it is a ‘hard problem’ only in the sense that it is going to be very difficult to solve: is that correct?

Now you might think that science will not yield an answer, but that does not mean investigating the problem scientifically is not an investigation of the hard problem.

I can agree that someone could think that doing neuroscience, for example, was an investigation into resolving the hard problem—but once they realize that it is impossible to understand it via science then they realize that it is squarely a dispute within metaphysics (which was my original claim). In other words, it is only an ‘investigation’ insofar as we are ignorant on how to investigate it.

The physical transmission is not an extrinsic representation, it is the medium through which data is transmitted.

In terms of analytic idealism, the physical transmission, which is a phenomena, is a medium through which data is transmitted, and metaphysically it really is the extrinsic representation of mentality (of immaterial ideas). They are two sides of the same coin: analytic idealism is a form of epistemic dualism.

If the signals in the nervous system are blocked that shows that the transmission of data is physical.

I disagree. If the physical is an extrinsic representation of the mental, then the inhaling of anesthesia and your brain’s neural network firing less (or what have you) is simply an extrinsic representation of mental events. If you hooked up a brain scanner to a person that is knocked out on anesthesia and see certain neural activity (or the lack thereof), then you could explain it as it either being your mind’s perceptive representation of the mental events or as brain interpreting there physical body and then producing a qualitative experience of it that you fundamentally witness consciously. These are the competing views.

This makes no sense. An anesthesiologist uses drugs not something mental. She does not rely on hypnosis.

Just like how the ingestion of a drug and the side effects thereof in a video game is merely a representation of 0s and 1s, so would analytic idealism postulate that the ingestion of a drug and its side effects in the world is simply a representation (as what is fundamental is the ideas: analogous to the 0s and 1s so to speak).

From an analytic idealist’s perspective, you are essentially arguing that simply because the character in the video game passed out and when measured by a brain scanner by another character they see reduced brain activity (or neural activity or what have you) that thusly the character must be fundamentally the ‘physical’ (in the colloquial sense of the term) stuff that the doctor character in the video game can biologically examine; but, in actuality, the character is the representation of 0s and 1s. My point here is just that I think you are conflating the dashboard of experience with the thing-in-itself: it does not follow that what is truly happening is physical stuff (in a colloquial or even formal sense of the term) simply because we experience it as tangible within our dashboard of experience.

These drugs affect awareness, they disrupt the mind.

Again. The video game doctor can likewise appeal that the other character (that is knocked out from anesthesia) was disrupted by the inhaling of the drug: does that mean that the character fundamentally exists as that ‘physical’ stuff? No. That character is the representation, in the case of a video game, of 0s and 1s.

Bob

Hello TheMadMan,

In a human being, the Formless is in a relationship with the form and thus it is subject to different laws, laws of spacetime. The Formless does not lose its nature but it becomes limited by the form.

I believe I followed: essentially the eternal and formless mind is expressed within the forms of space and time, correct? If so, then I think you are essentially saying exactly what schopenhauer was trying to get at with his eternal formless will, which is the expression of platonic ideas from our perspective within space and time (i.e., the formless being forced to the form of space and time expresses grades of platonic ideas).

For some reason humans are born with the potential to realize that Formless Mind which is the original source of his/her consciousness.

This is where I stop following: how does one realize the formless mind? To me, we are stuck with the two pure forms of experience: space and time. How could one transcend them?

Bob

Hello Alkis Piskas,

So, I have created the following list, prompted by your request! :smile:

Thank you! I will take a look!

But consciousness is not limited to perception. I would mention that if I knew you would scrutinize my statement! :grin:

I apologize: I wasn’t trying to scrutinize your view but, rather, provide clarification in relation to analytic idealism.

OK, but consciousness a characteristic of all life: Living organisms as well as plants.

Correct, and this is why I just wanted to clarify “perception” vs “consciousness”. A plant is conscious but does not perceive anything.

All this is fine. But the "universal mind" is only a concept for me: I have no experience of it.

I agree. But I want to elaborate that other people and plants beings conscious is also a concept in that same sense (that we don’t experience it). I don’t find this to be a problem: we can know things without experiencing them.

Bob

Hello Mww,

Thank you for the elaboration! Space and time is the aspect of every theory that I find unsatisfying (and so I am still working through how to metaphysically account for them); so let me pick your brain a little bit.

No, he didn’t correct the error; there wasn’t one to correct. It is impossible to know what things are in themselves, iff the human cognitive system is representational, which they both accepted as the case, and that necessarily.

I find there to be a conceptual error here of Kant’s (and maybe perhaps Schopenhauer to) of the mind’s ontological status.

If we have no access to the things-in-themselves because our experience is just the expression of them in space and time which is produced by our minds, then our minds must be a thing-in-itself. If our minds are not a thing-in-itself, then they are not outside space and time, but to produce space and time they would have to be outside of it: therefore, if they aren’t a thing-in-itself, then our minds do not produce space and time.

If our minds are a thing-in-itself, then it does not hold that we cannot infer past the forms space and time; and, in that case, mind is fundamental. So, to me, Kant can’t claim that we cannot know the thing-in-itself on grounds of the mind producing space and time, because that entails that the mind is a thing-in-itself which is producing representations of other things-in-themselves via the forms space and time. The only way to reconcile this (by my lights) is for Kant to claim that our minds have no ontological status either—but, then, the mind cannot be producing space and time. What would your response to that be?

Sometimes I hear people saying that Kant was only talking about something epistemic about minds as opposed to ontological, but I don’t see how that works either. If the forms of representation are space and time, then that thereby (by my lights) admits the mind as having ontological status.

All S did was take that which is impossible to not know….the will….and call it the thing-in-itself, a philosophical blunder for which there is no legitimate excuse.

I think the difference is that Schopenhauer rightly pointed out that ideas are what are represented in the physical, and we can know this through introspection: that is the contribution I think Schopenhauer made; however, those ideas which are being represented are also within time (just not space until they are represented physically), but they originate from nowhere. The constant flow of ideas which are represented physically, that each of us have access to through introspection, quite literally are a series (in time) of something—and this is where our introspective access ends. What we can know from this is that the physical is a representation of the mental—but where and what are the ideas that are temporally being enacted into physical representations? Schopenhauer posits that the best metaphysical explanation is that each idea is a part of a will and that will is outside of time and space. Perhaps you would claim that we can’t know what is the “cause” of those series of ideas—it is just beyond our knowledge.

it is impossible such knowledge can be of the original energy source.

I don’t think this counters Schopenhauer’s point: no one was claiming that we have a exact, mirrored knowledge of the thing-in-itself. We are organisms that produce perceptions which are filtered representations of our environment. Schopenhauer, rather, was arguing that the best metaphysical explanation for the unknown-origined ideas, which are being represented in physical terms, is that they are an eternal, unified will (which is the thing-in-itself).

Going back to the problem with positing space and time are synthetic a priori (of a mind) while also claiming we have no knowledge of things-in-themselves, I find that Kant’s view is incompatible with reasonable, parsimonious metaphysical explanations of scientific knowledge. For example, we have ample empirical knowledge to back that the most parsimonious explanation of our bodies is that it takes in senses from our environment and represents it to ourselves. We are impacted by other bodies, rocks, etc. and we represent that to ourselves; but, with Kant’s view, we are forced to claim that we cannot infer that there is an natural environment, that we are impacted by other bodies, etc. because we cannot know anything about the things-in-themselves. If we can’t know anything about things-in-themselves, then our observed impact of other bodies on our own is merely more representations that cannot be used to infer anything beyond them. All we can know is that, transcendentally, they are representing something--but no more than that. To me, we can reasonably infer things about the things-in-themselves.

noumena is a conception of a general class of conceptions

To me, as far as I am understanding the categories and noumena, they are beyond space and time (being a priori and some synthetic of minds); but then the mind is a thing-in-itself, is it not? It seems as though Kant is trying to argue we can transcendentally come to understand how our mind represented things, and that includes the two pure forms of intuition, but yet that is exactly the concession that we can infer, based off of experience, at least certain aspects of at least one thing-in-itself: our mind. Again, if our mind doesn’t ontologically exist, then it can’t be producing space and time to represent things to itself.

The categories are those primitive conceptions, not by which they are but by which representations of objects can be united such that a cognition is possible.

Wouldn’t these categories have to be beyond space and time, since they are also a part of how the mind synthetically represents objects within space and time?

To me, I think there is a neo-Kantian view that physicalists could hold whereof the mind, being an emergent property of the brain, is producing a representation of time and space that exists beyond their mind (in the mind-independent world) and that would have categories in the brain.

Again, I appreciate the elaboration and look forward to your response!

Bob

When we ask, "What is it like to watch a sunset?", what exactly are we asking for?

:brow:

Does that question even have an answer? It seems clear to me that it does not! Watching a sunset is not like anything. To quite the contrary, each viewing is different. One could watch the sun set as many times as one likes, and each event will be different. Likewise, each day, each moment of one's so called 'subjective experience' is different from all the others days and moments as well.

Hence, it is the question itself that is problematic in that it is not a well formulated question to begin with. — creativesoul

Just because there are minor differences does not mean something can't be like something else. Our experiences of sunsets are very similar to each other, so that we can say "watching this sunset is not at all like eating a peach, but it is similar to all the other sunset's I've seen." If someone says that eating rattlesnake is like eating chicken, I know what the experience of eating a rattlesnake will be like.

Personally I have no idea what it's like to be me let alone you, or a fucking bat! — Tom Storm

This is nonsense. Of course you know what it's like to be you. If physicalists have to make this sort of move to salvage their position, they've lost. It's not convincing to anyone.

Maybe Mww can shed more light. — Janus

Thanks for the invite, but I wouldn’t know where to start. I don’t agree with 90% of what’s said herein regarding any of the three Critiques, not so much because of the general lack of intelligence but because of the failure to hold with the intended perspective on the one hand, and putting on much stock in secondary literature on the other.

Anyway, for starters I guess, regarding CPR, it behooves one to get it, that there are 26 pages concerning the world that is perceived, and 285 pages dedicated to a thesis on what the human intellect does with it, and by association, what it does with everything. It follows that referencing Kant is an automatic limitation to reason (the noun) and reason alone, the world in general and your neighbor in particular can get the hell outta the way; they are irrelevant. And bothersome.

It very well may be separate metaphysics attribute to things-in-themselves and noumena a knowledgeable reality of their own, but in Kant, having given only 26 pages to objective reality, the implication is that nothing about them has any significance. Yeah, there’s a world. Of course there is. So what. Still, that we don’t have any legitimate reason to care about them doesn’t reflect on how the conceptions of them came about, which gets us back to the 285 pages.

Ever onward. Buried as a footnote in the preface to the second edition, which is obviously the very beginning, is the statement that I can think whatever I want provided only that I don’t contradict myself. Many MANY pages later, at the beginning of the 285 page second part, is the statement, understanding is the faculty of thought.

Now we have understanding can think whatever it wants provided only that it doesn’t contradict itself, which implies understanding can think objects of its own all by itself, which it does, and they are represented as conceptions. Then the theory goes on to say understanding has no use for conceptions except to judge by means of them. OK, so we got a conception….but what is there to judge? Merely thinking a conception is all well and good but an exercise in futility if no judgement is facilitated by it. So at this point noumena is a conception understanding thinks but can’t do anything with.

The problem manifests in the fact the impossible cannot be conceived, which just means the conception represented as noumena cannot be impossible, but that does not mean there is a thing that can be related to it, something on which to formulate a judgement. The theory has already stipulated, with respect to things, the only relation permissible to conceptions are intuitions, represented as phenomena. All intuitions are sensible, therefore if there is a noumenal thing to relate to the object understanding thinks, it must be sensible, therefore a phenomenon.

Therein lay the logical contradiction, insofar as if noumena are only objects understanding thinks they cannot be sensible objects perception receives because if they were, they’d be phenomena which means they could not be objects only thought by the understanding. But noumena are valid conceptions, understanding is nonetheless entitled to think them, in that they do not contradict other conceptions, so it must be the case that it just isn’t possible to know whether there are noumenal objects or not, but if there are they are not sensible by us.

But none if that is really important. So what…understanding can do this thing, but get nothing out of it, from which arises a methodological contradiction. Abominable waste of transcendental effort. But like that French guy says in The Matrix (imitates bourgeois Merovingian accent)….there’s always a reason. For want of not bludgeoning the uninterested, the reason is found in the categories, in short, because for that which the understanding thinks, whether in the attempt to solve the world’s problems or just from twiddling its imaginary thumbs cuz it’s bored itself into a stupor, the categories have no effect. What Kant has done, by assigning particular jobs to particular faculties in a systemic methodology, is sustain internal logical consistency. Sure, understanding can do all this fancy shit, but, given a certain set of conditions, here’s what can be known, here’s why it can be known, anything else is junk so don’t go there.

The book on logic is formidable, and might be clearer if not for the prolonged discourse attempting to clarify it. For me anyway, half a century into it, I like to think I’m getting close.

From Kastrup:
"For clarity, the alternative hypothesis I mentioned in the video is this: There are phenomena in physics suggestive that the universe is, at a fundamental level, unified; in the sense that any event can potentially influence any other event across time and space limitations, at a quantum level. The phenomenon of quantum entanglement, when taken together with the Big Bang theory, is suggestive of this possibility. Some interpretations of quantum mechanics suggest the same, like David Bohm's Implicate Order. So it is not completely unreasonable to imagine that there could be some form of non-local feedback from the results of natural selection back into the probability envelops governing the quantum-level processes from which genetic mutations arise. After all, those mutations are probabilistic processes at a molecular level, governed by quantum wave functions."

But that's not his hypothesis (or he's being disingenous). Kastrup's hypothesis is idealism. Idealism claims that this is all the dream of a cosmic mind/god. Mutations, entanglement, physics, the universe, the Big Bang, etc., none of it is real. It's all just elements of the dream.

I wasn’t trying to scrutinize your view but, rather, provide clarification in relation to analytic idealism. — Bob Ross

I know. And thanks for the clarification.

A plant is conscious but does not perceive anything. — Bob Ross

Yet, it does!

"Plants perceive the stimuli of the environment (rain, wind, cold, heat, attacks from herbivores or pathogens, and so on) and remember for a sufficiently long period, not these stimuli as such but rather the type of reaction they should have. This capacity is a precious asset enabling plants to produce a response adapted to all these stimuli and their fluctuations. If a plant perceives a stimulus to which it has previously been subjected, its response will be stronger."
(Sensory properties, memory and communication in the plant world)

other people and plants beings conscious is also a concept in that same sense (that we don’t experience it). — Bob Ross

That's why I like to connect consciousness with perception. Because we can know that the another person or a dog, etc. are conscious too --besides ourselves, who can experience consciousness directly-- by observing their reactions to stimuli, communicating with them, etc. If they react, it means that they can perceive and therefore they are conscious entities.

[Re: Me saying "I have no experience if it"] I don’t find this to be a problem: we can know things without experiencing them. — Bob Ross

Certainly.

With your claim (that you quoted as well), I was pointing out that you were claiming (if I didn’t misunderstand you) that science can eventually come to understand how the biological functions give rise to experience — Bob Ross

I am simply saying that we should not deny the possibility. It is not a question of the "rightful investigator of the hard problem".

I am not sure how Chalmer’s defines a ‘hard problem’. — Bob Ross

The term is Chalmer's neologism. I posted two statements of it above. The second in his own words.

If you agree that it is a hard problem, then I think you should also agree that science can’t help solve it. — Bob Ross

You are defining "a" hard problem as one that is beyond the reach of science. By your definition science can't solve it. But this is question begging. Scientists are working on the problem of consciousness and felt experience, and the extent to which they are successful cannot be determined by the boundaries you set between science and metaphysics.

Your argument amounts to saying that if the hard problem is solved then it is not a hard problem.

You can’t claim that biological functions product or give rise to experience without being committed already to physicalism — Bob Ross

One need not be committed to any metaphysical claim, whether it is physicalism or something else. An investigation of consciousness in biological organism should begin with biological organisms.

you are presuming, in the question at least, that biological functions produce mental events). — Bob Ross

It is obviously true that Impairment to biological function impacts mental events. Since it is experience in biological organisms that is at issue those organisms is a reasonable place to start.

but once they realize that it is impossible to understand it via science — Bob Ross

,

This again is question begging, it assumes as established the very thing in question.

the physical transmission, which is a phenomena — Bob Ross

It is not. The physical transmission makes phenomena possible.

If the physical is an extrinsic representation of the mental ... — Bob Ross

The physical in this case is the living organism. A living organism is not an extrinsic representation of the mental. We can, however, mentally represent a living organism. That representation takes place within a living organism.

If you hooked up a brain scanner to a person that is knocked out on anesthesia — Bob Ross

Is the brain scanner an extrinsic representation of the mental? Why is it necessary? It if, and the person knocked out are extrinsic representation of the mental then the mental or Mind should have direct access.

so would analytic idealism postulate that the ingestion of a drug and its side effects in the world is simply a representation — Bob Ross

The ingestion of a drug is not the ingestion of a representation. If that were the case, the pharmaceutical industry would be out of business. The effects "in the world" are not the same as effects in a video game.

it does not follow that what is truly happening is physical stuff (in a colloquial or even formal sense of the term) simply because we experience it as tangible within our dashboard of experience. — Bob Ross

It is not simply that we have an experience but that physical stuff has a physical effect. When a plant dies from lack of water or a fish from lack of oxygen, that is a physical event not a mental representation.

The video game doctor — Bob Ross

This might be reverent if the world and everything in it, including us, is a digital simulation.

does that mean that the character fundamentally exists as that ‘physical’ stuff? — Bob Ross

The character fundamentally exists as a character in a video game. There would be no video game without the physical stuff that makes it possible. The game itself is real in a sense that the characters in the game are not. In the same way, a book is real in a sense that the characters in the book are not. Story characters, whether in videos or books do not have the same physical constraints on them that you (if you are not just the character in someone else's story) or I (I am not) have.

Hello Alkis Piskas,

Yet, it [plants] does!

I am unsure as to whether the fact that plants retain memories, to some extent, qualifies them as perceptive. If that does qualify them, then it is a very low degree of perception. Either way, that is interesting: thank you for sharing!

That's why I like to connect consciousness with perception. Because we can know that the another person or a dog, etc. are conscious too --besides ourselves, who can experience consciousness directly-- by observing their reactions to stimuli, communicating with them, etc. If they react, it means that they can perceive and therefore they are conscious entities.

The idea is that, although we can’t infer that everything is a part of a universal mind by directly experiencing it like a dog (for it isn’t, by its nature, a member of reality but, rather, fundamentally reality itself), we can infer that it exists because otherwise we have no ability to explain the mental: we have the hard problem of consciousness. We posit that the most parsimonious explanation for what reality fundamentally is is mentality because positing it is mind-independent leads to an irreconcilable dilemma.

My point is that we infer there is a universal mind just like we infer there are other conscious animals: we don’t directly experience either one. The fact that an animal (or even another human) behaves as though they are conscious doesn’t in itself count as directly experiencing other conscious beings.

Bob

Hello Fooloso4,

I fear as though we may be slightly speaking past each other, so I am going to try and slow things down.

When I claim that reductive physicalism has a ‘hard problem of consciousness’, I am claiming that it is impossible for that metaphysical theory to explain consciousness: I am not claiming that we merely haven’t yet. Thusly, I am claiming that it is impossible for science to decipher how brain states produce mental states. Let me explain why I think that, but first let me clarify one more thing.

You say that I am question begging because my definition merely precludes scientific investigation. I want to clarify that I am not doing that: my definition of a ‘hard problem’ is that it is irreconcilable under the view in question—there is nothing question begging about that. I am then, on top of using that definition, claiming that the ‘problem’ of consciousness for reductive physicalism is a hard problem in the sense that I defined it. There is nothing question begging about that because I am not saying that the definition is the proof of it being a hard problem. Now let me explain why I think there is a hard problem of consciousness for reductive physicalism (and it is not merely a soft problem of consciousness).

Reductive physicalism is a methodological approach that explains something in terms of reducing it to other physical entities (e.g., my computer works by using electricity as its power, CPU to process information, hard drive to store information, GPU to render graphical content, etc. of which the ‘computer’ is explained in terms of reduction to its physical parts), so in order to explain consciousness on this view one has to reduce mental states to brain states. So far so good.

Now, let’s abstract out what this kind of explanation of consciousness would look like. One would have to try to explain it in terms of “consciousness is [set of biological functions] because [set of biological functions] impact consciousness in [this way]” (where you can input whatever biological functions and impact you would like in for the brackets); but, no matter what biological functions one gives as the set and what impact those functions have on conscious activity, the conceptual question is still open-ended: why do those biological functions give rise to consciousness? This sort of explanation never explains consciousness: not even in principle. It doesn’t matter how air-tight of an analysis neuroscientists can give some day about the impact of brain states on conscious states: the question of how brain states give rise to mental states is forever open-ended under that sort of explanation. This is why I can, by abstraction, understand that neuroscience will never account for how consciousness is produced.

This isn’t just “they may someday account for it even though I can’t fathom how” kind of argument: the abstracted form of the explanation, under reductive physicalism, offers no explanation.

What are your thoughts?

Bob