nothing exists without the mind — Janus

As I’ve patiently explained many times, I do not say that nothing exists without the mind. I say that without the mind, there can be neither existence nor non-existence. The idea that the universe ceases to exist outside of any mind is simply imagining its non-existence. That too is a mental representation.

The error that I’m pointing to, is taking the mind-independence assumed by naturalism as a metaphysical axiom or a statement about the actual nature of reality. That’s where the actual confusion lies. What reality is outside the purview of an observer is precisely what Kant means by the ‘in itself’. It is not nothing, but it is also not anything. (Although @Banno has a grain of truth in pointing out that really nothing can be said of it, it is nevertheless required to sometimes point out what it is that nothing can be said about. )

…the claims of transcendental idealism disclose their own non-absurdity only after difficult consideration, whereas criticisms of them at first appear cogent which on examination are seen to rest on confusion. — Bryan Magee, Schopenhauer’s Philosophy

As I’ve patiently explained many times, I do not say that nothing exists without the mind. I say that without the mind, there can be neither existence nor non-existence. — Wayfarer

The same error. Proposing that nothing can be said and then saying something for which there can be no warrant.

You continually mistake the limits of your understanding, for those of others. That’s why I stopped interacting with you a few months ago - oh, that, and you telling me I’m full of shit - a policy I will now resume.

No, it has nothing to do with "limits of understanding". That's just a ploy you're using to try to justify your nonsense. You're saying something incoherent—"neither existence nor non-existence"— and just plain wrong. There is no reason whatsoever not to think the Universe existed before there were any minds.

I don't care if you ignore me, that's your prerogative. I didn't address you anyway, you responded to something I said addressed to someone else.

I have sympathy for Wayfarer's account.

It does seem to be the case that our mind - our particular cognitive apparatus, with its characteristics and limitations - 'creates' the world we experience from an undifferentiated reality. We bring the world into being by apprehending it and participating in it, by having language. However, it seems to me that describing what the world might be outside of our particular viewpoint, our conceptual tools and awareness is impossible.

I think this can be a hard notion for people to grasp - it's hard enough to put into words. We're still faced with using words like 'reality' and 'world' when we mean something ineffable

Do you think that this noumena or preconceptual world might be something like an undivided whole? A major part of higher consciousness seems to be effort to go behind appearances and in some way engage with this.

The challenge for me is determining what can be usefully said about any of this and whether speculation has any real purpose. Perhaps the most valuable thing we can do is puncture our arrogance: the assumption that we truly know the world, that there is a singular reality upon which we should all agree.

It does seem to be the case that our mind - our particular cognitive apparatus, with its characteristics and limitations - 'creates' the world we experience from an undifferentiated reality. — Tom Storm

Earlier today I was served up yet another youtube talk on this very thing, by an Oxford cognitive scientist (which I almost posted but decided not to). I do see a strong connection between cognitivism and philosophical idealism. I can't see how it's plausibly deniable, although from experience here, it seems mostly misunderstood, and it also triggers a lot of resistance. 'What? You mean you think the world is all in your mind :rage: ?!?'

Do you think that this noumena or preconceptual world might be something like an undivided whole? A major part of higher consciousness seems to be effort to go behind appearances and in some way engage with this. — Tom Storm

The way I'm currently thinking about it, is that the in-itself, the world as it would be outside any conception of it, is not anything, by definition. In fact, perhaps even Kant errs calling it 'ding an sich' ('thing in itself') because it implies identity, a thing-ness. I prefer simply the 'in itself'.

Those terms, noumenal and noumena, are laden with many meanings. Prior to Kant, 'noumenal' meant 'an object of pure intellect' (nous). But Kant adopted the term within his own framework and put his own particular meaning on it. It lends itself to a kind of speculation, but wondering what is 'beyond' or 'behind' or 'above' appearances is like thinking about what might be beyond thought (I think :yikes: )

Perhaps the most valuable thing we can do is puncture our arrogance: the assumption that we truly know the world, that there is a singular reality upon which we should all agree. — Tom Storm

Well, part of me wants to say there is. But that that world is not simply the world defined in terms of sense-experience and empiricism. There is much more to it, but that 'more' is not another intellectual construct. I was indelibly impressed by a quote attributed to Heraclitus by John Fowles, in The Aristos. 'The many live each in their own private world', he said, 'while those who are awake have but one world in common.'

In fact, perhaps even Kant errs calling it 'ding an sich' ('thing in itself') because it implies identity, a thing-ness. I prefer simply the 'in itself'. — Wayfarer

Good point. The moment we use language to articulate notions of "non-ness" we're a bit lost.

Well, part of me wants to say there is. But that that world is not simply the world defined in terms of sense-experience and empiricism. — Wayfarer

How do you feel about those who might say, ok then, there may be this additional realm of 'in itself' out there but the notion is ineffable and so contested, so complex and difficult to approach that I am going to stick with the things I can experience directly?

I think there needs to be a sense of enquiry, of wanting to understand.

It (i.e. time) needs human mind to exist. Are we being extreme idealists here?
— Corvus

My view is that this is not extreme. — Wayfarer

I agree with the view.

perhaps form misunderstanding Kant...
— Banno

My understanding is not that time doesn't exist, but that it has an ineluctably subjective aspect. Meaning that the reality of time is not solely objective but is in some basic sense subject-dependent. Whereas, as I'm discussing in another thread, we're accustomed to regarding only what is objective as fully real. What is subjective is usually relegated to the personal. — Wayfarer

Again your point is inline with my point here, although not exactly the same ideas as mine, as you pointed out.

I tried hard to help Banno understand the points, but he refuses to see the point. His shallow and wrong ideas seem to be coming from his belief that some words are time, and our uses of the words are time. He points to the word he wrote "Later" must be time, because I said "OK".
But Ok could have meant anything such as "Ok, Banno you obviously ran out of your ideas and doesn't know anything about what you have been saying." But he misinterprets "Ok" as simply to mean "I know what you mean." hence the word "Later" must be time. Nonsense.

He also confuses the archive of postings are time too. I will no longer waste time trying to help him understand the points.

He also cannot see the fact that I am in the position to see the arguments rather than claiming either time exists or not. I have been asking questions, if time exists, and asked for his definition of time and proof for existence time, to which he evaded and avoided giving out any clear answers for the questions.

My stance was not claiming time doesn't exist. The OP was open for debates, not claim. Banno fails to see or remember this point, and makes it as his slogan for attacking the OP.

↪Janus You continually mistake the limits of your understanding, for those of others. That’s why I stopped interacting with you a few months ago - oh, that, and you telling me I’m full of shit - a policy I will now resume. — Wayfarer

I fully agree and support your point here.
I will be joining the policy, not to waste time talking about anti philosophical nonsenses.

The error that I’m pointing to, is taking the mind-independence assumed by naturalism as a metaphysical axiom or a statement about the actual nature of reality. — Wayfarer

Taking mind-independence for granted, as a metaphysical axiom, is completely pointless because it provides no ontological principles through which one could understand the assumed mind-independence. Without any such principles, we have nothing to base judgement of truth or falsity about mind-independence, and these judgements are therefore based in persuasive rhetoric, such as claims like "it's science".

This is why Aristotle proposed the law of identity, 'a thing is the same as itself'. This is meant as a first principle of mind-independence. As a metaphysical axiom it can be debated, accepted, or denied. But since it is the traditional first principle of mind-independence, denial of it prevents understanding of mind-independence, without an alternative proposal.

The law of identity is derived from, or based in, the observed temporal continuity of things, the tendency for things to remain as they are through a duration of time. approached this issue much earlier in the thread.

The law of identity is derived from, or based in, the observed temporal continuity of things, the tendency for things to remain as they are through a duration of time — Metaphysician Undercover

That might work for some things, but not for things like Descartes' wax. What exactly are we observing that tells us it's the same wax as it melts and then solidifies as a puddle? This looks like more of a read-only memory feature. In other words, we're built to think in terms of identities with changing properties with change always appearing in association with something relatively changeless.

When you pour coffee into a cup, is it cup or space in the cup which holds coffee? If there were no space in the cup, coffee won't be contained in the cup. — Corvus

It seems clear it is held in the cup. The shape of the cup is such that it can hold coffee. No need for a separate entity, "space".

Consider this: You are a school principal. Every classroom can hold no more than 25 students, by law. You are given X students this year. As a manager, you develop an accounting trick: instead of thinking in terms of students, you think of slots, that is, empty places in a classroom. After all, that is the limiting resource, you have plenty of students. After juggling the slots around on your spreadsheet, you conclude to the school board "I'm sorry, I can't fit that many students, there aren't enough slots!"

"Slot" is a noun, and your statement is true: you don't have enough slots. If you had more, you truly could fit all the students. Yet, "slots" don't actually refer to anything in the world. They refer to an idea, specifically an absence of a student, turned mentally into a thing.

This is what I mean as placeholder, and this is what I am suggesting space is. An idea you mentally frame, nounify, and pin onto your mental map of the world. But it doesn't actually refer to any entity in the world, it is a (very useful) idea, absence formalized into a mental thing of its own, and thoroughly reified by constant use.

Now do I actually believe all of this? Not necessarily, but I think it is valid idea, worth pushing until it breaks.

On the other hand, you can make the same sort of arguments for time you make for space. When you watch a clock, or any physical process evolve, you are experiencing time. You experience it every time you say to yourself, "this is happening right now", and that present utterance and moment transforms irreversibly into a memory, pointing to the past.

Time functions as a real constraint on what is possible. It is likely possible for you to arrive in Paris from wherever you are, within a day, if you really had to. And it is likely completely impossible for you to arrive in Paris in an hour. The only difference between these two requirements is one of them has an inadequate amount of time. How could time function as a physical constraint on what is possible and what is not, if it didn't exist?

My overall point is, if time falls, so does space. Since they really are the same sorts of things.

I have sympathy for Wayfarer's account. — Tom Storm

Wayfarer's account does not consist in cogent argument, so in the context of discussion I have no sympathy for it. His account says that he understands something "deep and difficult" that anyone who disagrees with his conclusions doesn't, mustn't understand. This is the same game played by ideologues, would-be gurus and fundamentalists in all times and places. This is part of the problem, not part of any solution.

It is arguable that this mindset is a significant contributor to the problems humanity faces. I have no sympathy for it. And I have experience; when I worked as a landscape contractor I employed quite a few followers of Osho, and Da Free John and I was entangled for years, many more years than I otherwise would have been, with the Gurdjieff Foundation due to my being married to a woman who was devoted to the "spiritual leader" there. Now there was nothing really sinister I ever witnessed about that organization, and I knew hundreds of people there from all walks of life and most of them were decent people.

Now, of course Wayfarer will say they, Gurdijieff, Osho, and Da Free John were charlatans, not the real deal like the Buddha, but their followers will just say he doesn't understand: the exact same "argument" Wayfarer constantly presents to his detractors. How do we know what shenanigans the Buddha might have got up to with his disciples? All we have are scriptures written many years after the death of Gautama.

Of course, the principle of letting go of attachments may well be a good one for personal tranquility and peace of mind, but all the superstitious, otherworldly stuff is the real problem. It leads to devaluation of this life. For me what is important is how one lives this life, because that's all we know.

Wayfarer pushes the idea of direct knowing, of intellectual intuition. I have no problem with someone following their own intuitions, or even their own fantasies: I do so myself, but I am not arrogant enough to count my intuitions or fantasies as reasons for anyone else to think or believe as I do. Doing that opens the door to ideology, guruism and fundamentalism, as I said earlier, and I will have no truck with that.

It does seem to be the case that our mind - our particular cognitive apparatus, with its characteristics and limitations - 'creates' the world we experience from an undifferentiated reality. — Tom Storm

I don't think it is the case at all. It seems implausible that a completely undifferentiated, amorphous "reality" could give rise to the vastly complex world, with all its regularities and the shared experience which makes it possible to study and understand its workings.

I agree that we are pre-cognitively affected, and that everything we do understand is only on account of our cognitive capacities. We know, form observing animal behavior that they perceive the same environments we do, albeit in different ways according to their sensory equipment.

All we know about how we are affected precognitively comes via observation, analysis, conjecture, prediction and experiment, in other words via science. All we know about the way the world works is only possible via observation, analysis, conjecture, prediction and experiment, via science.

Why is it not plausible that organisms with sensory equipment have evolved to perceive what is there? How long would we survive if our perceptions were not mostly accurate? Do we reject such an idea just because we cannot know and understand absolutely everything with absolute certainty?

The only cogent arguments are those which are justified by observation and logic. What possible argument can there be to support the veracity of intellectual intuition or direct knowing other than personal conviction?And personal conviction is not an argument at all, it is only effective when "preaching to the choir', and I don't see how that is going to help us with our common problems, considering how different people's personal convictions are; following that path can only lead to more division.

our mind - our particular cognitive apparatus, with its characteristics and limitations - 'creates' the world we experience from an undifferentiated reality. — Tom Storm

A pity you have fallen for this.

Before we go further, notice the collective here, the "Our" in "our particular cognitive apparatus".

With that in mind, there are three questions that I'd like answered. Firstly, how is it that there are novelties? How is it that we come across things that are unexpected? A novelty is something that was not imagined, that was not in one's "particular cognitive apparatus". If the world is a creation of the mind, whence something that is not a product of that mind?

Second, how is it that someone can be wrong? To be wrong is to have a belief that is different to how the world is, but if the world is their creation, that would require someone to create a world different to how they believe the world to be. How can we make sense of this?

Finally, How is it that if we each create the world with our particular cognitive apparatus, we happen to overwhelmingly agree as to what that construction is like? So much so that we can participate on a forum together, or buy cars made in Korea.

Far and away the simplest explanation is that there is a world that we share, and that world is as it is apart from what we might believe. Then those who create a world that differs too greatly from how the world is find themselves unable to make much progress.

The simplest explanation is that there is a world that is as it is, and that sometimes we believe things about it that are wrong. And sometimes we come across things in the world that are entirely novel and unexpected.

I think this can be a hard notion for people to grasp - it's hard enough to put into words. We're still faced with using words like 'reality' and 'world' when we mean something ineffable — Tom Storm

Perhaps it's hard because it is wrong. @Wayfarer and Kant and others invent a world that is beyond our keys and chairs and bodies, and then say that we cannot talk about it - the little man who wasn't there. They then go on to tell us that the "in-itself, the world as it would be outside any conception of it, is not anything, by definition" - to speak about that about which they cannot speak. It's not that their thinking has gone a step further than others, but that it hasn't taken the last step, to realise that if nothing can be said or done with the "in-itself", then it is an utterly void notion. The better approach is not to mumble about a mysterious unknown, but to acknowledge that what we have is only the shared world about which we can speak and in which we act.

There is an "our" only becasue there is a shared world.

'The many live each in their own private world', he said, 'while those who are awake have but one world in common.'

Indeed. I'm afraid Wayfarer's is a sleeping draught. We live in a shared world, more's the pity.

This is the same game played by ideologues, would-be gurus and fundamentalists in all times and places. — Janus

I quite agree. It's no coincidence that Heidegger and Nietzsche are becoming again fashionable in a world that denies truth, that claims there is not a how things are but only what we choose, and so witlessly hands even more power over to the already powerful.

But how things are remains, regardless of what the oligarchs claim. The truth will out.

With that in mind, there are three questions that I'd like answered. Firstly, how is it that there are novelties? How is it that we come across things that are unexpected? A novelty is something that was not imagined, that was not in one's "particular cognitive apparatus". If the world is a creation of the mind, whence something that is not a product of that mind? — Banno

As always you misconstrue the nature of 'mind'. What you are saying is that idealism claims that the world is the creation of your mind, or my mind, or at least some individual's mind. That is not what is being claimed, it is an all-or-nothing interpretation of the matter. As I've often pointed out Kant himself acknowledged the validity of empirical realism - within its scope. Kant took pains to differentiate himself from Berkeley in this regard, describing Berkeley's idealism is problematic and dogmatic. Kant does not deny that there is an objective realm and a world separate to the individual mind. So your criticism of idealism is based on a too simplistic an idea of what is being argued for.

Kant’s transcendental idealism does not claim that the world is a mere figment of individual minds, but rather that the structure of experience is provided by our shared and inherent cognitive systems. Novelty emerges from new external data interacting with our fixed frameworks. In Kant’s view, while the mind supplies the framework for experience, it must work in tandem with the manifold of sensory impressions. The unexpected quality of new data is what we call “novelty.” It doesn’t imply that the mind conjured it from nothing—it simply had to update its organization in response to an input that wasn’t fully anticipated.

Error occurs when our interpretations fail to match that data. When someone holds a belief that is incorrect, it is because there's a mismatch between their mental constructs and what is going on. Although our experience is structured by the mind, it still emanates from the external world. A belief is in error when that mental structure misrepresents or fails to adequately capture the sensible data.

Consensus arises because we all operate with fundamentally similar mental structures. This preserves the objectivity of the external world while acknowledging the active role our minds play in organizing experience.

Remember my argument is that what we regard as mind-independent has an ineluctably subjective element or ground, which itself is never revealed in empirical analysis. Not that the world is 'all in the mind' in the simplistic sense in which you will always take it.

how things are remains — Banno

The referent for that proposition is wholly and solely within your mind. That is one thing that is wholly 'mind-created'.

This is the bit where you walk back your own claims, were you are obliged to agree that there is a world that is independent of what you or I believe, that is not created by mind alone.

This is the bit where you walk back your own claims, were you are obliged to agree that there is a world that is independent of what you or I believe. — Banno

I never said otherwise! It's only your continuous and tendentious misreading of what I'm saying that is at issue.

there is no need for me to deny that the Universe is real independently of your mind or mine, or of any specific, individual mind. Put another way, it is empirically true that the Universe exists independently of any particular mind. — Wayfarer

The argument that we all operate with similar mental structures cannot explain more than the common ways in which we perceive and experience, it cannot explain the common content of our experience. I've lost count of how many times that point has remained unaddressed or glossed over.

In any case we cannot understand those structures other than via science, and in vivo they are precognitive, part of the in itself, which would indicate that the in itself has structure, and so is not undifferentiated at all. Structure without differentiation is logically impossible.

If structure exists independently of any mind, then it exists independently of all minds, unless there is a collective mind, and we have, and could have, no evidence of such a thing.

I say that without the mind, there can be neither existence nor non-existence. — Wayfarer

yet

...you are obliged to agree that there is a world that is independent of what you or I believe.
— Banno

I never said otherwise! It's only your continuous and tendentious misreading of what I'm saying that is at issue. — Wayfarer

So is there stuff that is independent of mind, or not?

The argument that we all operate with similar mental structures cannot explain more than the common ways in which we perceive and experience, it cannot explain the common content of our experience. I've lost count of how many times that point has remained unaddressed or glossed over. — Janus

Yep.

So is there stuff that is independent of mind, or not? — Banno

It's not a yes/no question.

With that in mind, there are three questions that I'd like answered. Firstly, how is it that there are novelties? How is it that we come across things that are unexpected? A novelty is something that was not imagined, that was not in one's "particular cognitive apparatus". If the world is a creation of the mind, whence something that is not a product of that mind?

Second, how is it that someone can be wrong? To be wrong is to have a belief that is different to how the world is, but if the world is their creation, that would require someone to create a world different to how they believe the world to be. How can we make sense of this?

Finally, How is it that if we each create the world with our particular cognitive apparatus, we happen to overwhelmingly agree as to what that construction is like? So much so that we can participate on a forum together, or buy cars made in Korea. — Banno

Are these points truly incompatible with the argument? Husserl, for one, suggests that we seem to share a world because language, social practices, and culture shape our common approaches - intersubjective agreement. Additionally, we share a similar cognitive apparatus, so why wouldn’t there be commonality in our sense-making? Why wouldn’t there also be moments of surprise when our expectations clash with new experiences?

Moreover, our shared bodily structure means that our perception of space and movement is largely similar. However, despite these commonalities, it seems that our relationship with reality is one that we construct, shaped by both our physical and intellectual limitations. What we take as "real" is not simply given but filtered, interpreted, and structured according to the constraints of our perception and cognition.

he better approach is not to mumble about a mysterious unknown, but to acknowledge that what we have is only the shared world about which we can speak and in which we act. — Banno

I agree with this and put this to Wayfarer in my response -

the notion is ineffable and so contested, so complex and difficult to approach that I am going to stick with the things I can experience directly? — Tom Storm

Why is it not plausible that organisms with sensory equipment have evolved to perceive what is there? How long would we survive if our perceptions were not mostly accurate? — Janus

Isn't the famous argument by Donald Hoffman and others that evolution does not favour seeing the world as it truly is, but rather seeing it in ways that enhance survival and reproduction.

A pity you have fallen for this. — Banno

I'm here to explore philosophical notions that may seem counterintuitive; why not? This is a philosophy forum, after all, and exploration is key. @Wayfarer ideas are deeply rooted in the history of philosophy, and while realists may disagree, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t engage with alternative perspectives. Speculation is part of the philosophical process, isn't it?

It's not a yes/no question. — Wayfarer

Well, not for you. You need to conflate belief and truth. But to admit agreement, error and novelty, you have to admit that sometimes our beliefs can be incorrect - can be at odds with how things are.

But to admit agreement, error and novelty, you have to admit that sometimes our beliefs can be incorrect - can be at odds with how things are. — Banno

Again, if you read carefully, you would have understood it was something I was not obliged to deny in the first place. It is only characteristic of what you think I said.

intersubjective agreement. — Tom Storm

How can there be intersubjective agreement without a shared word independent of each individual's beliefs? What is it that this "language, social practices, and culture" take place in, if not a shared world? Where is that "similar cognitive apparatus" if not in the world? What is a "shared bodily structure" if not something more than the mere creation of your mind?

Isn't the famous argument by Donald Hoffman and others that evolution does not favour seeing the world as it truly is, but rather seeing it in ways that enhance survival and reproduction. — Tom Storm

Hoffman. Fucksake.

His argument supposes that there is no tiger, only the booming and buzzing background quantum thingy.... and yet he still runs away from the tiger.

If you hold him down he happily admits that there is a world independent of mind, including tigers that he will run away from, but that saying there isn't sells more books.

There are two descriptions of how things are, one that involves quantum handwaving, another that involves tigers. One is useful for publishing books, the other for surviving in the Indian forest. Must only one be the only true depiction?

Added: That is, I disagree with his "the world as it truly is" as there being only one true account. The thing in the forrest is both a quantum thingy and a tiger.

Second, how is it that someone can be wrong? To be wrong is to have a belief that is different to how the world is, but if the world is their creation, that would require someone to create a world different to how they believe the world to be. How can we make sense of this? — Banno

That someone is wrong is a judgement. There is no necessary relation between a judgement of "wrong", and how the world is. This is because a judgement is always a matter of choice. Therefore the question of "how is it that someone can be wrong?" is answered with "because we have the power of choice to judge someone as wrong".

Again, if you read carefully, you would have understood it was something I was not obliged to deny in the first place. — Wayfarer

I have read carefully. Repeatedly. For years.

And I do not see that you have answered these questions, but rather that you backtrack on your claims when i point out their problems. If you read carefully your own responses on error, consensus and novelty, you might notice that you are agreeing with what I have said. But then in your next post you will renege.

That someone is wrong is a judgement. There is no necessary relation between a judgement of "wrong", and how the world is. — Metaphysician Undercover

IF you say the keys are in your pocket when they are in the door, then you are wrong.