He would say the ultimate truth is the Absolute, which is a state of unity in which there is no thought because there are no divisions. Thought is the realm of partial truths. In that realm, you can't really escape dualism. — frank

Not sure I understand this but is the point that, at an ordinary level of thinking, dualities appear to us?

The fact that our sense organs and brains are similarly constituted can explain how it is that we see things in similar ways, but it cannot explain just what we see. The content of perception, that is what is perceivable which animals also perceive in their different ways, is contributed by the world, whether that world is physical or mental.

If it's physical then the mind-independent physical existents explain how it is that we and the animals see the same things. If the world is mental then the human independent mind that constitutes the things we perceive explains it. If mind is fundamental then all our minds must be connected (below the level of consciousness, obviously) via that universal mind.

We've been over all this many times and you have never been able to explain how just the fact of our minds being similar, but not connected, could explain a shared world. — Janus

Good question. Isn't the idea that the “world” we perceive is not independent matter imposing itself on us, but a manifestation of mind, or a universal rational structure, so the consistency of perception across subjects reflects the inherent order of this mind?

Good question. Isn't the idea that the “world” we perceive is not independent matter imposing itself on us, but a manifestation of mind, or a universal rational structure, so the consistency of perception across subjects reflects the inherent order of this mind? — Tom Storm

Yes, if they are manifestations of a universal mind. But that seems to be the point that Wayfarer is denying. In fact he has written on here that it is the very point he disagrees with Kastrup about, and yet hat is the very posit, as also with the role of God in Berkeley's idealism that has explanatory power.

I've also heard it argued that objects persist in idealism (not because a mind is always perceiving them) but because experience unfolds according to stable, law-like patterns. To say the table is still there when no one is looking means that whenever someone does look again, experience will reliably present the same table in the same place, behaving the same way. Object permanence is therefore a continuity of structure and availability, not constant observation by some Great Mind. I imagine that this could be developed into a much more complex account of object permanence, but I'm not fully across the idea.

The question remains why has thought manifested in this way to begin with; why are there inanimate objects or things in a realm of consciousness?

I think @wayfarer may be arguing that an object is just a durable pattern within a set of constraints, so to say it continues to exist means that the same pattern will reappear whenever the relevant experiential conditions are met, even if it is not currently experienced. This reminds me a bit of phenomenology.

Not sure I understand this but is the point that, at an ordinary level of thinking, dualities appear to us? — Tom Storm

Dualities necessarily appear to us. We think in pairs, up/down, left/right, male/female, etc. In every case, the meaning of any word contains it's opposite. So if we deleted 'down' from your mind, "up" would also disappear for lack of anything to compare it to.

Interesting, I always assumed that binary, dualistic or black-and-white thinking was a human flaw and, perhaps, unnecessary. If we do privilege duality, I wonder if that is simply a function of biology, we have two eyes, ears, arms, legs, so we tend to bifurcate our experience.

The fact that our sense organs and brains are similarly constituted can explain how it is that we see things in similar ways, but it cannot explain just what we see. The content of perception, that is what is perceivable which animals also perceive in their different ways, is contributed by the world, whether that world is physical or mental. — Janus

I’m not claiming that perceptual convergence explains what ultimately exists; I’m claiming that any account of what exists has to start from the fact that the world is first given as a shared
field of perception, not as a metaphysical posit. And that there is no self-existence material substance in terms of which the nature of experience can be explained. No account that treats matter as a self-existent, third-person substance can explain experience, because experience is not one of the things that substance-description captures (which is, of course, stating the hard problem of consciousness again).

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

And besides, we do now know what happens when you drill down on apparently solid matter to the most fundamental elements. I don't have to say again what has been discovered.

He (Hegel) would say the ultimate truth is the Absolute, which is a state of unity in which there is no thought because there are no divisions. — frank

That rings true to me, even though I can't claim to really understand it.

That rings true to me, even though I can't claim to really understand it. — Wayfarer

Plato would say you're remembering the wisdom of the Anima Mundi.

Plato would be right.

I've also heard it argued that objects persist in idealism (not because a mind is always perceiving them) but because experience unfolds according to stable, law-like patterns — Tom Storm

It's not the idea like Berkeley's that God is always perceiving everything, and that God's perception or thought holds everything in stable existence. Kastrup's idea is that everything is constituted by consciousness that the "stable, law-like patterns" just are the underlying mental nature of things. Kastrup uses the word 'consciousness', but I don't think he believes that the universal consciousness is conscious of anything apart from what all the percipients (the dissociated alters) are conscious of. For him it has no plan, but evolves along with everything―it just is nature in the sense that Spinoza's God is nature.

To say the table is still there when no one is looking means that whenever someone does look again, experience will reliably present the same table in the same place, behaving the same way. — Tom Storm

That doesn't explain why everyone will see the table there for the first time.

I’m claiming that any account of what exists has to start from the fact that the world is first given as a shared
field of perception, not as a metaphysical posit. — Wayfarer

Of course―nothing could be more obvious―that is precisely what is to be explained. You haven't offered any explanation as to how idealism can coherently do without something like Berkeley's God or Kastrup's "mind-at-large".

Of course―nothing could be more obvious―that is precisely what is to be explained. — Janus

Why is to be explained? By what is it to be explained? As it happens, I wrote a Medium essay on precisely this topic, explaining how Buddhist philosophy shows that there is no need to posit a 'mind at large'. Gift link, from which

the Universe doesn’t exist outside consciousness, but neither does it not exist, so there is no need to posit any agency to explain its supposedly ‘continued’ existence.³ The continuity that science establishes is also a function of the subjective intellect, or, should we say, the inter-subjective intellect, as it is by nature shared by human beings across culture and history.

I'm very familiar with Buddhist philosophy―I took units in it at Uni and have been interested in Buddhist and Vedantic ideas since the age of 16. Ultimately I didn't find Buddhism philosophically satisfactory. I'm not saying there are not good insights and ethical teachings within Buddhism but it is not really a coherent philosophy or metaphysics at all but rather a soteriology. It is faith, not intellect, based.

Metaphysics, on the other hand, is about explaining as comprehensively as possible what is experienced. You have offered no account of how an explanation for a shared world can do without either mind-independent existents or the connection of what appear to be separate minds. "Similar constitution" has not explanatory power in that regard.

That said in Buddhist philosophy there is the idea of a "storehouse consciousness" (alaya-vijnana) that (given that that Karma is accepted as real) could be used to explain the fact that we share a world with sentient others, both human and animal (and perhaps plants and fungi).

Kastrup uses the word 'consciousness', but I don't think he believes that the universal consciousness is conscious of anything apart from what all the percipients (the dissociated alters) are conscious of. For him it has no plan, but evolves along with everything―it just is nature in the sense that Spinoza's God is nature. — Janus

Personally, I wouldn’t compare K with S. As already noted, K argues that mind-at-large is similar to Schopenhauer’s Will. But his view is still evolving, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he eventually ends up adopting some form of theism. But I could be wrong there.

To say the table is still there when no one is looking means that whenever someone does look again, experience will reliably present the same table in the same place, behaving the same way.
— Tom Storm

That doesn't explain why everyone will see the table there for the first time. — Janus

It probably does, but as I said, someone with more reading on this matter would need to articulate the point properly. My understanding is as follows: In non-theistic idealism, objects like tables aren’t things that exist outside consciousness, but stable patterns through which consciousness organises itself. Experience is constrained by shared, law-like structures (time, causality, space, and intersubjective coherence) so when those conditions recur, the same object reliably appears, even if no one was perceiving it in the meantime. The appearance of material objects isn’t a pointless illusion: without these stable object-patterns, experience would be chaotic and unusable, making memory, action, and a shared world impossible.

Of course, a brief paragraph like this will generate a series of whys and hows that I don’t have immediate answers to. But saying idealism isn’t true because my modest paragraph doesn’t cover all bases isn’t much of an argument. This is clearly a complex idea that requires more investigation.

We've been over all this many times and you have never been able to explain how just the fact of our minds being similar, but not connected, could explain a shared world. — Janus

I'm not taking sides but, is this not solved by us being the same species? As in, when we use medical trials on a few patients, we assume they'll work on all of them- with caveats.

Do these questions arise about dogs?

Personally, I wouldn’t compare K with S. As already noted, K argues that mind-at-large is similar to Schopenhauer’s Will. But his view is still evolving, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he eventually ends up adopting some form of theism. But I could be wrong there. — Tom Storm

Kastrup says that he is a naturalist and that mind-at-large just is nature. Soinoza says God just is nature―that is the extent of the comparison I was making.

My understanding is as follows: In non-theistic idealism, objects like tables aren’t things that exist outside consciousness, but stable patterns through which consciousness organises itself. — Tom Storm

If we have totally separate consciousnesses then how do the stable patterns through which your consciousness organizes itself accord precisely enough with the stable patterns in my consciousness to explain a shared world wherein we will agree on what is in front of us down to the minutest details?

I'm not taking sides but, is this not solved by us being the same species? As in, when we use medical trials on a few patients, we assume they'll work on all of them- with caveats.

Do these questions arise about dogs? — Manuel

I'm not denying that human bodies have similar enough physical constitutions to enable generalizations form medical trials, and for that matter, general medical procedures which work on most everyone. But I don't see what that relevance that has to the point at issue, because I've been saying that only mind-independent physical existents or shared mind can explain the obvious fact that we share a world. Well, I mean I can't think of, and nor has anyone else to my knowledge presented, any other plausible explanation, but I'm open to hearing something different.

Not sure what your question about dogs is driving at.

.

Kastrup says that he is a naturalist and that mind-at-large just is nature. Soinoza says God just is nature―that is the extent of the comparison I was making. — Janus

I hear you but I think K is being polemical here and is making an equivocation on the world naturalist. Yes he believes consciousness is natural and there is nothing else to nature. I also note that K seems to believe that mind-at-large is developing wisdom or knowledge as it evolves through humans and conscious creatures. I don’t think we can say the same for conventional accounts of nature, which tend to involve entropy. So, while I understand the argument you’re making, I think Kastrup is being cute.

If we have totally separate consciousnesses then how do the stable patterns through which your consciousness organizes itself accord precisely enough with the stable patterns in my consciousness to explain a shared world wherein we will agree on what is in front of us down to the minutest details? — Janus

Let’s flip the argument: why wouldn’t consciousness have discrete offshoots that closely share experiences? Here's one idea. If we all participate in an overarching pattern, our experiences would naturally be shared. Even if individual consciousnesses are separate, they all operate according to the same structural constraints, which include time, space, causality, and patterns of experience. Because these constraints are likely to be universal and experiences are mutually coherent, the stable patterns that constitute objects tend to align across minds, producing a shared world in which everyone sees the same table, the same details, and the same relations.

Whether you are convinced by this germ of an idea is a separate question, but I think the argument can be made, and with some work it could be convincing. Remember, I’m not an idealist, but I’m trying to steelman the idea.

On the view I sketched out, the world appears the way it does because consciousness is self-organising: it stabilises itself into regular, repeatable forms rather than remaining a formless flux. What we call material objects are the way this self-organisation presents itself in experience, giving consciousness a structured, usable world. We all partake in this share reality, it just isn't what we think. Or something like that.

But I don't see what that relevance that has to the point at issue, because I've been saying that only mind-independent physical existents or shared mind can explain the obvious fact that we share a world. — Janus

Sure, for each species of animals, us included, we share the same pool of empirical evidence as it were. That is, I think it is reasonable to say that humans experience the world as other humans do and owls experience worlds as owls do.

We can't see like mantis shrimp do, but another mantis shrimp very-likely see almost exactly the same thing, etc.

The point about the dog was that we assume that if one dog likes to chase a thrown object- virtually all of them will, because they are the same species.

Well, I mean I can't think of, and nor has anyone else to my knowledge presented, any other plausible explanation, but I'm open to hearing something different. — Janus

If that implies that we all see the same structure on a cross-species level is something I don't quite understand.

Was just reacting to that specific comment- don't have much to say about Kastrup because I don't understand what he means when he says that even unconscious knowledge is (or can be) conscious. His "debate" with Maudlin left me a bit sour- but he still has interesting observations.

Even if individual consciousnesses are separate, they all operate according to the same structural constraints, which include time, space, causality, and patterns of experience. — Tom Storm

I'm out of time for this so I'll just respond to this for now. I of course agree that all consciousnesses are subject to the same general constraints you listed, but that cannot explain why we all see the same particulars at the same places as far as I can tell. I'm open to hearing how it could explain that, but so far I am yet to hear it.

What you seem to be saying is something like that the stable patterns are independent of individual minds. If so, those stable patterns could be physical or mental, and I would have no argument with that. All you would be saying is that there are stable patterns of something (energy, mind, or whatever) that affect the senses of percipients, but are independent of them. I would have no argument with that.

If that implies that we all see the same structure on a cross-species level is a harder for me to comprehend. — Manuel

I'm out of time so have to be quick. It's not exactly the same structure, but the same things ( although I'm not sure if that is a different claim), albeit seen perhaps very differently. Insects see fruit as food, just as we do. Dogs see fish as food just as we do. Dogs see the steps at the front of my house―they don't bump into them, but climb them to get to the verandah. They see the door into the house at the same location i do.

There are countless examples which prove beyond question that we humans, and even some animals, see the same things in the environment, whatever the explanation for that might be. I'm not claiming we all see things exactly the same way, but we do see the same things. Imagine you and I are looking as a large sheet of paper with little mutlicoloured marks all over it. I ask you to point to one of the marks, and sure enough I will also see a mark at the exact place you point to, If I ask what colour the mark is we will also agree.

By the way I'm not saying I agree with Kastrup, but I do think his kind of idealism at least has explanatory power that most other forms don't. I don't agree with him that physicalism is necessarily "baloney".

By the way I'm not saying I agree with Kastrup, but I do think his kind of idealism at least has explanatory power that most other forms don't. I don't agree with him that physicalism is necessarily "baloney". — Janus

Well that covers all the bases, doesn’t it ;-)

They're all just perspectives on something we know nothing much about, and all as such more or less inadequate. The only perspectives I consider as worthy of consideration are the ones that demonstrate consistency and explanatory power. Yours doesn't have explanatory power. It amounts, as I see it, to hand waving.

Whereas yours is more of a clenched fist :lol:

You never fail to get personal when you are out of arguments. It's rather sad...

Happy New Year, regardless. :party:

Cheers, Happy New Year to you as well! Let's hope there is some real progress towards solving the suite of now everlooming problems humanity faces in the coming year. :pray: :strong:

Dogs see the steps at the front of my house―they don't bump into them, but climb them to get to the verandah. They see the door into the house at the same location i do. — Janus

I don't see this. I am trying, but I can't imagine it as you describe it. I can't attribute stairs to a dog, surely as you would admit, on a conceptual level, because animals don't have concepts which require language use.

But the issue is phenomenology, I don't deny there is something there which we call "stairs", but the form or how these things are carved out, I can't say. Maybe a dog interprets whatever is out there as a gray step, instead of the whole thing.

Things become much harder if we attempt to understand what a bird or a bee might see when they encounter what we call a "stair".

By the way I'm not saying I agree with Kastrup, but I do think his kind of idealism at least has explanatory power that most other forms don't. I don't agree with him that physicalism is necessarily "baloney". — Janus

Sure, he tries to be quite rigorous and is successful to some degree. The issue is often semantic when analyzed a bit more closely in my experience.

The cosmos itself is sometimes more powerful than that of mere latent tendencies.

Let’s flip the argument: why wouldn’t consciousness have discrete offshoots that closely share experiences? Here's one idea. If we all participate in an overarching pattern, our experiences would naturally be shared. Even if individual consciousnesses are separate, they all operate according to the same structural constraints, which include time, space, causality, and patterns of experience. Because these constraints are likely to be universal and experiences are mutually coherent, the stable patterns that constitute objects tend to align across minds, producing a shared world in which everyone sees the same table, the same details, and the same relations. — Tom Storm

What you are saying is of the same kind as what Kastrup is saying and what I said is the only explanatory idealist model. You say consciousness has "offshoots", and the point is that they would all be offshoots of the one consciousness and so not really separate at all.

On the view I sketched out, the world appears the way it does because consciousness is self-organising: it stabilises itself into regular, repeatable forms rather than remaining a formless flux. What we call material objects are the way this self-organisation presents itself in experience, giving consciousness a structured, usable world. We all partake in this share reality, it just isn't what we think. Or something like that.

Aagin, I cannot see a difference between this and Kastrup's (and Schopenhauer's) kind of view. It is not that our consciousnesses are completely independently self-organizing of stable patterns of perception, because if that were so it would only result in seeing things in the same kinds of ways, but could not explain seeing the very same things. Of course we are not conscious of being parts of a greater consciousness or mind, and so the separation seems real, but if the separation were real there could be no shared world.

don't see this. I am trying, but I can't imagine it as you describe it. I can't attribute stairs to a dog, surely as you would admit, on a conceptual level, because animals don't have concepts which require language use. — Manuel

I'm not suggesting the dogs have a linguistically mediated concept 'stairs' but merely that they must perceive them, as it is shown by their use of the stairs.

A bird or bee not so much as a stair is not, in its "stairness", an affordance for them.

The point is only that the configuration 'stair' is not dependent on the human mind even if the concept is and that this is amply demonstrated in relation to everything in our environments by all our experience.

What the "ultimate nature" of things is is a separate question.

In idealism East and West, there is the idea that the sense of separateness is intrinsic to the human condition. And that overcoming that sense is in some sense the goal of any real philosophy.

A human being is a part of the whole, called by us "Universe", a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest — a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. The striving to free oneself from this delusion is the one issue of true religion. Not to nourish the delusion but to try to overcome it is the way to reach the attainable measure of peace of mind. — Albert Einstein, letter of condolence

His (Kastrup's) "debate" with Maudlin left me a bit sour- — Manuel

Was that the Kurt Jaimungal episode, where Kastrup just refused to continue the interview because of what he perceived as the impertinance of Maudlin?
.

Was that the Kurt Jaimungal episode, where Kastrup just refused to continue the interview because of what he perceived as the impertinance of Maudlin? — Wayfarer

Yep. I watched it (twice) and I thought that Kastrup does what he claims Maudlin did to others. Which is fine, but then don't complain about it.

Doesn't make his views weak or anything, but it would have been productive to see that conversation develop.

Yes, I found it pretty hard to watch. I've tried to take a bit of what Maudlin says, but he's not my favourite in that space. I prefer Philip Ball.

As for Kastrup, looking back on it, I hardly spent any time on him in 2025, unlike the two years prior. I got a bit tired of his schtick, in a way. Not that I don't like him.