The more I think about it I still don't understand how it all works. How do we actually receive sense data if sense data is basically Gods ideas? If it is a Brain in a vat situation I can understand, however if it isn't then where exactly do our minds exists? How do our own bodies interact with other bodies?

I also understand the frustration people are having with this discussion of ideas and matter. I still haven't understood how the immaterial universe actually functions other than God makes it so. — Jamesk

To make it coherent it must be realized that according to this view we are also ideas in the mind of God. Sense data, our sensory apparatuses, our brains, our minds, our souls are all ideas in the mind of God. So there is no problem concerning our bodies interacting with other bodies (or our souls or minds) on this view.

In your last sentence did you mean 'material universe'?

You have made Berkeley's point. Only ideas can resemble ideas. You cannot compare the idea of a tree with a tree or with anything else except another idea. All we know immediately are our ideas and we don't know enough about our own biology to say much more. — Jamesk

But you and Berkeley are saying that the tree (the external tree, not the idea of a tree) is an idea too. If everything is an idea, including the things external to your mind, then of course you can measure your idea of a tree in your mind to the tree external to your mind (which you and Berkeley say is in the mind of God which makes it just another idea)).

The more I think about it I still don't understand how it all works. How do we actually receive sense data if sense data is basically Gods ideas? If it is a Brain in a vat situation I can understand, however if it isn't then where exactly do our minds exists? How do our own bodies interact with other bodies?

I also understand the frustration people are having with this discussion of ideas and matter. I still haven't understood how the immaterial universe actually functions other than God makes it so. — Jamesk

To make it coherent it must be realized that according to this view we are also ideas in the mind of God. Sense data, our sensory apparatuses, our brains, our minds, our souls are all ideas in the mind of God. So there is no problem concerning our bodies interacting with other bodies. — Janus

And there would be no problem with our bodies interacting if God was material and we all were material.

What is the actual difference between "material" and "ideas"? How do ideas interact with other ideas differently than how matter interacts with other matter? How are the interactions between ideas different than the interaction between matter?

And there would be no problem with our bodies interacting if God was material and we all were material.

What is the actual difference between "material" and "ideas"? How do ideas interact with other ideas differently than how matter interacts with other matter? — Harry Hindu

Ideas can interact with other ideas purely logically I suppose whereas material objects, although they do interact with one another logically (or at least, not illogically), do not do so purely logically (although Hegel, the man who said "The rational is the real", might disagree).

In other words material objects do not logically (that is,necessarily) presuppose one another (well, not unless hard determinism is the case, anyway, and even then the necessity would be more than purely logical, it would be physical).

You completely bypassed "because part of the issue we need to deal with is whether you can understand that to the people in question, they may be saying someting different than each other per their own understandings, even if it's incoherent to you."

I didn't bypass it. I replied and I said that it is only coherent if they mean something, or else it's just scribbles. That isn't subjective.

You're the one bypassing. Janus is actually making an attempt to answer the question thatt I'm asking. He seems to understand the question just fine. So I'll continue with him. Thanks for nothing.

I don't think that physicalism is an instrumental theory but rather what's really the case ontologically. — Terrapin Station

Yes, I understand that is the theory. And it fits in with the Nominalist rejection of universals you ascribe to. But as identity theory refines itself through different iterations to more precisely perform the reduction it calls for, it starts to look more like an epistemology geared to solve problems on the basis of a finite set of assumptions. The ontology is asserted but not in relation to anything not assumed at the beginning.

How ever you wish to address that observation, it occurs to me that this element is a source of much talking past each other on this thread.

Ideas can interact with other ideas purely logically I suppose whereas material objects, although they do interact with one another logically (or at least, not illogically), do not do so purely logically (although Hegel, the man who said "The rational is the real", might disagree)

In other words material objects do not logically (that is,necessarily) presuppose one another (well, not unless hard determinism is the case, anyway, and even then the necessity would be more than purely logical, it would be physical). — Janus

What do you mean by "purely logically"?

If matter interacts in deterministic fashion then it there are rules we can establish and make predictions with. Can you predict the behavior of ideas?

Can you predict the behavior of ideas? — Harry Hindu

Some ideas logically presuppose other ideas; that is all I was saying.

As to determinism, if all events since the big bang have been precisely what they had to be; in other words if it is true that if you 're-ran' the Universe every event would have been precisely the same down to the smallest particle, then it could be said that objects physically presuppose ('entail' is probably a better, clearer, word) one another.

It could even be said that, in a sense they logically entail one another: ' if this one exists that one had to' and so on. But this is not a purely logical entailment insofar as you could never know precisely which future objects are entailed by present ones, you could only know in general that future objects are logically (and physically) entailed by present ones.

So to rewrite the first sentnece:

Some ideas logically entail, or are logically entailed by, other ideas.

What would be the smallest unit of the mind? Ideas? Sensory impressions? It seems to me that it would be the latter as all of our ideas, knowledge, imaginings, language itself is composed of sensory impressions - colors, shapes, sounds, smells, tastes, feelings, etc. These things come together to form the contents of our minds (emergent properties). — Harry Hindu

For me this bottom-up approach is not the way to go. We can't atomize the mind and reconstruct it. Of course you mention emergent properties, so you see the problem. But I'd say that our atomizing theories themselves emerge from this same 'emergent property.'

Another way we might approach this is to 'confess' that meaning (in all its embarrassing and suspicious mysteriousness) is fundamental. The world or what exists is clearly not only 'meaning' (whatever this meaning is), of course. But existence is always already meaningfully structured. Of course we can theorize about the origin of meaning as an act of meaning.

So, which is it? Is the world composed of sensory impressions or quarks? — Harry Hindu

For me we still have the problem here that 'sensory impressions' and 'quarks' are signs that point to meanings that themselves point beyond themselves. The world, in my view, is composed of (among other things) acts of meaning. The world is composed of (among other things) attempts to say what the world is composed of. I know this may sound strange. But what does it mean when a metaphysics excludes itself from the real it tries to grasp? If acts of meaning are 'unreal,' then any theory of the real is itself unreal. It's odd that a theory of the real would be satisfied with building up itself from quarks or sensory impressions that themselves function within this theory.

Indirect realism implies that we would think of the world as dualistic - of being some way independent of how we perceive it. — Harry Hindu

What comes to my mind are too 'gaps' that are related but maybe worth distinguishing. There is the gap between the individual and his community and then the gap between the community and 'language-independence reality' (a problematic but intuitively appealing concept.)

It might make more sense to say that primary "substance" is processes, or relationships. — Harry Hindu

I like this kind of approach. Our experience of the world is dynamic. In some ways looking for a stilled and constantly present essence can only be looking for a useful fiction. Of course it makes sense to hunt out the constantly present. We can work with these things. A physical law that always holds is always available as a tool. A map that doesn't 'lie' by reducing the situation is useless. Even if no meaning act is a perfect repetition of another act we are still motivated to ignore the difference. A prudent ignorance (a filtering out of noise) is like our basic strategy.

In other words, our minds stretch these causal relationships into what we call space-time, and these causal relationships are the fundamental units of reality. — Harry Hindu

Fascinating theory. I must confess that I'm still somewhat opposed to the project being framed in terms of finding fundamental units. IMV, any description of what is has to acknowledge what makes such a description possible and intelligible. I'm not saying yours doesn't, but it doesn't go into much detail about its own presence. Let's say we have a theory about what is fundamental that does not include language. Maybe it theorizes the origin of language. Yet language is also the origin of this theory of the origin. This doesn't make the theory worthless. But perhaps it calls for an enriched account.

Someone like me who thinks that only particulars exist does not think that concepts do not exist (concepts simply are particular ideas in particular heads), and that's all that abstracts/universal terms are. — Terrapin Station

OK, so let's go back and revisit your claim then. You said something like, "the song Kashmir is music", as an example of how we can say "this is that", without violating the law of identity. "The song Kashmir" refers to a particular, and so does "music" refer to a particular (particular idea or whatever), according to what you state here. Since these clearly refer to distinct particulars, the law of identity is definitely violated if we say "the song Kashmir is music".

To make it coherent it must be realized that according to this view we are also ideas in the mind of God. Sense data, our sensory apparatuses, our brains, our minds, our souls are all ideas in the mind of God. So there is no problem concerning our bodies interacting with other bodies (or our souls or minds) on this view.

In your last sentence did you mean 'material universe'? — Janus

I am not sure that I agree with you on this point. Berkeley says that all that exists are spirits, ideas and an infinite spirit. Are you sure that our spirits are also ideas of God? It certainly solves my problem with the immaterial universe because as you say it simply doesn't exist if our minds are only ideas of the infinite spirit, we are then in a B.I.V scenario, but is Berkeley saying that?

If he is then isn't he denying the outside world and objects in it? Which he seems committed to maintain, he states that the world is real just not material. Or is he saying that it seems real?

:up: Thank you, illuminating comment. I hope you stick around :smile:

Music is not a particular, it is a universal, or type. It is a catagory error for you to use the Law of Identity in the way you did, there has been no violation.

Music is not a particular, it is a universal, or type. It is a catagory error for you to use the Law of Identity in the way you did, there has been no violation. — DingoJones

Music is a general / abstract name given to different combinations of notes. Music is the general title that all pieces of music belong to as separate entities. The word music may describe a general or universal term but when you think 'music' there must be a certain 'piece of' it that supports your idea of it.

Damn I guess I need to go back and study the section on universals.

I think a 'polar' dualism can be defended by emphasizing the body which runs from a 'mind' pole to a 'matter' pole. So it wouldn't really be a dualism but a continuum structured by two concepts.

How can mind move matter? What is it to move my mind? How different is it for me to move my hand than a thought in my mind? I agree that the mind is the without-which-nothing of being fully human in some sense, so I understand the priority of mind. But maybe what we could use most is richer understanding of mind. The sort of pure mind that can't interact with matter may just be a theoretical fiction in the first place (along with some kind of pure matter.)

One thing I"m sure of is that we only start theorizing after already being in the world and learning how to use certain words. If 'mind' and 'matter' don't have sharp context-independent meanings, this would seem to limit their accuracy. And of course we live in our bodies, see through our eyes, and hear through our ears. The body is entangled with most of our thinking in an obvious way. In certain states thought has something like a maximal freedom to wander around in itself. Is this exceptional state in which the body isn't explicit quietly take as the inspiration for 'pure' mind? It seems to me that usually the mind is immersed in the body and the subject is immersed in its doing. Perhaps something that is neither matter nor mind is fundamental in some sense. We have our reasons for sorting things out. In everyday life we feel watched by and listened to by some 'objects' and not by others. Here at least a fairly sharp dualism seems to prevail.

Some ideas logically presuppose other ideas; that is all I was saying.

As to determinism, if all events since the big bang have been precisely what they had to be; in other words if it is true that if you 're-ran' the Universe every event would have been precisely the same down to the smallest particle, then it could be said that objects physically presuppose ('entail' is probably a better, clearer, word) one another.

It could even be said that, in a sense they logically entail one another: ' if this one exists that one had to' and so on. But this is not a purely logical entailment insofar as you could never know precisely which future objects are entailed by present ones, you could only know in general that future objects are logically (and physically) entailed by present ones.

So to rewrite the first sentnece:

Some ideas logically entail, or are logically entailed by, other ideas. — Janus

But if determinism is the case, and we could re-run the Universe, every event would have been precisely the same down to the smallest particle, then it could be said that objects physically presuppose ('entail' is probably a better, clearer, word) one another, then it seems that all future objects are entailed by the ultimate cause. You are simply talking about knowing what the future holds as opposed to what it actually holds independent of our knowledge. Our knowledge can be wrong. Ideas can be wrong. If Idealism is the case, can ideas be wrong, and if so, what does that actually mean? It is incoherent to say that "matter" can be wrong, unless we redefine "matter" as what the mind is made of as well as everything else, in which case arrangements of matter can inaccurately represent other arrangements of matter.

I don't know what you mean by "physically" entails... What is the difference between things that physically entail one another and those that logically entail one another? It seems to me that determinism would be that logical entailment - the "rules" for which everything follows. If we were to know the "rules" we could predict every event. Nothing would be random.

Are idealism and determinism compatible? Can you logically predict ideas that haven't been realized yet? If you can't then how can you say that there is a purely logical entailment? You would have the same problem you described earlier with not knowing what present ideas entail future ones.



Thanks, I'll reply when I get a change to absorb your posts.

Music is not a particular, it is a universal, or type. It is a catagory error for you to use the Law of Identity in the way you did, there has been no violation. — DingoJones

I know that music is a universal, and as such there is no violation of the law of identity. The point is that TS claims all things are particulars. And I told TS that a tree is not matter because that would violate the law of identity. TS claimed that a tree is matter in the same way that the song called Kashmir is music. This statement is only true and sound if universals are real.

Trees and matter are the same catagory error, even though you are trying to make a separate point.

Please read all of his posts before commenting. — Jamesk

I have, I've read all posts. I guess that I'm not included when it comes to principles of charity! :worry:

But anyways, about Berkeley and his subjective realism: if I observed an oar in the water and it is bent then according to Berkeley, the oar does not appear to be bent, it's actually bent. But if I put my hand in the water, I feel the oar is straight! Does this mean that there are two actual oars I am perceiving?. Also, God wouldn't be any help in this matter because then either God has a different idea in mind, making three different ideas of an oar or I should call him Loki rather than God.

It is problems such as this that make me think that an objective reality is more so than a subjective reality. It is no use in asking me what I think what stuff matter actually is because I don't really know without kicking the stone, but given the choice between the two, I prefer the epistemic uncertainty of an objective reality rather than a subjective reality with it's mysterious deity. Well so much for my two cents worth! :smile:

Thank you, illuminating comment. I hope you stick around :smile: — Wayfarer

Thanks :up:

TS claimed that a tree is matter in the same way that the song called Kashmir is music. This statement is only true and sound if universals are real. — Metaphysician Undercover

When someone says something is real I take it to mean absolute (as opposed to being dependent or relative) in being, so particulars are absolute in being wheres universals are not so absolute but rather dependently being on something absolutely being. Such as music dependently being on absolute instruments for creation and absolute people to listen to. Trees dependently being on particular configurations of absolute matter and absolute people naming these configurations such.

Are idealism and determinism compatible? — Harry Hindu

100% Everything is caused by God.

I am also struggling with the distinction between determinism and fatalism.

But anyways, about Berkeley and his subjective realism: if I observed an oar in the water and it is bent then according to Berkeley, the oar does not appear to be bent, it's actually bent. But if I put my hand in the water, I feel the oar is straight! Does this mean that there are two actual oars I am perceiving?. — Happenstance

Berkeley addresses and answers this objection in the Dialogues. Optics was actually his best subject, his book on it did much better than immaterialism.

Berkeley addresses and answers this objection in the Dialogues. Optics was actually his best subject, his book on it did much better than immaterialism. — Jamesk

I admit that I haven't read his Dialogues, only Principles of Human Knowledge and even then, that was a while ago. But cheers for the heads up anyway, I'll download a copy and give it a read.

I admit that I haven't read his Dialogues, only Principles of Human Knowledge and even then, that was a while ago. But cheers for the heads up anyway, I'll download a copy and give it a read. — Happenstance

In it he pretty much uncovers every possible objection to his theory and overcomes them.

In it he pretty much uncovers every possible objection to his theory and overcomes them — Jamesk

We shall see! :wink:

I didn't say he does it perfectly and IMO he runs into a lot of difficulties in the reestablishment of spiritual substance in place of matter.

Focus on the 3rd dialogue, it is where he is on a 'sticky wicket'.

Will do, might take me a day or two (or even a week to fully digest). I'm not the brightest bulb in the christmas tree! :sad:

Are idealism and determinism compatible? Can you logically predict ideas that haven't been realized yet? — Harry Hindu

100% Everything is caused by God. — Jamesk

If everything is ideas and if the ideas external to my mind are the ideas of God, then why is it easier to predict the mind of God than it is to predict the mind of another human being? There are many theories of science that make accurate predictions and are why the theories persist. In essence, science is predicting the mind of God.

So, why do idealists complain that science can't explain the mind - the human mind - like it can explain gravity or chemical reactions when gravity and chemical reactions are ideas of God? Why is our knowledge of the human mind less than our knowledge of the mind of God? How is it we can make so many predictions of the mind of God, but can't do so when trying to predict the minds of others?