It’s just speculative philosophy after all, which means it’s being correct is not a consideration, whereas it’s usefulness might be. — Mww

Interesting. I think it's something we can get correct.

Pretty hard to get philosophy of mind correct, when “mind” itself is rather abstract.

What would we get correct?

"Abstract(ion)" is a term for a specific mental activity we perform--formulating concepts to range over a number of particulars, via generalizing select features of particulars while ignoring unique details.

Mind itself is not that. That's just one thing that minds can do. And ontologically, they're concrete particuilars.

Mind isn't abstract. Minds are a subset of brain structure and function. You can get that correct by realizing this and get it incorrect by believing that minds are something else.

Agreed, in principle. Whatever is going on between the ears is under the auspices of natural law.

That being said, as long as we don’t know how something as apparently yet irrefutably real as an individual subject not yet derivable from natural law, can be present to our attention, and in fact *is* our attention, we are allowed to call the mind an abstraction of brain.

I’ve always thought, we know the brain operates on natural principles, by nameable characteristics, but our internal language is not of those principles or characteristics. One transposes to the other, sure, but, the difference is sufficient to authorize the speculative nature of thought itself. Besides, even if we prove how the brain is responsible for mind, we will still think we are thinking by means of mind. I can’t see any way possible to delete the physical mechanism from that which comes up with “thinking subject” to begin with.

We assume that there is appearances in one hand and in the other hand there is objective medium sourcing these appearances..but what are this so called objective medium but another appearance!.
Notice that what you got in reality is this phenomenal field of sensory perception. You are claiming that there's is stuff behined the scenes like the brain or the atoms ..but what are those but more of the same phenomenal field . Consciousness is not happening inside the brain..the brain is occurring within Consciousness. Phenomenon is not made out of atoms..atoms are phenomenon themselves. You have nothing but subjective appearances..that's the only thing that there is. There is no ultimate ground ..every ground must be grounded in something else forever =endless regress of appearances. This is why "dreams" are the perfect analogy for reality. Appearances with no ground. — Nobody

This is a category mistake. You are confusing the stuff behind the scenes with our sensory experience of the stuff behind the scenes.

The grain of truth in your view is that the only thing we can be 100% certain of is that we experience appearances rather than what they are appearances of. But it does not follow that what they are appearances of are also appearances. To see this, consider the difference between the properties of the appearance and the properties of what it is an appearance of. Take, say, the top of a square brown wooden table looked at from various distances and angles. We can make two lists of properties, one of the appearance of the tabletop and another of the tabletop itself:

Properties of the appearance of the tabletop
1. Coloured brown
2. Size alters if we move away from or towards the table
3. Shape alters as we change the angle from which we view the table
4. Is continuous, i.e. not made up of discrete parts

Properties of the tabletop
1. Is not coloured, but rather reflects light of particular wavelengths
2. Size is fixed
3. Shape is fixed
4. Is discrete not continuous, because made of molecules.

It is evident that the corresponding properties in each list are mutually exclusive. That shows that the objects of which they are properties cannot be the same object, i.e. the appearance of the tabletop cannot be the same thing as the tabletop. Thus an appearance of a thing is not the same as the thing itself. Nor is the thing itself merely another appearance, as you suggest, because if it were, it would have properties of the sort we find in the first list, rather than, as it actually does, properties of the kind in the second list. Appearances have the sort of properties in my first list; the objects of which they are appearances have the sort of properties in the second. To take your own examples, brains and atoms have properties of the sort in my second list, and therefore are objects, not appearances.

In fact the tabletop is a hypothesised external object. The hypothesis (that there is an externally existing tabletop with the properties in the second list) is a good one, because when coupled with the fact that we experience appearances, it explains why the appearances have the properties in the first list. Without the objective existence of the tabletop, there would be no explanation for the appearance having these properties, i.e. there would be no explanation for our sensory experience being the way it is. This, of course, is the flaw in idealism; by removing the objective world, it removes the most plausible explanation for our experience being as it is.

I hope this is helpful.

Properties of the tabletop
1. Is not coloured, but rather reflects light of particular wavelengths
2. Size is fixed
3. Shape is fixed
4. Is discrete not continuous, because made of molecules. — Herg

Those would be appearances too, within the range of experiences that we use to call imagination. You visualize that object somehow, but you're still involved in the act of visualization.

It doesn't even make sense to say that reality is appearance if you can't say what reality is an appearance of. Appearances must be appearances of something, otherwise you're talking nonsense. Your argument is self-defeating.

Example: if you hold an orange ..the colour..the smell..the touching is your perception which is your direct experience of a perceived object. The actual object is not any of these perceptions..it is the stuff behind the scenes which is sourcing these appearances . But of course there is no such thing as there is not a shred of evidence for an objective world. — Nobody

Here's the problem: you were making sense right up until you denied the objectivity necessarily implied in what you said before your denial. If you remove that, then what you said becomes nonsense on stilts. Even a position lacking evidence is better than nonsense. You're not even wrong!

It makes sense to say that there's an object, the orange, that I'm perceiving. If you say that what I'm perceiving is an appearance, then what's it an appearance of? Kicking the can down the road won't help you. You need a fundamental reality, otherwise you're not making any sense.

In conscious awareness, that which appears are intuitions representing sensory impressions. — Mww

It's the orange which appears to you a certain way. The orange is not an intuition full stop. I don't eat intuitions. It's a particular object. An orange. These are what I eat. There must be an orange for it to appear to you a certain way. If you deny the orange, then you cease making sense. If you accept the orange, but say that it's an intuition, then you cease making sense.

Isn't that theoretical? — Terrapin Station

It's nonsensical. Literally.

What is the ultimate ground of reality?! — Nobody

No, reality is the ultimate ground of everything, including you and your perceptions. You can be a sceptic about what exactly there is beyond your perceptions, what it consists of, and so on, and still be reasonable to some extent. You can't deny that there is anything there at all and still be reasonable, not even close.

Take LSD or DMT and see for yourself. — Nobody

:rofl:

Yeah, that's a real good argument. I actually have taken LSD, on multiple occasions, yet I see that you've got it wrong, not right.

Your dreams are something in a sense that they are appearances. But they came from nothing... — Nobody

No, they came from me. I am not nothing. And I couldn't exist if I didn't exist in the world. My dreams resemble my experiences, and my experiences are of the world and the many things which make it up, like people and cars, which are subjects and objects. My explanation makes sense and works, yours, if it can even be called that, doesn't and fails. It has problematic gaps, and filling the gaps with literal nonsense won't help you.

There is Plato’s ideality of forms, there is Berkeley’s subjective idealism, there is Wolff’s pluralistic ontological idealism, there is Hegel’s Phenomenological idealism, there is Kant’s Transcendental idealism, and a host of other sub-denominations. It is worthy to note that none before Wolff categorized “idealism” as a class of philosophical thought, adding the monist/dualist sub-strata to it, and none before Kant actually admitted to being, or in fact called themselves, one. As well, none but the most extreme branches of it outright denied the existence of an objective material environment, an absolute non-materialism, but rather, idealists varied in their respective rationalities for describing their approach to the form such objectivity would have or would be given.

Nonetheless, there indeed were flaws in most forms of subjective or absolute or immaterial idealism, which is probably why no one seriously considers them as theoretically useful these days. But they do stand in good regard for how far we’ve advanced in our speculative epistemological philosophy.

Two reasons: ego and intelligence. The first for thinking I might actually understand something so incredibly convoluted, and the second for thinking it actually makes sense to me.

It’s just speculative philosophy after all, which means it’s being correct is not a consideration, whereas it’s usefulness might be. — Mww

You want to be a special philosophy-type with a special insight? And Kant's philosophy is useful for that?

Even though it fails outside of that little context, where realism and ordinary language philosophy succeed.

This is a category mistake. You are confusing the stuff behind the scenes with our sensory experience of the stuff behind the scenes. — Herg

:100:

The mashed is the potato! @Mww

Properties of the appearance of the tabletop
1. Coloured brown
2. Size alters if we move away from or towards the table
3. Shape alters as we change the angle from which we view the table
4. Is continuous, i.e. not made up of discrete parts

Properties of the tabletop
1. Is not coloured, but rather reflects light of particular wavelengths
2. Size is fixed
3. Shape is fixed
4. Is discrete not continuous, because made of molecules.

It is evident that the corresponding properties in each list are mutually exclusive. That shows that the objects of which they are properties cannot be the same object, i.e. the appearance of the tabletop cannot be the same thing as the tabletop. Thus an appearance of a thing is not the same as the thing itself. Nor is the thing itself merely another appearance, as you suggest, because if it were, it would have properties of the sort we find in the first list, rather than, as it actually does, properties of the kind in the second list. Appearances have the sort of properties in my first list; the objects of which they are appearances have the sort of properties in the second. To take your own examples, brains and atoms have properties of the sort in my second list, and therefore are objects, not appearances.

In fact the tabletop is a hypothesised external object. The hypothesis (that there is an externally existing tabletop with the properties in the second list) is a good one, because when coupled with the fact that we experience appearances, it explains why the appearances have the properties in the first list. Without the objective existence of the tabletop, there would be no explanation for the appearance having these properties, i.e. there would be no explanation for our sensory experience being the way it is. This, of course, is the flaw in idealism; by removing the objective world, it removes the most plausible explanation for our experience being as it is.

I hope this is helpful. — Herg

:clap: :clap: :clap:

You're right.

As I've been pointing out, the words "Exist", "There is...", and "Real", when used with objective, absolute, unqualified, noncontextual meaning, are uindefined. People who use those words here haven't been able to say what they mean by them.

Metaphysics and ontology are based on those words, and that's why I don't believe in a metaphysics or ontology.

So yes, for the things of the logically-interdependent realm, there's no objecive reality or existence, because those terms are undefined and have no meaning.

As a truism, a set or system of abstract implications (abstract if-then facts) that are sometimes about eachother, or about the same propositions, and the same hypothetical things, are an inter-referring system of abstract implications.

Such an inter-referring system of course needn't be claimed to be existent or real.

Inevitably, there (in its own context) is such an inter-referring logical system whose structural relations are those of your experience. It's your hypothetical experience-story. Its setting has the structural relations that are those of your surroundings.

Undeniably, there is this physical world in its own context.

Physicist Michael Faraday pointed out that what's observed and known about our physical world consists of logical and mathematical structural-relation, and that there' s no reason to believe that it's other than that. ...no reasons to believe in the "stuff" that the relation is about. That "stuff" is the stuff of metaphysical theory.

Maybe that's why Nisargadatta said that, from the sage's point of view, nothing has ever happened.

Michael Ossipoff

10 Su
1728 UTC

There is direct experience of a lot of different things, including objective things. So that would suggest the opposite of your conclusion. — Terrapin Station

Whatever you know about your physical surroundings is from your experience. Your experience is primary for your physical world and its "objective" things.

Would you like to be the one who tells us what you'd mean by "objective things" or "objective existence"?

Michael Ossipoff

10 Su
1741 UTC

there indeed were flaws in most forms of subjective or absolute or immaterial idealism, — Mww

That's handwaving, unless you can name a flaw (...in subjective idealism itself, not just one version.)

Michael Ossipoff

10 Su
1751 UTC

This is a category mistake. You are confusing the stuff behind the scenes with our sensory experience of the stuff behind the scenes. — Herg

You evidently believe in the "stuff behind the scenes", which, as I said, is the stuff of metaphysical theory.

Michael Ossipoff

10 Su
1753 UTC

You're wrong.

As I've been pointing out, the words "exist", "there is...", and "real", are rarely used non-contextually, and they don't need to be defined in order to be understood. This is self-evident, so doesn't need an argument. But note that the contrary would be absurd. Plenty of people clearly indicate such an understanding when these words are used in conversation. They both implicitly and explicitly confirm that they've understood through what they do and say. Without good reason to suggest otherwise, it's implausible that you're so extraordinarily unique that you are unlike other people who do understand the meaning. Hence, it is more plausible that you're deluded or pretending. But I expect that I'm wasting my breath on you. You'll probably just keep on repeating this copypasta of yours like a spambot.

S

Some nonsense from a calendar that no one cares about.

As I've been pointing out, the words "exist", "there is...", and "real", are rarely used non-contextually — S

Fine. I'm talking about when they are so used. ...as when people in this thread say that this physical world is objectively existent.

, and they don't need to be defined in order to be understood. This is self-evident, so doesn't need an argument.

We've been over (and over and over) that, in your previous thread that was closed.

Michael Ossipoff

10 Su
1758 UTC

Fine. I'm talking about when they are so used. ...as when people in this thread say that this physical world is objectively existent. — Michael Ossipoff

No, that's a context. And people understand what's meant, at least roughly.

We've been over (and over and over) that, in your previous thread that was closed. — Michael Ossipoff

True, but you keep respamming your copypasta without learning from your mistakes.

What’s a po’ boy to do, huh? Hand-waving if he doesn’t, overstating the obvious if he does.

No, that's a context. — S

:D

What’s a po’ boy to do, huh? — Mww

Well, he could try telling us what he means by "Exist", "There is..." or "Real", when he uses those terms with (supposed) absolute, objective, context-less, unqualified meaning.

Michael Ossipoff

10 Su
1808 UTC

Wait, what? Nevermind.

Well, he could try telling us what he means by "Exist", "There is..." or "Real", when he uses those terms with (supposed) absolute, objective, context-less, unqualified meaning. — Michael Ossipoff

And "photocopier"! Don't forget that one. He must define that term as well. Because I pretend not to understand what he says when he uses that term, and he simply must play along with me.

He must define that term as well. Because I pretend not to understand what he says when he uses the word. — S

I'm not going to repeat my answer to that, which was amply given in your thread that was closed for good reason.

Michael Ossipoff

10 Su
1818 UTC

Maybe S. is trying to get this thread closed too, for the same reason? :D