The form of idealism I believe is true, is that the apparently external world is inextricably bound to and by our cognitive abilities - that we see the kind of world we see because of the kinds of beings we are. This doesn’t mean something as simple-minded as ‘the world exists in my mind’, but that the human mind is constitutive of everything we understand as reality. — Wayfarer

:up:

I wouldn't call that idealism. It's not even talking about ontology, more so epistemology. I incidentally agree with everything you've said in that comment. And nowhere did you actually propose "mind stuff" as different from "physical stuff". Only that what we can know about physical stuff is inextricable from our perceptions. Not that the actual physical stuff is inextricable from our perceptions.

As Magee says in his book on Schopenhauer, humans are generally born with an instinctive sense of realism, the problems with which only become clear after considerable intellectual effort. — Wayfarer

Ontological realism isn't the problem. Saying that there is a real world independent of our minds isn't the problem. Saying we can know about said world is. But really, who cares about the world independent of our perceptions? We can't see it.

The sense in which it exists outside of or apart from that mind is an empty question, because nothing we can know is ever outside of or apart from the act of knowing by which we are concious of the existence of the world in the first place. — Wayfarer

:up:

We can't know. But we can sure guess. That's what we do in physics. Try to guess what the mind independent world is like. And stop when we've fulfilled our practical purposes and matched all the observations. We make a guess and see if it's wrong or not. If it is, make another guess. If it isn't, rejoice, until the guess turns out to be wrong.

But we can in fact know some things are not what the mind independent world is like. For instance, we can know the moon doesn't disappear when no one looks at it by organizing an experiment where no one looks at the moon, yet there will still be moonlight. So the mind independent world must have some sort of continuity that doens't require human observation at least.

Only that what we can know about physical stuff is inextricable from our perceptions. Not that the actual physical stuff is inextricable from our perceptions. — khaled

Very similar to Bertrand Russell:

“...we know nothing about the intrinsic quality of physical events except when these are mental events that we directly experience.”

or

"...we have no reason to assert that events in us are so very different from the events outside us - as to this we must remain ignorant, since the outside events are only known as to their abstract mathematical characteristics, which do not show whether these events are like 'thoughts' or unlike them."

And so on.

nowhere did you actually propose "mind stuff" as different from "physical stuff". — khaled

That's because that's not what I think idealism means. Ever since we've discussed this topic, I've tried to make this point. I don't think any of the idealist philosophers seriously contemplate that mind is an objective constituent of things. (The pan-psychists do, which is why I don't like them.) That is why I keep going back to the point about not trying to objectify the mind, to make it an object of perception. (Perhaps it one of the unfortunate consequences of Cartesian dualism, which really does lend itself to the idea of there being 'thinking substance' - but note that 'substance' in the philosophical literature, doesn't mean 'a type of material with uniform properties', but 'the bearer of attributes' - more like 'a subject' than 'a substance' as such.)

Look at the first few liines of Schopenhauer's World as Will and Representation:

"The world is my idea”—this is a truth which holds good for everything that lives and knows, though man alone can bring it into reflective and abstract consciousness. If he really does this, he has attained to philosophical wisdom. It then becomes clear and certain to him that what he knows is not a sun and an earth, but only an eye that sees a sun, a hand that feels an earth; that the world which surrounds him is there only as idea, i.e., only in relation to something else, the consciousness, which is himself. — Schopenhauer

Schopenhauer is not positing a theory about the constitution of the world, but of the constitution of knowledge.

The urge is to dismiss this as 'philosophical obfuscation', and to get on with 'what is really there'. But if you really think it through, it misses the point. (Not to mention that Schopenhauer himself had a lifelong interest in, and considerable knowledge of, the science of his day. )

So the mind independent world must have some sort of continuity that doesn't require human observation at least. — khaled

I understand the perplexity about this point. The way I put it is this: that you're imagining the Universe going out of existence when not observed - there one minute, and not there the next.

G.E. Moore said something similar - that, according to idealists, the train wheels dissappear from under the train when the passengers are all boarded, because nobody can see them.

But that is 'imagined non-existence' - picturing the world (or whatever) as being non-existent, in the absence of observers. So again it turns out to be a form of naive realism. The idea of existence or non-existence are both entertained by the mind.

The problem with the much modern philosophy, is that it believes it can imagine the universe as it truly is in itself, with no observer present. After all, science has estimated the duration and size of the Cosmos, and within that theory, h. sapiens appears as a mere blip, an infinitesmal speck. But this overlooks a fundamental ingredient of any theory - that of perspective. The mind's ordering of experience and its ability to quantize and rationalise, is what makes measurement and theory possible in the first place. But according to the same science, 'the mind' is simply an evolved attribute of this insignificant blip known as h. sapiens - an accidental product of a mindless process. That's where the conflict really lies. It comes from treating the human merely as an object of the sciences and overlooking the role the mind plays in their construction - until the experiments of early quantum mechanics made acknowledgment of that unavoidable.

Freud remarked that ‘the self-love of mankind has been three times wounded by science’ , referring to the Copernican revolution, Darwin’s discovery of evolution, and Nietszche’s declaration of the Death of God. In a strange way, the Copenhagen Interpretation gave back to humanity what the European Enlightenment had taken away, by placing consciousness in a pivotal role in the observation of the most fundamental constituents of reality.

I believe the overall consensus is that Bohr's view, the 'Copenhagen interpretation', has prevalied. — Wayfarer

Only an idealist can find the results of a "beauty pageant"-like preference poll credible in a physical science context. Have you ever considered (and contrasted) the spectrum of QM interpretations still under discussion by contemporary theoretical physicists?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpretations_of_quantum_mechanics

Have you ever considered (and contrasted) the spectrum of QM interpretations still under discussion by contemporary theoretical physicists? — 180 Proof

Yeah all the time. The second most popular interpretation is Everett, which I find ridiculous. I think QBism has a lot going for it. You know that one? Chris Fuchs? https://www.quantamagazine.org/quantum-bayesianism-explained-by-its-founder-20150604/

Also Ruth Kastner - https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/context/quantum-mysteries-dissolve-if-possibilities-are-realities

“This new ontological picture requires that we expand our concept of ‘what is real’ to include an extraspatiotemporal domain of quantum possibility,” write Ruth Kastner, Stuart Kauffman and Michael Epperson.

Considering potential things to be real is not exactly a new idea, as it was a central aspect of the philosophy of Aristotle, 24 centuries ago. An acorn has the potential to become a tree; a tree has the potential to become a wooden table. Even applying this idea to quantum physics isn’t new. Werner Heisenberg, the quantum pioneer famous for his uncertainty principle, considered his quantum math to describe potential outcomes of measurements of which one would become the actual result. The quantum concept of a “probability wave,” describing the likelihood of different possible outcomes of a measurement, was a quantitative version of Aristotle’s potential, Heisenberg wrote in his well-known 1958 book Physics and Philosophy. “It introduced something standing in the middle between the idea of an event and the actual event, a strange kind of physical reality just in the middle between possibility and reality.”

Restores the concept of 'degrees of reality'.

I understand the perplexity about this point. The way I put it is this: that you're imagining the Universe going out of existence when not observed - there one minute, and not there the next. — Wayfarer

Well not the universe, the moon. Because that's what was being asked. "Is the moon still there when no one is looking at it"? Yes.

The problem with the much modern philosophy, is that it believes it can imagine the universe as it truly is in itself, with no observer present. — Wayfarer

It's not a belief. I just did it. I just imagined my room with no one in it. You can do it too.

The mind's ordering of experience and its ability to quantize and rationalise, is what makes measurement and theory possible in the first place. — Wayfarer

Right, but the mind does only that. Orders and quantizes. Does NOT create. So the moon will still be there when no one is looking at it. And the wheels of the train will still be there when no one is looking at them.

If there was no one around then the moon doesn't exist conceptually. There will be no mind to label this particular rock "moon" (or to recognize what a rock is), and contrast it with the empty space around it as its own thing. But the rock itself won't go anywhere.

If tomorrow an evil scientist made everyone forget about the ancient egyptians and made sure no one was looking at the pyramids for a certain period of time, the pyramids will still be there when people wake up and look at them. We would think they're just a weird prank of some sort and take them down maybe, but they'd still be there.

I just imagined my room with no one in it. — khaled

that is 'imagined non-existence' - picturing the world (or whatever) as being non-existent, in the absence of observers. So again it turns out to be a form of naive realism. The idea of existence or non-existence are both entertained by the mind. — Wayfarer

If whatever form of idealism you subscribe to makes it impossible to imagine empty rooms existing I don't think I want to touch it. I have no clue what you're saying anymore. I already responded to that quote.

You seem to me to be saying that the mind, doesn't only categorize and label, but literally physically creates the room. No observers, no room. I can understand the concept of "room" ceasing to exist without some intelligent being to label it so. But the "base matter" that we labeled room? That should still be there no?

I'm not sure what Wayfarer has in mind but the subject reminds me of Gore Vidal's famous quote to his acquaintances - "When I die, I'm taking all of you with me."

As Schopenhauer said in the opening line of The World as Will and Representation: "The world is my representation". No me, no world. Except that if other people exist, then there is a world for them.

But when all are gone, no world is left. Or no intelligible world at any rate...

I've never thought much of "bayesianism" in any form. "QBism" is summarized in the wiki article I linked previously.

Like a boss, Gore! :rofl: That one's new to me, TS. Thanks.

Or no intelligible world at any rate... — Manuel

Agreed. But not "no world". The "base matter" of which we make the presentation in the first place stays.

The "base matter" of which we make the presentation in the first place stays. — khaled

Can't you see?? The 'base matter' has been found to have no base. That is why there was/is a conceptual crisis in physics. That is why the books I keep mentioning about it have subtitles like ;what is reality' or 'the battle for the soul of science'. What you call 'base matter' is simply a cultural construct that has been drummed into you by social conditioning. You know the Everett interpretation has it that there are infinite numbers of every individual, replicating infinitely many variations of everything you do in infinitely many worlds. That is seriously believed, evangalised even, by various science popularisers. If that doesn't tell us there's a conceptual crisis in physics, then probably nothing will.

Well we are the ones who designate a world. I don't know what else in biology could even have a concept of a "world".

If we don't want to say that we create everything - and some do - then we'd have to say that something remains, which does not depend on us. Presumably physical stuff ("base matter").

But how this physical stuff remains - what nature it has absent us - is quite obscure. Some can say colorless, odorless particles remain, or perhaps quantum fields. But the only thing we can attribute to them is whatever physics says about them.

But if Russell (and Strawson and Chomsky) is correct, then only those characteristics picked out by our mathematical equations remain, but that wouldn't exhaust what these things are.

Another view is that structure is all there is, so in this respects we do exhaust the nature of the physical with our physics.

The 'base matter' has been found to have no base. — Wayfarer

False. I don't want to get into QM again but this is far from the only (or even popular) view.

What's been found is 1 of 2 things. Either:

1- There is a base matter about which we can't know. As in the uncertainty principle is an epistemological problem not an ontological one. These are the "epistemological interpretations". The electron IS in a certain space at a certain time acting a certain way, we just can't know where. Incidentally, I don't think this is the case.

2- The base matter itself is affected when observed. An "ontological interpretation". The uncertainty principle isn't us being uncertain where the electron is while it's actually at position X, more like the electron itself is uncertain, it cannot be said to be at X ontologically. But this doesn't negate that the base matter must exist independently of us. The fact that we don't know where an electron is until we look at it DOES NOT lead to the conclusion that the looking is what created the electron which sounds to me like what you're saying.

You say the "base matter has no base". Even so. All I'm putting forward here is that there exists base matter regardless of anyone looking at it. There exists SOMETHING when no one is looking, not an electron sure, but something.

If everyone died tomorrow there would still be something left behind, agreed?

Well we are the ones who designate a world. I don't know what else in biology could even have a concept of a "world". — Manuel

There was something, which we then designated a world. And something we designated "rock" and another thing we designated "river" and so on. All we did was designate. Label. We didn't create the something. And the something will stay behind after we die. Agreed?

Furthermore I'll add that we are also made of that "something". And that that "something" is called matter. And that there is no "other type of thing".

But how this physical stuff remains - what nature it has absent us - is quite obscure. Some can say colorless, odorless particles remain, or perhaps quantum fields. But the only thing we can attribute to them is whatever physics says about them.

But if Russell (and Strawson and Chomsky) is correct, then only those characteristics picked out by our mathematical equations remain, but that wouldn't exhaust what these things are. — Manuel

Sure.

Another view is that structure is all there is, so in this respects we do exhaust the nature of the physical with our physics. — Manuel

And that's what I don't get. A structure, needs something to get structured. A "structure without base matter" is like a building without bricks.

All we did was designate. Label. We didn't create the something. And the something will stay behind after we die. Agreed?

Furthermore I'll add that we are also made of that "something". And that that "something" is called matter. And that there is no "other type of thing". — khaled

I agree with the latter part, there is something we call "matter" not depending on us.

Speaking of "creating" can become complicated. By virtue of how a specific object induces in us certain sensations and perceptions, we put these properties together in what we call a "rock", a "river" or anything else.

If by creating you mean bringing matter into existence, sure we did not create it. If you mean all the concepts, associations and uses any object has, we do create these specific objects automatically, I think. Other animals likely don't have such concepts such as tree or river or rock.

And that's what I don't get. A structure, needs something to get structured. A "structure without base matter" is like a building without bricks. — khaled

It's the debate between epistemic structural realists and ontological structural realists. The former are what Strawson and Russell favor. As well as you and me. The latter view, is favored by Ladyman and Ross. These two think that there are only structures all the way down.

Yes, I also agree that it is incoherent to say structure is all there is: a structure is a structure of something.

There is a base matter about which we can't know. — khaled

I have never read the expression 'base matter'. I google it, and the #1 hit is Aristotle's 'prima materia'. Somehow, I'm sure that's not what you mean.

I am not denying that matter exists, but what I am denying is that it possesses intrinsic or inherent reality. I know that's a difficult concept, but it's a very difficult subject.

The base matter itself is affected when observed. An "ontological interpretation". The uncertainty principle isn't us being uncertain where the electron is while it's actually at position X, more like the electron itself is uncertain, it cannot be said to be at X ontologically. But this doesn't negate that the base matter must exist independently of us. The fact that we don't know where an electron is until we look at it DOES NOT lead to the conclusion that the looking is what created the electron — khaled

That is precisely what is at issue, it is what seems to occur. Avoiding that implication is the main motivation behind the 'many worlds' alternative, seems to me.

If everyone died tomorrow there would still be something left behind, agreed? — khaled

'Everyone knows that the earth, and a fortiori the universe, existed for a long time before there were any living beings, and therefore any perceiving subjects. But according to Kant ... that is impossible.'

Schopenhauer's defence of Kant on this score was [that] the objector has not understood to the very bottom the Kantian demonstration that time is one of the forms of our sensibility. The earth, say, as it was before there was life, is a field of empirical enquiry in which we have come to know a great deal; its reality is no more being denied than is the reality of perceived objects in the same room.

The point is, the whole of the empirical world in space and time is the creation of our understanding, which apprehends all the objects of empirical knowledge within it as being in some part of that space and at some part of that time: and this is as true of the earth before there was life as it is of the pen I am now holding a few inches in front of my face and seeing slightly out of focus as it moves across the paper.

This, incidentally, illustrates a difficulty in the way of understanding which transcendental idealism has permanently to contend with: the assumptions of 'the inborn realism which arises from the original disposition of the intellect' enter unawares into the way in which the statements of transcendental idealism are understood.

Such realistic assumptions so pervade our normal use of concepts that 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. We have to raise almost impossibly deep levels of presupposition in our own thinking and imagination to the level of self-consciousness before we are able to achieve a critical awareness of all our realistic assumptions, and thus achieve an understanding of transcendental idealism which is untainted by them.

Bryan Magee Schopenhauer's Philosophy, Pp 106-107

I also agree that it is incoherent to say structure is all there is: a structure is a structure of something. — Manuel

Alice first encounters the Cheshire Cat at the Duchess's house in her kitchen, and later on the branches of a tree, where it appears and disappears at will, and engages Alice in amusing but sometimes perplexing conversation. The cat sometimes raises philosophical points that annoy or baffle Alice; but appears to cheer her when it appears suddenly at the Queen of Hearts' croquet field; and when sentenced to death, baffles everyone by having made its head appear without its body, sparking a debate between the executioner and the King and Queen of Hearts about whether a disembodied head can indeed be beheaded. At one point, the cat disappears gradually until nothing is left but its grin, prompting Alice to remark that "she has often seen a cat without a grin but never a grin without a cat".

Lewis Carroll was one hip cat.

Our powers of abstraction and reasoning are sublime. Carroll wrote brilliant stories. I should actually re-read that some day.

If by creating you mean bringing matter into existence, sure we did not create it. — Manuel

Great. Fantastic. That's all I'm asking for.

It's the debate between epistemic structural realists and ontological structural realists. The former are what Strawson and Russell favor. As well as you and me. The latter view, is favored by Ladyman and Ross. These two think that there are only structures all the way down.

Yes, I also agree that it is incoherent to say structure is all there is: a structure is a structure of something. — Manuel

We agree then. I wonder where @Wayfarer is here.

I think it's going well, all things considered.

I am not denying that matter exists — Wayfarer

Great.

I am denying is that it possesses intrinsic or inherent reality. — Wayfarer

I think I know what that means now that it's in context. I'll take it.

That is precisely what is at issue, it is what seems to occur. Avoiding that implication is the main motivation behind the 'many worlds' alternative, seems to me. — Wayfarer

Agreed. As I said, I don't agree with the "episemic" interpretations of QM. Many worlds is the only one of those I know about.

I think we agree more than we disagree but I'm too tired to think of it right now. I'll read the quotes more carefully later and respond if I find something I disagree with.

Weird to me that you call this idealist. Especially with:

I am not denying that matter exists, — Wayfarer

Matter exists - but it lacks intrinsic reality. Materialism must insist that matter does have intrinsic reality, in fact that only matter has intrinsic reality, and that mind (and everything) is derivative from it.

The form of idealism I subscribe to, on the contrary, is not denying that material objects possess empirical reality - deny it at your peril - but saying that reality comprises both the observed object and the observing subject. But the observing subject is not anywhere to be found in the objective domain, so in no sense can be derived from or imputed to the properties or attributes of objects. That is the only way to loosen the Gordian knot. For a beautiful exposition of this principle, see It is Never Known, but it is the Knower by Michel Bitbol. He is a philosopher I learned of through this forum, and one of the best discoveries I have made here.

e form of idealism I subscribe to, on the contrary, is not denying that material objects possess empirical reality - deny it at your peril - but saying that reality comprises both the observed object and the observing subject. But the observing subject is not anywhere to be found in the objective domain, so in no sense can be derived from or imputed to the properties or attributes of objects. That is the only way to loosen the Gordian knot. For a beautiful exposition of this principle, see It is Never Known, but it is the Knower by Michel Bitbol. He is a philosopher I learned of through this forum, and one of the best discoveries I have made here. — Wayfarer

It seems to me that so many of these discussions keep coming down to this point and few people seem to fully engage with it or remember this is your key point of difference. It's a point I read and understand but I don't think I actually 'get' it. I need to mull over it and try and get through Bitbol.

But the observing subject is not anywhere to be found in the objective domain, so in no sense can be derived from or imputed to the properties or attributes of objects. — Wayfarer

Can you put this into ordinary English?

The problem being that physics, intent on discovering the fundamental physical constituents of reality, found itself embroiled in epistemology instead. — Wayfarer

This would be problematic if reality had presented us with anything that obviously did not sit in physics' purview. However, the success of physics relies on their being no such thing. Every physical change appears to have a physical cause: wishing the cup to be moved is insufficient; I must physically move it, which means moving, say, my arm as an intermediary. And between my wish and this intermediary, we discover other physical intermediaries such that most of the process is understood and is physical. Nothing jumps out as needing a second kind of stuff to explain, including the wish itself which is an example of processes increasingly understood by neuroscience and that are physical. The only _opportunity_ for non-physical stuff lies in the sliver of remaining mystery, as is the case for all magical human theories.

Scientists of my generation and younger are well aware of the roles of language, consensus, modelling, epistemology, ontology and phenomenology in what they do. It isn't remotely tricky; it's actually really interesting, but it only really says anything about scientific progress, not reality.

Einstein asked, I presume exasperatedly, 'Doesn't the moon continue to exist when nobody is observing it?' Presumably, he asked this question rhetorically, with the implicit answer being that 'of course it does!' Nevertheless he was obliged to ask the question. Variations on this very question were at the centre of the famous Bohr Einstein debates which occupied the subsequent two decades. And I believe the overall consensus is that Bohr's view, the 'Copenhagen interpretation', has prevalied. — Wayfarer

I think I've already treated much the same point earlier. Quantum mechanics is not a suitable basis for idealism.

If, at that time, an unequivocable, 'mind-independent' stratum of reality had been disclosed by physics, then the sentiment might be truthful. But it was not. This was even noted by Bertrand Russell in the concluding chapter of HWP in 1946, so it's not news. — Wayfarer

Demands for certainty usually are this asymmetrical. On the one hand, all we need for idealism to be certain is a sliver of mystery in the physical sciences. For physicalism to be even considered, we need a formal proof that there's e.g. nothing non-physical that we don't know about yet. Obviously no such proof will ever be forthcoming, nor is it necessary if one is not so asymmetrically afflicted.

For hundreds of years, the simplest, best, and maximally sufficient explanation for our experiences, their continuities, and our consensus about them has been the existence of a single objective reality that obeys physical laws. Nothing has changed. Yes, there will always be little gaps to fit gods and dualism and idealism in, but these necessarily explain less and less as physicalism explains more and more. Quite likely, the less idealism could explain and the more physicalism does explain, the more enthusiastically idealists (or dualists or theists) must insist that science doesn't work but the unavoidable fact is that it does: we are drowning in an ocean of applications of physicalist assumptions to control our world, each one asking the question: If physicalism is false, why must I act as if it is true?

Equivalent hit rate for idealism? At last count, zero. All you can really do with it is believe it or not believe it. It's an inert notion on a shrinking stage without an audience. Physicalism is a conclusion; idealism an assumption. They're not in the same league.

That's essentially a well worded and educated version of my assumptions.

What do you understand by this:

But the observing subject is not anywhere to be found in the objective domain, so in no sense can be derived from or imputed to the properties or attributes of objects. — Wayfarer

it's actually really interesting, but it only really says anything about scientific progress, not reality. — Kenosha Kid

Neat dodge!

For hundreds of years, the simplest, best, and maximally sufficient explanation for our experiences, their continuities, and our consensus about them has been the existence of a single objective reality that obeys physical laws — Kenosha Kid

So I take it you’re not an Everettian?

Can you put this into ordinary English? — Tom Storm

Bitbol’s article is an easy read.

Bitbol’s article is an easy read. — Wayfarer

Won't open for me. Looking for it.

You have Adobe Acrobat? If you don’t, do a search for Adobe Acrobat Reader. The document is a PDF file, needs Adobe Acrobat reader to open. http://michel.bitbol.pagesperso-orange.fr/NEVER_KNOWN.pdf

Ironically, then, omnipresence of experience is tantamount to its absence. Experience is obvious; it is everywhere at this very moment. There is nothing apart from experience. Even when you think of past moments in which you do not remember having had any experience, this is still an experience, a present experience of thinking about them. But this background immediate experience goes unnoticed because there is nothing with which to contrast it. — Michel Bitbol

It is this ‘absence’ that eliminative materialism is appealing to. Because it is is omnipresent, the constant given in any and all experience, then its reality can be forgotten - which is almost precisely the meaning of ‘avidya’, ‘ignorance’.