These hopes collapsed in spectacular fashion with the onslaught of new geometries — Count Timothy von Icarus

... as per general relativity, a physical theory...

the Incompleteness Theorem — Count Timothy von Icarus

... which is why we can know more but not everything...

QM — Count Timothy von Icarus

... a physical theory...

the continual discovery of new elementary particles underlying the previously "elementary" ones — Count Timothy von Icarus

... the on-going improvement of physical theory...

Where is the rejection of the hypothesis that there is a single objective reality?

As to hit rates, something being useful doesn't make it true. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Being able to predict how things will be is useful, but equally insightful if you want to know anything meaningful. Impotence is not a virtue here.

The problem for materialists, and I say this as one, is that you are essentially stuck making the claim that... — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes, but I don't claim to be a materialist, I claim to be a physicalist, which has none of the ambiguity of that archaic term.

I have a question for the good folks on both sides of this discussion - does any of this makes a difference in how I should lead my life? — EricH

Yes. Shameless plug: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/8732/natural-and-existential-morality

Are you claiming Mary's Room is meaningless/devoid of meaning? — RogueAI

Well let's see... Is that what I said?

Neat dodge! — Wayfarer

I left it open for disagreement. If you can't disagree, then I guess we agree?

So I take it you’re not an Everettian? — Wayfarer

I'm not, but same goes there. In MWI, the universe is described by a single wavefunction containing all of the branching through its history. This is still physics.

Another version of parallel universes is in some inflation theories, in which the inflaton field collapses locally to form new universes potentially an infinite number of times. But it's still a physical field creating physical universes in a single objective multiverse reality.

Well let's see... Is that what I said? — Kenosha Kid

I wasn't clear on what you were saying, hence my question. Can you answer it? Is Mary's Room meaningful?

I wasn't clear on what you were saying, hence my question. Can you answer it? Is Mary's Room meaningful? — RogueAI

Yes, it is. It's a good example of:

There is a necessary gap between the first person and the third person that arises from purely physical considerations: I am a physically distinct entity, with my own unique initial state; I am an autowiring brain which will learn from the same information (in principle) in my own idiosyncratic way (I never learned to wink with my right eye, for instance); and most importantly, I am not subject to the same causes of perception as anyone else (even in a common experience, like going to the cinema, I have a slightly different perspective, have come with a different companion, am surrounded by differently disruptive assholes...). — Kenosha Kid

Knowing the wavelength of a shade of red, how it will refract in a centimeter of glass, which materials absorb and emit it is a way of knowing things about that shade of red, but it is not equivalent to knowing what it causes in someone's perceptions when photons of it have struck their retina, causing a characteristic current in their optic nerve, cascading idiosyncratic neural events (like memory recall) forged by that person's learning before being transformed by their imaging centre in particular into the metadata only they can see. Blind people can't do this: that's a subset of the information about that shade of red not available to them, just as what's going on in the oldest alien's home in the nearest star system with intelligent life is not available to me.

You agree then that experience is necessary to answer "what is it like?" questions? For example, you would agree that Mary needs to experience seeing red in order to know what it is like to see red?

You agree then that experience is necessary to answer "what is it like?" questions? For example, you would agree that Mary needs to experience seeing red in order to know what it is like to see red? — RogueAI

Mary needs to (to keep it short) process red photons into images in order to have information about how Mary processes red photons into images, which is close enough. There is no "what it is like to see red," that's idealism. The above involves only physical processes.

There is no "what it is like to see red", that's idealism." — Kenosha Kid

I think it is trivially true that there IS "what is it like to see red/be in pain/lose a loved one" and denying the reality of that is crazy, but we're at the axiomatic level here, and your claim is similar to the move some materialists make when they try to deny consciousness (or claim it's an illusion). I think it's just totally obvious that such moves are not persuasive and are doomed to failure.

I think it is trivially true that there IS "what is it like to see red/be in pain/lose a loved one" and denying the reality of that is crazy, but we're at the axiomatic level here, and your claim is similar to the move some materialists make when they try to deny consciousness (or claim it's an illusion). I think it's just totally obvious that such moves are not persuasive and are doomed to failure. — RogueAI

Well, I know this is a big ask but how about giving the opposing argument an airing rather than just claiming it to be true, calling others crazy, and doubting their motives and prospects.

I've given a pretty comprehensive explanation as to why there is no "what it's like to see red" and you're not presenting any specific problems with anything I've said. Park that, and make a compelling case for:

there IS "what is it like to see red/be in pain/lose a loved one" — RogueAI

“....all causation, that is to say, all matter, or the whole of reality, is only for the understanding, through the understanding, and in the understanding. The first, simplest, and ever-present example of understanding is the perception of the actual world. This is throughout knowledge of the cause from the effect, and therefore all perception is intellectual....”
(WWR, 1.1.4., 1818, in Haldane/Kemp, 1883)

I can’t read that as anything but indirect realism. He does say “actual world”, implying an objective reality, but that actual world is “in understanding” because of intellectual perception. Thus, it looks like the world isn’t directly there, otherwise we must have a head full of actual world objects, but only intellectually there, hence is indirectly. The world is mediated by intellect, mediated is the same as contingent upon, which is the same as indirect. Can be viewed as indirect?

Schopenhauer didn’t like Kant’s ding an sich, so went on his merry way towards working around it. Representation is internal; the object represented is external, with respect to the subject. Subjects can only know the representation. If the representation can be external, and knowledge is still only possible by means of them, then the thing-in-itself is representable and therefore knowable. POOF!!! Kant is refuted, but....oh oh.....transcendental idealism, for all present intents and purposes a Kantian creation, is sustained.

Not to infringe on your understandings herein; you’re probably quite comfortable with them as they are. Just carryin’ on the conversation.

I can’t read that as anything but indirect realism. — Mww

Maybe it was obvious to you that I haven't read Kant very thoroughly. Same here. You haven't read Schopenhauer. Especially the third book. Trust me, the one Will, the multiplicity. That shit is not indirect realism.

I'd like to read the CPR at some point though.

To do neuroscience, you have to be able to make predictions, and to develop theory you have to have some of those predictions be reliable. This makes it the only player in Explanation Town, — Kenosha Kid

Are you then making the argument that the most satisfying explanations of aspects of behavior such as cognition, motivation, affectivity, empathy and perception is being offered by neuroscientists rather than , for instance, philosophers of mind , clinical psychologists or phenomenological philosophers?

I'm reminded of people typing on computers connected to the internet that science cannot possibly work...
— Kenosha Kid

Those guys.....deserving of little mention and even less respect. — Mww

Could you humor me and mention some names?

Well, I know this is a big ask but how about giving the opposing argument an airing rather than just claiming it to be true, calling others crazy, and doubting their motives and prospects. — Kenosha Kid

I'm not calling you crazy, I'm saying your claim is crazy. I didn't mean any offense. Idealism is completely out there, so I know about making crazy-seeming claims.

I've given a pretty comprehensive explanation as to why there is no "what it's like to see red" and you're not presenting any specific problems with anything I've said. Park that, and make a compelling case for:

there IS "what is it like to see red/be in pain/lose a loved one"
— RogueAI

Look at a red thing, stub a toe, lose a loved one (though hopefully not). I'm looking at a red object in my room. I'm having the experience of seeing red. There is something that is it like for me to see this red object: me seeing this red object. That is a mental state I can access through introspection. I assume all this is true for you as well, so when you say "There is no "what it is like to see red," and I also know that you, like me, can have the experience of seeing red, I honestly have no idea what to say. We're at first principles here. I can't wrap my head around denying the existence of "what is it like" statements.

Schopenhauer didn’t like Kant’s ding an sich, so went on his merry way towards working around it. Representation is internal; the object represented is external, with respect to the subject. Subjects can only know the representation. If the representation can be external, and knowledge is still only possible by means of them, then the thing-in-itself is representable and therefore knowable. POOF!!! Kant is refuted, but....oh oh.....transcendental idealism, for all present intents and purposes a Kantian creation, is sustained. — Mww

I can't resist making a comment here:

I don't think Schopenhauer would've minded that he be labeled a TI. He believed he was carrying forward that tradition which was cemented by Kant but was foreshadowed and articulated by Cudworth and other Neo-Platonists.

I'll likely be is "losing" territory here speaking to you about Kantian affairs but what the heck, I'll embarrass myself once in a while, why not? It's not clear to me that Schopenhauer is wrong here in that what is represented is internal.

We may receive some "residue", as it were, of the thing in itself, but only the side which is represented is what we can call knowledge. Sure, Schopenhauer can say that our bodies are also part of the world of representation and that in experience we are acquainted with will - energy essentially - in merely having experience of our bodies.

But there's an open textual problem here in which it is not entirely clear whether will for Schopenhauer is "in-itself" or mediated as well. I think it is mediated, thus we are mostly overwhelmingly ignorant about things in themselves.

But I don't think I've seen an argument that refutes "things in themselves" that is satisfactory. Probably because I think it is true.

Your claim is dualistic. — RogueAI

Absolutely. Making no bones about it.

You're saying that brains cause experience, which is to say that for any mental state, there's a causal brain state. — RogueAI

I never said anything like that. Never mentioned a mental state. That’s a knowledge claim, and I’m showing that particular knowledge is not available to us. I said the the brain enables us to think the brain is responsible for experience.

Hmmm.....now that you bring it up, I’ll add, it is we that give brains mental states; the brain does not give them to us. Technically, the brain is wholly at the mercy of natural law, whereas it is not so obvious that mental states are. I mean....if mental states wholly followed natural law, why would we need two instances of the same thing? Nahhhhh....better that mental states are wholly at the mercy of logical law, and even if that begs a whole buncha nagging questions, at least we’ve got someplace from which to start explaining the ground of experience.

do you think physicalism can survive an infinitely long explanatory gap? — RogueAI

The set of Planck limits? Dunno about an infinitely long explanatory gap, but we got it right now. I don’t hold so much with Penrose’s quantum tubules, but I do more so with the interference problem, in that attempting to penetrate to the piccoscale with instruments might just disrupt the very thing we’re trying to look at. I know there are pictures of clefts.....blew my mind, that did.....but to assimilate all involved clefts into an instrumental observation of the experience of bungee jumping? Can you even image the size of THAT helmet???

Besides, if it is possible that natural law relinquishes it intrinsic certainty at some infinitesimally small scale, why couldn’t they relinquish it at the scale of 30B synapses/mm3? Seems reasonable to me, but then......I’m me.

Are you then making the argument that the most satisfying explanations of aspects of behavior such as cognition, motivation, affectivity, empathy and perception is being offered by neuroscientists rather than , for instance, philosophers of mind , clinical psychologists or phenomenological philosophers? — Joshs

That wasn't actually my intent, and with respect to that intent my wording was too narrow. But now that you've asked me, I think... yes? Yes, that's probably true, with no disrespect at all to philosophers of mind , clinical psychologists or phenomenological philosophers.

I have a question for the good folks on both sides of this discussion - does any of this makes a difference in how I should lead my life? — EricH

That was the intent behind the thread. “What are the important consequences of both”. It turned into a generic materialism vs idealism debate though :/. Something I don’t care much about if there is no important consequence behind both. Still fun to participate in.

So far the attempts were: You can’t have purpose with a materialist metaphysics. And you can’t have a house with materialist metaphysics. I’m not convinced of either but at least there were attempts.

I’d reverse that. Neuroscience always operates at a delay with respect to more abstract psychological subfields. When cognitive science came on the scene neuroscience continued to rely on stimulus response models. When first generation cognitivism made way for embodied enactive approaches, neuroscience held onto computational, representationalist thinking( see predictive coding theory , for instance ). There have been a few exceptions , like Antonio Damasio, but in general if you want to know where neuroscience will be in 10 years just follow today’s philosophers of mind.

But I don't think I've seen an argument that refutes "things in themselves" that is satisfactory. Probably because I think it is true — Manuel

QM can be seen as a refutation to that. It only refutes the “in themselves” part, it doesn’t refute the “things” part. There is things outside of us but that depend on us for their existence. Electrons in a double slit experiment for example.

This leads people to say that the world comprises of things-not-in-themselves and the observers which come together to make observations, “creating reality” in a sense. Things need another thing to define them. They’re not “in themselves”

Now wayfarer has stated that this “other thing” is a separate sort of thing from the “things not in themselves” if you understand what I’m saying. I don’t know where the justification for the split came from so I’m not sold on that.

Now there are theories of QM that maintain a “thing in itself” world that doesn’t require our observation in any way, but the only one of those I know is multiple worlds interpretation. If you want to introduce collapse, you’re gonna have to say that things aren’t in themselves until they’re collapsed. I’m just not sold that we doing the collapsing are in any way special, or that the collapsing couldn’t be done by the exact same type of stuff as the stuff getting collapsed.

I'm looking at a red object in my room. I'm having the experience of seeing red. There is something that is it like for me to see this red object: me seeing this red object. That is a mental state I can access through introspection. — RogueAI

All of these are physical requirements. A brightly red room, a cup emitting a certain wavelength, and working eyes and visual systems. So the “experience of seeing red” is a physical state. And to have the “experience of seeing red” is to have that (or largely similar) physical state.

The “experience of seeing red” isn’t a different sort of thing from the physical configuration while seeing red. It’s precisely that physical configuration.

That’s how I would answer it. The “experience of seeing red” isn’t a “different kind of object”, it’s just a configuration of the brain.

QM can be seen as a refutation to that. It only refutes the “in themselves” part, it doesn’t refute the “things” part. There is things outside of us but that depend on us for their existence. Electrons in a double slit experiment for example. — khaled

Maybe. That is if we think that QM exhausts everything there is to know about reality. It could be the case. It could also be the case that there are things that exist which we have no capacity to cognize, but an intelligent alien species could and they might be able to sort out some of the difficulties we have in physics.

It's not an unreasonable suggestion, I don't think.

I don’t know where the justification for the split came from so I’m not sold on that. — khaled

I can't speak for him but I have my own views. The gist of it would be that a part of "things in themselves" is cognized by us, the rest is not, because we don't have the necessary intellectual or sensory apparatus to detect them. So more exists than what we can detect.

This is extremely speculative, but if I had to guess, I'd agree with you that a "separate sort of thing" need not be of a different nature: it's all physical stuff, or ground stuff. The claim is monist.

I’m just not sold that we doing the collapsing are in any way special, or that the collapsing couldn’t be done by the exact same type of stuff as the stuff getting collapsed. — khaled

We are special in so far as we can discover this aspect of the universe. But as to what causes the collapse, I don't know. I believe most physicists say we don't play a role in that, so I'd defer to them for now.

As for a practical application of materialism vs idealism, if materialism a la Dennett or Chuchland is true, then nothing really matters, we are just bags of molecules that don't actually suffer or laugh or think. We are mere illusions. I don't think that's true, nor do I believe people think this is the case either. Even scientists don't behave as if they were mere chemicals or molecules.

I don't think Schopenhauer would've minded that he be labeled a TI. — Manuel

Probably not, considering.....

“...The whole actual, that is, active world is determined as such through the understanding, and apart from it is nothing. This, however, is not the only reason for altogether denying such a reality of the outer world as is taught by the dogmatist, who explains its reality as its independence of the subject. We also deny it, because no object apart from a subject can be conceived without contradiction. The whole world of objects is and remains idea, and therefore wholly and for ever determined by the subject; that is to say, it has transcendental ideality....”

....even if I can’t find a reference where he actually calls himself one, as does Kant, practically, in CPR A370, “From the start we have declared ourselves in favor of this transcendental idealism...”, which grants immediate acknowledgement for objective reality, while at the same time withholding knowledge of it in itself.
—————-

But I don't think I've seen an argument that refutes "things in themselves" that is satisfactory. Probably because I think it is true. — Manuel

Agreed, and because, or, iff, the human cognitive system is in fact representational, and iff our empirical knowledge is of those representations alone. Otherwise, some new theory is required in order to refute it. Somehow. Ain’t been done yet, but maybe just because nobody cares anymore.

Could you humor me and mention some names? — Joshs

Be happy to, but I don’t know any of them. Heard of ‘em, though. Those guys.....in general, whoever denies the workings of science.

Ain’t been done yet, but maybe just because nobody cares anymore. — Mww

Perhaps. I think some people do, very few obviously.

I think some conceptual work can be done in TI, but it's just extremely difficult.

I think some conceptual work can be done in TI — Manuel

Such as? Synopsis?

I never said anything like that. Never mentioned a mental state. That’s a knowledge claim, and I’m showing that particular knowledge is not available to us. — Mww

The knowledge of mental states is not available to us?

Well take Schopenhauer, he added the idea of will to TI.

Or Cudworth before both of them argued that we know nothing of the things themselves outside of "motion" and "pressure".

Although Russell certainly would have not called himself a TI and he didn't agree with Kant, some of his statements carry forth a TIist flavor when he says "we know nothing about the intrinsic quality of physical events except when these are mental events that we directly experience.”

Or Einstein when he discovered that space and time aren't absolutes and independent of each other, but relative.

One can disagree with Kant having so many categories or with Schopenhauer on will. One can argue that things in themselves is misleading, as we should speak of events in themselves, because nature is constantly in flux and not stable. And so forth.

It's building on the edifice, not taking it down.

Ahh, I forgot to add Mainländer! He was a TI but believed that there was will, but not one. He thought many wills existed but at one time did not. So how did plurality emerge from individuality? At one point in time, there wasn't plurality there was only a simple being. It emerged with time.

So yeah, I think there are a few paths open in TI.

The knowledge of mental states is not available to us? — RogueAI

I don’t think so, but it’s fine if you do. Hell.....I don’t even know what a mental state actually is. How would I know it, such that it couldn’t be anything else?