It's an a priori argument, based on the observation that there's no light inside the skull. — Wayfarer

But that observation, according to your own argument, is derived from what is empirically given and hence must be (according to you) unreliable as a guide to what is real, and also the argument, being based as it is on an empirically given observation does not, according to the standard definition, qualify as an a priori argument.

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. — Kenosha Kid

It is not physics. It is metaphysics. But because it is associated with physics, then it attracts a kind of scientific imprameteur, which is fallacious, in my opinion.

The question I always ask, and I've asked this on Physics Forum - where I didn't receive a good answer - is that if 'many worlds' is the solution, then what is the problem? What conceptual problem is so vast that as extravagant a speculation as infinite numbers of universes is a solution? I think it is trying to avoid the implication that the act of observation seems to have material consequences. In other words, it wishes to rationalise away the strongest piece of evidence of non-physical causation that physics has thrown up so as to avoid the philosophical consequences of that.

The opposition between realism and idealism is one of the many ways in which philosophical myth building leas on astray.

There's just the world, and included in it are our reactions to it. — Banno

I don’t think Karl Popper would agree with you here. He was heavily influenced by Kant in his philosophy of science. He would want to say that the influence of Kantian idealism on notions of the relation between the subject and the world led to a change from naive or metaphysical realism to forms of positivism.
Beyond Popper and Kant , phenomenology recognized that pointing to a world out there that we simply react to is an incoherent way of thinking. Each change in our account of this world carved up its particulars differently.

One of my favorite quotes on the relation between subject and object:

“Knowledge is taken to consist in a faithful mirroring of a mind-independent reality. It is taken to be of a reality which exists independently of that knowledge, and indeed independently of any thought and experience (Williams 2005, 48). If we want to know true reality, we should aim at describing the way the world is, not just independently of its being believed to be that way, but independently of all the ways in which it happens to present itself to us human beings. An absolute conception would be a dehumanized conception, a conception from which all traces of ourselves had been removed. Nothing would remain that would indicate whose conception it is, how those who form or possess that conception experience the world, and when or where they find themselves in it. It would be as impersonal, impartial, and objective a picture of the world as we could possibly achieve (Stroud 2000, 30). How are we supposed to reach this conception? Metaphysical realism assumes that everyday experience combines subjective and objective features and that we can reach an objective picture of what the world is really like by stripping away the subjective. It consequently argues that there is a clear distinction to be drawn between the properties things have “in themselves” and the properties which are “projected by us”. Whereas the world of appearance, the world as it is for us in daily life, combines subjective and objective features, science captures the objective world, the world as it is in itself. But to think that science can provide us with an absolute description of reality, that is, a description from a view from nowhere; to think that science is the only road to metaphysical truth, and that science simply mirrors the way in which Nature classifies itself, is – according to Putnam – illusory. It is an illusion to think that the notions of “object” or “reality” or “world” have any sense outside of and independently of our conceptual schemes (Putnam 1992, 120). Putnam is not denying that there are “external facts”; he even thinks that we can say what they are; but as he writes, “what we cannot say – because it makes no sense – is what the facts are independent of all conceptual choices” (Putnam 1987, 33). We cannot hold all our current beliefs about the world up against the world and somehow measure the degree of correspondence between the two. It is, in other words, nonsensical to suggest that we should try to peel our perceptions and beliefs off the world, as it were, in order to compare them in some direct way with what they are about (Stroud 2000, 27). This is not to say that our conceptual schemes create the world, but as Putnam writes, they don't just mirror it either (Putnam 1978, 1). Ultimately, what we call “reality” is so deeply suffused with mind- and language-dependent structures that it is altogether impossible to make a neat distinction between those parts of our beliefs that reflect the world “in itself” and those parts of our beliefs that simply express “our conceptual contribution.” The very idea that our cognition should be nothing but a re-presentation of something mind-independent consequently has to be abandoned (Putnam 1990, 28, 1981, 54, 1987, 77)

Dam Zahavi on Putnam

But that observation, according to your own argument, is derived from what is empirically given and hence must be (according to you) unreliable as a guide to what is real. — Janus

In that case, you misunderstand my position, as often, but with the amount of incoming flak, I can't really deal with it right now.

@Banno - that paper I mentioned is here http://michel.bitbol.pagesperso-orange.fr/NEVER_KNOWN.pdf

You're the second person who has reported it not working, don't know why. Still say it's worth the read. Bitbol has done a lot of excellent writing on the philosophical texts of Schrodinger and the integration of Kant and quantum physics.

In that case, you misunderstand my position, as often, but with the amount of incoming flak, I can't really deal with it right now. — Wayfarer

There's always an excuse for your inability to deal with objections that threaten your beliefs. You always claim I misunderstand your position and yet always fail to explain how I am misunderstanding it.

:up:

You always claim I misunderstand your position and yet always fail to explain how I am misunderstanding it. — Janus

I really have tried, many, many times in the past.

Let me have another go. I've already said, in this thread, that I'm an empical realist. As I understand it, Kant also says that whilst he is a transcendental idealist, he's an empirical realist also. I don't see a conflict. But almost everyone here immediately assumes, well, if you're an idealist, 'you think the world is all in your mind'. People said the same of Kant after the first edition of CPR! That's why in the second edition he included the critique of Berkeley.

I think a lot of those bagging out 'idealism' in this thread have not the least inkling of what it means. So anyone advocating it is constantly battling a barrage of straw man arguments based on a total misconception.

This is, as Banno rightly says, one of the baleful consequences of Cartesian dualism, but most people are still entrenched in the mind/body dualism that it generated. It was Kant who saw through that and worked out a way past it.

You haven't responded to my question.

What would be the problem with having our reality depend on our perception of the objective domain AND have us be part of the objective domain, no different from the other things in it. Why cut us off? — khaled

That's really the bit I care about.

Having no inherent reality or real being; their nature is imputed to them, not intrinsic to them, in accordance with their causes, context and the intentions of the observer (per the madhyamika dialectic of Mahāyāna Buddhists.)

In the context of physics, that manifested as the inability to discern an absolute point-particle - an atom, in fact. It was found that sub-atomic entities have a kind of ambiguous or indeterminate nature rather than being indivisible atoms. — Wayfarer

Even given this (which I agree with though, again MWI exists and is valid), why do you go on to split the observer as a different type of thing from the thing being observed?

You set up this world picture, here the subject with his ideas, there the world with it things, and think that it's all settled. — Wayfarer

That's dualism and I precisely don't do that.

SO it is easy to believe that a configuration 'stands for' or 'represents' an experience — Wayfarer

No a configuration IS an experience.

but we're not ever really in a position of comparing the object of the experience with the neural data — Wayfarer

There is no "object of experience". The configuration IS the experience. That's my view.

most people are still entrenched in the mind/body dualism that it generated. It was Kant who saw through that and worked out a way past it. — Wayfarer

I wouldn’t say he worked his way past it so much as pushed it to its limit. It took phenomenology to get past dualism.

I don’t think Karl Popper would agree with you here. — Joshs

SO much the worse for Popper. I wish I had a fire poker at hand... Would you care to summarise that horrifying quote? I'm not reading it, for fear of burning the porridge.

The link just hangs.

There is no "object of experience". The configuration IS the experience. That's my view. — khaled

Is the appearance of the configuration unique to each subject or can the configuration be described as existing as what it is independently of any given observer?

Having no inherent reality or real being; their nature is imputed to them, not intrinsic to them, in accordance with their causes, context and the intentions of the observer (per the madhyamika dialectic of Mahāyāna Buddhists.)

In the context of physics, that manifested as the inability to discern an absolute point-particle - an atom, in fact. It was found that sub-atomic entities have a kind of ambiguous or indeterminate nature rather than being indivisible atoms. — Wayfarer

You've lost me. A lot of terms and distinctions that make no discernible differences. "The inability to discern an absolute point particle" ... so what? "Imputed, not intrinsic" ... wtf difference does that make?

And you're an idealist of some flavor, right? Well then, how can you use physical sciences and (interpretations of) physical theories to support your purportedly non-physicalist (idealist) philosophical positions without being flagrantly inconsistent?

I wouldn’t say he worked his way past it so much as pushed it to its limit. It took phenomenology to get past dualism. — Joshs

Yes you may be right. But he pointed the way, I think.

BTW, a good single page primer on Kant is this.

What would be the problem with having our reality depend on our perception of the objective domain AND have us be part of the objective domain, no different from the other things in it. Why cut us off?
— khaled

That's really the bit I care about. — khaled

What do you mean 'cut off'? Objects appear to us, for us. We ourselves are not objects to ourselves - well, the body is, in a way. But ourselves, as knowing subjects, and by extension, the mind, as the knowing subject, never appear to us as objects. I mean, isn't that self-evident?

Here's an alternative source
Bitbol should appeal to Joshs also.

Would you care to summarise that horrifying quote? I'm not reading it, for fear of burning the porridge. — Banno

Sorry for the length , but I couldn’t possibly say it better than Zahavi and Putnam.

Bitbol should appeal to Joshs also. — Wayfarer

I do like Bitbol

He believed he was carrying forward that tradition which was cemented by Kant but was foreshadowed and articulated by Cudworth and other Neo-Platonists. — Manuel

There's an obvious similarity between Schopenhauer and Neoplatonists. Is that also true of Kant?

You've lost me. A lot of terms and distinctions that make no discernible differences. "The inability to discern an absolute point particle" ... so what? "Imputed, not intrinsic" ... wtf difference does that make? — 180 Proof

I shouldn't have to explain that. Science went looking for the fundamental constituents of physical reality. What did they find? Some references:

https://www.amazon.com/Quantum-Einstein-Debate-Nature-Reality/dp/0393339882

https://www.amazon.com.au/Uncertainty-David-Lindley/dp/1400079969

Notice the subtitles of those books...'struggle for the soul of science'....'great debate about the nature of reality'....they're not kidding about that.

Bohr gave a lecture in the 1940's or 50's to the Vienna Circle. At the end, they all applauded and nodded. Bohr was completely taken aback. He looked at them and said, 'if you're not shocked by quantum physics, then you haven't understood it'.

And you're an idealist of some flavor, right? Well then, how can you use physical sciences and (interpretations of) physical theories to support without self-inconsistency your purportedly non-physicalist (idealist) philosophical positions? — 180 Proof

Straw man. You're trapped in the 'mind versus matter' dichotomy. I recognize science as the method by which facts are disclosed, hypthoses developed, and laws discerned. But reality exceeds the bounds of science - obviously - and furthermore, modern scientific method is not the only cognitive mode available to humankind.

Let me have another go. I've already said, in this thread, that I'm an empical realist. As I understand it, Kant also says that whilst he is a transcendental idealist, he's an empirical realist also. I don't see a conflict. But almost everyone here immediately assumes, well, if you're an idealist, 'you think the world is all in your mind'. People said the same of Kant after the first edition of CPR! That's why in the second edition he included the critique of Berkeley. — Wayfarer

What does it mean to be an empirical realist if not to say that the phenomena we collectively experience are independent of any mind? From my readings of Kant and his expositors I think that is what he thought. The way in which these things appear to us, but not the things themselves, are dependent on the kinds of senses and minds we have, or as I would prefer to put it, the kinds of embodied beings we are.

As to his transcendental idealism, I take that to mean that we can only speculate what things are "in themselves", or what anything even the mind itself is "in itself" via ideas, and that those ideas can never constitute knowledge. That is why Kant is understood to have undermined traditional metaphysics which had always been based on the idea that we have a faculty of intellectual intuition which was taken to yield knowledge of the real.

Is the appearance of the configuration unique to each subject — Joshs

Not sure what you mean but we have different brains so I think so?

can the configuration be described as existing as what it is independently of any given observer? — Joshs

No clue what this means though.

What do you mean 'cut off'? — Wayfarer

This:

We ourselves are not objects to ourselves — Wayfarer

I mean, isn't that self-evident? — Wayfarer

No.

well, the body is, in a way. But ourselves, as knowing subjects — Wayfarer

Why this split? That's what I'm asking.

The thing doing the knowing is not an ontologically different type of thing to the thing getting known. I don't see a reason to split them like that.

I thought materialism was a form
of realism — Joshs

Both idealism and materialism are forms of ontological realism, which just means they both want to make hard claims about ontology.

And you're an idealist of some flavor, right? Well then, how can you use physical sciences and (interpretations of) physical theories to support without self-inconsistency your purportedly non-physicalist (idealist) philosophical positions? — 180 Proof

I just made the same point, and have done in the past, but that is an objection Wayfarer simply refuses to address. I wonder why?

The thing doing the knowing is not a different type of thing to the thing getting known. — khaled

I don't see how you can't discern the distinction between subject and object. Balls and hammers and rocks are objects, and that humans are rational sentient beings and subjects of experience. If you can't see the distinction then it's pointless to discuss it.

I just made the same point, and have done in the past, but that is an objection Wayfarer simply refuses to address. I wonder why? — Janus

I refer you to the answers I've given you many previous times, which you say are a dodge, or are not answering your question, or failing to see the point. I might address it, and others might fail to understand what I've said. There's really nothing further I can do about that, either. But to recap:

I see no conflict between idealism and science. The conflict is between idealism and scientific materialism. Scientific materialism, physicalism and (in some forms) scientific naturalism are not themselves scientific theories, they're philosophical attitudes that interpret science and philosophy in a particular way, insofar as they treat science as normative with respect to what can be known. And, I might add, @Janus, I've seen you say the very same things any number of times, to other posters. :angry:

I think the question of science and normative judgement is where Kant comes into the picture:

Kant understood that both everyday life and scientific knowledge rests on, and is made orderly, by some very basic assumptions that aren't self-evident but can't be entirely justified by empirical observations. For instance, we assume that the physical world will conform to mathematical principles. Kant argues in the Critique of Pure Reason that our belief that every event has a cause is such an assumption; perhaps, also, our belief that effects follow necessarily from their causes; but many today reject his classification of such claims as “synthetic a priori.” Regardless of whether one agrees with Kant's account of what these assumptions are, his justification of them is thoroughly modern since it is essentially pragmatic. They make science possible. More generally, they make the world knowable. Kant in fact argues that in their absence our experience from one moment to the next would not be the coherent and intelligible stream that it is.

Kant never lost sight of the fact that while modern science is one of humanity's most impressive achievements, we are not just knowers: we are also agents who make choices and hold ourselves responsible for our actions. In addition, we have a peculiar capacity to be affected by beauty, and a strange inextinguishable sense of wonder about the world we find ourselves in. Feelings of awe, an appreciation of beauty, and an ability to make moral choices on the basis of rational deliberation do not constitute knowledge, but this doesn't mean they lack value. On the contrary. But a danger carried by the scientific understanding of the world is that its power and elegance may lead us to undervalue those things that don't count as science.

According to Kant, the very nature of science means that it is limited to certain kinds of understanding and explanation, and these will never satisfy us completely. For as he says in the first sentence of the Critique, human reason has this peculiarity: it is driven by its very nature to pose questions that it is incapable of answering. Now hardheaded types may dismiss out of hand as not worth asking any questions that don't admit of scientific answers. This, one imagines, is Mr. Spock's position, and possibly such an attitude will one day take over completely. But I suspect Kant is right on this matter for two reasons.

One reason is that in our search for explanations we find it hard to be content with brute contingency. If we ask, “Why did this happen?” we will not be satisfied with the answer, “It just did.” If we ask, “Why are things this way?” we expect more than, “That's just the way things are.” Yet however deep science penetrates into the origin of things or the nature of things, it never seems to eliminate that element of contingency, and it is hard to see how it ever can. Leibniz's question, “Why is there something rather than nothing?” will always be waiting.

A second reason, which I suspect is related to the first, is that some questions we pose probably can't be answered, yet we ask them anyway because they express an abiding sense of wonder, mystery, concern, gratitude or despair over the conditions of our existence. Why am I this particular subject of experience? Why am I alive now and not at some other time? What should I do with my life? Why do I love this person, and why is our love so important? Such thoughts may take the form of questions, but they are really expressions of amazement and perplexity. The feelings expressed fuel religion, poetry, music, and the other arts. They also often accompany experiences we think of as especially valuable or profound: for instance, being present at a birth or a death, feeling great love, witnessing heroism, or encountering overwhelming natural beauty. — Emarys Westacott, The Continuing Relevance of Immanuel Kant

Humans are also objects. You can pick them up for one.

But yea if your argument for why there should be this subject object split is because "There should be this subject object split, can't you see how this subject is split from this object!" then yea there isn't much to discuss.

I refer you to the answers I've given you many previous times, which you say are a dodge, or are not answering your question, or failing to see the point. I might address it, and others might fail to understand what I've said. There's really nothing further I can do about that, either. — Wayfarer

You claim you have given answers, but I have never seen anything from you that I would count as a satisfactory answer to the question. Now I'm not criticising you for assuming idealism; when it comes to that question we all have to assume something or remain undecided, what I object to is the claim that you have evidence for your assumption.

I object to the same claim in realists for their assumption of realism, although I do believe that some form of realism (taken to mean that the objects and processes we experience are independently existent, even though the ways we experience them is obviously not) is a more parsimonious explanation of how it could be that we all experience the same objects in the same locations.

Humans are objects only to other humans! And furthermore, treating humans as objects is dehumanising (unless you're a demographer or epidemiologist etc.) It's bad. Don't do it.

I have never seen anything from you that I would count as a satisfactory answer to the question — Janus

And I've never seen anything from you that indicates you understand what I'm talking about. Fault may well be at my end, but again, there's nothing I can do about it.

Anyway, as I tried to say before, it's Saturday morning here, my other half is annoyed with me playing with my invisible friends, so have to sign out for a while. Bye.

Seems to be an expression of the confusion that lead to the invention of the term antirealism.

Anybody who takes a dim view of metaphysics is a type of anti-realist.

"Real" just has a use in social settings. Don't get carried away such that you're making unverifiable claims.