'If the subject, or even only the subjective constitution of the senses in general, be removed, the whole constitution and all the relations of objects in space and time, nay space and time themselves, would vanish; and as appearances, they cannot exist in themselves, but only in us.' — Wayfarer

As I see it there is no evidence or logic to suggest such a thing. Those things would not be perceived to be sure, but it does not follow that they would vanish. You are conflating not being seen with not existing.

That is a point made from outside experience. It is viewing humans among other phenomena, as paleontology would do, or as anthropology would do. — Wayfarer

No, it is a point made from inside experience as all points are. I understand the arguments very well, I just don't happen to agree with them. In fact, I used to make the very same fallacious arguments myself, but I came to understand their fallaciousness. You don't seem to be able to understand that.

think the fact that we all see the same things and can agree down to the smallest detail as to what we see and that our observations show us that other animals see the same things we do, suggests very strongly that these things are not just mental constructions. — Janus

Can they? Do dogs see trees? They see something for sure, they don't have the concept "tree", nor do we know how they individuate objects. When it comes to other animals, one could assume some of them don't individuate things at all.

There's no necessary law that states that the way we pick out a blade of grass is the way it must be. One can easily imagine another species or an alien not being able to individuate a blade of grass as one thing, but rather several parts.

That we all agree down to the smallest part on how objects appear to us, simply tells us we are all human beings.



Based on what you quote here, I agree with a lot of it, maybe most.

I was no intending to defend you or attack Janus, it's just that the point he made was interesting to me.

As I said I think most of us have thought hard about our positions, and we'd only be willing to change them given extremely strong arguments and even then, it's not a guarantee.

Yes, I think Kantian (or Neo-Platonic) perspectives are very much headed in the right direction. I only add that we must take into account that Kant literally shaped his Critique around Newtonian natural philosophy, which stated that space and time were absolute.

That's a massive reason why Kant says that they are a priori forms of sensibility. This is very frequently overlooked.

Now we know that there is such a thing as time and space absent us, which are quite different from our intuitive understanding of them.

So, it's tricky, as I see it, but it's an important issue in general.

:up:

Can they? Do dogs see trees? — Manuel

They don't bump into them, and they lift their legs and pee on them They don't try to climb them although they may use them to stand on the back legs and look up to see what's up there making a sound they are intrigued by. Cats climb them and birds land and perch in them. The dog sees and chases the ball when I throw it. He doesn't attempt to walk through walls, and he climbs the stairs just as I do. bees go to flowers not to piles of dung and flies go to piles of dung, not to flowers. There is untold evidence that animals see the same environment we do, albeit not in exactly the same ways when it comes to smaller details like colour. There might be a universal mind of which we and the other animals are all part that determines all this, but unless that is posited idealism is utterly implausible as far as i can see. I'm open to other views if they are supported by convincing arguments. I am yet to encounter any.

That we all agree down to the smallest part on how objects appear to us, simply tells us we are all human beings. — Manuel

Nothing inside of us could determine the smallest details of what is seen. What is actually out there determines what is seen. Otherwise, you would have to posit that our minds are all somehow connected.

Now we know that there is such a thing as time and space absent us, which are quite different from our intuitive understanding of them. — Manuel

How do we know that and yet do not know that there are structured configurations of energy which appear to us as objects? Wayfarer won't agree with you about the human-independent existence of space and time by the way.

Wayfarer won't agree with you about the human-independent existence of space and time by the way. — Janus

I keep emphasizing that there are two distinct meanings of 'mind-independent': a practical meaning and a metaphysical meaning, the latter corresponding to metaphysical realism.

The practical meaning refers to the fact that many things—trees, mountains, other people—exist independently of your mind or mine in the sense that they do not rely on our individual perceptions to exist. This is uncontroversial and consistent with everyday experience.

Metaphysical realism, however, illegitimately extends this practical sense to claim that the world-at-large exists entirely independently of all mind, as if it is fundamentally separate from the act of perception or any cognitive structuring. — Wayfarer

Now we know that there is such a thing as time and space absent us, which are quite different from our intuitive understanding of them. — Manuel

How do we know that, by the way?

I keep emphasizing that there are two distinct meanings of 'mind-independent': a practical meaning and a metaphysical meaning, the latter corresponding to metaphysical realism. — Wayfarer

That is not a valid distinction in my view. It's a difference that makes no difference. Mere wordplay.

Moved below

They don't bump into them, and they lift their legs and pee on them They don't try to climb them although they may use them to stand on the back legs and look up to see what's up there making a sound they are intrigued by. Cats climb them and birds land and perch in them. — Janus

They don't bump into something; we conceptualize that something as a tree. Cats "climb" something (as opposed to go up? or latching on?). Yeah, they surely do stand on something. We conceptualize it as a tree - we have that linguistic and alongside that, conceptual capacity to apply the label "tree" to this thing animals react to.

Nothing inside of us could determine the smallest details of what is seen. What is actually out there determines what is seen. Otherwise, you would have to posit that our minds are all somehow connected. — Janus

We are the same species - so we will have the same concepts.

Just as dogs are their own species. As birds belong to birds.

When neurologists study a brain, they assume that what holds for that single individual's brain, applies to all of us, minus abnormalities.

When vision scientists study how we see, they assume that the person's eye they are studying, applies to all people - again, barring abnormalities.

How do we know that and yet do not know that there are structured configurations of energy which appear to us as objects? Wayfarer won't agree with you about the human-independent existence of space and time by the way. — Janus

We know that because mathematics, somehow, seems to apply to mind independent reality. What physics studies are the simplest systems in nature, somehow, we are able to develop theories that describe regularities in nature.

That was Einstein's comment about the most surprising thing about science (physics) that it works at all.

If Wayfarer thinks this is problematic or wouldn't agree with me here, then I'd disagree with him here.

I don't deny mind-independence. I only think it becomes overwhelmingly complex above physics.

How do we know that, by the way? — Wayfarer

Well Eddington confirmed that space and time were actually one thing, spacetime, experimentally confirmed in the early 20th century.

Sure. I still maintain, time and space rely on an element of perspective, and that the perspective is provided by the observer.

Henri Bergson insisted that duration proper cannot be measured. To measure something – such as volume, length, pressure, weight, speed or temperature – we need to stipulate the unit of measurement in terms of a standard. For example, the standard metre was once stipulated to be the length of a particular 100-centimetre-long platinum bar kept in Paris. It is now defined by an atomic clock measuring the length of a path of light travelling in a vacuum over an extremely short time interval. In both cases, the standard metre is a measurement of length that itself has a length. The standard unit exemplifies the property it measures.

In Time and Free Will, Bergson argued that this procedure would not work for duration. For duration to be measured by a clock, the clock itself must have duration. It must exemplify the property it is supposed to measure. To examine the measurements involved in clock time, Bergson considers an oscillating pendulum, moving back and forth. At each moment, the pendulum occupies a different position in space, like the points on a line or the moving hands on a clockface. In the case of a clock, the current state – the current time – is what we call ‘now’. Each successive ‘now’ of the clock contains nothing of the past because each moment, each unit, is separate and distinct. But this is not how we experience time. Instead, we hold these separate moments together in our memory. We unify them. A physical clock measures a succession of moments, but only experiencing duration allows us to recognise these seemingly separate moments as a succession. Clocks don’t measure time; we do. This is why Bergson believed that clock time presupposes lived time. — Who Really Won the Bergson-Einstein Debate

The following makes the same point:

The problem of including the observer in our description of physical reality arises most insistently when it comes to the subject of quantum cosmology - the application of quantum mechanics to the universe as a whole - because, by definition, 'the universe' must include any observers.

Andrei Linde has given a deep reason for why observers enter into quantum cosmology in a fundamental way. It has to do with the nature of time. The passage of time is not absolute; it always involves a change of one physical system relative to another, for example, how many times the hands of the clock go around relative to the rotation of the Earth. When it comes to the Universe as a whole, time looses its meaning, for there is nothing else relative to which the universe may be said to change. This 'vanishing' of time for the entire universe becomes very explicit in quantum cosmology, where the time variable simply drops out of the quantum description. It may readily be restored by considering the Universe to be separated into two subsystems: an observer with a clock, and the rest of the Universe. — Paul Davies, The Goldilocks Enigma: Why is the Universe Just Right for Life, p 271

I mean, either the universe is 13.7 billion years old, or it is not. That's a factual statement.

If we never arose, there would still be something there. It must be assumed otherwise how could we exist at all? Something had to happen that led to us, which did not depend on us.

They don't bump into something. Cats "climb" something (as opposed to go up? or latching on?). Yeah, they surely do stand on something. We conceptualize it as a tree - we have that linguistic and alongside that, conceptual capacity to apply the label "tree" to this thing animals react to. — Manuel

In order to come to conceptualize ^tree^ we must first be able to see one. Then we can conceptualize all the others. Of course other animals don't think 'tree'. That is not the point at issue. Their behavior shows us that they see roughly the same structures that we do.

OK. Good.

We see something, right? This something triggers a reaction in our minds such that we call it a "tree". We don't see a tree first and then label it as a tree. We see things which we then interpret as so and so.

Their behaviors suggest they are interacting with something which is "concrete", something that can be touched and not passed through.

What does "structure" cover for you? Does it cover the shape of a thing or it's qualia or what? That's a bit unclear to me.

If we never arose, there would still be something there. It must be assumed otherwise how could we exist at all? Something had to happen that led to us, which did not depend on us. — Manuel

I really do understand the perplexity here. The issue is, as soon as you say 'something', then you're bringing your mind to bear on the question. In the OP, I'm careful to say that I'm not claiming that, in the absence of an observer, things literally become nothing. It's rather that the mind provides the framework within which the whole concept of 'existence' is meaningful - including the units of time by which it is measured (13.7 billion years).

It is in this context where I reference a quotation from the Buddhist texts (not in support of a religious argument!):

By and large, Kaccāyana, this world is supported by a polarity, that of existence and non-existence. But when one sees the origination of the world as it actually is with right discernment, “non-existence” with reference to the world does not occur to one. When one sees the cessation of the world as it actually is with right discernment, “existence” with reference to the world does not occur to one. — Kaccāyanagotta Sutta

But the Buddha is not referring to the geological origin of the world. It's a reference to the 'world-making process' which the mind is involuntarily engaged in at each successive moment. The 'origin of the world', in Buddhist terms, is the process which gives rise to that world-making process ('the chain of dependent origination'.) The 'cessation of the world' is the ending of that process, namely, nibbana (in the Pali texts.)

What I'm relating that to, is the insights of cognitive science (ultimately traceable back to Kant) about how 'mind creates world'. It does not create the objective world, but then, what is 'objective' without there being the subject or observer for whom it is an object? It's interesting that in many of the early Buddhist texts, you will encounter the expression 'self and world', as in, 'the self and world arises' or 'the self and world exists'. That is why Buddhism has been phenomenological from the outset. That is also why there is a convergence between Buddhist philosophy, phenomenology, and cognitive science, which we see in books such as The Embodied Mind.

This is why I say at the outset that grasping this point requires a perspectival shift, a gestalt shift.

'If the subject, or even only the subjective constitution of the senses in general, be removed, the whole constitution and all the relations of objects in space and time, nay space and time themselves, would vanish; and as appearances, they cannot exist in themselves, but only in us.' — Wayfarer

This, , is Waif's strong doctrine. If you press it's logic, he will deny it, stepping back to some merely transcendental reality.

Neuroscientists that deny the reality of neurones?

It does not create the objective world, but then, what is 'objective' without there being the subject or observer for whom it is an object? — Wayfarer

The world. The actual world. The hard thing to tease out is what belongs to it absent us. That's a hard question. I think the evidence indicates that atoms, protons and so on existed prior to us. So, did planets and several other things.

But I will grant you that qualia did not exist absent a subject. I grant you that we give "meaning" to things. I grant that we individuate objects, and I also grant that we don't reach things in themselves. But I do not follow you in so far as denying objectivity without a subject.

Notice I understand the radicalness of what you are proposing. But I don't think it's true. Not to that extent.

One could be even more radical like Arthur Collier and outright deny that anything exists absent us and be perhaps the only full-blown idealist I know of. And it is very radical. But it's also not convincing.

Radicalness is not an indication of correctness. Not that you claim so, but it's worth pointing out.

That doesn't mean I don't see massive obstacles in making sense of these things. These are hard questions.

I think the evidence indicates that atoms, protons and so on existed prior to us. — Manuel

I'm not denying it, if you read carefully. I hadn't heard of Collier, but perusing the Wiki entry, he seems a kindred spirit!

Neuroscientists that deny the reality of neurones? — Banno

Cognitive scientists who understand the fundamental role of an observing mind. Notice the cameo by Richard Dawkins muttering incredulously about 'a conspiracy to deny objective reality.'

What is it that you think this video shows?

What does "structure" cover for you? Does it cover the shape of a thing or it's qualia or what? That's a bit unclear to me. — Manuel

It's a general idea of form or configuration. Not qualia and shape is kind of abstract whereas structure suggest concreteness and boundedness (however loose). It could be thought of as a localised intensity of energetic bonding in a field that gives rise to chracteristic functions and interactions.

This, ↪Janus
, is Waif's strong doctrine. If you press it's logic, he will deny it, stepping back to some merely transcendental reality. — Banno

A transcendental reality which us poor sods, lacking the necessary insight, could not hope to understand. :wink:

Cognitive scientists who understand the fundamental role of an observing mind. — Wayfarer

Are they saying that it is not the case that "reality is real"? Do they deny the reality of neurones? How do they reconcile that with their day job?

Would they agree with you that "'...the whole constitution and all the relations of objects in space and time, nay space and time themselves... cannot exist in themselves, but only in us".

That phrase they use... 'underlying reality".... what's that, then? How does it fit in with your creed?

What is it that you think this video shows? — Banno

Hint: has to do with the original post.

Ok.

What?

Nothing further to add at this point.

Nothing further to add at this point. — Wayfarer

It is unfortunate that the title of the OP "The Mind-Created World" gives impression, that you are not perceiving the world as is, but you are perceiving the world with your own added imagination and emotions which could distort the accuracy of your perception.

The world is not mind-created, but it is given as is to the mind. Mind must see the world as is without adding anything to it. Heidegger says, the world presents itself to us. We have no option but be presented with the world, and you must face the world without any added prejudice.

Ah. Fair enough. To be clear "idealism" covers a lot of ground, as does "materialism". It's a matter of what one emphasizes, it seems to me. — Manuel

The basic and essential difference I see between the two ontological posits is that idealism proposes that mind/ consciousness/ experience is fundamental and materialism/ realism takes energy/ matter to be fundamental. — Janus

As Berkeley keenly demonstrated, materialism is swiftly reduced to idealism. This is due to the fact that matter, or energy, whatever term you choose, signifies only an idea. So Berkeley demonstrated that we can have a completely adequate understanding of the external world without employing the idea of "matter". What is actually the case, is that the idea of "matter" is just a substitute for the idea of "God". Each of these two words signifies the concept of an imperceptible (yes matter is imperceptible as what we perceive is the form) aspect of reality, the existence of which is assumed by us human beings, to account for the temporal continuity of the world. We assume the world to continue its existence independent of human perception, and we posit "matter", or "God", to account for this..

What is important to note though, is that materialism is reducible to a form of idealism, not vise versa. This assigns logical priority to idealism over materialism. Materialism, through the choice of "matter" as the base idea, which supports the reality of an independent world, is a distinct form of idealism from theology which holds the choice of "God" as that base idea.

I think the fact that we all see the same things and can agree down to the smallest detail as to what we see and that our observations show us that other animals see the same things we do, suggests very strongly that these things are not just mental constructions. — Janus

This is a very faulty argument. If we take two people, point them to the horizon in a particular direction, in an active situation, and ask them to make a sentence about what they see, they will undoubtedly make different statements. The fact that we can agree is attributable to the power of suggestion.

"Do you see that tall red thing straight ahead?" "Well, it looks more rusty orange than red to me, but sure, I see it". "See what's going on to the right of that, I call it 'X', do you agree?" "Sure, I'll agree to call it that."

The fact that we agree to use the same words in the same situation is indicative of a desire to facilitate communication, it provides no evidence that we see the same things. Nor does it prove that the names are not applied to mental constructs rather than supposed independent things.

In order to come to conceptualize ^tree^ we must first be able to see one. — Janus

This as well, is not true at all. We produce all sorts of conceptualizations of things not yet seen or experienced in any way. This is the basis for Kant's a priori. As a simple, but very powerful example, consider the reality of prediction. Predictions are exactly that, conceptualizations of things not yet experienced, and this capacity in its basic form is commonly known as "imagination". The dual capacity of that faculty, to produce images of things not experienced, as well as images of things experienced through sensation, indicates that this faculty of imagination produces, or creates, the images, and is not dependent on sense experience in its creations.

(Referring to video 'Is Reality Real) Are they saying that it is not the case that "reality is real"? — Banno

I took the time to generate a transcript (with some comments).

Beau Lotto (what an excellent name by the way): Is there an external reality? Of course there's an external reality. The world exists. It's just that we don't see it as it is. We can never see it as it is. In fact it's even useful to not see it as it is. And the reason is because we have no direct access to that physical world other than through our senses. And because our senses conflate multiple aspects of that world, we can never know whether our perceptions are in any way accurate (an exaggeration in my view). It's not so much do we see the world in the way that it really is, but do we actually even see it accurately? (I think there are obviously degrees of accuracy but it's a rhetorical point.)

Alva Noë on how our reality projects into our nervous system. However paradoxical it sounds, if we think of ‘what is visible’ as just what projects to the eyes, we see much more than is visible. Let me give you an example. I walk into a room and there's graffiti on the wall - and imagine it's graffiti that I find really offensive. I look at it, I flush, my heart starts to race, I'm outraged, I'm taken aback. Of course, if I didn't know the language in which it was written, I could have had exactly the same retinal events and the same events in my early visual system, without any corresponding reaction. Much more shows up for us than just what projects into our nervous system.

Donald Hoffman on if our senses are telling us the truth. Our senses are making up the tastes, odors and colors that we experience. They're not properties of an objective reality. They're actually properties of our senses, that they are fabricating. By ‘objective reality’ I mean what most physicists would mean, and that is that something is objectively real if it would continue to exist, even if there were no creatures to perceive it. Colors, odors, tastes and so on are not real in that sense of objective reality. They are real in a different sense. They're real experiences. Your headache is a real experience, even though it could not exist without you perceiving it. So it exists in a different way than the objective reality that physicists talk about. So it was quite a stunning shock to me when I realized that it's not just tastes, odors and colors, that are the fabrications of our senses and are not objectively real. Space-time itself, and everything within space-time. Objects, electrons, quarks, the sun, the moon, their shapes, their masses, their velocities, all of these physical properties are also constructions (compare Schopenhauer's 'vorstellung', representations.)

Frank Wilczek on how we perceive color and sound Scientific knowledge of what light is shows us that our natural perception leaves a lot on the table. The human perception of color is limited by the principles of quantum mechanics. It's interesting to compare the human perception of color, to the perception of sound. When you have two pure tones together, like a C and a G a simple chord, that's a fifth. If you hear that, you can hear the separate tones, even though they're played together and you hear a chord, you can also sense the separate tones.

Whereas with colors, you have two different colors, say spectral green and spectral red and mix them. What you see is not a chord where you can see the distinct identities preserved, but rather an intermediate color. In fact, you'll see something that looks like yellow. It's as if in music, when you play to the C and a G together, instead of hearing a chord, you just heard the note E the intermediate note.

So at this most basic level, we don't represent even the information we're getting in any accurate way. And the reason is because it was useful to see it this way. So what are you are seeing is the utility of the data not the data. Evolution by natural selection has shaped us with perceptions that are designed to keep us alive. So if I see a snake, don't pick it up. If I see a cliff, don't jump off. If I see a train don't step in front of it. We have to take our perceptions seriously, but that does not entitle us to take them literally.

Daniel Schmachtenberger on perception, choice making, and navigating reality. A perspective on something defined by perception is inherently a reduction of the information of the thing. My perspective of it is going be a lot less total information than the actual thing is. I can look at the object from the east side or the west side or the top or the north side or the inside, microscopically, telescopically, they'll all give me different information. None will give me the entirety of the information about the situation. So there is no all-encompassing perspective that gives me all of the information about almost any situation.

What this means is that reality itself is trans-perspectival. It can't be captured in any single perspective. So multiple perspectives have to be taken. All of which will have some part of the reality, some signal. There may also be distortion. I may be looking at the thing through a fish eye lens or through a colored lens that creates some distortion. Why does this matter? The ability to take multiple perspectives, to see the partial truth in them, and then to be able to seam them together into something that isn't a perspective it's a trans-perspective capacity to hold the relationships between many perspectives in a way that can inform our choice-making is fundamental to navigating reality well.

This is due to the fact that matter, or energy, whatever term you choose, signifies only an idea. — Metaphysician Undercover

Not a fact—a mere assumption.

If we take two people, point them to the horizon in a particular direction, in an active situation, and ask them to make a sentence about what they see, they will undoubtedly make different statements. — Metaphysician Undercover

That people notice different things in a vast or complex environment is no valid objection. If one notices something, ask the other if they also notice the same thing—that would be a proper test. Take two people and ask them to point to tiny marks or blemishes on the surface of a table, for example, and they will point to the same things.