I was responding to the OP, not to you.


....although I will say that individuals are born into specific times and places, with some kinds of apparently-innate abilities and proclivities, which are then subject to further influences and changes throughout their early childhood and adulthood. Some genetic inheritance, some cultural inheritance, but some elements of which can be quite subtle.

I will also note that there's a distinction between critical thinking and antagonism, and that these kinds of discussions will invariably generate the latter, as there are longstanding cultural taboos around this topic.

I’ve always had the belief that what is understood in the east as Saṃsāra - the eternal cycle of birth and death - captures some fundamental truth about existence, even if allegorical in some sense. The process that drives the cycle of life and death and of which individual beings are the product continues after individual death, and countless individual beings will continue to be born and to perish, each one of them taking form, from their own perspective, as ‘myself’ or ‘I’. In those belief systems, it is desire or clinging to existence which causes the birth of the individual, and only through the cessation of that desire or clinging is liberation from the cycle (Mokṣa) attained. The natural corollary of that is belief in rebirth, although in Buddhist culture, it is without the belief that there is an individual soul as such, but a stream of consciousness which manifests across many lifetimes. However it clearly requires that that there are planes of existence beyond the physical in which karma (the consequences of acts) is accumulated and transmitted.

In Western culture there is no such belief, instead it is thought that living beings are aggregates of material elements which are born as a consequence of physical processes which cease when those comprising physical elements disperse at death. It is a view seems intuitively obvious when viewed ‘from the outside’ or from a third-person or scientific perspective. However from the ‘eastern’ viewpoint it is a nihilistic attitude.

Where it sits uneasily with me is a sense I have had since I became conscious of memories from a previous life. That too could be understood allegorically, as the inheritance from or a transmission of the collective unconscious. I can’t say that I know it’s true, but on balance of probabilities I think it is more likely than not. I’m mindful of the fact that in those Eastern cultures, the prospects for a future existence are often said to be grim, as we inherit the consequences of acts carried out with no awareness of their eventual consequences.

Don't agree. The US system has its problems, but it has held up for 237 years - until now. And now a convicted criminal and secessionist with an emormous ax to grind and hatred of government has been put in charge of it. He may well succeed in destroying the constitutional order, but it's not the time to try and devise a new model. What's important is not letting Trump destroy it. The kind of cynicism 'the whole thing is broken' is only going to make it easier for Trump's nihilism to come out on top.

Now Trump, having said an Lies Social that he would put harder sanctions on Russia, then turns around to reporters in the Oval Office and "expressed understanding Friday for Russia’s stepped-up attacks on Ukraine after the White House halted military and intelligence aid to Kyiv this week, saying that he would resume help for the beleaguered country only when Ukrainian leaders agree that “they want to settle.”

“I actually think he’s doing what anybody else would do,” Trump said in the Oval Office on Friday, when asked whether he was upset that Russian President Vladimir Putin was taking advantage of the U.S. halt in aid for Ukraine. “Probably anybody in that position would be doing that right now. He wants to get it ended. And I think Ukraine wants to get it ended, but I don’t see. It’s crazy. They’re taking tremendous punishment. I don’t quite get it.” — WaPo

"Don't quite" get it? How about "don't have the foggiest idea, but would hate to upset my good friend Vladimir." In essence, Ukraine is being blamed for not throwing down their arms and inviting Russia to occupy their country. It's completely nuts, as is most of the other stuff he's doing.

Nothing of what you're saying here rises to the level of philosophical analysis.

Fair enough. A thing and the idea of a thing are separate, in that sense.

It is a fact that the United States of America is not in the Bible. — Arcane Sandwich

Did you know that the Mormon religion, founded in the United States, actually believes that Jesus Christ visited America on a spiritual plane?

According to the Book of Mormon, Jesus appeared to a group of Nephites in the Americas in 33 AD. That the Nephites were descendants of ancient Israelites who traveled to the Americas around 600 BC.
That Jesus visited the Americas to establish his church, as he did in Jerusalem. That when Jesus returns to Earth, he will first go to Jerusalem and then to Missouri. So the Mormons kind of retro-fit America into the Biblical myth.

There was also a myth that Jesus visited England, subject of the poem, and later the hymn Jerusalem, Oh Did Those Feet In Ancient Times. (Rather a stirring hymn, too.)

Does it matter, in any meaningful way, for ordinary citizens, that none of the aforementioned countries are not in the Bible? — Arcane Sandwich

It never seemed to matter to me, although clearly it does to others. I suppose it depends on whether you believe the facts related in the Biblical texts are significant due to matters of geography and history, or whether the symbolic and spiritual truths they are intended to convey are meaningful outside that context. Plainly for much of the history of the Christian West, the 'Holy Land' occupied the role of the Axis Mundi, the spiritual 'centre of the world', however with the discovery of the New World, and increased awareness of global cultures other than the Christian, this sense cannot help but have faded in the popular imagination.

(Also see The Jerusalem Syndrome.)

What do you think the actual idealism is? What is your account for non-naive idealism? — Corvus

Explained in the OP The Mind Created World. Not that I'm wanting to hijack your thread, but I also don't want to try and explain it all again here.

If I had to explain it in a sentence or two, it would be that the world (object) always exists for an observer. That while we can know what the world would be like as if there were no observer, the observer is still the basis of that imaginative act. That this doesn't mean that the world doesn't exist without an observer, as existence and non-existence are conceptual constructions.

The only way to change this, is to change the fundamentals of the US, to focus on running society as a society and not as a business. — Christoffer

In other words, Vote Democrat.

But if you divide the world into reality and representation, then you are back in the old dualistic view of the world. We have been on that road before. — Corvus

Have you been on that road before, or are you relying on a second-hand accounts?

If you go out, and see the tree in front of you feeling and confirm the physical tree, then you have the physical tree as well as the sensation and ideas of the tree. — Corvus

You think philosophers don't recognise this?

You need to do some homework on what idealist philosophy actually is. The Brittanica has a decent introductory article on it. It's not nearly so naive as you're making it out to be.

When the perceiver is only thinking about the world without direct visual or material sensation or perception, the world is in the mind of the perceiver as ideas only. — Corvus

‘Naive realism’ is the philosophical attitude that things just are as they appear, and there is no question to solve about the relationship between reality and appearance.

Although it’s not as common an expression, ‘naive idealism’ is the view that idealists believe that the world is simply a figment of the individual mind, or what goes on inside a conscious mind.

I think your post presents a pretty naive version of both materialism and idealism. Serious philosophers in both schools have long grappled with the conundrums of mind and matter, or matter and form.

Idealism cannot explain the coherence in reality therefore it is false. — MoK

And that is a naive depiction of idealism. No idealist philosophy of record will claim that ‘the world is all in the mind’ as you are claiming. If you want to illustrate the point you’re attempting to make, you’ll need to back it up with some citations from recognised idealist philosophy which say what you’re claiming it says.

The explosion of another SpaceX rocket is not really part of the 'Musk Plutocracy' but it is at least the occasion for a little wholesome schadenfreude. (The burning fragments witnessed falling to earth might also include fragments of Tesla's plummeting share price.)

More to the point:

Sorry PoeticUniverse, whilst I appreciate what you're trying to express, it doesn't capture my interest, as I don't know if poetic meter is really an appropriate medium for exploring ideas of this kind.

You're welcome.

I'm not concerned with questions of 'materialism vs idealism' or 'realism vs antirealism' because I think these questions are not definitively decidable....Science for me offers a far more interesting, rich and complex body of knowledge. — Janus

Probably just as well, as you show little aptitude in philosophy.

It's a kind of confabulation, hand-waving. — Janus

We can test it! I'll wave, and you vibrate.

Yes, I think you're right. I think it's a fact. Matter of fact, I've got one now. It's called 'irritation' ;-)

:clap:

We've been through all of this already. Fields in physics specify mathematical values for every point, as physics is quantitative in nature, comprising the measurement of objects and forces. Where 'field' entered the discussion was in a different sense, also discussed, as a 'field of awareness', which is a perfectly legitimate expression, albeit not describing a physical field. The remark that I made that precipitated two days of eye-rolling, was that physicalism (or materialism or what have you) attempts to resolve everything about the mind to the product of physical forces. In times past, this would have been understood atomistically, but since the quantum revolution, 'fields' have replaced atoms as the fundamental ground of physical existence. Hence, the analogy went, if physical fields can be understood as the ground of existence, as physicalists intend, then what of the nature of awareness, consciousness or mind, understood as a qualitative field?

Of course I understand that in the Austin/Davidson/Wittgenstein field of philosophy, no consideration whatever is given to the issue of the nature of the subjective unity of consciousness, and as you never tire of pointing out, hardly anyone in the academic world takes philosophical idealism seriously. Hence the eye-rolling. But the analogy stands as far as I'm concerned.

You are welcome to produce an alternative definition of "field" that does not invovle a value at every point in a space. — Banno

Already done: morphogenetic fields.

Stop blurting things out, just take a little time to actually think about it. I'll leave it with you.

The magic hand wave of "The subjectivity in me is the same subjectivity in you" contradicts the very use of terms such as "subjective" from which it derives. — Banno

That is also part of the point of the essay I've referred to:

we must... differentiate the subjective from the merely personal. The subjective refers to the structures of experience through which reality is disclosed to consciousness. In an important sense, all sentient beings are subjects of experience. Subjectivity — or perhaps we could coin the term ‘subject-hood’ — encompasses the shared and foundational aspects of perception and understanding, as explored by phenomenology. The personal, by contrast, pertains to the idiosyncratic desires, biases, and attachments of a specific individual. Philosophical detachment requires rising above, or seeing through, these personal inclinations, but not through denying or suppressing the entire category of subjective understanding.

The science you castigate and beg to become more "subjective" functions exactly because it works to overcome subjectivity by building on what we do share. — Banno

Hence my essay on the superiority of philosophical detachment to scientific objectivity. Here's a gift link for you.

...becasue a field has a value at every point... — Banno

Dogmatic? Me?

Not a field. — Banno

Why not? If you were amnesiac, you would presumably be conscious, even if you didn't know who you were. Your autonomic and parasympathetic nervous systems would be functioning. You would see things around you in the room, and other people, even if you didn't know who they were. All of those would be part of your field of awareness.

Reply to that, if you would, instead of changing the topic. — Banno

You're the one who changed the topic, and you're now trying to shift it back within your comfort zone.

Where was it you lost those car keys? ;-)

..so what is left that is shared? — Banno

The fundamental level of self-awareness that characterises beings. What would remain if you had complete amnesia and forgot who you were.

Still not an argument....

You're not answering the question, you're simply deflecting.

The subjectivity in me is the same subjectivity in you.
— Bernardo Kastrup
is exactly wrong. — Banno

Why? What's wrong about it? A mere assertion does not an argument make.

The context was this quotation:

Under objective idealism, subjectivity is not individual or multiple, but unitary and universal: it’s the bottom level of reality, prior to spatiotemporal extension and consequent differentiation. The subjectivity in me is the same subjectivity in you. What differentiates us are merely the contents of this subjectivity as experienced by you, and by me. We differ only in experienced memories, perspectives and narratives of self, but not in the subjective field wherein all these memories, perspectives and narratives of self unfold as patterns of excitation — Bernardo Kastrup

What precisely is the matter with that again?

Not forgiven so much as expected ;-)

:pray: I watched an archival 60 Minutes documentary about Mt Athos the other day and found it very affecting.

'field' as an encompassing environment of some sort, a philosophical notion — jgill

The field of conscious awareness is how I intended it. Aside from physical fields in biology there are morphogenetic fields. "A morphogenetic field is a region in a developing embryo where cells communicate and coordinate to form a specific organ or structure. The spatial organization of cells within these fields is controlled by chemical gradients (morphogens), gene regulatory networks, and cellular signaling (biosemiosis). Morphogenetic fields guide pattern formation, ensuring that tissues and organs develop correctly in relation to the body plan." It would hardly be surprising if 'field' used to describe consciousness has resonances with the biological rather than the way it is understood in physics.

Why call it a field? — Banno

Because it's an apt description of the nature of conscious awareness. In this context it is being used phenomenologically rather than physically referring to the way awareness manifests as a unified, continuous whole rather than as collection of discrete elements (per the 'subjective unity of perception'). Within that field, specific phenomena - specific aspects of 'phenomenal consciousness' - manifest as qualia, the qualitative attributes associated with specific stimuli or circumstances or cognitive challenges.

Thanks, nice of you to say! Glad someone does ;-)

On further reflection, there is a self-evident subjective field immediately experienced by every subject, namely, the field of their own conscious awareness. Things appear within it, and disappear from it, without literally being either inside or outside of it in any spatio-temporal sense. It is demonstrably a unified field, insofar as to be aware of oneself a subject, is precisely to be the subject in whom a single field of awareness exists.

So the question for you is, does every point in that field have a mathematical description, as do the points within physical fields? And if not, does that disqualify its description as ‘a field’?

He has a pretty compelling diagnosis of the psychological impetus for the "disengaged" frame of Hume and Gibbon vis-á-vis questions of religion as well. It represents a sort of control and insulation. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Isn’t that close in meaning to Taylor’s ‘buffered self’? Which is not coincidental with the advent of liberal individualism and the primacy of the egological point of view.

‘Trump’s speech was 10 minutes longer than the Lion King, but had twice as much lyin’ in it’ ~ Jimmy Kimmel.

as long as we're born into history, we can't but move in that world of codes. — ENOAH

That’s one for the scrapbook! :clap:

You make that clear. At least I try and articulate a philosophy rather than hanging around just taking potshots at other contributors, just for the sake of it.

perhaps Husserl's prejudice — Janus

:roll:

It's virtually all you talk about — Janus

It's a philosophy forum. I write about philosophy.

Kant did at least attribute space and time and maybe causality as innate categories of mind. — prothero

Yes, as his 'answer to Hume'. As I said, I'm an admirer of Whitehead, at least of what I know of him, but I'm a bit uneasy about the panpsychist element, that's all.

Everything we know about reality is shaped by our own mental faculties—space, time, causality, and substance are not "out there" in the world itself but are the conditions of experience.
— Wayfarer

You are blithely assuming that. How do you know it's true? — Janus

It's not an assumption, it is a philosophical observation and nowadays with ample support from cognitive science.

In what does that causality inhere?
— Wayfarer

From the point of view of science that question doesn't matter. It may well be unanswerable. Whatever the explanation, the fact is clear that we understand the physical world in terms of causation, which includes both local processes and effects and global conditions. — Janus

Right! 'The question doesn't matter'. And yet, you continually defer to science as the arbiter for philosophy.

The Husserlian approach, and the phenomenological approach in general I am fairly familiar with on account of a long history of reading and study. It is rightly only concerned with the character of human experience, and as such it brackets metaphysical questions such as the mind-independent existence of the external world. — Janus

But notice that Husserl says that consciousness is foundationally involved in world-disclosure, meaning that the idea of a world apart from consciousness is inconceivable in any meaningful way. That is the salient point.

I'm not concerned with questions of 'materialism vs idealism' or 'realism vs antirealism' because I think these questions are not definitively decidable. — Janus

But you have long since made up your mind, going on what you say.