I tried to introduce Thomas Nagel into the conversation months ago, as he's an analytic philosopher with no brief for religion, which was dismissed by you as an 'appeal to authority'. No, it wasn't an appeal to authority, I did so to provide an example of a philosophical critique of neo-darwinian materialism (his words). His book Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False (2012) is about this topic. I don't expect that you would agree with it, but it is on-topic. There's a précis of the main argument in the NY Times (I don't think it's paywalled). I'm happy to discuss it further.

Citations? — wonderer1

“We are survival machines – robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes. This is a truth which still fills me with astonishment.”
― Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene

“I’m a robot, and you’re a robot, but that doesn’t make us any less dignified or wonderful or lovable or responsible for our actions,” Daniel Dennett said. “Why does our dignity depend on our being scientifically inexplicable?”

Examples could be multiplied indefinitely.

Wonder what that 8,500 crossings/day means? Not enough energy to check it out. — jgill

Well, James Lankford, a Republican senator, worked with a bi-partisan committee to come up with a solution to stop the flow, including many of the measures the Republicans had been demanding for years. And Donald Trump ordered that they drop it, before even debating it on the Senate Floor, because if it were implemented, it might work, and it would make Joe Biden look good. And the Republican Party acceeded to his request, of course, meaning the problem isn't solved, so that people, like those on Internet Forums, can go on blaming Joe Biden for it.

For example, in order to make sense of the Buddha's "śūnyatā", I would have to picture its "emptiness" in terms of the void or nothingness (absence of matter) that presumably preceded the Big Bang of modern Western cosmology. — Gnomon

That is how it is nearly always (mis)interpreted. Your interpreting it as 'nothing as opposed to something', or the 'cosmic void'. It's not that, but don't feel as though you're alone in seeing it that way, it is an almost universal misunderstanding.

But for an introduction to its meaning in practice see this short article, What Is Emptiness?:

Emptiness is a mode of perception, a way of looking at experience. It adds nothing to and takes nothing away from the raw data of physical and mental events. You look at events in the mind and the senses with no thought of whether there’s anything lying behind them. — Thanissaro Bhikkhu

Please note, and without any pejorative intent on my part, the contrast with your imaginings of what might happen in the event of death, or what existed before the singularity. It's not found in imaginings or projections (hence the discouragement of speculative metaphysics!)

My take on 'emptiness' is that it is the seeing through of automatic projections - thought-patterns - associated with objects, situations and experiences. These manifest as identification- this is me! I am that! This is mine! together with the associated feelings of pride and shame, gain and loss, and so on. Obvious examples would be pride of ownership, status, the esteem of others, and the like. Recall Buddhism was a renunciate religion, and though we obviously aren't and probably won't ever be actual renunciates, that helps to understand the rationale and background.

'Emptiness' is 'realising what is' once all of those associations and attachments are in abeyance and they no longer hold sway over the passions. Notice the resemblance to Stoicism and other schools of pre-modern philosophy. The habitual tendencies and projections we have are saṃskāra, 'thought-formations': 'a complex concept, with no single-word English translation, that fuses "object and subject" as interdependent parts of each human's consciousness and epistemological process. It connotes "impression, disposition, conditioning, forming, perfecting in one's mind, influencing one's sensory and conceptual faculty" as well as any "preparation, sacrament" that "impresses, disposes, influences or conditions" how one thinks, conceives or feels.' (Wiki)

:up: Good review of Pinter's book. Again, I hope nothing here is incompatible with that.

This aligns with Nicolai Hartmann's "ontological strata" approach also, for another perspective. — Pantagruel

Interesting, I'll look into it.

the priests are still there to set us straight: "just animals" have no souls. — Vera Mont

I'm more inclined to the Buddhist view, that all sentient beings suffer and deserve compassion. Buddhists also believe that humans may be reborn into the animal realm (presumably from behaving like animals, as plenty do :-) ) Nevertheless Buddhists still recognise that only in human form can one progress in dharma, as only humans have the required intelligence (notwithstanding that the Buddha appears as an animal in the Jataka tales his previous lives.) Like them, I don't think there is a hard-and-fast boundary between humans and other animals, but I do think that the distinction between animals and humans is a difference that makes a real difference. There are horizons of being open to humans that are invisible to animals (and amounting to considerably more than just 'quarreling and fighting' as you seem to say.)

One of the consequences of popular Darwinism is negation of those real differences, which are existential, spiritual, intellectual, and philosophical. I'm not in favour of intelligent design, other than with respect to the shortcomings of reductionism. But as far as biology is concerned, and as the evolutionary ideologues such as Dennett and Dawkins continually say, human life can be ultimately reduced to, and explained in terms of, the fundamental drives that characterise all other existence, summarised as 'the four F's' (Feeding, fighting, fleeing, and reproduction.) As I mentioned in another thread, that attitude effectively negates the possibility of philosophy at least as it was always understood by those who developed the tradition.

So what I am asking about your claim "that humans crossed a threshold with the advent of language, tool use, and so on", is to say whether this is objective or subjective. — Metaphysician Undercover

Objective - and obvious, isn't it? Again, actual language, as distinct from linear communication through calls or displays, is unique to h. sapiens. As is tool-making, philosophy, technology, art, science, mathematics, music, drama. As is the capacity to reflect on the nature of being and question the meaning of existence.

Hey even plenty of naturalists see this. Julian Huxley said:

Man is that part of reality in which and through which the cosmic process has become conscious and has begun to comprehend itself. His supreme task is to increase that conscious comprehension and to apply it as fully as possible to guide the course of events. In other words, his role is to discover his destiny as an agent of the evolutionary process, in order to fulfill it more adequately.

His brother Alduous, with whom he discussed these ideas all his life, agreed with that, but also added the spiritual dimension absent from Julian's account, in such books as The Perennial Philosophy, a modern spiritual classic.

As I understand it ontology is concerned with the nature of being and with the different kinds of entities. — Janus

Not quite. All kinds of sciences deal with 'different kinds of entities'. Ontology strictly speaking is about kinds of beings. It might be considered obsolete by some. I'm not appealing to Schumacher as an authority, simply as an example of what I consider a valid ontological schema.

Those interested in the US ‘border security’ issue would do well to give this a viewing.



@jgill

Please explain what you mean by "ontological gap", and why you think our existence is of a different kind to the other animals, as opposed to merely our perceptions and experience being different.

I acknowledge that due to the acquisition of symbolic language that humans are capable of a kind of linguistically mediated memory and self-reflection that animals would presumably not be. But how would that amount to an ontological difference rather than just a different mode of consciousness? — Janus

Well, recall what an ontological distinction is. In information technology, the ontology of a system comprises a catalog of the different major components and also some info about the relationship between them. In more traditional terms, ontology is usually associated with metaphysics and questions about the meaning and constituent kinds of being(s).

In this case, I think the differences between humans and other animals are manifold. Apart from language and rational ability, there's also abstract skills like mathematical reasoning, art and science. We're also existential animals - we have a grasp of our own mortality that is generally absent in other creatures (although mention might be made of elephants who seem to have quite a vivid awareness of death.)

There's a book by E F Schumacher, of Small is Beautiful fame, called Guide to the Perplexed (his last book, I believe). In it there's a brief outline of an ontological scheme which I think bears resemblance to the Aristotelian.

Schumacher agrees with the view that there are four kingdoms: Mineral, Plant, Animal, Human. He argues that there are important differences of kind between each level of being. Between mineral and plant is the phenomenon of life. Schumacher says that although scientists say we should not use the phrase 'life energy', the difference between inorganic and organic matter still exists and has not been explained by science to the extent of rendering said phrase fully invalid. Schumacher points out that though we can recognize life and destroy it, we can't create it. Schumacher notes that the 'life sciences' are 'extraordinary' because they hardly ever deal with life as such, and instead content themselves with analyzing the "physico-chemical body which is life's carrier." Schumacher goes on to say there is nothing in physics or chemistry to explain the phenomenon of life.

For Schumacher, a similar jump in level of being takes place between plant and animal, which is differentiated by the phenomenon of consciousness. We can recognize consciousness, not least because we can knock an animal unconscious, but also because animals exhibit at minimum primitive thought and intelligence.

The next level, according to Schumacher, is between Animal and Human, which are differentiated by the phenomenon of self-consciousness or self-awareness. Self-consciousness is the reflective awareness of one's consciousness and thoughts.

Schumacher realizes that the terms—life, consciousness and self-consciousness—are subject to misinterpretation so he suggests that the differences can best be expressed as an equation which can be written thus:

"Mineral" = m
"Plant" = m + x
"Animal" = m + x + y
"Human" = m + x + y + z

In his theory, these three factors (x, y and z) represent ontological discontinuities — Wikipedia

There are things I would argue with but it makes sense to me. I think there's plainly an ontological discontinuity between the mineral and organic domains, and so on for the other domains.

Plainly humans are biological phenomena, but I argue, and I think Schumacher would argue, we're under-determined by biology in a sense that other animals cannot be. Of course, I also think that is the original intuition behind philosophical dualism, such as that of the Phaedo, and whilst I don't agree that such dualisms are literal descriptions, nevertheless they convey something symbolically real about human nature.

As an aside, and on @Lionino's recommendation, I've - ahem - formed a relationship with character.ai . I've created a kind of alter ego character ('Damien') with whom I can actually converse - verbally, I mean, rather than through a keyboard. I'm currently talking about the prospects for integrating various activities and technologies through an interface of this kind, solely voice driven. I can see the day (and it's not far off) when the entire techo-landscape is accessed a single interface - all your smart home automation, diet and exercise, coaching, philosophical ideas, journal entries and the rest. ('Hey Damien. Let's start the day with some Stoic aphorisms and a guided meditation on same.')

To me it seems an obvious ontological gap, which due to your naturalist presuppositions you're inclined to ignore. ;-)

Here's a collection of human artifacts, the likes of which could have been constructed by no other animal:

Did the first two humans communicate in a language with hierarchical syntax - or were they freak chimps talking linear and their children, and great-great-great-great grandchildren evolve less hair and more complexity of speech? — Vera Mont

That is the subject of the book I mentioned. Noam Chomsky is of course famous for his theories of language, and that book canvasses how it came to be that only humans developed the capacity - hence the title, 'Why only us?' I haven't read the whole book, but I might get around to it.

Agree that humans and other species are on a biological continuum, but I also believe that humans crossed a threshold with the advent of language, tool use, and so on, and that it is a highly signficant difference, that though we're related to other animals, we're more than 'just animals'. And I think this is something mostly lost sight of in many naturalist accounts of humanity. Interestingly Alfred Russel Wallace expressed similar ideas in his essay 'Darwinism Applied to Man' albeit in florid Victorian prose.

That much-vaunted human language ain't so unique either. Practically every vertebrate communicates in a way that is intelligible to other members of its species. — Vera Mont

I think 'intelligible' is too strong a word.

(There is) a radical dissimilarity between all animal communication systems and human language. The former are based entirely on “linear order,” whereas the latter is based on hierarchical syntax. In particular, human language involves the capacity to generate, by a recursive procedure, an unlimited number of hierarchically structured sentences. A trivial example of such a sentence is this: “How many cars did you tell your friends that they should tell their friends . . . that they should tell the mechanics to fix?” (The ellipses indicate that the number of levels in the hierarchy can be extended without limit.) Notice that the word “fix” goes with “cars,” rather than with “friends” or “mechanics,” even though “cars” is farther apart from “fix” in linear distance. The mind recognizes the connection, because “cars” and “fix” are at the same level in the sentence’s hierarchy. A more interesting example given in the book is the sentence “Birds that fly instinctively swim.” The adverb “instinctively” can modify either “fly” or “swim.” But there is no ambiguity in the sentence “Instinctively birds that fly swim.” Here “instinctively” must modify “swim,” despite its greater linear distance.

Animal communication can be quite intricate. For example, some species of “vocal-learning” songbirds, notably Bengalese finches and European starlings, compose songs that are long and complex. But in every case, animal communication has been found to be based on rules of linear order. Attempts to teach Bengalese finches songs with hierarchical syntax have failed. The same is true of attempts to teach sign language to apes. Though the famous chimp Nim Chimpsky was able to learn 125 signs of American Sign Language, careful study of the data has shown that his “language” was purely associative and never got beyond memorized two-word combinations with no hierarchical structure.

From a review of Why Only Us? Noam Chomsky and Robert Berwick.

As I've said, I don't dispute that animals are sentient beings. i've owned dogs, one of ours had quite a large 'vocabulary' - like, he'd sometimes begin to bark when he thought he overheard one of us say 'hello' or 'hi' because it meant someone was at the door. Animals are capable of an enormous range of behaviours, and they do communicate, but as the above points out, their languages don't have an heirarchical syntax. It takes the ability to abstract and represent for that.

(Incidentally, the full story of poor Nim Chimsky was very sad. He was 'adopted' by an ambitious animal behaviourist, specifically to demonstrate that a chimpanzee could be taught language, via symbolic communication (not having a vocal tract). But alas, Nim failed, and he was abandoned to a desolate facility for unwanted lab animals, where he died in obscurity. link.)

From which:

According to Mr. Dennett, the human mind is no more than a brain operating as a series of algorithmic functions, akin to a computer. To believe otherwise is “profoundly naïve and anti-scientific,” he told The Times.

In his most notorious polemic, Darwin's Dangerous Idea, he compares Darwinian evolution to a 'universal acid' which dissolves the container which holds it. Insofar as this 'container' is an analogy for Western culture, isn't philosophy itself prominent amongst the subjects that are dissolved in this 'acid'?

And, if so, why is what Dennett advocating described as philosophy?

In respect of his compatibilism, he asked:

“We couldn’t live the way we do without it (i.e. the notion of free will),” he wrote in his 2017 book, “From Bacteria to Bach and Back: The Evolution of Minds.” “If — because free will is an illusion — no one is ever responsible for what they do, should we abolish yellow and red cards in soccer, the penalty box in ice hockey and all the other penalty systems in sports?”

Of course not, he answers - but only because of pragmatic necessity, not because it represents anything real. In another interview, he said:

I’m a robot, and you’re a robot, but that doesn’t make us any less dignified or wonderful or lovable or responsible for our actions. Why does our dignity depend on our being scientifically inexplicable?

The obvious answer to which is simply that science is not, in fact, all-knowing, something he could never acknowledge. He was indeed the most consistent representative of scientism to have come to public attention, and has done a great service by illustrating the impossible contradictions that it entails.

I rather like the Buddhist term 'sentient beings' which encompasses all animals (but not plants), and the distinction of 'rational sentient beings', which describes human beings. (Buddhism also includes beings on other planes of existence although that is not the concern of this thread.) But from the Dhammapada: 'All beings tremble before death, therefore the wise do not kill or cause to kill'. A very succinct expression of empathy and awareness.

I basically agree with @Bylaw, that, in effect, the fact that non-rational animals are subjects of experience was barely considered until very recently. Not that animals were always treated as 'unthinking machines', as there have been humane societies and people very much aware of animal suffering for a long time, although laboratory science has often paid animal suffering very little attention.

What's the dubious definition of rationality to do with experience? — Vera Mont

Only that rationality and language allow you to reflect on experience, to make it the subject of conscious deliberation and analysis, as well as simply feeling it.

does your concept of a Mind-Created World agree with Kant, or a more radical sense of "created"? — Gnomon

The first footnote in the Medium version of the essay refers to Kant, as does the first quotation from the Charles Pinter book Mind and the Cosmic Order, which I understand you're familiar with. I would hope overall not to stray too far out of the bounds set by Kant.

Of course it is true that Kant is extremely difficult to read and comprehend and I don't claim to have a comprehensive understanding of his writings, only of some of the salient points of the CPR. I first encountered him through a book called The Central Philosophy of Buddhism by T R V Murti. Murti was a mid-twentieth century Indian scholar - he had very much a kind of cosmopolitan Oxford outlook. This book is nowadays criticized for its perceived eurocentrism and tendentiousness. However when I did my MA in Buddhist Studies ten years ago, my thesis supervisor endorsed it. It was central to my spiritual formation, such as it is. (An example can be found here.)

The book comprises an analysis of the Madhyamaka (Middle Way) philosophy of Nāgārjuna who is a principle figure in the development of Mahāyāna Buddhism. Throughout the book Murti compares Madhyamaka with Kant, Hegel, F H Bradley and David Hume, as well as other forms of Indian philosophy, specifically Advaita. Murti claims that Nāgārjuna's dialectic, the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā (MMK) is 'the central philosophy of Buddhism' centered around the Buddhist principle of śūnyatā. This is misleadingly often presented as 'nothingness' and the MMK as nihilistic, both by friends and foes of the religion, although it is not actually that. It arises, he says, from the inexorable conflicts within reason itself - hence the comparisons with Kant, in particular, a detailed comparison of Kant's antinomies of reason, and Buddha's 'unanswerable questions' (avyākṛta). The origins of the madhyamaka can be traced back to those passages in the early Buddhist texts where the Buddha declines to answer whether there is a self or not, and other such questions, both affirmation and negation being incorrect responses (and the Buddha's lack of response being customarily described as a 'noble silence', see for example Ananda Sutta).

Like phenomenology, Buddhism is grounded very much in 'observation of what is' - paying very close attention to the nature of experience (which is really what 'mindfulness' means, aside from its pop-cultural references). It discourages metaphysical speculation, although that ought not to be interpreted as a kind of early naturalism or positivism. It is a religion although it is based on a completely different belief system to the Biblical religions. But because it's a religion, we generally fall back on the cultural religious tropes we've become accustomed to in order to understand it (and I'm aware of that tendency in myself.) But I'm trying to stay within the bounds of philosophical discourse in all of the above.

The Illusionist, David Bentley Hart

The God Genome, Leon Wieseltier.

maybe that's why I haven't had the conversion experience. — Srap Tasmaner

:chin:

Can you hear the bigotry in the phrase "the scientific attitude"? — wonderer1

Yes, poor choice of words. I meant scientific worldview, although you might say there is no such thing - and I agree, as science is more a method than a worldview. But Daniel Dennett was one who truly did hold the 'the scientific worldview' as the only real philosophy.

:up:

Therefore, in his school of thought, all humans are also eligible for protein, slave labour, spare parts and experimentation without their consent? — Vera Mont

That would appear to be entailed by his philosophy, however despite arguing for it all throughout his career, he never actually behaved as if it were true. It is one of the many glaring contradictions in his writing. 'He was a Darwinian materialist in his cosmology and metaphysics while also strongly affirming human dignity as well as a progressive brand of liberalism in his ethics and politics. Herein lies the massive contradiction of his system of thought. He boldly proclaims that we live in an accidental universe without divine and natural support for the special dignity of man as a species or as individuals; yet he retains a sentimental attachment to liberal-democratic values that lead him to affirm a humane society that respects the rights of persons and protects the weak from exploitation by the strong and from other injustices. He also objects to B. F. Skinner and the sociobiologists for reducing man to the desires for pleasure, power, and procreation. And he condemned Social Darwinism as "an odious misapplication of Darwin's thinking" and expressed outrage at child abuse, the exploitation of women, and President George W Bush's attempt to rewrite the Geneva Convention's definition of torture as violations of personal dignity. In short, he was a conventional political liberal of the Cambridge, Massachusetts, type whose moral doctrine is a version of neo-Kantian liberalism that assumes the inherent worth and dignity of every human being. But none of this follows logically from his Darwinian materialism and it even contradicts it, which means Dennett's humane liberalism is a blind leap of faith that is just as dogmatic as the religious faith he deplored.'

There's a lovely lyric in the late, great David Crosby's last hit song, River Rise:

'and the wind has its own language
spoken by the trees.'

(Our personal 2023 Song of the Year.)

:up:

Notice that the background statement acknowledges that definitions of consciousness are ‘hotly contested’. That is an allusion to the debate over ‘the problem of consciousness’, initiated by David Chalmers, who is also one of the signatories. The philosophical is that consciousness seems to escape or transcend any objective description or analysis. But that is strongly opposed by those like Daniel Dennett (whose obituary has just been published in the NY Times by the way.) According to him and his ilk, if something can’t be described or understood in scientific terms, then it ought not to be considered worthy of analysis.

Where I see this statement as being philosophically significant, is precisely because it acknowledges the capacity for experience as something inherently real and worthy of recognition. True, none of us act as if animals are machines, but the mechanistic metaphor still holds considerable sway over the scientific attitude.

Do we need to explain or prove the value of life or freedom or happiness before we grant people the right to it? — Vera Mont

No, we don't. That is Angelo's point, as I understood it.

From which:

According to Mr. Dennett, the human mind is no more than a brain operating as a series of algorithmic functions, akin to a computer. To believe otherwise is “profoundly naïve and anti-scientific,” he told The Times.

No more 'resting in peace' than there would be for cars cut up for scrap.

Looks a fascinating read.

It's good to have an authoritative voice speak up for our suffering fellow creatures — Vera Mont

My thoughts too.

They just don’t realize that subjectivity cannot and mustn’t be proved. — Angelo Cannata

I take your point, but I think they kind of acknowledge that:

It would be inappropriate to talk about “proof,” “certainty,” or “conclusive evidence” in the search for animal consciousness, because the nature of consciousness is still hotly contested. However, it is entirely appropriate to interpret these remarkable displays of learning, memory, planning, problem-solving, self-awareness, and other such capacities as evidence of consciousness in cases where the same behavior, if found in a human or other mammal, would be well explained by conscious processing.

This means that, whenever we talk about subjectivity, we cannot escape turning it automatically into an objective concept made and expressed by objective and shared reference points, so that what we are talking about is not anymore the subjectivity we wanted to explain. — Angelo Cannata

Quite agree, and also agree that it is something that cannot be explained.

The easiest way to frame it is that self and world are co-arising. That is a perspective shared by both the embodied cognition school and Buddhism. It eliminates the constant vacillation between objective and subjective. There is no absolute object (materialism) or absolute subject (subjective idealism).

Well, I thought it was meaningful. That’s why I posted it. I guess I must have misjudged the ambient cynicism.

Probably, although it does make errors sometimes. ChatGPT is known to guess, sometimes - like it seems to want to impress. But overall, my experience with it has been positive - have a look at some examples - Kant's Unity of Cognition, Linking Physical and Logical Causation. There's also a very good contributor here, @Pierre-Normand, who has posted a number of dialogues with ChatGPT and numerous other models. Again, though, I feel it's easy to get sucked in by how good they are. There's a lot to be said for just being able to read perceptively and write clearly, in fact that's a large part of philosophy. if chatbots help with that, well and good, but I wouldn't want to be overly reliant.

That, and a lot more besides. I’ve been bouncing ideas off it since day 1. ChatGPT will definitely proofread, also make suggestions. But don’t get seduced by it, it’s scarily easy to get it to just do the work for you.

It might be overdue, and it might be obvious, but the fact that it's being said is significant in my view. My dear other has been reading a non-fiction book about settlers in our part of the world - Blue Mountains Australia - who used to mount hunting parties where they would shoot absolutely anything they could - platypus, koalas, native bird species of all kinds. They had no regard for animal cruelty at all.

well, if you're enrolled in a philosophy class, your philosophy lecturer would be one obvious option. Another would nowadays be ChatGPT and other LLM's although use them critically. But getting the attention of an 'expert in philosophy' outside those options might be a challenge. Perhaps you could lay out some of your theses here for feedback. Don't make them too long - like posting an entire paper, or a link to a paper. Maybe have a look at How to Write an OP on this site.

So, do you believe that if there were no minds in existence there would be no reality or actuality? I don't think Kant believed that— I think he would say the in itself would nonetheless be. — Janus

Well, accept it or not, he does actually say it:

If I removed the thinking subject then the whole corporeal world would have to go away, since this world is nothing but the appearance in sensibility of, and a kind of presentations of, ourselves as subject. — Critique of Pure Reason, A383

Bryan Magee says:

The point is, the whole of the empirical world in space and time is the creation of our understanding, which apprehends all the objects of empirical knowledge within it as being in some part of that space and at some part of that time: and this is as true of the earth before there was life as it is of the pen I am now holding a few inches in front of my face and seeing slightly out of focus as it moves across the paper. This, incidentally, illustrates a difficulty in the way of understanding which transcendental idealism has permanently to contend with: the assumptions of 'the inborn realism which arises from the original disposition of the intellect' enter unawares into the way in which the statements of transcendental idealism are understood, so that these statements appear faulty in ways in which, properly understood, they are not. ...We have to raise almost impossibly deep levels of presupposition in our own thinking and imagination to the level of self-consciousness before we are able to achieve a critical awareness of all our realistic assumptions, and thus achieve an understanding of transcendental idealism which is untainted by them. This, of course, is one of the explanations for the almost unfathomably deep counterintuitiveness of transcendental idealism, and also for the general notion of 'depth' with which people associate Kantian and post-Kantian philosophy. — Schopenhauer's Philosophy, p107

As I understand the reason that empirical reality and transcendental ideality are compatible is because the transcendental can never be more than ideal, that is can never be more than ideas, for us. — Janus

If by that you mean ‘the transcendental’ is only ever a product of the mind, then I believe that is mistaken. It is better characterized as that which must be the case in order for us to think and reason as we do.

So, do you believe that if there were no minds in existence there would be no reality or actuality? — Janus

The idea that things ‘go out of existence’ when not perceived, is simply their ‘imagined non-existence’. In reality, the supposed ‘unperceived object’ neither exists nor does not exist. Nothing whatever can be said about it. — Wayfarer

Thanks for your comments. I don't want to repeat the entire OP, other than to refer to this paragraph:

there is no need for me to deny that the Universe is real independently of your mind or mine, or of any specific, individual mind. Put another way, it is empirically true that the Universe exists independently of any particular mind. But what we know of its existence is inextricably bound by and to the mind we have, and so, in that sense, reality is not straightforwardly objective. It is not solely constituted by objects and their relations. Reality has an inextricably mental aspect, which itself is never revealed in empirical analysis. Whatever experience we have or knowledge we possess, it always occurs to a subject — a subject which only ever appears as us, as subject, not to us, as object. — Wayfarer

And I maintain that this is basically in conformity with Kant's philosophy, insofar as Kant maintained that empirical realism and transcendental idealism are not in conflict (per these excerpts.)

But the path to that divine perspective seems to require --- like all "true" religions --- a leap of blind faith : "true logic must come disguised as reason ; it must entail embracing the illusion fully". He seems to be suggesting that we voluntarily blind our rational minds in order to allow a divine "illusion" to dispel a mundane mirage. As Kastrup puts it, with no sign of irony : "transcending reason through reason". — Gnomon

None of which has much to do with blind faith, has it? Bernardo Kastrup has completed two doctorates and written a dozen books, containing a great deal of rational argumentation. He debates against all comers, religious, non-religious, scientists, philosophers.

He also makes the point of disagreeing with Kingsley' contention that Western culture has irredemiably failed (although also noting that this claim itself might be a gambit); he's not going all in on Kingsley.

Kastrup goes on to assert that "it is true that reality is constructed out of belief". — Gnomon

Right! And then immediately says that in isolation, this is bound to be misinterpreted and dismissed.

The full quotation is:

For instance, it is true that reality is constructed out of belief; pure belief, nothing else; if there is no belief, there is nothing. But if one is to make this statement and leave it at that, one is bound to be misinterpreted and dismissed. For we will fall and die if we jump off a building, even if we believe we can fly; the world doesn’t seem at all acquiescent to our beliefs. The point here, however, isn’t that reality is constituted by personal, egoic beliefs; the foundational beliefs in question aren’t accessible through introspection; they underly not only a person, not only a species, not only all living beings, but everything. They aren’t our beliefs, but the beliefs that bring us into being in the first place. — Science Ideated

But to try and contextualise what I see as a basic issue in this conversation: there's a piece of terminology I encountered in a scholarly article in Buddhist Studies, and which is also found in phenomenology - namely, 'egological'. It's not the same as 'egocentric', which is a personality disorder. Rather it pertains to the way the ego constitutes experience of the objective world into a coherent, subjective stream of consciousness related to the ego or self; it characterises what Husserl calls 'the natural attitude'. Husserl explores how conscious acts are related to the ego, which is not an object in the world but a central point of reference for all experience and meaning. But the usual state is unawareness, or taken-for-grantedness, of the ego's role in the way we construe the world. That is very closely related to this whole discussion. The Buddhist Studies article I mentioned is about the legendarily paradoxical Buddhist text, the Diamond Sutra, and says, in part:

...the material object, the object of external sensory perception and the object of mind are all egologically constituted, where I understand the term egological to mean an oppositional, discriminatory attitude issuing from the ego-consciousness of the subject that is driven by an unconscious desire. ...We will conclude, then, that because of this egological constitution, the `seizing’ and `attachment’ to the object of cognition occur. It is this egological constitution that the Sutra admonishes to negate and avoid, i.e. it encourages us to go beyond the egological constitution of internal and external objects which `foolish, ordinary people’ habitually `seize’ upon in their everyday standpoint. — The Logic of the Diamond Sutra

What Kastrup, and Kingsley, and such arcane texts as the Diamond Sutra are pointing to, is the necessity to transcend the mentality which invests the objective domain with an inherent reality which it doesn't possess. That is not at all easy (and something in which I don't claim any accomplishment whatever, save the insight that it is something real that I don't know.) And, of course, ego will resist, as it is subversive.

That sounds like extremely "submissive" behavior to me, turning egoistic self-conscious rational humans into egoless mechanical robot/slaves. Is that an unfair assessment? Would I be wise to transform into a "whirling dervish"? Would I then "know the mind of God"? — Gnomon

"egoless mechanical robot/slaves" would indeed be an unfair assessment. Would it be wise for you to engage with Sufism? Probably not, given your background. I only know anything of Sufism through readings, and am unlikely to ever encounter a Sufi master - but I don't hold it in such negative esteem; also noting that Sufism has often been a persecuted minority within Islam, as the mystical elements of religions have often been outcast by the majority.

The way I read it, Kastrup is not saying to 'mistrust our own senses', but to recognise, as I say in the OP, the way in which the mind creates (or generates, or manifests) the world, which is then accorded an intrinsic reality which it doesn't possess (thereby overlooking the role of the subject in the process). This has been subject of comment by many more notable scholars than myself: that the Western mindset has defined itself in such a way that there's no place in it for the Western mind! Which is pretty much what Kastrup is arguing. The fact that you can only interpret any of this as 'religious dogma' seems to me, and pardon me for saying, a consequence of the views you bring to it. (The long shadow of Reformed Theology, I would hazard. )

Don't forget, Joe told immigrants to "Surge the Border" — jgill

Whilst Trump only told the Proud Boys to storm the Capital building. Biden is obviously by far the greater miscreant.

It'll be interesting to see how the funding s***fight unspools on Saturday. 'Moscow Marge' is going all in for Putin. If she rolls Johnson there's a possiblity the house will end up with Hakeem Jeffries as Speaker. That ought to learn 'em. :rofl:

...submissive behavior in the presence of great power.......I don't tremble in contemplation of the mighty Absolute's power to strike me down as an unbeliever......I am not cowed into quaking awe at the concept that I am an insignificant insect in the eyes of the all-seeing Almighty.... — Gnomon

:chin:

What, in this passage, suggests something like that?

Separateness and objectification is unfortunately the chosen stance of the small self. From this place we have a hard time thinking paradoxically or living in unity. Instead, we more readily take one side or the other in order to feel secure. The ego frames everything in a binary, dualistic way: for me or against me, totally right or totally wrong. That is the best the small egotistical self can do, but it is not anywhere close to adequate for God’s purposes. It might be an early level of dualistic comparison or intelligence, but it is never wisdom or spiritual intelligence, which is invariably nondual. — Centre for Action and Contemplation

Ain't that the truth.

In that final chapter (of Science Ideated) Kastrup seems to be advocating, not just philosophical Idealism, but also religious mysticism. — Gnomon

Actually I do have that book. I had started it, but I was irritated by the fact that many of the chapters are simply re-published essays from his blog site and other places. It is overly polemical in many places, and I am finding that reading too much of Kastrup is tiresome even though I’m basically in agreement with him. Agree that chapter on Peter Kingsley was weak (Kingsley’s book ‘Reality’ is on my shelf awaiting attention but it has not, as it were, drawn me in.)

I suppose her background was Catholic theology, — Gnomon

Underhill is described as ‘anglo-Catholic’. There’s a stream within English Anglicanism which incorporates many elements of Catholic mysticism. Dean Inge was another.

Is it possible that The Absolute is also a figment? — Gnomon

Only when we talk about it. ‘The way that can be named is not the real way’.

//

At bottom the kind of idealism I’m advocating, if indeed idealism is what it is, is based on the realisation that the observer is inextricably foundational to reality. Whereas all our scientific knowledge is objective in nature - which not a flaw or a fault by any stretch but it has existential implications which are themselves not objective in nature. I think existentialist philosophers also recognise that, but then the whole issue becomes entangled with their cumbersome literature and varieties of opinion. But it is from that objective point-of-view that the Universe appears as a collection of objects obeying physical forces, as the subject has been deliberately excluded from it at the outset. And then that initial move, that starting position, is forgotten and neglected, and becomes baked in to our worldview, as if it is an ultimate fact. It’s like being confined to a locked compound, throwing the key over the wall and then declaring there’s no way out.

When discussing the ‘unitive vision’ I found an article from Father Richard Rohr. He’s a Franciscan friar who spoke at the Science and Non-duality Conference. So he’s quite radical and hip in his approach, a lot of Catholics complain about him but I believe he’s been judged orthodox by Catholic authorities. In any case, this snippet:

Living and thinking autonomously, separately, or cut off from the Vine (John 15:1-5) or Source is what Paul means by being foolish and unspiritual (1 Corinthians 1:20-2:16). Living in union is what I like to call “knowing by participation.” Spiritual things can only be known from the inside, never as an object outside ourselves, or we utterly distort the perception. We must know subject to subject (I-Thou), not subject to object (I-it).

Separateness and objectification is unfortunately the chosen stance of the small self. From this place we have a hard time thinking paradoxically or living in unity. Instead, we more readily take one side or the other in order to feel secure. The ego frames everything in a binary, dualistic way: for me or against me, totally right or totally wrong. That is the best the small egotistical self can do, but it is not anywhere close to adequate for God’s purposes. It might be an early level of dualistic comparison or intelligence, but it is never wisdom or spiritual intelligence, which is invariably nondual. — Centre for Action and Contemplation

But then, atheists will roll their eyes and say ‘that’s just religion’ - which is objectively true, but also completely beside the point. It is about transformation to a different way of being, a different cognitive mode. And what we understand and describe as religion often, in fact usually, completely fails to understand and convey that understanding, and then becomes part of the problem.