So, irrespective of what anyone else may believe, I am justified in believing there to exist a world external to myself, which I am a part of. If this belief is true (as I am convinced), it is an objective fact, not a subjective fact that is only true for me. It is an objective fact even if everyone else holds a false belief in solipsism. — Relativist

I have taken pains to word the essay we're discussing in such a way as to avoid solipsism and subjectivism.

I am not arguing that it (idealism) means that ‘the world is all in the mind’. It’s rather that, whatever judgements are made about the world, the mind provides the framework within which such judgements are meaningful. So though we know that prior to the evolution of life there must have been a Universe with no intelligent beings in it, or that there are empty rooms with no inhabitants, or objects unseen by any eye — the existence of all such supposedly unseen realities still relies on an implicit perspective. What their existence might be outside of any perspective is meaningless and unintelligible, as a matter of both fact and principle. — Wayfarer

To quote from Schopenhauer:

the existence of this whole world remains ever dependent upon the first eye that opened, even if it were that of an insect. For such an eye is a necessary condition of the possibility of knowledge, and the whole world exists only in and for knowledge, and without it is not even thinkable. The world is entirely idea, and as such demands the knowing subject as the supporter of its existence. This long course of time itself, filled with innumerable changes, through which matter rose from form to form till at last the first percipient creature appeared—this whole time itself is only thinkable in the identity of a consciousness whose succession of ideas, whose form of knowing it is, and apart from which, it loses all meaning and is nothing at all.

Thus we see, on the one hand, the existence of the whole world necessarily dependent upon the first conscious being, however undeveloped it may be; on the other hand, this conscious being just as necessarily entirely dependent upon a long chain of causes and effects which have preceded it, and in which it itself appears as a small link. These two contradictory points of view, to each of which we are led with the same necessity, we might again call an antinomy in our faculty of knowledge… The necessary contradiction which at last presents itself to us here, finds its solution in the fact that, to use Kant’s phraseology, time, space, and causality do not belong to the thing-in-itself, but only to its phenomena, of which they are the form; which in my language means this: The objective world, the world as idea, is not the only side of the world, but merely its outward side; and it has an entirely different side—the side of its inmost nature—its kernel—the thing-in-itself… But the world as idea… only appears with the opening of the first eye. Without this medium of knowledge it cannot be, and therefore it was not before it. But without that eye, that is to say, outside of knowledge, there was also no before, no time. Thus time has no beginning, but all beginning is in time.

Where I take issue with physicalism is that it accords the objective world with an inherent or supposedly mind-independent reality, so that it would remain just so, regardless of whether any being perceives it or not. Within that framework, the mind is considered a consequent fact, a faculty which owes its existence to the vast prior period of material and biological evolution that preceeded it. But this is dependent on viewing the mind as an object among other objects, so it is a judgement that is implicitly made from a perspective outside of the mind. Which is, of course, an impossibility - the inherent contradiction of materialist theories of mind.

For heuristic purposes, we can behave as if the external world is mind-independent and exists just it would without us. But that is a methodolical axiom, not an existential fact. The error arises from regarding the contingent facts of scientific inquiry as possessing a form of absolute veracity which they don't have. In Husserl's terms:

In contrast to the outlook of naturalism, Husserl believed all knowledge, all science, all rationality depended on conscious acts, acts which cannot be properly understood from within the natural outlook at all. Consciousness should not be viewed naturalistically as part of the world at all, since consciousness is precisely the reason why there was a world there for us in the first place. For Husserl it is not that consciousness creates the world in any ontological sense—this would be a subjective idealism, itself a consequence of a certain naturalising tendency whereby consciousness is cause and the world its effect—but rather that the world is opened up, made meaningful, or disclosed through consciousness. The world is inconceivable apart from consciousness. Treating consciousness as part of the world, reifying consciousness, is precisely to ignore consciousness’s foundational, disclosive role. For this reason, all natural science is naive about its point of departure, for Husserl (PRS 85; Hua XXV 13). Since consciousness is presupposed in all science and knowledge, then the proper approach to the study of consciousness itself must be a transcendental one—one which, in Kantian terms, focuses on the conditions for the possibility of knowledge.... — Routledge Introduction to Phenomenology, p144

OK, thanks for your reply. We disagree in multiple ways. But, since I don't much feel like argument at the moment, I prefer to leave it at that.

How can an external world exist independently of human minds AND be contingent upon human minds?

Being contingent upon entails a dependence, does it not? — Relativist

Yes "contingent upon" entails "a dependence" but your fist question equivocates what I have been proposing. With the equivocation taking place between the notion of "all elements from a multiplicity of elements of type X" and "one (or some) element(s) from a multiplicity of elements of type X - but not all". As an added example of this:

The presence of a heap of sand will be contingent upon, and hence will depend on, the presence of a multiplicity of sand particles in general - which are structured in a particular way. But it will not of itself be contingent upon the presence of any one particular sand particle, such that the heap of sand will remain present even if individual sand particles are taken away or added to it. No one sand particle on its own produces, or else equates to, the heap of sand. And so the heap of sand will occur independently of (i.e., will occur without being contingent on) any one individual, particular sand particle that partakes of the heap of sand. Take that one sand particle away and the heap of sand remains. The heap of sand can then be said to exist independently of any one individual sand particle from which it might be composed but, simultaneously, will be dependent on the occurrence of a multiplicity of sand particles in general. One could then incrementally replace each and every particular sand particle in the given heap of sand with the heap of sand persisting to occur unaltered throughout - even though it becomes constituted by utterly different sand particles. And the larger the heap of sand is, the less any alteration in its particular sand particles will make any meaningful difference to the identity, or else properties, of the heap of sand itself.

Replace "heap of sand" with "the physical world" and "individual sand particles" with "individual minds". The same relations will hold. This can thereby lead to the logically valid affirmation that, in a non-solipsistic mind-created world, the physical world occurs independently of me and my own mind, even though it will be dependent on the occurrence of a multiplicity of minds in general.

Constructive Empiricism seems to me to go to far, by denying that science tells us anything about reality. — Relativist

I don't know if it does that. The term 'anti-realist' often gives the impression of someone who denies the reality of science or regards scientific findings as somehow illusory or insubstantial. This isn’t what van Fraassen advocates at all. Instead, he’s deeply committed to the empirical success and practical validity of science but questions whether we should interpret scientific theories as giving us a literal account of an objective, mind-independent reality. At issue is the nature of the fundamental constituents of reality and whether they are physical, as physicalism claims.

Another basic point in this context is the distinction between reality, as the aggregate or sum total of observable phenomena and the objects of scientific analysis, and being, as a description of the existence as experienced by human beings. This is where I think physicalism over-values scientific method, for which physicalism may be an effective heuristic while being descriptively accurate within its scope. But many of the questions of philosophy may not be amendable to scientific analysis. Unless you're a positivist, that doesn't make them meaningless.

we should not accept standard scientific realism, which asserts that the nature of the unobservable objects that cause the phenomena we observe is correctly described by our best theories. — Relativist

which also implies distance from physicalism.

Then he doesn't have a categorical belief that his team will win. Rather, he believes it probable that his team will win.
— Relativist

I'm not big on that distinction. For starters, as a falliblist, upon analysis all my beliefs are graded (probabilistic or else comparable) - this even though I will typically address them in the categorical "yes/no" format. — javra

Sure, but then you have some loose epistemic probability in mind, and a more precise statement of your belief would identify this. So it is not strictly true that the guy believes his team will win. Rather, he believes it more likely than not that they will win, or that it is a near certainty, or some other probabilistic qualification.

If "Joe believes it more likely than not that the Columbus Spinsters will win on Saturday" then "Joe believes it is true that it is more likely than not that the Columbus Spinsters will win on Saturday". This is the "equivalence theory" in theory of truth.

I think your point is that you can believe X, but not be fully committed to it or completely certain of it. This is the way the word "belief" tends to be used in common conversation, but why force this vague concept into a philosophical analysis? — Relativist

There a rather long enough post in which I explained, to which you did not directly reply. What does philosophical analysis address? The real world or manufactured bubbles?

We commonly hear people expressing certainty as "I don't just believe it, I know it", implying that "belief" means something less than certain, and "knowing" = absolute certainty. — Relativist

Um, no, not "absolute - hence infallible - certainty". But it does mean that the belief can be justified without inconsistencies, thereby evidencing both its truth and that the knower can thereby confirm the truth of the belief.

Hell, we disagree galore on epistemology then. As I've previously stated, I'm a fallibilist. And since it's now evident that you are not, I now take it that you will uphold the possibility if not actuality of infallibility.

We differ significantly in this regard. I'll leave it at that.

Epistemology is not directly related to the real world? — javra

Of course it is, but the definition of "belief" and the practices used in the discipline of epistemology doesn't depend on any particular theory of that connection.

I really dislike the idea of "absolute/infallible certainty" being something that anyone can hold. You affirmed that:

implying that "belief" means something less than certain, and "knowing" = absolute certainty.
— Relativist

Which to me is not a position that a fallibililist can hold. — javra

Irrelevant to the point I was making about the terminology, and the problems of using any colloquial definition of belief.

The discussion of what fallibilism is and entails can present itself as one such. — javra

I expect we could agree on a definition of fallibilism, if we could agree on the terms (like belief) that it is based on.

I really don't like to debate semantics, where people argue what a word really means. The objective ought to be to communicate. My reference to a "standard" definition was aimed at trying to avoid potential communication problems. If we use the word "belief" differently, we won't be able to have a meaningful discussion.

If it's a process, then it isn't some "misleading name we give to the precondition for any ascription of existence or inexistence." — Relativist

Bitbol says it's 'misleading' precisely because it is reifying to designate 'consciousness' as an object of any kind, even an 'objective process'. To 'reify' is to 'make into a thing', when consicousness is not a thing or an object of any kind.

He's saying, before we can say anything about 'what exists', we must first be conscious. Or, put another way, consciousness is that in which and for which the experienced world arises. It is the pre-condition for any knowledge whatever.

After the quoted passage, he goes on:

from a third-person standpoint, nothing else than objects of perception and handling is to be taken seriously. Now, the behavioral or neurobiological correlates of consciousness are possible objects of perception and handling. They can be said to exist (if a subject is alive and awake) or not to exist (in other cases). Then, from this standpoint, saying that the neural correlate of consciousness (often taken as its “neural basis”) may exist or not exist, amounts to saying that consciousness itself may exist or not exist in the same sense.

So, here he's saying, that from the customary, 'third-person' perspective of naturalism and natural science, only 'objects of perception' are philosophically significant - what is objectively the case. So from this viewpoint, consciousness can be said to exist (or not exist) insofar as it can be described as correlate or product of such objectively-existing processes (the 'neural basis').

Other than the fact of one's own existence, what else can one infer? — Relativist

Basically, you're asking 'so what?' Which is what thought you'd say. But this kind of point is, basically, the division between Continental and English-speaking philosophy, in a nutshell. Phenomenology and the existentialism that grew out of it, are not concerned with scientific objectivism, but with lived existence and meaning, as providing the context within which the objective sciences need to be interpreted.

(I've recently had a Medium essay published in Philosophy Today, which you can access here, if you're interested. It's a brief intro to this philosopher, Michel Bitbol. )

But you're making an error if you think materialism requires these scientific models to be correct depictions of reality. The metaphysics does not depend on these models to correspond to reality.
— Relativist

So, what does it depend on, then? — Wayfarer

Physicalism = the thesis that everything that exists is physical. It is false only if there exists something non-physical. It depends only on this being true.

It is false only if there exists something non-physical. — Relativist

But you say:

No interpretation of QM is verifiably true, but it's a near certainty that reality actually exhibits the predictible law-like behavior that we observe. — Relativist

Sure it does. But what about this requires that the fundamental constituents are actually physical? What does 'physical' mean, when the nature of the so-called fundamental particles is ambiguous, as has been discussed? It's entirely plausible that 'physical' is a concept only applicable to composite objects, but not to their fundamental constituents. After all Neils Bohr said 'Everything we call real is made of things that cannot be regarded as real'. You could substitute 'physical' for 'real' in that sentence and it would still parse correctly.

And as for something non-physical, the wavefunction Ψ is an ideal candidate:

There is a crucial difference between the wave effect in the double-slit experiment and physical waves. In classical wave systems, such as ripples on water, the frequency — the number of wave peaks passing a point per second — determines the pattern and behavior of the wave. We might expect to equate the rate of emission (how often electrons are fired) with the frequency of a classical wave. But in quantum mechanics, this analogy breaks down, as particles can be emitted one at a time — and yet the interference pattern still forms. There is no equivalent in classical physics for a “one particle at a time” emission in a medium like water.

So the interference pattern arises not because the particles are behaving as classical waves, but because the probability wavefunction ψ describes where at any given point in time, any individual particle is likely to register. So it is wave-like, but not actually a wave, in that the pattern is not due to the proximity of particles to each other or their interaction, as is the case with physical waves. Consequently, the interference pattern emerges over time, irrespective of the rate at which particles are emitted, because it is tied to the wave-like form of the probability distribution, not to a physical wave passing through space. This is the key difference that separates the quantum interference pattern from physical wave phenomenon. This is what I describe as ‘the timeless wave of quantum physics’. — The Timeless Wave

The point is, claiming that everything that exists is physical becomes problematic if we can’t definitively say what kind of existence the wave function has, as in quantum mechanics, the wave function is central to predicting physical phenomena. If we take its predictive power seriously, it’s hard to ignore the question of its ontological status without leaving an unresolved gap in the theory. — Wayfarer

But there IS this unresolved gap in our physics. We really don't know. Therefore one can't claim it's inconsistent with physicalism.

Besides this, nothing you said is a refutation of my position as to what I consider physical.

I may misunderstand, but it sounds also bit like you're suggesting that we should reject physicalism if physics doesn't have a complete, verifiable description of reality.
— Relativist

As I said before, as a materialist, D M Armstrong believes that science is paradigmatic for philosophy proper. So you can't have your cake and eat it too - if physics indeed suggests that the nature of the physical eludes precise definition, then so much for appealing to science as a model for philosophy! — Wayfarer

It sounds like I had it right: you think physicalism should be rejected if physics doesn't have a complete, verifiable description of reality.

Armstrong's model is consistent with what we do know, so it's not falsified. A stipulation that the wave function is non-physical would technically falsify physicalism, but if the wave function behaves in a law-like manner, why make that stipulation? It would still be a coherent metaphysical model, save for using "physical" as a qualifier. That's why your objection seems forced: "let's label the wave function as non-physical (or just say it may not be physical) so we can dismiss every physicalist metaphysical theory".

I wouldn't put it in personal or pejorative terms, but I do believe that philosophical and/or scientific materialism is an erroneous philosophical view. — Wayfarer

My position is that Armstrong's theory is not necessarily true, but it's superior to other theories in terms of explanatory scope, parsimony, and ad hoc-ness.

The fact that it's consistent with what we know about physics is a point in its favor, while the fact that there are gaps in our understanding of physics is irrelevant. It's irrelevant because a theory can only be expected to account for what we know: that's the nature of abductive reasoning. Abduction entails comparing explanatory hypotheses - and what needs to be explained are the agreed facts. Unknowns do not constitute facts that need explaining.

Then he doesn't have a categorical belief that his team will win. Rather, he believes it probable that his team will win. — Relativist

I'm not big on that distinction. For starters, as a falliblist, upon analysis all my beliefs are graded (probabilistic or else comparable) - this even though I will typically address them in the categorical "yes/no" format. Do I believe the sun will rise again tomorrow? My answer is "Yes," this barring the odd improbable occurrence, such as of a large meteorite hitting the Earth before then in a manner that makes the Earth shatter, or some such (this such that I will hold this one graded belief with a probability assignment - say of 99.999% or thereabouts). All this then makes the distinction between categorical beliefs and graded beliefs artificial, to my own ears at least.

All the same, the initial point you made was:

If a person believes X, then he necessarily believes X is true. — Relativist

My point was that this is not always the necessary case. Graded beliefs, when so dichotomized from categorical, being beliefs all the same.

I disagree with you, but I acknowledge that no logical argument can prove you wrong. — Relativist

I understand. Although don't we here then embark into areas of faith, rather then those of belief which can be justified.

It also seems to me that our difference on this point is vanishing small- as small as the possibility that "2+2=4" is false. — Relativist

Yes, I can agree, hence why I consider my belief that 2+2=4 to be categorical - despite it yet being, technically when philosophically appraised, fallible rather than infallible.

And after all these months of conversations, I'm still at a loss to understand what you think physicalism explains, other than in its role as a methodological assumption in science.

The being would have experiences... — Relativist

Wouldn't it have to be a subject, to be considered 'a being that has experiences'? Experiences are not standalone events. They are experiences for someone. If there is no subject, then at best there are internal state transitions, information processing, memory registration, and behavioral dispositions — none of which by themselves amount to experience in the first-person sense.

Isn't the whole point of the 'philosophical zombie' argument that there would be no objective way of determining whether it really was a subject, as distinct from merely emulating subjectivity? Thereby showing that subjective awareness is not something objectively discernable.

a particular with intrinsic properties and extrinsic (relational) properties to other existents. — Relativist

If you mean this is the model, then it is falsified by physics. So this:

At exactly one point in your path, a distance relation of 5km emerged — Relativist

Is post measurement. The point at issue is what exists prior to the act of measurement. Prior to measurement there’s no determinate object with intrinsic properties.

I further narrow it down to the thesis that everything that exists has a common ontological structure: a particular with intrinsic properties — Relativist

However

The true ontology is unknown, — Relativist

When I say "independent of minds", I mean that the world at large exists irrespective of the presence of any minds at all. I believe the universe is about 14B years old, and there were almost certainly no minds within it for quite a long time. Can you give me a reason to reject or doubt this belief of mine? — Relativist

Reasons such as these?:

That mentioned, I agree that the sometimes tacitly implied notion of physical reality being somehow metaphysically independent of the individual minds which, after all, are aspects of it—such that physical reality could be placed here and minds there without any dependency in-between—is a logical dud. A close second dud is the attempt to describe minds, and all their various aspects, as purely physical (such that, for one example, all ends one can conceive of and intend are all physical in their nature). — javra

Yes, I can provide them, but I don't think reasons will here much help. We are all typically attached to the notions we are habituated to hold, in this case that there was physicality long before there was any type of awareness, ergo physicalism.

My reply to this will be that of panpsychism - this in the sense that awareness pervaded the cosmos long before life evolved into it (i.e., in the sense that the physical is, was, and will remain dependent of the psychical). This conclusion for me, though, is only a deduction from the premise of a non-solipsistic mind awareness-created world. And I do not claim to have any great insight into how panpsychism works - nor into any metaphysically cogent explanation for how life evolved from non-life (the physicalist explanation that "it must have" doesn't much console me either as far as metaphysical explanations go - I find it just as comforting as the explanation of "God did it").

We obviously perceive space and time, so why doubt that this is an aspect of the actual world? The mere fact that we have a perspective does not entail that this perspective is an illusion. — Relativist

Not to dispel the question you've posed, but only to observe that the way in which it is posed the issues are lot more complex than not.

Our perception of time sometimes drastically differs from that time we commonly deem to be objective, with the latter being measured via use of objective/physical tools, by which I mean anything from sundials to clocks. As one example of this, when we are forced into an event we are bored with time will slow down (relative to objective time) and when we find ourselves engaged in an event we are enthralled by time will speed up or fly by (relative to objective time).

So our time perception is not necessarily an adequate representation of the time that occurs in the actual world.

This can then go in any number of different ways - but please note that I am not by this denying the reality of an objective time as previously addressed (which for me is another can of beans altogether (especially since I take objective time to be relativistic)). Nor am I by this then claiming that that aspect of reality we can term objective time is not of itself ultimately dependent on the co-occurrence of a plurality of minds.

Dualism could be true. We could be descended from ancestors who were directly created by a God, and it doesn't change anything: there is still an external world and our senses deliver a functionally accurate understanding of it. Why doubt that? You seem to either deny it, or at least doubt it. Why? It's not dependent on physicalism. — Relativist

My issue with dualism, in the Cartesian sense, is that it tends to reify consciousness, treat it as a spiritual 'substance', which is an oxymoronic term in my view. I think some form of revised hylomorphic dualism (matter-form dualism) is quite feasble, one of the reasons I'm impressed with Feser's 'A-T' philosophy. I'm impressed by many of his arguments about the nature and primacy of reason, such as Think, McFly, Think. But he is critical of Cartesian dualism, at least as it has come down to us, and I think the 'Cartesian divide' is the source of many of the intellectual ailments of modernity.

Do you really doubt there exists a mind-independent reality? — Relativist

I think the idea of a mind-independent reality is really incoherent. Reality is something which minds create, as pointed out by the op. If you try to imagine the world as existing without any point-of-view, from no perspective at all, it becomes completely unintelligible, so it cannot be imagined. That's because "reality" as we know it, is point-of-view dependent. So the idea of a mind-independent reality really is incoherent.

That doesn't address the issue I raised.

I believe there exists a world (AKA "reality") independent of minds. I also believe nearly everyone agrees with me. — Relativist

If you re-read what was my initial reply to MU, you'll see that I also believe there exists a world independent of individual minds, and so I too agree with you on this count - even if, as the case is, I simultaneously believe this same world is contingent on the occurrence of mind as a generality.

So I'm not sure how to further reply.

Can you give me any reasons to change my mind? — Relativist

Read the op, and what I said in my last post. Only minds provide a spatial-temporal perspective, and without assuming such a perspective, all these supposed mind independent things, the world, the universe, even "reality" itself, are completely unintelligible.

If what is addressed by the term “reality” (I presume physical reality which, in a nutshell, is that actuality (or set of actualities) which affects all minds in equal manners irrespective of what individual minds might believe or else interpret, etc.) will itself be contingent on the occurrence of all minds which simultaneously exist—and, maybe needless to add, if the position of solipsism is … utterly false—then the following will necessarily hold: reality can only be independent of any one individual mind. As it is will be independent of any particular cohort of minds—just as long as this cohort is not taken to be that of “all minds that occur in the cosmos”. — javra

I really can't understand what you are saying here javra. Perhaps you could rephrase it?

I start with natural: That which exists (has existed, or will exist) starting with oneself, everything that is causally connected to ourselves through laws of nature, and anything not causally connected (such as alternate universes) that is inferred to exist, to have existed, or that will exist, through analysis of the universe. Naturalism= the thesis that the natural world comprises the totality of existence).

I’m probably not the person to critique this as I’m not a trained philosopher and come to this from a different school, so the other end of the stick so to speak.
I will say though that; “everything that is causally connected to ourselves through the laws of nature”. Is a catch all so big that due to it being an open ended set, it inevitably includes things which are regarded by Western philosophy as wishful thinking, woo woo etc.

I further narrow it down to the thesis that everything that exists has a common ontological structure: a particular with intrinsic properties and extrinsic (relational) properties to other existents. This implies everything is the same kind of thing, which I label, "physical".

This is where it gets interesting. I would use the word material rather than physical. That there is a spectrum of material including subtle (mental) materials. With physical material at the more dense, or concrete end of the spectrum. I go further in that I regard within the domain of subtle materials, a transcendent super subtle material for which mind (which is on the spectrum) is the correlate of physical material as seen at the bottom of the spectrum and the super subtle material is a higher, or transcendent mind.

Due to the solid concrete incorruptibility (in normal life) of dense physical material, the subtlety of the higher materials is drowned out, or confined. To the extent that our true nature as pure mind is constrained to such an extent that we are confined in a Neanderthal Stone Age (by comparison, and no disrespect for Neanderthals) life of moving concrete objects around the place. And subject to the consequences of dense physical bodies.

I'm not sure what you mean by "objectively existent" or "objectivity". Please clarify what makes this "criterion" problematic. — 180 Proof

Not so much problematic as limited, not universal. Isn't to limit the scope of truth to what is objective a form of verificationism? As I already said, there are a priori truths, mathematical proofs, and so on which are not objective (meaning 'inherent in the object'), or rather, true in a way that is not necessarily objective in the strict sense. Objectivity is something to be valued - I'm not a relativist - but at the same time, it's not absolute, or rather, its scope is limited. For instance, Newtonian mechanics affords pretty well absolute objectivity when it comes to the laws of motion, but when you get to quantum mechanics, you encounter the whole issue of 'interpretation of the meaning of the theory' which is no longer an objective matter, even if the predictions it makes are extremely accurate.

What I was trying to get at is that I'm aware of the problem of conceiving life in terms of the 'elan vital'. That is very much like the imaginary ghost in the machine as you said. But, I said, If that sounds like vitalism, I am not proposing that 'life' or 'mind' is a substance in any objective sense - it is ill-conceived to consider mind as something objectively real, but it is AS IF there is a something like mind or life that animates the material form of creatures. But to say it is objectively existent is a reification. We can only be aware of it, because it is constitutive of our being, NOT because it is a knowable object or substance. That's what I'm working on trying to clarify.

Also, do you reject what I (briefly) say on the thread "What is real?" ... — 180 Proof

There's not enough detail to really say.

You would have to defeat my belief in an external, minds-independent world. — Relativist

That's a bit confrontational to me. And, as I previously expressed, I'm not interested in so doing.

As to your other replies, they sidestep the questions asked without providing answers. E.g. are non-veridical beliefs of themselves physical? BTW, to the person hallucinating X, the physical reality of X will be a veridical belief ... this up until the time reasoning might intervene (it doesn't always). The movie "A Beautiful Mind" makes a good point of that, for one example.

But I'll leave it at that.

The emergence of organic life marks the beginning of a rudimentary form of awareness. Unlike inanimate matter, living organisms actively maintain themselves, preserving their internal organization while remaining distinct from their environment. This self-maintenance, or autopoiesis, introduces a basic subject-object relationship, where the organism differentiates itself from the "other" that surrounds it. Crucially, this perspective departs from a strictly materialist account, which often focuses solely on physical processes. Instead, it recognizes the primacy of relational dynamics and the concept of "otherness" as foundational to life. Hans Jonas and Evan Thompson highlight this, emphasizing that life is characterized by its orientation toward, and interaction with, the world, laying the groundwork for more developed forms of awareness and cognition. But the point is, it is relational from the get-go.

I've found an extract from Husserl's Critique of Naturalism, copied from the Routledge Introduction to Phenomenology. I was sent that as a .pdf a long time ago, early days on the other Forum, and reading this excerpt, I realise that it comprises most of what I know about Husserl, and also most or all of my own 'critique of naturalism'.

The critique of naturalism

Soon after writing the Logical Investigations, as we have seen, Husserl came to the view that his earlier researches had not completely escaped naturalism. After that Husserl constantly set his face against naturalism, but his most cogent critique is to be found in his 1911 essay, Philosophy as a Rigorous Science. Husserl thinks that all traditional philosophy, including Descartes and Kant, had treated consciousness as something having a completely natural being, a mere part of nature, and a dependent or epiphenomenal part at that. Even Kant had misunderstood transcendental psychology as a psychology. Husserl regards naturalism both as the dominant theoretical outlook of his age and also as deeply embedded in our ordinary assumptions about the world surrounding us. In other words, our pre-theoretical engagement with the world has an inbuilt bias towards naive naturalism. This is fine in our ordinary practices in the world, but when naturalism is elevated into an all-encompassing theoretical outlook, it actually becomes far removed from the natural attitude and in fact grossly distorts it. Husserl’s critique of naturalism is that it is a distorted conception of the fruits of scientific method which in itself is not inextricably wedded to a naturalist construal.

Husserl’s conception of naturalism relates to his understanding of the projects of John Locke, David Hume, and J.S. Mill, as well as nineteenth century positivists, especially Comte and Mach. Naturalism is the view that every phenomenon ultimately is encompassed within, and explained by, the laws of nature; everything real belongs to physical nature or is reducible to it. There are of course many varieties of naturalism, but Husserl’s own account in his 1911 essay more or less correctly summarises the naturalistic outlook:

"Thus the naturalist…sees only nature, and primarily physical nature. Whatever is, is either itself physical, belonging to the unified totality of physical nature, or it is, in fact, psychical, but then merely as a variable dependent on the physical, at best a secondary “parallel accomplishment”. Whatever is belongs to psychophysical nature, which is to say that it is univocally determined by rigid laws."

As naturalism has again become a very central concept primarily in contemporary analytic philosophy, largely due to W.V.O. Quine’s call for a naturalised epistemology, it is worth taking time here to elucidate further Husserl’s conception of naturalism. Indeed, precisely this effort to treat consciousness as part of the natural world is at the basis of many recent studies of consciousness, for example the work of Daniel Dennett or Patricia Churchland. Compare Husserl’s definition with that of David Armstrong for example:

"Naturalism I define as the doctrine that reality consists of nothing but a single all-embracing spatio-temporal system."

In Philosophy as a Rigorous Science, Husserl explicitly identifies and criticises the tendency of all forms of naturalism to seek the naturalisation of consciousness and of all ideas and norms. Naturalism as a theory involves a certain ‘philosophical absolutising’ of the scientific view of the world (Ideas I § 55); “it is a bad theory regarding a good procedure”. Certain characteristic methodological devices of the sciences, chiefly idealisation and objectification, have been misunderstood such that their objects are thought to yield the natural world as it is in itself, for example that nature is treated as a closed system of physical entities obeying laws, and everything else is squeezed out and treated as psychical, possibly even epiphenomenal. Indeed, a new science of psychology, with laws modelled on the mechanical laws of the physical domain, was then brought in to investigate this carved off subdomain, but it was guilty of reifying consciousness and examining it naively. Husserl constantly points out that such a division of the world into physical and psychical makes no sense. For Husserl, naturalism is not just only partial or limited in its explanation of the world, it is in fact self-refuting, because it has collapsed all value and normativity into merely physical or psychical occurrences, precisely the same kind of error made by psychologism when it sought to explain the normativity of logic in terms of actual, occurrent psychological states and the empirical laws governing them. The whole picture is absurd or ‘counter-sensical’ in that it denies the reality of consciousness and yet is based on assuming the existence of consciousness to give rise to the picture in the first place (Ideas I § 55). Or as Husserl says in the 1911 essay: “It is the absurdity of naturalizing something whose essence excludes the kind of being that nature has."

In contrast to the outlook of naturalism, Husserl believed all knowledge, all science, all rationality depended on conscious acts, acts which cannot be properly understood from within the natural outlook at all. Consciousness should not be viewed naturalistically as part of the world at all, since consciousness is precisely the reason why there was a world there for us in the first place. For Husserl it is not that consciousness creates the world in any ontological sense—this would be a subjective idealism, itself a consequence of a certain naturalising tendency whereby consciousness is cause and the world its effect—but rather that the world is opened up, made meaningful, or disclosed through consciousness. The world is inconceivable apart from consciousness. Treating consciousness as part of the world, reifying consciousness, is precisely to ignore consciousness’s foundational, disclosive role. — Routledge Introduction to Phenomenology, p139

@Relativist - note the reference to D M Armstrong.

I do not insist that every aspect of the natural world is discoverable through science. It may very well be that there are aspects of mental activity that are partly grounded in components of world that are otherwise undiscoverable. This is worst case, but it is more plausible than non-physical alternatives. — Relativist

I’m well aware. But I have also repeatedly shown why the treatment of mind or consciousness as an objective phenomenon (even if described as a process) is itself a problem. Notice in the Armstrong quote that the complaint is, why should consciousness not be regarded as amenable to the same methods that have been so successfully deployed in physics and chemistry? Why should it require ‘special treatment’? Your response is to concede that consciousness may indeed imply ‘something non-physical’ - but this also misses the crucial point of phenomenology. This is that consciousness in never something we are outside of or apart from. Until that basic fact of existence is understood we’ll continue to talk past one another.

Reminder: I do not insist that every aspect of the natural world is discoverable through science. It may very well be that there are aspects of mental activity that are partly grounded in components of world that are otherwise undiscoverable. This is worst case, but it is more plausible than non-physical alternatives.

I agree with this admission and your position on philosophical zombies. It does leave a rather large gap for “non-physical alternatives” to creep in though.
I tend to steer clear of the division between physical and non physical, because I don’t see why there is necessarily such a distinction. The so called non physical mind and physically existing things, though appearing entirely separate, may be part of the same external manifold that we are not aware of, which may be undiscoverable, but in which the two are grounded.

Thanks, Javra. Very much in keeping with the OP.

I was going to suggest to @Relativist whether he'd ever encountered 'constructive empiricism', associated with Bas Van Fraasen.

Constructive empiricism is a philosophical view that science aims to produce theories that are empirically adequate, rather than true. It was developed by the 20th-century Canadian philosopher Bas van Fraassen and is presented most systematically in his 1980 work The Scientific Image.

Constructive empiricism differs from scientific realism, which holds that science aims to provide a literally true story of the world. Constructive empiricists believe that science aims for truth about observable aspects of the world, but not unobservable aspects. They also believe that accepting a scientific theory involves only the belief that it is empirically adequate. — AI Overview

I think this is a framework which is not antagonistic to science while leaving the question of the ultimate nature of reality an open one.

I suppose it all depends on how one qualifies belief. Still, in ordinary life, when a guy is asked, "do you believe your team will win?" or, as a different example, "do you believe she'll say 'yes'?", the guy might well honestly answer with a categorical, "Hell yea!" (rather than with a, "well, it depends") ... yet without being foolish enough to presume that this honestly held belief is in a full blown correlation to a not yet actualized future reality. But I get it, this to you would not be a "strictly true belief". — javra

Philosophical analysis requires more precision than ordinary language often delivers. — Relativist

This is starting to overly deviate from the thread’s theme, but since you here invoke what philosophical analysis ought to consist of with a broad stroke … in a manner that could insinuate my own deviation from this ideal:

Sure, good philosophical analysis should strive for more precision than ordinary language provides, but to what effect?: When you say “a strictly true belief”, via the correspondence theory of truth, what you are technically specifying is “some given, some X, that strictly conforms to the reality of what a belief is” and which, thereby, is a genuine belief.

If you meant something other by the term “true” then please let me know.

So, then, ought a “strictly true belief” conform to a) the reality of a human concocted understanding of what beliefs are or b) the reality of belief as it occurs in the real world, fully including as it is expressed in ordinary language?

Seems to me that option (a) is a lousy way of doing philosophy, for it here can easily become thoroughly biased to certain human’s convictions rather than being as impartial (i.e., as objective) as possible - whereas philosophy ought to properly address in as impartial a manner as possible that which the real world consists of and, hence, in this particular case, that which was given as option (b).

In sum, what actuality/reality ought a “strictly true” belief conform to? To that actuality of certain humans’ abstractions regarding what beliefs are which exclude certain real-world applications (which can thereby be in keeping the No True Scotsman fallacy) or, otherwise, to that actuality of its various occurrences in the real world which encompasses all its applications, fully including the term's use in ordinary language? This, again, as regards proper philosophical analysis.

The approach I myself aspire toward is the latter rather then the former.

one has nonetheless said something metaphysically fundamental! -- indeed, something of great importance. — J

I guess you are right. But I didn't think of it in those terms. It was simply an observation about the conceptual (and engineering) resources we have available.

And yes, we can “understand subjectivity.” But we can only ever be one subject; the only instance of subjectivity we directly know is our own, and that by being it, not by knowing it objectively. — Wayfarer

People often speak as if actually experiencing something gave one some knowledge that was not available to anyone who had not had the same experience - Mary's room. There's supposed to be a puzzle about whether that knowledge is of the same kind as third person knowledge or not. I think it is not, and only dubiously described as knowledge. However, actually experiencing something can make it real in a way that nothing else can. That's not an addition to third person knowledge, but something quite different.
There's a story, possible apocryphal, about WW2. When the US entered the war, a lot of people who had absolutely no experience of the sea or ships were drafted into the Navy. There were problems with sea-sickness. The scientists said that nothing could be done. So a number of them were put on board a ship and taken across the Atlantic, in bad weather. Six months later, there were sea-sickness pills.

According to phenomenology, consciousness is no thing or property that may exist or not exist. “Consciousness” is the misleading name we give to the precondition for any ascription of existence or inexistence. What makes this remark obvious for phenomenologists and almost incomprehensible for physicalists, is that phenomenologists are settled in the first-person standpoint, whereas physicalist researchers explore everything from a third-person standpoint. — Wayfarer

I'm not sure that calling consciousness a precondition for acts of consciousness like "ascription" helps very much. Surely consciousness can only exist when acts of consciousness are possible. But what might it mean to ascribe a motive to someone unless there are other people. How can even ascriptions of motives to myself be meaningful unless they can also be ascribed to others?
It is a puzzle. Third person and first person stand-points seem incommensurable, yet inter-dependent.

The expression 'the primacy of consciousness' doesn't really imply that consciousness is causal. It's more that before anything can be given, there must be a subject to whom it is disclosed. — Wayfarer

You (Bitbol) are trapping yourselves in a binary choice, which does not exhaust the possibilities. In fact, it makes a lot more sense to me to think of consciousness and its (intentional) objects as co-arising.

"Life is meaningless" is surely a mood everyone has felt at some time. How can we fall into such a mood? (other than reading Sartre's Nausea :smile: ). Usually by noticing, often with horror, that the values we hold, and organize our lives around, cannot be discovered in the world in the same way we discover what Heidegger called (in Manheim's translation) "essents" -- rocks and birds and math problems and everything else that has being but not being-there-for-us (Dasein, more or less). But as you say, living as a human is more than that, or at least so some of us believe. — J

Yes, of course that's true. We don't necessarily get it from scientific or other theoretical stances, since it is a methodological decision to treat the world as meaningless; theoretical and scientific projects are not set up to answer such questions. So the experience of meaninglessness is just a part, or a phase, in the meaning of our lives.

Right, Heidegger captures that mood nicely in his idea of Vorhandenheit translated as 'present-at-hand" in its contrast with Zuhandenheit, translated as 'ready-to-hand. When we are dealing seamlessly with the world the ready to hand becomes transparent, and the meaning of things is found in their use as "affordances". The hammer and nails "disappear" when we are in that 'flow' state, and it's when something goes wrong and we suddenly become aware of the hammer as just a brute object, a bare existent, without meaning other than to be analyzed into its components, that we fall into a state of "rootlessness" (my word, not Heidegger's) wherein things become meaningless objects. — Janus

This is a part of Heidegger that I can get my head around, and I think he is quite right.

What makes you think the background mental processing couldn't be programmed? It's algorthimically complex, involving multiple parallel paths, and perhaps some self-modifying programs. But in principle, it Seems straightforward. .As I said, feelings are the only thing problematic. — Relativist

It is a methodological decision to represent our mental processes on the model of the information technology that we already understand. Nothing wrong with that. But it means that feelings can't be represented. They require, it seems to me, a different methodology.